CHANCE THE RAPPER Talks Chicago, Mixtapes and Mentors

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Speaker 1 You were with someone for 22 years? Who? Your ex-partner, your ex-wife? Or you knew her for 22 years? Yeah. We grew up in Chicago together, so I've known her for like most of my life.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Are you single gentlemen now? Yeah. Have you considered doing what

Speaker 1 the God did? You get like a girl that looks a little bit like the last one, and then make her be naked.

Speaker 1 What

Speaker 1 that is hilarious.

Speaker 1 Oh, my, anything,

Speaker 1 oh my, but a fairly true

Speaker 1 Hello and welcome to the Adam Friedland Show guys. I'm Adam Friedland.
Before we get started, as always, I got to thank our members for supporting the show. We couldn't do it without you.

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Speaker 1 It's cool. My guest this week is Chicago artist Chance the Rapper.
Now, of course, famously, the last time I welcomed a Chicago artist, it sparked a firestorm of controversy in the world of rap.

Speaker 1 Me and my guest G Herbo had some criticisms for journalist DJ Vlad, who responded in kind with a direct message. Some called it a shot heard around the world.

Speaker 1 Months later, tensions have remained high between Vlad and G Herbo, who have been trading blows on social media.

Speaker 1 In that time, I've kept to myself, I've kept my head down, and I've done some reflection. And I'm ready to move on from this maelstrom.

Speaker 1 In fact, I have a potential gig for DJ Vlad, if he's willing to hear me out.

Speaker 1 And what it is.

Speaker 1 So I finally decided to respond to the direct message, and he was open to further dialogue. So with that, let's give him a call.

Speaker 1 Hello? Hello, sir. It's Adam.

Speaker 1 What's up, Adam? I just wanted to parlay with you real quick

Speaker 1 and just kind of squash this,

Speaker 1 whatever the misunderstanding was.

Speaker 1 do you guys ever dj or is it just uh screen name

Speaker 1 well i had a long history of djing before vlad tv started well i'm getting married this year and perhaps

Speaker 1 yeah oh and she's lovely

Speaker 1 well i was just perhaps i would want you to be part of the greatest day of my entire life

Speaker 1 uh yeah sure i'll show up today okay well sir sir i i feel i feel like my conscience is cleared and uh have it have a great day, I guess.

Speaker 1 Okay, live long and prosper.

Speaker 1 Bye. See ya.

Speaker 1 He bought it.

Speaker 1 Folks, in this crazy world we live in, we don't need any more beef. We need peace.

Speaker 1 And if two sworn enemies like DJ Vlad and myself could see eye to eye, you know, let that be a lesson to all warring peoples around the world.

Speaker 1 And so with that, please enjoy my interview with Chance the Rapper.

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Speaker 1 And ladies and gentlemen, our next guest is a Grammy award-winning multi-platinum diamond certified, I believe. Yeah.
Diamond. That's even better than platinum, guys.

Speaker 1 Diamond certified recording artist, ladies and gentlemen chance to wrapper everyone

Speaker 1 And so I

Speaker 1 I I just had

Speaker 1 no no sit down please I I had Herb on the show. Yes, and I paid tribute by giving him a bottle of 1942 have you had that before

Speaker 1 the liquor store they I think I bought the last one because it was like last week So they said this one's good. It's called Kaza Azul.
I'm familiar. Do you know this one? It's got the ding.

Speaker 1 I see it on

Speaker 1 like real housewives kind of shows. Vibes.
Yeah, like a rich lady who's about to cheat. Yeah.
Yeah. She like with like the pool boy.
So we're gonna stress out.

Speaker 1 You have the same, you guys, you have the same publicist? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're gonna get stressed out again.
You have a heart out at five, but we're gonna be having this.

Speaker 1 What is it's ceramic?

Speaker 1 So let's do it. You wanna do a Lechaim? Yeah, Yeah, we'll start off with the bottle.

Speaker 1 Bless it? Yeah, you just. Oh, you do grace?

Speaker 1 It's sort of, yeah, it's sort of the same thing. So just tap the bottle? Do you want me to do the Jewish stuff? Saying bow.
That was it. That was the Jewish stuff? Bang.

Speaker 1 No, no, no. I mean the Jewish prayer on tequila.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Do you have to say grace before every meal if you're a devout Christian?

Speaker 1 Or just like if it's a drink, you have to say grace? Or if it's like a food.

Speaker 1 That was more like, that's like some kid. I know.

Speaker 1 Blessing the bottle, that actually has a a relationship. No, I don't think that.
I didn't think of that as religious.

Speaker 1 But, like, if it's a snack, do you have to say grace?

Speaker 1 That's a good question. I think you do.
You do. I think in Judaism, too,

Speaker 1 for different, this is the most boring conversation.

Speaker 1 Let's go.

Speaker 1 Let's have a look.

Speaker 1 I don't faith. I don't faith.
Do you, you, faith? You're a God-fearing gentleman? Amen. Yeah.
Amen. But we found out today, this is really blowing my mind.

Speaker 1 You were in the Jewish Student Union? I was in the JSU. Why? Because I have like a ton of Jewish friends that were really into the same shit that I was into when I was in high school.

Speaker 1 I went to like a really like smoking bud. Smoking bud.
Yeah. You feel me? Like, I was on Lit Mag.

Speaker 1 You know what Lip Mag is? You got good grades. I didn't get good grades, but I was into things.
So I would be into something.

Speaker 1 And I would go into, I would just go and like join. And Lit Mag

Speaker 1 was like all of the

Speaker 1 quirky writer folks at my school. Yeah, girls.

Speaker 1 Were there like the glasses? The indie girls? The glasses girls. Indie girls.
I would like the indies. The indie girls.
Goes into the indies. The indie girls.
Lachai, my father. 2024 girls.

Speaker 1 Here we go.

Speaker 1 The bisexual lighting. The purple light.

Speaker 1 Sorry. Okay.

Speaker 1 Thank you for coming on. Thank you guys.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's interesting because we just had Herb on the show and it's like you're of the same generation, but I feel like you're like the good kid side of Chicago and

Speaker 1 they were the going outside boys. It would seem that way.
Yeah. That's not the truth.
We're from the same hood. We're both from 79th.
I've known Herb for a really, really long time. He's a great guy.

Speaker 1 He's an amazing dude. And, you know, the hood.

Speaker 1 The hood is the hood. You know what I'm saying? It's really just about what you do for the hood.
And Herb does for the hood. Like, he has a school.

Speaker 1 he like works with mental health facilities, he's got like kids that he mentors. Like, me and him are very, very similar.
And, like, and we talk like once a week, like, that's my dude.

Speaker 1 Let's get to like your upbringing and your family and stuff like that. Like, your father was involved in politics.
Both of your parents were? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 My mom, a little bit, but my dad, yes, for sure. He worked for, he worked for

Speaker 1 Obama, he worked for Harold Washington.

Speaker 1 He worked for Ron Emmanuel.

Speaker 1 He, so, my dad, really, I guess I I gotta start with my grandmother.

Speaker 1 My grandmother was very like politically active and at a young age and she had all her kids young, like my dad and my aunties young. In Chicago? In Chicago.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, Chicago is a super politically active space. This is where Freya Hampton is organizing the Black Panthers, where Stokely Carmichael and all these people are gathering and having.

