May 25, 2025 • 56 mins
Fame is a double-edged sword that's cut down countless talented artists throughout history. What happens when success, money, and adulation transform someone from a passionate creator into an ego-driven caricature of themselves?
This episode explores two seemingly different yet thematically connected stories: André 3000's animated series, "Class of 3000", and the classic Motown biopic, "The Temptations". Through vibrant animation and jazz-infused lessons, Class of 3000 showed children the importance of artistic integrity through Sunny Bridges and his diverse student ensemble. Meanwhile, The Temptations dramatized the real-life struggles of maintaining brotherhood amidst growing fame, with David Ruffin's infamous ego-driven downfall serving as a cautionary tale for anyone climbing the ladder of success.
We break down why these stories continue to resonate, from the symbolic "selling your soul" episode where Little D faces temptation from "Big D" to the gut-wrenching moment when Ruffin declares, "Ain't nobody coming to see you, Otis!" Both narratives demonstrate how easily talent can be corrupted when perspectives become warped by fame. As we dive into the characters, music, and legacies of these works, a central truth emerges: when artists become "public action figures" rather than human beings, something essential gets lost.
The conversation expands beyond entertainment into a thoughtful discussion about empathy versus sympathy, the importance of having an exit strategy in any venture, and why maintaining authenticity while managing ego is essential across all aspects of life. Whether you're familiar with these stories or discovering them for the first time, this episode offers valuable insights about navigating success without losing yourself in the process.
How do you maintain your authentic self while pursuing your ambitions? Join us for this exploration of music, fame, and the human cost of success, and don't forget to check out our new merchandise dropping soon @ zone-alliance.com!
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DISCLAIMER: The thoughts and opinions shared within are those of the speaker. We encourage everyone to do their own research and to experience the content mentioned at your own volition. We try not to reveal spoilers to those who are not up to speed, but in case some slips out, please be sure to check out the source material before you continue listening!
Stay nerdy and stay faithful,
- J.B.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
what up, gang?
It's time for another doublefeature from the zone podcast.
This time around, I want totalk about class 3000 and the
temptations.
Now the reason why I want totalk about those two and one go
is because they both touched ona subject that we all could
learn from, but outside of thatthey're like related to music
(00:25):
and you know it's like somethingto enjoy.
I'm sorry, I'm totally honestwith you, I'm kind of going off
script this time around becauseyou know, I'm starting to
(00:45):
realize that maybe my best takesare the ones that where I'm not
writing notes and, you know,just speaking, speaking off rip.
So let's just go in and zone inon it.
For starters, let's start withclass 3000.
Now, I grew up on this show.
Well, it wasn't around for verylong, it was only around for
like two years, between classyear 2006 and 2008, and it
(01:07):
follows around superstar andmusic teacher sunny bridges, who
is voiced by andre benjamin, orandre 3000 as we know him, and
he's teaching this group ofstudents at atlanta, georgia,
called the Wesley School ofPerforming Arts, and while Sonny
(01:30):
Bridges is this jazz and bluesartist who occasionally lectures
at somewhere else, at thisplace called Little Five Points
Residential Area, you know,referencing both OutKast and
Cartoon Network being based inAtlanta.
There were like 28 episodesthat were produced, but two of
(01:50):
them was unaired.
They got a colorful cast ofcharacters.
Funny thing is, I think Classic3000 did Wokeness better than
recent works because at leasthere, aside from Sonny being
black, you have two blackstudents, three white students
(02:13):
and two kids.
That's like twins, fraternaltwins that happen to be Asian,
and honestly they don't feellike too one-dimensional.
It don't feel like Too onedimensional.
It doesn't feel like they arejust there to fill a role, like
(02:33):
they all kind of bring somethingto the table.
Like, for instance, lil D he'slike this Bumbling idiot In a
way.
He kind of come off a littlebit of like a, a dick rider for
sunny bridge.
I mean, I understand that's hishero and whatnot, but like
sometimes I'm like bro, tone itdown, like I guess you could say
(02:58):
he's like the closest to thestereotypical black kid.
Uh, aside from, you know theway he looks up the sunny
bridges and whatnot.
He's bright, he's talented,he's confident to a fault, but
when it comes to music he's allabout it, especially when he's
on the drums.
So yeah, you have Madison,who's like this very cheerful
(03:24):
girl, but she got breakingpoints sometimes, like she's not
always chill, but for the mostpart she's like kind of bubbly.
You have Tamika, the tough girl,and here's the thing it was
weird when you know like how youhad that one black girl that
would be like ready to Fightsomebody, and that one Episode
(03:47):
where she decided to Hang outwith the cool girls Quote
unquote because they didn't Turnout to be Girls, I don't think.
I think it was like one guy andone, but they were like scam
marks and what not.
Anyways, point being is thatWhile she was gone, lil D made a
statement saying that, oh man,it's not the same without tamika
(04:08):
.
Uh, around you know bullyingwell, not really bullying them,
but more like punching them andshit.
I'm like, wait, you like thatshit can't be me.
Uh, speaking of liking thatshit, eddie, I think eddie kind
of annoyed me second time around.
(04:29):
I didn't mind him the firsttime when I was a kid, but
second time around I'm gonna behonest with you, the rich kid.
He kind of got on my nervesjust a little bit because he was
like that kind of rich kid towhere he just be blowing his
catch.
That's for the hell of it.
Like I mean, I understandflexing don't have to make sense
, but bro, like it was just dumbuses of his money and on top of
(04:52):
that he kind of had it bad fortamika.
But I'm like, bro, like I don't.
I don't think you're toughenough for a girl like tamika.
Honestly, I'm sorry, but I feellike she can just walk all over
you, take your money and allthat shit.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mentionthat Madison is on violin and
(05:14):
cello, tamika is on guitar andthe harp, eddie is on trumpet
and clarinet.
Now that I'm caught up ontrumpet and clarinet, now that
I'm caught up, there's phillyphil, who's like this brainy
nerd who makes all the gadgetsand whatnot but they often end
up, um, malfunctioning to somedegree.
(05:35):
So kind of like that, with, uh,some kids who are trying to
make shit up but they keepbailing on them.
But some things work, like thatone robot he made that's
supposed to be designed to bepopular and that was like one of
the best things he did andironically, he had to stop that
(05:57):
invention from taking things toofar.
He is on the double bass andbass guitar.
And then there's the twins, kimand Cam.
Kim is the DJ who's you knowmore laid back and you know all
(06:20):
about popular trends and whatnot, being on the xylophone and
other percussion instruments.
And then Cam is more like theconservative boy where I want to
say he kind of like the logicalone, which is ironic because
you know you were thinking withPhil he would be like the
logical one, but he is.
(06:41):
But I'm just saying like Philis the nerd, the logical one on,
but he is.
But I'm just saying like philis the nerd, but cam is more
like the, the stick in the mud,I want to say, and he's on
keyboard and pm.
I'm gonna be honest with you.
They had some pretty goodepisodes and then there's some
episodes that's kind of bland.
(07:01):
But the one episode I do likewhich will tie into the
temptations, it was the oneepisode where little d was
selling out per se to this oneguy uh, big d, he called himself
, and it was for this hamcompany and little d was pretty
much selling out for that onemusic video.
(07:24):
And I like that music video.
By the way, you know, give meyour soul, you know that one,
right, I like that one.
Now, see, the reason why I likethat one also ties into what
I'm going to talk about with thetemptations.
It's because when I watch thetemptations like first of all,
let me just say it was the firsttime in a while that I'd seen
(07:46):
the Temptations and it was abouthow Otis Williams, melvin
Franklin, david Ruffin, eddieKendrickson, some others was
coming together making music andwhatnot and it was all cool and
whatnot, like they were tryingto make a name for themselves.
It wasn't the easiest road butthey were getting up there.
But I want to say by the secondact, because, keep in mind,
(08:11):
it's like a docu-series whereit's like a two-parter and it
was like three hours long.
But I want to say like halfwayinto it, essentially David
Ruffin was starting to get a bigego.
And you know the quotables whenOtis and Blue was confronting
(08:31):
David about him not showing upto practice and whatnot.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
And then David was like I'm the one selling the
records yeah ain't, nobody can'tget to see you, otis.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Alright, come to see you, otis.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Alright, come to see the temptations.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
That was funny bro, like he was saying oh well, it
might as well be David Ruffin inthe temptations.
Yeah, it got.
Good.
I'm like hey, bro, you betterget together or you gonna get.
Hey, bro, I'm singing rightafter that.
Bro, you better get it togetheror you're going to get them out
of here.
Hey bro, just kill him bro.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I'm seeing him right after that.
My name is David Ruffin, andthese are the Temptations, petty
.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
But, man, let me tell you, when I kind of did my
light research on theTemptations, I wanted to know a
little bit more about it becauseI thought it was like pretty
good man.
I was not ready to walk intothis slew of technicalities
where a lot of shit thathappened in this was inaccurate,
(09:36):
like I mean, granted, like somethings it's going to be
inaccurate, but I didn't knowhow inaccurate it was gonna be
until I saw all this.
Like, for starters, the waythey depicted david ruffin was
wrong because they were, um,saying that it was inaccurate
for ruffin, for kindred's andfor edwards uh performing
together before the 1982 reuniontour, where in reality ruffin
(10:02):
and kindred didn't startperforming together until 1985
and edwards joining them in 1989.
So it's almost like areimagining of the events.
But keep in mind that it wasfrom the perspective of otis
williams, who was the onlymember that was still alive to
(10:22):
make this shit.
So it's like it was just hisword against everybody else's.
But trust me, when families cameat him, like especially on
david ruffin's family came athim, like hey, yo, like I don't
like the way you uh depicted myboy like that, especially um the
way he died where it wasn't asunceremoniously being dumped out
(10:44):
of the car near a hospital.
It was more like he had thisdrug overdose and was taken to
the hospital by a chauffeur whonotified the attending staff of
the Ruffin identity and becausenobody claimed his body
immediately after his death, hiscorpse was just laying in the
(11:05):
morgue for two days until hisfamily showed up finding out
about it and then they were likeyep, that's him.
So there was like someinaccuracy going on with all
that, but outside of that Ithought it was pretty good.
It was a pretty good watch.
It just goes to show how, withlike with the temptations,
(11:26):
things can fall apart if youdon't move carefully, especially
if you.
Once again it was based on theminiseries, but you know how
David was getting on that crackand all that and then he was
just getting real messed upBetween Lil D and David.
I want to say that I, as theleader of the zone, have to keep
(11:50):
myself in check to where Ican't let any form of success
get to our head, like I don'twant to be like Riley from the
Boondogs.
You know that one episode withthe chocolate bars where he was
raising all those funds and hewas thinking that he was
practically being invincible,but his mistake was fundraiser
(12:11):
yeah, the fundraiser, yeah thechocolate
but his problem was he wasthrowing the money around to his
partners.
You know how they say you'renot supposed to be spending
company money and what not.
So he was thinking that oh,nobody can stop him, until some
big boy showed up trying to shuthim down and whatnot.
(12:33):
So sometimes you got to thinkabout where you're going with
all this.
Funny enough, there was oneYouTube video where it was
talking about how this oneepisode pretty much told you how
you can get rich, and the firstthing was you gotta begin with
(12:54):
the ending in mind.
So in other words, if you'regonna do anything, you need to
already have an exit strategyonce you already made your money
.
And all that because you can belike some of those celebrities
where they're not getting thememo, to, where they need to
edge out of the spotlight now,and then they just age age
(13:15):
ungracefully, in a way to where,like, they just start
embarrassing themselves.
where I'm like, then you havesome folks where, okay, I made
my money, I don't have to keepdoing all this extra shit, like
I could just chill out andretire, true because if you have
an end goal in mind, you spendyour money wisely.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
People who don't have an end goal in mind spend their
money just to be spending andthen find themselves broke
constantly looking for the nextthing, like, oh, I need to get
another job, I need to getanother gig because I'm broke.
