November 30, 2020 • 59 mins
Jeezy interviews comedian and media mogul Byron Allen, the founder and CEO of Entertainment Studios. Byron discusses his mindset for success, economic inclusivity, the link between the Black and Jewish communities, and the value of education.
This episode is based off the song "Almighty Black Dollar," one of the tracks on Jeezy's new album, The Recession 2.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Recessing Podcast with Yours Truly. Jeezy is a production
of Black Effect and Our Heart Radio. This is Jeezy,
Grammy nominated Urban philosopher, philanthropists and entrepreneur, and this is
my show, The Recessing Podcast. For years, I used my
(00:22):
music to highlight the struggles and issues facing this country
the economy, politics, protests, mental health and more. And now
strong voices are more important than ever before. On this show,
I will speak the powerful people from all walks of
life to have real conversations about change, perseverance, and hope.
(00:43):
In each episode will feature a sample of a song
from my new album, The Recession Too. So without further ado,
let's begin the Recessing Podcast. Let's get it. Today's comments,
Say Sins with Byron Allen. He started off as a
comedian and transformed into a media mogul, television producer and
(01:08):
founder of Entertainment Studios. Byron is an advocate for economic inclusiveness,
especially in the black community. His work reminds me of
one of my latest songs, The Almighty Black Dollar. Here's
my conversation with Byron Allen on your Recessing Podcast right
here with yourge true Jeez, Let's get it all. This
(01:29):
find is Cofie l V Council and you tell them
the so Rolex ap ain't sit y'are follower need need
us almighty black dollar, black dollar. Fuck them bots ain't puff,
It ain't chased rock say Bell, Let's get pain Russ
Bitty ain't ship y'all follower need that need us almighty
(01:52):
black dollar. How you doing, brother, I'm doing great. It's
so good to be here with you. Thank you for
having me. Yeah, yeah, we had to we we had
to get you on this podcast, man, because it seems
like you're doing some some some really big things when
it comes to media out there. For me, you know,
just coming from where we come from, I'm watching what
(02:13):
you're doing is a unique space for somebody that can
come from Detroit, moved to Los Angeles and carve this
thing out for yourself. And you know, I'm reading you
as a comedian first. So I'm trying to put that
with how did you, you know, pivot into the entrepreneurs
space because it's two different worlds. Yeah, you know, I
(02:36):
always I learned early on it it's business show, not
show business. M Like hold one more time, business show
not show business. And I like that you want to
learn the business part. And when you learn the business part,
you can do as many shows as you would like.
Who and I think, and I think, and I think
a lot of people they approach it differently. They approach
(02:58):
it is show business. They want to shine and they
want the bling. And for me, it's not about the shine.
It's not about the bling. It's about the business. And
if you approach it from a business point of view,
you will you will have all the shine you want,
all the bling you want. I just I don't happen
(03:19):
to be into that. I don't even have a watch. Really,
just look at you. You look at your phone to
tail the time. My phone tells me the time. And yeah,
it's all the same. It's all the same. And uh,
I can only one I can only use one car.
And my car is an SUV so I can get
my school. Um, I got an SUV so I can
(03:39):
drive my kids to school and any diamonds And I
love it. And I'm not interested in the collection of cars.
You know, you know, I tell you a friend of mine,
you have friends who collect cars, And I said, look,
I don't collect cars. I collect real estate. Wow, hey, listen,
I'm right there. I love that. That's a that's another right,
(04:02):
and all that other stuff that goes down and value.
You know what, I want young people out here to
to be fascinated by your real estate and not your blame,
because the being is temporary and then it will go away.
I was just very fortunate, you know, I've always thought
that way and saw it that way. You know, I
learned not to do anything. Other people were trying to quit.
(04:23):
So you learned, you learned not to do anything anything.
I never picked up the habits that other people were
trying to quit, right So if it was smoking, you wouldn't.
I never's been smoking. I started drinking alcohol. I never
ended doing drugs, and so I was really fortunate that
I didn't develop those habits. What do you think they
(04:44):
came from? I just was really I was fortunate that
I noticed other people were having problems with their smoking,
with their alcohol, and with their drugs, and I just said,
I'm life is challenging enough. Life is tough enough. And
I learned early on that you have to make sure
you don't do anything to make it more difficult for yourself. Well,
(05:06):
I feel better because I had to. I came up
in the era where I learned from my uncle's mistakes
people in my neighborhood. It was a little older me.
I was like, I just I don't feel like I
want to do that. And as I started to evolve,
I felt kind of crazy because it was like I
would tell people things like that, I be like, yo,
I don't really you know, even being an artist and
(05:27):
and and that being a part of the mystique. Um,
I used to be like, yeah'll rather buy some builders.
And I used to tell my son all the time,
it's like, yo, I really go by these these buildings
and and and have this real estate. And he looked
at me, but like Dad, but everybody knows you for that.
And I'm just like nah. And you know, it's crazy
because I hear you talk about that was so much
confidence and so much certainty. And and I want everybody
(05:49):
out there listening, because when I was making those decisions
to make those changes, I felt like I felt like
I was by myself, you know, like like part of
the cool crowd. And it was it was hard because
I was used to being the cool guy. And when
I was like, you know what, you know, I want
to back down, you know, from this, and I don't
want to spend unnecessary money on that, and and I'd rather,
(06:09):
you know, take my money and travel and see the
world rather than you know, just to mess it off
here and then. And when I started making those changes, um,
it was hard because that's all I knew. But I
also felt like I was, you know, being kind of
like put on the outskirts of what was going on
as far as the culture, because it's like that's what
they know. So my thing is like like that certainty
(06:32):
you had, Like where did it come from? Because it
sounds like you knew this coming out of the box,
Like this is not nothing you have to think about.
You like, you know what, I'm not smoking, I'm not drinking,
and I'm not overspending, you know what I'm saying, not
doing drugs. You know, it's really about wanting to unleash
your greatness. That unleash your greatness if you're doing things
(06:53):
to deter it. M my friends were the entire spectrum
from A to Z, and it's great because you really
get to know one another. And it was really a
key background for me to be from a very integrated
community in a very integrated neighborhood, and I got to
(07:14):
learn a lot, uh from a lot of different folks
and a lot of different cultures. And I'm really fortunate
to have that exposure. And I got to see a
lot of just a lot of perspectives and a lot
of goodness being raised in such a strong, integrated, diverse community.
(07:35):
You know, you know, I am a firm believer that
greatness does come from from diversity. You know. I even
think about the civil rights movement, right, I think about
the Civil rights movement and that listen, as black people,
that was not done alone. Um, it took outside. It
took a lot of support from blot white people, a
(07:57):
lot of great Jewish people. I mean, I think, quite frankly,
I think the Black community owes the Jewish community huge
debt of gratitude because of how much the Jewish community
leaned in during the Civil rights movement. This is this
is something I've never known that absolutely the Jewish community
(08:20):
was with the Black community in a huge way and
has been since day one in terms of civil rights. Uh.
And you know, there's a photo that hangs in my
office where because Martin the King asked for all of
the religious leaders to go with him across the Edmund
Pettis Bridge and there's that bridge where the rabbis standing
right next to him. And we owe a huge debt
(08:43):
to a lot of folks and a lot of cultures, Um,
who have really stood by us and for us and
for us, whether it was in the streets or in
the in the school, in the school room, the boardroom,
and that is in the entire spectrum from you know,
from white Jewish to you mean it like, we didn't
(09:07):
do it by ourself, and you can't write anything about it.
You need friends, you need an extended family, you need allies,
and you need it in your everyday life. And I've
always said, you know, it's important that you love and
embrace everybody and you expand it out because that's how
you're going to have your greatest success. It's crazy you
(09:28):
said that the diversity, because the first thing I thought
about what you said, that the diversity in your neighborhood,
and it just gave your open mind. Um. Even in
my personal life, you know, I came from you know,
humble beginnings. I did grow up in the hood. I
went through that whole thing. But by chance my father
was in the military, so off and on um I
(09:49):
was able to move out of the neighborhood and go
with my father for for periods of time. And one
of my trips I can recall was when I would
live to my my father in Japan, and it opened
me up to so much culture and just how the
world worked. And I mean I did everything from like
like and people don't even know that about me, Like
I'm I'm I'm a professional with topsticks, like you know
(10:12):
what I'm saying, Like you can't tell me nothing about
sushi that I don't know. But I pride myself on
being open minded because of that once in a lifetime
experience that I got to see what a whole another
culture lived like, and they just opened me up to
um to just research other cultures, that understand how other
people move and get some a little bit from here,
(10:34):
a little bit from there. And I think that's why
I was able to, you know, go further than than
the norm, because I knew there was another world out there.
So I I definitely agree with you that you need,
you know, more than just your surroundings. You need other people.
So that diversity definitely put me in a different space
in life. So you got to open up your world
(10:55):
and you gotta really know and and and embrace folks
and learned from folks. And you know, um, there was
a book that was written, you know, let's just talk
about racism and and let's just talk about unique experiences
and how closely were we are aligned, um, and how
(11:17):
we are as black people, how we are closely aligned
with the Jewish community, and how the Jewish community is
a major supporter of the Black community and we must
be the same of the Jewish community. And to give
you a great example, there was a book written in
nineteen six called The Passage of the Great Race. In
(11:38):
nineteen sixteen, this book was written and it was written
by young, wealthy, well educated, young white man named Madison Grant.
And Madison Grant wrote this book and he didn't like
the immigration that he was seeing in New York. He
was living in New York and he went to a
(11:59):
very uh you know, he went to you know, an
Ivy League law school, and he was a lawyer. And
this was an educated young man. And he wrote this
book and he did not like the immigration he was
seeing in Manhattan. And he wrote the book was the
Passage of the Great Race, and it was basically keep
America white and pure, Keep America white and pure, and
(12:25):
stop the immigration of folks out of Europe into this country.
And this book took off. And then this young man
read this book. And this young man read this book,
and this young man said, this is this book is
my bible. Was his quote, like this book was. Basically
he was saying the greatest book he had ever read.
(12:46):
And this young and said this book is my bible.
And that young man was Adolf Hitler. Wow, okay, nine six.
That young man was Eightolf Hitler. So not only did
America create this racism, we perfected this racism and exploited
(13:09):
exported it all the way to Europe. Unfortunately it came
back as the Holocaust. Okay, written by a young white
man in America. Okay. So Hitler gave an interview to
the New York Times, and Hitler said to the New
York Times paraphrasing, I don't understand why, you know, America
(13:31):
is giving me so much attitude. Basically it was what
he was saying. He said, everything I learned about immigration
control I learned from America. And he thought America was
going to partner with him to conquer the world. And
(13:52):
that's why he read that book and thought this was
his connection to America. You how closely we are aligned
with the Jewish community and the and the trials and tribulations.
