Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2: Morning.
Speaker 3: Everybody is Steen j n V. Charlamagne the guy. We
Speaker 3: are the Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in
Speaker 3: the building.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite people. He don't even know it.
Speaker 4: Though, James Samuel Guts piece to the guts.
Speaker 2: Peace, black Man, How are you.
Speaker 1: I'm good, King, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. It's
Speaker 1: about time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Absolutely happy to have you. Man.
Speaker 5: You got a new movie y'all called The Book of Clans.
Speaker 5: But before we get to the Book of Clans, we just
Speaker 5: got to talk about you, you know, James Samuel. You
Speaker 5: know y'all, I'm sure y'all seen The Heart of Day Fall.
Speaker 5: That was your first film, right, Yeah, that's the day film. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 5: So give us a little backstory. What's the James Samuel origin?
Speaker 2: Man? You know, how'd you become this superhero?
Speaker 1: You know it's you know how superheroes are. We were
Speaker 1: born supheros, you know what, black We didn't fall into
Speaker 1: know we were born it. But I was just a guy.
Speaker 1: There was always instruments in the house. There was always
Speaker 1: I always had cameras, and I was always doing two things, right,
Speaker 1: so it's not really what made me like fall into
Speaker 1: film for music can fall into music from film. It's
Speaker 1: really what made me not stop being me. The older
Speaker 1: you get, the more I always say, you're taught to
Speaker 1: level down right as a kid, disguise the limit rights
Speaker 1: as an elder, don't count your chickens before they hatch.
Speaker 1: So you just have to kind of work out a
Speaker 1: way to hold on to yourself, never to never grow up,
Speaker 1: and continue doing the things that just make you you.
Speaker 1: So I continue doing music to the point where I
Speaker 1: was working with j Electronica and tory A Muss and
Speaker 1: all of these people, and I continue doing doing film,
Speaker 1: and I was just doing both of them myself, funding
Speaker 1: whatever I can. Then I made a short film in
Speaker 1: twenty twelve called They Die by Dawn. It was a Western.
Speaker 1: It was like a proof of concept for the Hardiday Four,
Speaker 1: starring Erica Badou, Rosario, Drson, Gen Carlo Esposito, Michael K. Williams,
Speaker 1: Harry Lennox, Nate Parker. Based I was just going to
Speaker 1: people's house and I can't I put them in it,
Speaker 1: and I did all the music for it. Then me
Speaker 1: and J did the music for me, and jay Z
Speaker 1: did the music for The Great Gatsby, and from there
Speaker 1: I just pivoted into into The Harder Day four. You know,
Speaker 1: a Hardiday took like fifteen years to make right and
Speaker 1: everyone telling you it's never gonna happen. It's too big.
Speaker 1: You can't do that for your first movie. Your first
Speaker 1: movie should be like one million or two million. There
Speaker 1: was a guy called Andrea Evelino. He said to me,
Speaker 1: he said, James, do you know this? This movie is
Speaker 1: too It's too big. He's telling it's too big, it's
Speaker 1: too big. Take five million. Do something small, and if
Speaker 1: that's successful, I give you more. And that's you know
Speaker 1: when I Hope says, I drove by the fork in
Speaker 1: the road and went straight. I looked at this guy,
Speaker 1: Should I take that five mil? Nah?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 1: My first movie is The Hardiday four. I have to
Speaker 1: tell people that one in four cowboys was black. The
Speaker 1: name cowboy came from us. They call us cowboys. White
Speaker 1: people were called cow hands. I just had a mission
Speaker 1: with that movie, and I just I never took it
Speaker 1: and I went straight and I made the Holiday Fall
Speaker 1: literally a couple of years. A couple of years later,
Speaker 1: I made a Holiday Fall for nineteen million dollar budget right,
Speaker 1: a ninety million dollar budget my debut movie. So you
Speaker 1: know I'm physical. I'm the physical, physical personification of the
Speaker 1: fact that you can fly like it's it's in us.
Speaker 1: And when you're when you're on a mission, when you
Speaker 1: have something to say, people are always going to tell
Speaker 1: you not to say it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They're always going to tell you not to say it
Speaker 1: or come out with reasons why you shouldn't say it.
Speaker 1: But you have to say it. Man, you have to
Speaker 1: stand by your guns. You're an artist. You have something
Speaker 1: to say, you have to you know, you have to
Speaker 1: keep keep keep the fight alive. And also where gods?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean with gods? Man, I watched
Speaker 1: I watched Django and just a good movie called Niggas
Speaker 1: one hundred and one hundred and ten times in a
Speaker 1: two hour space. We ain't niggas. Man, with gods, you
Speaker 1: should address us as such. So for me, it was
Speaker 1: just it was just that's probably the origin the origin, or.
Speaker 4: Hold on before you do that.
Speaker 3: How did you know so many people open their arms
Speaker 3: to you because you mentioned j Electronica, Michael K.
Speaker 4: Williams, Erica, baddu jay Z. How did so many people
Speaker 4: open up their arms. You'd be like, come on, brother,
Speaker 4: let's do this together. Or how was that?
Speaker 1: You know before Mike Tyson beat the brakes.
Speaker 4: Off, which one he'd be a break?
Speaker 1: Frank Bruno in England. I'm English, so that one was
Speaker 1: like we still wanted to Tyson to win, though, because
Speaker 1: you know it's Tyson, he said, I think on Larry King,
Speaker 1: I laugh, forgive me for being so vain, but I'm
Speaker 1: the best at what I do. Envy, I laugh, forgive
Speaker 1: me for being so vain and the best of what
Speaker 1: I do. I'm literally a once in a lifetime comment
Speaker 1: like no one does. I compose the score. I write
Speaker 1: and produce every single song on the soundtrack unless someone's rapping,
Speaker 1: I write and produce every single song on the soundtrack.
Speaker 1: And also I believe that great artists want to make
Speaker 1: great art. So when I sit in front of you
Speaker 1: and I tell you, look, we have never had a
Speaker 1: movie like this before ever, like the Book of Clarence
Speaker 1: in one hundred and thirty six years of the moving image,
Speaker 1: two black people who have never been on screen and gone,
Speaker 1: there's Jesus. We've never had a movie like that before.
