Killer Mike

23:24If we went, we were a family that fished a lot. My grandfather fished individually for you know, for fun and sport, but it was always for food. So we catch you know, 50 crappy brims, you know, fish that about big as your hand. My grandmother and the girls would be in the back clean 25 get the keep, the other 25 to get clean, get put in bags with three to five to get taken old people in the neighborhood. You know, who are no longer able to go out and get thrown. They're not going to stand in the line in the projects and wait on cheese and stuff. Their neighbor's going to make sure they have you know, the simplest of stuff.

23:53And they know that when they get older, their neighbors are going to take care of that. Absolutely. It's a system. Absolutely. Absolutely. My sister, Levy, is a part of a community garden still helps feed seven eight families right now. And she was a wow. She was the one that like clubs and drinking party and then she and she's the one that's most like my grandmother now, you know. My sister, Shandas, like my grandmother in terms of she keeps going very well. She's very good about since she ended up being in the county. I tell her, I am the failure. I dropped out of college. I saw a regroup in Russell sevens.

24:20I wanted to be on deaf jail. So, no, I was the one that got caught up in the glamour. I want to have the city life. That's all I've said, but my sister's a very stable. You know what I mean? But you talk about the farm life with great romance. It doesn't sound like it's hard, but it's it's a nature like I still grow shit. I got shit growing. My backyard not very good. I'm not as good as my sister. I was shooting kill shit really good. I fished. I fished. What's the first time you went hunting? First time I was hunting was Mr. Carter and my grandpa might have been the time for my grandpa. I wanted his brother and all, but that's when I learned deer or brilliant.

24:58They aren't dumb animals. If you can shoot a deer at 70 yards, it's just going to stand 75 and look at you. You know, it's it's going to just count a pig like this. Fucking you sitting off in that guy name. I'm a tree boy. But fishing was a more regular thing because fish would actually bite more. Hunting a lot of time fishing was easier problem. Yeah, hunting is like hunting is hard and a lot of people don't realize it's not easy. You see Joe Rogan camping to you know, rompethil fucking mountain with a bow on his back. Yeah, he deserves the right to eat fucking elk meat. It's a hell of a lot of fucking you know, when you talk about killing a deer, you're talking about getting up in a deer staying and sitting all night, you're cold.

25:33Can't piss a shit if you know you do you want to make the deer shit and move you don't have that time. You don't have electronics and optics to tell you where they are. If you're hunting boy like a boy, turn on my cousin and ran him up a tree, you know, try to kill him. Peaks are intelligent animals. You put a domestic pig out and it was all enough. You can come make you get a bigger huskier animal with a lot more hair. So boy, so yeah. In both of those cases, there are more animals than can be managed. Yes. Yeah. If you're if you're in Texas, you got a hunt boy. You got it. You got to turn your other way.

26:04Otherwise they overtake the whole everything. Exactly. And it kills the farm. If you're talking about even deer, you got to you got to manage them. And if you don't, you know, no matter how you feel, effectively about killing animals, first of all, you do some protein. You know, and if you don't get any protein, you don't get those deer now, you're not going to have any crops. You know, you're just going to go awry real quick. So there's a balance to it. But I was taught like that too. I was taught not to kill things for sport. You don't kill a deer just because you want his head on the wall. And that may be the trophy of the deer kill.

26:33So they believe you actually killed the 12 or 13 pointer. But the meat has to be eaten. The meat has to make his way to the snowhouse of the freezer. And if you're not doing that, you're not, you're not doing right by by God's will. Yeah. It's not that you're not respecting the animal. Absolutely. So tell me about the first hunting trip. It was just cold.

26:57It was a little bit cold. But I was fed up with that shit. Yeah. First day didn't kill shit. Second day killed the small and didn't feel bad, but felt just understood I had I had taken a life. Based on that, when you got to eat the meat, did you feel some connection to it? I did. I did because it was something I had done. And my mom, Denise, who wasn't a very good cook, actually made a hell of a roast out of a venison. She did. She roasted it. Shit out. Now just like it brought it made my grandparents proud because they thought my mom was just a irresponsible hippie. You liked marijuana and music too much.

27:33It for her to cook it. It made my grandpa and uncles proud because I had made my first kill that I had saw it through a handle to rifle well, handled the whole of the choice. You know, it made me proud because I felt like I had finally stepped out into the man to circle in my family because most of my cousins that lived in a deep and rural South had already done this shit like years ahead of me. It was like nothing to them, but I felt like I felt like I felt like I was inadequate. I hadn't done what my big cousin. It was like a coming of age. Absolutely. Absolutely. I remember my grandpa had given me a BB gun.

28:10I remember getting angry with a kid after my grandpa had to talk with me like you know, you know, kill something. But if you're using the fur using the meat to eat, you're not disgracing. You're not dishonoring God. You're don't you supposed to do. I remember my mom took me to play with this kid who's like around my age. He was a friend. He said, it was her son. I remember seeing a chipmunk or something and he I was we were shooting. We were just shooting at cans and stuff and just showing them how to use sites and stuff. I remember him shooting the chipmunk. It didn't die. He didn't kill. He just shot it for fun.

28:45It was struggling and you could tell what it's not going to. It's not going to make it. But I'm just like, okay, you got to put it out of his misery. Him taking so much pleasure and shooting the first shot and then just kind of what I realized later as he became a kid again. Almost. I had probably been about a year or two after my first time. I was a kid still, but I understood life and death from that. It pissed me off so bad. I can remember shooting that kid. I was shooting him to hurt him in terms of shooting and I shot his legs like three, four times. I ended up, I had to kill the chipmunk, but I was so fucking angry with him.

29:21I told my mom about it later and she understood why I did what I did in terms because I stood in there. I shot his fucking leg. I was like, this is what you did. But her saying that every family is not like others. Every family does not understand, and efficient, every other person said he was just a little boy excited to have a baby going in his hand and he didn't understand a life and death consequences. And she was just saying that what you essentially did to him was a whipping or beating, but that's not your job to do. You shouldn't have kind of talked to me and talked to his mom, but I just remember being pissed as fuck because I'm just like, you're killing something for nothing.

29:55My grandfather told me, you don't kill for nothing. You knew that was wrong. Yeah. It was a more of an opportunity for me to teach. But the way I talked to less than was wrong. Me taking the baby's on and then, because you would pump up and if you pumped it up, you know, it's like 70 times it became almost like strong. But if you only did it two, three times, just hurt the shit out of my thing. And I did it like I got to hurt the shit in methodology. But it was, you know, in retrospect, I was just, I was being this mean as him on some level, because I was angry.

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31:57Tell me the difference between shooting on the farm and hunting versus having guns in the city. I mean, I realize in the city I might be shooting another human being if they try to interrupt my going and coming to my life for the life of my wife and children or people I care about. And I'm prepared to do that. But I don't that's not something I want to do. No, no, no, no. But it would be a last resort. Yeah, absolutely. But you'll protect your family. Yeah, the first resort is just get the fuck out of there. You know, I'm at a gas station. Another car flows up to quit. I'm just getting the fuck out of there.

32:29I'm not worried, you know, a bit of pressing. You have to do it. You have to be prepared to do it. You know, and that's something I probably learned from, you know, my dad's in particular, my dad, beat Mike because his dad died when he was 10 years old. So he became the head of a tribe of people. Yet two brothers, two sisters under him. He grew up in a pretty rough part of the city in terms of some of him and people's house. So my dad was a life skier guy, curly hair. He was, but he had to be a technoshit kind of guy. He said, I remember going somewhere. My father was just going to beat me up because I was like, see, he had to throw that on it.

