February 8, 2024 • 44 mins
Grammy award winning rapper and activist Killer Mike (Michael) shares his unique perspective on life, love, and fatherhood. Mike discusses his commitment to his music career, the role of parenthood and business in his life, and his unwavering dedication to his community. He talks about his experiences growing up and his family's history, touching upon the complexities of his mother's life. Through stories full of laughter and tears, he recalls the profound impact of his grandmother and mother's deaths and the influence of their words and examples. He shares his philosophy on relationships and parenthood, advising that 'nothing is impossible', and one must prioritize self-care.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Andrew Martinez in Real Life podcast. This episode and conversation
is powered by I do say kill Mike on the
podcast today, How are you Love? I'm good.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
You know you just called me Michael too.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I know, but I have to start. I'm not going
to throughout kill who calls you, who calls you killing Mike?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Just people who don't know you.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Just random people kill him, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, but most people just call me Michael back home Michael.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
My dad's Michel, and I mean my dad is Mike,
my daughter is Mikey. I have a son named Michael,
So I got stuck with Mike.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Michael.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
So we know, I know you on a few different levels.
I know killer Mike artist level. I know you as activist,
a creator, artist. But what is your everyday real life,
like every day real Yeah, like what is the every
day real life?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
My everyday real life is. I'm I'm an MC. That's
all I wanted to be, and you know I live
is is as free as I want to be. That's
all I ever want. All that little nine year old
kid that's on the cover of the album All They Want.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, thank you his little buck kid. The Horns and
the halo.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
But I you know, I'm a I'm I'm a I'm
a father to children. You know, I'm a husband to
a wife. I'm a businessman in my community. You know,
I'm I try my best to do my grandparents said,
and you know, be a be a leader and be
responsible in that community. But I'm just on the daily basis,
I'm doing the same thing other dads are doing. Getting
(01:41):
pissed off that my daughters are growing up and growing
boobs and shit and bub trying to help, trying to
help my sons not get so enticed by boobs. They
make babies early, like I did. You know, so just
typical black dads, shit working.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Cast black dad ship.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
But let's let's go back for a minute, because to
tell me about like young Michael, you have a little
bit of complicated.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It's not complex to us. It's just our family.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
My great grandparents, my grandmother's parents were Tusky Alabamians, you know,
shorter of Making County. They worked and sharecropped their ass
off to get their own piece of land.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
That farm is still in our family to this day.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
And I say that because they're not just some abstract
people I heard about. They you got sent to the
country when I was a kid, like you got sit
there in the summers. You say, you just all of
a sudden, you know, on forty eight because a farm
like shit, ain't no.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Pumas and breakdans are going all.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
So you had to learn shit like killing and cooking
your own food, picking shit, you know. And I'm thankful
for that as I got older, because I understand all
this is luxury and I appreciate. You know, my grandparents
raised me though, Betty Klentz and Willie Sherwood. They raised
me because my mom was sixteen when she had me.
You know, I did the age that you were, yeah,
(02:55):
and my dad was only nineteen. He later went on
to become police officer for for a amount of time
in APD. Then he went to the fire department, ended
up in Atlantic gas and Light. My mother, so flooris
by nature, serial entrepreneur, just kind of artsy bohemian, and
she ended up for a short time being a successful
drug trafficker.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
They would never you know, how we woke up.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I think where you talk about her in the positive spin,
well it positive.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
It's positive.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
She was a successful drug shrafficker. But another person could
have a different perspective on the.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Same perspective on that. That's what I'm saying, Mom.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You choose to present it in such a posy.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I she was presented honestly as my life was Angie,
my mommy was my euro And at the time, if
you look at this is nineteen eighty nine, ninety when.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
She was she was caught and how old I was?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Fourteen year she she was if I was, if I
was fifteen, Denise was thirty thirty one.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, she's thirty one years old.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
And the news pops up, you know, a woman arrested
in Griffin, Georgia, tempted it by ten kilos of cocaine.
And I remember my grandmother give my grandma's devout christian
I'd never seen my grandmother go to any African spirituality
or anything that was probably Christianity until her daughter got
locked up. And I remember driving to this house and
I remember my grandma coming out with a bag and
(04:11):
candles and there was like two chickens running around their
heads when were cut off, and I'm just like, well,
theyre not gonna eat these chickens. So this is this
is some other shit, this is from something else, sou.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
She temporarily switched religion.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
She just went back to what what we your roots?
You know what I mean? Said?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I was like, oh, so so we believe in Jesus.
Be when your baby get locked up after holler as
some Mauricius two you I mean, but my mom came
home in two weeks. The guy, man Ralph, God bless him,
he took the whole charge, and he told, yeah, it
could have been you know, but he's just and he
to this day he still has a picture of my
mama because he's an amazing He said, your mom was
(04:48):
the most fearless woman I ever met.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
But I remember when she got out, I was talking
to her about.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
It and how long was quick?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
No, it was two weeks. They held her too. He
convinced them that it was all on him. When they
got pulled over, she said, he told me rather, he said,
he told the police take the money and just let
us go. And then the police got a little nervous,
so he called someone to else to hear it, so
if he made the move. But when they got there,
when the second guy came, my mom and and her
(05:14):
guy just shut the fuck up. They just wouldn't talk.
M and my mom I remember her asking me. I
was like, y'all got caught. I was like, Ralph took
the joy. That was beautifully. He let you call on
the kids. He said, yeah, them cracking steels don't have
the fucking money. We ain't go down under about ten.
We went down there about twenty wow.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
And I was like, god damn Like.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
So they kept enough to to convict him, and they
and they kept the other half of the money.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And that's when, honestly, it.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Ain't no good guys and bad guys, you know, it's
just opportunities and opportunistic people. So when people think of
the crack era, I encourage people whose parents were addicts,
cause my mother later suffered an addiction. I tell people
be more forgiving. Because no one understood what was going on.
They were just coming out of disco. They was partying.
Go to disco, people do a little coach shit. Next
thing you know, people are freebasing. Freebasing was a little
(05:58):
fancier thing you had a and next thing, you.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Know, the stems came.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
And when that crack hit the streets, it was just
it was no one understood how bad. For whatever reason,
white folks can do, Cocaine is still make it to
work on Mondays. You know, I don't know what the fuck,
but black people, it just cocaine and us. It just
didn't It did not go well.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
But crack and cocaine is two different.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
It's not too different thing. Cocaine is the is how
it's the base of making crack, I know.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
But I feel like the addiction of crack it just.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
But coke still not good. Black people still don't function
well on coke. Look at the USA industry.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yeah, all the motherfuckers who had it now they just
fucked up, fucked up all them money.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
A lot of functioning cocains though.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
In the music business, a lot of I've seen a
lot more of than none function I've seen the guys
at top, yeah, but the middle.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
You couldn't see no function in crackheads.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah, well, I've seen a couple, but most of them,
most of most of them functioning in that car washing
crackhead and lists forever too.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Now.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I don't know what they put the crack, but crack
relationship God and the crackheads and stand in front of
some of my business and they just be there like like, bro,
you've been since I was twelve.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I'm still on me here, Mike, Oh my god, but j.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
All, joesus side, I'm glad that that blight is something
that has kind of clear from our community.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
How did that affect you though? How did her addiction?
How did that her addiction change you?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yet? You know, all heroes have a weakness, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
And what I had to understand is that many people
who become addicts are not even seeking the fun as
much as they're deeply sensitive people that are trying to
know the sensitivity and pain. Mm.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
My mother was deeply deeply She was an artist.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
She's deeply sensitive, and she didn't operate in this world.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
She was diagnosed witch. She commit attempted to commit suicide
in front of me when I was nineteen. Her and
my sister were arguing. She split off her wristwide and.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
In front of you or you from them.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
She was walking out the hallway and s y'all don't
appreciate me. I I'm about to go and be like,
oh sh it. I never heard a singer spiritual till
that day. I didn't think she believed that. Jesus.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I was like, oh my fucking god, de niece, but
my grandmother.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
I can remember being coming down because at that time
in Georgia, if you did that, they would commit you
for a number of weeks to observe you and stuff.
And so she's there and there's this classic picture of
my mom with both her her wrists wrapped and just
leading on my grandmother and grandmother smile and she's so.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Happy, and I'm just like, what the fuck are you happy?
My mom's in a state asylum.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
It was because she knew where her baby was and
her baby was her baby. Again, my mom didn't have
any say in her whole life. My grandmother was the
only person who and out and she was like, my mom, sorry,
I just made a mistake. I was just I was
just hurt at the time. And my girl was like, no,
you're gonna be here two weeks, baby, we gonna make dollars.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Tell me you can go through.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
My grandmother was a nurse by trade, so it was
just hilarious to see my mother have to be someone's
daughter again. But she learned, but she understood how much
that hurt us. She never tempted anything like that again.
But it helped me understand did.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
You have to do healing though through it?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Like Mom, she had to do therapy she had to
join narcotics anonymous.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Shit like what about you? Though?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
For me, I just I prayed and went went my
ass back to the More house, went back school. You know,
I didn't. I didn't understand trump It bad shit just happens.
Like my grandparents right, they born nineteen twenty two, nineteen
thirty two. My grandmother born in nineteen thirty two, grows up,
you know, sharecropping, getting an education because her mother believes
Vietnam ly in it. My grandfather's father left when he
(09:18):
was second third grade, worked in a lumber yard, you know,
saw meal to feed his.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Two sisters, so there wasn't a lot of room for all.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
What's wrong? How can we fix it? That was life
is not fair. Bad things are gonna happen. It is
your job to endure those bad things, to find silver
lining and those and to push forward, to take care
of yourself.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Take care of your sisters, take care of your family
and community.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
It just was not It wasn't that the problem was
oniccknowledge or ignored. It was just that, why is there
an expectation for life not to be hard? My grandparents
never gave me the expectation. I remember saying my grandfather's life.
This ain't felt life, ain't fail this.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
No, I get that. But you're nineteen years old. That's
a choice you left now, and there's you find beauty
in it in terms of the he laughed.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Two weeks in hell, Yeah, we laughed.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
You'd have God damn cut you down, rich, got your
food self in here.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
And bearing back on your fear that it would happen again.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Comedy curious. Yeah, if it happens again, how could I
fix it? If she was determined to do how could
all you could do?