Speaker 1: So when I sit in front of you and explain
Speaker 1: to you my intention and the reason why I want
Speaker 1: to make what I make, and I have to make
Speaker 1: what I make. I'm kind of fortunate and that I'm
Speaker 1: able to explain it and that the person I'm talking
Speaker 1: to is able to hold onto it, and then we
Speaker 1: just go forward and and create history.
Speaker 2: What was your first love with the music of film?
Speaker 1: It was both of them. I think Charlemagne as a kid. Well,
Speaker 1: as a kid, you know, we're black, right, so music
Speaker 1: is just all around us all the time. So I
Speaker 1: don't even know if that's that's a good question. I
Speaker 1: don't even know if that's a that's a that was
Speaker 1: the first love. That's almost like we're organ it's us,
Speaker 1: thank you, that's the that's what we're born into, right,
Speaker 1: Like you're from where you're from, South Carolina, right, So
Speaker 1: you're born into especially South Carolina, you're born into into music.
Speaker 1: You didn't have a choice to become DJ ANDV. It's
Speaker 1: not like you could DJ and V was DJVW as
Speaker 1: long as we've been listening to New York mixtapes and okay,
Speaker 1: we're just born into music. But we were fed film
Speaker 1: and as a kid, I was just addicted to addicted
Speaker 1: to the screens. I think I was always playing instruments
Speaker 1: because the instruments around I was just addicted to the screen.
Speaker 1: I had to you know, I had to make whatever
Speaker 1: it was. I had to make, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: I think another thing that we're born into, which probably
Speaker 5: why we do end up having such a love for
Speaker 5: music and film, is Black people love storytelling. Yes, any
Speaker 5: way we can tell our story. We tend to gravitate
Speaker 5: towards what's the best vehicle to tell our story.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly, like we love we love storytelling. And I
Speaker 1: think because we've had so much taken away from us, Charlemagne,
Speaker 1: We've had so much, we have so much barriers put
Speaker 1: in front of us, like we could do this, but
Speaker 1: we can't. We can't do that, So we like to
Speaker 1: We like to dream. But then there's people like us
Speaker 1: that that show that they're not actually dreams. You know.
Speaker 1: I was saying that, I believe, like, uh, a few
Speaker 1: hundred years ago, someone changed the word plans, aims, and
Speaker 1: intentions into dreams. And the moment we embrace that word dream,
Speaker 1: we embrace the word failure. That's my dream car, my
Speaker 1: dream house, my dream job, my dream show, me a dreamer.
Speaker 1: I'll show you a person who who's going to fail.
Speaker 1: You don't. You can't chase the dream. You're sleeping when
Speaker 1: you have them. But these aims, these plans, these intentions,
Speaker 1: we're awake when we have them, right, We're awake. Man.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to be the number one
Speaker 1: I'm speaking to best selling author. I remember, I remember,
Speaker 1: uh uh. Back in the day, you'll be watching The
Speaker 1: Breakfast Club before podcasts as your best TV show, and
Speaker 1: you're like, isn't this a radio show? But you'll be
Speaker 1: watching it every Day's a TV show. Right. All of
Speaker 1: the all of the things you all of the grounds
Speaker 1: you you you travel, and all of the barriers you break,
Speaker 1: none of them are dreams. Their aims, they plans, their intentions.
Speaker 1: All of these things are real. But you know, being black,
Speaker 1: we're constantly told we can't have them, we can't attain them,
Speaker 1: and we can't do the Me and Hope speak about
Speaker 1: this all the time. And for that reason, I have
Speaker 1: to tell the type of stories that we love. For
Speaker 1: that reason we love storytelling and doubling down on it.
Speaker 1: I have to tell the type of stories that I
Speaker 1: want to tell. I want to take us to places
Speaker 1: that we've never been. I took you to the Old West,
Speaker 1: I take you to the New Testament.
Speaker 4: Now let's talk about the Book of Clarence. This comes
Speaker 4: out this week, the twelve.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now with this movie, did you have any reservations because
Speaker 4: you know, people.
Speaker 3: Are so when you talk about religious movies or biblical
Speaker 3: times or that people are so animated. So have so
Speaker 3: many questions and will complain to I don't even know what,
Speaker 3: especially with this movie.
Speaker 4: Blasphem me, blasphemy.
Speaker 1: The teaser sixty second teaser. We drop a sixty second
Speaker 1: teaser and everyone says blastphe me envy Matthew twenty four
Speaker 1: to five. Jesus' exact words are many shall come in
Speaker 1: my name saying I am the Christ, and they shall
Speaker 1: deceive many. The Bible itself speaks of Simon the Sorcerer
Speaker 1: who was trying to pay his way into the apostles.
Speaker 1: The Bible itself speaks of Simon the Sorcerer. In Jesus's lifetime,
Speaker 1: and it's thirty three years of being on the planet,
Speaker 1: there was two to three hundred people come in and
Speaker 1: saying that they're the Messiah. You only have to do
Speaker 1: a Google check. Now, I knew people would be saying
Speaker 1: that when they look at the teaser. We released a
Speaker 1: longer trailer and it was less right. But now when
Speaker 1: you say blasphemy, you have to stand on it. I
Speaker 1: want to know why you're saying blasphemy? Is it because
Speaker 1: you're seeing people of color? And if I'm speaking to
Speaker 1: a person of color, I'm gonna ask a deep question
Speaker 1: when you look at the trailer for because you haven't
Speaker 1: seen a movie, When you look at the trailer for
Speaker 1: the Book of Clarence and you're yelling blasphemy, One, do
Speaker 1: you actually read the book you profess to know so
Speaker 1: much about. Two? And listen to all black people that
Speaker 1: yelling yelling blasphemy? Are you saying blasphemy because you see
Speaker 1: yourself in that place and time, Because I'm showing people
Speaker 1: in that place and time as the same color as you.
Speaker 1: We are so trained to dismiss anything we see as
Speaker 1: as either blasphemy or in this day and ages, the Illuminati.
