From Started From the Bottom: How Charlamagne Turned Failure Into Success

Here’s a special episode from a new Pushkin podcast, Started From the Bottom. Host Justin Richmond interviews successful people with humble origins who managed to scale the summit of success – people who grew up on the outside, people of color, people who weren’t part of the old boys’ network. Justin recently sat down with media firebrand Charlamagne Tha God – over his 25 year career, he’s clawed his way to the top of the radio industry. Justin asked the long-time host of The Breakfast Club what it took for him – a young man suffering from anxiety, constantly in and out of jail – to become an icon of modern media. Hear more from Started From the Bottom at apple.co/thebottom.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, it's Ben and Khalil. We'll be back with
our usual episode next week, but in the meantime, we
wanted to share with you a new show from Pushkin.
We think you're really going to enjoy it. It's called
Started from the Bottom. Host Justin Richmond interviews people with
humble origins who managed to scale the summit of success,

(00:23):
people who grew up on the outside, people of color,
people who weren't part of the old boys network. Justin
was the first in his family to graduate college, and
he found himself at the beginning of his career looking
for someone to guide him towards success. So he started
asking black men and women at the top of their

(00:43):
game what they did for a living and how they
beat the odds while also beating away the feeling of
being an impostor. Justin recently sat down with media firebrand
Charlemagne the God. Over a twenty five year career, Charlemagne
has out his way to the top of the radio industry.
Justin asked the longtime host of The Breakfast Club, what

(01:07):
it took for him, a young man suffering from anxiety
constantly in and out of jail, to become an icon
of modern Media. We hope you enjoy Justin's talk with
Charlottayne as much as we did. If you do, you
can hear more from Started from the Bottom wherever you
get your podcasts Pushkin. For me growing up, it was oh, oh, oh,

(01:40):
it's the time join the morning show because you know,
my mom was a school teacher, so we was up
early early, so I was listening to the time join them.
And then you know, Z ninety three played such a
big role in my life because you know, their original
morning show that I remember was The Breakfast Club, Baby
Jay and Tessa Tessa Spencer. My guest today is someone

(02:01):
I've wanted to interview for a long time because of
what he's meant over the last decade to the culture,
black culture, hip hop culture, internet culture, youth culture, all
the cultures, you name it. But if I'm being completely honest,
the real reason I wanted to sit down and talk
to Charlemagne the God is to see if some of
his confidence can run off on me. Most of my career,

(02:24):
I've been terrified to bring my full self to work
out of fear of rejection or fear that I wouldn't
be enough. I don't know, I'm working through it with
my therapist. But what I admire about Charlemagne is that
he seems to not care at all about being rejected
by his peers, his co workers, his audience, anyone. And
that confidence has led to some of the most impactful

(02:47):
and sometimes controversial interviews over the last decade. As co
host of one of the most popular radio shows of
all time, The Breakfast Club, Charlemagne made time to sit
down with me in New York City to discuss all
of this, plus his upbringing, parenting, and the criticisms that
have come with his success and more. This has started

(03:07):
from the bottom, harder and success stories from people like us.
First time I ever saw you was it was you
on the Wendy Williams radio show going toe to toe
with Andrew Dice Club. Yeah. Yeah, that was like two
thousand and seven. Yeah, it was one of the most
amazing things ever. And even though you kind of got uh,

(03:32):
I don't know, I feel like Andrew kind of put
it on you that day. It was the way they
edited it too, But it was like, yeah, I had
some I had some good ones, but they didn't put
all of them, and they put the one about me
calling them a fat fans. That's all right, looking back,
you actually did a lot better than I remember. At
the time, I was like, dang, like like Andrew still
got it. I remember been like, oh man, but then
I kind of put you on my radar. And then
I remember when the Breakfast Club came, I was like, oh,

(03:53):
makes sense, like this guy clearly clearly had it. But yeah,
I want to run through your radio trajectory, but first
I to be good to start with growing up in
Monk's Corner, South Carolina. UM. It's interesting, right because you know,
I've been thinking about that a lot more lately, only because,
like you know, when I'm in therapy, I'm doing like
a lot of um in a child work, you know,

(04:15):
because I feel like a lot of the issues that
you deal with as an adult, most of them directly
connected something that happened in your childhood. And so I've
been thinking about, like, what was that upbringing, like growing
up in Monst Corner, South Carolina, and the word I've
come to realize that it is associated with that that upbringing.

(04:38):
It's simple, you know, Monst Corner when I was young
created a sense of ease in my life that I
feel like really helped me growing up because I didn't
move too fast and I didn't move too slow. That
still is a big, big part of me. So when like,
you know, that anxiety that I've been feeling my whole

(04:58):
life sets in, I feel like, Okay, I might be
moving too fast, but then I don't want to move
too slow. But then it's just a certain ease, like
like baby bears part just just it's a just right
level of ease that growing up in Monk's Corner gave
me that I tend to tap into whenever, like things
get really hectic. You mentioned some of the anxiety that
you have. When did that start? Really Yeah, as long

(05:22):
as I know. I mean, the first panic attack I
remember having was first grade, my mom dropping me off,
Like I can feel it right now, my mom dropping
me off first grade, first day of first grade, and
like I just cried uncontrollably, like like I just felt
like abandoned, lost and just scared like that that that same,

(05:46):
you know, unexplainable feeling of fear and panic and worry.
And I think my mom even says that I might
have cried for like the first week. I don't remember
the first week. I remember that one particular day but
it's like, yeah, that's the first time I remember ever
having like a panic attack. And I had him throughout