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Anger? No anger as a child that your mother would
do that in front of you. No anger towards her.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
No anger she was when I loved her. What I
was angry? I was angry. When I was angry one
time my mother win When was angry.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I was angry when she found out she she dated
a guy that I looked up to. I thought he
was he was adult way, he was a cool dude.
He was adult man, So he's older, he's a cool dude.
I didn't like fact my mom dated him. That made
me mad.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
That made you more?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, because I knew she Because I'm just trying to
understand the makeup, and I get it if your grandparents
taught you as a young child that.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
We understand they're my parents. She's like a big.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Sister, right so they So if they taught you that
shit's hard, so.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
No, no, not that she's shit is going to be
hard the rest of your life. Yeah, yeah, not that
shit's hard. You have no control over anything but yourself.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
So when something hard does happen, yeah, at nineteen or
at sixteen, my.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Cousin died yesterday. I was tempted not to come here
today today. I appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I'm so sorry, but I'm here because the same cousin
that died, she was hit by a bus as a
teenager and lost the use of her right arm, and
desperation of trying to get the nerves back, she put
boiling hot water on her arm, trying to resurrect, trying
to just resurrect the nerve function because my fucking schizophreendic
conco told her that might be the right thing to do.
(11:41):
She made that mistake, but once she accepted that this
is my life from now, she was still my big
cousin who baby sat me. But she was my big
cousin that introduced me to the Devarges had me listen
to the Jackson Catalog, listened to The Beastie Boys with
me and run DMC. She taught herself how to write
and draw with her left hand. So I was sitting
there next to her. She was teaching me how to draw.
What would my cousin would have wanted me to do?
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Now?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
I didn't want to get on a plane because I
felt like I'm abandoning her eighty eight year old mom.
I felt like I'm abandoning my two sisters to two
of my five sisters. I felt like I'm abandoning her sisters,
who are or my big cousins. I mean one of
them is even my godmother. I felt like I was
abandoned in my family. But with that said, what would
my cousin that wanted me to do? Teresa would want
(12:22):
me to be here? She wants me to say recipes
Teresa Miller. I just saw my cousin on Thanksgiving, just
prayed with it with my other cousin, so life and
I've talked to her mother this morning. On the way here,
I talked to her sisters and they said, well, Mike,
were just glad our sister's not suffering anymore, and her
mother says, well, I hate that had this my third funeral.
She's buried her son, she's buried her husband, and now
(12:44):
she's buried one of her daughters. And my family just
it's not the pain does it come, not that doesn't happen.
It's just that you understand that it is a part
of life and to not to try to sound too
stoic about it.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
But what can I do? You know, what can I do?
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I don't know that I've ever sat across from somebody
who's more stoic about it, Like you are managing all
of that unbelievably.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Got to you.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Just pray, like my girl say you prank or what
the all folks called prayer is really meditate you see,
you go through the feelings.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
First, I wondered that, like, because if you are that
strong about it and you do anticipate because we all
by the way, this first, this whole podcast, my first
episode before I changed the names in real life, it
was really called We're All Gonna Die. That was the
name of the podcast because the reality of that that
gives you a freedom to live your life differently when
you realize our time is limited here, that really was
(13:35):
the thought of it. So I somewhat get your just
the way you maneuver through life and through these traumas
beause they are traumas. Whether you hold them as traumas
or not, it is traumatics achimatic.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
The reason I can't say traumas because people like to
carry that around like a Louis bag these days.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah. I was a chubby kid in school. I've been
called fat all my life.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
The fuck some people, it's such a trauma trauma your
ass to the track, then, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Like, what what can I fucking do?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
I get that there are terrible things that happen.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
They are terrible things that happen every day.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
But and if God gives me an opportunity to wake
up tomorrow, I'm gonna try my best to even through
the terribleness, make that the best day.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Do you give yourself? Is that immediately the fact that
you've just lost your cousin and you're immediately here the
next day, yeah, Or the fact that you're laughing after
a insid like that with your mom two weeks later?
Are you do you give yourself?
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Am? I'm just I don't know. I don't know if
I properly grieved, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
I know I until I wrote motherless or I sat
and said my mam was dead.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
My grandmother said I had never uttered those words, and
I cried, you know, for days. So I think that there.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I think that, like in the song shed Tears I
have with Mazi, I think men, especially in the South.
I don't know. Do you know how how many act
outside the South. I haven't spent enough time, But in
the South, black white, you know, culturally, as a man,
you expected to this moment. My grandfather dies twenty years ago.
(15:04):
My younger sister is graduating dealer at university. He didn't
die until she graduated. That significant because when he had
a heart attack in eighty seventy, stopped smoking cigarettes that
day and that immediately stopped drinking beer.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
He'd only drink corn with scary that at then. But
he told my sister stopped crying.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
I don't worry. I ain't gonna die. All y'all out
of school. He literally died. My sister had graduated deal
It and I'm crying. I'm fucking crying. I'm a crier
in the family. Really, yeah, I'm cry.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
I would have never thought that based on this.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
I'm gon cry. I cry, you know, I'm just not
gonna I ain't gonnah. I ain't gonna cry for days
and we don't all to get it out.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
My sister walks up to me on shanga and she
holds on my bag of brother. She said, well, get
it all out today, because tomorrow you're the leader of
this family. And twenty years ago, I know how to fuck.
I couldn't leave myself out of this room, you know
what I mean. I got a record deal to run
around a party. I'm having fun. I don't know how
to lead a family. And I've spent the last twenty
years stepping up to that leadership and understanding it is
(16:01):
not about me saving everybody and doing everything. It's about
me being a leader on this team of people that
are confidently trying to raise children to be confident and
competent so that they.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
That our family name may grow.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
We may not embarrass ourselves or embarrass our parents, or
embarss our family's name.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I always had this. I grew up with a lot
of women, not a lot of men had My great
grandfather was alive, he lived one hundred and five, but
my great grand my grandfather and my grandfather great grandfather,
only two men that I had in my life, much older.
And I always had like a sympathy for men. And
maybe sympathy is like I don't know if you find
(16:40):
that like a condescending, but I had always a sympathy
for men because I would see them. My grand you know,
both of them were in wars. My great grandfather came
here from Cuba and a damn little boat. And you know,
like I always had a sympathy for how much you
have to hold or what's expected of you to hold.
And I don't know, I just always especially older men,
(17:02):
if you think about the generations even before us, because
you even could say you comfortably sitting here and saying
I cried. Would your father or your grandfather maybe have
that freedom or that comfort to be able to say that.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
But my two dads, and I say, my two dads
have a by on a nine by your dad were
both huggers and kissers.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
And loversperience though what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Yeah, but they are gonna hug and kiss you, but
you get firom advice on the front or back end.
So it was still you a man you know what
I mean. You're you're you're a man, and you're expected.
Now I love you, but you are expected to get
that grass cut or you're gonna become grass in the
dark if you don't do it in the day like
when I love you. But if you if you, if
(17:44):
you make a child, then I'm not going to beat
adult and grandfather. That takes up your slack. You're going
to work and take care of these children.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
So there was a there was a kindness and the
tenderness to all the men.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
I had a lot of men in my family, I
had uncles, But was there.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
An emotional like that was were y'all allowed to be emotionally?
Speaker 3 (18:05):
You weren't going to out of emotion to women. That
was frying, that was frond and pointed by the women.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
But that's part.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Of the Yeah, you could get it out, part of a
position we put you in. Yeah, my family, my family,
get you.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Do you get one good, get it out, go ahead
and get the crowd, and then you have to take
care of these women and children. So you know, whatever
you need to get out, just get out. And that's
what my song shed Tears is about going in the
bathroom as me and sometime and sometimes you just got
to go in the bathroom, look at mirror, a man
to get the crowd, because on the other side of
the door, it's your responsibility, the people you're accountable for,
the people you're accountable too.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Is that enough to be healthy that?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Honey bag y'all talked about that on our episode too,
because he had a lot of loss recently, you know,
and he talks about being being in the meeting and
walking and being like a bred back and going to
the bathroom, getting the cry out yeah, and then coming back.
So I'm assuming that that is way more common than
we know, especially of our generation.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Now.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
I think me and I think it goes back further.
I think men, I think this has been a coping
mechanism longer. But you you're a man.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Fuck I'm gonna do sit here, have a crime context
with my woman all day.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
It's somebody got to get up, you know, she got
to get up in ten of these children. She gotta
still make sure that dealer's gonnahit. But she still gotta
make sure the finance and everything managing out. I can't
manage to get my ass up and get to work.
I got to get to work. You know, my cousin gone.
What they said about the dead bear of the dead,
you know what I mean, that's its she She's gone.
There's nothing I can do about it. But she lives
on through me, through her nieces or nephews. I'm gonna
(19:29):
go to the fieldingal I'm gonna share some tears remembering
my cousin. But I'm still gotta be there for her mother.
I still gotta be there for my auntie. I still
gotta be there for my sister. So I don't don't
waste your time crying, you know, just cry, get it out,
let it be effective, breathe, meditate on it, pray. But
you got to get back to living while you're alive.
(19:50):
You got to make sure that the children under you,
the woman or women next to you have. With my
brother's rolling, you gotta make sure that you're a cornerstone
for them.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
You know that's all that That is really hard, uh I.
I think it's one of the hardest things, and it's guaranteed. Yeah,
you know, you know, we know how this ends for
every single person in the room, for all of us,
and yet I don't think we've uh figured out how
to emotionally, or maybe we're not supposed to. Maybe it
is supposed to hurt us and be painful.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
My grandmother mourned her mother to the day she died.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
My grandmother died in my arms at seventy nine years
old walking up a hill m and to the day
she died, she would say, I miss my mama.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Did she say, actually say.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
That I missed my mama.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
My grandmothers was going to her bathroom sometimes and you
just hear her wailing.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
She pray, like you yourself, like you know, put yourself in
the closet to pray. You get away from people.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Because she just she genuinely missed her mother. She just
genuinely missed her my mama, and I had my mommy.
Denise had one of the biggest arguments ever after my
grandmother died. She told me something, I'll hit me so
hard wearing a limousine. Sorry, my mom. My autistic uncle.