But if you had your money, youknew where you was going to
spend it at.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
You had a plan of action you would accomplish that
and you'd be better off.
It's the most successfulbusinessman.
Always do that.
Oh yeah, it's like with um notto call anybody out but it's
like with youtubers and twitchstreamers and whatnot.
To where it's like we need toget more subs, more sub, we need
to hit a million, whatnot.
But I'm like, what are yougonna do after all that?
Like and honestly, you wouldthink that people making or
(14:12):
having millions of subscribersor followers, you'd be thinking
they'd be making big money,right, well, not on youtube
alone.
Like you gotta get sponsorshipsand you gotta sell merch and
whatnot.
Like it just looks like being abig-time YouTuber or Twitch
streamer.
It just seems like, oh, youmust be making a whole lot of
(14:34):
money.
Nah, like, there's a lot ofwork behind the scenes to make
that shit happen.
But once again, like you gottahave an end goal in mind.
Like, do you really want to be?
Want to be in your 50s and 60sdoing the same shit?
No, personally, my personalgoal is I just want to make
(14:55):
enough money to where I don'thave to.
Working should be optional inmy older age.
So that's how I feel.
But uh, starting with you, gokigatsu, how you feeling about
class of 3000 and thetemptations like I don't know
(15:16):
how strong you're on.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
I know you're ready for class 3000 but I don't know
how you feel about temptation,but how you feeling I mean, I
love temptations and the thingthing about it is that that
movie always felt a little offto me, but I never dove as much
into it.
I've seen it twice.
Funny enough, I actually likeTemptations so much.
Before this movie even came out, there was a time at one of our
old jobs that we had you knowthat call center job where we
(15:41):
had dress up Fridays and stuff.
One of my most iconic outfitsis I had a black.
I had a red button-up shirt,some black slacks and what I did
was is that my hair is verysoft.
So you know, I got a lot of.
I still got my black features.
So it's still an afro, but it'sreal soft.
Whenever I wet it I don't evenhave to put no product into it,
just water, and I can get itsoft and really curly.
(16:02):
So what I did was I could shakemy fro however I wanted.
So we used to have really bigafro, um, dressed up as like
cats for, like our football teamone time because it was the
game night, and so we wound uphaving 80s day.
No, we had 70s day and so 70sday, 60s, 70s day.
I was like, no, I don't want to.
Um, do just a regular afro likethe disco afro.
(16:23):
I want to go something a littlebit different.
So I wound up looking uphairstyles and I picked Otis's
hairstyle.
Funny enough about how theaccidental haircut the little
angle.
I was able to shape my afro tolook just like that, to where it
had a nice little angle, towhere it slanted up, and that
was by far one of my bestoutfits that I ever had.
I didn't have to buy no costumeor nothing with it, didn't have
(16:44):
to buy no extra hair products.
I just had a red button-upshirt.
I already had some cufflinks,had them rolled up and
everything.
Just had them rolled up and Iwalked in immediately and Got so
many people in trouble becausethey stopped working as soon as
I walked in.
But anyway, wow, by the way, itwas still fun.
Temptations is a really greatshow.
(17:05):
Even though there are a lot ofinaccuracies, the message still
kind of goes through.
Like you said, the main thingis don't let the money, the
power, the fame get to your head.
We hear this happen again rightnow.
Obviously, the Kendrick Lamarbeef with Drake, and that's one
of the things that he's preachedinside of his videos and his
songs with against Drake as well.
You let the money to pie get toyour head.
(17:26):
You think that you areuntouchable.
And now, somebody that touchedyou, now you don't.
Now you're feeling some type ofway.
Now, somebody that's past you,now you really feel this type of
way.
Now your music ain't looking asgood, no more.
Now you really feel this typeof way and it just kind of
really starts getting on.
But you know, everybody's gotto have that humbling ref beef.
But you know now that lawsuitsituation anyway, um, it's still
very important to understandthat you cannot let money, power
(17:49):
, fame get to your head andstuff.
And it's interesting that youdo want to tie this in with
classic 3000, because there is alot more that happens with
classic 3000 a lot of peoplewon't admit onto.
So class 3000 never finishedseason three.
It never even finished it.
To um, to the tango.
We wound up.
Having the principal and thelunch lady wound up having their
(18:11):
own moment was the first andonly episode of season three,
and the reason being is becausethe series got pulled in 2007 on
the end that December, for twomain reasons, but only one was
made publicly One of the thingsthat Andre wound up talking
about was the fact that itbecame too much of a hassle.
They were making him write anew song for every single
episode and they were trying topush out episodes to come out
(18:34):
like every two weeks and thatwas just too much.
It was a lot to put on, a lotof pressure put on to him.
He was still raising his family, he was still trying to take
care of things, he still had hisown personal goal.
He had a bunch of other thingshe was trying to take care of
and it's like he had alreadystarted stepping back from the
music world.
But it was like they weretrying to cartoon network was
trying to pull all of his timeto just just them, like, only do
(18:56):
what we want you to do.
And he's like no, I can't dothat.
I still got other gigs, stillgot other stuff to do.
Y'all gotta chill out, um.
And it's like well, there's not.
These are like just simplesongs.
But every single song in class3000 hits in some form or
fashion.
Each one has a message.
Each one has a big thing intoit.
Like you said, all you want,all we want, is your soul.
That's a big thing.
Like, yeah, selling yourselfout, um, life without music
(19:19):
talks about.
You know how we live.
If we didn't have any type ofmusic whatsoever, you know life
is, it'd be crazy.
We live day-to-day life andeven if you don't try to, you
know.
Every single time, randomly, youstart playing a song in your
head.
That's a natural brain functionbecause your brain associates
music with whatever situationyou're dealing with.
You're going to randomly pop upa random song in your head
(19:40):
because you're starting tocorrelate it in some form or
fashion.
Your brain needs something,whether it be a distraction or
just to kind of add on, tointensify the situation.
You watch those movies.
You watch any movie that hasabsolutely no music whatsoever
to it.
It's insane.
The first movie silent movieshad to have music to it.
It was too much to just sitthere and read.
It was like reading a book.
(20:01):
You couldn't do anything.
But most people when they readbooks, would put something on
their record players like that.
Everybody listens to music.
It's an all thing.
Way back when bars were veryimportant, we played dnd.
Bars are extremely importantanyway, but like it's just one
of those things, like youcouldn't live life without music
.
Um, living the blues,understanding what it means to
(20:22):
be sad.
We had those moments.
Um, bankhead versus bunkhead.
You know it was like youmentioned.
We had a nice diverse cast.
It wasn't just diverse as faras race, but also money.
You know, like eddie was rich,you do lived in bunkhead and
it's like, why are you here inbankhead?
And it's funny because, likehow that whole iceland,
greenland thing?
But you know it's like, oh,it's called iceland but it's
(20:42):
actually really green andgreenland is really icy and
stuff.
They swapped the names to getmore people to like come visit
and bunkhead wants to be in.
The richer people, even thoughthey have, they have more bank
and bankhead, even though theycall themselves bankhead, are
actually the poor people and itbecame there was a whole episode
about this whole fight betweenthem because it's like why do
you know, you don't know mystruggles and nothing like that.
(21:03):
And they had a whole thing oflike you know, being rich is a
rich shade of blue winds upbeing like.
You know, being rich.
There's still blues that comewith that.
Because the thing is, yeah, Iwas born rich, but people only
respect me for my money.
They don't respect me for who Iam.
And you know there's a messageevery single song.
You couldn't just put out asong like that because
(21:23):
everything was important.
It hit us.
That's why this show stickswith us.
The other reason that the showwound up being canceled this is
one of the other things is thefact that there was a rock star
and a country singer whoabsolutely started fighting for
rights on this show because whathe claimed was that this was
originally his idea and that hewanted to actually make a show
(21:46):
about having a music class andbeing a music teacher.
And it was like you stole myflow word for word.
The only difference was,instead of making it rock and
country, you made it hip-hop andblues and jazz and stuff.
So it's like you stole my idea.
But they later proved that thatwasn't the case.
But due to the backlash that wasalready happening, on top of
(22:07):
the issues that Cartoon Networkwas putting, the pressure that
they were putting onto Andre, hejust backed it down.
He was like there's entirelytoo much to handle and they
wound up cancelling out the show.
So it's like he said said I'mnot gonna sell my soul for this.
Like this is too much.
(22:27):
Um, so the lot that kind ofgoes into that temptations, like
you said, there's a lot ofinaccuracies, but the reason
they did that is because theywanted people to be more engaged
with the show.
Um, but the min, like you said,it was based on the mini series
into it and the thing isbecause a lot of people have
this expectation of people doingcertain things.
If people seem too perfect, noone's going to want to watch, no
one's going to be interested,no one's going to want to do
anything, so they have to createflaws that weren't there.
(22:50):
And, yes, it was a pain peoplein a bad light, and it's
especially disrespectful to dothis to someone who already died
.
That's rude.
But let's be realistic.
Hollywood would do anything formoney.
They don't care.
We just had to go through thiswhole battle recently where they
had to.
We had to fight for our actorsrights to be able to still act
and get paid in movies.
(23:10):
It was like, oh, we're gonnasell, just sell us your right to
your face and we'll do whateverwe want to do with it.
No, you can't do whatever youwant to do with my face.
What's wrong with you?
Like the hell.
And so it's like there'sthere's so much that goes into
it and we battle hollywood everyday.
That's just realistic, but it'sone of those ones that you just
kind of get that understanding.
(23:31):
The show must go on and it will.
It can tank a person, buttemptations is still a great,
great movie to watch.
Um, I mean the temptationsitself was being a great name in
itself.
It was a name for the groupbecause it was like oh, you know
, we're very tempting and stufflike that.
But I want to be imperfect forthe movie because the whole
(23:54):
premise of the movie was beingtempted about fame and money,
like we talked about.
There's a bunch of quotablelines, money, like we talked
about.
There's a bunch of quotablelines.
Yeah, like we talked about this, there's a bunch of portable
lines for temptations.
There's.
I have the playlist for class3000.
I listen to that a lot.
Um, I actually have it.
I live.
I make my kids listen to it andthey be sitting here a rich
(24:17):
shade of blue, like I was justsaying.
Like we listen to the songs andthe car rides and stuff.
It's just it's like it's tooiconic not to listen to.
It's too important to notlisten to it.
It's important for both.
These movies are important forour black society.
It's very important for howthings are.
Um, so I mean as far as thegeneric thing into it.
(24:38):
I love both of them.
Uh, I love the characterdevelopment for um for class
3000, because each character atleast before it got canceled,
every character did get theirown moment.
Tamika, she has this moment.
We do understand she has to puton a face, she has to portray
herself a certain kind of way,because she's a young Black
woman and she's had to grow upearly and had to understand what
(25:02):
that means, and having twoBlack daughters myself is one of
those ones that really touchesbase more especially now in
seeing that, because societyportrays our Black women a
certain kind of way.
So now we have to reallyunderstand how we're going to do
that, how it is that we'regoing to protect our Black women
, because, let's be honest, mostblack men don't protect black
(25:23):
women.
That's just reallyrealistically what it is and
it's terrible.
But as one of those ones, likewe still need to understand what
it is that they're dealing withso we can better help them, so
that we can better protect them,so we can make things a little
bit easier.
Like we talked about Eddie,little D, like you said for him,
he was one of the blessed ones.
He met one of his heroes and itturned out well.
But he met another one of hisheroes because big D, he was
(25:45):
excited.
He's like, oh, it's a big dudeproducer, big record producer
Like I'm absolutely going to dothis and finds out this dude,
big D, is literally the devil.
Big D, big devil that's what itwas and was actually trying to
take his soul, literally in theshow, but figuratively in the
understanding of how things were.
Um, the twins, like youmentioned before, one is kind of
(26:07):
new school, one is old school,and so there is this new way of
doing things.
So it's like I wonder how thisis going to go.