Speaker 1 So she was like really swept up into that stuff. And so she would volunteer her kids for certain things.

Speaker 1 And then Harold Washington, first black mayor of Chicago, and like, I think the first, it might have been the the first black mayor of a major of a metropolitan city and so she got them all to sign up for that and that kind of got my dad into politics and then I think from there he just always stayed like you know it still has like this grassroots thing of like you know he was my block club president like my dad was very like on some like activism shit but he worked he did also work for uh for Barack too and so that's your boy Barry Barry that's not my boy but you know

Speaker 1 you've met the goat before I met the GOAT before, for sure. Really?

Speaker 1 What's the energy?

Speaker 1 He's just like he is on TV.

Speaker 1 No, he's not. Yeah.
As a guy? 100%, yeah. He's like...

Speaker 1 Or maybe he's just like he is on TV. He says, let me be clear to you? Yeah, he is.
And he does this? He does the...

Speaker 1 Really? I don't got the Brock impression. What do you think he's up to these days? He's got to be so bored.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I don't really talk to him.
So I don't think of him as like a person like I think of like.

Speaker 1 listen your best friends with Obama. Yeah, that's what people, that's what that's what I feel like.
That's the

Speaker 1 I'm honored that they gave me like they gave me some some shout outs in the past. I got a humanitarian award.
Did you make one of his best of lists of for the year? I was on a playlist once, yeah.

Speaker 1 Your dad twice. That's nepotism.
Your dad. Your dad thought you could.

Speaker 1 People know people. You know what I'm saying? Like that was really what I got into the industry for was like.
To get to know Obama. To get on the playlist, you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 To get on the Obama playlist of the year. Yeah, yeah.
What else did he have on that? March Madness?

Speaker 1 I think he did have a lot of stuff. No, he did it.
No, no, no. I feel like he did have it.
No, he did it. Maybe not March Madness, but

Speaker 1 he has like smart stuff on it. No, he beats it.
He doesn't have dumb. He doesn't have I'm on so many drums.
He doesn't have like wink wink on there. He's a wink wink.

Speaker 1 He has a like, I cheated on you, but it's only because I'm depressed.

Speaker 1 The narrative of future

Speaker 1 is the best. Yeah.
Because you still feel bad for him. He's like,

Speaker 1 I'm so sad. That's why I had to get so much pussy.

Speaker 1 It's great.

Speaker 1 So much is hilarious. He's like, I just, it's because

Speaker 1 I feel so lonely. And you're like, you buy it too.
Can you vape on your show? Is that a thing? I feel like he's more often. You hit V.
We're drinking. Dude, to have some more.
Yeah, of course, dude.

Speaker 1 Are there a lot of rape

Speaker 1 rapper? Are there a lot of rapper vapors?

Speaker 1 Vape, because vape. I didn't.
Are there a lot of

Speaker 1 vapor rappers? Vapor rappers?

Speaker 1 You hit Jewel. That's old.
Yeah, I'm definitely, I'm like, so I don't know. I need to be a part of the class action lawsuit because I am thoroughly addicted to these.

Speaker 1 And I am, like, just so I could watch this back later, you are addicted to these. It caught me so addicted.
You gotta quit. It made me so addicted.
But now I started upper deckies. Here's a problem.

Speaker 1 And this is going to lose us all our tobacco sponsors. But the

Speaker 1 issue, I'm joking. The issue is that, like, think about this.
Because you used to smoke cigarettes, I'm guessing. Yeah, so.
Which are cool. They look sick.

Speaker 1 They look way cooler um faster uh death the thing is like with cigarettes it's fine going to like like weaning yourself off you know you get like the patch you know what i'm saying where you get the gum and there's like a regimented schedule for how you get off of it where it's like okay to do this much today and then you do this much the next week does it work i'm sure a hell of people quit smoking cigarettes but this doesn't have a this has the unlimited this is just a cart a cart in bed i did it in bed

Speaker 1 my girlfriend would be like you're you disgust me it's the least second you No, it's like, you're not like Humphrey Bogart for hitting a jewel.

Speaker 1 I get that reference. No girl's like, I've wanted to, like, I want to ride him like a bike because she sees him with a geek bar.
You know? It's not a sexy thing. You.

Speaker 1 No, sorry. Okay.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Let's get into like.

Speaker 1 One thing I found interesting about you is that it came kind of out of your education.

Speaker 1 Like your career kind of like, it seems like the schools that you went to kind of fostered you becoming an artist. Is that correct? I thought you were going to go in a different direction.

Speaker 1 What I would say is like, I thought you were going to say, so my first mixtape was called 10 Day. It was about a suspension from high school.
For weed, for Piffin. For weed, yeah, for Piffin.

Speaker 1 I got suspended too. For smoking weed? No, for, I told my dad if I wanted to go to like this, like, this teen summer program, I told my dad I get straight A's, and I got six A's and two B's.

Speaker 1 And I forged my report card, and my dad fucking bitch ass ratted on me to the school. This story took 10 lap turns.
Like I thought you was gonna get in trouble six things.

Speaker 1 I've never, I don't you said you forged your family

Speaker 1 and your dad told on you to your school. He went to the dean who looked like a mole.
This guy looked like a bat. That shit is crazy.
I got called in.

Speaker 1 I got and I said to when I got in trouble, I said, I was like, I'm lying to my parents and I'm not really lying to the school.

Speaker 1 So you got in trouble and then you wrote your first mixtape 18 years old.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think I was,

Speaker 1 yeah, I was 18. I started it at the end of my high school, senior year of high school, and put it out, I think, when I was 19.
Yeah. And, yeah, like

Speaker 1 the influence of school and me feeling so dissociated from like

Speaker 1 the building or the idea of work or the idea of these adults being teachers and not just being regular niggas that hated us. They're losers.

Speaker 1 Let's be honest. Teachers are losers.

Speaker 1 So just let the record show. I don't think I'm a loser.

Speaker 1 Some of these guys we had, poof. Oh, yeah.
Sorry, no, my bad. Yeah, yeah.
My teachers was losers.

Speaker 1 Teachers in general. Back in the day, back in the, I'm talking back in the day.
I'm talking in 1943, 1944. In antiquity.
I'm talking about like fucking. Stone Age.
I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 I love saying I'm talking about it. And you ad lib it sounds like a song to me.
Go ahead. This is a track right now.
I was going to say, like, Aristotle. Okay.
Pedophile. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 1 So let's, so let's twist. Let's make a pivot.
Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Let's go.

Speaker 1 He was a teacher, though, right? Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Okay, let's go Tylus of Miletus, right?

Speaker 1 What used to happen was one person would teach one person, right? So you get that one-on-one education. A mentor.
And typically it's your father, but yes.

Speaker 1 Or you go to a mentor who's a philosopher and they teach you one-on-one what the game is.

Speaker 1 And now we have a standardized education where we send 30 random kids into a room to sit all day with an adult who just got a divorce and so they had they owe nothing to this child they don't think that you know and it's not this child it's 30 childs and next year they'll have another 30 child so it's like and I should be saying children but you gave me child whatever it's come on dude the point that I'm making though is like it's a I think the issues with teachers are that they're overwhelmed and they're human beings.