Hitler sent his Nazi lawyers two America and said, study
(14:12):
the Jim Crow laws that they're using on the Negroes
in America and bring them back and use them on
the Jews. Wow, that's deep. So when I say to
you that the Jewish community is our family, that's our family. Wow,
(14:33):
that's the eyes. I say to you, that's my family,
that's our family. I get it, it get it. That's
not that's that's that's family. That's our that's how those
are our brothers and our sisters. I get it. I
get you know, I totally get it. That's how closely
(14:56):
like the passage of the Great Race. Okay. And Hitler
sent his people and said, what you're doing to the Negroes,
drop it over here and there their journey very similar
to ours. And so when I say, as far as
(15:17):
we are concerned as black people, we hold them a
huge debt of gratitude. And you're not my friend, you
are family. And together we will work together, in partnership,
we will eliminate eradicate the racism, and we will eradicate
(15:39):
the anti Semitism, we will eradicate the hatred. Because the
moment we become we we stopped being tribes. Because right
now we're kind of tribes and everybody's seeing their tribal
and the moment we get rid of the tribalism m
(16:00):
and we become one and we make the tribe the
human race, and we become one human race as a tribe.
That's the tribe. The human tribe is the moment we
accomplish a slice of heaven right here on earth, slice
(16:21):
of heaven right here, right here on earth, when we
love one human tribe. I totally agree with you that
because I personally think is the lack of knowledge and
the lack of information because listening until you talk, like
I said again, clarity, you have clarity on history. I
(16:46):
think with us. And as you can see, um, what
just happened over the last four months when we got
he marchin and fighting for our lives and and and
fighting to breathe, and and and and you know, everything
that we just went through four months ago. If you
look now, it's pretty much you know, people who have
looked past that they moved on with their lives. So
(17:06):
imagine not being educated on what really happened in the
Holocaust to understand, you know, it's it's it's it's the
lack of the lack of knowledge and even what you're
telling me this, And I love that because that's what
it's about being a leader. I can tell that's what
you really are um for you to spend your time
talking about this is that we have to get the
(17:28):
information out to other leaders so they can educate people
and give them knowledge, because that's the problem that separation
is we don't have enough knowledge about each other. If
you go back to the history books, even in school
with us, I don't even know, Like when all this
stuff started happening, I felt the same to myself because
I didn't even know enough about black history to understand.
All I knew was marl Luther King, Malcolm X and
(17:50):
and whatever they taught me in school, and that was
you know, maybe uh, sixty pages out of a whole book,
and and and you only knew Christopher Columbus or what
wanted to want to teach you. So when everything started happening,
I went back and started looking at all these different
documentaries um, you know the name of a slave and
all these different things. And it was just like I
(18:11):
didn't know we was on the money. We was actually
on the money, like we was the currency. I didn't
know that slaves would be bought and sold and then
when they when they was able to be free, Um,
that somebody can come and say, hey, you did something wrong,
you broke the law, and now you owe me a
fine of you know, two hundred dollars, but you're never
gonna be able to pay this off, so now you
(18:32):
gotta be my slave. So all these things and I
and as a black man, I kind of felt it
was mind blown because I'm like, I don't know all
this stuff. So when I see here and listen and
you talk about us being one tribe, I personally think
the don in my heart, it's because we don't have
the information and the knowledge about each other's background, in
each other's history. Because when I think about the Holocaust
(18:54):
and what they went through, it's a lot similar that
a lot of a lot of a lot of Jewish
people died. You know, they below own as we took um,
they were put in concentration camps. And you can't tell
the average person out here that's walking around. These are
the things that happened because they're looking at it like,
you know, we've been through the most that you know,
they they're killing us in the street. But that's only
that's been three months ago. Now ask somebody what happened
(19:16):
ten years ago to us, and twenty years ago to
us and a hundred years They cannot tell you because
we don't have the knowledge. It's crazy. You have to
have that, and you have to understand where it's coming from.
It and and and a lot of it is is
pure hatred, and and it's tribalism. And you can start
to see the pattern the rhythms, you know, I call
(19:38):
it the four ds. Whether it's black people or Jewish people,
you see the four ds they put on you, whether
dismiss you, m M. Dismissing, They just dismiss you, and
then like then they they after they dismiss you, you
get a little upset about that. Then they discredit you
(19:58):
discredit and then they move on to that third D,
which they have to move on to the get right
with their so called Christian cells, they demonize demons. I
knew you was gonna say that. They knew, you know,
Nazi Germany demonized the Jewish faith and the Jewish people,
and how America demonizes Black America. Once they get to
(20:21):
that demonization, that then they can move on to that
fourth and inevitable deed they destroy you. Wow, And they
have to go through that process. They dismiss you, they
just credit you, they demonizing, and then they destroy and
they have to demonize you to get right what they're
so called Christian cells? Is that why? I mean, I'm
(20:44):
just asking because I'm curious, because you opening my ears
up here. Like when I go through Jewish communities and
I drive through and I see how they set up.
It seems like to me they're tightening family. They sit together,
they don't really let a lot of people in, and
they look out for each other, so they're able to
be each other up in a sense. Is you think
that from I think it's always good no matter who
(21:05):
you are, what your what group you've heard of, to
be loving and supportive and engaging. What I'm saying, do
you think that came from them going through what they
would do? And yeah, I think any group that's that's
being persecuted, obviously, the inclination is to stay closer and
build each other. But I'm saying that because I should
do that. I mean, like I'm but that's what I'm saying,
(21:27):
Like for us, I feel like that's the missing I
think in the black community, we have a great deal
of dysfunction. Black community. I think we are taught in
program uh to not to trust one another. And I
think there's a lot of drugs and alcohol and guns
(21:49):
and bullets that are conveniently provided to our community. And
I think that's a part of the of the genocide
against Black America. Uh, I mean Black America's position to fail.
And you're almost for it. You're you are absolutely set up,
set up. You know, I'm gonna make I've always said,
(22:10):
they kill you in the courtroom, and they kill you
in the school board. Them all for the retreats. So
I think what you see is, I think you see
that we are not getting most of our community is
a proper education. And I think you're seeing that we
are not getting access to capital that's not predatory in
(22:31):
most cases, and you're not you know, we are positioned
to fail. And I think what we have to do
in Black America is we have to do what a
lot of other communities have done a phenomenal jobs at
is they have made education the number one priority their community.
(22:54):
And I think we have really given our all as
Black America as to make sure to make sure that
is the number one thing in our community. And until
we do what other successful communities have done, which is
education the number one thing in their community, as Black America,
(23:16):
will not move to the level we should and and
can move to. What changed my life is that I
was very fortunate that not only is my mother beautiful,
she's brilliant. And even though she had me seventeen days
after her seventeenth birthday, and you would have to be,
you know, really scared as a seventeen year old black
(23:37):
girl having a baby in nineteen wanting to try Michigan.
But we were fortunate. She ended up which coming out
here to l a um And and she was a
two week vacation and we ended up staying here and
she ended up getting into u c l A. And
she end up getting her master's degree in Cinema TV
(23:58):
Production at u c l A. And because she was
at u c l A working on her master's degree,
she was able to get a job at NBCAT Tours
of NBC and in later publicity and marketing and being
at NBC and giving tours. I was able to go
to work with her, and because I could not put
(24:19):
before childcare, and as I waited for my mother to
get off work, I was able to watch them take
The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson Sanford and Song with
Red Fox and Cheek, on the Man with Freddie Prince,
and the Footbillson Show, on the Richard Prior specials, and
I watched them do you Know George Byrne Specials, And
I watched uh Brian Gumbel do the local news, and
(24:40):
Pat NBC and Pat's a Jack Brian kid sportscaster and
Pat c Jack was the weather man. And I was
able to watch all of these people make television. But
education is what changed the trajectory of our destiny and
put us on a different parallel um. What I out.
(25:00):
You know, I recently went on the road. I was
raising a little over a billion dollars UH to buy
some companies, and I went to go speak to a
couple of hundred you know, fund managers who managed probably
about ten fifteen trillion dollars in capital. So these are
the people you go to when you're raising capital, buy acquisitions,
(25:22):
to make acquisitions, to buy companies. And when I found
was that the brothers and the sisters were in the
lobbies and uniforms. Checking the end, they were security and
there's nothing wrong with But when I went up the
elevator to talk to the fifteen plus trillion in capital
to see if I could get them to put a
billion with me on this particular go around, what I
(25:43):
found is there was a lot of young white kids
in their twenties and thirties who had come to really
terrific schools. I would ask them their background, and they
had an education, and they had degrees in business law degrees,
business degrees, nbas and j d s from really good schools.
And that was the difference from us being in the
(26:05):
penthouse managing twenty or thirty billion in our twenties and thirties.
The lobby education and the only way I can get
you out of the lobby, out of a uniform. And
that's a noble profession if that's what you want to be,
if that's what you want to do. But the only
way I can get you out of that lobby and
get you into the penthouse where you're making millions of
(26:26):
dollars a year, and you know, managing billions of dollars.
It's education and you case, and that has no substitute
and there's nothing that's gonna get you around that. And
you know what, I've always thought that we as black America,
what we have to do is say, you know what,
(26:47):
you know, whatever, it's thirty forty million of US in America.
What if only ten million of us put in ten
bucks a month, ten bucks a months that my credit
card or my debit card or whatever it is a million,
that's a hundred million a month. That's one point to
billion a year. Okay, now one point two billion in
(27:08):
and you know, God will in twenty million of us
do it. That's two hundred million a month. It's two
point four billion a year. And I'll check this out.
So two point four billion a year. I'm graduating every
black kid in America through college debt free. So I
got you, Okay, I got you, So go ahead, And
(27:30):
I want I want because I want you to maximize
your intellectual capital. And I want you to maximize your
intellectual capital because that is how you're going to bring
out the greatness in youth. And as black people, we
have those resources. We have that capability, we have the
(27:55):
capital to do that. We have to make it the priority.
Now I had this epiphany. I would go vacation at
the same spot, the same hotel year after for the holidays,
and the same families would be at the same at
this hotel at the same time, and we would be
in the cabanas, you know, at the end, you know,
(28:17):
looking out the ocean, and one of the families it
was I became, you know, great, really great conversations year
after year. They were from I'm from l A and
they were from another part of the country. Her name
Mrs Wisemith, and she and I became very friendly because
I started talking to I noticed her husband had had
(28:37):
the markings on his arms and he had been in
the Holocaust, and he asked about it. We really developed
a bond talking over the years, and one year she
said to me, you know, I almost didn't make it
back here this year to talk to you, to hang
out with you. And I always enjoy hanging out with you.
You know. She's like in her eighties. And I said,
(29:00):
why what are you talking about. Come, you didn't make
it almost make it back here. She says, well, I've
been having problems with my heart, and nobody wanted to
operate on this little old lady. And uh, she said,
everybody turned me down because they thought I was going
to die on the operating table and they didn't want
to open me up. So she said, everybody who said
you know, no way I'm going to operate on this
(29:22):
little old Jewish lady. She said. So, my son said
to me, well, mom, mom, why don't you call mike
You know, she goes little Mikey. She said, yeah, she
goes your friend, Little Mikey, who I used to make
cookies and milk for it. Wow, he's he's a heart surgeon.
And she said, yeah, well he's not so little anymore, Mommy.
