August 14, 2025 • 36 mins
In this inspiring episode of Culture Raises Us, multi-Grammy Award-winning producer Warryn Campbell sits down with host Astor Chambers to share a timeless truth: before you can make your mark on the world, you must know yourself inside and out.
From his early beginnings to becoming one of the most respected names in music, Warryn has worked with icons across genres—Mary Mary, Kanye West, Alicia Keys, and more—but he credits his originality not to chasing trends, but to understanding who he truly is. He opens up about the habits, passions, and inner reflections that have shaped his creative identity, and how self-awareness becomes the foundation for any lasting success.
In this conversation, Warryn dives deep into:
- Why self-discovery is the first step to true originality
- How your habits and passions shape your creative voice
- The role of authenticity in building a sustainable career
- Balancing personal values with industry demands
- Why staying rooted in yourself matters more than external validation
Whether you’re a musician, artist, entrepreneur, or someone seeking clarity in life, this episode offers a blueprint for staying grounded while pursuing excellence. Warryn’s message is a reminder that your uniqueness is your greatest asset—and that it’s worth protecting at all costs.
This episode isn’t just about music—it’s about life, discipline, and the courage to remain authentic in every space you step into.
🎧 Listen now to gain insight from one of the industry’s most authentic voices and learn how knowing yourself can unlock your truest potential.
Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction & Episode Overview
01:15 – Who Are You? The Foundation of Originality
04:02 – Discovering Your Passions and Habits
07:45 – Why Self-Awareness Fuels Creativity
12:10 – Staying Unaffected by Outside Influences
16:55 – Balancing Industry Demands with Authenticity
21:30 – Building a Career on Personal Truth
26:20 – Life Lessons from Years in Music
30:40 – The Spiritual Side of Creativity
35:10 – Protecting Your Uniqueness in a Competitive Industry
39:25 – Closing Reflections & Final Takeaways
#WarrynCampbell #CultureRaisesUs #KnowYourself #Originality #CreativeMindset #MusicProducer #SelfAwareness #Authenticity #LifeWisdom #CreativeJourney #BeAuthentic #SuccessMindset #PersonalGrowth #FindingYourVoice #ProducerInterview
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
To who much is given, much is required. Part of
that requirement is sharing. Culture is the heartbeat within our lives,
and it's at the core of so many things. While
we live in a time when we are starving for wisdom,
I welcome you to your wisdom retreat. That culture raises us.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
That was diagnosed with cancer on Friday, you cancer free
the next.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Retty Warren Campbell is a Grammy Award winning music visionary,
executive and producer who's worked with global icons like Steve Wonder,
Elina Adams, Kanye West, Jennifer Hudson, Mary Mary.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
To be honest with yourself.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
What are your habits? What are your passions? The originality
comes from you knowing who you are. I don't practice
trying to get things right. I practice felt impossible.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
For many would look at your journey to date and
would never make that correlation of now your pastor you would.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Make the connection if you had spend time with me
in the studio, like most of those sessions would turn
into Bible studies. Say it came to me like a
song I wrote, Like I don't write song, God writes.
I take dictation.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
When you hear culture, what does that mean to you?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
When I hear culture, I.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Don't think as broad as most people do because people
hear culture and they think country, they think certain things
that regions represent. But I think culture is any space
that you live in that develops you, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
What I mean.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
It could be a small space, because there's a culture
of my house, there's a culture at my school, there's
a culture, you know what I'm saying. I think of
the curated spaces that you know, that shape is that
you know, maybe it was a space that your parents
put you in, you know, in preschool that helped shape you.
I was very much so shaped by my neighborhood, of course,
(01:47):
but mostly by my house. But the neighborhood is broader, right.
My neighborhood was you know, it was a crip neighborhood
and it was wild, you know, drug infested, gang infested.
But the culture of my home where I live shaped
me so much to where the outside forces that could
have shaped.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Me had not been for that foundation.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
So yeah, I think when I think cultures, I think
these little uh you know, areas, not just one big thing,
because you got that, but it's really the things that
I think that are closest to you that that shape
you the most, you know, if you allowed.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, and when you give that definition, and I love
the context I look at. I come back to the
music piece with you, and I wonder, was there a
particular moment where you realize just how big and instrumental
music culture was to shaping all of what I call
our global global ecosystem. Very similar how you talk about
(02:45):
these little things. But was there a moment where you were, like, YO, asked,
So this is when I realized how this music thing
really helps to shape a ton of things. And I
saw just move the world or something at that moment,
you know what.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
It was for me being involved in music my whole life? Yeah,
you know, I was going into a very musical family,
so I kind of like, you better know how to
play or sing or something in this family. But it
wasn't until I was I was eight years old, Yeah,
eight years old, and the Motown twenty five special came
(03:20):
on television and all the great Motown artists, I mean,
Marvin Stevie, Wonder, Temptations, the Four Tops, all these Diana Ross,
they were showing, Barry Gordy and they were talking about
the history of because up until that point, I mean,
I knew who these people were, but I knew them
in the nineteen eighty three contexts, not in the nineteen
(03:41):
sixty three context wherever they started.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
You know.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Instead, it was showing all these old clips and I
saw Stevie Want as a little boy for the first time.
Then I saw Marvin Gay as a young man. It
was in black and white and wild.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
I'm sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
It was like, you know, oh wow, I'm eight years
old going that music that I've been hearing my whole life.
And then they're old now, like they're older, and it
looked different, and I'm like thinking about all the trains.
I saw so many trends on the stage, how Marvel
was dressed and how Steve was dressed. I remember when
Steve was wearing the braids with the bees, and you
(04:12):
had a bunch of dudes. Even in the gospel music
scene back in the day, they started wearing braids with
the with the bees. This guy named Keith Pringle who
was like this big gospel start. He had the braids.
It was all these guys, and you know, I was like, that's.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Where they got that from.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Oh that's and I saw that it was music. The
music artists that were really, you know, not even not
even necessarily the film and TV stars. It was the
music artist that people were following, you know, like what
we're gonna dressed like and stuff like that mostly.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
And that's when you knew and had this epiphany of Wow,
this thing really is powerful.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Very powerful. And then you go to the next year.
Lkuj is huge, eighty forty five, I want a rocket cane,
go to school and beg my mom for a kango.
She got, she buys me a great kango for my
first day of fifth grade, and I'm like.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Life changing, right, life changing music and music. And I
would then say that is a pivotal moment. Outside of
that moment, uh, we look at was there a golden
era for you of music? Like a moment where you
see outside of the moment that you just talked about
(05:27):
as a child, was there a moment that you then
saw within music culture where it was like, this was
the golden era for you? Because this is very subjective
as well as is music, right, was there was there
a golden era of music for you?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Definitely?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I mean, you know it's the golden golden era sonically,
but then commercially as well sonically for me, sonically for me,
it's it's it's the seventies, just how warm the music
was and the content. They talked about love in a
way that love was attractive. They talked about pain, the
(06:03):
way pain it made everything they did was huge. Well,
everything was attractive. And then I go commercially with the
eighties because uh, I'll just I'll just say it this way. Now,
when I listen to the radio, kind of feel like
I'm listening to like one long song because everybody sounds
like kind of similar. In the eighties, it wasn't the same,
(06:27):
and it's it's indicative of out.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I'll come back to this.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
So Tina Turner eighties didn't not sound like Madonna, didn't
not sound like Whitney Houston, didn't that sound like Gladys Knight,
Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Billy Oshan, Billy Idol. You know
what I'm saying. All these people sounded completely They were huge. Toto,
you know what I'm saying. But and and mind you,
(06:55):
the guys in Toto were playing those records that I
just mentioned. These guys are playing all those records.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Right, so it easily could have been unique one sound,
but they played into each respective individual aircraft, their uniqueness.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Their positionship was like, you know, so now I'm like,
that's what's kind of missing, you know to me. So
that golden air was when everybody had their own this
identity when you heard when you heard Raphael Sedik's voice,
you didn't know who's that, right, you knew exactly who
it was, since he's the only person that sounds like.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
That, you know, it's crazy. I was just listening to
a song the other day with my little and as
I was listening to it, I was like, oh, that
sounds like it's a Travis sound. But then when I
looked at the label, it wasn't Travis's name on it.
