December 19, 2024 • 25 mins
"That Moment With Daymond John" brought the fire this year! Part 1 with Sway, Josh Peck, Nore & Gary Brecka is a must-listen. Tune in now!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Piece of the planet, Charlamagne to God here and as
we come closer to closing out this year, I just
want to say thank you for tuning into the Black
Effect podcast Network. There have been so many great moments
over the past year. Take a listen to some of
those captivating moments. In this special best of episode.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
My team and I only had a good idea, why
don't I actually interview sway.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Ah No, who told you that was a good idea?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Though? One of the millennials and one of the millennials
around myself with a bunch of Malmi modes. Okay, have
you been interview before? I'm sure you have.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I've been asked a lot of questions before, but not
I've been an interview. But you know, let's see what
you will? You do this for a living? Is he
kind of controlled the narrative, right, you know when someone
is interviewing you. So I very seldom let my hair down,
so to speak, you know, in the interview, as I
(00:52):
would with you.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
If you ask me a question, I definitely I definitely
appreciate that. Yeah, so good.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
So I'm gonna ask you a.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Couple of questions, and I think that maybe I've been
curious about. So a lot of people may or may
not know your history. Can you tell me just a
little bit about where you started and you know, before
becoming a.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
As a broadcast.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, I don't speak a lot about the history. In
high school, I met my partner, DJ King Tech who
and he and I both were just fans of music.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
You know.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I grew up playing instruments. I played the saxophone. I
played the clarinet. I played the bass clarinet. He just
grew up a music lover and got into deep boy
coaching and used to break dance in the Oakland Bay area.
I'm from Oakland, he was from Hayward. We had a
mutual friend who introduced us. Friend I grew up running
track with and he grew up dancing with. And that
(01:46):
friend took a different path after he introduced us. He
went more of a street path, you know, he went
into the streets basically, you know, which left two strangers
who had a single idea of becoming a rap group.
And like anyone else who was in high school, you know,
LLL was somebody we idolized, and you know, you know,
(02:07):
Kumo D and all these guys. But we were from
the Bay and we started making music. The way we
did it is we saved up money and bought equipment.
One of the first keyboards we bought was from shock
g from Digital Underground. One of the first drum sequences
we bought Digital Underground had money be Tupac Shakor for
(02:28):
fear of DJ fusing it. And we started making this music.
I didn't sound like a guy from Oakland, you know,
at that time you had too shortened others coming from Oakland.
I was more of a guy who was trying to
flip syllables, you know, big Daddy Kane with somebody I liked.
And so it took us a long time to really
kind of find a home at home, and we had
(02:51):
a lot of doors slammed in our faces.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
We were shopping record deals, and.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
When we came to New York, where the most of
the business was we I was from open but I
didn't sound like a New York MC and we were
told you'll never make it.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
You'll never make it, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
And so we came home and she tried to figure out,
how can we get our music out if nobody's going
to give us a chance? And San Francisco State, you know,
when we were in the high school off of these
extra extended curriculum courses on the law aspects of the
music business. And it was taught by a guy by
the name of Ralph Tajean who was an attorney, active
(03:27):
attorney in the music business. And all you have to
do is pay a little bit of money you could
take these courses. So I didn't know where it would
lead me, but I went and took this course, and
in the process, this attorney started breaking down, well, this
is how distribution works, all right, this is how marketing works.
This is our promo system. He broke down the system
and he created He showed us the infrastructure on how
(03:50):
record labels do their business. And my partner Tech and
I were like, man, well look if we can't get
anybody else to do it for us. He was working
at Doominals. I was working a place called quick Ways,
a burger joint exclusive to opening. Let's save up our
money and do it ourselves. And we saved up money
(04:10):
and we worked out of this studio, sixteen track studio
and called Artevires. His guy named Andro and he Earnst.
He was the engineer, and he ended up allowing us
to come to utilize the studio. We didn't have enough
money to pay them, so we worked in this studio
and with the time, he compensated us with time instead
(04:32):
of in money, and from there we were able to
make our first demo tape and then create our first
laquer that we were able to burn vinyl with. With
this company called Rainbow Records, which is independent, we made
cassette tapes. We made a minimum amount of cassette tapes,
(04:53):
we made a minimum amount of vinyl, and we wanted CDs.
Was still kind of like a Beath technology back, you know.
So we were put those things out to see what
would happen, if people will respond. What year was that,
This was eighty nine, eighty eight, eighty nine, about eighty eight, Yeah,
and we put it out to see how people will react,
(05:16):
and immediately we start doing these things. We do not
even know what a assignment deal was, you know, And
we would go to these stores and say, yeah, man,
just leave it here, come back in thirty days and
we'll pay you what'll we sell.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Really, that's how it works.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah, So we'll leave fifty cassettes there in thirty days,
you know, thirty of them will sell and they would
pay us partial payments. It's like, well, but you're not
going to pay for the whole thirty Well if you
if you reshow for us with more product, then we'll
pay you for the first back. And then and there
I started learning about the inner workings of the music business.
(05:52):
Really yeah, if you keep feeding the system, the system
of keep feeding you, feeding you, feeding you.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Listen, I want to CEMBC thirty to forty times a week.