Speaker 1: I always tell people, Charlotte, it's a crazy thing, right.
Speaker 1: You never hear two white people go Spilberg and George
Speaker 1: Lucas are the Illuminati. You know, the black people go,
Speaker 1: Jay z Rihanna and really like, really, this is that
Speaker 1: what we're doing as soon as we accomplished, as soon
Speaker 1: as we accomplished something. So for me, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: never had any reservations at all. I don't create art
Speaker 1: with in fear. I never had any reservations at all.
Speaker 1: And the fact that people are yelling blasphem me is
Speaker 1: exactly why I to tell this story answers about and
Speaker 1: every man. It's about you and I, right, who believes
Speaker 1: he can do anything right? But in this, in this belief,
Speaker 1: he finds himself, you know, in trouble with a with
Speaker 1: a with a village terror, and he ends up on
Speaker 1: a road of self discovery and ultimately redemption and faith.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful it's a beautiful story.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I don't think it downplays faith at all. I think
Speaker 5: it examined the motivation behind our faith.
Speaker 1: Thank you, brother, thank you. That's exactly exactly what it does.
Speaker 1: Like if we were born, if we were born, if
Speaker 1: we came came about today, I have a nine year
Speaker 1: old son. Let me sit this guy down and try
Speaker 1: and tell him, explain to him about you know, the
Speaker 1: virgin birth and and and all of this stuff. He
Speaker 1: would look at me with disbelief. At first, you have
Speaker 1: to convince kids that Santa Claus exists. You have to
Speaker 1: tell him that from when their baby. You can't start
Speaker 1: from when they're ten, right, So and it's you know,
Speaker 1: another interesting is when you have all of these people
Speaker 1: that yell blasphemy. I like to say, like Jesus had
Speaker 1: twelve apostles, he didn't have seven billion. Where were all
Speaker 1: you guys when Jesus was right? Jesus had twelve apostles
Speaker 1: and probably the sixty or seventy people or a couple
Speaker 1: of hundred people he was preaching to when he was
Speaker 1: doing the sermons on the mount. But they arrested Jesus, right,
Speaker 1: and then the Romans. The Romans arrested him and the
Speaker 1: Romans killed him, right, they crucified him. Where were all
Speaker 1: these choruses of supporters? If Jesus came around today, people
Speaker 1: would be yelling blasphemy. He'd be arrested and crucified all
Speaker 1: over it, all over again. So before you yell blasphemy,
Speaker 1: just dig in research. Don't condemn something before you before
Speaker 1: you've seen it. But I don't even mind that you
Speaker 1: do that. Because the Book of.
Speaker 5: Clarence is a classic it's a fantastic movie and it's
Speaker 5: gonna be a discussion piece, regardless what you just said
Speaker 5: about Matthew twenty four or five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the debate me and my wife was
Speaker 2: having this weekend.
Speaker 5: And out of the debate, we were actually having this
Speaker 5: this morning, like who exactly was Jesus in the film?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And maybe this is just me being white.
Speaker 4: Your face looked like that.
Speaker 5: He doesn't look like you want to tell me this morning,
Speaker 5: But maybe I'm just being a little fake.
Speaker 1: Deep.
Speaker 5: What I took from it was everybody's God. We should
Speaker 5: recognize everybody is God. But the most important thing is
Speaker 5: recognizing God and.
Speaker 1: Yourself, recognizing God in yourself. Charlemagne, like all of us,
Speaker 1: have that walkme war moment. Even though Jesus is in
Speaker 1: the film, right and he's clear, and he's in the
Speaker 1: filming and I may I go through.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's as clear as you thought
Speaker 4: it was, because me and him was arguing this morning
Speaker 4: about my.
Speaker 2: Wife got it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, see, so it was a super clear, but
Speaker 1: Charlemagne's wife got it. Here's the thing. And you know,
Speaker 1: Vy loves an argument, loves the debate, actually so, but
Speaker 1: there is a God in yourself, and that's super important. Man,
Speaker 1: Like when we see each other's peace to the God,
Speaker 1: it's peace to the God. Like there's a God in yourself,
Speaker 1: and that's like the most important thing. Because not everyone
Speaker 1: that's going to watch this film is a Christian. Not
Speaker 1: everyone's going to watch it, you know, like when people
Speaker 1: champion there their religions. But I find everyone to be
Speaker 1: a disbeliever of some sort. If I'm speaking to a Christian, Okay,
Speaker 1: so you disbelieve in all the other religions on the planet.
Speaker 1: You just you just believe in yours, right, But whatever
Speaker 1: your belief is, God is inside you. Right, whatever your
Speaker 1: belief is, even if you have no faith, God is
Speaker 1: inside you. And I want people to take take that
Speaker 1: away from this this movie. So what you took away
Speaker 1: from it for me is a beautiful is a beautiful thing?
Speaker 1: Is job well done? Because you know it's a first
Speaker 1: movie of it's kind in one hundred and thirty six
Speaker 1: years of the moving image. Right, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: really beautiful thing. And you know me, Charlemagne, like I'm
Speaker 1: always excited about what I do. Filmmakers are are almost
Speaker 1: like it's politically incorrect to say my movie's wicked. Like
Speaker 1: Christopher Nolan. You watch christa Nolan interview, you'll sleep by
Speaker 1: the end of it. Amazing, But the interviews are whereas
Speaker 1: I'm not that guy. The Book of Clarence is an
Speaker 1: amazing film. We've never seen anything like it. It's easy
Speaker 1: to critique something when it's done, but watch it first
Speaker 1: and celebrate cinema.
Speaker 4: Amazing film.
Speaker 3: And I know people will have reservations at first because
Speaker 3: it is a biblical movie. I mean even myself I
Speaker 3: had when I first and I'm like, oh, here we go.
Speaker 4: I didn't.
Speaker 3: I wasn't excited until I've seen it. And when I
Speaker 3: seen it, I was super duper excited. I was kind
Speaker 3: of mad that I was seeing it on my phone
Speaker 3: and laptop at first. So I want to see it
Speaker 3: this Friday when it comes to the theaters. The Keith
Speaker 3: Stanfield perfect acting for the Potfects. It was to what
Speaker 3: made you find him and what made you say he's
Speaker 3: the perfect person?
