#369 - Vic Mensa - The Bootleg Kev Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's going on y'all? This is Vic Mensa and I'm
on a bootleg cav podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Bootleg CAB podcast special guests in here, my guy. His
new album is coming out September fifteenth. I can't even
believe that this is only your second album full length, yeah,
which is crazy, because Jesus, it's been a long journey, man,
Vic Mensis here.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Peace, peace, Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yes, sir man, it is kind of crazy to think, like,
I know you just did like the internet tape in
its entirety with chance.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Was it two shows you did? Second show is in
la or September twenty.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
One, Okay, so that's still coming. How many years ago
is that? Ten years now?

Speaker 1 (00:44):
It was ten years this year, crazy, September thirtieth will
be the ten year. How are you feeling right now? Though?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Man?

Speaker 1 (00:51):
You've had feeling good, Man, feeling good. I'm feeling super blessed. Man.
It's just grateful, inspired, motivated, a lot of clarity focused.
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
You've had one of the more interesting journeys in rap.
You've been obviously you know, a part of an amazing
group that I feel like kind of kicked down the
doors of a lot of what you know, that early
Chicago wave that you and Chance were a part of.
Shot the kids these days fast forward.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Because it was on tour with Asher Roth. Was that
when I first.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, when I first met you, you guys came in
freestyle at the radio.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
It was that Phoenix. That was the middle of the
night too. It's like after after the show, Yeah, Phoenix,
we was mobbed up.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, who else was there was a Chuck English?

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Chuck English was there too? Maybe Buddy, I old Buddy
was on the tour, but from l A, Yeah, Buddy dude,
I don't know if he was.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
I didn't even know about him back then. So that's
crazy because I.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Come to think of it like he was definitely with us,
and I don't think I all the way put it
together later down the line, when I reconnected with Buddy
in the studio with Pharrell, you know, because he was
signing for real for sometime and but I had first
gotten a normal tour with Asher, he was just like,

(02:13):
you know, they're crazy young homie, know, I mean always
smoking and crip walking.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
I think was that the Paps and Jazz tour?

Speaker 1 (02:21):
That was Paps and Jazz shout to shout out to
Asher Roth, that's my boy, man.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Great guy. But you just had such a crazy journey, man.
I mean, you know, obviously to only have like you
have to meet classic bodies of work, but to like
actually think, like damn, you really only have two full
length albums, like this is your second one coming out
on the fifteenth. Why Victor?

Speaker 1 (02:44):
And why why now? I called it Victor because it's
a very personal album and I think it represents me,
like as a human being, and that's that's me before nicknames,
you know what I'm saying. And I had a revelation
about my name when I was doing Mushrooms in the
Woods Amazing, always a great time. You know. I took

(03:06):
my moms to do Mushrooms in the Woods Amazing recently.
That was fire nice. And I had a revelation about
my name just in that, Like I realized, man, it's
so much in a name, and oftentimes the names that
were given almost predict the lives that we lead. You know.
I was named Victor in honor of my most famous

(03:31):
ancestor on my father's side. My father's from Ghana. My
entire family lives over there, and the most famous ancestor
in his lineage. His name brotem Noma from you know,
many centuries ago, and he fought against British invasion into Africa.
And I was named victor in honor of his victories.

(03:52):
And I was sitting there in the woods and I'm
just thinking about it, and I was realizing, man like,
he fought for freedom all those hundreds of years ago
and I was just named that and fast forward here
I am like freeing people from prison and helping get
people off death row. And it was almost like just

(04:14):
a revelation that this path was laid out for me.
And I think even in reflecting upon the ups and downs,
the struggles, the fight, you know what I mean, just
a sense of perseverance is that like I'm programmed to win.
I'm programmed to live through things because I am victor.

(04:35):
I'm the victor, you know what I'm saying. But to
be the victor, you have to have a fight.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
You got to have a fight to win, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
You have to have a fight to win. And I
would characterize, you know, my time in music and the
music industry much in that way, you know what I mean?
It has been a battle. I think our first battle though,
as human beings is with ourselfs, you know, so eight
and coming into music, predating me meeting Bootleg keV when

(05:03):
I was a teenager, you know, that battle with myself
on that tour. I was seventeen. Jesus Christ. I have
more of a beer than than that.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Sure, a lot more hairy, scruffy.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, for real, I don't think I've changed my clothes
that whole tour like crazy. It's on YouTube watching, yeah,
you know, predating all those things that battle with self existed,
and I think coming into music, I say that whatever
you got going on is just going to be magnified,
you know what I'm saying. So the talent, the genius,

(05:36):
the charisma, the creativity magnified. Also the insecurities, you know,
the depression, the addiction, like the addictive personality, all those things,
it's just magnified. And coming in to this industry that

(05:56):
is so doggy dog chew you up and spit you out.
For sure, I think everything was just everything was just magnified.
So it's really been a fight. But I named the
album that because the album is like really a story
of redemption and me expressing a lot of gratitude for
being able to live through that fight because a lot

(06:16):
of young rappers don't get that chance.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
I was gonna say, did you have like because I
feel like so not just artists, but specifically artists because
you guys are under a lot of public scrutiny. But
did you because you're You're so much more than an artist, right,
And sometimes fans will just look at you through like
the music lens as opposed to like who you are
as a human being? Right? And I think a lot
of us get so wrapped up and associating our identity

(06:42):
with our refreession.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Right.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
And there's some people are like, well, what are you
if your profession goes away? What are you if radio
goes away? What are you if hip hop goes away?
Did you have like a hard time getting because you
had a lot of eyes on you in terms of
like the you know what I'm saying, Kanye Co signs
the Rockefeller shit that you know, was there a point

(07:06):
in time where you like kind of came to like, yo,
I got to kind of like remember who I am
and separate who vic Men's is and what who like
hip hop sies me as and who I am as
like a human being?

Speaker 1 (07:17):
You know, what I'm saying, I think that's a constant
thing is to recognize that my identity as a human
being and as like a spiritual being is not the
same as my Instagram right, right, right, right right. I'm saying, like,
this thing does not represent me in totality, and I

(07:37):
think that our propensity as people that live in a
public eye can be to place all weight in that.
But type of music I make and the art I
create that I strive to create isn't something that's based
on fame or clout or money or you know, anything

(08:02):
like that. That's never been my north star. I mean,
that's never been why I started to do this. I
think oftentimes in today's hip hop, especially like it's a
means to an end, you know what I mean, people
are like, man, I wanted to do this because I
saw they was rich. I wanted to get rich, right,
you know, which is great, But that was never and

(08:25):
has never been my mo That was never why I
started doing this. You know, I was inspired to do
this because the way Common talked on records spoke to me.
It gave me perspective about myself, you know, I mean,
the way Tupac talked on record helped me through tough shit,
you know, as a child and as a man, and

(08:48):
those are the reasons why I started to do this.
So getting in that position, you know, to be there
with the people that I idolized coming into this. Although that's
amazing and that's like a dream come true, that's still

(09:09):
not the main reason why I ever did this. But
you could get caught up in that though. I was
out of a convo with no Idea the other day. Man,
you know, he was like, He's like, yeah, you got
tossed into the motherfucking like the whirlwind. No, you know
what I mean, jay Z Beyonce in the mix of that.
But like I said, it's like you still got that
magnifying glass on everything that was there before, you know.

