Wiz Khalifa: How to Build Your Schedule to Make You Happy & Strategize Your Life 5 Years in Advance

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The craziest part of my life.

I can go from performing in front of 40,000 people

to either being in a dressing room, being in a plane,

or being back in a bed all by myself.

He is a multi-platinum selling recording artist,

mini mogul, and an actor.

Which I'm all the one, the only, the only.

Did you feel like Thank you. back in a bed all by myself.
He is a multi-platinum selling recording artist, mini mogul, and an actor.

Which I'm all the one, the only, the only, the only one.

Did you feel like

a big break was coming? I didn't know

what that big break looked or felt like,

but I knew that what I was doing

was working. The gang banging

and the drug selling, that's

not really for me. But the looking cool,

the having girls, the making

music, I'm like, I like that part of it.

What's it like to get a record deal

and then lose a record deal? Oh, there's no bouncing back from that. How unsafe was it where you were in Pittsburgh? The streets is crazy out there.
I remember one of my first friends getting shot and killed in seventh grade. Wow.
When was your sibling who passed away? She passed away,

I think maybe

seven years ago.

How was that experience

for you,

losing someone

so close to you

that you love?

I am grateful

that I was able

to have the last moments

that I had

and to be able

to prepare for it

and it's something

that I'm still dealing with.

What's a misconception

you think people

have about you?

The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty.
Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty.
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health and wellness podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week listen, learn, and grow.
Today's guest is the one and only Wiz Khalifa, multi-platinum artist and Grammy nominee who rose to fame with his 2011 debut album, Rolling Papers, featuring the hit Black and Yellow. Wiz won Best New Artist at the 2011 BET Awards and Top New Artist at the 2012 Billboard Music Awards.
His song, See You Again, from the Furious 7 top charts in 95 countries and earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. Today, we're talking about Wiz's newest album, Kush plus Orange Juice 2.
Please welcome to the show, Wiz Khalifa. Hey.
What's up, man? What's up, Wiz? I'm chilling up wiz i'm chilling how you i'm good i'm good it's great to have you here yeah good to be here you walked in with this real chill energy today i was like it was it was very calming yeah i'm a super chill dude i love that man yeah what's the first thing you do in the morning smoke weed every day yeah first thing well i take my dog out outside i have a doberman he's a puppy but he's a big puppy he's like uh he's 10 months now and he wakes up pretty early so i take him out and then i smoke weed do you ever remember a day before that was the case yeah yeah i remember the days before that was the case what were those days like i was in school so I would just get up and iron my clothes and, you know, go off to school. Yeah.
Was there ever a time in your life where you tried to stop smoking or has that ever been a goal? Nah, I never really fell back off of it. I never had a reason to.
Yeah. What does it do for you that you feel it needs to be your first habit of the day? For me, it just kind of gets me in a relaxing mood.
I have a lot of things on my mind, like as soon as I wake up. So it's like, I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere.
But if I smoke, I kind of chill, relax, put everything into its place. I write my goals down.
I start to, you know, make some text messages or phone calls or whatever, depending on what the situation is. So everything just starts to come into place.
Yeah. You write your goals down regularly.
Is that like a regular habit, a consistent habit? Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Walk us through what that looks like.
It's really like me kind of like just spitballing stuff, whatever it is, like short-term goals of mine, whether it be about clothing, music, family, visuals, content, just kind of like just writing the first ideas, like really short, really just to the point, nothing really crazy. I have a blackboard, so I'll sit in front of the blackboard and physically write it or if i'm in my car or something like that i'll write it down in my notes you know what i'm saying just to like little reminders and things like that yeah i love that man how long have you had that habit for it goes on and off just due to like necessity like how crazy my life is so i just i feel like i don't know how long it's been because i do it like so regularly and then i look back and i see how much i've done and i'm like wow i've been doing this for a long ass freaking time yeah so i think it's kind of like like a second nature type of thing for me yeah what do you find is the craziest part of your life? The craziest part of my life? I think the entertainment part is the craziest part.
And I think it's because I can go from performing in front of 30,000, 40,000 people to either being in a dressing room, being in a plane, or being back in a bed all by myself. And it's like to go from that much energy to just be all back by yourself.
I think that's pretty crazy. Walk us through what that feels like mentally.
You just described two polar opposites. And the majority of people on the planet will never really experience those extremes.
they might experience the loneliness in a room, but they won't experience the 30,000 people screaming your name, wearing your merch, you know, whatever it may be, singing along to your music. What are you feeling in the in-betweens, in the transition of that to that? You have to have this thing where you kind of wind down and you know what is for where.
You can't bring the stage home because eventually you have to wind down and go to sleep and wake up and do it again. And you can't be too turned off when you're on the stage because you have to bring enough energy to where somebody is way in the back and they can feel you.
So it's really just like a projection of your energy and how you feel. And the majority of the times, I'm in a great mood.
I have great interactions with my fans and the people around stage and things like that. So it goes good.
I'm in a great mood. But it's just a lot of this goes from really, really intense.
And then it could just all just be shut off at one second. And I think that's like the craziest part to me.
Yeah, I can relate. You know, I'd heard that before and I can relate in a small, very small way comparatively.
But I remember doing my first ever live show in 2019. It was at the Ace Theater, or maybe 2018, something like that, in the Ace Hotel.
And it was like, I don't know, 1500 people, 2000 people, maybe. It was my first ever show.
And I remember walking off stage, jumping into the car to get driven back home. And it was just the strangest feeling.
Like, it's so hard to explain it. And I wasn't, you know, it wasn't like, like i don't do music so i haven't got even that experience but i'm feeling connected with my audience yeah then you get into the back of a black you know a black car you you barely know it i didn't know anyone in the car with me i was alone and i'm driving home and i just felt i was like wow i don't even know how to describe the juxtaposition and then i went on my world world tour last year.
We did roughly 40 cities around the world. And that was like, you're in a new place every day.
And now you're feeling that same thing every day. And so I know it's much smaller compared to what you've done.
But to me, just getting that experience. And I remember that night, I was lucky.
I came home and my wife had planned a surprise party. So all my closest friends were back my house yeah and that kind of like it was a relief yeah but it but it is a really weird feeling yeah i don't think the feeling is smaller yeah due to the crowd or whatever i think the feeling is the feeling yeah it's like when you're on a roller coaster and like you get back and like you're in your bed and you still feel like you're on the roller coaster yeah it's like you know what I mean so I feel like we still have that in common even though it might be at different levels and it's not even always 30,000 people sometimes it could be a private event or sometimes it could be an event with some kids or something like that to where it's like you just get really two totally different you know parts of life and they're both great I love my normal life and I love my work life too it's just the difference between them is crazy yeah what's helped you continue to love them and deal with that paradox with that ease and comfort what's really soothed your relationship those, you know, challenging or crazy experiences that you mentioned? I think it has a lot to do with like my relationship with my fans because I love the people that I do music for and they give me a really, really great response and reaction, not only to my performance, but to my music and just the appreciation that they have for it.
So I appreciate them as well. And it makes it easier because I enjoy it and I love to create.
I love to be on stage. I love to be in front of people.
Yeah. So it doesn't feel like I'm like doing anything out of, oh, I just want the money or this is just for this certain reason is really really enjoyable for me so yeah that's beautiful yeah it's a great experience that's such a beautiful place to be yeah yeah for sure yeah yeah that that gratitude to your community for for being there for you yeah for being present with you yeah definitely yeah what's what's been a what's been like your craziest fan experience or fan interaction a memory that you have with one of the audience members that I think the craziest stuff is when people like come up and give me to like sign my name on them so they can get it tatted wow or they show me like tattoos on my face on them I think those are the craziest interactions because I have tattoos I'm covered in them so I know how important that is and to be you know just me as an artist and doing what i'm doing and to want to have people to want to like tattoo me on them it's pretty uh it's pretty tight yeah have people ever done a lyric as well or yeah yeah they do lyrics they do song titles they do pictures um they do autographs they do all types of stuff wow yeah what's your most meaningful tattoo or one that really speaks to you probably uh i got a couple i got you know my mom's name i got my brother's name my sibling who passed away um i got my little sister yeah probably like my family tattoos mean the mean the most to me the rest of them are just like stuff about life that i've learned throughout the way or things that i've called myself throughout life yeah yeah when when was your sibling who passed away she passed away i think maybe seven years ago i don't i remember exactly how many years ago it could be like Could be more or less yeah and and how old was she then uh she would have been 40 now so she was probably 33 when she passed away yeah so you had some life together oh yeah hell yeah we grew up together yeah yeah same mom same dad yeah how was that experience for you losing someone so close to you that you love? I wouldn't say like rough because, you know, you get through that type of stuff and you learn how to deal with it.
But it's definitely a situation that I never would have expected. Like we weren't sick growing up or anything like that.
We were always the same. So it's like when you get to a certain age,

