Check it, check it, check it, it's a unique hustle, it's your boy E-CEO and I'm here with the lovely, amazing Ms. Jamaica, what's going on?  Hey man, hey, hey, another day, another dollar. Yes, sir. Man, hey man, we want to thank everybody for, you know, subscribing, liking and, you know, tuning in to Boss Talk 101, man, we've been loving the vibe. A lot of the questions that went out last night was, I got a lot of different answers and feedback. I'm loving it.  I can't wait. Y'all better be watching, man, because I am telling what I might do. Check out YouTube. Be talking about that YouTube. Yeah, on YouTube, man. Hey, man, hey, so we got a special guest in here today. He really don't need no introduction, man. I mean, he helped me through some trying times. He don't even realize it, man. Just a lot of stuff that he brought to the table during the time, early in the 90s, man, when I first started tuning in to him, man, his brother was dope. During the time when a lot of people were going through a lot of different things and we didn't know how to deal with it, he spoke volumes to different people, not just in California, but everywhere. You know, the song, this is a multi-platinum artist. This guy is, yeah, he wanted them guys, you know. Some might not know the name, but they sure know the voice. Oh, they know the voice, man. Lamar Lubin is in the building. How you doing, my brother? What's going on? Deuce? Deuce, that's funny. Hey, man. Lamar Deuce Lubin. That's what they do. Man, Lamar Deuce Lubin is in the building. What's up, everybody? Hey, man. Let's talk 101.  Yes, I heard that. I heard that.  I got to get Mel. Hey, Mel. You just went for last. Yes, yes, yes. And he called me, actually called me when I was here. Yeah, you did.  Do your thing. You come to Dallas. I'm out here in Dallas. I've had a great time. I got to take my boy, Glenn, my boy, Derrick Douglas. They showed me out, showed me up last night and tonight and everything. So, you know what? Dallas has been good. I haven't been here like 20 years.  Oh, yeah, yeah. Why have you abandoned Dallas like that?    So, you know, when that happens, you don't get people wanting you to come back.  You'll get some shows like that. Maybe, you know, New York, you may get some shows, you know, back east. But a lot of cities don't want. But for some reason, the Midwest and South, we don't really get a lot of, you know, we don't really get a lot of people saying, hey, come on back and let's do this. But one thing with my song and some people will tell the song is in a few minutes. But there's been a resurgence in my song. A lot of people have been, you know, coming to me and say, hey, can you do this song? You still sing it. And I think it's because what's going on in America right now. Because we have all the violence. There's a lot of violence, man. We got brothers still killing brothers. We just got a lot of stuff that's going on. So my song, a lot of people, you know, say, hey, there ain't nothing. And then there was a trip that really has not and my tooth on the horn. But me and my boys, it really hasn't been another song like that. That's really come out. They mimicked your song, but they came out. I mean, it didn't hit like yours hit. Yours, yours just came at the right time. And it's the right. You can never make the exact same feeling once you make a song. You are the originator. And I get that. But there's a lot of people that really leveraged off your song to to to make other songs like your song. Yeah. When I say that, you know, like Master P did that. I miss my homies. That that's your song. He just pretty much redoing the same type of song. But it's your your it's your you guys is are the ones that paved the way for those types of song.   And like, you know, that's just the mark. Just do you know what I'm saying? And you don't think about this is what I never thought about when we did the song. I never thought that I thought it was going to be a hood.  But when a woman came up to me, a white lady, actually, and she said she had a biracial grandson and she came and she just started crying. She said, thank you for thinking of my grandson. She said, when I hear that song, it reminds me of him. And she told me the story, what happened to him. And that's what I realized. Like, damn, everybody goes through death. Exactly. Everybody goes through. And it don't matter what color you are. No matter how old you are, nothing. It don't matter what you're doing in this life or who you are, everybody, death is going to come. And and what I realized is that we were giving credit to those people that a lot of people felt weren't worthy of getting credit to and paying homage to and stuff like that. So I'm glad, you know what I'm saying? I'm blessed that we did it. Let me ask you something. There's a reason why though we did it. I know, I get it. We're going to get to that part. But I want to go back. We used to go back, like I told Jerly before we zone. I want to hear about just coming up as a kid, like who Lamar was as a young man, you know, from about 12 to 15, right? Maybe even earlier or? Even earlier. I like to go as far back as you. All the way back. Like, did you have a single parent in the home? Well, well, well. When all that good stuff, did you come up in a balanced home? You know, how did you make it out? There's a reason why we go back because a lot of things that happen in people's lives. It stems from an early age. And then we don't normally realize what it is you go through until this time in your life when you can reflect. Because with age, hopefully comes wisdom. Not for everybody, but majority comes wisdom and you can reflect and be like, that's why I acted out. That's why I am where I am. That's why, you know what I mean? No, no, no, no.  