Me my autistic uncle who thinks he's like my big
(21:05):
uncle still, and he's trying to call He'll call me
four times a day. I'm checking on you. Don't you
let nobody use you, don't you know? And I'm just
like Okay, yes, sir, I gotcha.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Aunt.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
She's like, God damn it, I can't even more my
mama right, and my uncle's.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Trying to give it. She says, shut up. I didn't
have to fight for you. My whole life your hands.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
I'm fighting as we kids from people picking on you,
and I'm just like, oh shit. So in the moment
of sadness, I am falling, laughing, just like this is
fucking amazing. And finally I'm trying to interject with her, like, Mama,
you can't do you shut the fuck up too, my mama.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
My mama should have died with me. I would, and
I'm just.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Thinking, what the fuck. I'm like, I didn't want to
be on death duty. I didn't want to be. And
she says, you don't understand. You think your mama died,
but that was my mama. When I die, You're gonna
understand the feeling I have. And I just thought to myself,
keep the fuck out, because cause again, she's like a
big sister to me in many ways.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
She's only sixteen years old to me. So now it's
me her autistic.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Uncle arguing over visits my grandmother the most Oh it
is divine comedy at this point.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
And there's a line in the It's Still Magnolia. Is
that laughter through tears is like the best emotion. Yeah,
there's something about that when you see pain to be
able to laugh, it's like, who I know.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
My grandmother would have laughed at us and called us
all crazy.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
But when my mother died, I was on a plane
from Europe trying to get back here my boys Sleep,
who y'all hear me rap about my music? Sleep made
it to the hospital, hit the FaceTime. Before we got
on the ground, I was facetimed with my mother. She
was in a calla. I started talking to her and
she starts smiling, and you could tell where however deep
the come on she was hearing me and she left me.
(22:47):
And then the moment she left, she was right. I
never felt that emptiness and it has never went anywhere,
and it is there, and man.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
I I just wish I could. I just wish I
could call and say you right.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Mm.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
She play't knows.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
It fucked me up, girl, you know That's what I
Tell'm like, yeah, like you going. It was like, man,
I lost my coach. Mm, you know I lost my
coach and her and my grandmother being gone. It's just
the biggest fear I've I've ever had, and now they gone,
I face life's greatest fear.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Now. I just don't wanna have to bear my children.
So yeah, God willing.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
You know, how are you managing through that?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Uh? Man, you just you know, you manage, that's all
you just manage. You have to sorry thing, thank you,
Yeah you have to. I have I'm sorry. No, it's
all good. It is tough. Yeah, but it's it, you know,
it's not the death. I miss it.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
It's just that it's that I I still hear their voices.
I still see the advice around me they told me about,
you know, my life. It's just the th the absence
of the physical presence to be able to affirm, to say, hey,
I love you.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
I need you to know I love you.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
You know I need I need to pull up on
my mother on a Sunday like I used to just
listen to old music and sit in the back of
the truck in the car and just say, man, you
was right about that one you was right.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
It's that one specific thing you want to get.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
You want her to know that's one thing I got you.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
I got you all the things in the conversations you've had.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Yeah, because I took a lot of advice, you know
what I mean, But just just that one, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I didn't. I knew I loved my mother deeply.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
I didn't understand how deeply until until I was without
and I knew. Everybody who knows knows Michael. Denise wore
in love like I love my mother like you. I
don't give how much cocaine. So that's my girl, all
your fun, how big the flower?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Right?
Speaker 3 (24:48):
But she made was you know what I mean? Like
that it was that was it she was if she
would have never made it. She was a floorist by nature,
I mean, by trade. I'm just like she was my girl.
I cheered for She cheered for me. She was the
first person I told her wanted to be in MC
you know what I mean. She was smoking a joint.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Fuck it, that's what we don't do.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
And she That was eighty four. She had me at
the French Fast. In eighty five, she had me and
my little cousin. My cousin. My cousin was the same age.
Jimmy dropped. I asked to the omni and was like, yo,
you little niggas. Take y'all ass in there, y'all d
your seats. This is how you get articulated, your seats
and when you done, have your ass back on this
corner like that was. That was, And I'm just like,
(25:29):
you know, LP's my rap partner, shots, I run the Jewels,
God bless man L. L's mom didn't let him go
to the French Fest.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
L's mom was an adult though. You know, my mom
was fucking twenty six, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
She was, she was.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
She was my daughter's age next the street. Yeah, so
it's like I just I do just because I wanted.
I wanted her to know.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
That I listened. I heard y'all feel you you got it,
you got it. I believe she does well. I believe
it to my my grandmother. My grandmother came to me
after she was gone and a dream.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
And again I'm from a devoutly Southern Christian family and
my aunt who's whose daughter passed, who I'm gonna go
see time I get back to Atlanta, my aunt tied.
I told her, I say, she came to me. I said,
I was tryna communicate, but she said, yeah, they do that.
She said, they do that, but they only show theyself
in times of trouble, and it it fucked me up.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
She said, yeah, she say.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
She say, ye, I'm never really gonna nowhere, she say,
But she's not gonna be there every day, she said,
but she there, but sh there are times of trouble,
and in times of trouble, my grandmother's come to me
and dream, Wow, you know so I'm a believe.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
I know that this height the only life. I know
that something passed, but man, I just miss you miss them.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Miss But it's funny when you think about what she
said to you and how much it resonates even now.
You wish she could know that she was right about it.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Nobody could.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I've been blessed.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
I my mom is.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
My mom raised me, single mother, and she's still with
me and young, and I pray I'll have a long
time with her. But I I I don't think, no
matter how much somebody prepares you, even your own mother
say you'll see when I I'm not here, I don't think.
But I know friends who've lost parents and losing a
parent that type of grief, even my mother, losing my grandmother,
who I've missed watching my mother go through that. There's
(27:11):
something about losing a parent that there's just no way
you could possibly from the outside understand that until you
have experienced yourself. Yeah, your heart, there's no way to.
Like you said, your grandmother till the day she died,
was still missing her mom. And I've watched so many friends,
especially because the age group we're in now right, I'm
watching friends lose parents, parents have dementia, or parents are
(27:34):
in facilities. You know, we're watching that a lot more
at our age group. And yeah, it's just something.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
You never could prepare for.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Your kids will never know. As much as your kids
love you, until the day you're not here, they're not
gonna know what that feels like. And so that's just
how it goes. It is the circle of life. It's
the unfortunate thing that we can't know it.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
But that's why it's import to share the story absolutely.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Inspire people to think about it before.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Yeah, if your parents still alive, man, y'all got some beef, man,
just you know, figure that shit out.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Holler at each other, mm.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
You know, and and because man, when they going, you know,
it's it's they gone.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
And if you gonna feel it.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
That's so funny you say that, cause I have one
of my episodes with Kelly, I talked about this story.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
About my father.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
I thought my father was dad to the time I
was ten, and I found out he was alive recently
a couple of years ago, living in Illinois, and I
haven't really had a need to reconnect, cause, like you.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Was always encourage people to, I've.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yeah, but no, but you saying, I've the thought of
them being gone completely.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Dearly who her biological father is dying, and I'm encouraging
her go even you know now her dad is not
her biological dad, but her biological dad. She never knew
any because because because everyone deserves to know where they're
from or.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Have some questions answer.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
You know, even if even if your dad, by circumstances
or purpose was an asshole, it just full to sell
someone around him loves you and cares about you, yet
you may not have ever met, and then you might
have some questions or that person may have something to express.
And that's just my thought because I have two dads.
I literally have two dads, and my mom made sure
(29:15):
good men were my life and raise me, and I
couldn't imagine them leaving and not having an opportunity to
impart me with certain wisdom and me have an opportunity
to say to them. I tell both my dads often
like I love you. I don't know what you think
of the job you did, but I'm just here to
tell you you did a great fucking job.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Man.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
You know what I'm saying with a good son, I mean,
because I understand. I understand what it's like. I'm an adult.
I have four children on my own. I'm not married
at any of their mothers. I get it, you know
what I'm saying, So I get to struggle to strife.
You know, my grandfather would tell my dad, hey, Mike
has Michael has two daughters, two sisters by his mother
and three sisters by you. All these girls need to
(29:54):
know each other. And my dad, you know, your dad's
and moms be beef, and he wasn't getting all the
girls together.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
He wasn't.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
And now that we are adults, all my sisters know
one another. At my house, they're at we're at GUIDs
and stuff, because that's what we're supposed to do. My children,
I encourage to have a relationship outside of me.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Two of them have the same mother as the other
two do not. But they for my four children have
a relationship outside of me. That's one of my greatest accomplishments.
Like I can I can die happy because I know
that my children are united, They're bonded.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
So the whole life, the whole life, you know what
I mean. They just you don't have no halfs, no
step them. You know, those are your brothers and sisters.
And that's what the fuck it is. So you know,
if you if you and your baby daddy got beef,
y'all have that lame ship after the barbecue. But we
expect you guys to show up with these children and
whoever don't want to show up, that's fine, But these
children are expected to be here because they have a family.
(30:50):
They have they have, we have Tuskegee, we have you know,
we have history.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
I know who my.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Grandparents, great parent parents and great great grandparents were.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Wow, you know what I'm saying. You're lucky, because I
do know. I'm lucky. That's why I don't treat it lightness.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
That is a blessing that not everybody has, especially when
so many families are blended. This don't speak to this.
I have a cousin that over there. I never met
a brother that I never met a sister. And families
are broken and it's.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
And they don't have to be Everybody don't have to
be together.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
You do lose the history when your families are so broken.
I mean, sometimes it has to be broken because people.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Have well I'm just saying that different abuses.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
All types of reasons why families would ever fall apart.
But you do lose the history when you don't keep
the legacy and the generations kind of connected. So that's
I do know something to learn from. What do you
How are you as a dad?
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I think adult.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Your dad.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
I felt very guilty for having to travel so much
in their lives, you know, early touring, independent artists, that stuff.
But in terms of can my kids come and holler
at me about whatever, absolutely can't do. I try my
best to steer them in the ways to avoid the
dumb mistakes I made. And you know, you know my
(32:06):
young daughter, Mike, he said, you're pretty cool, old man.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
That's all right. I got some in real life questions
for you, Madeia. I just want to talk about, like
the spirit of your activism, you know, and we had
Tamika Mallory was one of my first guests on the pod.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
I love to me.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah, she's amazing. She she internalized a lot of the
work she's done and has dealt with. You know, she's
on the front lines of a lot of she gets
number one, she gets beat up, and then number two,
she sees a lot of trauma. There's trauma.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I know you don't like to It's not like it's
just I can't you trump.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
You know, I'm still like my sister, tell you're still
a man. You know, you still got you still got
to get up and go to work.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
But she was honest about the work that she's done
and being on the front lines and stuff that a
lot of the trauma was starting to affect her. She
wasn't sleeping and she started taking bills at one point.
