Hi, this is Yoho Sapil Bhartiya and welcome to another episode TFR. Let's talk. And today we have with us once again, after a long time, Angel Diaz, Vice President of Technology, Capabilities, and Innovation at Discover. Angel, it's great to have you back on the show after a long time. It's great to be back. Nice to see you. Thank you for getting some time. I want to quickly talk about your own journey. Why you chose to join Discover. What is Discover doing in the context of open source and what is your role at the company? So there are a couple of questions combined together there. Yeah, I know. But I think we could provide some good context. If you step back at Discover, we're obsessed with helping our customers have a brighter financial future. What does that mean? Well, that means becoming more digital. How do you do that? Well, you do that by thinking about our processes, how we deliver products, how those products align to our customer user journeys across card, bank, and payments. We think about our people. How can our people best serve our customers as well as learn and expand on those processes and, of course, technology? How do we best utilize technology? And I got to tell you, I've had such an awesome opportunity through my career being the beneficiary of others, others who've helped me learn about technology, whether it's early days of web standards to where we are now with open source and this democratization of technology. And as you look at this democratization of technology, we've been going up, up, up, and up on the massive hierarchy of needs. So what better next step for me personally than joining a financial services firm and trying to leverage those technologies in a more human-centric way? And that's what we're doing here at Discover. Can you talk about Discover's own journey or embrace of open source before you join and after you joined? You mentioned KubeCon, right? So at KubeCon, we spent a bit of time talking about this. When you look at open source principles, code, community, collaboration, the way of working, that way of working not only applies to open source, but applies to businesses, how technology teams, how business teams can actually work together, right? So Discover has always employed those principles. It's grounded in our behaviors, how we operate. We work together, we succeed together, we get better every day, right? And we focus on helping our customers. So what we've done is that we've taken those open source principles and we have used that as the way that we have defined our single way of working. In fact, how we define a user story or do contract-based testing with PAC or have a pipeline for our containers to go through in a secure and rapid way from dev to production, all of those ways of working has been defined by our own teams and continuously get improved through that inner open source process. Now, I want to just talk about the industry that Discover operates in financial industry. There are certain industries which are like kind of very, very open and pro-to-open source. There are certain industries which are kind of elected.  They deal with a lot of sensitive. So from your perspective, where are we when it's come to, you know, financial industries and embrace of these open source technology and practices? Financial services is no different than any company. We're a technology company, right? You know, you think about it, we're in the business of trust and technology, right? And like most companies, the technology that we consume, right, has open source in it, right? So we have well-defined processes and things around how we utilize any technology, how we maintain that technology and ensure that we are providing that trust to our customers. Now, like any other organization, you have choices, right? So let's just say we want to improve on a piece of technology or we like to innovate. You can do it yourself, which gives you a certain amount of value or you can try to do it with others, right? So we do it with others. I think a great example of some of the work that we've done recently, and you mentioned the Finos group, right? Is around trying to reduce the time between understanding a customer journey and implementation, right? So going from a design system to a react implementation in code. Typically, there's lots of hand-offs and PDFs thrown across the wall, right? And we participated in I think Finos' largest ever hackathon across 27 countries around a code base, which we contributed and now an open source project, right? Around that reducing the clock speed of design to implementation. And by the way, doing it in a way that is accessible by design. So those are examples of things that we've done. We're not unique in that. Many companies do that. But how we are unique is how we do that, all right? The focus on our people and building their craft. I want to go to this how part as well. Of course, you have been technologist. When it comes to this whole new technologies, what is the challenging part, technology or people? And then as you said, the focus is more on people. How do you folks not only empower, enable your internal teams to go out, contribute, get involved? So of course, you can have a lot of legal framework, but you're also kind of cultured within the company. So talk about the people side. I got to tell you, when people, processes and technology are aligned, there's nothing you can't do to help your customers be successful. And that's one of the things, by the way, that really attracted me to join. Discovered be three years from me in February, all right? And let's just talk about the people piece. Here we're very much focused on what we call building your craft, whether you're a product owner, a tech anchor, a test engineer, whatever your role is about building your craft. In fact, our talent system is aligned to encourage people to learn, to share, and to contribute. So let's start that conversation internally. We have an internal Discovered Technology Academy. We've had this past year over 10,000 pieces of Discover-Born content, blogs, articles, videos, tutorial, all categorized and tagged. Now some of it is normative. It becomes part of our engineering practice. Some of it is best practices. And some of it is just sharing, right? But that creates that inner environment. And folks, they love it. They love working together. It's a very vibrant digital community. And by the way, we started that community during COVID. So it was born digitally. Now right now, I'm in our physical space here in Discover. But I got to tell you, building it digitally first was fantastic. Now, what is better than learning and sharing and building out your practices together, building it with the world, right? So in February this past year, we brought out technology.discover.com, which is a reflection of who we are in our culture and our people. So there you will find technical articles. You'll find our real engineers sharing and collaborating, which of course ties very closely to our external GitHub. That whole process end to end, to your point, has very well-defined processes around how we talk and what we talk about. But it is a funnel, it is a funnel. Just to give you a data point, this past year, we had over 1,300 so-called acts of eminence across just our engineering teams. And that's going out giving a presentation or running a meetup or hosting event or doing a keynote at a KubeCon. That counts for one. And you mentioned DTE, Discovery Technology Academy and also there was another initiative, DTE. I want to just talk quickly about these two initiatives and of course the goal I do understand, but I just want to go a bit deeper into these two and what impact they have not only on discovery internally but also externally. So let's start with DTE, Discovery Technology Academy. So that's the place where we have a series of guilds. So we kind of break out guilds by technical area and by engineering practice. We have about, I would say, probably about 180, 200 active participants driving each of those different guilds, taking content, vetting content, deciding plus wanting, deciding what becomes normative behavior. We pair that with learning. So we have a dojo team, a dedicated team that pairs within a sprint. So you don't stop doing work, right? Pairs with engineering teams to help them get better. So let's imagine that a team wants to improve on TDD or BDD or contract-based testing or implementing a new taxonomy for API endpoints. We have dojo coaches that will pair and within the context of that backlog, ensure that folks are learning and then contributing back whatever those learnings are into the overall system. We also have events. We run, every week we have what we call elevate your craft events where we take moments out of time, folks come together, immerse themselves in hands-on keyboard workshops and so forth. So that's how we tie our processes, right? To our people so they get better. When you do that, you create space in the backlog, right? And when you have space, that's escape velocity for innovation. And we have a very well-defined innovation process where teams can then within that time in the backlog take on interesting things that they want to experiment with, technologies or ideas or intellectual property. And use it as an opportunity. Now, that's Discover Technology Academy, our internal kind of mechanism for sharing and growing, very deliberate, very engaged. But as I said before, you learn more when you're outside. In fact, the hardest thing to do is to teach something or explain something. So when you do that, you know that you're mastering the topic, right? So DTE, our Discover Technology Experience, which is technology.discover.com, is essentially the subset of DTA that we share with the world, right? It consists of blogs and articles and technical topics of how we do things. You can find out where we're at, what events we're doing to, what open source communities we're participating and so forth. And it allows us to showcase kind of what we do in a way that helps us better engage in open source communities. And by the way, it's great for employee retention and attraction, right? Because everybody loves talking about what we do, right? Especially if it's in a very positive way. Excellent, thanks for explaining that. Now, since people are talking about Cubeco and you mentioned innovation, this is a question that I have to ask you, which is about Genitive AI. Talk a bit about you have been in this space for so long. How do you see today? Of course, there's no one Genitive AI that technology is being built. But do you also feel that, is it just a hype or do you feel that this is the same scale of technology as is the Linux kernel or Kubernetes? And then we can also talk about from, how do you by you, I mean, discovered look at Genitive AI? Again, if I look at any set of technologies, they're all built on successes of the past, right? So nothing is truly revolutionary is additive, right? But then what happens is that use cases expand because all of a sudden these pieces start to kind of fall into place. You have compute, you have models that have