Of course, I came from a single family though. I did come from a single family. And I grew up in a little town called East Palo Alto, I don't know if you remember. Okay, okay. Now East Palo Alto, when I grew up in East Palo Alto, it was the murder capital. And that's L.A. No, no, no. This isn't the Bay Area. The Bay. Bay Area by Oakland in San Francisco. It's called East Palo Alto, Lummiya. Many of you guys will hear, know about it and you look it up, it's gonna say it's murder capital from when I was a kid.  Because of the gangs, or? No, no, no. See, what, see, Northern California, Southern California is kind of different. Okay. Southern California, they had the gangs because you know, they had the crypts and the bloods. But Northern California, we didn't have that. We had cities. So it was based on what city you were from. So if you were from East Palo Alto, you funked with maybe Menlo Park.  Those who lived in San Francisco, lived in, you know, lived in the projects, they would have funk with. So when you went places, you know, San Jose was coming up, you would fight because the city you were from. And then, so I grew up in that, I grew up with that.  Well, I grew up in the black side, which is called East Palo Alto. It's unincorporated. And what happened is that I grew up when crack was put into our community, where we would have white folks that would drive from Palo Alto and Mercedes and all kind of porches and stuff like that.  You know, and so what happened is, is that we became the ones that were selling it till we became the ones that was on it. And our community started going down. And then Oakland got like that as well. You know, because Oakland was a poppin' community.  But what Atlanta is today is what Oakland was back in the day. You know what I'm saying? But one thing I realized about society is that just like everything that goes in and out of style, so does where you live. Because at one time, New York was the place that was poppin', everybody wanted to live in New York. That's the place that you did everything. The money was flowin', blah, blah, blah. Then everybody moved from there and went to Miami. Then from Miami to Atlanta. And then now, for some reason, I see a lot of people heading to the Carolinas. Yeah, yeah, North Carolina, South Carolina. But you know what? That's because you can stretch your money in South and North Carolina. You really can. And then it's two hours from Atlanta. So you don't gotta be in a hustle and bustle, but you can get down there if you want to. Let's go back to where you were from again. I want to talk about the people. No, no, this is what I want to tell you about East Palo Alto. Because I got to give East Palo Alto its props. So East Palo Alto was a black and Latin and Samoan community. Okay. And so that's basically, and we lived together. And what happened in East Palo Alto is the Panthers came through and they opened up a university called Nairobi College. Now Nairobi College was supposed to be a college where Africans and African-Americans were being taught. And I believe Angela Davis was part of that project and stuff like Kwame Turey, all of them were part of that. So it was a thriving community. And they had the college there, we had Africans. So I'm telling people that, so the way I was brought up, I knew about Kwanzaa since I was born. Okay, okay.   I grew up knowing who Mandela was.  No, just my mom. Just your mom. My dad was around, my dad was around, but my mom and dad weren't together. So my dad was around. So he had an influence in your life? Yeah, my dad was a hustler always. You know what I'm saying? He opened up. He had a barbecue restaurant, he had a, remember when he used to do the yogurt shots, my dad had yogurt shots. My dad was one of those black men who, my dad's mixed. My dad was one of those men who, he always wanted to come up. So he always was hustling, trying to do the next thing, but the only thing is he never stuck at it. So he'd open business, great, you know what I'm saying? And then like two years later, he sell it. Because he's trying to get to the next thing. And I realized that, and I'm glad you said it about knowing where you come from. It took me a while because I had a lot of anger for my parents and my dad and stuff like that.  