#2163 - Freeway Rick Ross

25:37There's a place out here, loaves and fishes, right? Is that what's called? We actually went to the house yesterday. There's a community that they have here. I think it's called community first. Hold on a second. I'm going to find out real quick. Yeah. We went there yesterday. I took my family there yesterday. And community first village is this thing that my friend, Alan Graham, has put together. And he's got, right now, there's, I think he's had like a thousand acres. And they build homes for these people. They have all these programs for these people. They have gardens. These people are making art and selling it.

26:26This one woman made a chess set. She sold it for $10 ,000. People are incredible artists. There's a lot of creative, interesting people that just don't know what to do, where to turn. And they've been doing drugs their whole life. They're all fucked up. And they're homeless and they've got records and they don't know what to do. Yeah. And he's helping them. And he's helping them in a really beautiful way. And it can be done. Well, I'd like to connect with him. I will connect you with him. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Because that's the kind of stuff that I want to do. I believe that we got to give people a second chance at 30.

26:58I mean, I don't believe that we should be playing baseball with our lives with other people. Right. Three strikes are out. I mean, if it was your brother, right? It was your brother when he only get three strikes. Of course, brother. If your brother was on drugs, would you say, throwing him in jail for the rest of his life? It was your kid. And everybody should be your brother. All these people are just us. It's just us living different lives. Yeah. It's just us with different circumstances and different things went wrong and different, you know, different people around you giving you bad advice, different bad influences, different everything.

27:32And for this whole, the one of the things that drives me crazy is the pull yourself up by your bootstrap shit. You know, like, shut the fuck up. People don't even have boots. Like, what are you talking about? That's so crazy. Like, you're supposed to do it yourself. People can't breathe. They don't know where to go. They don't have no positive influences. And we don't spend any money on that. I've always said, if you want to make America great again, you really want to make America great? Have less losers. How do you have less losers? Give more people a chance. You're never going to have equal outcomes.

28:06Because some people work harder, some people are smarter, some people are luckier. There's a lot of factors. But what you can have is change the amount of opportunity that people have. Because some people have zero opportunity. They have nothing. And if you give more people opportunity and more people help, you'll have more winners. You'll have more people who successfully living in society, contributing, and everything gets better. And when people see other people win, they can duplicate that. Yes. Yes. They can duplicate a win. Because I keep going back to me having an opportunity to do this T -shirt.

28:42I had no clue to do a T -shirt. I wasn't thinking about doing no T -shirt. That was not in my plan to do no T -shirt. Sometimes they just need that little boost. The little vision from somebody else that's actually out here. Because when I came home, I had no idea what the world was. Everybody had cell phones. Right. Right. They're on computers. And I'm like, I'm like a fish out of water. I don't understand this. I don't even know my way around South Central for a while. It took me a while just to get back to the streets and the avenues. Because so much stuff changed in 20 years. So we give people all this time in prison.

29:28And like you say, someone was on drugs or whatever. And we got us set up a system where they can reagest. Most people go back to prison within the first three or four months. Yeah. They don't know what to do. No, they don't know. I know people that have went back to jail on purpose. Because the outside world was too confusing and scary for them. And they'd rather have the structure of being inside. They're like, at least I get food. At least I know where I'm sleeping. They make it real easy for you and Jill. They wash your clothes, turn the lights on for you. The shower comes on again. So two pace might be cheap.

30:03Yeah. Might be some cheap shit. What is it like finding out that you were a part of this enormous thing that was going on overseas? Shocking. I mean, amazing. First you have to come to, you know, for me, I had to come to realization that I was really a part of that. Let's tell people the scale. Let's talk about the money, the numbers that you were moving. Because it was crazy. At my height from 84 to 86, I was doing at least $1 million every day. And then I had days I'd do as much as $3 million. Safe and it's like the first set of month, which was my business days. The first was like crazy busy.

30:46I would do $3 million that day. Jesus. The second I might do two and a half million, the third I might do a million half. And then after that, be a million dollars every day. And then in the 15, it would spike back up maybe $3 million, maybe $2 .5 million. And then it would start decreasing again. And what did you do with the money? By houses, businesses. You know, when I started selling drugs, I started selling drugs because I wanted to create businesses for me and my friends. You know, we couldn't get jobs. Nobody would hire us. So what I figured, okay, start your own business. Why not open up your own business?

31:28So drugs, I couldn't go to the banking bar money. You know, South Central was red line at that time. You know, there wasn't money on houses and nothing in South Central at that time. We was totally red line. Not like it is right now. You know, South Central is one of the hardest properties in the country where you got a house there. You can borrow money on it. They buy them. But at that time, it was red line. So I didn't have many way to get money in drugs. It looked like a viable source of raising money. This episode is brought to you by Buffalo Trace Distillery. Actually have some Buffalo Trace cigars here.

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32:49It's authentically American representing uncompromising quality for the rugged, the powerful, and the passionate. Tap the banner to learn more or visit buffalotracedustillery .com. That's buffalotracedustillery .com. Distilled, aged, and bottled by Buffalo Trace Distillery, 90 proof, Franklin County, Kentucky, Buffalo Trace, American, family -owned, independent, and perfectly untamed. It was totally baffling to me to find out what I never thought I didn't know what a million dollars was when I first started. When I started selling drugs, probably the most money I'd ever saw was probably like 200 bucks, 300 bucks at one time.

33:39How quick did it come? It took a little, I took a few months. That's crazy though. You know, you know when I started selling drugs, I was a tennis player. So I was very disciplined. I did my runs, my backhand is off, I'm going to hit 300, 400 backhand, over and over and over again. I'm not going to stop until I do my number. And I took that same mentality into the drug business. You know, I'm not going to stop selling my drugs and take my girlfriend to the movies. You know, I'm not going to the club. I'm not drinking. I'm not smoking. You know, I'm going to stay up under this tree and wait till the money comes.

34:28It's funny because that discipline would have served you well in anything that you had an opportunity to do. I just didn't know that. Nobody ever sent me down and told me, I didn't have a coach. I didn't have my mentors, so drugs, robbed people, stole cars. You know, those were my mentors, those were the guys. You know, my mom and dad broke up before when I was four months old. So I didn't really know my dad, made him a few times. So the male figures that I saw was these street guys, you know, crypts, you know, bloods. And when I stopped playing tennis, I was 18 years old. And I was old enough to know like, I ain't shooting nobody because he wear red.

35:12I ain't shooting nobody because he wear no blue. You know, I ain't with that. I'm not sticking a gun in nobody face to rob them. You know, I'm not doing it. So I had to find what I felt was a valuable way of making an living. And when I saw cocaine, shoot, they come over and they dancing. We going to the club. I need a 50. Me and my girl, we turned it up tonight. So I was like, damn, they're gonna get you $50. And you make them feel like that? I want to point at that. I want to be with that. I want to be the one to make them happy like that there. And I'm gonna get paid to make them feel like that there.

35:51I'm all in. And I dove in, you know, and I was in love. I was in love with the business. And it was, it wasn't the first very successful thing that you'd been a part of. Yeah. I mean, I was a little successful at tennis. You know, I made all conference on City. But that didn't put no money in my pocket. Right. Right. All the trophies was good. And you know, the pads on the back. But, you know, now I'm putting money in my pocket. You know, I can go by my mom's house and say, hey, go pay your light bill. Yeah. You know, put gas in your car. You know, my little brother and sisters didn't have to go to school with holes and they tennis shoes no more.

36:32You know, it's really crazy, Rick. Here we are in 2024. You know, this is 40 years later. Right. 40 years. 40 years later and nothing's changed in terms of drug dealing. Nothing's changed in terms of drugs being legalized. They're still giving money to criminals. And particularly criminals in Mexico. I mean, that's literally what funds the cartels. And the fact that there's a demand in America. And the supply is all brought over or for the most part, a lot of it is brought over by the Mexican cartels. We're just empowering them. We're just giving them money. And you know, I thought about that a lot about what you saying.

37:18And because in order to get rid of drugs, the way they're trying to do it, they would have to get rid of all three elements. You know, you'd have to get rid of the manufacturers. You have to get rid of the distributors and you have to get rid of the users. Yeah. Because if you get rid of one, the other two are going to create that one again. And I would like to know, I mean, I don't necessarily think you should do cocaine. I've never done it. I got lucky. Excuse me. When I was in high school, my friend's cousin got hooked on Coke and I watched his light fall part. And I was like, oh, I don't want nothing to do with that.

37:52I was always terrified that I was going to do something that was going to turn me into a loser. So, you know, I grew up poor and we moved around a lot and I always felt out of place. I never felt like I had anything going on in my life until I started doing martial arts when I was a kid. When I was like 15. That's when I really got into it. And then from then on, I said, this is the key to life. The key to life is discipline and focus. And I don't want nothing that's going to take away my focus. Nothing's going to take away my drive. And I saw my friend's cousin. I was like, God, damn, he was a good dude.

38:28And now he's like a vampire. And I was like hiding in his attic apartment. And they're all just like doing coke all the time and selling coke was horrible. So, I never fucked with coke. But I know a lot of successful people that every now and then they do a little coke. You know, and I think it's like everything else. I think it's, I mean, there's a lot of thing. Alcohol is addictive. I like a little alcohol every now and then. I don't think it's that bad. You know, I don't think weed's bad. I don't, I don't think any of these things are bad. I think what's bad is bad behavior and bad thinking and not understanding the consequences of what you're doing.

39:02And the consequences of what we're doing by making drugs illegal is so crazy. Because all we're doing, we're not reducing the demand or not reducing the supply. We're just empowering criminal elements in another country that now are immensely powerful. And it makes people want to get involved because of the money. Incredible amounts of money. And if you're living in Mexico, shit, you think South Central is poor. You know, try being born in these places where you live in these houses with no windows and dirt floors and you see some dude driving by in a fucking beautiful car, you know, with a gold -plated gun.

39:41And that's the fucking, that's L. Hefe. And that's the dude. That's who you look up to. That's what you want to be. And we're empowering that. We're empowering all of that in this country by our stupid fucking laws. I agree. I totally agree what you're saying. And I thought about that. That what would happen if coke lost its value totally. You know, if they had no value. I mean, if it was worth what it's really worth. You know, it's a plant, so it grows wild. So it doesn't take anybody to grow it. So you're talking about it might be worth pennies. But it's the value that we create that attracts people to coke.

40:20And it's also making it illegal. So it's difficult to get. Yeah, making it illegal creates a value. Because if it wasn't illegal, people would just let it sit there. Or they would traffic it and then it wouldn't be worth, you know, it wouldn't be worth hauling because everybody would have it. And the way I see it that if it loses its value, most people that I saw get started with coke start off selling. And they get curious. Well, what does it do for you? And they try it. And they don't, or not capable of not doing anymore. I did it for about two weeks. You know, I went out and got up to like, I don't, my cousins talk me and they go ahead and try.

41:06Go ahead and try it. Because I'd never tried it before. So I'd never smoke marijuana or nothing at that time. And they talk me into trying it. And when I looked up, I had like $300. I had about $9 ,000 worth of coke. And when we finished, I had $300. So what I realized is that they had tricked me into getting started so that they could get high. Because they didn't have me money. So I bought that day when I finally cleared my head up. I said, you know what, I'm never doing it again. And I never done coke again. Yeah, it's not a good drug. But there's a lot of things that aren't good drugs. Do you know who Dr.

41:48Carl Hart is? No, I never heard of it. He's a professor at Columbia. And he was a clinical researcher. And he was a very straight -laced guy. Never did any drugs. No, nothing. And when he started doing clinical research on different drugs and different things, he realized that all the things that were being told about drugs are incorrect. A lot of it is overinflated. A lot of it is exaggerated. And you know, he talks openly about responsible drug use. I mean, this guy's a professor, legitimate academic, and intellectual. And he talks openly about his own personal drug use. Yeah. About how, you know, that these things can be used responsibly.

42:31But that thought is never out there. Nobody says that. And everybody tells you, if you do drugs, you're going to be an addict. You do drugs. You're going to be a loser. Well, you know, these people, so many people are making money off of the illegal drug market. I mean, if you just imagine how much money has been spent on incarceration, on probation, on prison, some things. Just prison, some things. So these people don't want, they don't want drugs to not be valuable to the system. They want it to stay the way it is so they can keep making their money. So they do commercials and they market just like everybody else market their business to stay in business.