Speaker 2: He played that.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't think there's anybody that could have played better.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Envy. Here's what happened. Right I wrote Clarence,
Speaker 1: I had no idea I can cast it and I
Speaker 1: was casting for the Harder Day four and the Keith
Speaker 1: came on the phone and I was in Mexico. And
Speaker 1: during the call, he got a call from his cousin
Speaker 1: and he got worried, you're taken aback. So you know
Speaker 1: he's speaking to a director and he's in a particular mode.
Speaker 1: Then he's like, Yo, it's my cousin. Man, I got
Speaker 1: I gotta, I gotta go take this call. Somebody probably
Speaker 1: got shot. And I heard he ran through all of
Speaker 1: these He ran through like a soliloquy of of happenings,
Speaker 1: things that happen. Put down the phone, and when you
Speaker 1: put on the phone, I called my I called my sister, Tanya. Tanya,
Speaker 1: I found Clarence. It's like what I found Clarence, Tania.
Speaker 1: This guy has got every single emotion that Clarence has.
Speaker 1: Because Clarence, we don't want to talk about the ending.
Speaker 1: But Clarence goes through every single emotion that you possibly
Speaker 1: can that that you possibly can go through in that environment,
Speaker 1: and he just possesses everything. Then he came to set
Speaker 1: to play to play Cherokee Bill in the Hartiday four.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is it. It's him. So on
Speaker 1: the last day when we rapped, hugged him, don't go
Speaker 1: too far. I'm coming back. It's something else. And as
Speaker 1: soon as we finished with a Holtiday four, I went
Speaker 1: straight back. I went straight into the book. If he
Speaker 1: didn't want to do the film, I would have shot
Speaker 1: something else. Wow, it was him. It was him. And
Speaker 1: I think I'm really dope at finding actors and and
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, working with people at that
Speaker 1: like Dion Cole in The Hardaday Fall. I gave the
Speaker 1: grill and people have never seen Dean Cole and they said,
Speaker 1: you cast the old spice guy. I'm from London, I've
Speaker 1: never seen. I just noted, this guy is perfect for
Speaker 1: this role. And the Keith Man, he's.
Speaker 4: Just killed it. Man, he kills it, he kills it.
Speaker 1: It's a real uh toward the force of a performance,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: You know, Clarence said at one point in the movie
Speaker 5: knowledge is stronger than belief, and it made me want
Speaker 5: to cut that distinction of knowledge and belief. Did that
Speaker 5: influence his pursuit of the truth?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely. You know, the first time he says it,
Speaker 1: he says it to the apostles, because you know how
Speaker 1: we are Charlemagne that we grew up and our friends
Speaker 1: are religious at first, and before we had adopted any faith,
Speaker 1: whether it's Christianity, Muslim five percent, whatever we adopt. At first,
Speaker 1: we're looking at our friends, were questioning them, like someone
Speaker 1: will be telling me don't drink alcohol while they're smoking
Speaker 1: a cigarette. Right, man, you believe in God. If you
Speaker 1: knew there was a god, you would not don't be
Speaker 1: telling me that cigarettes aren't hara am if you knew
Speaker 1: there was good. Like knowledge is stronger than than then
Speaker 1: belief is Clarence is whole, It's whole ethos And you
Speaker 1: know that's a that's a motif that've that I've thought
Speaker 1: throughout my life. I remember again Mike Tyson fighting Michael
Speaker 1: Spinks in that ninety one second massacre. The crazy thing
Speaker 1: wasn't the massacre in ninety one seconds. It was what
Speaker 1: Tyson done when when he walked back to his corner,
Speaker 1: he just turns around and puts up his hands like
Speaker 1: he knew he was gonna win Michael Spink's belief he
Speaker 1: could win, Like knowledge is stronger than than belief. What
Speaker 1: happens is we have we embark on faith, right, and
Speaker 1: we have belief in something, and then something happens in
Speaker 1: our lives and it turns that belief into knowledge, Like
Speaker 1: now I know God exists because you can't explain this
Speaker 1: stuff that happened. You can't explain the majesty of what
Speaker 1: we've just been through. You can't explain how I just
Speaker 1: hold three shots close range. You can't explain how I
Speaker 1: got out of this. I know God exists. Right, So
Speaker 1: it goes from knowledge to belief. And the beautiful thing
Speaker 1: is that's our journey with Clarence. Right, he doesn't have
Speaker 1: any belief, and we watch him acquired and knowledge. Right,
Speaker 1: we watch them Ghana Ghana faith. I think it's a
Speaker 1: really important film.
Speaker 5: Also, I gotta ask you something else, but you made
Speaker 5: me think about something. Why are you so inspired by
Speaker 5: Brooklyn people? You reference my tyson a lot. We know
Speaker 5: the relationship with Oh why.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm not. I'll say this, i'ven't even
Speaker 1: thought of that before. I'm inspired by by humans. I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily regard myself as as as I'm English, but
Speaker 1: I was born in English. But the whole planet is mine,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like I am Africa, I
Speaker 1: am America, I am the whole planet is mine. Someone
Speaker 1: talks about the solar system and how irrelevant we are
Speaker 1: in the solar sitsm I'm like, you're joking when you
Speaker 1: tell me about the solar system. I'm like, look at
Speaker 1: my galaxy, like I don't know how much time we go. Okay,
Speaker 1: subpeat this me. This is for everyone listening. What I'm
Speaker 1: about to say is a heavy thing scientists. I was
Speaker 1: watching something the other day. A scientist was talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, it takes three hundred and sixty five days
Speaker 1: for the Earth to volve around the Sun, and the
Speaker 1: Sun a certain amount of light years to revolve around
Speaker 1: the black hole, and the Sun's only like two years
Speaker 1: old that in that regard, and it was speaking about
Speaker 1: the ever expansive Solar system, the ever expansive Solar system,
Speaker 1: the ever expansive Solar system. Peak this, they said, it
Speaker 1: shows how relevant we are, right we think, you know,
Speaker 1: we're the center of the universe, going to our mundane
Speaker 1: jobs and our thing and worrying about our mundane problems,
Speaker 1: and when you think of it, ever expanding Solar system,
Speaker 1: this is all relevant. I looked at that, like, I
Speaker 1: can prove to you right now why you're wrong. My
Speaker 1: brother because you are the same scientist that tells me
Speaker 1: there's no life after this. There's no hereafter, okay, Envy Charlomagne.