(09:34):
So something I've been exploring in this album and speaking
about a lot is the power of my words and
the power of my thoughts, you know what I'm saying.
And from the time when I was five years old,
I found a notebook that was full of suicidal writings,
you know from me that you wrote that I wrote

(09:55):
when I was five years old, And so I kind
of always had a certain programming towards depression, and you know,
those things will inevitably, if allowed to fester, come to pass,
you know. So at the same time as I always

(10:16):
wanted to be great, you know, I always was feeding
this voice in my head that wanted to destroy me
at the same time. So even though I achieved greatness,
I still had no sense of how to calm down

(10:36):
that innate urge for self destruction that was in there,
you know. So I could be, you know, on a
tour with jay Z, you know what I mean, in
front of thirty thousand people a night, and still be
like depressed, you know what I mean, and not living
in the moment, not living in the moment, not knowing

(10:56):
how right, and being like I never even thought it
was possible to impact act those thoughts, you know what
I'm saying. So a lot of the things I think
that people might have seen, you know, and the behaviors
that what happening simultaneously, that was just the manifestation of
that other side of my brain, that voice in my head.

(11:20):
I think a lot of people experience, like, man, you
don't deserve this, you know what I mean, you might
you're not worth it. In imposter syndrome, that's a real thing.
You could be really who you think you are, have
a voice in your head telling you that you don't
deserve to be here real, you know what I mean?
And I was experiencing that shit constantly, So I think

(11:40):
in many ways I had to experience the culmination of
all of that and all the controversy and the drama
and you know, being ostracized and outcasted to really get
the moment to reflect and understand like, okay, so here

(12:01):
I am. I have been blessed immensely in that I
ain't have to die behind this, you know. So now
let me reapproach this with intention. Let me not just
let my mind say whatever it want to say all
day long and be beefing with this person and outwardly

(12:25):
expressing whatever frustration I'm feeling internally through all these other things,
because it ain't about that, you know what I mean. Man,
About that policeman get up today shoot a nigga with
his hand in his hoodie. Man, he probably having a
bad day in his own you know what I mean.
But he's finding someone else that he might perceive as

(12:49):
being the problem to express whatever problems he has going
on with himself.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Do you feel like a lot of your conflicts were
similar in terms of you kind of dealing with whatever
you were going through by maybe lashing out at certain
individuals or think.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
I think it was always complex, you know. I think
I've been dealing with a lot since I was a
child identified that I've also been very politically minded, for sure,
and I've also stood on what I believe in, and
the combination of those created a lot of conflicts. I mean,
if you look back at all these different conflicts, ninety

(13:31):
percent of the time, controversies, whatever it is, they were
rooted in some principle. You know that I felt I
was standing on that most oftentimes, if you were to
write it down would be something that people would agree with,
they'd be like, yeah, but if you just write down
the issue and the stance the position.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
I remember, I remember very vividly, like when X was alive,
I kind of remember why you took the stance you took,
And I wasn't mad at it because I think it
was like because some of the allegations that he had
against him, And I was like, I mean, I get it,
you know what I'm saying. But I think in retrospect, obviously,
you know, not every battle is your battle and.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
This is what I came to learn, really, and what
I came to understand is that like, not all truths
need to be told all the time, and the judgment
is for god, you know what I mean. But I
don't think I've recognized and through that situation was able
to learn was that judge not lest you be judged, condemned,
not less you be condemned. You know, point a finger,

(14:25):
you got three fingers pointing back at you. And also
your message is sometimes less important than your delivery. My
message was so often lost in my delivery delivery because
I'm coming from a brash, like Chicago perspective when I'm like,
I don't give a fuck the ship true, you know
what I mean, tell me it ain't true.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Or you also force people at that point. I feel
like there was some certain pointance in times when you
kind of like force people to kind of whether it's fans,
people to kind of just choose sides.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
And that's tough for people, you know what I'm saying.
And it's also it it's also like eventually all the
bickering and beef and whatever it's about a lot of
a lot of it would boil down to you see
two fools arguing from a distance. Kid, tell who is who? Right?
You know what I mean? And if I'm just getting

(15:16):
into it with this person and this person funs with them,
so now they're into it with me, and I'm into
it with them. Now I'm in It's like now, it
just adds up that people just think I'm combative. I
would come down sometimes and sit down in the interview
and I'll be me and you know me, I'm kind,
I'm cool, I'm funny, I'm nice, and people be like, man,
I'm so surprised. How cool you all thought. I just

(15:37):
want to come in here and try to punch somebody
in the face. And I'm like, okay, I need to
change my behavior because people are mis understanding.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
People are gonna get They're gonna they're gonna create the
narratives that, you know, from whatever information they have that's
out there, and not not enough.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
People are and the thing is too headlines.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
That's how they come up with their narratives. They see
the headlines and they're.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Like this, talk me a lot. You know, people don't research.
There's so much information out there, you know what I mean,
There's so many things that we're being bombarded with constantly
that It's like people ain't going to check sources and
see what was really said. They're seeing a headline, maybe
a couple images, and they're like, cool, Okay, I guess

(16:21):
person is associated with that word, that action, whatever it is.
You know, move on, Oh, I see it again. This
person is now associated with that one.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
I see it happening so much, especially nowadays, it's like
it's just crazy, Like when it comes to politics, when
it comes to artists, it's like people just have their
mind made up over whatever blips they see on their algorithm.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
On ignapshot. Just the headline, that's what That's what most
people use to formulate their opinions. And so I think
it's like, you know, gotta be intentional at this point
in time, Like how do I make all my interactions
to the best my ability represent me as a human

(17:03):
being in totality, right, you know what I'm saying? And
how do I stand for the things I believe in
without having a stand against everyone, you know what I mean?
Like it's not really necessary for sure.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
I think it's crazy too because just from like a
fans perspective, being like such a big fan of you
early and chance really early, like to see you guys
reconcile after all those years where I just feel like
they were like years lost of like of like peak
like greatness, you know what I'm saying. And it was
just dope to see you guys. You doing internet tape,
He's doing acid rap.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
You know.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
I think you guys are both so important to Chicago
until a lot of these kids in the last decades.
So for you, was it like a for you guys
to kind of put whatever issues you had behind you
and move forward with positivity and you know, I mean
kind of pick up where you guys left off, because
you guys kind of came into this shit like literally he.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
Definitely did before the shit even you know what I mean,
like age fourteen. You know what I'm saying, before rap
was anything more than a dream. And I think like
when he came to visit me in Ghana and you know,
we started to build this festival and really just that
moment in Africa, like that return. I think that really

(18:17):
just helped to solidify cement our relationship, our friendship as men,
you know what I mean, Like the things that we
went through ups and downs as boys, you know what
I meaning? Like just that happens. Brothers fight, you know
what I'm saying, And don't let you get rich and
famous and be super young, you know what I mean.