(29:44):
He's like one of the world's greatest heart surgeons and
he and so, she said, So I called him up
and I said, hey, little Mikey, I'm sorry to bother you,
but this is Mrs Wiseman and I'm having a problem
with my heart. They don't want to operate on this
little old Jewish lady. I just wanted to see if
you had any advice. And he said to her, I
(30:06):
want you to email me your records right away. And
so she said, no problem, and her son sends the email,
sends the records off to him, and he calls her
back right away and he says, I want you to
get on the next plane smoking you come to me.
I'm gonna I'm gonna perform surgery on you tomorrow. Wow,
(30:30):
she gets explained. He does the surgery. Her prices are
better than ours. Little Mikey does it again. And she's
sitting there telling me that story pretty much brought me
to tears. Ay. It's like, you realize how precious life
(30:50):
is about. And it just showed me, like how powerful
education is. Thank you, Little Mikey. Life its potential, right,
Little Michael realizing his potential, save Mrs Weiss. Mikey realizing
his potential and not getting caught up in games or
(31:11):
drugs or alcohol or going in and out of jail,
but rather having an education is actually positioning little Mikey
to save and save other lives, to find a cure
for something that may take you out or your loved ones.
I think as a matter of national security, everybody should
(31:34):
be educated to the fullest, for free, just as a
matter of national security, just for the quality of life.
I think as a matter of national security. It needs
to be free because we don't have enough intellectual capital.
And if you haven't maximize your potential, no respect, you
(31:55):
become a liability because because because we're subsidizing you, they're
gonna use it against you. Well, you're we're subsidizing you
because you haven't maximized your potential, and we need to
invest in you can maximize your potential to be an
asset and not a liability. And I love that you
said that because I want to take it a step
(32:15):
back further before I before I get sidetrack. You said
something in the beginning, and you said something now about
education that clicked. I had an epiphany. Um, you you
said something in the beginning about you having one suv,
not being in the blame, not being in it, none
of these things. You don't need a bunch of designer to,
(32:36):
you know, to to validate who you are. And then
you went on to say that you feel like education
is the key. Yes. So for the last couple of
like last maybe like a couple of years, I've really
been in my head about what type of money I've
spent on things, and and I just had something recently
(32:57):
come up where I had to put the culture first,
and I wanted my culture to understand. So even if
you look at the election that just happened, they had
to credit the African American community for stepping up and
coming out and voting this time. But if you look
at these billion dollar companies outside of media, we're talking
fashion and and watches and all these different brands and
all this stuff. We make these people billions and billions
(33:17):
of dollars that we go out here and risk our
lives and do all these crazy things to get this capital,
and then we go put it into these things because
we feel like that it makes us better as people.
So what whoever it is, whatever brand you have to support,
but you're basically taking your hard our money things. You
risk your life for your freedom, and you're pointing into
(33:39):
somebody's pocket for them to put their kids through school,
the best schools, to set their kids up with trust
funds and to be okay. But then you won't take
that same capital, that same money to invest in yourself
and your children so that you guys have the best education.
And that brings me to this point because I just
(34:01):
recently dropped the album and and I had a song
and titled the almighty black dollar. I wanted my people
on my coaches to see that our dollar is all mighty.
You just said if we put if you got, you said,
how many people to put h ten dollars in ten millions?
That's a hundred million a month, that's a billion to
a year, a billion to a year. And how many
(34:22):
kids did you say can go to college? Pretty much?
Take care of most of pretty much. At two point
four billion a year, pretty much, you take care all
the black kids in college, all the black kids like
literally like they're in school. I mean you could take
two point four billion. You're taking care of And that's
the other issue. You have a lot of black kids
who are not really leaning in because they don't think.
(34:43):
They're like, why should I lean in? But let me
say this before we go, why shid I lean is
the same thing I said when people started talking about
why should I vote? Because it matters little? That's right.
But so a lot of black kids are thinking, why
should I lean in? My family doesn't have the money
to get me through college? Got it? Got it? Okay?
If you're able to it's a mental mindset. If black
(35:03):
kids know that my college is gonna be paid for
Black America has put the money in for me, and
now I'm gonna be taking care of Black America has it.
We don't need to be saved. We can save ourselves
and Black America. What we have to understand is don't
(35:24):
work for your money, let the money. And so what's
happening is a lot of black people are getting pimped
by money. And you gotta pimp your money, right, we
say pimp by money. You're getting grinded down working to
three jobs you like, you can't. That's not sustainable. So
(35:46):
you can make money. You have to take money and
invest it. I'll tell you this. Last year, if you
invested whatever you invested, and I'm gonna call it ten
tho dollars, and I'm seeing everybody has ten thousand, I'm
just easy map, Okay. But if you invested ten thousand
dollars in eight stocks last year January one to December
(36:12):
last year, eight stocks, eight stocks, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, A,
T and T, Microsoft, and Disney, those eight stocks last
year would have given you a forty two return on
(36:33):
your money. So if you put it in January one,
tim grand, you would have come back a year later
January one, the following year and it would have been
fourteen thousand, two hundred bucks. You would have made forty
two dollars for doing nothing, nothing, nothing. And that's why
I wanted to talk about the power with the black dollar.
When you're mentor is trained to, Okay, I'm about this
(36:56):
because I'm some more. It's coming. I know how to
get some more. It seems like to me it's hard
to get somebody look for the long haul and the slow,
steady money because it is steady and and and the
immigrant mindset. To me, it works better with that because
immigrants have come here from another country and they won't
spend a dyme well, they're investing and there, and because
(37:21):
they're seeing an economy that is the greatest economy in
the world. This this America is the greatest country in
the world. We're not perfect, we have our flaws. We
are the greatest country in the world. Nothing is perfect.
We have the greatest economy, we have the greatest pathway
to wealth, and you can invest and you have a
financial system that is that is you know, you don't
(37:44):
have to worry about waking up one day and for
the most part, your capital is stolen. So they're investing
in there and there, and they are being smart about that.
We have to invest, and we have to go to
the banks. And it's very important to work with the
banks to make sure you buy your home. So work
with the banks that make sure you buy your home,
(38:04):
able to get a bank loan to buy your homes,
because that's now you're participating in the great the great
appreciation of America, the great wealth appreciation, because now you
have capital to help finance whatever it is, your retirement
or the education of your children or your grandchildren. And
have to buy real estate. And just understand, you're buying
(38:25):
it and the goal is never to sell it. The
goal is to pay it off and pass it on
for generation. The will to start creating generation, paying off
and pass it on. And so you know, when white
people die, most of the time, they get assets. When
people die, most of the time, we get bills bills,
and that's if you can pay for the funeral bills. Right.
(38:49):
So we and what I will say always say that
it's black people. You know, we don't have wealth. We
have what I call from time to time de and
cash flow. So you have black entertainers and athletes, they'll
come along and they'll have a good four or five
year run and they may make you know, a hundred
(39:10):
million or two hundred million bucks in that five year
run because they're hotter than not. But that's not that's
not wealth. That's good cash flow is when you have
three four billion dollars and five six hundred million a
year off year, three or four billion dollars. Okay, that's well,
(39:32):
when you've got three billion plus in cash investment and
it's making six hundred million a year for you, and
you're making over two million a day simply because you
got out of bed and you have money working on behond.
So that's wealth versus him. I got a good ten
twenty million a year coming in that cash flow. You
(39:53):
gotta get to wealth where you had billions and billions
of dollars and is invested and it's making seven hundred
plus million a year for you. And I want to
clarify that because that was the key part you said,
not having just a couple of billion dollars, but the
billion dollars, the couple of billions you have are invested
(40:13):
to generate seven million a year, six million a year.
You're talking that talk a right now. You got you
got you got my seat warm over here. My blood
is bull and I'll be like, okay, it's the conversation.
But like, so before you get that bring and before
you buy this or you buy that to the let's
(40:34):
get to the three billion or what I call your
foundational wealth. Let's there and it's being and it's invested.
And now it doesn't matter what you do. Like every
day you wake up, you make it a couple of
million a day, a couple of million other days. Every
day you wake up doing nothing, nothing because your money
is invested. Now that's white wealth. There are white families
(40:58):
in this country that have those types of investments and
they are making literally billions every year off the billions
they already have. That's what. Now, what we have as
black people, we don't have wealth. We have good cash
flow the time you have a good fight. So how
does one get from good cash flow to wealth? You
take a great question. You take that cash flow and
(41:21):
you don't spend it. You invest it, and you invested,
and then one day you're gonna look up. Your investments
are so vast that you're like, hey, I'm making ten
million a year off my investments. Now you start to breathe. Okay,
now you started, so we should be saving our money,
(41:42):
watching our pennies. But whatever you do, you're never gonna
change your trajectory until you invest into buy that house,
and and you beat up the bank on that interest rates.
Always keep challenging on them. And that was and that
was a good time because the interest rates and rates
are low, like this is about your You're as close
to free money as you're gonna ever get. Everybody should
(42:03):
be buying their home, and they perishing their home and
cherishing their community and investing in their communities. And you
should be investing in uh long term in the stock
market because you have one of the greatest economies and
the best brands in the world, brands in the world,
and the best managers in the world. And if you
(42:25):
look at the four four hundred lists and the four
hundred richest people in this country, they are pretty much
their wealth is sitting in the stock market, and it's
somewhat in real estate, but a lot of them they
own large blocks of stock. And some of the best
brands in the world, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, and A,
T and T and and and Microsoft and Disney are
(42:46):
just some of the few and this, this is where
that knowledge comes into play. Again. I just feel these
are the conversation because because just just imagine how many
black kids, even me. When I grew up, I thought
if I had a million dollars dollars rich I was,
it was the game right on the way way way
(43:09):
say that again. You have a million knowledge of what
you are a broken as hell. You are damn really clear,
and I'm real clear with you because where you going
you don't wake up and that's gonna be gone right right. Taxes. Yeah,
But but what I'm saying is it's so important for
(43:29):
people like yourself to spread that knowledge because we work hard,
like we like as a county, we're very we can
make something out of nothing, but we have a gland
ceiling because the people before us have laid it out. Okay, well,
wealth is you know, a couple of cars, you know
some some Nigerie, uh, nice place to stay and travel.
(43:51):
And if you look at Instagram and how it's set up,
you're just seeing everybody's highlight reels. And it makes anybody
that's entrepreneur or somebody get to a certain point feel
like if I don't have those things, I'm not successful
and I on the other hand, and like you was
like I'm going in these rooms and when I and
when I come back and tell my friends and faughtners,
like about these conversations and these billion dollars, this billion
(44:13):
dollar mindset you have. It sounds so far fast. It's
like it's like graduating college when you ain't even the
elementary yet. You know what I'm saying. It's just like,
oh my god, I don't even want to think like that.
And to me, I just feel like we gotta have
these conversations because we have to break the glass ceiling,
you know. We we have to understand these things are
possible and they're out there. And not only that, you
(44:34):
have people that have achieved this and understand this like
the back of their hand. And it's like, if we
don't build generational wealth like my my my grand my
grandfather didn't leave anything for my dad, and my dad
didn't leave you know what I'm saying. My whole mission
is to make sure that my kids are gonna be
good and they're set up in a way that they
understand how things work and not with the general public things. Okay,
(44:55):
they're my kids, they should have everything. No, that's not
great education. You know, they should have to trust fund.