She had a struggle with that which a lot of
people don't even know, and some depression, and that work
is just can be.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
It can be brutal, brutal tack people like her my son,
people like sending a Nina Turner, people like oh man,
there much unheralded and you need to get her on
the show. Tesln figure out just in the trenches working.
You know, Tessling was working with a mama downa cancer.
Tesling was working when a former old man that she's
been working, you know, and and and thank god we
(33:31):
know Tamika and more of us should know the Tantley's
because these women and these men are out here working.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I look at you know, Erica Ford. Uh, she just
had a severe health crisis because of the work for
so long, beating up on herself, beating up on her body.
It's just until now, after decades of work, that she's
like in this healing process.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Erica Garner, Eric Garner's daughter, Yes, died an advocate. So
I just I want to tell people give organized some grace.
I saw the bullshit that Tamika and Tesla endured. I
saw the bullshit that Tamika endured because Cadillac gave her
a commercial to dare to tell black people that you
can think and be bigger.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Cadillac should have done that. Black people saved that company twice.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
You know, and back in seven eighty years ago, Lincoln
and christ So was gonna put Calac out of business.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
It took they wouldn't sell the black people.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
It took a man from Switzerland or somewhere to come
over here to get over design, like old, what the
fuck aren't we selling cars to black folks? And then
wasn't nobody trying to get in Caldillacs when they before
they escalator dropped, rappers had moved on to the big
benzes and all types of stuff, and the escalat drops
next thing you know, it's in Nelly videos and cast
videos and and so Cadillac. I would expect if I
was a black customer, I'm buying the the the escalat V.
(34:46):
I wanna see more Tamika Mallories, Yeah, not less. And
the people that criticized her are foolish because you know,
you look at it like, oh, she sold us out
and she got a checking out.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
She's still on the front lines.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
She still she still getting gonna ask kick daily while
we mad that she getting able that finally they got
a vehicle for that's gonna make that's not gonna run
out of gas or it's not gonna you know, I
just wanna say, it's very easy to be critical of
these people that are organizing when you're behind your keyboards,
you're looking at television, but doing the work that's why
don't let people call me an organizer.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I'm a mobilizer. I show up.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
I know it's gonna get a few extra thousand people there.
I know that if I say something, once educated by
the organizer, I know it has longevity and it's gonna
go out. But the people are organizing every day, that's
their job. Every week, they're reporting, every month, they're trying,
every year, they're pushing, And to me, that deserves some grace,
whether you even agree with them or not, it deserves
some grace.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yes, yeah, because even if the way the thing, the
way social media in the world is set up, everything
is so polarizing now with well.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Someone's profiting from your polarization. So just know that you
know a lot of a lot of times you think
you're you think you're you think you're keeping something in
check with you're being kept in check, because if you don't.
That's why I courage people to be a one on
one relationships with people who are not like them, Like
you need a one on one relationship with someone who's
not of your religion, not of your ethnic background, not
(36:08):
of even your political beliefs, because once you start to
know that person, you're gonna start to find commonality, and
that commonality is gonna make it less easy for you
to carry your pride, ego, bigotry, and prejudice into situations
where people are from their community. Yeah, you're gonna have
to come in with an open mind and an open heart.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Especially with what's happening in the world right now.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Yeah, it is so easy to.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Just pick a side it is and not even look
at the other side, even empathize.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
The masters don't care about either side. MM.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
The masters no more cared about Irish immigrants than they
did the the the the slaves that looked like me.
They cared about them getting together and friednizing on Sundays mm.
Which is why they put say, you guys are now
gonna be white. You guys are gonna remain negroes, because
if the proletariat ever figures out that the same masters
(37:00):
are fucking a solo and you might wake up and
kill your masters, And that's what they truly fear.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
WHOA, that's a good question for you, nice and light Well.
I asked this all the time. I usually start my
interviews with this. I forgot to start today and this
would have actually opened up because of what you just experienced.
But I ask everybody, how happy are you on a
scale of one to ten? Today?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Happy?
Speaker 3 (37:22):
I am on a scale once in the day today,
not a slick five, I'm on average.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I could do better.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Well, you've you know you're dealing on so.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
With Yeah, yeah, I think I gotta start my grandma.
I think I finally got into the era where she says,
be selfish. You have to be selfish with yourself. So
I think it's I think you know how people said
they they next year's goes.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
I think I'm gonna focus a little more on Michael
twenty twenty four. Yeah, what truly makes me happy?
Speaker 3 (37:50):
And let me do that because as a guy, you
think about what you want and what makes you happy,
and then you start thinking about what my mom wanted
was a girl with sisters, with kids, with that.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
But I'm I'm gonna gonna try to be a little
more selfie selfish.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
I love that for you. You've earned that.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
You've earned that. So a five is that an average number?
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Three? I have five's average?
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Really, let's get you to like a seven or eight.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Well, I will see how good the weed is I bought.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Earlier, where do you pray for most in real life?
Speaker 2 (38:24):
What do I pray for? I?
Speaker 3 (38:28):
I know God has a purpose for me, and I
don't know what it is. I know I'm on a
journey and I don't know where I'm going.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
So I just pray to God. It stays with me
throughout it.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
In real life? When are you and your happiest?
Speaker 2 (38:42):
When? When I'm When am I at my happiest in
real life? Oh? Man?
Speaker 3 (38:47):
When I get to see the kids drive muscle cars,
read a cool book, or watch an interesting movie, smoke
good weed, and hang out with a bunch of naked
girls all in this same day, and my wife is
usually around.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
That sounds like a hell of a day.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
That's a hell of a day. But that's been some
days for me.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
You know, if this was earlier in the pod, I
might dive into your relationship with your wife and how
you find peace in that, because does that ever cause conflict?
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Conflicts are to come?
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yeah, no matter what what.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
A woman know what a woman she's gonna be conflicted
by how did your hair? Your hair looks nice? Well,
you didn't tell me when I first walked in the door. Well,
fucking pardon me, brouh. I just didn't I was waiting to,
and so you know, you just never know.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
But but when you add other naked women to the equation,
does that not leave more room for conflict to arise?
Speaker 2 (39:43):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
I just know, man, when we're in a blue flight,
we both be happy. Damn, she don't have to pay
for her dances. And I just know, you know, I
just know me I'm still the mischief. My mom caught
me reading Playboy at tea, and because I was reading,
I remember talking to my dad.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
She was like, you know, you know, got one of
your books.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
He was reading, and my dad's looking like, you know,
like a like any stupid guy, like, oh, what the
fuck am I supposed to do?
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Like slick?
Speaker 3 (40:06):
You got to be proud of your boy. I was like,
yah know, he likes ts, you know what I mean.
But she's like, so what you want to do? And
she's like, well, he was reading, and I can't take
that from him, you know what I mean. So I
was just like, I was like, so Playboy's cool. She's like,
your Playboy's cool. Penhouse is not cool, Hustler's not cool,
but Playboy you got the thumbs up. I've been a
Playboy reader since So you know, if you if you
marry me, you gotta understand it.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Is that why your relationship works because you've been married
for a long time.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
I think it works because agree or disagree, I'm able
to state how I feel. And that's you know, sometimes
you're saving them people. So it's not always. But when
I'm able, when i'm when I feel like it that
there's an ear there to here.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
But we we are. We're a typical couple. We done
went through all the all the bullshit, all the ups
and the downs, and then we.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Got married high as fucking Vegas at three in the morning,
you know what I'm saying. So you know there's a
bit of non traditionalism that comes with it. But I'm
just I'm very uncomfortable. I'm very comfortable in the tradition
of family. I'm just not comfortable in a traditional family.
You understand what I'm saying. I'm never Yeah, I'm never
(41:23):
going to be that husband. I don't expect you to
be that wife in that way. So you you you
find someone that balance is out. You know, I'm an
early riser, she's not, you know, So I'll get up
and get on the plane early she won't. I'll see
you later. And you have to get comfortable with those things.
And it's just about balance.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
But it clearly works for her. Otherwise this wouldn't have been.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, this word wouldn't have worked. I told I wouldn't
do this with anybody else else. It's just one time.
What marriage? Yeah, I wouldn't do this. This is it.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Yeah, I don't even I tell young men all the time,
don't do it. What there's no advantage in it for you?
Why would you? Well?
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Why did you?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Cause?
Speaker 3 (42:00):
I I I knew that that was an advantage like this,
like you, the.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
One like you, the one like I can live my
best like then the one you the w you know.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
And some days it's like, man, you ain't the one,
You're like nigga, you ain't the one.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Either, you know what I mean? But you know, she
she is for me.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
She has been able to accept a lot of the
parts of me that the world and other people are
not as accepting of, and so for me, she was
the one.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
But would I do this with anybody else?
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Nah?
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Like mm, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
It's it's it's cool, but you know, I think young
men should focus on themselves more. I told my sons,
I don't even really want y'all in no relationships to
you and your late twenties or early thirties. I don't
want you to having no children till you in your
mid thirties or forties, because I want you to give
so much to yourself that by the time you ready
to slow down, you ready.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
And then you need to.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Be honest, like with with with the woman you like.
You need to say, hey baby, this I like you.
This is cool, but you never gonna be all I need.
Now you got to understand I might need something else
and and you or her gonna have to figure that
out outside there.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Your age life is short. If you find happiness and
you find enjoy it, you find somebody that is okay
by your rules and your standards to do it with you,
then I'm your life.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
You've gone a little Propolygamy Pasges on Instagram. All them
couples be smiling, They they they've been their magic crystal jobs.
See anybody who knows my age though, we're a package deal.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
So looking at your life in real life, like, what
what do you hope people take from your life and
your story at the end of the day, oh, Man.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Ain't nothing I possible.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
M m ah Man, little black buck tooth boy from
the West side of Atlanta. Man has grown to be
one of the most influential people on Social LIVELS, gonna
be a business person that's going to make his family proud.
Has figured out blending his big family kids who ain't
got the same mamas at him.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
You know, it's just not that's impossible. But you gotta
get up every day.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
And my team says this, they put one foot in
front of the other, wishing for it is not enough.
If you want to see the world change, start with
the street you live on. You know, if we all
do a little bit, no one has to do a lot.