Speaker 1: If there is no hereafter, that means for everything you
Speaker 1: said about the ever expansive Solar system, it all stops
Speaker 1: right now. If I die, everything you said is irrelevant.
Speaker 1: If I die, therefore the center of the solar system.
Speaker 1: It's to every single living organism. If you are alive,
Speaker 1: and you are living organism, you are the center of
Speaker 1: a solar system because it doesn't exist without you being like,
Speaker 1: the solar system can't exist without me being alive for
Speaker 1: it to do so, right, we are the center. And
Speaker 1: I honestly believe, like I always say every morning when
Speaker 1: I open my eyes, God says action, if you see
Speaker 1: life like that, you'll see yourself as much more than
Speaker 1: people continuously tell you you are. You know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So it makes me wonder, right when you talk about Clarence,
Speaker 5: Clarence saw Jesus early on in the movie, and Clarence said,
Speaker 5: I want I want that now. Yeah, But what was
Speaker 5: that was? Did that the attention was? Did that the
Speaker 5: knowledge of self?
Speaker 1: The truth? Like?
Speaker 4: What was.
Speaker 1: The cloud Clarence sees Jesus coming up with the twelve apostles,
Speaker 1: protected people in the street climbing around him. This, and
Speaker 1: Clarence saw all the materialistic stuff which a lot of
Speaker 1: these preachers around today see a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of preachers today see the Bible as opportunity, right as opportunity,
Speaker 1: a mass, humongous amounts of wealth. So Clarence is in
Speaker 1: is in the town square with his best friend Elijah.
Speaker 1: He's walking. He sees Jesus coming in and everyone climbering
Speaker 1: around him, and he's like, look and they protected. No
Speaker 1: one messes with them, no one messes with him. And
Speaker 1: Elijah's like, I want to be like that in ten years.
Speaker 1: I want that kind of presence that clars like, I want.
Speaker 4: That now right now.
Speaker 1: So at first he wanted all of the wrong things,
Speaker 1: all of the wrong things, and he ventures down.
Speaker 5: This road and figure it out, and that's when it
Speaker 5: becomes like the Mexican belly to me. Remember exactly, okay, exactly, he.
Speaker 1: Was told to kill, to kill, But on that journey
Speaker 1: of self discovery and redemption, you know, and that happens
Speaker 1: to all of us. We can't tell the story like this,
Speaker 1: and we be so dare I say ignorant as to
Speaker 1: holler blasphemy as soon as you see a tale. What
Speaker 1: should we just tell stories of Jesus Jesus life? You
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like we have to we have
Speaker 1: to firstly, I believe that we belong in those days, right,
Speaker 1: but we also have to be able to to look
Speaker 1: at the three hundred and sixty degree element of Okay,
Speaker 1: here's here's Jesus. But what was all of the things
Speaker 1: around it, especially in that day and time? Like why
Speaker 1: is it? Why is it? We've never seen ourselves in
Speaker 1: that day in time, in a in a ever in
Speaker 1: the history of the moving image.
Speaker 3: I gotta ask a question. You might not want to
Speaker 3: answer me. You might want to tell me off screen
Speaker 3: the homeless person.
Speaker 1: Don't give away any spoilers.
Speaker 4: Though you did prove me wrong.
Speaker 2: I was wrong.
Speaker 1: He did prove me wrong.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're wrong.
Speaker 5: But Keith shouldn't win an Oscar for this, or at
Speaker 5: least be nominated Armagne.
Speaker 2: He don't just play Clarence. He plays.
Speaker 1: And Thomas in the Bible was a twin. Here's the
Speaker 1: thing that is, because you know it's interesting, Like people
Speaker 1: don't read the Bible that much they speak about Thomas
Speaker 1: was a twin wright his name Didamus meant twin, so
Speaker 1: they were calling him twin all the time, but no
Speaker 1: one ever speaks about whether he had a twin brother
Speaker 1: or the Bible doesn't speak abou whether you have a
Speaker 1: twin brother or twin sister. Right, he's just just a twin.
Speaker 1: So we didn't even we know him his doubts and Thomas,
Speaker 1: we didn't even know he was a twin. He's actually
Speaker 1: a twin. So the so the Book of Clarence is
Speaker 1: like my depiction of Thomas's twin brother.
Speaker 2: Did he did you have him?
Speaker 5: Played Thomas to highlight the polarities within ourselves, yeah, my brother, Okay, exactly.
Speaker 1: Right, and the conflicts that we have within our within
Speaker 1: our within ourselves, and also you know, just being growing
Speaker 1: up the way we all grew up, right, Like we
Speaker 1: weren't with Charlemagne in South Carolina, but we were with
Speaker 1: you and we're watching you for years, right, so so
Speaker 1: we all grew up the same and we have these
Speaker 1: internal conflicts and internal struggles all the time between doing
Speaker 1: right and doing good and also what is actually right
Speaker 1: and what is what should I stand and fight or
Speaker 1: shall I walk? Away from this one. Right, So so
Speaker 1: Thomas shows shows that polarity. But I'm glad you said,
Speaker 1: like Lakeith, what you said about la Keith's performance, because
Speaker 1: it's amazing.
Speaker 4: It was incredible, hands down.
Speaker 3: It made me believe every aspect of every character he played,
Speaker 3: whether it was his brother, whether it was him at
Speaker 3: the or whether it's him, whether he was facing, whether
Speaker 3: it's trials and tribulations, the love scene. It made me
Speaker 3: believe to the point where you ever see a movie
Speaker 3: and but like, there's no other person that could have
Speaker 3: played that part.
Speaker 4: That's what I felt like with that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know me and keep you had all
Speaker 5: little petty issues back and forth in this game, right,
Speaker 5: but it's just like he it's serious enough but also
Speaker 5: comedic enough.
