Speaker 1: Andrew Martinez in Real Life podcast. This episode and conversation
Speaker 1: is powered by I do say kill Mike on the
Speaker 1: podcast today, How are you Love? I'm good.
Speaker 2: You know you just called me Michael too.
Speaker 1: I know, but I have to start. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to throughout kill who calls you, who calls you killing Mike?
Speaker 2: Just people who don't know you.
Speaker 3: Just random people kill him, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but most people just call me Michael back home Michael.
Speaker 3: My dad's Michel, and I mean my dad is Mike,
Speaker 3: my daughter is Mikey. I have a son named Michael,
Speaker 3: So I got stuck with Mike.
Speaker 2: Michael.
Speaker 1: So we know, I know you on a few different levels.
Speaker 1: I know killer Mike artist level. I know you as activist,
Speaker 1: a creator, artist. But what is your everyday real life,
Speaker 1: like every day real Yeah, like what is the every
Speaker 1: day real life?
Speaker 3: My everyday real life is. I'm I'm an MC. That's
Speaker 3: all I wanted to be, and you know I live
Speaker 3: is is as free as I want to be. That's
Speaker 3: all I ever want. All that little nine year old
Speaker 3: kid that's on the cover of the album All They Want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you his little buck kid. The Horns and
Speaker 2: the halo.
Speaker 3: But I you know, I'm a I'm I'm a I'm
Speaker 3: a father to children. You know, I'm a husband to
Speaker 3: a wife. I'm a businessman in my community. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm I try my best to do my grandparents said,
Speaker 3: and you know, be a be a leader and be
Speaker 3: responsible in that community. But I'm just on the daily basis,
Speaker 3: I'm doing the same thing other dads are doing. Getting
Speaker 3: pissed off that my daughters are growing up and growing
Speaker 3: boobs and shit and bub trying to help, trying to
Speaker 3: help my sons not get so enticed by boobs. They
Speaker 3: make babies early, like I did. You know, so just
Speaker 3: typical black dads, shit working.
Speaker 2: Cast black dad ship.
Speaker 1: But let's let's go back for a minute, because to
Speaker 1: tell me about like young Michael, you have a little
Speaker 1: bit of complicated.
Speaker 2: It's not complex to us. It's just our family.
Speaker 3: My great grandparents, my grandmother's parents were Tusky Alabamians, you know,
Speaker 3: shorter of Making County. They worked and sharecropped their ass
Speaker 3: off to get their own piece of land.
Speaker 2: That farm is still in our family to this day.
Speaker 3: And I say that because they're not just some abstract
Speaker 3: people I heard about. They you got sent to the
Speaker 3: country when I was a kid, like you got sit
Speaker 3: there in the summers. You say, you just all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, you know, on forty eight because a farm
Speaker 3: like shit, ain't no.
Speaker 2: Pumas and breakdans are going all.
Speaker 3: So you had to learn shit like killing and cooking
Speaker 3: your own food, picking shit, you know. And I'm thankful
Speaker 3: for that as I got older, because I understand all
Speaker 3: this is luxury and I appreciate. You know, my grandparents
Speaker 3: raised me though, Betty Klentz and Willie Sherwood. They raised
Speaker 3: me because my mom was sixteen when she had me.
Speaker 3: You know, I did the age that you were, yeah,
Speaker 3: and my dad was only nineteen. He later went on
Speaker 3: to become police officer for for a amount of time
Speaker 3: in APD. Then he went to the fire department, ended
Speaker 3: up in Atlantic gas and Light. My mother, so flooris
Speaker 3: by nature, serial entrepreneur, just kind of artsy bohemian, and
Speaker 3: she ended up for a short time being a successful
Speaker 3: drug trafficker.
Speaker 2: They would never you know, how we woke up.
Speaker 1: I think where you talk about her in the positive spin,
Speaker 1: well it positive.
Speaker 2: It's positive.
Speaker 1: She was a successful drug shrafficker. But another person could
Speaker 1: have a different perspective on the.
Speaker 2: Same perspective on that. That's what I'm saying, Mom.
Speaker 1: You choose to present it in such a posy.
Speaker 3: I she was presented honestly as my life was Angie,
Speaker 3: my mommy was my euro And at the time, if
Speaker 3: you look at this is nineteen eighty nine, ninety when.
Speaker 2: She was she was caught and how old I was?
Speaker 3: Fourteen year she she was if I was, if I
Speaker 3: was fifteen, Denise was thirty thirty one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's thirty one years old.
Speaker 3: And the news pops up, you know, a woman arrested
Speaker 3: in Griffin, Georgia, tempted it by ten kilos of cocaine.
Speaker 3: And I remember my grandmother give my grandma's devout christian
Speaker 3: I'd never seen my grandmother go to any African spirituality
Speaker 3: or anything that was probably Christianity until her daughter got
Speaker 3: locked up. And I remember driving to this house and
Speaker 3: I remember my grandma coming out with a bag and
Speaker 3: candles and there was like two chickens running around their
Speaker 3: heads when were cut off, and I'm just like, well,
Speaker 3: theyre not gonna eat these chickens. So this is this
Speaker 3: is some other shit, this is from something else, sou.
Speaker 1: She temporarily switched religion.
Speaker 2: She just went back to what what we your roots?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Said?
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, so so we believe in Jesus.
Speaker 3: Be when your baby get locked up after holler as
Speaker 3: some Mauricius two you I mean, but my mom came
Speaker 3: home in two weeks. The guy, man Ralph, God bless him,
Speaker 3: he took the whole charge, and he told, yeah, it
Speaker 3: could have been you know, but he's just and he
Speaker 3: to this day he still has a picture of my
Speaker 3: mama because he's an amazing He said, your mom was
Speaker 3: the most fearless woman I ever met.
Speaker 2: But I remember when she got out, I was talking
Speaker 2: to her about.
Speaker 1: It and how long was quick?
Speaker 3: No, it was two weeks. They held her too. He
Speaker 3: convinced them that it was all on him. When they
Speaker 3: got pulled over, she said, he told me rather, he said,
Speaker 3: he told the police take the money and just let
Speaker 3: us go. And then the police got a little nervous,
Speaker 3: so he called someone to else to hear it, so
Speaker 3: if he made the move. But when they got there,
Speaker 3: when the second guy came, my mom and and her
Speaker 3: guy just shut the fuck up. They just wouldn't talk.
Speaker 3: M and my mom I remember her asking me. I
Speaker 3: was like, y'all got caught. I was like, Ralph took
Speaker 3: the joy. That was beautifully. He let you call on
Speaker 3: the kids. He said, yeah, them cracking steels don't have
Speaker 3: the fucking money. We ain't go down under about ten.
Speaker 3: We went down there about twenty wow.
Speaker 2: And I was like, god damn Like.
Speaker 3: So they kept enough to to convict him, and they
Speaker 3: and they kept the other half of the money.
Speaker 2: And that's when, honestly, it.
