“Raised By Wolves” Live Audience Episode (Cavario; DonDiva; Street Culture; Dr. Umar; Martin Revisited; Hip Hop Origins; American Gangster))

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
When you grow up in a fully blown criminal organization, you
know family. It's not.
The rate of development is not normal at all.
If you. Come from a regular home.
You can't fathom what the fuck I'm experiencing.
Yeah, you can't fathom it. You can live on the same floor.

(00:23):
Yeah. In the same building, on the
same block. But when I go in the house,
yeah, I see things and hear things you don't see in here,
especially back then. And there was no music genre
that could give you an even a hint or an inkling about what
this existence is about. What do you all set on?

(00:43):
What do you want packed up? What do you want out of you
over? What are you over?
I'm all set. Hold up, hold.
Up. Hold up, Hold up, Hold up.
We all set, Yeah. Hold up.
We all set. Yeah.

(01:28):
To discuss. And how about we turn right to
Dutch? You know why it seems so.
It takes us. You don't talk about drama.
And what's his name and how? What's his name?
Got another comma. We talk everything about music,
even Dawn. That's why.
That's how our people got into your home.
What? We hit the bill too.

(01:48):
Yeah, I know. We appreciate everybody.
Want to check it too? You already know.
Hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up, we.
All set. Yeah, Hold up.
We yo-yo set yo. Ain't nothing free.
We just trying to get done. You can hear me good.
Hello yo. Appreciate everybody for coming.

(02:12):
You know, we put our heart into this shit.
We put our blood into soul into this shit.
Thank you for pulling up. You already know it's the first
of many. You're going to be cooking up,
whipping up. You know what I'm saying?
Free one. Tell us.
Tell us how we started this shit, man.
I'd like to give *** a little background before they get into
it to be honest. Me and bro, we went to
Morehouse, both from up top Jersey, New York.

(02:33):
Long story short, bro came home.We used to always argue in a
group chat. *** just felt like, you know, the base had a little
bit more in depth than the usualdialogue that was going on.
One thing turned to another. One of the original members was
down. She and the she in the audience
right now. Shout out to Kayla.
What's up Kayla Taka? It was good.

(02:56):
Somebody, somebody in the chat said, yo, y'all should, y'all
should start a podcast. And I was like, yo, I ain't
going front. That sound alright, You know
what I'm saying? Like you say, like yo, you
should like when I was young, they were like, yo, you should
have hosted the party or you should have, you should you had
a voice, you could have been on radio.
I'm like, you know what, maybe they should need to be heard,
man. Just start, start this joint up,

(03:17):
man, You know what I'm saying? We've been doing this shit for
like what, 6 years now? Six years.
Six years. We, we.
I think this is episode 196 for sure.
Yeah. Independent.
Independent. I mean, it's funded, you know
what I mean? We put out, this is our bread.

(03:38):
We putting up a lot of blood, sweat and tears.
We're not, We're not. Our speech isn't compromised.
Ain't nobody paid us to say shit, you know what I'm saying?
Unlike your favorites, you know what I'm saying?
Top 10 now. Oh yeah, yeah, we top ten in the
streets. Yeah, we top ten in the streets

(03:58):
for sure. I don't even know.
We definitely top ten in the streets.
I don't even know what website that was that gave us, gave us
some ranking. We got sent some shit was like
yo, top 100 Black culture podcast.
I think they rated us like #9 or8 or some shit, I can't
remember. But yeah, we doing good man.
Life is good. Yeah, We're the people's podcast
man. You know what I mean?
Podcast. You know what I'm saying?

(04:20):
If y'all want a yummy donate, throw some to the guys, cash
that right there to Zell right there.
Yeah, B, we showed we, I wanted to do this live shit to show
everybody how we really cook up and how we really nice at this
shit. I think we really, really
talented *** and we about to show y'all some shit.
Tell them about the live mic. Tell them how we doing the live
mic. Oh yeah.
Oh shit, all right, boom. So the mic right here is for the

(04:42):
crowd. If you got something to say, if
you got what's up, a question oryou just got to comment, you
want to chime in, whatever it may be, come down to the mic and
get your shit off. Don't just yell from the crowd
because pause, Don't yell from the crowd because you're not
going to come up on the audio when we put it out.
It's not it's going to sound crazy.
So come down to the mic when we acknowledge you don't just run

(05:03):
down the screen, but when we acknowledge you like yo say your
piece, you know I mean get on get on, get in the loop.
You are going to be on the Internet.
You know what I'm saying? So everybody that's always
talking to me talking shit aboutwanting to get on the show blah
blah. Here's your chance get busy.
We got a special guest man Tell them about a Kavario on the
building. We got me brother, the big

(05:23):
homie, the OG Kavario's in the building.
What are the I don't, I don't know how old y'all is, but you
heard of Don Diva heard of Don Diva magazine?
He can't he he one of the founders, one of the main
writers interviewed all the elite, the legendary hustler ***
When we we wasn't, we was alwayslike high school or someone

(05:43):
super lit. He contributed to a lot though
Hip hop weekly. Now he did a lot hip hop weekly.
He wrote like, but he said wrotelike 1000 books, wrote a couple.
He wrote mad *** autobiographies.
He he, he he he's the inspiration for Noriega's first
album. Melvin Flint, the Hustler.
You know what I'm saying? Like legendary, legendary OG.
Go get him. Let me go get your boy Barrio.

(06:03):
Come out here real quick, man. Come talk to you, man.
My man. They call her.
They call her. They call him the mob Plug.
He all you do is read books. Yo, what's *** man?
Smart watch this shit. Where is 1 Fabario on the
checking? Hello.
What's survives? It's good Brody, where your mic

(06:27):
at? Pass that mic for him bro.
Hello. OK.
We in the building, how's everybody doing?
Excellent. Thank you.
Thank you for coming. Thank you for supporting.
You understand? This is great.
I don't know a lot about. We're all set.
I was introduced to you guys about.

(06:50):
Three months ago, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Something like that. Yeah, who was that albino?
Nah, JB, JB. Yeah, JB introduces.
That's right, JB introduces. So when I got onto your page and
saw what you guys were talking about, I was like, I like the
fact that you have some young melanated brothers who are in
the culture but who are not being stereotypical of their

(07:14):
focus and the concentration likethis.
I need to be seen. I don't care what I got to say
or do, be seen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that shit.
Is destroying the fact of our culture bro, that's a fact.
So give us a quick biography, tell them where you from, how
you came about things of that nature, what's your origins are.
OK, you can go into like non diva and things of that nature,

(07:35):
but we want to start from where you from.
OK, so I'm originally from Harlem, New York.
So when I say Harlem, New York, a lot of times if I'm not
talking to an audience or peoplethat are at least born in the
80s, sometime, whatever, whatever, they don't really.
Even if you're born in the 80s, you probably really wouldn't

(07:58):
have an idea what I'm talking about, you know?
But the Harlem I'm from is the Harlem that gave way to American
gangster. OK, You know what I mean?
Like the movie like that. I come.
That's where I'm from. I'm from 115th St. between 7th
and 8th Ave. My family was a major drug
dynasty. My mother, my father were

(08:19):
gangsters and, and you know, professionals in, in, in an
organized criminal, you know, family.
And that's where I grew up in. So I grew up as what you would
call a ghetto Prince you. Know.
Grow up with millions of dollars.
You know Superfly kid, you know,very spoiled, very indulged, you
know, lots of liberties and freedoms.

(08:40):
Very, very dysfunctional shit. Very dysfunctional shit.
For real, for real, you know, But it, it, it made me who I was
because I was able to survive it.
That's what I wanted to. So you survived Harlem was
getting a bunch of money, lost alot of friends, death, jail,
violence. Tell us a little bit about the

(09:01):
transition, how you went from that to like, starting up Don
Diva and like what was the real inspiration behind that?
Well, the inspiration for Don Diva, once it came about,
because it wasn't as though it were a conscious intent.
I was I retired from the streetsin 1997.

(09:23):
OK. I started in 1980 so I had a 17
and a. Half I want to hit so when you
say you retire, like do you justso would you just be like, yo
like call the plug and tell themdon't call me no more like how
like how does that work like yeah, from the drug gang.
Yeah, I always like, how do you do that, like.
I know. It's crazy that as long as I've
been sharing that with people, nobody's ever asked me that.
I'm just saying like, how does that work?

(09:45):
So my, in my crew, my, my familywas what I operated.
Well, I operated with my family,right.
And then in 95, the head of my family got popped, right.
So of course, you know, had to get low, whatever, whatever.
But I'm still in the street. So I had a crew independent of

(10:06):
my family. Yeah, called sex, money and
murder. OK, right.
You talking about sex money for that?
Sex, money, murder. We are sex money, murder.
We are the real, actual sex money.
Murder. OK.
If you if you from up top of NewYork, you probably heard of that
before. Say again.
Said the world small, but I saidif you're from New York, you
probably heard of sex, money, murder.

(10:26):
But continue. Right, all right, so a lot of
people may have heard of sex, money, murder by way of a blood
gang affiliation all. Right.
Prior to the Blood Gang affiliation, which came about it
as a result of our younger brother Pete going to jail and
meeting up with a little homie in mind named Omar, who people

(10:48):
call OG Mac, right? They're on Rikers Island and OG
Mac had gotten into this blood thing and he was on Rikers
Island spreading it like COVID. And so Pete was there for a
murder that he was being chargedwith and he watched Pete move,

(11:08):
watch how he acted with people, whatever.
And he say, Yo, I want to get you down with what I'm doing.
People's like, I can't do that. Or you got a fam?
You know, my, my family's calledsex, money and murder.
Now sex, money and murder. We are, you know, I'm from
Harlem, but I grew up in the Bronx as well.
All right. So I all the guys that are the

(11:28):
foundation of sex, money and murder.
We're all, we're all, you know, drug bosses.
We're all bosses in our own right.
And we came together to create sex money.
That's where sex money money comes from, right?
Bronx guys, right? St. guys, hustlers, headbangers,
not gang bangers, right? So Pete was that, and he was

(11:50):
young, so when he got into this thing, it was like a youth
movement. So he just attached our brand,
which was well established before this.
Well established, but in the drug world, right.
So we're already across the country strong.
Yeah, that's just crazy out hereright now.
But that's the gang. Shit, yeah, young ***

(12:12):
rollacking. Yeah, we were that.
We were that. And he's the little homie.
Pete's the, you know, he, he hadhis own squad of young homies.
Whatever, whatever. We're all, we're all, we're all
10 years older than Pete. Yeah, that's crazy.
Look at him like God now. They're looking at him like God
now. Yeah, it's, it's a sick society,
brother. It's a sick society because
there's no reason he he wouldn'twant that.

(12:33):
But he's in the most isolated cell in the most restrictive
prison in the world. That's nasty.
ADX and he's in the most restrictive of it's a 24 hour 7
day a week lockdown. They rolled the shower up to
your door. Oh God.
They rolled the shower up to your door, right?
The Unabomber is in there. Oh yeah.

(12:56):
The first guy that they. Playing the Unabomber.
Huh. I don't be nowhere near the
Unabomber. That's great.
Well, Ted Kaczynski is not as ina restrictive situation as Pete
is. That's great.
That's how afraid of Pete's influence they are.
Yeah. You did so sex money.
Sex money, right so we, you know, we rocking whatever it is

(13:16):
to any other and at this point, you know, I I I did I was in I
was in did. You ever go to jail?
You never went to jail. You escaped.
That the first time I went to jail was in 2007 when they paid
me, Grandmaster Kaz and Grandmaster Mellie Mel, to come
and speak it right out right as.Out.
Prior to that, I had no interestin jail.

(13:37):
This message, just speaking, they gave me.
No, that's it. Clap it up for that.
Even being stereotypical, that'swhat I wasn't interested in the
stereotypical behavior. But see, the difference between
my outcome and the outcome of the majority of my peers is that
unlike them, I wasn't an accident of my geography.
I'm a direct result and intention of the criminal

(14:00):
organization that I was born into.
It wasn't like, you know, I was a kid from a, you know, mommy's
a nurse, daddy's a mechanic and and I'm outside and they're
working as I get involved with the bad people.
I come from the bad people. I'm a genetically engineered
gangster. Like I was made this way on
fucking purpose, so, Or that waybecause I've evolved far beyond

(14:21):
that so. You got the question.
Hold on, hold on. Come down to the mic.
Yeah, You got to come down to the mic.
Yeah, I want to go see that. So so this this is going to be
quick. I just wanted to say to talk
into the mic because I don't know we can hear y'all, because
we in the room, but I don't know.
I don't know what it's going to sound like, Right, right, right.

(14:44):
I did hear the difference when Igot you.
Y'all talk with your hands? Right.
Right, right, Might go all over the place, y'all.
I got you you. Know *** going nigg baby, we
can't help it. *** going nigg, we can't help it man either We
move with the vibe because I'm really used to having the mic
that just just be right. Here, Yeah, this is a this is a
very dope set up and I anticipate that this is going to

(15:08):
catch. On it's a good joint.
I'm cuffing this joint. I'm not letting I'm.
I'm have to holler at home. Let me get this joint.
Yeah, yeah. I strongly suggest.
That I'm I'm hating *** can't get this spot.
Yeah, I strongly suggest that real for real.
Can't get this joint man real I'm locking it up be I'm just
I'm just booking it for no reason.
I'm not even have no event I'm just I'm just going to block off

(15:28):
3 weeks on *** like Nah like hotsummer now block this shit off
*** *** is dead. It is dope.
It is dope. So origins let me let me access
specific that that question, right, Yeah.
Because I want to know how to doso.
So, you know, sex money is, you know, we're all over the place.
Whatever I'm, I'm operating in at this point, I'm operating in

(15:52):
North Carolina. My base is Winston, South
Carolina, Winston, Winston Salem.
OK. And so I'm Winston Salem,
Greensboro, High Point, Raleigh,Durham, Charlotte.
You know I'm real pariah all over.

