October 15, 2025 • 57 mins
Welcome to Season 2! What a way to start! S.E. sits down with Charlamagne tha God for a conversation about media today, his early radio days, mental health, and so much more. Charlamagne is a media mogul to the nth degree. He is making an impact and elevating Black voices in broadcast, podcasting, and publishing. He's also the reason S.E. has this podcast. S.E. and Charlamagne talk about their alter-egos, finding their way through the broadcast gauntlet and the good — and troubling — ways their industries are evolving. Charlamagne talks about how his own cry for help ended up being a barrier-breaking mental health revelation for so many of his fans. And stay tuned for a very media-savvy lightning round!
Charlamagne tha God is the co-founder of the Black Effect Podcast Network, now celebrating its fifth year. He is the cohost of the nationally syndicated morning radio show, The Breakfast Club. He's the founder of Black Privilege Publishing and the co-founder of Southland Stories.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/p/blackprivilegepublishing
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 (00:01):
I was like, Yo, unbeknownst to y'all, I'm been in
therapy since twenty and sixteen.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Yeah, I'm spent. I don't even know who I am.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
No more.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Welcome to Off the Cup Season two.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
We took a little break after a fantastic season one,
which was full of great interviews, mental health talk, lots
of laughs. And we're back now and we have a
great season in store for you with a giant of
a premiere episode guest.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Before we get to that.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
I also want to let you know we have expanded
Off the Cup. You will remember we added Talking Coffee
last season, where we chat about coffee news, coffee trends,
unpopular coffee opinions, and you know, life confessions. Well, we've
got another Talking Coffee season for you. It's full of
iced coffee goodness. Plus we've added Talking Politics, where you
(00:58):
can get my steaming political takes every week.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
See a little Cold, a little Hot.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
So I feel like we have all the important things
covered at Off the Cup, mental health, coffee, and the news.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
What else is there? Literally? What else is there?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (01:16):
So today's guest is a rock star of broadcast. He's
been called hip Hop's Howard Stern by Rolling Stone. He's
in the Radio Hall of Fame. He's a New York
Times bestselling author. He's host of the nationally syndicated radio
show The Breakfast Club, and he's founder of the Black
Effect podcast network. Celebrating his five year anniversary on iHeart,
It's Charlemagne the.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
God welcome s.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
How are you.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
I'm so well and I'm so glad you're here, and
I'm so lucky and grateful to know you. I don't
know that most people know this, but you are why
I'm here at iHeart with this podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Oh well, thank you. You know, I think that you
are an amazing voice, and you bring a lot of
You bring a lot of common sense, logical, rational to
cable television that I think has been missing from cable
television for a long time.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Well, I appreciate that, but I also just appreciate you
bringing me in to this space. And the best thing,
the luckiest thing about it, was what you said was you.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Can do anything you want.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
You can do anything you want on here.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And and the beauty of that is, you know, nowadays
this might be like the only safe space left for broadcasters,
you know, having a podcast might be the last safe
space that you can actually come and you know, really
speak your mind freely and speak truth to power and
get the information out to people that they actually need
without the government on your.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Head about it well exactly, or without you know, corporate
overlord saying here's what you need to say, or here's
what you can't say, or we.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Don't really want you to talk about mental health.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
We want you to stick with politics, like y'all gave
me total freedom.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
And leeway absolutely to be.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
A comfortable, comfortable in this space, you know, and doing
something that mattered to me, but also.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
You know, with just all the the leash it was.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
It's amazing. It's an amazing opportunity. Not everyone gets this,
so I'm just really grateful for it, and.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
We're grateful to have you. It is a privilege to
have you.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
So there's so much I want to talk to you about,
but you and you already sort of hinted at where
I want to start. I want you to give me
an assessment of the state of media today because you've
been involved in so much of it, from radio to
TV to podcasts, on music, culture, politics, I'm sure you're
in the room with some very high level executives as
they talk about where media is going. I'm sure you're
(03:47):
driving some of that conversation because you're a media executive
as well. Where are things going? What can you tell
me about the state of our business?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Well, I honestly believe that the BI business is healthier
than it's ever been. What I would tell people who
want to get into you know, podcasting or any form
of this new broadcast you know mediums that we have,
I would tell them that make sure you have something
to say, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
A lot.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I think that maybe four or five years ago, everybody
thought that they could just you know, start a YouTube
page or launch a podcast, and it was.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Going to be just this overabundance of money, this gold rush.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
It would just be raining dollar bills like you know,
you was dancing in the script club. But no, that's
just not the way. You know, this this business works.
And I think that this this new era that we're in,
it is really for people who have something to actually say.
And I think when you have that intention of wanting to,
you know, maybe educate, I don't care if it's wanting
(04:49):
to make people laugh, I don't care if it's wanting
to you know, being an advocate for something, you know,
like you know, both you and I both like to be.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Advocates for mental health.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Like, just make sure you have something to say, because
if you get into it for any other reason. I'm
talking about clicks, engagement, money, I don't feel like you're
going to have, you know, the success that you're looking for.
But you know, even long before broadcasting, I feel like
that about anything. I feel like anything that you involve
yourself in, you should have an actual intention. If you're
(05:18):
just trying to get attention or you're just trying to
you know, get rich, that's not a reason to do anything,
if you ask me so, I think the business is
actually healthier than it's ever been.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
This consolidation by giant media conglomerates that we're seeing basically
five companies are controlling most media today.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Is that is that an okay thing?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
No?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yes, and no, because it just depends on, you know,
once again, what is the person's intention for one to
control things? You know, I'm sure that there's plenty of
people you could look to and say, you know what,
if that person had three or four different you know,
platforms in their hand, that would be a good thing.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
But then with that personal.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
They has three or four platforms in their hands, and
that's not necessarily a good thing. So I just think
it's just really about, you know, what are the intentions of.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
These of these companies.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
You know, why do they want to have control over
all of these media media platforms? Like, you know, that's
what I would look to. I would look to who
who's at the top and what is there, what is
their agenda?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
A lot of my colleagues who kind of come out
of legacy media as legacy media is contracting, you know,
they go to substeck, they go to YouTube, they become
independent journalists for the first time in their lives.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Probably.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
What do you think when you see big names who
had big shows in the news, like.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
You know, Don Lemon or Terry Moran go off on
their own.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I think to myself, what were they waiting on?
Speaker 1 (06:49):
You know, it's a shame that a lot of them
had to, you know, be forced out in order to
do that.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
One of the greatest things that I ever did was
start a podcast twelve years ago. And I remember when
my guy Chris Moreau came to me and said, hey, man,
there's two things that you need to do you need
to write a book.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
And you need to start a podcast. I always know I.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Wanted to write a book because I'm an avid reader.
My mother was an English teacher. You know, I love storytelling,
So writing the book was definitely going to be on
the bucket list at some point. But when he told
me about podcasting, I remember saying to him, why would
I ever start a podcast? Podcasting for people who can't
get on the radio? Yeah, you know, and I was
doing more in the radio at the time. I think
I was two years in the Breakfast Club. But I
(07:25):
was like, you know what, I have been fired from
radio four times already, so it would be good to
have my own independent platform that you know, I control.
And I never I promise you the money never even
crossed my mind. I literally said to myself, and if
I get fired from Breakfast Club, at least I had
I'll still have a voice in the space.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
You were future perfan.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, And so when me and my guy Andrew Schultz
started to bring in his podcast literally twelve years ago,
we were just doing it because it was something fun
to do. We getting together with my guy every week
and we just you know, kicking the shit. And then
a check came, He's like, oh, and we can get
paid for this as well.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Wow, So you.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Know, we're kind of one of those podcasts at a
grandfather did because we've been around for so long. But yeah,
that's my mindset, Like what what what are you waiting for? Like,
you know, are you waiting for these platforms to push
you out?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
You know, are you waiting for you know.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
These platforms to get bought out by these corporate overlords
and say, hey, you don't fit what we're doing anymore. Like, yeah,
I don't know what they were waiting on to start
their own their own platform.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
It's scary if you've only come up in legacy media
and you've had the support that comes with having a
legal department, right producers and folks were setting this all
up for you. It's it's scary to think, how would
I do all this on my own and will I
still have an audience?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
You know what?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
That's that's very interesting that you said that, because that's
how I felt when I launched the podcast. When I
launched the podcast twelve years ago, that was my mindset.
I'm like, do people people even listen to me outside
of the radio, And I remember me and when me
and Andrew put up our first episode a brilliant it
was called a Star Shame Enterprise, and we were talking
about why we think shame is good right, and how
(09:07):
people don't have it anymore.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
But there's a power in being shamed.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And I remember it getting like fifty six thousand listens
in like the first few days, and it was at
the number one on the Apple Podcast charts, and I
was like, Oh, people do want to listen to me
outside of outside of radio.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
So that is that.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Is a real that is a real concern, but also
too but also too when you come from legacy media,
I think the thing that gives you, gives you a
leg up in the space is the fact we understand,
we truly understand the consequence of our words. Yes, I
think that we have all these conversations about free speech,
(09:46):
but free speech is not free. There is a price
to pay for every single thing that comes.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Out of your mouth.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
There are consequences to the words that come out of
your mouth. I'm somebody who's been you know, point just
in the back of the head. I'm somebody who's been too. Like,
there's there's things that happen, and I think I think
when you're ye death threats, and when you come from
legacy media, whether it's television or radio, you understand that.
So when we get on these podcasts or YouTube or
(10:15):
whatever we're on, we just understand that more than most.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And I think that keeps us. I don't think that
keeps us ahead of the curve.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Oh that's such a good point, because, yeah, when you're
used to a legal department looking over your shoulder and
saying I'm going to try to save you from a
defamation suit.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Here, that's right.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
You learn the consequences of that's what you say, what
you're right, what you do. So A, that's such a
good point. Okay, I want to go back. I always
(10:54):
like to ask what kind of kid were you?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
That's so funny because I was looking at this picture,
you know that sometimes on these websites they do they
do who is this? And somebody had put up a
little picture of me when I was I don't know how,
I was maybe six or seven, and my co host,
Jess Hilarius said, you look like a kid that used
to bite.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
They used to.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Bite us a kid, so specific, but very specific. So
I was, I was a very curious kid. I was
a kid who didn't necessarily understand.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
What was going on in their mind.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Like you know, if I had somebody around me who
understood anxiety back then the way I do now and
able to recognize that in my my kids, I would
have been way better off. Like I can remember my
first panic attack in second grade, getting dropped off of
memage of elementary school by my mom and just that
feeling of crying uncontrollably, heartbeating fast, scared to death and
(11:52):
don't even know why. And you know that was me
having a panic attack and nobody, nobody knew what was
wrong with me. Teachers is you know my mom, Like
nobody understood what was wrong with me.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
But that desire to I don't want to.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Say be anti social because I was social, but I
did pull back because I just always had like this
sort of innate fear of people. But that was the anxiety,
right that led me to always be reading the book.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Like I I was the guy that was going in
the library reading.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
All the Judy Bloom, all the Beverly Clearly, all the
books about UFOs, all the books about stop Squash.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Like that's how I would get lost.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
I would get lost by just baring my head, burying
my head in a book. So that just made me
a very curious person, and that curiosity has led me to,
you know, be in the position that I am today
because my mom used to always tell me read things
that don't necessarily pertain to you. And that's what made
me go read the Beverly Clearly and the Judy Bloom
(12:52):
and to just be a little curious about a bunch
of different things. And you know, that curiosity has you know,
got me to where I am today.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
You grew up in Monk's Corner, South Carolina.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Yes, my fellow Bravo fans, we know Monk's Corner for
a different reason.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
You're aware.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
No, Okay, Southern Charm is a show on Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Bravo.
It's set in Charleston, but one of the main original
characters grew up in Monk's Corner and we all got
to go to Monk's Corner and see where she is from.
Her name is Catherine Dennis. Has anyone made this connection
with you?