I've been on ABC fifth ABC for fifteen years. I
a one point four million followers and you've got seventeen million,
So you know, I'm the Kardashians of CNBC and you
have more. So then why would you turn around and
sit there at that point and reflect and say it
was the was the was the change of what you
(06:22):
deem success or maybe a bad abbot saying I'm a
dad and I want to be taken seriously. I'm an actor.
I've done it a long time like this, because you know,
there's a lot of singers who will nobody will take
them seriously for a pop song, but they've sang some
of the greatest uh uh you know, operas or movie
(06:42):
songs ever. And the reason why they're not taken serious
here or lightly here because it's so great here.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
How dare you question yourself?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I think that is the question.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
Certainly, I think if I'm speaking to my lower desires
or my ego. My ego wanted to be respected. My
ego wanted to not only be seen as the child
star in quotes. My ego wanted you to take me
seriously and not just see me as like the sticky
comedic guy, the sitcom guy.
Speaker 6 (07:16):
But my capital tea truth, Like, the thing that I
know to be true about me.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
Is that I'm just an acting nerd, and I love
great movies, and I love great theater and great TV.
And I knew that I wasn't getting the opportunity to
work with that kind of material and those kind of
great filmmakers and collaborators. So you know, a lot of
people ask me, you know, you're sitting there and you're
(07:40):
in a scene with Killian Murphy and being directed by
Christopher Nolan, were you terrified? And I said, you know,
it was one of the few moments where life really
made sense.
Speaker 6 (07:51):
It just was the thing that I had wanted and
operating on that level. And I'd love to hear from
you and Damon when you're with people that are that exceptional.
It feels natural. There's no second guessing because you know
it's right.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I don't think I've ever been really I don't think
that common has ever been positioned that way. You're right
when you know I put up I was on a
social I put up a social media post last night. Literally,
I was happening to be someplace, and it was we
had a late brunch and uh Nori from Queens a rapper.
(08:26):
What has oh yeah legend, Yeah he has a drink
chance And I'm know Nori twenty five years. Fat Joe
shows up. I know Joe thirty years. We've been in
rooms for literally thirty years off and on, and we
you know, we're kids from the kids from the hood.
Now Nori smokes. Bob Marley would look at moreco right,
(08:50):
he smokes so much. Bet Joe biggest dookie talker in history.
And he's fat Joe.
Speaker 6 (08:58):
He's o zeenpic Joe.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Now, let's be honest.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
He looks great, he looks he looked great, he looks great.
I'm cool, I'm I'm I'm myself with my fifteen, twenty
twenty five year old lingos. So it's coming out. I'm
talking like I'm back in the litter. I'm not drinking.
I'm talking like I'm back there. But it feels right
in a certain room, whether I'm acting, and whether I'm
in the room with Kevin O'Leary and and Cuban and
(09:20):
we're in a we're in a room talking about real,
real matters of the United Nations, or in front of
presidents when they want to address us about economic development.
You know, rights of people and how how do how
do they stimulate certain things? When when you're in the
right room with the right people, it feels like the
(09:41):
right thing because you're not having to feel like anybody else.
You feel like I'm doing the best I can in
this room. My guards are down because my talent is here,
whether it is my whether it is my talking about
equities and finance and you know, the everyday blue collar
worker who needs a hand, or whether I'm talking about
hip hop and queens and whatever cases, or you're in
(10:02):
a room with a family. So I agree upon that.
I think the question arises that how many times have
you not felt like that in a room? And the
moment is that you said you don't need to be
in rooms like that I think.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Maybe that's the question.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I find.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
I only have real impostor syndrome when I'm an impostor,
like when I've done the work and I feel confident
in that work. Granted there's a little bit of luck
is involved. I mean, especially with what I do. Right,
it's not a solo act. Right, it's not playing an instrument,
it's not painting a picture. Acting artistry. It is the
(10:43):
ultimate team effort, and you have to pray that all
the pieces come together. But regardless, it's it's a moment
in which you're there and you have to let go
to a certain extent. And yet the way I show
up now is I go, I know I've done the
work that this requires. I've done the forensic, the not
(11:06):
cute shit. You know, all we ever.
Speaker 7 (11:08):
See is in a movie is the drunken writer who
you know, fills up his glass of wine and he's
having the keys all night and suddenly the masterpiece comes out.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
But what really happens is it's ten months of index cards.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
And long walks and naps and calling your mom, Am,
I enough, maybe I should just return the advance.
Speaker 6 (11:30):
You know, it's all that leg work.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
But if you do the.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Work required you get to show up on the day
feeling red, feeling read, feeling read.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
We started practicing the same type of way the night
before or the or the week before, selling hats on
the corner. We were just in the mirrors, selling to ourselves.
A lot of people think when that more comes, because
you said you were you had those rhymes ready, Yeah,
you going in the studio, and I would think of
the nationally you know, let me right right there to
the beat, you know what I mean, I gotta get
(12:10):
in between.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
NOAs and this guy? How How did what would you say?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
That always been your life of saying I'm gonna practice
way before that moment comes in every single thing? Or
was just that your wrap or your excuse me, your
musical you know, discipline?
Speaker 4 (12:25):
What was you know?