(16:13):
The place with this poison, right?
And but I don't know anything else.
You know what? I'm.
Saying like I literally don't know anything else.
I I never did anything else in my life.
That was all I ever did, right? I hit the street.
I was, I was outside. I mean, I was outside 1011 years
old. You know what I'm saying?
I'm smoking, drinking, screwing,sniffing cocaine, you know,
carrying guns, the whole 9. I'm 11:10, 11-12 years.

(16:35):
Old. That's crazy, feel me.
So absolutely nuts. Absolutely.
Insane, insane. Right.
So, you know, we're in Winston and you know, we operate near
whatever this any other. And it's like this is like, you
know, I'm 1615 1/2 years in at this point, you know, and you
know, the cars, the jewelry, theclothes, the furs, the trips to

(16:58):
go, I'm doing it all. I've done it all.
So for me, it's just it's just life.
You know, I'm not going out and doing the hey, look at me night,
every night, dance, whatever. I didn't give her about none of
that. It was getting money going in
the house. It's just normal, normal shit
and the the things that I was doing at that point had a lot to
do with my mother's death. I don't think that there's a

(17:20):
Kevara that retires from the street if there's not a Kevara
that loses his mother. So what year was that?
Condolences as well. You lost your mother.
I lost my mother in 94. I was 26 years.
Old OK. And when I took that loss, it,
it had a profound impact on me, especially considering I had

(17:41):
buried so many people. You know, I've been buried
people since I was a little kid.My best friend got killed when I
was 8 or so and he was like 9, you know, and it's the kid I was
with every day, you know what I mean?
And then you know, every so manypeople are.
That's the life you know. And when you and when you
making, when there's millions and millions and millions of

(18:02):
dollars involved, people get killed.
You know that's real. There's nothing I I guess it can
be sexy. If you don't really know what
the fuck is going on, it can seem sexy.
You see the cars and the flash and all that and you don't know
that is it. This look real nice, but my best
friend is in the fucking trunk. I'm trying to find some place to
put the body, you know what I mean?
Because half wasn't enough type shit and that was a norm.

(18:24):
It's not hyperbole. This is not rap.
I'm not a rapper. This is reality.
Rappers have twisted this reality and made it into this
sick fucking poison that is justdestroyed our fucking society.
It really has, and I was there from its inception.
Rap. I know what it started out.
I know how it turned into what it turned to.
It is completely weaponized. Absolutely.

(18:46):
So you know, this, this point inmy life, I've lost my mother and
I'm, I'm really like, I'm reeling, bro.
I'm reeling. You know, I'm, I'm aggressive,
like more aggressive than normal.
And I was a hyper aggressive person.
I'm more aggressive than normal.I know that I'm on the cusp of

(19:09):
losing myself, you know, Like points of evolution that I had
reached, I had. Now I'm starting to de evolve,
you know? I'm starting to drag my knuckles
and froth at the fucking mouth, you know?
What I mean? And I'm like, I, I, this is not
what she would want. She would not want me to lose
myself, right? So I I started reading, all
right, So in the reading, I started finding questions,

(19:31):
answers the questions that I hadasked at some point, like a lot
of us do. A lot of people go yo, man, I
don't know what the fuck man, yo, I'll be.
Like doing shit man. Like, just tell me what the
fuck, I don't live and did that shit, you know?
Or you know, why, why is this And why do people do that?
Whatever, whatever. And they ask these questions,
these critical questions, these intuitive questions, but they

(19:53):
never seem to go through the trouble of actually seeking the
answers. You know, I think that a lot of
very smart people have been caught up in the street.
They're smart, but they're ignorant.
They're smart, but they don't know anything, right?
So it's not enough to say something's wrong.

(20:13):
And they start asking these questions about what's wrong,
but they aren't knowledgeable enough to know that the answers
to those questions exist. You just have to step outside of
the limits of your normal interactions and seek them.
And that's what I did. I started reading.
Reading led to me having realization.

(20:35):
You say that again because reading.
Reading changed my life. Reading saved my life.
Reading has saved my Reading saved not only my life, it saved
many other people's lives. Me reading, me reading because.
Me reading. Yeah, I.
Said don't let that go over your.
Head exactly what is understood need not be said.

(20:57):
So when I began to read these books, the first thing I the
first thing I read was Monster Boston.
You can Shakur and what that didthat was in 95 S what that did
was it planted the seed of my life is valid enough that I can

(21:17):
write about it. If that was something I wanted
to do. Because here this guy was
writing about his life as a gang, as a gang banger, you
know, in a in a in a general malcontent.
You feel me? Like, you know, like that gang
banging shit is one of the worstfucking cultures in existence.
It started out as something elsea very fucking long time ago,
yeah, but it has since become something so destructive and

(21:42):
sucked up so many lives and destroyed so many communities
and so many great people that never got to be, you know?
And so when I saw that this guy had been one of the worst of the
worst, right, Master Cody's one of the worst and worst.
In the culture. Right.
And I saw that he could write about his life, and he wrote
about it intelligently, you know?

(22:04):
And I took he joined too. Right.
You know, so it kind of planted a seed, but I'm deep in the
street. I'm not really thinking about
when it's saying or how I'm feeling about it.
Uh oh, Somebody bust the head. So.
So when I read that, they kind of opened me up.

(22:24):
Yeah. And then I read Facing
Codependence, a book about codependence.
So who's that by? Does anybody want to write that
down? I don't remember the name even
though I still have that very book.
Facing codependence that was going to add that to your
library. I know a couple of times that
need that book. That physical That physical

(22:45):
copy. Still, I know a couple shorties
that need that book for sure. Facing codependence it it gave
me some insights into the under the like the the dynamics
between our interpersonal interaction, interpersonal being
the conversation we have with ourselves right and our
interpersonal dynamics, the conversations we have with

(23:07):
others, those who are in our most immediate space right.
So and and that's that's the makeup of us.
You don't you like everything wedo is driven by what we are
saying to ourselves about ourselves in our own head.
And then what we are getting from our immediate environment,
our immediate, you know, circle.You know this is what comprises

(23:27):
our sense of identity. That's this how it works, but
how a *** running around the street with two guns selling
tons of drugs is going to figurethat the fuck out other than
opening a book, I have no idea right.
So when I I read that in readingthat it mentioned another book.
So I said, well, I need to get that book.

(23:47):
So I, I, well, actually, I told my girl, you know, give me, she
gave me the first two books. I said, you know what, what,
what about this book right here,get that book, get that book for
me. And she got that book.
I think that one was women who love too much that was.
She would slide that in there. Women who love too much.

(24:08):
Now, she read these books beforeme.
She would read them and then shewould give them to me, right?
And but I'm a very practical person.
So if I come into contact with some information, which is one
of the reasons that I was able to survive the life the way I
was able to survive the life. And I did everything under the
sun. I held no punches.
I was a block bomber. I'm the motherfucker that came

(24:29):
into your neighborhood and took it the fuck over.
Yeah. You know, so but I was also a
person who who was able to adapt, adapted.
I was, I was highly adaptable. I was able to get into a
circumstance and kind of, you know, meld into that.
So it's not so much to be an outside kind of influence, a

(24:52):
disruptor, you know? And then I brought something
unique and valuable to it. That.
Made people receptive to me. So it was you started your
reading. It got real intense.
Right. So the reading, the reading, the
reading led to just more fuckingreading.
The more I read, the more I understood about my own choices,
about my own behaviors, about the developmental circumstances

(25:14):
of my people. So let me ask you why you're
doing this reading you're gaining more intelligence when
was like the cut off like I I'm done with the drugs.
I'm I'm this is I think I want. To it was it was a, it was a a
gradual process because before Idid that, I became monogamous.
Talk to us about that. What?
What made you decide like I'm good with one woman?

(25:36):
How did that come about? One I I was, I was a very
spoiled kid. Right, all right.
I was accustomed to, you know, women responding to me and, and,
and always expressing a belief in me.
And one day my girl said to me, you can't be A1 girl.

(25:59):
And she said it in a way like she really believed I couldn't
do it. I'd never.
Experienced a woman. Telling me I couldn't do
something like expressing to me that she didn't believe I had
the ability. I never heard it hit me a
different kind of way. I was like, what do you mean I
can't do it? Like, like, I'm not Joe the boss
of me. I can do whatever the fuck I
want to do. Yeah.
You do me so and up until that point I did whatever the fuck I

(26:20):
wanted. So she mind trick backward mind
tricked you into. That's what it sounds like,
reverse psychology. Know you know this this and this
is a funny thing. How that, how that, how that
trick, How that if, if it were atrick like she said it because
she really didn't believe it. She actually didn't believe that

(26:43):
I could not mess with a multitude.
And how old were you when you decided this is a one woman man?
I became monogamist November 10th, 1995.
South mid 90s Was was was reallylike a transitional period for
you? Heavy.
Heavy. I became, I became vegan in 90,

(27:04):
91, right? Total fucking accident.
Just got tired of eating steaks and burgers and just was like,
I'm not going to do it today. I'm not going to do it today.
And after about 90 days, it was like, yeah, I can't do it
anymore. Like I physically couldn't do it
anymore. But something started changing
in me. I didn't recognize that if it
hadn't been for me becoming vegan, I don't think I would

(27:27):
have had the level of clarity because of that shit.
Really, all the shit they put into these foods and it really
fucks you up. It really, really fucks you up.
Those chemicals are not supposedto be in you.
So I believe that that's what, you know, what made me more
pliable in terms of being open. Trying some new.
Trying other things, trying new things, right?

(27:47):
So my mother's death was obviously a major catalyst that
drove me deep into myself, that led to me being receptive to
because at this point, you know,I'm, I'm reaching for something,
you know, because my God has gone.
My mother was my God. She was my OG.
She was my big homie. She was my God.

(28:09):
She taught me everything about being a man, everything about
being a father, everything aboutbeing a gangster, everything you
understand? So when I lost her, I lost my
footing, my tether, my connection, right?
And I had to find that for myself.
And there was something in me, something that was determined to

(28:29):
survive. OK, all right.
And that is what led me to beingreceptive to that first book.
And that first book led to that second one.
That second one led to that. And with each book, I was
evolving. I was growing.
I was expanding. My perspective was expanding.
Right now, meanwhile, I'm still running with the leanest,
meanest, most detrimental fucking crude drug dealers in

(28:52):
this fucking country at that time.
That's a fact. That's a fucking undeniable
stacks of history. They call them *** that they.
Know about sex, money, murder the the crew?
Then you know that the gang shitdoesn't even compare.
The gang shit is just a bunch oflost little boys, each
generation younger than the other, killing one another out

(29:15):
of mindlessness. We were an organized force of
money making, hardcore cold blooded motherfuckers about our
businessman. You know what I mean?
And when I'm in this space as a daily existence, but I tap out

(29:36):
of it to sit and read for 2-3 hours.
Four. Hours a day, every day.
Yeah. Right.
And this shit is changing me. It's evolving me.
And the monogamist book, The Monogamist Move came out of
reading women who love too much.Yeah, right.
And when I read Women Who Love Too Much, I've given that book
to like 15 people. It changed their lives as well.

(29:58):
Yeah, the only one person I gaveit to.
And it was like, I don't get it.Only one.
Only one. Only one.
So. But but she's she's a good
person anyway, but I just wantedher to be able to make.
Choices. But you know, when when I read
that book, what it helped me to understand was that there were

(30:18):
some early experiences that I had had that weren't even
registering anymore. Yeah.
And it took me years to figure out what the specific incident
was. Years after reading the book,
years after. But I knew that I was operating
out of fear when I was dealing with all these different women.

(30:39):
I was operating out of fear. Yeah.
Out of the fear of any one womanmeaning so much to me that she
could hurt me. So if I got.
I had when I became monogamist. The day that day on in November
10th 1998, I had to call 11 women in relationship 11 women.

(31:03):
How many again? 11.
You. Know I look at somebody like
that now and I feel true sorrow for.
Them. No, that's too much.
I feel real. Sorrow.
Like yo, you have no fucking idea how much light you blow in
how much time you blow. In I try to copy that like I try
to cap it like 4-5. November 10th, 1998.

(31:25):
Yes, yes, that's my birthday too.
That's fine. It is shouting November 10th, my
birthday. You three days after me.
That's yourself, Scorpio. OK, I feel that.
So you monogamous, So you retreating from the streets.
So, So, no. So the monogamy thing happened.
First, OK. Right.
I want you to understand that choices are you're.

(31:49):
Everything you are right now, atthis moment is all based upon
the choices, large and small, you've made-up into this.
Absolutely. So if I hadn't become vegan,
then I don't think I would have developed a degree of mental
clarity that enabled me to be able to assimilate the actual
meanings of the things that I was getting out of these books,

(32:11):
right. And because I was able to
understand things like where my behavior came from, I was able
to take control of the behavior because I look at myself as I
always have, as I was raised to as a warrior.
If I'm a warrior, then fear cannot be any aspect of my
reasoning. I can't be doing anything out of

(32:32):
fear, including being with multiple women because I'm I'd
want to avoid. There's some deep seated
psychological thing that wants me to avoid coming into contact
with. I'm so connected to her, so
connected to her, so connected to her that if they do something
they fall short. Then I'm hurt.
Right. I never understood how guys used
to be all messed up about girls when I was coming up.

