Hawaii Mike: Culture, Cannabis, and Connection

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Last week on Unglossy .

Speaker 2 (00:02):
I was actually having a conversation with Bun the
other day because, you know,obviously I think the natural
progression with a restaurant isto scale.
My concern with scaling like weship nationally right now on
Gold Belly, you know we ship allover the country in Canada, and
so that's been like a good, youknow, a good filler for me,
like where you know what citiesis working for us and what's not
working for us.

(00:22):
You know what cities is workingfor us and what's not working
for us.
Obviously, I want to scale, butI want to scale at a rate that
we don't compromise theintegrity of the brand, and even
locally scaling it showed melike how that can happen.

Speaker 5 (00:40):
From the top.

Speaker 4 (00:41):
I'm Tom Frank.
I'm Jeffrey Sledge.

Speaker 5 (00:43):
And I'm Bud B, welcome to Unglossy.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Real stories, unfiltered dialogue and the
voices moving culture beyond thegloss of hype and headlines.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
So buckle up.
Unglossy starts now.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
We are back yet for another episode.
Another one Before we dive in,though, we got to talk about
we're a month in now.
We had a big launch about amonth ago.
I kind of think it went prettywell.
What are your thoughts?

Speaker 4 (01:09):
People are mad excited.
I got a lot of calls, a lot oftexts congratulating me for
opening up this network with youtwo, and people are excited.

Speaker 5 (01:19):
Absolutely.
I got a lot of the same and wegot some good response from
media as well, did a coupleinterviews.
A couple of people posted aboutit.
You know I'm saying the wordsgetting out there, just you know
.
Probably, just I'm I'm waitingfor a little more feedback on
what I might be doing wrong andyou guys might be a little too
kind to me to put it in the typeof words I I'm a tough love

(01:42):
kind of guy, so I'm just waitingfor somebody to be like bro,
your teeth was bugging.
Like I'm just waiting forsomething crazy like that you
know what I'm saying I feel likeI'm too close to this thing
sometimes, but I will say theconversations have felt great.
You know what I'm saying.
I feel like the back and forthwe're we're getting a little bit
more used to talking with eachother.

(02:02):
I'm seeing less and lessoverlap in conversation, but
also I'm really enjoying thepeople that we're conversating
with.
We're having really, reallygood conversations because
people that have been a part ofthese conversations or they're
not.
I come from a space where, likewith artists, you got to pull

(02:22):
teeth to get people to reallyopen up and talk.
But luckily we've been able toget some people in here who are
natural orators, naturalconversationalism at the very at
the very least, people thatlike to hear themselves talk,
which is always good for apositive?

Speaker 1 (02:36):
yeah, absolutely, and I think it's fun.
I mean it's it's like we're allI know we're not all in the
same location, but it's likewe're sitting in a living room
and we're just like chatting itup with people and people are
just we're talking about allsorts of crazy stuff and it's
fun.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
But it all works out.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
It doesn't feel distant at all?
Not at all.
I have two things, though I gottwo things I want to say.

Speaker 5 (02:55):
Number one let me get my notepad Hold on your notepad
.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Number one, and it's not about you.
Number one you know, inaddition to our show, we have
Mixed and Mastered with Jeffrey.
That has been fantastic.
I listen to it all the time,even though I record it, and I'm
fascinated by some of thelittle nuggets of stuff that I
had never thought about that, orI never realized that person
did that, or whatever it happensto be.
And we have the Comic CulturePodcast with Pete Rock.

(03:21):
I mean they're rocking it rightnow.
It's fun, it's engaging.
Those guys are, you know, thoseguys are generally having a
good time doing it.
So both those shows have beengreat.
So that's number one.
Number two I would have neverin a million years thought that
I would be in a HoustonChronicle article with Bun B.
I found it fascinating.

Speaker 5 (03:41):
You live long enough, you'd be surprised what happens
.
Yeah, you would, yeah, youwould so we've had some great
press coverage.
It's been awesome We've beengetting some really really good
responses from people andinquiries.
People wanting to know more andhow we started, where we're
going.
I'm excited.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
Yeah, I really am I also think we're going to get
more.
I don't know if questions isthe right term, but more people
are going to start saying hey, Igot an idea for a podcast.
I got an idea for a podcast.
Can I go on your podcastnetwork and do this?
I think we're going to get moreof that too.
People are excited aboutbuilding this network, you know.

Speaker 5 (04:19):
I think so, because they figure if I can make it
work, anybody can.
You're good.
I have for years been averse tolistening to myself talk.
I don't ride around to listento my own music that much, and
so I always thought it was a bitfacetious.
But it does lend itself, inthis new age of context like
that definitely lends itself toto expanding your reach,

(04:40):
creating deeper levels ofconnection with people.
I'm all for it.
I'm old.
I don't want to die with thisshit in my head.
I need somewhere to get it out,I got to give somebody this
game before I go.
So this platform and thisparticular podcast offers me
that opportunity and I'm excited.

Speaker 4 (04:55):
It's the great words of the poet Laurent Cee-Lo Green
.
I thank the Lord that my voicewas accordable.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
I know that's right.

Speaker 4 (05:04):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Now talking about interesting guests.
We got one today.
We got one today.
Today's guest is a truearchitect of culture, someone
who's been shaping theintersection of hip-hop,
cannabis, food and community formore than 25 years.
You might know him as a roadmanager for Mobb Deep, a
lifestyle editor at the Sourceor the branding mind behind

(05:28):
projects with Nike, reebok,mountain Dew, but that's only
part of the story.
From sneaking into musicconventions as a teenager to
building Chef for Hire, agroundbreaking cannabis-infused
culinary experience with over200 sold-out suppers, hawaii
Mike has lived at the cuttingedge of creativity.
His work blends entertainment,education and empowerment,
bringing people together throughculture, cuisine and

(05:50):
conversation.
He's been featured in forbes,the washington post and many
more, and now he's here with us.
Please welcome non-glossyhawaii mike that's good y'all.

Speaker 6 (06:01):
Thanks for having me.
Hello.

Speaker 5 (06:02):
Michael man.
So glad to have you here today,brother, because you have such
an incredible journey that'sstill happening.
You know what I'm saying and inthe midst of researching
there's just things I learnedabout you, having known you for
over 20-plus years, that Ididn't know about.
You're always just a kindbrother.
You always had great, engagingconversations.

(06:23):
You came highly regarded from alot of our mutual friends.
It's been a pleasure getting toknow you as a friend.
You're becoming, I feel, like abrother of mine, getting to
know you better, and I stillrealize there's things I didn't
know.
I'm excited about us havingthis conversation today.
I will keep my notepad out tomake some notes.

Speaker 6 (06:43):
That's why I started Mask Off was to learn more about
my people, like when we didthat episode with you, you know.
So it's like it's that samething and I think there's a
we're at this point where it'slike this constant evolution,
and then I'm learning to reflecta lot you know what I'm saying
and to look back, because onething we don't do is celebrate.
I want to get to that point.

(07:03):
Man, we're alive with 50s.
I had six people I knew wellpass away last year in their 50s
.
I had another one two weeks ago.
So it's like yo celebration isimportant and I'm not letting
them take that away from us.
I'm doing that intentionallywith all of my people.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
It's funny.
You should say that, because Ihad a neighbor of mine pass away
recently and I read hisobituary afterwards and I was
amazed at the things I didn'tknow about this guy, and he
lived right next to me and it'sit's podcasts like this and your
show that like I think that'sreally important to understand
people's journeys and otherpeople's story, because we all
find these amazing things.

(07:39):
I'm like never, never eventhought about that or never,
always wondered like where, howdid he get from here to there or
this, and why is he acting likethis or that?
And a lot of it is.
We got to tell our storiessometime, and I think this
podcasting platform gives us theopportunity to do that like
we've never done before.
So we got to start at thebeginning, though.
Hawaii, mike, hawaii.

Speaker 6 (07:59):
Mike, so you grew up in Hawaii, is that correct?
I was, yeah, so I'm born in SanFrancisco, though.
So people think, like a lot oftimes people would be like
Hawaiian Mike.
I'm like.
No, I'm not Hawaiian.
I was raised in Hawaii.
My mom was working with growers, hippie style, went to Hawaii,
lived out there for about mygrade school, like kindergarten
through, I think, fifth grade,and then I moved back to San

(08:19):
Francisco and, yeah, so SanFrancisco and then out here when
I was 18 and where's out here?
Where are you at now?
Oh, new york, my bad, I've been, yeah, I've been, in new york
for so long people think I'mfrom here.
I've been in new york since 92and when you say growers yeah,
could you.
Could you elaborate on that?
Oh, yeah, so so I'm one ofthese people.

(08:41):
Like my whole life I've beenaround the cannabis plant.
My mom smoked with me in thewomb.
She dropped acid like two daysafter I was born.
So the idea of spiritualitythrough that lens, openness,
finding self, that inner work,that's always kind of been there
.
And Hawaii, yeah, she wasworking with cannabis growers,
so we were the people in the vanoutside.
So I'm a little kid sleeping ina van with my mom and my

(09:04):
stepfather Going to school outthere and surfing every day.
Mike.

Speaker 4 (09:09):
I was trying to remember.
Did I meet you at Gavin?
I met you before you came toNew York, correct?
I believe so.

Speaker 6 (09:19):
I mean I'm sure we probably hung out at the Gavin.

Speaker 4 (09:23):
Yeah, because you were really young.

Speaker 6 (09:25):
It was really when I was starting to see Fenster,
like when I would go to Jive tosee Jeff Fenster.
I think we really started like.
You know what I'm saying, but Ithink weren't you somewhere
else before that?

Speaker 4 (09:34):
Before Jive, I was at Wild Pitch.

Speaker 5 (09:42):
Wild Pitch, yeah, wild Pitch, yeah.
So we were marching over thoseguys, right, never do that Back
into the new pad, never do thatone, Jeff Michael was like a kid
when.

Speaker 4 (09:47):
I met him he was really young.
I turned 19 the month after Imoved out here.
Yeah, he was like a reallyyoung guy.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
Wait, you moved to New York at 19?
.