I wonder how things are goingto be, because they don't always
get along, which is actuallynormal for twins.
It it's okay.
You can be twins and still havetwo separate things.
And the last thing, madison.
She is that white girl that isignorant to society.
(26:29):
She has no idea what's reallygoing on and this show her being
in this class helps understandmore about what's happening in
the real world and she becomesthat white girl that speaks up
for black lives, that speaks upfor black people, for asian
people, for people of colorpeople, different descent,
hispanics.
She understands that becausewhen she first starts off she
(26:52):
knows nothing, but we loveseeing that development that she
gets, and so that's pretty muchwhat I got.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
It's hella, black people and Mark.
We rocking with Mark because herocking with us.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Alright.
So I know you're more intotalking about the Temptations,
but I understand that, maybe notthat much on Classic 3000, but
what you got, alright?
Yeah, you know, but Iunderstand that, maybe not that
much on Class of 3000.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
But what you got All right.
Yeah, you know, it's not like Idon't like Class of 3000.
Because, first of all, I'm anAndre 3000 fan.
I love everything he puts out,all his bodies of work, his
artistic view.
It's just top tier.
It's top notch in everythingthat he does, even though all
(27:44):
you want to do right now istravel around to random places
and play the flute, like Iunderstand that once you at the
epitome of where you are and youat peace with yourself, well,
all you want to do is stay inthat element.
So that's completelyunderstandable.
So, um, what I want to talkabout is probably sunny bridges,
(28:04):
but I do also want to hark on.
I agree, class of 3000 doeshave like vibrant animation.
It got catchy songs and thecharacter is very diverse.
But sunny bridges he justreminds you of a Mr Feeny, if
you will.
Like he's just a good teacherman.
(28:24):
Not just a good teacher, buthe's a cool teacher.
He's like.
He's a living embodiment ofprinciple.
He don't just impart technicalskills on you, he cultivates
passion.
He fosters individuality but,most importantly, he provided a
safe space for these young rawtalents.
As a person that dives intomusic, production, engineering
(28:49):
and understands the artistry oftalent management, that's kind
of what you need.
When you got a raw talent andyou're trying to experiment.
You gotta fail and find yourown voice and your sound Like
that's dope, bro.
Yeah.
When you see potential in eachstudent like that's hard to
cultivate, that's hard to findLike.
(29:10):
But even if they don't see itin themselves, he used his own
experience and his success andhis failures to illuminate their
paths.
And that ain't just traditionalschooling.
It's about authenticity.
It's about wisdom and artisticspirit.
It shows that the legacy in artain't just about personal
achievement, it's about thefuture, and I believe that
(29:32):
children are our future.
This was chocolate Name.
Sounds so good, don't you?
Speaker 1 (29:41):
agree.
And it's funny because, like,damn, I was just reminded of
something how like not justmusically, but with the
shenanigans that the childrenget into you know those things
that's outside of music how youcan tell that sunny is a very
patient teacher, like you knowhow, like, yeah, he might get
(30:01):
mad every now and then, but forthe most part he like keeps his
cool.
Because ultimately it's aboutsometimes you gotta be patient
with, um, your students, becausehow do you expect them to learn
any better if they're too busytrying to drown out your Anger?
You know I'm saying like,sometimes, like it depends on
(30:25):
how people are functioning orhow they're wired where, I'm
gonna be honest With you, Idon't mind being taught, like
from a kid to even now, like Idon't mind being teachable.
I know I'm not always right,but you still got to talk to
(30:46):
people in a certain way whereit's not going to warn them
wanting to knock your lights out.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Like, look here, like , just because you got a point
doesn't mean you got to be anasshole about it, I agree, but
diving away from that and goinginto the Temptations Right First
of all, man, the Temptations isone of my favorite movies,
associated with like Motown.
The only other movie that Ithink is in the same bracket as
(31:19):
that is the five heartbeats.
Just both of these movies alonethis carries so much weight, so
much nostalgia, so muchentertainment.
See, that's the kind of moviethat got me hooked on stuff from
the sixties and the seventies,like.
Got me looking at um, like, whydo fools fall in love with
Frankie Lyman and teenagers Justlistening to that?
(31:39):
Like understanding, like atlike, why do fools fall in love
with Frankie Lyman and teenagersJust listening to that?
Like understanding, like Elvis,like you know what I mean, just
understanding stuff from thatera.
That's what really got mymusical ear and my talent Like.
But it got so many things that,so many caveats, so many
quotables, like the quotablesalone.
Like, even if you look at oneof the quotables from Blue, when
(32:04):
you're looking at a group asthey dive into stuff that break
them apart and bring themtogether.
Ain't nobody coming to see you,otis?
We coming to see the temptation, because there ain't nobody
bigger than the group.
Most groups break down becausethey don't believe in that One
person always think they betterthan the group.
(32:24):
You know what I mean.
You see it time and time againNow, even though we know Michael
Jackson, the greatest in thegroup, but Tito, jermaine, janet
.
There's other talents, latoya,there's other talents that can
be explored, but the group wasgreat.
(32:44):
The movie was great.
Like I know, there's a lot ofcliches in like these kind of
movies and anytime you do abiopic there's always gonna be
cliches and stuff that don't.
That didn't make it or peopleare gonna say this wasn't
exactly accurate.
But when you're making a movie,you got to make it so people
want to watch it.
You got to have impact.
You got to have emotion.
(33:05):
You got to have stuff that getpeople going.
People love drama.
Sometimes it's good tooveremphasize on the drama for
storytelling purposes.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Now, granted, I was never complaining about it being
inaccurate, but, to be fair,it's just fair enough to let the
listener know if they'rehappening to be listening to
this, that don't watch the moviethinking that this is what
actually happened, word for word, bar for bar.
There was actually, like itplayed out a little differently,
(33:35):
but, like you said, sometimesyou, you gotta spice it up a
little bit for entertainmentpurposes, and it did it's job
yeah, that's a fact.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Like even when, like David Ruffin, like his exit and
he would sneak back on stage, hewas kicked out and then he
would sneak in concerts, jump onstage, sing and then disappear
like a thief in the night.
Like that shit was crazy.
But like it broke my heart inso many ways.
But because someone that lovesmusic, it just it was crazy.
(34:08):
But, um, like when they did acover of like ball of confusion,
the vocal switch between thedifferent characters, like when
you go from the different vocalrange you go to the deep voice,
you go to the high-pitched voice, like you go to alto man, it's
just the way that it seemed likein the 60s everybody could sing
.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Like, bro, listen, like when I was watching it I
was thinking, okay, I like howthese men are dressed up, like
they were really trying toimpress the white folk and
nothing wrong with that.
I'm just saying, like you know,sometimes you gotta like
entertain people outside of thecommunity in order to blow up,
(34:51):
because otherwise entertain themoney yeah, like bring in more
money that way.
But uh, bro, listen, like withall that bullshit they got going
on behind the scenes.
You, if you didn't know whatwas going on with them behind
the scenes, you would neverthink that these guys were
behind songs like earth, angelshout uh.
(35:15):
Paradise, oh mother of mine, uh, I want to love.
I can see you're thinking likedamn, like these songs are
really beautiful songs.
But Paradise, oh Mother of Mine, I Want to Love.
I Can See You're thinking likedamn, these songs are really
beautiful songs.
But then you hear about whathappened behind it and you're
like damn, y'all can't drum likethat.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Oh, mother of Mine, that is my joint right there.
When I tell you, paul killedthat whole movie.
Man, my boy, paul, was singing,he was singing.
Never mind, boy, paul wassinging, he was singing.
Never mind that he was drunk,he was still singing.
Man, you feel that the smoothdance moves on Paul, but shout
out to Bluto because my boy wentand got them ribs and never
(35:53):
came back.
That's on fire, yeah.
Must have been some good riffssometimes it is man and what's
ironic?
the most ironic thing is, sinceDavid said ain't nobody coming
to see you, otis, and Otis, thelast one living, everybody
(36:16):
coming to see you, otis don't dothat, cause even he was very
upset cause he was just like see, I knew I was rude, butis.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Don't do that, cause even he was very upset cause he
was just like see, I knew I wasrude, but I wasn't like that.
Don't even do that.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Otis still living, everybody coming to see Otis.
Otis was just at Wild Events itwas, wasn't he?
Wow, that's all I had tocomment on both of them, man,
yeah, wow, that's all I had tocomment on both of them.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Yeah yeah, like Between class of 3000 and the
temptations, I'm gonna be honestwith y'all, like, if you're
gonna do anything, do it withsome passion In your heart.
You know that fire, where thatgenuine desire To put your
Creativity, creativity, breatheyour creativity into this
(37:04):
reality, if that makes sense.
But don't let the money blindyou, don't let the fame blind
you, because honestly, like bro,at this point it's kind of
dangerous being a celebrity likeI mean, granted, yeah, people
like you and you're making goodmoney.
But, bro, once you becomefamous, I swear to god, the fans
(37:29):
don't see you as a human beinganymore.
You're a public figure.
That means you need to alwaysbe this mental picture that the
fans see you as.
So, in other words, you can'tbe moving any type of way
anymore.
(37:49):
Like you gotta pretty much fitthe mold for what the fans want
you to be and if you do anythingoutside of what they expect you
to do, then they'll turn on you.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
That's why I think my public figure just like a toy
story, like right the toys andstuff.
So like not just public figure,public action figure.
That's what you are like yousaid.
You can't move how you want toas soon as the people come
around you.
You got to go back to beingyour toy.
You can't be who you are nomore.
You got to be who you arebehind the scenes.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Right, I like that, I like that.
That's the whole thing is likey'all treating.
See, that's the funny thingabout people in general how
we're all human beings but wetreat each other like either
we're less than human orsuperhuman.
We never look at each otherlike we're just human, like yes,
(38:46):
you may be capable, but youalso have limitations.
People don't have that kind ofempathy.
It's almost like empathy is arare skill nowadays.
It's like an obsolete,endangered skill nowadays when
people don't Like the few peopleas folks that could fuck up if
they Could possibly fuck up, orthey could bounce back if you
(39:08):
give them a chance To bounceback.
But nah, it's like you gottafit that mold, you gotta fit
that framework, otherwise wedon't want to fuck with you
anymore.
It's like Crazy how unforgivingpeople can be.
And this leads to my last pointand honestly, we can just cut
it off right there.
(39:28):
For the longest time ever sinceI was a little kid, I keep
hearing that famous line life isunfair.
I don't believe that.
I believe life can be fair, butit wasn't until I grew up,
until I realized life can befair.
But it wasn't until I grew upuntil I realized life is fair.
People are unfair Because,think about it, we're the ones
(39:52):
that mainly run shit on thisplanet, right?
So you got all these differentpeople mistreating you, treating
you dirty and whatnot, andwe're just supposed to accept
that treatment, right?
We're just supposed to be coolwith it.
We're supposed to be stoic,right, like normally.
Yeah, you're supposed to standup for yourself, but usually
people act like, oh, you bugging.
Now that you're standing up foryourself, who the fuck?
(40:14):
You think you are havingstandards and boundaries?
And that's just the thing.
Like, people want to manipulate, lie, cheat, steal, kill,
destroy all the other shit, andthey just expect you to turn a
blind eye to all that shit.
They just don't expect you tocall them out on that, and if
you don't do that, that meansthey don't feel any
(40:36):
accountability to change whothey are.
Therefore, they're gonna goingto keep doing what they're doing
Until they destroy themselvesAlmost what happened With David
Ruffin, where he Think he wasuntouchable, like I said before,
until he started destroyinghimself.
(40:58):
I dare say that it isn't.
That life is unfair.
I think people Are unfair toeach other and to themselves, so
that's why I said we gotta dobetter as far as making sure
(41:18):
that we keep our egos in check.
But also we need to make surethat we tell folks hey, bro,
like you need to chill out, bro,because you kind of going off
the rails and, uh, we're justtrying to help you and all that.