Speaker 1 So when they're, you know what I'm saying, getting fucking

Speaker 1 fucking

Speaker 1 markers thrown at them and TikTok challenged all over. Like,

Speaker 1 at a certain point, they like they check out. And I think that, you know, back in the day,

Speaker 1 post-Stone Age, pre-1941, there was a lot more,

Speaker 1 you know, like direct education. or at least like more sizable.
To just be with one adult guy wearing a fucking toga, that'd be annoying. No, that would be whack.

Speaker 1 I want girls to be there and kind of try to be fun. You want a girl mentor, girls could teach it too.
No, but you're not, but you can't, I mean, I guess

Speaker 1 what I'm saying is, is like a school socializes you, right? Like,

Speaker 1 the fun part about school is that like you're terrified to get beat, like get called gay when you're in sixth grade. Like, you're trying to survive and it makes you a regular human being, right?

Speaker 1 No facts. Apparently they're trying to take bullying away.
And I'm like, I'm like, these kids are going to become sociopaths. You develop a personality by being terrified, right?

Speaker 1 That's... No, I don't.
Take bullying away.

Speaker 1 It's really funny that's what I'm I'm going to send my kids you're trying to take bullying out of the schools I did read that you have to bring bullying back because if that's really where you're

Speaker 1 built on I need through like a like Darwinism to find something to survive you're like I'm gonna get really good at rap I and I was like I'm like gonna I have to do something you gotta be funny I have to be funny facts I fucking feel you right so like if you send your kids to one of these goddamn $60,000 a year schools where they're told that they're amazing, they're going to be fucking sociopaths.

Speaker 1 Facts. You have to tell them that they suck and the teacher has to be a loser going through a divorce.
Yes.

Speaker 1 That's how we got here.

Speaker 1 Sorry, that's my rant on schools.

Speaker 1 No, but like you were also in writers programs and stuff like that. Yeah.
Yeah. Right? They used to do after school like the fucking

Speaker 1 Jewish Student Alliance.

Speaker 1 Jewish Student Alliance was more for the pizza. There was a there was a Jewish pizza? No, dude.
In this day and age, you can't just just act like you didn't do it yeah i'm i'm like when you go to jsu

Speaker 1 you get like there's a dude named mr katz he orders a whole fucking pizza um

Speaker 1 and i say whole fucking pizza i mean a whole fucking pizza for me he orders like 10 pizzas for everybody and then i would come in there we get pizza um

Speaker 1 they would they would talk about a lot of stuff israel

Speaker 1 i can't tell i don't know what they were talking about

Speaker 1 but what i'm saying is that you just like jewish girls i'm You like Jewish girls.

Speaker 1 Big ones with a skinny waist. I want to ask a question about your first mixtapes, like the first three.

Speaker 1 Is there a freedom in making art when you're so young? Because you're not afraid of being corny.

Speaker 1 I think you still have...

Speaker 1 For the kids that I know, the kids that I grew up with, we were all like...

Speaker 1 We already believed that we were rappers. We weren't like going to grow up and become rappers.
We were already taking everything that we did super seriously.

Speaker 1 So I don't think that there was ever a point where I had, I damn near had more pressure on me when I was making asser rap and color. I never really thought about it.
As a young person.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because you believe that your existence and

Speaker 1 your identity is so based on this thing that you, that you at least felt like you were when you were in the comfort of like, I go to fucking school every day. Like my mom gives me lunch money.

Speaker 1 Like versus being 19, being outside, like having to figure out a way to pay for stuff, you like,

Speaker 1 you take it even more seriously but yeah all the way back when I was in the after-school program I was doing like fucking

Speaker 1 what is it called it was called young young Chicago authors you get like prompts and you and like imagine all these kids getting up and they're doing poems about like real fucking trauma and fucking redlining like we're all like we're those kids like but all the way back in 2010 20 2009 yeah we're like the kids wearing kefias and being like vocal and being like we write poetry and we like we're radical like that's the kids that I grew up around and then some kids also that grew up, like, Lucky and Mick Jenkins, and certain people that came out of Chicago that, like, you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 Like, it was a very, very diverse group of people that were in the after-school shit that I was in, rapping and stuff as a young age, but everybody took it super serious. Right.

Speaker 1 Because there's such a, there's like a kind of a sweet naivety about being a kid where you're like, I'm a real rapper. I believe in this.
Yeah, yeah, I believe in this.

Speaker 1 I feel like, I think a lot about like with music, like, it's like,

Speaker 1 Nas made Ilematic when he was 17, right?

Speaker 1 yeah you know and it must be like there's a freedom in expressing yourself as a young person that might like you know what's like you're not afraid of like maybe I'm gonna fuck up something or something like you know what I think it is and no you're right it is a freedom in that you don't have certain knowledge that you

Speaker 1 you know think of as as fact or like a or a

Speaker 1 restrictions or boundaries about what you put out or what you say or how you say it or when you drop it when you're a kid because there's this little thing in the back of your head that's like,

Speaker 1 you know, this shit might not work out, you know, and not in the, not as, and like how I just did it, you know what I'm saying? As this gesture, like, oh, this shit might not work out.

Speaker 1 So I'm going to do what I'm going to do, but like, I don't got kids. I don't got, you know what I'm saying, no real responsibilities.
I haven't tasted the success yet. So stand-ups, the opposite.

Speaker 1 You know that. You know, like, most, most great stand-ups get great like after 40.
Like, it's very rare. I've heard that before.

Speaker 1 It's very rare for a young person to be like, like, Chappelle was a phenomenon. Yeah.

Speaker 1 he was a child probably like 14. yeah yeah i i started standing up in dc where he started standing up you know chappelle's my mentor he's your he's your aerosol

Speaker 1 mentor yep he's your your uh toga man he's your toga man

Speaker 1 he's your number one yeah what has he taught you

Speaker 1 a lot of things a lot of like jokes that like if i repeat them i'll get canceled but like he's very very no but say it's a quote yeah but all right so dave chappelle was talking about no i'm just joking no but like he's like i met him in 20, I think, 14.

Speaker 1 He had a show before he did the Netflix deal in Chicago. And we bought tickets.
He invited me backstage, me and like my whole team.

Speaker 1 And we stayed there like smoking cigarettes and joking around a piano for like, till like 5 in the morning. And we stayed connected through that.
He was at my wedding.

Speaker 1 He's like, you know, knows my kids.

Speaker 1 I was just at his 50th last year in New York.

Speaker 1 like this is like somebody that I really really look up to but what he taught me and what I think really shines through in the album is that like

Speaker 1 one of the most important things that you have is self-determination and being able to define who you are and what you're gonna do and like we don't always talk about it because it was so long ago how old are you by the way i'm 38.

Speaker 1 38. so okay so we so do you remember when he was

Speaker 1 blackballed him though i remember when he went to durban like so and but they didn't call it going to durban they called it going to africa and there's a sensation people said he was on crack and they said he was on crack and yeah even though he's a devout muslim and never smoked crack well beyond that he was the funniest guy in the world but

Speaker 1 It's a very brave thing. And that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 Sometimes you make a decision or a left turn, and media can be strong enough to push you in a direction where you feel like you're not in control anymore.

Speaker 1 Even though you're literally taking control. Hollywood likes to do that to black people.
Yeah, and people, period, kind of. No, no, I think black guys.
I appreciate you saying that.