(06:06):
my life, like I've been going to the emergency room
thinking that I'm having a heart attack, you know, thinking
that I'm dying, you know, And then you get there
and the doctor's like, oh, did you have an energy
drink today? And You're like, I did drink a Red
Bull earlier, and it's like, oh, that's probably why your
heart is doing that. That's the worst feeling, you know.
So it wasn't until twenty ten that a doctor actually
said to me, it sounds like you have anxiety. He

(06:29):
was literally was like, it sounds like you had a
panic attack the things that you're describing. And he was like,
has this happened to you before? And I'm like all
the time, And you know, he asked me what I
stretched out about anything, and I'm like, hell yeah, because
at the time, i had just been fired for the
fourth time from radio, and I'm back living at home
with my mom at like thirty one, thirty two years old.
My daughter's like one or two. My wife is back

(06:50):
living at home with her parents, you know what I mean,
in mom's corner. So It's like I was super stressed
out collecting unemployment checks every week. So in my mind,
all I had to do was get back in position
and get me another je and all of that would
go away. And that wasn't the case. You know. I
ended up getting the breakfast club gig and having the
most success I've ever had in my life. And it
felt like all of those issues I had historically dealt

(07:13):
with were magnified times a hundred now. Yeah, you know,
And so that's what I decided to, like finally go
get some help and like, go to therapy. What do
you think do you see that? Do you see that
same anxiety in your kids? Yeah? I haven't seen it
show up as bad as mine was when I was

(07:33):
at age. And I think the beauty of life now
is not only do I have the language, I have
the experience. So it's just like that, and I wish that,
you know, somebody had put me in therapy when I
was thirteen fourteen now me, I definitely needed it because
I was getting sexually abused at eight years old. I
didn't realize that at the time. I didn't realize that

(07:54):
was molestaia ntil I was twenty something years old. You know,
at the time, I just thought I was eight year
old kids the neighborhood, right, we would we would all
a bunch of young men, We all be around having
conversations about older women that we were messing with, you know,
in the neighborhood, Like we all thought we were lying,
but clearly we all would like telling the truth in
different ways. Right, So, Um, when I was fourteen, I

(08:16):
definitely needed to unpack some of that. Do you think
you would have had it at that age? Do you
think the trajectory would have been the same, Like you
think you would have been ended up in the streets?
Probably not, And the reason probably not, just because you know,
even with the screetch, right, it's like a lot of
that is, Um, you trauma bond with people, yeah, because
it's all a bunch of individuals that are missing something,

(08:38):
and like we all want camaraderie, we all want family,
we all want a crew. And it's just sometimes men,
we trauma bond over bullshit, you know, So we trauma
bond sometimes over crime, you know, we trauma bond over drugs,
We trauma bond over alcohol, you know. But most of
the time it's like, yoh, we're all trauma bonding to

(09:00):
do the wrong thing, like you know what I mean,
like let's go rob this you know, individual, or go
rob this store or breaking into this house, and let's go,
you know, figure out a way to get some a
pack to hustle. But it's like what we're all lacking
is like togetherness. Like everybody, we're all tribal, and we
all long for family, right And I think that's what

(09:23):
that's what a lot of guys do when they when
they click up in that way. So I think for me,
I definitely was longing for like some type of family structure,
even though I grew up in a house with the
oldest sister, two younger brothers, and a younger sister. I
was the second oldest. My oldest sisters like ten twelve
years older than me, and my younger siblings are like
ten twelve years younger than me, So I was kind

(09:45):
of I didn't have on an island, yeah exactly. So
I ended up kicking it with brothers and who are
around my age, and we all ended up doing a
bunch of dirt. And I don't even like to call
it peer pressure because I don't believe there's anything I
don't believe peer pressure exists. I believe we all just
want to be accepted, you know what I'm saying. And
I think that when somebody pushes you to do something,

(10:07):
you do it because you don't want to let them down.
So it's a lot of people pleasing that goals and age,
especially at that age man, And it stays with you though,
That people pleasing stays with you, Like, that's something that
I had to unpacking therapy, like stop being a people pleaser, like,
you know, because sometimes you'll be a people pleaser to
your own detriment. Yeah, you know, I can't believe anyone's
ever accused you being the people pleaser. Man, No, I

(10:29):
think that a lot of that. Man. That's because you
seem you have strong opinions, not scared of voice even
if it alienates you. Yeah. Well, no, you're right, I've
always been that way. But no, there's there's been plenty
of times in my life where I just wanted to
be down. Literally, I just wanted to be down. I
wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be embraced. And
you know, I can think about you know that time,

(10:50):
at that moment, like I just wanted to be embraced
by you know, my peers, you know. So that's why
I started doing what a lot of my piers was doing,
which was a lot of bullshit, you know what I mean,
because I wanted to be accepted some of that early stuff.
A couple of couple of drug cases. Um, the last
one was you were around the shooting the first one.
The first one. The first one, I was in the

(11:12):
backseat of a car and my homeboy was in the
front seat. Somebody was driving, and we was in this
neighborhood like like like a two neighborhoods over from where
we are in Monst Corner, two towns over rather from
where we are in Monst Corner, and we were just
having you know, some conversations with some young ladies. Then
some guys in the neighborhood didn't like that we would there,
and you know, I'm on my fake tough guy ship,

(11:35):
my fake hardcore shit, so I'm acting like dough boy,
and boys in the hood like got my hand under
my shirt was up up yo, sup, because like the
fuck that means, like what's up a problem? You know
what I mean? And they, you know, drove off. Then
we went to like I think it was Burger King McDonald's.
I remember, I think it was Burger King, So he
went to Burger King. As we were leaving, I see
the truck that those guys were in pulling up behind us,