Speaker 6 (09:57):
Yeah, so I was so alright.
So my dad was a musician and tosubsidize his income he was
selling weed.
So I was taking weed from himand selling to my friends and
their parents and shit like that.
And so you know, I grew up withthe Invisible Scratch Pickles
like Mix Master, mike and allthose guys and you know Alex
Aquino, and so that's alwaysbeen fam, and so you know they

(10:19):
were the DJs.
There was other kids that werethe rappers.
We were the dancers.
You know what I'm saying?
I was a B-boy and so we wouldall figure out how to go to the
Gavin convention to sneak in sowe could meet people.
You know, it was literally justphotocopies of badges, and so I
would go in there and slangtrees too and met a couple
people Shout out to Jameis andAlbie yeah and Albie, those are

(10:43):
the guys that got me out here.
Literally pause in a bathroom.
They were like yo, do you knowwhere you're at?
I'm like, yeah, I'm in abathroom selling Yowie.
They were like nah, this islike a serious music convention,
we're from record labels.
And I was like I know that part.
He's like but yo, you guys gotto have a hustle Like come to
New York and we'll figure outgetting you an internship.

(11:04):
And you know I flew out.
Actually, I drove out here andon the set of Diamond D Best
Kept Secret I got hired.
Shout out to Martha Reynolds,reynolds Jesus, you know, put me
on to do college radiopromotions as an intern.
But really like rest in peace.
This is one of the people I wastalking about last year, my man

(11:24):
Scoop.
But really like rest in peace.
This is one of the people I wastalking about last year, my man
Scoop.
Like if Scoop didn't go toTommy Boy, that internship might
not have been there for me.
You know what I'm saying and mystory might have been different
.
So it's like you know he wentto Tommy Boy, vacated that
internship and then I got that.
So first record I worked wasDiamond D, Best Kept Secret.
Wow.
Wow, wow.

(11:46):
Wow, yeah, bro, but yeah, Iliterally turned 19.
That was probably my birthdaymonth that I got hired.
Wow.

Speaker 5 (11:54):
How long were you interning before you got like an
actual position in New York?

Speaker 6 (12:01):
How long were you kind of just bouncing and
hustling at that point?
I mean, I only interned thereand I want to say I might have
got fired from the internship orthe internship ended or some
shit.
And then the position openedfor national director of radio
promotions at Chemistry PWL andI went back and I got that.

Speaker 4 (12:15):
Who was on PWL at the time?

Speaker 6 (12:17):
So it was Diamond D and Ed OG, and the Bulldogs is
probably the most known, andthen another kid who passed away
, scientific.
Yeah, those are like the mainones.
But in that office I don't knowif I've told this story, but in
that office there was anotherPR agency, paula Bradshaw.
You remember Paula Right?

(12:38):
And so she used to do PR forthis group called Mobstop.
They used to come by the office.
I used to smoke with one of themain members, a guy by the name
of AZ.
I'm from San Francisco, bro.
I have no clue who this dude isuntil the Painted Four movie
comes out.
When the Painted Four moviecomes out, I'm like, wait what

(13:01):
we used to smoke all the time.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
I had no clue.
Me and Dante.
Ross.
He was on Mixed and Masted withme and Mob Style came up.
We had a whole conversationabout Mob Style and AZ and
Gangsta Lou.

Speaker 6 (13:15):
Yeah, absolutely, yep , wow, yeah, but being from
California, like I had no clue,you know.

Speaker 5 (13:25):
That's hilarious.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
That's what makes it great, right?
So how did you switch over then?
Cause you ultimately ended upat the source.
Then Is that right?

Speaker 6 (13:33):
Yeah.
So after I got after the job atPwO ended, chemistry records
ended.
I was kind of in the in betweenand one of my peoples was like
Mobb Deep needs a road manager.
They his their managers at thetime happened to literally live
on the same block, just aroundthe corner from me Tammy and
Peachy and and my man, loyalThomas.

(13:55):
I was like yo, come through,they want to meet you.
So I went and chopped it upwith them.
They sent me on a show withMobb and they were like yo, if
they like you, you're the newrole man.
I'm like all right, I'm a, I'mbroke.
I'm like I'm 21,.
I think, yeah, I'm 21.

(14:16):
At the time I'm probably 140pounds soaking wet.
You know what I'm saying, butI'm the biggest dude in the crew
.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
You're the biggest dude in the crew.
You're the biggest dude in thecrew.

Speaker 6 (14:27):
I mean, bro, have you ever met a dude?
It's funny because it's true.
But yeah, we hit it off.
I was their road manager fromJanuary 95 through June when
they signed with Violator I'msorry, go back.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
What is a road manager like?
What do you do as a roadmanager day to day?

Speaker 6 (14:46):
save our lives for this group exactly, particularly
for this group, because there'sthe general, there's the
general job description and thenyou can get into this group
yeah, so there is the 2025version that a lot of people
know now, and there's a 90sversion of rap music, Because I

(15:09):
swear people have a fairytalestory when you bring up the
Infamous album, because thisalbum is aged better than a lot
of albums Most albums.
This album has.
Just like every time I listento it, I'm like this is
incredible.
I was like how are these kids,18 years old, doing this shit?
It's insane.
That was like how are these?

Speaker 5 (15:26):
kids, 18 years old doing this shit.
It's insane.
That was the thing right.
It was the age, like themusical maturity I'm not going
to say personal, because theywere 18 and 19-year-old New York
kids for sure why but themusical maturity was years ahead
of many children.
We see a lot of kids now at 18and 19, and there's a lot of

(15:46):
things that are more preset.
I can say right, you do theHouse of Blues promo tour, then
you go out opening for somebodyand then you get your run.
It wasn't like that.
I'm sure you guys did a lot ofclub dates.

Speaker 6 (16:00):
It was mostly club dates.
There was no tours, we was allclub dates, spot dates, Like we
used to fill in when Craig Mackcouldn't be there.
We'd be doing shows with Biggie.
But it was like you know.
I got to me.
I got to go to Queens Ridge.
I don't know the history ofQueens Ridge, I don't know the
first side, I know nothing.

(16:21):
I'm going in there in themiddle of the night.
I'm going in there at five inthe morning picking them up.
I'm like I got to go to Hav'sroom and wake him up and step
through bottles of liquor on thefloor and try to shake him up.
It's adult babysitting.
When you have to go somewhere,You're the chaperone.

Speaker 5 (16:44):
A grown man.

Speaker 6 (16:46):
Well, not even a grown boy grown boys at that
time, because they're not yes,grown boys, because then
remember, remember we had togrow up early.
So you know, a 19 year old now,a 27 year old now doesn't
equate to an 18 year old backthen from queensbridge.
You know the things we saw, thethings we did, how we moved,
like it's way different, youknow.

(17:08):
So getting through all of thatwas nuts.
And then you know it shows it's.
We gotta go get that back halfbefore we go on stage yep, I
gotta make sure I don't lose thedebts.
Right, because we didn't have adj, because we didn't have that
budget, we're doing a show date.
I mean we're just doing clubdates, you know.
So I'm the dj, I got the debtsI gotta make Because we didn't
have a DJ, because we didn'thave that budget, because we
were doing a show date.
I mean we were just doing clubdates, so I'm the DJ, I got the
debts, I got to make sure I gotbackups and you know we can't

(17:31):
just download from the cloudreal quick I got to make sure
everything's physical.
Unfortunately, notunfortunately, unfortunately.
Every time Shook Ones came onit was like a melee, like that
was like the immediate fightsong.
If somebody had beef orsomebody was too drunk or
somebody just looked at somebodywrong, there was fights.

(18:02):
And so I would have to literally, because also the sound man, if
you're set up at a club, isn'talways next to the stage, right,
no, or we'll be set up in aballroom at a hotel doing a show
.

Speaker 4 (18:09):
The sound booth is like way in the middle of the
stage we're completely separated.

Speaker 6 (18:13):
So I'd always have to fight my way through and get
back to them to the car.
It was nuts man.
And then the other part issafety right, we can't pack
because we're flying.
So there's one story that Pused to always tell, that I used
to always tell and I never knew.

(18:35):
He told it also until I saw iton a few podcasts.
We was in Cleveland one timeand we were at a steakhouse I
forget who was with us from loud.
They took us out to somesteakhouse.
I know where this is going Atthe end.
I know where this is going atthe end.
I know where this is going.
I see them take the knives.
I'm like all right, I know whaty'all doing, I get it.

Speaker 5 (18:53):
I I live this.
I knew when you said steakhousegoing bro because they're like
that was a big part ofwaffleaffle House.
Yeah, exactly Like if you had tofly somewhere.
You know, for many years wedrove, for many years we drove,
but then, as airports started toopen up, we used to have to fly

(19:14):
.
So we'd be like yo, let's hitDenny's, let's hit the spot
right quick where we can getsomething.
Now, in certain cities, like inAtlanta, you can pull them to a
gas station and get likecrocodile duck meat type of
things.
Now, you know what I'm saying,but it wasn't always like that.
I know exactly what he'stalking about.

(19:35):
I know exactly what he wastalking about.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
I'm going to look at an IHOP completely differently
now.

Speaker 5 (19:41):
I mean it was A steakhouse has a steak knife
with a point Right, you go toIHOP and all of that.
It's more of a blooded butit'll do the job.

Speaker 6 (19:51):
I mean take one of their tracks Survival of the
Fittest Straight up.

Speaker 5 (19:54):
And these were young boys out of town, I would
imagine, for the first time.
You know, with different Voiceaccents and different people
Trying to holler at differenttypes of chicks.

Speaker 6 (20:05):
You don't say different slang but with one of
the hardest records out right.

Speaker 5 (20:12):
That incites an energy that is so like I
remember I was living in Atlantain 95 and that was one of the
probably the longestconversation at that point that
I'd ever had with Andre.
3000 was when?
Was when the infamous drop thathe was like I'm not tripping

(20:32):
this shit hard, right, I said Ican't get past Godfather three,
I can't get past it.
Like this shit is really reallyreally good.
He's like and he's so young.
I'm like it's like these niggasso young.
I'm like yo, they're going tobe a problem when they're like
25, 26.
It's going to be a problem withthese dudes, but they were a
little too loose, I feel, totake full advantage of what they

(20:56):
had.