Speaker 2: To pull off what you did absolutely in this film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if that makes sense, exactly, Like he has all
Speaker 1: of the all of the oh I'm looking at looking
Speaker 1: more smooth. I'm like, let me just touch my face,
Speaker 1: and was looking too smooth over there. I don't even
Speaker 1: look off camera. Everybody said, I know she don't have
Speaker 1: no lights, dudes.
Speaker 4: I said, no Lightskin Brothers showing me goes. That's why
Speaker 4: I loved it.
Speaker 3: There was no light skin Brothers and Biblical.
Speaker 1: Times they came later.
Speaker 2: My wife had a question.
Speaker 5: She she was like, what was the logic behind having
Speaker 5: Mary Magdalene at the Last Supper but then covering her up?
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was, you know, like, I just think I
Speaker 1: wanted to. I wanted to have a Last Supper that
Speaker 1: depicted Mary Magdalene because Mary Magdalene was around Jesus lot
Speaker 1: and Jesus was the one person that knew. He was
Speaker 1: the only person that knew that that was the last Supper.
Speaker 1: So I just thought, well, Jesus may have Mary. Jesus
Speaker 1: may have Mary there, right, you know he might not,
Speaker 1: but he may have Mary.
Speaker 2: Then.
Speaker 1: Also, I think that last Supper scene for me is
Speaker 1: really important because usually when they showed Judas, they never
Speaker 1: ever give gradients to Judas. Judas is just known as
Speaker 1: a man that betrayed Jesus. But Judas was chosen to
Speaker 1: be one of the apostles. We wouldn't have been Well
Speaker 1: maybe it would have, but I don't think I would
Speaker 1: have made it into the apostle apostle game the fact
Speaker 1: that Judas was there. Judas was probably a good guy
Speaker 1: that had done one bad thing. It's not like he
Speaker 1: he had a history of evil, right, so I wanted
Speaker 1: to I wanted to show his his uh possible reasons
Speaker 1: for doing what he because I always say you shouldn't
Speaker 1: judge people based off what they do when they're in
Speaker 1: survival mode exactly.
Speaker 5: But what about when you do something and this is Judas,
Speaker 5: it's Judas Wow.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to show like why he was doing it.
Speaker 1: He says in the film, we're revolutionaries, we're not pacifists.
Speaker 1: While we fighting. Just show his frustrations, played excellently by
Speaker 1: Michael Ward from Tomboy. And also, you know, just to
Speaker 1: have these English actors with these American actors and it's
Speaker 1: just an amazing thing. Man.
Speaker 3: I was gonna ask, you know, I asked earlier, where
Speaker 3: did you shoot that? Because when I watch movies now,
Speaker 3: I watch it from a different lens. Right, I watch
Speaker 3: it for the movie lens, but I also watch everything
Speaker 3: around it, right, and I'm looking at how real it
Speaker 3: looks and the time it must take been set directing
Speaker 3: Where did you shoot that?
Speaker 1: I shot in a material in Italy. It's like the
Speaker 1: fourth oldest inhabited city in the world, right, it's thousands
Speaker 1: of years old. The caves are still there from when
Speaker 1: they were living in caves, and you could do it
Speaker 1: aerial three sixty and still be an ancient Jerusalem. Mel
Speaker 1: Gibson shot Passion of the Christ there and No Time
Speaker 1: to Die, the last James Bond movie. The opening was
Speaker 1: shot there. But the city is so amazing. I just
Speaker 1: knew that if I have black people ascend on this town,
Speaker 1: it's just gonna look like something we've never seen before.
Speaker 3: Do you ever have to take something out of a
Speaker 3: movie because your mind goes too far?
Speaker 4: Like do we have to say, James, when I can't
Speaker 4: do that?
Speaker 3: I mean just from the horse racing too, everything that
Speaker 3: you had in Netflick, from caves and all that, this
Speaker 3: is that one thing.
Speaker 4: They'd be like, James, we just can't do that.
Speaker 1: No, I mean not in this movie with the Heart
Speaker 1: of day Fall. It was a couple couple of times
Speaker 1: where people were like, Okay, James, you can't do this,
Speaker 1: So you can can't do that. But I never I
Speaker 1: never take it out, no way, Okay. In the beginning
Speaker 1: of the Holiday four, they have a shootout in the
Speaker 1: canyon right with a Crimson hood gang. They're all in
Speaker 1: pink hoods and the guy kills a horse. Bang. They're like,
Speaker 1: you can't kill a fake horse. James. You know, can't
Speaker 1: kill a fake horse. It's a fake horse. Not but James,
Speaker 1: you can't do that. With all the movies I've seen
Speaker 1: with horses get mrked. They said no, I said, really,
Speaker 1: but Tarantino could decapitate black people's I'm just saying, like
Speaker 1: with the N word over a hundred times in one movie,
Speaker 1: you get upset when I kill a fake horse. That
Speaker 1: fake horse is going to get merked twice, and I'm
Speaker 1: leaving it and I'm leaving in there, or then stop
Speaker 1: them from doing that because I'm more offended I'm being
Speaker 1: called the N word a billion times then a fake horse.
Speaker 1: No horses were harmed during a holiday four. So there
Speaker 1: is and I in this. So there is things that
Speaker 1: sometimes you kind of bump up, bump up against. As
Speaker 1: a creator, I create from a from a good place.
Speaker 1: And also I think my track record shows that the
Speaker 1: art that I give the world they're not getting from
Speaker 1: anyone else. So therefore, man, you're welcome, Just enjoy your
Speaker 1: majestic and oheens supreme. Let me do me there, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I got a bunch more questions but I don't want
Speaker 2: to give away.
Speaker 3: That's the problem, like so many questions you have, that's
Speaker 3: why we have to do this again.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I would say based on just subject matter.
Speaker 5: Because you did mention Passion of the Christ, how would
Speaker 5: you say the Book of Clarence differs from the Passion
Speaker 5: of the Christ.