(11:57):
and I say, I'd say tell him I dude, like, oh,
as some guys from the neighborhood. And so they pulled
up on the side of us. So I'm in the
back seat of the car, dudes talking shit out the window.
One of my guys pulled out and shot from the
passenging seat, and you know, luckily nobody was in the
fourth seat, so it was a driver passenger, and then
somebody was sitting behind the driver with the bullet hit

(12:18):
the headrest in the fourth seat behind the passenger seat,
you know what I mean. Yeah, all praises do to
God because you know, that could have been a situation
where somebody got killed. Now we're all in jail for
twenty thirty years, you know what I mean. So so
even now when I think about stuff like that, I'm like, oh, yeah,

(12:38):
you know, because I'm a big back to the future guy.
You know, you watch those those time heist movies. People
go back and little things change here and there and
change the whole trajectory of everything. And so yeah, that
was the first time I ever got arrested. Did it
change the relationship with your parents? It didn't change my
relationship with my parents. That actually made me realize my
dad was right, because my dad was always telling me,

(12:59):
if I don't change my lifestyle, I'm gonna end up
in jail, dead or broke, sitting under the tree, you know.
So when I came home, I really was just looking
for positive things to do. Like, you know, I started
working at a warehouse called Industrial Acoustics Company, and you know,
from that point on, I wanted to keep a job.
But I worked there for like two to three weeks.

(13:20):
Got fired from there, you know, to supervisor, and I
never forget her name. Her name was Gail cop Supervisor
was like, you don't fit in here. You're not what
we're looking for, and now mind you up. My job
was literally like I was clearing out an area, like
a wooded area. So I'm like, oh god, damn, I'm
not fit to clean out a wooded area, you know,
But she was like, you don't fit in here. So

(13:41):
then I started working out a flower garden just because
I was looking to do you know something positive and
the flower garden literally and now that I think back
on it, it was literally a bunch of like migrants
working there, like you know what I mean. It was
clearly a bunch of people who you know, weren't from
this country, who were just looking for work. Now now

(14:01):
looking back on it, that's what it was. It was
literally just a bunch of like Mexicans and you know,
who knows what else, like just working there, right, And
so I was there for like two weeks never his
name was Dominique, the same thing, and him got into
a shouting match because I was just like it, shit
feels like it was a plantation. It literally was a
flower garden. It was actually called the Yeah, it was

(14:23):
called it something plantation, flower garden. But it literally was
just we were out there in the hot sun picking
flowers and you know other types of shit. So I
quit that and then that's when I started like flirting
with the street, you know what I mean. That's when
it was like, man, I forgot some ways to make
money because you know, I still got to pay my

(14:44):
probation officer and shit like that. And it was just
a stupid mentality, right, because when you're on probation. You
got to keep a job. That's number one, UM, and
you gotta pay your probation fees. So I started just
saying that I was working with my dad and I
was doing tempt services, but also I got a fifty
dollars slab. Fifty dollars slabs when you get fifty dollars
worth of rock, and you know, I think you posted

(15:06):
be like I think it supposed to be one hundred
dollars off each Graham. So I think a slab was
one gram that you paid fifty dollars for and you
cut it up and you posted it cuts up into
like one hundred dollars worth a rock. So that was
the first time I liked dabbled in like, yeah, hustling.
So yeah, did did I let my Did I feel like, well,
how did my relationship my parents change? Yeah? I thought

(15:28):
they were right, but I still was young and had
to figure things out for myself, which led me, which
led me back, which led me into actually hustling. You know.
After the break, Charlotte Magne's gonna take us on a
ride through his earliest experiences with radio and how that
helped build his foundation in the business. When did radio

(15:53):
enter your life, like not only not as a career,
as a listener, like what's your earliest experiences with radio?
Like for forever. And the reason I say forever because
like when I said, small town monks going to South Carolina.
So the radio station was Z ninety three Jams. We
were always around the radio. If it wasn't ZE ninety
three Jams, it was another station called wpa L one

(16:15):
hundred point nine, and one hundred point nine was like
more underground with it, so they were playing like underground stuff,
not the mainscreen stuff. And like you know, there was
always like boom boxes around, like my cousin, you know,
my cousin Ty Sleuth. To my cousin Ty, he was
the first person to let me hear like a real
hip hop record. Like prior to that, my sister had

(16:35):
her radio in her room. So my sister was listening
to like Kiddn't Play and Salt and Pepper, you know
what I mean, stuff like that Hammer all the pop stuff,
you know what I mean. But my cousin let me
hear Eric B and Rock Kemp paid in full. Wow,
and that changed everything. Wow. That was like I don't

(16:55):
know what this thing is called hip hop, but I
love it. It felt like rock Kim was saying stuff,
like he was telling stories like you know what I mean. Yeah,
just that is what introduced me to radio and always
wanting to be around a radio. It felt like we
might even have been around radio more than TV. You know,

(17:17):
back in the day TV. It was certain shows we
were watching, but we weren't just turning the TV on
and keeping it on all day. If it wasn't like
Nintendo or you know the radio man, we were outside, yeah,
like you know what I mean, running around, playing around.
So it's like for me, radio has always been in
my life as a listener, like for the personalities are

(17:39):
because like I know, like in LA and later I
came to us, it was like syndicated, but you know,
in LA always felt like it was like Big Boy
was like was huge, you know, and I felt like
our guy. For me growing up, it was oh, oh, oh,
it's the time Join him morning show because you know,
my mom was a school teacher, so we was up
early early, so I was listening to the time Join Them.