33:06Fight like hell. His mother was a long. His family was owned by Dr. Crawford Long, who was in Fiernan, ETHER for the Civil War, the anesthesia. So his family owned my dad's family. So his family was tough as shit too, from North Georgia. They weren't interested in mix of people. My great grandfather and his father, there was a man that assaulted his daughter, my grand aunt, Jenny, and he went right back up to the store and killed him. You didn't insult or put hands or you know, sexual pressure, you just didn't do that to his daughter. You know, my grandfather raised me and he said 14 years old, a man kicked his bike down on something, got on his bike, went home, came back with a rifle, shot the man in church.

33:48So the men in my life, wow. And the men in my life have been very absolute about shit like that. That's why I just know I like to play the tough guy games shit because you know, my shit is this, when it comes to that, there's no decision that's the work here now. When did you decide to call yourself Killer Mike? I didn't. I didn't name me. Shut up and name me, Playboy Mike. I loved heavy deals. I wanted to be like, hey, yeah, I would have named me. I got my name in a rap battle. Yeah, I got my name because there used to hold these things called green lights. Shout out to Spence and Zulu, you know, shout out to the group Hard Knox who were not from Atlanta, but they got signed out of Atlanta.

34:26They used to hold these things called green lights. And in the green lights, you had groups that were battles. So my homies were the unruly scholars. They were the first rap nerd with, you know, shout out my manager Rodex. You just got to leave in? Mount 13, 14 years old. And my nickname was skunk because I slammed the door. My sister's face and it hit her nose and my grandmother called me a load of hell skunk in front of my friends. And my friends just called me skunk in the family. I think they were nuked. And I never forget I'm in this battle. Man, he's coward as motherfucker. Man, he knew my partners weren't coming that week.

35:03And they just were rhyming and shit. And they could rhyme. But then they started calling my partners out. And Sam and partners were scared. And I'm like, man, you know, they weren't coming in. They said, I already saved it. Like, oh, some suckers, man. And I just remember that rock hill line about taking seven MCs, seven more cells. And I was just like, man, I'm from the battle. All these were fuckers. And I went, I went on a wrong full of motherfuckers. And it was a guy named WD. He was a coalition DJ. Still in break. I still DJing. WD was like, cock, diesel. He told everybody I shut the fuck up.

35:32He said, this kid's a killer. He's killing y 'all. He killed them all. Y 'all. And they were fighting to get another taste of him. And he was like, no, this kid's killing him. And that shut down. I wanted battle that night when I came back to the next ring like the next month. My name was no longer skunk or big mic. They ain't anybody. It was killer. That's killer mic right there. That's killer mic. That's who WD was talking about. That's killer mic right there. And they just started. And that was it. And I figured if you are, did you keep it? But I wouldn't call myself. It's a great name. It's so distinctive.

36:02I think about all the names in hip hop. I don't know another killer. Anything. No, we got killer priest. We got killer mic and killer priest. That's it. But it's an honor. It's an honor because I earned it. You know, I was out of giving myself on Slicker. But I earned it. You know, I earned it. But I don't wish to kill another human being. But I have to understand that I have to be willing to make sure I deserve my life. Yeah. And you're happy to kill another MC on the mic every time. Every time. Every time. Every time. Every time. Every time. Every time. Tell me about battle rap. How important is battling in rap?

36:39I used to love it when I was a kid, man. It was the event rap is a pure, it's a pugilistic poetry form. You know what I'm saying? What made cool, Jay, the illest motherfucking the world was that man. He would battle rap your ass under the table. There's a douche girl with a rap the next day. So battling is important to me. But only when it's truly from a pure place. You know what I'm saying? An honest place. I don't like dishonest battling where it's from a place of jealousy and every per se, but just for the metrics of skill. Let's let's see who can get it all. And then it's like fighting. It's like, yeah, it's like pugilism.

37:14It's like afterwards you shake hands. Like I have enjoyed over the years. Some of the biggest and best and most bad ass battles. And that the battles with dope, they advanced the culture and the style. And afterwards the two human beings were still alive. I have not liked the battle so much where it was a test of provato, machismo and ego. And afterwards some of both people are dead. Those I don't think have a place. I don't like the battles that are stoked by other people for the reason. I want to Grammy. I want three Grammys. Travis Scott audience are young younger than some of my audience. From all this is as young, they felt like they're got got robbed.

37:55That's fine. You know, they troll online. That's fine. Travis dropped a couple of lines. That's fine because I'm sure someone on his side interpreted lines. I dropped line. That's fine. But when his manager, for instance, who's a white guy who's not of the culture that me a Travis often turns at being black, turns at being black men, turns at being black Southern men, turns to having a lot of the same heroes, whether they're from the screwed up cliff or outcast. I thought him trying to stoke something. I thought was a little class and bullshit because I didn't think he was doing it. I think he was moving from a place of ego and insecurity.

38:33And I think that that's what gets wrong with rap battles today. I think that when the rap battles are between the two fighters who look in the fight, you have a good battle. Me and Travis don't have a battle. We don't have the same audience. I don't have the same aspirations as goals. I want to be a badass mother -fucking -mc running around like Joey Simmons. And Darrell McDaniels, my dreams, I've achieved every dream I wanted to achieve. I don't envy his dreams or achievements in any way. So there's really no groud that we meet on where there's anything but for management to stoke that or to poke that on Twitter.

39:03It just seems bullshit. So I, you know, if I'm talking to Travis, I'm just saying, I like you. I like your shit. I got lucky. I made in rap 50 of you, the best rap album. I know you're going to continue to make dope shit. If you want to lyrically engage me at any point, I'm sure you would step up and do that, but it doesn't seem so. But don't let the suckers sit next to you. Stoke you up to do stupid shit because I don't want what you got. I know you don't envy when I have. But you know, I think that battles when you see battles within what say, we want to fucking the juice crew like that was about that was.

39:39South Bronx and Queens, that was one where the culture got better for you know. When you look at N .W. and Ice Cube, Ice Cube leaving a crew, becoming bigger as a solo and that cream though becoming better because without, in my opinion, without the the weighted measure of ice cubes, pro blackness and positivity, they just became pure, beautiful evil on 100 miles and running and and it gets the life of my fucking god. I get goosebumps thinking about just how dark to me the old set battle, but you know, trying as management to pit me against Travis. It's just like, I like Travis, I think he's dope.

40:15Tell me the story of the album Michael. Oh man, Michael is, I'm in this hugely successful rap route, run the Jules. My partner is the best rapper producer in the world, Barton, that motherfucker, writes his own bars and makes his own beats. And I get to sit right in this room and we make it happen together. And he is off doing a score for a movie about alcohol needs, doing some stuff with some other artists who we like in reverence spec. And I'm just at home, twiddling my fucking fingers, bored of shit, and COVID happens. And then I'm really at home like, I don't have shit to do. I don't know how to produce.

40:53I'm not gonna be one of those motherfuckers all of a sudden, I want to learn to produce it. I just like, man, I was working with Cuzz Lightyear. We had him over in our massive P .O. Records. He's an amazing artist, rapper, producer. I was like, well, man, fuck it. In my opinion, they didn't do the job that they could have a supposed to do on your CD. So shit, let's just go back in, let's record a mixtape. I'll just do it with you, we'll get something back out. And Cuzz did one of the most beautiful things to me that any human being can do. He said, I'm gonna put my career on pause because you've been talking about doing a solo album again, if you ever had a chance forever.