43:10Right. So those are the things that we're dealing with. And we have to get people that are more sensible. You know, when I got home and found out that marijuana was illegal, you know, it was like, wow. Finally, we waking up, you know. I was just 2016 though in California, where it's made legal. Well, when I got, medically, medically it was legal when I got home. Right. Yeah, it was medically legal in the 90s. Yeah. I mean, I got a card. I get headaches. Right. Hey, you were smoking when I was on the show, you know, remember? Yeah. And that leads me to, uh -oh, you're in the business. I'm in the business.

43:50But you know what's interesting is there's, there's, there's certain gifts. Oh, what have you got here? Here's my new strings. All right. You know, I got to dispensary. You do? I got to dispensary. I'm a legal marijuana dealer. The state's on that. That's incredible. I told you, been going a long time. Wow. That's great to hear, though, man. Look, I'm a big fan of that. Uh, and, you know, in Texas, it's illegal, but you can get this stuff called Delta 9 THC. That's legal. And apparently it's legal federally. So you can just get that. It's very, the whole thing is very strange. It's like, there's worse things in this world than marijuana.

44:29Oh my God. Marijuana makes people calmer, makes people funnier. Make you go to sleep. Make you go to sleep. Yeah. I get some sleep. It makes people more sensitive to other people. It really makes you more compassionate. It does a lot of things for you. Oh, man, when I went to my first, because it all goes back to, I go to my first, when I get off parole, it's just crazy, right? They have an a high time event in LA that day I get off parole. High times? High time event. The day I get off parole, so my boy from Cincinnati, he flying out to the TLA. So he flies out to LA, he comes by the house. He's like, man, you are parole.

45:05Let's go celebrate. And I was like, cool, where are we going? He's like, man, they have an a high time event coming. And I was like, oh, no, I don't want to get with that drug stuff, man.

45:17Because you know, I'm still even though I've been through all I've been through, I'm still under this impression that they've been instilling in us. Oh, what marijuana is a gateway drug? Right. You know, so I'm still tripping off of that. So I was like, oh, man, I don't want to go out there. You know, I start selling marijuana or get involved with the marijuana. Next thing you know, I'll be back doing coke. Because I understood that I'm an addict. I was an addict to selling cocaine. I mean, I love. If I had a problem, my old lady started arguing, I'd just go sell some coke.

45:49Well, it's a success, right? So that made me feel better. Yeah, you're selling a lot. You're making a lot of money. And I felt better. Why wouldn't you be addicted to that? I forget about your friend in the hospital sick. I'm selling cocaine. Right. So now I forgot I'll buy him being sick. So coke had become like a crutch to me. Where anything that went wrong for me, coke made it better. I mean, you know, like the commercial, you know, everything goes better with coke. Which used to be made with coke, which is crazy. So it had become like a crutch to me. And when I was going to the high -time event, I was scared of that happening.

46:30And he was like, man, I bet you sell a lot of books and t -shirts. I said, oh, let's go. I bet you did. Man, I found myself out there. Man, those people treated me so good. I was like, what the fuck? I want to be in this community. And after that day, you know, I've been chasing the marijuana business in 2019 and 2016 when the federal, when they changed the law, I went there and they, you know, first they didn't want to convict the fellas to work in the industry. Right. I was like, what the fuck? How you guys going to say that? And we once made it with an industry as legal now. Had the people not go to jail for selling marijuana, you never would have thought about legalizing it.

47:11Right. And they had me to argue to City Council. Wow. That issue. That's crazy. So I got to argue the issue and they broke down and now everybody around the country adopted that philosophy and it put in convicted felons in the front of the line. That's incredible. You know, the federal government is reducing it to a schedule three now. And the issue is just totally legal. A hundred percent, but at least it's a schedule three, which is, what is scheduled? What's also listed in schedule three? I think cocaine might be actually. It's like medically, or it's medically. Do you know that Coca -Cola is one of the largest importers of Coca -Leaves?

47:53The Coca -Leaves still flavor Coca -Cola? I didn't know that. And that there's a plant that supplies Coca -Cola, there's a plant that takes the cocaine out of the Coca -Leaves, creates this flavonoids, these flavors, that's why Coke tastes better than Pepsi. Sorry, Pepsi. This is, if you're a Coke fan, this is like the flavor that Coke has is flavored partially at least by cocaine. Coca -Scheduled two. Interest three would be, it's like, it says ketamine, testosterone, anabolic steroids, co -deen. Oh, mild. Some sure, yeah. Well, co -deen, that's interesting. Ty and all with co -deen, probably is at a less than 90 milligrams.

48:38Okay. So then, that's where marijuana's going to be, which is still ridiculous. What schedule is ambient? That shit's fucking scary. What schedule is that, or all? What's that, or all? Well, just set it right there, James. Yeah. If you click on what schedule is there, right above? What schedule is that, or all? Scheduled two. That stuff is fucking crazy. I know a lot of people hooked on that. Scheduled four. Less, that's funny. Xanax, Xanax is four. I know a lot of people have been fucked up by Xanax. Does it? Valium? I know a lot of people that have been fucked up by Valium. Fucked up by Valium.

49:17Yeah. And then that stuff is less illegal than marijuana. It's crazy. We're so silly. I mean, it's a little baby steps towards legalization. That's one thing that California has above Texas for sure, is the legalization of marijuana. It should be legal federalized. But they tax this shit out of us in California. I wish they did. And I wish they did something good with it. I wish they took those taxes and cleaned up Oakland. I wish they did. They give it to the police department. They don't even do that, man. They're defunding the police department in California by $150 million for the new budget proposal.

49:51$150 million. All the fucking problems they have. And they're defunding. They, what they should do, if you want to tax it, like you're making plenty of money, I'm sure. A lot of people want to buy weed, take that money and fix the fucking problems. Use that money. Use that money to fix the problems. Stop with all the bureaucracy. Stop with all these fucking useless people that are getting paid for these programs, like the homeless programs in Los Angeles. It's just a scam. It's just a bunch of people making money. Some of them upwards of $250 ,000 a year. To fix the homeless problem. And they're not doing jack shit.

50:30Yeah, I could fix the homeless problem in a couple of months. You think so? Absolutely. You just go out and build some nice houses and let them stay there. And tell them they don't have to fill out the application. Most of the people that this homeless, they can't, they can't, the applications, you know, when you, when you run a credit, they credit it as fucked. Right. You know, they didn't pay a light bill or phone bill and taxes. Taxes, whatever, you know. So they credit it as fucked up. And I mean, the problem can be solved. You know, but it got to be somebody who said, you know what, we're going to throw a few, maybe 50 ,000, a hundred million in the building, some low income houses, that we're also going to have some treatments, you know, where people get treated, where they get job training.

51:11There's just so many things. I mean, I don't know. And even when I look at, you know, some of us are supposed to be millionaires, billionaires, you know, the way they, I don't know. I would, I would look at this problem and I would solve it totally different. Because even though I like making money, I'm not, I'm not like typical people. They get the money and they want to harness it and they just want it for themselves so that they can look down on everybody else. I don't think money is supposed to be used like that. I think money is supposed to be put back into the community, where the community can rejuvenate and the money circulates into the community.

51:46And that makes everything better for everybody. Absolutely. Yeah. You don't want to be the only one who's doing well. No. That's not a good place to be in life. Well, you know, a lot of people are like that. You know, they're fools. It's just a fool swear thing. When we look at the way, you know, the situation with puff daddy, you know, he had money so he treated everybody else like shit. You know, like, you know, lick a tampon, you know, like what the fuck? What's the crazy motherfucker who wants somebody to lick a tampon? Yeah. You know, I mean, that's how you get your kicks. You know, I get, I would get my kick by seeing somebody do good.

52:17Like, look at that motherfucker. He doing good. That's my, that's my motherfucker boy. Yeah. You know, that's a good kick. I like that kick. Yeah. Some people get a kick off of degrading people. They get a kick off of being the most powerful person. Yeah. You know, and that's a, that's an evil inclination that is built into humanity for some reason. There's always been that impulse for some people to do that. It's very unfortunate. I think power, you can hide your power. You don't even have to show it. You can be powerful and nobody even knows your power because you don't have to use it. That's when you're really powerful when you don't have to use it.

52:54You're like, you know, so powerful, don't nobody make me use it. Yeah. And you're using your power for good. Yeah. It's, I mean, there's a lot of people with some good ideas in this world. And I think we're, you know, there's a lot of people that vary down on the future. I don't think that helps anybody. I think there's a real possibility that we come out of this better. It's just we have to think right and act right. And then sometimes you got to go to the bottom, you know, they say, they say, one of the books I read is said that the end of the storm starts at the worst. You know, when you get to the worst, if you're in bad the worst, that's the beginning of the end.

53:31That's the beginning of the end. That's the beginning of the end. So, you know, we got to go through the worst, you know, everybody buckle up and, and, you know. I think that has to happen too. I really do. I think people have to see things fall apart before they realize like, oh, we had it good. And we didn't even realize we had it good. Yeah. And now we're fucked and now we have to turn the shit around. You know, we've been going the wrong way. We've been going the wrong way for sure, but we've been led the wrong way. And we've been led the wrong way by people like what we were just talking about before that use their power to subjugate others to keep everybody else down.

54:04And then we got all these old motherfuckers who've been running things for, for too long. You know, like, why do you stay in the Senate in Congress for 30 years, you know, like... Did you ever look at the founding fathers how young they were? I haven't. It's crazy. One of them was 18. One of them was 21. These are the people that started the Declaration of Independence. They signed it. These are the people that were the founding fathers of this experiment and self -government that you and I both live in. They were young as fuck, man. Now you look at the people that are in Congress now, you look at people like, you know, like the president.

54:42He can't even form a sentence. He doesn't know the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan when he's talking to foreign leaders. He's out of it. He's too old. Yeah. He's too old. And then, you know, Mitch McConnell, he just locks up when he's talking to people. He's like, he's too old. He shouldn't be doing this. He's not trying to make the world a better place. He's just trying to not let go of his position of power. And that's, well, a lot of them and they get there through years and years and years of being deeply embedded into the system. And they know how to work it. And next thing, they're the top dogs.

55:16I think they all should go spend a couple of days in jail, you know. Wouldn't be bad. Yeah, just go sit there for a couple of weeks, you know, and then see what it's like. Go on the ghetto. Go on the homeless camp. Yeah. Then I'm living a homeless camp for a week, you know, eat the food that they eat. Right. And then you really, you really become an American. I think if you're not experiencing real life, then you don't know what real life is. Right. You know, if you don't see it, you don't touch it, you know, some of these people never go out to the communities. Right. They go straight from universities, right into jobs in the system.

55:50They work their way up the ladder. Yeah. And then they have disdain for the common people, which it could have been them. You know, different role to dice, different circumstances, different lives, different parents, different parents, different place you live, different brother, different everything could have been them, could have been them. And people don't want to think that they want to they will genuinely want to believe they're special, which I think is a trap. Well, we all special. Yeah, but I mean, special, different than everybody else. Yeah. When you start to look down on everybody else, that's bad.

56:23Yeah. You know, when you feel privileged for no reason, you know, and if you go out and you do something special, you know, then maybe you special, you know, but if you're not doing anything that anybody else can do, then you know better than nobody else. Well, there's definitely special people, but special people are just people. And they're just people that have put an extraordinary amount of effort and time and maybe they have just a God -given talent. And they've achieved incredible things. And those people also, what they do is they elevate everyone around them because they make you realize, like, wow, my watermark was here.

56:57Now it's here. Those are the people that I consider special. Yeah, that's the truth. You can make other people, right? You can lift up other people. Yes. Then you're a special. Yeah, I mean, there's so many people just by virtue of their success and the example that they said, they changed the course of so many people's lives because they looked to those people for inspiration. And it gives them the energy to go out and do things. It gives them the energy, the thoughts, the idea, like that idea, I can do it. That's what I want to do. I want to succeed. And it could be a great thing or it could be what happened to you.

57:29It's like the wrong inspiration. Absolutely. You know, you say, that's what these guys are succeeding. We don't have shit. They have money. I can do that. And then you do that. But you know, that could be in your case, it turned out to not be good, but in other people's cases and different things with different examples of people that are succeeding. Like you could have done what you did in the drug game if you had better opportunities in fucking anything. I agree. And it's the genuinely, it's the discipline of an athlete, which is an extraordinary discipline. The discipline to force yourself to do things you don't want to do.