(32:54):
I never understood that. Like, what the fuck is wrong
with you, *** Fuck, fuck, fuck up, man.
Fuck out of here, man. It's 10,000 little bitches.
Like, I was really like that. Yeah, my Lieutenant when he,
when he told me and he didn't know the word monogamy.
None of us did. None of us had ever heard it,
never seen it demonstrate it. When he said to me, yo, yeah, I,
I don't really, I don't really fuck around with any other girl,

(33:16):
you know, I just fuck with my girl.
Whatever, whatever. I I was physically sick.
I told my mother, I went, I toldmy I said, yo, ma, I said this
thing could talk about. He only got 1 girl.
Got one giant type of nigga's? This you.
Think this *** gay? That's my mother, I said.
You think? You you think?

(33:37):
You think so? I was dead.
Serious. You wouldn't have thought I
could be that fucking stupid. I'm running a multimillion
dollar fucking drug operation, but I'm stupid as fuck.
I literally thought, I don't know, *** that's something kind
of funny about that. Just how?
Sick I was. Right.

(33:57):
So at the point that I recognized that that's why I was
operating out of fear, there wasno more attraction to it.
And I didn't need to prove to her that I can do anything I
want to do. Anything I set my mind to do, I
can do. Yeah, right.
So, you know, I made those calls.

(34:17):
I, in those relationships, whatever, whatever.
I instantly feel this weight lifted off of me.
The weight is lifted off of me because.
You said you made those calls. You just said I'm done.
That was. Called every one of them and
said and ended and yes it was tears on.
Every fucking. Call I'm like, I'm so sorry
baby, I'm this, but this is whatI got to do and I love you and

(34:40):
but this is what I got to do. And my exes whom they're all
still alive, they to this day, Iam like this with every woman
I've been with since I was 13 years old.
All the ones that are still alive, only like maybe 3 have
passed, you know? But like every woman I've been.
With got a serious or your wife and your wife just shrugged that

(35:01):
off. You don't care.
My wife know me since I was 8 years old.
Oh yeah. So she like, oh.
He was 6 and I was. 8:00 You gota serious orbit.
For real, I mean. Women have been a strong part of
it my entire life, starting frommy mother.
So when I got to that point and I made that decision, the
unburdening that came with that,you know what I said?

(35:21):
Why the fuck I didn't do this ten years ago?
If I had done this 10 years ago,Oh my fucking God, I had no
idea. There was no way I would ever go
back to that shit no matter what.
Now this is the thing I feared. I feared as I shared that any if
I was too involved emotionally with one woman and she fell

(35:42):
short and was human and and did something that, you know, I felt
was betrayal to me and it would impact me in a way I want to be
impacted, right. So I when I decided that I was
going to cut these 11, I had 12 relationships.
I had more keys than. A janitor keys on.
My. Ring than a.
Janitor. Hey, what's up, babe?
I've been here two months. I'm looking.

(36:04):
Like I just left the night before, right?
So they're probably watching this, they're going to watch
this at some point going, Yep, that's motherfucker, right.
So when, when I made that decision, it wasn't based upon
the way I felt about the girl who I was, you know, saying this

(36:24):
is who I'm going to be with. I'm calling.
They know this is the girl who lives with me.
This is the girl who holds my children down.
They're not her children. They're my children.
They, she holds them down while I'm running around in the world
getting money and fucking off, right?
So when I decide that she's the one that I'm going to be with,
it's based upon proximity, it's based upon loyalty, right?

(36:48):
It's not really based upon me assessing her as being the
person most suited for the person I'm now becoming, right?
So I've been running that entiretime from this being so
connected that I could be hurt by somebody.
I'm running from somebody falling short.
This woman had been saying to me, why can't you just be with

(37:12):
me and not be with all these other people, Whatever there's
any other right now I'm going totell you a little bit of How I
Met this girl. I met this girl as I was walking
out of the roller skating rink in New Jersey, called the rink
with my girl 2 feet in front of me and she came off the skate
floor skated between us. We walk and we don't took our
skates off, we leave it. She skates off the skate floor,

(37:34):
skates between US and sticks hernumber in my hand and keeps
moving. She's the one saying, why can't
you just be with me, you know, acouple of years later.
Why can't you just be with? Me, whatever.
Whatever. Right.
OK, now the thing about being involved with a guy you know has
multiple women is you're the kind of woman who would be

(37:55):
involved with a guy who has multiple women.
You're. Probably not the kind of woman
who could not be with a guy who has distractions, a guy who
can't really pay particular attention to who you actually
are. So at the point in which that
guy no longer has these distractions and he's just
looking at you now you had a yougot to be whoever you are in

(38:16):
those moments where you have hisattention.
You got to be there 24 hours a day, seven days, a motherfucking
week. She was not that motherfucker.
That's your hard work. Not that motherfucker at all.
And I was. I meant what I was doing.
But I did not become monogamous for her.
So when I found out who she actually was, I didn't go, oh, I

(38:39):
did this for you. I became this guy for you and
you did stand the other night. I didn't do that.
I said, you know what? I'm not going to take what
you're doing personally because when I was doing, I was doing,
it was not fucking personal. It was not personal.
I understood this from reading Women Who Love too much.
I understood that I'm a witness to people's behaviors, whether

(39:00):
they are *** on the street or mygirl.
I'm a witness to your behavior. I'm not the cause of your
behavior. The cause of your behavior is
your genetics. The cause of your behavior is
the people who who raised you, who demonstrated for you.
That's the cause of you or your behavior.
I just happen to be in proximityto you.
But your ego will tell you anything that somebody you're
connected to is doing has something to do with you.

(39:22):
Because if they felt this way about you or thought that way
about you, they wouldn't do that.
Even if they're nature. That's like saying you're that
snake ain't fucking with me. How the fuck you slither it like
that? Because that's what fucking
snakes. Do that's.
What they do, that's their nature, right?
So at the point that I said I'm going to be this person, it had
nothing to do with her. I didn't do it for you.
I didn't do. It for her so when she did

(39:45):
absolutely fucking fall short I was like I get it.
You know, I wish you well. You.
Know I'm going to just keep it pushing but I'm not stopping.
I'm never giving up this. Piece.
So I'm super clear now. I'm super clear now and I'm on
the book. I don't know.

(40:05):
So you reading? Yeah, yeah.
You reading. You book 50, You monogamist.
You want book 50? Yeah.
Bring us, bring us. Bring us a down, Diva.
So oh, OK. It it it.
Didn't happen just like that. But not like that, all right,
so. I'm reading the book, I'm
reading the book. Right, Right.
I'm reading, I'm reading, I'm reading this book called Spirit
of a Man by Ayanla Vanzant. OK.

(40:26):
Shout to Yamla. And I shout to.
Shout the spirit of a man. That book is the book that made
me say I don't want to do this anymore.
I don't need to do this anymore.I don't need to do this.
What year was this? 1997.
So 97 is that, can we say that'slike the the retirement year,
that's the retirement year with the streets.

(40:48):
OK, I didn't have no like this wasn't like a plan, like I'm
going to do this whatever, whatever I get home from
Winston. So like a six hour drive to my
house in Atlanta, right. I had just bought this house
like maybe a year before with with this girl with the going up
I became right. So I get home and you know,

(41:12):
she's she's home and I you know,I usually come in early the
morning. I go crash or whatever.
I don't like to get home until after like 6-7 in the morning,
but it's like to come and kick your doing like. 5.
So I didn't sleep at those times.
I wouldn't even have my clothes off at.
Those times straight like. That that's how fun that life
is. That's.

(41:32):
How much fun that life is that you live like that, right.
So I, I, I come home, I go, I lay down whatever, whatever.
Usually I would lay down for about 5-6 hours, whatever.
I get up like maybe an hour later and I come out, I go in
the kitchen, She's come out the kitchen and I, she says, what's
up, What's wrong? I said, I'm tired.
She goes, So what you want to do?

(41:55):
I'm thinking I want to go lay back down the bed.
But the way she responded to what I said wasn't like she
heard me say I'm tired, I need to go lay down.
It's like she heard me say I'm tired.
I'm fucking. Tired.
I'm done with this shit. Response.
She said what you want to do. When I heard her say what she
said, I felt like my spirit was talking to her and she was

(42:20):
responding to that. And I responded to her response.
I said I want to do this anymore.
That moment right there. I don't want to do this anymore.
That's it, she would say. But what about that brand new
drop top Audi use for me? What about that brand new
Escalade you just got? What about the mortgage?
What about the kids? Cuz she said.
She said. Whatever you want to do, I got

(42:40):
you. So what about that?
I was more, I was more concernedwith my salvation, my mental
salvation. Yeah.
At that point I was so in tune with what was really at risk
that I just nothing else, thank goodness.
Nothing else. No Fear of loss was greater than

(43:04):
the fear of losing my entire self.
Yeah, So what did you have to tell the cartel to just be?
Like so so see y'all. Y'all watch too many?
He wasn't dealing with the cartel.
Don't watch too many movies. Watch too many movies.
You was good. You had to deal with the cartel
deal. With no, no cartel.
It was when when I got into the game, there were no cartels over
here. OK or no cartels wasn't none of

(43:25):
that type of shit at all. That's cartoons, movies, rap.
If it wasn't for rap, motherfuckers wouldn't know none
about none of that type of. Like yo you know what you don't
have to move the millions dollars of work no more like we
we got other *** to move it likethey were cool with you just
being like yo bro. We, we, we don't.
We didn't. We didn't.
We wasn't. We wasn't do boys for
motherfuckers. Or you or you just pass this
shit off to another somebody underneath you and you like yo,

(43:47):
I don't want to, I want to pausethis.
It's amazing. Hold them on 38.
It's it's amazing the perspective of that reality that
your generation has. Yeah, we don't.
It is strictly through. Hip hop hyperbole.
Yeah, he wasn't around. It really, really is.
Yeah. It really is.
It's not reality. That's not fucking.
Reality he wasn't This is the. Reality.

(44:08):
We spent our money, we bought major narcotics and we sold our
fucking narcotics and the motherfucker saw us when they
saw us. I dealt my most entire fucking
career. My my my family is the plug I
got cold. Work dropped.
Yeah, I got to stab you. We got somebody in the audience.
Tell them who you are. What's good is Yogi from Jersey.

(44:31):
I am. Out the Yogi.
What up, brother? What's going on?
Peace. Peace.
So just like Rich said, you pretty much like an employee.
Pretty much right? No, no, that's something that
that's what y'all don't get. Yeah, we didn't operate like
that. So if I'm giving you a whole
bunch of work and. I'm giving us nothing.
We buying work. So explain that.

(44:53):
So how does that work? You get the way we think we.
Brought our work. We give me word.
Our our dope came from the from the the the I guess y'all would
call it. Where did you have to go to get?
Your, you know, Middle East or whatever, whatever.
Yeah, we didn't. Yeah, we.
See that? So that was a.
Party. Favorite dog food?
Yeah, cocaine was a party favorite.

(45:13):
So hold up, that money is not coming in any longer like so?
That's that's that's nothing. It's all good.
Yeah. It's got nothing to do, nothing
to do with nobody. But if I'm a supplier.
What I did was I called my partner.
I called my partner and I said yo, because we would work like
this. I would work for four days and
he would go home and then he would come and I would go home
for four days. And that's how we operate,
right? So I was on my 4 day break.

(45:37):
I called him and said yo, I'm done bro, keep everything.
He goes, yeah, I think I'll see you next month.
I said no, my *** I'm dead serious.
I'm tired so he. Was locked up for 14 1/2 to like
29 or some dumb shit like that. Some some, some no, no, we're
born the same exact day, three minutes apart.

(45:58):
So he and me, me and him grew upfrom like second grade.
So he he was in jail for like 9 1/2 years, right?
The whole 9 them 9 1/2 years. I'm in the fucking street, ***
So I've been in the street for 17 1/2 years.
Yeah. You just been in the street from
a few years before you went to jail and a few years since
you've been home. Yeah, he got way more laps to

(46:19):
run, Yeah. I'm tired.
Yeah, I am tired. And I mean it like I meant that.
But when I said, remember when Itold you I became monogamist?
He said, yeah, I said I mean it like that.
He said oh shit. OK.
What you want to do, I said. I don't know.
I have no idea. I don't know.
I have no idea what I'm going todo.
But I'm going to be still, and I'm gonna let it finally, you

(46:41):
know? Tell me how you came up with the
name Don Diva. Where'd that come from?
So I was on the phone with the my girl, but she's not my girl
at this point. OK.
We started Don Diva two years after we separated.
Oh. Right.
Yeah, that's crazy. And so she called me one day
from this little boutique recordlabel that she was operating for

(47:03):
this older gentleman, Jamaican gentleman named Tyrone, who was
a major, like he was. I'd never heard of a weed
kingpin before him. OK, right.
Major, millions upon millions about this mother fucker making
blood clot money. You hear me?
Right. For real.
So like to give you perspective,when they busted and we finally

(47:24):
figured out, oh, they owned me, they caught him leaving the
country with a pallet with $13 million on it.
Oh Lord, oh Lord, you guys say you want to sit.
What did? What did Troy put on the mat?
How do you? What Detroit put on a map.
ALDI Well, I'm I'm. Detroit, are you saying I'm deep

(47:52):
on the map? I'm deep in the D.
Detroit. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Who? What?
I'm missing something? What Guy put on the map in
Detroit? Do you want to come to the mic?
I put. I put my magazine in Detroit.
I put my. You could come to the mic.
I put it in Detroit. You.
Could come to the mic because they can't hear you.