41:27It's been eight, nine, nine, 10 years, let's do it. He said, I'm gonna just put my stuff on pause and I'm gonna amr your album. And I'm not even trying to be on it. Any ANR, Michael, we started at no face, no case studio, size out the fresh, got him to stake on these studios, tip studio, and then man, we went out to LA to East West and we just, we went in. And over the course of two years, we recorded the best album in the 50th year hip hop. And Michael, he is the story of a nine year old boy, heavily influenced by what he saw run to MC, do heavily influenced by what he saw the fat boys to heavily influenced by Roxanne Shantay, by Oujay.

42:05And he was determined to be an MC. And he was an MC dead in the middle of the crack era, dead in the middle of the Reagan era. He lives in a totally black world where all his heroes and enemies look like him. He grew up in a world with only white people. He saw literally one PBS or wrestling. So if it wasn't Rick Flair or fucking Mr. Rogers, I'd find no white neighbors. I didn't have no multi -ethnicities in the earth. How great is Rick Flair? Rick Flair, so great I have to teach her could I be in for black history? Yeah. That's how great Rick Flair was. So I just wanted to give the world a perspective of a black child who grew up not knowing what it felt like to feel insecure.

42:49I didn't have a lack of confidence. I didn't doubt my competence because everywhere I turned, it was being instilled in me. You can, you must you will. Be the absolute best human being you can be. Because of your family? It's because of my family. It's because of my community. It's because of my teachers. I lived and then people should go with it. To call your heights. It's a historically black neighborhood. It was started in 1946 by black people for black people. It was not but a milk bottom, which was another black neighborhood. It was not the bluff. It was not via city. It was not Dixie heels.

43:19It was for a working class people to very rich white people all in the same neighborhood. And grew up with the Russell family who were black real estate developers. And grew up with Billy and Cynthia McKenney who were U .S. representatives. grew up with the coaches from more house to principal of my elementary school, all in the same neighborhood. Now also the biggest weed dealers and the biggest numbers man, the liquor people all in the same neighborhood. So I grew up in this all black. If you were watching the Goodfellas and saw an all Italian neighborhood and we had operates, this is it to the black.

43:51So I didn't have any issues of going to a school that was predominantly white, feeling less than an insecure. I didn't have any wants or desires to be anywhere else. If I wanted to see a big fucking house full of rich people, I just rolled my bike four or five streets back. We grew up in these 900 square foot A frame houses, but five streets back with the richest black land developers in the southeast. And you can see the house with an indoor pool, basketball, all coals and tennis. And so I knew and lately I can have that. I just have to figure out what's my pathway to that. And that isn't even just the material stuff, but the reputation.

44:28My grandmother died and the church was filled as though a dignitary had died. Because she had done so much good in the community. My wife's aunt who never knew her, but had heard of her, drove from South Carolina to attend a funeral. It was though we were bearing a representative. So for me, I just grew up in a Norman Walkwell painting as a black exploitation film. That sounds incredible. That's exactly what it is. And that's what the album is. That's what the album is. So was it million dollar nights, was it the new movie that comes out about the big heist in Atlanta doing a Muhammad Ali fight?

45:03What happened in my neighborhood? In my neighborhood, black people built clothes. Tell me the story. I don't know that story. So Muhammad Ali fought with an unsanctioned fight in Atlanta. I think in 72 or 73. How did that even come to be? That's what happens when you have a black city. When you have a black city ran by black people with black money. And it's pardoned of course with white money. But white southerners like making money. But they were like, we can have an Ali fight down here. It doesn't have to be sanctioned. Even though they push back from it, they managed to push it through. Ali has to fight there.

45:30All the hustlers and it was like all the fur coats, all the cowlacks, all the link is all that to suppose to come to this one party after the fight in the event. Because seeing on the basement in my neighborhood, it's their houses. Because those black people didn't wish to fight to party next to white people. So they built clubs in their basement. So this house essentially just had a casino. And there's a man in chicken man who's like the low level promoter put it together, put all the hustlers to come together. So my guy wind up it and they robbed it. And after that robbery happens, people got to die.

46:03People got to answer for it. Investigators got to find out. Doc Chidil is the guy who plays the investigator. Samuel Jackson plays. Think one of the New York gangsters that got robbed. That has to figure it out in Kevin Hart plays chicken man. Well, I heard about this story. It says, I've been a nathe grade, my art teacher. So there's two Americas, you know, few Americas, right? There's a Chinatown America, Ktown America, Greek town America, little Odessa America. And then there's black America. Black America is always happening. So Michael is a reflection of all of these things. I'm a reflection of the first black mayor who empowered black people through giving economic opportunity to people like the Russell's.

46:41I wasn't enamored by having a black president in the same way a lot of people were because all I had ever saw was black leadership. All my mayors have been black. I've never not had that. I should have helped get three of them elected. I've never believed that black people couldn't because all I've seen was black people could. Now I've seen black people who couldn't. I've seen black people who the system worked against. My grandfather worked for Chattahoo Chi brick, which used convict and convict laborers, slave labor at some point. So I knew the harbors were out there. My grandparents made me watch roots in Chakazulu and talked to me about everything.

47:11I was slavery to Koldoni, but with that said, on a day -to -day basis, what I saw more time than night was the decisions of those that I saw who were failing or winning were solely their decisions. They were, did you decide to study harder and work harder? Did you decide to go get a job versus bullshitting around in front of the store? And those things showed me that it's possible. It might take a little longer. My grandfather told me it might have to work a little harder. You would never have victim. No, no, no. And even when I was at times I was, I'd never allowed myself to rest on the walls at that too long.

47:44First time I went to Virginia was with a group called Black Tains for Advancement. We were, I remember going to a 7 -Eleven or something and us trying to go and store them locking us out. You know what the fuck were you doing? Like, first of all, we were bunch of kids up here doing some positive shit. We don't want to be locked out of a store. We kind of little spooked that night walk on the hotel. But the guy called a police and the police had them to just fucked up. We went back to our home, but I wasn't going to let that determine the way I felt the rest of my life. That I was one bad incident.

48:12That guy fucked me over. He was an asshole. The cop was an asshole. But that didn't stop me from respecting and revering. Investigative Richard Williams. He's someone I met in say 1991, 1991. He's in a wheelchair. He was a cop. And just when I had decided to kind of get that rebelliousness about me, he pulled me to the side. I hear, as I was, you intelligence, you would say, what are you trying to get out of this? I even hear your dad was, because I'm like, what's up with this? And I'm like, wait, you ain't any more. But, you know, why do you care? You know, I was hanging. I learned that he had got shot in the back here.

48:44Or he was investigating two or three juveniles. He searched them all though. He didn't handcuff them. Probably was not trying to shame them. Put them in the back of his car to drive them down to be talked to. And one of them produced a handgun in shot and then paralyzed them to the chest down. And I asked that man, I said, if Keyes did, this, do you, this happened to him at 87. So this is only three or four years later. I said, why you ain't here? You know, really wasting your time or working with us. He said, if I believed when I said about you all, and if I believed what I said to you about your potential and what you could be, if I never came back to do the work, I never believed it at all.

49:21Oh, man, it knocked me off. Amazing. You met some incredible people in your life. Yeah, but what's crazy is, they were, by their own words, regular people doing what you're supposed to do. And what they understood was, I am a black person in America, and it is not my job to make this child afraid of America. It's my job to make them aware of the systems and the means of control and the visionary tactics, but it's not my job to make them afraid. It's my job to empower them and make them feel this. Not dumb, not crazy, but fearless and to help them be cunning and to help them use their minds. That's what I encountered.