58:08You develop that ability and the ability to like really hone in and focus and have drive and work ethic. That translates to everything, everything. You just got to find a different thing to do. And now with the internet, it makes it better, but we got to get people to where they understand that they should try to do it. Because once you get beat down, once you get beat down, you feel like, why should I try? I'm going to get beat down again. I don't have the support. I don't have the crutch to hold me in position until I can be on my strength up to be on my own. I think that we as a society have to give this to our children because if we don't, our children are going to be in trouble.

58:57Yeah, that's true. Yeah, our entire society. And our society, we're also supposed to be one team. Yes, yes. I mean, if we have countries at all, if you believe in America, you believe in any country, that's supposed to be your team. So everybody is supposed to be on that team together. And everybody is supposed to be trying to make the team win. Yes. The whole team. And that can be done. And no man left behind. No man left behind. If something is wrong, you know, we got to look out for the ones that are slow. That's the sign of bad leadership in our country, that that's not being addressed. That's bad leadership.

59:38That all they're doing is serving the interests of all the wealthy people that got them into power in the first place. And the wealthy people, you know, once you get wealthy, you should want to be a philanthropist. I mean, in my opinion, one of the greatest things that a person could do is help somebody else. You know what I mean? That is so, to me, that's like so fulfilling. You know, people tell me, you know, when I do stuff for people, they'd be like, oh man, thank you, thank you. And I'll be like, thank you. I should be thanking you because you just made my day, you know. I got off by doing that.

1:00:13Yeah, that's what people don't realize. Doing something nice for people is selfish. Yeah. Because I mean, you feel selfish. Like they might ask me for a picture in the airport and I'd be like, for sure. You want to take a picture with me. Right. You make them feel good, but you make them feel good. And then you give them some good advice. Yes. And it's like, wow, what a filling it is, you know. So I don't know. It's just, you know, I just come up different, you know. And I'm front of the streets, you know, I'm from where people kill you for colors. You know, some of my first heroes was Tookie Williams, you know.

1:00:49I should look up to Tookie Williams. I want to be like Tookie. I want to be a Crip, you know. So to now see the world to where I should be trying to save lives, you know, is a total different mentality than when I was 12 years old, 11 years old, you know. Yeah. And I'm saying, guys, fight over color and stuff. That was because I was ignorant. I didn't know any better. Right. You know, but once I was educated to the facts that, hey, we supposed to be helping save lives, not destroying a life. What was it like once you got into jail and learned how to read and then started reading and recognizing that the world was just a much different place than time blowing.

1:01:36Mind blowing. I hate that nobody ever sit me down and explain to me how, how exciting book reading was. And, and, you know, the books I started to read was about making money. I got to tell you that too. There was about either making money or how the mind works, you know, how to, how to think, you know, how to think successfully, how to have faith in yourself, how to believe in you. You know, because when, when you don't believe in yourself, it's hard to believe in anything. Right. You know, if you believe you're a loser, then you think everybody else is losers as well. Right. So having these experiences in these books, you know, thinking grow rich by Napoleon Hill, like just blew my mind, you know, like, fuck people who actually think like this here, you know, like, you can think and grow rich.

1:02:34You can use your mind to create and, and you only really need one idea that could, could make you a fortune, you know, that you shouldn't be allowing other people to feed your mind, their ideas, you know, what they think you should be, you know, because when I was coming up, other people affected the way I thought, you know, like, man, you play tennis. That's a girl sport, you know, you, you, you write, you read in a book. Why you read in a book? You need a gun. You know, so these things start to shape your mind. And, you know, when I find out from James Allen that I am the gardener of my mind.

1:03:20And I have to keep my mind weed free. You know, I have to pluck the weeds out as soon as that negative thought pop in, because you know, even since I've been home, you know, they're not off me coke. I didn't have a few guys coming, oh, I was just playing. You know, Nudgey on the show that I was just playing. Just see, see where you was at with it. So, as soon as those things happen, you gotta get rid of them, you know, because when Blandaughan approached me about selling drugs again, I wasn't playing on selling drugs no more. But when he kept off from it, and when I listened to the tape in court, man, you know, I'm in court.

1:03:59We going to trial and they playing the tapes of I recorded phone calls. And he says, Rick, I got 700 kilos. The first thing popped out of my mind, my mouth. And I don't even know I said this how much first thing. And I'm going to tell myself, I have promised myself, Joe, I promised myself and my kids. I'm never selling coke again. But when he asked me that question on that tape, which is probably what convicted me. Wow. I said, how much? Wow. Unconsciously. I think I had fallen in the sleep behind the wheel. So you decided to get out? I was out. I had so drugs in five and a half, six years. Really?

1:04:50Yeah. And the conversations on the phone or what got you convicted? Yeah. Was he wearing a wire? He was wearing a wire. He was recording a conversation. He had already become a government informant. Oh my God. And I asked him how much? Oh my God. They played that over and over in the courtroom. How much? How much? I just kept hearing myself say, how much? I just put my head down because I knew that that was a crucial mistake. Wow. Even though I didn't bite that time. I didn't bite. But you did say how much? I did say how much. That's all it took. So that showed the interest. Oh my God. It's if I were to say, oh, I don't fuck with drugs no more.

1:05:35But I'm talking to my partner. I'm talking to the homie. Right. We chopping it up. Right. Oh times. Just at a curiosity. Good times. I don't fuck with drugs anymore. But at a curiosity. What kind of figures are we talking about here? Yeah. It's exciting too, right? Yeah. That's also a part of the problem. I get a life gets mundane. Seven drugs is exciting. Bad girls. Oh my. Girls. Like, girls. Like, girls. I bet. I tried to deal with a lot of money. Nice cars. Yeah. Pay for nice hotels. Yeah. Girls with nice things. Buy you nice gifts. Nice shoes. Nice bag. Nice this. Nice clothes. So it's easy.

1:06:23You know, when I go out and I talk to these young guys, I don't criticize them. Because I understand what they're going through. And I understand that if we don't replace the drug with something else, don't even ask them to quit. Right. Why? Why would you ask somebody not to feed their kids, you know, not to bait a body, girlfriend or shoes, she wants, and you know, we have to come up with things. Because you know, most of the manufacturing jobs overseas. Right. You know, we don't make anything in America anymore. Very little. Very little. Yeah. That, that, how crazy is that? Who the fuck didn't see that coming?

1:07:02That that was going to ruin everything. Huh. Have people in other countries that are extremely poor work for almost nothing.

1:07:12It's weird, man. We're a, we're a goofy, goofy culture. And we have so much information. It's not like the solutions impossible to solve. You know, we can fix it. Yeah. We can fix it. But we got to start. Yeah. Right, what we at. You know, we got to, we got to put our hands down and our feet down and say, you know what, we're going to make a stands. And, and, you know, that's what I believe. You start with what you got, where you at, you know, so many people want things to be perfect. No, it ain't going to be perfect. You know, you might have to go through a little something. You might have to miss a couple meals, you know, but this is what it's going to take.

1:07:53Yeah. It's, it's just hard if someone's already making a lot of money doing something illegal. It's very hard to tell them you're going to make way less money. And you're going to work way harder and you're not going to enjoy it. But it's going to be legal. That's a very hard sell, very hard sell. It is, it is. But we got to put people first. We got to learn. I mean, we got to stop being stupid. Yeah. And I believe when, when, when we don't put people first, we're being stupid. Yes. Because without people, there's no drugs, there's no business, there's no nothing. We are people. We are people.

1:08:31It's us. It's just one team, team human. That's a win, baby. Yeah. The crazy thing is there's enough resources for everybody. There's enough for everybody. There really is. It's just our system. It's just manipulated and all fucked up and poorly organized and badly planned. I agree. Yeah. I agree. You know, you know, I'm deep, deep in the marijuana industry now and, and I'm watching these guys and these guys are making millions of dollars. But I'm watching them cut their own throat. I'm sitting here and I'm literally watching them like take razor blades to their necks. How so? Well, some of it I can't talk on that air about it because it ain't proper.

1:09:22Right. Got it. Got it. But I would just tell you that, that, that, that I'm being privileged to see this business destroy itself. I'm watching them just destroy their business, you know. No organization, no, no camaraderie, you know. I'm going to beat this guy out, I'm going to beat that guy out. I'm going to put him out of business and they're really going to put themselves out of business at the same time. It's like, I saw a thing in National Deografic when I was in jail and it was an alligator and a, when those big water marcuses was fighting. And the water marcusen, one of the swallowing the alligator.

1:10:04Really? Yeah. But in the process, he swallowed the alligator. So an alligator go inside, he's still alive. He takes his claws and go like this here. Oh, go. Part of his last. It was probably a python. Might've been a python. Yeah, that's in the Everglades. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know the largest population of pythons in the world is in the Everglades? I didn't know. Not even from the Everglades. I didn't know that. I just asked holes, releasing them. And then maybe a research center that got hit with a hurricane. There's a lot of speculation about how the population got so large, but there's over a half a million pythons.

1:10:44Wow. But yeah, they swallowed the alligator and the alligator cuts its way out of their body and then they both die. They both die. There's a photo of one of a 12 foot alligator bursting out of the body of a python. Look at this. So this python swallowed this alligator and then the alligator's tail is poking out of it as it clawed its way out. That's its tail. Yeah. So they're both dead. They both die. Yeah. And especially when you're talking about the weed business, how much weed can you sell? You really want to put everybody out of business? Are you fucking retarded? Why don't you just like make as much money as you can and then encourage all these other people to make as much money as they can and hang out together?

1:11:31Go have a barbecue together. Go fucking good. I'm just letting everybody do good. Everybody set limits. Everybody set limits. Okay, we're going to make this some more money. Yeah. The competition is within yourself. The competition is to do better. And if you see other people doing better than you, you say what are they doing different than me? You should be inspired instead of trying to like squash their business. They can't think. It's stupid. It's stupid. These people can't think they like, they like, I mean, they like gang bangers almost to me. It's very similar. There's the same patterns.

1:12:03Those patterns exist in politics, in business, in everything. Drug dealing, gang bang, everything. You should exist like that in comedy. You used to be a comedian's where I'll out for themselves. You know, just take someone to kind of explain to everybody. Like, this is stupid. There's not that many of us. We're all in this together. There's no, it doesn't benefit you at all. That makes society better. Yes. Let's make everything better. Let's make everything better. That's what it's supposed to be about. That's what it should be about. When it's all said and done, you know, I read a book and the guy says, when you're at the end, how do you want to be remembered?

1:12:42And me, I want people to say, maybe they might say I sold drugs. I don't care about that part. Yeah. I only sold drugs eight years. But at the end, I wanted to say he made the world a better place because he lived. You know, when I go out like that there, I'll be a happy man. Well, sometimes you have to do the wrong thing in order to be an example of someone who can do the wrong thing and course correct and then become a better person. Like, if you're just a good person from the beginning, that's kind of boring. I like the guy who fucks up a few times and then figures it out. And then that can inspire people who have already fucked up their life because people want to think that once they fucked up their life, oh my god, I'm a fuck up.

1:13:26But that's not really the case. You just, this life is like treat it like a game. Like if you lose one hand of cards, you're not a card loser for the rest of your life. You got to figure out what did I do wrong? Well, I hit at 17. I should have just stuck in the, you know, I would have been all right. You got to learn. And the only way to learn is to fuck up. And this idea that once someone fucks up there, a fuck up. No, they're a human being. They're a human being with either bad information or bad counseling or bad examples. And they went down the wrong way. Get off the carpet. Yeah. They knock you down, get up.

1:14:01Yep. Get up. Because they say you still to champ as long as you get up. Well, a lot of people will disagree with that. I mean, it's just, it's unfortunate this mentality that people have. It's a famine mentality. And there's enough for everybody. There really is. And it's also what you were saying that you like, it's selfish to be generous. It's selfish to be nice. It's selfish to help people because it makes you feel better. It really does. It's really beneficial to you as, and you feel good about yourself. You're like, at the end of the night, when you lay your head down, you're like, I'm not a piece of shit.

1:14:34I'm a good guy. I'm helping people. So people like me, and I like them, and everybody, we all benefit, and everybody grows. And that's nice. That's a good way to live your life. And that's a good example to set, and that can be done. And it's this idea that there's, you know, that's just you against the world. That's, that's crazy. Yeah. That's getting, that's going to fuck you over. And I think that's a big problem that we have. And then, you know, hopefully we can start working on that. Have you met this rapper that has been running around with your name? He dodges me. He dodges me. He never seen him?