been tested and learned and so forth. In the space of Genitive AI specifically, I think, I'll kind of mention two things. One, if you go to technology.disparer.com, you'll see one of our use cases, which is some work that we've done in our call centers. One of the most fantastic things about discover card bank payments teams that we have amazing customer support, right? And those folks work really hard to try to get the right answers, right? So we use, we're experimenting with Genitive AI to help those call center folks, our customer agents, our customer facing the visuals to front door for discover, right? Help our customers achieve that brighter financial future. That's a fantastic use case and there's a lot of work that we're doing there. And in fact, what we talk about externally is some partnership that we've been doing with Google. So it's kind of pretty cool. Now, but there's many more use cases. Many, many more use cases. So the question is, what do you do? People have talked about Genitive AI in the context of writing code and other things like that. We have an internal kind of council. We look at the different use cases and then we do experimentation in kind of a well-defined way of how we start thinking about some other areas where we can bring this technology in. Since we are talking about open source, I also want to talk a bit about Discover's involvement with foundations and open source project, talk about them. Absolutely. So we recently joined the Linux Foundation. We participate in several communities pretty deep in Phinos. We have a board member, we're very active in Phinos. And there's many exciting projects. So we talked a little bit about KubeCon and Kubernetes. We use Kubernetes and that technology as our door into leveraging scalable environments. Another area that's really important, I think not just to us, but to many groups is the whole notion around supply chain. This was a big topic also during KubeCon. And that is understanding how different open source projects relate with each other. And how do you manage requirements? It's also the providence of what's happening. So in the Linux Foundation, I believe, I remember how put a big investment in starting a supply chain kind of open source group. And that group is working across all of the different open source groups to kind of build that connectivity. So that's another area that we've been real active in as well. We are almost at that year. And so I also want to really talk about what are the things from the perspective of course there are a lot of things you cannot share but just give us a glimpse or teaser into the things that we can expect from Discover once again from the perspective of people open source. Okay, you're ready to do the crystal ball. No, look, one thing that we're obsessed about is around automation and pattern. So if you go back to early days of computer science, they had the gang of four software development patterns, arrays, link lists, I know, old school. You don't think about that anymore. It's embedded in libraries. But that concept of patterns and improving the technologist experience, some people call it the developer experience, is how you bring these different kind of ecosystems environments together. We have built a very rich set of technology patterns and automation patterns. In fact, just this past year, we have given back over a hundred thousand hours to developers through patterns, right? And we're starting to share more of those in the communities. It was a big topic of discussion within KubeCon as well, right? How do we improve the developer experience through automation, through patterns? And I think that there is a kind of a very nice kind of a hierarchy, right? There's lower level patterns when they come together as composites and those composites come together as larger things. So we will certainly be doing more in that space in the open and partnering with others who are thinking the same way. I want to also talk about looking at open source from the lens of a corporate player of a company's perspective versus a community project. How do you see it? And what role companies like discovered playing this space? Yeah, and this is so exciting because I've been involved in open source communities for a very long time and taking those exact same operating models, how open source works and applying it to how we work internally as an organization, not just how we use open source for inter open source projects, but how we use open source to define engineering practices, our processes, et cetera. It has such an amazing benefit of, A, getting a really good answer, right? Because you have a lot of people together and then, B, everybody's on board because they were all part of making that thing, right? And I think that has been kind of a supercharger for us as we continue to get better every day on how we deliver products and delight our customers. I know this is a bit sensitive, but I will ask and you'll see how it goes is that once in a while, I will not name any company, but we do see companies change licenses, we do see companies change their approach to our projects. Being in this industry for so long, are you worried about this trend or you see that, hey, open source is big enough, there is room for everybody and things will take care of themselves? There's always been that question, right? It's this, you can go back 20 years and the same kind of question. And the view that I take is that this all kind of always normalizes, right? To your point, open source is valuable. Why?  One that cannot be rivaled or managed by any single company, right? And so when you have strong open store, true open source centers of gravity, you have strong ecosystems, strong partners that you can rely on, right? And great innovation. So there's always kind of back and forth between licenses, license terms, people changing licenses, whatever. It all kind of normalizes in the end. Angel, thank you so much for taking time out today and of course, talk about Discover Open Source, the work that you folks are doing there. Thanks for all those insights. And as usual, I would love to chat with you again. Thank you. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure talking to you and seeing you again. Thank you.


U.S. warships downed several Houthi Kamikaze drones in Red Sea. A U.S. warship has downed several Houthi Kamikaze drones over the Red Sea, the United States' Central Command said. On the morning of November 23, the USS Thomas-Hunder shot down multiple one-way attack drones launched from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen. The drones were shot down while the U.S. warship was on patrol in the Red Sea, United States' Central Command said. According to the United States' Central Command, neither the ship nor its crew sustained any damage. Tensions have increased in the Red Sea region since the start of the Israel Hamas War. With Yemen's Iran backed, Houthi rebels claiming to have fired ballistic missiles and drones toward Israel. Last Sunday, the Galaxy leader cargo ship was hijacked by the Houthis in the Red Sea with about 25 crew members on board. The United States demands the immediate release of the cargo ship and crew, seized by the Houthis in the Red Sea, State Department spokesman Matt Miller said. The Yemen-based rebels have vowed to target all ships owned by Israel or flying their flag in the Red Sea. The Iran-backed group widely believed to receive support from Iran, controls Yemen and its coast along the Red Sea. Iran is believed to actively arm the group and even provide them with potential targets.


Alrighty, so I have a really quick update for you guys today. I just wanted to update as quickly as possible. I tried to fly my drone, but then like a snow storm came out of nowhere. So I had to land really quickly. Minebuster obviously does not have Titan track. As you can see, the track is started will not be actual metal part of the track, but the wood part of the track, the layers are starting to go in. So that is no Titan track there. But over at front gate, you guys can see a very Dollywood-ish style front gate is starting to take form. Now this front gate is part one of a part two. I'm not going to go into any details there. If you're a Patreon, check out the newsletter. All the information is there. Blocking off the old entrances and exits is starting to occur. As you can see there, there were forms in the ground. They're going to build some sort of wall and theming to keep people from coming in that way. There are two exit points for you to exit in that area. And that'll take place on the other side as well. And then the merch store being an exit as well. So from what I'm hearing in the rumor mill, this is a part one of a part two renovation to front gate. So that's really exciting. They want this all done by the 2025 season and obviously World FIFA.  But yeah, nothing else going on in the park on this day. Again, I had to fly after work so I didn't catch too much extreme sky flyer. All the little bits have been removed, but no crane is on site to remove that massive structure yet. But that will take place in the coming weeks. So stay tuned. Have a good one, guys. Bye.


Now, I'd like to introduce the 2018 winner of the Peter E. Haas Public Service Award, which recognizes a Berkeley alumnus or alumna who has made significant voluntary contributions to the betterment of society who has cultivated his or her civic life. Here with us today is Ambassador Jeff Blythe, Berkeley Law Class of 1989. Jeff's commitment to public service was already evident when he was here on this campus. He was performing at the top of his class, serving as the editor-in-chief of the California Law Review and taking on prestigious research positions, but he also led efforts to found the East Bay Community Law Center and still found time to go to Castlemont High School in Oakland twice a week to help high school students understand the law. After graduation, Jeff quickly became a partner in a major firm with a large practice, but he also took on almost an equal number of pro bono clients. He represented homeless San Franciscans, defended the rights of Native Americans, and supported gay and lesbian service members, but he also worked with a local law clinic on matters as small as landlord-tenant disputes. He's continued to give huge amounts of his time in many ways for the public good. He took unpaid positions in both the Clinton and the Obama administrations and eventually served the country as ambassador to Australia. He's also led the California State Bar and was chair of the California State University System. He is also an engaged member of the UC Berkeley community serving on boards and chairing reunion campaigns as well as teaching numerous courses over the years. Jeff truly embodies the spirit of public service that drives this university. The following video gives you a glimpse of why that is true. I grew up pretty lucky. No impediments, no discrimination against me. But if I'd been my grandparents, they were born Russia, Jewish, they were persecuted. And why should I have no impediments in my life when