(48:13):
You gotta come to the mic. Detroit, Detroit is Detroit is
my second. That's my third home.
Chicago's my second home and I, I put it in Detroit, I put in
Detroit. That's my spot.
I fucked with Detroit. They kind of running Detroit.
Oh no. Ain't no doubt about it, ain't.
No doubt about it. We got a documentary coming out.

(48:33):
Me my my man al profit when it. Comes to the money.
The money? Yeah.
No, ain't no doubt about that. You know, I know better than
most. Nobody knew about that.
About what? Oh, you gonna have to.
They can't. You gotta much more expressive.
You gotta come to the mic, gottabe much more expressive than
that, 'cause we can't hear you. You're not gonna come up on.

(48:55):
You're not really. Saying what you're saying.
You're not gonna really come up on this shit.
You're just gonna be like a a face in the background.
If you want if you want to actually be heard though, on the
recording got to come to you. Gotta come to the mic, yeah?
Yeah, but. See the you're not on the
indictment. Don't worry.
Like you just say what you got to say That's.
Just Detroit. No, that's just a Detroit.

(49:15):
That's if she from Detroit. That's the Troy Detroit.
I fucked with that fucking town,boy.
Do you know Detroit in Chicago? Why I'm so connected to that?
Because those places feel like the Harlem I came from.
They like New York. They.
Really like those places now. Competitive.
They super duper competitive. It's like New York the same
shit. See.
But New York ain't what it once was.

(49:36):
No, I mean not. Not at Hell No.
Not now. The New York, I was born in the
60s, raised in the 70s, should Chicago in Detroit, they remind
me of that time in the place I come from, the people there, the
attitude, the energy, it remindsme of that.
That's why I'm so connected to that place.
I prefer those places over New York.

(49:57):
I prefer to be in Chicago and Detroit over New York.
That's right, I said it. I'm a fuck about.
I feel what kind of way about it.
I don't give a fuck. I'm not a fucking rap.
I don't give a God damn. I say what the fuck I want to
say and I'm ready to do it anytime.
Let that be understood. Can you cut to the mic?
I submit you can't be not doing a lot.

(50:18):
You can't do that outburst. Yeah, you got to even.
Come, you want to participate, then you're invited to
participate, but you know. There she go.
There we go. There we go.
Yeah. Come to the mic.

(50:42):
You close enough? She hold on, hold on.
You close to the mic to the mic.Step down.
Step down. It's not.
No half step in. Come on.
It's not lava. There you go.
No, no, you step to that mic. You fuck.
She's definitely from Detroit. Now, all right, what you want to

(51:07):
say, though, you want to ask hima question.
Such an Atlanta thing. How long you been in Atlanta?
Because you're acting very Atlanta right now.
Are you drunk but? Like.
Are you just visiting? You think I'm just visiting?
I'm asking. Are you just visiting?
What are you asking me? Are you OK, sweetie?
Are you alright? You having a good night?

(51:28):
You good? No.
You got to talk in a mic though.I've been.
Here for several years. OK, that explains it.
That explains it. That explains it.
OK, I get it now. OK.
We got that shout out to. The D So how about that?
What else? What else do you want?

(51:51):
To know. Uh oh.
We don't, we don't want to know that knows.
We hold on, hold on talking. Do you have a question for him
if you're going to if we just ask him the question?
Huh. Question.
For him, is this a love, this joint when?
You did everything else like youhad a lot of of.
The story so when you brought out the so his question

(52:17):
magazine. Like what was your?
Purpose in that was basically the question that would come.
After him asking me how I came up with the name.
So how I came up with the name was my ex at that point is in
this this, you know, record label owned by this this guy
who's major drug we keep them and he's gotten busted.

(52:40):
Now the feds got them at this point.
So he had just given her. Thank you too.
Thank you, Monet. He had, He had.
Given her he had, he used to give a large like he'll give her
like a couple $100,000 and say OK, this is for the next three
months like every quarter you give her a couple 100,000 two
$100,000. So he had given like 300,000,

(53:00):
right? And then he got popped.
Yeah. So then now it's like you got
this record label, his record label.
His record label was really likea it was kind of like his little
thing he was doing for, you know, people he wanted to look
out for, right. So now it's like, OK, when this
money runs out, this money runs out.

(53:21):
And if something don't get figured the fuck out, then this
is right. So she hits me.
One day and she says yo. We can hear, we can connect.
Will they come up on the microphone?
Yeah, they come more. I'm talking about like where
they. The conversation they had.
Like, Nah, all right. So when?
When she she. Calls me, she says, yo, I want

(53:42):
to do something else before thisbread run out.
I want to do something else right.
I said what you want to do? She said I want to do an
entertainment company. I said, OK, like what kind of do
you say, you know, like, like filming TV, whatever.
I said, well, what do you want to call the company?
And she's and she's, I don't know, you're the creative one.
Come up with a name that's OK. How about we call it Teflon

(54:03):
because her name is Tiffany. How about Teflon?
Because that's a name they used to call her back when they
started the Rough Rider office and she was there at the
beginning of the Rough Rider office, Right.
So is it called a tiflon, the Teflon Don?
I said, well, we call it Tiflon.That's too personal.
I said, well, we call it the Don.
And when I said we'll call it the Don, now I'm on the phone.

(54:23):
I'm at a friend's house. A young older lady I was dealing
with, you know, lived, was in Harlem, and she's in the office
in New Rochelle. So she has me on the
speakerphone. This young lady who was an
artist, her name was Bonnie Clyde.
Bonnie Clyde walks in and she hears me say, we'll call it the
Don. And Bonnie says, but what about
the ladies? You can't forget about the
Divas. I said, all right, we'll call it

(54:45):
Don Diva. That's fire.
Just like that. That's how it came.
About man at the top. Of this game A.
Diva is a woman at the top of her game.
It's. A given.
OK, cool. So that's how the name came
about. But it was for an entertainment
company. No idea about a magazine
whatsoever was in anybody's head.
Entertainment company, Right? So we make these promos for the

(55:10):
entertainment company. This is a bunch of pictures from
cats in Harlem during the 90s, you know, old hustlers or cats
who were in the street during that time, whatever.
Maybe they gone, maybe they dead, they locked up, you know,
shit like that little nostalgic thing, right?
Make, I don't know, I don't know, maybe 1000 copies of this
stuff, right? And we, I take like 500 on my

(55:33):
going to Harlem and I'm just moving around.
Just, you know, she's like, yo, we got to get this money back,
right? So I'm just going to charge like
$20 a piece of these joints justfor the just different pictures,
just a bunch of different. Pictures, but it looks like a.
So basically it was a flyer. Don't give entertainment, but it
was something to be more substantial than just a flyer,

(55:53):
just a throwaway. You make it into something that
people would be attached to, people keep it and it has more
brand, you know, impact. So I'm running around.
Harlem, You. Know going to different places,
hitting Barber shops because people sit still in Barber shops
we've got nothing to do so boom,you sit here, you watch you.
Look at the joint. Whatever.
OK, cool about a. Week or.

(56:16):
So maybe 10 days after I'm running around with these shits,
I'm standing in a bodega on 145th and 8th Ave.
It's the Bank of America now, and I see a little homie mind.
His name, Harry 4040 comes up tome.
You go yo Bob, that's my street name, my nickname, family, and
whatever. You go yo Bob, when you're going

(56:37):
to drop another magazine, I say,what you talking about?
He said, you know the magazine. I said, what magazine?
He said you know the Don Diva magazine.
True story. When he said Don Diva magazine,
I heard a little bell in the back of my head.
It's like that. I swear to God, man.
And that was it. I ran to the phone.

(56:57):
Because we had two ways back. Then I ran to the phone and I
said, yo, *** think it's a magazine.
She said, I know they're saying the same thing in jail because
her boyfriend was in jail. She sent him something and
they're saying the same thing tohim.
They think it's a, yo, we're going to do this magazine.
She had gone down to How Can I Be Done in Miami and distributed

(57:18):
a bunch of them. And when she got back to the
office, they was like, yo, we, we couldn't get a subscriptions
magazine. Everybody thought it was a
magazine. It was a complete accident.
Don Diva came about as a complete fucking accident.
That's great. A complete accident?
Not even. Intended so.
That's how I knew it was meant to be.
So how you get the idea that shewas going to start?
Highlighting different criminal kingpin entrepreneurs and just

(57:40):
putting their stories out onto the magazine because two things
my a little. Homie of mine from the Bronx had
dropped the magazine called Feds.
I remember feds. I remember feds.
I remember feds. 18 like 18 months before.
OK, right. And they were dropping like that
thing was coming. Out every.
Every 30, every 90 days, yeah, So it's quarterly, come out four

(58:01):
times a year. So they were.
Already. Six issues in when we started,
Yeah, in motion. And the thing there was, there
was. So there was.
Two things it was. That right.
And it was, I had been working on what was becoming My
Autobiography, which started outas my diary.
OK, Right. Because I'm doing all this
reading and everybody in every book is saying journal, journal,

(58:23):
journal, journal, right. So I'm journaling.
Yeah. So I'm writing 5678 hours a day,
Right. So I've been doing this.
At this point, for two years. And now this magazine shit pops
up. It's like all this shit was
coming to go. I was like, yo, this is what the
fuck I'm supposed to be doing. Yeah, So I, I what do I know
though? I'm a I'm a high school dropout,

(58:44):
dropped out in 10th grade. I've never had a job before in
my life. I've only ever existed in the
underworld. So all I know, I don't know much
about nothing else, but I know everything about the fucking
streets in the underworld. Everybody in them.
I know. Yeah.
So time to leverage that. I have this.
Information from these books at that.
Point I had read about in terms of like the personal development

(59:07):
self help and all that would that's all I read at that point
I had read about maybe 5 or 600 books right and.
In those. In that reading, I was acquiring
all of this greater vocabulary, greater degree of understanding,
greatest psychosocial understanding.
I understood more about why we did the things we did that we

(59:29):
think, oh, did we? I'm just a *** from the hood.
We just *** in the street. You know what you say earlier,
*** got a *** when you say. Stuff like that, what you're
speaking? To unconsciously is the
recognition that there is something not quite right or
correct about how we do what we do, but it is what we do.
It is kind of like our identity.And we all accept this
collective identity and anybody who acts outside of this

(59:52):
collective identity is subject to be ostracized, right?
So if you know what I'm talking.About it's the.
B Side of double consciousness. That's right.
That's right. That's right.
You can't. Be doubled conscious if you're
not doubly ignorant. That's right.
Yo, what's the word of shit? Brother rich from where I was.
Set and I got to put you down with this new protein, this new

(01:00:15):
micro allergy, this new vitamin packed all type of joint
nutritional joint going on Sivo life man it's good for your
stomach, it's good for your skin, it's good for your energy
get you going get you rolling. I know you see me glowing.
Yeah. I mean, get your Zevo life, get
into Zevo dot life, ZIVO dot life.

(01:00:40):
We got a promo code with the manall set.
Throw that in, get you 30% off, you know what I mean?
We we putting you down being like you want to glow, you want
to get your shit right? You want to I I take your first
step. It's the old ancient micro
algae. They got the patent to the
joint. It's from some funny country and
like Peru or some crazy shit. It's official.

(01:01:03):
I'm trying to tell you get in with us promo code all set.
Get your insides right so you can get your outside right.
You heard holler Yo, you know you can't be talking like that,
right? Come to the mic.
Come to the mic. I'm just fucking with you, I
know. I don't know what I'm saying.
They will come with the pitchforks and the motherfucking

(01:01:24):
the, you know, the fire shit like that.
That's why Jada said. That's why Jada said were the.
Kiss. You know what I'm saying?
Want to hide something from a *** Hide in the book.
I mean, he's not the first, no, not the first one to ever say
that. Why do you?
Why do? You figure that out a long time
ago, yeah. One wanted reset the audience

(01:01:47):
vibe and say thank you for beinghere and sharing your story and
your history and your perspective with us.
It's not under appreciated. It is not underestimated.
It is definitely in focus. And for me, being a *** from the
Bronx who grew up in Mount Vernon, a lot of the geography
you talking about, most people don't understand money earned in

(01:02:08):
Mount Vernon. OK, Mertville has a lot to do
with a lot of the legacies that the rappers you talk about fuck
up. Kind of goes both ways.
Credit but also debit. The reason why I got to the mic,
the reason I got to the mic was to say.
It's not. Lost on me that Bars is actually
walking to the mic. A lot of what we're talking

(01:02:29):
about the history of how Don Diva came to the audience, came
to publishing Feds came to publishing.
The only rapper to give y'all *** the credit y'all deserve is
malice. And it's fucking wildest shit
that in this quarter of all time, this *** back from not the
from the church at least dropping heat.
And it's like when I think abouthell hath no fury, you know what

(01:02:50):
I'm saying? The beats and keys open doors
and a lot of what you're talkingabout, it's like, why do I like
but being a *** from around the way like.
It's. Not lost on me that these
stories didn't be in the place or position to understand how to
put words together to invite other entrepreneurs to share
their story. There is a lot that most folk

(01:03:12):
can't appreciate about what goesinto that.
So it's not lost on me you stepping it out for us.
I have two questions that brought me to the mic though.
Question 1 is you talk about youmove in with the knowledge and
the books to eat in different and eating healthy, right?
A lot You got sick of eating steak and burgers because most
*** who like to trap eat like eating red meat.
It's kind of like par for the course.