They should have their their their properties that I've been
invested in over the years, and they should have outlets
and resources because going to those schools and being in
those and being in that little community, they're gonna have
friends that they grow up in be bankers, they grow
up in the real estate agents, they grow up and
(45:15):
be all these different things that they're gonna have in
their community. And and and and that's the thing that
I'm trying to, you know, give to the culture. But
I just it's hard because it's like it seems so
far fetched and and hear you talk about it, Wasta
was so much certainty. I'm like, yo, I gotta reevaluate
how I'm thinking, because it's like, you know, that's real.
(45:38):
I want to wake up in and I ain't gotta
get up my bed either, you know, I'm gonna roll over,
put on my house shoes and check check that bank
stable and be like, well, you know what, actually that's
very possible. And and we have we can't have our
HBCUs struggling, right, that's real, that's real, Black amer that's
on us. We need you in vest. And by the way,
(46:01):
it hasn't been done. I'm want to publicly thank Michael
Bloomberg Okay, donated a hundred million dollars to educate black
medical students in this country. We as Black Americans, we
have to celebrate that and thank you Michael. That right,
(46:23):
we have to thank folks like that's real talk. Like
we as a society have to acknowledge the ones who
are loving us and supporting us and showing us the way,
and we have to lean in and say, look, we're
not gonna let the black people. We're not gonna let
the HBCUs struggle, and we're going to make sure that
our schools and our communities as parents. Yeah that it
(46:47):
may be a public school, but we have resources to
to enhance that public school. You know, one thing I
don't want our black kids to do is to graduate
from college and be a debt slave. I don't want
you to go I don't want you to struggle to
achieve your education, and I want you to get your master's,
your PhD. Because the more intelligent you are, the better
(47:09):
we are. And you are not and if you are
not a dead slave, then you are a true consumers.
You're an asset, and you're a true consumer because when
you get how you're gonna get that job, and you're
not worried about your your your your student loan. You're
actually now a consumer. You're gonna go get that house.
You're gonna get wash and Dyer, you get that house up.
(47:29):
The entire economy has a solid foundation. And what I
would love to see is that happen worldwide. And if
we can have that world wid all that intellectual capital
is working together in symphony and we are able to
achieve and eradicate the things that destroy us. Every day
we're building that. You're you're building that intellectual capital because
(47:55):
you're being educated. That means that you're bringing up everything
around you. So it's less of This is less. Drugs
is less because now everybody's coming up with you, and
everybody's coming up with you. You're able to eliminate that racism,
that sexism, that agism. You're able to eradicate the drug abuse,
(48:16):
the alcohol abuse, the child abuse. You're eradicating all of
the demon all of the evils, so we can achieve
a slice of heaven right here on earth. And I
believe that is really for me, that is really the
true human tests of why we're here, and when we
(48:37):
achieve that oneness, that one human oneness, then we are
more like God, and we are living more like in
God's image, and you will start to see a lot
of the evils and the demons go away when I
when we love each other like you are truly my brother,
you are truly my sister. And I don't care about
(48:58):
your skin color, or my or your religion. Let me
elaborate on that further. And I don't gotta call any names.
The reason I know you speak the truth, my brother,
because I've seen so many people in the position of
power try to draw a clear line of separation, because
that's what's gonna keep us demonized. It's dividing conquer is.
(49:18):
Put them over there, and we're over here, and we're
gonna let them have all the term more and just
take themselves out because they can't they can't function. They
can't function. They don't know how to you know, to
to to live amongst each other. They don't know how
to uplift each other. They should be over there. And
the more that happens, the father behind we get. So
when you hear systemic racism, you hear the wealth gap,
(49:41):
all those things are being created and and and they're
they're not getting any better because we're not building ourselves up.
And and I swear like it's so crazy that we're
talking about this, because I said all the time, with
these young guys that come out here and they come
out of these these ghettos and these these places, and
they get out here and they start making money and
they start, you know, building a company, and all of
a sudden, now the people depending on them, and then
(50:03):
you still can fall victim to being killed by one
of your own over straight up jealousy. But you was
on the verge of being that person that can uplift
people around you, and they immediately take you out. So
the psycho has to start all the way back over again.
And it has nothing to do with education. It's like
the heart of us as a as a people. It's
(50:25):
like we're fighters, we want to win, but if we're
that clear line of separation is wrong and we over
here and that goes on. It's like it's too many
liabilities and not enough. I'm saying, It's like it's so
many abilities, you know, and so and and that black
on black crime speaks our own self hatred absolutely and
(50:46):
that frustration. Absolutely thing that can eradicate that is education,
because you hope a pathway to success. Your success is
my success success, Yes, just like Mrs Iceman's Mikey's success
was Mrs Right. I am here to position you to succeed.
(51:08):
I am sharing this information because I want you to
do better than me. Okay, because your success will only
help me. I don't want to see people not realize
their fullest potential. You may have the cure for what's
gonna take me right right, right, right, right right. So
I want you to be the best of the best.
(51:28):
Everybody has greatness in them, everybody. If you are alive
and above ground, you have greatness. The words and less brown, baby,
that's the words and less brown. I know what. I
listened to it every morning. But you I love less.
I love less, But you have greatness in you have
to unleash it and not do anything that stands in
(51:50):
the way of it, and and time in on that.
I know you absolutely right, because as a youngster I
had to like I grew up in singing right trailers,
small and everything. But my sister was always very book
small like she's she's she's brilliant when it comes to
books and understanding reading, and I was just like, I
can't get into that at the time because I was
in the streets trying to figure it out and take
care my mother. But the one thing I did do
(52:11):
that was the right thing. And the reason why I
know you speak the truth is I took the little
money that I had and helped put myself through school
and she became an r N and then she went
on to do other things. So she's in the medical field,
and you know, um, she's always been proud of her.
You know, her brother is the rap superstar and entrepreneur
and all that. But when this COVID thing hit and
(52:34):
she was on the front line saving lives, and she
was telling me these stories at the end of the day,
like Okay, I had to save this many people and
that many people, and this happened, and that happened, and
my my mother got sick. It's just her mentality, the
way she went about it. And I just sat there.
I was like, I thought I was the star. She
is clearly the superstar. She is the one she is.
(52:55):
I ain't saved no lives today, I'm quite sure if
I call her she saved a few, but That made
me feel so real, because, like, you're right, it's the education.
It's the fact that she can go in there and
do what she loves to do, which has helped people.
But if I wasn't in a position they help her
get through college so that she can have that, she
wouldn't be able to save lives. And I can only
(53:15):
imagine how many lives she saved just for the simple
fact that she went to college. And we talked all
the time, and she tells me, brother, you wouldn't believe
today I came in there. You know, we had this
many people dying, this many people laugh and and she's
explaining it to me, and I'm just sitting there, like
you are amazing, Like you you are truly amazing. And
that education And what I'm getting out of this conversation
(53:37):
and what you're telling me is it's about the education.
That's the start. And once we get educated and we
start to get this um income and we start to
build this wealth, we have to invest and you and
you and love. Once that howney, Hey, guys, my kids
are in the pool. Yeah, I already know. Love is
(54:01):
the way, Peace is the way, Vacation is the way,
and and it's a marathon, not a sprint. Can't love enough,
we can't hug enough, we can't give enough, we can't
lean in enough. We must really embrace and make sure
we extend our family to the world. Right And I
(54:25):
love I love that lean in coming that you're making.
And before I let you go, I want them to
hear this one more time. If if if we get
you said a million people, we got ten million black
folks to me, Black folks, listen, black folks, everybody else too, everybody,
by the way, white folks. I just wanted to say,
(54:47):
it's I know I'm listening, folks. How much is inside
of our own like ten million black folks? And in
ten bucks a month is a hundred million a month? Okay,
that's one a month a month. That's one point to
build in a year. Listen, one point. We don't get
what the almighty black dollar is right here, people, If
we don't figure this out, we're sitting us back another
(55:09):
hundred years. Because if we can afford all this Louis
Vuitton and this Gucci and all these done of clothes
and all these things that we don't need you and
what's happening is I'll say you know, you can say
black lives matter all you want. You can bitch, moan
and complain all you want. Donate and vote. Donate and vote,
(55:32):
because when you donate to something like education, okay, then
you are moving your community and your culture to a
more successful place, a better place. When you vote, you
are protecting your community because you're putting you're putting politicians
in place to make sure that you have a pathway
(55:52):
to success. And so you need to vote always, even
in the mid terms, vote on everything on free position
because every position matters and quality of your life, and
you need to donate to your community and to your politicians.
You know, we lost the great Queen Stacy Abrams as
(56:12):
governor of Georgia because Black America, quite frankly, we didn't
lean in and donate money to her. When she was
running for governor of Georgia. I called her up and
I said, you don't you may not really know me.
My name is Byron Allen, and I'm in I'm in
l A. I would like for you to come to
um Los Angeles because there are a lot of folks
who like you. And she came here and uh, you know,
(56:36):
I partnered with Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg, and we
were her second biggest fundraiser for her to run for governor.
What I really want Black America to do is for
Black America to become our own political superpack. If we
say the Black America, I need two million of you
to send in ten bucks to Stacy Abrams, she's got
(56:56):
twenty million dollars and now she's the governor of or
And she didn't lose by one point four percent. Our
brother Andrew Gillim he lost governor of Florida by point
four percent. So if we say the two million, three
million black people sitting in ten bucks, that's thirty million dollars.
He has enough to get in. And what now we're
(57:18):
gonna have to do in twenty two is make sure
you know, you get somebody like a Val Demmings maybe
as governor of Florida in twenty two in Florida, uh state,
the Queen Stacy Abrams governor of Georgia. And now you
position Kamala Harris to become the first female president of
(57:40):
She has support in key states around the country. We
as black people have to think this way. Marathon not
a sprint, long term, and we have to take our
resources and we have to pull them together and make
them a priority that we lean in on our politicians,
We lean in on our education, and then what you
will find is that we will start to achieve banks.
(58:02):
They have national charters to lend to African American families
for homeownerships, business lines of credits because everybody has cash
flow issues, and help the black community have access to
capital that's not predatory. So it's politicians so we have
policies that don't work against us. It's us leaning in
(58:24):
on education and that's the number one priority. And then
making sure that we have a strong alignment with the
financial community so we have access to capital that allows
us to invest in ourselves, our businesses and position ourselves
for long term generational success. Well said my brother. Well
said that might have been the best part of the interviews, like, uh,
(58:47):
listen Byron Um, I've heard of you, brother, I've watched
you and some type of way. I feel like we
got to become friends somewhere because I feel like we
have a lot of what I need is so we'll
make that happen offline. But speaking on behalf of the
culture and and and black men didn't look up to
other black men because they are solid and they have integrity.