Speaker 3: Ain't no good guys and bad guys, you know, it's
Speaker 3: just opportunities and opportunistic people. So when people think of
Speaker 3: the crack era, I encourage people whose parents were addicts,
Speaker 3: cause my mother later suffered an addiction. I tell people
Speaker 3: be more forgiving. Because no one understood what was going on.
Speaker 3: They were just coming out of disco. They was partying.
Speaker 3: Go to disco, people do a little coach shit. Next
Speaker 3: thing you know, people are freebasing. Freebasing was a little
Speaker 3: fancier thing you had a and next thing, you.
Speaker 2: Know, the stems came.
Speaker 3: And when that crack hit the streets, it was just
Speaker 3: it was no one understood how bad. For whatever reason,
Speaker 3: white folks can do, Cocaine is still make it to
Speaker 3: work on Mondays. You know, I don't know what the fuck,
Speaker 3: but black people, it just cocaine and us. It just
Speaker 3: didn't It did not go well.
Speaker 1: But crack and cocaine is two different.
Speaker 3: It's not too different thing. Cocaine is the is how
Speaker 3: it's the base of making crack, I know.
Speaker 1: But I feel like the addiction of crack it just.
Speaker 2: But coke still not good. Black people still don't function
Speaker 2: well on coke. Look at the USA industry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all the motherfuckers who had it now they just
Speaker 3: fucked up, fucked up all them money.
Speaker 1: A lot of functioning cocains though.
Speaker 3: In the music business, a lot of I've seen a
Speaker 3: lot more of than none function I've seen the guys
Speaker 3: at top, yeah, but the middle.
Speaker 1: You couldn't see no function in crackheads.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I've seen a couple, but most of them,
Speaker 3: most of most of them functioning in that car washing
Speaker 3: crackhead and lists forever too.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I don't know what they put the crack, but crack
Speaker 3: relationship God and the crackheads and stand in front of
Speaker 3: some of my business and they just be there like like, bro,
Speaker 3: you've been since I was twelve.
Speaker 1: I'm still on me here, Mike, Oh my god, but j.
Speaker 3: All, joesus side, I'm glad that that blight is something
Speaker 3: that has kind of clear from our community.
Speaker 1: How did that affect you though? How did her addiction?
Speaker 1: How did that her addiction change you?
Speaker 2: Yet? You know, all heroes have a weakness, you know.
Speaker 3: And what I had to understand is that many people
Speaker 3: who become addicts are not even seeking the fun as
Speaker 3: much as they're deeply sensitive people that are trying to
Speaker 3: know the sensitivity and pain. Mm.
Speaker 2: My mother was deeply deeply She was an artist.
Speaker 3: She's deeply sensitive, and she didn't operate in this world.
Speaker 2: She was diagnosed witch. She commit attempted to commit suicide
Speaker 2: in front of me when I was nineteen. Her and
Speaker 2: my sister were arguing. She split off her wristwide and.
Speaker 1: In front of you or you from them.
Speaker 3: She was walking out the hallway and s y'all don't
Speaker 3: appreciate me. I I'm about to go and be like,
Speaker 3: oh sh it. I never heard a singer spiritual till
Speaker 3: that day. I didn't think she believed that. Jesus.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my fucking god, de niece, but
Speaker 2: my grandmother.
Speaker 3: I can remember being coming down because at that time
Speaker 3: in Georgia, if you did that, they would commit you
Speaker 3: for a number of weeks to observe you and stuff.
Speaker 3: And so she's there and there's this classic picture of
Speaker 3: my mom with both her her wrists wrapped and just
Speaker 3: leading on my grandmother and grandmother smile and she's so.
Speaker 2: Happy, and I'm just like, what the fuck are you happy?
Speaker 2: My mom's in a state asylum.
Speaker 3: It was because she knew where her baby was and
Speaker 3: her baby was her baby. Again, my mom didn't have
Speaker 3: any say in her whole life. My grandmother was the
Speaker 3: only person who and out and she was like, my mom, sorry,
Speaker 3: I just made a mistake. I was just I was
Speaker 3: just hurt at the time. And my girl was like, no,
Speaker 3: you're gonna be here two weeks, baby, we gonna make dollars.
Speaker 2: Tell me you can go through.
Speaker 3: My grandmother was a nurse by trade, so it was
Speaker 3: just hilarious to see my mother have to be someone's
Speaker 3: daughter again. But she learned, but she understood how much
Speaker 3: that hurt us. She never tempted anything like that again.
Speaker 3: But it helped me understand did.
Speaker 1: You have to do healing though through it?
Speaker 3: Like Mom, she had to do therapy she had to
Speaker 3: join narcotics anonymous.
Speaker 2: Shit like what about you? Though?
Speaker 3: For me, I just I prayed and went went my
Speaker 3: ass back to the More house, went back school. You know,
Speaker 3: I didn't. I didn't understand trump It bad shit just happens.
Speaker 3: Like my grandparents right, they born nineteen twenty two, nineteen
Speaker 3: thirty two. My grandmother born in nineteen thirty two, grows up,
Speaker 3: you know, sharecropping, getting an education because her mother believes
Speaker 3: Vietnam ly in it. My grandfather's father left when he
Speaker 3: was second third grade, worked in a lumber yard, you know,
Speaker 3: saw meal to feed his.
Speaker 2: Two sisters, so there wasn't a lot of room for all.
Speaker 3: What's wrong? How can we fix it? That was life
Speaker 3: is not fair. Bad things are gonna happen. It is
Speaker 3: your job to endure those bad things, to find silver
Speaker 3: lining and those and to push forward, to take care
Speaker 3: of yourself.
Speaker 2: Take care of your sisters, take care of your family
Speaker 2: and community.
Speaker 3: It just was not It wasn't that the problem was
Speaker 3: oniccknowledge or ignored. It was just that, why is there
Speaker 3: an expectation for life not to be hard? My grandparents
Speaker 3: never gave me the expectation. I remember saying my grandfather's life.
Speaker 3: This ain't felt life, ain't fail this.
Speaker 1: No, I get that. But you're nineteen years old. That's
Speaker 1: a choice you left now, and there's you find beauty
Speaker 1: in it in terms of the he laughed.
Speaker 2: Two weeks in hell, Yeah, we laughed.
Speaker 3: You'd have God damn cut you down, rich, got your
Speaker 3: food self in here.
Speaker 1: And bearing back on your fear that it would happen again.
Speaker 3: Comedy curious. Yeah, if it happens again, how could I
Speaker 3: fix it? If she was determined to do how could
Speaker 3: all you could do?
Speaker 1: Anger? No anger as a child that your mother would
Speaker 1: do that in front of you. No anger towards her.
Speaker 2: No anger she was when I loved her. What I
Speaker 2: was angry? I was angry. When I was angry one
Speaker 2: time my mother win When was angry.
Speaker 3: I was angry when she found out she she dated
Speaker 3: a guy that I looked up to. I thought he
Speaker 3: was he was adult way, he was a cool dude.
Speaker 3: He was adult man, So he's older, he's a cool dude.
Speaker 3: I didn't like fact my mom dated him. That made
Speaker 3: me mad.