Speaker 8 (12:28):
I have no music background, like, I never went to
school for that, and I didn't feel as smart as
everyone else, so I knew it had to outwork everyone else.
So like, so I used to say, you got a
better product than me, Yeah, you got a better client,
(12:50):
tell than me, But you ain't gonna stay outside as
long as me.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
I'm gonna put it in that work.
Speaker 8 (12:56):
You're gonna seem like you just said the other day,
you see me in a car bone, And I was
still there because I'm gonna put it in that work.
Whatever I do, I want to do it to the fullest.
So what I would want to do with us I
used to notice was one of the things in my contract,
my first contract was we had like hundreds of thousands
in studio expenses, and I would be like, how the
(13:18):
hell is that the case if we're only there in
a couple of hours. But what I didn't though, was
componing trash wouldn't do what I was doing at this time.
I was going write in recording.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
They would hold it the whole day and come in.
Speaker 8 (13:33):
I didn't want girls in the studio. I didn't want
alcohol in the studio. I didn't want anything to defer me.
So one of the things that I learned from that
contract was I was in a hole because of the studio.
So basically I was messing up money. That was my
first rule. You ain't writing rhymes in the studio no more.
(13:55):
You're gonna have You're gonna have to shits all in
your heads. And I was five percent at the time,
so me rememborizing, my memory was sharp as hall right,
right right, And that's how I went about life.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
And so for those who understand, understand what five percent
is out there is that when you know people would
ask you what today's man or what is today? You know,
what is the scripture the or the knowledge of today?
The guys would walk up to you and say, what
is the you know, recite what is today?
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Five percent?
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Save me?
Speaker 4 (14:25):
I had? I had.
Speaker 8 (14:27):
I went from a third grade education to uh to
a twelfth grade education in a year because of me
being five percent. I was reading books, I did, I
did everything to get there. And then what I started
to notice is my memory got shot. But I started
using my memory for rhymes instead of lessons.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Right and so so so for for people listening, like
my wife who's extremely white, will say what is she
doesn't try to be anything else, honey, what is a
five percent? And so honey, that is when Non said
He's God, the God you know, So just so you know.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
I'm to say the truth.
Speaker 8 (15:07):
At that time for young black man, Yeah, that was
the route to go. Like right now, I see gangs
in New York City and I wish the guards existed.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Because the guards were about education and still and still are.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
That's will beat you up though they were.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Getting you up in a way of listen, you're doing
wrong for the community. This is what you need to do,
all right and absolutely so. So all right, so now
we're going into you learning these things. But what I
want to understand is that you can't necessarily have that
passion because whether Carl and I will break dancing, and
by the way, you know that it helped us a
lot because Larry introduced us to certain people and later
on it would help us down the road we didn't
know to beget as a breakdancer.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
It would work for us later on.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
But what about somebody who's not who is practicing in
that mirror, whether it's pitching to be able to find
a date, pitching to a professor or and or somebody.
What if they don't have that did it? Anytime you
were you were doing something that you were like, I'm
not feeling it, you know, the wrap the wrap thing
I'm feeling. But you know what I was pitching trying
(16:11):
to I don't know, be part of the chess club.
I don't give a shit what it is. I'm not
feeling it. I'm not I'm not wanting to put the
work and when you don't feel it, do you go
I'm not right and I should do it because this
is what I'm supposed to do. Or should you trust
your gut and say I got to put the energy
somewhere else. When do you get deterred of doing that? Overdoing?
(16:35):
Was I wanted to be? I wanted to be. I
wanted to be one of the best. But what about
anything else? Did you try?
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Is that? Was that it?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
And you just you just because maybe you hit that
vein of gold? I found. I found that I always
was excited about pitching any form of selling, whether it
was selling a shovel of your snow, selling those hats,
selling to get car parts, uh for you know, an
auction car that I bought they were broken up that
I tried to sell, telling to get you on my
dollar van. I was always excited about telling you something
(17:04):
that I'm selling. Was that just what it was?
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Well me? I started to understand.
Speaker 8 (17:10):
I started to understand failure and to understand failure as
experience and not as a loss.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (17:19):
The War Report album was critically acclaim for Mike's and
a source and I'm still selling crack.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
And Gary's one of the fastest growing educators of personalities
in the country due to the fact that he takes
care of Tom Brady and the Dana White. Are you
Joe Rogan? You take your Joe or no? People who
(17:49):
are at the extreme Gary's history, I don't recall it well,
and I'm not gonna I'm gonna try to only take
ten fifteen minutes of his time, and I'll tell you
the trade off. I've been where Gary is now, and
many of us have. I can't get my vitamins for
like two months because Gary is on a rocket ship.
(18:13):
And Gary is just like every one of us entrepreneurs.
But it's even he's even. You know, when somebody got
a bad shirt from me, I really wanted to take
care of him.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
When Gary takes care of somebody and they call him,
he stops everything.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
You were a mortality expert, meaning that an insurance company
had you on board, so you can tell when a
person would potentially die, or how close was it to death,
or the date or the timing it was.
