Twenty twenty five is a year of the snake, because we're supposed to be shedding all our old bullshit.

Yes, like all our old bullshit, the bad energy, the negative energy, you know, the things that have caused you guilt, the things that you're insecure about.

Like this is the year that you're supposed to really, really, really let it all go.

And it's about new beginnings and transformation.

And in twenty twenty six is the year of the Horse, and you're supposed to get off, get on that horse, and you know, ride into your destiny.

Sold Thanks for watching, guys.

Today's episode is brought to you by boost Mobile.

Today's guest is the co host of the infamous Breakfast Club, one of the most influential and longest running radio shows in hip hop and pop culture history.

He's the founder of the Black Effect podcast network, the owner of Black Privileged Publishing, a New York Times bestselling author, an advocate for mental health.

He's helped shift culture by telling the truth out loud.

He's a father, a husband, a friend.

Welcome God, Angie Martinez in real life podcast What's Happening?

Happy to be here.

I'll be hearing that sometimes and I'm like, who the fuck is she talking about?

You know what I'm saying, Like, who is that?

What do you mean?

Like when I just hear all of that stuff, I'd be like, who's that person?

Stop?

Sometimes I do you don't.

Have great pride in what you've accomplished, and yes, as you don't feel like connected to it deeply, like.

Connected to it deeply.

So interesting when I was home for Thanksgiving and I was staying in my mom's house and I was staying in the room that I grew up in, Like that's the moments that like those things hit you because you know, you think about how I was in here all of these years praying, you know, to be in these be in these moments like this.

So when you are in the midst of your you know, answered prayers, Yes, that's what it hits you.

What are you praying for in that room?

Uh?

Just to be you know what's so funny.

I tell this story all the time, But when I first started doing radio, I used to always say I want to be a super jock, Like I don't want to be just the local jock doing time and temperature and you know whatever.

Market I was like, ye, And I used to always say, if I want to do it, I want to do it on the level of the Tom Joiners, the Angie martinez Is, the Wendy Whims, the Howard Sterns.

Like that was my mindset even back then.

So that was like what I That's literally what I was.

But when you're a kid, you weren't thinking about radio, right.

Oh as a kid, that was well, see, I guess when I say the answered prayers, I do think from that time I was like nineteen to now, you know what I mean, because yeah, because I was just praying to stay out of jail.

When I was a young young kid, hoping that my mom didn't come home and realize that I was.

I was, you know, sitting at home because I was suspended and didn't tell them.

Like that's the type of stuff I was praying for back then.

And then at some point radio happened.

Nineteen ninety eight, nineteen.

Ninety eight, young Charlsmagne on the radio.

Nineteen ninety eight.

That's when I started off as an intern.

So I got on the air like nineteen ninety nine, but I started off as an intern in nineteen ninety eight.

Yo, your evolution is wildly inspiring to people.

I think not and radio, but just across the board and even as a as a father, I mean, as a husband and as a man.

You've been very honest in the books and stuff.

It's funny because you come up in the pod a lot.

I had Cardi here, I saw Cardy.

Oh yeah, you came up in both those episodes.

That's right because Carty was you know, went through what she went through, and she had a very strong theory about when you don't treat people well, even a spouse or even a girl you're stringing along like that, karma comes back to you.

And then we were talking about your theory about becoming this better husband and how your life flourished after that.

Absolutely, And it's so crazy, right, Like I've always told these stories and for whatever reason, people act like this was yesterday.

It's like, no, bro, I've been clean for like nine years out here in these streets.

No, Like, no, not at all.

But it's like, really, were you telling the story back then?

You weren't telling the story back then, story in the past few years.

Probably probably in the past few years.

Is I had to make sure I really was what I said I was, you know what I'm saying, Like when you make that commitment.

Though, like I always talk about the color and you know where sei he pointed that fingers, and ain't no good gonna come to you and tell you do right by me?

That is real?

And so what happens when you actually do right by the woman you love?

What happens when you actually do right, you know, by your wife.

For me, my life has done nothing would go up, up, up, up up.

So I always say to myself, like, why would I ever go backwards?

Especially when I continue to see men make those same rookie mistakes losing everything.

You see what just happened to the head coach of the University of Michigan, like thirty nine years old, married with kids, you know, playing around on the side, and like now his whole shit is fucked up.

It's like, why would I make those mistakes when I'm seeing what's happening to other people?

And even before that, like I saw what was happening like to my pops and my uncles, and my pops would always tell me the worst thing that he ever did was do you know, wrong by my mother?

You know, even though he ended up you know, getting remarried, but he just that's just as a whole that you know is in his life that he just regrets, you know, even even to this day.

Did you know that at the time, or did you know that after you had changed your life and saw the you know, the effect of it, or did you make that decision with the intention of like, my life will be better if I do right by her both.

Because like you know, it's like when you did, I got to deal with anxiety, right, So it's just like, why add extra stress to your life that you don't need.

And plus you just feel fake, You feel phony, like you literally laying down with the person you claim to love, this person that you got a whole life with what you're lying to that person Like, I'm not one of the MP I got.

Yeah, I don't believe in that whole keep it, you know, real with your homies.

But then you know, lie to the woman that you claim to love and you really made vows in front of God.

Like, to me, that's just fake.

I can't live my life in that way.

I don't like to talk behind people's back.

If if I said something behind your back, eventually I got to say it to your face.

I've already said it to your face, so now I'm talking about you.

I can't live my life like that.

So it's just like laying down with a person, like living a whole life with a person, but you're actually living a whole lie with a person.

No, that's not the way I want to I want to you.

It's funny that you said you waited to say that, because one of the things I always wondered when I would hear you tell that story is, you know, because change doesn't happen in one second, no, you know, And sometimes behaviors take a little while to kind of break, And I wonder if any of that stuff ever still showed up for you, the temptation, the bad habits, the.

Nope, because it's literally like it's like changing your diet, like literally like changing your lifestyle.

You know, when you start working out and you start eating clean, it's like you don't even really want the junk that you used to eat anymore, like, and if you even do try to indulge in it a little bit, then you'll probably o D and go crazy.

So it's just like, nah, just leave it alone.

I don't need it at all in any way, shape.

Or form, really, So no old behaviors even just feelings like no old behaviors.

Yeah, feelings, I mean you feel meaning like you might see somebody and be like, oh that person's attractive, but.

No, no, not even not even other women, just like you would have to change a lot about yourself to make that big of a shift in your life, right, And I think I don't.

I think a lot of not all the time.

I'm sure sometimes change happens with an idea.

I've always been a cold turkey type of person.

Turkey like literally, I've always been a stop there's no you know, doing a little bit of the wrong thing.

I've always been like a stop person, like just it's over, it's done, leave it alone.

I'm not looking back.

And I think that's one of my one of the things I thank God for that he gave me that type of mind that I can easily just be like stop viting.

Yeah, and then it's also a little I don't know what the world would be, but I'm also like that with people, which I don't know if that's good or not.

Cut people off.

In a heartbeat, you know what I mean.

That's how it don't worry.

It don't matter how long we known each other, I might still have love for you, But if you're doing anything that's detrimental to me or detrimental to what I got going on, I feel like you know you did me wrong in any way.

It's like God, bless, I wish you the best, but I'm on to the next.

Wow, what about vices?

Never had any vices or anything like that that you had to wean off of anything.

Like cocaine?

Bull?

Why have I not heard about this journey?

Random journey you're discovering the uh.

I think people pleasing can be a vice.

I think people pleasing can be a vice, you know what I mean, doing uh things for people just because you just because you don't want them to do a certain way about you or dislike you.

I don't know that.

I don't know if that could because you don't give oh no no.

I was a big people please that came when I can tell you exactly where it started from.

Okay, not to get dark, but when when I was eight years old, I used to get you know, molested by a woman that used to be in our family.

And when I made her stop, she used to always call me ugly, right, and you know, tell me I got a big no's and all this type of ship, and so I would still let her do it just to you know, I feel like, yes, so she wouldn't call me that.