you don't plan on losing a sibling. And it was just something that we had to deal with.
And as her health declined, it was something that we knew was going to happen. So it was like, all right, cool.
Let's get ready for it. You know what I mean? And I am grateful that I was able to have like the last moments that i had and to be able to prepare for it and you know my son has memories of my sibling and things like that and um her birthday was actually on on halloween so we celebrate every year annually we throw a party so yeah um it was definitely an experience but you know it's something still dealing with.
Like, you know, like a lot of the times I'm doing like really, really well. And then sometimes it might, you know, it might hit me to a point where it's like, all right, you know, let me just slow down and kind of deal with this or just think about it or talk about it or just whatever it is that gets me through it.
But, yeah, it's just like a continuous thing. For sure.
How did you prepare for it at the time? You said you kind of knew it was, you know, health was diminishing over time. How did you prepare at the time? Like, were there specific rituals or things you did or memories you made together that stayed with you? No, I wasn't really too many rituals or memories or anything like that.
I was traveling a lot at the time. So I did make sure that I went home and spent some time with her before she passed away.
And then my mom was really the one who was like right by her side the whole time. So she was giving me kind of like blow by blow of everything and just how the situation was going to go.
And I just did my best to try to make her as comfortable as possible, you know, for those last couple moments. And, um, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, it sounds like you said you're still dealing with it, even though it sounds like you made the most of that time.
And now you're saying you reach out to people and talk about it. Who would you reach out to when you want to talk about something like that?

I would talk to like my aunt Rachel. We had like, you know, we all just laughed and joked and just had a real good time together.
Talked to my mom, talked to my dad, talked to my baby sister about it. I most recently talked to like just one of my other aunties about it just randomly.
because I feel like we all feel the same and we all have losses and, you know, can relate in certain ways, even though it's not the best thing to be relatable about. But, you know, we feel similar about it.
So it's cool to have those conversations and, you know, feel good about it afterwards. Yeah.
I love that you still celebrate her birthday. Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. That's a beautiful way to think about it.
Yeah, definitely, definitely. Yeah, it's such a hard balance, I find, in terms of mourning or grieving someone's death and then celebrating the life you had with them.
Yeah. And it's such a fine line.
And often you're pulled in either direction. But I think it's so important that we do celebrate life and memories we had with someone and celebrate their life as well.
Yeah, absolutely. I just look, I look at it as like, if she was still here, we'd be partying.
So let's not stop the party. Yeah, that's beautiful.
I was diving into a career whiz and I feel like when someone like you becomes as successful as you've become and, you know, is dropping successful hits here and there, you almost forget the journey that they've been on and the graft that they've been on. And I was really fascinated by that because it hasn't just been like a smooth, easy, linear journey.
I think people think of success as like, you tried something out, it worked, and now you're this, you know, this big phenomenon. And yours had lots of twists and turns.
When, like, what was your life like before Black and Yellow compared to what it is now? What was it like before that? I would say it was pretty normal. Like, it was pretty regular.
I was just, you know, like any other 20-something-year-old. I think just the way that we were working and traveling and, like, going on the road and kind of the money that we were dealing with, a lot of it was getting reinvested back into the business.
So I was making money, but I was spending money on myself. Not even in a big way, but it would just be hotels, travel, things like that.
So I was putting myself through courses and business and how to like, you know, make money, spend money, reinvest, blah, blah, blah. I was doing all of this stuff naturally, but it wasn't on that level yet because we hadn't met, you know, anybody who was in the game.
We hadn't had business managers or anything like that. So it was just, you know, me and my friends, we we were kind of just really really hustling and making the best out of out of what we knew how to do yeah i mean did you feel like a big break was coming or did it feel like god we don't know how this is gonna go well being that i already had a record deal and then essentially lost that record deal, I didn't feel like a big break was coming.

I didn't know what that big break looked or felt like, but I knew that what I was doing was working. and I knew that the people who were into me and the movement that I had created,

I knew that that was more popular than, you know,

the mainstream and like what was really, really popular at the time.

So I was really confident in that.

But I didn't know like a big moment was coming or anything.

What's it like to get a record deal and then lose a record deal?

It sucked for me.

Like just because in those days, like if you had a record deal, like that was it. And then if you didn't have a record deal, like you were done.
So to have one and then lose it is like, oh, there's no bouncing back from that. Like I never knew anybody who bounced back from that.
But in my mind, it was never over. I never counted myself out.
I just never knew what the next situation was going to look like or how long or what what that time frame was going to be like where did that confidence come from I love how self-assured you were that like what you were doing in the community you were building was resonating with what you were doing yeah where does that come from because I think like you said so many people today who might be listening and they, maybe they just, you know, got kicked out of a job. Maybe they got rejected from their record deal.
I remember when I, when I was first coming up with the idea for this podcast six years ago, I had a production company and a partner that was going to launch the show with me. I went away for the holidays, Christmas holidays, came back, and then I was told told that it wasn't on anymore so i remember that feeling and having to launch the show on my own if someone's going through that right now how did you maintain that composure and that confidence like no we're doing something here yeah we may not know when that break's coming but we're gonna keep moving yeah i think it was just by like standing on the things that I believed in and the stuff that made me most comfortable.
And if I wanted to show it, I was going to show it. If I wanted to talk about it, I was going to talk about it.
It might not have been what everybody else would have considered was going to take somebody to the top, but it made me feel free. And I enjoyed myself by doing it.
And I I think just in turn a lot of people have fun enjoying watching me do it yeah yeah if you could give your younger self any advice before black and yellow came out what would it be I was good keep doing what you're doing you gotta you gotta figure it out fool is there is there anything you would liked to have known for how to deal with it afterwards? Nah, nah. Everything that I learned and that I figured out along my way, I think, happened in its time and how it was supposed to, and it's positioning me for even greater points in my life as well.
Yeah. Where does that come from? Because that's such a peaceful thing.
And like I said, from the moment you walked in, there's such a peace and ease about you. In an industry where people can get jaded, people can get ruffled, they get flustered.
How have you kept that peace and composure for yourself? Where's that coming from? Really like just my goals goals in this shit I have my own personal goals and I've reached a lot of my old goals that I was trying to do and I reached them by being myself and doing exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it so you know knowing that that's possible and seeing that it doesn't make me want to rush to the next point or the next situation. I'm comfortable waiting for what's mine and just seeing how everything plays out as opposed to trying to make it be somebody else's story.
I feel like my whole story and everything as far as my life, if I see it, I wanted it. It's just a matter of time until I get it.
So, you know, I'll just wait that amount of time and, you know, just keep, just stay down and just, you know, just be very, very like, have a lot of gratitude for where I'm at and what I've done so far. And even when I was coming up, I was really, really happy with what I had.
So the more and more that I started to get, it wasn't because I wasn't happy where I was at and I had to get more. It was just because I was so happy.
It just, you know, just kept turning into more and more. So I just keep it like that.
Yeah. There's a, there's a beautiful quote that says, when you're grateful for what you have, you'll receive more to be grateful for.
And I think it's true that gratitude gratitude expands but it's beautiful hearing you say that did you learn that from anyone did anyone teach you mentor you guide you or is this an internal thing that's kind of evolved over time this is definitely some internal that's evolved over time and it's like gotten me really really far dealing with people in business or dealing with the law or dealing with just different personalities in general um as far as like just getting what i want creatively and not you know freaking losing my mind and you know just being able to talk to people and and have clear conversations with an understanding of you know what what works what's real and what's not and what we can make real. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and I wanted to invite you to a brand new interactive, no charge workshop, Renew You, that I'm eager to share with you.
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See you there. What's been the hardest conversation you've ever had to have with someone? The hardest conversation I've ever had to have with someone.
I think the toughest conversations that I have to have are when I have to explain my ideas. Yeah.
Because? Because I'm so hyped up about it. Like before it start, before I verbalize it.
And then as soon as I start to say it, I just feel like the level of intensity of it just comes down. I'd rather just do shit sometimes and like just show you and like but i learned you know by working with so many other people how valuable it is to like have a team so i learned how to be able to express you know what i'm thinking and have that go through a whole process and then and then we uh we make it real that's so true man yeah i feel like that sometimes like you can see in your head yeah but then you're like you can't press play on the projector and then it comes out and so when you're explaining it everyone's like looking at you like you're crazy yeah exactly and you are right sometimes i do feel we live in a time in an industry where people have heard so many ideas that until you see something you don't even understand it right and i feel like when you look at music or you look at movies or film or tv or whatever it is when you watch something like oh that was amazing but like someone when they talked about it no one wanted to buy it right did you find that record labels and people that you've worked with the music always understood you immediately or no you kind of had to go prove and show oh man they didn't know what to do with me like there was no clue what to do with me early on.
That's why I lost my first record deal, because when I came in, the song was really good, and it was a sample from a popular song that people, you know, was really recognizable. But after that, it was like, well, what do you do? Do you make, like, five more of these songs, or, like, what are we going to do? And they really didn't understand like me being from Pittsburgh, me smoking weed, me being lyrical, me, you know, being a cross between like, you know, really, really hard hip hop culture.
But then like really cool, trippy, hippie, skating, you know what I'm saying? Earthy month. We were getting where we couldn't pay the bill.
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Follow MyUpspring online and let's spring up to better health. Dude, like there was no cross between that at the time.
Like you really had to be like big white tea, like chain, you know what I'm saying? So like a lot of labels didn't understand what to do with me and it wasn't until you know I built my my fan base of people who believe the same thing that I believe in and I was able to you know travel and do shows and then they would come and see the show and they'd be like these motherfuckers are going crazy over this dude like it doesn't matter what we say or what we think is dope it's obviously you know there and I feel like that whole format you know has been done a lot like especially in rock and roll and pop music where the act will be bigger in real life than they are you know what I mean to to other people like they're they're bigger in real life than they are like to hype like as far as the hype goes once they started to see that that was my situation and that's when people. Like, they're bigger in real life than they are, like, to hype, like, as far as the hype goes.