50:02That was the unspoken agenda out of the community. I was rehearsing. You know, that's like Ms. Murray. You're again, I come from a very rural Southern family. You don't eat collet greens and cornbread with a knife and fork. You call it me the cornbread with your hands, the same way you eat food for one Africa. You know, I said the same way you eat beans or anything in any country where more people are ruled and not. I remember going to kindergarten. It's the first thing I started doing is she said, hold on a little bit. She said, I know I'd like to eat it like they're at home too. She said, but that's cool.

50:32We just can't do it like that. We gotta do. So she helped me understand that there was a duality. And I laughed about it because later my grandmother told me the first time my grandfather took on a date for a state. She just grabbed and started tearing me up. She was like, shit, I didn't know no better. That's the way you ate meat. Because for her, it wasn't about being frame of property. It was just about I'm enjoying myself, the food is good. And now you see people who tell you, you don't eat with your hands. You know, so it's just interesting to me that the overall agenda pouring into me was that our job is to make you the best human being.

51:07You happen to be black. You're proud to be black. We want you to always be proud. But our job is to make you a human being in which when your name is said is said in a dignified way, Miss Harrington, who on Harrington Daycare Center was determined to make sure that every child was illiterate going into kindergarten. So by the time he was going into kindergarten, we were already reading. She meant the world to me. Her son, Jane, still works for the Atlanta board education. I can't forget these people because of what they've meant to me. You know, my former art teacher, Mr. Murray, who told me about the high street with chicken man and the Muhammad Ali fight.

51:42He does not teach art anymore, but he still causes all suits out. We still have to help him with murals and shit. But more importantly, he helps us guard. He teaches us to guard. So he has one student that's a pastor named Lilo who has a community garden now. Another one of his old students is former chief judge, Aisha Jackson, who grew up with me. We went all through school together. Aisha has a pinnacle program and when she takes people, who would have gotten prison sentences, gives them a year to turn their shit around. And part of her process now is pairing it with Mr. Murray to learn to grow food and things of that nature.

52:13So I'm from an environment where, and at a time, where everyone was pushing everyone else to be their absolute best. Amazing. Is that community still like us? Yes. I just bought my dinner house and that for me anyway. Wow. How close to there do you live? Me, I live within four exercises of there. I live close enough to be there in 15 minutes and far enough if the robbers are following me. I see them. Yeah. Yeah.

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54:20Tell me about the rule of church in your family. The rule of church in my family, it was a major source of congregation and contention. Women love church. It gives them a place to commune and fellowship. It puts them closer with the being that put us here. It gives them order and structure. Men are distrustful as church because usually the guy who is running the church dresses a little too nice in his car a little too fancy. So my grandmother loved church. She was from a very religious background. I think they were raised Methodists or ten -in -a -method churches in some capacity because the school that educated them was a Methodist one.

54:53But by the time she got to Atlanta, she had joined a Baptist church. But she always took me and my sisters to the after we would go to Mount Island, which was a bigger Baptist church of some prestige. She would take us to these little smaller churches, like storefront churches, little house churches almost. And these churches were not pastored by men. They were pastored by women. Bishop Jean was one, Sister Mary Jackson, Sister Mother Mary Jackson was another in Bethlehem, healing temple. But these churches are really where I learned to love music and I learned to love understanding the scripture.

55:25I was music in the church. So in a Pinochoccio church, music is very important because part of it is, you know, poor people build a lot of shit all week. And the way you get shit off sometimes, you go to a concert on a Friday of Saturday at the Blues, you're on an RV club, or you go to church. Because the same people that played it all three clubs, the same person that played in the clubs of my mom, go tell Saturdays, was out of the family that played in the church on Sundays. So you have many drum kits, bass, electric guitar, these singers and songstresses, and they just be doing gospel, but the gospel would be like Reventeal Barnett.

56:01It be, it have a hipness, have a rhythm to it. It got your movement. You know, in the Pinochoccio church, as long as you want crossing ankles and you want to do any dance and dances, you can dance all you want to, you can run up and down the aisles. And I got a chance to see how therapeutic music was for people. How people got a chance to smile and glory and have tears falling out drown and fall out and be caught by someone in a trust that, no matter what happens, it's going to be okay. Now, a lot of people pay thousands of dollars to have this view they have right now and go out and do that in college song, and they name it, so I know it's just church.

56:34It's just church. It's just church. It's the church that's like I grew up here. It's the church that's where music is used as a form of gospel to make people move, devibrations, put people on the same wavelength. It's what I try to emulate now in my shows. I want people to get on the same vibe so we can have this euphoric experience together. So that church, Bishop Jean Church in particular had great music. She was a great teacher, and it was just a beautiful redhead girl with freckles there too. They kept me coming back and I ended up marrying a redhead. For me, so. Do you think music in general is devotional?

57:07I do. I think that from a very pure place, whether you're singing in a shower or the song touches you or you are trying to express your pain through some form of trap rap, I think it's devotional. I think that we have feelings that are beyond or a torical expression in the way that simply talking does and that it needs to be said overbeat, over melody with harmony or it needs to have an 808 behind it or a synth and needs that. Like, big E and scar faces and ice cubes and slick ricks ability to tell story with description and anecdote overbeat is irreplaceable. Pox, passion and delivery, past the choice, passion and delivery.

57:54It's just irreplaceable. You know what I'm saying? You take stuff that isn't even mixed very well. I have a masterpiece, ice cream man. Moby Dick, one the best singer, one the best mix, but man, you felt it. You know what I mean? You felt it and moved it, chewing out 400 degrees. I hear people talk about the album a lot lately. Man, it gave you a look into New Orleans. You had never, you had seen, did you dig in me? You had seen just that party vibe in New Orleans, but I remember hearing it, you would be like, now this is this is the do stand in front of the store. This is the do who wants you to see this is New Orleans from a street level.

58:27That was beautiful to me and a gospel like way almost. It was a like Michael's a testimonial. That's how I view Michael. Michael is not just a rap album. It is a testimonial of a black American soul. It is comparable to anything that Zorniel Herstin wrote and their eyes were watching God and of Newell and Men. It is comparable to August Wilson's fences or two trains running. The stuff that I make, although not accredited as I feel it should be, it's high art and it's very high art at that. And I just happen to like muscle cars and street clubs, but I would argue that Kanye West, Swiss Beats, Jay, any of these art collectors that we know we celebrate are comparable to me, not me comparable to them.

59:16Because I love this shit a long before I got money. I love this shit when I was sitting in Mr. Murray's class and the ninth grade trying to figure out how to steal the Wayne Vickery of Simultheris. I remember looking at that statue like I got to figure out how to steal this motherfucker. And although I never figured out how I'd break into the Louvre and steal a statue of tons, the first time I got thousands of dollars to get a piece made, I went and got the exact replica. To the point, it was still fixing the Wayne, the replica still had the wood planking and stuff. They had to shave that off.

59:53Jimmy from Houston is the Joula who did it, just to get it right, because I had to wear the art that inspired me. When people see me wear that big one and a half kilo, Michael Slan saying piece that sits in front of a college of Michael, I think it's in Berlin or Munich, that sits in front of that. It was important to me, I think that's Hubert, Gerard Hubert, I think did that when it was important to me that I had an exact replica of that piece, because I love art. You know, and I wanted to make how art so Michael is a high art album. And it uses church organ. Yes. It uses gospel vocals. Yes. It feels like it really does accomplish what you were aiming to do.