my grandparents faced all these impediments? My mom, she was a receptionist and I'd see how people treated her and how she treated others. And she treated everyone with respect, it didn't matter who they were. She was always friendly, polite, and there were some people who were very dismissive of her and I thought, shouldn't ever treat anyone that way. And everyone is someone's mom or dad or son or daughter and it made me want to change how people treat one another. And it also made me aware of how I should treat others. When I came to Berkeley, I was deeply in debt. I had to borrow money for my graduate school and I'd always wanted to be a lawyer and I couldn't afford to go to any of the law schools. And while I was there, I met a lot of other people who were in the same situation. It creates a bond and also a sense of gratitude. To have a community of people who care more about one another than about themselves, it was just rare and inspiring. From the time I left the gates here at Berkeley, I've had a different life, a different ethic, a different vision for who I could be. I've been able to work with President of the United States, clerk of the Supreme Court, be a U.S. Ambassador and represent us overseas to argue cases in the Supreme Court on behalf of those who are underserved and to work with an amazing group of people in all sorts of different disciplines, including education, you know, being on the Fulbright Board and sharing the Cal State University Board, getting the chance to dig in on issues that I cared about with people who have devoted their lives to it, whether it was homelessness or foster youth, victims of domestic violence, helping people who are LGBTQ fight, don't ask, don't tell so that they could serve their countries.  The regrets I had in life were never things that I had done wrong. They were the acts I hadn't done, the little courtesies and kindnesses that change people's day and can sometimes change their life. I think I've organized my life in a way that allows me to have room every day to help somebody. And I don't know who that person is going to be or what the issue is going to be, but if you leave just a little bit of give in your day, just being a little helpful to people and sort of taking in their situation and trying to put yourself in their place and help them, it becomes almost almost a habit and it's enriched my life and hopefully it's made other people's lives better too. Someone much wiser than me said you make a living from what you earn, but you make a life from what you give. And I found that by giving to others, not only did I get more satisfaction in my life, but it opens doors that you never imagined. Please join me in welcoming Ambassador Jeff Blyke. I was supposed to put this around your neck. Wow. I am just deeply grateful to you, Chancellor, to the Haas family, to UC Berkeley, to Professor Cynthia Lee who nominated me for this, to my family and friends who are here, and especially to you, the great UC Berkeley Class of 2018 for letting me celebrate with you today. I mean I have to say it's a real thrill. I get to walk in with Nathan Adrian and sort of stand shoulder to face with Nathan. And we can look at each other's gold medals now. This day is your day and it's a happy day for everybody, particularly for you and your family and friends who supported you and got you here today. In fact, the only people who aren't happy are at least a bittersweet on graduation day or the faculty who have to see you go. So I'd like to say two words that I just know will help make each and every member of the UC Berkeley faculty happy. Robert Muller, you're welcome. Rather than offer the usual advice at graduation, follow your dreams, never give up, always wear sunscreen. I'd like to offer just one piece of advice and three strategies to help you achieve that. But don't get me wrong, I also want you to follow your dreams, never give up, and wear sunscreen. And don't text and drive. My advice is this, don't be a Kardashian. Don't marry a Kardashian, just don't. Don't devote yourself only to yourself. Anyone can be famous, but fame is an empty thing. It only means that people who don't know you think they do. Think Anthony the Scaramucci the next time you crave fame. Likewise, anyone can become wealthy for a while. Just do outrageous things, don't pay your debts or your taxes. Ask Paul Manafort. If fame and fortune are your sole end, you may in fact find your sole end. Of course, people can be wealthy and famous and lead satisfying lives, but it's not because they're wealthy or famous. Neil Armstrong didn't go to the moon to be famous. He went there to serve all humankind. His pride came from his service. If you've watched any celebrity rehab shows, you already know this. Ultimately, honest service to others is the only thing that brings contendment. Neil Armstrong's fame is a lot different from Lance Armstrong's fame. So here are my three strategies for performing honest service in your life. First, don't think you need to change the world every day. It would be a pretty chaotic world if 8 billion people could change the whole world every single day. But even if you can't change the world every day, you can change someone's world every day. I don't look back on my career as a series of wins and losses or titles or honors. Honestly, when I think back on my career, I just see faces. People I've represented or taught or mentored or connected or celebrated. And it doesn't matter if it was a veteran that I helped at a Thursday night clinic or the LGBT service members are represented in the Supreme Court. The faces are just as vivid and just as memorable. Sometimes the work took years and sometimes it just took a couple phone calls. But the life we make is ultimately the accumulation of the lives we've helped others make. I heard a story that brought this home to me once. It's about a father and a daughter and they're walking along a beach. And the tide had gone out and they came to a place where there are hundreds of starfish that had been left high up on the shore and they were drying out and dying. And the girl picks up a starfish to put it back in the water and the dad says, you know, honey, there are hundreds of starfish here. Saving one starfish isn't going to make a difference. And the girl said, it will to this one. Regardless of the career you choose after you leave these gates, each of us can change someone's life every day. The second strategy is about making luck. We don't just create our own luck. We create others' luck as well. And it's true, if you work hard, follow your dreams, never give up and wear sunscreen, you will have more opportunity than other people who don't. But that doesn't mean that everyone who works hard has the same opportunities. My great grandparents on both sides were refugees. And I'm only here and able to live this life because the United States opened its doors to two desperate families that spoke no English. That was not a matter of luck. It was a matter of choice, a choice that people in this country made to extend the blessings of liberty, to give others a chance. And I've simply tried to carry on that choice. I've helped others in need not because of who they are, but regardless of who they are. I've donated my time to immigrants, to victims of human rights abuse, disabled veterans, homeless children, Muslims, racial minorities, Native Americans, sexual assault survivors, and victims of mass shootings. And it wasn't because I was a member of those groups or because I only care about those groups. I did it for the same reason generations before I let my family into this country. Because everyone who wants to be a full part of this society deserves that chance. And I don't care if it's coal miners' child in West Virginia or a dreamer in Fresno. If someone is being held back from pursuing their dream because of prejudice or because of indifference, that isn't just their bad luck. That's our bad choice.  America's not a great nation because we always put ourselves first. It's because we choose to put no one else second. And that, frankly, is what makes America great. Finally, my last piece of advice about public service. You don't need a special title or an office to start. Gandhi never had a title. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dolores Huerta. They didn't have titles. The only title they ever held was Citizen. But that's not an insignificant title. It's probably the most important title we have. Because we actually ask a lot of one another's citizens. Contributing in quiet, anonymous ways. Learning the issues. Voting. Paying taxes. Showing up for jury duty. Withholding judgment and presuming innocence. Volunteering. Running for office. Supporting candidates to run for office. Marching and protesting. Defending our nation. And in some cases, sacrificing our own lives. And lives of our children. For that nation. We'll only do that. If we believe, most other people will as well. Only if we believe that the wealthy and poor alike, the fortunate and the unfortunate, are going to sacrifice for one another.  The moment that they lost faith in one another. So good citizenship isn't about, it's about more than respecting our laws. It's about respecting one another. It's bigger than politics. Neither party's got a monopoly on good ideas or good people. I've served as many Republicans as I've served Democrats. Because when there's a fire, no one asks if the person in the burning house is a Democrat or a Republican. No one on September 11 cared who the people that perished had voted for. They were all part of us. Every one of them. From time to time we forget about good citizenship.  There are leaders today who've forgotten their oath to serve all the people. Not just those who are like them, but all the people. But not here. Each time that elements rose to divide and demonize our own people, it's the students at this school, at the University of California Berkeley, who stood up. People at Berkeley have always fought to defend others. People at Berkeley have done what citizenship demands. We run towards fire. And this is my final point. Yeah, you can give yourself a hand. You don't have to wait for a crisis to discover your citizenship. It just takes some perspective. There's a story of a man who sees two bricklayers working side by side and he asks the first one, what are you doing? And the first one says, you know, what's it look like I'm doing? I'm laying bricks. And I ask the second one the same question, what are you doing? And she looks up and says, I'm building a cathedral. I haven't written a great book, I haven't cured a disease or ended a war. I've just lived with the simple faith that each day, through modest acts, I can add a brick that will make a difference. And that isn't something amazing. It's just citizenship. But our Constitution promises that big things can be accomplished by those small acts if we all do them together. We the people can form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our prosperity. And you seed students. It is your time. The bricks are in your hand. Don't build a wall. Build a cathedral.


