NY Hustle, Creative Juice & Gimme My Emmy Con Ferris Wheel Jay

In this episode, we’re joined by Ferris Wheel Jay—an Emmy-winning Creative Director, Platinum Producer, and the voice behind the wildly popular Instagram series What is New York.

Jay takes us on a journey through his Brooklyn roots, raised by two loving yet no-nonsense Abuelitas who enrolled him in military school, yet gave him with lessons in making Puerto Rican Sofrito. He shares on what it’s like to feel deeply connected to his Latino identity despite not speaking Spanish, the moment he overdosed and how he’s turned his authenticity into a superpower.

We dive into his creative path—from landing collaborations with French Montana, Jay-Z’s Planes, and Timberland, to the hustle and heart behind his Emmy win. Along the way, Jay reflects on how nurturing his inner child and a love for all things creative shaped a career he’s truly passionate about.

This is a story about culture, creativity, and staying true to yourself in the city that never sleeps. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Come Again A podcast by Honey German. All right, let's
get it. Ferris Wheel J. How you doing.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
I want to know, does your family call you that?

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Now? My family calls me Justin. That's what the J
comes from, Justin. And then first.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Like no, no, no.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
I also tell people anybody that's family are close to me,
don't call me that. I kind of like separate the two.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
That's good.

Speaker 4 (00:27):
I was wondering because I'm like, I wonder how his
family feels about you know, where's your family from originally?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
What island or where are we from?

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Puerto Rico?

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Like I have family up from there. I have African
American on my side, but most of us are all
from East New York, Brooklyn. That's where I was born
and raised my grandmother and my father.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Mother listen to. My nationality is Brooklyn.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Night, Brooklyn to the death of me, yep,
and that's where the name comes from. Yes, Ferrisville Jay
the first Ferris Wheel from Corney Island, but then also
a very big movie that I looked at up to
his Ferris Bueller. Yeah, yeah, I like that, and the
teachers would call that. My grandmother raised me shout out
to Grandma's out there, but they would tell my grandmother

(01:08):
that he thinks he's Ferris Bueller.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Because of the way you behaved. Yeah, the way I behaved.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, I wasn't bad, but I went to military school.
So it's also like I tend my life to a
lot of the old movies that I grew up, So
Major Payne with Damon Walliams. I was that one kid
that was real bad that you identified with it or
you mimicked it. I didn't mimic it. That was the
thing because I didn't watch that movie until I got older.
So when I actually finally saw it, I was like,
oh wow, I was in military school and it was
about kids that were not bad, but you know, in

(01:32):
need that type of thing. Yeah, not too bad, though
not too bad.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Nah nah?

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Where was your military school?

Speaker 3 (01:39):
So it was in the Myrtle White corof Stop before
it turned into what it turned into today. Yeah, borderline,
So it's very people fight that because it's Ridria Queen's
like a few blocks up. But then my school was
on Gates. It was called ol City Leadership Academy.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Was it a regular school or did you live there?

Speaker 3 (01:57):
So it was first it was a pro program I
started in the sixth grade. I couldn't afford private school
with my family, and then all of my zones Obviously, why.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Are you saying I couldn't afford private school, Like.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
There's some people that can.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
So it's like I tell people that you exactly, so
you know, I didn't want to get there, but you know,
that's obviously what it was. And then all of my
zone schools were bad. So my zone school was Thomas Jefferson,
Max Maxwell and uh Bushriick High School and at the time,
in the early two thousands, you know, it was very,
very nos like some of the worst schools in Brooklyn
at the time. Yeah, so I had a chance to
go into a military program for free and I made

(02:33):
great friends there. And it was from sixth grade to
twelfth grade.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Who put that into place for you a school counselor.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Or it was really my grandmother A Yeah, it was her.
She saw that I got accepted to these bad schools.
But she saw that I had an opportunity to join
a program to you know, learn things and go to
a free program that took me to a school in
Queen's at the time.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
Is that your Puerto Rican grammar or you African Puerto Rican.
Yeah was super yeah in tune. She said, let's send
them somewhere else. You know, it's typical, you know what
I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
He does.

Speaker 4 (03:03):
Latina is always just looking out for their children for
the future.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Is she still with us? She is.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
She's very sick. I actually lost my other grandmother. Both
of them raised me. They're both Spanish. The African comes
from my mom's side. But yeah, she's she's pretty sick
right now. And I use that as, like, you know,
as a drive to just do what I do. I
move with gracemove with kindness because everybody's battling things that
you don't know. So but she taught me how to cook.
She taught me a lot of things that I used
to this day to cook.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
I'm curious.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Listen, I cook up and knee, I hope and knee
Like that's one thing that I put on the gram
that people don't know that I cook it.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
And then when I show it.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Because I do so much things content wise, I try to,
like I said, go in a lane in the sense
that it shows that I'm focusing on one thing. But
when I showed people that I actually cook, like my
grandmother told me how to make up out that loan
and know a lot of things, which one the soft
sweet plinton. Yeah, I prefer always on top of a thief.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Yeah mm hmm. Beef that's a good one, and.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Uh besteak, you know, all of the typical Spanish meals.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
Just and what did she say when when she was
teaching you how to cook? Because it's not typical for
a Latina mom or grandma to teach the men in
the central.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
She taught me late.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
Originally it was my first grandmother, the grandmother that tried
to teach me when I was around like fifteen and
I wasn't with it. So I want to say like
probably like six seven years ago is when she showed me,
and she was very patient. It's the one that actually
passed away and away. Yeah, yeah, she showed me like
very she was very patient. You know, both my grandmothers
were patient. So she showed me how to just the

(04:38):
actual steps of everything. And of course you know you
tweak things when you when you start doing it and
how you do it.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Do you feel like it was part of her, you know,
just giving a piece of her to you.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Definitely, Yeah, Because I also have like a lot of
her cooking wear that I still use.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
So, oh, really you.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
Kept it, Caldero to make that role, you can't throw
that out, man, like, that's got to be old, it's
got to be staying, and it's got to be super
used to make the right right.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
And has the one thing that I'm very sad and
both of them didn't teach me Spanish, and that was
something that they both said they regretted that. You know,
we don't have life in regress. But I actually did
wish that I learned Spanish because I failed it in
high school.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Willita was born here.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
The other one wasn't. Okay, the first one wasn't. But
she had like a very very thick accent. But I
didn't live with her. I lived with my other grandmother,
who's like the new yor Ekan like, so she spoke
a lot of spanklish, so I know spanklish and an excent.
But like I told people, I could cook it and
I could dance it. That's all that matters.

Speaker 4 (05:27):
And not only that, I feel like you can be
super Latino and Latino enough without speaking the Spanish language.
I tell people all the time, don't let that make
you feel like lesser of or like you're not Boriqua,
or you can't go back to your islands and or
be proud of who you are, because sometimes people they
tend to shy away because of their.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Like I don't speak the language. No, no, no, you are enough.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
You are just as Latinos as let's say, an immigrant
who doesn't even speak English.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
I know, and I always get the cod sound like
some I've cooked for some of my friends, and they'll
be They'll like their actual family have tasted it and
would think like an older person that you know cooked it.
Because then I make home made so free throw too, said.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
Where's the where's the blend? That it's time to make that?
Make shout out my mother in law, she's the one
that sends it to me. She's Puerto Rican fire, because
we need that. I can't cook without that. But yeah,
you're saying when that rolls around, and like, let's call ja.
I want to see what I see if this benila
is really buzzing?

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Gotcha?