(18:38):
Like that's that could be a recipe for disaster.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
And to be fair, both of you guys had kind
of like meteoric quick rises in terms of like from
being like kind of like mixtape underground blog darlings to
being like what the fuck, like You're you're with Rockefeller
or you're with rock Nation and he's you know, I mean,
acid just kind of changed things. Yeah, it just got

(19:04):
got crazy quick with both of your guys.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, shit got crazy real quick, you know what I'm saying.
And I really can't stress enough though, like how much
of a blessing it is to be able to learn
from those things and grow from them. Man, Like that's
something I speak about a lot in this album. It
was like two years ago, I believe Juice World Day,

(19:28):
and I was in the studio with Bongo Bongo by
the way, he's the executive producer of this album, and
we're in La but I'm looking at social media things
of Juice World Day and I was just overtaken by
a sense of gratitude because I'm looking at them, considering

(19:49):
the factors that led into that situation, and just realizing
that a lot of young artists don't get the chance
to evolve, to evolve and learn, you know what I mean,
And we're all oftentimes so caught up in the romanticize
and the drugs, and you know.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Like we never got to see the juice real, like
he didn't even have chance to mature, and like we
like he was a kid, people forget like he's like, actually.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
Really what happens with so many artists though, you know
what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
It's like like even X, like we didn't we don't
sex have that, you know, because I feel like he
was moving a lot of positivity before he died, you know,
and I was like, damn, we didn't even get to
really see his like legacy play out, like him really
growing up, and and like you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
Like it's really a blessing. It's just a blessing. Like
I can't overstate that, because a lot of young artists
don't get that chance to like stumble, fall and get
up and learn from it, you know what I'm saying.
And it's almost like being a hip hop artist is
like an endangered species sometimes, like being a young rapper.

(20:54):
You know already, being a young black man is a
target on your back. Being a young rapper is magnified tenfold.
And you know, all I could all I could really
do is really try to express the lessons that I've
learned through all of the tumultuous time.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
And you were literally throwing in the in the world right.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
In the mix, you know. But it's a big blessing though,
you know what I mean. Even starting this album, Like
beginning this album is when I've really turned things around mentally,
you know what I mean, Like cut out all the
drink and all the drugs everything, like went sober, just
got focused layers of focus to a point where I

(21:39):
feel like I've been clearing my spirit out and transforming
my energy. So I really feel I feel limitless. I
feel like I've been gifted to achieve magnanimous things at
a very young age, and now I'm gifted once again
to take it first further, you know what I mean,

(22:00):
take it further with intention and from a from a
place of clarity and focus.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah, I mean, I think I think you can, Like
have you ever reached out to any of these young
artists and just like, hey, I see what you're doing,
like you know, or maybe try to give them some
advice because you've, like you said, you've kind of been
You've you've you've had to live through what it's like
to be like thrown in the middle of this machine

(22:29):
that is the music industry. It'll eat you up, it'll
spit you out, and it'll you know, it'll stop answering
your calls, you know what I'm saying, Like, if you
see somebody making mistakes, whether there's somebody close to you
or like, do you reach out, do you try to
give them any advice? Or is it really not your place?

Speaker 1 (22:42):
You feel? Like? You know, I think I just try
to lead by example and let my actions speak for
me at this point in time, you know, And if
I can inspire or influence somebody with something I'll say
on a podcast with Bootleg Cab or something I say

(23:04):
on a record of just something that they see me.
Do you know Vic Mensa does this for the homeless
in Chicago or you know xyz Freeze somebody from prison.
I'm like, man, let let me let my actions, you know,
speak for themselves, because in the midst of in the
midst of so many things that we've discussed. It's also

(23:26):
like just this mountain of positive impacts I've left on
the planet, which was has always been the conflicting thing
that I had to realize, Like you can't have it
both ways, Like you can't have it constantly in beef
and drama and getting locked up for this and still

(23:48):
be giving away a million point five dollars worth of
shoes in the trenches in Chicago, sleeping underneath the viaduct
in the dead of winter to raise money for the
homeless build and water facilities in Africa. I mean, like
I let those things speak for themselves. But it's not
a lot of people in the history of hip hop

(24:09):
that have at this stage like had the level of
impact on people in a humanitarian sense and that I have.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
Also, that's not the ship that for whatever reason, will
get that's not viral. It's not going viral, bro.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
But that's the human nature though, is like sit and
turn on news right now, you know what I mean, Like.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
There's nothing positive on the.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
There's nothing about because bad news travels fast. It's all
de vice. People shot here to people overdosed on and all.
You know, Ukraine is being bombed because bad news travels fast,
and we're in a culture and a moment in society
that prioritizes sensationalism because it's all about the Internet, you know,

(24:59):
and it's all about impressions, engagement, likes, comments, and you
get a lot more likes and comments on arguments, controversies
and thing and fear than you do on like love.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
And that's kind of like our whole news consumption cycle
is like it's just fear driven, like just like what
do we got? What are we gonna be scared about today?
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
For Really, it's all feel mongling.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Like even COVID showed us that more than anything, because
like we were all just like watching like at home,
just watching CNN, and they would just have like the
death numbers just it's like a ticker at the bottom,
like it was an NBA score or something. I don't
think we really realized like damn, like that like like
that was a really I was like fucking freaked out
to go outside, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
Like, And you know.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
A lot of us got it and survived, a lot
of us passed away. I had COVID like twice. At
least I might've had it twice too. You know, I
had COVID before we even knew what COVID was. I know,
I had a lot of homies who were like right
around December.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
January, December, they were up. I was in bed for
like days. I just it was like a fever dream.
I just remember like rolling around in bed for days,
you know, didn't even get up to eat. Yeah, no,
for sure.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
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(28:34):
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(28:57):
the interview. So was it last year you did the
ice protest show?

Speaker 1 (29:04):
Oh no, that was a few years back. Man.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Was that did you end up going because I know
you did something downtown LA, but did you end up
going to like the border you were doing like a
show outside of the border in San Diego, right.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah, yeah, And I went to Mexico, so you were,
but I went to uh yeah, I went to TJ
and I went to an actual like ice detention facility
and performed outside of it on a truck. I was
gonna say it was on a truck, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
I've never seen that. And I DJ in San Diego
all the time and I go get all my medicine
from Tijuana. So I know how crazy that border, especially
because what year was this was this twenty twenty nineteen
maybe Yeah, that border during the Trump years was fucking
raz It was crazy. There were so many people, yeah,
like nuts. And I think when we went over there

(29:51):
to get in like one of the what was the
big like immigrant like uh there, like there's a lot
of people trying to seek asylum in the US and
they were stopped at in tij One and.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
To a lot of African people that was African that
I didn't until I went there. Yeah, I mean just
the way that they were running that situation was just
like super inhumane. And I was really surprised to see
so many African people, like West African people. I think
they were from like Cameroon or Congo. There was some

(30:24):
French speaking Africans, and it was like, you know, hundreds
upon hundreds of people, and the way that they would
get contacted was like they get to the front of
this line of thousands of people and then they give
them a number on a piece of paper and then
they call that number sometime within the next month, like

(30:47):
weeks on weeks, and you literally have to be within
earshot to hear.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Your number called at the border at the border, so
you kind of have to just hang out there for.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Months like to proceed.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
So we're going to sleep on the sidewalk.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Exactly what they were doing. It was like it was gross.
Definitely see the way that they were treating human beings.
Like I was, I was really taken aback by that.
But that's also in the midst of like all the
things happen with the kids in the detention facilities.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah, I just cages blankets that were like like metallic
aluminum foil, and I think a lot of that stuff
is still going on right now. It's definitely still going on, yeah,
Because I mean, you know, I was I'm definitely a
fuck Donald Trump type of guy, but I think a
lot of that ship was going on before him too.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
And after and after. I'm not making any excuses for
him in particular, but you know what I'm saying, the
hypocrisy of like American oppression doesn't begin or end with
Donald Trump. Donald Trump is just the one to put
it on Front Street. He said, this is actually what
I'm on. I'm paying all my niggas, I'm here for
the bag straight like that. Fuck y'all, this is what