So it's exactly what you just said of And I
love how you just put it up. It sounds like
(07:51):
one continuous song, and I haven't been able to articulate
that of the sound being so similar that you don't
have and I mean, there are different sounds that punch through, right,
But to the point that you're mentioning, it does all
feel pretty much.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Yeah, because for now, now, for somebody to punch you
and be different, it's an anomaly, when before that's what
it is. It's kind of like like Michael Jackson didn't
want to sound like Prince. They want to compete with
him kind of like, so like not just music, think
about think about sports. You know what I'm saying, Like, now,
(08:30):
you got guys, I can't win a ring, so I'm
gonna go and join this other team and create a
super team so we can win a ring. But then
Magic Johnson will say from the same eighties era I'm
talking about, I don't want to play with the bird
I want to beat them. It never I don't want
to play with Michael Jordan. I want to beat them.
I'm never gonna I'm never gonna. I'm a Laker. I'm
(08:50):
never going to join the New York Knicks. I want
to beat Patrick Gan on it them.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Y'all know this hits you hard because you probably grew.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Up a big Laker fan, giant Laker fan, gosh and
nick very tough. Well, you know I have I have
empathy for you, Jez excuse me.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Wow, what a statement I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
They haven't one since before you in your lifetime.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Actually they have.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
They have Championship seventy two, last one.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
I felt like I was there, but I wasn't.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Sure right, you're still celebrating it now.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Listen, holding on tight like New York is like that. No, listen,
and you see how much conviction I said it with.
And you have to really back and ask, actually, no,
two years before you're born.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yeah, you're there, You're okay, but we're.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Gonna get there. We're gonna get back there. Your Lakers
are looking decent, by the way.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Listen, start to be right now.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Okay, we're gonna go off a little too time. Listen.
I want to sincerely you know, I've had the pleasure
of knowing you for so many years. Yeah, and I'm
so glad we were we reconnected and your spirit has
remained the same. And I love how God continues to
work through you. You know, I have to give you
an early congratulations on this guy. Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
(10:02):
Oh wow, that's coming up this year. Well deserved. And
again love to see how God is working for you.
Is this something that you are most proud of?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
With this accomplishment in the in the gospel music space,
it would have to be the whole Mary, Mary, I'm
gonna say, world, the Marry Marry ecosystem. They have their
own thing happening but to be a part of creating that.
That was because you gotta think before that, I had
(10:34):
never done anything in gospel really. Yeah, I grew up
in church. But professionally I started at death Row Records. Yeah,
I started death Row and then I think right after
death Row was doing R and B I did you know,
a bunch of Juw Hill and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
And Mary Mary was the first gospel thing I had
ever done professionally. Wow, as a producer, and so to
be involved in that and them, I mean shout out
to them for allowing me to, you know, just kind
of creatively just do what I want to do. And
(11:17):
they were just like they had all these I had.
I was wild young. I was that song Shackles came out.
I might have been twenty two Wow, something like something
like that, you know. Uh, And they would just allow
me to do whatever, even down to their name because
they didn't have a name. I was like, I liked
those alternative rock band names like Eagle Eye, Cherry, Third
(11:38):
Eye Blind, Like the rock bands have the coolest names.
I didn't necessarily like the gospel music names, the so
and so travelers, the right, you know, I don't know
all these different. I was like, ah, so, I said,
how about Mary Mary? I said, what, well, I mean,
you know, it's a religious Mary's Mary the Bible. And
(11:58):
at the time, you know, I wasn't theologian or like that.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
My father was.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
And we were in the studio in the basement of
my parents' house. My dad was upstairs watching TV. I said,
I'll be right back. I ran upstairs and I said, uh, hey, Dad,
was there two marrias in the Bible? He took it.
He said, what what do you mean? I said, what
it too many? He's like, boy, I bought your books
since the school. You still don't know nothing. Yeah, there's
(12:25):
two marriages in the Bible. Oh yes, yes, yes, okay, right.
I came back to wait that.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Did they know each other? He was like, yeah, they
were like sisters.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Look at that boom.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
I'll run back downstairs.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Look how God works, I said, you know, I tell
the girls like Mary Mary, and how legit it is.
I was all right, but just to be a part
of that. And you know, they went so far, so fast,
that first album huge. Yeah, like, I don't know any
other gospel artists whose debut album sells a million albums.
Actually two million.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Then as well in that time, and that was huge.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
You're a brand new artist and you're opening up for
you too.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I don't know that you know, as you tell this story,
I think back to how you even started this conversation
when you talked about culture and how the culture of
the home was so influential for you and how you
then went out into the world. And if you look
at the story of how the naming of even Mary,
Mary of look where you went to get that in
(13:30):
the home, to your father who had poured into who
was poured into by God, who then God's pouring into it.
Like it's such a strong correlation to the impact of
strong cultures, foundations and why it's so necessary to preserve
these things and nurture them in such a way. And
(13:51):
just listening again to the story, it brought it full
circle of the why. And so you know, I had
no clue that that was your first professional gospel project
and now we're talking about you being inducted into the
whole fame. But then I also look back at you've
done some of my most favorite songs on the R
and B hip hop side, especially with Ya in particular,
(14:14):
and one of which and look how it all comes
back again. Sunday Service, Oh man. I mean like every
performance from me that I've ever gone to, probably some
of the top live performances I've ever been to in
my life. And I've been blessed to go see a
number of people, I mean Stevie, Shay, all these different people,
but Sunday Service was different. Talk about that process and
(14:38):
that working with Kanye on that, and how that brought
a whole nother realm of things for you in this space.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Well, when you talk about cultures too, Kanye sort of
I would say. You know a lot of people say
he just he started doing gospel. I said, no, for
a time, he commandeered the guyace like in a in
a powerful way, and because of who he is and
the light that he had on him, he shut up
this bright light on not just gospel music. But at
(15:09):
the time you had to think about this, Choir music
was pretty much dead. Choirs couldn't get arrested, they wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
They weren't.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
They weren't touring, they weren't. Kanye comes with this choir.