Once they started to see that, that was my situation,

and that's when people started to pick up on me.

Was that the way you built this audience that understood you?

Was it performing live?

Do you feel like that was the significant part for you

in creating this amazing connection you have with your audience?

Yeah, absolutely.

Performing live, going to a lot of different colleges and festivals before they were as big as they are now. Stuff like South by Southwest and the really grassroots underground stuff is what built us.
And we packed into a van and just went on our own tours just up and down and just drove ourselves. And then on top of that, YouTube had just came around.
So, you know, I was recording myself and putting my vlogs on YouTube. I call it a day-to-day, and I still do these to this day.
They're like a compilation vlog of like a week in my life. And I just started doing it because I was like, my life is so crazy.
Nobody sees it, and it's so there's so much like stuff that goes on I was like so I might as well turn it into like you know what I mean a little 10 minutes short yeah and it worked it worked a lot it helped sell a lot of merch it helps a lot of tickets it helped build a really consistent fan base of people who are still here to this day yeah do you remember any of those trips certain places you went to where something crazy happened that you caught on camera? Man, it's all on camera so you can see it. Anyone that stands out to you? Yeah.
I mean, I think like there's really classic episodes. There's like an Australian tour with me and A$AP Rocky.
You see like me and J. Cole in his early days.
You see me and Currency in our early days. you see like me and j cole in his early days you see me and currency in our early days you see uh a lot of artists you see me and kendrick in his early days you see me with nipsey hustle um yeah you see like the whole community of people who we really came up with who are like ogs in the game now but But there's really classic footage of us when we all just started out.
Mac Miller, a lot of people, everybody, man. Everybody who you listen to now was in those day-to-days, like originally.
How did you guys all meet each other back then? Like how did you connect? Yeah, we were. Because I guess there was no Instagram DM.
Maybe there was, maybe there was. No, we would connect through Twitter.
Right. Yeah, right yeah twitter was the vibe back then there was no ig we weren't like dming each other on there but we would connect through twitter and clothing and if anybody needed clothes or weed like we would all hit up the same peoples for clothes weed and you know just vibes and stuff like that and we just all all clicked.
And as we started to, like, take off on different levels, we would just bring each other with us based off of who we, you know, not really liked the most, but who we were closest knit with at the time or who it made the most sense with. Yeah.
What's it like watching Kendrick then and kendrick now it's really dope watching kendrick

then and then now because we all came up together so we were all doing the same things we were all

speaking to the same crowd and we were at different levels in our career and i just remember

performance wise kendrick will kind of like scream on stage like he didn't sound like he did on the

record but now he's like one of the best performers and he's like one of the you know what i'm saying the the guy's really carrying it for our generation so to see him like just jump up levels and levels and levels through like hard work and branding and you know just being around the right people at the right times bringing bringing people along with him, like Baby King and all of them. You know what I'm saying? He's just really doing every move to the T of how you're supposed to do it.
And how's J. Cole evolved as well? Cole is the same thing.
It's like, you know, we all started out just the homies, like trying to get a verse on each other's tapes, and now dudes are like rappers up there you know what I'm saying and it's like it's cool to see him have his own festival it's cool to see like he doesn't have to do as much work throughout the year but when he does drop people pay attention how they're supposed to he does great tours and like as a as a performance artist and as a substance artist I feel like he has a type of career like that's all you can ask for yeah that's powerful where does it feel like you were saying there like in some ways things have changed like what's changed for up-and-coming artists today like what are they doing right what are they? How would you advise someone? If you were starting out from scratch today again, how would you approach your career differently or in the same way? I think that there's levels to it. I think that a lot of people aim for like the surface level where it's like you get one or two things and you're good and that's what takes you to the top.
But usually that works against you because you'll have that spike, but then you'll go back down and you'll have to go back up again. It's really difficult to have that spike and to have that feeling of validation and like, oh yeah, everybody's with me, blah, blah, blah.
And then boom, they're not with you. And then you got to try to do something to get them back on your team.
So, you know, a lot of people are going to want to go that route, but it has a lot of negatives that come with it on the back end. And it's a really good time for artists to, you know, cultivate a real fan base, whether it be in front of people's eyes or whether it be behind the scenes, it's a really great time to cultivate a fan base of people that understand you, understand your slang and how you dress and what your lifestyle is about and really push that to the forefront.
Let that slowly build. And eventually, whether it's a year, two years, three years or five years, you know, you're always making a

little bit of progress here, here, there. And wherever you land at, you're going to permanently

be there. Yeah.
Yeah. There's a lot of people today who get told you've only got 12 months,

you had your hit. You've got 12 months to make as much money off of you as possible.

Like a lot of people hear that, like, Hey, look, your career is not going to be that long.