Speaker 1 (13:28):
No, I've heard of the show Southern John, but I
didn't know somebody on there was from Mouse Corner.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
From Monk's Corner.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
I mean, there's a big segment of the population in
this country who watches Bravo, who's very familiar with Monk's Corner,
which I'm sure you would say is a very small
town that most people haven't heard of.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
It is. You know, when I was growing up, the population.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
With seven thousand people, it's damn it doubled now to
maybe like thirteen fourteen thousand. But you know, yeah, it's
a small town, a small town living. I always say,
I laugh and joke because I say we're not as
small as other towns, just because we have every fast
food restaurant, every single fast food literally every fast food
restaurant you can think of, is in Monk's Corner, all
(14:09):
of them, from fire House, Subs, the Chick fil A
to the bol Jangles, the McDonald's.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Like we just in the last three years, we've just.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Started to lose fast food franchises like a Burger King
close down there and a Popeyes closed down there, but
we have everything else.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Okay, Well I found your Berkeley High school yearbook.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
You go by Larry in high school. That's your middle name.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yeah, yep, Lenard Larry. My dad's name was Larry. Is Larry?
Speaker 3 (14:39):
I have you here?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
That's me.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
That's when I thought I was a member of the
Wu Tang clan, because you know, I had the big
I had the big blowout, and I used to braid
it sometime and it being these crazy braid designs and
then I would let it out and to be the
big blowout.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
So I'm really intrigued by crossroads and people's lives. And
it seems like when you're young, maybe coming out of
high school, you have a crossroad where things could go
one way kind of in a bad direction, or things
could go another way. How would you describe that crossroad
in your life as a young person with a lot
(15:18):
of runway ahead of you, but maybe in danger of
making some bad choices.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
My crossroad was easy for me to navigate.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
And I'll tell you why I was easy for me
to navigate because I was able to see it long
before I got to it, because because of the life
my father lived. Right My father was a guy who
dealt with substance abuse issues. Later on, I felt that
he had a lot of mental health issues. You know,
he was a guy that was, you know, in and
out of jail for some for different things, usually related
(15:50):
to drugs, and he would always tell me that if
I didn't change my lifestyle, because all my behavior problems
started in school, and then that led me to get
kicked out of high school. And then I was in
the street, you know, selling drugs. Petty hustler, you know
what I mean, Like, yeah, petty drug dealer. And I
know nowhere no type of in no way, shape or
(16:11):
form like the petty super petty hustler, like getting two
hundred dollars and try to flip it to make four hundred,
like that type of petty hustler. But my dad used
to always tell me that if I don't change my lifestyle,
I'm gonna end up in jail, dead or broke, sitting
under the tree. And I remember reading when I was
younger that smart people learn from their own mistakes, but
wise people learn from the mistakes of others. And so
(16:32):
when I saw people around me actually ending up in jail,
people around me actually you know, getting killed, people around me,
you know that I used to look up to growing
up actually sitting under the tree, you know, broke, not
doing anything with their life, like that was a real reality.
And then when I started to have my own run
ins with the law, I was like, yo, my my
(16:53):
father is right. So I knew that I didn't get
these days back, like I knew that this day back
in nineteen ninety eight, ninety nine, I knew I was
never getting that back. And I knew whatever I wanted
to do five years from now, I had to start
doing now. And so that's when I was just like,
y'all can have this lifestyle. I didn't been to jail enough.
(17:16):
I'm on probation. I'm going to actually do what the
probation officer says and go get me a job. I'm
gonna go back to school, and you know, I'm gonna
stay on this path. And that's exactly what I did.
So it's like, you know, the crossroads was easy for
me to navigate because I had fair warning that they existed,
and I had fair warning what happens when you go
down those roads.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
And I saw other.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
People going down those roads, and I could look in
the distance and be like, oh, yeah, I'm not going
that route. And I had my dad's voice always in
my head saying, if you don't change your lifestyle, you're
gonna end up in jail, dead or broke, sitting under
the tree. Yeah, And that scared me. That scared me straight.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Basically, so good, Okay, describe the environment that is rare
video when you're coming up in it.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
What's it like and how is it different today?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Ooh man, it was the best of times. And I
started to say it was the best of times and
it was the worst of times.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
But there was nothing bad about it. It was just
like I think about I think about that all the time.
It was so pure fun and fun. It was just
a bunch of us trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
I don't even know what everybody else's desire was because
I didn't really have those conversations.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I knew what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I knew that when I was working overnights back in
nineteen you know, ninety nine, ninety eight, ninety nine, at
Z ninety three Jams, I would be in the studio
saying to myself, Yo, I want to be a super jock.
I want to be a Tom Joyner. I want to
be a Doug Banks, God blessed today. I want to
be at Howard Stern, like I want to be a
Wendy Williams and Angie Martinez a sway.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Like that's where my mind was at. Like I didn't
want to be a.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Local radio personality during the time and temperature, you know,
announcing the new you know, Drake record, Like that wasn't
what I wanted to do with myself. And so I
just think about those days working as the ninety three Jams,
or working at HOGH ninety eight nine with my gud
d nights, or working in Columbia, South Carolina at High
one O three nine and Big DM with my guy
DJ Frosty, And that's just making mixtapes, going to the
(19:22):
call wash to sell mixtapes, hosting parties like it was
just a grind. It was just a grind that prepared
me for everything that I'm doing now. And I learned
that's what's different between now and then. I think there's
a lot of people just jumping in the game with microphones,
but they're not learning anything but how we talked about
(19:42):
knowing the price of all words, or even knowing how
just to when the microphone comes on, how just to
do a good break right, Like I don't as long
as you've been doing it. See, we need producers, but
we don't necessarily need producers. We could get it going
if we wanted to write. So it's just like that
that's because of all of those years growing up in
South Carolina doing radio that prepared me for you know
(20:05):
where I am now.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Yeah, Wendy Williams has obviously been in the news a lot.
I'm on the outside of this. I don't know her.
It's hard for me to tell what's what. If she's
okay and being unfairly controlled, if she's not okay and
being taken advantage of. I don't know if you can
give us any insight, but like I can't make sense
of it, and I imagine most people watching from the
(20:30):
outside can't really make sense of where she's at.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Well.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
I mean, you know, she she knows she's being taken
advantage of. I mean, she's the one who started this,
you know campaign. She was just reaching out for help,
you know, like she had kind of been disconnected from
the outside world for a while, Like she didn't even
have a phone to reach people. And I think that
she can only you know, talk to people like once
a week or something like that. So it was when
she was able to you know, talk to people, reconnect
(20:56):
with people like myself, and you know, connect with other
people in media, like you know, was Ana Scatto and
Lady Jason Lee at Hollywood Unlocked that she was able to,
you know, get her story out, Harvey Levin at TMZ,
and so she was the one who was telling everybody like, yeah,
I'm in this conservative ship. She feels like she's being
taken advantage of. And I mean, I think it kind
of speaks for itself that, you know, once she was
(21:17):
able to tell her story and tell what was going on,
they started to loosen up the rains on her. Right,
they started the rains on her in her in a
real way. But as far as her medical diagnosis, when
I speak to her, she sounds fine. The tests for
dementia and everything say otherwise, But I haven't heard that,
(21:41):
you know, side of her. I haven't seen that. When
I talked to her, she seems, you know, like the
windy that I always knew.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Yeah, And I imagine you learned a lot from her.
With her, What was the things she did better than
anyone else show prep?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Because what she taught me was everything is show prep,
meaning that your whole life is show prep. Like you
have to be willing to take everything that you're going through,
every experience, everybody you talk to, every moment is potential
content for when you're on the air, and that's really
how you make real you know, connections with people, right
(22:21):
like you know, when you when you're when you're out
there just living life, and that you'll hear comedians say
that a lot, like I've heard Chris Rock say that, like,
oh I got to go lift some life, and my
man Andrew ships like, oh I got to go lift
some life.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
And then I'm a.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Material that's US broadcasters every day.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
It's it's it's life, right, like.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Just going out there and experiencing the world and being
able to you know, share those things with people.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
And you know she would do that, she would live
her life.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
But then also you know, because you know, I was
with Wendy and O six every single magazine that was
on newsstands. I would watch her read every single culture
magazine name it, Okay, in Touch, you know, US US Weekly,
like she would National Acquirer. She'd just be read reading
them all like literally ripping pages out.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I'm gonna talk about this, I wanna talk about that.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
And she took that mixed in with her life and
she was able to go I was her only co
host ever. She was able to go on there and
just do her show every day Monday through Friday, five
hours a week, because everything was show prep. And the
other great piece of advice she gave me was, you're
you're either going to be of the industry or of
(23:28):
the people. You can't be both, you know, because because
you know, especially back then, you had your people that
were in the music game, you had people that were
in television. So it's kind of like a secret society, right,
and you know, they all had their uniformed way of
doing things, and they all went to their you know,
(23:49):
elite parties and you know parties amongst each other, and
you know, if there was a mole in the room,
like like like like there's somebody like a windy was
to come to a party, all of them was scattered
because that she would tell, like all of their business.
But you know, she basically was saying, don't ever lose
your connection with the people because the industry coming goals,
The industry is fleeting. These people that are in the
(24:11):
position of power and the industry are fleeting. These people
that are hot right now in the industry are heating,
are fleeting. With that connection that you have with people
will last, you know, for a lifetime.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Such good advice.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
And I think people outside of the business don't appreciate
the first part, which is that she would show up
on radio on television and you'd get this, she's just
gossiping with her girlfriends, like let's talk about this latest headline.
It looked so natural and like she had just heard something.
But it's only because of all the show prep and
like she had lived that it all was that easy.
(24:49):
And so many people, whether it was like Bethany or Chris,
tried to come onto the daytime talk space and be
that and do that and they don't realize hours and
out years go in to preparing that kind of show, and.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
That's who she really is.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Like I remember there was an episode of her TV
show where she was literally running late and she.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Came from her car right on set.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah, didn't get into no glam, didn't put no makeup on,
came out with her purse, and sat down and told
everybody the whole story of how she was late, why
she was late, she didn't have time to do glam
blah blah blah, and that was more interesting.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
It was unheard of, and that was more interesting than anything.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
That told her that she could have reported about in
the news that day.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Yes, so good. Okay, back to you.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Moving into a political space isn't always easy. It's real
fraught with land minds. You know that, And the industry
will tell you really quickly if you're not at it.
You move into politics, I think pretty naturally you become
hugely important as a voice and a platform for political
candidates to go to get their messages out to your audience.
(26:12):
How do you think you cultivated such an important space
to talk about politics.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
I honestly have no idea, because it wasn't intentional. Like
I said, my mother always told me to read things
that didn't pertain to me. I always was a curious person.
There was never a time I wasn't reading Source magazine
double XL, but also watching Larry King on CNN, like literally,
like I just used to like anybody that was in
the interviewing space I was watching. I was watching you know,
(26:39):
Diane Soyer, Barbara Walters, and I was watching them interview
people like Tredell Castro and interviewing you know, presidential candidates.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
So that always just seemed very natural to me.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Like I was listening to the rappers that were talking about,
you know, the conspiracy theories around and Ronald Reagan, or
you know, conspiracy theories surrounding the George W.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Bush. So that was all just very natural to me.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Bill Clinton on our Senior Hall playing the saxophone, I
didn't just watched that and and be like, damn, that's
Bill Clinton playing the saxphone.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
I knew who Bill Clinton was.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I knew he was the governor of Arkansas, and I
just thought that was cool that, you know, Arsenial Hall
had a politician on his.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
You know TV show playing the saxophone.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
So it's just like all of that, the intersectionality of
politics and hip hop and pop culture, that always just.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Seemed very natural to me.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
So there's never been a time in my radio career
ever that I did not sit down.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
And interview politicians.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
When I was in South Carolina, I would be talking,
you know, to the people that were running for local office.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
When I was in Philadelphia, you.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Know, I would be I had Mayor Nutter, and I
remember it was a day when they was calling it
doomsday in Philly and they were saying that all of
the libraries and the rec centers were going to get
shut down and they were going to cut up a
bunch of police because they were waiting on some type
of funding and literally the front page of the newspaper
said doomsday and Mary none that came to me. I
showed just to let everybody know, like, look, the funding
(28:02):
came through. Everything's gonna be fine. The city breathed a
sire relief. And yeah, that's always been.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
My ministry in a way.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
So even when I got on Breakfast Club and you know,
had the first political candidate that I remember coming on
Breakfast Club with Bacari sellers. But that's because Bakari was
running for lieutenant governor in South Carolina. Like that's where
I'm from. I've always done Bakar. I remember car used
to be in the clubs together. I'm older than member
he would be. He would be in the clubs together,
you know, back back in the day. So I remember him,
(28:35):
you know, being the youngest congressman in South Carolina history,
and I remember him running for lieutenant governor. He came
to Breakfast Club that was like twenty fourteen, and then
from that moment on he started telling everybody like yo,
y'all need to start going to Breakfast Club. I remember
after Bacari left, I remember that's when Hillary Clinton's people
started vetting me to see if they wanted to bring
(28:57):
Hillary on Breakfast Club. And then Angela I started coming
on Breakfast Club, and my man Killer Mike was running
around with Bernie Sanders, you know. I remember we went
to go interview Bernie Sanders in Columbia, South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
So all of that stuff was just natural.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Like everything I'm talking about right now is a connective tissue.