All of a sudden, choirs are popular again. The choirs
is like, you know, the Jordan wants you know what
I'm saying, It's like, you got to have the you
gotta have choir now. Then all of a sudden, everybody's
calling him for choirs on the albums. I'm getting calls
from for real, like can you put a choir in
this song? From me, It's happening like that, And so
that that part for me was special and I want
(15:39):
to be a part of it. So after he he
came to my church and by the Sunday service to
my church, he calls and said, you know, I'm working
on this album. Come to the house tomorrow and you
know I come out there listen. I said, I got
some for you. So we started working. I did the
single on that album is Jesus' King album called god Is,
and you know it was It's crazy going from working
(16:02):
with him on I worked with him on his Late
Registration album, on his graduation Album's usedly on the Donda,
but watching him doing this Sunday Service Jesus King album,
it was a different Kanye.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
He wasn't He wasn't the.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
I don't want to say cocky, but the confident, you know,
like when we did Late Registrations, I'll never forget We're
in a room. He's doing interviews just like this. He's
saying stuff like this is for late registration. You really
want to take moments like this end when I'm talking
about this album, because this is like watching Michael Jackson
talk about Thriller before it.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Happened, and this is how he's talking, exactly how he's talking.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
But with the Jesus King album, he's not. He's not
that Kanye at all.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Different cat, different cat, different, very humble, very like, you know, man,
this is not my lane, so you know, and I
never that was I'd never seen him be like that.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
But it was still successful.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
And I say he commandeered the gospel space because if
you look when this album came out, because you know,
the streaming is a big part of the charts. I
think he had all ten top ten slots. It's all
Kanye Kanye oh.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Right on the gospel the gospel chart, and it was Kanye.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
West, Kanye West, nobody else. I'm promba, the biggest gospel
stars in the world. Nobody can crack the top ten
while he was there, which is easy to do, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Considered.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Okay, say like when we were selling CDs back in
the day, right, say like this is nineteen ninety seven.
And to go number one when you release an album
in the mainstream space, you know, Mary J releases an album,
she says, seven hundred thousand in the first week. Oh,
she's number one in gospel. Back then, even you sell
(17:48):
five thousand the first week, you're number one, because the
space is it's just.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
A smaller, smaller space.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Much smaller, smaller pond, you know. And Kanye is a.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Well, a big not even a big fish, right.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
He's a well.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I was gonna say a big fish, but that wouldn't suffice.
He's a well And so for him to come in
at and so a lot of people were upset and gospel.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Like, man he coming.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I remember that.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I remember that, and I said, well, y'all need to
get your weight up.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Then that man can come into this space and do that.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
And we know who it's not. It was about who
the glory was going to this God.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Yeah he wasn't like, yeah I did. He didn't care, right,
he said, I was just doing music, you know. I said,
you got the problem, y'all, get y'all weight up. They said,
well you can you can say that because you were
on the album. I'm like, if I wasn't on this album,
I said, I put out an I did a compilation
album all my gospel artists. Kanye dropped his album the
same day as mine. You know what I did with
(18:43):
my album. It was out for about a week. I
took it down. I said, you know what, let this pass.
I'll pull it back up later. I ain't got no ego,
and I'm like, listen, I gotta get my weight up.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah. And I think when you look at it through
that lens and the work that's being done, it brings
you back to how God is using different individuals and
moments as vessels to do his work. And I'm so
glad that we can have this conversation. As you know,
I didn't even know you've been a pastor for over
ten years.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah, ten years.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
I mean talk about you know, that journey, because many
would look at your journey to date and would never
make that correlation of now you're a pastor, right, But
that's a very I mean narrow minded vision.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
But you would make the connection if you had spent
time with me in the studios, especially you know, in
the maybe the six seven years leading up to me pastoring,
because it seems like most of those sessions would turn
into Bible studies. You know, I start keeping the Bible
in the studio and people ask me questions, Oh man,
(19:55):
and I'm if you knew me before that, not a
talker like that, I was sitting in the room and
not you knew me back there.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I wouldn't. I wasn't.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
You wouldn't even know I was there. I mean, I'm
absorbing everything I hear everybody. I'm like, I'm not the talker.
And so all of a sudden, I got a lot
to say. Uh, and it's just kind.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Of a a lot too.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Taken in the whole lot, and so I would, well,
this is how it started. It's like Biggie said, it
came to me like a song I wrote.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Right. How I write songs is I don't write them.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
So like say, like we talked about Mary Mary and
that song shackles, like I it was a download, Like
I don't write songs.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
God writes songs. I take dictation. That's it.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Like I hear it and go like, oh, it's not
like I sat down and said I don't write a
song that I've just made this up. Now it's literally
almost involuntary so same thing happened with preaching. I would
be driving and I'll look up and see a billboard
that said whatever, and I would read. I'd be able
to stop light and I look at that billboard, and
all of a sudden it would hit me there's a
(21:04):
correlating scripture and a whole message and illustrations and anecdotes
and all this stuff will just pop.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Up to my head, like, Wow, what do I do
with that?
Speaker 3 (21:15):
I don't know, you know, And it happened over and
it never stopped we having a conversation. I correlate that
to a text in the Bible that, oh man, that
that would be a good illustration of when John the
Baptist said that. You know, one day, I'm in church
and I was working player at the church, and I
got my Bible right there in my pastor, Bishop Kenneth Omer,
(21:35):
he's preaching, and I'm following along in the Bible. I'm like,
oh man, when I tell you he's probably one of
the most prolific and greatest teachers ever, he's preaching.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I said, oh man, he skipped up. You should have said,
I said, wait a minute, what am I saying?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
I realized at that moment like, you know what, something's
going on with me, because this is happening. It's a
year now, just just won't stop happening. I'm in the
studio talking to the Bible, you know. So I talked
to my pastor, my bishop about it. He was like,
you know what, let's do this. Let's put you in
the ministry class. It's a two year program and then
(22:11):
after that you'll see.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
I was in that class three months. He called me
and said, we're gonna no. I was at his house
one day. He says, we're going to license you to
be a ministry next month. It was December, said in January,
getting ready. I said, wait, I only been in the
class three months. He said no, but uh, you know
this guy that was running it. His name was doctor Steve,
doctor Steve Johnson.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
He said.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Doctor Steve said you're ready, because you know, you got
to get up and you gotta speak in the class. Most said, no,
you're ready. We're licensing next month. We got all these females.
We need a man. We need a man. He says,
you're the one. I said, wow, okay, And so I
kind of knew from there. I know God leads us
through opening doors and closing doors. This door just kept
(22:55):
opening itself and I'm just following. I'm just literally following.
That went from that, I started Bible study that we
were doing for a whole year. Every first Friday at
this hotel. I would book this hotel ballroom and just
go in there and do a Bible study once people
show up. That turned into what we now know as
my church, the California Worship Center, and so for ten
(23:16):
years it's what we've been doing.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Then.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah, you know, listening to that, the leaning into your
gift that God continues to drop, the little hints or
leading you to. It's so refreshing to hear because there
are many who are walking around and unfortunately, you know,
I always talk about each one of us has a
(23:39):
gift that He sends us down here with, and it's
the hope is that that gift is shared. Yeah, and
I say hope because as we know, a number of
gifts never get to be seen nor heard, and that's
not God's intention. It's his intention for that to be
unlocked and shared with the greater world because that's going.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
To help to unlock That's why he gave it.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
That's why he gave it and so to hear someone
like you have this testimony, because it would have been
so easy for you to block out that calling with
all that you've already done and you're doing right.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I tried to block it out.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Listen, I'm sure because you're the music guy. You're doing great.
You're living your life, your producer, writer, all the things.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
I'm half a gangster. I'm cool.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I got my little got my family brewing, I got
my wife, I got some I got a little money,
and like, what am I doing?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
You know? And I had to think that God gave
me all this.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
So while I'm saying no, in the middle of that,
I go to the doctor find out I have kidney cancer.