But, um, aside from that, yeah,like I said earlier, like don't
let the fame and the money getto your head because once again
(41:41):
you let your guard down and youstart slipping, you start
destroying yourself, so don't dothat okay, I mentioned one
quick thing before we close outis about, like the previous one
that you mentioned aboutsympathy, about empathy sorry,
about empathy.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
But also the main thing is I know a lot of people
don't know the differencebetween sympathy and empathy and
this would be something that'smore easily touched based on
with Callie, so hopefully, youknow, we get an opportunity to
really talk about it with her atanother time, at a later time
but the difference betweensympathy and empathy, oh, we're
definitely doing that for thefatherhood episode.
Oh, bad, bad, bad.
So difference between sympathyand empathy Sympathy is I don't
(42:22):
know what you're going through,but I feel bad that it's
happening to you, right.
So you hear a lot of peopletalk about I don't want your
sympathy, I don't want sympathy.
It's true, a lot of peopledon't want sympathy.
I don't want you feeling badfor me.
You don't know what I'm dealingwith, so just give me my space.
You can't actually help me, butyou could be there for me.
There aren't good forms ofsympathy, but most people reject
(42:45):
it so much.
It's like you don't know whatI've been through.
They don't have to know whatyou've been through to show you
that they care.
There is a form of sympathy toshow that you care.
Some people don't really showthat.
That's not sympathy, that'sjust feeling sorry for you.
There is a difference into it,exactly because the thing about
it is it's like no, I don't wantyour pity, but I would accept
(43:06):
sympathy, because sympathy meansthat you actually care.
Empathy is I have been whatyou've been through, even if
it's not exact.
I've been through what you'vebeen through and this is how I
made it through.
Let me help you out.
And that's where the biggestthing is.
You're right.
A lot of people don't haveempathy, and it's the biggest
thing into.
It is because there's tworeasons.
(43:27):
One, people have not beenthrough stuff but want to lie
about it.
That's a big thing right now.
People always want to say, oh,I did this, I did this, I did
this.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
No, you ain't did jack shit and then you have the
people who've been through whatyou've been through.
But oh, I got out of the money,so can you.
I'm like.
But, bro, like, just becauseyou did it that way doesn't mean
that it should.
I mean, we say that if it ain'tbroke, don't fix it, but
sometimes it's like, bro, likesome things where it's like it
(43:59):
shouldn't, it really shouldn'tbe that way, and yet we keep
entertaining because, oh, that'sjust how it's always been.
Like, say, for instance, when Iwant to say a good example is
whenever you have like teachersor whatnot, you know, like
whenever they've been there fora while, and then the new person
(44:21):
come along and the new personprobably making More than what
the old person does, and theolder person Is going to feel a
little Cheated because, hey yo.
I've been doing this for waylonger.
But Then again the new person.
Oh well, they ain't got nothing.
I mean, I'm sorry, I'm kind ofgoing in a different direction
(44:46):
that I don't even know.
It's even relative, but yeah,like you were saying yeah, like
good.
It kind of felt like I was kindof going off point for a second.
But uh, my point being is thatuh, sometimes people will act
like well, yeah, I've been theretoo, so just you know.
(45:07):
It's like saying yeah, I knowwhat you've been through, but
they're not showing you anyempathy.
In fact, they're showing youapathy to where it's like oh
well, grow up and be a man andwhatnot.
Stop complaining, you bitch.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
But the thing about it is also is that some people
have wound up going through andthey want to fit in, but then
they get called out on it andthen it gets.
Then it becomes bad becauseyou've been called out, but now
you have to prove yourself thatyou've been through it.
Most of you don't expect thatto be the case, and that's where
it becomes that whole.
Oh, you know, I was just tryingto help, I was just trying to
be.
No, he was trying to be fake.
That's what the issue is.
You got called out in thefalsity.
(45:43):
But then there's one last thingabout empathy.
That is one that I, that youand I well, actually, no, all
three of us we have personallyexperienced people doing this
with us.
Some people have been throughbut instead of being empathetic
about your situation and it'snot even that whole moment of
like well, everyone got out.
So you figure out yourself.
It's one of those ones of Isuffered.
(46:03):
So now the world owes me, andthat's the most dangerous,
because those are the people who, like, like I mentioned, they
suffered, but instead of tryingto learn to help out other
people out of those situationsor at least kind of get an
understanding, they're the onesthat were down you for.
So you've been through it, butyou should have been able to
figure this out.
You should have been better.
You know what it happened to metoo.
(46:25):
We're going to go take theworld, we're going to go destroy
the world like this, and theywill destroy the world because
they're hurt, and that's whereit's the biggest issue.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Actually, I like that you brought that up because it
brought up a big issue that I'mhaving with people in general,
to where, whether it's men orwomen, it doesn't matter.
Like, I just hate it when youhave some folks going out the
way to either fuck over everyoneelse or they just pretty much
don't trust people in general,based on what a small few people
(47:05):
did.
Now, granted, like when, likeyou were saying, we dealt with
people like that before, where,oh, I've been hurt before, so
I'm just gonna hurt everybodyelse, yeah, but I it didn't get
to a point where I just lose myfaith in humanity because I just
(47:26):
figure OK with those people inparticular.
All right, it's just thosepeople.
Like I'm just hoping.
Like, oh, not everyone's likethis, right, right, the more
common it's becoming, the morethat's when I'm like, yeah, like
some folks, or people ingeneral, can be kind of fucked
(47:48):
because, like, it didn't takelike a few people for me to
realize how fucked up the worldis.
It took a lot of people, ittook a lot of patience for me to
get to a point where, yeah, I'mkind of done with people, but
I'm not completely done.
I'm, but I'm not completelydone.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
I'm just saying I understand it gets bad, but I
wanted to make sure I had achance At least bring that up To
that point of understanding.
There are some people who are.
There's some people who aresympathetic but they don't know
how to be.
They're trying but they don'treally know the best way In.
They're trying, but they don'treally know the best way in
doing so, which is fine.
There are some cases you cantry to learn.
The main thing is that thereare some situations it's not the
(48:28):
best at, just like WithThanksgiving.
That's not the time to practicewith the macaroni and cheese.
Okay, that's not the time topractice with the potato salad
If you don't know what you'redoing.
Thanksgiving is not that time,bro.
You need to know what you'redoing.
If you don't step back and letpeople who know what they're
doing do what they're supposedto do, so like if somebody's on
the verge of.
Hey man who made this potatosalad.
(48:49):
If somebody is on the verge ofwanting to hurt themselves or
hurting somebody else, if youdon't really know what to do,
let a professional handle it.
Direct them to the right wayinto it.
Sometimes you may have to stepin for a moment to try to be
that person that immediatelystops them, but get them to
somebody who will actually beable to do something.
Don't assume you have fixed thesituation.
A lot of times you can wind upmaking it worse.
(49:11):
Let a real professional handleif you don't know what to do.
Or speak to a professional tofigure out how you can help out
your friends and family.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
One of those questions those applications,
those online job applications.
If your co-worker was having aproblem, how would you handle
that?
Speaker 2 (49:31):
It ain't my job to do so.
That's the whole point ofhaving an HR department.
They are specifically trainedto handle that.
That's the whole point ofhaving counseling.
They're specifically trained tohandle that.
So I'm just saying, yeah, Ihate when jobs be asked the
question, but for reals though,it's going to be that moment of
like let the trainedprofessionals handle what needs
(49:52):
to be handled type of thing.
It's okay to help out yourfriend, it's okay to point in
the right direction, it's okayto try to do little things to
benefit and assist, but don'tassume you can handle a
situation if you've never doneit before.
Please don't, because, like Isaid, nine times out of ten, you
can make that situation wayworse and you never know that.
That's what happened.
You have that moment thatyou're like.
(50:12):
I just spoke to them on thephone last night.
They seemed like they was doingbetter.
They probably was doing betterenough to get you up to stop
talking to them.
It may not have been a oh Ihate you type thing or I'm angry
with you type of thing.
It couldn't even be that, butthey were just waiting for you
to get off the phone becausethey probably was ready to
decide that this is what we'regoing to do and you tried your
(50:33):
best.
It just didn't work.
It's not on you, but direct toprofessionals, because some
people they're trained to handlethese type of situations to
prevent it from getting worse.
Help out the other people.
That's one of the best ways ofbeing sympathetic.
Being sympathetic is I don'tknow what you're going through,
but I'm going to help you findthe right help.
I don't know what you're goingthrough, but I'm going to help
(50:54):
you find the right help.
I don't know what you're goingthrough, but I'm going to direct
you to somebody who might knowbetter, might actually know Type
of thing.
And that's what we need in thisworld.
There's not going to be a lotof empathy.
There's not going to be.
Not everybody's going throughthe same struggle that we're
going through.
There's people going throughsimilar and they can help with
their empathy, but noteverybody's going through the
same stuff.
Accept some sympathy, butunderstand how to give sympathy.
(51:16):
But that's what I got.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
Yeah, like because crazy enough, like, once again
not saying any names, but let'sjust say that I dealt with
coworkers where it just seemedlike they'd be hearing different
problems that other folks behaving, and I honestly try not
to pay attention to or to theirconversations because me
personally, I'm just at the job,just trying to do my job.
(51:43):
But you know some folks theywant to yap and yap and I'm just
standing right here so I'm like, yes, I'll just listen, but I'm
not going to say anything, I'lljust listen.
I'm not here to judge, I'm hereto.
I'm not going to judge, I'mjust here to listen.
You know, I'm saying uh, butpoint being that, um, sometimes
we listen and we do judge but uh, I'm judging mentally.
(52:09):
I'm mentally judging you because, uh, I'm like I ain't trying to
jeopardize my job over mecrashing out over an opinion.
But my whole thing is thatsometimes the way they be
viewing people who may be goingthrough shit is like it would
(52:30):
seem like they have somesympathy, but at the same time
it's like they don't.
It's like I feel like they havefaith and sympathy to where
it's like you say that you kindof understand, but the way you
handle it just kind of feels alittle careless.
Like once again, it's one ofthose things where, okay, okay,
(52:53):
I can kind of understand whereyou're coming from, but you need
to stop acting bitch made.
I mean, that's not their exactwords, but that's the gist of it
and I'm like, hey, bro, likelook, sometimes, if you know how
they say, if you don't haveanything nice to say, don't say
anything at all.
Like I don't know if I would Gothat far.
(53:19):
I mean I kind of get it, but atthe same time, first of all,
like sometimes Not all Thingsthat need to be said, it's going
to be nice.
Like that's why I say SometimesI would rather hurt your
feelings with the truth than toentertain you with lies Because,
honestly, the truth is thetruth, but anybody can just make
(53:44):
up lies just to feed yourdelusion.
But that's beside the point.
Point being is that, bro,sometimes I hear these
conversations and I feel like,just like you said, kokiasu,
sometimes, hey bro, like if youain't really got nothing better
to say than that, you werebetter off just shutting the
(54:05):
fuck up.
I'm gonna be honest with you.
Like, sometimes you're justbetter off just saying nothing
than saying the wrong thingsometimes.
But that's just me.
Tuck, you have anything youwant to add on to all this?
Speaker 3 (54:24):
I just want to say God is good.
That's all I want to say.
True I ain't got nothing elseto add on it.
I think I made fair pointsacross For both.
But music is iconic, no matterwhat kind of medium or what kind
of entity you in, just enjoythe music, man.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
Real quick for all those people that were listening
, our fellow black folk, if youwind up saying All the time, yes
, all the time, god is good.
I just wanted to make sure wefinish up that candle back and
forth.
I'm not gonna leave you hanginglike that.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
All right you yeah, and all the time.
God is good.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
Amen, amen again oh, shit, uh, my bad, I thought good
guys had more to say, but yeah,that's all we had to say on
Clash of 3000 Temptations.
Take away from all of this isKeep your egos in check, have an
(55:24):
exit strategy in mind For anyambition that you pursue.