Speaker 6 (20:57):
But also I think if they were to come out, if that
kind of group that was that goodcame out like five, six years
ago, they would be one of thebiggest groups period.
Because that's why that albummatured so well is because
musically, sonically, lyricallyit was that good.

(21:19):
It was just rap wasn't at thattime is what you're saying it's
the preponent to drillabsolutely I don't even know
that.
I think it would be bigger thanI don't even know what I'm
saying is.

Speaker 5 (21:31):
What I'm saying is is that everything that drill is
now?
Oh, yeah, they were then.
Yes, you know what I'm saying.
Yeah, it's particularly when Ibecause your drill gets
separated between chicago andnew york.
Now I don't want to argue, Idon't want to argue semantics
about that, but I do see whatnew york drill represents.
I see the age group, I see howthey move and a lot of that is

(21:51):
derivative of mob deep, probablywithout even understanding that
it is because now that youngwhite end mentality, is day for
day, yeah, in new york, wasn'tthen.
But those young kids back thenthey were so self-aware, bro,
yep, like that was the thingthat I drew from it.
They were I'm like yo, thesedudes are very, so self-aware,
bro.
Yep, that, like that was thething that I drew from it.
They were I'm like yo, thesedudes are very, very self-aware.

(22:12):
They know that they're young.
They know they're probably alittle too young to be out, not
just talking like this living it, but living like this but it
literally was who they were.
They had hennessy jerseys.
What?

Speaker 6 (22:24):
for bro.
No, but now we're in the videoand they're underage drinking.
Yeah, I'm like now no, no rightthe labels.
Somebody would have stoppedthat or somebody would have
called and been like complainingabout that right, but he said
it in that record.

(22:44):
I'm only 19, but my mind is oldhey, they, like you said, they
knew they were very aware.
It was again the maturitylevels coming from those.
Our generation, like generationx, is special.
I tell people this all the time.
We are the translationgeneration.
We're the last of analog in thevery, very first of the
invention of digital.

(23:05):
Right, the way we're able totake that analog mentality and
that do-it-yourself andunderstand, like really with our
hands, figuring it out andgoing into tech, it was just
different.
It was a different time, man,and how we grew up and you know,
being those latchkey kids andall that, like we were forced,
plus we had OGs.
True, we had the othergenerations outside.

(23:27):
I always say the kids after us,especially the Gen Zs.
Their OGs are the internet,like they just tap in the key If
they got a question.
They need to learn something,this, that and the third, or
style, or girls or this.
I can just go like this andit's right there for them.

Speaker 4 (23:44):
We actually went outside and spoke to the cats
that we looked up to, gotlessons, got for them.
We actually went outside andspoke to the cats that we love
to.
Got lessons from the peoplelike mouth to mouth.

Speaker 5 (23:53):
A real life.

Speaker 4 (23:54):
That's a great point.

Speaker 5 (23:55):
I still think that's necessary.
That's why I make myself asavailable as possible.
The second generation after meand the third generation that's
out there right now.
I still feel like some of thisknowledge still translates right
, like not every aspect of it.
But I'd say to talk more aboutreal life shit with artists

(24:17):
nowadays, because I feel likeyoung artists as far as getting
money and all of that marketingand all of that, that stuff's
there for them, right, thatstuff's rented, that information
is available, a lot of themcome in a game knowing a lot of
those nuances.
But then it becomes okay.
Now I'm getting real money fromthis rap shit and I'm touring
and I'm not home and I miss mykids and I'm not seeing my girl

(24:40):
and the relationship is gettingdistant and all of these type of
things.
That's kind of what I feel likemy value is to a younger artist
, like how to make all of thisthat's happening in the industry
make sense in real life.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
It has to be the person who comes out and finds
you, though, because, to Mike'spoint, they all got this, and
it's like we had to go figure itout because we didn't have
anything.
We had to go find somebody totalk to.
Or we had to go figure it outbecause we didn't have anything.
We had to go find somebody totalk to.
Or we had to go figure it outbecause we didn't have somewhere
to just punch in anything, andmillions of articles would come
up.

Speaker 5 (25:14):
I tried to be like the chauffeur right as soon as
you got in the game.
I'm holding a sign, like youknow what I'm saying?

Speaker 4 (25:20):
Yeah, come get in my car.

Speaker 5 (25:23):
Come holler at your boy.
And I never wanted to signanybody.
I was always taught that ifyou're in a space, if you allow
other good people into thatspace, if you help them get into
that space, that space canremain what it was when you got
there.
Yep, you know what I'm saying.
So that was me.
I just wanted to give peoplethe same way.
I had J Prince to give me game.

(25:44):
I had Too Short to give me game.
I had E-40 to give me game.
I wanted too short to give megame.
I had E40 to give me game.
I wanted to be that type of anOG right that had those
conversations that were almostinvaluable because nobody else.
When those guys sign, theydon't have anybody to talk to.
They don't understand a lot ofthat shit and if they try to go
and talk, to their homies.

Speaker 6 (26:02):
They understand it even less Bad advice, bad
information, you know.
I mean they kind of do it insports, bad information, you
know.
I mean they kind of do it insports right Like you go to the
NBA, they got the rookie campsand all that kind of stuff.
It's not really like there's adraft, though, in the music
industry you know what I'msaying when there's a certain
time where you can get everybodytogether and everything just
kind of happens.
That being said, as you'resaying it I mean, I think you do

(26:23):
that already on your own, butthat could be a thing you know
what I'm saying that's kind ofput out there.
That could even be anothercontent piece that's done on a
regular, where you do those bitsand then that connects again.
That's so.
This is why I got intostreaming, cause, like Thomas
was saying, they're all ondevices now.
Yeah, so we have to go where theattention is to create these

(26:44):
connections, Then from there wecan go offline you know what I'm
saying and create theseconnections, Then from there we
can go offline.
You know what I'm saying andmake real life, take it offline,
yes, yeah, and then create theIRL stuff, like the events and
all those other things wherepeople can really get together.
But that's been my whole goal,right, but doing it through the
lens of this culture, because atthe end of the day, like for me
, I look at hip hop as a wholeway of life, right, a whole

(27:07):
culture.
It's everything that we do andhow we express ourselves, but to
me it's the most authenticexpression of our modern human
experience, right, that's whyit's not ethnicity-based, it's
not geographically-based, it'san energy, it's a feeling.
If we all turned our eyes off,we would be friends with every
single kind of ethnicity on thisplanet through that culture.

(27:29):
But because we use our eyes, webring all of the prejudice,
because all that information wehave, that we've absorbed, even
if we weren't paying attention,my eyes are picking up all this
stuff in the peripheral andfeeding that to our brains.
Right now we get stored and westore.
But now we have to sift throughthat.

(27:50):
But if our algorithms, ourprogramming, gets into bad loops
, we're stuck on the negativestuff.
We're not even seeing the goodstuff.
So it's it's a lot out there.
That's why, again, like thisculture.
I got so much to say about it,but, again, that's why I started
the streaming stuff.
That's why I wanted to justhave these platforms to be able
to talk about it, and I've beenholding back.

(28:10):
Man, my media guy has beenwanting to just like leap out,
you know, and so it's so much tobe said because I think we do
have that opportunity,especially with this younger
generation.
A lot of them are still in theclouds.
There's a lot of them that wantto be grounded, though.
There's a lot of them that aregoing outside in the world and

(28:32):
exploring.

Speaker 4 (28:32):
There's a lot of them that are asking questions and
pushing the envelope and andusing their resources like to do
whatever they want, and I thinkit's amazing watching these
kids I think that was one of theamazing things about gavin
convention and places like that,because you go out you know me
as a new york kid go out tofrisco and you're meeting people
, everybody's yeah, congage fromall over the country.

(28:52):
So I mean, got some texas,obviously, got some to bay, a
lot of guys from the bay, youknow la, you know wherever, and
we're a white, white, black,because there's a lot of college
radio as well, and so we'remeeting face to face.
We used to talk on the phone,now we meet, and you said the.
I mean I hate to sound like theold fogey dude, but the
prejudice thing wasn't reallydidn't really matter, it was
just like that's my dude, stevefournier from.

(29:14):
He's got a record pool in texas.
I didn't really care that hewas white or black, I just you
know, and we met for the firsttime.
We talked to paul stewart or avariety of people.
Those things are missing aswell.
That kind of brings peopletogether.

Speaker 5 (29:29):
Well, that part of the industry was not driven
around monetary incentive atthat time and everyone that was
occupying those spaces generallywanted to know more about the
culture, wanted to be moreimmersed in the culture.
I don't think there was enoughmoney flowing around for people

(29:50):
to have the pure incentive ofcoming in and taking financial
advantage of people.
We didn't even understand howfar and how long this thing was
going and it was on its 20thyear, but it was still breaking
new ground and it was stillincorporating new technology.
Like Riding Dirty was one ofthe first we did, riding dirty
on the beta of pro tools.
So I mean that 95 96 era wewere literally charting new

(30:15):
territory.
Jeff, you might remember, onriding dirty there's literally a
skit that says if you'relistening to this on a cassette
tape you need to flip thismotherfucker over, but if you're
listening to it on the cd justlet that motherfucker roll.
Like we had to instruct people,we didn't, because we were they
knew that was our first albumthat was released on the cd and

(30:38):
one of the first rap albums.
Like in that first year of cdimplementation in hip-hop and I
knew motherfuckers from my worlddidn't know what the fuck a CD
was.
That took a while to becomecommon usage in the music
industry.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Can you imagine kids today flipping a cassette over
Like that?
Wouldn't even make sense tothem.

Speaker 5 (30:59):
Well, the ill shit was around that time the
auto-reverse started too.
I know I'm dating right now,but this was when the tape decks
were auto-reversed and so youwould just let it go in and that
motherfucker would just, itwould stop and the rotation
would go the other day and themachine would read it that way,
which is crazy.

Speaker 6 (31:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (31:17):
So, so let I want to talk about the era where I met
you, in which was probably rightafter this, this role
management era, because I metyou there, go ahead.