(17:59):
And then you know, Ze ninety three played such a
big role in my life because you know, their original
morning show that I remember was the Breakfast Club Baby
Jay and Tessa, Tessa Spencer, and then you know, in
the afternoons it was like, um a man, y'all need
a rude boy. But then it was like you know
the night shows, the Top nine at nine, you know

(18:21):
you want to call in and request the song and
hear your voice on the radio, shout out your school whatever, whatever.
But yeah, those were the people like growing up, like
people like Sean Dobe, like, those are the personalities that
I would hear, Reggie c You'd hear these people and
they were just like regular voices that you would hear

(18:41):
all the time. Ken Moore like I don't even know
if Kim was ki on Z. I don't know if
ki was one. I just did the voices I remember. Yeah,
you know, growing up like those voices, those local radio voices.
Are you growing up the famous? Is anyone in the country? Absolutely?
Do you remember your first time on the radio? I
don't remember the very first time, but it definitely one

(19:02):
of the first times was my man Willie Will. There
was a guy named Willie will He was the night
jock there at the ninety three jams in Charleston, South Carolina.
Me and him used to wrap together. I met him
at you know, a couple of recording studios that were
in Charleston when I got my internship up there. I
would always just be up there and I'd be sitting
in on his show, and you know, he would definitely,

(19:25):
you know, call me to the microphone, you know, and
I'd be on the mike talking. So definitely my first
time on air, I'm sure was with Willie will And
in some way, shape or form, because I remember one
of the remember the program director telling him like, you know,
you need to get a cardboard cut out of Charlemagne
and put it in the studio because your energy goes up,
you know when he's in here, you know, with you.

(19:47):
I remember I remember him saying that to him, and yeah,
which which probably ultimately led to me being on air
because my man Ron White, you know, suth Ron White.
Me and Ron still talked to this day. Round was
like he just asked me one day, like, Yo, do
you want to be on the radio? And I'm like, sure,
why not? And so they started putting me on Sundays
eleven am to three pm. When you say sure, like,

(20:09):
was there a part of you that had was that
just you playing the cool or were you really not
even sure you wanted to be on the radio like that? Yeah,
I never had thought about it, you know what I mean.
I just was really happy to be working at Z
ninety three Jams because it was like the most corporate
thing I had ever done. Yeah, you know it was.
It was the place. It was a place where, like

(20:30):
in South Carolina, people saw you at ninety three, They're like, oh,
he must be he must be doing something, you know
what I mean, Like he must be doing something with
his with his life, you know what I mean. And
for me being like a guy who was in and
out of jail at the time and was getting in
a lot of trouble and graduated from high school in
night school, had gotten kicked out of two high schools.
Like for me, that was a big deal for me

(20:50):
to be like pulling up in most corner driving this
station vehicle, like the big white band with the Z
ninety three Jams on the logo, you know what I mean,
pulling it down my year old you know what I mean,
hoping that some of the girls that lived on my
road saw me, you know what I mean, Like that
was a big deal for me back then. So yeah,

(21:12):
just to be there felt like you did. Yeah, I
just was just happy to be there. Like, so when
he asked me to be on air, like hell yeah, yeah,
whatever's gonna keep me here yea. And of course when
you think radio, you think on air personalities. You're not
thinking promotions or programming or anything like that. So hell yeah,
I'd love to be on air. Now I can really

(21:32):
say I work here and now I'm a personality. And yeah,
I really loved it and appreciate it. How was that
first show that you had? I was scaring all the
church folks because it was what they had me do.
They had me to do something called voice track, And
when your voice track is when you record your voice,
and you got to record your voice, and you know,
it's like it's a time slot from like eleven to three,

(21:54):
so you're talking like three or four times an hour
and introducing songs, time temperature, stuff like that. So I
didn't know how to do radio, you know, I really didn't.
So I was just going in there talking like yeah
I was. I was actually screaming. When I go back
and listening to my old voice tapes, I was screaming.
And it's funny because they all were telling me I
was screaming, Like I'm not screaming. I was just I
was just old you, I don't understand how we talk about.

(22:14):
I was really yelling like ninety three jams R and
being hip hop. My go by the name is Charlemagne Gods.
I was yelling, like screaming at people and so like,
you know, when I finally started listening to the people
who actually do this for a living, I started to
acquire a more conversational tone. You know, when in the beginning,
I was just yelling, like yelling, like literally yelling at

(22:36):
people on the radio, and That's what I was doing.
And I did that. I think I might have voice
tracked a few Sundays, and then Ron was like, all right,
enough of that. You're gonna have your voice track on
Saturday nights now seven to ten, and then you're gonna
go live from ten to midnight. And I was everything
because it's Saturday nights so I can have this high energy.
But then when we go live or I could take

(22:58):
phone calls, now it was like I'm taking phone calls
and I'm working with people when they're calling then making
jokes blah blah. So it's just like for me, the
best thing that ever happened to me was I didn't
know how to do radio. Nobody taught me how to
do radio. I wasn't a person who came from, you know,
doing college radio or nowadays you can have a podcast

(23:19):
or a YouTube page. I was just fresh off the
dirt road in Monks Corner, South Carolina, getting on the
air in Charleston, South Carolina, on the biggest radio station
at the time, ninety three, and that rawdness showed. I
sounded different than everybody else because I didn't have that announcer,
you know, background. So it worked for me. Yeah, you

(23:39):
didn't have the announcer broadcast, yeah or whatever. Was just
coming at it with your own angles. What was your
journey after that? After z SO, I worked as an
intern in ninety eight, started there in ninety nine from
the promotions department to um being on there, and then
a news station came into market, Hot ninety eight nine,

(24:02):
much smaller station ran by a guy named my Man.
George Cook was the program director. I was doing part
time at z SO. I had some conversations with Hot
ninety eight nine. They wanted me to come over there
and do nights They wanted me to do Monday through Saturday,
seven to midnight full time, and I was I think
the pay was like nineteen grand a year, and at