And you've got to apply, plan, strategize, organized, and mobilize
at every step of the way, you know. And then
just on the personal when I'm learning is man, my grandma,
(44:24):
take care of yourself first.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Be selfish with yourself.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
That's what I wish for you.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Twenty give it to me. I need you. When I
see I got you, I got it, I got it.
I got you.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Michael, everyone, Michael, Yeah,
Andrew Martinez in Real Life podcast. This episode and conversation
is powered by I do say kill Mike on the
podcast today, How are you Love? I'm good.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
You know you just called me Michael too.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I know, but I have to start. I'm not going
to throughout kill who calls you, who calls you killing Mike?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Just people who don't know you.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Just random people kill him, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, but most people just call me Michael back home Michael.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
My dad's Michel, and I mean my dad is Mike,
my daughter is Mikey. I have a son named Michael,
So I got stuck with Mike.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Michael.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
So we know, I know you on a few different levels.
I know killer Mike artist level. I know you as activist,
a creator, artist. But what is your everyday real life,
like every day real Yeah, like what is the every
day real life?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
My everyday real life is. I'm I'm an MC. That's
all I wanted to be, and you know I live
is is as free as I want to be. That's
all I ever want. All that little nine year old
kid that's on the cover of the album All They Want.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, thank you his little buck kid. The Horns and
the halo.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
But I you know, I'm a I'm I'm a I'm
a father to children. You know, I'm a husband to
a wife. I'm a businessman in my community. You know,
I'm I try my best to do my grandparents said,
and you know, be a be a leader and be
responsible in that community. But I'm just on the daily basis,
I'm doing the same thing other dads are doing. Getting
(01:41):
pissed off that my daughters are growing up and growing
boobs and shit and bub trying to help, trying to
help my sons not get so enticed by boobs. They
make babies early, like I did. You know, so just
typical black dads, shit working.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Cast black dad ship.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
But let's let's go back for a minute, because to
tell me about like young Michael, you have a little
bit of complicated.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It's not complex to us. It's just our family.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
My great grandparents, my grandmother's parents were Tusky Alabamians, you know,
shorter of Making County. They worked and sharecropped their ass
off to get their own piece of land.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
That farm is still in our family to this day.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
And I say that because they're not just some abstract
people I heard about. They you got sent to the
country when I was a kid, like you got sit
there in the summers. You say, you just all of
a sudden, you know, on forty eight because a farm
like shit, ain't no.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Pumas and breakdans are going all.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
So you had to learn shit like killing and cooking
your own food, picking shit, you know. And I'm thankful
for that as I got older, because I understand all
this is luxury and I appreciate. You know, my grandparents
raised me though, Betty Klentz and Willie Sherwood. They raised
me because my mom was sixteen when she had me.
You know, I did the age that you were, yeah,
(02:55):
and my dad was only nineteen. He later went on
to become police officer for for a amount of time
in APD. Then he went to the fire department, ended
up in Atlantic gas and Light. My mother, so flooris
by nature, serial entrepreneur, just kind of artsy bohemian, and
she ended up for a short time being a successful
drug trafficker.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
They would never you know, how we woke up.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I think where you talk about her in the positive spin,
well it positive.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
It's positive.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
She was a successful drug shrafficker. But another person could
have a different perspective on the.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Same perspective on that. That's what I'm saying, Mom.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You choose to present it in such a posy.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I she was presented honestly as my life was Angie,
my mommy was my euro And at the time, if
you look at this is nineteen eighty nine, ninety when.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
She was she was caught and how old I was?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Fourteen year she she was if I was, if I
was fifteen, Denise was thirty thirty one.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, she's thirty one years old.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
And the news pops up, you know, a woman arrested
in Griffin, Georgia, tempted it by ten kilos of cocaine.
And I remember my grandmother give my grandma's devout christian
I'd never seen my grandmother go to any African spirituality
or anything that was probably Christianity until her daughter got
locked up. And I remember driving to this house and
I remember my grandma coming out with a bag and
(04:11):
candles and there was like two chickens running around their
heads when were cut off, and I'm just like, well,
theyre not gonna eat these chickens. So this is this
is some other shit, this is from something else, sou.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
She temporarily switched religion.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
She just went back to what what we your roots?
You know what I mean? Said?
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I was like, oh, so so we believe in Jesus.
Be when your baby get locked up after holler as
some Mauricius two you I mean, but my mom came
home in two weeks. The guy, man Ralph, God bless him,
he took the whole charge, and he told, yeah, it
could have been you know, but he's just and he
to this day he still has a picture of my
mama because he's an amazing He said, your mom was
(04:48):
the most fearless woman I ever met.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
But I remember when she got out, I was talking
to her about.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
It and how long was quick?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
No, it was two weeks. They held her too. He
convinced them that it was all on him. When they
got pulled over, she said, he told me rather, he said,
he told the police take the money and just let
us go. And then the police got a little nervous,
so he called someone to else to hear it, so
if he made the move. But when they got there,
when the second guy came, my mom and and her
(05:14):
guy just shut the fuck up. They just wouldn't talk.
M and my mom I remember her asking me. I
was like, y'all got caught. I was like, Ralph took
the joy. That was beautifully. He let you call on
the kids. He said, yeah, them cracking steels don't have
the fucking money. We ain't go down under about ten.
We went down there about twenty wow.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
And I was like, god damn Like.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
So they kept enough to to convict him, and they
and they kept the other half of the money.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And that's when, honestly, it.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Ain't no good guys and bad guys, you know, it's
just opportunities and opportunistic people. So when people think of
the crack era, I encourage people whose parents were addicts,
cause my mother later suffered an addiction. I tell people
be more forgiving. Because no one understood what was going on.
They were just coming out of disco. They was partying.
Go to disco, people do a little coach shit. Next
thing you know, people are freebasing. Freebasing was a little
(05:58):
fancier thing you had a and next thing, you.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Know, the stems came.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
And when that crack hit the streets, it was just
it was no one understood how bad. For whatever reason,
white folks can do, Cocaine is still make it to
work on Mondays. You know, I don't know what the fuck,
but black people, it just cocaine and us. It just
didn't It did not go well.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
But crack and cocaine is two different.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
It's not too different thing. Cocaine is the is how
it's the base of making crack, I know.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
But I feel like the addiction of crack it just.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
But coke still not good. Black people still don't function
well on coke. Look at the USA industry.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yeah, all the motherfuckers who had it now they just
fucked up, fucked up all them money.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
A lot of functioning cocains though.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
In the music business, a lot of I've seen a
lot more of than none function I've seen the guys
at top, yeah, but the middle.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
You couldn't see no function in crackheads.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah, well, I've seen a couple, but most of them,
most of most of them functioning in that car washing
crackhead and lists forever too.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Now.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I don't know what they put the crack, but crack
relationship God and the crackheads and stand in front of
some of my business and they just be there like like, bro,
you've been since I was twelve.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I'm still on me here, Mike, Oh my god, but j.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
All, joesus side, I'm glad that that blight is something
that has kind of clear from our community.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
How did that affect you though? How did her addiction?
How did that her addiction change you?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yet? You know, all heroes have a weakness, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
And what I had to understand is that many people
who become addicts are not even seeking the fun as
much as they're deeply sensitive people that are trying to
know the sensitivity and pain. Mm.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
My mother was deeply deeply She was an artist.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
She's deeply sensitive, and she didn't operate in this world.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
She was diagnosed witch. She commit attempted to commit suicide
in front of me when I was nineteen. Her and
my sister were arguing. She split off her wristwide and.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
In front of you or you from them.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
She was walking out the hallway and s y'all don't
appreciate me. I I'm about to go and be like,
oh sh it. I never heard a singer spiritual till
that day. I didn't think she believed that. Jesus.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I was like, oh my fucking god, de niece, but
my grandmother.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
I can remember being coming down because at that time
in Georgia, if you did that, they would commit you
for a number of weeks to observe you and stuff.
And so she's there and there's this classic picture of
my mom with both her her wrists wrapped and just
leading on my grandmother and grandmother smile and she's so.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Happy, and I'm just like, what the fuck are you happy?
My mom's in a state asylum.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
It was because she knew where her baby was and
her baby was her baby. Again, my mom didn't have
any say in her whole life. My grandmother was the
only person who and out and she was like, my mom, sorry,
I just made a mistake. I was just I was
just hurt at the time. And my girl was like, no,
you're gonna be here two weeks, baby, we gonna make dollars.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Tell me you can go through.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
My grandmother was a nurse by trade, so it was
just hilarious to see my mother have to be someone's
daughter again. But she learned, but she understood how much
that hurt us. She never tempted anything like that again.
But it helped me understand did.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
You have to do healing though through it?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Like Mom, she had to do therapy she had to
join narcotics anonymous.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Shit like what about you? Though?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
For me, I just I prayed and went went my
ass back to the More house, went back school. You know,
I didn't. I didn't understand trump It bad shit just happens.
Like my grandparents right, they born nineteen twenty two, nineteen
thirty two. My grandmother born in nineteen thirty two, grows up,
you know, sharecropping, getting an education because her mother believes
Vietnam ly in it. My grandfather's father left when he
(09:18):
was second third grade, worked in a lumber yard, you know,
saw meal to feed his.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Two sisters, so there wasn't a lot of room for all.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
What's wrong? How can we fix it? That was life
is not fair. Bad things are gonna happen. It is
your job to endure those bad things, to find silver
lining and those and to push forward, to take care
of yourself.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Take care of your sisters, take care of your family
and community.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
It just was not It wasn't that the problem was
oniccknowledge or ignored. It was just that, why is there
an expectation for life not to be hard? My grandparents
never gave me the expectation. I remember saying my grandfather's life.
This ain't felt life, ain't fail this.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
No, I get that. But you're nineteen years old. That's
a choice you left now, and there's you find beauty
in it in terms of the he laughed.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Two weeks in hell, Yeah, we laughed.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
You'd have God damn cut you down, rich, got your
food self in here.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
And bearing back on your fear that it would happen again.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Comedy curious. Yeah, if it happens again, how could I
fix it? If she was determined to do how could
all you could do?
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Anger? No anger as a child that your mother would
do that in front of you. No anger towards her.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
No anger she was when I loved her. What I
was angry? I was angry. When I was angry one
time my mother win When was angry.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I was angry when she found out she she dated
a guy that I looked up to. I thought he
was he was adult way, he was a cool dude.
He was adult man, So he's older, he's a cool dude.