Speaker 6 (31:27):
Cause.
I'll give you the segue to how Ieven that.
All that happened Right.
So I hear real quick.
I'll finish the story with P.
So the knife thing, right.
So we're doing a show withBiggie that night.
I give them their mic, we queueup, put my dad in.
All of a sudden I hear Biggie'smusic come on.
Enough is DJing.
I think he starts spinning.
I'm looking at the sound man.

(31:48):
I'm like what the fuck?
And he's like they're playingfrom the turntables.
I'm like shit, alright.
Next thing, you know, thefucking crowd rushes the stage,
pins the fucking securityagainst the stage because, for
whatever reason, they had thefolding tables in front of them
and then they were in betweenthat and the stage.
So they just got pinned.
Crazy melee, everybody'sfighting because everybody

(32:10):
wanted to get that big.
They were trying to test them.
Cleveland was pretty wild backthen.
It really was.
Finally everything calms down.
I finally get backstage and Isee P and half standing with
knives like this, just ready forwhatever it's ready for war.
I get it, bro, let's go.
So yeah, so it was.

(32:31):
It was.
It was just crazy.
It was always something likethat.
You know what I'm saying withthem.
And then we'll take it toAtlanta now, 95.
I'm with the Source.
We're on the Source tour right,so back then the.
Source van tours right.
So Oos, that's the first time Imet Oos.
We go to Nikki's VIP together.
Long story short, your man getssmacked in the face with a

(32:53):
glass.
Some chick threw a glass at him, cracked his whole forehead
open, got him to the emergencyroom.
We get there, I sneak him intothe back to see the doctor.
Cool, now he's like you're mybrother forever.
I want you to work with me, andso literally the next month
month this was june the nextmonth I'm working at the source.

(33:14):
So the first, like the first, Ithink it was bone thugs in
harmony.
I was on the cover of that one.
That was the last cover.
Rest in peace.
Chimo do shot and that was myfirst.
That was my first issue, exactlyright circle, full circle,
right who's?
The editor.

Speaker 4 (33:31):
Who's the?

Speaker 6 (33:32):
editor at that time james bernard at that time was I
think, a dario strange yeah sowhat were you, what were your
official duties Then, as?
a lifestyle editor.
Were you a lifestyle editorthen?

(33:52):
No, no, so, all right.
So this is where it gets funny,so we'll get funny in a second.
I'm the marketing mobilemarketing manager.
What does that even mean?
Van tours.
So basically, I do all themarketing for the van tours.
I'm the liaison between thesource, source, the labels and
the drivers that are out theredoing the events and driving

(34:14):
around on tour.
Right?

Speaker 1 (34:17):
which kind of makes sense from your experience?

Speaker 6 (34:20):
yeah, yeah no, for sure.
Yeah, and that's the thing likeI hope people take away from
this, follow your passions andjust do what you love and
everything is going to justhappen like I, I never got a job
from going on an interview youknow what I'm saying.
There was always some otherconnection or something else.

(34:41):
Every interview I went on neverworked, like you know, um, but
anyway.
So I'm at the more marketmanager and then a gentleman by
the name of Ray Benzino Well,actually, sorry, ray Dog they
started a record label calledSurrender Records and they put
out this company started thiscompilation, this wise guys

(35:03):
compilation, where he was takingdifferent rappers from
different hoods in the Bostonarea People who would normally
fight and put them onto onealbum and represent Boston.
I was doing the sessions, I wasgetting Rainbow Records,
getting everything pressed up.
I was mixing and mastering withTony Dorsey over a master disc,

(35:26):
Bro.
it was all of that.
And then they tried to get me tomove to boston to run the label
no without a contract no andI'm in hawaii at the time and I
was just like I guess I quity'all, y'all gotta fire me or
something.
I'm not going, you know um.

(35:48):
And then I was doing likestreet promotions and all kinds
of other stuff.
And remember the source sports,like the source sports magazine
I created so Chris Wilder wasthe editor in chief.
I created a sneaker column inthe source sports and then from
that it led me to doing thesneaker column in the source.
And then they were like willyou do flavors of the month?

(36:09):
Will you do this?
And then I became the lifestyleeditor.
From that, actually I'm thelifestyle and tech editor, or
style and tech editor, somethinglike that.
What was tech then?
I mean tech was like bros.
It was, uh, two-way pagers.
It was like you know then likemotorola razors, or you know,
playstation 2, steam, sleep, 2.

(36:29):
Xbox, like bro I was a betatester for.

Speaker 5 (36:33):
Xbox Live.

Speaker 6 (36:35):
That's cool, so, being at the source, when Xbox
Live first went on, before theyeven pushed it to the public,
they had like a few thousandpeople on there, I think,
testing it out, and so I was oneof the people on there playing
Halo, you know live.
I was one of the people onthere playing Halo, you know
live, Because before then wewould play Halo and like link
four TVs together at somebody'shouse and link all this, yeah,

(36:59):
and that's how we would play.

Speaker 5 (37:00):
That's the beginning of gaming as we know it now yeah
, Gaming streaming, streamingand all that.

Speaker 6 (37:04):
Yeah, you know, but you know it was funny because
that showed, like, the heart ofwhat this country is and what I
mean.
You know it was funny becausethat showed the heart of what
this country is and what I meanby that.
It was the most racistmotherfuckers on there that you
could imagine and it's goingback and forth which still
exists today.
Oh my God, it was so bad and nowthey still do it to this day.
But again, once you take youreyes out of things in the

(37:28):
ability to be physical, you seethe truth, or you feel it, or
you hear it, and you know I'msaying that's what we got so and
so, yes, I basically like it'sfashion, like.
So I was, like you know, backthen the source was one of what
you had.
The source, you had the vibe,you had vibe, you had slam and
then you basically had the eastbay catalog.
Those are only places you couldsee new sneakers, sneakers, yep,

(37:50):
right, and you know I basicallygot the job because I dressed
well, I shopped and I alwayswanted the new stuff.
So it's like they were like youcould be, you could do this
well and just developed all therelationships with everybody and
, yeah, became one of thesneaker guys.
So that's mainly what I did.
So flavors of the month,anything that didn't have a
model right, so it's all productbased.

(38:11):
So every time you saw flavorsor any kind of like product
roundups, or if you saw on thetech or the automotive side,
like athletes or artists intheir cars, like I would do all
of that too, a lot of hats myman, yeah, I mean, but again
it's.
It's all things that wereliterally in my wheelhouse.

(38:32):
You know, I grew up around cars.
I always loved cars.
Technology was always my thing.
I remember my dad bringing methe, remember the LCD Donkey
Kong, the little flip thing,back in like 84?
I had that in 82.
Oh, you got it early and my dadwent to Japan, you know, yeah,
and then he brought that backand then I was the only kid in
school with it, so everybodyused to buy batteries so we

(38:54):
could all play on my job.
I was like y'all want to play,you guys by buying a battery
yeah, y'all want to.
Yeah, you know.
So, like technology, it wasalways there.
And then what I would do isincorporate the other things
that I enjoyed.
So I would.
I would take action.
Sports, right, I surf, so Iwould put like surf gear
sometimes in there, sneak thatin.

(39:15):
I started putting Burton intothe magazine and other ski gear
at a time when you could onlybuy Burton on the mountain yeah,
they didn't have flagshipstores yet and it was only at
ski spots.
You don't really have ski spotsanywhere, so it was only on the
mountain and that led to mestarting to do product placement
for them.
So I would do product placement.

(39:38):
I was doing product placementon 50, like all kinds of stuff
which ended up in the otherdrama because the Eminem stuff
with Benzino came up.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
And we'll be right back.

Speaker 5 (39:48):
Welcome to Merrick Studios, where stories take the
mic and culture comes alive.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
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Speaker 4 (39:57):
In this season, we're bringing the heat with our
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Speaker 5 (40:05):
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Speaker 1 (40:09):
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Speaker 3 (40:18):
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This is where MCs sharpen theirskills and glow boldly on the
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Ready to level up, visitPendulumInccom and start your
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Speaker 1 (40:37):
And now back to the show.

Speaker 5 (40:39):
So where is food at in all of this, Mike, and all of
these things that are happeningin your life, moving from the
Bay to Hawaii and back to NewYork, almost moving to Boston
all of these things arehappening.
Where's food at in?

Speaker 6 (40:51):
your life All right.
So I'll rewind.
My mom is vegan, or was vegan,so she raised me vegan.
I was vegan for the first nineyears of my life and in Hawaii
it's not that it's strange, butas a kid it's like you're
watching all the other kids goto the lunch trucks getting
lunch plates and I can't evenhave plate lunch, you know what
I'm saying?

(41:11):
Like what everybody else iseating.
Well, I got to have the specialmeal at school in the cafeteria
, because everything's fuckingjello Right.
And so my mom was like, if youwant to eat anything else, you
have to cook it yourself.
And called my dad, got recipesand started roasting chicken and
all kinds of stuff at like nineyears old, and so food for me

(41:33):
has always been something Ienjoyed.
I loved because it was like asocial thing to me, Right,
because the other things is like.
You know my grandfather, mymom's side every time we had a
family gathering, he wouldbarbecue and he would sneak me
food, you know.
Or my stepfather, if we went tothe bay and we were here, we'd
go sneak and get a burrito, andmy mom wasn't looking.

(41:55):
Or my dad, and you know whatI'm saying.
So food became like a treat orlike this thing.
So I wanted to explore it andthen, randomly, my first job was
a prep cook, like you know,working in a restaurant.
My dad's lady at the time wasthe head chef and so she got me
a prep cook job and so food hasalways been that.

(42:15):
In the 90s, what food wasBanging out?
The corporate cars, absolutely,absolutely.
You know people like Mattie CScott Free, you know we all want
to go, let's go eat.
So our game used to be yo, wherecould we go and eat the
craziest meal and smoke, youknow?