(59:09):
We appreciate you, brother. Thank you for stopping by the
Recession podcasts and dropping these gems and jewels. The almighty
black dollar there it is. Love you brother. Thanks for
listening to the Recession Podcast by Jeezy, a production of
(59:30):
Black Effect and Our Heart Radio. For more podcast visits
the I Heart Radio, Apple Apple Podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows,
The Recessing Podcast with Yours Truly. Jeezy is a production
of Black Effect and Our Heart Radio. This is Jeezy,
Grammy nominated Urban philosopher, philanthropists and entrepreneur, and this is
my show, The Recessing Podcast. For years, I used my
(00:22):
music to highlight the struggles and issues facing this country
the economy, politics, protests, mental health and more. And now
strong voices are more important than ever before. On this show,
I will speak the powerful people from all walks of
life to have real conversations about change, perseverance, and hope.
(00:43):
In each episode will feature a sample of a song
from my new album, The Recession Too. So without further ado,
let's begin the Recessing Podcast. Let's get it. Today's comments,
Say Sins with Byron Allen. He started off as a
comedian and transformed into a media mogul, television producer and
(01:08):
founder of Entertainment Studios. Byron is an advocate for economic inclusiveness,
especially in the black community. His work reminds me of
one of my latest songs, The Almighty Black Dollar. Here's
my conversation with Byron Allen on your Recessing Podcast right
here with yourge true Jeez, Let's get it all. This
(01:29):
find is Cofie l V Council and you tell them
the so Rolex ap ain't sit y'are follower need need
us almighty black dollar, black dollar. Fuck them bots ain't puff,
It ain't chased rock say Bell, Let's get pain Russ
Bitty ain't ship y'all follower need that need us almighty
(01:52):
black dollar. How you doing, brother, I'm doing great. It's
so good to be here with you. Thank you for
having me. Yeah, yeah, we had to we we had
to get you on this podcast, man, because it seems
like you're doing some some some really big things when
it comes to media out there. For me, you know,
just coming from where we come from, I'm watching what
(02:13):
you're doing is a unique space for somebody that can
come from Detroit, moved to Los Angeles and carve this
thing out for yourself. And you know, I'm reading you
as a comedian first. So I'm trying to put that
with how did you, you know, pivot into the entrepreneurs
space because it's two different worlds. Yeah, you know, I
(02:36):
always I learned early on it it's business show, not
show business. M Like hold one more time, business show
not show business. And I like that you want to
learn the business part. And when you learn the business part,
you can do as many shows as you would like.
Who and I think, and I think, and I think
a lot of people they approach it differently. They approach
(02:58):
it is show business. They want to shine and they
want the bling. And for me, it's not about the shine.
It's not about the bling. It's about the business. And
if you approach it from a business point of view,
you will you will have all the shine you want,
all the bling you want. I just I don't happen
(03:19):
to be into that. I don't even have a watch. Really,
just look at you. You look at your phone to
tail the time. My phone tells me the time. And yeah,
it's all the same. It's all the same. And uh,
I can only one I can only use one car.
And my car is an SUV so I can get
my school. Um, I got an SUV so I can
(03:39):
drive my kids to school and any diamonds And I
love it. And I'm not interested in the collection of cars.
You know, you know, I tell you a friend of mine,
you have friends who collect cars, And I said, look,
I don't collect cars. I collect real estate. Wow, hey, listen,
I'm right there. I love that. That's a that's another right,
(04:02):
and all that other stuff that goes down and value.
You know what, I want young people out here to
to be fascinated by your real estate and not your blame,
because the being is temporary and then it will go away.
I was just very fortunate, you know, I've always thought
that way and saw it that way. You know, I
learned not to do anything. Other people were trying to quit.
(04:23):
So you learned, you learned not to do anything anything.
I never picked up the habits that other people were
trying to quit, right So if it was smoking, you wouldn't.
I never's been smoking. I started drinking alcohol. I never
ended doing drugs, and so I was really fortunate that
I didn't develop those habits. What do you think they
(04:44):
came from? I just was really I was fortunate that
I noticed other people were having problems with their smoking,
with their alcohol, and with their drugs, and I just said,
I'm life is challenging enough. Life is tough enough. And
I learned early on that you have to make sure
you don't do anything to make it more difficult for yourself. Well,
(05:06):
I feel better because I had to. I came up
in the era where I learned from my uncle's mistakes
people in my neighborhood. It was a little older me.
I was like, I just I don't feel like I
want to do that. And as I started to evolve,
I felt kind of crazy because it was like I
would tell people things like that, I be like, yo,
I don't really you know, even being an artist and
(05:27):
and and that being a part of the mystique. Um,
I used to be like, yeah'll rather buy some builders.
And I used to tell my son all the time,
it's like, yo, I really go by these these buildings
and and and have this real estate. And he looked
at me, but like Dad, but everybody knows you for that.
And I'm just like nah. And you know, it's crazy
because I hear you talk about that was so much
confidence and so much certainty. And and I want everybody
(05:49):
out there listening, because when I was making those decisions
to make those changes, I felt like I felt like
I was by myself, you know, like like part of
the cool crowd. And it was it was hard because
I was used to being the cool guy. And when
I was like, you know what, you know, I want
to back down, you know, from this, and I don't
want to spend unnecessary money on that, and and I'd rather,
(06:09):
you know, take my money and travel and see the
world rather than you know, just to mess it off
here and then. And when I started making those changes, um,
it was hard because that's all I knew. But I
also felt like I was, you know, being kind of
like put on the outskirts of what was going on
as far as the culture, because it's like that's what
they know. So my thing is like like that certainty
(06:32):
you had, Like where did it come from? Because it
sounds like you knew this coming out of the box,
Like this is not nothing you have to think about.
You like, you know what, I'm not smoking, I'm not drinking,
and I'm not overspending, you know what I'm saying, not
doing drugs. You know, it's really about wanting to unleash
your greatness. That unleash your greatness if you're doing things
(06:53):
to deter it. M my friends were the entire spectrum
from A to Z, and it's great because you really
get to know one another. And it was really a
key background for me to be from a very integrated
community in a very integrated neighborhood, and I got to
(07:14):
learn a lot, uh from a lot of different folks
and a lot of different cultures. And I'm really fortunate
to have that exposure. And I got to see a
lot of just a lot of perspectives and a lot
of goodness being raised in such a strong, integrated, diverse community.
(07:35):
You know, you know, I am a firm believer that
greatness does come from from diversity. You know. I even
think about the civil rights movement, right, I think about
the Civil rights movement and that listen, as black people,
that was not done alone. Um, it took outside. It
took a lot of support from blot white people, a
(07:57):
lot of great Jewish people. I mean, I think, quite frankly,
I think the Black community owes the Jewish community huge
debt of gratitude because of how much the Jewish community
leaned in during the Civil rights movement. This is this
is something I've never known that absolutely the Jewish community
(08:20):
was with the Black community in a huge way and
has been since day one in terms of civil rights. Uh.
And you know, there's a photo that hangs in my
office where because Martin the King asked for all of
the religious leaders to go with him across the Edmund
Pettis Bridge and there's that bridge where the rabbis standing
right next to him. And we owe a huge debt
(08:43):
to a lot of folks and a lot of cultures, Um,
who have really stood by us and for us and
for us, whether it was in the streets or in
the in the school, in the school room, the boardroom,
and that is in the entire spectrum from you know,
from white Jewish to you mean it like, we didn't
(09:07):
do it by ourself, and you can't write anything about it.
You need friends, you need an extended family, you need allies,
and you need it in your everyday life. And I've
always said, you know, it's important that you love and
embrace everybody and you expand it out because that's how
you're going to have your greatest success. It's crazy you
(09:28):
said that the diversity, because the first thing I thought
about what you said, that the diversity in your neighborhood,
and it just gave your open mind. Um. Even in
my personal life, you know, I came from you know,
humble beginnings. I did grow up in the hood. I
went through that whole thing. But by chance my father
was in the military, so off and on um I
(09:49):
was able to move out of the neighborhood and go
with my father for for periods of time. And one
of my trips I can recall was when I would
live to my my father in Japan, and it opened
me up to so much culture and just how the
world worked. And I mean I did everything from like
like and people don't even know that about me, Like
I'm I'm I'm a professional with topsticks, like you know
(10:12):
what I'm saying, Like you can't tell me nothing about
sushi that I don't know. But I pride myself on
being open minded because of that once in a lifetime
experience that I got to see what a whole another
culture lived like, and they just opened me up to
um to just research other cultures, that understand how other
people move and get some a little bit from here,
(10:34):
a little bit from there. And I think that's why
I was able to, you know, go further than than
the norm, because I knew there was another world out there.
So I I definitely agree with you that you need,
you know, more than just your surroundings. You need other people.
So that diversity definitely put me in a different space
in life. So you got to open up your world
(10:55):
and you gotta really know and and and embrace folks
and learned from folks. And you know, um, there was
a book that was written, you know, let's just talk
about racism and and let's just talk about unique experiences
and how closely were we are aligned, um, and how
(11:17):
we are as black people, how we are closely aligned
with the Jewish community, and how the Jewish community is
a major supporter of the Black community and we must
be the same of the Jewish community. And to give
you a great example, there was a book written in
nineteen six called The Passage of the Great Race. In
(11:38):
nineteen sixteen, this book was written and it was written
by young, wealthy, well educated, young white man named Madison Grant.
And Madison Grant wrote this book and he didn't like
the immigration that he was seeing in New York. He
was living in New York and he went to a
(11:59):
very uh you know, he went to you know, an
Ivy League law school, and he was a lawyer. And
this was an educated young man. And he wrote this
book and he did not like the immigration he was
seeing in Manhattan. And he wrote the book was the
Passage of the Great Race, and it was basically keep
America white and pure, Keep America white and pure, and
(12:25):
stop the immigration of folks out of Europe into this country.
And this book took off. And then this young man
read this book. And this young man read this book,
and this young man said, this is this book is
my bible. Was his quote, like this book was. Basically
he was saying the greatest book he had ever read.
(12:46):
And this young and said this book is my bible.
And that young man was Adolf Hitler. Wow, okay, nine six.
That young man was Eightolf Hitler. So not only did
America create this racism, we perfected this racism and exploited
(13:09):
exported it all the way to Europe. Unfortunately it came
back as the Holocaust. Okay, written by a young white
man in America. Okay. So Hitler gave an interview to
the New York Times, and Hitler said to the New
York Times paraphrasing, I don't understand why, you know, America
(13:31):
is giving me so much attitude. Basically it was what
he was saying. He said, everything I learned about immigration
control I learned from America. And he thought America was
going to partner with him to conquer the world. And
(13:52):
that's why he read that book and thought this was
his connection to America. You how closely we are aligned
with the Jewish community and the and the trials and tribulations.