1:15:08No, I call him BadXLipper. You see what happened other night? He walked Agent Bronner into the ring. And Agent Bronner got knocked out? Or you didn't get knocked out, he got beat up. The worst. The worst. Yeah. He ever got before in his life. Well, Agent Bronner is a cautionary tale, because he was an incredibly talented young man. Very, very talented when he was young. But he fucked off too much. And he didn't stay the path. He didn't stay disciplined. And, you know, he had some losses. And my Donna heard him. That was like the first one. Yeah. There's a few different fights. He just, you know, and now what is he?

1:15:4335, 36. Broke. And if you're, if you're normal men, healthy men, when they hit 36, their body starts to decline. Absolutely. And he's not that healthy. I mean, he was fat just a little while ago. So, Javonte Davis took him in and he started training with Javonte. And he documented it. So he showed photos of like, he had this big belly. He looked fat, now a shape. And then leaned himself down to where he had a six back again. But you're just getting back in shape. These motherfuckers that you're fighting have been in shape for a decade. It's damn shape for a decade. The reflexes and timing and technique is finally honed to a razor's edge.

1:16:26You can't just jump back in and compete with some dude who's been on the game for 10 fucking straight years. Yeah. And his focus on the path. It takes a long time to get back to where you were. Yes. Forget about to where they are. You might look the part. You may have to hit pads and everybody's like, always back. Like, the difference between success and failure in the boxing game is fractions of a second. Fractions of a second. The ability to maintain a pace for as many rounds as the fight is. The understanding of how to pace yourself, the ability to handle the pressure. The pressure of knowing that you fucked up for so long, and this is a big opportunity, to nerves, the anxiety, the sleepless nights before the fight.

1:17:10All that's going to weigh on you. All those different things. When you look at the elite of the elite boxers, to a man, to every one of them, they're disciplined. And they stay focused. And like, okay, you know who's the same age as Adrian Broner? Terrence Crawford. Best boxer in the world. Agree. Best boxer. Agree. I am so excited to see this fight with Canelo Alvarez, because I think the Saudi Arabians have so much money. They are throwing so much money at boxing. And the guy who's the head of boxing over there wants to make that fight happen. I think Terrence Crawford forget about the three -way classes.

1:17:46I think he can be Canelo. I think he can too. He's the best switch hitter in boxing since Marvin Hagler. And his hands are like rocks. Oh. I held his hand in Dallas. You know, I found kid Austin, the boxer. Oh, did you? Yeah. You know, he was 2 and 0. So I helped him get to where he's at now, even though I don't get any credit for it. I'm people fucking you over there. So I went to that fight and Terrence was there, and I was with Anthony Peterson. You know, I managed Anthony Peterson. Anthony 39. He wants to come back. So we're going to see. But Anthony deals with it a little different. Anthony stays in shape, sparring.

1:18:25But anyway, I held Terrence's hand, and they sold down big. And they like a sack of rocks. And I was like, damn, this dude hands are like rocks. So I'm taking Terrence in that fight as well. I took him in the Earl Spencer fight too. Yeah, I thought Earl Spencer, first of all, Earl Spencer, that car accident is crazy. If you watch that car accident, nobody comes out of a car accident like that, not damaged. He had to get brain damage from that car accident. That car flipped. He got thrown out of the car. Luckily, he wasn't wearing a seatbelt, which is so crazy. It's one of the few times where someone not wearing a seatbelt saved their life.

1:19:00He benefited. Yeah, crazy. But that had to fuck him up. I mean, he was undefeated before that. Yeah. But you know what, Crawford is so good anyway. And he's a different guy. He's a different guy. You know, no parties, no drinking. No, he's clever. He's clever. He sets traps. You know, he's not just a power striker. I mean, not that Earl Spencer is not a great boxer. He's a great boxer, but I think Terrence is one of the all -time greats. He's just so slick. Like, you know, like he talked about how he knew that he was going to eat a punch in order to counter. So he had to like put himself in range so the new Earl could hit him so that he could crack him.

1:19:41He's like, I knew I had a gamble on this. And you know, this is like levels to the way that guy fight. The game he plays. Yeah. When he gets you hurt, you're fucked. Oh, yeah. You're fucked. Oh, yeah. You don't want to be hurting him when you're... He's not going to miss some opportunities. He's on that all -time greatness track, you know. And... But again, he's like the same age as Adrian Broner. He's like Adrian Broner when he was young was crazy talented. He was so fast and so good. But you just... You can't fake that game. You are either all in or you are faking it. Yeah. And if you are faking it, you're going to run into some dude who's all in.

1:20:24You're going to run into some David Benavita's character that's just not skipping days. No. Not skipping days. Who really won it? Really wants it. It's everything you want. It's hard when they get the money to stay on that track. When they get rich, you know. You want to enjoy... I guess you want to enjoy your money. Of course. Of course, but that comes out of price. And some people, the only person that I know that has really been able to avoid that temptation is Floyd. Floyd Mayweather was still elite, the elite of the elite, while he had hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah. Just still. He would go to a club, drink water, and then run home was jeans on.

1:21:07Run home for miles. He'd have his driver's drive and he'd run him up. We picked him up in Memphis. He got off the plane. He looked like he was on the plane working out. He probably was. Yeah. He had on his shorts and was sweaty. And he ran straight in, went in the shower, shawled up, then put his suit on and went to the club. So what you're saying is what I believe is to be correct. Yeah. He shows you all the watches and shows you all the cars and shows you the big house. But you don't see is the discipline, the just straight forward eyes on the prize, discipline and focus. That's how you get to be a Floyd Mayweather.

1:21:46You don't get to be a Floyd Mayweather any other way. Yeah. There's a lot of talented people out there. There's a lot of people that are gifted, athletically gifted, they're faster than other folks. They hit harder than other folks. But it's the discipline, the focus that leads you to the end. And that's how you become a great. There's no other way. There's no one becomes like a sugary Leonard or a Floyd Mayweather or a Tommy Burns without discipline. It doesn't happen. You have to stay focused always. And if you don't, then worse, then you're left with a life of regret. What else are we saying about the drug business?

1:22:20I mean, it applies to really anything. And that's why I believe that I can play major roles in so many different businesses because you know, I'm at the point in my life that I know that all I got to do is sacrifice for a couple months and you're in the game, you know. I've been in boxing now for like six years, you know? I'm in the gym. Yeah, I'm in it's about six or seven fighters. Who do you manage? I got a guy, a pushon champ right now, Alvin Vermeer. I just signed the key. I'm just signed my first national champs. I got like four national champs, passionate out of North Carolina. Damn, I can't even think everybody's a name.

1:23:04I shouldn't have named nobody because everybody, everybody be like, why didn't you mention me? Why didn't you give me a shout out? But I got about four national champs that I'm signing this year.

1:23:17And I'm not a big fan of boxing. You're not? No, I'm not. I'm not. I mean, I think when you're trying to knock the most valuable thing that a human being has, which is their brain, you're trying to knock their brain out. Right. I think it's kind of, it's almost like dealing coke almost. So why are you involved in it? Because I hate to see these guys wanting to broke at the end of their careers. And they're going to do it anywhere. So you're going to try to help them. I'm going to try to stop that. And then they have so much influence over our people, man. They can say a word and our people just follow what you mean.

1:23:56That is the thing. When you see someone succeed and someone who lives a disciplined life, especially if you're like a fan of a boxer, it'll make you want to live like that. Yeah. So I just felt that I could step in and really help these guys with their money as well as help them become the mentors that they should be. And that's why I got into boxing and I started, you know, Floyd picked me up from the halfway house. He did? Yeah. He picked me up from the halfway house. That's crazy. And I was trying to, you know, show him what I know, but he didn't really want to use me for that. Have you ever seen anybody confront Rick Ross about you?

1:24:42Not, not, not in person. No. Any time I'm around, he disappears. But is there any video of anybody can like, hey, why are you running around with this dude's name when this dude's out of jail now? Well, you know, these guys, they kind of like, like we talked about when you got some money. They don't care if you beaten women or making them like tampons, you know, everybody fuck with you. Right. So, you know, he was on top of the world. And the corrections officer. Yeah, but he was, but when he got some money, they forgot about he was a correction officer. You got gangsters, you know, doing records with him and, you know, people who say, oh, I hate snitches and all this, but they do a records with a police officer who put handcuffs.

1:25:23You know, I got letters from guys that was in jail with him. When he was a correction officer and they told me what a shitty guy he was, you know, that they would be shooting dice, he would take the dice and all the money and they got extra soup. He'd take the soups. Wow. And, you know, just stuff that normal officers just don't, you know, officers, I mean, everybody in jail got extra soups, you know, you say your soups because it might come a time and you ain't got them. So, you stack your stuff up, but most officers don't even care. You know, who cares about extra soup? We, we trying to get the dope dealers and, you know, the guys with the knives, but then you got those ones and they're like, oh, well, you got an extra pair underwear.

1:26:01You go into the hole. And that's how he was. That's how he was. They say that's the kind of comp he was. And then when I hear that he's the biggest gangster rapper on the planet, it's like, it's just so crazy. What is it like having a dude running around out there with your name? Like, if there was a rapper out there named Joe Rogan, I'd be like, what the fuck? I mean, it's crazy, you know, like, how would you take my name and not have the decency to ask me first of all, you should have asked, but then never pay homage. You know, he won't even admit that he stole the name. He tells people that he invented the name like, how the fuck do you invent this name?

1:26:49Well, it's so crazy because the name was famous. Your name was famous. Everybody knew who you were. When the case came out and when the connection to the Iran Contra affair came out, when everybody found out what was going on, like, you were a legend. Yeah, you throw a few million dollars, you know, toward Instagram and Facebook and, you know, the radio station and everybody forget about that, you know, and you put a little gold chain on it and you drive a rose voice and a couple of pretty girls. It's one thing if his name was Rick Ross. It's possible. There could be another Rick Ross out there.

1:27:28I've met other Joe Rogan's. That's real. Me too. I met other Rick Ross's. But what the fuck man? The guy knows who you are. Everybody knows who you are. Takes your name. I mean, it's like, it doesn't even make sense that it's like, didn't you have a case? You had like a legal case, man. I lost the case. How the fuck did you lose? They say, I should have filed a lawsuit. The judge got to make a technical decision. She had to make a decision when the public first become known of him using my name. So, what she did, and she picked a little radio station outside of Miami that played his record for the first time.

1:28:12So, that was the date that the public first became known that he was using the name. So, there was a statute of limitations and when you were supposed to address it? Yes. How much time? Two years. What? Yeah, you get two years. So, if we went by her time frame, I should have filed my lawsuit five days before I got out of jail. Oh my god. I was five days late. That's so crazy. But I think she would have found another reason to come up with a date. Well, the record company probably would have helped. I mean, think about how much money they're making off of him. Oh yeah. They would have owed me, they have 15 lawyers.

1:28:47Oh my god. You know how much money they said they spent on the lawsuit? How much? One and a half million dollars. Wow. You know how much they offer me? How much? Zero. Zero. They never come and say, hey man. What would you have accepted just to like... Well, you know Joe, my mom, we was getting evicted out my mom's house. During the time of the lawsuit. So, I imagine if... She was losing a house for 220 ,000. So, if somebody would have came up and said, hey, I'll say your mom's house. Because you know, I was worried about my mom. My mom was... At that time, she was 83, 84. And one of my biggest concerns was her being homeless.

1:29:25So, I probably would have took 220 ,000. If he would have came and say, hey, I'm going to say your mom's house. Let me have Rick Ross change her name to Mitchell, whatever. Well, you would never change your name. That's crazy. But I would have... I wouldn't even care about the name. I didn't care about the name like that. I just felt that it was so disrespectful that he didn't come and ask me. He didn't show any consideration or pay any homage to the fact that he actually took the name. So, but yeah, I probably would have took 250 ,000. If they had said 300 ,000, I would have been tickle pink.

1:30:08Because I felt that I didn't need much money to get started. You know, I just... Meanwhile, they spent 1 .5. 1 .5 million. I owe them right now. I owe them a million dollars. What? Yeah, I'm a million... I got a million dollar judgment against... Because you have to pay their legal fees. I have to pay their legal fees. Oh my God. And then the judge was like, oh well, I don't believe you guys actually spend 1 .5 million, but maybe a million dollars. Oh my God. She gave me a million dollar judgment. Isn't that insane? For your name. Your fucking name. And you can't appeal this? Well, we appealed it, but you know, once you lose to the appeals court, you're not going to the Supreme Court anything like that then.