Speaker 9 (18:48):
So if we got ten years of medical records on
you and ten years of demographic data, we could tell
the insurance company how long you had to live to
the month. It's scary It's really some of the most
accurate science in the world. I mean, I get a
lot of flack about it. But if you if you
look at the variable basic table twenty eighteen, twenty twenty one,
(19:10):
or even just state, take a step back you and
you wonder how how good are life insurance companies and
annuity companies at predicting death. You could look at what
happened during the two thousand and eight two thousand and
nine financial services crisis, when we had three hundred and
sixty four banks fail, but we didn't have a single
life insurance company fail. I mean, there's some of the
most solvent institutions in the world, and yet they take
(19:32):
hyper concentrated risk on a single variable, right, I mean
doublet I worked in a jumbo life division, so most
of our policies were we were ensuring lives that were
twenty five to fifty million, eighty million, one hundred million
dollar policies. And when you when you take that kind
of risk, you know you need to be accurate because
the only thing that matters is how many more months
(19:54):
that person has left on earth. And I always say
that if the database that I had access to when
I was working in the mortality space could see the
light of day, it would permanently change the face of humanity.
It would upend modern medicine in a way that would
be catastrophic. That's why it will never see the light
of day. Because insurance companies have data. Annuity companies have
(20:18):
data that no other financial services enterprise has, no collegiate university,
not even the federal government. Because they know the day,
the date, the time, the location, and the cause of
death for three hundred and seventy million lives. And they
not only know the day, day, time, location and cause
of death, but they also have that person's medical records,
and they usually have the beginning and the end destination
(20:40):
medical records. And they also have an extraordinary amount of
personal demographic data. I don't know if you've ever applied
for a large life insurance policy, but it's a pretty
invasive process. If you have a divorce degree, if you
have a trust, if your will, if you have a
bank's brokerage counts. I mean, it's an extraordinarily deep into
(21:00):
the you know, most personal part of your life, not
just your health history, but your financial history. And then
we were allowed as mortality experts to get one blood
test and asked for anything that we wanted, and we
were allowed to get a gene test and asked for
anything that we wanted, and based on that, we could
hone in on mortality incredibly accurately. I didn't know that's
(21:25):
why I came here to talk about today, but it
seemed like a little morbid opening there.
Speaker 8 (21:31):
I really took a nosed.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Dive from I think, I think it's fascinating. We are
entrepreneurs and we hack businesses. You hack life, right, And
I think because I was fascinating, it was it because
and I remember, you have looked at some people that
I know that you'll work, would have said this person
almost had what they would think would be cerebral palsy
(21:54):
or something like that. And you, because we were talking you,
it was pretty simple. You said, it's art. Medicine is
in art. You're not a PhD. But you're a scientist,
and the way that you look at things is because
you even all right, let me give you an example.
My wife had had Lopez slash Hashimoto. We don't know
(22:15):
what it was. For years, she went to everybody. He
casually wasn't even addressing that he gave her some thyroid
something for a pill whatever. And finally when she got
to a doctor it was about fifteen years right after him,
they said, who gave you this? She's like, oh, you know,
some somebody work. But he was like, he indicated something
(22:37):
that we've been looking for for fifteen years.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Who the fuck gave you this? And he just gave
that in passing.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
I remember there was another person I talked to and
they said they almost couldn't barely walk. Can you remember
this person? He almost had like sereal palsy year Parkinson's right,
And you found something in there, and I'll let you
say what it was, because they he had it for years,
six years, six years, could barely walk. Everybody's seen them.
What did you find in there?
Speaker 9 (23:06):
It was an elevated that there's a part of the
white blood cell counts is something called immature granular sites
and BESA phills, and these are only elevated when you
have chronic, low grade viral infections. And so you're looking
back at the I used to read medical records for
a living. I'm not a physician, by the way, so
I'm not licensed to practice medicine. But I went back
and looked at his medical record and I noticed that
(23:30):
he had had this elevated granular site in Besa phil
from the time that he was diagnosed until the time
that he actually came to work with me.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
And I asked him, I.
Speaker 9 (23:39):
Said, have you shown this to your neurologist and he said, yeah,
I showed it to him, and he he didn't know
why it was elevated, so we just he just threw
it out and I said, well, you know, it's not
really what we do in medicine, and so I said,
the next time you come into town, I think we
should pull a full viral panel on you. And so
(24:00):
we pulled into a full viral panel and as it
turns out, it was the highest West Nile tighter that
the lab had ever seen, and so the reason why
it was unresponsible to Parkinson's medication. So the reason why
I was diagnosed with Parkinson's. If you look at the
parallel symptomology between Parkinson's disease and West Nile you'll see
that they're superimposable. Right. Flexer dystonia starts off with a
pill rolling tremor, flat affect, flattening of mood, depressive like symptoms,
(24:25):
shuffling gait, and eventually you get this flexi dystonia where
you just kind of start to curl in on yourself.