And so that led to me being a people pleaser in my adulthood, which you know is basically you know, letting people I don't want to say, kind of run over you, but letting them get over on you, just because you would rather avoid, you know, them having something negative to say.

It's not a personality trade I would have imagined, because you seem so free to say what you want and you know your confrontational when needed.

I love confrontation.

Yes, Why I don't know.

I think because my dad always told me that the fastest way between two points is the straight line.

And my dad was a person who he did not like the bullshit, even though he might have been one of the number one bullshit is out there at least in my mom.

But I always saw him just confront things head on, right, Like even when I used to watch him like my mom, arguing stuff, it was like very direct arguments, right, And so I just always felt like I would rather just talk to you face to face.

I never understood the whole you know, you got a problem with somebody but you're telling everybody but the person like, things don't have to be violent, right, Like you can get to it, just get to it.

Yeah, I always felt like you could smooth things over with the conversations, no matter how heated the conversation got, or even if you know, when you were young, y'all did have a little kerfuffle and through a little bit of blows you would just get back to being friends in moments.

That's it.

I always felt like that.

So I've never had a problem with the confrontation at all, but to keep the peace.

A lot of times it's like, all right, let that person you know, get that way, even if it's you know, detrimental to me.

But not anymore.

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So how do you break the habit of people pleasing?

Is it a slow It's not a cold turkey thing, right, You have to actually work on that.

Ye.

You just got to make sure that the things you're doing, you know, for somebody else is because you genuinely want to do them, You genuinely want to help, and you're not really losing anything in the process.

Like that's not an even exchange, right, Like if I do something for you, but then I feel.

Like depleted exactly.

You know what I mean?

Like, that's not an even exchange of energy.

Like I'm a poor into you.

You're gonna pour back into me in some way shape or for me.

I don't even mean, like you know, I might provide you an opportunity.

I just like being around good people, like you know, you just like being around good energy.

Sometimes that person that makes you laugh, or that person you know you can have a healthy debate with, that person that makes you smile for no reason, that person you like to talk to on the phone for no reason.

To me, those are even exchanges of energy.

But if I do you know something for you because you want it done, and I feel empty after the fact, and you know you going on about your day, that's not a fair exchange at all.

That is people pleasing.

That is one hundred percent people please, got it?

And I learned that in therapy.

By the way, I love that.

I want to learn all about all the things you learned in therapy.

I want you to teach us all the things today.

Charlotte Mage.

It's so funnycause I never thought of myself, you know, from New York and from the culture.

I'm like, I never thought of myself as a people pleaser until like recently, big this big age.

I'm actually confronting that fully made being feeling depleted by certain situations and just testing the waters of like let me do I want to do that.

I don't so I'm not gonna and then consciously checking myself to not feel bad about it.

But it's like a that's why I say I'm always curious about people's process because sometimes change doesn't happen cold turkey like that.

I'm not gonna shoot on my wife anymore, and then you don't forever.

Sometimes habits things the things that shape us.

It takes a little while to kind of like unravel that.

Well, that's why you don't practice bad habits.

And I think that, you know, one thing I've learned, the older I've gotten, I've definitely probably done more unlearning than learning.

Like that's the crazy thing about like when you first start going to therapy, Like when I first started going to therapy in twenty sixteen, by twenty eighteen, I probably was the most confused I had ever been in my life.

Too much information, not even too much information.

It's everything I thought I knew.

I realized I didn't know right as much as I thought I did.

And I realized that a lot of the things that I was using for survival weren't going to allow me to get to that next level of life that I wanted to get to, whether personally, professionally, whatever it was.

I knew I had to let so many things go and that's a scary process too, right, because I think a lot of times people hold on to a lot of those habits because it's literally what they'd gotten there too.

Those are the safe, comfortable things that they can go to and always use when they, you know, are just going through life.

But when you realize, like that stuff in that toolbox, man, that's not gonna those keys, not gonna lock these these new doors I'm trying to get to, that's a scary.

That's a scary place to be at, especially when you at what I was.

I thirty six, thirty seven.

Years old when you started doing therapy.

Yeah, I started going to therapy in twenty sixteen.

Yep, so I was like thirty seven, thirty eight.

Because I remember when I turned forty, I just was I just balled, like I mean, just crying like a baby.

I was drunk too, but I was just crying like I was crying like a baby when I turned forty, and it just felt but it felt like a release, like I remember literally remember it.

That night.

It was like I was I was, I was in Angula, like my favorite island, and I was just my wife had made this, she had got this video made for me and it was like like all my friends, like, you know, wishing me happy birthday, and I just cried, like what was it though?

What was happening?

I don't know.

It's like sometimes when you turn certain ages, like if you really are doing this life thing correctly, you can feel those new dimensions open up, you can feel those new portals of life open up.

And you know, twenty sixteen October twenty sixteen is when I was like, yeah, I'm not cheating my wife anymore.

I'm gonna, you know, really do the righteous thing.

I'ma start going to therapy, doing the work on myself.

And so twenty eighteen, I was like, maybe what a year and a half, two years into that, right, and it kind of just hit me like, yeah, that old I'm not that person anymore.

Like to it was like one of those things that God was showing me if you, if you really want to, you know, be what I have destined you to be, keep doing what you're doing.

And it kind of just hit me like just watching everybody with happy all day, gratitude, tears of joy, yeah, all of it, and it really just felt like a release.

And I was like, you know what, I'm forty now, I act like I love that.

Do you have any like I don't know.

It feels like the before or after right of Charlemagne, before that moment in time and then after it kind of it's like two different people.

Do you ever look back at things you did back then with guilt or remorse.

Or not guilt or remorse.

I think you do cringe sometimes, you know what I mean, because like all everything we do has been documented, you know, especially in this on air business, right, but so sometimes you do look at things and you cringe.

But it's only because like my kids, I got a seventeen year old, a ten year old, a seven year old, four year old, they asking questions, you know, of course, so it's like sometimes, but you know, I've learned to accept every version of myself, every single version of myself was the version that I needed to be in that moment.

And has there been any apologizing or any need no need to Like.

I don't know all the time, I don't know why the thing that comes up when I ask you that question when you talk about on air.

At first I was talking about your personal life, your wife and stuff, but like even on air, when you see that clip of like little Mama crying in the chair.

Like does that do something to you?

Or do you not?

Or a moment like that, or maybe you hurt somebody's feelings or maybe you emotionally said something that.

I can't see him to think about the little Mama situation, think about it, because that always comes.

People act like that was yesterday, like look at my faith, Look look how good my skin looks Now my skin was terrible.

And I think about the highlight reel of moments of like shocking Charlemagne moments.

You know, it's bird man, it's little Mama.

But even little Mama says she wasn't crying at me.

She was crying because we bought up well, her mother, who had passed away, God blessed the dead, had came up.

So in that moment, that's what it was.

She said that herself.

But also the night before when they asked Little Mama to come on, it was like like it was like, you know, Charlamagne got jokes.

A little MoMA was like, I'm from Harlem.

I got jokes too, So I thought we was going to have a nice little back and forth, which we did.

If you go back and wash it in full, she was throwing some jokes.

Mine was just a little better at the time, that's all.

That's all it was.

But I have but but nothing but much respect for little mommy.

You know, little Mama's dad ran down on him because of that ship.

No, because you know, I don't be outside, so he ran that, he ran he called him with the hammer and everything like no.

Yeah, and he told that story before.

I vaguely remember about that part.

Yeah, yikes.

So you definitely don't want to cause those kinds of issues and those kind of problems, you know what I'm saying.

But I got good.

But is there any been You don't even have to say what they are, But have there been moments where you see where you're like.

Oh, absolutely, especially when I used to work with Wendy.

Wendy was the one.

Because I got with Wendy, I was really compromising myself for a position, like I was really the pit bull, like purposely that was my job.

And she would be like, get get get them.

I want you to get that person.

You know, she wasn't enough, she wasn't doing enough well.

She was trying to make the transition.

She was trying to make a transition to television.