Hitler sent his Nazi lawyers two America and said, study
(14:12):
the Jim Crow laws that they're using on the Negroes
in America and bring them back and use them on
the Jews. Wow, that's deep. So when I say to
you that the Jewish community is our family, that's our family. Wow,
(14:33):
that's the eyes. I say to you, that's my family,
that's our family. I get it, it get it. That's
not that's that's that's family. That's our that's how those
are our brothers and our sisters. I get it. I
get you know, I totally get it. That's how closely
(14:56):
like the passage of the Great Race. Okay. And Hitler
sent his people and said, what you're doing to the Negroes,
drop it over here and there their journey very similar
to ours. And so when I say, as far as
(15:17):
we are concerned as black people, we hold them a
huge debt of gratitude. And you're not my friend, you
are family. And together we will work together, in partnership,
we will eliminate eradicate the racism, and we will eradicate
(15:39):
the anti Semitism, we will eradicate the hatred. Because the
moment we become we we stopped being tribes. Because right
now we're kind of tribes and everybody's seeing their tribal
and the moment we get rid of the tribalism m
(16:00):
and we become one and we make the tribe the
human race, and we become one human race as a tribe.
That's the tribe. The human tribe is the moment we
accomplish a slice of heaven right here on earth, slice
(16:21):
of heaven right here, right here on earth, when we
love one human tribe. I totally agree with you that
because I personally think is the lack of knowledge and
the lack of information because listening until you talk, like
I said again, clarity, you have clarity on history. I
(16:46):
think with us. And as you can see, um, what
just happened over the last four months when we got
he marchin and fighting for our lives and and and
fighting to breathe, and and and and you know, everything
that we just went through four months ago. If you
look now, it's pretty much you know, people who have
looked past that they moved on with their lives. So
(17:06):
imagine not being educated on what really happened in the
Holocaust to understand, you know, it's it's it's it's the
lack of the lack of knowledge and even what you're
telling me this, And I love that because that's what
it's about being a leader. I can tell that's what
you really are um for you to spend your time
talking about this is that we have to get the
(17:28):
information out to other leaders so they can educate people
and give them knowledge, because that's the problem that separation
is we don't have enough knowledge about each other. If
you go back to the history books, even in school
with us, I don't even know, Like when all this
stuff started happening, I felt the same to myself because
I didn't even know enough about black history to understand.
All I knew was marl Luther King, Malcolm X and
(17:50):
and whatever they taught me in school, and that was
you know, maybe uh, sixty pages out of a whole book,
and and and you only knew Christopher Columbus or what
wanted to want to teach you. So when everything started happening,
I went back and started looking at all these different
documentaries um, you know the name of a slave and
all these different things. And it was just like I
(18:11):
didn't know we was on the money. We was actually
on the money, like we was the currency. I didn't
know that slaves would be bought and sold and then
when they when they was able to be free, Um,
that somebody can come and say, hey, you did something wrong,
you broke the law, and now you owe me a
fine of you know, two hundred dollars, but you're never
gonna be able to pay this off, so now you
(18:32):
gotta be my slave. So all these things and I
and as a black man, I kind of felt it
was mind blown because I'm like, I don't know all
this stuff. So when I see here and listen and
you talk about us being one tribe, I personally think
the don in my heart, it's because we don't have
the information and the knowledge about each other's background, in
each other's history. Because when I think about the Holocaust
(18:54):
and what they went through, it's a lot similar that
a lot of a lot of a lot of Jewish
people died. You know, they below own as we took um,
they were put in concentration camps. And you can't tell
the average person out here that's walking around. These are
the things that happened because they're looking at it like,
you know, we've been through the most that you know,
they they're killing us in the street. But that's only
that's been three months ago. Now ask somebody what happened
(19:16):
ten years ago to us, and twenty years ago to
us and a hundred years They cannot tell you because
we don't have the knowledge. It's crazy. You have to
have that, and you have to understand where it's coming from.
It and and and a lot of it is is
pure hatred, and and it's tribalism. And you can start
to see the pattern the rhythms, you know, I call
(19:38):
it the four ds. Whether it's black people or Jewish people,
you see the four ds they put on you, whether
dismiss you, m M. Dismissing, They just dismiss you, and
then like then they they after they dismiss you, you
get a little upset about that. Then they discredit you
(19:58):
discredit and then they move on to that third D,
which they have to move on to the get right
with their so called Christian cells, they demonize demons. I
knew you was gonna say that. They knew, you know,
Nazi Germany demonized the Jewish faith and the Jewish people,
and how America demonizes Black America. Once they get to
(20:21):
that demonization, that then they can move on to that
fourth and inevitable deed they destroy you. Wow, And they
have to go through that process. They dismiss you, they
just credit you, they demonizing, and then they destroy and
they have to demonize you to get right what they're
so called Christian cells? Is that why? I mean, I'm
(20:44):
just asking because I'm curious, because you opening my ears
up here. Like when I go through Jewish communities and
I drive through and I see how they set up.
It seems like to me they're tightening family. They sit together,
they don't really let a lot of people in, and
they look out for each other, so they're able to
be each other up in a sense. Is you think
that from I think it's always good no matter who
(21:05):
you are, what your what group you've heard of, to
be loving and supportive and engaging. What I'm saying, do
you think that came from them going through what they
would do? And yeah, I think any group that's that's
being persecuted, obviously, the inclination is to stay closer and
build each other. But I'm saying that because I should
do that. I mean, like I'm but that's what I'm saying,
(21:27):
Like for us, I feel like that's the missing I
think in the black community, we have a great deal
of dysfunction. Black community. I think we are taught in
program uh to not to trust one another. And I
think there's a lot of drugs and alcohol and guns
(21:49):
and bullets that are conveniently provided to our community. And
I think that's a part of the of the genocide
against Black America. Uh, I mean Black America's position to fail.
And you're almost for it. You're you are absolutely set up,
set up. You know, I'm gonna make I've always said,
(22:10):
they kill you in the courtroom, and they kill you
in the school board. Them all for the retreats. So
I think what you see is, I think you see
that we are not getting most of our community is
a proper education. And I think you're seeing that we
are not getting access to capital that's not predatory in
(22:31):
most cases, and you're not you know, we are positioned
to fail. And I think what we have to do
in Black America is we have to do what a
lot of other communities have done a phenomenal jobs at
is they have made education the number one priority their community.
(22:54):
And I think we have really given our all as
Black America as to make sure to make sure that
is the number one thing in our community. And until
we do what other successful communities have done, which is
education the number one thing in their community, as Black America,
(23:16):
will not move to the level we should and and
can move to. What changed my life is that I
was very fortunate that not only is my mother beautiful,
she's brilliant. And even though she had me seventeen days
after her seventeenth birthday, and you would have to be,
you know, really scared as a seventeen year old black
(23:37):
girl having a baby in nineteen wanting to try Michigan.
But we were fortunate. She ended up which coming out
here to l a um And and she was a
two week vacation and we ended up staying here and
she ended up getting into u c l A. And
she end up getting her master's degree in Cinema TV
(23:58):
Production at u c l A. And because she was
at u c l A working on her master's degree,
she was able to get a job at NBCAT Tours
of NBC and in later publicity and marketing and being
at NBC and giving tours. I was able to go
to work with her, and because I could not put
(24:19):
before childcare, and as I waited for my mother to
get off work, I was able to watch them take
The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson Sanford and Song with
Red Fox and Cheek, on the Man with Freddie Prince,
and the Footbillson Show, on the Richard Prior specials, and
I watched them do you Know George Byrne Specials, And
I watched uh Brian Gumbel do the local news, and
(24:40):
Pat NBC and Pat's a Jack Brian kid sportscaster and
Pat c Jack was the weather man. And I was
able to watch all of these people make television. But
education is what changed the trajectory of our destiny and
put us on a different parallel um. What I out.
(25:00):
You know, I recently went on the road. I was
raising a little over a billion dollars UH to buy
some companies, and I went to go speak to a
couple of hundred you know, fund managers who managed probably
about ten fifteen trillion dollars in capital. So these are
the people you go to when you're raising capital, buy acquisitions,
(25:22):
to make acquisitions, to buy companies. And when I found
was that the brothers and the sisters were in the
lobbies and uniforms. Checking the end, they were security and
there's nothing wrong with But when I went up the
elevator to talk to the fifteen plus trillion in capital
to see if I could get them to put a
billion with me on this particular go around, what I
(25:43):
found is there was a lot of young white kids
in their twenties and thirties who had come to really
terrific schools. I would ask them their background, and they
had an education, and they had degrees in business law degrees,
business degrees, nbas and j d s from really good schools.
And that was the difference from us being in the
(26:05):
penthouse managing twenty or thirty billion in our twenties and thirties.
The lobby education and the only way I can get
you out of the lobby, out of a uniform. And
that's a noble profession if that's what you want to be,
if that's what you want to do. But the only
way I can get you out of that lobby and
get you into the penthouse where you're making millions of
(26:26):
dollars a year, and you know, managing billions of dollars.
It's education and you case, and that has no substitute
and there's nothing that's gonna get you around that. And
you know what, I've always thought that we as black America,
what we have to do is say, you know what,
(26:47):
you know, whatever, it's thirty forty million of US in America.
What if only ten million of us put in ten
bucks a month, ten bucks a months that my credit
card or my debit card or whatever it is a million,
that's a hundred million a month. That's one point to
billion a year. Okay, now one point two billion in
(27:08):
and you know, God will in twenty million of us
do it. That's two hundred million a month. It's two
point four billion a year. And I'll check this out.
So two point four billion a year. I'm graduating every
black kid in America through college debt free. So I
got you, Okay, I got you, So go ahead, And
(27:30):
I want I want because I want you to maximize
your intellectual capital. And I want you to maximize your
intellectual capital because that is how you're going to bring
out the greatness in youth. And as black people, we
have those resources. We have that capability, we have the
(27:55):
capital to do that. We have to make it the priority.
Now I had this epiphany. I would go vacation at
the same spot, the same hotel year after for the holidays,
and the same families would be at the same at
this hotel at the same time, and we would be
in the cabanas, you know, at the end, you know,
(28:17):
looking out the ocean, and one of the families it
was I became, you know, great, really great conversations year
after year. They were from I'm from l A and
they were from another part of the country. Her name
Mrs Wisemith, and she and I became very friendly because
I started talking to I noticed her husband had had
(28:37):
the markings on his arms and he had been in
the Holocaust, and he asked about it. We really developed
a bond talking over the years, and one year she
said to me, you know, I almost didn't make it
back here this year to talk to you, to hang
out with you. And I always enjoy hanging out with you.
You know. She's like in her eighties. And I said,
(29:00):
why what are you talking about. Come, you didn't make
it almost make it back here. She says, well, I've
been having problems with my heart, and nobody wanted to
operate on this little old lady. And uh, she said,
everybody turned me down because they thought I was going
to die on the operating table and they didn't want
to open me up. So she said, everybody who said
you know, no way I'm going to operate on this
(29:22):
little old Jewish lady. She said. So, my son said
to me, well, mom, mom, why don't you call mike
You know, she goes little Mikey. She said, yeah, she
goes your friend, Little Mikey, who I used to make
cookies and milk for it. Wow, he's he's a heart surgeon.
And she said, yeah, well he's not so little anymore, Mommy.
(29:44):
He's like one of the world's greatest heart surgeons and
he and so, she said, So I called him up
and I said, hey, little Mikey, I'm sorry to bother you,
but this is Mrs Wiseman and I'm having a problem
with my heart. They don't want to operate on this
little old Jewish lady. I just wanted to see if
you had any advice. And he said to her, I
(30:06):
want you to email me your records right away. And
so she said, no problem, and her son sends the email,
sends the records off to him, and he calls her
back right away and he says, I want you to
get on the next plane smoking you come to me.