(42:35):
so we used to shut down blueribbon absolutely out in there
with the managers and smoke wow,you know I'm saying blue and
sushi and on sullivan so we shutit down.
In the back there was like thislittle like galley window it
was weird thing that actuallyopened.
So we used to always ask to sitback there.
So every time, like most of thepeople cleared out or enough to

(42:57):
where we could burn, we justopen that up and blow the smoke
out.
Or, you know, monday nights Ithink it was Monday nights was
Stretch Armstrong at Bowery Bar.
You know, go get the littlecorner booth, what are the mash
and spinach, and then just rollup and burn it down in there
until somebody tried to kick youout, like it was just always
that, you know.
And so food, you know, justbecame and I always cook.

(43:21):
I always cook for my family too.
You know, when I was marriedand it kind of just became my
alchemy, came something I wasjust really good at and I just
love to do, you know.

Speaker 5 (43:30):
but you love to pair it with I was gonna ask that
question that actually came outin dining right.
You wanted to smoke and dineand pair with tree yeah right,
so.
So how does that go to?
Where you find out this room tocombine the two?
Well?

Speaker 6 (43:46):
so I used to always either eat and smoke or you
smoke and eat, right, it'seither one, right.
And so it was like the idea oflike well, how do you just
combine that into a singularexperience and just eat and get
high off of eating?
That was kind of like thetheory with it.
You know, and, and from thatyou know, I've met a chef from

(44:06):
Seattle that was doing this aswell, and we started a company.
Long story short, it didn't workout and then I just kind of got
the bug and started doing itmyself and I learned how to cook
gummies from scratch, you know,and figure it out, like the
whole science of it andunderstanding, like how you have
to cook the bricks, which islike the ratio of water to sugar
in a product, so you understandit could be shelf stable or if

(44:29):
it's just going to melt or grow,all kinds of like stuff you
don't want to eat that make yousick.
And just bro just figured itout, you know, just kept going
and that turned into chef forhire and so you went from
lifestyle to making it aplatform for yourself, right?
I mean that that's, that's kindof the big transition well, it's

(44:49):
always been like, and that'sthe thing for me is how do you
live your life througheverything you're passionate
about and explore and make money?

Speaker 5 (44:59):
off of that.

Speaker 6 (45:02):
So that's why, again, that's why I'm such a big
proponent of hip hop, because Ilearned knowledge itself through
joining Zulu Nation.
I learned knowledge itselfthrough joining Zulu Nation.
Right, I heard things aboutwhat you do and working on
yourself through my mom andother spiritual people around us
, but I learned knowledge itself.

(45:23):
And it clicked in a differentway when I got into Zulu Nation.
And so that whole understandingthat everything that you need
is here individually, all of us,not one of us is going to find
our true happiness outside of usand make that permanent.
Like it just doesn't work thatway.
It's happiness, the totalsatisfaction amongst oneself,
amongst you.
You're not happy internally.

(45:44):
Anything you put out externallyis show, it's fake, it's going
to go away in a while, it'stemporary.
Internally is show, it's fake,it's going to go away in a while
, it's temporary, right.
And so I had to learn at a veryyoung age like to be okay with
being different, coming fromHawaii, moving to San Francisco
and then getting introduced tohip hop, becoming a b-boy but
still surfing.
There's, like you know, mydad's picking me up after school

(46:08):
or we're coming from a morningsession, the truck with
surfboards, but I'm hopping outwith fat laces and, you know,
like listening to Run DMC andit's conflicting, but I'm like
that's me, that's what I love,you know.
And so it's kind of like all ofthose things and just living
the lifestyle, even from afterthe source.

(46:28):
Like I created LTE magazine andthat was just me reflecting our
culture through somebodyparticipating in it, and then
that turned into anothermagazine, inked magazine, being
able to see something I lovedwhich was tattoos in that
culture and then being able toshare that in a way that didn't
pigeonhole it into just beingabout like tattoos.

(46:51):
It was more.
This is the lifestyle.
This is people choosing toadorn art that they helped to
create for life on their bodies.
Like I'm a walking canvas.
Now.
It moved away from just beinglike the flash tattoos on the
wall when you're a drunk sailorgoing to get you know, and so
again it's.
I hope that we can all livethis way.

(47:12):
It's like that's just been.
My goal is to if we can all goinside, we'll meet the people
outside.
A lot of times we're in spaceswhere we don't need to be around
a lot of people because we'renot doing that inner work and we
can't create the boundaries weneed or we can't express who we
are and what our needs are.
And so we allow all thesedifferent weird energy.

Speaker 5 (47:36):
But this comes with a certain level of self-awareness
though, mike, to be fair, right.
So when did you realize youknow the self-awareness that you
know?
I realize I'm different, Irealize it takes work to live in
this way, and maybe otherpeople might need this level of
awareness.

Speaker 6 (47:53):
I'll say that's kind of twofold, right?
So I think moving out here andseeing hip hop culture and
seeing who's participating,who's really in it.
So I've always been raciallyambiguous, right?
Nobody's ever guessed myethnicity.
Depending upon who I I'm with,like, I could be a bazillion
different things, right?

(48:14):
Especially when I'm aroundhip-hop.
Most people just think I wasmixed, right, black and white.
That's what most people justthought no, you're the rock of
hip-hop, for sure the wild thingis, most people don't think
about my last name or where itcould potentially come from,
like if you say Salman Rushdie,right, or you say Prince Salman

(48:35):
or this, you think Middle East.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (48:39):
You say Michael Salman.
That could be Right, could beItalian.

Speaker 5 (48:43):
And especially in our culture.

Speaker 6 (48:45):
Right.
You know, what I learned is we.
We shortcut so many things anduse muscle memory, so my name is
spelled Well.
If you spell S-A-L-M, what'sthe next letter?
Usually Salmon, salmon, right?
So I was usually Mike Fish orMike Salmon or whatever, right?
So I always tell people I'm aman, not a fish.

(49:06):
My last name is S-A-L-M-A-N,right, but my last name is
S-A-L-M-A-N, right.
But my last name is Arabic.
My grandfather is fromBethlehem, like, so I'm part
Palestinian.

Speaker 4 (49:16):
I never knew that, I never asked.

Speaker 6 (49:18):
I never knew that.

Speaker 5 (49:19):
Never in a million years.

Speaker 6 (49:20):
But if you get me around Palestinians, especially
my kids, they all guess it.
It's the.
It's the strangest thing.
And then my grandfather went tothe Philippines, married a
Filipino and Spanish woman.
So that's my dad's makeup, mygrandfather's Cherokee, and we

(49:42):
think Scottish or something.
We don't have a record on himbecause he was like some
diplomat, cia, some shit.
He goes to Brazil, marries aBrazilian woman and my mother's
born in Brazil.
The sister next to her is bornin brazil.
The rest are born in africa.
Right, so I'm carrying all thisinformation through dna.
Wow, that's that's why I tellpeople eyes closed, ethnicity,
race has nothing to do with it,like it just doesn't.

(50:05):
Because I know this, especiallywhen we got all these arguments
in the culture that we haveright now, I don't know anybody
who will negate my participationas a person.
No.

Speaker 5 (50:16):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (50:17):
But then when it comes down to this ethnicity
argument, about FBA and this,it's like it's craziness.
Right, we have to get past that, because this is all about
divide and conquer.
It's divide and rule.
If we're sitting there arguingwith each other about semantic
stuff that we can never prove ornobody can be right, because,

(50:38):
especially if you come from theAfrican diaspora, you have no
clue exactly of what you, wecan't trace it.
You've been split from family,you've been split from tribe,
you've been split fromeverything you know about
yourself, except from 500 yearsago.
You know, but prior to that wedon't know.
So even for FBA to be arguingwith the rest of the

(50:59):
African-Athenaeans acting likethey're not part of it, but what
it's doing, though this is whyI'm so adamant about celebration
.
If we were in the mode ofcelebration instead of
destruction, instead of tearingeach other down because of that
scarcity mindset, we'd be in amuch different place, right now
We'd be looking to bring peoplein instead of pushing people out

(51:21):
.
Exactly.
We wouldn't be blocking things,because what we're actually
blocking is love.
And we're inviting negativity.
We're inviting the, you know,we're inviting the vultures to
keep feeding off of us becausewe're decaying, we're killing
ourselves, you know.
So I know we went off on alittle bit of a tangent, but,

(51:43):
like, I think these things areimportant to talk about, right,
because, again, if, if, nobody'sgoing to negate my
contributions to this space, whydo we negate other people
Because they're visibly white orthey're visibly non-black, or
they're right?
It just to me is we're workingagainst ourselves and we're
adding fuel to a fire that theystarted and this culture is so

(52:06):
strong.
We've sampled everything.
We've gone so far to samplethings that have never been
sampled before.
We're touching regions andcultures that never would have
understood this culture until webuilt that bridge, that
sampling bridge, right, we makeall these connections like
hip-hop, I believe, literally,you know, you see the, the

(52:27):
airlines, and they show alltheir travel destinations, they
see all those lines.
That's what I did throughsampling.
It just kept going and goingand going, and now we have all
these different destinationsthat we can go to, and not only
go to, but see our footprint,and not only that, see the
reflection of that seed that wasplanted by their expressions.

(52:49):
That's why we go to these othercountries.
You can go to Asia right now andBitcoin is prevalent as ever.
It's huge.

Speaker 5 (52:58):
DJ culture.
Korea's bananas, right Right.

Speaker 6 (53:00):
DJ culture, all of these things right.
Here in the US we're fightingabout a fictional date.

Speaker 4 (53:07):
Yeah, you wasn't there.
It doesn't really matter.

Speaker 6 (53:11):
Right, all right.
So let's get into this one.
I really want to talk about it,so I just Google and I Google,
I use chat GBT.
I asked who created jazz andwho created rock and roll.
What do you think it said?

Speaker 5 (53:23):
They didn't say black people.

Speaker 6 (53:24):
Yes, it said African-American culture, but
not one person created it, itwas an evolution.
Hmm, right, so how could oneperson have created hip hop, hip
hop.
One hip hop isn't even hip hop.
On the date they said it wascreated, nobody called it hip

(53:44):
hop.
Then period, right?
So if I created something, I'mgoing to name it, I'm going to
put a date on it, I'm going todo all this shit and I'm going
to say I did it Like when theyfind a new planet Right, they
find a new star.

