Media.

Okay, story time, I actually knew Doug Wilson, one of the Hubbies, moved out there to be a part of the whole joint, and he's guta moved out there be still friend.

But listen, I was unaware of the extent for which this man was saying exactly what he meant.

Okay, my antenna's failed me fifteen years ago, all right, that being with me?

Did I ever tell y'all my Bill Gates story?

I stood that, nigga long story, short story story long.

I went to this event for the Gates Foundation that I had no idea that the name Gates Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates were distant planets.

I had no idea they were the same thing.

So get invited.

I get a call or a text a few days later from apparently Bill and Melinda's assistant that was saying they were so impressed with me and wanted to meet me, and they was going to send a fight for me for dinner.

Now I'm sitting in front of my daughter's ballet class like waiting for her to finish her little dance practice.

Ain't nowhere in the world.

I'm finna pack a bag, go to the Airport just to go to dinner in Seattle, and even it's in being in Seattle, I still haven't connected the dots that the Gates Foundation is Bill and Melinda Gates.

For some reason, the math wasn't mathing, so I just don't respond.

I'm like, man, I'm not finna, just like I was like, all right, man, I'll see what's up, and I just didn't reply.

It wasn't until many years later somebody went, yeah, Bill and Melinda Gates as in Bill Gates Gates Foundation.

I was like, oh, so when he said he was going to send the flight, he meant he was going to send like a plane, like he was going to fly, like he was gonna like literally fly me up.

And then a couple of years after that, maybe four years after that, I run into the dude at the Moultloma Whiskey Library in Portland, and I was like, yo, uh, remember you you called me and asked me you had no idea who Bill Gates was.

I just I never they were onto differ I would have never connected the dots.

I was like, what did y'all think when I did?

He goes, we just thought you was the coolest dude ever like this use fool just used to stood up Bill Gates.

I was, like, I mean, I was unintentionally a revolutionary in that scenario.

The point I'm trying to say is sometimes as plugged in and tapped in as I be, sometimes my antennas failed me.

I just don't be knowing.

Now.

Now some of y'all may know my origin story as a Christian rapper.

Now when I say Christian rapper, I know y'all think it's something that probably if you don't know my past is not we are not saying the same thing.

Okay.

Like I said before, I no part of my past was conservative, even when we was Christians.

I come from inner city urban church.

So when we talk about impacting the culture, I'm thinking beloved community.

I'm thinking, you know, the ten points program of the Black Panthers, So I'm thinking revolution in that sense, radical generosity, loving one's neighbor, esteeming others higher than themselves, having empathy for those who are suffering.

There's a chapter inside of my terrorform book called y'all got it from the Homi Nish called institutionalized neighborliness.

So Jesus's thing is like you post to love your neighbor.

Love God and neighbor.

Those are the two highest goods you could have.

Then what's the most effective way to love the most amount of neighbors?

And it's voting in good laws.

That's like concerning the welfare and well being of the people around you.

I believe in a pluralistic society because the person you have been listening to on this show is the person I kind of always being granted, my faith has evolved in ways that my mama may not be proud of.

But this where we are right now.

At the end of the day.

Your boys are leftists, anarchist leftists, like, look, that's where I'm at.

But none of which as far as I was concerned.

I mean, I feel like I don't see the I don't see that.

I don't got the dualistic thinking that like the American government gotta be Christian, or that we can't coexist with people that don't think the same as us.

I just don't.

I ain't come from that.

I didn't come from even when I was really deep into the evangelical world, I just didn't come from that.

Like I have a nothing about my church background would end at Donald Trump as just I just didn't come from that tradition.

Having said that, the traditions that ended at Donald Trump were the one that ran off the festival that controlled all the flows of music and commerce right now, since I'm not from a Bible belt city, I would not have known of any of the things that was happening now when I started doing music, since I come from Tonal Rat's la underground battle rap, we were very aggressive.

Like the idea of being a Christian rapper was as weird as the idea of being a Muslim rapper.

You was just a rap, like and you rapped about what you rapped about.

You were who you were, Like, you just kept it real, so you just brought your full self to the sable.

I had no I didn't.

I didn't know anything about that stuff Garrison and even Robert talks about like I just I didn't.

I wasn't a part of that, Like, I didn't know any of that until I started selling album Now, once I started selling albums, then you start getting booked at the churches that can afford to bring an artist out.

But I still wasn't an invited because of the stuff I talked about to like the real weird stuff now granted, some of the stuff was weird that I got invited to.

But and don't get me wrong, the Black urban Church, the Innocent it is like lousy with issues, like they're grossly homophobic, you know what I'm saying, and patriarchal and some purity stuff.

It's just different.

It's just not Republican, so it's different.

But don't let me pay no rose colored glasses here.

I got all that dust on me that I had to shake off.

But my album got pulled from the Christian bookstore.

It was bad, Like I found myself homeless in a lot of ways because I stood on the business that I stood on.

But at the same time, you over here in this corner, and none of this is if you've been on part of the show from the beginning, none of this is new to you.

Like you know where I come from, you know who propaganda is at all.

What I'm trying to say is, but what happened was what happened happened was since we weren't and there are friends, Since we weren't reach records, we weren't La Craze, we weren't like that, we wasn't DC talk, we wasn't like that.

We was underground edgy, you know, we not playing winter Jams, like we wasn't a part of none of that since we weren't, you know, I'm totally like I'm with the gaze, like I just wasn't.

I just wasn't a part of that.