And also, come on, y'all, bemore human.
Like People be going throughshit, like we got enough
assholes running around, uh,making us feel worse, like don't
be part of the problem.
See, that's the main thing.
(55:44):
Like I may not be perfect, butI refuse to be part of the
problem.
That's my thing with that being, I'm going to go ahead and
close this one out.
Y'all.
Go ahead and have yourself agood morning, good afternoon,
good evening and good night.
Take it easy on yourselves,stay nerdy and remember that
(56:05):
great things are coming.
Oh, yeah.
Our merch store.
It is opening up on the 1st asplanned.
We got the merch listed andeverything, so check us out at
zonealliancecom.
But yeah, we're going to try tomake things happen On Patreon,
on Instagram, twitter, facebook,trying to work on a YouTube
(56:28):
channel.
We just need to get the peopleorganized and ready to actually
make things happen.
But until the next episode,y'all go ahead and enjoy
yourselves.
We're out.
what up, gang?
It's time for another doublefeature from the zone podcast.
This time around, I want totalk about class 3000 and the
temptations.
Now the reason why I want totalk about those two and one go
is because they both touched ona subject that we all could
learn from, but outside of thatthey're like related to music
(00:25):
and you know it's like somethingto enjoy.
I'm sorry, I'm totally honestwith you, I'm kind of going off
script this time around becauseyou know, I'm starting to
(00:45):
realize that maybe my best takesare the ones that where I'm not
writing notes and, you know,just speaking, speaking off rip.
So let's just go in and zone inon it.
For starters, let's start withclass 3000.
Now, I grew up on this show.
Well, it wasn't around for verylong, it was only around for
like two years, between classyear 2006 and 2008, and it
(01:07):
follows around superstar andmusic teacher sunny bridges, who
is voiced by andre benjamin, orandre 3000 as we know him, and
he's teaching this group ofstudents at atlanta, georgia,
called the Wesley School ofPerforming Arts, and while Sonny
(01:30):
Bridges is this jazz and bluesartist who occasionally lectures
at somewhere else, at thisplace called Little Five Points
Residential Area, you know,referencing both OutKast and
Cartoon Network being based inAtlanta.
There were like 28 episodesthat were produced, but two of
(01:50):
them was unaired.
They got a colorful cast ofcharacters.
Funny thing is, I think Classic3000 did Wokeness better than
recent works because at leasthere, aside from Sonny being
black, you have two blackstudents, three white students
(02:13):
and two kids.
That's like twins, fraternaltwins that happen to be Asian,
and honestly they don't feellike too one-dimensional.
It don't feel like Too onedimensional.
It doesn't feel like they arejust there to fill a role, like
(02:33):
they all kind of bring somethingto the table.
Like, for instance, lil D he'slike this Bumbling idiot In a
way.
He kind of come off a littlebit of like a, a dick rider for
sunny bridge.
I mean, I understand that's hishero and whatnot, but like
sometimes I'm like bro, tone itdown, like I guess you could say
(02:58):
he's like the closest to thestereotypical black kid.
Uh, aside from, you know theway he looks up the sunny
bridges and whatnot.
He's bright, he's talented,he's confident to a fault, but
when it comes to music he's allabout it, especially when he's
on the drums.
So yeah, you have Madison,who's like this very cheerful
(03:24):
girl, but she got breakingpoints sometimes, like she's not
always chill, but for the mostpart she's like kind of bubbly.
You have Tamika, the tough girl,and here's the thing it was
weird when you know like how youhad that one black girl that
would be like ready to Fightsomebody, and that one Episode
(03:47):
where she decided to Hang outwith the cool girls Quote
unquote because they didn't Turnout to be Girls, I don't think.
I think it was like one guy andone, but they were like scam
marks and what not.
Anyways, point being is thatWhile she was gone, lil D made a
statement saying that, oh man,it's not the same without tamika
(04:08):
.
Uh, around you know bullyingwell, not really bullying them,
but more like punching them andshit.
I'm like, wait, you like thatshit can't be me.
Uh, speaking of liking thatshit, eddie, I think eddie kind
of annoyed me second time around.
(04:29):
I didn't mind him the firsttime when I was a kid, but
second time around I'm gonna behonest with you, the rich kid.
He kind of got on my nervesjust a little bit because he was
like that kind of rich kid towhere he just be blowing his
catch.
That's for the hell of it.
Like I mean, I understandflexing don't have to make sense
, but bro, like it was just dumbuses of his money and on top of
(04:52):
that he kind of had it bad fortamika.
But I'm like, bro, like I don't.
I don't think you're toughenough for a girl like tamika.
Honestly, I'm sorry, but I feellike she can just walk all over
you, take your money and allthat shit.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mentionthat Madison is on violin and
(05:14):
cello, tamika is on guitar andthe harp, eddie is on trumpet
and clarinet.
Now that I'm caught up ontrumpet and clarinet, now that
I'm caught up, there's phillyphil, who's like this brainy
nerd who makes all the gadgetsand whatnot but they often end
up, um, malfunctioning to somedegree.
(05:35):
So kind of like that, with, uh,some kids who are trying to
make shit up but they keepbailing on them.
But some things work, like thatone robot he made that's
supposed to be designed to bepopular and that was like one of
the best things he did andironically, he had to stop that
(05:57):
invention from taking things toofar.
He is on the double bass andbass guitar.
And then there's the twins, kimand Cam.
Kim is the DJ who's you knowmore laid back and you know all
(06:20):
about popular trends and whatnot, being on the xylophone and
other percussion instruments.
And then Cam is more like theconservative boy where I want to
say he kind of like the logicalone, which is ironic because
you know you were thinking withPhil he would be like the
logical one, but he is.
(06:41):
But I'm just saying like Philis the nerd, the logical one on,
but he is.
But I'm just saying like philis the nerd, but cam is more
like the, the stick in the mud,I want to say, and he's on
keyboard and pm.
I'm gonna be honest with you.
They had some pretty goodepisodes and then there's some
episodes that's kind of bland.
(07:01):
But the one episode I do likewhich will tie into the
temptations, it was the oneepisode where little d was
selling out per se to this oneguy uh, big d, he called himself
, and it was for this hamcompany and little d was pretty
much selling out for that onemusic video.
(07:24):
And I like that music video.
By the way, you know, give meyour soul, you know that one,
right, I like that one.
Now, see, the reason why I likethat one also ties into what
I'm going to talk about with thetemptations.
It's because when I watch thetemptations like first of all,
let me just say it was the firsttime in a while that I'd seen
(07:46):
the Temptations and it was abouthow Otis Williams, melvin
Franklin, david Ruffin, eddieKendrickson, some others was
coming together making music andwhatnot and it was all cool and
whatnot, like they were tryingto make a name for themselves.
It wasn't the easiest road butthey were getting up there.
But I want to say by the secondact, because, keep in mind,
(08:11):
it's like a docu-series whereit's like a two-parter and it
was like three hours long.
But I want to say like halfwayinto it, essentially David
Ruffin was starting to get a bigego.
And you know the quotables whenOtis and Blue was confronting
(08:31):
David about him not showing upto practice and whatnot.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
And then David was like I'm the one selling the
records yeah ain't, nobody can'tget to see you, otis.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Alright, come to see you, otis.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Alright, come to see the temptations.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
That was funny bro, like he was saying oh well, it
might as well be David Ruffin inthe temptations.
Yeah, it got.
Good.
I'm like hey, bro, you betterget together or you gonna get.
Hey, bro, I'm singing rightafter that.
Bro, you better get it togetheror you're going to get them out
of here.
Hey bro, just kill him bro.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I'm seeing him right after that.
My name is David Ruffin, andthese are the Temptations, petty
.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
But, man, let me tell you, when I kind of did my
light research on theTemptations, I wanted to know a
little bit more about it becauseI thought it was like pretty
good man.
I was not ready to walk intothis slew of technicalities
where a lot of shit thathappened in this was inaccurate,
(09:36):
like I mean, granted, like somethings it's going to be
inaccurate, but I didn't knowhow inaccurate it was gonna be
until I saw all this.
Like, for starters, the waythey depicted david ruffin was
wrong because they were, um,saying that it was inaccurate
for ruffin, for kindred's andfor edwards uh performing
together before the 1982 reuniontour, where in reality ruffin
(10:02):
and kindred didn't startperforming together until 1985
and edwards joining them in 1989.
So it's almost like areimagining of the events.
But keep in mind that it wasfrom the perspective of otis
williams, who was the onlymember that was still alive to
(10:22):
make this shit.
So it's like it was just hisword against everybody else's.
But trust me, when families cameat him, like especially on
david ruffin's family came athim, like hey, yo, like I don't
like the way you uh depicted myboy like that, especially um the
way he died where it wasn't asunceremoniously being dumped out
(10:44):
of the car near a hospital.
It was more like he had thisdrug overdose and was taken to
the hospital by a chauffeur whonotified the attending staff of
the Ruffin identity and becausenobody claimed his body
immediately after his death, hiscorpse was just laying in the
(11:05):
morgue for two days until hisfamily showed up finding out
about it and then they were likeyep, that's him.
So there was like someinaccuracy going on with all
that, but outside of that Ithought it was pretty good.
It was a pretty good watch.
It just goes to show how, withlike with the temptations,
(11:26):
things can fall apart if youdon't move carefully, especially
if you.
Once again it was based on theminiseries, but you know how
David was getting on that crackand all that and then he was
just getting real messed upBetween Lil D and David.
I want to say that I, as theleader of the zone, have to keep
(11:50):
myself in check to where Ican't let any form of success
get to our head, like I don'twant to be like Riley from the
Boondogs.
You know that one episode withthe chocolate bars where he was
raising all those funds and hewas thinking that he was
practically being invincible,but his mistake was fundraiser
(12:11):
yeah, the fundraiser, yeah thechocolate
but his problem was he wasthrowing the money around to his
partners.
You know how they say you'renot supposed to be spending
company money and what not.
So he was thinking that oh,nobody can stop him, until some
big boy showed up trying to shuthim down and whatnot.
(12:33):
So sometimes you got to thinkabout where you're going with
all this.
Funny enough, there was oneYouTube video where it was
talking about how this oneepisode pretty much told you how
you can get rich, and the firstthing was you gotta begin with
(12:54):
the ending in mind.
So in other words, if you'regonna do anything, you need to
already have an exit strategyonce you already made your money
.
And all that because you can belike some of those celebrities
where they're not getting thememo, to, where they need to
edge out of the spotlight now,and then they just age age
(13:15):
ungracefully, in a way to where,like, they just start
embarrassing themselves.
where I'm like, then you havesome folks where, okay, I made
my money, I don't have to keepdoing all this extra shit, like
I could just chill out andretire, true because if you have
an end goal in mind, you spendyour money wisely.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
People who don't have an end goal in mind spend their
money just to be spending andthen find themselves broke
constantly looking for the nextthing, like, oh, I need to get
another job, I need to getanother gig because I'm broke.
But if you had your money, youknew where you was going to
spend it at.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
You had a plan of action you would accomplish that
and you'd be better off.
It's the most successfulbusinessman.
Always do that.
Oh yeah, it's like with um notto call anybody out but it's
like with youtubers and twitchstreamers and whatnot.
To where it's like we need toget more subs, more sub, we need
to hit a million, whatnot.
But I'm like, what are yougonna do after all that?
Like and honestly, you wouldthink that people making or
(14:12):
having millions of subscribersor followers, you'd be thinking
they'd be making big money,right, well, not on youtube
alone.
Like you gotta get sponsorshipsand you gotta sell merch and
whatnot.
Like it just looks like being abig-time YouTuber or Twitch
streamer.
It just seems like, oh, youmust be making a whole lot of
(14:34):
money.
Nah, like, there's a lot ofwork behind the scenes to make
that shit happen.
But once again, like you gottahave an end goal in mind.
Like, do you really want to be?