Speaker 1 I mean, I don't know if it's kind of,

Speaker 1 but you're probably right. I mean, it's like, it's,

Speaker 1 yeah. I mean, he's talked about it before, too.
Did he give you that type of advice? He's like if shit gets too hot, just like take time to yourself.

Speaker 1 He talked to me like he talked to metaphors and I don't want to butcher it, but he talked about this thing about taking your ball and going home. And the metaphor was about like

Speaker 1 you go to the

Speaker 1 classic take your ball and go home. You go to the court, you play, everybody wants to play with you and use your basketball.

Speaker 1 And then when they start playing by weird rules and hacking and fouling you and doing all that shit, you take your ball and you go home.

Speaker 1 Because they could find another ball, but is it going to be the same ball? Hell no.

Speaker 1 So they're going to wait till you come back and ball out like Jordan wearing a four or five and that same spot's going to be there for you, but you have to be strong enough to walk off and take your ball.

Speaker 1 That was one of the things he told me in 2019 that like, but he said a bunch of things. He said this thing about, I always quote about the yearbook photos.
So he says like albums, whether it's a...

Speaker 1 you know, music album or comedy album, these albums are yearbook photos. They're not the photo of you as a human, even though as an an artist you want to do that.

Speaker 1 You want to create where I'm at every time.

Speaker 1 It's where you're at in eighth grade. I was busted.
But it's important to take that yearbook photo because that's what you are. You're a documentarian.

Speaker 1 Your whole power is your voice in being able to say this thing happens. So you have to take those yearbook photos so that

Speaker 1 your 38-year-old self, your 48-year-old,

Speaker 1 throughout your life, you can look back and people can get all these pictures of you at different times.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 what's the distinction as someone that came up through mixtapes? Yeah. What's the distinction there?

Speaker 1 Because for me, I understood like when I was younger, like there was like the drought and the dedication.

Speaker 1 And those were just like, you could tell a little Wayne was just like taking people's beats and then just doing the songs better. Reckon for beats is what they call it.

Speaker 1 But like it seems like, you know,

Speaker 1 if you're reading this, it's too late. It just, to me, that just registers as an album.
Like, acid rap just kind of, in my mind, registers as an album.

Speaker 1 Like, I don't don't understand what the distinction is in people's. I'm like a what do they call it? Not an etymologist, but a linguist.

Speaker 1 So like my whole thing is like attributing power to words and like or like reevaluating the power of words or removing power from certain words. And so

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 the whole mixtape thing was like a

Speaker 1 I'm just fucking around? No, but that's how the world perceives it because it's not commercial. But

Speaker 1 the thing is that it's hella work. It's hella love.

Speaker 1 It's rammy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, off of mixtapes. It's crazy.
It is a matter of.

Speaker 1 I don't understand what makes 56 Nights a mixtape. What makes Dirty Sprite 2 an album? It's its existence.

Speaker 1 To me, at the time when I was growing up when I was putting out my first mixtapes,

Speaker 1 it's existence outside of the market while having an influence on the market.

Speaker 1 So albums are already within the commercial landscape of like there's a system.

Speaker 1 There's labels that press records and have control over radio time and all these other things and then there's you know then there's the culture separate from that where I might burn 50 CDs and I know all the gas station niggas I know all the the radio DJs I know all these people and I'm gonna make this you're doing it out the trunk I'm moving it out exactly so that's the mixtape vibe DJ Paul style You know

Speaker 1 so much.

Speaker 1 I love music. Shout out to MC Hammer.
Like niggas don't really talk about it, but MC Hammer and Matt OP a little bit later. Yeah.
They really like

Speaker 1 started that out-the-trunk vibe. Like Memphis.

Speaker 1 Multi-state movements of that shit. The Memphis stuff, those DJ Paul mixtapes, like the Little Fly stuff.
Like, that is the cool. It's some of the coolest music in the world.

Speaker 1 It sounds like it's coming out of hell because the production is so bad. 360.
It sounds like it's coming out of the depths of hell. It's some of the coolest music I've ever listened to.
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Speaker 1 So Chappelle is your mentor. Do you have a mentor in rap? My mentor passed away.
So my mentor is a dude. And I'm so glad I got to see him.
Said on your show. No.

Speaker 1 My mentor is this dude named Mike Hawkins, and we called him him Brother Mike. He was a rapper? He's a rapper, poet, revolutionary

Speaker 1 mentor in Chicago.

Speaker 1 And a lot of the people that people fuck with from Chicago out of my era, Vic Mensa,

Speaker 1 No Name, Mick Jenkins, Lucky X,

Speaker 1 Niko,

Speaker 1 I'm missing a lot of people. Was Juice in your city? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, Juice didn't go to the same

Speaker 1 after-school program. I think I don't think he went to UMedia because

Speaker 1 he's from South Suburbs. So

Speaker 1 he like came up. He's a little bit younger than me.
He like emo

Speaker 1 he kind of

Speaker 1 invented

Speaker 1 he invented that. No, there was emo before it, but it was the emo right now.
No emo, I'm saying like emo in the culture. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like in terms of like, he's like, I think one of the highest selling artists of all time. Like his, his, uh,

Speaker 1 and definitely the highest streaming artist all time. Yeah.
So his music, and that's not posthumously, that's like during his lifetime. He's a, you know.
He's a genius. Genius in his own own right.

Speaker 1 And I got to spend a little bit of time with him before he passed a couple of times and just like got to pick his brain about that whole era.

Speaker 1 And he was aware of, like, like, we thought of it as an after-school program, but niggas outside of that shit looked at us like a super group.

Speaker 1 You know, I'm sure you've heard of, have you ever heard of Saba or Pivot?

Speaker 1 Or like, like, all of these people came from this little, like, we used to go to this after-school program and literally just be kids rapping. You were the good kids.
We were the good.

Speaker 1 You and Vic, and

Speaker 1 Felix Biederman. You guys were the good kids.
To you, for sure. I think the point is like

Speaker 1 there is

Speaker 1 a value in

Speaker 1 having

Speaker 1 a cohort, like a group of niggas that all trying to do the same thing. A scene.
Yeah, a scene

Speaker 1 that blew up. I'll take a look.
Who else is in your scene? Wilco?

Speaker 1 Shout out to Wilco. They're a little bit older, but...
But Wilco's from Chicago. Band.

Speaker 1 You know what I'm saying? Incredible band.

Speaker 1 Do you think your fan base knows Wilco? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Shout out to Wilco. Shout out to Jeff Tweedy.
You feel me? Dude, yeah. You like John Prime? That's another Chicago guitar.
I feel like I know that name.

Speaker 1 He's like,

Speaker 1 he made country music. You have to go now? No, he's a guitarist, right? He's a guitarist.
Oh, he's like a, yeah, it's like country folk, but he's from Chicago. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's a god.

Speaker 1 He died from COVID. Damn.
Yeah, unfortunately. Maybe that's when I might have heard him.
I feel like I heard that name recently. Yeah, yeah.
I'm gonna check him out. How much were you exposed to like

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 old blues? Like

Speaker 1 Chicago is such a music city. It's like so rich in history.
I'm reading the

Speaker 1 Keith Richards autobiography right now.

Speaker 1 They signed in Chicago, didn't they? Well, they like like being the coolest guy, I guess, when they were like young men, was like having the best records.