(32:00):
presidents had been doing. But he just told you, just
said what he was on.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
You know, he just let y'all know what was going.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Down, said what he was on. That's why you know.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
It's crazy too, because like I've been like a lifelong,
like you know, liberal Democrat guy, like you know, I
voted for Joe Biden, But this last fucking few years,
I just been like, I just don't know where we
go from here, Like I don't know, like, how do
you feel about this next presidential election, because it really
feels like somehow we're gonna end up with the same

(32:32):
two guys, And I don't know if either of them
are great for our country. And I just don't know
neither of them. No, they're definitively terrible. Joe Biden has
been a terrible president, and I voted for him. He
just hasn't been great. But the guy before him was
terrible for his own reasons, terrible for the racial division,
the normalization of a lot of things.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Like him getting locked up and having that hard as
a mugshot too. I think that only helps his case.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
Bro. I'm like, it's gonna be a Griselda album cover
event like West Side Gun's next album might be the.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Trump much Unfortunately, that's only help in his case.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
That's what I'm telling I'm like, Yo, these guys, if
they're gonna go all in, they better make sure because
if he don't go to jail, he's gonna be the
next president.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
He can't even run. He can run from jail, and
he will.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
But I think he'll lose the primary because I think
there's enough.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
I think he'll lose, but you'll be there's I can't
call it, yeah, you never know, Okay, call it. I
mean like Joe Biden too, I'm not gonna forget that.
Joe Biden is responsible for the nineteen ninety.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Four crime crime, people creators.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
And the system of mass and conserration. As we know,
it is millions.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
He also nipped the HPCU bill that was supposed to
fund a lot of the HBCUs. That was I think
I think Trump put that through. Yeah, Biden is listen, man.
That's why I'm like, I don't know where what do
we do?

Speaker 1 (33:52):
Do we?

Speaker 2 (33:52):
I'm like I told everybody else. I was just talking
to my wife's mom and I said, if it's Trump
versus Biden, or if it's like the Santas versus Biden,
I'm just going to vote Corner West and fucking sleep.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
While it was no Cornell, what corn West and Kanye
West ran on a double bill.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Shout out to Kanye, who was definitely just getting blown
in the middle of a boat in Italy.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
And that's what That's what That's what we thought it was, right, Okay, Okay,
I didn't see that part. I didn't see that part. Yeah,
this next this next election, I can't call him. Man.
I don't know if I would vote for Biden again.
I mean, honestly, I think that it's always a lesser
of two evils situation, but sometimes it's hard to really

(34:41):
determine what the less of the two evils are a
lot of the guys. The guys want Trump because he
gave him PPP loans, but.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
The was going crazy.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
Shows you how simple niggas be. Man, It's like you
dangle that carrot in front of him, gave him them
p P P loans, and you know they they want
him back for real.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
It is crazy because a lot of my homies, who
you know, like, I think he's gonna do well with
black males in a collection because a lot of my
boys are like, man, we're fucking with Trump, and I'm
like really.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
Like, yeah, I mean I think overall he won't, you
know what I'm saying, Like.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
No, overall, but I think compared to like whatever he
did last.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
Time, yeah, he might get like that two percent, you
know what I mean. But in mass he's not gonna
get the black folk. I mean, like, black people are
not stupid. Some of the guys are very greedy. But
in mass he won't get the black folk. But he's
not relying on that, He's not leaning on that. His
base is just as fired up as they ever been.

(35:44):
I wonder at this point how it escalates, because the
last escalation was was them trying to destroy their own capitals, like,
which is crazy. I'm like, I don't claim this.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, how are you supposed to be patriotic?

Speaker 1 (35:58):
This is the thing you love? You don't want that
runs around with the American flag on your pickup truck
and you know your jacket in.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
This is what I tell everybody. I'm like, yo, anytime,
like if if you know, Like I had to kind
of come to a realization in the middle of his
presidency because I was to the point where, like, if
I found out you were like a trumper, I just
couldn't talk to you, and I'd like.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Family that way. I had family members that he got
that way, right, he got that way. I'll still be
trying to get past that.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
So I had to kind of come to the realization that, like, Okay,
not everybody who voted for this guy is a bad person,
right right. But then I'm like, okay, but if you're
out here with a fucking MAGA flag on.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
Your trucks, pretty brazy.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
That's that's just a crazy, like that's some cult shit.
It'd be like if somebody like I'd judge the same
type of human being if there was a giant Joe
Biden flag on your truck, I'd be like, yo, are
we going to be that fanatical about any particular politician.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
Not everybody who drinks the kool Lead is the devil.
But I've had to come to a place where I
can recognize that just because someone is conservative or might
be racist or prejudiced, that it doesn't serve me to
judge them and be upset with them for it. Like

(37:17):
I was in this Russian like spa the other day
in Chicago, got the amazing It's got the hottest suna,
the coldest cold plunge.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
And it's hard to find a spa in LA with
the cold plunge and.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
The cold plunge is so crazy. But you know, the dude,
he's got a racist vibe to him. You know, I
can pick up on it. And then I went in
most recently and I saw he had the he had
conservative news channel just playing in the common area, and
I'm like, okay, I properly interpreted, you know, this guy's energy.

(37:55):
But at the same time, it's like, man, that's between
him and God. Man. I was leaving mosque one time
and I seen two brothers on the corner talking. There
was a bunch of Nigerian guys who were loudly debating
something as Nigerians do. And one of them was like, man,
I'm Nigerian. Brothers. They be deep man. And the other
one was like, man, but they be racist. And then

(38:17):
the first one was like, that's between them and our law.
And I thought that was so deep because there are
a lot of misunderstandings between us as black people and
Africans that I see both sides of it. Because I'm
gonna end and I'm Black American. There's a lot of
racism that goes both ways.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
I don't think a lot of people are hip to that.
That that's a thing that exists.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's that's that's a reality. But that
exists for us wherever we go. There's psychological propaganda that's
used to devalue Black Americans. It's used to devalue Black Africans.
That's used to pit them against each other because the
moment in time when we realize that we have a

(39:00):
unified front, we have a common enemy, it would be
too dangerous and too powerful. I mean, that's why Martin
Luther King was killed. That's why you know Malcolm X.
Once he started to move away from a black separatism
mind state and embrace people of other cultures, things get
really dangerous. Same thing for Martin Luther King. Once he's
moved his focus from the March on Washington to Poor

(39:24):
People's Movement, then he gets smoked because when you put
those dots together, you connect those dots, then you get
a red dot on your head. That's how it goes.
But for me, I had to realize, like, Okay, this
dude might be racist. Yes, he might be looking at
me with a certain prejudice. I can interpret it. That's
between him and God. Like, as long as he doesn't

(39:45):
try me, what does it have to project that on
to you? You know he's projecting it. But as long
as it's not impeding my ability to do what I
have to do, what does it have to do? What
does it have to do with me? So I feel
the same way about trump Ism at this point. Lot
of people that maybe drinking that kool aid and caught
up in either the hateful ideology or rhetoric and racism