I need not emphasise how indebted we are to the National War Museum and especially to the Ken Namanis Centre for Literature and the governments of the southeastern states for hosting this important gathering of Nigerians to mark 50 years since the civil war ended. I bring you all special felicitations from President Muhammad Buhari who has asked me to specially also commend Senator Ken Naman and he shared with me just yesterday evening about your friendship over the years and the several times that you hosted it in your home. Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, we stand in the shadow of one of the darkest chapters of our nation's history, surrounded even here by the artefacts and monuments to a terrible conflict. This is neither the time nor the place for rehashing the justifications and recriminations and claims and countertits about the remote and immediate causes of the war. There are already many scholarly publications, histories, biographies and brilliant works of fiction that have been devoted to these issues and rightly so. Yet a nation must always examine itself and reflect on its journey. In a democratic society, this means a robust conversation over the vigorously contested aspects of this country. Such a debate remains necessary if only to enhance our self-knowledge but perhaps more importantly to bring closure. What we all agree on is that this civil war, the civil war of 1960s, 1970s was a defining national tragedy, a catastrophic conflict that scarred us as a people. Its cost in life was massive. So was the cost in lost opportunities for national advancement. The spectacle of promising lives caught short in their prime, families ruptured, communities sacked and the environment poisoned by ordinance is one that rebounds to our eternal regret. Yet we do not remember this seminary meant in our history. Many to indulge in the futility of regret, we engage in the discipline of remembrance so that we can learn from this and resolve that such horrors will never repeat themselves again. And we must do so, not just this month, our nation's month of remembrance of our fallen heroes for every moment of our lives. Indeed the greatest tribute that we can pay to the memories of those who made the supreme sacrifice for the survival of this union that we call Nigeria today is to ensure that the circumstances that led to the conflict are never again re-enacted. We cannot change the past, but it is within our power to ensure that history does not repeat itself and that we never again confront the awful consequences of abandoning dialogue and letting our darkest impulses drive us. 60 years after the end of the war, Dean Jukuameko Juku was asked if he thought the war resolved the issues for which it was fought. His reply is instructing. He said and I quote, Wars hardly ever resolve issues. Wars are an aberration. Eventually the issues still have to be dealt with. And of course, in any event, it is evident that the costs of resolving our differences peacefully through dialogue is far less than trying to do so through war. Dean Jukuameko once described Nigeria and I quote, as a nation favoured by Providence, end of quote, a nation favoured by Providence. I certainly see the hand of Providence in our nation's survival of that conflict. Unlike many other African countries which have known protracted multi-generational strife, our conflict ended after three years and we have suffered no relapse into such practices since then. Your expenses in the 50 years that follow through the end of the war, we have invested in national integration, peace-building and reconciliation. That has meant a lot less than a perfect class. We must admit that that process of reconciliation is not a perfect act. Our road has gone been easy and we face many challenges along the way. For those setbacks should not induce hopelessness or despondency, but should constantly remind us that the stakes are high because of the incredible dividends of unity for all of us. Again in the words of Archibald and I again, there are individuals as well as nations who on account of peculiar circumstances are commandeered by history to facilitate mankind's advancement. Nigeria is such a nation. The vast human and material world with which he is endowed bestows on her a role in Africa and the world, which no one else can assume of the end of hope, are historical missions. Therefore, it is not just to build a nation that works for us all, but to create a succinct quality, an economic and social powerhouse capable of firing us and our continent to prosperity and renown. And yet nation-building is hard work, bringing together the multiplicity of ethnicities, languages, and creeds that make up this great land under one banner is an honorous but necessary task. But the more difficult and crucial work, the more difficult and crucial work is that of emphasizing and ensuring fairness, justice, and equity amongst all ethnicities and religions. We must be open to addressing the concerns of all within this union. All of us must feel entitled to legitimately aspire to the limits and extents of our dreams and visions in public life and in commerce. For those of us that are old enough to remember the war, we must be mindful of the fact that the majority of Nigerians alive today are too young to have witnessed the civil war and therefore have no real memory of it. The last 50 years belonged to us, but the next 50 years belonged to our children and their children. And we have a responsibility to unshackle them from the ghosts of ancient grudges and grievances. As elders, we must ensure that we do not poison the minds of the young with our own prejudices and affect their ability to take advantage of the opportunities available to them in their own country. We must also avoid foisting the toggle of victimhood and helplessness of the next generation. The memory of elders is crucial and supplies us with instructive lessons. But we must enable the vision and the imagination of our youth to flower, untainted by the biases of the past. Moments ago, I taught the National War Museum with a group of students from schools in the state. It was a tremendous learning experience for us all. Of course, I was struck by how noble the war stories behind the artefacts were, not just to me, but also to the students. I was reminded that while we must acquaint the younger generation with our history, we must also realize that it does not seem that this young generation do not see the world through the same lenses as we did in the 60s. Tima Manda and Bosia DJ talks about the dangers of a single story and there is certainly a danger in casting Nigeria solely in terms of the narratives of those that witness the war. The generations born after the Civil War are navigating the adventure of being Nigerians on different terms from their forebears. Let us give them a chance to do better than ourselves. Young Nigerians are intramural, migrated and co-mingling in the quest for love and livelihood. They are doing business together and forging alliances in civil society and politics across ethnic and religious divides. Social media may be a sign for divisive debates, but it is also bringing young Nigerians together in spite of their diversity and helping them to forge a new collective consciousness. Our children are showing us that it is possible to forge friendships and bonds across ethnic and religious lines, but are even stronger than family ties and this in itself evokes the possibility of unity in diversity. One of our biggest challenges as a nation is that of providing opportunity and hope for our teaming young population. Our young people are most creative, energetic and dynamic and the south east is home to Nigeria's most entrepreneurial sons and daughters. Young Nigerians all over the country and in the south east in particular require outlets that will enable them to maximize their potential. We have listened to the voices of some of our young people in this region, expressing their discontent. However, we do not hear a battle cry, but rather we hear a cry for help. We are determined to continue providing them with the tools and resources that will enable them to make the most of their life. This is the reason for our collaboration with the AFDP, the African Development Fund, to provide a facility of $500 million for start-ups and entrepreneurial loans. This is a sign for the 10 billion Naira funds set up by the Bank of Industry for the same purpose. We are also working with the CBN towards the creation of the entrepreneurial bank. In addition, we are providing a shared facility for MSMEs to be launched at the winning end in Anambra State, April of 2020, for MSMEs in the shoe production cluster.  We must not let agents of discord weaponize this frustration and turn it into a severe rupture within the country. The opportunities that you need for growth and prosperity are all here in Anambra, and we are working every day, and we must continue to work both at the national and the subnational, the state level and the local government level to increase these opportunities. What our young people need is not self-determination but self-actualization, more opportunities, more support to attain their dreams and visions, and we are committed to creating these opportunities. Within the years for the end of the conflict, the depots reestablish themselves as the foremost entrepreneurs in our country and are now thriving everywhere across the vast expanse of this land. The southeast is Nigeria's natural industrial hub, slowly and steadily, and industrial revolution is gathering momentum here in Abia State, under the southeast as a whole, from leatherworks and textile to engineering. The need in upper level is imagined as an international brand, and I do not say this lightly or without knowledge. I have the privilege of launching the first national MSME clinic at the Alapolo Club on the 25th of January, 2017, with the exception of the civil government, and we have over 15,000 participants. Aside from Igmo State, all other South Eastern states have boosted the national MSME with large attendance of MSME. Abia State Government won the inaugural award for MSME State of the Year, 2018, and Miss Nora Oransoya from Abia State won the 2019 Outstanding Female MSME of the Year award. She received a brand new card and prize money. This zone is already a regional manufacturing hub, servicing West Central Africa. Goods from here are already heading to Cameroon, Ghana, Tobu, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic, and other African countries. The Igbo apprenticeship system has been cited as the biggest business incubator in the world. And the South East is the birthplace of Nolimon, a film industry which has achieved global renown on the strength of the creativity and imagination of young Nigerians. I have given these examples to demonstrate that nations are built not by politicians or their opinion, however opinionated they may be, but by men and women in business, in the professions, in commerce, large, medium and small, who demonstrate their belief in their country by investing their resources and their lives in enterprises here in their own country. Those are the nation's builders. And the reason why I've mentioned all of these people is because by investing here, by working here, they've demonstrated more faith in this nation and this nation's unity and all of the top that we have, and all of the top that is possible. The businessmen and women, professionals and traders here in the South East and across Nigeria are indeed the true nation builder. One of our errors in times past has been our inability to appropriate the positive aspects of the Civil War legacy, such as the spirit of innovation and self-reliance that has inspired technological feats in extreme circumstances. And we've seen some of those technological feats even here at this museum. Within that period are people's manufactured weapons and tools even for refining crude oil. After the war, the federal government sought to elaborate the technological genius that had come to the fore during the Comfort by establishing the Project Development Institute product in the Middle East. Unfortunately over the years, our commitment to the objections of product have not been as strong as they should be, and we've lost a lot of ground on that aspect. However, we are now making up for lost time because of our commitment to reviving local manufacturing. Innocence Motors, for example, a company that epitomizes the Nigerian product of genius is now partnering with the Army to solidify some of its equipment, produce armored fighting vehicles and other military hardware. Innocence is also in partnership with Air Force towards the manufacture of aircraft parts. I'm especially proud to note that Amdian Foodware Industry is keeping our truth. Four years ago, the military ordered about 60,000 pairs of foods from Abahia, and I think that there is no greater evidence or how firmly we have closed ranks as a people, that the fact that the industries of this region are today equipping our nations and forces. Years ago, Jim Chukwameka of Chukwum said, and I quote him again, the war had at least underlined for all of us the importance of staying together, end of war. Brothers and sisters, no human relationship is perfect, and no nation is received or conceived in ideal circumstances. All politics, no matter how good they look today, are imperfect, and only through the labors of their members, only through the labors of their citizens are nations built and nations perfected. Like families, nations are made up of people who disagree and at times disagree intensely. The ties that bind us have survived the most intense disagreement that we have known as a people and resulted in the civil war. But our national anthem enjoins us to build a nation where peace and justice shall reign. Setbacks and adversity are as integral to a nation's journey as they are to human existence as a whole. But we have also known hope and victory. We should not on account of the disappointments that we have suffered give up on our collective possibilities and on each other. It is true that we are not where we want to be, but we have not been standing still either. Our country is very much a work in progress. The attainment of peace and justice is not an event, it's a process and a journey. In 2017 this administration paid the accumulated arrears of pensions owed to retired war affected ex-piafran police who had been pardoned since the year 2000. This was more than a gesture of good faith. It demonstrates our belief in fairness and justice and our conviction that we can only move together forward. So we must build a country devoid of any form of discrimination and marginalization. We must build a country that is devoid of discrimination and marginalization. This is the ideal to which we must strive. However, we cannot prosecute this struggle with weapons of bigotry and hatred. Our tools for creating the country we want the country we need to be are tools of empathy and a willingness to invest effort in understanding each other. All of us must be mindful of the sacrifice that unity calls for. It means that those of us in power must understand that the bitterness of the loser when the winner takes it all will ultimately swallow all including the winner. Three watch words. Three watch words. Matter, fairness, equity and justice. We must also be mindful of the fact that it's far easier to destroy than to build. It's easier to put asunder than to bring together. It is my firm conviction that we are infinitely stronger and better together. This is not a time to put asunder as a time to bring together. We cannot change the past but we can learn from it and build a better future together. Thank you very much. Thank you.