Speaker 1 And they literally they couldn't get they like had to write to chess records to get Muddy Waters records sent to england yeah and they like had this music that no one else in their country had heard basically well you know the invention of like celebrity as a musician is all kind of based off of like

Speaker 1 trade embargoes opening up and being like okay we can move music and media as like a export from america and so people that had never been to these other countries started becoming famous off of that and famously a lot of the you know like

Speaker 1 you know what we think of as like the vanguard of rock were all like influenced by like Chicago records finally coming out of like Seth S. Records.

Speaker 1 They are the, they're the goat, swagged out white boy. They never even got the cultural appropriation, like, accusations, the stones.
Yeah. They were just doing it black.

Speaker 1 But they went on to like, we fuck with this.

Speaker 1 Like, they were opening up for Lil Richard and for Muddy Waters and like literally singing their songs.

Speaker 1 Like they, and they, I think they don't get that because they were always open about where their influence was coming from. They loved it.
They loved it. Lil Richard took the Beatles on tour.

Speaker 1 He's a god, that guy. 100%.
100%. Toottie Frutti is a song about butts.
That's the architect. That's what he is.
The architect of rock and roll, man. You know that song is 2t Fruti Big Booty.

Speaker 1 I did know that. I saw it.
He was like

Speaker 1 a psychopath, gay guy that was just an unreal musician. Yeah.
Unbelievable guy. I love Lil Richard.
He influenced like Bob Dylan, too. Everybody.
He's the architect of rock and roll.

Speaker 1 That's the deep thing about like all music. And as time goes on, as like we continue to do shows like this where we can have conversations, it's like

Speaker 1 there's such a rich history of

Speaker 1 black people making something raw and then using it. And popularizing it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 1 Especially gay black guys too. They'll

Speaker 1 start out. Chicago House is like literally.

Speaker 1 I didn't know that it was dark by gay people, but I wouldn't be surprised because Chicago as like a culturally rich city, like we have always been progressive and always been like on the forefront of like music getting introduced.

Speaker 1 So like a lot of the, like you said, deep house, jungle, all that shit comes from house music in Chicago. And that comes from the club scene or like the basement party scene.
Yeah, it's amazing.

Speaker 1 Like techno comes from Detroit and house comes from Chicago and then it was exported to Europe and they don't understand that.

Speaker 1 I feel like when you go to like Germany and you go to like a, like a, like a fucking, like, it sounds like, it sounds like the matrix.

Speaker 1 It doesn't sound like there's no like there's no like black there's no soul in it. It's super different.

Speaker 1 And it's just like they but they're like consuming something that they don't realize kind of what it is.

Speaker 1 What's funny though is I will say like Germany and like fucking Poland and I think it's they have a greater

Speaker 1 appreciation I feel like and knowledge of the history of stuff so just yesterday we were in Hyde Park in Chicago. Germany loves their history.
We met 10

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 multinationals from like korea and germany and all these other places that were footworkers you probably don't know what footwork yes i do okay so like think about how small of a like you're like most people my fans don't know what footworking is i know what footworking is but can you do it i can i won't today i showed her a video of derek rose doing it in high school have you seen that video we've all seen that video yeah oh my god he's a he could have been a dancer no we all we all grew up footworking but it's such a small subculture of a subculture of a city in america that the idea that I'm I'm telling you I met like 10 motherfuckers with thick accents that could footwork better than like a random person that grew up in Chicago because of the influence and the reverence that they pay overseas to you know DJ Rashad music that was my guy that was my guy yeah no I uh that music is incredible yeah yeah rest in peace DJ Rashad that was my big brother that was another one of my mentors you you knew him well very well my first tour ever was with me and DJ Rashad Have you ever, do you make music as well?

Speaker 1 Have you ever produced? Yeah, producing music, yeah. I'm not that good at juke music like that.
Like I got the same like two rhythms when it comes to making that, but like other rhythms for show.

Speaker 1 It's cool how they, I don't think it, I don't fully actually buy it, but when they say Rick Rubin doesn't know any of the buttons, he's just vibes. He has to know the buttons after all these years.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm certain. But being so good at chilling that

Speaker 1 you can be like

Speaker 1 a super producer, that's the coolest coolest kind of guy you can be. Not for sure.
It is about vibes. It is about who you got in the room, in the studio.

Speaker 1 Like, somebody can throw a vibe off or like set the. Dude, we have to go to the studio right now.

Speaker 1 I'll get my vibes. Get the guitar.
Get the guitar.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I want to talk to you about

Speaker 1 your path, because it's interesting, because you got so successful, so young, right? And now you're 32, right?

Speaker 1 And like,

Speaker 1 I think that, like,

Speaker 1 yeah, like, does this feel

Speaker 1 like what is what does the term comeback mean to you in in the context of your new album that's a good question i feel like i guess it just means coming back to the fans it's been six years since i dropped a project and like my fans you like the fans i do they could be annoying though what's weird is like my fans like usually

Speaker 1 we talked about the whole thing about trading cards and about the you know

Speaker 1 devaluing the human part of people that we consider to be celebrities or famous or whatever.

Speaker 1 But what's weird about my fans is like because it was so grassroots and like me literally hand-to-handing mixtapes and like selling merch and doing small shows and growing over time, my fans are really like,

Speaker 1 my fans are really, really invested in like me as a person.

Speaker 1 And so when I meet them,

Speaker 1 like I get stories that like fuck me up. Like stories about how music genuinely saved their life.

Speaker 1 They were in a dark place or, you know, I got divorced when they got divorced or I got married when they got married or I had this when they had this. And like...
They should go to therapy, probably.

Speaker 1 They're telling me their set of a song. No, but

Speaker 1 it's like, I think

Speaker 1 there's

Speaker 1 a value in being outside when you're me. And that, like...

Speaker 1 The the type of like fan that I have is so at random.

Speaker 1 It's so like so many demographics so many different like kinds of people that like I never expected and the stories they'd be like you want to sit and listen to it really yeah people have said that to me that they were like I was depressed and suicidal but the Come Town podcast got me through it I was like you should go to therapy no or or listen to a CTV I was gonna tell you when I first saw you I'm like man

Speaker 1 what's that come town oh you know come town I was gonna tell you I was gonna fucking kill myself no shut up dude really

Speaker 1 what for what no I'm just joking I'm just joking it's not funny to joke about killing yourself but he gave me hell. It's funny.
You can say it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You had a mentorship with Kanye as well? Yeah. I mean, like, when I was in 11th grade, like, College Dropout came out, it was...
That's so crazy. I think.

Speaker 1 He was the one.

Speaker 1 He was the best. I think you're younger than me.
I know you already told me that you're older than me, but I look cute. You look young.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 When College Dropout came out, I was in fourth grade. That was the first hip-hop album I ever had.

Speaker 1 I had, no, well, I had Ready to Die. I liked Big E before that.
No, no, no. Actually, no, no, fifth grade.
Do you remember when Biggie died? No,

Speaker 1 it was on the news.

Speaker 1 I was not watching the fucking news. I didn't.
I was watching Sesame Street. No, no.
I remember Mace. I remember Harlem World.
I remember like...

Speaker 1 That's post-Biggie. That's towards the end of Biggie's career.
I remember Life After Death. Fifth grade, I was sick.