And I happened to be. It happened to be the
day that I got the message from the neurologist that
you were there in my unit, I think, and so
I read it to Damon. I didn't tell him the
(24:45):
patient was. But as it turns out, you know, as
the viral load came down, his mood stabilized, his CT improved,
his CT scan of the brain improved, His flexure dystonia
went away, His pill rolling tremor was gone. He walks
without a kine right now. He's fully upright that that
that Western heal virus is and remission it, remission it,
(25:06):
remission mission.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Once again, thank you for tuning into the Black Effect
Podcast Network. Seeing you in twenty twenty five from more
great moments from your favorite podcast
Piece of the planet, Charlamagne to God here and as
we come closer to closing out this year, I just
want to say thank you for tuning into the Black
Effect podcast Network. There have been so many great moments
over the past year. Take a listen to some of
those captivating moments. In this special best of episode.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
My team and I only had a good idea, why
don't I actually interview sway.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Ah No, who told you that was a good idea?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Though? One of the millennials and one of the millennials
around myself with a bunch of Malmi modes. Okay, have
you been interview before? I'm sure you have.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I've been asked a lot of questions before, but not
I've been an interview. But you know, let's see what
you will? You do this for a living? Is he
kind of controlled the narrative, right, you know when someone
is interviewing you. So I very seldom let my hair down,
so to speak, you know, in the interview, as I
(00:52):
would with you.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
If you ask me a question, I definitely I definitely
appreciate that. Yeah, so good.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
So I'm gonna ask you a.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Couple of questions, and I think that maybe I've been
curious about. So a lot of people may or may
not know your history. Can you tell me just a
little bit about where you started and you know, before
becoming a.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
As a broadcast.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, I don't speak a lot about the history. In
high school, I met my partner, DJ King Tech who
and he and I both were just fans of music.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
You know.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I grew up playing instruments. I played the saxophone. I
played the clarinet. I played the bass clarinet. He just
grew up a music lover and got into deep boy
coaching and used to break dance in the Oakland Bay area.
I'm from Oakland, he was from Hayward. We had a
mutual friend who introduced us. Friend I grew up running
track with and he grew up dancing with. And that
(01:46):
friend took a different path after he introduced us. He
went more of a street path, you know, he went
into the streets basically, you know, which left two strangers
who had a single idea of becoming a rap group.
And like anyone else who was in high school, you know,
LLL was somebody we idolized, and you know, you know,
(02:07):
Kumo D and all these guys. But we were from
the Bay and we started making music. The way we
did it is we saved up money and bought equipment.
One of the first keyboards we bought was from shock
g from Digital Underground. One of the first drum sequences
we bought Digital Underground had money be Tupac Shakor for
(02:28):
fear of DJ fusing it. And we started making this music.
I didn't sound like a guy from Oakland, you know,
at that time you had too shortened others coming from Oakland.
I was more of a guy who was trying to
flip syllables, you know, big Daddy Kane with somebody I liked.
And so it took us a long time to really
kind of find a home at home, and we had
(02:51):
a lot of doors slammed in our faces.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
We were shopping record deals, and.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
When we came to New York, where the most of
the business was we I was from open but I
didn't sound like a New York MC and we were
told you'll never make it.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
You'll never make it, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
And so we came home and she tried to figure out,
how can we get our music out if nobody's going
to give us a chance? And San Francisco State, you know,
when we were in the high school off of these
extra extended curriculum courses on the law aspects of the
music business. And it was taught by a guy by
the name of Ralph Tajean who was an attorney, active
(03:27):
attorney in the music business. And all you have to
do is pay a little bit of money you could
take these courses. So I didn't know where it would
lead me, but I went and took this course, and
in the process, this attorney started breaking down, well, this
is how distribution works, all right, this is how marketing works.
This is our promo system. He broke down the system
and he created He showed us the infrastructure on how
(03:50):
record labels do their business. And my partner Tech and
I were like, man, well look if we can't get
anybody else to do it for us. He was working
at Doominals. I was working a place called quick Ways,
a burger joint exclusive to opening. Let's save up our
money and do it ourselves. And we saved up money
(04:10):
and we worked out of this studio, sixteen track studio
and called Artevires. His guy named Andro and he Earnst.
He was the engineer, and he ended up allowing us
to come to utilize the studio. We didn't have enough
money to pay them, so we worked in this studio
and with the time, he compensated us with time instead
(04:32):
of in money, and from there we were able to
make our first demo tape and then create our first
laquer that we were able to burn vinyl with. With
this company called Rainbow Records, which is independent, we made
cassette tapes. We made a minimum amount of cassette tapes,
(04:53):
we made a minimum amount of vinyl, and we wanted CDs.
Was still kind of like a Beath technology back, you know.
So we were put those things out to see what
would happen, if people will respond. What year was that,
This was eighty nine, eighty eight, eighty nine, about eighty eight, Yeah,
and we put it out to see how people will react,
(05:16):
and immediately we start doing these things. We do not
even know what a assignment deal was, you know, And
we would go to these stores and say, yeah, man,
just leave it here, come back in thirty days and
we'll pay you what'll we sell.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Really, that's how it works.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah, So we'll leave fifty cassettes there in thirty days,
you know, thirty of them will sell and they would
pay us partial payments. It's like, well, but you're not
going to pay for the whole thirty Well if you
if you reshow for us with more product, then we'll
pay you for the first back. And then and there
I started learning about the inner workings of the music business.
(05:52):
Really yeah, if you keep feeding the system, the system
of keep feeding you, feeding you, feeding you.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Listen, I want to CEMBC thirty to forty times a week.