It's a bocari, it's a Killer Mike. Right then, then
Angela Rai started coming a lot around twenty sixteen, Like,
all of this stuff was just a very natural thing.
So it wasn't that I wasn't always into politics. It's
just like after those few things happened, all of the
(29:31):
politicians started wanting to come to Breakfast Club, especially the
Democrat one Democratic Democrat one.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Yeah, so who's been in politics? Who's given you the
best interview on your show?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Oh, that's a great question.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
I think you thought this person really did themselves a
favor by coming on this show.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I think Pete bouda judge, always does himself a favor
of coming on Breakfast Club. I distinctly remember his first
interview with us ever, when he was you know, the
mayor of a South bend in Indiana, and you know,
he was, uh, he threw his hat in the presidential
race way way back then, and I just thought he
he just was so honest, and he just gave a
(30:09):
great conversation. And I remember this one line he said.
He was like, you know, I don't know, I just
I don't even know. I was like, what do you
think about Chick fil A? Because I know he's a
gay man. And that's when Chick fil A was broad
and like homophobia controversy, and he was just like, I
loved that chicken, but hate their politics.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah. Yeah, that's just.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
An honest answer, Like yeah, but you know, most people
will get on and you know, grand standing like oh
Chick fil A horrible and blah.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Blah blah, Like I loved it. Who don't love Chick
fil A?
Speaker 1 (30:37):
So it's delicious, But I loved that chicken, but hate
their politics.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
And you know, then we had a similar We.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Had a similar conversation around Eminem, and he just was
breaking down how he you know, being a young white
man from the Midwest. He loved Eminem, you know, but yeah,
Eminem did have homophobic lyrics, but he didn't. It wasn't
a woke answer like he was, you know, damning Eminem.
He just was giving an honest answer about how that was.
It was conflicting for him, and I thought he did
(31:05):
a great job, and I think he always does. He
always does a great job because he never stops coming.
He never stops coming to breakfast club. Yeah, he was
there this year. So he's the person that comes even
when it's not an election cycle because he values our
audience and he just comes and talks to people. And
if he ever does run for a higher office president
in twenty twenty eight, I think it's going to do
(31:27):
him well that he never lost that connection with our audience.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Ye, and isn't expecting to parachute in every four years,
but just maintaining that connection. Who gave the worst, like
an interview that really didn't help them out?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Who gave the worst an interview that didn't really help him?
I don't know if I want to say President Biden,
but he still ended up winning the election that year.
That's when he Yeah, that's when he was with the
It was just an unnecessary controversy he caused, and he
was like, if you don't know whether to vote for
me or Trump, then you ain't black.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Yeah, right, I remember that was right.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Like that, that was just you know, that just was
a terrible week weeks of a new cycle for him
for no reason, unforsere unforced error. It was just unnecessary,
like you know. But I mean, he did end up
still winning the election. But I think that was the
beginning of people, not the beginning, because people that have
(32:29):
already been questioning the Democratic Party, and people already did
not believe in the Democratic Party, especially a lot of
black people, And that's why the line of questioning I
was hitting them with. That's what led to that if
you don't know whether to vote for me or Trump,
then you ain't black. You know, because I'm asking him
questions that I know a lot of people in the
black community, you know, wanted to know, and he didn't
(32:51):
really have a real substantive answer. That was his answer,
if you don't know whether to vote for me, then
you ain't black. So kind of fed into the oh,
y'all just feel like y'all entitled to the to the
black vote in the Democratic Party. Y'all, y'all just feel like, Oh,
there's no other options for black men.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
They have to they have to deal with us.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
And yeah, I think that that's kind of led to
the unraveling of the Democratic Party that you still see
even now.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
I agreed, And and I think you see that entitlement
with a lot of older Democrats in you know, political
seats that don't want to give them up and think,
you know, my seniority is more important than getting fresh blood.
Democrats are in a in a really rough place right now.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Should Kamala Harris run for president again?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
I don't know. I mean, that's that's a great question
I got.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I had the privilege of getting one hundred and seven
Days a couple of weeks ago, and I read it
and I thought it was a fantast degree. It's one
of the the better books I've read this year. And
I was thinking that when I was reading it, because
it's either two things are going to come from this.
Either she doesn't want to run again and she don't
(34:04):
care anymore, right, right, So that's why she you know,
that's right, that's why she put it all out there
the way that she did. But I think those bridges
need to be burnt. I've said, I've said that anybody
who wants to be the leader of the Democratic Party
now and the leader of the Democratic Party in the
future has to throw.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
That whole old regime under the bus.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
I read the original Sin by Jake Tapple in one
hundred and seven days just confirms a lot of the
things that they they talked about in the original Sin, Like,
you know, when she says things like, you know.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Joe Biden, Joe Biden.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Running again shouldn't have been left up to his ego.
You know, when you read soies about how her staff was,
I mean, the Biden staff was undermining her and not
wanting to put out any fires concerning her. When you
read things like President Biden calling her on the day
of the debate to make it all about him and
(35:00):
tell her about donors that aren't feeling her, And she
was like, don't you know I got a debate tonight,
You of all people know how stressful a debate is. Right,
Like to me, it's like damning to Biden, Like Biden's
legacy is shit, it's over. Like you, I don't even
want to hear nothing about President Biden because I got
a lot of different issues with President Biden. I don't
feel like we're in this position that we're in now
(35:20):
in this country, if it wasn't for President Biden, but
for her and for the whole party, it could be
a good thing. If people don't get in their feelings.
And I said this two weeks ago, and what am
I seeing this week? Everybody in their feelings, like I
rock with people to judge, Pete, you have no reason
to be in your feelings about what she said in
(35:41):
that book, because you know it's true.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
You know how difficult it how difficult it is for
a woman.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Of color with a Jewish husband to get elected president
and she's going to put a gay man on the ticket, Like,
what do you come on, Pete? That is nothing to
be upset about. That is the harsh truth politics of
the country that we in. It's politics. So you know,
if Democrats don't get in their feelings and they embrace
the truths that Kamala Harris is saying in this book,
(36:10):
I think it will be very good for the party
going forward because you have to throw the old regime,
the old way of doing things under the bus, and
she did that in one hundred and seven days. So
it's kind of like this could be the great reset
that the Democratic Party needs and they can rebuild on
(36:32):
a foundation of honesty and truth. You don't have to
lie to people anymore. Democrats are still playing, you know,
by rules that don't even exist. And you know who
got rid of the playbook? Who got I mean, you
know who got rid.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Of the rule book?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
They're Republicans, Magett, the Conservatives.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
The rules are out the window.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
So like, you know, it's like this respectability of politics
they play amongst each other, and there's disrespectability politics. They
think they have to play with the vote and the
voters are sitting back looking at them, like, y'all don't
see what's going on.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Y'all playing basketball.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
On a football field right now, y'all not even in
the same game as these people over here get in
the game. And I feel like that's what you know,
Kamala did with one hundred and seven days. So that
should she run again in twenty twenty eight, I honestly
truly don't know, but it is based on how this
book will be received and how she handles a lot
(37:28):
of the conversations around this book moving forward. Because I
saw her on Rachel Maddow last night and a couple
of answers look like she was moonwalking and I'm like,
why you moonwalking on that?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Like like I didn't mean it like that? Why what
you mean it? Mean it like that? It's in your book,
own it, exactly own it.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
So it's really just really it's really based on what
Kamala Harris she chooses to be from this point on
and what she chooses to show people, you know, over
the next year or so.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
There's more after the break with Charllemane the g.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
Before I get to a lightning round, I have to
talk to you a little bit about mental health, you know,
because I've talked about my mental health and my nervous breakdown,
my struggle with anxiety, my journey to recovery.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
And I say this over and over again.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
When people like you or Jalen Rose or Michael Phelps
talk about mental health, it's so impactful because I think
people are used to seeing and hearing women talk about
mental health in a way they're not with men, and
the stigmas and barriers to getting mental health help are
(38:50):
greater for men, and in particular men of color. So
when you talk about it, it's just so it moves
the needles so much. I hear that from people all
the time. What made you decide to be brave, to
be honest, and this was many years ago. This wasn't
reason for you and take that step and share your
(39:13):
journey with mental health.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
What gave you that kind of courage?
Speaker 1 (39:17):
I didn't even know I was being brave. I didn't
know I was even being honest. When I look back
on it now, it was almost like a cry for help.
Because when I started going to therapy back in twenty sixteen,
I started going because of my anxiety and because of
my bout of depression. But you know, you know, es see,
when you're sitting in that therapists share man, you start
to peel back those layers of you know, just just
(39:38):
trauma that you've experienced in your life.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
You start uncovering all types of things.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
And you know, I started realizing issues I had with
my father right like you know, and I started realizing,
you know, just a lack of self love I believe
I even had for myself. And so when I would
come on the radio and talk about going to therapy
every Friday at three o'clock, it became like a running joke.
(40:04):
But then people, you know, after some years, people were like,
I see something different, Like there's something different going on
with him, Like you know, it's like, yo, he's moving
a little different, he's talking a little different, Like I
see the change, you know. And that's because I was
on my healing journey. And so for me, that's literally
what it was. It was more so like a cry
(40:25):
for help and getting on the radio. Like I was
talking about with Wendy earlier, your life is show prepa.
So there was a period I can think of from
maybe twenty sixteen to probably like maybe twenty twenty, twenty
twenty one where I was just kind of in a
state of confusion only because all of these things I
(40:48):
thought I knew about myself, you know, all of this
stuff I had learned about myself over the years, I
was unlearning, so I didn't really understand this new version
of myself. It kind of felt like poverty again, right
Like it felt like, yeah, like I new, I got
a new walk about me. I'm a little bit taller,
right Like, I'm just trying to figure this this life
(41:11):
thing out. So it was just this confusing period from
like twenty sixteen to probably like twenty twenty. And that's
kind of why the pandemic was good in a lot
of ways. Yeah, because I think I needed that complete
stillness as opposed to trying to figure this thing out
in the midst of chaos and trying to sense that,
(41:33):
you know, trying to figure out this you know, this
this this life thing, this Oh man, I thought I
had that figured out, but I didn't.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
You know, It's a lot I had to, you know,
just sit down and deal with.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
And honestly, if I hadn't been going to therapy those
three years and there's something like COVID would have hit
who knows, Like I got friends that didn't make it
out of COVID, Like I got friends that decided enough
was enough, you know, resciuees to my my good sister
Jazz Waters. She was one that didn't make it out
of COVID. And I remember her tweeting. She tweeted out
one thing that COVID has taught me is I would
(42:06):
have jumped off the slave ship way before it got
to America.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
And then she was tweeting. She would tweet stuff like
I wonder what my next life would be like. So
when I changed out and she was hurting, and she
was somebody that was actually doing the work, like she
was also going to therapy and stuff too, but it
was just too overwhelming for her. For me, it was
kind of exactly what I needed, especially being coming off
those three years of intense therapy going once a week. Yeah,
(42:33):
And so I was just coming on air. I would
literally just come and telling my experiences. And next thing
I know, everybody was coming to me telling me about
how they deal with anxiety and they did about the depression,
and they started going to therapy because of me, or
they uncles started going to therapy, or they brother and
it was.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
A lot of women.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
It was a lot of women coming to me saying, man,
because of you, my husband, my brother, my son wants
to go to therapy. And it was just something that
became bigger than me. It wasn't even about you know
me anymore. It was just about me telling my story,
and that story was inspiring other people. And what made
it super inspiring to me was twenty eighteen, being at
(43:13):
home in Monks Corner, South Carolina, the week of Thanksgiving
and my dad calling me because I had just put
out my second book. My second book was called Shook One,
Anxiety playing tricks on Me, and I put that book
out in the midst of all the psychological confusion I
was experiencing because that was the business, right.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Like, my book agent was like, hey, you got to
come out with another book immediately. I put yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Because I put out my first book, Black Privilege, Opportunity
comes to those who created instant New York Times bestseller
was on the New York Times bestseller's list for.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Like the whole year, and so they just wanted another
book immediately.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
And I was like, Yo, unbeknownst to y'all, I'm been
in therapy since you know, twoenty and sixteen.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
I'm spent. I don't even know who I am no more.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
But me and my book agent have a real friend relationship,
saluthor Jan Miller, and so I just told her what
was really going on. And I said, man, I got
this journal of things that I'm learning and you know,
therapy about myself. And I sent her a couple of
things over and she was like, this would be really
powerful if you share it. And I was like, but no,
I'm not an expert. I'm just somebody with experiences. I
(44:20):
don't want to put a book out of our mental health.