Want to be in your 50s and 60sdoing the same shit?
No, personally, my personalgoal is I just want to make
(14:55):
enough money to where I don'thave to.
Working should be optional inmy older age.
So that's how I feel.
But uh, starting with you, gokigatsu, how you feeling about
class of 3000 and thetemptations like I don't know
(15:16):
how strong you're on.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
I know you're ready for class 3000 but I don't know
how you feel about temptation,but how you feeling I mean, I
love temptations and the thingthing about it is that that
movie always felt a little offto me, but I never dove as much
into it.
I've seen it twice.
Funny enough, I actually likeTemptations so much.
Before this movie even came out, there was a time at one of our
old jobs that we had you knowthat call center job where we
(15:41):
had dress up Fridays and stuff.
One of my most iconic outfitsis I had a black.
I had a red button-up shirt,some black slacks and what I did
was is that my hair is verysoft.
So you know, I got a lot of.
I still got my black features.
So it's still an afro, but it'sreal soft.
Whenever I wet it I don't evenhave to put no product into it,
just water, and I can get itsoft and really curly.
(16:02):
So what I did was I could shakemy fro however I wanted.
So we used to have really bigafro, um, dressed up as like
cats for, like our football teamone time because it was the
game night, and so we wound uphaving 80s day.
No, we had 70s day and so 70sday, 60s, 70s day.
I was like, no, I don't want to.
Um, do just a regular afro likethe disco afro.
(16:23):
I want to go something a littlebit different.
So I wound up looking uphairstyles and I picked Otis's
hairstyle.
Funny enough about how theaccidental haircut the little
angle.
I was able to shape my afro tolook just like that, to where it
had a nice little angle, towhere it slanted up, and that
was by far one of my bestoutfits that I ever had.
I didn't have to buy no costumeor nothing with it, didn't have
(16:44):
to buy no extra hair products.
I just had a red button-upshirt.
I already had some cufflinks,had them rolled up and
everything.
Just had them rolled up and Iwalked in immediately and Got so
many people in trouble becausethey stopped working as soon as
I walked in.
But anyway, wow, by the way, itwas still fun.
Temptations is a really greatshow.
(17:05):
Even though there are a lot ofinaccuracies, the message still
kind of goes through.
Like you said, the main thingis don't let the money, the
power, the fame get to your head.
We hear this happen again rightnow.
Obviously, the Kendrick Lamarbeef with Drake, and that's one
of the things that he's preachedinside of his videos and his
songs with against Drake as well.
You let the money to pie get toyour head.
(17:26):
You think that you areuntouchable.
And now, somebody that touchedyou, now you don't.
Now you're feeling some type ofway.
Now, somebody that's past you,now you really feel this type of
way.
Now your music ain't looking asgood, no more.
Now you really feel this typeof way and it just kind of
really starts getting on.
But you know, everybody's gotto have that humbling ref beef.
But you know now that lawsuitsituation anyway, um, it's still
very important to understandthat you cannot let money, power
(17:49):
, fame get to your head andstuff.
And it's interesting that youdo want to tie this in with
classic 3000, because there is alot more that happens with
classic 3000 a lot of peoplewon't admit onto.
So class 3000 never finishedseason three.
It never even finished it.
To um, to the tango.
We wound up.
Having the principal and thelunch lady wound up having their
(18:11):
own moment was the first andonly episode of season three,
and the reason being is becausethe series got pulled in 2007 on
the end that December, for twomain reasons, but only one was
made publicly One of the thingsthat Andre wound up talking
about was the fact that itbecame too much of a hassle.
They were making him write anew song for every single
episode and they were trying topush out episodes to come out
(18:34):
like every two weeks and thatwas just too much.
It was a lot to put on, a lotof pressure put on to him.
He was still raising his family, he was still trying to take
care of things, he still had hisown personal goal.
He had a bunch of other thingshe was trying to take care of
and it's like he had alreadystarted stepping back from the
music world.
But it was like they weretrying to cartoon network was
trying to pull all of his timeto just just them, like, only do
(18:56):
what we want you to do.
And he's like no, I can't dothat.
I still got other gigs, stillgot other stuff to do.
Y'all gotta chill out, um.
And it's like well, there's not.
These are like just simplesongs.
But every single song in class3000 hits in some form or
fashion.
Each one has a message.
Each one has a big thing intoit.
Like you said, all you want,all we want, is your soul.
That's a big thing.
Like, yeah, selling yourselfout, um, life without music
(19:19):
talks about.
You know how we live.
If we didn't have any type ofmusic whatsoever, you know life
is, it'd be crazy.
We live day-to-day life andeven if you don't try to, you
know.
Every single time, randomly, youstart playing a song in your
head.
That's a natural brain functionbecause your brain associates
music with whatever situationyou're dealing with.
You're going to randomly pop upa random song in your head
(19:40):
because you're starting tocorrelate it in some form or
fashion.
Your brain needs something,whether it be a distraction or
just to kind of add on, tointensify the situation.
You watch those movies.
You watch any movie that hasabsolutely no music whatsoever
to it.
It's insane.
The first movie silent movieshad to have music to it.
It was too much to just sitthere and read.
It was like reading a book.
(20:01):
You couldn't do anything.
But most people when they readbooks, would put something on
their record players like that.
Everybody listens to music.
It's an all thing.
Way back when bars were veryimportant, we played dnd.
Bars are extremely importantanyway, but like it's just one
of those things, like youcouldn't live life without music
.
Um, living the blues,understanding what it means to
(20:22):
be sad.
We had those moments.
Um, bankhead versus bunkhead.
You know it was like youmentioned.
We had a nice diverse cast.
It wasn't just diverse as faras race, but also money.
You know, like eddie was rich,you do lived in bunkhead and
it's like, why are you here inbankhead?
And it's funny because, likehow that whole iceland,
greenland thing?
But you know it's like, oh,it's called iceland but it's
(20:42):
actually really green andgreenland is really icy and
stuff.
They swapped the names to getmore people to like come visit
and bunkhead wants to be in.
The richer people, even thoughthey have, they have more bank
and bankhead, even though theycall themselves bankhead, are
actually the poor people and itbecame there was a whole episode
about this whole fight betweenthem because it's like why do
you know, you don't know mystruggles and nothing like that.
(21:03):
And they had a whole thing oflike you know, being rich is a
rich shade of blue winds upbeing like.
You know, being rich.
There's still blues that comewith that.
Because the thing is, yeah, Iwas born rich, but people only
respect me for my money.
They don't respect me for who Iam.
And you know there's a messageevery single song.
You couldn't just put out asong like that because
(21:23):
everything was important.
It hit us.
That's why this show stickswith us.
The other reason that the showwound up being canceled this is
one of the other things is thefact that there was a rock star
and a country singer whoabsolutely started fighting for
rights on this show because whathe claimed was that this was
originally his idea and that hewanted to actually make a show
(21:46):
about having a music class andbeing a music teacher.
And it was like you stole myflow word for word.
The only difference was,instead of making it rock and
country, you made it hip-hop andblues and jazz and stuff.
So it's like you stole my idea.
But they later proved that thatwasn't the case.
But due to the backlash that wasalready happening, on top of
(22:07):
the issues that Cartoon Networkwas putting, the pressure that
they were putting onto Andre, hejust backed it down.
He was like there's entirelytoo much to handle and they
wound up cancelling out the show.
So it's like he said said I'mnot gonna sell my soul for this.
Like this is too much.
(22:27):
Um, so the lot that kind ofgoes into that temptations, like
you said, there's a lot ofinaccuracies, but the reason
they did that is because theywanted people to be more engaged
with the show.
Um, but the min, like you said,it was based on the mini series
into it and the thing isbecause a lot of people have
this expectation of people doingcertain things.
If people seem too perfect, noone's going to want to watch, no
one's going to be interested,no one's going to want to do
anything, so they have to createflaws that weren't there.
(22:50):
And, yes, it was a pain peoplein a bad light, and it's
especially disrespectful to dothis to someone who already died
.
That's rude.
But let's be realistic.
Hollywood would do anything formoney.
They don't care.
We just had to go through thiswhole battle recently where they
had to.
We had to fight for our actorsrights to be able to still act
and get paid in movies.
(23:10):
It was like, oh, we're gonnasell, just sell us your right to
your face and we'll do whateverwe want to do with it.
No, you can't do whatever youwant to do with my face.
What's wrong with you?
Like the hell.
And so it's like there'sthere's so much that goes into
it and we battle hollywood everyday.
That's just realistic, but it'sone of those ones that you just
kind of get that understanding.
(23:31):
The show must go on and it will.
It can tank a person, buttemptations is still a great,
great movie to watch.
Um, I mean the temptationsitself was being a great name in
itself.
It was a name for the groupbecause it was like oh, you know
, we're very tempting and stufflike that.
But I want to be imperfect forthe movie because the whole
(23:54):
premise of the movie was beingtempted about fame and money,
like we talked about.
There's a bunch of quotablelines, money, like we talked
about.
There's a bunch of quotablelines.
Yeah, like we talked about this, there's a bunch of portable
lines for temptations.
There's.
I have the playlist for class3000.
I listen to that a lot.
Um, I actually have it.
I live.
I make my kids listen to it andthey be sitting here a rich
(24:17):
shade of blue, like I was justsaying.
Like we listen to the songs andthe car rides and stuff.
It's just it's like it's tooiconic not to listen to.
It's too important to notlisten to it.
It's important for both.
These movies are important forour black society.
It's very important for howthings are.
Um, so I mean as far as thegeneric thing into it.
(24:38):
I love both of them.
Uh, I love the characterdevelopment for um for class
3000, because each character atleast before it got canceled,
every character did get theirown moment.
Tamika, she has this moment.
We do understand she has to puton a face, she has to portray
herself a certain kind of way,because she's a young Black
woman and she's had to grow upearly and had to understand what
(25:02):
that means, and having twoBlack daughters myself is one of
those ones that really touchesbase more especially now in
seeing that, because societyportrays our Black women a
certain kind of way.
So now we have to reallyunderstand how we're going to do
that, how it is that we'regoing to protect our Black women
, because, let's be honest, mostblack men don't protect black
(25:23):
women.
That's just reallyrealistically what it is and
it's terrible.
But as one of those ones, likewe still need to understand what
it is that they're dealing withso we can better help them, so
that we can better protect them,so we can make things a little
bit easier.
Like we talked about Eddie,little D, like you said for him,
he was one of the blessed ones.
He met one of his heroes and itturned out well.
But he met another one of hisheroes because big D, he was
(25:45):
excited.
He's like, oh, it's a big dudeproducer, big record producer
Like I'm absolutely going to dothis and finds out this dude,
big D, is literally the devil.
Big D, big devil that's what itwas and was actually trying to
take his soul, literally in theshow, but figuratively in the
understanding of how things were.
Um, the twins, like youmentioned before, one is kind of
(26:07):
new school, one is old school,and so there is this new way of
doing things.
So it's like I wonder how thisis going to go.
I wonder how things are goingto be, because they don't always
get along, which is actuallynormal for twins.
It it's okay.
You can be twins and still havetwo separate things.
And the last thing, madison.
She is that white girl that isignorant to society.
(26:29):
She has no idea what's reallygoing on and this show her being
in this class helps understandmore about what's happening in
the real world and she becomesthat white girl that speaks up
for black lives, that speaks upfor black people, for asian
people, for people of colorpeople, different descent,
hispanics.
She understands that becausewhen she first starts off she
(26:52):
knows nothing, but we loveseeing that development that she
gets, and so that's pretty muchwhat I got.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
It's hella, black people and Mark.
We rocking with Mark because herocking with us.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Alright.
So I know you're more intotalking about the Temptations,
but I understand that, maybe notthat much on Classic 3000, but
what you got, alright?
Yeah, you know, but Iunderstand that, maybe not that
much on Class of 3000.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
But what you got All right.
Yeah, you know, it's not like Idon't like Class of 3000.