I've been on ABC fifth ABC for fifteen years. I
a one point four million followers and you've got seventeen million,
So you know, I'm the Kardashians of CNBC and you
have more. So then why would you turn around and
sit there at that point and reflect and say it
was the was the was the change of what you
(06:22):
deem success or maybe a bad abbot saying I'm a
dad and I want to be taken seriously. I'm an actor.
I've done it a long time like this, because you know,
there's a lot of singers who will nobody will take
them seriously for a pop song, but they've sang some
of the greatest uh uh you know, operas or movie
(06:42):
songs ever. And the reason why they're not taken serious
here or lightly here because it's so great here.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
How dare you question yourself?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I think that is the question.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
Certainly, I think if I'm speaking to my lower desires
or my ego. My ego wanted to be respected. My
ego wanted to not only be seen as the child
star in quotes. My ego wanted you to take me
seriously and not just see me as like the sticky
comedic guy, the sitcom guy.
Speaker 6 (07:16):
But my capital tea truth, Like, the thing that I
know to be true about me.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
Is that I'm just an acting nerd, and I love
great movies, and I love great theater and great TV.
And I knew that I wasn't getting the opportunity to
work with that kind of material and those kind of
great filmmakers and collaborators. So you know, a lot of
people ask me, you know, you're sitting there and you're
(07:40):
in a scene with Killian Murphy and being directed by
Christopher Nolan, were you terrified? And I said, you know,
it was one of the few moments where life really
made sense.
Speaker 6 (07:51):
It just was the thing that I had wanted and
operating on that level. And I'd love to hear from
you and Damon when you're with people that are that exceptional.
It feels natural. There's no second guessing because you know
it's right.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I don't think I've ever been really I don't think
that common has ever been positioned that way. You're right
when you know I put up I was on a
social I put up a social media post last night. Literally,
I was happening to be someplace, and it was we
had a late brunch and uh Nori from Queens a rapper.
(08:26):
What has oh yeah legend, Yeah he has a drink
chance And I'm know Nori twenty five years. Fat Joe
shows up. I know Joe thirty years. We've been in
rooms for literally thirty years off and on, and we
you know, we're kids from the kids from the hood.
Now Nori smokes. Bob Marley would look at moreco right,
(08:50):
he smokes so much. Bet Joe biggest dookie talker in history.
And he's fat Joe.
Speaker 6 (08:58):
He's o zeenpic Joe.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Now, let's be honest.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
He looks great, he looks he looked great, he looks great.
I'm cool, I'm I'm I'm myself with my fifteen, twenty
twenty five year old lingos. So it's coming out. I'm
talking like I'm back in the litter. I'm not drinking.
I'm talking like I'm back there. But it feels right
in a certain room, whether I'm acting, and whether I'm
in the room with Kevin O'Leary and and Cuban and
(09:20):
we're in a we're in a room talking about real,
real matters of the United Nations, or in front of
presidents when they want to address us about economic development.
You know, rights of people and how how do how
do they stimulate certain things? When when you're in the
right room with the right people, it feels like the
(09:41):
right thing because you're not having to feel like anybody else.
You feel like I'm doing the best I can in
this room. My guards are down because my talent is here,
whether it is my whether it is my talking about
equities and finance and you know, the everyday blue collar
worker who needs a hand, or whether I'm talking about
hip hop and queens and whatever cases, or you're in
(10:02):
a room with a family. So I agree upon that.
I think the question arises that how many times have
you not felt like that in a room? And the
moment is that you said you don't need to be
in rooms like that I think.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Maybe that's the question.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I find.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
I only have real impostor syndrome when I'm an impostor,
like when I've done the work and I feel confident
in that work. Granted there's a little bit of luck
is involved. I mean, especially with what I do. Right,
it's not a solo act. Right, it's not playing an instrument,
it's not painting a picture. Acting artistry. It is the
(10:43):
ultimate team effort, and you have to pray that all
the pieces come together. But regardless, it's it's a moment
in which you're there and you have to let go
to a certain extent. And yet the way I show
up now is I go, I know I've done the
work that this requires. I've done the forensic, the not
(11:06):
cute shit. You know, all we ever.
Speaker 7 (11:08):
See is in a movie is the drunken writer who
you know, fills up his glass of wine and he's
having the keys all night and suddenly the masterpiece comes out.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
But what really happens is it's ten months of index cards.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
And long walks and naps and calling your mom, Am,
I enough, maybe I should just return the advance.
Speaker 6 (11:30):
You know, it's all that leg work.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
But if you do the.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Work required you get to show up on the day
feeling red, feeling read, feeling read.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
We started practicing the same type of way the night
before or the or the week before, selling hats on
the corner. We were just in the mirrors, selling to ourselves.
A lot of people think when that more comes, because
you said you were you had those rhymes ready, Yeah,
you going in the studio, and I would think of
the nationally you know, let me right right there to
the beat, you know what I mean, I gotta get
(12:10):
in between.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
NOAs and this guy? How How did what would you say?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
That always been your life of saying I'm gonna practice
way before that moment comes in every single thing? Or
was just that your wrap or your excuse me, your
musical you know, discipline?
Speaker 4 (12:25):
What was you know?
Speaker 8 (12:28):
I have no music background, like, I never went to
school for that, and I didn't feel as smart as
everyone else, so I knew it had to outwork everyone else.