And she had the idea to go get my man
doctor ish major and do like clinical correlations to the
things that I was talking about learning in therapy, and
we ended up putting it out and it became another
national bestseller, and that was another thing that people started to.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Pick up and read and you know, be inspired to
go on their own healing journey.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
And yeah, it just it really I see. You know,
I can't even really take any credit like it was intentional.
It was just me on my journey, sharing my experiences
with the platforms that I have.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Yeah, and I just fell into this space.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
Well, I know a lot of people are really glad
that you did, and me included. All right, let's get
to the lightning round. We both have personas for me.
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp and sie Cup are very similar people,
but there are some differences, Like I'm not as brave
(45:25):
in my personal life as I am in my public life.
Are there differences between Leonard McKelvey and Charlemagne the God?
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Not much now other than me saying Charlemagne the God
on the radio. There used to be they used to
be extremely Like, you know, Charlamagne was a character that
I created way way way way back in the day
when I was in you know, night school to protect
people from seeing the nard, you know, and so that
character even way before radio, I was you know, I
(45:53):
wanted to rap and all types of stuff. So Charlemagne
was literally a character I created who you know, kind
of it just was all about bravado and you know,
you know, not really not having no feelings when I'm
a cancer who's super sensitive and emotional to everything, you know,
And and it worked, it worked until it didn't. And
(46:16):
and when even when I say it didn't, it had
nothing to do professionally and everything to do personally. You know,
when you're just not happy with who you are as
a person, when you're just not happy with you know,
what you're presenting to people. You know, when your wife
is asking you, what the hell is your problem? You know,
(46:36):
like when you got kids now and you know what,
let me go figure this out. And you you know,
like I said, you start going to therapy and doing
that that work on yourself, and.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Char doesn't come to rescue you, your lenar, that's right,
And I got to deal with it all.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
So yeah, back in the day, there was definitely a separation. Now,
not not at all love that.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Who's a guest you've never interviewed, but you'd love to.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
That's a great question. But I honestly and the answer
I truly mean this is nobody. And the reason I
say nobody is because I got to interview the person.
If you had asked me this five years ago, my
answer would have been Judy Bloom. And since then I've
gotten to sit down and interview Judy Bloom and not
just interviewed Julie Blooms.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
She's a friend.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
You know. I've flound down to Key West a couple
of times, me and my wife just to go kick it,
you know, with her and her husband and go have dinner.
And you know, when Simon and Schuston did their one
hundred year anniversary, me and Judy Bloom did a presentation
on stage together. So it's like, I adore that woman.
So that was my dream interview and I got to
(47:41):
do that. So everything else is Gravy's great.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (47:45):
Is there anyone you'd be nervous to interview? I have
a couple like Martha Stewart scares me, Mariah Kerry scares me.
Speaker 3 (47:54):
I just I don't know that.
Speaker 4 (47:55):
I I think I'd be too nervous because I don't know.
They're very intimidating. Those two people are intimidating to.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Me, Does anyone make you nervous the thought of interviewing anyone?
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Fun fact, I'm always nervous before interviews, okay, you know,
just because like there's always a there's always a good
sense of a healthy anxiety depending on who the person is,
like always, right, like always, like there's figures that you
can meet that are larger than life and politics in
Hollywood and everybody else. So there's always a healthy sense
(48:28):
of anxiety that goes into you know, sitting down and
having a conversation with anybody. But you know, those nerves
quickly go out the window once the conversation starts, you know,
somebody like I've interviewed Mariah before. Mariah came in the
studio with her own lighting team, literally came in the
studio with her own lighting team, turned all the lights down,
and I said, Mariah, they're not gonna be able to
(48:49):
see us, and she was like, that's the whole point, darling,
you know. And what's crazy is we just had the
iHeartRadio Music Festival in Vegas, and you know they had
a uh interviews backstage, right, So, like different personalities would
interview different people backstage Maria sent her lighting team in
there and they had the restructure all the lights and everything.
(49:11):
So you know, when you're dealing with that level of icon,
that level of diva, yeah, you're going to have some nerves.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (49:20):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
What's the best movie about music?
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Ooh, best movie about music?
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Man? First thing that comes to mind is a Brown
Sugar starring Tay Diggs and Sinai Laythan. It was a
story about basically when when it was the first time
you fell in love with hip hop? But it was
rooted in the love story between Tay Diggs and Sinai
Laythan's character, I think Dre and Drey and Monica. I
(49:51):
think her name was Monica in the movie, but it
was Dre and Monica and it was it was rooted
heavily around hip hop. Yeah, that was when the movie starts.
It's literally like when did you first fall in love
with hip hop? But hip hop was like actually like
an analogy for the love story of between those two individuals,
who was like they knew each other since when they
(50:12):
were kids, so essentially they were asking, did when did
we first fall in.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Love with each other? You know?
Speaker 1 (50:18):
And so to me, it's a hip hop love story.
It's called it's an amazing film. It's called Brown Sugar,
So anybody can go watch it because it's not just
it's not about hip hop, but it is. Yeah, but
it's really just a love story between these two individuals.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
Great, who's the goat of broadcast?
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Man? That's tough, man.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
It's tough because there's so many different forms of broadcasts.
Like the first person that comes to mind for me
is P. D. Green, because I'm a radio guy.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
P D.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Green was a radio personality in Washington, d C. Basically
the company Radio One was built, you know, off his back.
They actually did a movie about P. D. Green where
Don Chito plays P. D.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Green. To Roger P. Hinson is in that movie.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
It's a fantastic film, and he is the person who
even inspired the Howard Sterns of the world. But to me,
Howard Stern is a goat broadcaster, right, So when you
talk radio, for me, it's the P. D. Greens, the
Howard Sterns, the Wendy Williams and Angie Martinez.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
Is you know. But then you you know, you got
to put in the people.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
You got to you gotta say people like Rush Limbaugh
is even if you didn't agree with his politics, what
he was able to do, you know, as a conservative
talk radio host, the audience.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
He was able to build.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
Like there's a whole ecosystem of conservative talk show hosts
right now that live online that I guarantee you were
directly influenced by Russian You look at when you look
at the Sean Hannity's and Bill O'Reilly's and all of
them on that they were absolutely influenced, you know, by
a Rush Limbaugh. So I don't have to agree with
(51:59):
somebody's politics to you know, put them in the gold category.
But then when you go to television, the Larry Kings
of the World, Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters, Oprah Winfrey like
like oh man, Like it's just like these people actually
shifted culture with their conversations, you know, they they shifted
(52:21):
the way people think with their conversations. I know people
don't necessarily put this person as a broadcaster, but I
look at somebody like a Joan Rivers.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
You know, I look at somebody like so many barriers broke,
so many.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Barriers are senior Hall in late night to me, you know,
as a television broadcaster, like these people like you can't.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
There is no one gold broadcaster. It's just a pastor.
You know. I got my favorites. My favorite is definitely P. D. Green. Yeah,
but I can't say. I can't say.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
He's the gold because it's just too many people. There's
too many ghats out there, too many.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
Okay, okay, uh, award shows keep or cancel?
Speaker 1 (53:10):
Keep, but keep what expand meaning that you know, I
like that the Golden Globes is including podcasts now. I
think the Emmys are including podcasts, Like you just have
to if you're going to do these award shows, you
just have to embrace this new era that we're in.
Modern Yeah, you gotta modernize, you know, TV radio, Like
(53:31):
those aren't the only games in town anymore. So if
you modernize these award shows, then yes, keep them right, Like,
you can't just have award shows that just you know,
highlight certain areas because you'll miss so much certain industries,
because you'll miss so much, Like you have to give
it up for some of these YouTubers and some of
these podcasters that are having you know, real influence. Because
(53:53):
the truth to the matter is where do you put
somebody like a Joe Rogan in a traditional award show.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
Yeah, you know, he's not on TV, he's not on radio.
But you're not gonna sit here and tell me that
he's not shouldn't be winning awards.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
So it's just like, yeah, modernized, modernize them, and you
can keep them.
Speaker 3 (54:11):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (54:11):
The last question is very important to me. We ask
it at the end of every podcast. The question is
when is it iced coffee season?
Speaker 1 (54:21):
Never for me because I'm black toes intolerant, so you know,
but you can have it black. Hey, I'm man, No
coffee runs right through me, like like coffee runs right
through me. So it's ice coffee season is absolutely positively
never for me. I see people drinking ice coffee in
the summer and I'm like disgusted. Like my daughter and
(54:43):
my wife, My wife loves coffee period both. Now my
daughter does too, she hits that from her mom, but
they also like ice coffee, and I just think it's
the wide I think about what it does to me,
and I'm like, you really want to be walking around
with the bubble guts in this heat?
Speaker 2 (54:56):
Like I like, nah, I don't do ice call at all.
Speaker 4 (55:02):
This This question stands undefeated as the most revealing question
because you know, we get all kinds of answers. It's
that's the wrong answer, the wrong The right answer is
you're round, You're round, okay, But that's because I'm a
new Englander who grew up on Duncan and I have
iced coffee in the middle of winter.
Speaker 3 (55:20):
It's all I drink.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
Oh got you, got you? Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
It is not. I can't have any coffees, but definitely
not ice coffees. Absolutely not.
Speaker 4 (55:30):
Well, Luckily, I like you so much and you you
gave me this platform, so I can't be too mad
at you. But Charlamaine the God, thank you so much
for for everything, but also for coming on this podcast and.
Speaker 3 (55:43):
Being our season two premiere guest.
Speaker 1 (55:45):
I really, oh wow, thank you, Sci. I really appreciate
you having me man. I'm serious, like, you are such
a necessary voice. I love seeing seeing you on CNN,
you know, cutting ass on those panels. I love, you know,
listening to your podcast because you know you are man like.
There's not too many really honest voices left that are
(56:07):
willing to call out, you know, both sides of the
ale and just speak.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
For what is going on in America, and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (56:16):
I appreciate you. Coming up next week.
Speaker 4 (56:21):
On Off the Cup, I talked to Mindy Khne, star
of Paon Royale and.
Speaker 3 (56:25):
The Facts of Life.
Speaker 5 (56:26):
This is gonna sound terrible and I don't I really
don't mean it how it's gonna come out. But I
was ready to have Natalie dide for a little while,
right like put her up, put a bow on it.
Speaker 2 (56:37):
We love her?
Speaker 3 (56:38):
But what else? What else do you have for me? World?
Speaker 4 (56:46):
Off the Cup is a production of iHeart Podcasts as
part of the Reason Choice Network.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
If you want more, check out the other Reason.