Speaker 1 I was home from school sick, and I watched Jerry Springer, and then Maury, and then I watched MTV, and then I heard Feel So Good by Mace, and it became my favorite song in fifth grade. That's ill.

Speaker 1 And then middle school, MM. When we were in sixth grade, Mace had a comeback, and he had a song called Welcome Back, and that was our shit, bro.
You also found God. And Breed, Steph, Shake? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Breed, Steph, Shake. Let it go.
That's how I learned how to Harlem Shake. Dude, you got the second.

Speaker 1 No, I'm from Las Vegas, Nevada. I didn't know that.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 You got the second wave, Mace. I got the.
Yeah, you got the first. You got the old wave.
That's what I was just saying.

Speaker 1 It's like you were already a formed hip-hop fan by the time you got to come back.

Speaker 1 Well, the other thing is

Speaker 1 the boys, my age.

Speaker 1 What are you stuttering?

Speaker 1 We love rap. Yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 But for me I'm saying like the

Speaker 1 boy is our age. Imagine your introduction to like you said your introduction was Mace and like Mace low-key has a lot of similarities to Ye to me and they worked together before.

Speaker 1 Kanye did the Welcome Back Mace album. Well he that's the other thing about Kanye that I don't think people say enough is that he could potentially be the best producer of all time as well.

Speaker 1 It's Yee it is crazy to me. It's yay.

Speaker 1 Are you guys in touch these days? Is he all right? You know what's so crazy is people ask me that? Like, I'm his therapist. Like, I don't know.

Speaker 1 Like, I'm, I mean, like, I'm sure that he's that he's fine. I think he just did like a sold-out show in Korea or something like that.
Huge show in Korea. But

Speaker 1 I have not texted him recently. That's the point.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want to tell him I'm chill? Some of them are okay.

Speaker 1 I'll try and

Speaker 1 show you.

Speaker 1 No, I got to say this. Like,

Speaker 1 the anti-Semitism is talked about a lot nowadays. It's really annoying for me because it's like a lot of the time it's just people criticizing Israel.

Speaker 1 And it's like it's just a bad faith argument and not what anti-Semitism is. It's like you criticize a genocide.
That's not anti-Semitism. It's definitely two separate things.
But the first time...

Speaker 1 I didn't feel it growing up ever. But when Kanye said,

Speaker 1 I want the Jewish kids that love me to ask their dads why Ye is mad at us. I did get my feelings.
You say you went to your dad? I got my feelings hurt. I was like, but I love you.

Speaker 1 I mean, he's so important to

Speaker 1 boys my age when we were in high school because he was the first, like,

Speaker 1 he was like, he went, he worked at the gap and stuff.

Speaker 1 He wasn't like...

Speaker 1 It was like you could be a nerd also,

Speaker 1 kind of be good at music. But no, I adore.
I mean, he's my favorite.

Speaker 1 I think like what good artistry should do is make you want to be yourself. Like, I think anybody that ever fell in love with an artist, they were like, damn.

Speaker 1 It's obviously like, oh, this person's talented. Their voice sounds good and shit like that.
But like,

Speaker 1 I feel like most people fall in love, like, when it gets past a superficial phase, they fall in love with like artistry and like well-written songs and songs that feel like it speaks to them.

Speaker 1 And they're like, damn, this person is being themselves.

Speaker 1 And I think like no matter who that person was for you, if it was Ye, if it was Stevie Wonder, if if it was whatever the fuck it was, like you fall in love with the idea of somebody being themselves.

Speaker 1 And I think he was, he's always like unapologetically going to say the wildest shit that comes to his brain.

Speaker 1 And I think that like for a lot of people, when we were younger, it was like, it felt like empowering. I don't think he was that wild early on.
He was talking about like when it would come to...

Speaker 1 He was at college and stuff and that he wanted to drop out of art school and stuff like that. I was like, my college essay when I was

Speaker 1 when I thought I was going to go to college, I wrote it like from the perspective of like, I was like, this is,

Speaker 1 I'm never going to go to college. I wrote a college essay.
That's a repressed memory. I wrote a college essay because I went to a college prep school.

Speaker 1 So in Chicago, you go to public school for grammar school, and then... You went to a magnet school.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then when you go to, when you go to, and so magnet school is a public school that basically pulls kids from black and brown neighborhoods or different parts of the, from the, of the, of the school system or neighborhoods to go to a school that has like you know that's for smart kids right yeah and then I went to a magnet school too

Speaker 1 vibes yeah

Speaker 1 and then when you go to high school you could do this thing called selective enrollment where you can test if your school is like a good school you could test into like another good school where you don't have to your parents don't have to pay but you get a good education and I went to

Speaker 1 I went to to to Jones and was like exposed to a lot of shit that I wasn't typically exposed to and it was like a very artsy school.

Speaker 1 And I guess like in that time, like I learned a lot about, I think I lost my train of thought. I feel like I forgot what I was doing.
It's fine. You went to a school that inspired you to be an artist.

Speaker 1 To be an artist. Yeah.
Kanye went to art school too. And he dropped out and stuff like that.
It's plenty of family. For me, it's like, you know what it was? I'll tell you my age again.

Speaker 1 When the Harry Potter books were coming up growing up, I remember that. He was one year older than me.
And I feel like each year he went back to Hogwarts. I was like, now I'm that age.

Speaker 1 And it's like, yeah, when he wanted wanted to, like, he wanted to clap Cho Chang. I was feeling that kind of way at school.
Yeah, you know, like, he wanted to take down Cho Chang. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Why am I talking about that? Why is that name so

Speaker 1 why am I talking? I mean, Harry Potter is so racist in retrospect. Yeah.
Yeah. They asked.
But I'm a huge, huge Harry Potter fan. Yeah, me too.
I kill myself on a lot of my projects. Harry Potter?

Speaker 1 The boy who lived. Oh, really? Yes.
Who's the Voldemort in your life?

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 King Vaughan.

Speaker 1 No, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding.
I'm kidding.

Speaker 1 I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Speaker 1 I'm kidding. Were those guys nice to you even though you went to a good, got good grades and stuff? I would imagine it would be a little bit like,

Speaker 1 I don't want them to think that I'm a nerd. Just be chilling.
Look. Because I was a nerd too, right? And like the, I used to, because I like to.
I appreciate that you

Speaker 1 liked weed, and that's how I got the cool kids to, like, the kids that were being bad. What's the word for like you like.
Wood.

Speaker 1 Like you vibe with somebody, but I can't even think of the word. Thrilling.
It's like...

Speaker 1 Incredible to be around.

Speaker 1 What do you mean the word resonate? Yeah, I'm a friendly guy.

Speaker 1 I feel like you.

Speaker 1 But what I was going to say is like...

Speaker 1 The way that Chicago operates,

Speaker 1 we all got to see each other. We all got to work together.

Speaker 1 So they wanted you to get good grades. They were like, I'm proud of you for getting good grades.
It's not like California. I think what you're referencing is like when niggas be like,

Speaker 1 this is a good nigga. He's going to go to the NFL.
Like Kendrick.

Speaker 1 Like Kendrick, right? I hear what you're saying. It's like, when I first saw the don't like video, I was like, it was scary to me because there was no girls in it.
And there were no dudes.

Speaker 1 There were just boys. I was just talking about that.
They were in an empty apartment. There was no hose.