1:30:45So, yeah, that's how he wanted to be able to continue to use an name. You know, he changed the Rosado. Yeah. Because they thought they might lose. If this judge picks a different date, you know, we go to trial. Right. And they didn't want to go to trial. I didn't think... I think if they didn't want to trial, everybody in LA would have... Like, they would have hammered him. Like, you know you stole that name. If you'd have heard the thing that he did, you know, because we did his deposition. We took his depot. That was the first time I ever met him in person. You know, he wouldn't shake my hand either.

1:31:18Really? No, when he walked in, all the attorneys was a big table. It was about... About 12 people in the room, and he walks in. And he walks around the table with shakes. Everybody... Including my lawyer. He shakes my lawyer's hands and everybody. And I stood up to shake his hand. Because I don't have no hard feelings, you know. Just give me my money. Right. So he throws his eyes at me and walks away. Turn his... Wow. You know, like... I ain't... You know. And then he comes up with this... Oh my goodness. I don't know where he got the story from. He said he played football in high school. And the whole team was called a Big Ease.

1:32:02And some guy was trying to call him Big Ease. And accidentally called him... The Big Boss. And then somebody else called him Rick Ross. He went from Big Boss to Rick Ross. That's his story. That's the... He came up with the name Rick Ross. That's the dumbest fucking story I've ever heard. If I had been a judge, I would have hammered him just for saying, you know, coming my courtroom lying like that. That's the dumbest... But that's impossible. If he's rapping about drug dealing and money, it's impossible. It doesn't know who you are. Impossible. Impossible. Not possible. I agree. Everybody... I knew who you were.

1:32:42I had heard the story. Well, you know, and I... I don't even remember when I read about it. I don't know. When Gary will publish the story in 96 with the San Jose Mercury News. My name, that year, was one of the biggest names in the country. Yeah. Because the story was insane. It went... It was the first time any story had ever been published on the internet by a major newspaper. Remember? The internet was brand new. Right. So when they published that article on the internet, no story had ever... Because remember, the CIA tried to record that article. But you know, once you hit the internet, it can't be recalled.

1:33:18You know, you tried to recall the article? You know, remember? I don't. They... The print copies, they stopped doing. They took the CIA emblems off and everything. Really? Yeah. They made them take all that stuff off. But the internet couldn't be... You know, you couldn't take it back at the time. Once you hit the internet, it's like, boom! It's all over the world. You know, when you hit that button, they know recall. Right. If you put something on that thing and you hit that button, what you said is what you say. And you don't have to live with that. Right. So when it went viral, it was nothing they could do.

1:33:53And it just went crazy. So everybody picked it up, you know? The CNN, Nightline, Dayline, 2020. You know, I'm doing like six interviews for my jail cell every day. Every day people coming down and talking to me. And I'll tell you, that's when the CIA came down. The CIA came down to my jail cell and interviewed me. The CIA, the OIG, Congress, Maxine Waters. I mean, it was like, fuck, I become a celebrity in jail. Like, they start cheating me definitely. What did the CIA say to you in jail? What did I know about cocaine being trapped by the Contras? Which, you know, I don't really know about the Contras.

1:34:36I knew Danello. I don't know about no damn Contras. You knew the guy who was supplying you. Yeah, that's all I don't know if he was a Contra. If he's CIA, informant, or I don't know none of that shit. I never cared. You know, I'm a little bit, you know, 28, 30 -year -old guy from South Central who never watched the news and, you know, I had heard about the Iron Man Contra stuff. But, you know, that's shit didn't mean nothing to me. Had no effect on South Central LA. You know what I'm saying? I don't know that my prices and my drug quality depends on what happened over there. I'm not paying no attention to that.

1:35:16I'm just worried about, man, my drugs are going to get here on time. It's going to be cheap. It's going to be good. So, when all that stuff was coming about, they wanted to know how much money I was making, you know, who I'll buy drugs from. What year's I bought drugs? You know, just a whole, basically, like a interview. So, how do you think it worked? Do you think there's like a rogue element that was inside of the government? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But, but, not mean to cut you off. No, go ahead. Because it was a rogue element to it. But the rogue element came from the top as well. Not that they necessarily sanctioned it, but they knew about it.

1:36:03They turned a blind eye. They turned a blind eye. You know, it was a saying Nancy Reagan said, say no, and Ronald Reagan said, act like you don't know.

1:36:21They admitted. They admitted. See, I admit it. Yes, we knew they were selling drugs. And we did nothing to stop them. So, right there is a crime. Because if you are agent of the government, and you know somebody's committing a crime, you're supposed to stop it. Right. But they understood that if they stopped that, they lose the war. Right. Phew. It just makes you wonder how much of that shit was going on during the Vietnam War. Because a lot of people think that the Vietnam War was a lot of it was about moving heroin. Yeah, I heard that, is it? Yeah. And that makes sense. It makes sense. Like, if you are in a bit, especially the Vietnam War, right?

1:37:02Because the Vietnam War was started with a false flag. So, the Gulf of Tonkin incident starts the Vietnam War. The Gulf of Tonkin incident never took place. It was a fake incident. And they said, we're attacked by North Korea. We have, or excuse me, North Vietnam. We have to go in there and fight the Vietnam Kong. Never happened. It was fake. They made it up just to get us to go to war. So, if you're willing to kill, who knows how many Americans died in that war? Hundreds of thousands probably. How many people died during the Vietnam War? How many Americans soldiers? I think it's close to 100 ,000, maybe more.

1:37:38And then, how many Vietnamese got killed? Like, the overall cost of lives is catastrophic. And they did it knowing. Well, you know that sometimes they failed it. 58 ,220 U .S. fatal casualties. And that doesn't include how many people were wounded and fucked up for the rest of their life. How many people died totally? How many people died to all deaths of Vietnam War? What's the total deaths? That's just American deaths. And then, it count, Asian Orange. Right. Casualties gets bigger because... 1 .4 million civilian casualties in South Vietnam because of the war. Casualties. Right. I understand.

1:38:24Including 4 ,000 and 15 ,000 deaths. And estimated by the Defense Department gave the figure of 1 .2 million civilian casualties. 195 ,000, so it's all controversial, what the actual number was. 1978 estimated 1 ,353 ,000 total deaths in North and South Vietnam during that period. Fuck, man. And that... So if they're willing to do that, you don't think they're willing to make money off drugs. I mean, if they're willing to let people die so they can achieve their objectives, they're willing to sell drugs. What they felt, they felt that, you know, to sacrifice a few people to stop what they felt was the greatest threat to America.

1:39:06Right. Was Russia being on our southern hemisphere, you know, being in Nicaragua. Yeah. They felt that that was the greatest threat at that time to tie democracy. Yeah. And they felt that they would do anything to stop that. But a crazy thing to do though. To think about the sacrifice, it's going to... What's going to do to American citizens, including the people that, like you, went to jail for helping them. The whole thing is crazy. And they probably did it during the Afghanistan. And we feel suffering now. That's the homeless problem. Most of the people that's homeless was on crap. Right. Right.

1:39:39Or something else, or opiates, or meth. Yeah. It's going on right now. Yeah. Crazy. It's just so much, so much wrong. And, you know, we're just saying, I think that's a lot of the Afghanistan war too. There was one of the best videos out of the Afghanistan war that's so ridiculous is watching a Rwanda Rivera interview soldiers that are guarding poppy fields. Because they have to guard the poppy fields because if they don't, then these poppy farmers won't side with them. And then they'll side with the Taliban. So they're interviewing American soldiers who are guarding heroin being grown. And then during the United States occupation of Afghanistan, heroin production went up, I think, at the peak, like 96%.

1:40:31Yeah. I heard that as well. And it was a giant percentage of the world's supply of heroin. And we're guarding it. Like what? And it didn't become that until after we went over there. And you don't think someone had a piece of that. That's crazy talk. If they did it with the conscious and the Sandinistas, you don't think they would do it with Afghanistan. I think there's rogue elements that look at drug dealing and look at it as an opportunity to make money to fund Black Ops projects. The fun things that are, you know, that don't get put on the ledger. Nobody has to know about it. Well, I mean, and just think that if we didn't have situations like what you got here, with your podcasts, the people wouldn't even know about this stuff.

1:41:20Right. Well, with the normal person finding out, they're not going to talk about that on CNN. No. Nightline, dayline, NBC. None of those people are going to talk about it. No. These topics, I mean, I mean, I'll be totally bad for you, Joe, with some of the stuff that takes place in this country, you know. I've been on every major news channel in this country. Since I've been home, I feel I have done some amazing things. You know, I spoke at UCLA, USC, Stanford, St. John's. Nobody covered it. Nobody came and heard me talk to young people about how they're going to get started selling drugs. How are you going to get an induced drug?

1:42:12Who's going to introduce you to drugs? Like most people don't even know how people get an induced drugs. They think that it's some bookie man that comes with a dark jacket on. He's hiding in the door. Hey, little kid, you want some drugs? And I'm like, no, that's not how it's going to happen. It's going to be your best friend. It's going to be your uncle, your father, your mother, your brother, your sister. Those are the ones that you trust. Those are the ones that can get your confidence to make you accept something that, you know, some strange guy come around, you know, most girls are going to take off, you know.

1:42:46But your friends are people that you care about, that you trust. You're going to believe in them. And they cover none of this. Nobody covers this. Nobody talks about this. Nobody talks about good things that go in the community. You know, feeding the homeless, people who are trying to do housing. Like, your guy who you just showed me. I never heard of this guy. Right. You know, why is he not being talked about? Why is he not on the news, you know, why they're not trying to get funding for him? You know, why did I say, man, this guy had a couple hundred million dollars or, or, you know, I mean, in California, taxpayers agreed to give up extra taxes.

1:43:30And I think they raised like a billion in some change for the homeless problem. Where did the money go? Where's that money? The money bureaucracy. That's where it went to. Went to a bunch of people's salaries. It didn't fix shit. And that's the problem that I have with, with our major news people, you know, it's biased, you know. They're not going to keep it 100. They're not going to be real. You know, they can't. They're funded. That's what's really crazy. The news probably should be, they probably shouldn't be allowed to be advertised. They shouldn't be allowed to have advertisers. Because as soon as you have advertisers, especially like pharmaceutical drug companies and big corporations, then you can't criticize those people.

1:44:16Those people are the people that pay your bills. And even if it's not written down anywhere, you're not going to like go do an investigative journalism on Pfizer. If brought to you by Pfizer, you're not going to do any of that shit. There you go, right there. You're not going to do that shit. So you're not the news anymore. And that answers your question about the rapper. Yeah. Why wouldn't they question him because he's bagged by big corporations? And he's worth a lot of money. He's going to keep generating money for all those people. And he still is. Like how many years ago was this case? Ooh, we.

1:44:49Yeah. How much money he's made with that name since that case. I can't remember 10 years. 12 years. 12 years. Because I was still on parole. I was still on parole when we were doing that case. He bought a Vanderhollyfields house in Atlanta. Yeah. You know that house that a Vanderhollyfield got a Vander when he was a champ was going crazy. And I guess he just built the craziest fucking house. I mean, it's just this enormous, enormous house on this giant piece of land. With 50, 50 some bedrooms. I heard something crazy. Like, I don't know what he's doing. I guess he just wanted the biggest crazy.

1:45:22I'm the fucking champ. I want the biggest, craziest fucking house that's ever existed. And he had to wind up selling it and then Rick Ross lives in it now. Just like nuts. Guys, run around with your name. But that's our system. And those are the people that are leading our people. They're the ones that's dictating what's going to go on in society. Man. I mean, it's so much of our kids are being educated by music, by TV. Yeah. I mean, I've actually went to a school and the kids accused me of stealing his name. How old were the kids? 14, 15. Did you have to tell them? Yeah, I told them. They didn't believe me.

1:46:07They didn't believe me. No. Wow. Because they've been brainwashed. You know what? You know what they call it, programming. Yeah. Over and over and over and over again. And that's why I started my own record label. You know, the two guys that's outside, those are two artists that I'm working with right now. And I'm graduating and juicing them at, I said, you know what? I'm going to start my own label. I'm going to get somebody to go against you. You have fight fire with fire. So, you know, I got into, I'm doing so many things right now, man. But I'm having fun, you know. That's good. It's good to hear.