Speaker 2: That made you more?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I knew she Because I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: understand the makeup, and I get it if your grandparents
Speaker 1: taught you as a young child that.
Speaker 2: We understand they're my parents. She's like a big.
Speaker 1: Sister, right so they So if they taught you that
Speaker 1: shit's hard, so.
Speaker 3: No, no, not that she's shit is going to be
Speaker 3: hard the rest of your life. Yeah, yeah, not that
Speaker 3: shit's hard. You have no control over anything but yourself.
Speaker 1: So when something hard does happen, yeah, at nineteen or
Speaker 1: at sixteen, my.
Speaker 2: Cousin died yesterday. I was tempted not to come here
Speaker 2: today today. I appreciate you.
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry, but I'm here because the same cousin
Speaker 3: that died, she was hit by a bus as a
Speaker 3: teenager and lost the use of her right arm, and
Speaker 3: desperation of trying to get the nerves back, she put
Speaker 3: boiling hot water on her arm, trying to resurrect, trying
Speaker 3: to just resurrect the nerve function because my fucking schizophreendic
Speaker 3: conco told her that might be the right thing to do.
Speaker 3: She made that mistake, but once she accepted that this
Speaker 3: is my life from now, she was still my big
Speaker 3: cousin who baby sat me. But she was my big
Speaker 3: cousin that introduced me to the Devarges had me listen
Speaker 3: to the Jackson Catalog, listened to The Beastie Boys with
Speaker 3: me and run DMC. She taught herself how to write
Speaker 3: and draw with her left hand. So I was sitting
Speaker 3: there next to her. She was teaching me how to draw.
Speaker 3: What would my cousin would have wanted me to do?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: I didn't want to get on a plane because I
Speaker 3: felt like I'm abandoning her eighty eight year old mom.
Speaker 3: I felt like I'm abandoning my two sisters to two
Speaker 3: of my five sisters. I felt like I'm abandoning her sisters,
Speaker 3: who are or my big cousins. I mean one of
Speaker 3: them is even my godmother. I felt like I was
Speaker 3: abandoned in my family. But with that said, what would
Speaker 3: my cousin that wanted me to do? Teresa would want
Speaker 3: me to be here? She wants me to say recipes
Speaker 3: Teresa Miller. I just saw my cousin on Thanksgiving, just
Speaker 3: prayed with it with my other cousin, so life and
Speaker 3: I've talked to her mother this morning. On the way here,
Speaker 3: I talked to her sisters and they said, well, Mike,
Speaker 3: were just glad our sister's not suffering anymore, and her
Speaker 3: mother says, well, I hate that had this my third funeral.
Speaker 3: She's buried her son, she's buried her husband, and now
Speaker 3: she's buried one of her daughters. And my family just
Speaker 3: it's not the pain does it come, not that doesn't happen.
Speaker 3: It's just that you understand that it is a part
Speaker 3: of life and to not to try to sound too
Speaker 3: stoic about it.
Speaker 2: But what can I do? You know, what can I do?
Speaker 1: I don't know that I've ever sat across from somebody
Speaker 1: who's more stoic about it, Like you are managing all
Speaker 1: of that unbelievably.
Speaker 2: Got to you.
Speaker 3: Just pray, like my girl say you prank or what
Speaker 3: the all folks called prayer is really meditate you see,
Speaker 3: you go through the feelings.
Speaker 1: First, I wondered that, like, because if you are that
Speaker 1: strong about it and you do anticipate because we all
Speaker 1: by the way, this first, this whole podcast, my first
Speaker 1: episode before I changed the names in real life, it
Speaker 1: was really called We're All Gonna Die. That was the
Speaker 1: name of the podcast because the reality of that that
Speaker 1: gives you a freedom to live your life differently when
Speaker 1: you realize our time is limited here, that really was
Speaker 1: the thought of it. So I somewhat get your just
Speaker 1: the way you maneuver through life and through these traumas
Speaker 1: beause they are traumas. Whether you hold them as traumas
Speaker 1: or not, it is traumatics achimatic.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The reason I can't say traumas because people like to
Speaker 3: carry that around like a Louis bag these days.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was a chubby kid in school. I've been
Speaker 2: called fat all my life.
Speaker 3: The fuck some people, it's such a trauma trauma your
Speaker 3: ass to the track, then, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like, what what can I fucking do?
Speaker 3: I get that there are terrible things that happen.
Speaker 2: They are terrible things that happen every day.
Speaker 3: But and if God gives me an opportunity to wake
Speaker 3: up tomorrow, I'm gonna try my best to even through
Speaker 3: the terribleness, make that the best day.
Speaker 1: Do you give yourself? Is that immediately the fact that
Speaker 1: you've just lost your cousin and you're immediately here the
Speaker 1: next day, yeah, Or the fact that you're laughing after
Speaker 1: a insid like that with your mom two weeks later?
Speaker 1: Are you do you give yourself?
Speaker 2: Am? I'm just I don't know. I don't know if
Speaker 2: I properly grieved, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I know I until I wrote motherless or I sat
Speaker 3: and said my mam was dead.
Speaker 2: My grandmother said I had never uttered those words, and
Speaker 2: I cried, you know, for days. So I think that there.
Speaker 3: I think that, like in the song shed Tears I
Speaker 3: have with Mazi, I think men, especially in the South.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Do you know how how many act
Speaker 3: outside the South. I haven't spent enough time, But in
Speaker 3: the South, black white, you know, culturally, as a man,
Speaker 3: you expected to this moment. My grandfather dies twenty years ago.
Speaker 3: My younger sister is graduating dealer at university. He didn't
Speaker 3: die until she graduated. That significant because when he had
Speaker 3: a heart attack in eighty seventy, stopped smoking cigarettes that
Speaker 3: day and that immediately stopped drinking beer.
Speaker 2: He'd only drink corn with scary that at then. But
Speaker 2: he told my sister stopped crying.
Speaker 3: I don't worry. I ain't gonna die. All y'all out
Speaker 3: of school. He literally died. My sister had graduated deal
Speaker 3: It and I'm crying. I'm fucking crying. I'm a crier
Speaker 3: in the family. Really, yeah, I'm cry.
Speaker 1: I would have never thought that based on this.
Speaker 2: I'm gon cry. I cry, you know, I'm just not
Speaker 2: gonna I ain't gonnah. I ain't gonna cry for days
Speaker 2: and we don't all to get it out.
Speaker 3: My sister walks up to me on shanga and she
Speaker 3: holds on my bag of brother. She said, well, get
Speaker 3: it all out today, because tomorrow you're the leader of
Speaker 3: this family. And twenty years ago, I know how to fuck.
Speaker 3: I couldn't leave myself out of this room, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. I got a record deal to run
Speaker 3: around a party. I'm having fun. I don't know how
Speaker 3: to lead a family. And I've spent the last twenty
Speaker 3: years stepping up to that leadership and understanding it is
Speaker 3: not about me saving everybody and doing everything. It's about
Speaker 3: me being a leader on this team of people that
Speaker 3: are confidently trying to raise children to be confident and
Speaker 3: competent so that they.
Speaker 2: That our family name may grow.