Speaker 3 (06:25):
I put it in the I put it in the
morning at like six seven am and take it out
about like five six pm. But here's the real question.
Do you go back to bed after you put it
in at seven am. No, because because you're worried the
apartments gonna blow from someone. I can't take naps. I
told people, I can't sleep once I wake up because
of that military school. It was like from like I
told you, from six to twelve, and then I volunteered
for another five six years after like teaching the kids

(06:47):
after that, being still instructed so conditions, it really conditioned me,
like I'm always early to things. I take initiative. I'm
always motivated for that type of thing, even you know,
we still have our own lives and depression and certain
things and anxiety and stuff. But I instilled that because
of the school that I went to. If I was
on time, I was late. That's another thing I told people.
So school started at eight thirty. I had to be
there at eight fifteen because for every five minutes I

(07:08):
was late, was twenty push ups and I was an
hour late one time.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
I was just gonna say, what motivated you to not
cut school? But it doesn't sound like I could cut.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
I couldn't cut school.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
I was also the first class, so when we had
the first sixth grade class, it was two sixth grade classes,
so we were the first for each grade going up,
so literally no one could cut school.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
That'll look it was impossible.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
Do you feel like going to this military school changed
the course of your life as a as an inner
city kid?

Speaker 1 (07:33):
It did very much.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
The reason why I tell people was out of like
that sixty people graduating because we were like the first class,
like more than half went to the military, And that
was something that at the time, I'd never wanted to
really do. No, I was just in it because, like
I had the opportunity, and I learned a lot from it,
but I wanted to always be in something creative I could.
I couldn't stand still and have someone really I could
take direction, but I couldn't take it from someone like

(07:56):
speaking to me, like if I'm not an equal of them,
because that's how the military is.

Speaker 4 (07:59):
It can be very drodic, yeah, and very condescending and demoralized.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
Woman and everything, like so many of the different factors.
But that's a lot a lot of different industries as well,
So it's like but at the same time, that's why,
like I said, I was doing the things that I
wanted to after I after I graduated high school, then
I went to college, and my first day of college,
I got sent to the Dean's office first literally first day.
What happened was John J. For Criminal Justice.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Of course, typical New York game. We all wanted to
go to John J.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Or John or BMCC.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
Those were like the name top three everybody went to because,
like we said, we couldn't afford you know, private school.
But I got there on time, but I didn't realize
there was like three different buildings.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Like no one told me that.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
It's confusing. It's a campus and I was fresh out
at like high school. The year I graduated high school,
I went to college that same.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Year, so I was seventeen years old.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah. Yeah, So I found the room, but it was
I went to the wrong building. So when I went
to the yeah, I went to the teachers. H I
think it was philosophy. I go in was it was
a good like thirty minutes late. I'm not going to lie,
but I was like, oh, I'm so sorry. He was like, oh, welcome,
but look at the board. He said absolutely no lateness.

(09:10):
If you're late a minute, you're not allowed in my class.
So I was like, oh, going forward, that would never
happen again. He was like, no, you don't understand. This
is a rule that I implement whenever I'm literally telling
him this another thing. I didn't get financial aid, so
I paid for that out of pocket. My grandfather shout
out to him. He also passed a few years ago.

(09:31):
He helped me pay for college at the time. But
I told the dean the teacher at the time, I'm like, nah,
you know, going forward, I would never do this again.
But I was in the whole wrong building, you know.
I apologize. He told me to leave. I said no.
I sat down. He's like, I'm going to ask you
one time to leave, one more time to leave, or
I'm going to call the dean. And I said, listen,
no offense to anyone in this room. I'm not trying

(09:53):
to disrupt. I don't know how many of y'all get
financial aid.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
I paid for this class, so I'm going to sit
in this class, whether if I'm late at night, and
you can call the dean. And that's what it is.
He called the dean. The dean excorted me out and
we spoke and I had a conversation with the dean
and pretty much show him like I'm an inner city youth,
like I'm someone that wasn't even supposed to be in college,
like I'm just here late, work with me, like I
wasn't rude. I told him, I apologized, took me back

(10:18):
to the class the teacher let me in. At the
end of that whole semester, I ended up being great
friends with the teacher because he said I was the
first person in his ten years of being there to
stand up to him like that.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Look at that.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
You gotta respect it.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
And it was all with grace. I didn't speak to
him disrespectfully. I just let him know that I'm not
going to just not do something because you're telling me
to and.

Speaker 4 (10:40):
With authority, you know, when you're so young and you're
a teenager for you to even stand up to him,
some people weren't even speaking class when presenting to nonetheless
speaking class and stand up for yourself and be like
I'm gonna sit here and I'm not going nowhere.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
That's commendable. You had it in you from day one.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah, and from like I said, even from military school.
That's why I resorted to that movie Major Pain. I
was like I had a lot of I instilled a
lot of motivation and all of those things that they
taught me, but I still was the class clown.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
At the end of the day. I was still joking.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
I was still making a sound when a drill instructor
turned around and he didn't know who did it, and
we all got in trouble. I was always like that.
I just always had to keep that in a child
in me alive.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Did you finish college or whatever?

Speaker 1 (11:18):
I dropped out. I kept failing math. Math was the
death for me.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
And what made me really drop out was aside for
me and not getting financial aid, I kept paying.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
It was like out of pocket.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
Now. I was already like seven bands deep just for
that math class and it was remedio math and people
that's like pretty much like high school math in a sense,
like straight out of And I was always horrible, horrible
with math and numbers because I also have dyslexia. So
I took a winter course and I thought I was
going to pass and I failed it horribly.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Thinking I was like I studied.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
How crushing was that?

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (11:53):
It crushed me And I was like, no, I'm dropping out,
Like while am I in college? And I don't even
want to be a cop? And I was like I
had so much other things.

Speaker 4 (12:00):
If you're listening from anywhere other outside of New York.
John Jay is like, if you want to be a car.

Speaker 3 (12:04):
Criminal justice that or forensics CSI, which was cool, but
the agents, Yeah, I'm I'm queasy with blood. So like
I wasn't even going to do that.

Speaker 4 (12:13):
And then where did you do? Like you dropped out
of school? What was your next step after that?

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Fashion?

Speaker 3 (12:18):
So I was in retail for about fifteen years, but
from working like my first ever retail job was the
Children's Place.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Oh I love that.

Speaker 3 (12:26):
And then my last job, well, I was like in
an appointment only stores, selling like Urmas bags nice, like
I was selling like to the I tell people at
one percent. I worked on Billionaires bro So it's like
I was dealing with like especially working with that too.
It was like you see the different levels of people
in humanity, right like I was. I also used to
work in quad Penthouse Studios, so me and my uncle

(12:48):
who produces all of my stuff, we're platinum produces. Also
a record I did that was like my claim to
like people knowing the notoriety was off the rip for
French Montana and I was like a.

Speaker 4 (12:58):
Big I need the whole back story on this because
I know the song I love French. Talk to me
about that. It's gonna stop down for a second, and
you tell me backstory. How did this end up happening.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
So my cousin shout out goodie. He's like somebody like
real deep in the industry. He just knows everybody. So
like he knew Drake's he knows Drake's camp, and he
had hit me and my uncle to make beats for
their camp. So we just made a few beats and
then my uncle picked up this sample and like I
was like, that's the one right there, and like we
just made the beat together. And then someone that we

(13:29):
know on Frenchis side was like, yo, we need beats
that sound like Drake would be on it with French.
And I was like, how ironic was that? And my
cousin was like, so we gave literally the same beatpack.
You know, producers do that in the sense of like
a record could be shopped and produced and artist be
on it, but then it goes nowhere, and so the
person gives you the paperwork and like you know, like
now you signed paperwork, you can't release that legally. That's

(13:51):
the situation that didn't happen, but we were grateful that
it ended up getting in French's.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Hands and then that song was a smash. Yeah it
is still play.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
They still played in stadiums and then asaf Rocky hopped
on the remix and that like jumped it up. You know,
No Riego was on it, so it was like a
big record. Were also have the video shoot too, so
it's like it was fun. It was fun doing that
because like I said, I was that was in my
world when I was in music at the time producing
My uncle still in the music world. But I actually
bigger record that we did was for a K pop

(14:21):
group called Red Velvet that when we produced it, it went
like triple platinum in a week.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Like triple platinum in one week.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
And like a week it went like triple platinum, and
then the French record went gold, like took time. You know,
hip hop records could take time to even gold, especially
in like today's.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
With the digital button just go gold.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
The other day they would pump it up.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
That was the whole drama between him and Young Miami.