And he's like, your kidney is a grapefruit size tomor
and it's been there for a while. We got to
take it out. I'm on, you know, the operating table,
(24:59):
and they taking my kidney out. I'm sitting there, I'm saying, okay, okay, God,
I'll say, yes, you don't have to give my attention
this way.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I'm not saying God struck me with kidney cancer, but
I will say the testimony is I was diagnosed with
cancer on Friday. In Cancer free the next Friday. No chemo,
no radiation, none of that. And so I do recognize
God's divine hand in that. And then I got off
the table and accepted my call and I've been doing
(25:31):
I've been running ever since.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
So wow, I know your faith obviously has to play
a big role in all that you do. Talk about
when your faith was challenged and you kind of needed
what you needed to do to kind of further secure
your stance within it.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
I mean I can talk talk about a time, I
can talk about a hundred times, because if you're a
man of faith, you know your faith will always be
tested because you have to latch on to the fact
and hold on to this fact that faith without a
corresponding action doesn't work. The Bible puts it this way,
(26:13):
says faith without works is dead. And so sometimes, you know,
people of faith, we tend to to try to use
faith as some sort of like magic trick. Like guy,
you just gonna sit back, you're gonna face it, manifest it,
think about it, and it's just gonna pop up and.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Just have a bow.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
No, you gotta get up and work. You have to move,
you have to put action. You can say, Okay, this
is how faith works. Say, for instance, I wanted to
buy a house. This was maybe in the late nineties,
and at the time I didn't have the money for
this house. This man showed me this house, actually showed
(26:51):
me some land. He was gonna build a house, and
I didn't have that money.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I mean to have.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Be honest, I might have had five six thousand dollars
to my name. It was gonna cost eight hundred thousand
dollars to build this house.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
We're on the land.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
And when he says eight hundred thousand dollars, I looked
at my dad, who also doesn't have that money. You
look at my dad's faith and his faith. My dad goes, okay,
that's all it was. He was so sure that this
could happen, and just in his demeanor it jumped into me.
I said, okay, let's do it. I signed when the
(27:26):
dotted line to purchase a house to be built for
eight hundred thousand dollars when I had five or sixty
grand in my pocket. That's a faith what move action?
I have faith? Now, let's make the move. By the
time they built that house, I had triple the money
I needed for it. Faith makes moves you know what
(27:49):
I'm saying, That's what it is. And so sometimes I
think we forget that and we want to like, you know,
it's not working. No, it's not that it's not working.
You're not working. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
You know, I look at is a past. You know,
you're very familiar with fasting, right, you task or challenge
the congregation to fast, which is more than just food
or drugs or alcohol, social media whatever is there communal
fast that you would advocate We move on to further
(28:23):
our clarity, our alignment, our focus, just moving forward.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Yeah, I mean, like I said, you talk about fasting,
I'll start by saying, every year my church have put
them on the twenty one day fast, and it's a
very it's a it's not legalistic, but we do no meat,
no sweets, no alcoholic treats, twenty one days. But then
outside of that, corresponding with that, when we get out
(28:51):
of the fast, we just got out the fast few
weeks ago, and then we started a forty day prayer
twelve noon every day. Because when I talks about fast
and it's always with prayer, prayer and fasting. Prayer and
fasting and the two things just they just go hand
in hand.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Uh, And so I.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Would advocate with all of your fasting, whatever you're fasting from,
do not fast in a way where you're just looking
at it as a break from all your bad habits.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Okay, yeah, it's.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Not a it's not a time out from bad behavior.
And just I'm gonna I'm not gonna do this for
a while. No, let's let's fast. But I say fast forward.
So when you come off that fast, you're actually from here.
You started here, now you're here, and you don't.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Go back and pick the things up that you left behind.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
You fast forward. Everything everything in God is about moving
that way. And so to stop your fast and just
go back to whatever you're doing is to waste your time.
You know what I'm saying, something that should change in
that fact, there's something that should be changed consistently forever
(30:06):
after that, even if it's a small party.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
That even brought so much more clarity for even me
when you talk about fast forward, because so often you
are absolutely right, you know, And all the times I fasted,
whether I said I'm not gonna do liquor, I'm not
gonna do sugar, I'm not gonna do all these things.
But I essentially went back, maybe not to the level
in which I went back initially, but that's a start,
(30:33):
and that's a start, right, So you're you're you're suppressing
it more so it doesn't have as much of an
impact as it did. Great. However, now the real move
and the real sexy player is how am I fasting
forward forward? What's the thing that I need to eliminate
to get to that place that's necessary? So I'm I'm
(30:54):
thanking you for even No, that gem right there just
hit me, like, yeah, it's a fast forward. It's not
a fast to take a break from to see how
resilient I could be in my twenty one days or
my forty days. It's how discipline can I be to
understand or how discilined can we be to understand that
something can be removed and should be removed. Let's build
(31:17):
the discipline to do that so that we can move forward.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Got to move forward. I mean like, like, right now
I'm doing something. It's not a fast It's just I
just committed to do one hundred push ups every day.
That's not a lot of push ups, you know, I
mean it's not well compared to what I used to
do when I was younger. But I'm just saying, like
throughout this dam we do twenty here tenut I want
to do a hundred push ups at some point this day,
I'm gonna hit a hundred every day for eighty five
(31:43):
days to see what happens.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Right, And when I get to.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
The eighty five days, I suspect that I'll just keep
doing it every day because of the day culture. It's
a new culture that I've created within myself that I
do this every day.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
You know, we always in these episodes with what are
the three you know things or we call them seeds
that you'd want to leave with the stewards of culture
moving forward.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
The first thing would be h to be honest with
yourself about just who are you?
Speaker 2 (32:24):
For real? You got to get to know.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
You, what you like, what you don't like, what your
proclivities and propensities are, like, you know, what are your
the things you're being, the things you're bent towards. It
is just you know, you know, what are what are
your habits?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (32:39):
What what what are your passions those type of things?
What am I what am I skills? What am I
doing with myself? Just all these you have to know
yourself inside out right. That's the first thing, because you
can't get to the next thing without that. Because originality
in terms of whatever you do, if it's music, if
you're a skateboarder, if you're a poet, a really originally
(33:00):
comes from you knowing who you are and not being
affected by everybody else I am. Whether you like me
or not. You can compliment my music, you can hate
my music. Because I love myself, It's not going to
change my music either way. I'm not going to keep
doing this because you like it. I'm going to keep
doing it because I like it. I'm not going to
stop doing this because you don't like it. I'm going
to keep doing it because I like it. You see
(33:20):
what I'm saying. So because I know who I am,
and I know who I am and what I want,
and know what I love and know what I'm passionate about.
And then the third thing to be to get a very,
very very I mean like a bulldog to nasty grip
and command of your instruments. Your instrument may be your mind,
(33:46):
how you think, how you speak, it may be writing,
whatever your gift is. Like I am a musician, I
have command. When I put the guitar in my hand.
The guitar doesn't play me. I play it, and some
people play what they can. But some people play all
they want. And I want to be a guy that
(34:08):
plays well. I can play whatever I wanted. If you
look at a singer like a my friend Kim Barell,
Kim Barell doesn't just sing what she can sing. She
can sing all she wants to sing. She has command
of her instruments. She can do whatever she wants to do.
Brandy nor what can do whatever she wants to do
with her voice. Doesn't even matter, you know what I'm saying.
(34:29):
She just they have command. And I'll add a fourth.