So like, so I used to say, you got a
better product than me, Yeah, you got a better client,
(12:50):
tell than me, But you ain't gonna stay outside as
long as me.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
I'm gonna put it in that work.
Speaker 8 (12:56):
You're gonna seem like you just said the other day,
you see me in a car bone, And I was
still there because I'm gonna put it in that work.
Whatever I do, I want to do it to the fullest.
So what I would want to do with us I
used to notice was one of the things in my contract,
my first contract was we had like hundreds of thousands
in studio expenses, and I would be like, how the
(13:18):
hell is that the case if we're only there in
a couple of hours. But what I didn't though, was
componing trash wouldn't do what I was doing at this time.
I was going write in recording.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
They would hold it the whole day and come in.
Speaker 8 (13:33):
I didn't want girls in the studio. I didn't want
alcohol in the studio. I didn't want anything to defer me.
So one of the things that I learned from that
contract was I was in a hole because of the studio.
So basically I was messing up money. That was my
first rule. You ain't writing rhymes in the studio no more.
(13:55):
You're gonna have You're gonna have to shits all in
your heads. And I was five percent at the time,
so me rememborizing, my memory was sharp as hall right,
right right, And that's how I went about life.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
And so for those who understand, understand what five percent
is out there is that when you know people would
ask you what today's man or what is today? You know,
what is the scripture the or the knowledge of today?
The guys would walk up to you and say, what
is the you know, recite what is today?
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Five percent?
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Save me?
Speaker 4 (14:25):
I had? I had.
Speaker 8 (14:27):
I went from a third grade education to uh to
a twelfth grade education in a year because of me
being five percent. I was reading books, I did, I
did everything to get there. And then what I started
to notice is my memory got shot. But I started
using my memory for rhymes instead of lessons.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Right and so so so for for people listening, like
my wife who's extremely white, will say what is she
doesn't try to be anything else, honey, what is a
five percent? And so honey, that is when Non said
He's God, the God you know, So just so you know.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
I'm to say the truth.
Speaker 8 (15:07):
At that time for young black man, Yeah, that was
the route to go. Like right now, I see gangs
in New York City and I wish the guards existed.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Because the guards were about education and still and still are.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
That's will beat you up though they were.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Getting you up in a way of listen, you're doing
wrong for the community. This is what you need to do,
all right and absolutely so. So all right, so now
we're going into you learning these things. But what I
want to understand is that you can't necessarily have that
passion because whether Carl and I will break dancing, and
by the way, you know that it helped us a
lot because Larry introduced us to certain people and later
on it would help us down the road we didn't
know to beget as a breakdancer.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
It would work for us later on.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
But what about somebody who's not who is practicing in
that mirror, whether it's pitching to be able to find
a date, pitching to a professor or and or somebody.
What if they don't have that did it? Anytime you
were you were doing something that you were like, I'm
not feeling it, you know, the wrap the wrap thing
I'm feeling. But you know what I was pitching trying
(16:11):
to I don't know, be part of the chess club.
I don't give a shit what it is. I'm not
feeling it. I'm not I'm not wanting to put the
work and when you don't feel it, do you go
I'm not right and I should do it because this
is what I'm supposed to do. Or should you trust
your gut and say I got to put the energy
somewhere else. When do you get deterred of doing that? Overdoing?
(16:35):
Was I wanted to be? I wanted to be. I
wanted to be one of the best. But what about
anything else? Did you try?
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Is that? Was that it?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
And you just you just because maybe you hit that
vein of gold? I found. I found that I always
was excited about pitching any form of selling, whether it
was selling a shovel of your snow, selling those hats,
selling to get car parts, uh for you know, an
auction car that I bought they were broken up that
I tried to sell, telling to get you on my
dollar van. I was always excited about telling you something
(17:04):
that I'm selling. Was that just what it was?
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Well me? I started to understand.
Speaker 8 (17:10):
I started to understand failure and to understand failure as
experience and not as a loss.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (17:19):
The War Report album was critically acclaim for Mike's and
a source and I'm still selling crack.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
And Gary's one of the fastest growing educators of personalities
in the country due to the fact that he takes
care of Tom Brady and the Dana White. Are you
Joe Rogan? You take your Joe or no? People who
(17:49):
are at the extreme Gary's history, I don't recall it well,
and I'm not gonna I'm gonna try to only take
ten fifteen minutes of his time, and I'll tell you
the trade off. I've been where Gary is now, and
many of us have. I can't get my vitamins for
like two months because Gary is on a rocket ship.
(18:13):
And Gary is just like every one of us entrepreneurs.
But it's even he's even. You know, when somebody got
a bad shirt from me, I really wanted to take
care of him.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
When Gary takes care of somebody and they call him,
he stops everything.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
You were a mortality expert, meaning that an insurance company
had you on board, so you can tell when a
person would potentially die, or how close was it to death,
or the date or the timing it was.