1:00:33Yes, I'm just trying. And now that I've accomplished it, and we've implemented it with Michael and the Mighty Mint Night, Revival Song for Symptoms and Saints, that's not what I want to do anymore. So, what people say, well, what's the next Michael on sound? I'm like, I don't know yet. But it's not going to sound like a sound. But you probably didn't know what Michael was going to be till you made it. No, I knew what I was aspiring to or, I didn't know what it was going to be. But I knew what I wanted to feel like when I played it. It's all when I sat back and played Michael. This is it. It's doing it.

1:01:03And I did it again, I'm chasing it. And ended up winning Best Rap Album of the Year, Best Rap Song, Best Rap Performance, and then B .T. album of the Year. Amazing. Absolutely. Thank you so much. You talked about loving Rundy MC and Slick Rick and LL and all of the New York rappers where it was coming from first. When did you start feeling the musical round you compete with what you were hearing from New York? First one, give props to Mojo, who's the first Atlanta rapper. You know what I mean? And he's Mojo's probably 60 now. He still looks great. Still running right. I think he works for the city and will still do his records for you.

1:01:40So he was the first of those and it was possible. But you know, you got New York. We love LA popped off. Oh man, NWA, W -A -W -C in the Mass. Circle, King, T. You know, say you couldn't, you couldn't tell me LA, what, what, what, then you get to look, you know, what comes out of the Midwest, whether it's the dating family, stuff like that. Memphis, play a fly. Tommy Wright, the third. That type of stuff. DJ, I think squeaky's from up there too. But man, Miami. Miami was our big homies. The Miami Hurricanes on top of the world, looking to tool our crew on top of the world, disco, Rick, the dogs, poison clan.

1:02:18All these moves had a profound effect on Atlanta, saying we could do this. Just a guy named Shadi who had moved from New York, had DJ Tump, who later went on to co -found trap music with Tia. DJ Tump was like a DJ for Shadi. So this is, we talk about mid 80s. There's a group called Success and Effect, had a song, Roll it up, my knee up, Roll it up. Before it was called Traffit, it was called Rolling. You were a Roller, you know, sure for high roller. And those guys, songs let me know. Kilo Ali, out of Boy Home, the guy on say, sampled his record. The America has a problem. Kilo wrote his album in June of the hour.

1:02:57I remember everybody from Boy Home, the projects that were in my school telling me about them. And when he came out, his music didn't disappoint. So all these were points. I have to give a credit to Chris Cross, at what Jamey Duprede, let me know what happened. But the absolute crown to me that we weren't my amy's, little homies, that we weren't New York's country cousins, that we weren't simply kids trying to emulate gang culture out of LA was absolutely the dungeon family. And what Rico Ray, Ray Murray, and Sleepy Brown gave opportunity to by signing outcasts and goody mob was they allowed Atlanta to craft their own sound in the moment that made us us versus the part two of something else.

1:03:44Atlanta does bass music, but it's not my amy's, it's not just shaking and chicking and fast. It has more than R &B to it. So our version of bass music was still primarily based off something else, but it was just our version. What Dunjie family gave us, because, organized noise had been mentored by Curtis Mayfield, was they gave us a soul that was ours, that was our very own. That first outcast out in that first goody mob, I haven't set a new standard. It turned the corner. He said, this is Atlanta. This is some player shit. Like we play us in this city. We're about the action of being whatever players are.

1:04:19And we're about that. So we're a city where you can get gangsters, hustlers, drug dealers. We also a city where you can get politicians, business men, successful people. It is a culmination of all this. It is a city where you have a thinking man's group like goody mob that's received in rooms as gritty as the Wu -Tai in clan and has polished this any black homecoming at any HBCU. You know, I think that Atlanta is a complex city in that way. That is a city that encompasses all of blackness. And when people say, you know, black people are not just a monolith Atlanta shows you that because when you start on Atlanta's west side by the time you get to Atlanta's east side, you don't want to hold different type of black people, but it's all black.

1:05:00And it's all celebratory in some way. So what you're talking about, the immigrant population of Stone Mountain that produces a 21 Savage. And even in his high school years of Swiss Beats, Stone Mountain gives you both of those artists. On the west side, you get Southwest Atlanta giving you the dungeon family. And the dungeon family gave us a firm cornerstone to build the rest of Atlanta's legacy. So I got to give all their credit to Rest in Peace. God bless, Deer, Rico Wayne, Ray Murray, and I'm Sleepy Brown. And what year did that really? 1994. It's 94. Chris Cross was 92. I believe, but 94. 94 Outcasts because they try out players ball on them.

1:05:38How did you connect with those guys? I went to Morehouse and I met Naseelo Redick. Naseelo's mother was a teacher in Savannah, Georgia. His father, Vanzo Redick, is an attorney. They are a brilliant, upstanding decent people. His dad's like, known amongst that town is everything. It's civil rights to help people. You know, when times are hard, and he's from a great family. He and Big Boy grew up together with best of friends. And Big Boy went to Tracidys High School, which was a school for performing arts that gave you outcasts, that gave you escape, that gave you members of Jack at the edge. There's even a tape of big boy, freestyle, a little kid.

1:06:14But Big Boy and Sealo are friends. And since I became great friends with Sealo, I became friends with Laura Brough, or James, Big Boy, and my brother, Rock D. My man Frank Obelisk did was killed. We were just a crew like the Boulevard Kings. You know, and Big Boy heard me rapping. And he was getting his hair braided at Sealo's house, because Sealo's parents had gotten into my house. Well, Sealo had his house off of his parents. I had a chance to have a mixture that could get into the house. I'm not throwing a Georgia. Big Boy's getting his hair braided out there. I think my princess at the time, who has Princess Palette, she braided Big Boy's house to leave Calhoun, and Ludwig was all the famous ones.

1:06:50And he heard me, and he said, man, who's that? And he's like, that's Mike. And he said, we're working on something. And when they were working on them, they were able to deal with the lecturers. He says, I'm gonna give you a shot. No, it's like whatever, right? You all about the same age? Yeah. Everybody just names it in two to four years in each other. So my association with Sealo really believing, with Big Boy here and in really believing, and then him, their A &R at Aquaman Areccus, was Regina Davenport and Drake. They gave me an opportunity to change my life by believing in me. And I just, I never, I never let go of that opportunity.

1:07:24And I never stopped being appreciative for it, you know? Which is one of the reasons that, to this day, I still call being Drake or text them together out of nowhere. And just say, thank you for giving me an opportunity to change my life.

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1:08:58Music Tell me about rap music up until trap versus trap. How is trap different than all the music that came before it? I mean, the sound that Tum and Tip Creator made it bigger. So if you hear, if you hear A -Ball Mjg, and 3 -6 Mafia, so you hear 3 -6 Mafia, you hear them lean into a really hot sound and chop. The way they chop soul music is different from the way Houston does it. So the way Houston does it is where A -Ball Mjg pivoted to Houston left Tennessee. Their music was still soul -based, outcasts a soul -based, but less samples and more like replays. But trap music introduced a fundamentally new sound to Atlanta.

1:09:42What Tip and Tum did was take the culture of Atlanta, which had become trapping. So if you look at the late 80s, crap proliferates, dope is mainly sold and car wash. Like you can literally just open their market for drugs. And not even on bad sheets, just like the rollers. The rollers that had the car wash, the dope is in the trunk, whether you buy in a fucking house or a kilo. You could pull up an element of car wash and do it. And then so all of us little kids essentially became used as employees of some sort. Okay, if y 'all see the police coming, yeah, 99. Well, 99 got to be too long. So, yeah, 12.