People say preparation and practice practice makes perfect. I don't
believe that at all. I don't practice trying to get
things right. I practice so it's impossible for me to
get it wrong. And that's what I would leave. Same
thing I would leave with my three seeds, my children,
(34:51):
my three children. I don't want to leave this you know,
world a better place for them, but I also want
to leave them to the world. May be the deposits
that I leave, y'all three go make this place a
better place.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Those are some very rich, profound seeds, and I thank
you for sharing those. I also thank you for, you know,
the journey that God has put you on and that
you've stepped into and embraced. Embraced, which I think is
a very key word, because so many don't embrace what
(35:27):
it is that He has planned or what he has
that's needed for us to be a collective better And
I think we're both in places where our journeys are
rooted in the collective betterment, not our own. It is
way bigger than us, and we know who and where
to give a glory to. And I want to thank
you for being a steward and a reflection of that
(35:47):
in the most genuine way.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
I appreciate that, man, and thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
We truly appreciate your support because it helps us fulfill
our mission of promoting cultural awareness and personal development. Please
click the subscribe button below to help ensure and solidify
our mission.
To who much is given, much is required. Part of
that requirement is sharing. Culture is the heartbeat within our lives,
and it's at the core of so many things. While
we live in a time when we are starving for wisdom,
I welcome you to your wisdom retreat. That culture raises us.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
That was diagnosed with cancer on Friday, you cancer free
the next.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Retty Warren Campbell is a Grammy Award winning music visionary,
executive and producer who's worked with global icons like Steve Wonder,
Elina Adams, Kanye West, Jennifer Hudson, Mary Mary.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
To be honest with yourself.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
What are your habits? What are your passions? The originality
comes from you knowing who you are. I don't practice
trying to get things right. I practice felt impossible.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
For many would look at your journey to date and
would never make that correlation of now your pastor you would.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Make the connection if you had spend time with me
in the studio, like most of those sessions would turn
into Bible studies. Say it came to me like a
song I wrote, Like I don't write song, God writes.
I take dictation.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
When you hear culture, what does that mean to you?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
When I hear culture, I.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Don't think as broad as most people do because people
hear culture and they think country, they think certain things
that regions represent. But I think culture is any space
that you live in that develops you, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
What I mean.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
It could be a small space, because there's a culture
of my house, there's a culture at my school, there's
a culture, you know what I'm saying. I think of
the curated spaces that you know, that shape is that
you know, maybe it was a space that your parents
put you in, you know, in preschool that helped shape you.
I was very much so shaped by my neighborhood, of course,
(01:47):
but mostly by my house. But the neighborhood is broader, right.
My neighborhood was you know, it was a crip neighborhood
and it was wild, you know, drug infested, gang infested.
But the culture of my home where I live shaped
me so much to where the outside forces that could
have shaped.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Me had not been for that foundation.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
So yeah, I think when I think cultures, I think
these little uh you know, areas, not just one big thing,
because you got that, but it's really the things that
I think that are closest to you that that shape
you the most, you know, if you allowed.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, and when you give that definition, and I love
the context I look at. I come back to the
music piece with you, and I wonder, was there a
particular moment where you realize just how big and instrumental
music culture was to shaping all of what I call
our global global ecosystem. Very similar how you talk about
(02:45):
these little things. But was there a moment where you were, like, YO, asked,
So this is when I realized how this music thing
really helps to shape a ton of things. And I
saw just move the world or something at that moment,
you know what.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
It was for me being involved in music my whole life? Yeah,
you know, I was going into a very musical family,
so I kind of like, you better know how to
play or sing or something in this family. But it
wasn't until I was I was eight years old, Yeah,
eight years old, and the Motown twenty five special came
(03:20):
on television and all the great Motown artists, I mean,
Marvin Stevie, Wonder, Temptations, the Four Tops, all these Diana Ross,
they were showing, Barry Gordy and they were talking about
the history of because up until that point, I mean,
I knew who these people were, but I knew them
in the nineteen eighty three contexts, not in the nineteen
(03:41):
sixty three context wherever they started.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
You know.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Instead, it was showing all these old clips and I
saw Stevie Want as a little boy for the first time.
Then I saw Marvin Gay as a young man. It
was in black and white and wild.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
I'm sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
It was like, you know, oh wow, I'm eight years
old going that music that I've been hearing my whole life.
And then they're old now, like they're older, and it
looked different, and I'm like thinking about all the trains.
I saw so many trends on the stage, how Marvel
was dressed and how Steve was dressed. I remember when
Steve was wearing the braids with the bees, and you
(04:12):
had a bunch of dudes. Even in the gospel music
scene back in the day, they started wearing braids with
the with the bees. This guy named Keith Pringle who
was like this big gospel start. He had the braids.
It was all these guys, and you know, I was like, that's.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Where they got that from.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Oh that's and I saw that it was music. The
music artists that were really, you know, not even not
even necessarily the film and TV stars. It was the
music artist that people were following, you know, like what
we're gonna dressed like and stuff like that mostly.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
And that's when you knew and had this epiphany of Wow,
this thing really is powerful.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Very powerful. And then you go to the next year.
Lkuj is huge, eighty forty five, I want a rocket cane,
go to school and beg my mom for a kango.
She got, she buys me a great kango for my
first day of fifth grade, and I'm like.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Life changing, right, life changing music and music. And I
would then say that is a pivotal moment. Outside of
that moment, uh, we look at was there a golden
era for you of music? Like a moment where you
see outside of the moment that you just talked about
(05:27):
as a child, was there a moment that you then
saw within music culture where it was like, this was
the golden era for you? Because this is very subjective
as well as is music, right, was there was there
a golden era of music for you?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Definitely?
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I mean, you know it's the golden golden era sonically,
but then commercially as well sonically for me, sonically for me,
it's it's it's the seventies, just how warm the music
was and the content. They talked about love in a
way that love was attractive. They talked about pain, the
(06:03):
way pain it made everything they did was huge. Well,
everything was attractive. And then I go commercially with the
eighties because uh, I'll just I'll just say it this way. Now,
when I listen to the radio, kind of feel like
I'm listening to like one long song because everybody sounds
like kind of similar. In the eighties, it wasn't the same,
(06:27):
and it's it's indicative of out.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I'll come back to this.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
So Tina Turner eighties didn't not sound like Madonna, didn't
not sound like Whitney Houston, didn't that sound like Gladys Knight,
Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Billy Oshan, Billy Idol. You know
what I'm saying. All these people sounded completely They were huge. Toto,
you know what I'm saying. But and and mind you,
(06:55):
the guys in Toto were playing those records that I
just mentioned. These guys are playing all those records.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Right, so it easily could have been unique one sound,
but they played into each respective individual aircraft, their uniqueness.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Their positionship was like, you know, so now I'm like,
that's what's kind of missing, you know to me. So
that golden air was when everybody had their own this
identity when you heard when you heard Raphael Sedik's voice,
you didn't know who's that, right, you knew exactly who
it was, since he's the only person that sounds like.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
That, you know, it's crazy. I was just listening to
a song the other day with my little and as
I was listening to it, I was like, oh, that
sounds like it's a Travis sound. But then when I
looked at the label, it wasn't Travis's name on it.