Check it, check it, check it, it's a unique hustle, it's your boy, E-C-E-O. And I'm one of the most, by the way, Ukraine content every damn day. Hey man, we got a special guest in the house today man, this guy right here, he really don't need no introduction man, he uh, he known, he known upstate man. Is he from Saginaw, Mount Pleasant, where is this guy from? Is he from, what part of Michigan, is he from, no, he from Detroit man, check it out man, Street Law Rook is in the building, how you doing brother? I'm doing great man, how was yourself? Man, I'm totally blessed man, too blessed to be stressed brother. Man, that's what it's all about man. Save man, hey man, so, hey man, just uh, what brings you down to Dallas today man? Uh, I was just coming down to do some interviews, talk to different people. Got a lot of money, he got a lot of money, he's just riding, that's all. Hanging out man. Yeah? Enjoying life man. Yeah, enjoying life? That's what it's all about.  Um, growing up in Detroit, just give us a little inspiration on the early, the early stage Rook, you know. Uh, I'm talking about grade school coming up, what neighborhood, all that good stuff. I grew up on the west side. I grew up on the west side, west side of Detroit.  Me and my little cousin, so we grew up with the last fortunate kind of section eight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, section eight. Covering this up to the house and just trying to figure it out. Yeah. Make a better way. Yes. So I had good times and bad times when my mama was home, you know, she made it happen, made it all right. And when she was gone, me and grandma was trying to figure it out. The best she, the best she could with where she had, she made it work. Yeah. It was all good. And I was an athlete, played football and basketball, stuff like that. How old was you when you started playing football? Eight. Oh, yeah. Eight. Eight. You played all the way up to high school? All the way up to high school. Wow. That's good. So your mom and dad, what was the choice of drugs that they sold? Cocaine, heroin. Cocaine in the back of the ride. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Because that was what, what was that boot? That was in the 70s? 70s, 80s. I was born in the late 70s. Well, okay. So 70s and 80s. Mama and daddy was hustling. Yeah. Daddy went to the fairs twice. Mama went to the trial with the fairs. She won. But she was in the States during a couple of times. Wow. So growing up like that, I know we had Charlotte Lowe Jr. on here. He grew up like that in Bowen Homes. He was just down in, shout out Charlotte Lowe Jr., man. But he gave you the same type of spiel, man. Growing up like that, what kind of things did you see, as far as transpiring between, you know, did you ever see the cops interacting with your mom, Neil, or did they ever, when the first time you've seen and knew that, hey, man, we hustling over here. Shit. You seen that? They won. Like, I mean, my mom, when she was selling drugs, like, I didn't sell drugs with my mom. She was boosting. I didn't went boosting with my mom. Yeah. I didn't want to see my dad at the feds. I don't want to see my mom at the state prison. Wow. And my family, at the end of the day, you get a certain age. You got a sack. Like, it wasn't everything like, no. Well, how old was you when you got your first sack? Let's talk about it. Man, I was hustling price in about 11. 11? You were selling a what? Weed. Weed? It was the first drug I started selling weed. Weed, yeah, yeah. And so did you ever sell cocaine? Yeah. I sold cocaine. I'd have sold heroin. I'd have sold pills. I'd have sold every drug. I'd have been a hustler. Like, I was selling candy. I'm working on my living room. Yeah. When Penny Candy was going on. So. Yeah. So I was listening in. I looked back at, I seen your Big D moguls interview was saying that street lawyer was around before BMF. Is that true? Are you just, I mean. No, it's like, no, I ain't no cap. Like what I'm saying is like BMF was around. I ain't ain't no knock on them guys. They say they weren't hustling. They weren't getting money. But I'm saying in Detroit.   Like it's no knock to say they weren't getting money or they weren't doing anything because I'm sure they was, you know, but the guys who was talked about at that time frame was not BMF. It was the street lawyer. So. Okay. So when did it? When did the street? Later than right? Yeah. Yeah. When did the street laws get bumped out the way? We got into 2002. Some of us got into 2002. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So that basically ended the whole, how many people was it in the street lords? Out of the rap group, it was probably like five of us that literally rap. But a round that was involved, it might have been 10, 15. When I got indicted, it was like 23 people in the case. But all of us didn't get indicted on that case. Like street lawyer, why he wanted to catch a letter case. He caught a case when I came home and he just came home. Like he'd been home a little over a year or nine. Yeah. And some of them got killed.  It's been a big mess, but where you hear that Detroit sound on music from T. Grizzly and Sada and Babyface Ray, a lot of that stuff come from the street lords. Big shine. You see them give it up and show us love and bad respect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I know you guys, when you were doing the music during that time, I seen you on a photo with Benny Segal. Yeah. How did you guys link up? Just being popular. They came into the town. We did. We did a record with them. So I did a record with Benny Segal. We did records with Baby, Juvenile, BG, Capone and Noree, E40, Belegit, Shine. Pretty much whoever was popping at that time frame, we did some records with them. Who was the realest out of all those guys you just named? What? Yeah. I guess all the way. My niggas was real, see, because we talk about real on here, and I see them niggas. I ain't tripping. Man. I'm a street nigga for real. I get it. I'm like you really, and I'm just on this side, and I'm in Texas, but I'm from the nothing, from the trenches, bro, and my people hustle too. So I get it. That's why I sit behind the seat, because I know when it's real, you know what I'm saying? So which one of them dudes was in the room that you could feel the energy that they really about what they say?  Hell it's tough.   Every two shirts was cool. They were all cool guys. No, I'm not talking about cool. I'm talking about really, really, you know, when they come to the hood, they're going to pull up. Belegit. You see what I'm saying? Belegit in the hood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Them niggas wasn't all in the hood. Them niggas quiet. A lot of times, them niggas quiet. I done been around them niggas, man. Hey, Belegit on the block with us, man. Belegit on the block with us. Man, it's crazy, man. So when you look at what happened with Young Dolph, how do you look at that compared to when you guys were in the street? I mean, people coming up just shooting and killing a guy like that. And what are your thoughts on that? My thoughts on it, man. It's like, it's sad to me because it's like these guys, they come from nothing and then they accumulate millions of dollars and you would think that they make it off the hood, but they gravitate to loving the hood and then it'd be somebody from their own neighborhood and environment killing them, you know what I'm saying? Every time. Every time it happens. Yeah, but a lot of times do you think they bring this stuff on themselves from the moves they make and the things that they say? And because you say a lot of stuff in this music, and I think that words are powerful. I think they become you. Oh, man. I think the power of the tongue is super powerful. So you got to be mindful of what you say because it comes true. You're right. I truly believe that from the bottom of my heart. I think some of these guys in the street be rapping it, but a lot of them may not really be in the street because some of the things that you see people do, street guys wouldn't do. Like, I know at my hood, I can't have no car that stand out where it's like that's root car. If I'm beefing because they don't know that's his car. I neither have a car. They look like everybody else's car so they don't get to jump on me where they can be following me because they know my car. Shit like that. You know what I'm saying? I did. I did. And I keep talking about this because you remember when I went viral when I did that video? On Young Dolphin. On Young Dolphin when he got shot in LA and I was telling him that, you know, there's three stuff that y'all talking about is real, you know, and somebody could get killed.  Y'all ain't never faced a life sentence.  If you had to go down and do the time you're talking about your auntie and your mom and the MD and something that your uncle and the MD then you wouldn't even be doing the stuff you're doing right now. A lot of niggas were like, oh, you just talking and you think everybody get locked up doing that.  You're going to come out doing things a whole lot different. And they don't get that. You probably still be here today if you got jail. It was either jail for me or kill me during the time when I was in the streets. Man, I was telling somebody that the other day, like if I didn't go to jail when I went to jail for me was a blessing. That's exactly right. Because it was only going to get worse. Like we selling tons and tons of marijuana. I was just going to get a whole bunch more time. So good thing I went when I went where I was able to learn different things about the stock market and meet some different people where I was able to change my life. And some of the things that I do today is based on some of the things that I learned in jail. So it was a blessing for me, even though it was an unfortunate situation that I didn't at the time want to go or felt like I needed to go. But God have a plan for sometimes that we can't see that helped better us. And I think prison has made me a better man. For sure. So again, young dog, you know, the guy, like I said, and I like to say, I just want to give him his time. Because at the end of the day, you know, the thing I hate the most is that it's like it's a given that after a person passed away, the next day they numbers go up. All these people crying and acting as if, you know, they just loved them and they wouldn't even with them when you see them before they passed away. But it's like they doing it for the gram. I'm being honest with you. And it's a spirit that you've become. It's just because when you get, you did it with, with what is named King Von. You did it with Nipsey. You did it with mode three. You did it with pop smoke. You did it and you getting used to this. And so now the next day after y'all already know, it's rehearsed that we do this the next day and we post pictures. You can always say when something bad happens to somebody.  Like when something bad happens to somebody, the numbers always go up. It always like that.  