1:10:18Why are you, yeah, 12? 12 comes from the TV show, Adam 12. Yeah. Adam 12's the TV show. So when you hear somebody from Atlanta, they don't even know why sometimes they're young or why they say that. You say it 12 because that's what the code and language are used to say. If you want, if you see the police coming down the street to store, you're going to run up and make sure that all the boys know 12, 12, 12, 12, 12. This is sure for Adam 12. Not -and -now, just too loud. Sammy Samson, somebody yelled 99. It had to be Susie. Because she ditched cocaine and copic, dope, or uzi. Not -and -now, just too loud.

1:10:45And it just got to be 12. How did trap come along? Trap came along because the older guys who knew what they were doing, who were known in the credit that were on front street, something dope. And which regulated us, the little punk ass kids who were lookouts or not, to the back of the apartments. And what would happen is the apartments would start putting gates and stuff on the back of the apartments and you were trapped. I see. I mean, I don't think it's bad. And they got down dope, trapped. I'm little dumb ass boys. I keep telling them the rent dogs are going to come in and beat all their ass.

1:11:15They're like a trap, like a rabbit son of a -uh, like a popsicle, like a rabbit son of a trap apartment. So it can't just out of this colloquial center, so you guys are trapped back there. If the police come, there's nowhere to run. You trap. So where you began to sell dope became the trap and the act of selling dope became trapping. And if you were trapping out of someone's house, you would pay them. So I need to use your apartment to police, man. I'm a fat. I can't keep running from the police. I just need to use your apartment. So you need to use your apartment. What you going to charge? Just charge me what?

1:11:45Your home house a day? I hate cool. I'm trapped. I'm trapped. I'm not your house. So what you doing? I'm trapped in that. I just get what home house a day. See, that's how trapping really came along. How much of hip hop is political? Hip hop, by simply existing is political. It is a statement that art will prevail through all. It will prevail through poverty. It will prevail through lack of resources, which are accidental and purposeful. It will prevail against the government and administration and the Reagan administration that took arts and music education out of schools. It will prevail in the proliferation of a drug war that actually was used to finance an illegal war by the same administration.

1:12:34It will prevail over its own self -indulgence in the creation of conscious music, even in the most diabolical of rappers catalog. There lies a bar or a lyric that will lose to a greater conscious, that's a greater thing being possible. And virtually every rapper. You're really describing an uplifting form of music. Because of the ideas. Yeah. Even in this most down -trodden. You know, when fucked up police got ridden, fucked up police needed to be ridden. When ladies first got ridden, ladies first. It's like when people ask me the question of women finally having voice at rap. And I say, shit.

1:13:17Part of the reason I'm sitting here is because of Roxanne Chantay. So I don't care if you're talking about Roxanne, Chantay, Real Roxanne, Sugar T, Balls, Salad Pepper. You're just fucking talking about Trina, Foxy, Cam. Rap has been open for girls to fucking dominate. She says girls got finally got interested in getting off the fucking bleachers saying, you'll fuck this listening. We gon' rap now. They finally understood that girls can have different voices. They finally understood that every girl doesn't have to take her clothes off. But rhapsody can be just as relevant as any girl's just just bra.

1:13:47And rhapsody still looks good as well. But my current favorite, one of my favorite rappers, female and not as fucking lotto. It's Girl from Clayton County from the suburb of Atlanta, part of Metro Atlanta. Mom's white, dad's black. It's my fucking hybrid of fucking T. I. Shoddy low. G'sy and Gucci, she takes it seriously as fucking telling every bar. And she's a starter to look at. That's rap to me as man. It is such a beautiful opportunity that young people set up in the late 70s for other young people to thrive. And now, as it has been, it has grown to be 50 years old for people who not young to still be expressing and listening to her.

1:14:27And I think to the expressions of young, you know, man, look at the career that E40 has had. The career that Scarface has had. The career that two short has had. The career that Big Boy has had. The career that Celo Blin has had. When I look at these rap herbs, when I look at Shantay on a radio show, Steal, rap being. When I look at Trina Steal going to a Coliseum and knock that motherfucker down, I know that all is right with rap. And that we were right as kids. I remember telling Mar teacher Mr. Murray, people here me reference him, that NWA was going to get into a rock and roll all the thing.

1:15:04And he told me how fucking crazy. And he called me when they went in the state. I got a tea. You were right, nigga. How crazy is it that rap is 50 years old? Yeah. And if you think about, so that means it started in the 70s, rock and roll, which we think of as ancient. Yes. It started in the 50s. Absolutely. Still very young. Still very young. Only 20 years before rap. Yep. Very young. Very young. But I remember hearing Chuck link all the black music together, which is essentially American music. It has been a music. You know, whether it was the whaling of the field, goes in the gospel, goes in the rock and roll.

1:15:47You know, diverts some into the country by way of the plucking of the banjo, goes in the rhythm and blues, jazz. You know, hip hop. All of this is tethered in United by the African American experience. Now, it's taken other places by other people. And that's fine. That's what art does. Art inspires others. But man, the voice of America in a lot of ways has been the young black voice or musician, giving an art form to this country to grow and proliferate. How has your relationship to hip hop changed over the course of your life? I just saw more love with her. I'm saltless. DJ Swift, who's one of the best DJs in the world, outcast DJ.

1:16:28He doesn't go out of the way to self -promotive. It's just self. But I've seen him band step up right with Jazzy Jeff and with Jammast and Jay and plethora of others and just kill shit. And then just go back and shake the hand like, man, you can't fucking hear rock. You know, it's Swift is like our older brother, me and Kass. And Dom, cover me, I just keep following more love with her. I think she's the most beautiful thing on earth. I just love her like not to be cliche but like common. I'm not used to love her. I still love her. Yeah. How has Atlanta changed over the course of your life? Atlanta has changed even when my grandfather prepped me for that.

1:17:03He told me it changed every 20 years. She said, oh, get too comfortable. You know, Atlanta is a place where black opportunity exists in a way like nowhere else on earth. I often tell people, you know, I revere and black people should revere Atlanta like Muslims revere Mecca because we genuinely have an opportunity there. And that opportunity comes with the expectation of you being great. Not just good, but the opportunities there and it does not mean there's not hardships, doesn't not mean everything is fair. Does not mean white folks ain't involved because most likely like death jam is black and white folks involved and may not meant for that to happen.

1:17:451973, I'm talking riffs and a man named Manor Jackson. His grandfather was a man named John Wesley Dobs, John Wesley Dobs, was a black business man who made sure there was a black business corridor on Auburn Avenue where Dr. King's church was and on edge with him, one of my barbershops currently is his grandson is 73 who went to Morehouse becomes mayor of the city of Atlanta. He demands that 29 % of business from the city be given to black contractors, proper businesses that are ready to go. People are no often times too. He flipped it and also required that of the white businesses be included too.

1:18:21So what he really did was make black people and white people have to work together. So as much as I talk about the Herman Russell family, Herman Russell did hire and partner with the white guy too. And because of that cooperation, they made a very strong president in Atlanta from business wise, provided hundreds of jobs that still to this state. The manor leads to Andy, you know, goes back to Manor, goes to Bill Campbell, goes to Shirley Franklin, goes to Cassine Reed, to Keisha, from last bottoms and now Andre Dickens. If you don't have these people who understand the need not only for a symbolic paying attention to black people but economic participation and development, you don't get the opportunity to neighbor who is like mine or for people like me to be produced.