Let's make the most we can. What would you say to someone who feels that fear themselves or gets told that like hey look you had one hit let's just you know crush this peak if somebody tells you that you better get some drugs and start selling them use that money money.
Flip it. Nah.
Get some real estate. Because, I mean, like, somebody who only has a year planned in you and they're like, yo, you're only going to be here for this amount of time, they're going to move on.
They're going to find other artists or, you know, different people to represent and you're going to be asked out. Like, so any artist or any personality who somebody is already talking about, like the, the limit of the lifespan of their career, they should definitely be worried and not try to race to, you know, do the most in that amount of time, but to try to figure out how to extend that lifespan.
So let's take what that person just told you and let's try to figure out, you know, what the next five years looks like instead of the, you know, next 12 months. Yeah, that's good advice.
Yeah, definitely. How far into the future do you look when you're planning music work life I always try to look at least five or ten years in advance yeah how different is where you are today from where you looked at where you'd be five to ten years ago I'm doing way better business wise than I've ever done not just making money but money.
And I feel like I'm getting better and better at that. And, you know, that's, what's going to take me, you know, into the, into the future as well is not only just, you know, the making of the money, but the money management.
What have been your best moves in money management or business that you think people could learn from my best moves in business is just um being accountable for everything um i think in rap music we get so caught up on on the lifestyle and we're like i have to have this or if it's a new truck i'm buying that or but me i'm more, I'm only going to spend this much on clothes this month. If I want a new car, I'm going to wait a year and a half until I get it.
You know what I mean? Or I'm going to move money from this account to spend on this. So this is here and that's there.
And we can still pay for tour. And how much are we spending on tour? How much are we making off a tour? How much comes in off of merch on top of the other businesses and things like that? But really the money management, like the everyday type of spending where it's like, you know, you could get carried away buying too many clothes or, you know, getting too many nice rooms or, you know what I mean? And I have a lot of luxuries that come with my life, but I could also do without a lot of that stuff too.
So the unnecessary stuff and knowing what the stuff that it's not really needed, paying attention to that, not letting just those things just slip through the cracks

because they all add up and shit.

So I think just being way more conscious of that type of stuff.

Yeah.

Did you learn that the hard way because you were overspending

or did you learn that because you saw other people

before you were overspending?

Luckily, I didn't get to a point where I overspent.

Or overspent. I just received large ass amounts of money.
And with that comes advice. And, you know, so it's like yearly or quarterly, you know, we need to have these conversations where it's like, this is what the money looks like.
We had to spend for this because of that. Or, you know, you had a little bit of fun spending this.
So let's just bring it back on this, this, that, and the other thing. And just throughout time of having those conversations, you start to figure out where the unnecessary spending and the problems come from.
Or even if you start to create little different issues, you'd be like, okay, this isn't really working in our favor, so we need to wiggle out of this. And even if it's spending this big chunk over here, that's going to take away from the continuous spending that's kind of like bleeding and taken away.
So just to learn that and have that visual in my head, you know, while I'm making decisions.

A lot of people, they feel like they're being controlled if somebody's telling them that.

But for me, it's a choice.

It's like, do you want to be broke 20 years from now?

Or do you want to be having more money 20 years from now?

All right, well, this is how you do it.

Yeah, it's good advice, man.

It makes sense.

And it's hard to do in the moment because you just want to get that thing or you want to buy that thing and it applies across the board. What's the dumbest thing you ever bought and now you look back and go, oh, God, that was dumb.
Man, I don't think it was ever like one dumb thing. I just used to be dumb how I bought stuff.
I would see anything and just like it and buy it it didn't matter how much it cost if it was a car i wanted it i would buy it like right then and there sometimes it'd be a watch or something like that like a lot of these watches i don't even have no more so it's like you gave them away or sold them sold gave away lost yeah and what was the best investment you've ever made um it probably be like some stocks or it's like some you know like a percentage of of a business that i've invested in yeah yeah i've had multiple but there's some really good ones that you know i put some money into that is going to come back in some really good ways. Yeah.
I hope people get inspired by hearing you talk about how sometimes you got to put off those big purchases, wait a year for that car. Because I think when we're young, especially, and you come into even a little bit of money, which feels like a lot of money, it's so easy to spend and just get carried away.
And especially now, I feel like with all of us just ordering things off of Amazon and everything else all day, it's like you have no idea how much money you spend. Oh, for sure.
It's so easy. It's super easy to look up and, you know, however much, just be gone.
And when it's gone, it's gone. And to me, I feel like you have to go through that.
You have to really feel that and understand it. And whatever you believe in, I believe in God.
So it's like, that's God telling me like, okay, you spent this much, it's gone. You're going to get more, but you need to deal with the feeling of you having it and it being gone.
And then now we'll see what getting more feels like. But some people, when they have it and it's over with, they don't even know what that bounce back feels like or looks like.
So, you know, unfortunately, the best way to learn is to go through it. Yeah, you're right.
Yeah, yeah. But afterwards, like, you know, it's on's only you after that like you're gonna keep doing the same thing over and over or you're gonna learn from you know what happened yeah what is what does your relationship with god look like my relationship with god is the shit i pray all the time i thank god all the time yeah a lot of people there's certain people who don't feel like God is like a higher power or anything like that.

But I like to just imagine that my God is just like chilling up in the sky, like with a big, deep voice.

The sun could be going down and I could be driving and the Hotel California could be on.

I'd be like, thank you, God.

Like, you know what I mean?

Because like the situation just feels right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And what does God say to you in God's deep voice? You're welcome. You're supposed to have this.
That's awesome. Has that always been there since you were young, or has that come with time as well? Yeah, definitely since I was a teenager.
Definitely since I was like, I can remember, you know, being in like ninth, tenth, No, probably even, like, eighth grade. Just praying every night, thanking God for a wonderful day, asking him to bless everybody that I care for.
Yeah, just, like, really cool stuff. Like, just normal-ass shit that I want the world to feel.
What would you pray for? What else apart from other people? To be safe. I was in a crazy-ass place when I lived in Pittsburgh, so I definitely asked for, like, that safety.

The older I get, you know, I asked for, like, patience

and understanding and things like that.

You know what I'm saying?

So just regular shit.

Wow.

That's not regular.

That's pretty deep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How unsafe was it where you were in Pittsburgh? It's super unsafe in Pittsburgh, man. Like the streets is crazy out there.
Friends of mine started getting murdered when I was in like seventh grade. Like I remember like one of my first friends getting shot and killed in seventh grade.
Wow. And then when did you leave Pittsburgh? I came to Pittsburgh permanently when I was in middle school.
And I stayed throughout high school. And I probably didn't dip until I was like 23 years old.
Right. Because you moved around a lot growing up, right? At least as far as I saw.
Yeah, probably like every- Two years in Japan. Yeah, every two years I would bounce around.
And my mom was always in Pittsburgh, so I would go live with my dad for two years,

and then I would come back to Pittsburgh.

Then I would go live with my dad, and then I would come back to Pittsburgh.

So I was in Pittsburgh in third grade, and I was also there for middle school,

and then I came back for high school.

And then other than that, I lived like in Oklahoma, South Carolina, Japan.

Yeah, those were a couple other places. What was your favorite place? I think Japan was my favorite place.
How old were you when you were in Japan? I was in like fifth or sixth grade. Okay.
Yeah. What was that like? I mean, Japan at that time, but now I feel like everyone's like, Japan's the place to go.
Yeah. It's cool when you're like exploring Japanese culture, but I just realized like as an adult that that shit was kind of fucked up because it was like i'm living on an american base in japan right and like just the concept of like americans occupying japan was like you never find a japanese base in america but like we have the audacity to like go over there and just be like here here's our base we're going to operate as americans we're going to send our kids to school here.
Don't teach them your language. Nothing.
It's just going to act like America in Japan. So that's, yeah.
So you never learned Japanese. I learned a little bit of Japanese, but it was, like, basic.
It wasn't, like, really any, like, diving into the culture or anything like that. Like, it's just you you live on post and you travel from one base to

another base and that's pretty much what it was how do you think that experience impacted you now like how is that childhood experience of moving around dotting around every two years defined who you are today it was cool because i was able to just be a regular kid and i was able to like meet friends and different groups of friends and run around and play and knock on doors and

ride. a regular kid and I was able to meet friends and different groups of friends and run around and play and knock on doors and ride bikes and climb hills and stuff like that.
So it was super chill, man. It was fun just being normal and not really worrying about too much.
I think the older that I got and the more settled that I got in Pittsburgh, that's when I started to figure out who I know who I wanted to be later in life but in those early years it was just all about like being a kid and just playing with my friends when you saw all of that around you how did you have what gave you that feeling to dream and to want something more when you're seeing like the violence around you you're saying it's a rough neighborhood what what's given you the ability to go there's there's more to life than this i think it was just like knowing that i had talent with music um i always did music since i was younger my uh my uncles and my cousins were older than me they were like you know 15 16 all the way up to almost like 20 years old and i was like the I'm 13 years old. So I'm really kind of trying to do what they're doing, but I'm picking the parts that make the most sense for me.
So it's like the gang banging and the drug selling and the guns and all that shit. I'm like, that's not really for me, but the looking cool, the having girls, the getting money, the making music,

I'm like, I like that part of it.