I'm gonna I'm gonna perform surgery on you tomorrow. Wow,
(30:30):
she gets explained. He does the surgery. Her prices are
better than ours. Little Mikey does it again. And she's
sitting there telling me that story pretty much brought me
to tears. Ay. It's like, you realize how precious life
(30:50):
is about. And it just showed me, like how powerful
education is. Thank you, Little Mikey. Life its potential, right,
Little Michael realizing his potential, save Mrs Weiss. Mikey realizing
his potential and not getting caught up in games or
(31:11):
drugs or alcohol or going in and out of jail,
but rather having an education is actually positioning little Mikey
to save and save other lives, to find a cure
for something that may take you out or your loved ones.
I think as a matter of national security, everybody should
(31:34):
be educated to the fullest, for free, just as a
matter of national security, just for the quality of life.
I think as a matter of national security. It needs
to be free because we don't have enough intellectual capital.
And if you haven't maximize your potential, no respect, you
(31:55):
become a liability because because because we're subsidizing you, they're
gonna use it against you. Well, you're we're subsidizing you
because you haven't maximized your potential, and we need to
invest in you can maximize your potential to be an
asset and not a liability. And I love that you
said that because I want to take it a step
(32:15):
back further before I before I get sidetrack. You said
something in the beginning, and you said something now about
education that clicked. I had an epiphany. Um, you you
said something in the beginning about you having one suv,
not being in the blame, not being in it, none
of these things. You don't need a bunch of designer to,
(32:36):
you know, to to validate who you are. And then
you went on to say that you feel like education
is the key. Yes. So for the last couple of
like last maybe like a couple of years, I've really
been in my head about what type of money I've
spent on things, and and I just had something recently
(32:57):
come up where I had to put the culture first,
and I wanted my culture to understand. So even if
you look at the election that just happened, they had
to credit the African American community for stepping up and
coming out and voting this time. But if you look
at these billion dollar companies outside of media, we're talking
fashion and and watches and all these different brands and
all this stuff. We make these people billions and billions
(33:17):
of dollars that we go out here and risk our
lives and do all these crazy things to get this capital,
and then we go put it into these things because
we feel like that it makes us better as people.
So what whoever it is, whatever brand you have to support,
but you're basically taking your hard our money things. You
risk your life for your freedom, and you're pointing into
(33:39):
somebody's pocket for them to put their kids through school,
the best schools, to set their kids up with trust
funds and to be okay. But then you won't take
that same capital, that same money to invest in yourself
and your children so that you guys have the best education.
And that brings me to this point because I just
(34:01):
recently dropped the album and and I had a song
and titled the almighty black dollar. I wanted my people
on my coaches to see that our dollar is all mighty.
You just said if we put if you got, you said,
how many people to put h ten dollars in ten millions?
That's a hundred million a month, that's a billion to
a year, a billion to a year. And how many
(34:22):
kids did you say can go to college? Pretty much?
Take care of most of pretty much. At two point
four billion a year, pretty much, you take care all
the black kids in college, all the black kids like
literally like they're in school. I mean you could take
two point four billion. You're taking care of And that's
the other issue. You have a lot of black kids
who are not really leaning in because they don't think.
(34:43):
They're like, why should I lean in? But let me
say this before we go, why shid I lean is
the same thing I said when people started talking about
why should I vote? Because it matters little? That's right.
But so a lot of black kids are thinking, why
should I lean in? My family doesn't have the money
to get me through college? Got it? Got it? Okay?
If you're able to it's a mental mindset. If black
(35:03):
kids know that my college is gonna be paid for
Black America has put the money in for me, and
now I'm gonna be taking care of Black America has it.
We don't need to be saved. We can save ourselves
and Black America. What we have to understand is don't
(35:24):
work for your money, let the money. And so what's
happening is a lot of black people are getting pimped
by money. And you gotta pimp your money, right, we
say pimp by money. You're getting grinded down working to
three jobs you like, you can't. That's not sustainable. So
(35:46):
you can make money. You have to take money and
invest it. I'll tell you this. Last year, if you
invested whatever you invested, and I'm gonna call it ten
tho dollars, and I'm seeing everybody has ten thousand, I'm
just easy map, Okay. But if you invested ten thousand
dollars in eight stocks last year January one to December
(36:12):
last year, eight stocks, eight stocks, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, A,
T and T, Microsoft, and Disney, those eight stocks last
year would have given you a forty two return on
(36:33):
your money. So if you put it in January one,
tim grand, you would have come back a year later
January one, the following year and it would have been
fourteen thousand, two hundred bucks. You would have made forty
two dollars for doing nothing, nothing, nothing. And that's why
I wanted to talk about the power with the black dollar.
When you're mentor is trained to, Okay, I'm about this
(36:56):
because I'm some more. It's coming. I know how to
get some more. It seems like to me it's hard
to get somebody look for the long haul and the slow,
steady money because it is steady and and and the
immigrant mindset. To me, it works better with that because
immigrants have come here from another country and they won't
spend a dyme well, they're investing and there, and because
(37:21):
they're seeing an economy that is the greatest economy in
the world. This this America is the greatest country in
the world. We're not perfect, we have our flaws. We
are the greatest country in the world. Nothing is perfect.
We have the greatest economy, we have the greatest pathway
to wealth, and you can invest and you have a
financial system that is that is you know, you don't
(37:44):
have to worry about waking up one day and for
the most part, your capital is stolen. So they're investing
in there and there, and they are being smart about that.
We have to invest, and we have to go to
the banks. And it's very important to work with the
banks to make sure you buy your home. So work
with the banks that make sure you buy your home,
(38:04):
able to get a bank loan to buy your homes,
because that's now you're participating in the great the great
appreciation of America, the great wealth appreciation, because now you
have capital to help finance whatever it is, your retirement
or the education of your children or your grandchildren. And
have to buy real estate. And just understand, you're buying
(38:25):
it and the goal is never to sell it. The
goal is to pay it off and pass it on
for generation. The will to start creating generation, paying off
and pass it on. And so you know, when white
people die, most of the time, they get assets. When
people die, most of the time, we get bills bills,
and that's if you can pay for the funeral bills. Right.
(38:49):
So we and what I will say always say that
it's black people. You know, we don't have wealth. We
have what I call from time to time de and
cash flow. So you have black entertainers and athletes, they'll
come along and they'll have a good four or five
year run and they may make you know, a hundred
(39:10):
million or two hundred million bucks in that five year
run because they're hotter than not. But that's not that's
not wealth. That's good cash flow is when you have
three four billion dollars and five six hundred million a
year off year, three or four billion dollars. Okay, that's well,
(39:32):
when you've got three billion plus in cash investment and
it's making six hundred million a year for you, and
you're making over two million a day simply because you
got out of bed and you have money working on behond.
So that's wealth versus him. I got a good ten
twenty million a year coming in that cash flow. You
(39:53):
gotta get to wealth where you had billions and billions
of dollars and is invested and it's making seven hundred
plus million a year for you. And I want to
clarify that because that was the key part you said,
not having just a couple of billion dollars, but the
billion dollars, the couple of billions you have are invested
(40:13):
to generate seven million a year, six million a year.
You're talking that talk a right now. You got you
got you got my seat warm over here. My blood
is bull and I'll be like, okay, it's the conversation.
But like, so before you get that bring and before
you buy this or you buy that to the let's
(40:34):
get to the three billion or what I call your
foundational wealth. Let's there and it's being and it's invested.
And now it doesn't matter what you do. Like every
day you wake up, you make it a couple of
million a day, a couple of million other days. Every
day you wake up doing nothing, nothing because your money
is invested. Now that's white wealth. There are white families
(40:58):
in this country that have those types of investments and
they are making literally billions every year off the billions
they already have. That's what. Now, what we have as
black people, we don't have wealth. We have good cash
flow the time you have a good fight. So how
does one get from good cash flow to wealth? You
take a great question. You take that cash flow and
(41:21):
you don't spend it. You invest it, and you invested,
and then one day you're gonna look up. Your investments
are so vast that you're like, hey, I'm making ten
million a year off my investments. Now you start to breathe. Okay,
now you started, so we should be saving our money,
(41:42):
watching our pennies. But whatever you do, you're never gonna
change your trajectory until you invest into buy that house,
and and you beat up the bank on that interest rates.
Always keep challenging on them. And that was and that
was a good time because the interest rates and rates
are low, like this is about your You're as close
to free money as you're gonna ever get. Everybody should
(42:03):
be buying their home, and they perishing their home and
cherishing their community and investing in their communities. And you
should be investing in uh long term in the stock
market because you have one of the greatest economies and
the best brands in the world, brands in the world,
and the best managers in the world. And if you
(42:25):
look at the four four hundred lists and the four
hundred richest people in this country, they are pretty much
their wealth is sitting in the stock market, and it's
somewhat in real estate, but a lot of them they
own large blocks of stock. And some of the best
brands in the world, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, and A,
T and T and and and Microsoft and Disney are
(42:46):
just some of the few and this, this is where
that knowledge comes into play. Again. I just feel these
are the conversation because because just just imagine how many
black kids, even me. When I grew up, I thought
if I had a million dollars dollars rich I was,
it was the game right on the way way way
(43:09):
say that again. You have a million knowledge of what
you are a broken as hell. You are damn really clear,
and I'm real clear with you because where you going
you don't wake up and that's gonna be gone right right. Taxes. Yeah,
But but what I'm saying is it's so important for
(43:29):
people like yourself to spread that knowledge because we work hard,
like we like as a county, we're very we can
make something out of nothing, but we have a gland
ceiling because the people before us have laid it out. Okay, well,
wealth is you know, a couple of cars, you know
some some Nigerie, uh, nice place to stay and travel.
(43:51):
And if you look at Instagram and how it's set up,
you're just seeing everybody's highlight reels. And it makes anybody
that's entrepreneur or somebody get to a certain point feel
like if I don't have those things, I'm not successful
and I on the other hand, and like you was
like I'm going in these rooms and when I and
when I come back and tell my friends and faughtners,
like about these conversations and these billion dollars, this billion
(44:13):
dollar mindset you have. It sounds so far fast. It's
like it's like graduating college when you ain't even the
elementary yet. You know what I'm saying. It's just like,
oh my god, I don't even want to think like that.
And to me, I just feel like we gotta have
these conversations because we have to break the glass ceiling,
you know. We we have to understand these things are
possible and they're out there. And not only that, you
(44:34):
have people that have achieved this and understand this like
the back of their hand. And it's like, if we
don't build generational wealth like my my my grand my
grandfather didn't leave anything for my dad, and my dad
didn't leave you know what I'm saying. My whole mission
is to make sure that my kids are gonna be
good and they're set up in a way that they
understand how things work and not with the general public things. Okay,
(44:55):
they're my kids, they should have everything. No, that's not
great education. You know, they should have to trust fund.