Speaker 3: We may not embarrass ourselves or embarrass our parents, or
Speaker 3: embarss our family's name.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I always had this. I grew up with a lot
Speaker 1: of women, not a lot of men had My great
Speaker 1: grandfather was alive, he lived one hundred and five, but
Speaker 1: my great grand my grandfather and my grandfather great grandfather,
Speaker 1: only two men that I had in my life, much older.
Speaker 1: And I always had like a sympathy for men. And
Speaker 1: maybe sympathy is like I don't know if you find
Speaker 1: that like a condescending, but I had always a sympathy
Speaker 1: for men because I would see them. My grand you know,
Speaker 1: both of them were in wars. My great grandfather came
Speaker 1: here from Cuba and a damn little boat. And you know,
Speaker 1: like I always had a sympathy for how much you
Speaker 1: have to hold or what's expected of you to hold.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, I just always especially older men,
Speaker 1: if you think about the generations even before us, because
Speaker 1: you even could say you comfortably sitting here and saying
Speaker 1: I cried. Would your father or your grandfather maybe have
Speaker 1: that freedom or that comfort to be able to say that.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: But my two dads, and I say, my two dads
Speaker 3: have a by on a nine by your dad were
Speaker 3: both huggers and kissers.
Speaker 1: And loversperience though what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they are gonna hug and kiss you, but
Speaker 3: you get firom advice on the front or back end.
Speaker 3: So it was still you a man you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. You're you're you're a man, and you're expected.
Speaker 3: Now I love you, but you are expected to get
Speaker 3: that grass cut or you're gonna become grass in the
Speaker 3: dark if you don't do it in the day like
Speaker 3: when I love you. But if you if you, if
Speaker 3: you make a child, then I'm not going to beat
Speaker 3: adult and grandfather. That takes up your slack. You're going
Speaker 3: to work and take care of these children.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So there was a there was a kindness and the
Speaker 3: tenderness to all the men.
Speaker 2: I had a lot of men in my family, I
Speaker 2: had uncles, But was there.
Speaker 1: An emotional like that was were y'all allowed to be emotionally?
Speaker 3: You weren't going to out of emotion to women. That
Speaker 3: was frying, that was frond and pointed by the women.
Speaker 1: But that's part.
Speaker 2: Of the Yeah, you could get it out, part of a
Speaker 2: position we put you in. Yeah, my family, my family,
Speaker 2: get you.
Speaker 3: Do you get one good, get it out, go ahead
Speaker 3: and get the crowd, and then you have to take
Speaker 3: care of these women and children. So you know, whatever
Speaker 3: you need to get out, just get out. And that's
Speaker 3: what my song shed Tears is about going in the
Speaker 3: bathroom as me and sometime and sometimes you just got
Speaker 3: to go in the bathroom, look at mirror, a man
Speaker 3: to get the crowd, because on the other side of
Speaker 3: the door, it's your responsibility, the people you're accountable for,
Speaker 3: the people you're accountable too.
Speaker 1: Is that enough to be healthy that?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Honey bag y'all talked about that on our episode too,
Speaker 1: because he had a lot of loss recently, you know,
Speaker 1: and he talks about being being in the meeting and
Speaker 1: walking and being like a bred back and going to
Speaker 1: the bathroom, getting the cry out yeah, and then coming back.
Speaker 1: So I'm assuming that that is way more common than
Speaker 1: we know, especially of our generation.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I think me and I think it goes back further.
Speaker 3: I think men, I think this has been a coping
Speaker 3: mechanism longer. But you you're a man.
Speaker 2: Fuck I'm gonna do sit here, have a crime context
Speaker 2: with my woman all day.
Speaker 3: It's somebody got to get up, you know, she got
Speaker 3: to get up in ten of these children. She gotta
Speaker 3: still make sure that dealer's gonnahit. But she still gotta
Speaker 3: make sure the finance and everything managing out. I can't
Speaker 3: manage to get my ass up and get to work.
Speaker 3: I got to get to work. You know, my cousin gone.
Speaker 3: What they said about the dead bear of the dead,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, that's its she She's gone.
Speaker 3: There's nothing I can do about it. But she lives
Speaker 3: on through me, through her nieces or nephews. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: go to the fieldingal I'm gonna share some tears remembering
Speaker 3: my cousin. But I'm still gotta be there for her mother.
Speaker 3: I still gotta be there for my auntie. I still
Speaker 3: gotta be there for my sister. So I don't don't
Speaker 3: waste your time crying, you know, just cry, get it out,
Speaker 3: let it be effective, breathe, meditate on it, pray. But
Speaker 3: you got to get back to living while you're alive.
Speaker 3: You got to make sure that the children under you,
Speaker 3: the woman or women next to you have. With my
Speaker 3: brother's rolling, you gotta make sure that you're a cornerstone
Speaker 3: for them.
Speaker 1: You know that's all that That is really hard, uh I.
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the hardest things, and it's guaranteed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, we know how this ends for
Speaker 1: every single person in the room, for all of us,
Speaker 1: and yet I don't think we've uh figured out how
Speaker 1: to emotionally, or maybe we're not supposed to. Maybe it
Speaker 1: is supposed to hurt us and be painful.
Speaker 2: My grandmother mourned her mother to the day she died.
Speaker 3: My grandmother died in my arms at seventy nine years
Speaker 3: old walking up a hill m and to the day
Speaker 3: she died, she would say, I miss my mama.
Speaker 1: Did she say, actually say.
Speaker 2: That I missed my mama.
Speaker 3: My grandmothers was going to her bathroom sometimes and you
Speaker 3: just hear her wailing.
Speaker 2: She pray, like you yourself, like you know, put yourself in
Speaker 2: the closet to pray. You get away from people.
Speaker 3: Because she just she genuinely missed her mother. She just
Speaker 3: genuinely missed her my mama, and I had my mommy.
Speaker 3: Denise had one of the biggest arguments ever after my
Speaker 3: grandmother died. She told me something, I'll hit me so
Speaker 3: hard wearing a limousine. Sorry, my mom. My autistic uncle.
Speaker 3: Me my autistic uncle who thinks he's like my big
Speaker 3: uncle still, and he's trying to call He'll call me
Speaker 3: four times a day. I'm checking on you. Don't you
Speaker 3: let nobody use you, don't you know? And I'm just
Speaker 3: like Okay, yes, sir, I gotcha.
Speaker 2: Aunt.
Speaker 3: She's like, God damn it, I can't even more my
Speaker 3: mama right, and my uncle's.
Speaker 2: Trying to give it. She says, shut up. I didn't
Speaker 2: have to fight for you. My whole life your hands.
Speaker 3: I'm fighting as we kids from people picking on you,
Speaker 3: and I'm just like, oh shit. So in the moment
Speaker 3: of sadness, I am falling, laughing, just like this is
Speaker 3: fucking amazing. And finally I'm trying to interject with her, like, Mama,
Speaker 3: you can't do you shut the fuck up too, my mama.
Speaker 2: My mama should have died with me. I would, and
Speaker 2: I'm just.