So it's exactly what you just said of And I
love how you just put it up. It sounds like
(07:51):
one continuous song, and I haven't been able to articulate
that of the sound being so similar that you don't
have and I mean, there are different sounds that punch through, right,
But to the point that you're mentioning, it does all
feel pretty much.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Yeah, because for now, now, for somebody to punch you
and be different, it's an anomaly, when before that's what
it is. It's kind of like like Michael Jackson didn't
want to sound like Prince. They want to compete with
him kind of like, so like not just music, think
about think about sports. You know what I'm saying, Like, now,
(08:30):
you got guys, I can't win a ring, so I'm
gonna go and join this other team and create a
super team so we can win a ring. But then
Magic Johnson will say from the same eighties era I'm
talking about, I don't want to play with the bird
I want to beat them. It never I don't want
to play with Michael Jordan. I want to beat them.
I'm never gonna I'm never gonna. I'm a Laker. I'm
(08:50):
never going to join the New York Knicks. I want
to beat Patrick Gan on it them.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Y'all know this hits you hard because you probably grew.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Up a big Laker fan, giant Laker fan, gosh and
nick very tough. Well, you know I have I have
empathy for you, Jez excuse me.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Wow, what a statement I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
They haven't one since before you in your lifetime.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Actually they have.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
They have Championship seventy two, last one.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
I felt like I was there, but I wasn't.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Sure right, you're still celebrating it now.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Listen, holding on tight like New York is like that. No, listen,
and you see how much conviction I said it with.
And you have to really back and ask, actually, no,
two years before you're born.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yeah, you're there, You're okay, but we're.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Gonna get there. We're gonna get back there. Your Lakers
are looking decent, by the way.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Listen, start to be right now.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Okay, we're gonna go off a little too time. Listen.
I want to sincerely you know, I've had the pleasure
of knowing you for so many years. Yeah, and I'm
so glad we were we reconnected and your spirit has
remained the same. And I love how God continues to
work through you. You know, I have to give you
an early congratulations on this guy. Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
(10:02):
Oh wow, that's coming up this year. Well deserved. And
again love to see how God is working for you.
Is this something that you are most proud of?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
With this accomplishment in the in the gospel music space,
it would have to be the whole Mary, Mary, I'm
gonna say, world, the Marry Marry ecosystem. They have their
own thing happening but to be a part of creating that.
That was because you gotta think before that, I had
(10:34):
never done anything in gospel really. Yeah, I grew up
in church. But professionally I started at death Row Records. Yeah,
I started death Row and then I think right after
death Row was doing R and B I did you know,
a bunch of Juw Hill and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
And Mary Mary was the first gospel thing I had
ever done professionally. Wow, as a producer, and so to
be involved in that and them, I mean shout out
to them for allowing me to, you know, just kind
of creatively just do what I want to do. And
(11:17):
they were just like they had all these I had.
I was wild young. I was that song Shackles came out.
I might have been twenty two Wow, something like something
like that, you know. Uh, And they would just allow
me to do whatever, even down to their name because
they didn't have a name. I was like, I liked
those alternative rock band names like Eagle Eye, Cherry, Third
(11:38):
Eye Blind, Like the rock bands have the coolest names.
I didn't necessarily like the gospel music names, the so
and so travelers, the right, you know, I don't know
all these different. I was like, ah, so, I said,
how about Mary Mary? I said, what, well, I mean,
you know, it's a religious Mary's Mary the Bible. And
(11:58):
at the time, you know, I wasn't theologian or like that.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
My father was.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
And we were in the studio in the basement of
my parents' house. My dad was upstairs watching TV. I said,
I'll be right back. I ran upstairs and I said, uh, hey, Dad,
was there two marrias in the Bible? He took it.
He said, what what do you mean? I said, what
it too many? He's like, boy, I bought your books
since the school. You still don't know nothing. Yeah, there's
(12:25):
two marriages in the Bible. Oh yes, yes, yes, okay, right.
I came back to wait that.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Did they know each other? He was like, yeah, they
were like sisters.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Look at that boom.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
I'll run back downstairs.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Look how God works, I said, you know, I tell
the girls like Mary Mary, and how legit it is.
I was all right, but just to be a part
of that. And you know, they went so far, so fast,
that first album huge. Yeah, like, I don't know any
other gospel artists whose debut album sells a million albums.
Actually two million.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Then as well in that time, and that was huge.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
You're a brand new artist and you're opening up for
you too.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I don't know that you know, as you tell this story,
I think back to how you even started this conversation
when you talked about culture and how the culture of
the home was so influential for you and how you
then went out into the world. And if you look
at the story of how the naming of even Mary,
Mary of look where you went to get that in
(13:30):
the home, to your father who had poured into who
was poured into by God, who then God's pouring into it.
Like it's such a strong correlation to the impact of
strong cultures, foundations and why it's so necessary to preserve
these things and nurture them in such a way. And
(13:51):
just listening again to the story, it brought it full
circle of the why. And so you know, I had
no clue that that was your first professional gospel project
and now we're talking about you being inducted into the
whole fame. But then I also look back at you've
done some of my most favorite songs on the R
and B hip hop side, especially with Ya in particular,
(14:14):
and one of which and look how it all comes
back again. Sunday Service, Oh man. I mean like every
performance from me that I've ever gone to, probably some
of the top live performances I've ever been to in
my life. And I've been blessed to go see a
number of people, I mean Stevie, Shay, all these different people,
but Sunday Service was different. Talk about that process and
(14:38):
that working with Kanye on that, and how that brought
a whole nother realm of things for you in this space.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Well, when you talk about cultures too, Kanye sort of
I would say. You know a lot of people say
he just he started doing gospel. I said, no, for
a time, he commandeered the guyace like in a in
a powerful way, and because of who he is and
the light that he had on him, he shut up
this bright light on not just gospel music. But at
(15:09):
the time you had to think about this, Choir music
was pretty much dead. Choirs couldn't get arrested, they wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
They weren't.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
They weren't touring, they weren't. Kanye comes with this choir.
All of a sudden, choirs are popular again. The choirs
is like, you know, the Jordan wants you know what
I'm saying, It's like, you got to have the you
gotta have choir now. Then all of a sudden, everybody's
calling him for choirs on the albums. I'm getting calls
from for real, like can you put a choir in
this song? From me, It's happening like that, And so
that that part for me was special and I want
(15:39):
to be a part of it. So after he he
came to my church and by the Sunday service to
my church, he calls and said, you know, I'm working
on this album. Come to the house tomorrow and you
know I come out there listen. I said, I got
some for you. So we started working. I did the
single on that album is Jesus' King album called god Is,
and you know it was It's crazy going from working
(16:02):
with him on I worked with him on his Late
Registration album, on his graduation Album's usedly on the Donda,
but watching him doing this Sunday Service Jesus King album,
it was a different Kanye.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
He wasn't He wasn't the.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
I don't want to say cocky, but the confident, you know,
like when we did Late Registrations, I'll never forget We're
in a room. He's doing interviews just like this. He's
saying stuff like this is for late registration. You really
want to take moments like this end when I'm talking
about this album, because this is like watching Michael Jackson
talk about Thriller before it.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Happened, and this is how he's talking, exactly how he's talking.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
But with the Jesus King album, he's not. He's not
that Kanye at all.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Different cat, different cat, different, very humble, very like, you know, man,
this is not my lane, so you know, and I
never that was I'd never seen him be like that.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
But it was still successful.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
And I say he commandeered the gospel space because if
you look when this album came out, because you know,
the streaming is a big part of the charts. I
think he had all ten top ten slots. It's all
Kanye Kanye oh.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Right on the gospel the gospel chart, and it was Kanye.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
West, Kanye West, nobody else. I'm promba, the biggest gospel
stars in the world. Nobody can crack the top ten
while he was there, which is easy to do, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Considered.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Okay, say like when we were selling CDs back in
the day, right, say like this is nineteen ninety seven.