Speaker 4 (56:52):
Choice podcasts, Politics with Jamel Hill and Native Land Pod.
Speaker 3 (56:57):
For Off the Cup, I'm your host, Si Cup. Editing
and sound design by Derek Clements.
Speaker 4 (57:01):
Our executive producers are me Se cop Lauren Hanson, and
Lindsay Hoffman. Rate and review wherever you get your podcasts,
Follow or subscribe for new episodes every Wednesday,
I was like, Yo, unbeknownst to y'all, I'm been in
therapy since twenty and sixteen.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Yeah, I'm spent. I don't even know who I am.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
No more.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Welcome to Off the Cup Season two.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
We took a little break after a fantastic season one,
which was full of great interviews, mental health talk, lots
of laughs. And we're back now and we have a
great season in store for you with a giant of
a premiere episode guest.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Before we get to that.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
I also want to let you know we have expanded
Off the Cup. You will remember we added Talking Coffee
last season, where we chat about coffee news, coffee trends,
unpopular coffee opinions, and you know, life confessions. Well, we've
got another Talking Coffee season for you. It's full of
iced coffee goodness. Plus we've added Talking Politics, where you
(00:58):
can get my steaming political takes every week.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
See a little Cold, a little Hot.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
So I feel like we have all the important things
covered at Off the Cup, mental health, coffee, and the news.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
What else is there? Literally? What else is there?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (01:16):
So today's guest is a rock star of broadcast. He's
been called hip Hop's Howard Stern by Rolling Stone. He's
in the Radio Hall of Fame. He's a New York
Times bestselling author. He's host of the nationally syndicated radio
show The Breakfast Club, and he's founder of the Black
Effect podcast network. Celebrating his five year anniversary on iHeart,
It's Charlemagne the.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
God welcome s.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
How are you.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
I'm so well and I'm so glad you're here, and
I'm so lucky and grateful to know you. I don't
know that most people know this, but you are why
I'm here at iHeart with this podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Oh well, thank you. You know, I think that you
are an amazing voice, and you bring a lot of
You bring a lot of common sense, logical, rational to
cable television that I think has been missing from cable
television for a long time.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Well, I appreciate that, but I also just appreciate you
bringing me in to this space. And the best thing,
the luckiest thing about it, was what you said was you.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Can do anything you want.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
You can do anything you want on here.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And and the beauty of that is, you know, nowadays
this might be like the only safe space left for broadcasters,
you know, having a podcast might be the last safe
space that you can actually come and you know, really
speak your mind freely and speak truth to power and
get the information out to people that they actually need
without the government on your.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Head about it well exactly, or without you know, corporate
overlord saying here's what you need to say, or here's
what you can't say, or we.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Don't really want you to talk about mental health.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
We want you to stick with politics, like y'all gave
me total freedom.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
And leeway absolutely to be.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
A comfortable, comfortable in this space, you know, and doing
something that mattered to me, but also.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
You know, with just all the the leash it was.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
It's amazing. It's an amazing opportunity. Not everyone gets this,
so I'm just really grateful for it, and.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
We're grateful to have you. It is a privilege to
have you.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
So there's so much I want to talk to you about,
but you and you already sort of hinted at where
I want to start. I want you to give me
an assessment of the state of media today because you've
been involved in so much of it, from radio to
TV to podcasts, on music, culture, politics, I'm sure you're
in the room with some very high level executives as
they talk about where media is going. I'm sure you're
(03:47):
driving some of that conversation because you're a media executive
as well. Where are things going? What can you tell
me about the state of our business?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Well, I honestly believe that the BI business is healthier
than it's ever been. What I would tell people who
want to get into you know, podcasting or any form
of this new broadcast you know mediums that we have,
I would tell them that make sure you have something
to say, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
A lot.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I think that maybe four or five years ago, everybody
thought that they could just you know, start a YouTube
page or launch a podcast, and it was.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Going to be just this overabundance of money, this gold rush.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
It would just be raining dollar bills like you know,
you was dancing in the script club. But no, that's
just not the way. You know, this this business works.
And I think that this this new era that we're in,
it is really for people who have something to actually say.
And I think when you have that intention of wanting to,
you know, maybe educate, I don't care if it's wanting
(04:49):
to make people laugh, I don't care if it's wanting
to you know, being an advocate for something, you know,
like you know, both you and I both like to be.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Advocates for mental health.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Like, just make sure you have something to say, because
if you get into it for any other reason. I'm
talking about clicks, engagement, money, I don't feel like you're
going to have, you know, the success that you're looking for.
But you know, even long before broadcasting, I feel like
that about anything. I feel like anything that you involve
yourself in, you should have an actual intention. If you're
(05:18):
just trying to get attention or you're just trying to
you know, get rich, that's not a reason to do anything,
if you ask me so, I think the business is
actually healthier than it's ever been.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
This consolidation by giant media conglomerates that we're seeing basically
five companies are controlling most media today.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Is that is that an okay thing?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
No?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yes, and no, because it just depends on, you know,
once again, what is the person's intention for one to
control things? You know, I'm sure that there's plenty of
people you could look to and say, you know what,
if that person had three or four different you know,
platforms in their hand, that would be a good thing.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
But then with that personal.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
They has three or four platforms in their hands, and
that's not necessarily a good thing. So I just think
it's just really about, you know, what are the intentions of.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
These of these companies.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
You know, why do they want to have control over
all of these media media platforms? Like, you know, that's
what I would look to. I would look to who
who's at the top and what is there, what is
their agenda?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
A lot of my colleagues who kind of come out
of legacy media as legacy media is contracting, you know,
they go to substeck, they go to YouTube, they become
independent journalists for the first time in their lives.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Probably.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
What do you think when you see big names who
had big shows in the news, like.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
You know, Don Lemon or Terry Moran go off on
their own.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I think to myself, what were they waiting on?
Speaker 1 (06:49):
You know, it's a shame that a lot of them
had to, you know, be forced out in order to
do that.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
One of the greatest things that I ever did was
start a podcast twelve years ago. And I remember when
my guy Chris Moreau came to me and said, hey, man,
there's two things that you need to do you need
to write a book.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
And you need to start a podcast. I always know I.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Wanted to write a book because I'm an avid reader.
My mother was an English teacher. You know, I love storytelling,
So writing the book was definitely going to be on
the bucket list at some point. But when he told
me about podcasting, I remember saying to him, why would
I ever start a podcast? Podcasting for people who can't
get on the radio? Yeah, you know, and I was
doing more in the radio at the time. I think
I was two years in the Breakfast Club. But I
(07:25):
was like, you know what, I have been fired from
radio four times already, so it would be good to
have my own independent platform that you know, I control.
And I never I promise you the money never even
crossed my mind. I literally said to myself, and if
I get fired from Breakfast Club, at least I had
I'll still have a voice in the space.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
You were future perfan.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, And so when me and my guy Andrew Schultz
started to bring in his podcast literally twelve years ago,
we were just doing it because it was something fun
to do. We getting together with my guy every week
and we just you know, kicking the shit. And then
a check came, He's like, oh, and we can get
paid for this as well.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Wow, So you.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Know, we're kind of one of those podcasts at a
grandfather did because we've been around for so long. But yeah,
that's my mindset, Like what what what are you waiting for? Like,
you know, are you waiting for these platforms to push
you out?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
You know, are you waiting for you know.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
These platforms to get bought out by these corporate overlords
and say, hey, you don't fit what we're doing anymore. Like, yeah,
I don't know what they were waiting on to start
their own their own platform.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
It's scary if you've only come up in legacy media
and you've had the support that comes with having a
legal department, right producers and folks were setting this all
up for you. It's it's scary to think, how would
I do all this on my own and will I
still have an audience?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
You know what?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
That's that's very interesting that you said that, because that's
how I felt when I launched the podcast. When I
launched the podcast twelve years ago, that was my mindset.
I'm like, do people people even listen to me outside
of the radio, And I remember me and when me
and Andrew put up our first episode a brilliant it
was called a Star Shame Enterprise, and we were talking
about why we think shame is good right, and how
(09:07):
people don't have it anymore.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
But there's a power in being shamed.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And I remember it getting like fifty six thousand listens
in like the first few days, and it was at
the number one on the Apple Podcast charts, and I
was like, Oh, people do want to listen to me
outside of outside of radio.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
So that is that.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Is a real that is a real concern, but also
too but also too when you come from legacy media,
I think the thing that gives you, gives you a
leg up in the space is the fact we understand,
we truly understand the consequence of our words. Yes, I
think that we have all these conversations about free speech,
(09:46):
but free speech is not free. There is a price
to pay for every single thing that comes.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Out of your mouth.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
There are consequences to the words that come out of
your mouth. I'm somebody who's been you know, point just
in the back of the head. I'm somebody who's been too. Like,
there's there's things that happen, and I think I think
when you're ye death threats, and when you come from
legacy media, whether it's television or radio, you understand that.
So when we get on these podcasts or YouTube or
(10:15):
whatever we're on, we just understand that more than most.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And I think that keeps us. I don't think that
keeps us ahead of the curve.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Oh that's such a good point, because, yeah, when you're
used to a legal department looking over your shoulder and
saying I'm going to try to save you from a
defamation suit.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Here, that's right.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
You learn the consequences of that's what you say, what
you're right, what you do. So A, that's such a
good point. Okay, I want to go back. I always
(10:54):
like to ask what kind of kid were you?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
That's so funny because I was looking at this picture,
you know that sometimes on these websites they do they
do who is this? And somebody had put up a
little picture of me when I was I don't know how,
I was maybe six or seven, and my co host,
Jess Hilarius said, you look like a kid that used
to bite.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
They used to.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Bite us a kid, so specific, but very specific. So
I was, I was a very curious kid. I was
a kid who didn't necessarily understand.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
What was going on in their mind.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Like you know, if I had somebody around me who
understood anxiety back then the way I do now and
able to recognize that in my my kids, I would
have been way better off. Like I can remember my
first panic attack in second grade, getting dropped off of
memage of elementary school by my mom and just that
feeling of crying uncontrollably, heartbeating fast, scared to death and
(11:52):
don't even know why. And you know that was me
having a panic attack and nobody, nobody knew what was
wrong with me. Teachers is you know my mom, Like
nobody understood what was wrong with me.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
But that desire to I don't want to.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Say be anti social because I was social, but I
did pull back because I just always had like this
sort of innate fear of people. But that was the anxiety,
right that led me to always be reading the book.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Like I I was the guy that was going in
the library reading.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
All the Judy Bloom, all the Beverly Clearly, all the
books about UFOs, all the books about stop Squash.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Like that's how I would get lost.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
I would get lost by just baring my head, burying
my head in a book. So that just made me
a very curious person, and that curiosity has led me to,
you know, be in the position that I am today
because my mom used to always tell me read things
that don't necessarily pertain to you. And that's what made
me go read the Beverly Clearly and the Judy Bloom
(12:52):
and to just be a little curious about a bunch
of different things. And you know, that curiosity has you know,
got me to where I am today.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
You grew up in Monk's Corner, South Carolina.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Yes, my fellow Bravo fans, we know Monk's Corner for
a different reason.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
You're aware.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
No, Okay, Southern Charm is a show on Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Bravo.
It's set in Charleston, but one of the main original
characters grew up in Monk's Corner and we all got
to go to Monk's Corner and see where she is from.
Her name is Catherine Dennis. Has anyone made this connection
with you?
Speaker 1 (13:28):
No, I've heard of the show Southern John, but I
didn't know somebody on there was from Mouse Corner.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
From Monk's Corner.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
I mean, there's a big segment of the population in
this country who watches Bravo, who's very familiar with Monk's Corner,
which I'm sure you would say is a very small
town that most people haven't heard of.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
It is. You know, when I was growing up, the population.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
With seven thousand people, it's damn it doubled now to
maybe like thirteen fourteen thousand. But you know, yeah, it's
a small town, a small town living. I always say,
I laugh and joke because I say we're not as
small as other towns, just because we have every fast
food restaurant, every single fast food literally every fast food
restaurant you can think of, is in Monk's Corner, all
(14:09):
of them, from fire House, Subs, the Chick fil A
to the bol Jangles, the McDonald's.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Like we just in the last three years, we've just.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Started to lose fast food franchises like a Burger King
close down there and a Popeyes closed down there, but
we have everything else.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Okay, Well I found your Berkeley High school yearbook.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
You go by Larry in high school. That's your middle name.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yeah, yep, Lenard Larry. My dad's name was Larry. Is Larry?