Speaker 1: Well, the Passion of Christ is the story of Jesus
Speaker 1: right of his last days. The Book of Clarence isn't
Speaker 1: the story of Jesus at all, is it not? Though
Speaker 1: that's what we wonder, is it not? Is I like
Speaker 1: that you said it because you've seen it. You've seen it,
Speaker 1: so it's probably the sory of the God in us right.
Speaker 1: But what I wanted to do with the Book of
Speaker 1: Clarence was making a movie that resembled the environment that
Speaker 1: I grew up in. You know, growing up I watched
Speaker 1: Ben Herd, The Tank, Commandments, Crow Vartist, Samson, and Delilah
Speaker 1: the Rogue, the greatest story ever told. But I never
Speaker 1: know no one that looks like yul Brynner as the
Speaker 1: Pharaoh in Egypt. I never know no one that looks
Speaker 1: like Charlton Heston. Charlton Heston had a brutal kind of
Speaker 1: good looking, dudebut brutal kind of face. When he says,
Speaker 1: get your paws off me, you damn dirty ape. You
Speaker 1: can see the apes be like, Wow, you're being really racist.
Speaker 1: We were just capturing you. You're actually taking it to
Speaker 1: new levels. I never related to what they were showing me,
Speaker 1: even though we were familiar with some of the stories,
Speaker 1: and never related to the depiction of those stories or
Speaker 1: those people in those in those stories. I wanted to
Speaker 1: shoot to tell a story of the environment that I
Speaker 1: grew up, grew up in. Charlemagne's name is Charlemagne the God.
Speaker 1: It's from the hood and South Carolina, like we grew
Speaker 1: up with with gods like peace, Peace to the God,
Speaker 1: Peace to the God. That's how we grow I wanted
Speaker 1: to I wanted to tell that story, but transpose it
Speaker 1: two thousand years prior to show how little times have
Speaker 1: changed and how much in common we have with that
Speaker 1: with that era. So it's really the story. The Book
Speaker 1: of Clarence is really the story of an everyman right
Speaker 1: and every man who finds faith finds redemption, whereas the
Speaker 1: Passion of Christ is a story of Jesus per ses
Speaker 1: like page is taken from the from the Bible. These
Speaker 1: are more like you.
Speaker 5: Always could be, you always could be the real story,
Speaker 5: because it's like we all know Jesus was black, right,
Speaker 5: and they would never tell us if he really was.
Speaker 5: We know how to colonize it works, So how do
Speaker 5: we know the Book of claris is it the actual
Speaker 5: story of Jesus?
Speaker 2: When people saw that story and said no, no, no, this
Speaker 2: is gonna be the image.
Speaker 1: Of it, though, just for every run at home, Charlemagne
Speaker 1: said that I didn't. I'm like the record, No, Charlotta Mayne,
Speaker 1: You're absolutely wrong.
Speaker 2: But but I mean, you know, you.
Speaker 1: Know those ones. If the celluloid chow fits the Book
Speaker 1: of Clarence is it's I mean it's a it's a
Speaker 1: layered film.
Speaker 4: And you score everything yourself, say you score everything yourself.
Speaker 1: I do the entire score. I composed the entire score myself.
Speaker 1: That yeah. I write and produce every single song in
Speaker 1: the soundtrack. And I write, produce, and perform. Unlike the
Speaker 1: Holiday four, where I did a slew of various artists,
Speaker 1: this one I perform every song, but with various artists.
Speaker 1: But the soundtrack is amazing. The Holtiday Fall soundtrack won
Speaker 1: every award that wasn't racist, and and and I think
Speaker 1: the BET Awards just got amnesia, Like you didn't even
Speaker 1: nominate the Holiday four for nothing. Okay, I don't make
Speaker 1: I don't make art for hardware. But the Booker Clarence soundtrack,
Speaker 1: which released Friday same day as a movie, is the
Speaker 1: hardest soundtrack on the planet. It's like myself of Deanel.
Speaker 1: I got D'Angelo and jay Z on the same track.
Speaker 1: How did that happen?
Speaker 4: You gotta you gotta break that down.
Speaker 1: Few seconds because it's just biblical, soulful bliss. You remember
Speaker 1: the joints. I was like, I'm not doing a radio
Speaker 1: edit for this joint is.
Speaker 4: Thanks James, I'm gonna have to do it myself.
Speaker 1: Forget it.
Speaker 5: Thank you give me the DJ Envy edit.
Speaker 1: It's just that good.
Speaker 2: How long is jay Z's verse? If the song is
Speaker 2: nine minutes.
Speaker 1: Jay Z's it's not one of those ones like God did. Okay,
Speaker 1: He's like spoken speaking on it. He's not like rapping these, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's not rhyming these. He's like he's just talking on
Speaker 1: it like a He just comes in and floats and
Speaker 1: di'angelo goes in. So it's it's uh it's it's just
Speaker 1: that good. As you know. George Benjore on the soundtrack
Speaker 1: eighty four years Old, He's a guy that sings oh
Speaker 1: horry yuh oh well uh does you cat on a
Speaker 1: soundtrack on the same song as Kodak Black Wow and
Speaker 1: then Charlemagne Wow. They go in.
Speaker 2: I love both of them.
Speaker 1: Kodak goes in wow. Those are goes in like the
Speaker 1: soundtrack is. Here's the thing. I'm so glad I'm saying
Speaker 1: this on a breakfast club man. No matter how dope
Speaker 1: a director is and a composer is, Sergio Leon and
Speaker 1: your Morricane, Steven Spielberg and John Williams right, Alfred Hitchcock,
Speaker 1: Bernard Herman, whoever it is, there's always a handoff, Like
Speaker 1: filmmaking is handing the baton to Like, Okay, I'm directed
Speaker 1: the film, you hand the baton to the composer. As
Speaker 1: a James, I can always feel the handoff where the
Speaker 1: director stops and the composer starts. I can always feel it,
Speaker 1: no matter how beautifully in sync they are, I can
Speaker 1: always feel it. When you're watching the James film, you'll
Speaker 1: hear the the net Love. You'll see net Love riding
Speaker 1: his horse to Barrington Levy, an original Barrington Levy song,
Speaker 1: right Jane Jan He'll get off his horse and walk
Speaker 1: into a saloon, and that song will turn into a
Speaker 1: saloon version. The song would stop and he'll be whistling it. Right.