And to go number one when you release an album
in the mainstream space, you know, Mary J releases an album,
she says, seven hundred thousand in the first week. Oh,
she's number one in gospel. Back then, even you sell
(17:48):
five thousand the first week, you're number one, because the
space is it's just.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
A smaller, smaller space.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Much smaller, smaller pond, you know. And Kanye is a.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Well, a big not even a big fish, right.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
He's a well.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I was gonna say a big fish, but that wouldn't suffice.
He's a well And so for him to come in
at and so a lot of people were upset and gospel.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Like, man he coming.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I remember that.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I remember that, and I said, well, y'all need to
get your weight up.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Then that man can come into this space and do that.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
And we know who it's not. It was about who
the glory was going to this God.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Yeah he wasn't like, yeah I did. He didn't care, right,
he said, I was just doing music, you know. I said,
you got the problem, y'all, get y'all weight up. They said,
well you can you can say that because you were
on the album. I'm like, if I wasn't on this album,
I said, I put out an I did a compilation
album all my gospel artists. Kanye dropped his album the
same day as mine. You know what I did with
(18:43):
my album. It was out for about a week. I
took it down. I said, you know what, let this pass.
I'll pull it back up later. I ain't got no ego,
and I'm like, listen, I gotta get my weight up.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah. And I think when you look at it through
that lens and the work that's being done, it brings
you back to how God is using different individuals and
moments as vessels to do his work. And I'm so
glad that we can have this conversation. As you know,
I didn't even know you've been a pastor for over
ten years.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah, ten years.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
I mean talk about you know, that journey, because many
would look at your journey to date and would never
make that correlation of now you're a pastor, right, But
that's a very I mean narrow minded vision.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
But you would make the connection if you had spent
time with me in the studios, especially you know, in
the maybe the six seven years leading up to me pastoring,
because it seems like most of those sessions would turn
into Bible studies. You know, I start keeping the Bible
in the studio and people ask me questions, Oh man,
(19:55):
and I'm if you knew me before that, not a
talker like that, I was sitting in the room and
not you knew me back there.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I wouldn't. I wasn't.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
You wouldn't even know I was there. I mean, I'm
absorbing everything I hear everybody. I'm like, I'm not the talker.
And so all of a sudden, I got a lot
to say. Uh, and it's just kind.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Of a a lot too.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Taken in the whole lot, and so I would, well,
this is how it started. It's like Biggie said, it
came to me like a song I wrote.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Right. How I write songs is I don't write them.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
So like say, like we talked about Mary Mary and
that song shackles, like I it was a download, Like
I don't write songs.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
God writes songs. I take dictation. That's it.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Like I hear it and go like, oh, it's not
like I sat down and said I don't write a
song that I've just made this up. Now it's literally
almost involuntary so same thing happened with preaching. I would
be driving and I'll look up and see a billboard
that said whatever, and I would read. I'd be able
to stop light and I look at that billboard, and
all of a sudden it would hit me there's a
(21:04):
correlating scripture and a whole message and illustrations and anecdotes
and all this stuff will just pop.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Up to my head, like, Wow, what do I do
with that?
Speaker 3 (21:15):
I don't know, you know, And it happened over and
it never stopped we having a conversation. I correlate that
to a text in the Bible that, oh man, that
that would be a good illustration of when John the
Baptist said that. You know, one day, I'm in church
and I was working player at the church, and I
got my Bible right there in my pastor, Bishop Kenneth Omer,
(21:35):
he's preaching, and I'm following along in the Bible. I'm like,
oh man, when I tell you he's probably one of
the most prolific and greatest teachers ever, he's preaching.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I said, oh man, he skipped up. You should have said,
I said, wait a minute, what am I saying?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
I realized at that moment like, you know what, something's
going on with me, because this is happening. It's a
year now, just just won't stop happening. I'm in the
studio talking to the Bible, you know. So I talked
to my pastor, my bishop about it. He was like,
you know what, let's do this. Let's put you in
the ministry class. It's a two year program and then
(22:11):
after that you'll see.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
I was in that class three months. He called me
and said, we're gonna no. I was at his house
one day. He says, we're going to license you to
be a ministry next month. It was December, said in January,
getting ready. I said, wait, I only been in the
class three months. He said no, but uh, you know
this guy that was running it. His name was doctor Steve,
doctor Steve Johnson.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
He said.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Doctor Steve said you're ready, because you know, you got
to get up and you gotta speak in the class. Most said, no,
you're ready. We're licensing next month. We got all these females.
We need a man. We need a man. He says,
you're the one. I said, wow, okay, And so I
kind of knew from there. I know God leads us
through opening doors and closing doors. This door just kept
(22:55):
opening itself and I'm just following. I'm just literally following.
That went from that, I started Bible study that we
were doing for a whole year. Every first Friday at
this hotel. I would book this hotel ballroom and just
go in there and do a Bible study once people
show up. That turned into what we now know as
my church, the California Worship Center, and so for ten
(23:16):
years it's what we've been doing.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Then.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah, you know, listening to that, the leaning into your
gift that God continues to drop, the little hints or
leading you to. It's so refreshing to hear because there
are many who are walking around and unfortunately, you know,
I always talk about each one of us has a
(23:39):
gift that He sends us down here with, and it's
the hope is that that gift is shared. Yeah, and
I say hope because as we know, a number of
gifts never get to be seen nor heard, and that's
not God's intention. It's his intention for that to be
unlocked and shared with the greater world because that's going.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
To help to unlock That's why he gave it.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
That's why he gave it and so to hear someone
like you have this testimony, because it would have been
so easy for you to block out that calling with
all that you've already done and you're doing right.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I tried to block it out.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Listen, I'm sure because you're the music guy. You're doing great.
You're living your life, your producer, writer, all the things.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
I'm half a gangster. I'm cool.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I got my little got my family brewing, I got
my wife, I got some I got a little money,
and like, what am I doing?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
You know? And I had to think that God gave
me all this.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
So while I'm saying no, in the middle of that,
I go to the doctor find out I have kidney cancer.
And he's like, your kidney is a grapefruit size tomor
and it's been there for a while. We got to
take it out. I'm on, you know, the operating table,
(24:59):
and they taking my kidney out. I'm sitting there, I'm saying, okay, okay, God,
I'll say, yes, you don't have to give my attention
this way.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I'm not saying God struck me with kidney cancer, but
I will say the testimony is I was diagnosed with
cancer on Friday. In Cancer free the next Friday. No chemo,
no radiation, none of that. And so I do recognize
God's divine hand in that. And then I got off
the table and accepted my call and I've been doing
(25:31):
I've been running ever since.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
So wow, I know your faith obviously has to play
a big role in all that you do. Talk about
when your faith was challenged and you kind of needed
what you needed to do to kind of further secure
your stance within it.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
I mean I can talk talk about a time, I
can talk about a hundred times, because if you're a
man of faith, you know your faith will always be
tested because you have to latch on to the fact
and hold on to this fact that faith without a
corresponding action doesn't work. The Bible puts it this way,
(26:13):
says faith without works is dead. And so sometimes, you know,
people of faith, we tend to to try to use
faith as some sort of like magic trick. Like guy,
you just gonna sit back, you're gonna face it, manifest it,
think about it, and it's just gonna pop up and.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Just have a bow.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
No, you gotta get up and work. You have to move,
you have to put action. You can say, Okay, this
is how faith works. Say, for instance, I wanted to
buy a house. This was maybe in the late nineties,
and at the time I didn't have the money for
this house. This man showed me this house, actually showed
(26:51):
me some land. He was gonna build a house, and
I didn't have that money.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I mean to have.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Be honest, I might have had five six thousand dollars
to my name. It was gonna cost eight hundred thousand
dollars to build this house.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
We're on the land.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
And when he says eight hundred thousand dollars, I looked
at my dad, who also doesn't have that money. You
look at my dad's faith and his faith. My dad goes, okay,
that's all it was. He was so sure that this
could happen, and just in his demeanor it jumped into me.