And we started going back. And I realized that my dad never knew what love really was. My dad, anytime a woman did anything to him, he went against it. So he didn't know how to show love? He didn't know how to show love, but he wanted people to love him. And this is what I realized. I said, how can I be mad at this man telling him I want love and he don't know how to give it. So we have to start learning that. But I applaud you for asking that question because so many times we grow up not asking our parents because some people would think, especially on the older school side, think that disrespectful to ask your parents certain questions. Cause I have older cousins who would say, I would never ask my mom why she's like that or why she doesn't, because it's not my place. I just know that's mom and I love her for who she is. But by not asking certain questions, you don't learn how to heal. You don't know where it comes from when they don't show you certain love or why they act a certain way. And all it does is trickle down in the generations because it passed down to you and you pass it on to your kids. Your kids, yes. Again, that what you say is profound, but a lot of times, like I told you earlier, a lot of times people disregard even the earlier states of coming out of where our people have come from. So we can say on the surface of what's going on now about passing it on down, but when it goes to where we really, really first seen all these transitions of dysfunctionalities come from where our family was being ripped apart and where people were being set against each other and where you had to have the big bones or if you didn't have big, you wasn't a big broad-shouldered guy. They didn't pick you. They picked the other one.  We disregard all of that. And then we jump up to where we at now and act like everything's okay. Yeah, but you gotta realize that. But you gotta realize this. We weren't really taught that. Now the reason why I kind of was, my eyes were open because like I said, it comes from East Palo Alto. We had Nairobi College. We wore dashikis. We wore afros. We grew up with that. We grew up with knowing where we came from. I mean, think about it. My cousin's Mandela Rafiki. We had people that names that were African names that meant something. We learned all that. So you did, but a lot of people didn't. A lot of people didn't, but what happened though? We celebrate Juneteenth in the South. No, let me tell you this. My family's from here. So growing up, I always, so I know I was controversial on one of the blogs I did because I was telling people, why the hell is we celebrating two years afterward? Why black folks always gotta celebrate our failure? I mean, no offense, even though I'm glad about Jun, because I grew up, because my family's from Galveston. So I grew up doing Juneteenth as a kid. That was always our thing in the summertime. We always did Juneteenth. But then for people from Delaware and New York, we were talking about, oh Juneteenth, that's our Black Independence Day. No, it ain't your independence. What it is is two years later on the Island of Galveston, black folks didn't know that they was free. And it was two years afterwards. The real independence was actually 1963, January 1st. So honestly, I really kind of feel like we on New Year's Eve, black folks, we really should have like, you know what I'm saying? That's when we should celebrate. Not the after effect. Well, let's get back to that.  I want to see that. I want to go into the stages of how you were with DRS and how y'all formulated that group. And I also want to know if you can still bring that song in like you used to sing it. You were the lead. So I want to know if you still could do that, because what I see in Michael Jackson. He starts smiling as long as he says it. What I see in Michael Jackson, you know, your voice changed over the years. I also seen a lot of guys who yeah, they can't do it like that original, because you get older. I need to handle it. But you know what? Am I right? Am I right? But you know what? But see, I hate that, because that's that ageism in Hollywood. And this is what I hate. Every time you get on a tabloid, they tell you ages, you know what I'm saying? And they do that on purpose. You know, they do that on purpose to tear you down a little bit. And I tell people, I don't care. I'm 70, I'm a still to me. I mean, look at that. What's his name? He's 100 years old and he's selling millions of copies of albums.  Because I'll be honest with you. I feel like I'm better now than I was because I've learned so much more. Like I was just telling my boy in the car, my grandmother was a, I have adopted grandmother, her name was Linda Hopkins. She's from New Orleans. She was on Broadway. She got a Star and a Walk of Fame.  And she, I remember, I was thinking, you know, I'm number one. I'm thinking, oh, I'm them. Yeah, I got a number one song in the country. I'm doing this. I just beat, we got not only on the R&B, but we got on a pop charts. Number one, you know what I'm saying? And I'm thinking to myself, like, you know, I got this. And I really, my grandmother came to me and said, yeah, you cool, but do you know music theory? Hey. And I was like music theory. I don't need no music theory. I'm number one on the car. And she said, look, she said until you learn some blues and you learn some jazz, she said you ain't gonna go nowhere. She said, if you learn jazz and you learn some blues, you'll be able to sing anywhere. You go to, you take some music theory. She said, you'll be able to sing anytime, anywhere you want to. And I really rejected that for a while. So then I took this course in LA at this college and I took the music theory. And you know what?  