Speaker 3 (14:39):
I have you here?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
That's me.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
That's when I thought I was a member of the
Wu Tang clan, because you know, I had the big
I had the big blowout, and I used to braid
it sometime and it being these crazy braid designs and
then I would let it out and to be the
big blowout.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
So I'm really intrigued by crossroads and people's lives. And
it seems like when you're young, maybe coming out of
high school, you have a crossroad where things could go
one way kind of in a bad direction, or things
could go another way. How would you describe that crossroad
in your life as a young person with a lot
(15:18):
of runway ahead of you, but maybe in danger of
making some bad choices.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
My crossroad was easy for me to navigate.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
And I'll tell you why I was easy for me
to navigate because I was able to see it long
before I got to it, because because of the life
my father lived. Right My father was a guy who
dealt with substance abuse issues. Later on, I felt that
he had a lot of mental health issues. You know,
he was a guy that was, you know, in and
out of jail for some for different things, usually related
(15:50):
to drugs, and he would always tell me that if
I didn't change my lifestyle, because all my behavior problems
started in school, and then that led me to get
kicked out of high school. And then I was in
the street, you know, selling drugs. Petty hustler, you know
what I mean, Like, yeah, petty drug dealer. And I
know nowhere no type of in no way, shape or
(16:11):
form like the petty super petty hustler, like getting two
hundred dollars and try to flip it to make four hundred,
like that type of petty hustler. But my dad used
to always tell me that if I don't change my lifestyle,
I'm gonna end up in jail, dead or broke, sitting
under the tree. And I remember reading when I was
younger that smart people learn from their own mistakes, but
wise people learn from the mistakes of others. And so
(16:32):
when I saw people around me actually ending up in jail,
people around me actually you know, getting killed, people around me,
you know that I used to look up to growing
up actually sitting under the tree, you know, broke, not
doing anything with their life, like that was a real reality.
And then when I started to have my own run
ins with the law, I was like, yo, my my
(16:53):
father is right. So I knew that I didn't get
these days back, like I knew that this day back
in nineteen ninety eight, ninety nine, I knew I was
never getting that back. And I knew whatever I wanted
to do five years from now, I had to start
doing now. And so that's when I was just like,
y'all can have this lifestyle. I didn't been to jail enough.
(17:16):
I'm on probation. I'm going to actually do what the
probation officer says and go get me a job. I'm
gonna go back to school, and you know, I'm gonna
stay on this path. And that's exactly what I did.
So it's like, you know, the crossroads was easy for
me to navigate because I had fair warning that they existed,
and I had fair warning what happens when you go
down those roads.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
And I saw other.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
People going down those roads, and I could look in
the distance and be like, oh, yeah, I'm not going
that route. And I had my dad's voice always in
my head saying, if you don't change your lifestyle, you're
gonna end up in jail, dead or broke, sitting under
the tree. Yeah, And that scared me. That scared me straight.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Basically, so good, Okay, describe the environment that is rare
video when you're coming up in it.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
What's it like and how is it different today?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Ooh man, it was the best of times. And I
started to say it was the best of times and
it was the worst of times.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
But there was nothing bad about it. It was just
like I think about I think about that all the time.
It was so pure fun and fun. It was just
a bunch of us trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
I don't even know what everybody else's desire was because
I didn't really have those conversations.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I knew what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I knew that when I was working overnights back in
nineteen you know, ninety nine, ninety eight, ninety nine, at
Z ninety three Jams, I would be in the studio
saying to myself, Yo, I want to be a super jock.
I want to be a Tom Joyner. I want to
be a Doug Banks, God blessed today. I want to
be at Howard Stern, like I want to be a
Wendy Williams and Angie Martinez a sway.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Like that's where my mind was at. Like I didn't
want to be a.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Local radio personality during the time and temperature, you know,
announcing the new you know, Drake record, Like that wasn't
what I wanted to do with myself. And so I
just think about those days working as the ninety three Jams,
or working at HOGH ninety eight nine with my gud
d nights, or working in Columbia, South Carolina at High
one O three nine and Big DM with my guy
DJ Frosty, And that's just making mixtapes, going to the
(19:22):
call wash to sell mixtapes, hosting parties like it was
just a grind. It was just a grind that prepared
me for everything that I'm doing now. And I learned
that's what's different between now and then. I think there's
a lot of people just jumping in the game with microphones,
but they're not learning anything but how we talked about
(19:42):
knowing the price of all words, or even knowing how
just to when the microphone comes on, how just to
do a good break right, Like I don't as long
as you've been doing it. See, we need producers, but
we don't necessarily need producers. We could get it going
if we wanted to write. So it's just like that
that's because of all of those years growing up in
South Carolina doing radio that prepared me for you know
(20:05):
where I am now.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Yeah, Wendy Williams has obviously been in the news a lot.
I'm on the outside of this. I don't know her.
It's hard for me to tell what's what. If she's
okay and being unfairly controlled, if she's not okay and
being taken advantage of. I don't know if you can
give us any insight, but like I can't make sense
of it, and I imagine most people watching from the
(20:30):
outside can't really make sense of where she's at.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Well.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
I mean, you know, she she knows she's being taken
advantage of. I mean, she's the one who started this,
you know campaign. She was just reaching out for help,
you know, like she had kind of been disconnected from
the outside world for a while, Like she didn't even
have a phone to reach people. And I think that
she can only you know, talk to people like once
a week or something like that. So it was when
she was able to you know, talk to people, reconnect
(20:56):
with people like myself, and you know, connect with other
people in media, like you know, was Ana Scatto and
Lady Jason Lee at Hollywood Unlocked that she was able to,
you know, get her story out, Harvey Levin at TMZ,
and so she was the one who was telling everybody like, yeah,
I'm in this conservative ship. She feels like she's being
taken advantage of. And I mean, I think it kind
of speaks for itself that, you know, once she was
(21:17):
able to tell her story and tell what was going on,
they started to loosen up the rains on her. Right,
they started the rains on her in her in a
real way. But as far as her medical diagnosis, when
I speak to her, she sounds fine. The tests for
dementia and everything say otherwise, But I haven't heard that,
(21:41):
you know, side of her. I haven't seen that. When
I talked to her, she seems, you know, like the
windy that I always knew.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Yeah, And I imagine you learned a lot from her.
With her, What was the things she did better than
anyone else show prep?
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Because what she taught me was everything is show prep,
meaning that your whole life is show prep. Like you
have to be willing to take everything that you're going through,
every experience, everybody you talk to, every moment is potential
content for when you're on the air, and that's really
how you make real you know, connections with people, right
(22:21):
like you know, when you when you're when you're out
there just living life, and that you'll hear comedians say
that a lot, like I've heard Chris Rock say that, like,
oh I got to go lift some life, and my
man Andrew ships like, oh I got to go lift
some life.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
And then I'm a.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Material that's US broadcasters every day.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
It's it's it's life, right, like.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Just going out there and experiencing the world and being
able to you know, share those things with people.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
And you know she would do that, she would live
her life.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
But then also you know, because you know, I was
with Wendy and O six every single magazine that was
on newsstands. I would watch her read every single culture
magazine name it, Okay, in Touch, you know, US US Weekly,
like she would National Acquirer. She'd just be read reading
them all like literally ripping pages out.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I'm gonna talk about this, I wanna talk about that.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
And she took that mixed in with her life and
she was able to go I was her only co
host ever. She was able to go on there and
just do her show every day Monday through Friday, five
hours a week, because everything was show prep. And the
other great piece of advice she gave me was, you're
you're either going to be of the industry or of
(23:28):
the people. You can't be both, you know, because because
you know, especially back then, you had your people that
were in the music game, you had people that were
in television. So it's kind of like a secret society, right,
and you know, they all had their uniformed way of
doing things, and they all went to their you know,
(23:49):
elite parties and you know parties amongst each other, and
you know, if there was a mole in the room,
like like like like there's somebody like a windy was
to come to a party, all of them was scattered
because that she would tell, like all of their business.
But you know, she basically was saying, don't ever lose
your connection with the people because the industry coming goals,
The industry is fleeting. These people that are in the
(24:11):
position of power and the industry are fleeting. These people
that are hot right now in the industry are heating,
are fleeting. With that connection that you have with people
will last, you know, for a lifetime.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Such good advice.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
And I think people outside of the business don't appreciate
the first part, which is that she would show up
on radio on television and you'd get this, she's just
gossiping with her girlfriends, like let's talk about this latest headline.
It looked so natural and like she had just heard something.
But it's only because of all the show prep and
like she had lived that it all was that easy.
(24:49):
And so many people, whether it was like Bethany or Chris,
tried to come onto the daytime talk space and be
that and do that and they don't realize hours and
out years go in to preparing that kind of show, and.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
That's who she really is.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Like I remember there was an episode of her TV
show where she was literally running late and she.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Came from her car right on set.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah, didn't get into no glam, didn't put no makeup on,
came out with her purse, and sat down and told
everybody the whole story of how she was late, why
she was late, she didn't have time to do glam
blah blah blah, and that was more interesting.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
It was unheard of, and that was more interesting than anything.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
That told her that she could have reported about in
the news that day.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Yes, so good. Okay, back to you.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Moving into a political space isn't always easy. It's real
fraught with land minds. You know that, And the industry
will tell you really quickly if you're not at it.
You move into politics, I think pretty naturally you become
hugely important as a voice and a platform for political
candidates to go to get their messages out to your audience.
(26:12):
How do you think you cultivated such an important space
to talk about politics.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
I honestly have no idea, because it wasn't intentional. Like
I said, my mother always told me to read things
that didn't pertain to me. I always was a curious person.
There was never a time I wasn't reading Source magazine
double XL, but also watching Larry King on CNN, like literally,
like I just used to like anybody that was in
the interviewing space I was watching. I was watching you know,
(26:39):
Diane Soyer, Barbara Walters, and I was watching them interview
people like Tredell Castro and interviewing you know, presidential candidates.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
So that always just seemed very natural to me.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Like I was listening to the rappers that were talking about,
you know, the conspiracy theories around and Ronald Reagan, or
you know, conspiracy theories surrounding the George W.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Bush. So that was all just very natural to me.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Bill Clinton on our Senior Hall playing the saxophone, I
didn't just watched that and and be like, damn, that's
Bill Clinton playing the saxphone.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
I knew who Bill Clinton was.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I knew he was the governor of Arkansas, and I
just thought that was cool that, you know, Arsenial Hall
had a politician on his.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
You know TV show playing the saxophone.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
So it's just like all of that, the intersectionality of
politics and hip hop and pop culture, that always just.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Seemed very natural to me.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
So there's never been a time in my radio career
ever that I did not sit down.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
And interview politicians.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
When I was in South Carolina, I would be talking,
you know, to the people that were running for local office.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
When I was in Philadelphia, you.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Know, I would be I had Mayor Nutter, and I
remember it was a day when they was calling it
doomsday in Philly and they were saying that all of
the libraries and the rec centers were going to get
shut down and they were going to cut up a
bunch of police because they were waiting on some type
of funding and literally the front page of the newspaper
said doomsday and Mary none that came to me. I
showed just to let everybody know, like, look, the funding
(28:02):
came through. Everything's gonna be fine. The city breathed a
sire relief. And yeah, that's always been.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
My ministry in a way.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
So even when I got on Breakfast Club and you know,
had the first political candidate that I remember coming on
Breakfast Club with Bacari sellers. But that's because Bakari was
running for lieutenant governor in South Carolina. Like that's where
I'm from. I've always done Bakar. I remember car used
to be in the clubs together. I'm older than member
he would be. He would be in the clubs together,
you know, back back in the day. So I remember him,
(28:35):
you know, being the youngest congressman in South Carolina history,
and I remember him running for lieutenant governor. He came
to Breakfast Club that was like twenty fourteen, and then
from that moment on he started telling everybody like yo,
y'all need to start going to Breakfast Club. I remember
after Bacari left, I remember that's when Hillary Clinton's people
started vetting me to see if they wanted to bring
(28:57):
Hillary on Breakfast Club. And then Angela I started coming
on Breakfast Club, and my man Killer Mike was running
around with Bernie Sanders, you know. I remember we went
to go interview Bernie Sanders in Columbia, South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
So all of that stuff was just natural.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Like everything I'm talking about right now is a connective tissue.