Go up, yup. I guess that's the, that's the norm. I guess I just think that people should give people, you know, show they love why they got the opportunity. You know what I mean? Yeah, like, I like Young Dove. I listen to Young Dove music long before this tragedy happened. But people, we want attention. Man, we live in a time frame where everybody craving attention to Instagram and Facebook. That's just like some attention worship where people gonna do whatever to get the most attention.  Attention. Wow. You know what I'm saying?  They ain't there. And then like... Hold on, hold on. Some dad will do be there. They don't be caring. Just cause you got your kids and stuff.  We not gonna do that today, bro. I'm here with my kid. They in the front. Yeah, but that don't matter. These niggas ain't at all... These niggas are locked up.  When you went down there to prison, you lying the niggas up on this side of the wall. How many of them there are?  How do the niggas' numbers look? Man, it's drastic. It's ridiculous. I know that. You see what I'm saying? So when you look at what they done to our people a lot of time, man, it's hard to fight that narrative with what's happening in our communities. I'm telling you, what do you think? I think, man, the justice system is not... There's no justice at all. Like I said it before, like...  It's read by human beings.   They ain't got the motherfucking agents.  We know that. So how can it be a justice system where it's fair when you got it ran by people who gonna do what it take to convict them of it? I'll set you up, do all types of stuff. And then it's not like it's a lot of black people controlling the narrative with the say so. If you got all white judges and you got predominantly all black people coming in here and you ain't did no background check on these people or you don't know how they was raised or how they look at these individuals that come before them, they don't look at it from a fair perspective. They think just because you had an encounter with a police that you did run, that may not be the case. I get it, I get it. So you deal with filming too. I've seen that when I was looking down at Rabbit Hole. What are the films that you've created? There's some on Amazon as well, right? I got one on Amazon right now called One More Flip. I've seen that one. It was number one on Amazon for a while. All independent. Got like three more done. That's on the way that I'm going to be releasing in the next couple of weeks. I'm going to release Cheddar Boys. I just finished doing the score on that. You got Payroll, Giovanni, Scooch. You got a couple of popular people. You got the girl Erica Pinky who played All Eyes on Me in it. I got another one called Off the Port. You got a rapper from Detroit, Snap Dog in it. Okay. Hey, what's One More Flip about? Living that dope. Dope boy man. I'm saying because I was getting to the bay. I was watching White Hand. Everybody mad. It's a twist on it. Everybody think it might be about just flipping drugs and getting to the money. But it got a moral to the story. You know what I'm saying? For the people who ain't seen the movie, it's really like a must watch because it got a point. It's going to hit home. When people see the end of the movie, it hit home because it's real. Everybody experienced it and everybody knows somebody who probably went through this. The flip ain't what you think when you watch this movie. It's touching. It hit home. That's the best part about the movie then. What's the other movie? Chatter Boys? What is that? It's about some guys that's hustling. I try to make movies. Is this your story? I'm going to tell the truth.   You didn't want to call it because you don't want everybody to know how rough it gets. But it's cool. You can go and tell me on Boss Talk 101. When I do my story, I'm going to do a series because it's going to be a little more than a hour and a half to tell the whole story where I can tell the rap. But I'm going to do a series called The Lords on Me and My Homeboy. I look to get that out probably in the next 18 months or so. It's cold in Detroit. I'm not going to be up there. It's so cold. It was just snoring the other day. I flew up there and drove. Me and my wife drove to Chicago. My daughter was in Saginaw. I went up there to see what the hell was going on. My daughter is 28 now. This is when she first left and went up there. I like it up there. I did a photo shoot up there too. But you guys, like I said, it's brothers everywhere. It's some good brothers everywhere. If we can just pull them together. And just great brothers. I liked what you said. We can pull them together and try to figure out ways to be more together and unified. Then we can be stronger, man. And it's okay. We hit some bumps and bruises, right? And we all got some scars on us. But at the end of the day, they scars. Now we healed. We got to go out here and try to create a narrative that's better for our youth. The next one's coming up behind us. I think each generation should get better. I agree. Your kids shouldn't have to go through what you went through. They kids shouldn't have to go what they went through. And so on and so forth. We got to just raise our kids up right and teach them what to look for so they don't get with no damn fools. Because to me, it'd be like genetics. You know what I'm saying?  But you're still lucky, though. Because most of them can't have kids if they get to run with... It's wild out here, brother. You know what I'm saying? We don't like to tell... There's something that got them in this situation. It's not us in a way. Do you have children? Yeah, I got children. I got a daughter who graduated from Michigan State. A daughter a senior at Michigan State. A daughter at Stanford. I got an eight and a nine year old. Did you see the Boosie episode when he was on Breakfast Club? Not sure. I watched a lot of Boosie. He entertained a guy like Boosie. He said he wouldn't give his daughter to a woman and a marriage. Would you give your daughter away to a woman? No, but at the end of the day, I think... I'm just saying it like this. You know, I think in society, the new gay thing that's going on in society that's being pushed. The narrative, huh? Yeah, I think it's changed that the world is going through. It's all around the world. I'm reluctant to that change myself. It's something I got to get adjusted to and used to because it's not my norm. But why do I get adjusted to it, though? Man. I'm going to use this example.  That was they changed. So this is the new change that we got to go through and get adjusted to because that's what's going on and I don't see it, but it's happening. It's going on around us and let them have whatever they want. You know what I'm saying? If that's what they choose to do, who am I to knock it on? I agree with you because I don't mind you having what you want to have as long as you respect me for what I want to have. And that's the biggest problem is that they don't respect you for what you want to have and they want to push the narrative on you instead of respecting you for what you believe in. I think that's wrong too. It's two sides of a coin where you think, okay, y'all disrespect me because it's the thing that I do and I feel like it's different, which is not. It's the same thing that, you know, to me anybody to change something from unnatural you know, from natural to unnatural and just do it a different way. That's on them. I ain't tripping, but at the end of the day I'm going with the process that you know the productive process that's been laid before me for me. But at the end of the day, what were you about to say because I want to hear what you want to say.  I don't care. That's a personal opinion. That's a personal opinion. Your bedroom is your personal opinion. We can sit and show our bedroom on camera or you want to. That's that's our bedroom opinion. Keep y'all bedroom opinion to y'all bedroom sales.  If y'all gay, y'all gay, that's y'all. It's cool.  But keep to y'all sales. We don't suppose to know that.    They wouldn't put it on TV. I've seen the picture in Dallas where it was a man with a statue, a man on the picture with another man holding him. This in Dallas. I see this. Just right down the street. Why don't we all see this?  I don't care what y'all say.  You gotta think. 100 years ago white people thought it was cool to do X, Y, Z to black people. They didn't want to see black people on TV. They didn't want to see black people on the air. That's cool, but we're human though. So they helped to do it. That's the situation that you put yourself in. What you gotta say?  They're human. That's the rights in the bedroom. We can't sit here and put our bedrooms on TV. We can't do that. So why should they though? You have romantic movies the way they get down all the time. And you have to pay for those movies too. I like the romantic movies. You have to pay for those movies.  We ain't got to pay for that. But they got regular romantic movies on TV all day long. Like if you watched it, when I grew up the stories was a big thing. Younger than the rest of the days of our lives. I ain't watched none of them. Yeah, you watched none of them. My mom watched the young and the record. You know Ms. Chandler then. You know Ms. Chandler? I don't remember named Ms. Chandler, but you know how it goes. You know, I used to be like, damn, what's Victor gonna do? I'm gonna get out of school. How are you? I don't know what they used to watch. They used to watch Dallas. Who shot J.R.? So all of that stuff was on TV. And they... It's like everything be on TV. So people want to see themselves. Like they see everybody else. You see heterosexual couples on TV. Having outings. But a gay person may want to see a gay person having an outing on TV that they can relate to. Tell them to go pay for it. My code was off the chain. We had to go pay for it.  We had to go see on TV. Tell them to go pay for it, man. So let me... Let's move on. When you think about the gatekeeper, it was one time old Trick Trick was trying to get it. You got to check in when you come in the town. Okay, y'all still using Trick Trick as y'all a gatekeeper to let people come in and out of the city? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trick Trick was the nigga that said he was running that whole setup. You talking about street lords. But Trick Trick was on breakfast club. I seen him and he said, you got to check in. Niggas ain't fit to just come up in here. Trick Trick don't know about it. You got to check it in. So let me know about that. What do you mean? Did the street lords answer would be no? Why not? Why would we? That's y'all city though. I mean, I was just saying, like Trick Trick cool guy, but we ain't got to check in with no Trick Trick. Like that's not something that ever happened.   