I didn't like fact my mom dated him. That made
me mad.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
That made you more?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, because I knew she Because I'm just trying to
understand the makeup, and I get it if your grandparents
taught you as a young child that.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
We understand they're my parents. She's like a big.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Sister, right so they So if they taught you that
shit's hard, so.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
No, no, not that she's shit is going to be
hard the rest of your life. Yeah, yeah, not that
shit's hard. You have no control over anything but yourself.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
So when something hard does happen, yeah, at nineteen or
at sixteen, my.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Cousin died yesterday. I was tempted not to come here
today today. I appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I'm so sorry, but I'm here because the same cousin
that died, she was hit by a bus as a
teenager and lost the use of her right arm, and
desperation of trying to get the nerves back, she put
boiling hot water on her arm, trying to resurrect, trying
to just resurrect the nerve function because my fucking schizophreendic
conco told her that might be the right thing to do.
(11:41):
She made that mistake, but once she accepted that this
is my life from now, she was still my big
cousin who baby sat me. But she was my big
cousin that introduced me to the Devarges had me listen
to the Jackson Catalog, listened to The Beastie Boys with
me and run DMC. She taught herself how to write
and draw with her left hand. So I was sitting
there next to her. She was teaching me how to draw.
What would my cousin would have wanted me to do?
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Now?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
I didn't want to get on a plane because I
felt like I'm abandoning her eighty eight year old mom.
I felt like I'm abandoning my two sisters to two
of my five sisters. I felt like I'm abandoning her sisters,
who are or my big cousins. I mean one of
them is even my godmother. I felt like I was
abandoned in my family. But with that said, what would
my cousin that wanted me to do? Teresa would want
(12:22):
me to be here? She wants me to say recipes
Teresa Miller. I just saw my cousin on Thanksgiving, just
prayed with it with my other cousin, so life and
I've talked to her mother this morning. On the way here,
I talked to her sisters and they said, well, Mike,
were just glad our sister's not suffering anymore, and her
mother says, well, I hate that had this my third funeral.
She's buried her son, she's buried her husband, and now
(12:44):
she's buried one of her daughters. And my family just
it's not the pain does it come, not that doesn't happen.
It's just that you understand that it is a part
of life and to not to try to sound too
stoic about it.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
But what can I do? You know, what can I do?
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I don't know that I've ever sat across from somebody
who's more stoic about it, Like you are managing all
of that unbelievably.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Got to you.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Just pray, like my girl say you prank or what
the all folks called prayer is really meditate you see,
you go through the feelings.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
First, I wondered that, like, because if you are that
strong about it and you do anticipate because we all
by the way, this first, this whole podcast, my first
episode before I changed the names in real life, it
was really called We're All Gonna Die. That was the
name of the podcast because the reality of that that
gives you a freedom to live your life differently when
you realize our time is limited here, that really was
(13:35):
the thought of it. So I somewhat get your just
the way you maneuver through life and through these traumas
beause they are traumas. Whether you hold them as traumas
or not, it is traumatics achimatic.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
The reason I can't say traumas because people like to
carry that around like a Louis bag these days.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah. I was a chubby kid in school. I've been
called fat all my life.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
The fuck some people, it's such a trauma trauma your
ass to the track, then, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Like, what what can I fucking do?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
I get that there are terrible things that happen.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
They are terrible things that happen every day.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
But and if God gives me an opportunity to wake
up tomorrow, I'm gonna try my best to even through
the terribleness, make that the best day.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Do you give yourself? Is that immediately the fact that
you've just lost your cousin and you're immediately here the
next day, yeah, Or the fact that you're laughing after
a insid like that with your mom two weeks later?
Are you do you give yourself?
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Am? I'm just I don't know. I don't know if
I properly grieved, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
I know I until I wrote motherless or I sat
and said my mam was dead.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
My grandmother said I had never uttered those words, and
I cried, you know, for days. So I think that there.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I think that, like in the song shed Tears I
have with Mazi, I think men, especially in the South.
I don't know. Do you know how how many act
outside the South. I haven't spent enough time, But in
the South, black white, you know, culturally, as a man,
you expected to this moment. My grandfather dies twenty years ago.
(15:04):
My younger sister is graduating dealer at university. He didn't
die until she graduated. That significant because when he had
a heart attack in eighty seventy, stopped smoking cigarettes that
day and that immediately stopped drinking beer.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
He'd only drink corn with scary that at then. But
he told my sister stopped crying.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
I don't worry. I ain't gonna die. All y'all out
of school. He literally died. My sister had graduated deal
It and I'm crying. I'm fucking crying. I'm a crier
in the family. Really, yeah, I'm cry.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
I would have never thought that based on this.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
I'm gon cry. I cry, you know, I'm just not
gonna I ain't gonnah. I ain't gonna cry for days
and we don't all to get it out.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
My sister walks up to me on shanga and she
holds on my bag of brother. She said, well, get
it all out today, because tomorrow you're the leader of
this family. And twenty years ago, I know how to fuck.
I couldn't leave myself out of this room, you know
what I mean. I got a record deal to run
around a party. I'm having fun. I don't know how
to lead a family. And I've spent the last twenty
years stepping up to that leadership and understanding it is
(16:01):
not about me saving everybody and doing everything. It's about
me being a leader on this team of people that
are confidently trying to raise children to be confident and
competent so that they.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
That our family name may grow.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
We may not embarrass ourselves or embarrass our parents, or
embarss our family's name.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I always had this. I grew up with a lot
of women, not a lot of men had My great
grandfather was alive, he lived one hundred and five, but
my great grand my grandfather and my grandfather great grandfather,
only two men that I had in my life, much older.
And I always had like a sympathy for men. And
maybe sympathy is like I don't know if you find
(16:40):
that like a condescending, but I had always a sympathy
for men because I would see them. My grand you know,
both of them were in wars. My great grandfather came
here from Cuba and a damn little boat. And you know,
like I always had a sympathy for how much you
have to hold or what's expected of you to hold.
And I don't know, I just always especially older men,
(17:02):
if you think about the generations even before us, because
you even could say you comfortably sitting here and saying
I cried. Would your father or your grandfather maybe have
that freedom or that comfort to be able to say that.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
But my two dads, and I say, my two dads
have a by on a nine by your dad were
both huggers and kissers.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
And loversperience though what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Yeah, but they are gonna hug and kiss you, but
you get firom advice on the front or back end.
So it was still you a man you know what
I mean. You're you're you're a man, and you're expected.
Now I love you, but you are expected to get
that grass cut or you're gonna become grass in the
dark if you don't do it in the day like
when I love you. But if you if you, if
(17:44):
you make a child, then I'm not going to beat
adult and grandfather. That takes up your slack. You're going
to work and take care of these children.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
So there was a there was a kindness and the
tenderness to all the men.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
I had a lot of men in my family, I
had uncles, But was there.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
An emotional like that was were y'all allowed to be emotionally?
Speaker 3 (18:05):
You weren't going to out of emotion to women. That
was frying, that was frond and pointed by the women.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
But that's part.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Of the Yeah, you could get it out, part of a
position we put you in. Yeah, my family, my family,
get you.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Do you get one good, get it out, go ahead
and get the crowd, and then you have to take
care of these women and children. So you know, whatever
you need to get out, just get out. And that's
what my song shed Tears is about going in the
bathroom as me and sometime and sometimes you just got
to go in the bathroom, look at mirror, a man
to get the crowd, because on the other side of
the door, it's your responsibility, the people you're accountable for,
the people you're accountable too.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Is that enough to be healthy that?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Honey bag y'all talked about that on our episode too,
because he had a lot of loss recently, you know,
and he talks about being being in the meeting and
walking and being like a bred back and going to
the bathroom, getting the cry out yeah, and then coming back.
So I'm assuming that that is way more common than
we know, especially of our generation.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Now.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
I think me and I think it goes back further.
I think men, I think this has been a coping
mechanism longer. But you you're a man.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Fuck I'm gonna do sit here, have a crime context
with my woman all day.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
It's somebody got to get up, you know, she got
to get up in ten of these children. She gotta
still make sure that dealer's gonnahit. But she still gotta
make sure the finance and everything managing out. I can't
manage to get my ass up and get to work.
I got to get to work. You know, my cousin gone.
What they said about the dead bear of the dead,
you know what I mean, that's its she She's gone.
There's nothing I can do about it. But she lives
on through me, through her nieces or nephews. I'm gonna
(19:29):
go to the fieldingal I'm gonna share some tears remembering
my cousin. But I'm still gotta be there for her mother.
I still gotta be there for my auntie. I still
gotta be there for my sister. So I don't don't
waste your time crying, you know, just cry, get it out,
let it be effective, breathe, meditate on it, pray. But
you got to get back to living while you're alive.
(19:50):
You got to make sure that the children under you,
the woman or women next to you have. With my
brother's rolling, you gotta make sure that you're a cornerstone
for them.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
You know that's all that That is really hard, uh I.
I think it's one of the hardest things, and it's guaranteed. Yeah,
you know, you know, we know how this ends for
every single person in the room, for all of us,
and yet I don't think we've uh figured out how
to emotionally, or maybe we're not supposed to. Maybe it
is supposed to hurt us and be painful.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
My grandmother mourned her mother to the day she died.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
My grandmother died in my arms at seventy nine years
old walking up a hill m and to the day
she died, she would say, I miss my mama.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Did she say, actually say.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
That I missed my mama.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
My grandmothers was going to her bathroom sometimes and you
just hear her wailing.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
She pray, like you yourself, like you know, put yourself in
the closet to pray. You get away from people.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Because she just she genuinely missed her mother. She just
genuinely missed her my mama, and I had my mommy.
Denise had one of the biggest arguments ever after my
grandmother died. She told me something, I'll hit me so
hard wearing a limousine. Sorry, my mom. My autistic uncle.