It's a bocari, it's a Killer Mike. Right then, then
Angela Rai started coming a lot around twenty sixteen, Like,
all of this stuff was just a very natural thing.
So it wasn't that I wasn't always into politics. It's
just like after those few things happened, all of the
(29:31):
politicians started wanting to come to Breakfast Club, especially the
Democrat one Democratic Democrat one.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Yeah, so who's been in politics? Who's given you the
best interview on your show?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Oh, that's a great question.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
I think you thought this person really did themselves a
favor by coming on this show.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I think Pete bouda judge, always does himself a favor
of coming on Breakfast Club. I distinctly remember his first
interview with us ever, when he was you know, the
mayor of a South bend in Indiana, and you know,
he was, uh, he threw his hat in the presidential
race way way back then, and I just thought he
he just was so honest, and he just gave a
(30:09):
great conversation. And I remember this one line he said.
He was like, you know, I don't know, I just
I don't even know. I was like, what do you
think about Chick fil A? Because I know he's a
gay man. And that's when Chick fil A was broad
and like homophobia controversy, and he was just like, I
loved that chicken, but hate their politics.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah. Yeah, that's just.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
An honest answer, Like yeah, but you know, most people
will get on and you know, grand standing like oh
Chick fil A horrible and blah.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Blah blah, Like I loved it. Who don't love Chick
fil A?
Speaker 1 (30:37):
So it's delicious, But I loved that chicken, but hate
their politics.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
And you know, then we had a similar We.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Had a similar conversation around Eminem, and he just was
breaking down how he you know, being a young white
man from the Midwest. He loved Eminem, you know, but yeah,
Eminem did have homophobic lyrics, but he didn't. It wasn't
a woke answer like he was, you know, damning Eminem.
He just was giving an honest answer about how that was.
It was conflicting for him, and I thought he did
(31:05):
a great job, and I think he always does. He
always does a great job because he never stops coming.
He never stops coming to breakfast club. Yeah, he was
there this year. So he's the person that comes even
when it's not an election cycle because he values our
audience and he just comes and talks to people. And
if he ever does run for a higher office president
in twenty twenty eight, I think it's going to do
(31:27):
him well that he never lost that connection with our audience.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Ye, and isn't expecting to parachute in every four years,
but just maintaining that connection. Who gave the worst, like
an interview that really didn't help them out?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Who gave the worst an interview that didn't really help him?
I don't know if I want to say President Biden,
but he still ended up winning the election that year.
That's when he Yeah, that's when he was with the
It was just an unnecessary controversy he caused, and he
was like, if you don't know whether to vote for
me or Trump, then you ain't black.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Yeah, right, I remember that was right.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Like that, that was just you know, that just was
a terrible week weeks of a new cycle for him
for no reason, unforsere unforced error. It was just unnecessary,
like you know. But I mean, he did end up
still winning the election. But I think that was the
beginning of people, not the beginning, because people that have
(32:29):
already been questioning the Democratic Party, and people already did
not believe in the Democratic Party, especially a lot of
black people, And that's why the line of questioning I
was hitting them with. That's what led to that if
you don't know whether to vote for me or Trump,
then you ain't black. You know, because I'm asking him
questions that I know a lot of people in the
black community, you know, wanted to know, and he didn't
(32:51):
really have a real substantive answer. That was his answer,
if you don't know whether to vote for me, then
you ain't black. So kind of fed into the oh,
y'all just feel like y'all entitled to the to the
black vote in the Democratic Party. Y'all, y'all just feel like, Oh,
there's no other options for black men.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
They have to they have to deal with us.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
And yeah, I think that that's kind of led to
the unraveling of the Democratic Party that you still see
even now.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
I agreed, And and I think you see that entitlement
with a lot of older Democrats in you know, political
seats that don't want to give them up and think,
you know, my seniority is more important than getting fresh blood.
Democrats are in a in a really rough place right now.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Should Kamala Harris run for president again?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
I don't know. I mean, that's that's a great question
I got.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I had the privilege of getting one hundred and seven
Days a couple of weeks ago, and I read it
and I thought it was a fantast degree. It's one
of the the better books I've read this year. And
I was thinking that when I was reading it, because
it's either two things are going to come from this.
Either she doesn't want to run again and she don't
(34:04):
care anymore, right, right, So that's why she you know,
that's right, that's why she put it all out there
the way that she did. But I think those bridges
need to be burnt. I've said, I've said that anybody
who wants to be the leader of the Democratic Party
now and the leader of the Democratic Party in the
future has to throw.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
That whole old regime under the bus.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
I read the original Sin by Jake Tapple in one
hundred and seven days just confirms a lot of the
things that they they talked about in the original Sin, Like,
you know, when she says things like, you know.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Joe Biden, Joe Biden.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Running again shouldn't have been left up to his ego.
You know, when you read soies about how her staff was,
I mean, the Biden staff was undermining her and not
wanting to put out any fires concerning her. When you
read things like President Biden calling her on the day
of the debate to make it all about him and
(35:00):
tell her about donors that aren't feeling her, And she
was like, don't you know I got a debate tonight,
You of all people know how stressful a debate is. Right,
Like to me, it's like damning to Biden, Like Biden's
legacy is shit, it's over. Like you, I don't even
want to hear nothing about President Biden because I got
a lot of different issues with President Biden. I don't
feel like we're in this position that we're in now
(35:20):
in this country, if it wasn't for President Biden, but
for her and for the whole party, it could be
a good thing. If people don't get in their feelings.
And I said this two weeks ago, and what am
I seeing this week? Everybody in their feelings, like I
rock with people to judge, Pete, you have no reason
to be in your feelings about what she said in
(35:41):
that book, because you know it's true.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
You know how difficult it how difficult it is for
a woman.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Of color with a Jewish husband to get elected president
and she's going to put a gay man on the ticket, Like,
what do you come on, Pete? That is nothing to
be upset about. That is the harsh truth politics of
the country that we in. It's politics. So you know,
if Democrats don't get in their feelings and they embrace
the truths that Kamala Harris is saying in this book,
(36:10):
I think it will be very good for the party
going forward because you have to throw the old regime,
the old way of doing things under the bus, and
she did that in one hundred and seven days. So
it's kind of like this could be the great reset
that the Democratic Party needs and they can rebuild on
(36:32):
a foundation of honesty and truth. You don't have to
lie to people anymore. Democrats are still playing, you know,
by rules that don't even exist. And you know who
got rid of the playbook? Who got I mean, you
know who got rid.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Of the rule book?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
They're Republicans, Magett, the Conservatives.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
The rules are out the window.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
So like, you know, it's like this respectability of politics
they play amongst each other, and there's disrespectability politics. They
think they have to play with the vote and the
voters are sitting back looking at them, like, y'all don't
see what's going on.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Y'all playing basketball.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
On a football field right now, y'all not even in
the same game as these people over here get in
the game. And I feel like that's what you know,
Kamala did with one hundred and seven days. So that
should she run again in twenty twenty eight, I honestly
truly don't know, but it is based on how this
book will be received and how she handles a lot
(37:28):
of the conversations around this book moving forward. Because I
saw her on Rachel Maddow last night and a couple
of answers look like she was moonwalking and I'm like,
why you moonwalking on that?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Like like I didn't mean it like that? Why what
you mean it? Mean it like that? It's in your book,
own it, exactly own it.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
So it's really just really it's really based on what
Kamala Harris she chooses to be from this point on
and what she chooses to show people, you know, over
the next year or so.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
There's more after the break with Charllemane the g.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
Before I get to a lightning round, I have to
talk to you a little bit about mental health, you know,
because I've talked about my mental health and my nervous breakdown,
my struggle with anxiety, my journey to recovery.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
And I say this over and over again.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
When people like you or Jalen Rose or Michael Phelps
talk about mental health, it's so impactful because I think
people are used to seeing and hearing women talk about
mental health in a way they're not with men, and
the stigmas and barriers to getting mental health help are
(38:50):
greater for men, and in particular men of color. So
when you talk about it, it's just so it moves
the needles so much. I hear that from people all
the time. What made you decide to be brave, to
be honest, and this was many years ago. This wasn't
reason for you and take that step and share your
(39:13):
journey with mental health.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
What gave you that kind of courage?
Speaker 1 (39:17):
I didn't even know I was being brave. I didn't
know I was even being honest. When I look back
on it now, it was almost like a cry for help.
Because when I started going to therapy back in twenty sixteen,
I started going because of my anxiety and because of
my bout of depression. But you know, you know, es see,
when you're sitting in that therapists share man, you start
to peel back those layers of you know, just just
(39:38):
trauma that you've experienced in your life.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
You start uncovering all types of things.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
And you know, I started realizing issues I had with
my father right like you know, and I started realizing,
you know, just a lack of self love I believe
I even had for myself. And so when I would
come on the radio and talk about going to therapy
every Friday at three o'clock, it became like a running joke.
(40:04):
But then people, you know, after some years, people were like,
I see something different, Like there's something different going on
with him, Like you know, it's like, yo, he's moving
a little different, he's talking a little different, Like I
see the change, you know. And that's because I was
on my healing journey. And so for me, that's literally
what it was. It was more so like a cry
(40:25):
for help and getting on the radio. Like I was
talking about with Wendy earlier, your life is show prepa.
So there was a period I can think of from
maybe twenty sixteen to probably like maybe twenty twenty, twenty
twenty one where I was just kind of in a
state of confusion only because all of these things I
(40:48):
thought I knew about myself, you know, all of this
stuff I had learned about myself over the years, I
was unlearning, so I didn't really understand this new version
of myself. It kind of felt like poverty again, right
Like it felt like, yeah, like I new, I got
a new walk about me. I'm a little bit taller,
right Like, I'm just trying to figure this this life
(41:11):
thing out. So it was just this confusing period from
like twenty sixteen to probably like twenty twenty. And that's
kind of why the pandemic was good in a lot
of ways. Yeah, because I think I needed that complete
stillness as opposed to trying to figure this thing out
in the midst of chaos and trying to sense that,
(41:33):
you know, trying to figure out this you know, this
this this life thing, this Oh man, I thought I
had that figured out, but I didn't.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
You know, It's a lot I had to, you know,
just sit down and deal with.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
And honestly, if I hadn't been going to therapy those
three years and there's something like COVID would have hit
who knows, Like I got friends that didn't make it
out of COVID, Like I got friends that decided enough
was enough, you know, resciuees to my my good sister
Jazz Waters. She was one that didn't make it out
of COVID. And I remember her tweeting. She tweeted out
one thing that COVID has taught me is I would
(42:06):
have jumped off the slave ship way before it got
to America.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
And then she was tweeting. She would tweet stuff like
I wonder what my next life would be like. So
when I changed out and she was hurting, and she
was somebody that was actually doing the work, like she
was also going to therapy and stuff too, but it
was just too overwhelming for her. For me, it was
kind of exactly what I needed, especially being coming off
those three years of intense therapy going once a week. Yeah,
(42:33):
And so I was just coming on air. I would
literally just come and telling my experiences. And next thing
I know, everybody was coming to me telling me about
how they deal with anxiety and they did about the depression,
and they started going to therapy because of me, or
they uncles started going to therapy, or they brother and
it was.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
A lot of women.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
It was a lot of women coming to me saying, man,
because of you, my husband, my brother, my son wants
to go to therapy. And it was just something that
became bigger than me. It wasn't even about you know
me anymore. It was just about me telling my story,
and that story was inspiring other people. And what made
it super inspiring to me was twenty eighteen, being at
(43:13):
home in Monks Corner, South Carolina, the week of Thanksgiving
and my dad calling me because I had just put
out my second book. My second book was called Shook One,
Anxiety playing tricks on Me, and I put that book
out in the midst of all the psychological confusion I
was experiencing because that was the business, right.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Like, my book agent was like, hey, you got to
come out with another book immediately. I put yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Because I put out my first book, Black Privilege, Opportunity
comes to those who created instant New York Times bestseller
was on the New York Times bestseller's list for.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Like the whole year, and so they just wanted another
book immediately.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
And I was like, Yo, unbeknownst to y'all, I'm been
in therapy since you know, twoenty and sixteen.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
I'm spent. I don't even know who I am no more.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
But me and my book agent have a real friend relationship,
saluthor Jan Miller, and so I just told her what
was really going on. And I said, man, I got
this journal of things that I'm learning and you know,
therapy about myself. And I sent her a couple of
things over and she was like, this would be really
powerful if you share it. And I was like, but no,
I'm not an expert. I'm just somebody with experiences. I
(44:20):
don't want to put a book out of our mental health.