1:19:0650 years later, after Maynard becomes mayor, now all of his hip -hop sword and becomes something. You get two kids who are from the neighborhood who used to trap on Baykit highway. Now are black successful rappers, one tremendously more with TI, turns of having hit records. Laws that then Grammy applauded and killer might decide to partner together by 50 -year -old restaurant, the oldest restaurant on Baykit. That restaurant now is sitting out proper family restaurant, sky views and stuff like that. Our goal is to grow into something big enough to scale up. I want to be red lobster, you know, and better.

1:19:42So I don't know if that happens. Other places in Atlanta is a city full of black opportunity. I'm not just talking about reality TV show opportunities. There's no disrespect. But that means it didn't become that in the last 25 years. Kill pop and even, you know, shots out to the bros of BMF. The Miami boys back in the days and all the rollers before them, they did not make Atlanta that. Atlanta has been with this band since the early 1900s, 19 on with four or five or five or six. You have two conferences called the Atlanta conference that are hosted by WB Dubois, who essentially represents a black loose wisely and book a D Washington, who simply represents the black working class, Tuskegee University.

1:20:23If you don't have these Atlanta conferences, you don't have, in my opinion, the decision to make Atlanta a place where black opportunity exists. So you get a Lanzel Hurden, who's a Lanzel Hurden? Well, a Lanzel Hurden is a man who owns like killer Mike Barbershops. Some of his Barbershops only serve as white business man. Even all the Barbers were black. These white business men were in stocks and bonds and insures of the thing of that nature. A Lanzel saw an opportunity and he said, well, black people can't get life insurance from you guys. Why don't you guys allow me to buy smaller policies?

1:20:58I'll start the Atlanta Life Insurance Company. He goes from the Barbershop for a year's good business sound business advice. He starts the largest black insurance company in the world. That insurance company just got bought by Magic Johnson. Why did Magic Johnson buy that insurance company? When asked Magic Johnson to say, because I seen an interview with Killer Mike talking about it. Wow. So Atlanta produces a type of black person in my opinion that expects to be able to succeed, and give any opportunity. And that does not mind providing opportunities for others that look like him and partnering with those who don't to expand opportunities for all.

1:21:36Is there any place else in the country that you would say is like that or close to it or second to it? We've had places like that. We had strong enclaves in Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington DC, Birmingham, Alabama, Watts, England, and some of the destruction has been purposeful. What the daily did in Chicago was purposeful. What's going on in Chicago now is not fair. I don't know what you do when you have a push movement in Philadelphia that got bombed by the police, because these people are essentially going to dreadlocks for all their own food. So no one really wants to see it to the degree, but what's always amazed me, even in a place like I argue with my good friends from DC, and they remind me that one of the richest counties, I think it's tied, like in DC in terms of black wealth.

1:22:26I say, yeah, but when you go to DC now, it's not the same. And when you go to DC now, me under not being the same, I say, man, a lot of y 'all still. You know, black folks talk shit and chill. A lot of y 'all still work for white folk, though, y 'all work for government. But DC is still a strong on clay Atlanta still a strong on clay. You have strong pockets in places like Chicago. I just believe that in Atlanta, the opportunity may be greater simply because Georgia has been number one for business in the last 10 years. Number one in business in the last 10 years. So if this is the table and it's been number one, if I got a third of this table, quarter this table, 10 % of this table, then my success may be magnified a little more.

1:23:08But when you look at Houston, tremendous opportunities for black people in Houston. Dallas Negroes are rich. That's how the Dallas, a lot of brothers and sisters down there. But I don't know if you get the triple play of economic impact, cultural impact, and political impact that you get in Atlanta. You're a city like Atlanta. My mayor is black. I've never known anything about a black mayor. Economically, I know I've proven getting myself out the mud after dropping out the greatest black college in the world more out of college that you can do it. You can come to self -made guy. And when you look at the arts, currently the big deal on the high museum, which is a world class museum, is Swiss Beach, so Alicia Keys, art collection is in that museum.

1:23:52I serve on the board of that museum. Fahamu Picou, who's one of her most amazing living artists, serves on the board. Kenyan, who's a radio rep, serves on the board, all of us serve on the board of the high museum of art. Our mayor is a black kid from the exact same neighborhood with the rival high school father. And then you have true black money and economics and political power with that can shift things. And again, we're not perfected by any means, but the opportunity is there. The land's one of the only places you type in black restaurants and over 50 restaurants pop up. There's one of the only places where you have an alternative to say, well, I'm going to stay in my neighborhood close to here and get, you know, what we're missing and what we got to get.

1:24:31But from what I'm reading is we're about to get some grocery stores back in the city. A lot of our grocery stores love a lot of our banking, which is why I pivot into a banking platform like Greenwood. But the land is by no means perfect, but the opportunity exists. And that's all you can really ask for. Just a shot. Tetra Grammatine is a podcast. Tetra Grammatine is a website. Tetra Grammatine is a whole world of knowledge.

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1:25:46Ancient Wisdom for a New Age. Upon entering, experience the artwork of the day. Take a breath. And see where you are drawn.

1:26:03Tetra Grammatine.

1:26:14Tell me some of the things that you learned from your entrepreneurial endeavors. You're going to fail a lot more than you succeed. So you've got to be comfortable with failing. You've got to learn to trust your gut. Because a lot of times you talk yourself out of good decisions. It's nothing wrong when you're playing as good as you can get it, with partnering with other people who are using other people's money. We have a habit. Sometimes a hip -hop would want to do it all ourselves. And we burn ourselves out. It really does take ten work to make a dream work. It really does take a community of people to understand your goals and vision.

1:26:52And it takes paying them a fair range. And you must learn to use without being a user. Tell me about your process in writing. How does it happen? I sit in the room. I smoke marijuana. And I wait till the beat tells me what to do. It's always based on the beat. The beat always comes first. You know, I have ideas in my head. I have subjects I want to talk about. But the beat is going to tell me I'm for that subject. I see. And sometimes I will just sit there and the beat will say, this is what you need to say. And now I'll say, oh, I know what I want to say about that. So the thinking lives here in terms of what I like to talk about or what I need.

1:27:29They need to be talked about. But the beat, I used to try to fight the beat, make the beat do what I wanted to do. Beat it out of thought. I wanted to be, that's for you to out. Don't do that. Let the beat take you where you need to go. The best words you can hear in the studio sometimes. I don't know. What are you all right about? I don't know. What kind of dreams are you going to do? I don't know. Because that leaves you a world to explore. So you hear a beat you like. What happens next? If I hear it, I like it. I'll play it for a few seconds to see if I got anything forward. If I can come up with something.

1:28:02Would the first thing that comes be a subject or a line or a phrasing? It worked two different ways. It can work as one bar, one line. It could work as a subject. I've noticed what I'm talking about. But what I found is that the older I get, just get up and get to work. Just get up and put one foot in front of the other. When I was making songs, purely after inspiration when I felt like it, it was a more tedious process to me. Because I had to wait. But something can get you undespired. You can fucking have an argument with your old lady before you want to do it. I always thought I'm undespired.

1:28:30But if I know every day of the week, I'm going to go in Monday through Friday or Tuesday through Friday. I'm going to go in with a four -hour work day at minimum. Eight hours to 10 if I'm really feeling good. But I'm going to do something that every day something is going to be produced. Where if I'm not inspired to do it that day, it's going to inspire me tomorrow. Yeah. And let me go back and listen to it like, oh shit. Let me be on that. Oh, I got something for that. Or that's not it. But I know what I'm supposed to do now. So just show up and go to work every day. And would it be writing the words or would it be saying the words into a mic?