So that's what I always really stuck to, like just even as a kid.

Like I was just like, I'm going to just do what I know is cool for me,

which is just making music.

And, you know, that's kind of like what led me on my path.

Yeah.

How did you stay away from all of the other things?

Because sometimes those can look cool when you're young. They can be attractive when you're young and powerful.

I didn't really stay away from it.

I had definitely, like, you know, the older that I got and, you know, the more fun I started to have, I kind of was in and out of that stuff.

But it wasn't for me, you know?

Like, just, it's a lifestyle for some people and for a lot of those people.

Like, they're still doing it now. And for me, it was just kind of like, you know, being a kid or like a rite of passage type thing, or it's like product of my environment type stuff, you know, like the little stuff that I would get into is like, I'm here.
So, you know, I'm getting down. Like, I'm not going to be the only one who's not down.
You know, you grow out of that stuff too. And you learn from that stuff as well.
So I learned from the, the things that I did do and I learned from the things I didn't do as well. Yeah.
I mean, now you're a father yourself. Yeah.
How do you feel looking now from the perspective of being a dad, you've been a father to Sebastian for a while now. Right.
And then you just had a daughter, Cadence, I believe. Congratulations.
Thank you. And like, what's it been like to be a father to Sebastian? And then how is your views of fatherhood changing now that you've had a daughter? Yeah, it's been really good having Sebastian and having a boy, especially at his age.
He's 11 now. And there's just certain instincts that are starting to kick him, you know, where it's like he was a young boy.
Now he's like, you know, a young man and he's growing into more of a young man every day, really. And just that programming of, you know, life and discipline and being polite and, you know, on top of, you know, just everyday stuff of like handling his emotions with his friends and things like that.
It's a really like fun experience going through all of that with him because I'm able to remember what it was like for me as a kid. So instead of just telling him the rules and what you should and shouldn't do, it's more like guiding him of how to navigate through these situations, which is really, really fun.
And I had that with my dad as well. He was always there for me and talked to me about a lot.
And he was way more disciplinary than lenient. And I'm a super lenient parent with my son, but I'm also like really real with him.
And he's able to be real with me and he's able to talk to me about real life things. And when I think about the stuff that I did when I was coming up, by the time I was his age, I was doing a lot more stuff because like I said my uncles and my cousins were older and I'm just thankful that I was able to have those experiences and know what's appropriate and what's right and what's not so I'm able to monitor what goes on with him and what will affect his behavior later and then just having a baby girl I think it just adds to it now because I'm able to just give all types of love.
Like I got the tough love with my boy and then I got like just the sweetness of having a daughter, which, you know, helps out a lot. Yeah, how do you think you're gonna shift your strategy as she grows up? I think I'm gonna do it pretty much the same.
Just like cater to her needs, whatever she needs. If she's super girly girl, then we doing ballet, and we doing dance, and we doing drama, and we doing all the girly stuff.
And if she's a tough girl, then we doing kickboxing, and we doing whatever else to rough her up. We do horseback riding.
We we want to do like you know what i'm saying there's no the sky's the limit but you know keep her active keep her entertained and just cater to her needs yeah what's sebastian into right now like 11 year old what's what's like his obsession um he loves basketball okay yeah he loves to play basketball he's really just now learning like the fundamentals of it but he's good at it he's an athletic kid and he's like it's good to see him like roughing around with the boys like being one of the boys they talk shit to each other they get in each other's faces and like they really get after it so he's he's like gravitating towards basketball more than anything just that and just being with with his friends, like just being a kid. Were you ever any good at basketball? Yeah, hell yeah, I could.
I never had like official training like what he's going through. But if I did, bro, I'd be so much better than I actually am.
And I'm really, really good. So I would be like, I'll be deadly if I knew how to do what he's learning right now.
So you could give him some pointers along the way. Just like naturally, you know what I'm saying? Yeah.
Yeah. I love that.
And you never did ballet or anything? Nah, nah, I never did that. I did like acting classes and shit like that.
I was in like speech and drama and all of that shit, but never know dance though. Did that help speech and drama classes? Like how did that? I think that helped.
Yeah. yeah yeah i think it helped a lot because it was like you know you learn how to project your voice and all of that stuff and you learn how to like hit cues on stage and you know just kind of like get outside of yourself in front of people where you're still yourself but then you're like outside of yourself i definitely think for my performance.
Yeah. If Sebastian came up to you and was like, I want to be a rapper too.
Yeah. What would you say to him? I'd be like, let's go.
Studios downstairs. What advice would you have for him to find his voice? Studios downstairs.
Just get in there. Get in there and start rapping.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Would you want that you you're kind of open to whatever yeah i wouldn't mind especially the way that i'm implemented in in the game like i do what i want to do i'm not like nobody controls me nobody tells nobody's like working me harder than i need to be worked or anything so i see the same vision for him, especially in the age that we're in.
So it's like, if you're going to be an artist, you're going to be in complete control of everything. So it starts now.
Yeah. Yeah.
The team was saying that you plan a lot of your life around him. Yeah.
They were saying that like sports games and things like that. You've really taken that idea of an artist should be in control of their own life.
Yeah. Like walk us through that mentality, that mindset.
A lot of people focus so much on their work and they think like that the work is going to come to an end at some point or they have to sacrifice things that are important for work. And I believe the opposite.
I think I should sacrifice work for my family and it should just be the other way around because of how much I work and how fortunate I am to be in the situation where I put in a lot of work. I've done a lot of things.
So I don't have to, you know, feel this sense of urgency that things aren't going to go my way if I miss out on something or if I, you know, speak up and just try to make sure that everything works out how I would rather it work. And, you know, I had the point in my life where I would be in a studio every day or I would be, you know, a different country every day or I would be, you know, a show fitting, assigning TV appearance, blah, blah, blah.
I would do all of these things back to back to back to back to back. So I've done that already.
but now it's more important for me to just wake up uh work out spend time with my family

make sure that he is at his best because he needs to go to practice. He needs to train every day for him to be successful later on in life.
And if I'm not there to, like, motivate that, either he's going to get it from somebody else, I don't know who, or it's just not going to happen at all. And that's my job right now is to make sure that he's successful.
So, you know, if I miss this or if that doesn't, you know, go the way that it's supposed to, I'm cool with that because in the end he's going to get to be as successful as he needs to be. Yeah, that's beautiful, man.
Because I feel like there's such a – it's wonderful to hear because i feel like we're living at a time where there's such a pressure to constantly be relevant to constantly like keep up yeah with you know what everyone's doing and now you've got a million platforms to stay relevant on and everyone's doing this and that and so it sounds like you've created like a healthy detachment yeah between who you are at your work and who you are at home. Yeah.
And that's quite a beautiful thing.

Yeah, I see that better working out long term.

Like I said, I look like five, ten years into the future.

And me chilling and me and my family seems way more realistic than me, like, ripping

and running around still.

So I might as well get used to it.

Did you feel your dad was super involved in that way as well?

You were saying that.

We were getting where we couldn't pay the bill. PG&E asked customers about their biggest concerns so we could address them one by one.
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Joe, Regional Vice President, PG&E. We have to run the business in a way that keeps people safe, but it starts driving costs down.
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I hope so. PG&E electricity rates are now lower than they were last year.
Hear what other customers have to say and what PG&E is doing about it at pge.com slash open dash lines. I'm Kristen Davis, host of the podcast, Are You a Charlotte? The incredible Cynthia Nixon joins me this week for a conversation filled with memories, lots of laughs, and even unexpected revelations and stories I didn't even know.
Like, Cynthia could have been Carrie? When I first read the script, they asked me to read for Carrie, as I think they asked you to read for Carrie. I did not know this.
Yes, they asked me to read for Carrie, right? Did you? I did. And they were like, yeah, not so much.
How that short hair came to be. So I was blonde.
Kim was blonde. Sarah was blonde.
You were the only non-blonde. Right.
So they came to me and they said, we got too many blondes. Would you dye your hair red? Also, is she a Miranda? People would ask me, you know, are you, how are you like Miranda? And I would always say, we both feel confident about our brains, but that's kind of where it ends.
You can't miss this. Listen to Are You a Charlotte? on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Mi gente hermosa, Wilmer Valderrama. Yo soy Freddy Rodriguez, host of the new podcast Dos Amigos.
In this series, we candidly reflect on our careers, life, art, and everything in between.