Oh she was trying to do good, absolutely, and it was just it would be sometimes where like my conscience would be like why, like and one I always remember is Kelly Rowling, Like she was like get up, and I'm like Kelly Roling, like why, Like what did Kelly Rolling to?

What did you do?

I think I came up with this angle, like we we both know how it feels to be sidekicks, so I'm a side.

I kicked the winning she decided to kick the Beyonce this great, stupid, disrespectful shit for no reason.

And I remember when Kelly wanted to do breakfast Club, La La hit me like, you know, yo, Kelly wants to do breakfast club.

But she was like when she met you with one day, it was bullshit basically, So immediately I apologize to her when before she even walked in the studio and when we got on air.

And I wrote about that story in my book because I always tell people, don't compromise yourself for a position, Like what the hell was I attacking Kelly Rolling for?

Like just because it's like.

The nicest boy, She's just like the purest little soul, you.

See what I'm saying.

And I still don't even know what the issue.

Was was she was she gracious to your apology?

Oh yeah, absolutely, I love Kelly.

Me and Kelly like we super locked in.

Then yeah, I love that.

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Not Kelly Rowland.

I forgot.

You did tell that story.

You've told every story.

Well, I try.

I try to.

I try to be an open book and just tell people because I want people to learn from my mistakes, you know, I want I want this next this next generation to know they don't have to do that, Like, I'm watching this whole new wave of whatever.

I don't know if you call them shock jocks and the yvery ridiculous.

I'm like you like that.

I saw a clip today of somebody I don't know who they were.

They were like a new I don't know, blog or interviewing somebody was and it was just gross, and I just was like, I feel bad for them.

You know, it's almost like I feel bad for them, but I also feel gross about I don't know, I feel.

Bad for them because I know how hurt they really are on the inside, because you have to be a really hurt person to talk about certain individuals the way that you talk about them, Like it's one thing to have an opinion, have some critique, but these people be like really vicious, evil, nasty, and I tell them like, the other story I tell them is like, you know, sitting with Wendy earlier this year, and Wendy literally said to us at the table, I think I'm in the position I'm in because of how I used to talk about people.

And I was glad that Lauren la Rosso was with me at the time to hear that.

I know when you said that to me, me this.

I couldn't believe that she said that.

She absolutely said that, and I was like, what do you mean like karma?

And she was like, well, you know God.

I never heard when you mentioned God ever in my life.

Don't you know that you've shared this story.

I don't know.

I have no idea.

I haven't spoke.

She called me on my birthday over the summer, but I haven't spoken.

You guys were talking pretty frequently.

I thought, yeah, she called me, she called me over on my birthday, but I haven't spoken her.

Do you believe some of that, like about the karma about.

Like absolutely, I don't know.

You know, the thing about karma, Karma's funny, right, because I've seen some really bad things happened to people that I thought was really good people, and I still believe that they're good people.

So I don't believe in karma.

Like hapen to bad people.

Yeah, I do something and then you get that, you know, type of equal opposite reaction back.

I don't believe in it in that way, but I do believe, like you know, you can curate the energy around you, and I think sometimes you know, if you put out put out a lot a lot of negative energy, a lot of bad energy.

I think that you can find yourself while in that and not even realizing it.

How do you feel about forgiveness for that type of stuff?

Like you said you cut people off fast, right, But like even in that moment, even in the moment with Wendy and her saying get and you having apologized to Kelly and just learning from that and she forgived you right, clearly, I.

Don't know, do you forgive yourself or do you forgive other people?

Or do you just kind of cut people out like I would even imagine with Wendy there had to be some type of I don't know it is, but you know.

The thing with Wendy is like like earlier this year, you know, we were helping her right because she was in a bad situation.

But then you know, you see some things that remind you of that old energy, and you're like, I don't really want that in my life, No, lover, wish you the best, you know, glad we was able to, you know, connect her with certain people.

Then when you see even how she might have treated to certain people you connected it with, you know, so it's just like, eh, let me, you know, I wish you the best, No want the best for her.

But that was a season in my life.

And I always say people come into your life for you know, reasons, seasons, and you know sometimes lifetimes.

Those lifetime was are very rare, but you know you appreciate the seasons and you know, move on to the next one.

And it was influential to you, like it helped you.

Oh, man, I wouldn't be I probably wouldn't be in the position I'm in now if it wasn't for that.

And I don't even like to have those type of hypothetical conversations because the reality is I'm in the position I am because that was part of my journey coming from South Carolina.

I was in Columbia at the time.

I think Columbia's market number ninety three.

To go from market number ninety three to market number one.

Being Wendy Williams co host like you who gets that kind of look like that's some stuff you see in a movie, you know, you watch on a TV show and be like, Yo, that's damn near impossible.

You would have probably done anything she told you to do, right.

I was like, Yo, I did do damn anything you told me to do?

Like yes, yeah, I was.

I was her attack dog like not not only that, I was living with her, like living with them, like they were giving me a place to stay.

I wasn't getting paid.

I didn't get paid for like a year and a half.

But I do that though, And that's why I always tell you the next generation recognize opportunity when it's not a pay check attached to it, because you can't put a price on that kind of opportunity.

Like it's like, Yo, you want you up here to be her calls, but we can't pay you.

All Right, I'm out.

You know, I gotta take I gotta figure it out.

Take that, take that first step.

You know, if you don't see the rest of the staircase.

To go back to the thing about you change your life and your wife, what do you think?

Why do you think she hung in there with you?

I have no idea that goes back to what you're saying about the forgiveness, Like you don't always have to forgive people, And if you do forgive them, you can still forgive them and move on and realize like, nah, this person, that energy isn't for me like that, that's the blessing, right, The blessing is when somebody forgives you but they decide to still be in your life in some way, shape or form.

Like when somebody forgives you and they're like, yeah, but that energy, I don't want that around me.

That's that's when it's like, oh man, but you know, we've been together since we was kids, Like you know, we've been I think, on top of everything else, were actually friends, and so she knows me for real, for real, Like she knows my heart for real, for real.

She knows who I am for real, for real.

So she was able to say, Okay, you made some mistakes, but let's see the best apology has changed behavior.

Plus, we was, I mean growing up together.

It's not like I was the only person, you know what I mean, Like she was in college.

Every girl goes to college and goes through their whole phase and stuff like that.

So it's just like it works, it works both ways, you know.

So that's just but.

We only know your story.

We know you were a bad husband at the beginning because you self proclaimed bad husband.

But you know I was always a good boyfriend, right.

But then it's like, man, honestly, it was just living this new hip hop radio lifestyle, famous I remember talking to somebody one time and they told me that every superhero is gonna try out their new superpowers, because there was like, you've never been that version of yourself.

And the person I'm talking about is a superstar, right, so like you've never been this version of yourself, so you're going to try out your new superpowers.

And I didn't understand what he meant.

It was actually Chris Rock, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, And I remember him saying.

I remember him just saying that.

To me, was like every sounds like Chris.

He was like, every superhero's gonna try out their new superpowers because you've never been this version of yourself, and there's gonna be a lot of things that come at you that never came at you before.

And I remember, and I always think about that, and I always think about this quote from the Honorable Minutes to Lewis frare Count, Honor Minister Louis fair Count said, when you see men fall, don't laugh.

Learn because the same things that tempted them on their way up, that caused them to probably you know, have these bad habits and vices, are the same temptations that you are going to face as well.

So It's like, those are things that I constantly think about, Like you see great men fall, you know, and I'm gonna laugh a little bit sometimes.

And you know what it is, and you're gonna call them donkey of the day.

Listen, and rubbing another man's not on your nipples is kind of funny, right, That's that's pretty that's kind that's pretty hysterical.

But so I'm gonna laugh a little bit.

But I'm also gonna learn from the situation.

What that situation?

Oh my god, man, I watched that documentary.

I watched that.

I watched that documentary on an amazing day.

You watch all four parts of all four.

Part I watched this.

This was whatever they were taping this.

It was last week.

It was last week Friday.

I wasn't I wasn't expecting to talk about this today.

But we should talk about it.

I haven't.