And she had the idea to go get my man
doctor ish major and do like clinical correlations to the
things that I was talking about learning in therapy, and
we ended up putting it out and it became another
national bestseller, and that was another thing that people started to.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Pick up and read and you know, be inspired to
go on their own healing journey.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
And yeah, it just it really I see. You know,
I can't even really take any credit like it was intentional.
It was just me on my journey, sharing my experiences
with the platforms that I have.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Yeah, and I just fell into this space.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
Well, I know a lot of people are really glad
that you did, and me included. All right, let's get
to the lightning round. We both have personas for me.
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp and sie Cup are very similar people,
but there are some differences, Like I'm not as brave
(45:25):
in my personal life as I am in my public life.
Are there differences between Leonard McKelvey and Charlemagne the God?
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Not much now other than me saying Charlemagne the God
on the radio. There used to be they used to
be extremely Like, you know, Charlamagne was a character that
I created way way way way back in the day
when I was in you know, night school to protect
people from seeing the nard, you know, and so that
character even way before radio, I was you know, I
(45:53):
wanted to rap and all types of stuff. So Charlemagne
was literally a character I created who you know, kind
of it just was all about bravado and you know,
you know, not really not having no feelings when I'm
a cancer who's super sensitive and emotional to everything, you know,
And and it worked, it worked until it didn't. And
(46:16):
and when even when I say it didn't, it had
nothing to do professionally and everything to do personally. You know,
when you're just not happy with who you are as
a person, when you're just not happy with you know,
what you're presenting to people. You know, when your wife
is asking you, what the hell is your problem? You know,
(46:36):
like when you got kids now and you know what,
let me go figure this out. And you you know,
like I said, you start going to therapy and doing
that that work on yourself, and.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Char doesn't come to rescue you, your lenar, that's right,
And I got to deal with it all.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
So yeah, back in the day, there was definitely a separation. Now,
not not at all love that.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Who's a guest you've never interviewed, but you'd love to.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
That's a great question. But I honestly and the answer
I truly mean this is nobody. And the reason I
say nobody is because I got to interview the person.
If you had asked me this five years ago, my
answer would have been Judy Bloom. And since then I've
gotten to sit down and interview Judy Bloom and not
just interviewed Julie Blooms.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
She's a friend.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
You know. I've flound down to Key West a couple
of times, me and my wife just to go kick it,
you know, with her and her husband and go have dinner.
And you know, when Simon and Schuston did their one
hundred year anniversary, me and Judy Bloom did a presentation
on stage together. So it's like, I adore that woman.
So that was my dream interview and I got to
(47:41):
do that. So everything else is Gravy's great.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (47:45):
Is there anyone you'd be nervous to interview? I have
a couple like Martha Stewart scares me, Mariah Kerry scares me.
Speaker 3 (47:54):
I just I don't know that.
Speaker 4 (47:55):
I I think I'd be too nervous because I don't know.
They're very intimidating. Those two people are intimidating to.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Me, Does anyone make you nervous the thought of interviewing anyone?
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Fun fact, I'm always nervous before interviews, okay, you know,
just because like there's always a there's always a good
sense of a healthy anxiety depending on who the person is,
like always, right, like always, like there's figures that you
can meet that are larger than life and politics in
Hollywood and everybody else. So there's always a healthy sense
(48:28):
of anxiety that goes into you know, sitting down and
having a conversation with anybody. But you know, those nerves
quickly go out the window once the conversation starts, you know,
somebody like I've interviewed Mariah before. Mariah came in the
studio with her own lighting team, literally came in the
studio with her own lighting team, turned all the lights down,
and I said, Mariah, they're not gonna be able to
(48:49):
see us, and she was like, that's the whole point, darling,
you know. And what's crazy is we just had the
iHeartRadio Music Festival in Vegas, and you know they had
a uh interviews backstage, right, So, like different personalities would
interview different people backstage Maria sent her lighting team in
there and they had the restructure all the lights and everything.
(49:11):
So you know, when you're dealing with that level of icon,
that level of diva, yeah, you're going to have some nerves.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (49:20):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
What's the best movie about music?
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Ooh, best movie about music?
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Man? First thing that comes to mind is a Brown
Sugar starring Tay Diggs and Sinai Laythan. It was a
story about basically when when it was the first time
you fell in love with hip hop? But it was
rooted in the love story between Tay Diggs and Sinai
Laythan's character, I think Dre and Drey and Monica. I
(49:51):
think her name was Monica in the movie, but it
was Dre and Monica and it was it was rooted
heavily around hip hop. Yeah, that was when the movie starts.
It's literally like when did you first fall in love
with hip hop? But hip hop was like actually like
an analogy for the love story of between those two individuals,
who was like they knew each other since when they
(50:12):
were kids, so essentially they were asking, did when did
we first fall in.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Love with each other? You know?
Speaker 1 (50:18):
And so to me, it's a hip hop love story.
It's called it's an amazing film. It's called Brown Sugar,
So anybody can go watch it because it's not just
it's not about hip hop, but it is. Yeah, but
it's really just a love story between these two individuals.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
Great, who's the goat of broadcast?
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Man? That's tough, man.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
It's tough because there's so many different forms of broadcasts.
Like the first person that comes to mind for me
is P. D. Green, because I'm a radio guy.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
P D.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Green was a radio personality in Washington, d C. Basically
the company Radio One was built, you know, off his back.
They actually did a movie about P. D. Green where
Don Chito plays P. D.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Green. To Roger P. Hinson is in that movie.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
It's a fantastic film, and he is the person who
even inspired the Howard Sterns of the world. But to me,
Howard Stern is a goat broadcaster, right, So when you
talk radio, for me, it's the P. D. Greens, the
Howard Sterns, the Wendy Williams and Angie Martinez.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
Is you know. But then you you know, you got
to put in the people.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
You got to you gotta say people like Rush Limbaugh
is even if you didn't agree with his politics, what
he was able to do, you know, as a conservative
talk radio host, the audience.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
He was able to build.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
Like there's a whole ecosystem of conservative talk show hosts
right now that live online that I guarantee you were
directly influenced by Russian You look at when you look
at the Sean Hannity's and Bill O'Reilly's and all of
them on that they were absolutely influenced, you know, by
a Rush Limbaugh. So I don't have to agree with
(51:59):
somebody's politics to you know, put them in the gold category.
But then when you go to television, the Larry Kings
of the World, Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters, Oprah Winfrey like
like oh man, Like it's just like these people actually
shifted culture with their conversations, you know, they they shifted
(52:21):
the way people think with their conversations. I know people
don't necessarily put this person as a broadcaster, but I
look at somebody like a Joan Rivers.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
You know, I look at somebody like so many barriers broke,
so many.
Speaker 1 (52:35):
Barriers are senior Hall in late night to me, you know,
as a television broadcaster, like these people like you can't.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
There is no one gold broadcaster. It's just a pastor.
You know. I got my favorites. My favorite is definitely P. D. Green. Yeah,
but I can't say. I can't say.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
He's the gold because it's just too many people. There's
too many ghats out there, too many.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
Okay, okay, uh, award shows keep or cancel?
Speaker 1 (53:10):
Keep, but keep what expand meaning that you know, I
like that the Golden Globes is including podcasts now. I
think the Emmys are including podcasts, Like you just have
to if you're going to do these award shows, you
just have to embrace this new era that we're in.
Modern Yeah, you gotta modernize, you know, TV radio, Like
(53:31):
those aren't the only games in town anymore. So if
you modernize these award shows, then yes, keep them right, Like,
you can't just have award shows that just you know,
highlight certain areas because you'll miss so much certain industries,
because you'll miss so much, Like you have to give
it up for some of these YouTubers and some of
these podcasters that are having you know, real influence. Because
(53:53):
the truth to the matter is where do you put
somebody like a Joe Rogan in a traditional award show.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
Yeah, you know, he's not on TV, he's not on radio.
But you're not gonna sit here and tell me that
he's not shouldn't be winning awards.
Speaker 1 (54:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
So it's just like, yeah, modernized, modernize them, and you
can keep them.
Speaker 3 (54:11):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (54:11):
The last question is very important to me. We ask
it at the end of every podcast. The question is
when is it iced coffee season?
Speaker 1 (54:21):
Never for me because I'm black toes intolerant, so you know,
but you can have it black. Hey, I'm man, No
coffee runs right through me, like like coffee runs right
through me. So it's ice coffee season is absolutely positively
never for me. I see people drinking ice coffee in
the summer and I'm like disgusted. Like my daughter and
(54:43):
my wife, My wife loves coffee period both. Now my
daughter does too, she hits that from her mom, but
they also like ice coffee, and I just think it's
the wide I think about what it does to me,
and I'm like, you really want to be walking around
with the bubble guts in this heat?
Speaker 2 (54:56):
Like I like, nah, I don't do ice call at all.
Speaker 4 (55:02):
This This question stands undefeated as the most revealing question
because you know, we get all kinds of answers. It's
that's the wrong answer, the wrong The right answer is
you're round, You're round, okay, But that's because I'm a
new Englander who grew up on Duncan and I have
iced coffee in the middle of winter.
Speaker 3 (55:20):
It's all I drink.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
Oh got you, got you? Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
It is not. I can't have any coffees, but definitely
not ice coffees. Absolutely not.
Speaker 4 (55:30):
Well, Luckily, I like you so much and you you
gave me this platform, so I can't be too mad
at you. But Charlamaine the God, thank you so much
for for everything, but also for coming on this podcast and.
Speaker 3 (55:43):
Being our season two premiere guest.
Speaker 1 (55:45):
I really, oh wow, thank you, Sci. I really appreciate
you having me man. I'm serious, like, you are such
a necessary voice. I love seeing seeing you on CNN,
you know, cutting ass on those panels. I love, you know,
listening to your podcast because you know you are man like.
There's not too many really honest voices left that are
(56:07):
willing to call out, you know, both sides of the
ale and just speak.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
For what is going on in America, and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (56:16):
I appreciate you. Coming up next week.
Speaker 4 (56:21):
On Off the Cup, I talked to Mindy Khne, star
of Paon Royale and.
Speaker 3 (56:25):
The Facts of Life.
Speaker 5 (56:26):
This is gonna sound terrible and I don't I really
don't mean it how it's gonna come out. But I
was ready to have Natalie dide for a little while,
right like put her up, put a bow on it.
Speaker 2 (56:37):
We love her?
Speaker 3 (56:38):
But what else? What else do you have for me? World?
Speaker 4 (56:46):
Off the Cup is a production of iHeart Podcasts as
part of the Reason Choice Network.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
If you want more, check out the other Reason.
Speaker 4 (56:52):
Choice podcasts, Politics with Jamel Hill and Native Land Pod.
Speaker 3 (56:57):
For Off the Cup, I'm your host, Si Cup. Editing
and sound design by Derek Clements.
Speaker 4 (57:01):
Our executive producers are me Se cop Lauren Hanson, and
Lindsay Hoffman. Rate and review wherever you get your podcasts,
Follow or subscribe for new episodes every Wednesday,
Host
S.E. Cupp
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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.