Speaker 4 (14:43):
But so it went from retail to music or how
did you make that jump?

Speaker 3 (14:48):
So it was I was always in music, but like
what I was making money for first as like a
job getting a check. Because my dad and uncle, I
followed them producing. My dad was in the music industry
as well, but I was watching my uncle produce. So
they bought me an NPC when I was like thirteen fourteen,
So I was just you know, making beats upstairs in
the room. So I always was producing when I worked

(15:09):
in retail.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
I always feel like.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
I'll be your first creative outlet producing.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yes, because I got to create something that I heard
and that was like really fun to me, even when
it was whack at first, like damn, this is trash,
but then I was like, this is something that I
got to work on that I think it can be
potential to something. So like to be that and then
do a record, you know, for French with my uncle,
I was super dope.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Do you still have that equipment?

Speaker 3 (15:45):
It was always there? Oh no, I don't have my
original one. I always use my uncle stuff. Yeah, he
has the studio in Brooklyn called the Lab Studios. But
now I just like do creative direction for artists and
stuff like that when it comes to that. But like
I said in the Fashion, I was always in retail
and working in that. I always know that fashion is

(16:05):
like a Twizzler entwined when it comes to music as well,
you know, like everything you know, if it's not designer,
at least they have a style or a way that
they dress. And I saw the unification in that. So
any any story I worked at I would use that.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
Is that how you ended up doing the collaboration with
paper Planes? How did that come about?

Speaker 3 (16:23):
So Planes, that's like going like fast forwarding, which I'd
love to you I could do that. That's perfect for me
because I don't I don't even like the fashion industry
in a sense.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Because it's like music. But then you were the brand strategist.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Right, yeah, so what happened with that, right?

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Creative director?

Speaker 3 (16:36):
Yeah, so that's that's my dream, right, Like to be
completely honest, no one knows that I'm fully fully free agent.
I don't have a manager, I don't have an agency,
I don't have anybody that I work with. If I
do it solely through the great vines of working with people,
networking and then just people seeing my content. So what
happened was was my boy works over at Planes and
soho shout out to my boy or Rayim recess Dope artists.

(16:58):
He invited me to like a regular event, and he's like,
you know, the people that care about me know who
I am in a sense, so they're like, yo, I
want you to pull up aside from you.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
I know you rock with the brand. I know they'll
rock with you.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
And respectfully, there's a fifty to fifty chance people know
of me or have seen me, which that's what keeps
me humble, and I practice humility on you all the time. No,
but then I'm very humble when people don't know who
I am, because then I get to see a part
of my story and like, hey, you know I do this,
this and that. But then like someone can get in
a cab and then see me and not realize that
I've been in the cab for three years now and

(17:29):
they're like, oh, snap, I've just seen you in that.
But I went to planes to an event, and my
whole intention of going was meeting the key people to
speak to them and just network and say, hey, like,
you may know me for my content, but I have
this very very creative aspect of how I see and
view things, and I could put it in a corporate aspect.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
I could put in a commercial aspect.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
I already have my proof of concepts, and it got
me to shout out to Ronnie Ranyie and Ronnie Ronnie
Demichael over the Planes who's the president, and just Se
who's a creative director, and I had a I pretty
much told them like, listen, you know me for my content,
I love an opportunity to be able to like show
y'all what I can do and bring it to life.

(18:15):
And that turned into the Planes campaign for the full
line in January.

Speaker 4 (18:20):
Did you have it imagined already or did you have
to lock yourself up and be like I got to
come up with something so far.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
I tell people I call it my like my Wally
Wanka gold ticket, my million dollar book is what I
call it is. I've had an idea book that I've
been writing in it since COVID, like literally just ideas written.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Down composition book. Please make be happy and say.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
It it's a composition Yeah no, no, it's actual composition
book that I write down my ideas and all of
my content that, for instance, that people see when I'm
doing my voiceover, I write it.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
So I write it and I write, but you do
it feels so natural. But I know how to. I
know how to be natural with this.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
Something like he must have just woke up and thought
about this craziness right here. To be fair, ideas I
do think of day of I taught myself to, like
I said, separate the two that I'm just in when
I'm not on social media, and then when it's social media,
when I'm out events and things, you know, I'm Ferris.
But that's literally, like I said, what happened with the
planes campaign of me telling them like yo, like I

(19:17):
brought my book. I didn't show them inside, but I
was like, listen, this book right here.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Like you opened it, you cracked it, and you're like.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Like I said, I think like some light came out
and I was like, nah, like I got an idea
that I already have, Like for instance, I already have
a sneaker commercial written out that could be for any sneaker.
I already had a cloling line commercial that already fit
for planes. So it's like it was already written out.
It's just not how can I tailor it to a
specific brand. And then being the paper plane and that

(19:43):
transition of the plane flying it was the key thing
that got everyone's attention.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
Like it took us a week to figure it out too, So.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
How to put it together?

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, that specific shot, how was it?

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Because it looks like an actual regular paper plane.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
It is, it is, it is.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
It's just the way we shot it and it's a
specific fit camera and like just a specific lens and
how I was shot and just proof of just like
trial and error, like we did it.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Like like I said, that whole.

Speaker 3 (20:08):
Week, like you saw it didn't look like it was
being flying by itself. And then my director shout out
Santana two time Emmy nominated and now I'm Emmy nominated
with my team too, which.

Speaker 4 (20:19):
Is crazy to talk about that because I was blown
away when I saw that. Now with the Planes campaign,
did you do the commercial first that you were in,
like the advertising that you were in, or did you
do this?

Speaker 3 (20:31):
So what's funny is is I didn't want to be
in it. What I've been doing is I've been doing
a like if I'm the creative director or the executive
producer of something, I love casting people that I personally
know that I know would kill for an opportunity like that,
that I know are also good people. Because I tell
people I'd rather put someone on exactly that got I
don't care about followers. I don't care about views. I

(20:52):
have almost half a billion views now and all of
my content I tell people, I care about how you
are as a person, how I see you, how you
treat other people, how you treat the help, that type
of thing. So with Planes, I told them I didn't
want to be in it, but they were like, now
you know, we want you in it, like you know,
you're with the acclaimed voice of New York City, and
I put myself in that. The second one, they have

(21:12):
reached out again and I was for the white T
shirt campaign, which that's crazy. It went into a whole
dynamic which then got me onto Forbes and it's like,
you know, I'm very I'm very, very grateful because like
I tell people, I'm not famous. What I say is
I have notoriety. And that's a complete difference that, like
I said, I can walk down the street and no
one knows who I am. But if it was Rihanna,

(21:34):
everybody's you know, jumping out the window for Beyonce and
those type of people. But I know that people know
who I am and I use that in a way
to benefit to make things bigger. And then now I
have a very fun partnership that I'm an announced that
I know this is it's a great time. But with
Timbland with the boot, which I can't speak too much

(21:54):
about it, I'll tell you off.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, I definitely talk.

Speaker 3 (21:59):
Can you give me that like I've been doing con
social media? Yeah, I could talk to you about it
a little bit about it. But I've been doing content
for Timberland for about eight years now just for free.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
I didn't know, Okay, I say it just makes sense.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
Yeah, just what I told people is like the partnerships
that they see me doing now, I already was having
like product placements in my content already and tagging them
without working with them, but showing them that I already
have them and my stuff.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
So you manifested distimblant collaboration.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
For mad long.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
The biggest video I had with them had like I
want to say, like million two million views, and then
the biggest one that had a key in it was
on TikTok had fifteen million. So by the time like
years past and I told them and I met with
the marketing team, shout out Hector, He's the one who
reached out. I had already twenty five thirty million views.
And for Timberland for free. So by the time it

(22:48):
now spoke about working with them on like a corporate
level now, you know, and you.