Speaker 9 (18:48):
So if we got ten years of medical records on
you and ten years of demographic data, we could tell
the insurance company how long you had to live to
the month. It's scary It's really some of the most
accurate science in the world. I mean, I get a
lot of flack about it. But if you if you
look at the variable basic table twenty eighteen, twenty twenty one,
(19:10):
or even just state, take a step back you and
you wonder how how good are life insurance companies and
annuity companies at predicting death. You could look at what
happened during the two thousand and eight two thousand and
nine financial services crisis, when we had three hundred and
sixty four banks fail, but we didn't have a single
life insurance company fail. I mean, there's some of the
most solvent institutions in the world, and yet they take
(19:32):
hyper concentrated risk on a single variable, right, I mean
doublet I worked in a jumbo life division, so most
of our policies were we were ensuring lives that were
twenty five to fifty million, eighty million, one hundred million
dollar policies. And when you when you take that kind
of risk, you know you need to be accurate because
the only thing that matters is how many more months
(19:54):
that person has left on earth. And I always say
that if the database that I had access to when
I was working in the mortality space could see the
light of day, it would permanently change the face of humanity.
It would upend modern medicine in a way that would
be catastrophic. That's why it will never see the light
of day. Because insurance companies have data. Annuity companies have
(20:18):
data that no other financial services enterprise has, no collegiate university,
not even the federal government. Because they know the day,
the date, the time, the location, and the cause of
death for three hundred and seventy million lives. And they
not only know the day, day, time, location and cause
of death, but they also have that person's medical records,
and they usually have the beginning and the end destination
(20:40):
medical records. And they also have an extraordinary amount of
personal demographic data. I don't know if you've ever applied
for a large life insurance policy, but it's a pretty
invasive process. If you have a divorce degree, if you
have a trust, if your will, if you have a
bank's brokerage counts. I mean, it's an extraordinarily deep into
(21:00):
the you know, most personal part of your life, not
just your health history, but your financial history. And then
we were allowed as mortality experts to get one blood
test and asked for anything that we wanted, and we
were allowed to get a gene test and asked for
anything that we wanted, and based on that, we could
hone in on mortality incredibly accurately. I didn't know that's
(21:25):
why I came here to talk about today, but it
seemed like a little morbid opening there.
Speaker 8 (21:31):
I really took a nosed.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Dive from I think, I think it's fascinating. We are
entrepreneurs and we hack businesses. You hack life, right, And
I think because I was fascinating, it was it because
and I remember, you have looked at some people that
I know that you'll work, would have said this person
almost had what they would think would be cerebral palsy
(21:54):
or something like that. And you, because we were talking you,
it was pretty simple. You said, it's art. Medicine is
in art. You're not a PhD. But you're a scientist,
and the way that you look at things is because
you even all right, let me give you an example.
My wife had had Lopez slash Hashimoto. We don't know
(22:15):
what it was. For years, she went to everybody. He
casually wasn't even addressing that he gave her some thyroid
something for a pill whatever. And finally when she got
to a doctor it was about fifteen years right after him,
they said, who gave you this? She's like, oh, you know,
some somebody work. But he was like, he indicated something
(22:37):
that we've been looking for for fifteen years.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Who the fuck gave you this? And he just gave
that in passing.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
I remember there was another person I talked to and
they said they almost couldn't barely walk. Can you remember
this person? He almost had like sereal palsy year Parkinson's right,
And you found something in there, and I'll let you
say what it was, because they he had it for years,
six years, six years, could barely walk. Everybody's seen them.
What did you find in there?
Speaker 9 (23:06):
It was an elevated that there's a part of the
white blood cell counts is something called immature granular sites
and BESA phills, and these are only elevated when you
have chronic, low grade viral infections. And so you're looking
back at the I used to read medical records for
a living. I'm not a physician, by the way, so
I'm not licensed to practice medicine. But I went back
and looked at his medical record and I noticed that
(23:30):
he had had this elevated granular site in Besa phil
from the time that he was diagnosed until the time
that he actually came to work with me.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
And I asked him, I.
Speaker 9 (23:39):
Said, have you shown this to your neurologist and he said, yeah,
I showed it to him, and he he didn't know
why it was elevated, so we just he just threw
it out and I said, well, you know, it's not
really what we do in medicine, and so I said,
the next time you come into town, I think we
should pull a full viral panel on you. And so
(24:00):
we pulled into a full viral panel and as it
turns out, it was the highest West Nile tighter that
the lab had ever seen, and so the reason why
it was unresponsible to Parkinson's medication. So the reason why
I was diagnosed with Parkinson's. If you look at the
parallel symptomology between Parkinson's disease and West Nile you'll see
that they're superimposable. Right. Flexer dystonia starts off with a
pill rolling tremor, flat affect, flattening of mood, depressive like symptoms,
(24:25):
shuffling gait, and eventually you get this flexi dystonia where
you just kind of start to curl in on yourself.
And I happened to be. It happened to be the
day that I got the message from the neurologist that
you were there in my unit, I think, and so
I read it to Damon. I didn't tell him the
(24:45):
patient was. But as it turns out, you know, as
the viral load came down, his mood stabilized, his CT improved,
his CT scan of the brain improved, His flexure dystonia
went away, His pill rolling tremor was gone. He walks
without a kine right now. He's fully upright that that
that Western heal virus is and remission it, remission it,
(25:06):
remission mission.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Once again, thank you for tuning into the Black Effect
Podcast Network. Seeing you in twenty twenty five from more
great moments from your favorite podcast
Host
Daymond John
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