(40:09):
and anti Semitism and a mixture of the two. But
that's between them and God. I'm not walking around mad like, right,
I see you you fuck with Trump and now I'm
like fuck you. Yeah, I mean, I'm not doing that
just it's.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Not worth What do you think is like the answer,
because like you said, it's always a lesser too evils conversation.
And to me, it's like, to me, like trying to
figure out how to break up the two parties is
you know, cause I look at like with like like
when Bernie was running in twenty was it twenty twenty, Yeah,
and he he won the first two or three primaries,

(40:48):
and then once Biden went South Carolina, all the other
DNC people just dropped out and it was like all
the energy was behind Biden changed the election. But like
for me, it's like no matter what, whether you're Democrat,
you're Republican, both parties are extremely corrupt. Both parties are
in bed with special interest groups, a lot of the
same special interest groups, you know what I'm saying. And

(41:08):
that's why I was like, man, if I vote third party,
a lot of people say I've don't my vote away,
But I'm like, at least it's like the beginning of
like trying to like maybe it's three percent this time,
maybe in formal years it's twelve percent vote third party.
Like to me, like trying to figure out a way
to get out of that two party system is like
got to be the answer eventually.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
I don't know if the answer can be found in capitalism.
You can't dismantle the master's house using the master's tools,
and the power structure of this nation was built on
the literal backs of people that look like me, right,
and I can't see how our liberation, our freedom is
going to be reliant or dependent upon them finding a conscience,

(41:50):
you know what I mean. I think the answer has
to be in collectivizing our power. The ANSWER's got to
be in the artists putting their heads together and putting
aside their differences, unifying and to restructure what the economics
of our communities look like, and the athletes refusing to
play ball until they get ownership, collectivizing their power and

(42:10):
reinvesting that into their communities. Our communities aren't going to
get the boost that they need and stop being exploited
or oppressed because the Democrats decide so, or because the
Democrats split into and.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
It starts at the ground level.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
For shit, it's got to be among the people, man,
It's like, that's that's how power arises from the people.
It's not going to be top down. That doesn't make
sense to me, because they all eat off us. That's
why I don't consider myself a Democrat or you know,
anything like that, because I know that the Democrats are
just as responsible for putting my nigga James and jail

(42:45):
as the Republicans. They wrote the law too, they actually
are the ones that put the law into effect, and
they're in the White House now that shit is still
reverberating through our community. So I don't consider myself as
a part of them, But that doesn't mean that I
don't take value from the things that they do well
and the intervention of socialist policies into it. And I

(43:07):
think Bernie was a great and has been a greatne
uh you know, idiator in a political space to really
push some necessary things forward. A dude like Bernie, he's
so ill because his receipts is there, you know.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
His whole life, his receipts, he's been pushing them.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
He getting locked up with the black people in the sixties,
you know, chained to it, and.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
He's still going and like pulling up a killer Mike
to Amazon warehouses and like, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
That type of dude I stand behind. It's not a
party or.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
One hundred percent. That's how I felt because I was like, Yo,
who's like the consistent, Like who's just a good guy?
Like to me, I thought Bernie was like obviously a
good person who's never like kind of straight away from
his mission, you know what I mean. So shout out
to Bernie Man for you as somebody who is an activist,
as somebody who's done so much for your community. Would

(43:58):
you ever consider getting into the political space locally?

Speaker 1 (44:02):
No, not a chance, Man, Never, No, definitely not. I'm
political twenty years from now. I'm politically minded, but I
would not want to be a politician. That's not where
my heart is at. You know what I mean. I
think politicians by nature have to lie too much. And
I think we all know that. You know, I don't

(44:25):
be hold of my tongue like that. Hey, but that
might work in your favor, But there's so much lying
and compromising with people's lives that comes along with politics,
and you just have to accept that. Like, you can
be the most values driven, progressively minded politician, but in
order to be effective and get things done, you got

(44:45):
to cut the deal with the FOP. And that's not me.
I'm not cutting the deal with the Fraternal Order of Police.
I'm not doing it, you know. I don't want to
be in that position because that's just not that's not me,
you know. So people ask me what I ever step
into pol.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
I never would, never would consider it.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
No, I wouldn't even think about it. I think you
could be Maryor in Chicago. Man, I don't want to
be mayored.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
What was the last Maryor?

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Is it Lori Lightfoot shout out to Brandon Johnson. Oh,
that's my boy. Is he the new mayor? He's the
new mayor and.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
The previous mayor. She was a hilarious person to watch online.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
Her suits were really she was like mean.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
Yo, there was that there was Did you ever see that?
There was like the interaction between her and some like
some guy on YELP.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
I ain't see that.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
It was so funny.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
She just wasn't She didn't have a constituency and she
wasn't open to addressing what was really going on. Like
when she had a conversation set up with me, she
found out, you know that I was very critical of
the police.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
That's her name, right, Lori l floryd Life.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
Yeah, she found out it was so critical of the police,
and so she just canceled the conversation because she wasn't
willing to like actually discuss what's going on in the city.
You know what I mean. Chicago is a city with
so many harsh realities that it's like, how could we
ever move forward if we don't face those realities. I
think we have a lot of subcultures and ideas and

(46:06):
all culture that are destroying us too, like op culture.
The idea of OPS is one way that we've been
brainwashed in Chicago and in every hood and in rap
music to believe that we are innately against or enemies
of ourselves. It's almost like we're staring in the mirror
pointing the gun at ourselves because we've been taught that

(46:29):
you're from this block, I'm from this block. You would
inherit that we are ops, we are enemies, and so
we romanticize it. But I think in many ways we've
been misled and it's just a manifestation of our own
self hatred. We've been taught to hate ourselves, and so
we turn it into you, my op, even though you
look just like me and you're from the same circumstances

(46:52):
as me, but you're from a different block two streets away.
We don't own these projects, we don't own these Section
eight houses, we don't own these vacant lots, we don't
own these liquor stores, we don't own these gas stations,
but we die for them every day. It doesn't make sense.
There's so much mis education and misinformation. So I'm saying

(47:12):
we need to dispel and dissipate the whole op culture,
the whole idea.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
It's exhausting, man, And I'm like a you know me,
I'm a huge hip hop head, but like, I am
so disconnected from so much of the politics in that world.
I know there's other platforms that are notable that like
dive more into that shit. And I'm just like, like,
when a guy from Chicago comes on my show, like
I don't usually I don't know what the fuck.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
I'm not even interested in talking about any of that stuff.
But that's good, bro, That's good because a lot of
people like man, a lot of guys I see the interviews,
and you know, they they like just try to stand
on that and try to force these artists to speak

(47:58):
about their ops or who they've bickered with and who
they have beef with and then if they don't want to,
you know, like either take a fence or you know.
It's like I think that the role of a journalist
or a steward of culture as you are and people

(48:19):
that are your contemporaries, is one that has to be
treated with a lot of respect and a lot of reverence, man,
because there's so much influence and it's like this music
that we make that we aspire to rise from out
of the gutter with and we put our heart and
our soul into it, and oftentimes it's a reflection of
good and bad everything that's around us. Man, it can

(48:43):
bring a lot a lot of murder behind it. And
it's the people that sit in that seat that can
either help us to transcend and express, you know, what
is important to us and what's valuable to us, or
try to chain us to where we came from. And
it's like, man, I know it's clickbait, I know it helps.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Yeah, I means yeah yeah. To me, it's like yo,
there's real like lives on the line dying from this stuff.
To me, it's like I got to be able to
why do you want me to talk about it?