Speaker 4 (22:53):
Know, I love that so much because I feel like,
for my entire existence, Black and Brown have been given,
you know, Timbalan so much marketing, so much promotion, so
much support. That to see them team up with someone
who is a local New York or someone that we
know and for it to benefit you professionally and financially,
I feel vindicated.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
Does that make sense to you, Yeah, for sure, definitely.

Speaker 4 (23:16):
But that's what coin man, because every single year fresh
pair of butters, you know, everybody gets in new boots.
And it wasn't made for us, you know, it was
made for what the construction worker, the working man exactly.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
It was like it's called the construction boot. It was
like really New York City and you know the hip
hop community that made this six inch premium boot, that's
what it's called. And you know that even the color
is called a knuckbuck or something like that, and people
don't even know. Like a part of me working with
them is like showing people like if you own a
pair of teams, you can get them clean for free.

(23:48):
In the new Soulo stories, there's the new flagship five fifty.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, trying with a little racer, but it just works.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
So I'm collaborating with all their new events coming up
and a lot of things and like planes, I'm turning
it into a bigger partnership. And now I have another
partnership that I'm announced that I'm just these are key
things that I've seen, like we've seen our whole lives.
But tawer albeef patties, which is something that was funny
that they reached out because they loved my content, and

(24:17):
I just did an episode.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
I made it. I made.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
I created this series right, it's called Mystery Metropolis, and
the first episode I did is it's something we also
have seen our whole lives. That's why my content resonates
with a lot of people because I don't want to
say it's nostalgic, because it's not like mad old, but
it's stuff that people can relate to that even people
that are older than me and my generation can relate

(24:41):
to it. My generation and the younger gen Z understands it.
But the Domino Sugar Factory, I've seen that my whole life,
me too, Like you did that interview, I'm like, yeah,
and I interviewed the architect and I was the only
person in it at the time, like with the construction
workers and stuff like that. I just interviewed the president
of Tawer Albef Patties. So I'm doing like these key
shows that show the access to people that I have

(25:03):
with my awareness because I also have a press pass
and my well my press pass, I could walk past
police tape and stuff like that, so at all times
you can use it as long as it's not something
that's like like an active shooter scene or anything like that.
But if the police deem it safe and like even
if it was like the white sheet and like a
crime scene and a murder scene, I could like show

(25:23):
it and film it as if I was an urban
news reporter.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
How did you get this press pass?

Speaker 1 (25:27):
Talk to me?

Speaker 2 (25:28):
Where did you go to say? I am press here
in New York.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
So shout out to Lafaa.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
She's someone that helps me with like partnerships and just
helps me get my brand out there to like meet
other people.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
She's very big in advertising.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
But she I tell everybody likes it's out there to
just look it up and when I looked it up.
It was like, it's on the government website, the New
York dot gov. There's a press pass section that I
told all of my peoples that take photos and all
of that, and they still haven't done it. That's why
I tell people ninety eight percent of the content world
did not consist with things.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
And you know, I love that you're putting me on
because I work in press, but I get press passes
for certain things, like when COVID happened, I had like
a press badge and stuff.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
Oh no, that's that's the press pass for the event.
For that the press pass that you could get literally
all the content that you're there already.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
But that's what I'm saying because people always reach out
to me and they're like, can you help me get
a praise? But now I can tell them you can
just have a permanent press pass.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
And I'll even tell you because it's literally there and
I sent it to people. I'll send it to you
the link. It's it tells you you need six pieces
of content.

Speaker 4 (26:28):
Because I can help other creators because I'm half of
my job is helping other creators into events, and if.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
I can alleviate that workload, for me.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
That doesn't pay me, especially if it's people you're working
with already. So it's like it's six, six to eight
pieces of content that you need, but the events have
to be covered by the NYPD, and it needs to
be events that are barricaded.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Oh, I see what you're saying. So let's say Puerto
Rican d Parade.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
Like I was there at the Puerto Rican Parade. We'll
past the police all of that. The one sixteen festival,
isn't it. It isn't enough as the Puerto Rican Day
Parade in a sense, even though there's a police presence,
But they count the Perto Rican they parade as a
piece of content. I don't think they would count the
one sixteenth, but you can still try. Yeah, but like
the Saint Patrick's the Saint Patrick's Day Parade. I mean,

(27:13):
I'm not Irish, but I went just to get that
piece of content to film and then once you post
it on a social media platform, you just take the
link and put it in the six pieces of content
that you upload and then they approve it if it's
something approved.

Speaker 4 (27:27):
What was your first piece of content that went viral
that you were like, what is going on?

Speaker 3 (27:32):
So I don't even do that type of content anymore
because I don't know if you notice, I don't curse
at all. I haven't cursed in three years in my content.
I haven't even The most I did was.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
That ass is it like a spiritual thing or it
wasn't spiritual.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
What had happened was was I got a Snapchat deal
about three years ago and it was a massive deal.
It was a six figure deal that it was called
the five two to three series and they had given
me ten k a month for six months and it
turned into a year, and then they offered it to
me the year after again for just Feris. But it
was basically ten content creators across America and shout out
to Jazz's world. She was, Yeah, it was me and

(28:07):
her and the New York team. So it shout out
to her and her dad amazing and she's she's a Q. Yeah,
she's amazing. But me and her were, like the New
York people a part of it, and it was all
content creators of color that they were sponsoring and giving
that money to. I also had six sponsorships with it,
so a part of that, I had an AT and
T phone.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
For free for two years with service.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
We all know that phone service can be expensed.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
So it's like it was a lot of things that
it was perks. I had free Uber also at the time,
so it's like it was.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
Free phone, free ubers, and ten k month.

Speaker 3 (28:35):
But they were showing like I know, that's what they
were saying, and it was funny because like it also
taught me people. It taught me how people that you
could pay people as if they're not if they don't
believe in themselves, even if you pay somebody, they're not
going to work hard. Because I had people flopping on
that got paid for things. And then from that I
just took that that deal and took it into the

(28:58):
things that I was doing today show on Proof of
Concept that because I'm a micro influencer and people don't
know that terminus instead of micro influencer Mi grew.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
I see you as like his.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
What's funny, I'm a micron number No yeah, yeah, so
I'm a his. Why brands don't understand why I have
so much engagement and awareness. I've been back to my
viral video that you said, right, my first viral video ever.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
I want to see if I remember it.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
It was on the corner of Murdering Broadway, and I
was on the phone and I said, f is you
talking about? So I was on the phone and I
bowed down and like I was like screaming on the phone.
And that was a super It hit one hundred and
twenty million views. Like I was on Ridiculousness. I was
like working with a bunch of radio stations at the time.
And this was seven years ago when that video came out.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
How did the video happen?

Speaker 3 (29:54):
Like was it?

Speaker 1 (29:54):
Don't tell me?

Speaker 2 (29:55):
It was super random and it just blew up on
its own.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
It was random. Here's why I was random.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
So I was also, Oh, I'm an actor, So all
the content that I released now that cinematic is me
just literally showcasing my acting skills. Because people asked, why
did I play a cop? Right, Here's why I played
a cop because they would never cast a cop that
looks like me heavily tattooed. And the reason being is
I haven't seen it yet in a sense. And I

(30:21):
was typecasted for everything I was on. So I was
on Power, I was on for Life, I was on
a Manifest, I was on number one shows on Netflix
and ABC. But I was typecasted as a prisoner and
a drug dealer every time on all of them. Yeah,
on Manifest, I was a prisoner. What a it's called.
It's called like a prime background role where you don't

(30:41):
have a line, but I see but you'll see me
standing next to Will Smith, but you see me, see me.
I had three roles like that, and I was like,
I'm tired of like people saying, yo, you live like
you on bro, You're doing your thing, and I'm like,
I'm not really doing my thing. And I realized the
power of Cloud, and I like, I didn't care for
Cloud anymore because I was on set for thirty teen
hours with no lines. And then that production came out

(31:03):
nine months later and I had a two second clip
and I was like, damn, I don't if I don't
have lines, I don't want to be type castid as
a drug dealer. So I was like, I get all
of this awareness for the stuff that I do. I
have a strong, amazing team. That's all family. I'm gonna
play a cup it's all family. My uncle does all
my music.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
How hard is it to work with family?