Each episode emanates from our very own speakeasy,

and it features us talking about pivotal moments, hilarious anecdotes,

and then I said the word yes.

That's when I knew. That's when I knew this might just work.

And invaluable collaborations that helped us become who we are today. That was one of the rare movies that I saw in the movie theater when I was a kid.
And then I got to work with him and tell him how much I loved it. Plus, the door stays open for perhaps a third amigo.
Listen to Dos Amigos Thursdays on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
My dad was super involved with me, especially like through my teenage years. A lot of my time that I spent like early in the studio was with my dad because he built a studio and was running it.
He didn't know about music and he didn't know about any of that stuff, but I told him I was into it and he built a studio and was like, all right, learn how to use the equipment, start writing songs, put an album out, do this, do that. And I did it all.
And he was like, damn, I didn't know you was really going to do it. I'm like, yeah, this is what I want to do.
So just through seeing how important him being involved with what I was passionate about took me to the level that I'm at. It lets me know, like, whatever my son and my daughter are passionate about, I have to experience those things with them.
I can't just give them money and provide it for them. I have to actually do it with them.
And it's going to make a hell of a difference. Yeah.
How does your dad feel about seeing you now? My dad loves it, man. He's like in awe, like all the time.
And I think out of everything, he understands like how hard I work too. And he's really proud of it.
Sometimes he gets a little bit worried. Like he's like, is this too much? Like, you know what I mean? Like I know you do a lot.
I'm like, no, it's cool. I'm built for this., this is what I do.
So he sees how much I work and he sees how much effort I put in, like, constantly. But he's really proud of me.
What's something you learned from your mom? The value of family. Yeah, my mom taught me the value of family.
She always kept me around my family members. She kept me around my cousins, my aunts, my granddad my she even keeps me around my dad's side of the family and they got divorced when I was two years old but she still hangs out with my dad's sisters my aunts my cousins and all that on their their side so she keeps me in touch with them she keeps my kids in touch with them she does the whole genealogy the whole family Like my mother is so family oriented and that like rubbed off on me as well.
That's beautiful. What's a misconception you think people have about you if they have one at all? I don't think at this point there is any misconceptions.
I think there's just like learning more about me. I think that the more people learn about me, the more they see like how chill, how educated, how well-spoken and like thought out a lot of things that I do are.
And they start to really understand why the people who love me, you know, whether it's my music or I changed their life in whatever way, they start to understand like where that comes from. Yeah.
What's something about you that people may not know that you'd like them to understand along those lines? I think right now I just want people to know, like how you said, like how detached I am from the whole success world. Like I'm cool with it, but like that's not the goal.
And it's not, and a lot of people say like people say like oh well you have money so it's easy for you to say that but I think you just reach certain points in your life where different things are important no matter how much money you have and you know some people I'm 37 years old some people reach my age and this is the time that they start their business and they're like I'm gonna go I'm going to build my empire now. I was just lucky to have got a head start in my 20s, build my empire.
And now I really understand how to sustain it and maintain it and keep it going for the next 10, 20 years. And those are the things that I'm really, really working on, along with the music you know which is super duper important but it's really just about like making this thing last yeah and i don't i think you're right i don't think it's about how much money you do or don't have i think anything can become a drug and you can get addicted to yeah and i remember you know kevin hart was sitting in that chair and he was talking about how success became a drug for him.
He was just addicted to more and more of it. And so it's easy for you to get addicted and obsessed and just, and you're actually saying, well, actually, I don't want to get addicted to it.
No, yeah, no, it's my work. It's my job.
It's what I'm really, really good at. And I don't never want to give that up for, you know, a normal life or anything like that.
But I do value my normal life as much as I value, you know, I value the 30,000 people on stage, but I also value being in my bed alone at night when the lights are off. I love it.
Yeah, I appreciate that. And I think we need more of that healthy thinking because I think if you only like one or the other, or if you start to detest one or the other, that's when it starts to get scary.
Like a lot of people love being in the audience. They don't like being alone.
Or a lot of people like, oh God, I hate being with the fans now. I love being alone.
And I think both of those can lead to a lot of pain internally. Yeah, you have to work on both.
And when you know what you're here for, you know which time it's to do which one. I spent a lot of time working on the other side of it to where I love my job and I love what I do.
And I'm very grateful to be able to make the amounts of money doing what I do. But that's not everything to me.
I work as hard on my personal life as I do on that side of it. If I'm in the studio 12 hours or if I'm on a plane 16 hours and I barely get any sleep and I don't eat and I do promo and I do a great show and I do a meet and greet and I smile and I take everybody's picture, that's all part of the game.
That's me going hard to make sure that that part of it lasts. When I'm by myself, I'm waking up, you know, at a good, at a decent time.
I'm going to sleep at a decent time. I'm working out.
I'm spending these certain hours. I do yoga.
You know, there's just certain things that go with the process. And then, like you said, planning things around my kids.
So it's's like i'm making sure that i'm spending this family time where it's not they're getting the short end of the stick off of anything so i'm working passionately and hard on my normal life the same way that i do and you know my professional life and sometimes it takes more energy in normal life than it does in a professional life. I agree with you.
Yeah. Sometimes it's easy to be disciplined at work, but to actually show up for your family and be disciplined at home requires a whole nother thing.
And a lot of people, they run from that because it's easier to, you know, just put all the, put all the guilt and responsibility. Oh, I got to work.
It's my job. It's this.
It's easy for you to do that. Take some time.
You know what saying you know be a little bit nervous be a little bit uncomfortable be a little bit bored but you're not going to be bored if you're around people you love like i'm never bored around my kids but you know take be passionate about your normal life as well yeah it sounds like you have so much order and discipline in your life like when i'm hearing that i'm like it sounds like everything's very structured and organized and intentional yeah it's not like this random like yeah it's not random at all every day is very regimented yeah it's definitely regimented you know i look at my schedule regularly i'm updating the schedule regularly and it just really built to make me happy like i'm cool with everything that i have to do as long as I'm happy. Like, you know what I'm saying? And if we talk about it and we arrange it and we put it in all the times that it's supposed to be, I'll be really, really happy and I'll love to do it.
But when things start coming out of left field and you have your idea of what an appropriate time is, and we didn't run that by each other, like that's not going to make me happy to do this. And I'm doing this because I love it.
Yeah, I saw your men's health video with the MMA, which has become your fascination and I guess, workout routine for a couple of years now, I feel. Where did that start and how did that come about? A lot of my big homies were getting, and when I say big homies, I mean security.
They were getting into MMA and doing jujitsu and just martial arts and just meeting all types of people. And this was like almost 10 years ago, and they were just telling me, like, bro, this is the next wave.
Like, everybody's about to be doing this, blah, blah, blah. It's that and the other thing.
You got to get into it. You got to get into it.
I'm like, yeah, it's cool. But, you know, I'd rather like, you know, smoke weed and be in the studio.

Like, you know what I'm saying?

But as soon as I started working out, I just developed like a passion for it.

Like out of nowhere.

And it didn't make me slow down smoking any.

Like I was able to like still get stoned.