I rarely talk about it.

I don't know why.

I'm so conflicted about the whole you lived it.

I know which and I never had the best relationship with him.

People don't really know that.

And and so we've had these conversations privately about the well, yes, about how you feel that darkness.

I feel darkness from him.

Yes, I remember the clip too.

Were you telling him you felt the darkness?

But I did feel that darkness.

And we never had the best relationship.

I tried sometimes just because of the proximity and because of our worlds, and and you could not not be inspired in terms of uh work, ethic and what he's created.

You know, there was another side.

So I tried, whether the things you heard or things you felt, things you experienced, combination of it.

All, combination of it all.

I just personally just never had we just never had.

We knew each other, but I just always kind of me too.

I never wanted to go to the parties, and never.

I don't think I I don't think I've ever been to a party.

I could I could totally be wrong, and somebody will pull up a picture of me as some party that was says I don't remember, but I have no recollection.

But I feel the same way too, Like you know, I saw a person trying to try at one point he did see that.

Oh yeah, there's a video.

I don't know where it's at, but somebody took a video.

This is the first Revolt Music conference, and you know, me and Andre were super cool I love Andre like and God blessed the death.

And so I did the first Revote Music conference because of Dre And so we walked into the trailer and did he was sitting in there and this was right after Kim pass and he was just like super down.

And I remember he just said to me, he goes, man, I like all the conversations you'd be having about mental health and therapy and stuff, because you know, I realized I've never been happy.

He said that to me.

It's like I realized I've never been happy.

Wow, Like he said, never been happy.

And so you know when I hear somebody doing that.

And I also remember being at I was at the Potterhouse one one time.

It was the weekend of Bishop Tdjake's birthday party and he had a party that night and then the next day we all went to church.

I mean, I love Potthhouse.

I watched them online, you know, Pastor Torrey robertson Bishop tdjas and Saturday Jakes Roberts and so we in the church.

And YO, when I say he was I don't know what was going what he was had going on, but he was going through it.

I mean, holy ghoes jumping up and down tears, and I just remember looking at him like, but he's going through it, so clearly he was trying right.

So you know, I give I give everybody the opportunity to evolve, but that I'm not the universe, I'm not God.

So it don't matter what I think.

You still got to deal with whatever you was putting out there.

And that's what's happening now.

Yeah, it's funny to even talk about it because I don't know.

I just like somebody asked me the other day, if I would interview Puff if he came out, would you.

I'd have to think about it.

It wouldn't be a younger me would say, of course, it's my job.

Absolutely yes.

Now I'd have to say what kind of offering would that be to the world?

Would it be worth it for me?

Do I want to put myself in that noise?

Can I do something really meaningful?

You know, I'd have to ask myself some questions like that.

It's not just a yes, I'll do it because because it'll be huge.

I mean I say no, the huge things all the time.

That's what I love about you.

I mean, you know, it is so funny.

Debbie Brown, who's a great friend of mine.

That's my good sister.

She literally said.

She texted me like two days ago and was like, yo, because she loves Tupac like I'm talking about she's the person that haunted me exactly.

She she loves two BOC.

She was like, yo, Angie really needs to put out the TAC audio Debbie Brown.

Maybe it's time then, And I said to her, I said, well, you know, she never wanted to put it out because you know, I thought it would be inflammatory, right.

I know, there's a rumor on the internet that Puff somehow paid me for those tapes, Like I like, I held those tapes for all those years so that Puff could pay me.

It's absolutely there's zero truth to that but that but you're right, that's why.

That's why I never did it.

And then now I think, for what is the point now?

There's nothing there that changes history or changes but I know people are interested.

So I think people want to break it down psychologically because there's this.

Let's do it.

You want to do it with me, you want to do like.

Oh that'd be amazing, Let's do it because she you know what it is.

I think people we realized Pap wasn't as crazy as people thought.

And also he was young.

He was very young.

He hadn't gone through the Imagine Pac after therapy healed.

When you think that was it twenty four to twenty five?

Yes, twenty four, So his.

Full frontal cortex wasn't even fully.

This is what I'm saying.

Imagine him going through how the other side of Charlotte Bae, Imagine the other side of Pac what that would have been I would see.

Then then I look at the tapes and I go, well, now that has meaning.

If I release it in a way where it actually has meaning and does something good for the world, I want to just put it out so people could talk about it and have it on the internet for whatever reason.

Question, because you actually have gotten to meet all of these people that are mythical to us.

Would Tupac have evolved like Jay or would he evolve like fifty?

Like Jay?

But different?

I see Tupac were having institutions, universities, programs, schools.

Yeah, I see him like a like.

Well, Nipsey didn't even get to become Nipsey the Nipsey that he would have been.

But in that kind of lane, I don't think he would.

He valued money from and I'm not speaking as somebody who knew him the best.

I had, you know, one amazing day with him and some small interactions other than that.

But I've analyzed him just like everybody else has.

But he knew you well enough to say I wanted.

He didn't know me at all.

He used to listen to me when he was in jail.

That's why so of the people that he would be listening to, he'd say, Wow, you, I respect you on the air.

You never talked about me.

You didn't say I've never heard you say anything that was not true.

And I thought if somebody would listen to me, it would be you.

That's that was literally what he said to me.

And I was like shit in the middle of this fuck But but you know it was the young man.

I said, Okay, you had to do it.

I had to go do it.

Yeah, So I did it.

But that's always been your super super power though, making people comfortable.

Yeah, and being being such a great listener.

I used to always tell you that, I'm like, Yo, that's a skill I want.

I want to skill skill.

I think I've developed it now a little bit, like like like actually making people comfortable.

It's like you know.

I don't know if you've ever seen that.

It's like this folk tale about the wind and the sun, and the wind and the sun had a battle about you know who they could make take their jacket off, right, and this guy, this guy walking with a jacket on.

And so the wind goes first and the wind is blowing all crazy, trying to blow the guy's jacket off with the guy grabbed the jacket tighter and he's holding on to it because the wind is blowing.

But then the sun came out in the sun.

It's all, you know, high in the sky and it's radiating its beams and it makes it making everything really hot.

And the guy's like, oh, the guy takes his coat off, nickting, you know, the guy takes his shirt off.

By the end of the story, the guy's laying under the tree with like his boxes on, like just sunbathing basically.

So you know, I always like, I'd rather be the sun, like you've always been the suns.

Like the nicest compliment ever.

Thank you the truth, Thank you man.

Would you interview puff right now?

To go back to that question you ask me, I.

Think we'd be doing them a disservice.

And the reason I say that is because he just still seem like he's on the oh shit, And I look at it like it's a few things that make me feel that way.

When the Cassie accuzations first came out, he denied him, and then the tape came out, so you can't deny that.

And then when you look at the documentary, you see him still even trying to manipulate you know, the media and people up until he's even about to be in jail.

And you know, I don't know if it's true that he sent fifty those flowers, but if you did that, it's like, yo, you're still thinking about all the wrong things, and even watching the documentary, like he really cares about being puff, like being that character puff, like having those trappings, even more so than you know, accountability for what he did, you know, going to jail.

He just I care about my image, and I think that if he comes out and he's still on that we'd be doing a disservice by putting cameras all back in his face.

That's so funny you say that that I do operate in that way too, like I think because I'm always looking like you know, I'm looking for the truth in somebody, even if the truth is ugly, even if the truth is uncomfortable.

I want to just get to know you and know why your truth is like that.

But if I don't feel like somebody can do that, then why are we doing this?

I agree, you know what I'm saying, Then why And that doesn't mean I won't talk to bad people or people who've been through bad things, or people who sometimes are trying to still figure it out.

I will because I think there's learning and all of that.

I think we can learn lessons from It's funny, oof I should share this, but I just got a request for Russell Simmons to do the pod.

I think you should do that one you do, yes, because I've always say Russell has a very interesting story.

And if Ussell is ever allowed to really talk freely right like the way he talks behind the scenes, I think it would bring a lot of clarity to I thought he was living what you said earlier about them being so young and having all that money and that power and you know that access to things like I think that could be a very teachable moment.