There was a certain type of masculinity or bravado or punk rocketness that apparently attracted Doug Wilson to me, And this nigga used to write me letters, like he wrote me emails about I mean, this is not like I put out a song called Precious Puritans, where I'm like, I'm dragging the church for being so hung up on the Puritans, Like I don't understand why you like them so much?

These slave owners, Like what is your thing?

Why y'all worshiped these people?

You motherfuckers are racist?

Like so, I thought I was being very clear as to who I was.

Apparently he kind of liked I guess the middle finger of it all that I it was just who I was.

Now I ain't know who this man was.

I couldn't point in no Moscow.

I didn't know any of this stuff.

I knew his son, I knew his son made movies.

Right, I'm in a movie that his son produced.

It's a short film about it's called The Hounds of Heaven.

It's I mean, it's cool, right, I ain't know it's daddy like that.

But then when I did meet his daddy, it turned out this one maya Antenna's was wrong.

I was talking revolution the way that I talk revolution.

Now, now you have to remember we was in a time where this is pre Trump, so a lot of the mask offedness was just not so masked off.

I kept my distance from a lot of church folk because it was just so white.

It was just so white, and it was just so racist.

So I stayed away from a lot of stuff.

But this fool seemed different because he was talking some like some fuck the system in the same way I was talking fuck the system.

But it turns out it wasn't the same way.

Nobody of all the like conferences, you know, panels and stuff that I was getting booked on in those early days, nobody asked me about like art, like they all wanted to talk theology.

Nobody was talking art.

Nobody was talking like or even just being like, look, man, there's a dismantling of the system that needs to happen.

Like nobody was talking like that to me.

That's stuff I wanted to talk about.

He came to me about art, about wordsmith and about like changing culture and being a leader to your community, and I was like, all right, word I spoke at they school because again he was asking me about hip hop, like how hip hop can be a change agent for the culture, and I was like, hip hop already is.

And then I left it alone because it was like it was just a gig.

I just was like, I ain't no way in the world I'm gonna spend more time in Moscow, Idaho than I need to.

What's crazy is people's capacity to just be kind like me showed me kindness Like to me, it was just oh, you know, like that's what it seemed like to me, nigga.

Next thing I know, this article come out, he calling himself a neo Confederate.

I was like, man, what bruh talking about?

The Civil War was about states rights?

That's first time I heard anybody say something like that.

And I'm like, a man as smart as this man is, because this man read a lot.

I was like, I can't believe this man think that whatever I did it was it was inconsequential to me.

I was like, I didn't ask weird, Like I said, my hommie the hummy valchist for him, I guess his son's cool.

He got other friends like I just I come from an area where a lot of times you got questionable friend But it is verifiable on wax that when times got when it was time to do some dirt, they sent me home.

You realize you probably shouldn't be kicking it with this boy.

No mo no, the nigga tripp it like what you are to say, and then trump ate the church.

And for me, when trump ate the church, that was the beginning of the end for me, Like that's when all of my like Christian bookings kind of stopped.

You know, there was a time where I was like ready to punt it all, you know, like none of this is worth it.

And then I had to go through a time where you know, I had to look back and say, Okay, well, what was that cream, that that gumbo that got my ancestors through them slave ships, that survived them nigga quarters.

You know what I'm saying?

What was that again, that beloved city that's part of my culture, that part of you that says like, again, that's non dualistic.

I can't tell you what it is, but I know that I've experienced a beauty that I don't know if that's a bearded man in the sky.

I know I've experienced the type of joy and belonging that I would wish forever.

I don't know what to call it.

I just know I still get up in the morning and say my prayers.

You feel me.

But as far as like this, the evangelical space, I mean, I had been gone, so I ain't know what was going on.

Next thing.

I know this nigga on Senn.

Oh lord, y'all ain't tell me.

I had not checked in in a while.

The man was just completely off my radar.

I had no idea what had happened to them short of my homie that lived out there.

And it's not like the signs weren't there bruh talking some strangeness.

I have an uncle, my uncle Ken Jones, who is preacher down there in Miami.

My uncle Ken was like, well, I know him as Uncle Ray.

But my uncle Ken was like, nephew, watch out for homeboy.

And I was like all right, But again, like for me, I'm like I mean you.

I ain't really ask him.

Now.

He was talking to me about hip hop, so I talked to him about hip hop.

All that to say.

I don't know where my aunt Tennis was, so listen.

Obviously I don't co sign.

There's no skeleton you finla fine about your boy?

I had no idea this man was talking the way he was talking.

Okay, let that man speak for himself.

Let your boy speak for myself.

So before you be like, is this you nigga?

Yeah, I was there.

That was twenty thirteen, y'all.

I ain't no.

I just try to get on some stage, just damn.

I've always had the attitude of like, I only have my music, so if you book me, you gonna get what I do.

So I thought, what if you inviting me out?

You know what it is with me?

Anyway?

Is there somebody in your past who talking crazy?

Now?

Okay, did you know they was gonna talk crazy like that?

I ain't know who was going.

So look your boy.

I was like, well, I'll be well.

I saw that man on the news.

I was like, man, what the hell did he just say?

Right?

When you talk?

When you listen, you listening to somebody that you know full of shit named Pete headass heck said, and he quoting Doug, I was like, okay, wait mine, now, wait minute, are we talking about the same I'm sorry, what like, hold up now you're talking about the dude of moscout the Hollies Pressler like what this way he out?

Man, it's like my Epstein file.

I'm like, Nigga, I ain't no, I ain't know.

That's what was having it on the other side of the paull anyway, that being with me