I was just telling my boy, I can have a cold and still sing. And people won't even know it. You know what I'm saying? My nose can be stuffed up because I've learned, because what music really is, it actually is the manipulation of air. That's what people don't understand. When you're singing, I told them there's a difference.  You know what I'm saying? You do. But then you can go, you know, that's when you come in your gut. You know what I'm saying? And this one, and no offense you youngsters, learn how to sing in your gut. Cause when you get older, that's what happens. When the people are singing and then when the people are singing and they know it's hard for them when they get older. You know what I'm saying? You know, cause your nostrils change. But I love it. But okay, so with age, how do you keep that vocals the way how you do? Like, I know you practice, but how can you advise these younger people to, I know you said sing from your gut, but is there any other advice you can give them? Well, this is what I tell people. To me, like my boys were asking me, oh, are you nervous tonight? But no, I don't get nervous because to me it's a job. It's what God put me on here to do. So what I do is I do try to take care of my voice. I mean, you know, I'll do the teas and I'll do all that kind of stuff. Does that work? No, sometimes, no. Sometimes I have a mixture like cayenne pepper and I do the apple cider vinegar and I do that sometimes. If I'm, you know, I do the, I do some, I will have this thing called singer savers grace that I do and I spray it sometimes. Yeah, because with traveling and the changing of the weather that affects your voice. Very much so. A lot of people don't know like when I'm doing shows, people get mad, why is it all hot in here? I don't want air on my voice. The air, it cuts me down because people don't understand it's a muscle. And it's just like, like when you working out with your muscles, when it's cold, you really don't, when you in a gym and it's kind of warm, you don't mind getting kind of physical, but when it's cold in the gym, you be like, okay, one, two. Yeah, but a lot of this you learned over the years, though, man. Well, I learned also with the theory, with the theory stuff. With the theory stuff. Yeah, because I'd be honest with you, when I was young, you know what, 20, when I did, when I was young and I was in my group, I would just sing loud. I just thought that was it.  But then, luckily with, MC Hammer was my manager in capital, I was on capital records. You did? MC Hammer, how was that? MC, that's a whole nother story. What? A whole nother story, you know what I'm saying? I didn't even know he was managing. I'm still trying to get my money. I was under a lot of people. I was under a lot of people don't know. I'm on pumps and the bumps and all that. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? Hey, whoa, it's all doom, doom, doom. Because he's a very, isn't he that happy in person? Well, you know what people don't realize is that remember when he did funky headhunter? Yeah. Well, who do you look like? Us, because we were under him. Right. And I really believe that that's the reason why he picked us up, because he needed that street credibility. Wow. So he went and got DSDubes. So he actually was our manager in a record company and no offense, but I need my money. You need that cheddar. You don't see your ammo? That's why I'm back out here. I need my cheddar. So that was, but I have to admit, even though right now I'm upset about the financial stuff and some of the things. One thing I will tell you him, and if you're watching, I do want to thank you though, because he did teach me some things in the industry. Like you said, oh man, don't nobody come on time when I learn that from him. Because he can find you. I ain't gonna lie, Henry was like very great, he'd find you. You come late. He always said be on time, be a little bit beforehand. He put us through interview lessons. He gave me doc holiday in them to do my vocals, to teach me about my vocals, because I'll be honest with you, I was just loud and strong but wrong. You know what I'm saying? But you had to take vocal training. Well yeah, because you have to understand that when you're singing a song, the first person to come out, it's gotta be smooth, you know? Like the song we're gonna do, I'm doing, I'm with DJ Cali remix. Yeah, yeah. I'm working with him now. And he's got some artists, some Southern soul. So I'm gonna start doing some Southern soul, but you gotta realize you got to ease into it. Turn off the lights.  You know what I'm saying? They did.  Yeah, he comes in right after that. Because it's like a story. You know what I'm saying? And so in the beginning when I was young, I knew I could belt it, but I just started from there. So I had to learn it.   And that's what we got to teach these youngsters nowadays. You know what I'm saying? You gotta teach them that kind of stuff.  