And Russell is a person who's really willing to teach, like Russell can tell you where he was wrong at Russell can tell you.

Where if that was the case, then that's absolutely something I want to do.

But that was that was But that is the questioning that I asked myself when I get that message, is like, will he be honest?

Is there something to learn here?

Is there accountability here?

Because I don't want to sit across with somebody and I feel like you should be taking some accountability and they don't.

That could be weird.

And also I feel like I would have to be sensitive to other people's stories.

You know, it's a sensitive conversation which I'd be willing to have if I felt like ultimately the world is a better place for the conversation.

I guess that's the bottom line, right.

I've always said that it needs to be a woman who interviews somebody like Russell Simmons, and you'd be perfect because you that was you know, part of your era as well.

And then just the fact that when you hear his story, if he ever told like the story like just I'm talking about everything from that whole era, it is it's very teachable moments that you know would be coming from him and not through somebody making a documentary about it right now, because like I said, did he Doctor was a teachable moment as well.

But you know, you don't know what selatious and what's not.

But his story from his mouth, I think a lot of people could learn.

Yeah, I'm leaning towards yes on that for that reason, for those reasons alone.

But you know, it's complicated.

The world we're in as complicated right now.

Sometimes you have the best intentions and you could have a great conversation that is very meaningful to a group of people, and then it takes legs of a life of its own once you serve it up on a platter to the cesspool.

Here's the thing, you know what I mean.

But you can't really operate out of fear to go.

But I grew up in the era where Dona Hue had the Grand Wizard of the KKK on like like people were going to the jail to interview Charles Manson, Jeffrey Jeffrey Dama eight people, and people were interviewing him.

Would you interview Jeffrey Dahma?

Yes, I mean probably, yeah, yeah, I probably would.

You know, Gail King had all Kelly artists like like I never understood when when when that line in journalism was like, just we're not doing that anymore.

But I didn't.

I didn't grow up that way.

I grew up watching these people interview these these folks, and you wanted to hear from them.

I have interviewed murderers, and that's what I'm saying, all types of folks.

Yeah, for sure, don't.

I don't see I wouldn't see that.

I don't see the shuit with it.

Yeah.

Do you say no to things for those type of reasons ever?

Yes?

Yeah, absolutely, because to your point, because of the era that we live in now, and you know, sometimes you don't you're not thinking about the person who's going to be hurt.

Yeah by this, I do.

That's my problem.

Yeah.

I think about the person that gets hurt all the time.

It's probably why I never you could tell Debbie, that's probably why I never put the POC tapes out, because I think about the people that are going to get hurt from that, even the people that are talked about on the tape.

The hell that that lands.

Wow, I do think about that.

Have you ever gone back and list of those tapes and su Yes?

But so you know clearly you know what happened to everybody he talked about.

I don't even know who we talked about.

But yes, there's people who are no longer here.

Not just big I mean, there's people in the rap world who passed and he's talking about him, and not in a way that's helpful to the world.

It's just he was angry at the time.

He was twenty four, in the middle of a war, you know, an internal war, like you know, so he's talking shit about everybody, this one that is one, that's one of most.

People are not even here some you know.

So it's it's there's just some ugliness to it that I don't even think would be representative of him at this point.

But it's not for me to say.

I know, people really want it, so we'll figure it out.

You'll help me figure out.

Absolutely.

That was Debbie's point.

Debbie was like, yo, he was paranoid, angry people, all those people just trying to kill him.

And also, if I'm being really honest, it's like not amazing.

I was twenty it was like my first No, listen, it's not it's not a seasoned, devolved Angie Martinez on the radio.

It's a brand new Angie Martinez on the radio.

There's not a lot of follow up questions.

How long is that?

It's not me really, it's about an hour and forty or something like that.

Our forty of Tupac and Angie Martinez.

Yes, but it's a baby Angie Martine.

We'll see you'll say, I'm gonna let you listen to it, and then we'll say.

Oh, yes, that's what I'm talking about.

You've got that on cameras.

Let me listen to it.

I'll let you hear it.

You're gonna have to find it.

No, I have, I know where it is.

I have, I haven't digitized.

I've always asked about that interview.

Like even people that I know that you used to like go through your stuff.

We're talking about it because now all the comments of this interview.

Now, now the comments of our interview are gonna say at.

Least but the people that people who work for you, they love you so they hold you down like a vault, they'd be like, I don't know, I don't know what's on it.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I also haven't told a lot of people or played it for people.

I really have kept it quiet.

I don't trust people, even people that I love.

I don't trust people to hold secrets ooh, because I think everybody has a best friend.

Everybody has a best friend.

Everybody has a small circle of people they confide in, even.

If they mean well, even if I tell you something, I pride myself on being a vault like.

You could tell me something and say it's really important to me to not share this, and ninety nine point nine percent of the time I really won't because I value that so much.

But I'm an idea.

It's part of my like.

I deeply value that.

I don't know that most people operate through the world now.

I don't know how many people like that.

My wife is like that, And so I think most times when you tell people things, they mean well, oh no I want tell nobody.

Of course not, but you got a small circle of trusted people.

And then those people all also have a small trust circle of trusted people.

So I really keep a lot of things very close to the chest because unless it's something I'm comfortable knowing, which is a lot of things, I don't hide a lot.

I don't have a lot of If.

I give you my word, I'm not gonna do it.

If I if you tell somebody, tell me something like you don't tell nobody?

All right, all right, you're good at that.

Yeah, because you if you actually tell me, not that, I'm like, I'm right, yeah.

I believe that.

I feel like I've told you things before and it didn't it didn't move.

Yeah.

But plus also, who am I gonna tell?

Like, like you know, we all know the gossip to share with certain people, Like that's what Andy Martinez told me, Like why why why do I care?

Like you know what I mean, what's going on in your life?

Exactly exactly?

I kind of just committed to drop in the tapes.

No, yes you did?

Is that what just happens today?

That wasn't my plan today.

Fuck, we really had to figure that out.

Then let's talk about it later.

Our forty it might be like an eight part documentary nowadays.

Yeah.

It makes me sad though in general, just because for the culture like we I feel like all our pillars are like I don't know.

Yeah, it does.

I think about that all the time.

That's why whenever I see people like Hove, I always be like, yo, man, you know, I salute you.

So at every corner they try to chop them down.

At every turn, But it don't matter.

That plane is still landing with the wheels out.

Yeah, you know that plane, And that's that's the point, Like you want your plane to land with the wheels.

Out, right, do you feeling some of that what I don't know, just that pressure to be a pillar in that way, and well.

Honestly, you just got to do the right thing, like that's like, that's what I was watching when I was watching the doc last week.

That's all I kept saying to myself, Like how hard is it to do the right thing like that?

That that's either that's a choice.

Our humans are more like animals than we want to, you know, realize, meaning that a scorpion is a scorpion regardless, Right, it's going to sting you if you go into the jungle.

The lion isn't more delicious.

He's in the jungle, so it's going to eat you, and you ain't got no business in the jungle.

So sometimes I wonder about certain humans.

I'm like, that just gotta be in you, Like those can't be conscious choices that you're making to be that way, Like you just might be innately wired like that.

I know that I'm not innately wired, Like I ain't perfect, but I ain't them niggas, you know, not touching.

But I'm just saying I'm not perfect, but I'm not that.

So I just think sometimes that just gotta be.

Like that in yours.

It's like a ruthless.

Yes, that gotta be in you, because I think the easiest thing to do is do right by people, you know what I mean, pay people with their old you know, hey, maybe don't hang this guy out the window.

Like there's like there's certain ways that you, you know, you make choices.

I think those are just either poor either really poor choices are just innately in people.

I think a lot of it too, uh not to just not just puff, but like even just that time and some of our leaders and moguls at that time, they didn't have a lot, They didn't have the clarity of therapy and healing and trauma.

Nobody there was.

Nobody was talking about trauma, Nobody was talking about any of that.

It wasn't never a conversation.