1:29:02I just say the words into a mic. I used to write and I do right now. I am constantly doodling, writing down thoughts, writing down phrases, writing down bars. But what usually happens is I go into the booths and the pad that I was using is there. I heard Maya Angelos say one time when she writes. She puts crossword puzzles and stuff around her. Just look at words. Yeah. And give her a conscious mind something to do. Yeah. So that her subconscious mind can then get to the writing. Let's get to it. So for me, sometimes the pad and the pen is simply to give my thoughts and my conscious mind something to do.

1:29:34So it gets out of the way of the idea compartment of the lines and phrases of saying, should I hadn't said before? And a way I hadn't said it before. And would you say sometimes the phrasing comes first or usually there are words right away? Usually it's words right away. And then I figure out the phrasing. It's usually the line or the line that a county conscious what I'm trying to get to. You have some lines in some where you ask for people to be freed. Yeah. Currently as today is Jamil Alamine. And he was a fierce fighter for all of our lives. I want when people to hear about Jamil Alamine's or Fred Hampton's or Malcolm's and Martin's they're not fighting just for black people's liberation and freedom and solidarity with black folks.

1:30:22They want all people to experience the freedom that we all deserve. So Jamil Alamine is in prison right now for allegedly killing two police officers. It has been reputed, said he did not do it. Former Mayor Andrew Young who was also an assistant to Dr. Kewaer, co -organizing Dr. King has called for his freedom. He's 81 years old. He can't get out and hurt nobody, which is asking him to be at least allowed to do it. And very least an interview would be on it. Be allowed to come home. How long has he been in jail? Nearly about an over a decade. So he should be home. Matulu Shakur was allowed to come home in his final few months and died.

1:31:04So he died in the company of his family and out in a cold cell alone. Thankfully, and I got a chance to talk to him face time. I have a chance to attend his services. Leonard Peltier, Native American Freedom Fighter, should be allowed to come home. Masala Shakur should be taken off our most wanted list. She should be forgiven and absolved of any crimes used to abuse the oven allowed to come home. Mumea Bhucha Maul should be allowed to come home. And many others should be allowed to come home. I even believe that at the age that Jeff Fort and Larry Hoover are now and at the way that we've seen gang violence plummet into us, an endless spiral and a bit of death, that it'd be best if we did like when we go to other countries and gangs or different tribes to fighting, we sit them down and we try to broker a peace treaty.

1:31:52I think that Jeff Fort should be able to come home and Larry Hoover. But in this moment right now, I'm actively in allegiance with organizations and with the son of Jamil Alamin saying, free Jamil Alamin, bring him home. What do you believe today that you didn't believe when you were young? That there's a God. Yeah. I know it. Absolutely. It's my core. I used to question it somewhat because I was raised in such religious households. I was raised in the middle of crack era. Two years, you could see people who you loved and revered and respected. You just saw addiction robbed them of their dignity and their respect and self -respect.

1:32:37And you started to question God because you're a child. You're not even being arrogant. You just don't understand how this terrible thing is happening. And for a long time, I question, you know, my white manager said that he's one of my best friends alone in the house. He said, it's broke after only one. He said, for years, I just thought you were an atheist. And I was like, oh shit, I was probably a Nazi. But I never thought there wasn't a God. But absolutely now, no, absolutely in my core. And how has that revelation been for you?

1:33:14It's made me better, not that I was ever bad. But I stayed, good enough, depending on the situation. She went fucked up, fuck it, I could go. But now I just don't want to go fucked up. I don't want situations to go fucked up. And I want to leave people with a better presence and energy than I met them with. And I want to leave with that myself. So I'm constantly in a state of compliment and uplift and search for the betterment and of beautiful. How does place impact your love of a hip hop artist? So in other words, if someone comes from Atlanta, did they get extra points or can someone from Seattle be favorite?

1:34:03No, I'm looking forward to them. Yeah, I'm looking forward to wherever it comes. From wherever it comes. I think that the tragedy of Atlanta is for how diverse the black population is. Musically, we don't allow ourselves to be bad. Why do you think that is? I don't know because I think that popular music reigns right everywhere. And I think that there's popular music for all of America. There's pop popular music in Nashville, which is essentially country. And I think there's pop popular music in rap. And I think the greatest travesty of the last 25 years of rap as a nation, as this is one big group.

1:34:41We become almost like political parties where I like this party. This is it. I don't see any value or anything else. And we don't allow ourselves to like more than one thing or more than one style. And Atlanta has so many different styles. Atlanta can give you a Kenny Mason, who's a kid who can do a grunge record as easily as he can do a lyrical Southern rapper. It'll give you a bag, who's an a retreat kid, who's in a stone mount to one of the dopeest, most clever, phrase rappers who died. It'll give you Rauri, who fell victim to schizophrenia, but was one of, he was an evolution of T .I .S .S rap music.

1:35:14And he was a producer and MC also. It gives you the outcast, the goody mobs, it gives you the troubles God bless the dead, gives you the alley boys, gives you man the peshy, gives you the gnarly hills, appeals. It gives you this whole class of people that you may not even know exist. And that they're there. I wish that Atlanta did a better job at allowing itself to be diverse. And what I mean by that is the fans just got to dig more shit. The same people at the high museum be at the magic city and be at the state farm arena and be at the Mercedes -Benz arena. We should do that musically as well.

1:35:53You know, I feel like you can single handedly make that happen. When you got to help me, I got to figure that part out because I feel like you can do it. I've been trying to figure that out. I feel like you can do it. I want to do that. I want to do that. That's a really good project. All right. I mean, you guys did it. If you look at Deaf Day, public enemy was not LL, was not the BC boys. I mean, and I don't run them or learn Deaf Day, but still we look at you guys responsible up. Yeah, it was not the same. And I think that honestly, just rappers, that's what's going to save us. How is the world different today than the world you grew up in?

1:36:28It's just as fucked up and evil. More. More. More. Tell me why. I don't know why because human beings have a fascination with pain and suffering in a way that we allow it and watch it like boys. And we want them to stop it. Atlanta's a unique place to crawl up in. Not only because I grew up in this totally black world, but I grew up with these amazing, unique things blossoming happening around me. There's this white man named Ted Turner. He's an amazing, maverick, crazy motherfucker who starts this network called CNN. Ted Turner, the man who single -handedly brought bison back. So we can now you bison, burgers and Ted's restaurant.

1:37:13Ted understands that the future, the world is going to be connected and that Americans live under a propaganda machine like every other country. But he gives us an opportunity to see all over the world at the same time. So the first images that I remember as a child, that are television images that aren't wrestling and of course are like PBS, Mr. Rogers, are the IOTOL of the Manning. And are of us invading Lebanon. And here it is 42 years later and what's happening? Same thing. It's the exact same thing. And where is I would hear criticism of that in the 80s, I don't hear the criticism anymore.

1:37:51And that's what scares me. That somehow we have become not even evil in our intent but in our complacent, which has complacent. A part -time was something that was rallyed against my college students in terms of HBCUs. And I saw it change the world and made companies like Coca -Cola say, in the part -time that we're going to leave it South Africa. I think now there's so many people on so many teams that want to be right. There's no general outrage of the immoral things that states are doing globally. And that scares me that we value statehood over individual lives. We've become a less moral species.

1:38:41Animals eat because they're hungry. My grandfather taught me to hunt and fish as a resolution for hunger. He did not teach me to hunt and fish for sport. And we are now warring and watching war in violence and pestilence at sport.