Speaker 1 (49:12):
And why do you want me to talk about it
on record. That's the thing I think is crazy about
hip hop is like I think that we've reached an
era and an age when snitching on yourself and self
incrimination to all time people encouraging you to incriminate yourself

(49:33):
is at an all time How you get on here
and they want you to give a detailed account of
what crimes you've committed.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
I don't have to stop artists in the interview sometimes,
and I don't have to hit them with the allegedly allegedly, yeah,
allegedly because like I'm like, allegedly whatever.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
It's such a catch twenty two though, because we've seen
that those things go viral. So if you're young artists
or a young nigga in the street aspiring to be
an artist and you see somebody catch a murder and
that skyrocket their.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Career, yeah, that can keep your career up if you
came about it, or you.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
Can really excite somebody to think, Okay, well maybe this
is a way that I can change my life, my
family's life, because it's working for being on front street
about some street ship or going to do some street ship,
making the music about it for sure, and the record
labels profit from it, So.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
You're you're incentivized to do that because it's good for
your career what was your life. It's not good for
the bigger picture.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
But you know what was super wild to me, man
was like realizing that everywhere is not like this, like
not even in hip hop, you know, being in South Africa,
which is also a pretty violent, explosive place in its ways,
but learning that their hip hop scene is like that
doesn't fuel your career, that doesn't help you. Then you're

(51:02):
seeing it's harder to market, and I was like, it's
crazy because it's the opposite in America. It's like, if
you're stamped and your criminal history is volidified, then this
can be the main.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
It can give you a career. But I do but
I do think it also puts a ceiling on you
because there are certain like like shit rolling loud, Like
now you know they'll they'll not book an artist because
the hip hop police of New York is on their ass.
You know, some of these droll guys in New York
that have issues. And my whole approach to the whole
situation is like I've had very few situations where I've

(51:38):
had any sort of conversations that were like beef driven
and if it ever gets brought up, it'd be because
like there was two there's two guys from Jacksonville that
have like Jacksonville's crazy and I in our interview because
I know both of them. I know both of the
guys Fulio and Young and Ace, And the only time
we touched on the subject was like, how do you
guys like squash this because you guys are from the

(51:59):
same city, Like, is there a way to ever put
this behind you guys and set an example?

Speaker 1 (52:05):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (52:06):
Like that that that you guys could be bigger than
whatever has already happened, Because I think that's really the
hardest thing is like one convincing artist that like, yes,
when you're on YouTube and the algorithm is feeding you
these weird ass hood documentaries that these faceless.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
YouTube make so strange that shit is.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
So there's a whole mega micro economy on YouTube of
faceless YouTube creators that just do hood commentary, street beef.
It's crazyrew, it's insane. You don't know what these guys
look like.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
Maybe somewhere in Utah.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
You don't know what they look like. They're making millions DONI.
They're making millions.

Speaker 1 (52:45):
Dollars off the shit. It's real shit. It's like hip
hop is in that way like trauma porn for people
outside of our community. You know, we don't need to
sit and watch that because that's going on in our
real lives.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
But like you said, if you're an artist and like
you're trying to get a buzz, it's like almost like, well,
how do I make people give a fuck? And well,
I know that this is what people will care about,
but then there's real life consequences to that. You might
lose your life, your friend might lose your life.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
You know.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
To me, it's like, yo, how do we try to
get passed? Because, like you said, the op culture, to me,
it's like a cloud over hip hop the last like
five years. That's just like, oh, it's just too much
sometimes man, Like I'm exhausted by it.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
Bro. Like, I just feel like we as black men
have to normalize conflict resolution. We have to normalize peacemaking.
We have to normalize letting things go. Letting things go
is the important We have to recognize that oftentimes the
real strength, the real power, is in letting something go.
That's much more difficult I had to learn that it

(53:46):
takes a lot more out of me to let it
go than it does for me to take it to
a violent space, because that's the way I.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
And you're carrying conflict with you at all times, use
you don't even realize it.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
I had a situation in Chicago where, you know, something
from my past came back and someone that had robbed
me and was very close to me and you know,
ultimately popped back up with like a real disrespectful, aggressive
attitude and approach. And in that moment, I decided to

(54:24):
give it absolutely no power to respond, not at all.
So when he was as close to me as you
are now telling me what he gonna do, see me
here there, I just said, man, God bless you. Bro
got up and left, you know, started to hit my phone.

(54:44):
I said, God bless you blocked it. Move on, hit
me from different numbers. But what I learned was in
exercising that restraint, which was so difficult for me, and
putting it to a space of God and prayer and
just letting it go, the situation fell a part of

(55:05):
its own weight so much more easily than if I
had engaged it in a violent way. But we're not
taught that that conflict resolution and nonviolent conflict resolution is
ultimately more beneficial because a lot of times in the
past I will handle something differently and I would go

(55:27):
handle it in a violent way. And now look, next
thing you know boutleg KFC is me on TV with
a gun case because I'm in a spiral of revenge paranoia.
I'm keeping this on me all the time because somebody
might come and retaliate for something that I've done. I
can't create the right way because you're always when you

(55:50):
got beef with.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
Like this my studios, it's a subconscious shit because you're
always on like kind of your guard's always up.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
Well, that's the thing that we experience, man, is it's
like we live in a constant state of survival mode
and the brain reacts to that like we're in the
wild at fear of lions attacking us. Are Amygdala is
responsible for the cortisol that keeps us in fight or
flight mode, and in our communities, in our neighborhoods, we're

(56:22):
always in fight of flight mode because you're always ready
to either kill or be killed. So, especially while you
beefing with people and experiencing the op shit. It's like
you're a migdala and your cortisol is overactive, so you're
constantly tense, you're constantly stressed. You're ready to go at
any time. And for me, it's hard to like move

(56:44):
from a place of peace and like really be focused
on what's important when I'm doing that, and it just
ultimately it fucks the money up, It fucks the spirit up,
fucks the energy up for you know, find yourself in
a jail cell or you know worse.

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Let's get back to the interview you talked about going

(59:39):
to the forest.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
And doing shrooms with your mom. Yo, that was the best.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
You have a very highly documented incident at an airport
where you got that almost happened to me once and
the dude was cool enough to just throw them away.

Speaker 1 (59:53):
Yeah, too many of them?

Speaker 2 (59:54):
Was it the TSA guys that hit you?