Speaker 5 (53:57):
The person that finds it puts his name on it.
Right, it becomes a RomanFreeman sledge whatever asteroid
.

Speaker 6 (54:06):
Right, yeah.
Or if you're born, you get abirth certificate.
Here's your birth certificateno-transcript.

(54:32):
Wasn't jazz?
Wasn't all of the records thatwe sampled?

Speaker 5 (54:37):
before that age, the dances that are derivative of
african tribal representation.

Speaker 6 (54:43):
So so my thing is hip hop isn't a creation.
It's an evolution evolved fromeverything that was contributed
by these cultures, especiallyAfrican-American culture.
Right that led up to all ofthis and it's still evolving and
growing.
So, just like Hawaii, the bigisland is the largest, but it's

(55:05):
the youngest island because it'sstill growing.
A volcano still erupts.
We're still contributing tothis.
We're still growing and mytheory is that because we sample
, it's synonymous with foraging.
It's how we learn to movearound the globe period.
Foraging and sampling areexactly the same thing.
We just forage the things thatwere around us at that time in

(55:27):
the Bronx.
It started with our parents'crates.
That time in the Bronx, itstarted with our parents' crates
, their closets, the people inthe OGs around us, the TVs, the
movies and all this other stuffand all the music that came
prior to that.
How can we give it a date?
We're giving it a date so wecan argue about something that
can never be proven.
So we're distracted and theirhands are continuously in our

(55:49):
pockets.
We're so distracted we couldn'teven celebrate breaking being
in the Olympics, Bro.
That's the biggest sportingstage in the world, the most
recognized sporting stage in theworld, the longest running To
have something that came fromgang culture to stop violence

(56:09):
become a sport on that stage.

Speaker 4 (56:12):
Australian girl yeah, Some shit from Australia.

Speaker 6 (56:15):
That was garbage, terrible.
Yeah, the worst representation,but that doesn't matter to me,
right, because it didn't takeaway that the fact we Breaking
was still in the Olympics it wasstill there.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
It distracted, but that's what we should walk away
with the fact we break, it wasstill in the Olympics.

Speaker 6 (56:31):
It was still in the Olympics, yeah.
It distracted, it distracted,but that's what we should walk
away with, and that's why I'm soadamant about celebration.
Well, wait a minute.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
I got a counterpoint to you, though.
If you think about hip-hop,right, we just celebrated the
50th anniversary, right, and Iknow you're not saying a date.

Speaker 5 (56:46):
Which is proverbial, right, proverbial.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
But at the same time it was a celebration Like it did
mark a date for us to talk andto educate and to celebrate
something.

Speaker 6 (56:58):
All right, but this is my issue.
We don't celebrate on our own.
They're programming us tocelebrate when we're told or
allowed to.
So we have birthdays right.
Those are normal.
Everybody gets a birthday right.
You might have an anniversary,something at your job, whatever.
What else do you celebrate on aregular?
That's not a national holiday.

(57:20):
That's not on a calendar.
You know how many national dayof this, that and the third they
have Because they want us totell us how to celebrate.
There's several of them onevery day.
Every day there's National HotDog Day, burger Day,
cheeseburger Day, doubleCheeseburger Day, smash Bro,
it's wild.
We have to step back sometimesfrom this to see these things,

(57:41):
otherwise they just becomenormalized in our head.
We are not celebratingintentionally.
If we celebrated intentionally,I don't think we would continue
to give away the most powerfuland monetizable thing that we
have our authenticity, whichcreates influence.

Speaker 5 (58:02):
And you got a great point here, mike, because I
hearken back to the 50thanniversary and the Yankee
Stadium show.
There were a lot ofcelebrations of hip-hop around
the country, but no one tookmore offense than rappers that
were not allowed to perform atyankee stadium.
But there was a lot of pushbackfrom that because inside we

(58:25):
looked at it as the biggest, thebiggest event commemorating.
Yeah right, but I don't know ifhip-hop even put, I don't know
if hip-hop factors or hip-hopcreators or any of the leaders
or pillars were involved witheven putting that on.

Speaker 6 (58:40):
But that's what I'm saying.
So it's corporatized, right,right, exactly.
They create the dates and thecelebrations to monetize it, but
who gets the majority of themoney?
People that are not in theculture.
Exactly that's my point.
When are we going to takecontrol of those celebrations

(59:01):
and monetize for ourselves?
We're not even celebrating thefact of everything that's
happened.
I was told in the 90s, jeff, Idon't know if you were ever told
this.
I was told regularly, enjoy itwhile it lasts.
This is a fad, it's not realmusic.
Go, get a real job Go look atthe music departments, study
them.

Speaker 5 (59:20):
Yeah, absolutely, that was supposed to teach you
to work other music rightExactly, yeah, it was freestyle
In 1997, when I moved out, herewas a dance station.

Speaker 6 (59:28):
Freestyle right.
So when I went to my firstsummer jam.
It was at the Jacob Javis Center.
K7 hosted that 1994, theyswitched that format, and now,
in 2000, I don't know what yearit happened, but I know now, in
2025, 197 is a top 40 station.
Yeah, so that means we're popmusic.
Now.

(59:49):
We've gone from not even beingrecognized as music to pop Just
means popular, right?
We are one of the most populargenres of music, so when are we
going to celebrate that, though,and stop giving this away?

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Like it's great that we made it to Louis Vuitton,
absolutely.

Speaker 6 (01:00:13):
But I know y'all remember Louis Vuitton telling
us they don't want drug dealerswearing their clothes Right, and
I see drug dealers sittingfront row at every single show.
I see drug dealers in theircampaigns now Sponsored.
What changed?
They're sponsored now, exactly,we didn't change.

(01:00:36):
So if one of the most well, theoldest, one of the oldest
brands in the world, one of themost outwardly openly racist
brands in the world, will changetheir values and ethos and
sacrifice those things for money, because that's what they're
doing it for they're not doingit because, they like us.
They're doing it for.
They're not doing it becausethey like us.
They're doing it because theyhave to do it, because we move
the needle.

Speaker 5 (01:00:54):
We're representative of the lifestyle that they
believe caters to their brand.

Speaker 6 (01:00:59):
We are Well, no, no, no.
Caters to sales, to sellingtheir brand, sales right.
I don't think we're thelifestyle that they want,
catered to their brand at all.
I'm going gonna talk about how.
When did they start makingclothes fat joe can wear?
Like that's not?

Speaker 4 (01:01:16):
a shot at fat joe.
That's, bro, very slim timethey're.

Speaker 5 (01:01:19):
I was at a point where I could barely wear some
of their stuff absolutely yeah,but now you have basketball
players that are millionairesyoung black people of color that
are millionaires, footballplayers that are people of black
and brown from baseball andsoccer right, and they all have
this expendable income and theywant to look the part.

Speaker 6 (01:01:37):
But why aren't we?
If they're going to changeeverything to keep making those
dollars, why can't we just dothat for ourselves?
Why can't we make the brandsand do that for ourselves?
And the argument usually is wedon't have the resources we have
the resources.

Speaker 4 (01:01:48):
now, the other argument is we didn't have the
resources.
We have the resources somewhere.

Speaker 6 (01:01:50):
They're way ahead.
They started somewhere.
We all got to start somewhere.

Speaker 5 (01:01:55):
We control fashion week.
I went to fashion week abouttwo years ago and I had a long
conversation with Don.
I was like yo, this is dope.
This is not what people think,bro, he's like.
They wouldn't even let us inthese shows.
That's what I'm saying.
They, they wouldn't even let usin these shows, that's what I'm
saying.
They wouldn't even let us inthe rooms back then.
And now we control almost everyroom, right, and I believe

(01:02:20):
honestly.
I believe.
Rest in peace to.
Virgil, I think he would havebeen part of a new way of
looking at African diasporathrough fashion.
I think that was going to bethe leading point Because, you
see, that became a big part of alot of people's campaigns about
five, six years ago, right, andI think it was inevitable,
right that Virgil and Pharrelland Kanye and them at a certain

(01:02:43):
point, had the power, had theresources, had the vision to
actually create the next fashionhouse, because one of the
biggest fashion houses wasrelying on them for
revitalization.

Speaker 6 (01:02:55):
If a company like Louis will compromise all their
values and ethos.
That means they need us, Right.
If they need us, that tells mewe don't need them.
We need us.
We just need us.

Speaker 5 (01:03:09):
We have to look at us the way that they we have to
see ourselves the way they seeus, yeah, as their threat, and
not in the way we've been toldwe're a threat, but in the way
they can see the value, thevalue which is the threat to
them.

Speaker 6 (01:03:23):
Basically, what they're doing is I think hakeem
from channel live told me therappers are the cotton, like the
influence is the cotton.
They're just picking itwhenever they need it.

Speaker 5 (01:03:32):
You know what I'm saying that's a definitely an
interesting take.
I'm not fully opposed to that.
I think there's merit in that,you know it's a it's a tough one
, bro.

Speaker 6 (01:03:42):
I just think again, we're at a transition point.
What industries haven't wetouched that we really want to
touch right now?
What penthouse, what?
What penthouse aren't we inright now?
you know, what I'm saying likewe never thought we would be
here.
Nobody had these things ontheir bingo cards back then, or
we'd have more ownership.
Right now, we just keep growingand growing and getting bigger

(01:04:04):
and bigger and bigger.
They keep trying to tell uslies.
Oh, it's not.
All the cultures is alldangerous.
No, we still continue to havethe biggest records, the biggest
moments.
It just keeps happening.
But we just keep wanting to goback to Reebok.
And oh, let's go revive Reebok.
Shaq and Iverson, let's go toReebok.

(01:04:24):
Or Toby Toby just did a deal.
Another dead brand, reebok wasthe number one brand when
Michael Jordan got signed toNike.
They've never been close tothat since and we just keep
going back trying to give andwhy they were trying to get.
Master P and Baron Davis weretrying to raise $800 million to

(01:04:45):
buy Reebok during the pandemic.