Speaker 3: Thinking, what the fuck. I'm like, I didn't want to
Speaker 3: be on death duty. I didn't want to be. And
Speaker 3: she says, you don't understand. You think your mama died,
Speaker 3: but that was my mama. When I die, You're gonna
Speaker 3: understand the feeling I have. And I just thought to myself,
Speaker 3: keep the fuck out, because cause again, she's like a
Speaker 3: big sister to me in many ways.
Speaker 2: She's only sixteen years old to me. So now it's
Speaker 2: me her autistic.
Speaker 3: Uncle arguing over visits my grandmother the most Oh it
Speaker 3: is divine comedy at this point.
Speaker 1: And there's a line in the It's Still Magnolia. Is
Speaker 1: that laughter through tears is like the best emotion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's something about that when you see pain to be
Speaker 1: able to laugh, it's like, who I know.
Speaker 2: My grandmother would have laughed at us and called us
Speaker 2: all crazy.
Speaker 3: But when my mother died, I was on a plane
Speaker 3: from Europe trying to get back here my boys Sleep,
Speaker 3: who y'all hear me rap about my music? Sleep made
Speaker 3: it to the hospital, hit the FaceTime. Before we got
Speaker 3: on the ground, I was facetimed with my mother. She
Speaker 3: was in a calla. I started talking to her and
Speaker 3: she starts smiling, and you could tell where however deep
Speaker 3: the come on she was hearing me and she left me.
Speaker 3: And then the moment she left, she was right. I
Speaker 3: never felt that emptiness and it has never went anywhere,
Speaker 3: and it is there, and man.
Speaker 2: I I just wish I could. I just wish I
Speaker 2: could call and say you right.
Speaker 4: Mm.
Speaker 2: She play't knows.
Speaker 3: It fucked me up, girl, you know That's what I
Speaker 3: Tell'm like, yeah, like you going. It was like, man,
Speaker 3: I lost my coach. Mm, you know I lost my
Speaker 3: coach and her and my grandmother being gone. It's just
Speaker 3: the biggest fear I've I've ever had, and now they gone,
Speaker 3: I face life's greatest fear.
Speaker 2: Now. I just don't wanna have to bear my children.
Speaker 2: So yeah, God willing.
Speaker 1: You know, how are you managing through that?
Speaker 2: Uh? Man, you just you know, you manage, that's all
Speaker 2: you just manage. You have to sorry thing, thank you,
Speaker 2: Yeah you have to. I have I'm sorry. No, it's
Speaker 2: all good. It is tough. Yeah, but it's it, you know,
Speaker 2: it's not the death. I miss it.
Speaker 3: It's just that it's that I I still hear their voices.
Speaker 3: I still see the advice around me they told me about,
Speaker 3: you know, my life. It's just the th the absence
Speaker 3: of the physical presence to be able to affirm, to say, hey,
Speaker 3: I love you.
Speaker 2: I need you to know I love you.
Speaker 3: You know I need I need to pull up on
Speaker 3: my mother on a Sunday like I used to just
Speaker 3: listen to old music and sit in the back of
Speaker 3: the truck in the car and just say, man, you
Speaker 3: was right about that one you was right.
Speaker 1: It's that one specific thing you want to get.
Speaker 2: You want her to know that's one thing I got you.
Speaker 1: I got you all the things in the conversations you've had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I took a lot of advice, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, But just just that one, I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't. I knew I loved my mother deeply.
Speaker 3: I didn't understand how deeply until until I was without
Speaker 3: and I knew. Everybody who knows knows Michael. Denise wore
Speaker 3: in love like I love my mother like you. I
Speaker 3: don't give how much cocaine. So that's my girl, all
Speaker 3: your fun, how big the flower?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: But she made was you know what I mean? Like
Speaker 3: that it was that was it she was if she
Speaker 3: would have never made it. She was a floorist by nature,
Speaker 3: I mean, by trade. I'm just like she was my girl.
Speaker 3: I cheered for She cheered for me. She was the
Speaker 3: first person I told her wanted to be in MC
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. She was smoking a joint.
Speaker 2: Fuck it, that's what we don't do.
Speaker 3: And she That was eighty four. She had me at
Speaker 3: the French Fast. In eighty five, she had me and
Speaker 3: my little cousin. My cousin. My cousin was the same age.
Speaker 3: Jimmy dropped. I asked to the omni and was like, yo,
Speaker 3: you little niggas. Take y'all ass in there, y'all d
Speaker 3: your seats. This is how you get articulated, your seats
Speaker 3: and when you done, have your ass back on this
Speaker 3: corner like that was. That was, And I'm just like,
Speaker 3: you know, LP's my rap partner, shots, I run the Jewels,
Speaker 3: God bless man L. L's mom didn't let him go
Speaker 3: to the French Fest.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: L's mom was an adult though. You know, my mom
Speaker 3: was fucking twenty six, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: She was, she was.
Speaker 3: She was my daughter's age next the street. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: it's like I just I do just because I wanted.
Speaker 3: I wanted her to know.
Speaker 2: That I listened. I heard y'all feel you you got it,
Speaker 2: you got it. I believe she does well. I believe
Speaker 2: it to my my grandmother. My grandmother came to me
Speaker 2: after she was gone and a dream.
Speaker 3: And again I'm from a devoutly Southern Christian family and
Speaker 3: my aunt who's whose daughter passed, who I'm gonna go
Speaker 3: see time I get back to Atlanta, my aunt tied.
Speaker 3: I told her, I say, she came to me. I said,
Speaker 3: I was tryna communicate, but she said, yeah, they do that.
Speaker 3: She said, they do that, but they only show theyself
Speaker 3: in times of trouble, and it it fucked me up.
Speaker 2: She said, yeah, she say.
Speaker 4: She say, ye, I'm never really gonna nowhere, she say,
Speaker 4: But she's not gonna be there every day, she said,
Speaker 4: but she there, but sh there are times of trouble,
Speaker 4: and in times of trouble, my grandmother's come to me
Speaker 4: and dream, Wow, you know so I'm a believe.
Speaker 3: I know that this height the only life. I know
Speaker 3: that something passed, but man, I just miss you miss them.
Speaker 1: Miss But it's funny when you think about what she
Speaker 1: said to you and how much it resonates even now.
Speaker 1: You wish she could know that she was right about it.
Speaker 2: Nobody could.
Speaker 1: I've been blessed.
Speaker 4: I my mom is.
Speaker 1: My mom raised me, single mother, and she's still with
Speaker 1: me and young, and I pray I'll have a long
Speaker 1: time with her. But I I I don't think, no
Speaker 1: matter how much somebody prepares you, even your own mother
Speaker 1: say you'll see when I I'm not here, I don't think.
Speaker 1: But I know friends who've lost parents and losing a
Speaker 1: parent that type of grief, even my mother, losing my grandmother,
Speaker 1: who I've missed watching my mother go through that. There's
Speaker 1: something about losing a parent that there's just no way
Speaker 1: you could possibly from the outside understand that until you
Speaker 1: have experienced yourself. Yeah, your heart, there's no way to.