(24:22):
the time, that was a lot of money, and it
was a salary. So just to be able to say,
first time on salary that I didn't go to college,
you know what I mean, I graduated from night school,
and like, so I didn't just oh I got a salary, now,
like how much I'm making an hour? Like yeah, I'm
just happy to be making nineteen grand a year Like
that sounded like some shit, And so yeah, I started

(24:46):
working there every night and it wasn't even about to check.
It was about the opportunity to be on every night.
And my man, George cook Man, who's still a great
mentor to me to this day. He actually, George is
not only the first person to give me a full
time position on radio, he told me some information that
just changed my whole life. And the information was, I

(25:07):
want you to have a morning show at night. I
want you to treat this night show that you have
like a morning show at night. Parody songs and a
lot of sketches and a lot of topics and a
lot of interaction with listeners via the phone, and you know,
playing new music, and all of that benefited me so

(25:27):
well in the future because that's what I ultimately treated
every single show like. I treated every single show like
it was a morning show. So no matter where I
went from High ninety eighty nine to the Big DM
in Columbia, then it was Hot one of three nine
in Columbia, then it was Wendy Williams Show, then it
was my own morning show in Philly. By the time
I got to my own morning show in Philly, I

(25:48):
had approached every single one of those situations like it
was a morning show. So by the time I was
ready to do my own morning show, I was overprepared. Yeah,
you know, so it was he planned to see early
on on that basically stuck with me throughout my whole
career and ultimately led to me being the morning guy
I am. Now let me come back. You'll get a

(26:10):
chance to hear what Charlemagne learned from the legendary radio
host Wendy Williams and lessons he had to teach himself
to achieve success. Tell me about meeting Wendy Williams, man Man,
I met Wendy because I was doing radio in Columbia,

(26:33):
South Carolina. Columbia had a really dope station called Hot
one three nine. So Hot one with three nine started
syndicating Wendy Williams in the afternoons, and so Wendy and
her husband would come down for station visits, like they
would come down and like see the market and stuff
like that, and so I just would break bread, you know.

(26:54):
And I remember the first time I even tried to
break bread with Wendy. Wendy was in the studio trying
to do her show, which I totally under stand, now,
you know what I mean. But I came in there
with mixtapes and parody songs, all of this stuff I
wanted her to hear. And while she was doing her show, yeah,
I mean, but she was in between breaks, you know
what I mean. But now, when I under now understanding
the hecticness of a syndicated show, it wasn't like breaks

(27:16):
like us. But we break for twenty minutes, thirty minutes,
and got time the bullshit she's on, like on on
on on, like it might have only been like three
minutes in between songs. Wendy goes, look, yo, yo, take
that mixtape shit out. Of here. I'm trying to do
my fucking show. Take that mixtape shit to my husband.
I didn't feel offended by that. Yeah, I was just like,

(27:38):
where's your husband? She's like, I think if he's in
that room somewhere, like in the conference room across the hall. Cool.
So I went across the room, gave him the mixtape,
started pitching ship to him, you know, pitching shit to him.
And then we started talking and we you know, kept
in contact from there, you know, and I used to
like give them the heads up on things that were
going on at the station. So he invited me to

(28:01):
come up to New York for a party. He was like, yeah,
wan't you come up to New York. We're having a party,
blah blah. And I'm like, all right. I went to
the party just to kick it. And in the party,
Wendy was like, oh shit, Charlemagne, Yo, won't you come
to my show? How long are you in town? Like, oh,
just for a couple of days. Come to my show tomorrow, Like,
come to your show tomorrow. Can't tell me shit like that.

(28:23):
I'm I'm going to be like, yo, all right, the
who do I call? What do I do? And so
I'm hitting cav like yo keV, Wendy said, come to
her show. He was like, all right, I bet so.
He just told me that. He told me to go
up there, went up there, sat in the pink room
to paint the office for a while. Then she invited
me on the show and I was there for like
twenty five minutes, and literally that evening they were offering

(28:46):
me the position as her co host sidekick. And they
was like, look, we can't pay you, but we can
give you a place to stay. And I'm just like,
all right, just let me go back down South and like,
you know, figure some things out, like just let my
girl know what I'm about to do and everything else.
And That's what I did. You knew the opportunity, yo, man.
You gotta recognize the opportunity even when it's not a

(29:07):
paycheck attached to it. So my mindset was never I never,
I never once was like how much I'm gonna get paid.
It was like, we cannot pay you, but we can
give you a place to stay. I'm out the opportunity
to be on Wendy Williams Show Monday through Friday in
the afternoon nationally syndicated show What are some lessons you
learned on the Wonder William Show. That Wendy's a legend,

(29:31):
no matter how you feel about her, No matter how
you feel about her, bona farre legend, one of the
most talented people, one of the most talented media personalities
of all time. You know, one of the people few
people who can like literally sit down in front of
a TV camera and just go. Yeah, person who could
just sit down in front of a microphone and just go.
And you realize the reason she's able to do that

(29:52):
is number one, she had does have just the natural
gift to gab. But one of the lessons I learned
that everything is show prep. Like a lot of times,
you know, back the day, we would think that show
prep is like just picking up the latest magazine, picking
up the latest tabloid and just downloading what's in there.
Wendy taught me that your whole life is show prep.
Every single experience that you go through can be bought

(30:12):
to the radio, you know, every single experience that you
go through can be bought, you know, the television. I
would watch her, I'd be out with her during the day,
watch these things happen to her, and then watch her
get on the radio and talk about these things like, oh,
I was there, and of course he's making me part
of the story because and Charlemagne said this. Charlemagne was
right there, and Charlomagne acted like he didn't see it,

(30:34):
and it isn't like and I'm like, god, damn, she's incredible,
you know what I mean, Like, he's just an incredible storyteller.
So you know, she taught me how to tell stories
via radio, even though I was already doing it, but
I was doing it more so through sketches, but now
just to make your life a story, to make the
things that happened to you throughout the day a story.