Speaker 3 (31:23):
It's actually easier than I thought it. It can be,
you know, tough at times, but I let people know
they know already. I have one hundred other producers in
my DM. I have a hundred other directors in my DM,
people that I don't personally know.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
If you want somebody else to take it, but.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
I tell them I don't have another of them. I
can get another director or another producer, but I can't
get another U.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
So loyalties he you know, so playing a cop talk
to me?

Speaker 3 (31:47):
Yeah, So I played play a undercover cup and it's
called Concrete Jurisdiction and the first episode, so what it
is is called a dramedy where it's like it's full drama.
And I learned this for one of my favorite producers
that I looked up to is Jordan Peele, And a
lot of people don't really know his story in a
sense that he comes from the comedy room with you know,
with Key and Pele. But they tried to cast him

(32:09):
for like some o d role, like trying to violate him,
and he took his money and invested and didn't get
out because of them trying to cast him for something
that he was like.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
What, like how dare you?

Speaker 2 (32:20):
He used it as a motivated.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
Use it as a motivator and fully invested in his
own money into Monkey Pop Productions. That was their production
team behind Key and Peel. Then they did it with
you know, get Out. That was my whole vision of like,
you know what, I don't see no one casting me
for what I want to be, which is myself and
rest in peace to him. I was a big fan
of him, Ingus Cloud, you know ingus Cloud, Ryan Reynolds,

(32:41):
Vince Vaughan, Anthony Ramos. I don't personally know him, but
that's another person that I.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
You know, I respect a lot that they played himself.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
And it's that's when people people always tell me like yo,
like I don't have like this gimmick in a sense
that yeah, I say, you're but when you meet me,
I'm not saying that, right, I have this, like I said,
I die and I separate Ferris from Justin, but you're
still gonna get all of the elements from first when
you meet Justin. And I took that into the stuff
that we produce and now I have three short films
that we're working on that we're al submitting to the

(33:13):
film festivals next year. But that's I had an opportunity
that you know, got us, you know, crazy Emmy nominated
for the New York Emmys.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Can we talk about that Emmy nomination because I'm like.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
Yeah, so it's it's it's it's it's a it's like
a I want to say, like a Cinderella story. And
instead of a glass boot, it was a tim like
like it was like, shout out to my guy Ray Ray.
Now he comes from like the education field and he
works with kids, and uh he's already won six, like
ten time Emmy nominated and he reached out to me

(33:47):
because he saw my content. So he was like, Yo,
I love your content, I love your voice. I want
you to be a part of something like he has
his own animated series that he does with the Board
of Education that if teachers want to teach their kids
certain things.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
We gotta link him with I'm Mad Continue.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
And so we we're talking now and he's like, yo,
like I love your voice, Like I want to work
with you, Like how can we work. We still didn't
even end up getting to do the voice for the
thing that I'm doing his series, but he was like, yo,
I have an opportunity. You know, you know, I know
people over at the Emmys we want you they love

(34:22):
your content already.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
The people that the EM's already love your content.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
Yeah, it was. There was people already like on on
the on, like in the community and the board that
loved my stuff already because people see my stuff even
if they don't reach out, which I'm like, I said,
I'm grateful for that. I'll work how hard I have,
however hard I have to get to get to someone
than someone's saying, oh, meet such and such, Like I
want to work to that. And but he was like, yo,
like we love your short stories because that's literally that's

(34:46):
what honestly blew me up on h on social media.
The viralness got me known to an extent, but my
short stories from my voice is what got me, like
my MLB deal and like my NBA deal, Like it
was literally just my voice and I do these short
stories of like talking about New York City and then
just random clips that you'll see and I do a

(35:07):
voice over over it. And the biggest one I did
at the time, I did every borough was Brooklyn and
I hit like fifteen million views and he had seen
it and then fast forward, he was like, yo, those
short stories you do, are they horizontal? And now This
is something that I tell people when they shoot, especially
cinematic or anything. You need to shoot a format that

(35:30):
you can get for every every platform that you could shoot,
because there's some people that can't afford or don't have
the time to shoot in vertical and in landscape, which
is horizontal if people don't know. But I like saying
landscape because I follow my production team, but we learned
how to shoot in both that it helps you save
time and money. And now you have that let's just

(35:53):
say we're editing the format for social media because that's
coming out first, we still have it in landscape that
now we can just do the edit when we're.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Ready to release it on YouTube.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
And but I didn't do that at the time two
years ago shooting a harvest a vertical on my phone
and the last year. I want to say, we've been
shooting the correct way, but he asked me for all
of my content and I was like, I don't have
any landscape. So we had two weeks to shoot an
eight to ten minutes short story that I do, but

(36:22):
then we mixed my cop series with it and it
was like I'll send.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
It to YouTube.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
We mixed, like how I do my short stories in
that and then it's called Dallas Slice Dollars, Chop Cheese
City Days, Dallas Slice City Nights, The Eternal Appetite of
the Big Apple.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
I tried to remember that.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
I'm going, yeah, yeah, it's a very very long name
because it was more like I wanted it to feel
like a play. So when you read it, it's almost
like if you're looking at a pamphlet. And Yeah, he
told me we had two weeks to shoot it. We
shot it, I want to say, in January. We submitted
it by I want to say March, and then, like

(37:06):
I want to say, like maybe a month and a
half ago or two, we find out we got nominated,
and then next month we find out if we win.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
And what's funny is is he told me to watch it.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
And I'm manifesting this view.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Okay, I appreciate that.

Speaker 4 (37:18):
Yeah, so I already put Emmy nominated. This time is
going to say Emmy winner.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
I tell people, right, So, my pops, I hit the
number thirty on Billboard. The group he had discovered was
called the bush Baby, so it was a real old
group that was like his actual group, and he produced them.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
He had hit number thirty on Billboard.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
So I told my uncle and everybody, if I could
hit thirty or top one hundred, I'm grateful. Right. I
hit number one with that record with my uncle, so
we have a Billboard number one plaque. I told people,
if I could win a bronze medal, I would be
just as happy to be one of the three people winning,
because there's thousands that didn't win it at all. If
I win the gold, I'm happy. But I did tell

(37:59):
people to same in me situations. So when he told
me they were doing the announcements, I didn't watch it
and I was doing dishes for many reasons. Right, I
thought you were gonna say you were too nervous to watch. No,
it wasn't even that, like I didn't. It was more
it was more so like I had. It was around
the time I lost my grandmother. Yeah, so I didn't.
It wasn't that I didn't care to watch it. It
was that I was grateful if we were nominated or not.

(38:20):
That the fact that we were able to submit that
people that was already that was already grateful. I was
already happy that people liked and loved my content to
give me an opportunity to submit that's why I didn't
watch it. Also, and I have mad dishes, so I
didn't want to, Like, I just wanted to focus. Let's
talk about I have ADHD. So it's like when I
focused on something, I have to do it at that time,
and I was doing it so you couldn't stop.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
I couldn't stop.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
So when I was watching him because I was gonna cook,
So I get a call and he's screaming and now
he's a he's he's a og. So I'm like, yo,
blow everything, okay somebody yeah, like bro, like like I
thought something happened to like his family or something like,
He's like.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
Bro, baby we nominated.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
I'm like, nah that he sent me the clip and
I saw and they they set the name of the
piece and I'm like damn like and then you know,
we had some big people watch it and then watch
everybody else's and I told everybody, don't tell me that
we're gonna win, because they all said we saw everyone
else's stuff and you're gonna win. That's why I said,
I'm grateful that even if we don't win, I get
a nomination.