Speaker 1: Like you said, your grandmother till the day she died,
Speaker 1: was still missing her mom. And I've watched so many friends,
Speaker 1: especially because the age group we're in now right, I'm
Speaker 1: watching friends lose parents, parents have dementia, or parents are
Speaker 1: in facilities. You know, we're watching that a lot more
Speaker 1: at our age group. And yeah, it's just something.
Speaker 2: You never could prepare for.
Speaker 1: Your kids will never know. As much as your kids
Speaker 1: love you, until the day you're not here, they're not
Speaker 1: gonna know what that feels like. And so that's just
Speaker 1: how it goes. It is the circle of life. It's
Speaker 1: the unfortunate thing that we can't know it.
Speaker 2: But that's why it's import to share the story absolutely.
Speaker 1: Inspire people to think about it before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if your parents still alive, man, y'all got some beef, man,
Speaker 3: just you know, figure that shit out.
Speaker 2: Holler at each other, mm.
Speaker 3: You know, and and because man, when they going, you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's they gone.
Speaker 2: And if you gonna feel it.
Speaker 1: That's so funny you say that, cause I have one
Speaker 1: of my episodes with Kelly, I talked about this story.
Speaker 2: About my father.
Speaker 1: I thought my father was dad to the time I
Speaker 1: was ten, and I found out he was alive recently
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, living in Illinois, and I
Speaker 1: haven't really had a need to reconnect, cause, like you.
Speaker 2: Was always encourage people to, I've.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but no, but you saying, I've the thought of
Speaker 1: them being gone completely.
Speaker 3: Dearly who her biological father is dying, and I'm encouraging
Speaker 3: her go even you know now her dad is not
Speaker 3: her biological dad, but her biological dad. She never knew
Speaker 3: any because because because everyone deserves to know where they're
Speaker 3: from or.
Speaker 2: Have some questions answer.
Speaker 3: You know, even if even if your dad, by circumstances
Speaker 3: or purpose was an asshole, it just full to sell
Speaker 3: someone around him loves you and cares about you, yet
Speaker 3: you may not have ever met, and then you might
Speaker 3: have some questions or that person may have something to express.
Speaker 3: And that's just my thought because I have two dads.
Speaker 3: I literally have two dads, and my mom made sure
Speaker 3: good men were my life and raise me, and I
Speaker 3: couldn't imagine them leaving and not having an opportunity to
Speaker 3: impart me with certain wisdom and me have an opportunity
Speaker 3: to say to them. I tell both my dads often
Speaker 3: like I love you. I don't know what you think
Speaker 3: of the job you did, but I'm just here to
Speaker 3: tell you you did a great fucking job.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying with a good son, I mean,
Speaker 3: because I understand. I understand what it's like. I'm an adult.
Speaker 3: I have four children on my own. I'm not married
Speaker 3: at any of their mothers. I get it, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, So I get to struggle to strife.
Speaker 3: You know, my grandfather would tell my dad, hey, Mike
Speaker 3: has Michael has two daughters, two sisters by his mother
Speaker 3: and three sisters by you. All these girls need to
Speaker 3: know each other. And my dad, you know, your dad's
Speaker 3: and moms be beef, and he wasn't getting all the
Speaker 3: girls together.
Speaker 2: He wasn't.
Speaker 3: And now that we are adults, all my sisters know
Speaker 3: one another. At my house, they're at we're at GUIDs
Speaker 3: and stuff, because that's what we're supposed to do. My children,
Speaker 3: I encourage to have a relationship outside of me.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Two of them have the same mother as the other
Speaker 3: two do not. But they for my four children have
Speaker 3: a relationship outside of me. That's one of my greatest accomplishments.
Speaker 3: Like I can I can die happy because I know
Speaker 3: that my children are united, They're bonded.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So the whole life, the whole life, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. They just you don't have no halfs, no
Speaker 3: step them. You know, those are your brothers and sisters.
Speaker 3: And that's what the fuck it is. So you know,
Speaker 3: if you if you and your baby daddy got beef,
Speaker 3: y'all have that lame ship after the barbecue. But we
Speaker 3: expect you guys to show up with these children and
Speaker 3: whoever don't want to show up, that's fine, But these
Speaker 3: children are expected to be here because they have a family.
Speaker 3: They have they have, we have Tuskegee, we have you know,
Speaker 3: we have history.
Speaker 2: I know who my.
Speaker 3: Grandparents, great parent parents and great great grandparents were.
Speaker 2: Wow, you know what I'm saying. You're lucky, because I
Speaker 2: do know. I'm lucky. That's why I don't treat it lightness.
Speaker 1: That is a blessing that not everybody has, especially when
Speaker 1: so many families are blended. This don't speak to this.
Speaker 1: I have a cousin that over there. I never met
Speaker 1: a brother that I never met a sister. And families
Speaker 1: are broken and it's.
Speaker 2: And they don't have to be Everybody don't have to
Speaker 2: be together.
Speaker 1: You do lose the history when your families are so broken.
Speaker 1: I mean, sometimes it has to be broken because people.
Speaker 2: Have well I'm just saying that different abuses.
Speaker 1: All types of reasons why families would ever fall apart.
Speaker 1: But you do lose the history when you don't keep
Speaker 1: the legacy and the generations kind of connected. So that's
Speaker 1: I do know something to learn from. What do you
Speaker 1: How are you as a dad?
Speaker 2: I think adult.
Speaker 1: Your dad.
Speaker 3: I felt very guilty for having to travel so much
Speaker 3: in their lives, you know, early touring, independent artists, that stuff.
Speaker 3: But in terms of can my kids come and holler
Speaker 3: at me about whatever, absolutely can't do. I try my
Speaker 3: best to steer them in the ways to avoid the
Speaker 3: dumb mistakes I made. And you know, you know my
Speaker 3: young daughter, Mike, he said, you're pretty cool, old man.
Speaker 1: That's all right. I got some in real life questions
Speaker 1: for you, Madeia. I just want to talk about, like
Speaker 1: the spirit of your activism, you know, and we had
Speaker 1: Tamika Mallory was one of my first guests on the pod.
Speaker 2: I love to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's amazing. She she internalized a lot of the
Speaker 1: work she's done and has dealt with. You know, she's
Speaker 1: on the front lines of a lot of she gets
Speaker 1: number one, she gets beat up, and then number two,
Speaker 1: she sees a lot of trauma. There's trauma.
Speaker 2: I know you don't like to It's not like it's
Speaker 2: just I can't you trump.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm still like my sister, tell you're still
Speaker 3: a man. You know, you still got you still got
Speaker 3: to get up and go to work.
Speaker 1: But she was honest about the work that she's done
Speaker 1: and being on the front lines and stuff that a
Speaker 1: lot of the trauma was starting to affect her. She
Speaker 1: wasn't sleeping and she started taking bills at one point.
Speaker 1: She had a struggle with that which a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't even know, and some depression, and that work
Speaker 1: is just can be.