(30:57):
That was like one of the biggest things, like everything
is show prep. And the other thing was like you're
either going to be of the people or of the industry,
because when you're of the people, you're always going to
speak like for the people and you're gonna speak how
the people speak. When you're of the industry, like you're
gonna try to protect relationships and you're gonna try to
you know, protect people, you know, so you're not gonna

(31:20):
have those opinions that you that you probably once had.
That was good advice at the time. I think that
there's an adjustment to be made in that rhetoric because
it's gonna come a time where like, you're going to
be industry yeah you get too big, yeah yeah, and
everybody around you is gonna be industry too. I've been
in the game for twenty five years. So not only

(31:43):
have I grown as a personality and a businessman, a
media just everything right, people around me have to. Now.
I got people who run record label, I got people
who are in rs. I got people who work at
these social media platforms, you know what I mean. I
got friends that are artists and big celebrities. We all

(32:05):
I've been doing it for twenty five years. We all
came up together. And not only just the people I
came up with those next generations of people that now
I'm in position, But oh I see this person coming.
Let me embrace this in the VILDI and brace that
in the Viddle school. We're all industry, you know what
I mean. So your authentic self has to change. It's
like reasonable doubt was authentic for jay Z or four

(32:30):
authentic for jay Z today. What you just said hit
it on the head because people don't pay attention to
that like you saw me when I was one version
of myself. If I had stayed that version and never
grown into anything else, it's no way I'm being authentic, Yeah, Muhammad,
Alis said. The person who's doing the same thing at

(32:51):
fifty that he was at twenty wasted thirty years of
his fucking Ain't I believe that, you know what I mean.
It's just like you're I'm never going to be that
version in But the only thing I could do is
be the best version of my authentic self, whatever that
may be, whatever I grow into, you know, And like
that's why me at forty four, you god damn right,
I'm not the same way I was at thirty one.

(33:12):
I better not be. Yeah, I mean, I'm my true
authentic self right now. And you know, you realize like
the power of the platform, and what I mean by
that is, like, man, this is certain things that we
got to protect people from because we have these platforms,
and sometimes the wrong information is viewed over the platform,
you know, and people get hurt because of that, you know.

(33:35):
And I'm not in the business of hurting nobody. I
don't want to hurt nobody, and I don't want the
person putting out the information to be hurt. Yeah, you know. So, yeah,
well that's interesting because and I don't know if this
was necessarily this person being hurt by you. But after
Wendy Williams, you get your own show in Philly and
you get fired because you bring Beanie Seagull on a

(33:58):
who's a Philly rapper. Ye tell me if I'm not
getting the story right. But you bring on Beanie Segul,
who's a Philly rapper at one point was signed to
Rockefeller Records, came up under Jay jay Z and you
do an interview with beans on the show and he
said something about Jayla makes Jay mad, and you get fired. Yeah,
that's the story. The story is that I got fired

(34:20):
because Beanie Segul got on the air and aired out
Jay Z. And I'm the one who recorded it and
I put it on air. That's the story. I don't
know if that's true or not. Jay never has confirmed
Jay Jay never confirmed or denied on air. Behind the scenes,
he has said to me like that, did that really
gets you fired? Like, you know what I mean? And

(34:40):
that's the story, right, I don't. I doubt that's highly
the case, you know what I mean? What I think
back then I think, um, I had a new program
director was hired, and I think that new program director
just wanted to bring in his people, and that new
program director like he don't know, he had his chest
out a little bit. I remember the first time I
met him, he was like, oh me, and you're gonna
be able to get along. So he came in there
on something like snapping the whip ship, let me get

(35:03):
this guy in line type thing, and I think that, um,
it was a combination of just him being new and
wanting to bring in his own people, but also a
combination of people thinking they're doing the right thing for
jay Z. But jay Z's not even thinking about this. Yeah,
he's you know what I mean. It's one of those
things like you know, I know Charlottagne did it, but

(35:23):
we got rid of charlotage and you let Jay know
I did it whatever whatever you know. So I don't
I don't know. I do feel like maybe a higher
up might have might have just pulled the trigger on
that firing just to get in Jay's good graces, But
I don't think that was a hey i'm jay Z,
I'm offended, body, just get this guy off the air thing. No,
I don't believe that at all. Okay, okay, but that

(35:43):
does get you fired. And that was your own show.
I mean, that's like your own show with Philly. That's
like and if your first time happened like your own show,
that's like, yeah, um, that's that big that I was killing.
I was number I think two in the market. I
was number two in the market at the time, and
that was in a PPM world, So I was I
was doing great and it was literally just me and
my homegirl, Sa. I should su to Sasha Katie. That's

(36:05):
the homie, you know what I mean. She we used
to work together when I used to work at Windy
at WBLS, and so when I got my own show
in Philly, just asked, yo, you want to be my
producer and she was like hell yeah. So we literally
would drive from New Jersey every morning back and forth
the Pennsylvania like like an hour and a half away.
We would drive back and forth every day. Three I

(36:27):
have to get up at three in the morning, pick
her up by like four three thirty four o'clock to
be there on time. And we did that every single day, wow,
for like six seven months. The Funny Parties I got
fired to day I was supposed to move into the
townhouse because I was still living in Jersey, so me
and my wife had got a townhouse. And I'm like, yeah,