1:46:44I'm helping people. It's good to see you having that career. And I enjoy helping people with that career. That's beautiful. So, the marijuana business, like, did you get nervous about being in, because it is still federally illegal, even though, is it officially scheduled three hours? Is it scheduled to be scheduled three? Like, what is the current status? I always stayed away from it. I got a bunch of offers and do it. I'm like, that was a trap. Because it's still schedule one. Yeah. You know? Like, there's, like I said, that Delta 9 stuff, that's legal. I think in a state. Totally. Yeah. We know some people, some states abandoned it.

1:47:26I think I know. Weed states abandon it. Oh, really? Because it's taking away tax dollars. Oh, no. So we... So weed states are banning Delta 90. Because it goes against marijuana. Oh my God. It's taking away marijuana sales. Spive versus spy dog eat dog. Because they can't tax. You know, they can tax CBD. Well, CBD is different. We're talking about Delta 9 THC. But CBD should be. It's a derivative. You know, it's all part of the same. You know, they fall under the same category. Really? Yeah. Interesting. They just a little different. Yeah. Well, isn't Brittany Griner? She got arrested for, in Russia, for CBD V8 patent, right?

1:48:12Which a lot of... I think that was marijuana. Was marijuana? They said it was marijuana. Oh, okay. So she was saying it was CBD. Oh, it's just CBD. Because they do have CBD Vapence. Very good. I know people like... CBD is phenomenal for inflammation. It's so good. Just for... Just general well -being and just health. And alleviating anxiety, alleviating inflammation. CBD is phenomenal. And this places where that's illegal. Which is just bananas. Yeah. And California is trying to make it illegal right now. Because it's taking away the attacks. That is so stupid. That's so stupid, it hurts my feeling.

1:48:50Because they sell it in every... Every smokestock I see. They're trying to make it illegal. Yeah. Oh, my God, that's so dumb. That's so dumb. That is so dumb. But a lot of states that actually sell marijuana. What happens next? The process of reclassifying a substance is lengthy. There's still more hurdles to clear. The plan has been approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland. And heads next to the DEA. Which will take public comment on the proposal. After a 60 -day comment period. There'll be a review by the Administrative Judge. The move started with a recommendation from the Federal Health and Human Services Department.

1:49:27Which launched a review of the drug status and the urging of President Biden in 2022. This is a long -ass process. But the DEA has not yet formed its own determination as to where marijuana should be scheduled. And it expects to learn more during the rulemaking process. That's funny. Learn more. Come on, guys. Come on, guys. Yeah. You know what it is. With DEA, they don't want to be. Of course. They can keep lagging people up. We need more money. That's what's really crazy. It's the prison guard unions. Yeah. Prison guard unions lobby to make sure that marijuana stays illegal in certain places.

1:49:58Absolutely. They need... That is something that... They got big budgets. Yeah. And that is something that is just wrong. That is wrong in this world. That we have private prisons. And that we have people that are benefiting and profiting off of people being in jail. Of course. Because as soon as you make a profit off of something, you're going to want to keep making that profit. Yes. And they want to keep you that longer. And imagine if there was just no more lawbreakers. Imagine if they're a genie cast a magic spell on the world and everybody just stopped committing crimes. No more crimes. And then you can't put anybody in prison.

1:50:35What the fuck? They'd be like, what about our business? Let's make other things crimes. How about thought crimes? I don't like the way you looked at me. That's a crime. We got these big facilities we built. Yeah. Worth unbelievable amounts of money. They generate money. They treat human beings like a battery. Like you're a battery that generates money. And that's what it's like in these things. It's bizarre that we allow that. It's bizarre that people didn't see where that was going. They allowed private prisons. They so fear. Yeah. Well, in this country, you don't lock them up. If you don't lock them up, they're going to come into your house and rob you and kill you.

1:51:15There's a big like thing that's a hang up for schedule three drugs. Okay. For example, the proposal does not specify whether state license dispensaries would need to be licensed pharmacies. Because only a pharmacy can dispense schedule three drugs. Other questions surrounded the coordination of federal regulations related to drug approval, manufacturing supply chain monitoring, storage, and prescribing. So prescribing. We go back to prescribing it. Yeah. It needs to be legal. But what happens if it gets legally in all the states? Here's the thing. It's legal right now for recreational use in how many states?

1:51:48I think it's 19. Is it 19 states? So what happens if it's all 50? And the federal government is not with us. Here are the federal government. And we believe it's a schedule one. And they still allow it to be taxed. Yes. When it becomes a schedule three, the taxes are changed too. Right. They're probably going to be less taxed. Yeah, they make less taxes as a schedule three. It's a 24 now that allow 24. Oh, yes. 24. 38 medical. Half of the country. Yes. So 38 states have medical? Is Texas have medical? 38. They do, but it's very low. You got to have AIDS. Yeah. If you look, I think it's high. She had to be a death's door.

1:52:31You got to be on a death's door. Give them one joint and regulate it. But you can believe a lot of money coming out of Texas going other places. Yeah, it's stupid. It's stupid. It's stupid than that. Exactly. It should be legal. 38 medical and recreational. So 19, just say 24. So half the country. It's only a hand like those three states have no access. It's Idaho, Nebraska and Kansas. So Texas has a CBD low THC program. And then adult and medical use regulated program is all over the place now. New Mexico and Nevada, California, Colorado, Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, even fucking New York, which is like New York used to be a bad place to get weed.

1:53:27If you got weed in New York, you smoke weed outside there to rest you. You get caught outside. Try to buy weed. I mean, New York was sketchy. Yeah. And now I go there and this store is everywhere. I'm like, this is great. Vegas. Vegas was dangerous. Man, during the 70s when Hunter S. Thompson's day, you would get fucking thrown in jail for your life, for your whole life, for having weed on you. And now they have stores everywhere. Vegas stores in the country. Yeah, huge stores. It should be that way everywhere and they should make money from taxes. Let's not be stupid. So what does the federal government do?

1:54:00If now it's 24. So it's literally half the country has legal marijuana. What happens if it's all of the country? The federal government is like, where are the country? Now the fucking, it's supposed to be the states you asshole. This is set up this way on purpose. You have to have the states, give the states rights to regulate things. If the people have decided and all those other states, look man, if you asked the average person, if we had a vote, just a popular opinion vote in this country, whether marijuana should be legal, it would be legal tomorrow. I agree. 100%. I mean, what is the amount of people that approve, and the amount of people that don't approve it, they're probably ignorant.

1:54:41Or are there people that are hardcore anti -everything people? Yeah. But I think the country would be safer. I mean, have you ever known anybody smoke a marijuana going to commit a robbery, hit somebody over the head? No, they're going to sit on the couch and they're going to get something to eat. They're going to be watching TV. It's not the kind of drug that encourages people to do horrible things. If I had my way, I would give it to gang bangers for free. Nearly seven. Seven in ten registered voters favor legalizing the recreational use of marijuana on a national level. Seven out of ten. Wow.

1:55:17And it's still illegal. I mean, how is that weed the people? What is that? What is that? Is that to serve and protect? What the fuck is going on? What are you doing? It's just weed, kids. We know what it is. You know, many people died from weed? Zero. Ever. Zero ever. Zero ever. The only way you die from weed is if a CIA drug plane throws a bail out the window of a plane and it hits you in the head. That's how you die from it. Are they rates your house and shoot you? Or yeah, get a note of weed. Because you know the knock rate? No knock rates are crazy. That is crazy. Just bust into someone's house and if someone breaks into your house, what do you do?

1:55:55You shoot them. That's what most people do and then the cops shoot you. It's like the whole thing is crazy. Yeah, why would you be? For weed. For weed. I mean, we're going to look back in the future on this. Like they look at the inquisition. We're going to what the fuck was wrong with people back then? They're going to look at us like, no, how many people went to jail? And people's lives got ruined over marijuana. How much money are you kidding? How much money did they blow? Exactly. It's just talking about they have a homeless population that don't have a place to stay. And people not having anything to eat.

1:56:30Yeah, it's going to be crazy. Yeah, you can tax it folks. Legalize it in tax. Even if you don't want to do it yourself, you won't have to do it yourself. I know a lot of people that hate weed. Good. Don't use it. You don't have to. I get it. And don't sell it. Don't sell it. But you know what's so funny, the people who used to like everybody up, 97. A lot of them do. Yeah, I know cops that sell weed now. What a biggest cop. The biggest weed deal in probably in America was an ex cop.

1:56:59He's the biggest guy. He just bought $5 million. I mean, $5 million. No. $5 million square feet. A grow area. That's how bananas. He's the biggest guy in the country. Well, good for him. That should be forever. That should be forever. So nuts. I mean, those should be the guys that said, oh, you still like people off of marijuana? You cannot get in a business. Yeah. If I had my way, that's what I would say. Did you, did you lock somebody up? Yeah. Okay, you can't get in. Or we take the amount of time that you locked all those people up for. And then you have to wait that amount of time before you get so.

1:57:45So you can sell weed in three more lives. Probably wouldn't be that. Probably like 100 lives. Yeah, this is this country's crazy, man. Wow. People are crazy. People are crazy everywhere. You know, it's like, it's hard to keep your shit together. You know, and we give people power over other people. People that don't have the shit together, have power over other people. And then things get just get worse. Yeah. Weird. So we're, we don't learn. You know, a friend of mine sent me the lyrics to the song. I'd love to change the world, which is like 70, 70, anyone or something like that. And he's like, isn't it crazy?

1:58:25There's like a cycle. Like because the same shit they're talking about then is going on now. And then I sent him this Assyrian tablet from 2 ,800 BC that talked about the same thing. We talked about it the other day on the podcast. This Assyrian tablet, talk about the end of the world that children are not listening to their parents and people are lying and the world's falling apart. And 2 ,800 BC. Wow. So it's like this cycle of people being stupid and just not getting the shit together has been going on forever. But there's never been more information than ever before. Like the access to information that people have right now is unprecedented.

1:59:06Oh, yeah. And the fact that we continue to make the same stupid mistakes, regardless of that, is just really insane. That's what's really this heart note. But you know what? The way I say it, it doesn't matter if you're smart. It's who got the loudest horn. If your horn toots loudest, everybody hears you. And if the message gets out first, if the loud toot horn message gets out first, it takes forever for the truth to like overcome that. To get in. Yeah, forever. There's also people don't once they have, once they accept something in their head, it takes forever. Yeah, it becomes theirs. They own it.

1:59:42They own it. This is mine. They don't want to change it. Something has to happen to them by the change. Yeah. You know, I agree. I agree. I see that all the time. You know, you talk to people and you be like, man, that didn't work. Oh, no, it worked, it worked. I just did it wrong at times.

2:00:00Let's keep trying to lock people up. We're going to fix it. We're going to fix it through lock people up. Yeah. We're going to get it right. We just got to lock up more people. Bill Moore -Jails. Yeah. How are you more police? Yeah. It's just, it's just disheartening when you see the same thing. You're saying patterns repeated over and over again regardless of how much people know. I think there's also a problem with, you know, we think people know, but I think a lot of people don't know what the fuck is going on. A lot of people don't really have an understanding. Where they going to get information.

2:00:30Exactly. Who they get it from. We already went through CNN, Fox, the local radio station, you know, especially if you talk about hip -hop. I mean, if you turn on hip -hop radio stations, I would not let my kids listen to a hip -hop radio station. Because they're going to be talking about killing, pimping, selling drugs, killing. I mean, you'd be like, what the fuck? Are they not this stuff playing air? I mean, it's crazy. It is crazy. And then they want to wire the kids, bring guns to school. But did you also see there's been these articles written about the CIA's involvement in the creation of gangster rap?

2:01:19That they help promote and push gangster rap? How did you say that? Yeah, this is all of its controversial, but I wouldn't be surprised. Because apparently they had a, they had some sort of an involvement in the rock and roll movement of the 1960s in Laurel Canyon. And there's been books written about this that they have some sort of involvement in promoting these kind of activities, both with rock and roll in the 60s and then gangster rap in the 80s. And they do it to try, I think the ideas, they do it to try to make sure that society is always in a state of unrest. And that they wanted to keep people in a state of unrest.

2:02:05And promote criminal behavior and criminal activity and gang activity and to do it in popular music. And that that would make more crime and make more things happen and that they can get away with more levers of control. Because of that. Makes sense. Makes sense. You've seen that before, right, Jamie? Yeah, it comes from this. Is it bullshit? Well, it's not that it's bullshit. It's like a ominous letter that could win around the internet. The secret meeting that changed rap music and destroyed a generation. So got printed on like a hip hop blog and kind of went viral from there. Oh, yeah, I remember I remember that letter.