What was he checking in about? Do you know? I really never thought that was cool personally. I never got into that. That's not my thing. Rick Ross can't come in and perform for whatever reason it was. I thought that was disrespectful to Rick Ross. I ain't agree with it, but I don't know the motive behind it. I don't know what it solved. That's something that could have been prevented and talked about and worked out as men. I don't think the way they did it was the way to handle it. I'm a businessman at the end of the day. That wasn't good business. Because at the end of the day, we got to still go back down to Miami. So that didn't create a business situation to me. I'm about having business and getting money. That wasn't a situation where we could have got money to me. I feel you. Good answer. Another thing, you know, I heard about you, Ron. I missed a 35,000 selling clothes in three days. I heard that you sold 40 million dollars, you and your crew, 40 million dollars worth of weed. Chronic, was it skunk back then? Was it what they call it now? What y'all call it? Nigga, you smoke. What y'all call it? No comment.  At any rate, Nigga, you was the guy that pretty much was one of the guys that they say sold this much drugs in 10 months. Now, now, I don't know who had to calculate them. I don't know where y'all hear y'all's at. But I want to get into the details of this because that's what you've been doing. You've been beating around a bush on these other platforms. But I want to understand how they came to the assumption whether it did or it didn't happen. How do they calculate the amount of drugs that they felt like you and your team the street large was pushing. How did they do that? They stopped the 18 realer with 4,700 pounds of marijuana in it. 4,700 pounds. The truck driver told him he made X amount of trips. You already went through your case. So you can talk about this. So the truck driver has 4,700 pounds. 4,700 pounds, guys. Oh, 4,700? 4,700 pounds. And so, man, I hate to got you like that, man. Damn, they stopped it from going where it was going. Yeah, I don't want you to think I'm Vlad. We're going to talk about this. I did my time, man. So when this happened, how did you feel about it? Like, you're like, damn. When the truck was late, like two days and my cousin was pressing to go get Well, you come from the valley? I come from Arizona. Okay.  He sent 13 guys to go to the truck stop to pick up the weed. FBI coming in from everywhere. Shoo, shoo, shoo. Super everybody. Two days they was plotting is what you're saying. Yeah, they, um, started arresting people and then they died of people to jail. Wow.  A couple million dollars and get a pound about four hundred dollars, three fifty. So 47 hundred pounds would be about a couple million dollars. And so and that's a lot of niggas in the street trying to hustle, breaking it down. Back then, you know, pounds might have been eleven, twelve hundred. So y'all, y'all just doubling them up. Y'all wouldn't be in greed.   Or was y'all letting niggas, even niggas couldn't make it, y'all, you know. Man, it was so much money flowing. So it was like, everybody was eating, like, I ain't, um, when we got a diet, it was like billboards in Detroit, like, man, if y'all think it's a drought, wait till November, you know what I'm saying, because we was the only ones we'd bring a whole bunch of weeds into the city. So 47 hundred. Hold on, hold on, I'm stuck on the number. The FBI put the billboards up? Yeah. 47 hundred. So let's talk about this 47 hundred right quick. So they calculate that out to be ten million within, I mean, I'm sorry, how many millions a month? They had to have a two to- So what they charged us with, they just said we moved 40,000 pounds in X amount of time. But if you do the math at a geopound, that's 40 million dollars. Yeah. So at the end of the day, that's how they come up with that calculation. They probably said it was worth more. They want you to, they're trying to throw you away, nigga. They gonna break it down to every nickel back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, we, we sell them pounds. What'd you think they did? You think they burned it? You don't know.  Come on now. Let's go then.  For another drill bus. Say man, that's good stuff right there, man.  Listen, you did not want to be out of product. Hell no. That was the most discouraging thing when everybody be like, no man, ain't nobody got nothing. Ain't nobody got nothing?  Like, you know, today you hear everybody, I'm a boss. I'm a boss.  You ain't no boss. You're really a worker. Me and you both. Me and you both. I ain't wait on them. I remember one time, and I don't never tell these stories. Let me, let me get out of it. I'm gonna let you be, I'm gonna let you do your thing today. But, but I can say that, you know, when you look at what what you went through the time you spent, and then you get to pass forward to today, and now they've legalized the equation. Man, you know, how many people do you feel, how do you feel about that first of all? I'll stop right there. Man, it's kind of like an insult. It's like a slap in the face. They, they ruin some of our lives, you know what I'm saying? We did time in federal prison, and then they turn around and let cookie sell drugs legally. Yeah. Sell marijuana legally. Yeah. Same thing as I sold. Yeah. But, you know, and I got a felony for marijuana. I only got, you know what I'm saying, but I can't get it on the moon. You can't get it on the moon. I got to get part from the president. So, you know, I feel a little certain way about that, like, but maybe five, ten more years it'll be legally federally, and they'll be trying to clear my record and give me some reparations. I don't know, but I ain't got, I ain't waiting on it either, you know, I got to I feel like once they legalize it in every state they should every felony they gave for we that should just expunge it. They should. They should, but, man. Waiting on the government to do something for us, man. I know. We ain't never getting the full take from them now. I look at it like this, man. I've been around for ten president elections. I ain't seen that one of the motherfuckers changed my family in any way, shape, form, or fashion. I got to get some money regardless of who in the office, whether it's a Republican or a Democrat. No, that should matter. I feel you on that. I feel the same way.  So, what are you still in the music? Or you don't really write music? I still do music. I got records coming out. I just did a video out with me, Saddle Baby and Payroll. We got a record called Trust These Homes. I waited on the clearance from Empire to clear this record and I was going to release the soundtrack for the movie. So, yeah, I still do music. Yeah. And some of your same old crew members, y'all putting the crew back together. Yeah, I think y'all putting the crew back together. Man. How the hell? Put the crew back together as far as what?  Some of the dudes was my cousin.    Some of them do not. How many of them snitched? Out of the rap group. No.   How many of them snitched? None of them snitched. Some of them have never been in jail. So they never got indicted where they would have to tell. So they stand up guys.  But I'm at the age now where if a motherfucker told man, that's them, man. I'm grown.  I ain't looking to kill you easily at this day and age.  That's them. They got to live with that. To me at the end of the day, they just a selfish motherfucker.  You know what I'm saying? The worst thing you could do is call a snitch a snitch.  So at this age, it's like that's him. That's selfish motherfucker. He got to live with himself. That's so true. So when you look at the worst Saturday versus when you was doing it. When you first was doing it, it was CDs and y'all was out there flipping them. Yeah, you were flipping them. But then after a while, they're staying digitized. And most people in the music industry today, they lying a lot of time. They ain't getting no money behind the music. It's hard to get music money right now. A million, I believe it was a million streams equated to $4,000. Which ain't a lot for us. We know already. We talking millions. We talking truckloads of pounds and all kind of stuff. Your mind don't think $4,000. My bills is high as hell. So when you think about that whole layout, how do you get around the fact of making music and trying to figure out a way to establish making money? I don't use music just be like, oh, this is gonna be my way to make money. I own physical therapy clinics, so I make money. How many physical therapy clinics? I heard it. I own physical therapy clinics. Yeah, I got three physical therapy clinics. I do real estate by cell houses. I'm hustling, but I ain't hustling no ill legal product.  Legalized hustle.  I got too much to lose at this point. Correct. But the thing I like about what you said is you're understanding that 40 million dollar stretch that they talking about, we can take that and change that to something else and still move on, right? Legalize it. Man, when I was in jail, I ain't gonna need a lot to you, man. I was sitting in there laying on my bunk. I'm thinking like, damn, man, you can have made millions of dollars doing something else.  This ain't what's happening. It's the same way. Don't you think you're like, damn. Man, I'm smarter than this.  It makes you think, don't it? Yeah, for sure. How much time you did? I did four years. Four years. That ain't bad. Man, how much money? No, anytime is bad. Man, one day is bad. My mother doesn't belong to you. You've been in that motherfucker too long, man.  We intelligent motherfuckers. We can figure out how to get some cheese.    Yeah, I understand that. I'm myself doing all this stuff from the street so I know it's gonna come back on me one day so I know I'm gonna have to be in jail one day. That's how I look at it. I look at it like I did this crime so I gotta do this time. I know I did it. So it's like, when will it come back on me? It's my time to do it. I'm not out there trying to go to jail but if it comes back on me, I did it. So I gotta do this time. So it's like, I'm not out there just like, I don't think I'll go to jail for this but no. But if it comes, it comes. So going to jail is the effect that it has on other people. It affects other people way harder than you know. I know. I remember when I was in jail, when my mama was in jail, I remember going to see her.     That's real. Hustle gear, where my shirt at, Donald? I'm going to make sure you get out. Where my shirt at, Donald? I'm going to sell you the joggers. I'm going to send them down.   Hustle gear, just tell me what inspired that and how did you come up with the design? I actually drew the logo myself.   I drew the design up and at the time we getting a bunch of money so all the homies wearing them 100% hustler, cheddar boy that where it became like a fad. I wanted to go into the magic show. I went to Hong Kong, I stayed over there 10 days. What year was that? That was in like 2000, 2001 I went to Hong Kong before that. I stayed over there 10 days designing the whole line. I met the dude, Sal Parasuko. When Parasuko jeans was popping we had the same agent. There were 4 million in sales at Magic. What was that magic? It was going on. I got a dietit, they wound up still like $2-3 million worth of clothes since I went to the fed. Wow, man definitely man, all the stuff that you've been through man, how important is it to have God in your life? That's super important man. I think spirituality and God and believing in the higher power kept me saying when I came home it wasn't all gravy I remember my daughter wanted a Game Boy when I was in the halfway house and I had the money for the Game Boy but I really couldn't afford that motherfucker so I was struggling. Should I go back to selling dope?  