(36:48):
this is gonna be great. Now, I gotta wake up
sore early, like I won't have to drive, Like I'm
in my baskets. I'm processing all this in my mind.
We was living in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, on the
outskirts of Philadelphia. Go and roll my daughter in school here,
all of that type of ship. And the day I
got fired, I literally had all my stuff in the
fucking I had a two thousand two escalated with like

(37:09):
one hundred and fifty thousand miles on it, and I
had all that in the in the car ready to
move into the town house. And I got fired on
that day, literally that day, and went back to South Carolina,
back in Mosts Corner for a year. And what was
going through your head at that point? Failure? I failed.
I got to go back to the Monsts Corner. After

(37:30):
being you know, on Wendy Show, after having my own
show in Philly, after having these viral moments, after being
on VH one TV with Wendy. Now, I got to
go back to the Mons corner and collect unemployment for real,
because I don't know when I'm gonna get another gig,
and now I got a daughter. So I literally was

(37:51):
in South Carolina from November two thousand and nine to
November two thou and ten, so I was able to
collect the year of employment. You know what I mean.
I'm living at home with my mom, depressed this ship,
you know, anxiety through the roof, just trying to figure
out what's gonna happen. But you know, I used that
opportunity to m There was a new station launching in Charleston,

(38:15):
South Carolina. It was called The Box. I think it
was like ninety two five The Box or something like that.
So I was there with them, helping them launch the station,
helping them write promos and creating imaging for the station.
I did the voiceovers for the station. Like in my mind,
I was like, Okay, I'm gonna end up getting a
shift on ninety two five. I'm gonna make my twenty
grand a year here in South Carolina, and we're gonna

(38:37):
live a great life. Yeah that was my mindseting. But
you know, clearly God had other plans because the Breakfast
Club came shortly after that. How did that come? When
I was in Philly, there was a there was a
time where I had met with my man g Spend
Before me and g Spend met in a restaurant or something.

(38:58):
It was me and at the time my then uh
my then manager named it was Kevin Wendy's husband, and
you know, you don't have the best reputation in the
business man, and so even though we met, g Spen
wasn't really feeling it. And then later on that turned
into a meeting with my man Cadillac Jack and keV
was with me then and it was the same thing.

(39:20):
Like literally I found out that after we left the meeting,
mad people came from like the sales department and was like,
you cannot Charlotta, Agne's great, but if as long as
you know Kevin is his manager, you know we can't
hire him, and YadA, YadA, YadA, the energy will be
bad and terrible all of this type of stuff. I
didn't know that, you know. And then you know, me

(39:40):
and Kevin ended up having a fallen out parting ways.
And so I was in New York because I had
moved back to South Carolina, but I was in New
York for a couple of days, and I remember just
texting g Spend like, Yo, you know where you at?
And he was like, I'm in New York. Where you at? Like,
I'm in Jersey right now. I was standing Fort Lee.

(40:00):
I was at the Double Tree in four League and
he was like, yo, man, he was like, yo, come
to the station. I'm like word, He's like, yeah, yeah,
come to the station. Come to the station right now.
And so I got in the rental car drove seeing
It took me like three hours to get there because
it was like four o'clock in the after Yeah. Yeah.
So it was at the GW Bridge for what seemed

(40:21):
like an hour and trying to get down the West Side,
creeping down to Tribeca. But I finally get there and
g spinn is like, yo, U my boss. Cadillac Jack
has been watching your stuff all day long, watching you
and Duval with the Hood, State of the Union, and
listening under like some old interviews when you was on
the radio in Philly. So I sit down with Cadillac,

(40:42):
and me and Cadillac just have a great conversation. And
one of the first things he says to me is like,
you know is keV still you're managing. I'm like, nah,
you know, And that's how the relationship started. So like
a few months later I got hired on probably one
or five one remember Cadillac saying like, how long can
you wait for this job? And I'm like, for this

(41:03):
job as long as it takes. And so like five
six months later, you know, the wheels really started to
move where you want him that whole five six months,
like yo, like, oh yes, yeah, you couldn't just sit
back and no, no, no, definitely stayed in touch. Would
send him new episodes and me and the Ball Show,
you know, just just anything anything that I was doing
in that space, I would because we was early on

(41:26):
social media. We was all over my Space and Twitter
and everything else. So yeah, like I was definitely keeping
in real touch with him and g Span, you know
what I mean, and sometimes popping up, popping up, you know,
and be like because I knew kind of like the
gig might be mine. So I was kind of like
popping up and it felt bad because there was like
people who I was like really cool with that work there,

(41:48):
and I couldn't say anything, you know about the conversations
me and Cadillac we're having you know what I mean,
And I had to like lie to some of these people,
and it felt bad, you know what I mean, because
I just couldn't tell the truth because this business still
to be handled, you know. So, but yeah, that's how

(42:09):
I got there. It's amazing, man. And then basically from that,
I mean, from that point, are you still there obviously
Breakfast Club, Yeah, thirteen years later, man. And what's so
interesting is that any of them would tell you. Angelie
will tell you, NBA will tell you. Our radio consultant,
Dennis Clark, G spend Cadillac, I was the guy saying
We're gonna be one of the biggest nationally syndicated shows

(42:31):
in the country. Like, like I just I knew it.
I saw what this show had the potential of being.
And like from day one, me n by Angela, we
always recorded our interviews and put them online. That's how
I was aware of what Angelie was doing. I was
aware of what you know, Envy was doing. You know,
people like my homegirl Kendred g DeBie Brown. We were

(42:51):
all utilizing the Internet. And so when we got with
the Breakfast Club, that's all. We didn't have no money
from marketing they didn't have no money from marketing, no
money for promotions. This was kind of like a last
ditch thing to see if something will work, to even
keep the lights on that power one oh five one.
And so all we asked for was a cameraman every
day to come in here and record, you know, these interviews.