2:02:39Yeah, I talked about the big meeting where all the record labels got together because they knew there wasn't selling music anymore. So they invested in in in prisons. Yeah. But that doesn't say no one knows who wrote it. Right. And then they ever claimed like that was right. That's it. That's the only source of it. There was another source. And then it went viral and everyone. Some people that liked it repeated it and others, you know, I don't know. It seems to be the source of it. I thought there was some other things. I thought there was other discussions about different meetings that took place.

2:03:12Not an official. I wouldn't be surprised though. I mean, it makes sense, you know, if you listen to what they're promoting now, you know, they don't promote no positive music. Right. No love songs. You know, we was coming up. It was it was by love songs. Right. Marvin Gaye. Yes. Yes. Yes. With the randros. Yeah. It's it's weird that that would be a strategy that would work if you wanted civil unrest. If you wanted people to stay fucked up, you wanted people to not organize, not rise up. What's the best strategy? Promote illegal activity. Promote it. Promote drug dealings. Make it look good. Make it look good.

2:03:53Give me a hand. Give me a hand. Hold it feels house. Ha ha. Even if it used to be a correctional officer. Yeah. And now you're gangster. Yeah. Tell them you stole 300 kilos. How did you get this house? Oh, I sold 300 kilos. How many people think you do think actually know the story, the whole story, the real story, your story of you and this guy calls himself Rick Ross? I think older people know. But younger people don't. They don't get it. Wow. They they they they're not educated on facts. You know, they don't go with facts. They go with what they hear on the radio, what their local DJ talks about.

2:04:32Those are the things that they go with. And we already know that the local DJs can pay by the record companies. So that's what they believe. Hmm. I believe that they really believe that. Jayzy guy rich selling drugs. You know, they believe that. I don't believe Jayzy guy rich selling drugs. You know, he doesn't act like a drug dealer in my personal opinion. What's the difference? The way he acts. Well, well, drug dealers are kind of like we're looking for somebody to help come up. Because when you help him come up, you come up. You know, say for instance, if I find a guy he's down on his luck and I give him a kilo, he starts to sell this kilo.

2:05:16So I benefit every time he sells that kilo because I get a percentage of what he does. But the way the record business works is they don't help anybody. You know, when they get on top, they just stay there and it's almost like their gatekeepers. You know, they don't want other people to get in. Me, I would have been looking for somebody like me getting out of jail. I'm showing him everything he's supposed to do, getting right. Because I know he has, he has the discipline. He has the focus that he's going to make it. Yeah, but don't you think that that's just you? I think you have a unique perspective.

2:06:00But that's a drug dealer's perspective. Is it really? I got a successful drug dealer's perspective. A successful drug dealer's just a little bit correct that. And most of the drug dealers I was around was successful.

2:06:13Because I used to try to teach him. I taught him what I did. You know, when they were young, I was, hey, this what you do, this how you do it. This who you look for. And so you're highly right. A successful drug dealer's perspective. And most successful drug dealers go to prison. And so we know Jay Z didn't go to prison. Even though he was in a car with, I think Calvin Klein, when he got arrested, he did a DA let Jay Z go.

2:06:43That's that's the story that I heard. I'm not totally sure. He was in a car with Calvin Klein. Did he talk about jeans? What was he doing? Oh, there's a guy named Calvin Klein. It was different guy from New York. Oh, Calvin Klein, a drug dealer. It was a drug dealer. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. He was a drug dealer from New York. I thought you mean like, no one. The jeans. He thought the jeans got. Yeah, no, no, no. This was a drug dealer out of New York. Oh, that's hilarious. And he got arrested. So he took Calvin Klein's name. Like Rick Ross took your name. That's his name was really Calvin Klein.

2:07:15That's possible. No, I think this guy, real name was Calvin Klein. Really? Oh, that's his real name. Because he was a real street guy. Went to prison in the whole nine yards. But it's a story that talks about that. How Jay Z was in a car with him when he got arrested. And you know, he didn't get arrested. So more than likely, that meant that. And in my experience, if you in a car with a drug dealer in New York, the cops raid, they take everybody that was involved. So that tells me that Jay Z wasn't involved with that activity. Got it. At least at that time. That they knew. Right. The Newsy, the DA, they watch you.

2:07:55And someone went in out lazy. But what is it like in the world? Like if you wrap about selling drugs. And about how you were selling drugs. But you weren't selling drugs? That can't be looked upon well. If you're lying, when you're making up a fake persona. It shouldn't be. Right. It shouldn't be. Back in the 90s, when, when, you know, when rap was supposed to be an authentic, you know, people wrote their own lyrics. Right. And that stuff, it was a little different than the way it is right now. You know, now, you know, people can write your lyrics. You can steal people's names. You can steal their verses.

2:08:36It's just totally different than the way it used to be, you know. You can buy your way to the top now. You know, you don't have to have talent necessarily. The most talented guys are not the guys who are running the industry. A lot of the talented guys are producers too, right? And they can kind of make anybody famous. Yeah. If you have some talent in a look. And you go pay the right producer. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of examples. Because music is, you know, music is programming, you know. Right. You hear the sound and you like that sound. And that's why we hear the same sounds over and over on the radio because it's the same producers that are producing the music.

2:09:12Like, I'm just waiting to get my money right. So I can go to the producers and be like, hey, I know you want me putting all these guys on. I got a guy for you. Put him on. We ready. How much you need? 100 ,000. Do it. Because that's really what it is. You know, it's only a few guys who music you hear on the radio over and over again. Wow. But then you have people who just stand out just because of talent still. You still have that. Once in a while. Yeah. You know, want to break though, you know, you get somebody that's like super, super good and, you know, the music just break though. But that's rare.

2:09:48They still got to have some money. You got to pay Facebook and TikTok. Gatekeepers. Yeah. There's just a lot of, it's an industry, right? There's a lot of money involved. As soon as there was a lot of money involved, there's control. People in a maintain control of that. They don't want someone coming along. Yeah. I mean, I look at my case, right? If you go on the internet, I got millions and millions of views, where I've done interviews with different people and talk to different people. But then you go on my Instagram, I got 300 ,000 followers. Instagram is weird, man. I walk through the airport, right?

2:10:26I can hardly walk through the airport. People are like, right. Can I get a picture and then my friends be like, man, all the people looking at you, they want to talk to you, but, you know. So, so when I, when I, when I experienced that, I understand that they haven't let me grow to where I should be. Yeah, but I think there's, I think social media companies other than Twitter, X now. I think they all have different ways of limiting growth to different things. Like my friend, Coleon DeWarr, he has an Instagram page that's dedicated to Second Amendment. He was a lawyer and he does a lot of Second Amendment stuff, a lot of like talking about guns and gun laws and different things.

2:11:13He's been stuck at one million followers forever. He's been on this podcast like how many times? How many times, Coleon been on five, six? Five or six times? Great guy, interesting, really fun to talk to, smart as fuck. Like you would think his shit would grow. Stuck, stuck at one million, just stuck, like locked up. Yeah. Like what's going on there? How is that, how is that even possible? It's only possible if someone's limiting the growth. Absolutely. There's no other way. If you come on this podcast and 11 million people or 15 million people, whatever the fuck it is, see you. What is the odds that you stay at one million?

2:11:54It's almost zero. Yeah, great. It's almost zero, especially if it's an interesting episode. He's always interesting. He's smart, dude. Why would people not follow him? Of course they would. They'd have to find him. It's hard to find people. They make it difficult on some social media platforms to find people. They're post -limited. So only the followers can see it. Other people can't see it. It's just this weird thing that they do. And if you're a guy that, at least at one point in your life, was involved in illegal activities, they'd probably just shove you into a box. They'd shove you into a category.

2:12:27They have you in some sort of an algorithm. But just like, like every now and then someone finds you. But it's not easy. We'll see what happens. We'll see what Instagram does after you're at what are you at now? Okay, let's check right now. I'm going to check your page right now. 300 and something. Let's check right now. So you are right now. You are at... Let's get down to your hair. What is it, Jimmy? Yeah, something like that. Here you are. We just went back and forth with each other. So I'll check right now. Profile. Yeah. 392. So you're at 392 ,000. Let's see what happens. Yeah. Let's see what happens Instagram.

2:13:12Stop fucking around. I think they fuck around with me too. Which sounds crazy because I have 19 million. But I'm like, how come I don't have 19? Everybody in America knows you. Fuck's going on. Everybody in America knows you. I mean, we did that show what? Almost 10 years ago. People still coming to me in the airport. Man, I know you're Joe Rogan. Huh? Did you tell Joe?

2:13:36I said, don't tell me, tell Joe. I'm talking about still to this day. People walk up to me and tell me that they love our episodes. And that's a long time ago. So there's probably been 1600 different episodes since then or more. Probably more than that. And they remember we was like, 60 or 80 or something like that. Something crazy like that. The early days. You were in the early days when I was just starting to interview people. Yeah. I was just starting to have interesting people on the phone. I never heard of a podcast. A lot of people came on back then didn't. I didn't know what a podcast was.

2:14:10You know what? I told my guys today. We've sitting out there. I said, had I recognized what a podcast was and started a podcast. I would have been the first black guy probably would have podcasts. Back then you might have been. So what year? So this is like 2000. May 4th, 2013. 2013 11 years. So 208. 11 years. Episode 208. 2000 episodes since then. 2000. Was that the first one or the second one? That's the first one. The second one is 262. Wow. That's crazy. That's crazy. And they still remember that. Well, you should do your own now. I'll be so busy, Joe. Listen to me. Stop right there. I told you to teach your deal podcast.

2:14:58It's easy. It's not hard to do, man. It's easy. It'll promote your business. Now you just called me on now. Listen, it's an easy thing. It doesn't cost much money, man. It's real economical. You know, you upload to YouTube. It's free. YouTube's free. You know, you get one of those platforms that supports podcasting and they do things, and they help you get ads. Not that hard, man. And I bet right away you would get it, especially after this episode, you'll get a big audience. It's an easy, and then... I'm working on it. I'm working on it since then. And before you know it, you have 20 episodes, 30 episodes.

2:15:35You get better at it. People like it. And you can talk about all kinds of things. You can interview different people. You can have conversations with friends. And then you develop a following. And the next thing you know, it helps your business. It helps the other things you do. It helps speaking engagements. All these other different things. Yeah. They've been telling me to do it. Yeah. And I've been like, oh, no, you wait too late. You wait too late. You can have a podcast that's called The Real Rick Ross is not a rapper. That's a great name for a podcast. That's a great name for a podcast. I thought that was an awful name for a T -shirt.

2:16:15That's a great name. That's a great name for a podcast. It'll peak people's interest right away. They're like, what? The Real Rick Ross is not a rapper. What kind of fucking podcast is this? Yeah. And then people hear your story. And they're like, oh my god. I didn't even know. This is crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I might take your advice on that one. It's a great idea. You took your advice with Ashton and I've been a fit it. I'm telling you. It's crazy. It's crazy. Hey, crazily. You know, like right now, this T -shirt still brings in revenue. That's good. Well, bringing a lot more after this one. But it just makes sense.

2:16:52I mean, it's only, it's just another method to get your word out there. And we need platforms. Yes. You know, because the people with, you know, some of the people with the platforms don't use them to benefit the people. Well, also, we need platforms from a person like yourself that has gone through this arc of life. You know, this is an interesting arc of life. You know, that finds yourself a completely different person now than who you were when you were 28 years old telling drugs. It's just a different. Well, when I started, when I was 28, I was an addict. I was stuck when I was 20 years old.

2:17:22You know, it's a different. When you go, you go seven, eight years selling drugs, you don't even know anymore. You're like, out your mind. You're crazy. You're just in the business. You're just in the business. Well, especially if your business is making $3 million a day. Yeah. That is just so crazy. So crazy. How much money do you think you earned over the entire course of selling drugs? Well, you figure just my two best years, so you say 360 days in the year, just those two years was like what, $600 million or something like that there. Not profit though, not profit. Right. That's not profit.