Me my autistic uncle who thinks he's like my big
(21:05):
uncle still, and he's trying to call He'll call me
four times a day. I'm checking on you. Don't you
let nobody use you, don't you know? And I'm just
like Okay, yes, sir, I gotcha.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Aunt.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
She's like, God damn it, I can't even more my
mama right, and my uncle's.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Trying to give it. She says, shut up. I didn't
have to fight for you. My whole life your hands.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
I'm fighting as we kids from people picking on you,
and I'm just like, oh shit. So in the moment
of sadness, I am falling, laughing, just like this is
fucking amazing. And finally I'm trying to interject with her, like, Mama,
you can't do you shut the fuck up too, my mama.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
My mama should have died with me. I would, and
I'm just.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Thinking, what the fuck. I'm like, I didn't want to
be on death duty. I didn't want to be. And
she says, you don't understand. You think your mama died,
but that was my mama. When I die, You're gonna
understand the feeling I have. And I just thought to myself,
keep the fuck out, because cause again, she's like a
big sister to me in many ways.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
She's only sixteen years old to me. So now it's
me her autistic.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Uncle arguing over visits my grandmother the most Oh it
is divine comedy at this point.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
And there's a line in the It's Still Magnolia. Is
that laughter through tears is like the best emotion. Yeah,
there's something about that when you see pain to be
able to laugh, it's like, who I know.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
My grandmother would have laughed at us and called us
all crazy.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
But when my mother died, I was on a plane
from Europe trying to get back here my boys Sleep,
who y'all hear me rap about my music? Sleep made
it to the hospital, hit the FaceTime. Before we got
on the ground, I was facetimed with my mother. She
was in a calla. I started talking to her and
she starts smiling, and you could tell where however deep
the come on she was hearing me and she left me.
(22:47):
And then the moment she left, she was right. I
never felt that emptiness and it has never went anywhere,
and it is there, and man.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
I I just wish I could. I just wish I
could call and say you right.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Mm.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
She play't knows.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
It fucked me up, girl, you know That's what I
Tell'm like, yeah, like you going. It was like, man,
I lost my coach. Mm, you know I lost my
coach and her and my grandmother being gone. It's just
the biggest fear I've I've ever had, and now they gone,
I face life's greatest fear.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Now. I just don't wanna have to bear my children.
So yeah, God willing.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
You know, how are you managing through that?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Uh? Man, you just you know, you manage, that's all
you just manage. You have to sorry thing, thank you,
Yeah you have to. I have I'm sorry. No, it's
all good. It is tough. Yeah, but it's it, you know,
it's not the death. I miss it.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
It's just that it's that I I still hear their voices.
I still see the advice around me they told me about,
you know, my life. It's just the th the absence
of the physical presence to be able to affirm, to say, hey,
I love you.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
I need you to know I love you.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
You know I need I need to pull up on
my mother on a Sunday like I used to just
listen to old music and sit in the back of
the truck in the car and just say, man, you
was right about that one you was right.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
It's that one specific thing you want to get.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
You want her to know that's one thing I got you.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
I got you all the things in the conversations you've had.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Yeah, because I took a lot of advice, you know
what I mean, But just just that one, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I didn't. I knew I loved my mother deeply.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
I didn't understand how deeply until until I was without
and I knew. Everybody who knows knows Michael. Denise wore
in love like I love my mother like you. I
don't give how much cocaine. So that's my girl, all
your fun, how big the flower?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Right?
Speaker 3 (24:48):
But she made was you know what I mean? Like
that it was that was it she was if she
would have never made it. She was a floorist by nature,
I mean, by trade. I'm just like she was my girl.
I cheered for She cheered for me. She was the
first person I told her wanted to be in MC
you know what I mean. She was smoking a joint.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Fuck it, that's what we don't do.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
And she That was eighty four. She had me at
the French Fast. In eighty five, she had me and
my little cousin. My cousin. My cousin was the same age.
Jimmy dropped. I asked to the omni and was like, yo,
you little niggas. Take y'all ass in there, y'all d
your seats. This is how you get articulated, your seats
and when you done, have your ass back on this
corner like that was. That was, And I'm just like,
(25:29):
you know, LP's my rap partner, shots, I run the Jewels,
God bless man L. L's mom didn't let him go
to the French Fest.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
L's mom was an adult though. You know, my mom
was fucking twenty six, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
She was, she was.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
She was my daughter's age next the street. Yeah, so
it's like I just I do just because I wanted.
I wanted her to know.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
That I listened. I heard y'all feel you you got it,
you got it. I believe she does well. I believe
it to my my grandmother. My grandmother came to me
after she was gone and a dream.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
And again I'm from a devoutly Southern Christian family and
my aunt who's whose daughter passed, who I'm gonna go
see time I get back to Atlanta, my aunt tied.
I told her, I say, she came to me. I said,
I was tryna communicate, but she said, yeah, they do that.
She said, they do that, but they only show theyself
in times of trouble, and it it fucked me up.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
She said, yeah, she say.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
She say, ye, I'm never really gonna nowhere, she say,
But she's not gonna be there every day, she said,
but she there, but sh there are times of trouble,
and in times of trouble, my grandmother's come to me
and dream, Wow, you know so I'm a believe.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
I know that this height the only life. I know
that something passed, but man, I just miss you miss them.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Miss But it's funny when you think about what she
said to you and how much it resonates even now.
You wish she could know that she was right about it.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Nobody could.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
I've been blessed.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
I my mom is.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
My mom raised me, single mother, and she's still with
me and young, and I pray I'll have a long
time with her. But I I I don't think, no
matter how much somebody prepares you, even your own mother
say you'll see when I I'm not here, I don't think.
But I know friends who've lost parents and losing a
parent that type of grief, even my mother, losing my grandmother,
who I've missed watching my mother go through that. There's
(27:11):
something about losing a parent that there's just no way
you could possibly from the outside understand that until you
have experienced yourself. Yeah, your heart, there's no way to.
Like you said, your grandmother till the day she died,
was still missing her mom. And I've watched so many friends,
especially because the age group we're in now right, I'm
watching friends lose parents, parents have dementia, or parents are
(27:34):
in facilities. You know, we're watching that a lot more
at our age group. And yeah, it's just something.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
You never could prepare for.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Your kids will never know. As much as your kids
love you, until the day you're not here, they're not
gonna know what that feels like. And so that's just
how it goes. It is the circle of life. It's
the unfortunate thing that we can't know it.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
But that's why it's import to share the story absolutely.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Inspire people to think about it before.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Yeah, if your parents still alive, man, y'all got some beef, man,
just you know, figure that shit out.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Holler at each other, mm.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
You know, and and because man, when they going, you know,
it's it's they gone.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
And if you gonna feel it.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
That's so funny you say that, cause I have one
of my episodes with Kelly, I talked about this story.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
About my father.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
I thought my father was dad to the time I
was ten, and I found out he was alive recently
a couple of years ago, living in Illinois, and I
haven't really had a need to reconnect, cause, like you.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Was always encourage people to, I've.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yeah, but no, but you saying, I've the thought of
them being gone completely.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Dearly who her biological father is dying, and I'm encouraging
her go even you know now her dad is not
her biological dad, but her biological dad. She never knew
any because because because everyone deserves to know where they're
from or.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Have some questions answer.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
You know, even if even if your dad, by circumstances
or purpose was an asshole, it just full to sell
someone around him loves you and cares about you, yet
you may not have ever met, and then you might
have some questions or that person may have something to express.
And that's just my thought because I have two dads.
I literally have two dads, and my mom made sure
(29:15):
good men were my life and raise me, and I
couldn't imagine them leaving and not having an opportunity to
impart me with certain wisdom and me have an opportunity
to say to them. I tell both my dads often
like I love you. I don't know what you think
of the job you did, but I'm just here to
tell you you did a great fucking job.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Man.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
You know what I'm saying with a good son, I mean,
because I understand. I understand what it's like. I'm an adult.
I have four children on my own. I'm not married
at any of their mothers. I get it, you know
what I'm saying, So I get to struggle to strife.
You know, my grandfather would tell my dad, hey, Mike
has Michael has two daughters, two sisters by his mother
and three sisters by you. All these girls need to
(29:54):
know each other. And my dad, you know, your dad's
and moms be beef, and he wasn't getting all the
girls together.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
He wasn't.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
And now that we are adults, all my sisters know
one another. At my house, they're at we're at GUIDs
and stuff, because that's what we're supposed to do. My children,
I encourage to have a relationship outside of me.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Two of them have the same mother as the other
two do not. But they for my four children have
a relationship outside of me. That's one of my greatest accomplishments.
Like I can I can die happy because I know
that my children are united, They're bonded.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
So the whole life, the whole life, you know what
I mean. They just you don't have no halfs, no
step them. You know, those are your brothers and sisters.
And that's what the fuck it is. So you know,
if you if you and your baby daddy got beef,
y'all have that lame ship after the barbecue. But we
expect you guys to show up with these children and
whoever don't want to show up, that's fine, But these
children are expected to be here because they have a family.
(30:50):
They have they have, we have Tuskegee, we have you know,
we have history.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
I know who my.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Grandparents, great parent parents and great great grandparents were.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Wow, you know what I'm saying. You're lucky, because I
do know. I'm lucky. That's why I don't treat it lightness.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
That is a blessing that not everybody has, especially when
so many families are blended. This don't speak to this.
I have a cousin that over there. I never met
a brother that I never met a sister. And families
are broken and it's.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
And they don't have to be Everybody don't have to
be together.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
You do lose the history when your families are so broken.
I mean, sometimes it has to be broken because people.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Have well I'm just saying that different abuses.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
All types of reasons why families would ever fall apart.
But you do lose the history when you don't keep
the legacy and the generations kind of connected. So that's
I do know something to learn from. What do you
How are you as a dad?
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I think adult.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Your dad.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
I felt very guilty for having to travel so much
in their lives, you know, early touring, independent artists, that stuff.
But in terms of can my kids come and holler
at me about whatever, absolutely can't do. I try my
best to steer them in the ways to avoid the
dumb mistakes I made. And you know, you know my
(32:06):
young daughter, Mike, he said, you're pretty cool, old man.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
That's all right. I got some in real life questions
for you, Madeia. I just want to talk about, like
the spirit of your activism, you know, and we had
Tamika Mallory was one of my first guests on the pod.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
I love to me.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah, she's amazing. She she internalized a lot of the
work she's done and has dealt with. You know, she's
on the front lines of a lot of she gets
number one, she gets beat up, and then number two,
she sees a lot of trauma. There's trauma.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I know you don't like to It's not like it's
just I can't you trump.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
You know, I'm still like my sister, tell you're still
a man. You know, you still got you still got
to get up and go to work.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
But she was honest about the work that she's done
and being on the front lines and stuff that a
lot of the trauma was starting to affect her. She
wasn't sleeping and she started taking bills at one point.
She had a struggle with that which a lot of
people don't even know, and some depression, and that work
is just can be.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
It can be brutal, brutal tack people like her my son,
people like sending a Nina Turner, people like oh man,
there much unheralded and you need to get her on
the show. Tesln figure out just in the trenches working.