(01:03:32):
Did you ever meet someone in a different part of your universe
or your world dot dot dot because of what you read or when
you changed your diet, did you ever meet a *** Was like, you
know what, maybe me and you can't talk 'cause I don't
fucking read. Me neither.
That's question number one. OK, And question #2 at the far
other end of the spectrum, jumping ahead of time is in the

(01:03:54):
era of feds and all that, like working like the, the, the
record labels, the Westchester's, the studios, the
powerhouse. When did it click?
To you I mean, I put. It this way, you had the bell
kind of chime in before a *** said Don Diva magazine to your
ear. You already kind of had it
brewing. I guess you had the idea from

(01:04:16):
40. When did you realize this is
something we really have to pushforward?
That's I think a lot of us get in the moment.
It all happened right there, like real time.
He said. It I went outside, went straight
to the phone and called. Office and yo we got it.
We this. Is what we supposed to be?
Doing yeah this. Is what's right here.
This is it, you know, And we just, we didn't know what the

(01:04:39):
fuck we were doing. We had no clue, no, no
whatsoever. Who was the first person you
featured in Don? Diva like how did that first
interview yeah first three person was.
Akbar prey shout out to Akbar Akbar finally the Akbar after
3032 years. 32 years somewhere between 32 and 36.

(01:05:03):
I think it's 32, but Akbar was athe only person I've ever heard
referred to by the government asa super kink.
And he's from Newark, NJ, right?Major, Major.
Cat He. Just got home.
He's been home now, maybe, maybe8 months, something like that.

(01:05:24):
But he was the first feature andat the same time, Aaron Jones,
the head of the junior Black Mafia to Philadelphia, he also
was featured in that that first,that first issue, but the very
first issue that dropped January2000.

(01:05:44):
It was a variety type of thing. It was.
They had. Say letters from cats out of
jail. Yeah, we were very connected
with with Rough Rider. So a lot of Rough Rider content,
whatever that it was just like the culture overall, hip hop

(01:06:04):
culture. It was the culture, but it
wasn't. Just the culture from.
Like the hip hop entertainment perspective, it was the culture
from the catalyst of the streets.
Yeah, you know, 'cause without the streets and St. culture, hip
hop has no fodder from which to draw its its context.

(01:06:25):
Exactly, absolutely right. So.
Because I am from. That end of it, as opposed to
being like if I had grew up a square kid, rapper, whatever,
whatever, then my perspective orapproach would have been from
the other end going backward. Yeah, right.
But because I'm from what I'm from and when and where I'm
from, I came at it from the rootbecause without the attitudes,

(01:06:48):
behavior, stylings, flash. That's without that, you don't
have the the rappers. You don't have the rapper,
Addison. Rappers have been emulating and
imitating us from the very firstrapper that ever existed.
Yeah. They all wanted to walk, talk
swag like street people. Yeah, we got another.
We got another. How long what's going on be in

(01:07:14):
the building? Yeah, be in the building.
Right. Yes, indeed.
So much love, brother. Gratitude to what you're doing.
I loved how you made the change.You know what I'm saying?
I always told my people one of my my father is one of the most
gangster people I met because hechanged his life when my mother
said either the streets of the family, you know what I mean?
So I condone that and salute to you.
You know what I mean? So so all of RIP, you know what

(01:07:38):
I mean? I got, I got.
I I pretty. Much.
You know, we got, they call it 6° of separation, you know, You
know somebody that I know that knows somebody.
Chico. Yes, Sir.
Shout out Chico, and you might. Know a few other.
People with your story, but we'll talk about that later, but
now I check it. So I got 3 questions within one
for you, if I may you know what I mean so I you're in no doubt

(01:08:01):
no dignity. I got you so check it with your
decision. I remember regarding back you
said in 1997, that's when you said the streets was a dove,
right? Copy over snap and piece to
that. Oh.
What will what? With the three.
Questions in one. Did you say to yourself a never

(01:08:25):
scared? There's a difference between
being scared and being wise. You know what I mean?
So the a that right there is that what you said because I
don't know the specific time in regarding prior to you answering
no disrespect came, you know what I mean.
I don't know the specific time in regarding if it was prior to

(01:08:48):
the Dawn Diva, you know what I mean, opportunity, etcetera.
Oh, copy. So that's perfect.
So now we. Now we hit peace, Peace, peace.
I got you. OK, So that this makes the
question more authentic, if I may.
You know what I mean. So, OK, so we said being wise of
being scared. The scared is a dove.

(01:09:10):
You're being wise. That's one option.
The second option you saw a longevity and a potential, you
know, future or you know, trade or more.
You know what I mean? And then see you just said I'm
done with this shit and you justgot tired.
Respectfully, ever see copy copyI had?

(01:09:31):
Never done anything. Else.
Ever. Right, all I ever did was sling
drugs and pop my thing. That's all I have to do bro and
I respect that and and they keepit all the way.
Funky with you, I I I I'm nothing but the utmost
transparent. You know what I mean?
I'm not about to act like I was Frank Lucas little cousin and
all that not saying you are. I'm just saying like but I knew

(01:09:54):
him. I wasn't I wasn't I never I
never sold no, I never sold no white girl.
I never had no head wrong. I was getting recruited like a
basketball player for because *** seen how about hustle with
the the weed and other things. But when I decided last year,
let's keep it tall. We being transparent.

(01:10:14):
Oh, after everything's official.I.
Ain't incriminating. We'll be broadcasted later.
I ain't incriminating myself. It is.
What it is? I wasn't moving wild fish
grease, you know what I'm saying?
So listen, you know what I mean.I'll say this to say.
That. Yeah, I mean like I decided last

(01:10:34):
year after. I had a.
Show I got invited the South by Southwest for my first show
because I do music also I rap and sing.
I got a Jewish company. I act as well got a clothing
line also, you know what I mean?So where the mother after I had
that prior that experience, I was like, Nah, like I lost upon
what the hell are talking to me like yo, what's a dove?

(01:10:56):
You know what I mean? Like the streets is over.
You seen the cycle, Maddie and Manz, and what's crazy, you said
something about a specific time and one of my Big Brothers, like
we not blood, but he showed me more loyalty than *** I grew up
in the sandbox where you understand, and I ain't blood.
I ain't crip, I'm I'm pure OP. You know I mean I'm the big OP,

(01:11:19):
respectfully, you are, but all RIP.
It's like my man's with sex, money, murder.
So when you said that and he wasone of the O GS and shit hit me
in a different manner you understand?
So peace to you brother, you know what I mean.
God bless you. I wish you nothing but success
in your future endeavors and Godyou know what I mean.
Love is love you heard no doubt.Peace OK, Appreciate you bro.

(01:11:40):
Appreciate. You bro.
We got somebody, my boy Ray. Hello.
What up Ray? What's good this mic?
Is. A little off I'm from.
LA so it's good to hear. Just hold the mic a little
closer. I'm from LA so it's good to hear
like. East Coast perspective.
I grew up in Baldwin Hills, by the way, at Crenshaw, LA.

(01:12:03):
Real West Side. Yeah.
Real W real Bloods. No.
Real Crips. Real Crips.
Oaks. Real Oaks.
There we go. I mean.
And so not, not the fake ones. Yeah.
And so it was interesting, you guys said, were you scared?
Are you wives for me? I saw that.
Yeah. Yeah, he he did.

(01:12:24):
And obviously you right. So but you.
Are also being. Wise when you are navigating
through like your daily 17 yearsexactly so So two things for me.
I knew that. I saw that at six years old.
My dad was from Compton. You know, he has he still has

(01:12:46):
the record for football at Gardena High School on the West.
My grandma grew up right across the pops.
Yeah, right across from Centennial High School, 131st
and Central. So, you know, I was there with
Kendrick Lamar in the stands when Aaron Aflalo that used to
ball in the NBA S Aflalo, right?Centennial High.

(01:13:07):
I was there day one. So I said all that to say my dad
put me in a school at six years old and I saw a gang bang and I
saw the wrong side. And I knew that for me, I was
wise and I knew it was a point of no return.
So I saw that at an early age, been around Crenshaw XYZ.

(01:13:28):
So I wanted to ask you what was kind of a headwind or a trial
that you face one of your toughest trials during your
point of navigation and how do you kind of apply that to like
your daily routine? Are we with some that you
learned that you still kind of apply today?

(01:13:52):
Shot the ray. That was a good question.
So the question is that or the question is.
What was a a pivotal lesson in the course of my criminal
career? Yeah, I remember something that
you. I was like, yo, I don't know how
I'm to get out of this jam, but you kind of still lean on that

(01:14:14):
today to kind of navigate and I didn't be successful.
I didn't have that kind. Of experience, it's difficult
for me to. For.
Others put my development to circumstances into perspective
because they are of a time that took place.

(01:14:34):
They were of a time that took place long before you, any of
you came into consciousness. If you were even born right.
You understand the world was different.
Just like there's going to be a A5 year old or a 7 year old who
in 20 years you'll be talking toabout how this country was prior

(01:14:57):
to Orange Hitler. And they and they're going to
be. Like for real.
So so they used to be stuff about black people in the
museums and there used to be monuments that were
representative of the the Democratic Republican and not

(01:15:20):
the Confederacy. And because on the trajectory
war on currently that won't be the case.
He just made the Smithsonian today change eight of the
American indigenous people that we like to call African
Americans. He, he just made a bunch of the

(01:15:42):
stuff that was pertaining to them be removed from the
Smithsonian. Otherwise, you'll pull the
money. The world is changing around
them right now. Right now, right?
It is going to be so different. It won't even be discernible.
That's the the difference between the world you guys exist
in. That'll be 58 in 90 days, less
than 90 days. You understand I was born in 67.

(01:16:05):
What you understand the world offrom 87 is not the same world.
Two years before I was born the the, the Civil Rights Act was
enacted. You know, your your ability to
for us to vote two years before I was born, you couldn't vote.
That's great. You understand so?

(01:16:26):
For me to put. My experiences into perspective.
It has been the greatest challenge.
Everything I did in Don Diva wasall about helping to put our
experiences, my generation experiences, my peers,
specifically from the world I come from, not not the
geography. That's another thing that this
generation and this generation primarily, when I say this

(01:16:49):
generation, I mean the people who are between the ages of like
22 and 38. You know, the perspective that
you guys have of of the the our world is not a real perspective.

(01:17:10):
It's a perspective based on hip hop and and that whole culture,
whatever, whatever. Right.
Yeah. So if I.
Answer that. Question.
It's like you're asking about a some specific incident that
occurred that made me say I don't know how I'm gonna get out
of this. Whatever.
Whatever, aside from catching a case, you know, and I caught AI

(01:17:35):
caught a a couple of lightweightcases.
You know when I was like night. I caught a my first case when I
was 19, fade on the flyer, catcha fade on the fly.
Yeah, I was. I was that See, that's.
What I'm saying like. That's not a pivotal.
That's Tuesday. You know what I'm saying?

(01:17:56):
Let me, let me, let me put. Let me put.
It like this in New York, in NewYork in the mid seventies,
757677 whatever the rap thing is, is kind of burgeoning,
right? And you got a whole new
generation of young people who are doing things that are

(01:18:17):
completely different from the people that raise them right.
The people who grew up during the Jim Crow era and during the
civil rights, you know, battles and all that, whatever,
whatever, who were more like in tuned with how this country and
its policies really felt about them.
And then, you know, my generation comes along and we're

(01:18:39):
kind of like removed from those experiences just based upon what
that generation had done their work, right.
So we're not dealing with blatant racism and none of that
kind of stuff, whatever the ever.
We have more of a sense of self identity or whatever, you know,
so like we're in a different vibration and hip hop comes

(01:19:00):
along. We got all this liberty and all
this freedom that the previous generation did not have.
And cats are starting to think more.
You know, the drug thing kicks in, heroin, not cocaine, heroin,
right? A lot of money is being made by
a small group of people, right, relative to the size of our
community, right? So if there was, you know, a

(01:19:22):
quarter million black people in New York, whatever, whatever,
maybe 1000 of them were drug dealers.
That's how fucking small it was,OK?
It wasn't. Oh, you black.
Oh, you live on this black. Oh, you come sell drugs the fuck
out of here. Keep going to church, keep going

(01:19:44):
to school, keep going to motherfucking work.
But I live on the 4th floor. You live on the third floor.
That's an. Accident of happenstance of
geography that got nothing to dowith being qualified for this
here. So I come from an area where you
had to be verified by somebody who was qualified in order to be
certified. And that's the only way you
could play that game, right? You understand so?

(01:20:07):
There was no. Particular thing like in that
era being outside meant you had.To be able.
To fight because they're going to take your sneakers, they're
going to take your jacket, they're going to take your
kango, they're going to take. Your ring.
They're going. To take your shams of barren
shirt, they're going to take your your, your, your your
fucking sheepskin coat. They're going your ass going to

(01:20:29):
go home in your socks. Unless they unless they if if
your socks are brand name brand,take your socks.
You had. To in order.
For you to be. Outside in order for you to be
outside, you know, in order for you to be outside, you had to be
made a certain way period. Even if your parents.