That kept me going believing in myself and the higher power to know something was great and coming for me so. Dang, that's dope. How important is family? That's real important I think and my family it'd be a disarray sometimes there's a lot of competition you know sometimes family don't want to see other family doing better than others sometimes jealousy is just a lot be going on in family but I try to raise my kids and keep everybody together and build up from within and try to make it better but you know family is a struggle like it's everybody got some bad shit going on in their family that they try to suppress and act like ain't really going on but everybody experiencing some trauma in their family like we all got some trauma going on that we're dealing with in every aspect where deaf somebody dead, somebody getting high using drugs, somebody went to jail it's trauma in every family like so staying together and trying to hold each other accountable is a big thing So who's hot I remember you all had nothing going up there you all remember Daisy Lofa was the only one you all had you had a damn female up there she was running the whole damn city had a little gun and everything you remember that she was running the whole damn city she was about this tall yeah this tall with a gun jumping out the bed you don't remember that dude you locked up no I was home when Daisy came up with the trauma I was home when that popped up but right now we got we got a lot of people popping right now I actually like Daisy Lofa I thought she was kind of cute we got Babyface Ray he popping I got records with both of them coming out okay that's dope we got GT we got we got Street Lore 1 we got Street Lore Rook man it's a whole list it's a whole list of Detroit rappers that's growing that's the sound that's really popping that Detroit Flint sound where you got Rio you got Young O G you got BF the Pac Man it's a plethora I can't even be honest with you I can't keep up with them it's so many of them coming back to back to back I can't keep up first of all did y'all fix that water over there in Flint you just said Flint what's up with the damn water is the water fixed yet? no man that's your job you're a leader man you don't want to fix the water up there you don't come out of Detroit and go fix the damn water listen man when you running it how far is it? that ain't nothing I run all the way down to Louisiana everybody know that's right two hours ain't nothing I was in Atlanta yesterday that's 12 hours I ain't tripping I don't mind jumping I go how do you make the difference? it's more political on getting the water fixed it's not just something that the inner city people in the community got control over with the water board the elected officials how did you feel when that happened? black people get the short end of the stick all the time in a predominantly black community we get the short end of the stick on everything on education water policing we get the short end of the stick what we gotta do to figure that part out where we can stop getting the short end of the stick to me personally we need to build up from within build our own economy system black mine black grocery stores black's coming together taking care of black neighborhoods big Sean yeah I wasn't going to let you get off and talk about big Sean big Sean just though the rain that was the second best time you can see it I'm going to tell you the first time later that's my boy, you watch it big Sean do we ever come back to Detroit? have you seen that nigga? that nigga on the picture that's how I met that nigga up there in Vegas at the magic I talked to big Sean on FaceTime through my boy Wine Wine and big Sean really close and they cool when big Sean was getting started Street Learn Wine was letting him record in the studio so they really close Wine put him on the file, talked to him on FaceTime he's in the city, like he worked with all the Detroit artists, he got records with them actually he performed on Thanksgiving at the halftime of the Lions game he ripped Detroit to the fullest in a litter but he spent time there, he's supporting the movement he's supporting people what's going on shout out to big Sean, shout out to T.Grizzly shout out to everybody in Detroit who's doing their thing it's more supportive today than it was 20 years ago how did you link up with Birdman when you say you did stuff with Baby? he came in town and we paid him to do a record how was that? y'all had a guap so y'all he came in he did his thing he did his verse he did his verse he was cool we did like some tour stuff with Cash Money we did different shows with him so it was love did he pay you? no he didn't pay us y'all had your own marketing strategy the worst show that we probably ever did we did a show in Atlanta with Cash Money this is right when they was poppin this is right when Bling Bling came he was at the atrium that was in 1998 or something damn it boy we had the atrium we performed at the atrium so the crowd went crazy cause they want Cash Money this one Bling Bling came up and the host telling them they finna put Cash Money on but they forgot that we were supposed to go on next what did they do with y'all red atrium boo that crowd was like god damn fool that was booing so it was I'm actually a big Birdman fan I love what he done over there all the people who would be crying about the money millionaires it's crazy to me they brought a good money over there these guys didn't came from nothing to something they should be very proud of that whole operation that they done they're bigger than people give them credit for he could have had the biggest acts of music for a long time from Little Wayne to Drake to Nicky to Juvenile he been rocking for a long time and been consistent to slip young thug he been doing this thing like he gave over one billion dollars away oh yeah for sure he actually put Nicky drinking up one million dollars so y'all can say he's not making money he's not doing this thing man but hats off to that guy anybody who will give him his flowers they just bein' he even spend time with YB he done did you know that he always give everybody I was with Deriz he always give young dudes the right hand of fellowship in the south for sure and I know that because you see it we got a couple of people down here so who's really like when you come to the city you know is it trick trick the check in thing no listen who's the man up there but boy that be a no idea I just can't see another grown man checking into another grown man man trick trick my guy but man that I ain't nobody in my crew never did no check in so so BML doing the movie up there you had a few people with disgruntled about it saying you know don't put their name in and all that wait a minute man I'm just trying to figure out what's going down what's really going down up there man man that guy is not blue da Vinci from California but I mean I don't this is my personal opinion nobody can say nothing bad about your name if you ain't doing nothing bad you wouldn't have been saying no bullshit like it ain't no knock on him or whatever he got going on but he ain't have to say that shit and nobody would probably would have been thinking about blue da Vinci man it ain't it ain't that crazy man if he never would have said that shit he would have never been a big hoopla about it like he never would have said whatever he said like chasing attention that's all it was so I mean I don't know what he did but if he did it's too bad that's all it was chasing attention like you said ain't no person that's been in the streets from getting on the internet and go to just doing shit like that you've been in the streets for a long time if your name ain't holding what you're just going to hold it wait by yourself you ain't got to say nothing at all to nobody I mean that's what I stand on like shit if you ain't did you ain't got nothing to worry about I know the guy Dexter Sosa really well hey man we done had a heck of a run we done had a heck of a run man how can people get a hold of that what's your top 3 artists of all time come on dead or alive you know what we're going to ask top 3 artists of all time number one it can be hip hop it can be any genre all time you got to put Michael Jackson in man aw man they can say Michael Jackson they say Chris Brown better than Michael Jackson man that's just they don't know Michael Jackson man I don't know if I'm talking about the big No's Michael Jackson you get a shout out every time man I'm talking about the big No's Michael Jackson okay well at least you know which one the kid woulda whooped some people up too yeah so who is number 2 2 Parker 2 Parker the realest yeah number 3 man one of my favorite artists yeah all time I rock with Scarface woo that thing ain't never did a bad first nigga check it out that buck came in Texas hard on that one I grew up on different music man the music that I grew up on that I rock with probably different than everybody wow so how can people get a hold of you if they want to try to get up to be in a cameo in a film you doing a casting call we want to get on how we do it DM me streetlordrook on Instagram it's streetlordrook on Facebook on Twitter it's a real street lord one just DM me I respond I ain't no funny stuff nigga none of this I never asked everybody who what's love I don't know if they ain't DM me no crazy shit for the most part I ask anybody then if they off the deep being with some weirdo shit in them just kind of quit responding but I ain't blocking nobody it ain't this serious man yeah this real life like I'm a real person better than nobody else I feel the same I feel the same way man thank you so much for coming on the show man one thing I can't say brother always tell everybody sitting there see we love you brother I love y'all too man we here in Texas you got your new found family in here that's your sister that's your cousin and I'm your brother we family and we want our damn outfit too so yeah all three of us we co-hosting this thing we gonna do a round the table for all our people and medium right there I guess I can do a large cause I'm trying to lose weight but you know and what you want baby small okay yes you were tight but at the end of the day brother thank you for coming on our show and like I said the way you pushing man I know already entrepreneurship is written all over you you know I know you're entrepreneur hey man help some young brothers that's trying to come up pass it to somebody give 5% to charity man everything gonna be alright alright man check it man hey man it's been another great segment of boss talk 101