Speaker 4 (39:18):
Plaq's amazing. You got a lot of stuff going on.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
Yeah, A lot, and that's why I said, it's like
it's it's it's very it's also like discouraging and jaded
to an extent because, like I said, me being a
free agent and solo and not really having like someone
I don't even want to say it's a heavy a
heavyweight representing me, but someone that could take me to
the next level. You know, I kind of burned myself
a lot, you know, going to these meetings myself for.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Is it this way?

Speaker 1 (39:46):
No, it's it's not even that.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
It's that everybody that tried to manage me or work
with me is trying to like own me.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
They exploit me and own me.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Like someone tried to offer me a deal that I'm like, cool,
that's a lot of money, but that's not me. So
it's like that's you know, the type of values and
morals that I have as a person. And then other
people were just trying to take too much percentage. I'm like,
if you can't get me something that's bigger than what
I'm already doing or like I said, excel it to
the next you can't be asking for a percentage. That's
crazy to me because I know percentages and I have

(40:14):
people that help me that I can send them things
that can read things that like, that's crazy if you
sign that, you.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Were like, I wasn't good at math, but I know
about these.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
I know about that. When it comes to longevity and
signing things. As we signed the deal before in the
pasted me my uncle and we were with them for
years then just got out years ago. So it's like
I know my worth and my value. And that's what
I was selling with that term micro influencer. I'm a
micro influencer with a macro influence because for the last
ten years, one thing is I don't put platforms or

(40:46):
people on blasts, but there's massive platforms and people that
I've met and face that they're like, yo, I love
your content and they were posting my content for years
and not tagging me, and that was stealing. They were
stealing my content things showing up. But if you're not
tagging a creator, what I told people, right, if a
creator is not getting paid, tagging them is just as

(41:08):
equivalent as given a monetary value. Of course it is. Literally,
it's super and that's the bare minimum you could do
with tagging someone.

Speaker 4 (41:14):
It's like, you know, you have to reach out, you
have to get permission. You know, It's like we work
with a lot here in New York. We have a
lot of radio stations, but like five or six radio
stations that we will not post without obtaining permission and
tagging the creator.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
It's the least we can do if we're not going
to pay you.

Speaker 3 (41:27):
And I told people it's just like the easiest of
just showing like, hey, is this you, and like it
is me?

Speaker 1 (41:34):
Because it's since like it's it's.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
I've literally for years had people hundreds of people tagging
like this is fairest real ja. But I don't say
nothing because I learned not to burn. I'd never burn
the bridge.

Speaker 4 (41:44):
So now, what is New York? How did you end
up there? Like it's you're the host? How did that
happen if you're not the creator or the founder of
what is New York?

Speaker 1 (41:56):
So here's here's what's funny with that? Right, shout out?

Speaker 3 (41:58):
And I tell people all the time it's literally in
the bio because people dm me sometimes like why'd you
put this up? And I'm like, it literally says created
by my bro Rick McGuire, And I'll shout out to
Rick McGuire. Rick McGuire, Now he's someone that I look
up to, like to this day. He created Subway Creatures.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
That's all that.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
Yeah, So he's like the mecca when it comes to
social media because he started Subway Creatures on Facebook first.
That was like one of the first platforms to have
like a million likes, Like that was the thing you
could like a page or something before you followed it
or whatever. So he was like the first platform to
have a million of anything wow when it came to
social media. So then he transitioned that to IG. Then
he made what is New York I want to say about?

(42:37):
It'll be four years now. Yeah, when I went viral
from my short stories with my voice, he had DMed
me from that page. And it was funny because I
saw when I reached out to him years prior, he
didn't know it was my video because sometimes when people
submit submit videos, it's from other lanes or other people
and he'll tag the person that submitted it, but he

(42:59):
won't know who the person is. Hey, you can't backtrack,
you you might have to do like deep investigative exactly.
And it's just a social media post. It wasn't nothing produced.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
So he followers page have now about.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
Like almost two to like one point six one point seven.
Subway creases is almost at three. Yeah, so's it's he
saw my short story with my voice. And that was
the first time ever that he posted content that wasn't
like what is new York and what is New York Now?
If you see it, it's like users submitted like America's Funniest

(43:32):
home video or you see something happening. He actually posted
something that was produced, and the reaction he got was amazing.
He was like, people were like just amazed at like
how the short story was, but no one knew that
it was me in it because they only heard my voice.
So by the time they started seeing me, they didn't
know that it was They didn't put two and two
together they saw they thought someone else was doing the voiceover.

(43:54):
So Yeah, reached out to me and he was like, yo,
I want to I want to have lunch with you.
And I was very I was very thrown off because
I was like a little skeptical. Yeah, very skeptical because
I was like, it's a massive platform. I've seen him
post very big creators and I was only at twenty
thousand followers at the time.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Where are you now?

Speaker 3 (44:13):
Sixty something? Like that, but on TikTok, I'm at one hundred.
But then I always tell people it's oh, the following
I never cared about because I'm still.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
Not even verified.

Speaker 4 (44:21):
It's the engagement. But he was like, yo, you can
buy followers. You can't buy that engage exactly.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
And I tell people that's why brands now I teach
them because I also do aside from brand marketing and
that type of thing, I do social media analytics and analytics.
So I was actually saving brands money and having them
pay me of saying, why are you going to hire
that person at a million followers that has a half
a million views on that video? But why does it

(44:48):
only have four comments? Interesting read the comments because a
lot of brands they just look at numbers. And I
told people, you can't just always look at numbers, because
you can buy that.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
And then yeah, hit that view analytics. Yeah, rick head,
he has seen my content.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
He was like, yo, for someone at twenty k, it's
like at least twenty percent of your following is engaging
with your content. And that's why I told people, a
very very high percentage of my following engages with my
content versus someone that has half a million or a million,
and they don't even have ten percent of their followers
and games.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
But we feel like we know you. You're part of
the New York culture.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
If you say it, if you post it, and we
send it to each other. I don't know how your
forwards look, but.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
Yeah, I get. I get at least I average five
to ten thousand, because I'm like, okay, is everybody gonna
send me the same thing? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (45:34):
So it's funny like family have sent me my own
video without seeing that it's me, because this the collapse
I do it.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
What is New York the viral stuff?

Speaker 3 (45:42):
It will be me in it from a distance, like
someone recording it, and I send it back to my family,
like you don't see my name at the top, like
that was me. Like so it's like it is to
an extent, like it can't get annoying. But then, like
I said, oh, we're very grateful.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
I love it. I'm very humble and it keeps me
grounded with the things I do.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
But then I just be in a room and all
of a sudden, You're I'm like, they're not all please.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
But then Ricky was like, yo, for someone would like
a decent follow and you get a lot of engagement
with the people that engage with your stuff. I want
to give you an opportunity to be the actual face
for what is New York. So what that came with
was like, when I have my own personal stuff, I
want to collab with that. I could showcase any branding
that's like original branding or you know, brands that want

(46:29):
to see Ferris and what is New York at the
same time. So, but I didn't create it. I tell
people that I didn't create it. It wasn't my idea. I'm
just the face of it. It's like if I was
a an artist with a record label and I'm the
biggest artist on that label.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
That's good.

Speaker 4 (46:56):
I'm glad we clarified it because I feel like everyone
when they always talk about you, you know, they always talk
about the owner of what is New York.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
Like it's just the correlation that's been made there.

Speaker 4 (47:06):
But I made I made it a point to be like,
what is the exact relation of you know, Ferris and
what is New York?

Speaker 1 (47:12):
And then I was like, oh, there it is.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
I definitely appreciate that because that's that's what Fox five
did two with that, and if you I did with them,
they have reached out not on what is new York?
You know the Snapchat day like I wasn't with what
is New York? So another big thing with Rick, aside
from actually teaching me social media and analytics and certain things,
he always motivates me and reminds me that these people
want Ferris, not what is New York.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
And even though.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
He's at two million followers five million collectively, he reminds
me that I am New York. And you know, I'm
very grateful when you know, people like that say that.

Speaker 4 (47:42):
Because we're invested in you. You're the face, you're the voice,
you're the one. You know, aiate a brand, but then
it's kind of like you're the homie.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
Yeah, I appreciate that, really grateful new York.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
Like, do you feel like you would ever be able
to leave New York?