It's so common now as every podcast as an episode about some version of that.

You have made great strides and having us open this conversation even more.

But I wouldn't about that too, though, because when I told my dad, when my dad started hearing me talk about me going to therapy and my experiences with anxiety and depression twenty eighteen, he told me he was like, yo, I was going to therapy twenty three times a week, and you know, so.

You think some people were doing it and not saying that.

Yes, my dad told me he tried to kill himself back in the day.

He was on tend He said ten to twelve different medications with his various mental health issues, and I'm like, I remember to tell her asking my mom, like, yo, did you know Dad was going through all that?

And she was like, I just thought he was playing crazy to get a check, but he was really going through what he was going through, but he never shared that with anybody.

I wonder how many people, actually, you know, we're doing the work and didn't know they had issues, but just weren't telling.

Folks in hip hop culture, I don't definitely was not a conversation, and I would be really surprised if the majority of people were doing it.

I don't think people were doing work.

I think people were running around with new power, new money, unhealed, reckless, fighting demons, with no kind of I'm not making excuses for anybody or anything at all, but I'm just saying it was a different time, and some people worked on it and became better, and maybe some people didn't.

Yeah, I mean, listen, That's how I was.

When I was sitting back watching that doc last week.

Man, all I kept thinking to myself was I don't want to be that, whatever that is.

I don't even want that nowhere near me, Like I don't even want to be in that type of mix.

But I don't put myself in that type of mix.

I've never been an industry tutionalized person.

I like going home, but you're also on a journey in a quest to be healthy.

Absolutely, it's a different that in itself separates you from that situations.

Absolutely.

But I also was just thinking about when I was even younger, I don't want to hurt I've never wanted to hurt people.

Have I unintentionally hurt people, of course, but I've never intentionally been like I'm going to hurt that person.

Like that's never I've never had that in me, Like I never was that guy who could just but you.

Weren't a place where you didn't care if you hurt somebody, Well, I.

I was in a place of survival.

Yeah.

And I always say you can't judge people for what they're trying to do when they're in survival mode.

Like I was literally just trying to survive, you know.

Like when I first got back to New York, you gotta think, man, I had just been fired four times from radio.

I just came off, you know, living with my mom at thirty one, thirty two years old.

My now wife was back home living with her parents.

You know, our daughter was like one or two.

I just collected my last unemployment check the week I drove back up to New York, you know, to start doing Breakfast Club.

I was not going back home.

I was not trying to feel that in any way, shape or form.

So in that moment, anybody could get it, like literally anybody could.

Well, no, this was after this is a breakfast club.

Yes, but Wendy was Wendy was.

I love that because those are different lessons from life, right that.

What I learned from Windy was don't compromise yourself for a position.

What I learned from Breakfast Club was don't judge anybody for what they do while they're in survival mode because I was just literally trying to survive.

I mean, thank god you made it out pretty unscathed.

I guess you don't think.

I mean, you're flourishing, your skin looks great, you know what I mean.

Yeah, but that took work, you know.

But but you know, so that's such a that's such a great comment because what people thought was success wasn't success to me, which is also the mind fuck, right, because this is what you said you wanted, right, Like you said you wanted all of this, But if you are doing it, if you get it and you're not happy, like I know, I'm not doing right by you know, my wife, right, I know that a lot of the anxiety comes from this line.

And I'm living like you know, like I said, going home, laying next to her, acting like everything is all good.

But you know, another business trip this weekend, even though it was actual business trip.

But it's what you do amongst the business.

Our business is different, you know, as you know.

So it's just like you can have all of that and not be happy internally.

So is it really success?

No?

Not to me.

I don't care what you know, you got in your pocket.

And at the time I was making more money than I ever made in my life.

Like you know, breakfast club is booming, you know, great things are happening professionally, but personally, I'm like, yo, who am I?

And her being the person that knows me better than anybody on this planet?

Who are you like that?

Would I remember one moment in particular, getting that phone call, you know, early in the morning when you ain't you know, you in La she on these coast times, so it's three to are but six something over here, and you getting that call and that woman's intuition, what are you doing?

I'm sleeping?

What are you doing?

I'm sleeping?

No, what are you doing with your life?

Because you're about to lose everything?

Motherfucker?

Okay, starting with us.

Like, oh you believe that?

That was like that God moment, Like oh yeah, like you know you can get that God will show you these signs, and sometimes those signs are very direct, right, and you can choose to ignore them and think that you can continue to fly close to the sun or continue to think that you bigger than the program, and you will be humbled, you know, very very very very quick.

So that was one of those moments.

You must worship her forgetting.

The worship the ground she walks on all the time.

I say, I say that to her in some way, shape or form every day, like literally every day, because I think that, you know what the Bible is right, when a man finds a good wife, he finds a great thing.

And like that woman can be all things to you in a matter of moments.

And I literally so I literally said this to her last night.

It's like I watched her in the kitchen and it was dinner.

Then I ate, and then I had like a cut on my back and she's upstairs and she put the ointment on and put the band aid on, and then I was, you know, being funny with her, and I'm just like, yo, you were this in the kitchen.

You were you know this when you put the ointment on, and then if we wanted to, you could be the freak right now.

And I was just like, yo, the women are so multi dimensional, it's amazing.

I literally said this to her last night, Like women can be so multi dimensional that it's amazing, and like that is a blessing for a man to have, and it's not something that I take for granted in any way, shape or form.

That's beautiful it's just the truth.

Look at you.

What makes a good husband.

I'm still learning that.

I'm still figuring that out.

Like I don't think that that's something that you.

I don't know if that's something you ever really truly figure out, because I think every day of your life you gotta wake up and set your intention and say, yo, I want to be a great husband.

And you know, every day you're not gonna get it right.

Same thing with fatherhood.

You're not gonna get fatherhood right.

You know, every day because there's no manual.

We don't know you much as a father in the public, like you've been very kind of I mean, you share stories and lessons, but you've been very intentional about having boundaries in that.

Oh absolutely, yeah, absolutely, just because I feel like, you know, they didn't sign up for any of this, you know what I mean, And I just I don't feel like them.

I don't want them to have to deal with any of that type of scrutiny.

Yeah, you know, but my oldest is seventeen.

Wow, she thinks I'm just a ridiculous person.

She don't take me seriously any way, shape or formed.

Like, she really does not take me serious.

She tells me every day.

I'm not funny, Like literally every day.

You're not funny.

You think you's so funny, but you're not funny.

Oh nah, she's a very I got a very humbling seventeen year old because she's like very stoic.

And she's a cancer too, so I know she shows her emotions in different ways.

But you know, cancers have that hard outside shell and then that soft interior like the crab, and that's that's how she is.

Yep, Charlotta made the Dad.

I love it.

I don't think there's anything more more important.

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This fare now the festival, the Mental Health.

Well, it's a mental health expo.

The expo.

Yeah, we do the Mental Health Expo every every October around World Mental Health Day.

And you know, I have an organization called the Mental Wealth Alliance and it's a nonprofit and you know, our goal is to get ten million people free therapy over the next you know, five years.

And you know, we want to increase the amount of black and brown mental health professionals because I think, oh, yes, black people only make up like four percent is that right, Yeah, of all mental health professionals.

So I want to get it to at least reflect the population of black people in this country.

So we got we got like actual goals and mission statements that we want to do.

And you know, dev is nuts.

He's on the board of that and we have some like really big plans for next year, Like I want to.

I love that you're doing that because I remember after my car accident, right and you were one of the I was looking for somebody to help me with some PTSD and I called you because you had just you had been doing so much work and advocate for therapy and mental health.

And I was like, hey, look for a PTS.

Do you remember this star call some PTSD work?

And then I realized, Wow, if I'm calling him, everybody must be calling you.

Oh man, like everybody must be like you.

Probably like rappers all music.

COVID.

During COVID, every rapper in the world was reaching out, and it was It was funny to me because I remember one rapper in particular reached out.

He's like, man, I'm just realizing I got angry ishoes and I'm like, you you just realizing your house.

I write the name down, I write the name down, you like you are just realizing that.