Speaker 1 Like, rap was always about trying to get a lot of girls, right? And I'm like, these kids just have guns and they have their own apartment. Whose apartment is that? They're children.

Speaker 1 And they, I, if they, and they're your age demographic too, and you and Vic must have just been like a little bit butterflies, no? Before you met the lads? Yeah, it was, I think it's like

Speaker 1 you could be real about this. Yeah, no, I mean, they're also younger than me.
Are they younger? They're younger than me. That makes it even scarier.
By like two years. That makes it scarier, too.

Speaker 1 Because you know the younger kids have less of a moral compass. To be honest, they got on before us.
Like if I'm being super real, if it wasn't for Keith,

Speaker 1 Von was later, but Keith, Dirk is kind of my same generation. Not generation, we all like close in age, but like he was like that second wave.

Speaker 1 But like Keith and King Louie both blew up out of Chicago around the same time, 2011, 2012. Like 14, 15 years old.
Louie's older than us, but Keith, yeah, younger than me.

Speaker 1 And around that same time was when MTV started coming to Chicago to do documentaries, like a documentary series on chicago called the vice one block chicago the vice one is really cringe vice one is crazy i'm

Speaker 1 just racism the vice one is like most of those documentaries we're here at old we're here at old block where where the murder the child murders are happening yeah um but like i saw an interview recently with sosa where uh he's like uh

Speaker 1 like when we were consuming it from the outside i was like People, I think people said that he was autistic, and that's why he's so good at hooks. He's like racism.

Speaker 1 Well, no, but then it just, he was like, there was an interview with him last year, and he's like, yeah, I just had to get out of Chicago. He's like, now I live in L.A., you know.

Speaker 1 He's just, he was like on a lot of drugs, I think, as a kid, probably. Yeah.
You know, it's also environment. Like, you got to realize, like.
He just seems so annoyed. Like,

Speaker 1 he's doing great. Vegas, right? Yeah, Las Vegas.
Vegas is super different from New York.

Speaker 1 And even, though it's close, I'm sure, super different from L.A. when I, and when I say LA, I mean like in terms of Hollywood.
Like in terms of how many opportunities there are.

Speaker 1 It's like torch counting on camera. Well, I feel like Las Vegas is happening.
I'm not saying it's not a big city. It's just like Chicago.
It's a big city, but it's not a media export.

Speaker 1 So imagine when

Speaker 1 if Vegas had a Keith, if there was somebody that was so

Speaker 1 transfer Jimmy Kimmel.

Speaker 1 Jimmy Kimmel's from Vegas. Yeah, he is.
Crazy place to be. Greg Maddox.

Speaker 1 Who else is from Vegas?

Speaker 1 Panic at the Disco?

Speaker 1 The Killers? CSI Las Vegas. Vegas.
CSI Las Vegas. Shouts out CSI Las Vegas.
They were kind of the king vaughan of my childhood. I think

Speaker 1 there's a time period that happened where Chicago became the epicenter of

Speaker 1 hip-hop music and what was going to be the new thing that white folks were scared of.

Speaker 1 And that popularity.

Speaker 1 grew so many careers and really created a scene in Chicago that

Speaker 1 you know, I think put us at the forefront of music for a long time. And even to this day, like, I think Chicago Slang, Chicago artists, like still have a great influence.

Speaker 1 But it's not New York, it's not LA. So, I think.
Well, for a long time, it was only New York and LA, that Atlanta, Atlanta, for a long time. A little bit, Houston.
Yeah. And then, yeah.

Speaker 1 Everybody has their regional points in time. It was just common, basically.
And then Kanye. Kanye, common.

Speaker 1 I feel like, and then, you know.

Speaker 1 You were with someone for 22 years?

Speaker 1 Who? Your ex-partner, your ex-wife?

Speaker 1 Or you knew her for 22 years? Yeah. We grew up in Chicago together, so I've known her for most of my life.

Speaker 1 So in doing the research for this, I saw

Speaker 1 the way people are so wrapped up in

Speaker 1 it has to be a product of celebrity that people are like, I thought this was relationship goals, but that, you know, like that people are like so invested in it in a certain way.

Speaker 1 And the first thought I had was like going back to that future point, right?

Speaker 1 Future is like

Speaker 1 Was it you think that people are so wrapped up in your shit because they thought of you as like he's the good happy go go lucky guy? I think that's super possible.

Speaker 1 I think like there's an outside like when you put out when you publish something You publish the work, but you also just publish the cover right so it's like people don't have to open the book to like know what everything's about They just have to see it on the shelf.

Speaker 1 And that metaphor, I'm just saying, like, if I'm a celebrity, like everybody that watches that interview doesn't necessarily do a deep dive into my music. They're just introduced to me in this video.

Speaker 1 And so I think like with celebrity and with like personal lives being shared, I think that there's people that don't have a full context of anything other than maybe something that they've read or like something that I've put out there about how long we've known each other or, you know, what the relationship feels like.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Versus like people that are my fans know like I was, you know,

Speaker 1 I got married like four years after I had already had my kid. Like I've known this person for a long time.
We've been in and out of things, but we have like a, you know, really,

Speaker 1 really strong relationship. And I think that when I was very public about being married to her and being happy about getting married and being

Speaker 1 a rapper. Do you regret being so open about your personal life? No, I'm a rapper.

Speaker 1 Like that's a, that's a big part of being a rapper is being open open about your public life and being, I'm sorry, about your personal life and being open to criticize and to analyze the real world as well as your own vulnerability.

Speaker 1 It's a little bit annoying, right? Like you're going through a personal experience and then people have opinions on like your personal experience.

Speaker 1 It's only annoying when you don't like the opinions, but like when they're good opinions, don't you like it? Like when somebody's like, I don't care what a stranger thinks about my

Speaker 1 niggas. Niggas don't care.
No, no, no. Just hit it.
We hate it. No, no, but I'm just making a point.
I was just joking. We gotta wrap.
We gotta wrap. Sorry for saying that.

Speaker 1 I was making a point. I wasn't.

Speaker 1 We should have soon, but I'm gonna go.

Speaker 1 I want to get back to the point I made about Future, right? Like, no one's team, Russell Wilson. Everyone's like, yeah, Future, he's got, he's,

Speaker 1 you know, he's eating. He didn't make March Madness, but like, people are.
What I'm saying is, like, people are like,

Speaker 1 what I found was, like, and I didn't know about this because I don't like consume this type of media, but like, the response to your divorce is like that people were like, had it, were like, felt betrayed or something because it was relationship goals and it's like get a life like it's like uh the future doesn't get that right because it's like the assumption is is

Speaker 1 it has to get pussy i was making this point earlier

Speaker 1 like everything that we see like celebrities are the flagship of conversation we push product right so when

Speaker 1 any headline that you get from a blog or from a shade room or anything,

Speaker 1 it's pushing a story, but it's also pushing a specific moral boundary where people have to feel, you know, hot or cold on either side.

Speaker 1 And so everything is politicized, even if we're not talking about politics. That's just, but that's the way the media works.
It's bad for society, though.

Speaker 1 No one was like...

Speaker 1 No one like...

Speaker 1 There was the Beatles or like Elvis Presley. No one felt like personally betrayed by their personal lives like that.