I said, okay, let's do it. I signed when the
(27:26):
dotted line to purchase a house to be built for
eight hundred thousand dollars when I had five or sixty
grand in my pocket. That's a faith what move action?
I have faith? Now, let's make the move. By the
time they built that house, I had triple the money
I needed for it. Faith makes moves you know what
(27:49):
I'm saying, That's what it is. And so sometimes I
think we forget that and we want to like, you know,
it's not working. No, it's not that it's not working.
You're not working. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
You know, I look at is a past. You know,
you're very familiar with fasting, right, you task or challenge
the congregation to fast, which is more than just food
or drugs or alcohol, social media whatever is there communal
fast that you would advocate We move on to further
(28:23):
our clarity, our alignment, our focus, just moving forward.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Yeah, I mean, like I said, you talk about fasting,
I'll start by saying, every year my church have put
them on the twenty one day fast, and it's a
very it's a it's not legalistic, but we do no meat,
no sweets, no alcoholic treats, twenty one days. But then
outside of that, corresponding with that, when we get out
(28:51):
of the fast, we just got out the fast few
weeks ago, and then we started a forty day prayer
twelve noon every day. Because when I talks about fast
and it's always with prayer, prayer and fasting. Prayer and
fasting and the two things just they just go hand
in hand.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Uh, And so I.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Would advocate with all of your fasting, whatever you're fasting from,
do not fast in a way where you're just looking
at it as a break from all your bad habits.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Okay, yeah, it's.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Not a it's not a time out from bad behavior.
And just I'm gonna I'm not gonna do this for
a while. No, let's let's fast. But I say fast forward.
So when you come off that fast, you're actually from here.
You started here, now you're here, and you don't.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Go back and pick the things up that you left behind.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
You fast forward. Everything everything in God is about moving
that way. And so to stop your fast and just
go back to whatever you're doing is to waste your time.
You know what I'm saying, something that should change in
that fact, there's something that should be changed consistently forever
(30:06):
after that, even if it's a small party.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
That even brought so much more clarity for even me
when you talk about fast forward, because so often you
are absolutely right, you know, And all the times I fasted,
whether I said I'm not gonna do liquor, I'm not
gonna do sugar, I'm not gonna do all these things.
But I essentially went back, maybe not to the level
in which I went back initially, but that's a start,
(30:33):
and that's a start, right, So you're you're you're suppressing
it more so it doesn't have as much of an
impact as it did. Great. However, now the real move
and the real sexy player is how am I fasting
forward forward? What's the thing that I need to eliminate
to get to that place that's necessary? So I'm I'm
(30:54):
thanking you for even No, that gem right there just
hit me, like, yeah, it's a fast forward. It's not
a fast to take a break from to see how
resilient I could be in my twenty one days or
my forty days. It's how discipline can I be to
understand or how discilined can we be to understand that
something can be removed and should be removed. Let's build
(31:17):
the discipline to do that so that we can move forward.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Got to move forward. I mean like, like, right now
I'm doing something. It's not a fast It's just I
just committed to do one hundred push ups every day.
That's not a lot of push ups, you know, I
mean it's not well compared to what I used to
do when I was younger. But I'm just saying, like
throughout this dam we do twenty here tenut I want
to do a hundred push ups at some point this day,
I'm gonna hit a hundred every day for eighty five
(31:43):
days to see what happens.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Right, And when I get to.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
The eighty five days, I suspect that I'll just keep
doing it every day because of the day culture. It's
a new culture that I've created within myself that I
do this every day.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
You know, we always in these episodes with what are
the three you know things or we call them seeds
that you'd want to leave with the stewards of culture
moving forward.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
The first thing would be h to be honest with
yourself about just who are you?
Speaker 2 (32:24):
For real? You got to get to know.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
You, what you like, what you don't like, what your
proclivities and propensities are, like, you know, what are your
the things you're being, the things you're bent towards. It
is just you know, you know, what are what are
your habits?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (32:39):
What what what are your passions those type of things?
What am I what am I skills? What am I
doing with myself? Just all these you have to know
yourself inside out right. That's the first thing, because you
can't get to the next thing without that. Because originality
in terms of whatever you do, if it's music, if
you're a skateboarder, if you're a poet, a really originally
(33:00):
comes from you knowing who you are and not being
affected by everybody else I am. Whether you like me
or not. You can compliment my music, you can hate
my music. Because I love myself, It's not going to
change my music either way. I'm not going to keep
doing this because you like it. I'm going to keep
doing it because I like it. I'm not going to
stop doing this because you don't like it. I'm going
to keep doing it because I like it. You see
(33:20):
what I'm saying. So because I know who I am,
and I know who I am and what I want,
and know what I love and know what I'm passionate about.
And then the third thing to be to get a very,
very very I mean like a bulldog to nasty grip
and command of your instruments. Your instrument may be your mind,
(33:46):
how you think, how you speak, it may be writing,
whatever your gift is. Like I am a musician, I
have command. When I put the guitar in my hand.
The guitar doesn't play me. I play it, and some
people play what they can. But some people play all
they want. And I want to be a guy that
(34:08):
plays well. I can play whatever I wanted. If you
look at a singer like a my friend Kim Barell,
Kim Barell doesn't just sing what she can sing. She
can sing all she wants to sing. She has command
of her instruments. She can do whatever she wants to do.
Brandy nor what can do whatever she wants to do
with her voice. Doesn't even matter, you know what I'm saying.
(34:29):
She just they have command. And I'll add a fourth.
People say preparation and practice practice makes perfect. I don't
believe that at all. I don't practice trying to get
things right. I practice so it's impossible for me to
get it wrong. And that's what I would leave. Same
thing I would leave with my three seeds, my children,
(34:51):
my three children. I don't want to leave this you know,
world a better place for them, but I also want
to leave them to the world. May be the deposits
that I leave, y'all three go make this place a
better place.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Those are some very rich, profound seeds, and I thank
you for sharing those. I also thank you for, you know,
the journey that God has put you on and that
you've stepped into and embraced. Embraced, which I think is
a very key word, because so many don't embrace what
(35:27):
it is that He has planned or what he has
that's needed for us to be a collective better And
I think we're both in places where our journeys are
rooted in the collective betterment, not our own. It is
way bigger than us, and we know who and where
to give a glory to. And I want to thank
you for being a steward and a reflection of that
(35:47):
in the most genuine way.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
I appreciate that, man, and thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
We truly appreciate your support because it helps us fulfill
our mission of promoting cultural awareness and personal development. Please
click the subscribe button below to help ensure and solidify
our mission.
Host
Astor Chamber
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.