(01:20:53):
Could afford to buy you. Nice things.
It didn't mean you could have them, because if you weren't
able to keep them then they wouldn't get them for you unless
they. Going you want.
They want you to come home with your face split open or dead
because you got on the pair of gazelles.
And they got. A piece of 10 karat gold plated

(01:21:13):
right here, whatever it plastic,but it's 10 karat gold plating
right here, motherfucker, blow your brains out for.
So when you grow up in a normal or say normal was common, you
grow up in a an environment where these kinds of this level
of aggression is common. There is no stand.
Out nothing. It's the.
Shit, this is what goes the fuckon.

(01:21:35):
This is real ghetto shit, you understand?
So at 11 years old, I'm carryingtwo pistols because I'm wearing
my shit and I'm wearing all thisshit.
Motherfuckers want to wear. All this shit you I got.
Tons and tons. And tons of pictures.
Ain't no what no motherfucking Photoshop I'm talking about.

(01:21:58):
Gators first gold. Lit Every.
Fucking thing you sent me a. Picture you want Pee Wee
Kirkland and. Fucking mink coats.
I was fucked up by that shit. I don't I don't a full length
black llama mink and. Pee wee had on a full length of
cash picture fucked me up my Jack.
My job was 20,000. Thank you for the.
Time, brother. I just thank you.

(01:22:19):
Thank you. Appreciate you.
But it's. Interesting, and I thought I
would get. You know, those kinds of
questions that basically point out the the difference in
perspective, you know, without, without the people who came
before me to bridge that gap between the time I was born and

(01:22:40):
the time I became consciously aware.
Because if you, I was born in 67.
I wasn't aware of the world outside of my home until 73,
right? So by 73, I'm.
I'm. I'm five years old, Right.
But when you grow up in a fully blown criminal organization, you

(01:23:08):
know, family, it's not the rate of development is not normal at
all. If you come from a regular home,
you can't fathom what the fuck I'm experiencing.
Yeah. You can't fathom it.
You can live on the same floor. Yeah, in the same building on
the same. Block.
But when I go in the house, I see things and hear things.

(01:23:32):
You don't see and hear, especially back then.
And there was no music genre that could give you an even a
hint or an inkling about what this existence is about.
There was no such thing. There was nothing to say guns
and drugs and busts and gun and buy this and wear this and
nothing so unless you came from it.

(01:23:52):
Ozzy bubbles and shit they were shooting.
Right, like the. Ozzy Bubbles ain't gonna fuck,
right? So unless unless you came.
From it directly, just being in the neighborhood did not expose
you to the fucking life. Yeah, it didn't expose you to
the reality. When I came in the house, my
mother, my father or her or, or or maybe her boyfriend at the

(01:24:15):
time or they're in there and they're counting 10s of
thousands of dollars. And you got to think about the
the perspective on this money in1976. 5. $1000 was the

(01:24:37):
equivalent to today, about maybe30.
About 30. So if you.
Had. If you had. $1,000,000 back
then, yeah, he was big. Super big.
Just a million. Yeah, and.
Everybody had $1,000,000 'cause you could take 1K of cocaine, I

(01:24:59):
mean of heroin that you would pay $250,000 for one key that
could be cut 65 times. And after you finish doing that
key, not only have you paid the 250 you you owed for it or you

(01:25:20):
paid for it. Not only we got your 250 back,
but you also paid your crew. They don't.
They don't. Made 150 between them and you
sitting on. Another. 2 yourself you don't.
Split 150. 1000 between them youknow and paid your your you

(01:25:41):
connect his 250 which at the time would be the Italians yeah
right and. You.
You sitting. On a 222 and change, you know a
three and change good night depending on what you did with
it and where you did with it. And where you did it at?
And where I come from between Morningside and Lenox Ave.,

(01:26:03):
between 110th and 119th St., that space in there, yeah, that
was. A.
Billion. Every month that's being
generated. Easy 45 years.
Ago. Jesus Christ, you understand.
Everybody. Bro I.

(01:26:25):
Walk in the house, bro, it's hundreds of thousands of dollars
just laying around. I go to the backroom and my
sister and my cousin and you know, somebody else is back
there nodding off a dope becausethey dope things.
But my, my parents and my. Uncles and all that.
They're selling dope so fast. My reality, yeah.

(01:26:48):
So Fast forward. Back to Don.
Diva Lit. Quickly tell us how did you get
from that to wanting to be a writer in your autobiography?
How did that come about? And tell us about the
autobiography. Autobiography came about as just
like I said, the. The the self help of personal
development books that I was reading, they all said the same
thing to journal to journal, OK journal.

(01:27:09):
So. Writing became.
I always had. An affinity for writing.
I always had an attraction to writing.
OK, I was an artist, a visual artist.
I draw and all. That whatever, but I always
asked my drop the drop the biscuit, Detroit, don't drop the
biscuit. Make sure it's on safety won't
want to go on off. It doesn't.
Sound like the hammer, right? So here's sound.
Like a little hammer. Little little it sound like

(01:27:32):
something else. CAT9 like a.
Little big. Cat.
So. When when I'm writing this, I'm
not thinking and what's the nameof your book?
So the people who grab it. Too.
It's called Raised by Wolves. Oh yeah, show.
Them the book. Show them the book well.
That's that's my third. OK, that's the.
Most recent book. I put that out in like 2015.

(01:27:54):
Show them we're going. To show them the first book
first, this is my. First book.
Hold that up for them. Raised by.
Wolves. You get this on Amazon
everywhere? I don't know.
Yeah, no, I only sell it on my site.
I don't. I don't.
I don't, I don't mess with Jeff Bezos.
OK, OK. You know, I mean, so I can't get
this. One.
Oh yeah, hold on. Side.

(01:28:17):
Button. Generate it.
Yeah. Oh, this?
Normal. You hate that motherfucker?
I. Just won't say no for.
Answers just keep. Banging your shit back-to-back
to back? Yeah, it's probably my son.
Well, why wouldn't you think that I was recording?
Why if you know you left? Me recording.
Why wouldn't you think I was? Recording.

(01:28:38):
If I'm not picking up the that shit go people don't care.
Me, you know what I mean? Keep care about themselves.
Like. Oh, pick that shit up.
Right, Right. So.
Yeah. So this is.
Raised by Wolves, this smaller biography, this, this.
So this started out as me just sitting around trying to figure
out what I was going to do with my life.
OK, You know, that was the catalyst.
The catalyst was, you know, onceI called my partner and told me
you'll keep everything. I'm done, I'm finished,

(01:28:59):
whatever, whatever. My girls supporting the mood Now
it's like, OK, now I, I've been writing, I've been journaling
all of them to this time, you know, because that's what the
the the books told me to do. So now I say, what am I going to
do with my life? I have no idea what I'm going to
do in my life. And so I thought about that old
adage that goes in order for youto know where you're going, you
have to 1st know where you've been.

(01:29:21):
Nobody. People generally don't take a
real in depth look at the entirety of their life as a
mosaic. When people recall their life,
they typically recall a particular time, space,
incident, place. And then they pull out of that
and they tap again, it tap in again, they go to another point.

(01:29:42):
So they look at their lives and these blurbs and these bubbles,
right? And they look at what happened
at this point. And yo.
We was doing so good here, man, and this was happening, that was
happening, whatever, whatever. And then, you know, they look
over here, said man, it was fucked up at this point.
I don't know how it got so bad, whatever, whatever, But between
that and that is all of this other stuff.

(01:30:02):
Other stuff is the stuff that helps you to understand the
transitions of your life, the different levels of your life,
how you got from one point to another.
If you never take an in depth look, a critical look at that,
then you can't really learn fromyour experiences like that.
You know, if you just have an experience and then go, you

(01:30:25):
know, I got through it and man, I don't even want to go through
that shit again and just subvertthe fucking memory and, and make
it, you know, some shit that youdon't remember no more. 9 times
out of 10, whatever the fuck it is that you were doing that led
to you having that experience, you're probably going to do it
again. Because if you subvert the
experience, you also subvert thelesson.

(01:30:48):
If you make the the experience disappear because you don't like
it, it it didn't show you in your best light.
You know that's people like to forget good things that don't
fit with their preferred narrative of self.
Yeah, right. So they won't remember how bummy
they were in in junior high school.
They won't remember that they just always talk about how fly

(01:31:09):
they were in high school. You know what I'm saying?
Not understanding that the reason that you were so extreme
in your fashion in high school and making so many sacrifices
and risking your life because. Makeup from when they was
calling. You bummy and.
Corny and you smell. Funny.
All kind of shit with, you know what I'm saying.
So if, if, if I didn't take a good look at my life, there was

(01:31:30):
no way I was going to figure outwhat the fuck was next.
So that's what I did. I just sat down and wrote the
first memory I could recall. And I just, you know, and when
you do that, it's like, OK, I remember this.
And when you say I'm going to, I'm going to go into this, even
if you're just telling people I'm going to go into this story
about this incident that happened, you have a start and a

(01:31:53):
finish point in your mind very clearly.
You remember, all right, it was this, we were here and this
happened, whatever and so on. And so was there and that
happened, whatever and then boom, it ended up here like
that. A lot of times the details of
what got you from that point to that point are not as clear.
But when you start physically writing with your hand, not
typing, writing with your hand, and I'm telling y'all don't lose

(01:32:17):
that, don't lose the ability to make to do tactile writing
writing. Physical writing is a neural
meaning, brain thinking, neuromuscular activity, and it
imprints information onto the subconscious.
You understand not writing is making you dull with it.

(01:32:40):
That's why the technology being pushed upon you is inclined to
pull you away from those practices, because they make
your brain soft. A person with a soft brain is
easily manipulated, easily controlled.
Do you understand the most revolutionary act that you can
commit today is fucking learning?

(01:33:03):
You a real bad motherfucker. You tough?
You a real *** pick up a fuckingbook and read start it.
Finish it. Understand it and.
Anything in it that you aren't familiar with?
Any any, any word in it you don't know?
You stop right there. You look that motherfucker up.
Be thankful you got this goddamndevice.

(01:33:23):
Because I used to have to. Carry around a 400 page, a big
ass thick ass thesaurus to read them fucking psychology books
and sociology books and personaldevelopment books with, with
words and phrases and shit in itthat were not part of my lexicon
previously. So I did not know what they
meant. I had to look up 80 words in the

(01:33:44):
1st 55 pages of a book called Empower the people.
Empowering the people by Tony Brown, who's a black
intellectual. Like a very, you would look at
him and think that, you know, he's like this real square
staunch motherfucker. Like, you know, straight square
motherfucker. You read his shit, y'all?
This is straight hardcore motherfucking revolutionary and

(01:34:04):
revolutionaries aren't anything.They're just gangsters.
Gangsters that may not have gotten.
Involved with. Criminality.
Political gangsters. They're gangsters.
They're gangsters. They operate with.
Impunity operate without the fear of consequence.
They do what they've determined must be fucking done in order to
move this thing forward. That's gangsters.

(01:34:25):
Gangsters operate with impunity.They operate without fear of
that something. That's fact.
That's fact. Come on, Ad.
Come shut the fuck up, I swear to God but.
Fuck you too. It's my *** One thing I do feel
compelled to ask you as we're talking about the power and
weight of knowledge and reading and haptic, haptic behavior,

(01:34:49):
right? Buck 50 shit where?
Do you think? The reality of publishers like
Don Diva and Feds lip opposite the responsibility the record
label skirt you're I can tell you what you a whole full 100%
of what you about. I can tell that right the
challenges to your point. It's like so much of the

(01:35:12):
mythology that people should respect and hold in high regard
gets butchered and fucked up by these anrs.
We don't look like us. We don't share our philosophies,
right? Where's the accountability live?
Because it seems like everyone'skind of playing off of the key,
you know what I'm saying? But the only people being honest
about the shit is the publishers.
With people talking about the shit that keeps the publishing

(01:35:33):
relevant are the *** who lie or exaggerate or fuck up dynamics
that leave us reading the shit wrong.
So as a publisher, Emeritus I think is the proper title for
you. How would you?
I'm still publishing, potentially.
Emeritus part you triple OG withthe shit.
But how do you read that split of responsibility right?

(01:35:56):
Everyone's talking about everyone's making money from it,
but it seems only a few players are being honest about the
history and the reality of it, where a lot of other players are
just running wild with shitty, loose narratives.
And frankly, apparently they've never actually done so for many.
Who's actually done the shit? Who writes about *** who really
do the shit? Who has opinions about *** who
cap about the shit? Where does all that actually

(01:36:17):
fall in 2025? Thank you.
Well, it's kind. Of a convoluted commentary
question, but I'm going to speakto it to the best of my ability,
to the degree I understand what it is you're trying to bring
forth. It's kind of connects to the
question that you're asking, andI kind of got away from it.

(01:36:37):
Why Don Diva? It was a purpose, Don Diva.
In response to what feds were doing, feds was putting forth
stories about major guys in the game but who had dishonored
themselves. OK, they was telling.
They was telling. And so I.