Yeah, well, you know, that gang saline, man. You know, it hit hard for my homies, man. Amen, listen, man. Well, you know what they mean? So, man, that helped me so much. I thank you, man, just because of, like when I think about it, and you can correct me for wrong, around the time you got to realize we had just come off that high end of some colors and all that. So when you look at the way that thing marinated together, it kind of gave you a understanding of people are dying, but we got somebody to soothe it with a song. And that's why I looked at it. Cause it was around the same time. Well, you know what? Let me tell you about what happened is when I got with the group, the group was, I'm gonna be honest with it, the group was already formed. Okay. And what happened is they got with easy. Okay. Easy like the concept of the group. But they said, well, we need some new singers. So they got a guy named EJ, EJ Turner, and that's the smooth guy in the song. And then they said, okay, this is cool. But now we need a Jodicy. We need a KC for your group. And so I'll be honest with you. I really, I was in college. I can, I'll be honest with you. I went from, let me just give y'all my reel. So it wasn't that I was a bad kid. It was just that I think that I was a little, let me see. Who was not my favorite place to be? So I got kicked out of regular school and I got put into a continuation school. I don't know if you guys know what a continuation is. Yeah, come on, man. So I went to continuation school.  But because I was already in this gifted program called GATE and Mensa program, math engineering science, when I got to the continuation school, they were like, well, we can't kick you out of it. So we got to keep you in those programs. So it was almost like, it was the best thing for me. So I'm like private school. So I had one teacher and, you know, all the other kids was doing the remedial stuff. I was doing the advanced stuff. And they were like, hey, you know what, why don't you? So they were like, why don't you do this title 11 with the school board and do this and that? So I started going, making speeches, talking and a lady from a church saw me and was like, hey, you know, this young man, you know, you went on the wrong side, but we can still save you. And that's what we need in this community. We need saviors. We need, and her name was Ali Watson. And I always thank her because she, she went to Southern University and they had a luncheon and she, and there was the chancellor of the college that was there. And she said, can you do a speech? So I did the speech. And I was thinking, well, I go to community college, do whatever you know. And I did the speech. And after I did the speech, I just talked about what I went through and why I was at the, you know, continuation school and what happened. And chancellor's name is Chancellor McClure. He just got up and said, I want young men like that at my college. And he said, if he would allow me to let him go on a college tour, whatever college he decides, we'll give him one year scholarship. Nice.   If they sponsored it, I was like, but I fell in love with the school, Southern University when I got there. And I tell people all the time. Okay, you went to EZ. You didn't bounce the wave away from EZ. Okay, I'm sorry. I want to hear about EZ too. You can't just skate across I rocked out with EZ and it didn't, you know, they picked him. And how did you, did you have a relationship with him? So this is what happened. The group, so EZ liked the concept of the group. Singing gangsters. He was like, oh, this is cool. And they had a nice look, but they didn't have a sound. So when I went and I auditioned, this is the truth. I went audition. I went to the, and I wasn't, I really wanted my two cousins. My two cousins could sing really well. I come from a singing family. And so I wanted them to be a part of it. And I said, you know what, I'm in college now. I'm about to graduate. I'll be a manager. So I went to one cousin and I didn't know that he was on drugs. And they didn't know that. And I couldn't find him for the audition. My other cousins, he's still a minister of music right now in the Bay Area. I went to him. He said, God told me I'm not doing circular. I'm gonna do. And I'm like this.   If I can't do it, I'm gonna try my best to do it. And my people and my friends in DJ Cali remix will tell you, if I say I'm gonna do something, I go ahead and I say, okay, I'm gonna do it. Tell your man of your word. Yeah, my man, well, see, and that's nothing we need to teach about today's society. We got to start being men of our word. If we say we're gonna do something, do it. If you say you're gonna email somebody, email somebody. But that's all right. If you say you're coming back in a little bit, come back in a little bit.   I hate that. Just, you know, and my thing is, I went to the audition thinking, because my mom, I ain't gonna lie, my mom, we got into an argument. And my mother said, nigga, you just wanna do it for yourself. And I said, no, ain't true. My mother told me she was trying to talk me out of it. She knew that I really wanted to do it myself.  