2:18:04Of course. But just the amount of money you make. For profit, I make every million, I probably make 200 to 300 ,000 profit off of every million. I was able to take that much out. So that is insane. And then that's not counting the other 60s because I sold like eight years. I did like eight, maybe nine years in the drug business. And so, you know, before I was making a million dollars a day, I was making 500 ,000 a day. And before I was making 500, I was making 400, 300, 200. Right. And you know, one time, 10 ,000 a day, you know, so it just, yeah, but all those numbers add up, you know, you're talking about 100 ,000 a day, ain't bad numbers, you know.

2:18:44A couple of million dollars a month. So I made quite a bit of money. I mean, went through my hands. Yeah. Not that I made, but money that went through my hands, that I touched. It's crazy. With some crazy numbers. It would probably be, probably be in the billions. Billions. Yeah, probably will be in the billions. That life and that, that experience that you've had is very unique. There's not a whole lot of human beings that are out there wandering around that can say that. So that perspective that you have would be very valuable for people just to just to hear what you did and what you went through in your life.

2:19:21It's a very unique story, man. And it's an American story. It is. It really is. It is American story. And I thought that America should know about it. That's why I wrote the book. And you know, when I wrote that book, I didn't know if I was ever getting out of prison. Wow. That was like my letter to the world, you know, like, wow. This is how it happened. You know, so that you don't, you don't form your own personal opinion without getting to know the person. Right. Because so many people we form opinions about, I didn't really like the way the government characterized us drug dealers. You know, like we was raising many acts.

2:20:05You know, when I got arrested, I was a danger to the community. That's how they denied me by no. He's a danger to the community. Like, like, I'm gonna take a gun and go to McDonald's and just go to kill the people. Right. No, it don't work like that. That's not who I was. You know, I had absolutely no violence in my case. You know, I was pretty incredible for some of them. I could have been violence. Right. I could have been violent. I had guns, but I never used them. So, why am I considered a danger to the community? Right. So, they considered drugs a danger. And even when we went to jail, you know, I was black box.

2:20:43You know, they put a black box on you. They put handcuffs on you and then they got this little black box. They slide over the handcuffs so that your hands are like stiff and then they cuff you till you waste. And you can't even use the bathroom. You know, like, it's crazy. And then when you go to prison, you go to the worst part of the prison because they classify you with the guys who do murders and the bombers. And so now they got drug dealers who... I consider myself almost like a white collar crime. You know, businessmen. A businessman, you know, I wasn't looking to hurt nobody, but we were still classified like that.

2:21:23So, I wanted to show people the mentality that I had, that no... Yeah, I did get crazy with drugs. You know, I wanted to say all the drugs I could sell. I mean, my mission in life became sell as much drugs as you can. You know, it wasn't about making money anymore. It's like, become the biggest drug dealer you can become. You know, be great.

2:21:51That's how I feel. Be great at it. You know, fuck how much money you make and you're not going to spend all the money you got. You don't even spend the money you make now. But just be great at what you do. So, it wasn't about money anymore. It just became, you know, I'm going to be great at it. Isn't that crazy that that mentality, you can apply to almost any industry. Just unfortunately, you applied it to the wrong one. Yeah. And, you know, and somebody asked me before, do I have any regret? That would probably, if I had a regret, that would be the regret that I didn't take those skills. But I don't know so much from selling drugs.

2:22:39Those fucking guys taught me, man. They taught me what the teachers couldn't teach me. Because they had a different passion to teach me. They wanted me to motherfuckin' get smart. So, you can get my drugs cheap and good. We need you to be smart. We don't want no dummy. We don't want me getting our dummy, all right, not drugs, we don't know dummy. So, you get smart. So, you can make sure that when we come get our drugs, we're going to be safe. We're going to get the best drugs. The price is going to be right. We like what you do. So, we teachin' you. And they taught me. I mean, somebody would have told me about a gram, a gram.

2:23:16What the hell is a gram? What is a tenth of a gram? What is a eighth of a gram? What is a quarter ounce? What is an ounce? I know none of that shit. I failed science in school, because I couldn't read. I never went to science. They put me in special head. Wow. I sit in the classroom and make paper airplanes. I'm saying I'm throwing paper airplanes around the classroom. You know none of them by no science, but when I started getting the drugs business, they taught me. They showed me what a gram was, and they showed me how to work a triple beam. I didn't know none of that shit. They showed me what a money counter was.

2:23:55They taught me how to work a money counter, right? I didn't know none of that shit, Joe. I was green. Man, we miss one of the greatest fucking interviews, man. The guy that bought my first ounce from him, he was paralyzed when I got out of prison. And we were shooting the documentary. And I go to his house, you know, when I found him, I found him. I went and found him because, you know, he was like my partner, you know, I love him. I knew he was paralyzed too, and I went to prison. He was already paralyzed. But when I got out, he was like on his last leg. And I almost got him to talk, man, on camera.

2:24:34He talked off camera, and he told us, and what I should have did, I should have promised him, and do the interview when you die, I'll put it out, but I won't put it out until after you did. And I didn't, I wasn't thinking in my right mind. You know, you never want to tell a friend that he's going to die. Right. That was the first thing. Right. I didn't want to say that, but, man, he told us about me when I started. And it was just like so fascinating to hear him talk about me, to me, you know, and he's laughing about how green I was, how he used to take dope out of the bag, and I didn't know we took it out the bag.

2:25:16He said, man, I wouldn't sell him a kilo because I could get four extra ounces out of the kilo, and I could sell him a pound, and it was just so much stuff, and it was like, it was amazing for me to understand that at one time I knew absolutely nothing about cocaine. I'd never seen cocaine before, and they taught me. They took me in mode of me. What's really crazy is that even though that sounds like, oh my God, that's illegal activity. That's drug dealing, that's it. But it's really a system, and you figured out how to excel inside the system. You figured out a business, and you really could have done that with anything.

2:25:57Yeah, to me, it wasn't illegal. I mean, I understood it was illegal, but I understand now, like you said, that it was the mentality of being able to be taught, to be able to listen, to be able to follow instructions, was the part that I feel was the most valuable lessons in this whole thing, is that I learned to follow instructions, I learned to listen. I'm doing the same thing with the weed business. When I first got into the weed business, you know, when I was out of jail, and we were smoking weed and stuff, it was like two kinds of weed, tie bud, and indica. That was it. Now, fuck, it's thousands of different strains, and botanists got involved, scientists got involved.

2:26:48So they tell me, smell the weed. Shit, I can't smell shit.

2:26:57I don't know the smell, I don't know nothing. So I had to learn to smell, you know, I had to learn what smell you're looking for. So I basically... What smell are you looking for?

2:27:12Well, now, one time it was the gas, the OG smell, and it was really like gas, it smelled like gasoline, really stinky. Now, it's a candy smell. Hmm. Or a sativa. Like a sativa sweet, you know, they want that good taste. That's what everybody's into. It's just smelling. Yes. But now, the stuff I just gave you is the brand new stuff that the guy just created. You got what he called. He calls it candy gas. Oh, boy. This guy is a hybrid. It's a hybrid. He has the highest testing weed in California. My partner from Green Dragon, his name is his company, and he just invented this strictly for me. And he said, Rick, this is the first time that anybody's going to get candy gas.

2:28:07He said, will you please get Joe Rogan, Joe Jarz, and tell him to let us know how he like it. It's candy gas. So it's going to have the OG... Hi, you know, OG knock him out. Right. On the couch, stretch out. Give me something to eat. Now, I ain't moving. But it's going to have that sweet candy taste that everybody's looking for. So he's saying that this year is going to shake the market up. Hmm. That's funny. So I know how to do all that. I know the smells now. That's interesting. It's funny how much it varies. You know, really does. And he's a scientist, like you said. He's a botanist. You know, went to school for it in the whole nine yards.

2:28:43Once they got involved. Yeah, totally different game. Yeah, totally different game. It got scary. Like, they started making just insane high THC content weeds. Yeah. That's one of the arguments about it being illegal. Like, the marijuana of today is different than the marijuana back on the day. It's so strong and people are going crazy. Like, listen, people are going crazy no matter what you do. Yeah. What do you say now you can fit now? That's true. And that's also the problem with things being illegal. So they're cutting it. And they're cutting it when you buy it from the cartel. You know, there's a lot of stuff that people are buying from the cartel.

2:29:19It's cut with fentanyl. A lot. Including like street pills. Like pills like fake, fake Xanax and fake volumes. And it's all cut with fentanyl. Fake Mali. And like you said, that's what happens when you put that illegal market together. Exactly. And meanwhile, it costs us 100 ,000 lives every year just in this country from opioid overdoses. And what are they doing to stop that? Nothing. It's just a...it's so perplexing. It's so perplexing the problems of our world today. It really is. Because it's such a complicated series of issues. And it doesn't seem like any progress is being made. Like even the minimal progress that's being made with marijuana.

2:30:06Like the good progress is states making it illegal for recreational use. Making it legal. But if the federal government still doesn't have it legal, like what the fuck are they doing? Like how is that still a thing? You had a federal government should just get out of it. Yeah. Use the wife's hands with it. Leave it to the states. We've done with it. Whatever the states do, let it do. That's what they should've done a long time ago. Let's be done with it. Well, they should've rescheduled it. They should've made it legal. Just scheduled it to make it legal. It should be legal. It's stupid. The whole thing's stupid.

2:30:39It's stupid. There's plenty of things. If alcohol is legal, marijuana should be legal. That's simple. Alcohol destroys lives, destroys liver. Now, how the guy in here last week, he lost his liver in his kidney. He had a liver replacement, an endocating replacement, just from drinking himself to death. Insigurates. Oh, yeah. All that stuff. Legal. Totally legal. It's crazy. We live in a strange time. But, you know, it's interesting. Well, we started to talk about it. Yeah. I mean, the first thing, nobody used to talk about drug dealing. Right. That was a taboo. They have somebody to come on and say, I sow drugs.

2:31:16Right. You never would have heard that before. No. Not like this. So, now we're talking about it. People were starting to understand how they get started selling drugs with the look for. And that's really all I can do. You know, if I can educate somebody on what the look for, when it's coming your way, hey, I did my job. Yeah. And explain the pitfalls. And also, don't ask how much when someone calls you up.

2:31:46I'm so against suspicious. Yeah, don't get addicted. Because if you get addicted, you're going to ask how much. Right. How much? Right. Especially if you're addicted to the thrill of the game. If it's, you know, an exciting thing. And then you're not doing that exciting thing anymore and you miss it. Because everything that you're not supposed to be doing is exciting. At least in some way, especially something that's massively profitable. Police, you documented it. Right here. Freeway, Rick Ross, the untold autobiography. Second edition. Well, it's, I took out all the misspelling and, you know, the typos.

2:32:24Because you know, I sell Publish. Oh, okay. Yeah, I sell Publish. I sell Publish it. Yeah. So if anybody want to get it, tell them to go to my website for rewrickyross .com. Don't go to Amazon because they keep all the money. Amazon keeps all the money. They keep a lot of it. Yeah. We don't get much money. Okay. I bought you my other one too. I did that one since I've been here. 21 keys of success. Those are 21 keys that I use when I got out of prison. All right. Beautiful. And this is available on my site as well. Freewayricky .com. Freewrickyross .com. Okay. All right. Yeah, I bought you a few gifts.

2:33:01Thank you so much. I said I'm gonna go and get you something. That's my other one. Oh, three books. Look at you, man. And I also bought you one of my sweatshirts. All right. And I just want to tell you, man, thanks for, um... I like the world famous Freewayrick. Thanks for all you did for me. My pleasure. And, um... Your story's crazy. And you know what? I'm gonna take your advice on the podcast. You should. You know? I hope you did. Everybody else been telling me. And I've been like, ah, ah, ah, ah, yeah. But I did so well. And the last time you told me to do something. And I would be going to get my own principle.

2:33:34You definitely should. Listen, you're an interesting man. And you've got a fascinating life. And we need more interesting people and interesting voices. I mean, eat more people. You know, we grow and learn from other people's perspectives of the world. When you get to hear a person who's gone through the life that you've gone through, which is very unusual. When you hear that person talks, it educates you and informs you and it changes your perspective. You get to add to your perspective of the world from another person's life experiences. And that benefits everybody. Oh, no question. I agree.

2:34:10All right. Let's do it again sometime, man. Well, next time we do it, when the movie comes out. When the movie comes out. Okay. When the movie comes out. What is that? Well, we just had to direct our three weeks ago. So hopefully this summer we go on production. Okay. When it comes back, you come back. All right. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Jason. Bye, everybody.

2:34:38Thank you.