Speaker 1 (47:58):
Yeah? So I told people are scared for you. Something.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
What I told people is there's going to be a
point in my life where I don't live here, but
like in a bicostal type situation where I'm gonna leave
when it's hot, tell me when it's cold, where are
you going? I don't know like I do very I
like Arizona a lot. I lived out there. So let
me backtrack a little real quick. I created I was
always ferries for a while. But I became who I
was right after COVID because that whole twenty twenty, that February,

(48:24):
I overdosed. So that's a story that I talk about
that the medicine I was like perks and stuff that
I was on. Yeah, pills like benzos, a lot of stuff. This.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
It was a real deep story because like I almost died,
like it was. It was a very deep thing. I
was in the hospital. You were home, Yeah, I was home.
My uncle actually was the one who found me.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Yeah, were they calling you? And did they find you?

Speaker 1 (48:46):
He was calling me. He just he couldn't.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
He went to do a wellness check.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
No, he was.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
We always talking like at the time, we were talking
all the time. I lived in the basement. He lived
out above.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
It is during COVID.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
Yeah, like right before COVID. This was February, because got
hot during March April, so February. Even before that, let
me backtrack, I had gotten cast it for a movie
in San Francisco, so I was going to go to
my sister in February, stay with her in Arizona, then
drive to acting. That's the thing in Cali that January,

(49:17):
I actually overdosed, so then by the time I got better,
I went out there. Then COVID happened, So the movie
didn't happen. COVID happened. I actually lost my uncle. That
my other uncle that I lived with pass from COVID,
not my older uncle, but I lived with him as well.
But that's what kind of like transitioned me when I

(49:41):
was in Arizona because when that whole time happened, after
I overdosed, I went to Arizona with my sister and
I was out there the whole year, that whole time
during COVID.

Speaker 4 (49:49):
Why did you go there? Did you need to get clean?
Like was that an addiction you had or No.

Speaker 3 (49:53):
The thing was was that I was already going because
I had already bought the ticket, because I was already
going because of the movie I was going to film.
And then COVID happened when I was with her, So
she was like, he will just stay with me. Like
she had already known that I overdosed, so she was like,
he'll just stay with me and it's like it's beautiful
out there. So by the time COVID happened, I was like, damn,
like this is really something that can help me mentally,

(50:14):
like like decompress.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
What were you struggling? Was it depression?

Speaker 3 (50:19):
It was depression yeah, and bipolar disorder okay, yeah, but
now like thankfully, like I you know, I'm I pushed
therapy a lot to men because I also have a
lot of friends that committed suicide and passed from that.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
But I'm a very big advocate on that.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
You know, we have our Mental Wealth Expo that we
do and it is very important black and brown men,
you know, dealing you know, with any type of mental
or emotional issues.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
Just it's okay to get help.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
Yeah, And I pushed that to all the time, Like
I go. I pushed that I go to therapy. I
pushed like I did, was able to get off for
my medication and find different vices, like I'm very back
heavy into gaming and I don't want to stream. What
I told people is I want people as much time
or as busy as people really think they are. You
need to make time when it comes to a mental

(51:06):
and even if it's doing something that you liked as
a kid. You should definitely remind yourself of what you
liked as a kid and try it and you'll see
how much it helps you mentally.

Speaker 4 (51:16):
How has that affected you as far as like relationships go,
you know, dealing with bipolar and you know, just you
know mental health issues well at the same time, also
being an influencer and voice. So like it sounds like
you have a lot going on. Does it allow you
to have a relationship.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
Yeah, it actually does because thank god. Yeah, what what
I'm grateful for is what I told you. I separate
the two. So one thing I'm gonna teach you right now, right,
it's I tell people, if you're going to try to
grow a following, yeah I get you got to post
it every day type thing or every other day. But
what I teach people is, right, when I have my
Snapchat deal, I had to post three times a week

(51:55):
for a year, right, and I had to keep that
consistency or I would lose my contract. I post Mondays, Wednesdays,
and Fridays. Right, So when I post Monday, I literally
tell people when I post, I get off of social media.
I'm not on social media anymore. As big as I
am on social media, I get off of it, and
I pulled the plug because one, I want to be grounded, right,

(52:18):
I want to be in reality aside from the mental
health that I deal with. But that helped me drastically
of being off of social media that I'm like, I
don't need to be on this right now right. So
when I was off of it, I saw not only
that it was helping my engagement, because this is where
the engagement from it comes in. That Monday I post,
I get off of it. That Tuesday, I'm not on

(52:39):
social media. That Wednesday, I'm a post. I'm commenting back
to everybody from that Monday post. So that when I
post on Wednesday, I get off of social media and
it just creates that cycle. So you created like a
job for yourself, like literally you clock out. I don't
post on the weekends either. I'm not on social media
on the weekends at all.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
And what do you do? Like I live life?

Speaker 3 (52:57):
Okay, yeah, I live life literally Like when I'm out
see people stop me, But I tell people I don't
stop and record the flowers.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
I stop and smell them. That's beautiful.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
And it's like that's one thing that I was big
on that. I like when I meet fans, and I
don't call them fans anymore. I say supporters because I
wouldn't be where I was at it if it wasn't
for them. So I feel like these people support me
because they're there when I'm in the mental need. So
I'm in Queens, Queens, yeah, but I still so, how
is it like your neighborhood? It's beautiful because it's super quiet.
I'm in wood Haven, but I'm literally one stop in Queens.

Speaker 4 (53:28):
All right, But I'm saying, like you come outside everything,
no one knows me because.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
They're all like the whole neighborhood.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
People yelling your all day long.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
No, but I do.

Speaker 3 (53:36):
There's two people now that moved on a block that
know who I am now that they have kitchen and
stuff and it's all love.

Speaker 4 (53:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:41):
But yeah, that's that's why I was very grateful for
that and to where I took it today of just
like I said, moving with grace and just telling people
that when you move like that, you don't The mental
to me always matters more than the views and being
on social media and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
When's the last time you went to Corney Island?

Speaker 1 (54:01):
My girl, took me in June. She took you, she
took me. My husband takes me all the time, and
I'm like, are we here again?

Speaker 4 (54:10):
How many times I feel like he's been there, like
at least one hundred plus times.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
He just loves it every single time. I'm like, does
it never go away? I'm not from Brooklyn. And it
was funny because originally she took me to the it
was for my birthday. She took me to the aquarium.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (54:23):
That's one of my things. I love aquarium So any
state that I go to, I try to find if
they have an aquarium. I've just always been big on
like the ocean, water in space. That's the other thing
is planetariums. But she took me to the aquarium and
she was like, Yo, let's just go to Corny Allen.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Do you get on the cyclone might not be hurting
after that.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
Get on. Actually they were doing renovation and now it's
indefinitely closed, so I'm glad I didn't get on it.
My neck always hurts when I got on YouTube. Yeah,
it's like my husband, let's do it again.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
I'm like, are you crazy? I haven't Herney at a
disc right now? Like bro, can we not do it again?

Speaker 3 (54:53):
And then another thing that helps me, honestly with my
relationship is being off of social media because I tell
a lot of peop to be present, yes, very very present,
because I spoke on a panel and I told people
it's funny that I know a lot of creatives personally
and I'm seeing their girlfriends helping them on the set,
like literally helping them. And it's one thing that told

(55:14):
people it's one thing to keep someone private, so another
they keep something secret. Because I told people on a panel,
if someone's saying that they have to like over sexualize
themselves because they need female fans, you could be married
and still have a super super fan base of women.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
Or Vicera the Rock, I feel like he's always been
married and always had kid.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
Saying and there's so many people you can mention that
that's just to me, that was just that's just a cap.
And now, like I said, being able to be present
makes my relationship good. She's also very you know, present
as well. She's a school teacher, so she doesn't care
about social media.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
I love that balance because it's very good balance.