I need a song. And so he gave me a Temptation song and gave me the Chani Gil My My My. So I'm gonna be honest with y'all, I'm bad with lyrics sometimes. Sometimes I have to sing a song sometimes 20 times just so I can remember the song. And so I only didn't have a lot of time. Even today? You're still like that? He was asking me, Glenn was like, what do you do? I sing and sing and sing in my head sometimes. People were like, are you off in another world? No, I'm thinking of lyrics right now, in my head, cause I'm like, I don't need to make sure. And I go like, sometimes we cheat, some people don't even know you do the first verse over in your head and they don't even realize it. But what happened is I went in there and I put it on the My My My and back then we had to cut things. You had to cut things, didn't you? We had to cut it.  So I just, My My My My My My My My My My My My and got in my witness. You remember those, remember they used to have the curtains that used to go like this? Yeah. And the multipurpose.   Come in.  They would, they was doing that. And I thought, oh my God, I did something I forgot. So I just take off running. No. The guys in the group that were there, they used to carry these little bats. I don't know if y'all see some pictures, we got pictures of them, we had our names on them. And they just instinctively picked up the bats and ran after me. So I thought, oh, they're trying to beat me now. I don't know what I did.  So they was running. They go, no, no, no. No, his name, and his name was Terry Heller. Okay. And it was Jerry Heller's nephew. Damn, Jerry Heller. And what happened is he goes, oh no, no, no, no. It's cool, it's all good, it's all good. He said, no, I just haven't heard a voice like yours.  Because I was a Teddy Pindagrass kind of singer. Everybody else had them sweet melodic, you know? And I thought, well. But that's what made you different from everybody. Did you do the my God, my God? My God, my God, could you pass on a message for me? Tell them to put down those dice, what's singing Lord? And I sang a little bit in the front part, too, a little bit. I heard it when you said that they had to come get you. Yeah.  Can I press on here? Are you good, man?    So what happened is, so EJ was like, man, we need you. So they said, well, we're not saying that you're in the group, but can we get your information, your email, can we, you know, like where you at? And I just happened to come home because I was interning for channel three. Because I'm being honest with you. What I really wanted to be, I didn't even have an earring in my ear back there, because I wanted to be a telecaster. I wanted to be on the news. I wanted to be a sportscaster. I wanted to be like, today in the news. Who inspired you to want to be that? You know what? How I was growing up. No, growing up. No, no, no, growing up, I liked acting. And I did like to sing, but I didn't think I was a great singer. I thought, I ain't gonna lie, I thought I was, I wanted to be Denzel. I wanted to be, I wanted to be an actor, like a serious actor, go out there, you know, get awards and stuff like that. So I never really thought that, and my mother said that, I always thought you'd be an actor. I never thought the singing part would come along. So the next day I'm asleep. And I come from one of them traditional, my mama's one of them churches, you know, save, sanctify, feel the Holy Spirit kind of ladies. All right. Someone called us at six o'clock in the morning and my mother was like, this better be good. She woke me up and I was like, I get on the phone and guys, my witness, homeboy from Chris Pick, they call him Pick. He was like, hey, Lamar, can you, can you do a little Joe to see? And I was like, in the morning? Yeah, I was like, dude, I just woke up.  Not all that great. And I go, I don't really know that, can you, you gotta feed me. Well, this is easy on the phone with me.  Right, easy, easy.  All right, easy, easy. What you want, man? Hey, can you just sing a little, they told me about you. So I started and so they started feeding me, put on your red dress and I was just, you know, like, you know, housing my home, anything at all, you can have it all, make it love. And so when I did that, easy said, that's him, that's him, that's him, that's him. And so he said, what you doing tomorrow? I said, what, I gotta, I said, what are you doing tomorrow? And he said, I need your name, I need your, you know, you need all the information. And one thing I have to say about Easy, he got me a ticket. He got us a ticket the next day. And we flew out to LA and we were met at the airport when holds were added, remember holds were added too. They was there and he was like, whatever you want. I mean, he was just very accommodating. And it was cool, we met with them, they liked us. And then we heard that there was another group and they were from St. Louis and that was Bone Thugs and Harmony. And it was like, we did it, back then, this is, I'm real old school, we had things called demo deals. And the demo deals were three months.  And after the three months, once three months was up, they had to one day to either decide to keep you or let you go. And I was told that, because at the time, should night was interested in us, we had a lot of people that were interested in the group. And at the time, our production company, Honine, they had just signed a contract with MC Hammer. And so they were like, well, Ham wants to see you guys as well. And so when we were told that Easy didn't pick us up, which I found out now was a lie, the dude in the group who started the group didn't even tell us Easy called him and wanted us. He thought it was better to go with. Well, you know what? I'll be honest with you.  