And I was like, he was like, yeah, I really want to.

See Oh god, you don't even have to finish it.

And he was like, I really want to sit down and you know, just talk to somebody.

But I was just like but that was It was just mind boggling to me because COVID was the time where all of us had to be still and some of us were really seeing each other for the first time, seeing ourselves for the first time, and a lot of us didn't like what we saw.

But that during COVID, every I promise you this felt like every rapper was reaching out, looking to talk, wanting to talk to somebody.

And finally, the good therapist is really hard, very hard.

So coming to you, so people in their like vulnerable state coming to you.

Must feel I don't know, not like a burden but responsibilities.

It honestly felt good because it felt good that I was able to point people in the direction like, hey, you should go talk to this person, right, this is a good person that you that you should sit down and talk to.

How many good therapists are that you can recommend, like, I.

Know a lot.

Yeah, because because of this conversation, the conversations that I've was having around my own you know, mental health issues, and you know the work that I've been doing in the last decade in the space, I know some really good ones, from doctor Rita Walker to doctor Alfred Breeland, Noble, the guys like doctor j Barnett, you know, Elliott Connie.

Then there's people that they can talk to like Jason Wilson, Like, there's so many fantastic, you know people in this space.

What is your number one advice for somebody who's never done therapy and looking to start doing some work on themselves.

Don't don't give up just because you go there, because it's not like you go there and have one conversation and then your everything's fixed, your heels.

You know, healing is a constant process, right, and you should, you know, just take it.

Takes a It takes a while to really start unpacking.

Like I know, I probably lied to my first therapist a lot.

Lying to the therapist is crazy.

But I just know I probably was like because you're kind of telling her like have truth, your version, your your verse.

Yes, your version.

Hey, that's the perfect way.

Because we lie to ourselves, so that's right.

So you're telling the therapists your version.

It takes time for them to that's right, and then they be like slow walking you sometimes because they want you to get to the truth.

So don't always tell you that annoys me about therapists.

I like a therapist to get to it.

I'd be like, tell me what you see.

And some people you just don't.

You might not feel super comfortable opening up to.

You might just go to the therapist and feel like, Okay, I know I'm supposed to talk to this person, so let me talk.

But I'm not, you know, being completely completely honest about everything.

So what good is that really?

You know?

Doing you?

That's why I said when I when I did ayahuasca, I had was that it was incredible.

I did it two years ago.

No fear.

I have fear because I feel like, could it mess with your brain?

Like I had fear the first day?

But the first day and told me everything was gonna be fine.

It told you, oh yes, like that spirit mother ayah God, I don't know what you call it, but it's really talking to you, like it's really like I can't even say voices in your head, like you're having full blown conversations with this spirit, with this entity, and this spirit is willing to show you whatever you're willing to look at, and once you're there with it, it's not going to let you look away.

Like you know how sometimes you have those glimpses of things, like you try to suppress in your mind.

It's like no, yes, look at this look and you're gonna you're gonna have to deal with it.

And I remember I did.

I did a three day, three day retreat.

So on the second day is when it like really kicked my ass.

And that's when I came up with the whole concept of you know, stop lying to yourself and stop volunteering those lives to other people.

And that's when the whole book get honest or get honest or die lying.

And that's when I was like, you know, either you're going to be all the way honest about these experiences and these things that you've gone through, are you know, we're gonna have to figure something else out.

And it was it was it was that moment that really was like, Okay, this this is the real eye opener, Like this is you If I'm going to really live in authentic life, it's gonna be from this point on.

That's why this year is very important because this is this is the year of the snake.

The lunar in Chinese odiac wait a year the snake.

Two twenty six is a year of the horse, but twenty twenty five is a year the snake, because we're supposed to be shedding all all our old bullshit, like all our old bullshit, the bad energy, the negative energy, you know, the things that have caused you guilt, the things that you're insecure about.

Like this is the year that you're supposed to really, really, really let it all go, and it's about new beginnings and transformation.

In twenty twenty six is the year of the horse, and you're supposed to get off, get on that horse, and you know, ride into your destiny.

Sold sold, So I would like to buy that.

That's right.

And it's a nine year, and nine is the highest level of change.

So if you feel like things are changing right now, if you feel like there's a shift going on with you right now, it's because it actually is.

It energetically, karmically is right now.

And then we got nineteen days to really shed and you know, let all of those things from the past that may have been holding you back, all those regrets, whatever it is.

You got nineteen days to let that all go and ride off into the sunset in twenty twenty six on your horse.

I might have to do ayahuasca before the end of the year.

The year I got there huh, Mexico.

I did it in Cali, Cali.

I did it in Cali, and it was an amazing experience and I recommend it.

Yes, I did it with a group of people.

It was like, are you fifteen of us?

And well you knew I didn't know everybody, but I knew the Whost family very well, and my wife and my wife did it and my wife did it with us, and yeah, it was it was very I can't.

I can't even if you're already a spiritual person and you've already been doing the work on yourself, it is one of the most incredible things that you could ever do.

I don't even know if I would do it if I hadn't ha done, had done so much work on myself.

Like, you don't go from zero to that, Yeah, you don't go from zero to that.

All right, we got two segments to do.

This is our voice notes segments.

Okay, it's a question our comment.

Usually there are questions.

Today's a comment presented by boost Mobile, and it's in the spirit of mentorship because you've been such a great mentor.

So go Charlamagne.

This is urt.

I just want to thank you for helping me understand just how necessary and how essential I am in this world.

You know, when I first moved to New York City, I was twenty one years old at the time, fresh out of college, and things didn't go my way as I plan at all.

You know, I felt like a failure.

I was working at a small apartment gym in Manhattan and looking back home, I was watching my friends get into their corporate jobs and living their dreams, and I felt embarrassed and lost.

But when I heard your South Carolina commencement speech, it changed my mindset.

You said that we are necessary because God designed us, and that reminded me that my journey still has purpose.

So I repeat that to myself every night.

So I want to thank you for helping me understand my powers hard.

Oh did you know that story?

Did you know that about him?

Yeah?

I knew to think about this a line of commission speech because I remember seeing him tweet one day that he a posts on Instagram somewhere He used to always tag me, and he was like, I listen to this speech every day, and then you know, nihilou he knew Nihlage in somehow, some way, and nowledge like, I really want you to meet this guy named art he you know, really looks up to you and now art works up one five to one.

So you're really good like that, like seeing the driving people and the talent and people and supporting and putting your arms around them, which I think is amazing.

But isn't that cool when you when you have a moment that that line you said about God designed line.

Yeah, God, God You're necessary because God designs you to be necessary.

You just got to find that thing that you're necessary at doing.

Like that's the problem with the world that we're in now.

It's so many people trying to do what everybody else is doing.

So I'm like, why be a second rate version of somebody else when you could be a first rate version of yourself.

Like the analogy I like to use is is Christmas time?

And what it's Christmas time?

Lord that mercy, it's Christmas time, and so there's a big old Christmas tree.

But everybody in the world has a gift under that tree that can absolutely change their life and change their circumstance.

Your gift is under there, it's there, but everybody in the world is trying to get to their gift.

So imagine how frustrated you'll get your art saying how he saw everybody else getting their corporate jobs.

Some people get frustrated about that and just quick they just be like, ah, man, I ain't gonna never find you know what's mine.

So the only person that can literally stop you in that situation is you.

If you just be patient, if you just keep working, if you just be consistent at trying to find what it is that you know is going to change your life, eventually you will find your gift.

And when you find that gift, everything else opens up for you.

But just imagine the frustration that could set in when everybody in the world is competing with you to try to find their gift.

Under this tree.

It's there.

It just takes some patience in some time.

I'm defined it right and not quit.

But it's one thing to have this idea of this epiphany that you have right and then say it and then go to a commencement speech and share it.

I don't know, but it.

Receiving it back when you see it actually doing its work.

It's actually you plant the scene and it actually lands and it actually changes somebody's life.

That's God.

That's why when you so when you pray as when you're writing a speech, right, like when you're writing a commisment speech.