Speaker 3: It can be brutal, brutal tack people like her my son,
Speaker 3: people like sending a Nina Turner, people like oh man,
Speaker 3: there much unheralded and you need to get her on
Speaker 3: the show. Tesln figure out just in the trenches working.
Speaker 3: You know, Tessling was working with a mama downa cancer.
Speaker 3: Tesling was working when a former old man that she's
Speaker 3: been working, you know, and and and thank god we
Speaker 3: know Tamika and more of us should know the Tantley's
Speaker 3: because these women and these men are out here working.
Speaker 1: I look at you know, Erica Ford. Uh, she just
Speaker 1: had a severe health crisis because of the work for
Speaker 1: so long, beating up on herself, beating up on her body.
Speaker 1: It's just until now, after decades of work, that she's
Speaker 1: like in this healing process.
Speaker 3: Erica Garner, Eric Garner's daughter, Yes, died an advocate. So
Speaker 3: I just I want to tell people give organized some grace.
Speaker 3: I saw the bullshit that Tamika and Tesla endured. I
Speaker 3: saw the bullshit that Tamika endured because Cadillac gave her
Speaker 3: a commercial to dare to tell black people that you
Speaker 3: can think and be bigger.
Speaker 2: Cadillac should have done that. Black people saved that company twice.
Speaker 3: You know, and back in seven eighty years ago, Lincoln
Speaker 3: and christ So was gonna put Calac out of business.
Speaker 2: It took they wouldn't sell the black people.
Speaker 3: It took a man from Switzerland or somewhere to come
Speaker 3: over here to get over design, like old, what the
Speaker 3: fuck aren't we selling cars to black folks? And then
Speaker 3: wasn't nobody trying to get in Caldillacs when they before
Speaker 3: they escalator dropped, rappers had moved on to the big
Speaker 3: benzes and all types of stuff, and the escalat drops
Speaker 3: next thing you know, it's in Nelly videos and cast
Speaker 3: videos and and so Cadillac. I would expect if I
Speaker 3: was a black customer, I'm buying the the the escalat V.
Speaker 3: I wanna see more Tamika Mallories, Yeah, not less. And
Speaker 3: the people that criticized her are foolish because you know,
Speaker 3: you look at it like, oh, she sold us out
Speaker 3: and she got a checking out.
Speaker 2: She's still on the front lines.
Speaker 3: She still she still getting gonna ask kick daily while
Speaker 3: we mad that she getting able that finally they got
Speaker 3: a vehicle for that's gonna make that's not gonna run
Speaker 3: out of gas or it's not gonna you know, I
Speaker 3: just wanna say, it's very easy to be critical of
Speaker 3: these people that are organizing when you're behind your keyboards,
Speaker 3: you're looking at television, but doing the work that's why
Speaker 3: don't let people call me an organizer.
Speaker 2: I'm a mobilizer. I show up.
Speaker 3: I know it's gonna get a few extra thousand people there.
Speaker 3: I know that if I say something, once educated by
Speaker 3: the organizer, I know it has longevity and it's gonna
Speaker 3: go out. But the people are organizing every day, that's
Speaker 3: their job. Every week, they're reporting, every month, they're trying,
Speaker 3: every year, they're pushing, And to me, that deserves some grace,
Speaker 3: whether you even agree with them or not, it deserves
Speaker 3: some grace.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, because even if the way the thing, the
Speaker 1: way social media in the world is set up, everything
Speaker 1: is so polarizing now with well.
Speaker 3: Someone's profiting from your polarization. So just know that you
Speaker 3: know a lot of a lot of times you think
Speaker 3: you're you think you're you think you're keeping something in
Speaker 3: check with you're being kept in check, because if you don't.
Speaker 3: That's why I courage people to be a one on
Speaker 3: one relationships with people who are not like them, Like
Speaker 3: you need a one on one relationship with someone who's
Speaker 3: not of your religion, not of your ethnic background, not
Speaker 3: of even your political beliefs, because once you start to
Speaker 3: know that person, you're gonna start to find commonality, and
Speaker 3: that commonality is gonna make it less easy for you
Speaker 3: to carry your pride, ego, bigotry, and prejudice into situations
Speaker 3: where people are from their community. Yeah, you're gonna have
Speaker 3: to come in with an open mind and an open heart.
Speaker 1: Especially with what's happening in the world right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is so easy to.
Speaker 1: Just pick a side it is and not even look
Speaker 1: at the other side, even empathize.
Speaker 2: The masters don't care about either side. MM.
Speaker 3: The masters no more cared about Irish immigrants than they
Speaker 3: did the the the the slaves that looked like me.
Speaker 3: They cared about them getting together and friednizing on Sundays mm.
Speaker 3: Which is why they put say, you guys are now
Speaker 3: gonna be white. You guys are gonna remain negroes, because
Speaker 3: if the proletariat ever figures out that the same masters
Speaker 3: are fucking a solo and you might wake up and
Speaker 3: kill your masters, And that's what they truly fear.
Speaker 1: WHOA, that's a good question for you, nice and light Well.
Speaker 1: I asked this all the time. I usually start my
Speaker 1: interviews with this. I forgot to start today and this
Speaker 1: would have actually opened up because of what you just experienced.
Speaker 1: But I ask everybody, how happy are you on a
Speaker 1: scale of one to ten? Today?
Speaker 2: Happy?
Speaker 3: I am on a scale once in the day today,
Speaker 3: not a slick five, I'm on average.
Speaker 2: I could do better.
Speaker 1: Well, you've you know you're dealing on so.
Speaker 3: With Yeah, yeah, I think I gotta start my grandma.
Speaker 3: I think I finally got into the era where she says,
Speaker 3: be selfish. You have to be selfish with yourself. So
Speaker 3: I think it's I think you know how people said
Speaker 3: they they next year's goes.
Speaker 2: I think I'm gonna focus a little more on Michael
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. Yeah, what truly makes me happy?
Speaker 3: And let me do that because as a guy, you
Speaker 3: think about what you want and what makes you happy,
Speaker 3: and then you start thinking about what my mom wanted
Speaker 3: was a girl with sisters, with kids, with that.
Speaker 2: But I'm I'm gonna gonna try to be a little
Speaker 2: more selfie selfish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2: I love that for you. You've earned that.
Speaker 1: You've earned that. So a five is that an average number?
Speaker 2: Three? I have five's average?
Speaker 1: Really, let's get you to like a seven or eight.
Speaker 2: Well, I will see how good the weed is I bought.
Speaker 1: Earlier, where do you pray for most in real life?
Speaker 2: What do I pray for? I?
Speaker 3: I know God has a purpose for me, and I
Speaker 3: don't know what it is. I know I'm on a
Speaker 3: journey and I don't know where I'm going.
Speaker 2: So I just pray to God. It stays with me
Speaker 2: throughout it.
Speaker 1: In real life? When are you and your happiest?
Speaker 2: When? When I'm When am I at my happiest in
Speaker 2: real life? Oh? Man?
Speaker 3: When I get to see the kids drive muscle cars,
Speaker 3: read a cool book, or watch an interesting movie, smoke
Speaker 3: good weed, and hang out with a bunch of naked
Speaker 3: girls all in this same day, and my wife is
Speaker 3: usually around.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a hell of a day.