(43:12):
And that's what we did. We started recording these interviews,
putting them up online, recording these interviews, putting them on websites.
And then at the time all these blogs and the
world Stars and all of these different platforms, these websites
existed sending our interviews out, they started posting them. Yeah,
next thing, you know, it took off in a real way,

(43:34):
and here we are. How do you how do you
manage that? Like, how do you manage the expectation of
how do you manage the success? How do you manage
what is just out of reach at the moment that's
that's gonna be coming up for you. I manage it
just by like realizing all my daddy always says, you
never as good as it say you are, and you're
never as bad as it say you are. Like I've
already had my moments of like ego, I've had my

(43:56):
moments of like being that narcissistic, arrogant person that you
know you can't tell anything too. Whether people realize that
or not, I'm sure that they did, because I'm sure
I projected it, you know what I mean. But I
went through that, and I went through that at a
time where, like God, knew I had to get over

(44:17):
that in order to be where I am now. So
I knew that I had to start doing some work
on myself. I was really becoming everything that I said
I didn't like. You know, I was looking in the
mirror and really becoming my father. I loved my father,
but I hated how my father's infidelity ruined his marriage

(44:40):
with my mom, you know, and ruined our family right.
So for me, I didn't want to do that, and
I felt myself going down that path in a real way.
So it was just like, let me check myself before
I wrecked myself. You know, why n't you go? Man?
Last question, if you could pick out one thing that's

(45:01):
helped you be successful, that's sort of been with you
through every period of your career, what do you you think
that thing would be? Man? For me, it would like
to really be authentic and what I mean by that is,
you're not authentic when you're being a character to yourself.
You're not authentic when you see something working for you

(45:23):
and you're getting rewarded for it, so you start doubling
and trippling down on that thing. You're not authentic when
you're being a second rate version of somebody else instead
of a first rate version of yourself. And one of
the things that hurt me to mostly when they started
calling me to hip hop Howard Stern. I love Howard Stern, right,
but I didn't even start to think why they were

(45:45):
calling me that. I just took it and ran with it,
you know, and started giving them like all of the
examples of Howard that Howard might not even be proud of. Now. Yeah,
you know, for me, it was like a lot of
the the frat boy, creepy ass, overly sexual humor, you know,

(46:07):
like the low vibrational energy is what I was really doing.
The limbo with how low can you Go? You know
what I mean? Like literally, like how low can you go?
Like literally? And that's the type of shit I was doing.
So like when you go online and you see like
videos of me like sniffing chairs or like tying porn
stars up and all of that. It was literally for

(46:29):
the shock. Yeah, and so like that stuck with me
for like, man, maybe maybe a year or two I
was on that and then just started to eat me up, Like, Yo,
this ain't making me happy. This shit is whacked. And
you got your you know, your wife. You know I
got married in twenty fourteen, so you got your wife
on your head at the time. She's my girl, Like
what the fuck are you doing? Like, you know, you

(46:51):
out here wilding, you cheating like me, and you you're
on the radio and you're, damn it bragging about word
of the ball like it was that type of conversation.
I'm like, man, are you tripping? Like you know you
it's just entertainment. That was my life. It's just entertainment.
But it's not. Yeah, it's really not, you know, because
you know, but when you're influencing mad people, and in
this case, I'm hurting somebody and hurting the person that's

(47:13):
the closest to me, and you can start to believe
your own bullshit. That's the worst. When you get into
character and you start believing that you really are this dude.
So it's like for me, man, That's what made me
like really start like going to therapy and like doing
the work because I did not like the version of
myself that I was becoming. So my advice to anybody

(47:35):
would just to just be authentic, Always leave yourself open
to growth, and don't be afraid of where that growth
takes you. I don't give a fuck what people like
about you today. If you're growing into something else tomorrow,
follow that shit, you know what I mean, Because if
you don't, you know, you're really just stunting your growth

(47:57):
and you really don't know how big you could possibly be.
You're putting a cap on you, Like you're literally putting
a limit on how far you could possibly grow, how
big you could get, because you're like, Nope, that's what
they like about me, So I'm gonna keep it here,
as opposed to just leaving yourself open to see what
else is out there and how much more you could

(48:19):
continue to grow. So that's what I tell people. Be authentic, man,
and just don't be afraid to grow. Yeah, yeah, man,
thanks for bringing your authentic self to everything. Man. I
appreciate you. Thanks, man. Appreciate Charlemagne through the ups and downs,
are building a media career and one of the most
cut throat of mediums radio has shown up ready to

(48:41):
bring his full self to whatever it is he does,
and the brilliance of that is he's been impossible to ignore.
I want to thank him for that confidence and for
taking the time to talk with me. I plan on
spending more time working on my fear of being rejected
just for being me. Thanks for listening to start it
from the Bottom, I'm out. Started from the Bottom is

(49:02):
produced by David Jah, edited by Keishaw Williams, Engineered by
Bent Holliday, booked by Laura Morgan with production help from
Lea Rose. The show's executive produced by Jacob Goldstein, who's
not all up in the videos for Pushkin Industries. Our
theme music's by Bentaliday and David Jaw featuring Anthony Aggas
and Savannah Joe Lack. If you like your show, please

(49:25):
remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app.
I'm justin Richmond. That was a preview of Started from
the Bottom, a new show from Pushkin Fine Started from
the Bottom. Wherever you listen to your podcasts,