I wrote, I write like don't I didn't have a team of writers.

It wasn't no GPT with I this commission speech.

Like I wrote the commission speech and it was from my mother's alma mater, South Carolina State University.

And then I ended up getting an honorary degree from them as well.

And so it's just like when I wrote that, like those I pray, I say, God, I want you to guide my words.

What is it that you want me to tell these students in this moment.

That's the download God gave me to share to them, Share with them.

Look at art, Look at art, look at Hardt.

All even appreciates you know where he's at because I you know, you remember that, you remember being a young board out working at the radio station, you know.

But now they these kids can do other things as well, have their own podcasts and stuff.

While they're doing that.

It's just fun to watch because you just never know where people are going to end up.

Yeah, it is really fun.

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I don't know.

All these questions aren't the same question.

If today were your last day on earth, what would you be doing?

Dying?

Dying?

Maybe your death is sudden, Maybe your death is sudden, Why would you?

Maybe you don't know.

Maybe you have a whole full day before you start dying.

If today was my last day on Earth, I would be living.

I don't know why.

My Joe Button death concept just came to me.

What's the Joe, butden death concept.

I had Joe on the pod.

He thinks that we all have.

This was when I was in my We're all Gonna die bag in the beginning of the pod.

But he has a theory that there are signs that we all get, signs in our life that will let us know how we're gonna leave, like how we're gonna pass interesting.

If you pay attention to the details of your life, that it almost will tell you how it's gonna end.

Interesting.

I know you have to hear from me.

Are you friendly with him or you guys you're like good and bad.

You're like front of me.

No, I haven't talked to him in a while.

I haven't talked to Joe in a while.

I don't have I don't have any problems with you.

Actually, I feel like you should be friendly, the two of you.

No, I actually got I got a lot of love with Joe, Me and Joe.

You know what it is, Me and Joe when we are mad at each other, we go bad on each other.

I know.

But you're both involved now like you should be.

You should be in better space.

Like I don't know, I know you both.

I know I'll run into him somewhere and we will pick up like we always have.

I'm sure, but that's all it is.

When me and Joe go bad, we go bad on each other.

And like when I hear why he he's upset with me, I'm like, oh, I can understand why he why he felt that way, you know what I'm saying like this, like this last one, I'm like, all right, I get it.

I didn't mean.

It in the way that he received it.

Received it, but I can understand why he felt that way.

That's when I think when he when he was going through his, uh, his last situation with Spotify, and I was on the radio and I said, I said, I think Joe Budden understands Joe Budden knows his worth, he just doesn't know how to negotiate it or something like I think, I said.

And I was just like, you know, if if every time you're at a corporation and things don't go the way you want them to, kind of gotta blame you and you and your team.

And then we were saying it was a whole discussion around podcasts, and I was like, you know, you can't compare yourself to the Joe Rogan's and the Bill Simmons and all of those guys, because Joe Rogan is an anomaly number one, Like, no, don't nobody do numbers like Rogan period, black, white, It don't matter.

And you know the guys like Bill Simmons, them, they have networks, so they get compensated a little bit different for that.

And so that was actually a conversation I probably shouldn't have been having publicly publicly on air, but you know, we on radio, we on these podcasts, and we all do it.

He he does it as well, you know.

What I'm saying.

So but I in that moment, what he was saying was when somebody like Charlamagne says that these people are listening, like meaning not regular listeners, the people that Spotify and the people that these corporations.

But it wasn't like I wasn't saying he wasn't worth it.

I was just just speaking how I felt about the situation.

And in that moment, and you're both speaking to your audience, to our audience, you are not speaking to each other exactly.

But you know the crazy part is we were.

We do speak to each other.

So it's like, I'll go from that on the radio to then watching him tweet, and then we might be on the phone that afternoon having the same discussion argument.

But I don't think he expressed me back then that he didn't like me saying that on the air.

It was just a debate about the content of the situation.

And then it was even when he went bad on his podcast.

We were on the phone that Sunday, and then another time he got mad because I didn't answer his call and it's stupid shit.

So's it's really nothing.

But when we go bad on each other, we go bad?

What the hell on each other?

What is that?

It's because you're probably both mad men.

I don't fucking you know what I mean.

I was thinking something in that.

I just wonder if you guys were I enjoy you both very much.

I would like to see you guys make NICEA sure it will, I'm sure it will.

All right?

One more?

Take one more?

Or in real life ball question?

Give me something?

That last one was dark?

It was dark?

What are some of your pet peeves?

Triggers?

Adult liars?

I hate adult liars.

Who are you afraid of?

What are you still lying for?

At your big age?

I was born in nineteen hundred and seventy I'm forty seven.

There's no reason for adults to be lying to each other.

I can't stand it.

It drives me crazy when adults lie to each other like we're grown, because it feel like you're lying to themselves.

Usually it's because they lying to themselves.

That's right, that's right.

So most people that are still lying to themselves have no problem lying to you.

And I don't understand how we advance as a society, or forget society.

I don't understand how this relationship can advance if we're never dealing with reality.

I'm dealing with reality, but you're always lying.

I can't have people.

I cannot have people like that around me, those pet those pet peeves, those type of triggers.

I don't want those people around me.

What are you most proud of about yourself through this whole journey?

Man?

What am I most proud of about myself?

I've never thought about that.

What am I most proud of about myself?

I mean, honestly, probably probably the evolution of of of being a husband and being being a father like that.

That's that's when I feel the most proud that I've created like a stable environment for my kids, like my kids have so many options and for the rest of their life will have so many options, you know.

Like I always say, I wanted to just raise trauma free children for the most part, and I think I've been doing a pretty good job of that.

Like you can't protect them from life, of course, but you know they live a good life, you know, like they got the trauma from and they get the trauma from me exactly, Like they live a good life.

Like the fact that you know, we are able to travel and I didn't get on a plane until I was twenty one, twenty two years old, flying in New York, like twenty one twenty two years the person I even traveled, right, But for them, they've been all around the world right like like and you see how that shows up and just their everyday vernacular, like you know, their their their intelligence, like the way they're able to communicate with people.

When they're in school, they're you know, doing reports about their reading about places they've actually been.

Like that's cool.

When you watch your daughter, I have to do a report on, you know, someplace like South Africa, but she's like, I got pictures of me and South Africa.

I'm gonna tell you about that.

Exactly what you mean, Nelson Mandela I was at I went to the jail that Nelson Mandela was in.

Like that stuff, you know, means a lot.

So I think that I'm most proud of being able to be in a position to create that kind of environment for my wife and kids to where they can live live a pretty trauma free life.

Well done, that's what makes me proud.

I mean, that's pretty good.

That's a great accomplishment.

This is my last question.

This is my favorite one in the ball.

One more thing, Yes, And the opportunities I'm able to provide by being in this position because I always say I want to be the adult that I needed as a child.

And going back to you know, not not the hard parted, but going back to the document documentary, it's like, you know, just being able to do right by people, you know what I'm saying, Like like, you know, it's a great feeling to have somebody reach out and be like, you know, this check is the biggest check I've ever seen in my life.

Like that type of like I like stuff like that, you know what I mean, Being able to put somebody in position to you know, get a book deal, whatever it is, helping other people, you know, make their dreams come alive.

That is that?

That makes me proud too.

That's pretty great.

Here's your last question.

You picked it.

I picked it out and it's my favorite one, so I'm trying to make sure you got it.

That's my favorite question.

Jesus Christ, I me your glasses.

If God were to text you right now, what would it say.

He would say good job, That's what he would say.

Two words.

He would say good job, maybe keep going.

Probably might say good job keeping You know what.

I want him to say, good job, keep going, because good job might mean all right, come on home now.

I don't want to.

You know what I'm saying, good job, keep going, good job, comm keep going?

You know jobs, keep going.

That's right.

Charlamagnea god in real life.

Yes, indeed, this is charlamagnea god in real life.

Hey guys, thanks for watching.

Make sure you subscribe, like comments, and check out all of the other episodes we have on Edge.

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