They should have their their their properties that I've been
invested in over the years, and they should have outlets
and resources because going to those schools and being in
those and being in that little community, they're gonna have
friends that they grow up in be bankers, they grow
up in the real estate agents, they grow up and
(45:15):
be all these different things that they're gonna have in
their community. And and and and that's the thing that
I'm trying to, you know, give to the culture. But
I just it's hard because it's like it seems so
far fetched and and hear you talk about it, Wasta
was so much certainty. I'm like, yo, I gotta reevaluate
how I'm thinking, because it's like, you know, that's real.
(45:38):
I want to wake up in and I ain't gotta
get up my bed either, you know, I'm gonna roll over,
put on my house shoes and check check that bank
stable and be like, well, you know what, actually that's
very possible. And and we have we can't have our
HBCUs struggling, right, that's real, that's real, Black amer that's
on us. We need you in vest. And by the way,
(46:01):
it hasn't been done. I'm want to publicly thank Michael
Bloomberg Okay, donated a hundred million dollars to educate black
medical students in this country. We as Black Americans, we
have to celebrate that and thank you Michael. That right,
(46:23):
we have to thank folks like that's real talk. Like
we as a society have to acknowledge the ones who
are loving us and supporting us and showing us the way,
and we have to lean in and say, look, we're
not gonna let the black people. We're not gonna let
the HBCUs struggle, and we're going to make sure that
our schools and our communities as parents. Yeah that it
(46:47):
may be a public school, but we have resources to
to enhance that public school. You know, one thing I
don't want our black kids to do is to graduate
from college and be a debt slave. I don't want
you to go I don't want you to struggle to
achieve your education, and I want you to get your master's,
your PhD. Because the more intelligent you are, the better
(47:09):
we are. And you are not and if you are
not a dead slave, then you are a true consumers.
You're an asset, and you're a true consumer because when
you get how you're gonna get that job, and you're
not worried about your your your your student loan. You're
actually now a consumer. You're gonna go get that house.
You're gonna get wash and Dyer, you get that house up.
(47:29):
The entire economy has a solid foundation. And what I
would love to see is that happen worldwide. And if
we can have that world wid all that intellectual capital
is working together in symphony and we are able to
achieve and eradicate the things that destroy us. Every day
we're building that. You're you're building that intellectual capital because
(47:55):
you're being educated. That means that you're bringing up everything
around you. So it's less of This is less. Drugs
is less because now everybody's coming up with you, and
everybody's coming up with you. You're able to eliminate that racism,
that sexism, that agism. You're able to eradicate the drug abuse,
(48:16):
the alcohol abuse, the child abuse. You're eradicating all of
the demon all of the evils, so we can achieve
a slice of heaven right here on earth. And I
believe that is really for me, that is really the
true human tests of why we're here, and when we
(48:37):
achieve that oneness, that one human oneness, then we are
more like God, and we are living more like in
God's image, and you will start to see a lot
of the evils and the demons go away when I
when we love each other like you are truly my brother,
you are truly my sister. And I don't care about
(48:58):
your skin color, or my or your religion. Let me
elaborate on that further. And I don't gotta call any names.
The reason I know you speak the truth, my brother,
because I've seen so many people in the position of
power try to draw a clear line of separation, because
that's what's gonna keep us demonized. It's dividing conquer is.
(49:18):
Put them over there, and we're over here, and we're
gonna let them have all the term more and just
take themselves out because they can't they can't function. They
can't function. They don't know how to you know, to
to to live amongst each other. They don't know how
to uplift each other. They should be over there. And
the more that happens, the father behind we get. So
when you hear systemic racism, you hear the wealth gap,
(49:41):
all those things are being created and and and they're
they're not getting any better because we're not building ourselves up.
And and I swear like it's so crazy that we're
talking about this, because I said all the time, with
these young guys that come out here and they come
out of these these ghettos and these these places, and
they get out here and they start making money and
they start, you know, building a company, and all of
a sudden, now the people depending on them, and then
(50:03):
you still can fall victim to being killed by one
of your own over straight up jealousy. But you was
on the verge of being that person that can uplift
people around you, and they immediately take you out. So
the psycho has to start all the way back over again.
And it has nothing to do with education. It's like
the heart of us as a as a people. It's
(50:25):
like we're fighters, we want to win, but if we're
that clear line of separation is wrong and we over
here and that goes on. It's like it's too many
liabilities and not enough. I'm saying, It's like it's so
many abilities, you know, and so and and that black
on black crime speaks our own self hatred absolutely and
(50:46):
that frustration. Absolutely thing that can eradicate that is education,
because you hope a pathway to success. Your success is
my success success, Yes, just like Mrs Iceman's Mikey's success
was Mrs Right. I am here to position you to succeed.
(51:08):
I am sharing this information because I want you to
do better than me. Okay, because your success will only
help me. I don't want to see people not realize
their fullest potential. You may have the cure for what's
gonna take me right right, right, right, right right. So
I want you to be the best of the best.
(51:28):
Everybody has greatness in them, everybody. If you are alive
and above ground, you have greatness. The words and less brown, baby,
that's the words and less brown. I know what. I
listened to it every morning. But you I love less.
I love less, But you have greatness in you have
to unleash it and not do anything that stands in
(51:50):
the way of it, and and time in on that.
I know you absolutely right, because as a youngster I
had to like I grew up in singing right trailers,
small and everything. But my sister was always very book
small like she's she's she's brilliant when it comes to
books and understanding reading, and I was just like, I
can't get into that at the time because I was
in the streets trying to figure it out and take
care my mother. But the one thing I did do
(52:11):
that was the right thing. And the reason why I
know you speak the truth is I took the little
money that I had and helped put myself through school
and she became an r N and then she went
on to do other things. So she's in the medical field,
and you know, um, she's always been proud of her.
You know, her brother is the rap superstar and entrepreneur
and all that. But when this COVID thing hit and
(52:34):
she was on the front line saving lives, and she
was telling me these stories at the end of the day,
like Okay, I had to save this many people and
that many people, and this happened, and that happened, and
my my mother got sick. It's just her mentality, the
way she went about it. And I just sat there.
I was like, I thought I was the star. She
is clearly the superstar. She is the one she is.
(52:55):
I ain't saved no lives today, I'm quite sure if
I call her she saved a few, but That made
me feel so real, because, like, you're right, it's the education.
It's the fact that she can go in there and
do what she loves to do, which has helped people.
But if I wasn't in a position they help her
get through college so that she can have that, she
wouldn't be able to save lives. And I can only
(53:15):
imagine how many lives she saved just for the simple
fact that she went to college. And we talked all
the time, and she tells me, brother, you wouldn't believe
today I came in there. You know, we had this
many people dying, this many people laugh and and she's
explaining it to me, and I'm just sitting there, like
you are amazing, Like you you are truly amazing. And
that education And what I'm getting out of this conversation
(53:37):
and what you're telling me is it's about the education.
That's the start. And once we get educated and we
start to get this um income and we start to
build this wealth, we have to invest and you and
you and love. Once that howney, Hey, guys, my kids
are in the pool. Yeah, I already know. Love is
(54:01):
the way, Peace is the way, Vacation is the way,
and and it's a marathon, not a sprint. Can't love enough,
we can't hug enough, we can't give enough, we can't
lean in enough. We must really embrace and make sure
we extend our family to the world. Right And I
(54:25):
love I love that lean in coming that you're making.
And before I let you go, I want them to
hear this one more time. If if if we get
you said a million people, we got ten million black
folks to me, Black folks, listen, black folks, everybody else too, everybody,
by the way, white folks. I just wanted to say,
(54:47):
it's I know I'm listening, folks. How much is inside
of our own like ten million black folks? And in
ten bucks a month is a hundred million a month? Okay,
that's one a month a month. That's one point to
build in a year. Listen, one point. We don't get
what the almighty black dollar is right here, people, If
we don't figure this out, we're sitting us back another
(55:09):
hundred years. Because if we can afford all this Louis
Vuitton and this Gucci and all these done of clothes
and all these things that we don't need you and
what's happening is I'll say you know, you can say
black lives matter all you want. You can bitch, moan
and complain all you want. Donate and vote. Donate and vote,
(55:32):
because when you donate to something like education, okay, then
you are moving your community and your culture to a
more successful place, a better place. When you vote, you
are protecting your community because you're putting you're putting politicians
in place to make sure that you have a pathway
(55:52):
to success. And so you need to vote always, even
in the mid terms, vote on everything on free position
because every position matters and quality of your life, and
you need to donate to your community and to your politicians.
You know, we lost the great Queen Stacy Abrams as
(56:12):
governor of Georgia because Black America, quite frankly, we didn't
lean in and donate money to her. When she was
running for governor of Georgia. I called her up and
I said, you don't you may not really know me.
My name is Byron Allen, and I'm in I'm in
l A. I would like for you to come to
um Los Angeles because there are a lot of folks
who like you. And she came here and uh, you know,
(56:36):
I partnered with Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg, and we
were her second biggest fundraiser for her to run for governor.
What I really want Black America to do is for
Black America to become our own political superpack. If we
say the Black America, I need two million of you
to send in ten bucks to Stacy Abrams, she's got
(56:56):
twenty million dollars and now she's the governor of or
And she didn't lose by one point four percent. Our
brother Andrew Gillim he lost governor of Florida by point
four percent. So if we say the two million, three
million black people sitting in ten bucks, that's thirty million dollars.
He has enough to get in. And what now we're
(57:18):
gonna have to do in twenty two is make sure
you know, you get somebody like a Val Demmings maybe
as governor of Florida in twenty two in Florida, uh state,
the Queen Stacy Abrams governor of Georgia. And now you
position Kamala Harris to become the first female president of
(57:40):
She has support in key states around the country. We
as black people have to think this way. Marathon not
a sprint, long term, and we have to take our
resources and we have to pull them together and make
them a priority that we lean in on our politicians,
We lean in on our education, and then what you
will find is that we will start to achieve banks.
(58:02):
They have national charters to lend to African American families
for homeownerships, business lines of credits because everybody has cash
flow issues, and help the black community have access to
capital that's not predatory. So it's politicians so we have
policies that don't work against us. It's us leaning in
(58:24):
on education and that's the number one priority. And then
making sure that we have a strong alignment with the
financial community so we have access to capital that allows
us to invest in ourselves, our businesses and position ourselves
for long term generational success. Well said my brother. Well
said that might have been the best part of the interviews, like, uh,
(58:47):
listen Byron Um, I've heard of you, brother, I've watched
you and some type of way. I feel like we
got to become friends somewhere because I feel like we
have a lot of what I need is so we'll
make that happen offline. But speaking on behalf of the
culture and and and black men didn't look up to
other black men because they are solid and they have integrity.
(59:09):
We appreciate you, brother. Thank you for stopping by the
Recession podcasts and dropping these gems and jewels. The almighty
black dollar there it is. Love you brother. Thanks for
listening to the Recession Podcast by Jeezy, a production of
(59:30):
Black Effect and Our Heart Radio. For more podcast visits
the I Heart Radio, Apple Apple Podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows,
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
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.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com