Speaker 1 (59:57):
Uh? Man? You know I've been on a extra security
list for a lot of years.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Okay, so then you already you already were flagged kind of.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
I was flagged since the time I was like nineteen.
But you know it's funny because I was actually I
was cutting my anti depressants cold turkey. I've been on
fifteen anti depressant medications.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
You were medicated pretty simply since I was age.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
I've been on a Lexa, Prozoloft, defectsor well butrim, prozac,
you name it, probably about ten to fifteen medicines over
a span of about ten to fifteen years. And I
realized that those medicines were making my mental health worse
if I stopped taking the medicine. They were making me
suicidal at times when I wasn't that when I began

(01:00:43):
taking the medicine. So I said that those are very bad.
So I decided I'm gonna cut the medicine basically cold
turkey and replace it with microdocin like a non psychoactive,
very small doca mushrooms. And I figured, man, going to Ghana,
this would be the perfect time. You know, I'll be

(01:01:04):
in a more beautiful environment, in a more peaceful place,
and it'd be a great time. And you're going out
there for your festival. This was the year before that.
This was the year before that, but we were laying
the groundwork for the festival. And yeah, you know I
had all these micro does things because I reached out
to different companies to send me stuff. They sent me

(01:01:24):
way more than I asked for. I threw it in
a bag, was bringing it back with me, and you know,
boom got slammed and I'm all over the news and
x y Z. But you know what was ill about
it was like I was so deep in my meditation
at the time. I was used to meditating for hours
on end. So the moment I realized I'm getting locked up,

(01:01:46):
I didn't start stressing. I started meditating. I'm just I'm
like in a cell like, oh you know what I'm saying,
And mentally I was light years away. I was back
on the beach in Ghana, and I was like manifesting
my freedom and just my blessing from the moment when
it started to go left. So when they called me

(01:02:08):
and they're like, okay, the lawyer is going to be
twenty k just to start a retainer. You want the
good win or do you want to you know, cheap
a lawyer, I said, man, just give me the lawyer,
you know, because I told myself, I thank God that
this money has been returned to me in a perfect time,
in a perfect way. And the day I got out
was a Wednesday. Thursday. Dj Oreo brought me to come

(01:02:30):
and do a club performance at Tower in Chicago, handed
me twenty thousand dollars cash. The next day, I was like, oh,
this shit really work. You know. Whatever I was trying
to do before and you know, trying to scam this
and trap that, you know what I mean, I could
just move in an upright way with intention and with

(01:02:53):
a positive energy and the universe that give me that shit,
you know what I mean. I don't have to ppp
that shit, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
App the boys was eating bro I was gonna say,
would you say shrooms? Because I'm a big shroom guy.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
I love shroom.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
I think that you know, I know it. I think
in organ year that therapy for therapeutic purposes there's like
full legalization. They're they're doing like psilocybin therapy in organ
for like people with PTS.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
Well, that's basically the way I do it now. You know,
I'm sober except for the psychedelic stuff, and I use
it in a healing capacity like its original purpose, like
an indigenous medicine. So I peeped those psychological clinical trials
that they're doing, and it's about an eighth adjusted for

(01:03:41):
your body masks, and they'll put you in a in
a room like basically a hospital room with like the
my mask and ambient music in your ears. And that's
the way I started doing the shrooms. And I'll be
either in a dark room with an eye mask and
the earplugs or ambient music and just go into my mind,

(01:04:03):
you know what I mean, and use it to like
deconstruct a lot of the fear and just like negative
emotions and confusion that naturally comes from living the way
we live.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
Yeah, I think what people don't understand is like if
you eat trooms with intent, you'll get something out of it. Now,
if you're partying and you're like, I want to eat
some fucking trooms at the club, you're gonna get that
out of it too.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
You also might freak out. You might freak out. But
that's what I realized too, is like, since I started
to treat it in the way that I treat it, like,
with respect and reverence, I don't have bad trips right
because I'm not running from anything. I'm not just taking
this to try to have just a jolly old time.
I'm taking it because you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
Want to confront something.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
I want to confront something, and I wanted to reveal
things to me. So there's not really such a thing
as a bad trip if I'm not afraid to confront
whatever is coming, and if I'm not trying to dictate
the way that this would work. Like, my problem with
mushrooms in the past when I was a kid was
that I started to lean on them as a crutch creatively,

(01:05:10):
and I got to a point where I felt like
I had to use mushrooms to make dope music. That's
when it stopped working. That's when I started having bad trips.
So that's when I moved on.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
Because you're using it as a crutch for something and
it's not. That's not what it's supposed.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
To be for. And for me, that had that had
an expiration date each time. I remember right when the
mushrooms started to not work. So then I did some
MOLLI and wrote an amazing song, you know, and I
was like, Okay, this is my new crutch, and that
stopped working, started snoring. Adderall that stopped working, started doing coke.

(01:05:47):
Yeah you know what I mean. That never worked in
the first place.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
Yeah, I've never done cocaine.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
But I mean, you're not missing out on That's what
I've heard. Though.

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
You know, it's crazy to addall shit. I don't think
a lot of people talk about it, but like yo, man,
in the music industry, that creative industry, adderall is running
rampant because a lot of these guys who have to
stay up at it, engineer, a lot of dudes, they
kind of depend as Adderall as a crutch because it
really is like it keeps. I mean, you could speak
to it, you've done it. I heard it's kind of
like what's that Bradley Cooper movie where he takes the

(01:06:18):
limitless limitless? I heard it's like a like a like
a limitless type of situation, because if you want to
get a bunch of shit done, you know, I got homies,
so edit a whole fucking complex music video and like
one night because they're off of an adderall. But like
I feel like a lot of creatives are depending on
that right now.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
All that shit just doesn't work forever. It's the thing,
and it fries your neural pathways.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
And like you're gonna burn out on that ship.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
That's what I mean. The colmdown is crazy, from the
Mali to the adderall, which are really two sides of
the same coin. It's an amphetamines, it's synthetic serotonin. It's
pumping your brain full of dopamine and feel good chemicals.
But when you're off the drugs, now your body's not
able to produce those things in the same way. So

(01:07:03):
you get what they call suicide Tuesday, and you just
be mad depressed because you've used all the serotonin and
it's just not sustainable. Like, so I started to seek
out natural ways to spike my serotonin. So I got
deeply into meditation, because when you meditate, that makes your

(01:07:24):
serotonin levels spike like thirty percent. You know, crazy massages
give you serotonin. Spending time in nature.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
Have you done the deprivation tank in the water.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Yeah, I did that a while back.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
I heard if you do that, like you could kind
of like trip balls low key, if you're in there
long enough, just with.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
Nothing, you can straight trip off breathing. Yeah, I'd be
doing like deep breath work, you know what I mean.
There's one I do call the whim Hoff breathing method,
and like you know, it's a lot of deep breath
and then you hold your breath. You do that for
thirty minutes, like you'd be high, Like you could trip
with absolutely nothing, just off your breath.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
Have you fucked with ayahuasca at all?

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
Hella hella, hella, hella. Fuck with that shit. Yeah, I've been.
I've been doing ayahuasca since twenty sixteen.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
You're going to do you? Have you have a shaman?

Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
Like? Yeah? Almost every year. I got a few shimen
that I shamans shamen. Yeah, yeah, I got a feueral.
I think it's shamans. Yeah. I've been doing ayahuascar since
twenty sixteen, so I think I've probably done like about
seven or eight ceremonies by this time, and that has

(01:08:44):
been super impactful for me. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
I know people who's done it like a weekend and
it just like changed their whole trajectory of life and
like they got rid of habits like immediately almost Like.

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
I think that has been super impactful for me, going
sober show and just like developing a new mindset and
like mastering my thoughts.

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
I want to do that, and I'm really I mean,
I have access to d MT. I'm just scared to
do it. I'm just like, I don't know. If I
just hear about I heard t shirt is crazy. It's
like fifteen minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
Yeah, it's quick, man. I did. I did one called
the five M e O d MT. It's called the Toad.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
Yeah, that's that's the ship Mike Tyson talks about. Is
that the ship you have to freebase?