Speaker 1: Because I compose everything, So I compose the music as
Speaker 1: I'm writing the script, and I write the songs as
Speaker 1: i'm writing the writing the script. So the song speak
Speaker 1: to the score and speak to directly what's happening in
Speaker 1: the scenes. So there's no handoff. You can't feel any handoff.
Speaker 1: Everything is kind of one continuous wave, so to speak.
Speaker 1: And it's a beautiful thing to create like that. And
Speaker 1: that's why I always compose my compose my scores and
Speaker 1: just hear things different Yeah, just hear things differently. I
Speaker 1: hear like you'll be saying something, I'll hear the melody
Speaker 1: in it, and I'll take that melody in make it
Speaker 1: in songs. The songs aren't Composers don't write around speech.
Speaker 1: But I'll take your speech pattern. The first time you
Speaker 1: see the whole boat, right, the first time you see
Speaker 1: the whole bow. When he talks every word he says,
Speaker 1: there's a flute playing over his voice, but you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily get that, but with James Samuel film you get that.
Speaker 1: You get one continuous wave between visual and your sonics.
Speaker 1: I always say that I see, I see music, and
Speaker 1: I hear film.
Speaker 5: You took black people to the Old West, you took
Speaker 5: black people to the New Testament.
Speaker 2: Where you're taking us next, it's next.
Speaker 1: I don't know, like, well, I know what we're doing.
Speaker 1: Next is is? I've kind of held it under my hat.
Speaker 1: But eventually, though, we have to go to space. We
Speaker 1: have to, we have to. We have to go to space,
Speaker 1: like I'll go to all the genres, right, all the genres,
Speaker 1: and I have something like modern day, which is which
Speaker 1: is absolutely crazy. But eventually we have to go to
Speaker 1: we have to go to space like we we deserve
Speaker 1: to be in these in these places. I also think
Speaker 1: that you know as a kid, where we were given
Speaker 1: all the genres, but we were never given black people
Speaker 1: in them. That we're never given black like imagine imagine
Speaker 1: the road that you walked to end up in Charlemagne
Speaker 1: the God. Having never seen no visual reference in entertainment
Speaker 1: that you are that you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: you you never see no visual reference saying Charlemagne's Oh
Speaker 1: my god, you've never seen it. We've never had it,
Speaker 1: So you would have to go through all the learnings
Speaker 1: and all the spiritual growth that you've been through to
Speaker 1: get to that place.
Speaker 5: Take elements from everything, teaching exactly everything.
Speaker 1: But the one thing we didn't get like that when
Speaker 1: people talk about where did you first see black people
Speaker 1: in the Old West? Marley a Symphony, the first time
Speaker 1: I saw black people in the Old West? Kumo these
Speaker 1: wild wild West. Don't don't don't. The first time I've
Speaker 1: seen black people in the Old West. That's the only
Speaker 1: reference I had because before then, even if you showed
Speaker 1: me bucking the Preacher with Sidney Ponte and Haley Harry Belafonte,
Speaker 1: it's like to one black cowboy and white overseas. Everything
Speaker 1: always involved white overseas and a couple of blacks, like,
Speaker 1: we just never had it. We never had it. We
Speaker 1: never seen black people in the Bible days. Wow.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm excited for you guys to go out and
Speaker 4: check out this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, this is one of the ones you gotta
Speaker 2: go to the theater.
Speaker 5: It's not too many films that get me out the
Speaker 5: house to want to go sit in a movie theater.
Speaker 2: This is one of the ones you gotta go sit
Speaker 2: and watch in the movie theater.
Speaker 1: You have to. You have to, man, you have to.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a pleasure being on the breakfast club
Speaker 1: and speaking to this to the audience that you you know,
Speaker 1: that you've amassed over the over the years and telling
Speaker 1: them about the book Clarence Man, like, this is the
Speaker 1: best movie of its kind ever literally ever. So before
Speaker 1: you know you holler blasphemy, really just watch the film first,
Speaker 1: like it doesn't blasphere me, you know it really it
Speaker 1: really respects, respects faith. You're not going to come out
Speaker 1: this movie question in your faith, but if you're a
Speaker 1: non believer, you may come out of this movie question
Speaker 1: and your non belief. Yeah, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: it may come out this movie question in your number belief.
Speaker 1: But right it's you know, it's a beautiful film and
Speaker 1: it's a film that we all have to have to
Speaker 1: I think watch. It's the first movie that everyone can
Speaker 1: recognize the environment, even if you're white, you can recognize
Speaker 1: this environment. It's environment you drive by every day, whatever
Speaker 1: you know, whatever color you are. And it's a movie
Speaker 1: that most importantly we deserve. We deserve this film. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean?
Speaker 3: So well, The Book of Clarence comes out this Friday,
Speaker 3: January twelfth.
Speaker 4: James Samuel, we appreciate you for joining us, brother.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you for having me. Charlemagne a black god,
Speaker 1: old leader, black god, bagey and.
Speaker 4: There's no bays in black.
Speaker 1: But I promise you everything in the in the next installment. No,
Speaker 1: I'll make things a little dark to get light broad.
Speaker 1: You know the crazy thing I'll say this Jesus is
Speaker 1: kind of you know, he's played by Nicholas Pinok in
Speaker 1: this movie and a dope actor. And I know Nicholas
Speaker 1: well from London. I know Nicholas from from from Road
Speaker 1: and I didn't want to cast Nicholas. I was gonna
Speaker 1: cast him as something else, one of the other apostles.
Speaker 1: And he came and he just read for Jesus and
Speaker 1: he was just kind.
Speaker 2: Of don't say no more, hold on sonnt come back.
Speaker 4: We got to have a conversation.
Speaker 3: To brise you guys are not going to be here
Speaker 3: for this conversation, but you know you got to come
Speaker 3: back up when we could talk about it in depth.
Speaker 4: It's the breakfast club, good morning
Speaker 1: Wake that answer up In the morning, the Breakfast Club