Speaker 5 (01:04:47):
Don't buy it, just start something new yeah
pandemic Argument don't buy it,just start something new.
Yeah, if it takes.
What he's saying is if it takesyou, tom, if Reebok wants to
rebuild and rebrand and regrowtheir brand but they know they
can't do it without you Thenwhat's the stopping you from

(01:05:07):
going directly?
To the people that are lookingto receive the vision, although
the only reason you don't do itis if you believe that there's
more value to going with themthan there is in believing in
yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
Although my argument would be I'm talking about it
would be if you're trying topurchase it Right and take it
over.
What you're, what you'reultimately purchasing, is a
brand that at least somebody hasever heard of.
It's going to take you threesteps ahead of starting
something new.

Speaker 5 (01:05:36):
But even if they've heard of it, tom, they're not
going to buy it if it's not cool.
No, no, I'm agreeing with youthere.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
But if certain individuals were to purchase it
and actually make it theirs.
I think that's an accelerationto get to where they need to get
, because you're starting withsomething that existed.

Speaker 6 (01:05:52):
I don't know if the perception will ever be that
it's there, but there's not acollective, because we're not in
a celebration mode, we're in adestruction mode.
We still want to tear thingsdown because that's how we've
been programmed.
If I see somebody rise, they'regoing to tear them down,
because I want that position Iwant that money.

Speaker 4 (01:06:11):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:06:11):
And people believe that's finite.
People believe that that'sfinite, yeah, even though I see
more and more billionaires everygoddamn year, I see football
contracts, basketball contracts.
Baseball contracts get biggerand bigger every year, but we
are constantly telling ourselvesthat there's only enough room.
Yeah, there's not.

Speaker 6 (01:06:31):
This is not that and it's because, again one, we
don't know who we are like whenwe say we, who's, we who's, who
can be involved in we, just likeI was talking about before, who
can be involved in hip-hop,who's part of that right if
we're arguing, if, if fba isarguing against afro, anything

(01:06:51):
else, african, like that's wildright.
So imagine anybody else arguingor being part of it.
How do you identify who canparticipate?

Speaker 5 (01:07:01):
now, who can even yeah, yeah, by the team yeah, so
where's the trust?

Speaker 6 (01:07:07):
where's the camaraderie?
You know saying.
Where's the trust?
Where's the camaraderie?
Where's the building?
I mean honestly.
That's why I came up with theFly Private Social concept was
to create spaces where we feelsafe to gather so we could be
our authentic selves through thelens of hip-hop.

Speaker 4 (01:07:23):
Well, talk about that , and about the chef hire thing
too.
Talk about that.

Speaker 6 (01:07:26):
So Fly.
Private Social for me is againwe're the driving force of
global culture.
We got nowhere to go tocelebrate it.
We got nowhere.
That's ours.
You look at Soho House'sprogramming in the United States
, especially in the major cities.
How much of that is programmedaround what we do right.
Why is DJ Premier spinning atSoho House bro?

Speaker 5 (01:07:45):
So other people can feel like they're cool and be a
part of the culture Again so nowwe're giving the culture away
piece by piece.

Speaker 6 (01:07:54):
We're here to break off that chip.
You can take a chip home withyou instead of saying, hey, why
don't you just come to what wedo and really feel like you know
what I'm saying and create aspace and allow everybody else
in?
Because, honestly, soho Houseisn't even a social club.
They tell you don't speak toother members unless you know
them.
So how is that even a socialclub?
Yeah, right, and I think if wecan create spaces where we can

(01:08:15):
actually gather, see the culturecelebrated, like the idea is to
have it celebrate everywhere,it goes right.
So each city will celebrate thelocal history, traditions and
culture.
So New York or Brooklyn has allBrooklyn people on the wall.
If we went to Houston, it'd beall Houston people on the walls
right.
Go to ATL, all ATL people onthe wall.
And then how do you crowdfund,how do you build where everybody

(01:08:38):
can participate, whetherthrough membership, whether
through real estate, whatever itmay be, but open it up for
those opportunities, becauseit's like we do so much stuff
where it's just about us, butit's for the culture.
I want to monetize it, but it'sfor the culture, right.
How do we monetize things forus, for the community.
It can't be everybody,obviously Right, but how do we

(01:09:00):
open those things up?
And I think if we create spaceswith that kind of intention,
that leads to other kinds ofcollaboration within the space
from the people, from the peopleparticipating, the members, you
know.

Speaker 4 (01:09:12):
And now you put that I'm sure you're conjoining that
with Chef Hire as well as a kindof collaborative kind of thing.

Speaker 5 (01:09:17):
Right Food is a draw?

Speaker 6 (01:09:20):
I mean, food is a universal language.
Everybody eats, I don't know,anybody who doesn't eat right.
So I want to have aconversation, a true
conversation.
I want to bring, or have theopportunity, ability to be able
to bring, all kinds of peopletogether.
What are the universal language?
Absolutely Right.
I think food is the greatestone To me.

(01:09:42):
The other one is hip hop.
It's not universal to everybody, but it is universal to a lot
of people, right, they're awareEven if they're not immersed.
They're aware.

Speaker 5 (01:09:49):
Right, universal to everybody, but it is universal
to a lot of people, right.
They're aware, Even if they'renot immersed.
They're aware.

Speaker 6 (01:09:53):
Right.
And so through food andgathering around food, we break
bread right.
That's part of it.
Food is part of everycelebration.

Speaker 4 (01:10:03):
Every celebration.
That's how humans commune.

Speaker 6 (01:10:07):
Right.
And then if we take food asknowledge, wisdom, understanding
, information, energy, food canbe anything that we exchange
food for the soul, food for themind right.
And so, again, that's why thepillars are community with a
capital, unity, because if wecommunicate unity, unity because

(01:10:28):
our capital right culinarythere's food in all kinds of
forms and in culture, right.
But celebrating of culture isbecause everything is an
amalgamation of differentcultures, especially if you're
mixed, especially if you'reliving in this country,
especially if you mess with hiphop, right, it's multicultural.

(01:10:48):
We multi-hyphenates.
At this point, we don't have todo one thing, we don't have to.
I think we're so used to beingin these boxes of things.
But if we allow it to, if wereally allow hip-hop to breathe,
it's broken every barrier thatused to be in front of us now,
when you we get your chef hiredthing.

Speaker 4 (01:11:06):
It's your Chef Hired thing.
How can I?
Is it a hip-hop?
It's me, it's you.
It's not a hip-hop thing, it'sa mic thing.

Speaker 5 (01:11:17):
You're the amalgamation of hip-hop with all
the other things, as well, Ithink what he's saying is that
it all emerges from him.
Chef Hired is an amalgamationof everything that he kind of
represents as an example toother people to be able to come
in and be whatever it is thatthey feel they represent and, at
the very least, meet somebodyyou didn't know, maybe find out

(01:11:37):
how much you have in common or,at the most like, actually build
real relationship, realcommunity.

Speaker 6 (01:11:43):
Right.
Well, the other thing with Cheffor Hire right, it's cannabis,
Right, and so cannabis.
What I learned?
We have an endocannabinoidsystem, so we have a system in
our bodies that regulates, justwants to create homeostasis.
It works with every othersystem in our body.
That's why, you know, you canget sleepy, right, you can be
happy, you can get hungry, youcan help to solve pain issues or

(01:12:05):
other things of that nature,and again, it just wants to
create homeostasis.
And when I found that out, Iwas like, well, how do I
introduce people to that Food,right?
Conversation breaking breadAgain.
Everybody eats.
So most people, especiallypeople who don't smoke or never
participate or don't want toparticipate with cannabis, are

(01:12:25):
resistant to that fact becauseit's not taught in textbooks.
It's not even taught in medicaltextbooks.
Doctors don not even taught inmedical textbooks.
Doctors don't even learn this.
Yet the information is there.
They don't learn it becausethey can't use cannabis, because
they schedule it at one andthey say it's not medicine, even
though cannabis was in thepharmacopoeia in 1851.
There was over 100prescriptions that had cannabis

(01:12:46):
in it.
It was one of the most widelyused medicines in this country
period.
But come around in 1937, all ofa sudden it's racially fueled
right, and now it's all aboutrace and control and they create
prohibition to hurt people ofcolor.
It was black people, it wasblack, hispanic and Filipinos

(01:13:09):
right that they named and theydemonized this plant and until
this day it's still.
If you think about back problemsand all kinds of other issues
didn't start until the 20thcentury, true Right.
One of the theories is cannabisused to grow freely.
Cannabis is a healing plant.

(01:13:29):
It reciprocates informationback into everything that grows
around Right, so that grass thatgrows out, that the cows graze
on or the chickens feed.
They're eating cannabinoidsthrough that, right, you eat
those animals.
Now you're getting that.
All of that is gone.
Another part is control iscotton, right, it grows three

(01:13:53):
times faster than cotton and itdoesn't deplete the soil.
Cotton, you have to rotatecrops, right, every single time.
Cannabis, you can keep planting, keep growing.
They don't want that.
Cotton is one of the hardestthings to pick, it's difficult,
it costs a lot of money.
It costs a lot of money.
It costs a lot of human labor.

(01:14:15):
Cannabis can be automated now,or this one thing called the sun
that's been given life toeverything in this universe
since our existence, can grow itfor you.
They don't want any of that.
It's all about control, right,but we get stuck on the little
things.
Oh, I can make money in thelegal business, all right, but
we need to fight to get this offof the schedule.

(01:14:36):
And you now, which haspotential to put a huge stop to
everything legalization has doneto this point, and maybe put it
into the pharmaceuticalindustry's hands, because a

(01:15:03):
Schedule 3 drug can only bedelivered by a pharmacist
through medical dispensaries.
That's another level of control, right?
So you know, they got WizKhalifa signing up for it now
and he's promoting.
You know we need to schedulethis to three.
I spoke to somebody at the FDA.
He said they're going to amendit.

(01:15:25):
I don't trust this country,that's crazy.
Like you know.
So it could easily just go withthat route where all of a
sudden because look at DwayneReeds and all Walgreens are
hurting right now yeah, goingaway.

Speaker 4 (01:15:41):
Yeah, they'd be right back in the game.

Speaker 5 (01:15:42):
They'd change it significantly and think of the
tax money that the governmentwould get Exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:15:47):
Absolutely.