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
That's what you could call it. It doesn't look too different.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
It looks it looks crackheadish for sure, but I heard
it's like crack cattish.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
Yo. It was ill. So I'm gonna tell you the truth.
The last time I did the Toad, I was already
kind of primed for the experience because it was my
second time and I was in a good mind frame
as opposed to like a depressed place. I'm sure it
changes you. So the moment when I inhaled it, you
blast off. But from the jump, I was telling myself,

(01:10:02):
I'm releasing myself from fear. I am releasing myself from fear.
I'm releasing myself from fear. And I just had this
blissful experience where I really communicated with my grandmother, who
I never spoke to with words because she didn't speak English.
She was in Ghana and she spoke twee. I didn't
speak twee. So this was probably the first conversation conversation

(01:10:23):
I've had with her. And she told me that I
should not be inspired by her fear, but by her love.
And it was deep to me because I'm not directly
descended from slaves in America, so it didn't click to
me until she told me, like, yes, I carried fear

(01:10:46):
and I gave you fear. I was enslaved, We were enslaved,
we were dominated and oppressed, you know, as African people.
But when you think of me, do you think of
my fear or do you think of my love? And
that was it's so pivotal to me, not only because
I felt like I was having a conversation with my
grandmother that I could never speak to, but also because

(01:11:09):
it gave me context that a lot of the fear
I've carried in my life predates me, is not just me.
Like we're walking around with generational trauma. You know, there
are things that happen in your bloodline before you that
are passed down to you. So now the question is
how are you going to deal with it? You know

(01:11:30):
what I mean? Are you going to unconsciously be guided
by the fear in your trauma bloodline or are you
going to learn to identify it and to transcend it.
So the toad helped me to work towards transcending it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
Yeah, I've had people tell me my boy John John
said he lived like a six month.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
Life in that fifteen minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
No, he said, He's like, Bro, I had a girlfriend,
I went to a job in job.

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
I was like, and when he told me, what did
that nigga do? Hey?

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
When he told me that, I was like, yeah, I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
I don't think I want to do that, gang.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
I think I'm good like I want to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:10):
My ship was a proper fifteen minutes like yeah, yeah,
that's just like kind of rock and.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
Yeah, fucking crazy. I was gonna ask you, uh talk
about just like obviously you know you got the Black
Star Festival which is in Africa, which is dope.

Speaker 1 (01:12:25):
That's you in Chance.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):
Right, Yeah what what what inspired you to do that?

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
Man? You know it was really being on the podcast
in South Africa, Okay, and I'm talking to these dudes.
They got a dope platform called Sobring podcasts. Hip hop heads.
They know everything, bro, they're knowing versus from when I
first met you. Yeah, kids, these days music, you know
what I mean? All my Ship, all Chance Ship, Shoey perp,

(01:12:53):
Like I haven't heard that game for a while, my
click my uh. You know, all the people that come
up at the same they're knowing all the music. And
it just struck me, like, how is it that we
don't come and perform for these people, like and they're
huge fans of the music, they love the culture. You know,

(01:13:15):
there's got to be something that can be done about this,
because world tours happen. But he thinks that the kids
in Ghana and Nigeria and South Africa are oblivious to
the fact that they're never on the list. That's real,
you know what I mean. You call it a world tour.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
People go to Germany, people go to Brazil.

Speaker 1 (01:13:34):
But you're leaving out a whole continent that not only is,
you know, the birthplace of black people, and hip hop
music is the most ubiquitous form of communication. Black art
form is taken a world by storm, and you know,
we're often just completely out of touch with an entire
continent of people. So that's when I just started thinking about, Yo,

(01:13:57):
there's got to be a way that we could bring
the black artists to come and perform for the fans
in Africa and to meet the land and experience the
continent for real. And it's going to take favors, it's
going to take friends, it's going to take mission and
people buying in to that mission. But it's doable. And

(01:14:22):
when Chance came to visit me in Ghana, I just
started to kick it to him and he was just
immediately on the same wavelength and in that same mind frame,
and it happened quickly.

Speaker 2 (01:14:33):
That's dope, man. We'll look The album's coming up September fifteen.
September fifteenth Victor album Any Features, Yeah, you got on
the album.

Speaker 1 (01:14:42):
You know one that I'm really excited about is Jay Electronica.

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
Ooh, shout out to jail elect He gave me a
crazy verse. I bet. I mean, I don't know if
he's ever not given someone a crazy verse. It's be
hard to it'd be really hard for him to wrap.

Speaker 1 (01:14:58):
Like he can't do it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
Yeah, like yeah, shout out to Jay elect Yo. It's crazy. Uh,
I just I was just having this conversation with somebody
and I just educated somebody on crucial conflict.

Speaker 1 (01:15:11):
That's crazy because we're working on sample and crucial conflict.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
Right, you guys sampled telling him these days.

Speaker 1 (01:15:17):
We used to play. We used to play that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
That fucking Traphouse rock album when they used to come
out with us, like I would have Cold Hart was
it never never was in the group. I remember I
used to know all the wild Style.

Speaker 1 (01:15:30):
Wild Style. Yeah, that's shown it was.

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
It was.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
It was really cold Heart and Kelo that would that
would rock with us.

Speaker 2 (01:15:37):
Shout to the Final Tick a classic album.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
Yo. They would come out and crowdsurfer. When we were seventeen,
they come out with us at the Metro in Chicago,
be crowdsurfing. These guys like Keilo is a big guy,
two hundred plus pounds. You know, CrowdSurf.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
I remember those guys with their leather overalls on the
cover of that album, and I had the bookletud them
guys is legends, So also shout trying to do or die?

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
To do or Die also another very undoing appreciated legends
both West Side of Chicago. You know, legends that brought
a style just to the world.

Speaker 2 (01:16:11):
Have you chopped it up with Twitch? I know Twist
is doing like it was a Twist about a week ago,
he's doing a lot of Twister.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
Came out at the APT Oh Dope, Well.

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
I know he's like doing a lot in the like
trying to like properly show people how to use guns
in Chicago, do it the legal way so that it
is dope super dope man. Well, look, go get the
album on the fifteenth. I can't believe it's your second album.
I mean technically it's like you're like sixth right, fifth
CPS and all this internet tape we're not considering an album.

(01:16:39):
Basically is hey, shout out to this guy for people
who don't know, I did a mixtape called Empire Business
and you gave me orange Soda before Orange Juice. I
didn't My graphic designer fucked that up.

Speaker 1 (01:16:51):
So was it? Because I was trying to remember the
other day, I was like, was it me or was
it you?

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
I don't remember. I just remember when I put the artwork.
If you hit me, you're like, it's Orange Soda, bro,
So it must have been. But it was on my
shit like well before it in.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
That tape drop. Yeah it was. That was like before
it came out. Yeah, shouts to man, Damn, that's crazy.
I didn't even remember that. Yes, and then semtexs put
it on like BBC Radio.

Speaker 2 (01:17:17):
Classic Classic record. I appreciate you pulling up the alas.

Speaker 1 (01:17:21):
Man, my god, that's love.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
Boom fire. Hey, what up?

Speaker 1 (01:17:25):
Man?

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
You just watched another episode of the blueleg Cap podcast,
brought to you by Hardan. Baby. Shout out to the
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(01:17:46):
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Get you some swag. You know you can't buy this,

(01:18:06):
but you know, yeah, Shout out to Harden

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#369 - Vic Mensa

Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

James Andre Jefferson Jr.

Bootleg Kev

Brian Baumgartner

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