(01:37:00):
Told Tuan, who put out feds. I told him I was like, you know,
bro, it's not a good thing that you give these guys guys.
And you know, like Nikki, Nikki Barnes was like, he was family
to me, you know what I mean? Like he was family to me.
This is someone whom I I grew upenamored with, like most

(01:37:24):
everybody around and I was a kid, but adults would die for
that man, you know, like he was a God amongst us, you know, But
when he betrayed the thing, he, you know, the ghetto glory, the,

(01:37:44):
the scores, all that, all that shit.
When you go against that grain that has fed you and built you
and that thing, all your ghetto glory is erased and it's
replaced with one word he had, he did he all of that goes away
and it's just rap. That's the reality of it.
Facts. That's reality.
Now contemporary. Mindsets that were developed by

(01:38:10):
this hip hop shit have have conveniently separated that now
you can you can be all that and had been a rat.
But but but you did all of that.You had all of that you was you
was doing all these things. You had all this money,
whatever, whatever. And because the consumer, the

(01:38:30):
consumer of that kind of contenthas no emotional or.
Actual. Connection to that, the the
violations and all that, that's that doesn't matter.
It's entertainment to them. It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter that that he, that he, you know, broke the
rules and when it gets together,it doesn't matter.

(01:38:51):
It's to them It's like, well, hesold drugs and killed people and
all whatever, whatever. So him telling is a bad thing.
They don't get it because it's it's not based in the kind of
mainstream morals that most people, even people from the
hood, subscribe to. It never was meant to be.

(01:39:14):
It was. Never meant to.
Be mass consumption. It was never meant to be
something everybody did. Like I told you, it was a court
of man. People running around in New
York, black people around New York, 1000 of them, 2000 of them
maybe was selling drugs. Unfortunately, maybe 50,000 of

(01:39:36):
them were using the drugs, but that's the reason why there was
so much money in it because there were very few purveyors,
you know, and because of that restrictive entry, it was, it
was maintained, the profitability and it was
maintained and so forth. Right.

(01:39:58):
So when they I'm kind of like answering, yeah, answer that and
tell me about the second book too.
When you finish that, yeah. So when the.
When, when, When I brought the magazine out.
When we brought this magazine out.
It was like. Key first it it doesn't matter
who you are and what you've done.

(01:40:19):
If you told you will never be inDon Even magazine.
Your words will never come out of Don Even magazine.
Respectfully, you understand, because my.
Mother and my father who? Were actual gangsters they would
spin in their graves if I were ever to give that kind of thing
platform, right? And so that's why.

(01:40:40):
You know, Don Diva was what it was, the way it was and and put
forth what it did. I always wanted people to
understand the reality of that existence.
I wanted to counter what was then becoming very, very
powerful, the influence of rappers becoming comfortable.
This happened around the latter part of the 90s.

(01:41:02):
Motherfuckers started. Getting comfortable with
speaking about the life cats. The first person to refer to
himself as a hustler in that rapshit was my little homie Nori
before him. What he had he did like this
character called Melvin the hustler before him.
Motherfuckers wasn't saying thatthey weren't referring to
themselves as hustlers because they knew that that was

(01:41:23):
something that was particular toa certain genre of like
underworld St. person and they do well, I'm not that I I got no
reason Co opting these phrases in these terms.
But once people started doing itand they said, yo, you heard
what he said. Well, if he could say that I
could say this right. Well, you know what he said?

(01:41:43):
Well, if he could say that, I could say this and.
That. You get what we got now, and
then you get the A&R saying say what the fuck you?
Want as long as I can right so tell they gave that they fed.
That that's why. It became what it became, but as
we knew, we knew it would turn into what it's turned into where
it it basically captured the hearts, minds and consciousness

(01:42:04):
of all these young people, especially young males who felt
like, well, if I am unfortunate enough to not have parents that
have a sufficient income to put me in an environment where this
kind of thinking and behavior isaccepted.
If, if, if, if I'm not fortunateenough to be outside an
environment, if I'm in that environment, in order for me to
have validity in that environment, in order for me to

(01:42:25):
have value in that environment, I, I must adapt this mindset.
Even though mommy works at the fucking school and dad drives a
cab and they take me to church every fucking Sunday, I have to,
you know, act like I'm some kindof street *** because that is
the identity of a young black male that is fucking society and
that's a straight sucker shot. They fucked y'all with that shit

(01:42:49):
Because believe me, it was neverever, ever meant to be for
everybody. Never.
It was never meant to be that just think.
I mean, look, look where we are.So you talked about, he talked
about with the Anrs. And their infiltration.
You've got your second book. Tell us real quickly too,
because you know, we kind of pressed with Tom how you get
went from Don Diva to highlighting the drug kingpins

(01:43:10):
to working on hip hop legally. Can you talk about the
transition from that to that? All right, so you know about hip
hop? Yeah.
All right. So when in 2006, August 2006, I
got to a point my my little girl, my youngest, she just

(01:43:31):
graduated, turned 22 yesterday. Happy belated, right?
And graduated from. Loyola Miramount out in LA, high
achiever scholar and shout AV. So you know she was turning

(01:43:52):
turning 3/4 right 4/3. She was 23.
She's won 2000. 3 and I'm like her birthday is August 11th so I
just got back from Florida the first T JS DJs ozone awards
weekend in Florida right and I. You know I'm busting my ass, you

(01:44:14):
know? I wrote every article down,
Diva. Yeah, right.
Took every picture, yeah. Did every interview in all the
distribution across the country myself, set up every retail
location myself? Inarguably no, because nobody
else was there. So nobody else can claim they
did it. Nobody was there, right?
Respect up to that. Point.

(01:44:36):
It was. Still a struggle, but I was in
love with it because one, it wasthe first legitimate thing I've
ever done. OK, right.
And that meant a lot, right? And I.
Knew friends that was. Still stuck.
If they weren't in prison, they were still stuck in the street
in this fucking cycle, Right? And, and two, it was, you know,

(01:44:57):
it, it was something that was kind of like a penance for me
because I had been afforded my freedom, my sanity and all this
stuff, whatever with with all the things I had, you know, been
through in that existence. And I felt like this was my duty
to disseminate this, this reality is truth and counter the
impact of hip hop in the hyperbole comes out of hip hop
that was promoting and marketingshit like, yo, it's a big party.

(01:45:19):
Y'all should all come. We just pop in bottles and and
fuck it off like it's great. You know, so I felt like it was
something I had to do right. But here comes August 2006.
I just come back from T JS DJs. I'm busting my ass running down
the highway and I had $500 to mymotherfucking name independent
of what needed to be done for the magazine.
OK? Outside of that, that's all I

(01:45:41):
fucking had, OK? And I said now either I'm going
to get on the highway. Drive up there.
So I could come up, the little girl was still in there.
This boy, I moved to Atlanta, her and him off to Atlanta.
So either I go up there and by the time I get up there, this
$500 will be half of that because, you know, fucking the
road. Yeah.
OK. Or I can?

(01:46:02):
Send the money. But I can't be with her.
That was it. I was like, no, this is because
the bottom line was Don Diva as popular as it was, and it was
the most popular publication on the fucking street.
But advertising is the. Lifeblood.
Of a publication. OK, and who the fuck?
Wants to advertise. With murder, death, kidnapping,

(01:46:23):
killing drugs. Who wants to advertise with
that? Right.
How was you? Able to navigate around that
being. A hustler you know.
I had Def Jam paying $15,000 perperson that they wanted to have
on the cover. OK, right.
So that helped a lot. Shout out to Kevin.
Lyles, man and. You know, all the people at at
Def Jam that really, they gave me my first legitimate check

(01:46:46):
that I ever seen in my life, first check that I ever saw in
my life that you could just deposit and no, no, check it.
Was an actual check. I'd never seen a check before I
was. Like I was 30. 233.
Years. I'd never seen a check before,
Right? So and how did you?
Establish that relationship. If you don't mind me asking with
Def Jam, that's a very. Good question, just kind of.

(01:47:10):
Finagling, getting in with the artist, getting in with the
artist. That's how I got.
Into those. Buildings, the artist like yo,
y'all got to put me in this magazine.
What magazine? It's called Don D, but never
heard of it. You know, it's the street shit
and it's the real shit. And if you don't want me to get
this certified, this stamp, theny'all don't have to.
Y'all don't have to get me in this magazine and a lot of your
artist connections just came from.
Just being in Harlem, getting money, being outside.

(01:47:32):
Or talk to us about the connections, the real *** I
knew. I knew the rappers from when I
was a kid. I knew Melly, Mel and Cole
crushed on. I knew them because I was a hip
hop kid, you know, running around the disco fever and all
that. Whatever, whatever, you know?
But as far as like the contemporary rappers, whatever.
I didn't. I didn't know them guys.
I was a street *** I didn't knowthem fucking people, right?

(01:47:55):
What what brought them to me wasthe fact that I had this thing
that the streets was fucking with.
The first people I put in Don Diva were not celebrities.
The first people I met in Don Diva were people who were out
and about at clubs and events who was fly rocking a nice
outfit. I was taking their picture.
It was the first publication that gave that kind of exposure

(01:48:18):
to regular non celebrity people.OK.
And that made the. People fuck with it.
And you know, rappers gonna fuckwith whatever the people are,
they follow the fact. That's a fact.
And that's what happened. So you had this this situation?
That they. Were.
Able, like it became a beacon for them, you know, people like,
yo, I'm gonna be in this magazine.
I'm in this magazine. You gotta get this magazine

(01:48:39):
because I'm gonna be in. I'm gonna be in it.
And it trickled its way up to the artist.
The artist went to the labels and the labels like, yeah, OK,
we breaking beverage. Well, I appreciate.
I appreciate. You pulling up and really
hitting us with this with this knowledge in this in this story
be this shipment dope experiencefor everybody included high
level intelligent conversation. You know what I'm saying about

(01:49:00):
the rap this joint up in a minute.
We're going to get into our favorite segment.
We're going to we're going to get into the world set segment.
Will we say what we done with wenot feeling at the time we not
feeling the moment but hold up. Are you going to start it off?
I'm about to start it up. Yeah.
I'm going to set on Doctor Umar and I'm all set on *** doing bad
bending. Janky shit.
You know what I'm saying? I just got to say.

(01:49:24):
I. Tried to give Doctor Umar the
benefit of the doubt as long as I could.
I was with him. I was rocking with him.
I was behind him. But it's over for that, *** B.
You know what I mean, *** Owen Bread for what?
How long? He ain't paid the taxes on the
building for the school. Seven years.
Six years. You know, I never really paid
him any. I never really paid.

(01:49:44):
Him any attention? Well, he's been claiming he was
building a school. For the last seven years, yeah,
I remember. I've caught, I've caught the
periphery, I've caught the donations.
He's. Been taking donations, nothing
happened. He ain't.
Paid none of the bills. So he's, he's always come across
as the grifter to me. That's.
Exactly what it is. I mean, shit, that's.
Who's winning? Who's who's winning in this
society? Scammers, thieves.

(01:50:06):
Grifters. Scumbags.
Scumbags of. Winning Yeah, facts.
The whole your whole fucking. Government is.
Nothing but a bunch of grifters and and malcontents and deviants
all of them. Sleazebags, all of them.
They're all Donald Trump is a grifter.
It's he's a certified grifter. So that's what it is.
So yeah, they they just, they just practicing with the people,

(01:50:27):
the top practice, that's all. Yeah, yeah.
But it's fucked up when you're doing it to your.
Own people. You know what I'm saying?
Well, people do things to the people that have proximity to
using. Black solidarity to get your
grift along. It's fucked up.
It's no different. No different than the than what
The. What the pastors and these
megachurches do? Same shit, same shit, same shit,

(01:50:49):
same shit, bro. It's just.
It's just. Just bad people taking advantage
of the good nature of common people.
That's that's all it is. Which y'all said on the media
song you. Want me to go?
You want to know what? I'll stay.
I think I'm all set on Love is Blind, just the whole movement.
What is that that show on NBC? It's it's a couple things Blind.

(01:51:12):
It's just sit on Netflix like I.Don't really know what's.
Going on, like, I just feel likeit got all people by, like in a
real chokehold. That thing about Love Island
when you said that banana I'm all set on Love is blonde
baddies and the Boo boos like that.
Those three things like Boo boosare things.
Joints. Yeah, I'm good on that too.

(01:51:35):
I'm good on that too. What made you?
Just wild up the Boo. Boos though, like I just, I
don't know. I just don't.
I'm just good on it. I don't see the point, but I'm
good on baddies and Love is blonde.
I just feel like it's just been really detrimental to our psyche
and just the community and like I just feel like it's just like
the most ignorant form of entertainment I've ever seen in
life. Love is blind and like the.

(01:51:58):
Whole baddies like girls, just. Be fighting and shit.
It's just dumb shit. So I've never heard of Love is
Blind and. As far as the the baddies thing
goes, Pop the Blue is horrible. I've never.
I've never. I.
Haven't owned a television in like 22 years or something.
Now you're having a one screen in the crib.
You want? Hold on, you want?

(01:52:19):
Say we got we. Going to let they get we going
to let some of the audience say what they all set on.
Aren't yourself you want get on the mic, tell them what you all
set on. Talk to talk to the people.
I'm all I'm all set on Ari Linux.
Oh yeah, I'm all set on her too.I'm sick of Ari.
Linux, I'm glad y'all. I'm sick of Ari Linux y'all pack
her the fuck up. Nah, it's over.