You know, Tessling was working with a mama downa cancer.
Tesling was working when a former old man that she's
been working, you know, and and and thank god we
(33:31):
know Tamika and more of us should know the Tantley's
because these women and these men are out here working.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I look at you know, Erica Ford. Uh, she just
had a severe health crisis because of the work for
so long, beating up on herself, beating up on her body.
It's just until now, after decades of work, that she's
like in this healing process.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Erica Garner, Eric Garner's daughter, Yes, died an advocate. So
I just I want to tell people give organized some grace.
I saw the bullshit that Tamika and Tesla endured. I
saw the bullshit that Tamika endured because Cadillac gave her
a commercial to dare to tell black people that you
can think and be bigger.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Cadillac should have done that. Black people saved that company twice.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
You know, and back in seven eighty years ago, Lincoln
and christ So was gonna put Calac out of business.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
It took they wouldn't sell the black people.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
It took a man from Switzerland or somewhere to come
over here to get over design, like old, what the
fuck aren't we selling cars to black folks? And then
wasn't nobody trying to get in Caldillacs when they before
they escalator dropped, rappers had moved on to the big
benzes and all types of stuff, and the escalat drops
next thing you know, it's in Nelly videos and cast
videos and and so Cadillac. I would expect if I
was a black customer, I'm buying the the the escalat V.
(34:46):
I wanna see more Tamika Mallories, Yeah, not less. And
the people that criticized her are foolish because you know,
you look at it like, oh, she sold us out
and she got a checking out.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
She's still on the front lines.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
She still she still getting gonna ask kick daily while
we mad that she getting able that finally they got
a vehicle for that's gonna make that's not gonna run
out of gas or it's not gonna you know, I
just wanna say, it's very easy to be critical of
these people that are organizing when you're behind your keyboards,
you're looking at television, but doing the work that's why
don't let people call me an organizer.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I'm a mobilizer. I show up.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
I know it's gonna get a few extra thousand people there.
I know that if I say something, once educated by
the organizer, I know it has longevity and it's gonna
go out. But the people are organizing every day, that's
their job. Every week, they're reporting, every month, they're trying,
every year, they're pushing, And to me, that deserves some grace,
whether you even agree with them or not, it deserves
some grace.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yes, yeah, because even if the way the thing, the
way social media in the world is set up, everything
is so polarizing now with well.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Someone's profiting from your polarization. So just know that you
know a lot of a lot of times you think
you're you think you're you think you're keeping something in
check with you're being kept in check, because if you don't.
That's why I courage people to be a one on
one relationships with people who are not like them, Like
you need a one on one relationship with someone who's
not of your religion, not of your ethnic background, not
(36:08):
of even your political beliefs, because once you start to
know that person, you're gonna start to find commonality, and
that commonality is gonna make it less easy for you
to carry your pride, ego, bigotry, and prejudice into situations
where people are from their community. Yeah, you're gonna have
to come in with an open mind and an open heart.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Especially with what's happening in the world right now.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Yeah, it is so easy to.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Just pick a side it is and not even look
at the other side, even empathize.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
The masters don't care about either side. MM.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
The masters no more cared about Irish immigrants than they
did the the the the slaves that looked like me.
They cared about them getting together and friednizing on Sundays mm.
Which is why they put say, you guys are now
gonna be white. You guys are gonna remain negroes, because
if the proletariat ever figures out that the same masters
(37:00):
are fucking a solo and you might wake up and
kill your masters, And that's what they truly fear.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
WHOA, that's a good question for you, nice and light Well.
I asked this all the time. I usually start my
interviews with this. I forgot to start today and this
would have actually opened up because of what you just experienced.
But I ask everybody, how happy are you on a
scale of one to ten? Today?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Happy?
Speaker 3 (37:22):
I am on a scale once in the day today,
not a slick five, I'm on average.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I could do better.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Well, you've you know you're dealing on so.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
With Yeah, yeah, I think I gotta start my grandma.
I think I finally got into the era where she says,
be selfish. You have to be selfish with yourself. So
I think it's I think you know how people said
they they next year's goes.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
I think I'm gonna focus a little more on Michael
twenty twenty four. Yeah, what truly makes me happy?
Speaker 3 (37:50):
And let me do that because as a guy, you
think about what you want and what makes you happy,
and then you start thinking about what my mom wanted
was a girl with sisters, with kids, with that.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
But I'm I'm gonna gonna try to be a little
more selfie selfish.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
I love that for you. You've earned that.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
You've earned that. So a five is that an average number?
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Three? I have five's average?
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Really, let's get you to like a seven or eight.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Well, I will see how good the weed is I bought.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Earlier, where do you pray for most in real life?
Speaker 2 (38:24):
What do I pray for? I?
Speaker 3 (38:28):
I know God has a purpose for me, and I
don't know what it is. I know I'm on a
journey and I don't know where I'm going.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
So I just pray to God. It stays with me
throughout it.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
In real life? When are you and your happiest?
Speaker 2 (38:42):
When? When I'm When am I at my happiest in
real life? Oh? Man?
Speaker 3 (38:47):
When I get to see the kids drive muscle cars,
read a cool book, or watch an interesting movie, smoke
good weed, and hang out with a bunch of naked
girls all in this same day, and my wife is
usually around.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
That sounds like a hell of a day.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
That's a hell of a day. But that's been some
days for me.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
You know, if this was earlier in the pod, I
might dive into your relationship with your wife and how
you find peace in that, because does that ever cause conflict?
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Conflicts are to come?
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yeah, no matter what what.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
A woman know what a woman she's gonna be conflicted
by how did your hair? Your hair looks nice? Well,
you didn't tell me when I first walked in the door. Well,
fucking pardon me, brouh. I just didn't I was waiting to,
and so you know, you just never know.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
But but when you add other naked women to the equation,
does that not leave more room for conflict to arise?
Speaker 2 (39:43):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
I just know, man, when we're in a blue flight,
we both be happy. Damn, she don't have to pay
for her dances. And I just know, you know, I
just know me I'm still the mischief. My mom caught
me reading Playboy at tea, and because I was reading,
I remember talking to my dad.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
She was like, you know, you know, got one of
your books.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
He was reading, and my dad's looking like, you know,
like a like any stupid guy, like, oh, what the
fuck am I supposed to do?
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Like slick?
Speaker 3 (40:06):
You got to be proud of your boy. I was like,
yah know, he likes ts, you know what I mean.
But she's like, so what you want to do? And
she's like, well, he was reading, and I can't take
that from him, you know what I mean. So I
was just like, I was like, so Playboy's cool. She's like,
your Playboy's cool. Penhouse is not cool, Hustler's not cool,
but Playboy you got the thumbs up. I've been a
Playboy reader since So you know, if you if you
marry me, you gotta understand it.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Is that why your relationship works because you've been married
for a long time.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
I think it works because agree or disagree, I'm able
to state how I feel. And that's you know, sometimes
you're saving them people. So it's not always. But when
I'm able, when i'm when I feel like it that
there's an ear there to here.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
But we we are. We're a typical couple. We done
went through all the all the bullshit, all the ups
and the downs, and then we.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Got married high as fucking Vegas at three in the morning,
you know what I'm saying. So you know there's a
bit of non traditionalism that comes with it. But I'm
just I'm very uncomfortable. I'm very comfortable in the tradition
of family. I'm just not comfortable in a traditional family.
You understand what I'm saying. I'm never Yeah, I'm never
(41:23):
going to be that husband. I don't expect you to
be that wife in that way. So you you you
find someone that balance is out. You know, I'm an
early riser, she's not, you know, So I'll get up
and get on the plane early she won't. I'll see
you later. And you have to get comfortable with those things.
And it's just about balance.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
But it clearly works for her. Otherwise this wouldn't have been.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, this word wouldn't have worked. I told I wouldn't
do this with anybody else else. It's just one time.
What marriage? Yeah, I wouldn't do this. This is it.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Yeah, I don't even I tell young men all the time,
don't do it. What there's no advantage in it for you?
Why would you? Well?
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Why did you?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Cause?
Speaker 3 (42:00):
I I I knew that that was an advantage like this,
like you, the.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
One like you, the one like I can live my
best like then the one you the w you know.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
And some days it's like, man, you ain't the one,
You're like nigga, you ain't the one.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Either, you know what I mean? But you know, she
she is for me.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
She has been able to accept a lot of the
parts of me that the world and other people are
not as accepting of, and so for me, she was
the one.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
But would I do this with anybody else?
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Nah?
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Like mm, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
It's it's it's cool, but you know, I think young
men should focus on themselves more. I told my sons,
I don't even really want y'all in no relationships to
you and your late twenties or early thirties. I don't
want you to having no children till you in your
mid thirties or forties, because I want you to give
so much to yourself that by the time you ready
to slow down, you ready.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
And then you need to.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Be honest, like with with with the woman you like.
You need to say, hey baby, this I like you.
This is cool, but you never gonna be all I need.
Now you got to understand I might need something else
and and you or her gonna have to figure that
out outside there.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Your age life is short. If you find happiness and
you find enjoy it, you find somebody that is okay
by your rules and your standards to do it with you,
then I'm your life.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
You've gone a little Propolygamy Pasges on Instagram. All them
couples be smiling, They they they've been their magic crystal jobs.
See anybody who knows my age though, we're a package deal.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
So looking at your life in real life, like, what
what do you hope people take from your life and
your story at the end of the day, oh, Man.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Ain't nothing I possible.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
M m ah Man, little black buck tooth boy from
the West side of Atlanta. Man has grown to be
one of the most influential people on Social LIVELS, gonna
be a business person that's going to make his family proud.
Has figured out blending his big family kids who ain't
got the same mamas at him.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
You know, it's just not that's impossible. But you gotta
get up every day.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
And my team says this, they put one foot in
front of the other, wishing for it is not enough.
If you want to see the world change, start with
the street you live on. You know, if we all
do a little bit, no one has to do a lot.
And you've got to apply, plan, strategize, organized, and mobilize
at every step of the way, you know. And then
just on the personal when I'm learning is man, my grandma,
(44:24):
take care of yourself first.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Be selfish with yourself.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
That's what I wish for you.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Twenty give it to me. I need you. When I
see I got you, I got it, I got it.
I got you.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Michael, everyone, Michael, Yeah,
Host
Angie Martinez
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