Speaker 5 (01:15:48):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:15:49):
Absolutely and so again, I think we just we need
to broaden our vision a bit andI believe that's still again
doing that inner work so we cansee clearer, step away from some
of this stuff and really seewhat they're doing.
It's wild out here, yeah, man.

Speaker 4 (01:16:05):
So what's next for you, bro?
What you doing, what's next?

Speaker 6 (01:16:07):
What's next?
Yeah, man.
So what's next for you, bro?
What you doing?
What's next?
What's next, man?
I?

Speaker 4 (01:16:12):
brought the podcast back, so I got Mask Off with
Hawaii.
Mike, I watched a coupleepisodes.
I saw you in Spinner.

Speaker 6 (01:16:17):
Yeah, so we brought video to it now.
So that's been fun.
And then I'm hopping into thestreaming space because, like we
were talking about before, wegot to go where you know the
attention is, and so I'm gonnastart live streaming, um, and
just build that channel up andreally get out there, like I did
media for so long, um, or evenmanagement, like you know, when

(01:16:37):
I was managing nigel and justbeing out there and when I went
on to my that's the other thingI didn't say when I the first
part was that like child journey, and the second part was in
2017 I stopped drinking and itjust changed everything for me.
I found breath.
Breath is the first thing we dowhen we're born.

(01:17:00):
We breathe in.
It's the last thing you dobefore you die is you breathe
out?
What's the last time youthought about breathing?
It's involuntary.

Speaker 4 (01:17:07):
I think about it because I work out.

Speaker 6 (01:17:09):
It's autonomous right because I think about it
because I work out.
It's autonomous right Becauseyour system is just going to
automatically do it.

Speaker 4 (01:17:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:17:15):
And you're automatically going to breathe.
But we breathe when we need it.
We breathe when we need tocenter ourselves, when we need
to calm down.
We breathe when we need to holdour breath, to go into the
water Right.
But if we thought aboutbreathing on a regular, we might
create some more gratitudearound this stuff that we can't
grab.
But without it we don't havelife.
But we care about the thingsthat we can grab and value these

(01:17:39):
things more, right, or even ourbodies, right.
But breathing intentionally canput you into such a space,
whether it's meditation you know, actual meditations, walking
meditations, whatever else, boxbreathing like Wim Hof,
breathing Like there's so manydifferent things.
Breath is so important, but,again, we're not present enough
to think about these things.

(01:18:00):
So for me, like, my goal, evenwith the streaming, is just to
share our oneness and to inspireeverybody to go on that
individual journey to becometheir best self, whatever that
may mean for you.
It's not too late.
Until it's too late, we can alldo this.
I see so many of my people arelike I can't work out why I
don't have time.

(01:18:21):
You just said you binge watchedthis series.

Speaker 5 (01:18:26):
That's very different , you can watch the movie while
you work out there, youdifferent man.

Speaker 1 (01:18:29):
That's very different , and you can watch the movie
while you work out.
There.

Speaker 4 (01:18:31):
You go there you go Absolutely, absolutely.
You can do more than one thing.

Speaker 5 (01:18:35):
Every GM has treadmills with TV screens on it
now.

Speaker 4 (01:18:37):
Absolutely.

Speaker 6 (01:18:39):
And that's my thing is we can work out anywhere, we
can do anything.
It's a matter of getting intothe mindset of starting, right
Into the mindset of doing.
I want to be better, I want tobe healthy, thinking of myself
20 years from now, not thinkingabout what I fucked up on
yesterday.
You know what.

(01:19:00):
I'm saying and like we all seeour parents right now.
You know whether they'rehealthy or going through things.
That's potentially where youcan be, you know saying when
you're their age.
We got to work on that.
Now, like, like we have to workon being present and being in
the moment so we enjoy life.
We also have to work to how andwhere we're going to be health

(01:19:23):
wise in the future so we can bethere once we get there.
And again, I think for me,people put me on this pedestal
now because I started thisjourney and I'm like well, I
still eat what I want to eat, Istill go out where I want to go
out, I still smoke, I still doall of these things.
It's balance.

(01:19:44):
We can't go too far.
If I drink too much water, I'mgoing to get sick.
Absolutely.
We can't go too far.
If I drink too much water, I'mgonna get sick, like absolutely.
It's like it's finding yourbalance.
I'm not saying my balance, I'msaying your balance and where
you're at right now and we gotto get rid of the judgment.
We got to get rid of theself-criticism as best we can,
because that stops us from evenstarting, because we're

(01:20:04):
comparing.
Somebody else has been on theirjourney for years yeah, yeah,
you know yeah.
And so it's like how do we justget this started?
No-transcript, monk, and you'reonly over.

(01:20:36):
You know you can't do anything.
Yeah, let's have fun, like,let's do this to have fun and
let's make it fun balance andmoderation.

Speaker 5 (01:20:46):
My mom always told me moderation, moderation like
you're, like the sign saysbehind you, tom, that life
doesn't have to be perfect to bewonderful.
That's right, exactly that isright.
Just find your balance andeverything should work out for
you.

Speaker 6 (01:20:59):
The more you do those things and put yourself into
those positive loops, the morethe muscle memory starts to
become that, the more yourdiscipline is easier, the more
you make better choices.
It all flows, it all tiestogether because it's doing that
right now to the people thatare binge watching, eating ice
cream, not doing anything right.
That's their routine, that'swhere they're sitting at and

(01:21:20):
they got really good at thatprogram, right?
They're very disciplined inthat, you know, and now it's
just how you go that way.

Speaker 5 (01:21:32):
Yeah, yeah man it you know, and now it's just how you
go that way.
Yeah, yeah, that was dope man,I mean, and I talked to this guy
.

Speaker 4 (01:21:35):
I talked to this guy all the time.
We talked to food.
You do this with the 10-hourpodcast.
We got to bring you back henever ceases to bring clarity.

Speaker 5 (01:21:44):
Like I said, it's good talking to people because
even if mike, even if got itMike's like, even if you don't,
that's fine too.
Right Like you don't, you don'treally have to have it Right
Like that's, that's going to beOK too.
That's cool too.
You know and sometimes we kindof got to be reminded of that we
can get so caught up in thewhirlwind of everything that
they tell us we need to careabout and we need to be

(01:22:05):
concerned about, and things thattry to pull our attention and
pull us away, for whateverreasons, and give us a different
perspective and try to shiftour perspective and our purpose
in a way that benefits them morethan it does us.
You know, mike man.
Thank you so much, bro.
Like I feel like I know you andI didn't know you, I feel like
I know you, yeah.

(01:22:26):
I feel like a lot of shit that Ididn't understand.
It makes all the sense in theworld now that I understand.
Yeah, yeah, no, just becausemike's so likable, mike's so
personable, right, everybodylikes mikey.
It's very easy to get alongwith and it just, you know,
listen to him talk about hislife.
This is just kind of who he is,it's kind of who he's been, and
it's not a loud life.

(01:22:47):
And you know, as we all know,being involved in the hip-hop
and and all of this stuff, man,it can pull you in a bunch of
different ways and it's it's.
It's made some really reallygood people, people that you
don't even recognize anymore.
You know I'm saying but, mike,you have found a way to be very
even keeled through this world.
You know I'm saying if you'restressed, you don't wear.

(01:23:07):
You don't wear it at all.
I have to say.
And, man, thank you so much forjust being bro, like just being
here, like just being in thisworld and being authentic to
yourself.
And you're even a better personthan I thought you were and I
thought you were a great guy.
Now, but this shit don't makesense, bro.
Like listening to yourconversation and your journey

(01:23:27):
and your walk, I understand youa lot better and you make you
make even more sense now as tohow you are, because we operate
in a space where you don't haveto be kind, you don't have to be
nice, and you still getrewarded and you still get put
on a pedestal and you still getglorified and all of that stuff.
So kudos to you, man, for notbeing tainted.
Right, yeah, for real.
Yeah, thank you, that's off fornot being tainted.

(01:23:48):
Yeah, for real.

Speaker 3 (01:23:49):
Yeah, thank you, that's all, and being available
to me too, by the way.

Speaker 6 (01:23:53):
You know, making yourself available.
Hey, bro, like always man, youknow, I think and that's
important too.
I know we didn't touch on that,but you and I have had a lot, a
lot of real deep personal talks, and you know, I hope more of
us do, I know you do it.
I just hope more of us do thatwith each other, because there's
so many issues that we thinkwe're doing alone or it's only

(01:24:14):
happening to us.
Everybody's going throughsomething.
That's true.
And everybody has something thatthey need to be heard.
They just need to be listenedto sometimes and just
acknowledged and like get thingsoff of their chest, and then
maybe they don't act out inanother way.
So you know, I hope that peopledo take that away and have
conversations, man, becausethey're important, bro, Like we

(01:24:35):
helped each other through somesome, some deep times.

Speaker 5 (01:24:39):
Very, very, very real .
We we went through some verydeep personal transitions in
life during our friendship, andnot at the same time either.
So it's been a blessing to havea friend like you in my corner
that can kind of keep me, keepme going, keep me lifted up,
keep me encouraged, and I'm gladthat I've been able to be that
type of friend to you as well.
And I think that's what he'stalking about.

(01:25:00):
When it comes to community, themore people you have in your
community, the more people youhave to help you work through
things.

Speaker 1 (01:25:13):
And the more people you're in a position to actually
help get through their shit.

Speaker 6 (01:25:15):
Yeah, thank you, mike , and I'll say this I'm gonna
get in the mindset ofcelebration.
Get in the mind hey, everybody,let's celebrate.
Celebrate every single day youwake up.
If you wake up, your eyes open,you got your faculties, you're
alert.
Celebrate.

Speaker 1 (01:25:24):
That's why, mike, and until next time.
I'm tom frank, I'm bun b, I'mJeffrey Sledge.
Follow the show on Instagram atunglossypod and leave us a
comment.
Subscribe to Unglossy on Apple,Spotify, YouTube or wherever
you catch your podcasts.
Unglossy is hosted by Bun B,Jeffrey Sledge and Tom Frank.
It is produced and distributedby Merrick Studios.

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