Speaker 2: That's a hell of a day. But that's been some
Speaker 2: days for me.
Speaker 1: You know, if this was earlier in the pod, I
Speaker 1: might dive into your relationship with your wife and how
Speaker 1: you find peace in that, because does that ever cause conflict?
Speaker 2: Conflicts are to come?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no matter what what.
Speaker 3: A woman know what a woman she's gonna be conflicted
Speaker 3: by how did your hair? Your hair looks nice? Well,
Speaker 3: you didn't tell me when I first walked in the door. Well,
Speaker 3: fucking pardon me, brouh. I just didn't I was waiting to,
Speaker 3: and so you know, you just never know.
Speaker 1: But but when you add other naked women to the equation,
Speaker 1: does that not leave more room for conflict to arise?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just know, man, when we're in a blue flight,
Speaker 3: we both be happy. Damn, she don't have to pay
Speaker 3: for her dances. And I just know, you know, I
Speaker 3: just know me I'm still the mischief. My mom caught
Speaker 3: me reading Playboy at tea, and because I was reading,
Speaker 3: I remember talking to my dad.
Speaker 2: She was like, you know, you know, got one of
Speaker 2: your books.
Speaker 3: He was reading, and my dad's looking like, you know,
Speaker 3: like a like any stupid guy, like, oh, what the
Speaker 3: fuck am I supposed to do?
Speaker 2: Like slick?
Speaker 3: You got to be proud of your boy. I was like,
Speaker 3: yah know, he likes ts, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: But she's like, so what you want to do? And
Speaker 3: she's like, well, he was reading, and I can't take
Speaker 3: that from him, you know what I mean. So I
Speaker 3: was just like, I was like, so Playboy's cool. She's like,
Speaker 3: your Playboy's cool. Penhouse is not cool, Hustler's not cool,
Speaker 3: but Playboy you got the thumbs up. I've been a
Speaker 3: Playboy reader since So you know, if you if you
Speaker 3: marry me, you gotta understand it.
Speaker 1: Is that why your relationship works because you've been married
Speaker 1: for a long time.
Speaker 3: I think it works because agree or disagree, I'm able
Speaker 3: to state how I feel. And that's you know, sometimes
Speaker 3: you're saving them people. So it's not always. But when
Speaker 3: I'm able, when i'm when I feel like it that
Speaker 3: there's an ear there to here.
Speaker 2: But we we are. We're a typical couple. We done
Speaker 2: went through all the all the bullshit, all the ups
Speaker 2: and the downs, and then we.
Speaker 3: Got married high as fucking Vegas at three in the morning,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. So you know there's a
Speaker 3: bit of non traditionalism that comes with it. But I'm
Speaker 3: just I'm very uncomfortable. I'm very comfortable in the tradition
Speaker 3: of family. I'm just not comfortable in a traditional family.
Speaker 3: You understand what I'm saying. I'm never Yeah, I'm never
Speaker 3: going to be that husband. I don't expect you to
Speaker 3: be that wife in that way. So you you you
Speaker 3: find someone that balance is out. You know, I'm an
Speaker 3: early riser, she's not, you know, So I'll get up
Speaker 3: and get on the plane early she won't. I'll see
Speaker 3: you later. And you have to get comfortable with those things.
Speaker 3: And it's just about balance.
Speaker 1: But it clearly works for her. Otherwise this wouldn't have been.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this word wouldn't have worked. I told I wouldn't
Speaker 2: do this with anybody else else. It's just one time.
Speaker 2: What marriage? Yeah, I wouldn't do this. This is it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't even I tell young men all the time,
Speaker 3: don't do it. What there's no advantage in it for you?
Speaker 3: Why would you? Well?
Speaker 1: Why did you?
Speaker 2: Cause?
Speaker 3: I I I knew that that was an advantage like this,
Speaker 3: like you, the.
Speaker 2: One like you, the one like I can live my
Speaker 2: best like then the one you the w you know.
Speaker 3: And some days it's like, man, you ain't the one,
Speaker 3: You're like nigga, you ain't the one.
Speaker 2: Either, you know what I mean? But you know, she
Speaker 2: she is for me.
Speaker 3: She has been able to accept a lot of the
Speaker 3: parts of me that the world and other people are
Speaker 3: not as accepting of, and so for me, she was
Speaker 3: the one.
Speaker 2: But would I do this with anybody else?
Speaker 3: Nah?
Speaker 2: Like mm, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It's it's it's cool, but you know, I think young
Speaker 3: men should focus on themselves more. I told my sons,
Speaker 3: I don't even really want y'all in no relationships to
Speaker 3: you and your late twenties or early thirties. I don't
Speaker 3: want you to having no children till you in your
Speaker 3: mid thirties or forties, because I want you to give
Speaker 3: so much to yourself that by the time you ready
Speaker 3: to slow down, you ready.
Speaker 2: And then you need to.
Speaker 3: Be honest, like with with with the woman you like.
Speaker 3: You need to say, hey baby, this I like you.
Speaker 3: This is cool, but you never gonna be all I need.
Speaker 3: Now you got to understand I might need something else
Speaker 3: and and you or her gonna have to figure that
Speaker 3: out outside there.
Speaker 1: Your age life is short. If you find happiness and
Speaker 1: you find enjoy it, you find somebody that is okay
Speaker 1: by your rules and your standards to do it with you,
Speaker 1: then I'm your life.
Speaker 3: You've gone a little Propolygamy Pasges on Instagram. All them
Speaker 3: couples be smiling, They they they've been their magic crystal jobs.
Speaker 3: See anybody who knows my age though, we're a package deal.
Speaker 1: So looking at your life in real life, like, what
Speaker 1: what do you hope people take from your life and
Speaker 1: your story at the end of the day, oh, Man.
Speaker 2: Ain't nothing I possible.
Speaker 3: M m ah Man, little black buck tooth boy from
Speaker 3: the West side of Atlanta. Man has grown to be
Speaker 3: one of the most influential people on Social LIVELS, gonna
Speaker 3: be a business person that's going to make his family proud.
Speaker 3: Has figured out blending his big family kids who ain't
Speaker 3: got the same mamas at him.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just not that's impossible. But you gotta
Speaker 2: get up every day.
Speaker 3: And my team says this, they put one foot in
Speaker 3: front of the other, wishing for it is not enough.
Speaker 3: If you want to see the world change, start with
Speaker 3: the street you live on. You know, if we all
Speaker 3: do a little bit, no one has to do a lot.
Speaker 3: And you've got to apply, plan, strategize, organized, and mobilize
Speaker 3: at every step of the way, you know. And then
Speaker 3: just on the personal when I'm learning is man, my grandma,
Speaker 3: take care of yourself first.
Speaker 2: Be selfish with yourself.
Speaker 1: That's what I wish for you.
Speaker 2: Twenty give it to me. I need you. When I
Speaker 2: see I got you, I got it, I got it.
Speaker 2: I got you.
Speaker 1: Michael, everyone, Michael, Yeah,