But I love training and I love working out and I love like learning new things so it just just kept building on top of each other and just building and building and then i just you know started to develop um some skills that you know we're still sharpening to this day do you go to watch as well or you just like training oh yeah i watch the shows as well yeah i got a company called pfl that i'm involved with uh i go to their shows all the time. I mean, I go to their fights all the time.
I go to boxing matches. There's wrestling matches.
There's jujitsu matches. There's all types of stuff.
Combat sports is like, as you've seen, it's grown so much. And so many influencers want to do it.
And it's just a really good lifelong thing, too. Like, it's gotten popular for how much money it makes people and things like that.
But as a lifelong practice, like I would suggest that for any and everybody. Yeah.
If there are men who are watching who want to get into health and fitness, what would be your best advice to them to motivate them, inspire them, let them know how important it's been for you and it could be for them i would just try to paint the scenario of you being about late 30s out with your kid somebody like is just in your face and your kid is standing right there and you only got 30 seconds to prove to your child that you're their protector or somebody who's finna get whooped. Start working out now.
That's hilarious. It's funny because my next question was going to be about like, you know, I feel like masculinity is such a big talking point right now.
And, you know, a lot of men feeling like they've inherited the mistakes made by men in the past. And so men carrying around a lot of judgment, men feeling left behind in the conversation.
The different things you've talked about today and the way you're organizing your life, like masculinity is a very broad spectrum. It's not just one way.
And so have you ever thought about that? Raising a son for yourself, the message you put out? I feel like rap and hip hop had a version of masculinity before. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What are your thoughts on that? I think I've always like approached masculinity just off of my vision of it. And the most masculine people that I respect and just the situations that I look at as what, you know, men should model themselves as are usually the most like moderate and mild tempered and just chill and kind of, you know, observing and just guiding the situation.
And any way that you can position yourself to be that type of person, I've always felt like that was the more, you know, respectable thing. And we all have feelings and we all have emotions.
And that's where like training in combat sports, it helps helps you to put all of that stuff in the right place because when you get a chance to get that stuff out, you realize where it has a place at and where it doesn't. And a lot of people, they don't have a place to get that stuff out, so they think that they're being masculine by shouting or yelling or being rude to somebody.
But really should be like the last case scenario. You know what I'm saying? Like that's why I say protecting your child because I would never use what I know to hurt anybody unless it was to protect my family or myself.
It wouldn't be in any other situation

because to me, that's not cool. That's not tough.
That's not even what it's for. So I think the idea of masculinity, it just comes from whoever is putting it out at the moment and what they've learn from it.
And, you know, the world judges the way that it does based off of their experiences because they think, you know, the most mean or the most scary or this, that, and the other thing. But they haven't, they show that, but there's not a lot of real situations that people are in that prove that that's the right thing.
And from my my experience what's proven the most is the most mild chilled moderate people are the ones that you should probably be like the most worried about so the more that you can position yourself in life to have an understanding of your own emotions and be in control of your reactions to things I think that just makes you more looked at as what people would consider masculine or a leader or a provider or something like that rather than like an emotional person. Yeah, that's a really powerful answer, man.
I feel like you kind of feel the world going through two extremes where it's like masculinity used to be this bravado chauvinistic arrogant yeah you know alpha male type and then it swung to like being vulnerable and soft and this and now i can't feel like it's kind of swinging back the other way yeah and and it's almost like i like how you described it because it's not really hard or soft it's kind of like the person who can like calm it down guide it move it along knows what to do with everything exactly exactly because i've seen both you know and i've been around like growing up in picksburg you see a lot of dudes where it's like the street nigga type is like the hyper masculine but a lot of those dudes end up like going to jail getting shot shot, or when they come home from the jail, they're not who they used to be. And all of that masculinity kind of goes away when you see like the perception of this person go away, you see who they really are.
So it's like deep down, who really are you inside without this whole thing that you're like putting off on people and men have a lot of pressure especially like growing up because we're more competitive we're like really competitive so it's like I could see it with my son like being in sports with him and his friends you know what I mean they just off rip just go to this certain type of personality and I'm like bro you know you're like a better teammate if you tell dudes like, yo, good shot. Like, you know what I'm saying? Good job.
I see you, blah, blah, blah. But they don't understand that now as kids.
They're so competitive and they're so at each other's throats. We were getting where we couldn't pay the bill.
PG&E asked customers about their biggest concerns so we could address them one by one. That's terrifying.
That's fair. Joe, Regional Vice President, PG&E.
We have to run the business in a way that keeps people safe, but it starts driving costs down. I would love to see that.
We're on our way. I hope so.
PG&E electricity rates are now lower than they were last year. Hear what other customers have to say and what PG&E is doing about it at pge.com slash open dash lines.

Hey, everybody. What's up? This is Questlove.

And every year we do special programming in February for Black History Month.

Now, it's especially important this year as we gear up for some new conversations.

So the team and I compiled some clips from the show that are worth revisiting.

In part one of the celebration of Black History Month, we're listening back to moments with Chris Rock, Solange, Prodigy, Ben Vereen, Jennifer Lewis, Angela Rye, and Gina Yashere. Listen to Questlove Supreme on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
It was a moment that should have broken me, but just because of how I was raised and my bullishness and arrogance to want to be great hardened me. It gave me a platform to be so singularly focused on greatness.
We all have moments like this. Something happens that's supposed to break us.
But it's in these moments that we discover what we're really made of. I promise you, if anyone knows this, it's me.
I'm Ashlyn Harris, two-time Women's World Cup champion and goalkeeper for the U.S. Women's National Team.
In my new podcast, Wide Open, I'll sit down with trailblazers from sports, music, fashion, entertainment, and politics to explore their toughest moments and the incredible comebacks that followed. Listen to Wide Open with Ashlyn Harris, an iHeart Women's Sports production on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And sometimes that carries on in life, but I think you just have to have an example of somebody to let you know, like, yo, it's cool to just be chill and, you know what I mean? Like the homie. It's cool to talk shit sometimes too because that shit is fun.
But at the root of it, y'all still got to be friends and care about each other and take care of each other. And that's the more, you know what I mean, brotherly dope part about it other than going at each other's necks.
Yeah, and we need to see that modeled more. It's hard because you don't see it that much.
So it's hard to know as a man how to do that. But you're right.
If you look at the best athletes in the world, they're the ones who kept their calm when things were tough. They weren't the ones spewing anger.
And it's interesting because MMA, I think people who haven't been trained in martial arts or don't know people who have often can think of it as like combat sports are like angry. But have you learned any practices from MMA that you feel apply really well to what we're talking about right now? I think just getting punched in the face.
You learn how to be calm and like not get emotional when somebody hits you in the face and you still got three rounds to do work or you still got three minutes in a round or five minutes in a round to do work like you can't let your emotion you have to be calm you have to think you have to remember your footwork you have to remember your breathing you have to remember defense so you don't get hit again there's way more to the story than just I got punched in the face. And a lot of people will never really get that lesson or get that feeling of I got hit and I got to keep it moving.
Most people want something to happen as soon as they get hit. But I think just through martial arts, and it sounds extreme and it sounds crazy but i think everybody should get punched in the face i know what you're saying though i get what you're saying it's like it's only at that point do you know how tolerant and still you are because up until then you can be like i'm super chill yeah i'm calm but it's responding to that yeah and there's a lot of lot of dudes just like if somebody punches me in the face i'll kill him yeah but like no you won't you gotta fight back you got three minutes or you're gonna keep getting punched in the face so it's like it's fun when you just remove everything and hit somebody in the face how often do you get punched in the face when you're in the face? We do sparring off and on, especially because I got to do, like, appearances and shows and shit like that.
Because anything could happen. Like, my nose rings could come out.
I could get black eye. Like, my forehead could get split.
You got to protect the face. Yeah, for sure.
So when I know I'm not having to do too much, that's when we usually do some sparring. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, or we'll do light sparring where it's not like, you know, nobody's in too much danger. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense. I was trying to figure out how you're doing that.
Yeah, no, I'm really glad we dove into the masculinity thing because I just feel like it's such a need right now and I want, you know, men and women to both feel like, you know, that we're kind of having these conversations that I think sometimes on the biggest screens you don't see them. Yeah.
You know? Yeah, and I think it's like the word masculinity has gotten like so abused. Oh, interesting.
To where people like think it's a bad thing. And it's like, there are good examples of masculinity.