Because, first of all, I'm anAndre 3000 fan.
I love everything he puts out,all his bodies of work, his
artistic view.
It's just top tier.
It's top notch in everythingthat he does, even though all
(27:44):
you want to do right now istravel around to random places
and play the flute, like Iunderstand that once you at the
epitome of where you are and youat peace with yourself, well,
all you want to do is stay inthat element.
So that's completelyunderstandable.
So, um, what I want to talkabout is probably sunny bridges,
(28:04):
but I do also want to hark on.
I agree, class of 3000 doeshave like vibrant animation.
It got catchy songs and thecharacter is very diverse.
But sunny bridges he justreminds you of a Mr Feeny, if
you will.
Like he's just a good teacherman.
(28:24):
Not just a good teacher, buthe's a cool teacher.
He's like.
He's a living embodiment ofprinciple.
He don't just impart technicalskills on you, he cultivates
passion.
He fosters individuality but,most importantly, he provided a
safe space for these young rawtalents.
As a person that dives intomusic, production, engineering
(28:49):
and understands the artistry oftalent management, that's kind
of what you need.
When you got a raw talent andyou're trying to experiment.
You gotta fail and find yourown voice and your sound Like
that's dope, bro.
Yeah.
When you see potential in eachstudent like that's hard to
cultivate, that's hard to findLike.
(29:10):
But even if they don't see itin themselves, he used his own
experience and his success andhis failures to illuminate their
paths.
And that ain't just traditionalschooling.
It's about authenticity.
It's about wisdom and artisticspirit.
It shows that the legacy in artain't just about personal
achievement, it's about thefuture, and I believe that
(29:32):
children are our future.
This was chocolate Name.
Sounds so good, don't you?
Speaker 1 (29:41):
agree.
And it's funny because, like,damn, I was just reminded of
something how like not justmusically, but with the
shenanigans that the childrenget into you know those things
that's outside of music how youcan tell that sunny is a very
patient teacher, like you knowhow, like, yeah, he might get
(30:01):
mad every now and then, but forthe most part he like keeps his
cool.
Because ultimately it's aboutsometimes you gotta be patient
with, um, your students, becausehow do you expect them to learn
any better if they're too busytrying to drown out your Anger?
You know I'm saying like,sometimes, like it depends on
(30:25):
how people are functioning orhow they're wired where, I'm
gonna be honest With you, Idon't mind being taught, like
from a kid to even now, like Idon't mind being teachable.
I know I'm not always right,but you still got to talk to
(30:46):
people in a certain way whereit's not going to warn them
wanting to knock your lights out.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Like, look here, like , just because you got a point
doesn't mean you got to be anasshole about it, I agree, but
diving away from that and goinginto the Temptations Right First
of all, man, the Temptations isone of my favorite movies,
associated with like Motown.
The only other movie that Ithink is in the same bracket as
(31:19):
that is the five heartbeats.
Just both of these movies alonethis carries so much weight, so
much nostalgia, so muchentertainment.
See, that's the kind of moviethat got me hooked on stuff from
the sixties and the seventies,like.
Got me looking at um, like, whydo fools fall in love with
Frankie Lyman and teenagers Justlistening to that?
(31:39):
Like understanding, like atlike, why do fools fall in love
with Frankie Lyman and teenagersJust listening to that?
Like understanding, like Elvis,like you know what I mean, just
understanding stuff from thatera.
That's what really got mymusical ear and my talent Like.
But it got so many things that,so many caveats, so many
quotables, like the quotablesalone.
Like, even if you look at oneof the quotables from Blue, when
(32:04):
you're looking at a group asthey dive into stuff that break
them apart and bring themtogether.
Ain't nobody coming to see you,otis?
We coming to see the temptation, because there ain't nobody
bigger than the group.
Most groups break down becausethey don't believe in that One
person always think they betterthan the group.
(32:24):
You know what I mean.
You see it time and time againNow, even though we know Michael
Jackson, the greatest in thegroup, but Tito, jermaine, janet
.
There's other talents, latoya,there's other talents that can
be explored, but the group wasgreat.
(32:44):
The movie was great.
Like I know, there's a lot ofcliches in like these kind of
movies and anytime you do abiopic there's always gonna be
cliches and stuff that don't.
That didn't make it or peopleare gonna say this wasn't
exactly accurate.
But when you're making a movie,you got to make it so people
want to watch it.
You got to have impact.
You got to have emotion.
(33:05):
You got to have stuff that getpeople going.
People love drama.
Sometimes it's good tooveremphasize on the drama for
storytelling purposes.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Now, granted, I was never complaining about it being
inaccurate, but, to be fair,it's just fair enough to let the
listener know if they'rehappening to be listening to
this, that don't watch the moviethinking that this is what
actually happened, word for word, bar for bar.
There was actually, like itplayed out a little differently,
(33:35):
but, like you said, sometimesyou, you gotta spice it up a
little bit for entertainmentpurposes, and it did it's job
yeah, that's a fact.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Like even when, like David Ruffin, like his exit and
he would sneak back on stage, hewas kicked out and then he
would sneak in concerts, jump onstage, sing and then disappear
like a thief in the night.
Like that shit was crazy.
But like it broke my heart inso many ways.
But because someone that lovesmusic, it just it was crazy.
(34:08):
But, um, like when they did acover of like ball of confusion,
the vocal switch between thedifferent characters, like when
you go from the different vocalrange you go to the deep voice,
you go to the high-pitched voice, like you go to alto man, it's
just the way that it seemed likein the 60s everybody could sing
.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Like, bro, listen, like when I was watching it I
was thinking, okay, I like howthese men are dressed up, like
they were really trying toimpress the white folk and
nothing wrong with that.
I'm just saying, like you know,sometimes you gotta like
entertain people outside of thecommunity in order to blow up,
(34:51):
because otherwise entertain themoney yeah, like bring in more
money that way.
But uh, bro, listen, like withall that bullshit they got going
on behind the scenes.
You, if you didn't know whatwas going on with them behind
the scenes, you would neverthink that these guys were
behind songs like earth, angelshout uh.
(35:15):
Paradise, oh mother of mine, uh, I want to love.
I can see you're thinking likedamn, like these songs are
really beautiful songs.
But Paradise, oh Mother of Mine, I Want to Love.
I Can See You're thinking likedamn, these songs are really
beautiful songs.
But then you hear about whathappened behind it and you're
like damn, y'all can't drum likethat.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Oh, mother of Mine, that is my joint right there.
When I tell you, paul killedthat whole movie.
Man, my boy, paul, was singing,he was singing.
Never mind, boy, paul wassinging, he was singing.
Never mind that he was drunk,he was still singing.
Man, you feel that the smoothdance moves on Paul, but shout
out to Bluto because my boy wentand got them ribs and never
(35:53):
came back.
That's on fire, yeah.
Must have been some good riffssometimes it is man and what's
ironic?
the most ironic thing is, sinceDavid said ain't nobody coming
to see you, otis, and Otis, thelast one living, everybody
(36:16):
coming to see you, otis don't dothat, cause even he was very
upset cause he was just like see, I knew I was rude, butis.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Don't do that, cause even he was very upset cause he
was just like see, I knew I wasrude, but I wasn't like that.
Don't even do that.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Otis still living, everybody coming to see Otis.
Otis was just at Wild Events itwas, wasn't he?
Wow, that's all I had tocomment on both of them, man,
yeah, wow, that's all I had tocomment on both of them.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Yeah yeah, like Between class of 3000 and the
temptations, I'm gonna be honestwith y'all, like, if you're
gonna do anything, do it withsome passion In your heart.
You know that fire, where thatgenuine desire To put your
Creativity, creativity, breatheyour creativity into this
(37:04):
reality, if that makes sense.
But don't let the money blindyou, don't let the fame blind
you, because honestly, like bro,at this point it's kind of
dangerous being a celebrity likeI mean, granted, yeah, people
like you and you're making goodmoney.
But, bro, once you becomefamous, I swear to god, the fans
(37:29):
don't see you as a human beinganymore.
You're a public figure.
That means you need to alwaysbe this mental picture that the
fans see you as.
So, in other words, you can'tbe moving any type of way
anymore.
(37:49):
Like you gotta pretty much fitthe mold for what the fans want
you to be and if you do anythingoutside of what they expect you
to do, then they'll turn on you.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
That's why I think my public figure just like a toy
story, like right the toys andstuff.
So like not just public figure,public action figure.
That's what you are like yousaid.
You can't move how you want toas soon as the people come
around you.
You got to go back to beingyour toy.
You can't be who you are nomore.
You got to be who you arebehind the scenes.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Right, I like that, I like that.
That's the whole thing is likey'all treating.
See, that's the funny thingabout people in general how
we're all human beings but wetreat each other like either
we're less than human orsuperhuman.
We never look at each otherlike we're just human, like yes,
(38:46):
you may be capable, but youalso have limitations.
People don't have that kind ofempathy.
It's almost like empathy is arare skill nowadays.
It's like an obsolete,endangered skill nowadays when
people don't Like the few peopleas folks that could fuck up if
they Could possibly fuck up, orthey could bounce back if you
(39:08):
give them a chance To bounceback.
But nah, it's like you gottafit that mold, you gotta fit
that framework, otherwise wedon't want to fuck with you
anymore.
It's like Crazy how unforgivingpeople can be.
And this leads to my last pointand honestly, we can just cut
it off right there.
(39:28):
For the longest time ever sinceI was a little kid, I keep
hearing that famous line life isunfair.
I don't believe that.
I believe life can be fair, butit wasn't until I grew up,
until I realized life can befair.
But it wasn't until I grew upuntil I realized life is fair.
People are unfair Because,think about it, we're the ones
(39:52):
that mainly run shit on thisplanet, right?
So you got all these differentpeople mistreating you, treating
you dirty and whatnot, andwe're just supposed to accept
that treatment, right?
We're just supposed to be coolwith it.
We're supposed to be stoic,right, like normally.
Yeah, you're supposed to standup for yourself, but usually
people act like, oh, you bugging.
Now that you're standing up foryourself, who the fuck?
(40:14):
You think you are havingstandards and boundaries?
And that's just the thing.
Like, people want to manipulate, lie, cheat, steal, kill,
destroy all the other shit, andthey just expect you to turn a
blind eye to all that shit.
They just don't expect you tocall them out on that, and if
you don't do that, that meansthey don't feel any
(40:36):
accountability to change whothey are.
Therefore, they're gonna goingto keep doing what they're doing
Until they destroy themselvesAlmost what happened With David
Ruffin, where he Think he wasuntouchable, like I said before,
until he started destroyinghimself.
(40:58):
I dare say that it isn't.
That life is unfair.
I think people Are unfair toeach other and to themselves, so
that's why I said we gotta dobetter as far as making sure
(41:18):
that we keep our egos in check.
But also we need to make surethat we tell folks hey, bro,
like you need to chill out, bro,because you kind of going off
the rails and, uh, we're justtrying to help you and all that.
But, um, aside from that, yeah,like I said earlier, like don't
let the fame and the money getto your head because once again
(41:41):
you let your guard down and youstart slipping, you start
destroying yourself, so don't dothat okay, I mentioned one
quick thing before we close outis about, like the previous one
that you mentioned aboutsympathy, about empathy sorry,
about empathy.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
But also the main thing is I know a lot of people
don't know the differencebetween sympathy and empathy and
this would be something that'smore easily touched based on
with Callie, so hopefully, youknow, we get an opportunity to
really talk about it with her atanother time, at a later time
but the difference betweensympathy and empathy, oh, we're
definitely doing that for thefatherhood episode.
Oh, bad, bad, bad.
So difference between sympathyand empathy Sympathy is I don't
(42:22):
know what you're going through,but I feel bad that it's
happening to you, right.
So you hear a lot of peopletalk about I don't want your
sympathy, I don't want sympathy.
It's true, a lot of peopledon't want sympathy.