Speaker 4 (55:51):
I don't understand how creators they creators, like, how is
your life even normal.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
I tried it and it didn't.

Speaker 3 (55:57):
It's the one thing that you the one thing that
you over you have to first overcome is competition with
your own significant other with to me is dumb as hell.
Why are you competing with your significant other? It should
be a team, And you know, like it's I've had
people tell me everyone posts your content, so it's like
that's that's the cop out that even if I didn't
post it, my aunt is going to post it. So
I've literally had people telling me that that's why they

(56:18):
don't post my stuff. And I'm like, but there's not
just one of me, Like there's other people that do
respectfully what they do that within a way bigger following.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
But I get it.

Speaker 4 (56:27):
You know, Can we talk about what creases your uptowns?
I don't know why. I just love the term. I
just love I just love everything about it. Yes, I
want you to kick it off and I want us
to go back and forth.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
You know what creases my uptimes? I'm gonna definitely bring
it up again that we don't have at least Central
Air the in the MTA like other states. Yeah, we
don't have Central Air. Because I was in DC and
two other states that I was like, there's subways. They
came in a good amount of time, but they had
like a good amount of air flowing through that I
wasn't as hot as I was. It's a fact because

(57:02):
in New York you got to wait for the train
to come so you could feel a breeze, and that
breeze ain't it as hot as hell.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
So I could see how that would creise you up to.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
The other thing that creased my uptime is that they
actually got rid of it was every bodega was a
smoke shop. The mayor cleaned that up super quick. Like
I was trying to just get food for a while.
I didn't want to h I wanted a bacon egg
and cheese, Like.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
Bacon egg and cheese was infused. No, not not even
like I was legit.

Speaker 3 (57:29):
There was a time I was I was somewhere in
the l e s and I was just craving. I
have the craving of a bacon, egg and cheese. I
didn't even smoke anything. I just wanted one.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
And every boat daga I went to was just a
smoke shop.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
That's true. After that, everything changed, and I'm like, so
we just.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
And Now, one thing, I wasn't mad at them. I
wasn't mad at no one getting that money of smoking.
What I was mad ass there was specifically targeting kids
and putting them near schools.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
That's what I was. I wasn't rocking with that.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
A lot of the packaging there's very kid.

Speaker 3 (57:59):
From the packaging we've seen, but I literally saw school
buses and weed shops staying near high schools.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
That's criminal at that point, Uptowns, that's just straight deserve.

Speaker 3 (58:10):
That my Uptowns was beyond crease at that point.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Would give me. Just give me again.

Speaker 3 (58:16):
Read of a dollar pizza shop sale, like a dollar
fifty dollars, seventy five two dollars. There's only one true
dollar shop, and you know you got to be drunk,
because anything when your drunk taste good. But that messed
me up. They're all not a true dollar pizza slice anymore.

Speaker 4 (58:31):
Oh No, Sometimes I try them, but I'm like, this
is not pizza I want to continue to eat.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
There was there was one spot that I remember that closed, unfortunately,
But now you spending like eight dollars on two slices
and a drink.

Speaker 1 (58:44):
But it's whatever. Inflation.

Speaker 4 (58:46):
We just had three bacon and cheese today and it
was twenty four dollars, three sandwiches, three sandwiches, twenty four dollars.
Granted we're on fifty fifth Street, but still it is
New York. That definitely creased my motherfucking up. Same here,
what is something about you that you feel like is
a big misconception.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
That I was from like crime, like people think that
I come from like I did come from like a
like I lived in the hood and stuff like that.
But I was never arrested. I was never like in jail.
I was never like any in that lifestyle, not a criminal, nah,
And I was never in that lifestyle of people judge
me for my tattoos because I'm like heavily tattooed. So

(59:29):
that's that's obviously just the conception of them seeing my tattoos.
But then literally when they get closer, it's because it's
a distance thing. Then when they get close and see
that I actually have art, it's a difference between tattoos
and art. And that's what I tell people. I took
a lot of time for certain pieces.

Speaker 4 (59:43):
Okay, I gotta examine the tattoos when we finish it.
I like the hand it's definitely. I don't know why
I'm feeling like Brehanna vibes on that hand, right.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
And this is old but not like all of my
new pieces like this one I finished, Like this one,
I took my time in my whole chest. I took
my time. My first ever tattoo was on here that
I to finish up. Who didn't, uh, my boy Mike,
Mike A c. He was actually on Black Ink. He
was on one of those seasons. But my guy Guarrel
does all of my tattoos right now and out in

(01:00:11):
Queen's Guerrel, Inc.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
And he said it's art.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
Art, definitely art.

Speaker 4 (01:00:16):
Yeah, feels like I need to see some of this
stuff when we let off right now.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
Let me see.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Okay, the Keith Hearing. You're definitely in New York.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
You had to fit it. He got the tins.

Speaker 4 (01:00:29):
Okay, all right, this is beautiful music.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
M hm.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
The stuff from my past and stuff that I went
through in life, and you know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Just commemorative pieces.

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
Like man, I tell people, not every tattoo obviously needs
to mean something, but because we do something for fun. Yeah,
but then what I've been doing in taking my time
is that has to have like a moment that happened
that even if you wanted a pizza tattoo, I wouldn't
get that. But if there was a moment in your
life that a slice of pizza meant that much to you,
or if you just like that pizza shot, what matters

(01:01:01):
to you at the.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
End of the day. What do you have that's New
York centric? I didn't get it yet.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Come on, I have a skyline.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
So I'm actually it's a very beautiful piece because I
was waiting to get it done. But it's gonna be
with my uncle that passed. I'm gonna get him, ma
get him like, I'm gonna have my boy warp him
with like if he was Frank Sinatra's outfit and then
have the book in Brooklyn Bridge behind him. Oh, that's
that's going to Because we did a photo when we
went to what was it, Maurice Pears in Jersey, and

(01:01:30):
we took like a Gainst the.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Sixties, fifties, thirties with the Alpha with the Olphice.

Speaker 3 (01:01:35):
So I wanted to take that photo and have him
looked like he was like old gangster from that time.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
I'm glad why you haven't. It's super respectful.

Speaker 4 (01:01:43):
Yeah, Honor your uncle and your first New York piece
is going to be for that that is super super dope.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
I'm happy we sat down today.

Speaker 4 (01:01:50):
You know, I didn't have any misconsessions about you, but
I felt like I didn't know this much about you.
Like I know you were funny, I knew we all
followed you know, we all loved you. But I feel
like now I know you know, just in the person. Yeah,
And that's what these interviews are all about. It's just
more about you know, getting to know you who you are,
and you know, for our millions of listeners that consume

(01:02:11):
these podcasts, to get to know you as a person also.
So I feel like even with content creators, it's like
we just see you as like somebody who's here to
make me laugh. We don't see you as an actual
human person that struggled, let's say, with dyslexia, or who
we don't overdose. We don't see those things. We just
see you as somebody who's funny, somebody who entertains us,
and somebody who we puts up content that we could

(01:02:33):
share with family members. And I feel like moments like this,
you know, humanizes you, and it makes us, you know,
realize we're all the same, we just have different occupations exactly.
I really really want to thank you for coming through
today and you know, being vulnerable and opening up and
you know, sharing so much of your personal story.

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
Thank you so much for having me and definitely, you know,
being able to speak on your platform. Like I said,
I've actually been a fan of you for a while
for like through the great finds and years and stuff
like that. So being able to actually sit down with
you and speak about you know, my stories, you know,
a very humbling opportunity and.

Speaker 4 (01:03:04):
On behalf of this building power one on five New
York and iHeartRadio. I want you to know we respect
you and we love what you do in New York
and you know, continue to represent us the way that
you do because you know you're putting that New York
flag nice and high.

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
I appreciate you. And Grassiers Come Again.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
Thank you. I was a good man. All these interviews
are so good. Everybody's opening up so good.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
Grassiers Come Again is a production of Honey German Productions
in partnership with Iheart'smkuntura podcast network.