Like I have a daughter, so she has to see what a masculine man is like. She has to see what a provider is like.
She has to see what somebody who is going to make her feel protected as well as cared for. And, you know, all of the things that that describe what real masculinity is beyond, you know, what you can do physically to somebody or even financially, you know what I'm saying? Emotionally being there for her.
There's a lot of things that me having the right types of masculinity are going to be, you know, positive for her to see. Yeah, 100%.
100%, man. man and with this new album what was the energy that you put into it like it's a sequel so there's that there's was there something you're trying to revisit yeah bring back yeah i think i'm just revisiting like when i did cushion orange juice the the the style of it was like you know stoner kid everybody just Smoke weed be cool be chill and this is the soundtrack to the lifestyle and um I've done a lot with my music to where I've you know had my take on what I think music should sound like at certain points I've had you know my take on what I think are like really big, huge records and what those should sound like.
And then I've also just experimented with, you know, what street culture is at the time and just what's popular to the kids. And I think with Cushion Orange Juice, it really resonated with people because of the lifestyle that it created and the things that I talked about in that

lifestyle and the way that the music sounded and grooved with that lifestyle. So just being aware of that and knowing what type of chaotic state that we're in right now, I just felt like it was the perfect time to just reintroduce people to a more laid back, chill, just smoke some weed and vibe out, you know, and create a whole crowd of people who want to do the same thing.
Yeah. Yeah.
And it's interesting, right? Like you, it's like you're chilled out, but then you're super productive. Yeah.
How do you hope that your audience kind of feels both of those as well? Because it's almost like, yeah. It's been good because because i think just through experience i've learned that the majority of people who listen to my music end up bossing up yeah i love that yeah like there's a lot of artists now you know who were in like middle school high school when cushion orange juice came out or they watched my day-to-days and they're like man this is this is what really, you know, let me know this is what I needed to do to be an artist.
Or I studied you every day, blah, blah, blah. Or I dropped out of college and I got my friends and, you know, we started our label and now we're Big Sean and, you know what I'm saying? So like, I've seen a lot of people who have taken my blueprint and turned it into, you know, exactly what I've done with it.
So, um, I think the message gets across really, really well that, you know, you, you'd be a pothead, but you'd be productive and you boss up and put all the homies on. I think they get that, that message really well.
I love that. Yeah.
Thank you. How does, how does it feel that see you again is the second

most viewed video yeah on youtube music video of all time i mean that's insane yeah it's pretty cool how does that feel it feels good i think it feels better that i'm able to like walk around because most people they they would think that if your video is that popular or if you have that much success that you're just like not even real but like to me I could still go to my son's games I could still you know go pick records out I could still go to the gym without a fleet of security with me so like I didn't sacrifice my uh sanity to be the second most viewed person in the world so I'm happy about that yeah and it's such a great song too to be known for i feel it's a really good song and shout out to charlie too man like charlie did his thing and yeah the whole process of like making that song was like a dream come true because it was for a soundtrack so you never know how that's gonna go there was like 10 other people who were supposed to be on the song so you know me writing a verse I was just like writing a verse I wasn't like this is this song's gonna change my life I need to sit down I was just like yo yeah you go like it's dope verse like I love the verse and shit but they were like you know they really connected with the people who were doing the movie at the time and uh you know shout, shout out to Weave and Constance and Will and everybody. But we just kind of like just shaved it down.
And it just ended up making sense with it just being me and Charlie on there. And that song has taken us like super duper far.
Yeah, it's dope, man. It's amazing.
What was your motivation to go sober from alcohol? My motivation to be sober from alcohol was just I had drank for so long. Since I was able to drink, I've been drinking.
And I never seen a reason to really stop because, like, I just love partying. I love being around people.
I love, you know, just being a vibe. After one, I think it was one show, I just like completely wasted which was normal I was like man I don't really have too many like memories of places like I was like I mean I love doing these shows and shit was like I don't be remembering like you know what I mean anything I was like I want to kind of like experience this stuff remember where I'm at I remember the people who I'm dealing with actually enjoy it and not just be like, you know what I mean? Anything.
I was like, I want to kind of like experience this stuff. Remember where I'm at.

Remember the people who I'm dealing with.

Actually enjoy it and not just be like turnt up, you know?

So yeah, it was just a time of like just gathering information.

And I'm real happy for that.

Yeah.

Was it hard to break away?

No, no, no.

It wasn't difficult at all.

I think when I want to do something, I'm good at it. Like if it means something to me, I have my own reasons for doing it.
Nobody's making me do it. I feel like even if somebody made me do it, if it was a challenge or something like that, or if I had to for legal reasons or something like that, I wouldn't have a problem doing a lot of things.
But for me, it's just my lifestyle is so free and it's so fun so half of the time it's like why would i stop yeah but if i make up a reason for myself i usually end up sticking to it yeah yeah yeah wiz at the start of the interview asked you what's the first thing you do when you wake up yeah what's what's the last thing you do before you go to bed last thing i do before i go to bed kiss my son and my daughter nice yeah i love that yeah beautiful wiz i end every episode you've been amazing so generous with your time great just great energy i really enjoyed spending this time with you man yeah i appreciate you feel like i've learned so much about you today that i didn't know for sure thank you uh we end every episode with a final five these have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum.

And so Wiz Khalifa, these are your fast five, final five.

The first question is,

what's the best advice you've ever heard or received?

Just be you.

That's from Snoop Dogg.

Nice.

Question number two,

what's the worst advice you've ever heard or received?

Change your name from Wiz Khalifa.

Two?

I don't know.

They just told me that that name wasn't going to work. Why didn't they like the name? Because it's just too different.
You know what I'm saying? It didn't sound like nothing. It didn't give off.
You didn't get any visual from that back in the day when I told you that that was my name. So a lot of people, close people to me was like, I like you.
You can rap. You're really cool, but you need to change your name.
And it ended up working out for me because in the years that I was being discovered, it's a brand new name. So when you Google that name, I'm the only thing that comes up.
So it was like one of the most Googled names for that year. So the thing that people told me wasn't going to work ended up working.
Where did it come from? Wiz is short for wisdom and Khalifa is leader or successor.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How did you come across the word Khalifa?

Because that's.

Khalifa, my parents are, well, my grandparents, my granddad is Muslim.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

That's wonderful.

Very cool, man.

Exactly.

That is a dope name.

Thank you, man.

Yeah, it's cool.

It's cool.

I love this hat too.

Yeah, good look.

I saw this on your merch yesterday when it came out. Yeah, new merch.
I'm a walking billboard, baby. I like this hat.
Yeah, I like this hat. All I wear is me.'s cool i love this hat too yeah good look i saw this on your merch i'm a walking billboard baby yeah all i wear is me yeah i love it uh question number three what's something that you used to value that you no longer value i used to really enjoy going to nightclubs i don't enjoy it anymore because uh i feel like the music isn't the same i feel like people don't really dance anymore like they're just in like sections just kind of chilling and it just kind of defeats the purpose of going out like i never went out just to look cool i would go out to get girls and i really don't like chase women all like that no more and i think it's just the polite thing to do like normally like like i said anymore because like normally even being in a relationship i would just be like yo it's a part of my life like you know what i'm saying i'm gonna be around hella chicks get used to it you know what i'm saying that's what i would do before like but now i don't really like i don't really care for that shit no more uh question number four how would you define your current purpose i would define my current purpose as a leader and as a provider and as somebody who a lot of people look up to.
So it doesn't matter what I get personally, it's more about what I do for others. And fifth and final question, we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show.
If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? Smoke weed every day. I love it.
Wiz Khalifa, cushion oranges too. Thank you so much, man.
This is so much fun. I had a great time.
I had a good time too. I like your jeans too, man.
Thank did man i like your jeans too man thank you man i appreciate you if this is the year that you're trying to get creative you're trying to build more i need you to listen to this episode with rick rubin on how to break into your most creative self how to use unconventional methods that lead to success and the secret to genuinely loving what you do. If you're trying

to find your passion and your lane, Rick Rubin's episode is the one for you. Just because I like

it, that doesn't give it any value. Like as an artist, if you like it, that's all of the value.

That's the success comes when you say, I like this enough for other people to see it.