I don't want you feeling badfor me.
You don't know what I'm dealingwith, so just give me my space.
You can't actually help me, butyou could be there for me.
There aren't good forms ofsympathy, but most people reject
(42:45):
it so much.
It's like you don't know whatI've been through.
They don't have to know whatyou've been through to show you
that they care.
There is a form of sympathy toshow that you care.
Some people don't really showthat.
That's not sympathy, that'sjust feeling sorry for you.
There is a difference into it,exactly because the thing about
it is it's like no, I don't wantyour pity, but I would accept
(43:06):
sympathy, because sympathy meansthat you actually care.
Empathy is I have been whatyou've been through, even if
it's not exact.
I've been through what you'vebeen through and this is how I
made it through.
Let me help you out.
And that's where the biggestthing is.
You're right.
A lot of people don't haveempathy, and it's the biggest
thing into.
It is because there's tworeasons.
(43:27):
One, people have not beenthrough stuff but want to lie
about it.
That's a big thing right now.
People always want to say, oh,I did this, I did this, I did
this.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
No, you ain't did jack shit and then you have the
people who've been through whatyou've been through.
But oh, I got out of the money,so can you.
I'm like.
But, bro, like, just becauseyou did it that way doesn't mean
that it should.
I mean, we say that if it ain'tbroke, don't fix it, but
sometimes it's like, bro, likesome things where it's like it
(43:59):
shouldn't, it really shouldn'tbe that way, and yet we keep
entertaining because, oh, that'sjust how it's always been.
Like, say, for instance, when Iwant to say a good example is
whenever you have like teachersor whatnot, you know, like
whenever they've been there fora while, and then the new person
(44:21):
come along and the new personprobably making More than what
the old person does, and theolder person Is going to feel a
little Cheated because, hey yo.
I've been doing this for waylonger.
But Then again the new person.
Oh well, they ain't got nothing.
I mean, I'm sorry, I'm kind ofgoing in a different direction
(44:46):
that I don't even know.
It's even relative, but yeah,like you were saying yeah, like
good.
It kind of felt like I was kindof going off point for a second.
But uh, my point being is thatuh, sometimes people will act
like well, yeah, I've been theretoo, so just you know.
(45:07):
It's like saying yeah, I knowwhat you've been through, but
they're not showing you anyempathy.
In fact, they're showing youapathy to where it's like oh
well, grow up and be a man andwhatnot.
Stop complaining, you bitch.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
But the thing about it is also is that some people
have wound up going through andthey want to fit in, but then
they get called out on it andthen it gets.
Then it becomes bad becauseyou've been called out, but now
you have to prove yourself thatyou've been through it.
Most of you don't expect thatto be the case, and that's where
it becomes that whole.
Oh, you know, I was just tryingto help, I was just trying to
be.
No, he was trying to be fake.
That's what the issue is.
You got called out in thefalsity.
(45:43):
But then there's one last thingabout empathy.
That is one that I, that youand I well, actually, no, all
three of us we have personallyexperienced people doing this
with us.
Some people have been throughbut instead of being empathetic
about your situation and it'snot even that whole moment of
like well, everyone got out.
So you figure out yourself.
It's one of those ones of Isuffered.
(46:03):
So now the world owes me, andthat's the most dangerous,
because those are the people who, like, like I mentioned, they
suffered, but instead of tryingto learn to help out other
people out of those situationsor at least kind of get an
understanding, they're the onesthat were down you for.
So you've been through it, butyou should have been able to
figure this out.
You should have been better.
You know what it happened to metoo.
(46:25):
We're going to go take theworld, we're going to go destroy
the world like this, and theywill destroy the world because
they're hurt, and that's whereit's the biggest issue.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Actually, I like that you brought that up because it
brought up a big issue that I'mhaving with people in general,
to where, whether it's men orwomen, it doesn't matter.
Like, I just hate it when youhave some folks going out the
way to either fuck over everyoneelse or they just pretty much
don't trust people in general,based on what a small few people
(47:05):
did.
Now, granted, like when, likeyou were saying, we dealt with
people like that before, where,oh, I've been hurt before, so
I'm just gonna hurt everybodyelse, yeah, but I it didn't get
to a point where I just lose myfaith in humanity because I just
(47:26):
figure OK with those people inparticular.
All right, it's just thosepeople.
Like I'm just hoping.
Like, oh, not everyone's likethis, right, right, the more
common it's becoming, the morethat's when I'm like, yeah, like
some folks, or people ingeneral, can be kind of fucked
(47:48):
because, like, it didn't takelike a few people for me to
realize how fucked up the worldis.
It took a lot of people, ittook a lot of patience for me to
get to a point where, yeah, I'mkind of done with people, but
I'm not completely done.
I'm, but I'm not completelydone.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
I'm just saying I understand it gets bad, but I
wanted to make sure I had achance At least bring that up To
that point of understanding.
There are some people who are.
There's some people who aresympathetic but they don't know
how to be.
They're trying but they don'treally know the best way In.
They're trying, but they don'treally know the best way in
doing so, which is fine.
There are some cases you cantry to learn.
The main thing is that thereare some situations it's not the
(48:28):
best at, just like WithThanksgiving.
That's not the time to practicewith the macaroni and cheese.
Okay, that's not the time topractice with the potato salad
If you don't know what you'redoing.
Thanksgiving is not that time,bro.
You need to know what you'redoing.
If you don't step back and letpeople who know what they're
doing do what they're supposedto do, so like if somebody's on
the verge of.
Hey man who made this potatosalad.
(48:49):
If somebody is on the verge ofwanting to hurt themselves or
hurting somebody else, if youdon't really know what to do,
let a professional handle it.
Direct them to the right wayinto it.
Sometimes you may have to stepin for a moment to try to be
that person that immediatelystops them, but get them to
somebody who will actually beable to do something.
Don't assume you have fixed thesituation.
A lot of times you can wind upmaking it worse.
(49:11):
Let a real professional handleif you don't know what to do.
Or speak to a professional tofigure out how you can help out
your friends and family.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
One of those questions those applications,
those online job applications.
If your co-worker was having aproblem, how would you handle
that?
Speaker 2 (49:31):
It ain't my job to do so.
That's the whole point ofhaving an HR department.
They are specifically trainedto handle that.
That's the whole point ofhaving counseling.
They're specifically trained tohandle that.
So I'm just saying, yeah, Ihate when jobs be asked the
question, but for reals though,it's going to be that moment of
like let the trainedprofessionals handle what needs
(49:52):
to be handled type of thing.
It's okay to help out yourfriend, it's okay to point in
the right direction, it's okayto try to do little things to
benefit and assist, but don'tassume you can handle a
situation if you've never doneit before.
Please don't, because, like Isaid, nine times out of ten, you
can make that situation wayworse and you never know that.
That's what happened.
You have that moment thatyou're like.
(50:12):
I just spoke to them on thephone last night.
They seemed like they was doingbetter.
They probably was doing betterenough to get you up to stop
talking to them.
It may not have been a oh Ihate you type thing or I'm angry
with you type of thing.
It couldn't even be that, butthey were just waiting for you
to get off the phone becausethey probably was ready to
decide that this is what we'regoing to do and you tried your
(50:33):
best.
It just didn't work.
It's not on you, but direct toprofessionals, because some
people they're trained to handlethese type of situations to
prevent it from getting worse.
Help out the other people.
That's one of the best ways ofbeing sympathetic.
Being sympathetic is I don'tknow what you're going through,
but I'm going to help you findthe right help.
I don't know what you're goingthrough, but I'm going to help
(50:54):
you find the right help.
I don't know what you're goingthrough, but I'm going to direct
you to somebody who might knowbetter, might actually know Type
of thing.
And that's what we need in thisworld.
There's not going to be a lotof empathy.
There's not going to be.
Not everybody's going throughthe same struggle that we're
going through.
There's people going throughsimilar and they can help with
their empathy, but noteverybody's going through the
same stuff.
Accept some sympathy, butunderstand how to give sympathy.
(51:16):
But that's what I got.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
Yeah, like because crazy enough, like, once again
not saying any names, but let'sjust say that I dealt with
coworkers where it just seemedlike they'd be hearing different
problems that other folks behaving, and I honestly try not
to pay attention to or to theirconversations because me
personally, I'm just at the job,just trying to do my job.
(51:43):
But you know some folks theywant to yap and yap and I'm just
standing right here so I'm like, yes, I'll just listen, but I'm
not going to say anything, I'lljust listen.
I'm not here to judge, I'm hereto.
I'm not going to judge, I'mjust here to listen.
You know, I'm saying uh, butpoint being that, um, sometimes
we listen and we do judge but uh, I'm judging mentally.
(52:09):
I'm mentally judging you because, uh, I'm like I ain't trying to
jeopardize my job over mecrashing out over an opinion.
But my whole thing is thatsometimes the way they be
viewing people who may be goingthrough shit is like it would
(52:30):
seem like they have somesympathy, but at the same time
it's like they don't.
It's like I feel like they havefaith and sympathy to where
it's like you say that you kindof understand, but the way you
handle it just kind of feels alittle careless.
Like once again, it's one ofthose things where, okay, okay,
(52:53):
I can kind of understand whereyou're coming from, but you need
to stop acting bitch made.
I mean, that's not their exactwords, but that's the gist of it
and I'm like, hey, bro, likelook, sometimes, if you know how
they say, if you don't haveanything nice to say, don't say
anything at all.
Like I don't know if I would Gothat far.
(53:19):
I mean I kind of get it, but atthe same time, first of all,
like sometimes Not all Thingsthat need to be said, it's going
to be nice.
Like that's why I say SometimesI would rather hurt your
feelings with the truth than toentertain you with lies Because,
honestly, the truth is thetruth, but anybody can just make
(53:44):
up lies just to feed yourdelusion.
But that's beside the point.
Point being is that, bro,sometimes I hear these
conversations and I feel like,just like you said, kokiasu,
sometimes, hey bro, like if youain't really got nothing better
to say than that, you werebetter off just shutting the
(54:05):
fuck up.
I'm gonna be honest with you.
Like, sometimes you're justbetter off just saying nothing
than saying the wrong thingsometimes.
But that's just me.
Tuck, you have anything youwant to add on to all this?
Speaker 3 (54:24):
I just want to say God is good.
That's all I want to say.
True I ain't got nothing elseto add on it.
I think I made fair pointsacross For both.
But music is iconic, no matterwhat kind of medium or what kind
of entity you in, just enjoythe music, man.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
Real quick for all those people that were listening
, our fellow black folk, if youwind up saying All the time, yes
, all the time, god is good.
I just wanted to make sure wefinish up that candle back and
forth.
I'm not gonna leave you hanginglike that.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
All right you yeah, and all the time.
God is good.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
Amen, amen again oh, shit, uh, my bad, I thought good
guys had more to say, but yeah,that's all we had to say on
Clash of 3000 Temptations.
Take away from all of this isKeep your egos in check, have an
(55:24):
exit strategy in mind For anyambition that you pursue.
And also, come on, y'all, bemore human.
Like People be going throughshit, like we got enough
assholes running around, uh,making us feel worse, like don't
be part of the problem.
See, that's the main thing.
(55:44):
Like I may not be perfect, butI refuse to be part of the
problem.
That's my thing with that being, I'm going to go ahead and
close this one out.
Y'all.
Go ahead and have yourself agood morning, good afternoon,
good evening and good night.
Take it easy on yourselves,stay nerdy and remember that
(56:05):
great things are coming.
Oh, yeah.
Our merch store.
It is opening up on the 1st asplanned.
We got the merch listed andeverything, so check us out at
zonealliancecom.
But yeah, we're going to try tomake things happen On Patreon,
on Instagram, twitter, facebook,trying to work on a YouTube
(56:28):
channel.
We just need to get the peopleorganized and ready to actually
make things happen.
But until the next episode,y'all go ahead and enjoy
yourselves.
We're out.
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