Speaker 1 There was a... distance between the the artist and then the audience and i think for sure probably the internet

Speaker 1 early yeah

Speaker 1 probably the internet has the internet has blurred that line like remember when like women couldn't wear skirts past their knees on TV like remember when like people I don't remember that well there was a time when like it was controversial to have a black person on TV on sharing the same set as a white person so I'm saying like through media as it's as society and culture has revolutionized there's been more and more like a a close relationship to T V and a and and it's grown as society becomes cooler with things that used to be be taboo.

Speaker 1 Are you single gentlemen now? Or

Speaker 1 have you considered doing what

Speaker 1 the god did? You get like a girl that looks a little bit like the last one and then make her be naked?

Speaker 1 What

Speaker 1 that is hilarious. So

Speaker 1 you've traveled a lot, right?

Speaker 1 You said that I've seen other interviews with you. Like Ghana was a heavy influence.
Super, yeah.

Speaker 1 Tell us about like the.

Speaker 1 this is this is the C D? So this is this is the C D right? Yeah. And people don't typically have C D plays in them.
I'm sure you probably don't.

Speaker 1 So what I did with this project was in an attempt to create a physical handoff between me and my fans because that's what people used to really like.

Speaker 1 It's like I could get something that I own forever that I got. from this artist that I love.
Something physical.

Speaker 1 I gave them something physical, but more importantly, I wanted to give them something that

Speaker 1 was

Speaker 1 functional. So this has NFC technology.
I'm sure you know what NFCs are. National Football Conference.
What is NFC? That's correct. So what NFC is, is it's a near-field communication.

Speaker 1 So what you could do with this C D is you could just tap your phone straight to it.

Speaker 1 Without like using a QR code or anything, and a link will populate and come down and it'll take you to the album so you can Bluetooth it straight from your phone.

Speaker 1 So at any point, like if you keep your CD, you could play it on any speaker. You're the first person ever? First person.
Really? Yeah. You invented

Speaker 1 a new thing. It's like when two iPhones touch and then you it's the same technology like when you use like your uh when you tap your team it when yeah when you do when you touch another person's eye

Speaker 1 and you feel it in this like a hot little thing that happens it vibrates and stuff there's a vibrate and you're like are we fucking right now it's a little bit like that can you facts so what do you like your first single is is called tree right my first song is called tree so it was

Speaker 1 a record that took a long time to put out

Speaker 1 that I love dearly and I feel like is a good thesis for the project.

Speaker 1 It doesn't cover all the topics of the project, but the song itself is about,

Speaker 1 you know, my mom,

Speaker 1 my,

Speaker 1 you know, how we grew up with these certain taboos around weed, you know, like how we how weed is represented when it comes to hip-hop artists and black culture versus how we look at it as a financial like yeah exactly like a you know so there's a

Speaker 1 there's there's a separation there but it's also mainly uh about the inequities in the cannabis industry um how niggas go to jail but other people make billions is there's a there's a there's a overar oh I'm sorry there's an overarching

Speaker 1 disparity when it comes to ownership in agriculture, black farmers,

Speaker 1 access to produce, access to fresh foods, and access to the monies that those things make.

Speaker 1 And there's a microcosm of that is in the cannabis industry, but there's like, there's a larger conversation that I'm having that has a lot of connection to sharecropping and to slavery and just the way that capitalism was allowed to

Speaker 1 go crazy in this country. So this whole album, it's called Starline.
It's named after the black Starline, which was started by Marcus Garvey in the 20s.

Speaker 1 He started the first ever black-owned shipping and trading company.

Speaker 1 He owned these big-ass ocean liners that would send beans, coffee, all types of stuff for other companies to South America and Central America created. Did he print off that?

Speaker 1 He did.

Speaker 1 He had a place called...

Speaker 1 Dirk has a trucking company. Dirk does have a...
So all of this is in line.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of actual trucking companies that are named Starline because that's typically like a freighting company name.

Speaker 1 And the point of this project is to kind of like,

Speaker 1 for the first time, I think at the forefront of hip-hop highlight black entrepreneurship,

Speaker 1 black self-determination, and

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 just shining. Like, I feel like that's what you see this.
So this is painted by Brandon Brough.

Speaker 1 It's the same art from

Speaker 1 acid rapid colouring book. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And what he really focuses on is the composition, which is always typically the same with like the portraiture in the center. But he's very, really focused on like the fucking

Speaker 1 Aurora Borealis. Aurora Borealis.

Speaker 1 Also known as the Northern Lights if you're not a nerd. Have you ever seen it? I've never been there.
You got to go to the store. You got to go to Iceland.

Speaker 1 You got to go to Iceland. Boys trip, dude.
I like the way you said it the first time. Last.
Iceland. Iceland.
But last.

Speaker 1 I think we should go back to illegal personally.

Speaker 1 It's not cool anymore now. No, facts.
Facts. It's too much weed.
You walk around New York. It's just like these, and the dispensaries, the aesthetics,

Speaker 1 they don't have like

Speaker 1 cool stuff. Like they look gross.
It's a government scam. I think it is, actually.
It's a government scam. Remember when they legalized? I keep saying remember like you were there.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying like remember in history. I remember all of it.
The end of prohibition. Yeah.
Same vibes. They did that because the

Speaker 1 commercial, they did it because of the commercialization of alcohol and how much they

Speaker 1 could

Speaker 1 viably make off of

Speaker 1 not allowing gangsters or black folks to be the only people making money off of liquor. Really? I think us boys were making a little bit of money too.
Hey man. Get in where you fit in.

Speaker 1 I think us boys used to print a little bit off of that. Us boys too.
I mean, but it must have made like hitting beer so cool when it was illegal.

Speaker 1 Well, you could also go blind because it's somebody's uncle making moonshine. So regulation isn't bad but also you don't know who's regulating.
I think that's an anti-anti. That's anti-woke.

Speaker 1 That's the anti-beer.

Speaker 1 That's the anti-beer propaganda, dude. Big beer.
Yeah. Beating off does not make you blind.
Uncle's moonshine does not make you blind. Anyway, chance, we have to go.
Adam Freedom.

Speaker 1 Once again, she's upset at me.

Speaker 1 Are you upset at me? Maybe a little bit. Oh, did you make her upset last time? No, no.
We were just...

Speaker 1 This is my home. Herb was like, I can go all day.
He's like, no, we're staying.

Speaker 1 I can't. No, yeah, we're late to...
We got to go to this premiere. Where do you have to go? We're going to this premiere.
Look up. No, but this is real, because your shit is huge.

Speaker 1 Is green mean that it's on? Is this our cam?

Speaker 1 It's not live, so you can head it however. But basically, hey, make sure you get my album, Starline.

Speaker 1 It comes out August 15th, the same day as Spike Lee and Denzel Washington's new movie that I'm going to see the premiere of right now.

Speaker 1 You're going to go right now? Yeah, we got a, that's why we're late. You got plus one? I don't have one.
I'm on, bro. I had a plus one, but I already gave it to Taryn.
Really?

Speaker 1 You're better friends with him. Yeah, I guess so.
But enjoy, dude. I'm a big fan of Denzel Washington, actually.

Speaker 1 He's one of my favorite actors. I'm going to name my first son Denzel Friedland.
Let me write all this down so I can tell him.

Speaker 1 I appreciate it, man. That was fun, man.
I appreciate it.

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