(01:52:39):
So sick of Ari Linux. So look.
So, Ari, I'm. About to tell you she's an R.
And B singer, so Ari I like. Her music, she's.
Dope her music is great but she got to stop talking.
She like every time like becauseevery time I make me look people
up. No idea who she's, she's an R.
And B Singer, she's super dope. It's cool.
But like every time she open hermouth, it's always something

(01:53:02):
controversial when it's and she always playing the victim card.
So most recently she came out and she's trying to say that
Martin was throwing a lot. Of.
Jokes about Pam that were detrimental to black women and
it was colorist and it was all of these different things and
it's like this revisionist history type type vibe that I'm

(01:53:24):
not really digging. She even followed up and she.
Yeah, she doubled that. She.
Followed up with like yo. Bernie Mac is doing too.
Much and I'm just like no listenso.
So here's the thing, right? When we speaking about comedy,
comedy is something that's subjected the same way music is,
right? Absolutely.
I could think somebody's funny. You could think he's terrible in
the same way with music. So I think when it comes to the

(01:53:45):
comedy space, if you don't like this particular style of comedy,
then you just don't subscribe tothat.
And that's cool. But I think the revisionist
history that she's trying to implement as far as this is
concerned, saying that he was, he was it was a colorist type of
type of vibe. I don't I don't get that with
Martin because everybody got jokes.
Gina got jokes, Pam got jokes, like everybody got jokes.

(01:54:10):
So it wasn't it wasn't like Martin was down and Pam and they
and they joked on each other. So I'm all for her for that and
a bunch of other reasons, but I feel like that's the last I'm
gonna lie. It was bad optics though,
something to. Talk about it was bad.
Optics. I ain't gonna front, Yeah.
It's not like she was just somebody looking.
For something to talk. I.
Got to keep a. Tall about Martin that she was

(01:54:30):
bad optics be. Like, but those kinds of things.
See the thing that that that person?
RE person is talking about what what she's basically talking
about is the kinds of things that we all know that that
behavior was it's common communal behavior in our in our

(01:54:51):
yeah, see, just like the drug thing was not for.
Everybody. The shit that we do in our homes
or our blocks on our students, it's not for everybody.
Consumption because. They won't have context.
For it and it just all looks very bad and destructive and so
forth. Whatever.
If you don't have the context behind the commentary and the

(01:55:13):
baby, that's a great response. Pam was bad.
And he was talking to Pam like she was the nastiest looking
worker in the world. And but Pam was talking just as
bad. I can't say that she was bad,
but Gina got it too big head. I mean, I don't really see what

(01:55:33):
did Gina get. She was a lot of big heads.
That's not he was talking about.He was talking about Pam like
she was the nastiest worker you've ever seen in your life.
And Pam was fired. I can't say that.
I can't. Say that, but Al Prophet told me
what you said to. Sheena, Al Prophet.
Told me what you what you said. Now to this date to Sheena, Arlo
is way better than. To this day.

(01:55:55):
Right to the date Casino. Arlo is way better than I
forgot. Tisha Campbell way better.
Oh look, surgeries and all that that like when we were in
school. Tashina was was like this.
She was this skinny. All the girls that I knew back
in the days that were mad, mad, mad skinny include like my wife
when we were kids, mad skinny. Well, when they're growing to

(01:56:17):
those those grown women bodies, they got the kind of bodies
that. Women pay for.
We got. We got one more.
You got one. More.
Go ahead, get on the mic. You got to hurry this.
Join up. Stand up, stand up, stand up.
Operating the camera. I'm sorry, I should have asked
this question. Earlier, but one thing stuck out
to me and it was you heard a noise right when he said Don Don

(01:56:42):
diva, Don diva. Magazine, right?
You had your. Cue from God that was a sound
but if you're not in the moment,that's something easy to miss,
right? We do it.
We do it all the time. I know we.
We do it all the time. Hold on, hold on.
So then you had another moment. Where your girl asked you the
question, like, what are we doing?

(01:57:03):
And you heard it a certain way, right?
But if you're not in the moment,that's also something easy to
miss, right? So is there a feeling that came
along with it that just made it so certain that you could
respond or pivot the way you didwith certainty?
Because a sound and hearing somebody to that capacity.

(01:57:23):
Those are like whispers for the average Joe.
So is there a feeling that also came along with it that you
could share with other people sothey know how to listen to their
intuition for real and the whispers from God.
That's that's the. Question.
So that's a great question. Yeah, so.
This this. Is.
This is, this is something that you know, might be a little

(01:57:46):
heavy, but it's unavoidable thatat some point you have to
elevate your awareness, your consciousness and expand your
perspective. So everything is frequency,
Everything is vibrating. Facto, there is no solid world.
We, we experience it like it's solid, but these are just a

(01:58:10):
bunch of small, small, small, small pieces of matter moving a
very high rate and creating whatappears to be solid matter.
And that includes us. Everything, everything has a
frequency. Everything has a vibration when
you become in tuned with self, which was what my journey was

(01:58:32):
about. It's what introspection is
about. When you the most important
relationship there is for you todevelop is the one between you
and yourself. Because within yourself is where
your God exists. You understand the universe
gives way to all. We are all expressions of the

(01:58:53):
same energy. If you become in tuned with
yourself, you become in tune with everything around you.
But you have to be willing to let go of whatever concerns you
might have about what the peoplewho are around you, whether it's
friends or family, are going to think when you start tuning into

(01:59:15):
the frequencies around you. And believe me, they're going to
be people who will be like, yo, you fucking out?
You're reading too many books. Are you Wilding out?
You're getting strange. You lost it.
You going crazy. I heard all of that.
Yeah. Right.
So what it comes down to is being.
It's not so much. All right.
So the feeling, the feeling is connected to the frequency.

(01:59:36):
You just have to be comfortable with receiving the frequency
and, and accepting that frequency and not being
concerned with external influences.
Like what is this one going to think of?
What is that one going to think?If I say this or act this way in
response to this frequency, thisvibration that I'm getting
that's telling me move this way.Fuck with people know you to

(01:59:58):
move like this is how you move. Now that was yesterday.
Today, this is my frequency, it's my vibration and it
changes. It resonates from inside,
through you and then out. You got to just let it be and
you'll know what you need. That's how I say live on the
street. Before I understood these
things, I stayed live on the street because of one thing.
Something said, leave, I don't give a fuck what's happening.

(02:00:20):
Something said leave, I'm gone. You know how many times I left?
And it's like, yo, as soon as you laugh, they pulled up, they
jumped out. They did.
How many times you've been in the trap or been in some type of
When I say the trap, I don't mean rap shit.
I'm not talking about the trap that they refer to.
I'm talking about being in a fucked up situation where you
said damn something, told me something, told me something.

(02:00:45):
Told me, but go ahead. Listen to what tells you.
That is your God speaking to a good.
Question to rap this. All up, it's the last question.
I'm a little. Late to the party right now.
So hopefully my question resonates.
If you didn't answer it before, I want to say I do agree with
the frequency. It's about validation,
understanding it. Like like you said, when you get
that feeling, you just go with it and you don't think what else
you got to trust it. So I agree with that.

(02:01:07):
I want to say that for sure, in order for it to get stronger.
I'm big on frequency magic. Then you just say yo you like
magic. You know when to pop up and when
not beat it. You can't second guess it.
You missed me. It's ridiculous.
Yeah, including. Those fucking federal
indictments. I want to say my question.
To wrap this all up is I came late so hopefully the answers
before, but what is some advice or I got some thoughts or some

(02:01:31):
processes you can give to peoplein this world right now?
Because we're in a big changing environment far as environment
far as entrepreneurship, far as getting stuff out there far as
being an entrepreneur and makingyour own thing right now deeper.
What is some advice right now orwhat is some strategy that you
that you agree with or may not agree with that people are
should do or should not do in this next age?

(02:01:51):
Because we're honestly, in my mind, we're entering a whole
nother kind of era in in the US right now.
We had the technology year in 1919, sixties.
We're kind of entering a whole nother technology era with this
AI and entrepreneurship and creation and concert creators
and influencers. What is your advice as the
entrepreneur back then now? And what advice?
Would you give? Me and I.
Think that's a good? Way to end this so well.

(02:02:13):
Thank you. Thank you very much.
That was a. Great question our.
Our, our, our. What's your name?
Our guest producer. So shout to Kayla.
Shout to Kayla. So.
What we should be doing, Keepingpace with information.

(02:02:36):
Too many of us had decided when we were far too young to know
what the world would require of us, who we were going to be and
how we were going to be. And we locked into that.
And that might have been 1617 years old.
And here you are, 2737, and you still being the person that that

(02:02:57):
an adolescent decided you would be.
Yeah. And.
The last. Thing an adolescent.
Generally thinks about. Is the continuous expansion of
their knowledge base so that they can continue to be
competitive in the world as it inevitably evolves.
You understand, we melanated people do not have the kind of

(02:03:19):
collective focus that we should have on information.
How many times have you been told about something and then
two years later, three years later, four years later, it
comes to fruition and there is tons of money and all that being
generated, whatever, whatever. And you, you be like, oh damn,
somebody told me about that. I should get on the boat.

(02:03:41):
It's a common. Thing with black people.
To do that, they're so apprehensive, they're so
concerned about somebody gettingthem or taking advantage of them
or or tricking them or, you know, or just they just, they
just don't want to do anything that's going to pick take them
outside of this idea about themselves and who they are.
And thus what that person would do that they decided at 7

(02:04:03):
fucking teen years old, that person wouldn't do, that person
wouldn't be reading that book. That person wouldn't be going to
that seminar. That person would be
participating in that business. That person is not a real
person. That's a made-up person.
Yeah, you. Understand.
Adapt or. Die.
That's the bottom line. Real shit.

(02:04:26):
That's real shit. Adapt and die.
Get in pocket with what the fuck?
Is happening. There's so.
Much happening. There's so much fucking
happening. Your world is changing social,
politically, your world is changing technologically, your
world is changing like physically and a lot of y'all

(02:04:50):
are still existing in 2000. The world is outpacing you.
Ain't nobody worried about what black people go on do because
you got leaders like Umar. Nasty work they're not.
Worried about? US believe.
Me. They're not.

(02:05:10):
Why do you think they feel so emboldened just because this
orange shit lives up there? That ain't why.
That ain't why. It's because they've been
watching us steadily progress backward.
They know that the time for themto do them, they're doing them.
They're not doing us. Us is not their motivation.
Them is their motivation, they got time and opportunity and

(02:05:32):
they're. Taking advantage of it and.
They don't give a fuck how it affects US one way or the other.
Yeah, that's not their concern. It should be our concern.
So information, information. That's it.
Pursue information, learn things, be uncomfortable, and be
comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Stop concerning yourself about what other people think because

(02:05:54):
motherfuckers are not thinking about you.
That's your ego telling you thatshit.
We out, we out here. On that note, adapt.
Adapter die. Adapter die.
I'm I'm feeling. That.
Yo, yeah. Thanks.
Thanks. For pulling up.
Maybe you *** get here earlier next time so we can have more
show. Tell them.
Tell them where to get the merchor set.

(02:06:16):
Pie die. Store die store.
You want to donate QR codes? Zell joint over there.
We got the QR codes. I mean with the juices.
Get you some cookies from deep space cookies get you some juice
from ESO over there. Tag tag it on the gram got with
Kabario got mad books. I'm just I'm taking $5 off.

(02:06:37):
Each learn some read because y'all *** ain't reading the
month. What's your What's your website?
Kabario, The Mind Plug Academy. The Mind Plug academy.com.
Man, So what I'm what I've done here, I.
Do professionals you know I opened up a a school inside.
Tell them. Tell them to site against.
And tell them to site. So they can the mind plug

(02:07:00):
Academy. Dot com all.
Set pie dot store, get your merch all set pie live taggers.
You already know what to do. Regular shit.
We're all set now. I do not sell on Amazon.
You don't sell on Amazon. I don't do business.
With them people. He got copies.
Here. Get you a copy.
Get your shit together. So this is normally 25 I'll get.

(02:07:24):
I got it. For 20, this is normally 35.
I got it. For 30, I won't turn down here
25 because I want you to. I want you to get it.
Understand that the thousands ofbooks that I've consumed, they
have been filtered through the practical experiences that I've
shared with y'all and put into these these experiences.
So old Gangsters and Young Guns is the top ten stories that I

(02:07:46):
did in Don Diva. So this is the real painful
story because I knew every single person, the kidnappers
and the kidnappers every fuckingright tapped into that.
This is. The.
Real. The real.
Sex, money, murder. Story for obvious reasons, and
some of you may or may not. Know but I.
Am BML, Meek is one of my closest.

(02:08:06):
And dearest friends. Seen that picture too that that
fucked me up too. And I and I was.
I was the. One that I was the only one
saying, well, everybody was likego, go, go.
I was like, no, no, no, I was him.
I'm the only one that was sayingyo, stop doing, stop doing, stop
doing. When we was running around here
going fucking crazy in all theseclubs.
So real black mafia shit is in here.

(02:08:29):
Isaac. Isaac Wright Junior, you know,
50 did the mini series for life on whatever.
That's that's my man, that's my bro.
You know that's what 50 got it. In fact, I'm the first person to
put 50 on a couple of magazine. He used to be my mentee.
I'm the one to give him the 48 balls of power.
Yeah, that's crazy. This *** stories was.
Crazy. You got the hell of the story

(02:08:51):
I'm trying to say, but yeah, Copper.
Book you already know. Get some merch, just get out.
Of here for. That for they told me without
extra bread. Yeah, let's go.
Let's go on that. Hello.

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