He's like, well, he's a gangster. You don't want to get killed. Do you go with Easy? You hear all the stuff that my old, he was taking the money.  We'll go with MC Hammer, but he was the most gangster one of all. I heard about it. I heard he was.  You know what I'm saying?  And you thinking, and then, and no offense to him, but I really looked back and go, God, we should have stayed with Easy. You know what I'm saying? We should have stayed with Easy, yeah. Easy was cool. Honestly, a lot of stuff you talk about, he was a cool dude, you know, a lot of wisdom, a lot of wisdom. A lot of people didn't understand that. Easy came from a lot of wisdom. He came from, see, a lot of people, you know, and I think this is what Melvin was talking about. A lot of times we look up and we say, you know, gangsters, this and that, but a lot of us wasn't true gangsters. You know what I'm saying? We hung around people that were gangsters.  They don't want to be on TV. No, no, no.  They don't want to brag that they killed people and that they sold. He wasn't even supposed to be on the panel that day. I know you've seen the big blowout in here. Yes, yes, yes. It went viral. It was all over the world starting. It was on Vlad and all, and all of a sudden, Dallas Global, everybody was panicked. Well, I mean, I'm being honest with you, but the true gangsters, true, true, no offense to true, and y'all, y'all, y'all rappers, y'all rappers and the people that tell my whole, I'm down with this and I'm being honest, I'm a OG. I'm gonna tell you the truth. You ain't worried about studio time. You ain't worried about getting the rings on your finger. You ain't worried about getting the Grammy. You ain't worried about why are my billboards not that? You worried about the streets. You worried about your hustle. You worried about making money for your neighborhood, your family, your baby's mama. You worried about that. You know what I'm saying?  And that's a way of you leaving this world. Cause you got a lot of, one thing, you got a lot of haters. You got a lot of people that get mad when you come up. You know what I'm saying?  Where's the other guys in the group? You left them, you didn't left the group. You left. No, no, no, no, no. I own DRS LLC. And so I go under as Dirty Riding Scoundrels or DRS. So I have two other guys that I hired and they come along with me sometimes when I'm doing the whole group. Unfortunately, the guy who started the group, Chris, he's in prison. And then my baby bro, Lavelle, the one who's in the casket, he's my writing partner. Unfortunately, he's incarcerated as well, we're trying to work and trying to get him out right now. I'm trying to, it's this new law in California where they kind of, you know, they got rid of three strikes. But they got this SB, I can't think the name of it, where if you, this is where we gotta watch out. And this is the reason why I tell people you gotta learn these laws and what was, you gotta learn the laws and stuff like that because even though we got rid of three strikes in California, they put a new law in that if you're habitual and like say, so what was going on is that you had all these no offense white people, Caucasians that were stealing bread and all of a sudden they're getting life sentences. And they were like, this ain't right, this ain't right. But what happened is when we go to prison or we do things, a lot of times we're doing the same thing. So if I got caught with a dope charge, the next time I go in, if I get caught with another dope charge, the third time I get caught with a dope charge, they're gonna say, I'm not rehabitable.  You know what I'm saying? And so one of my boys is going through that. One of my boys got a little depressed about the industry. You know, and this is why I'm trying to work on this, a thing called Second Coming, it's a reality show.  I just call it the devil. And I tell people, my boy got really depressed.  You know, you would, and so he was like, I don't want to do music no more. So he got out and then one partner, and I'm gonna talk about you, my boy, my cousin, he decided he only want people to know he was part of the group, you know what I'm saying? He just, how many was in the, how many, five of you, I thought it was. So I'm only, I'll be honest with you. I'm the only one, but it was by the grace of God that I was able to sing every part. I'm the only one that actually can represent DRS right now. I'm trying to get my boy, EJ, back with me. I think if that happens, man, I'll just, I'll be so blessed. Who said, whose song's this song dedicated? And you were going in, man, he's smooth. This song dedicated to my homies in that game of Sterling. Yeah, he come in smooth, didn't he? Why'd you have, I'll be honest with you, I wanted this, after the two of them wanted to leave, I was like, well, shoot, we could be the next OJs. You know what I'm saying? But how hard is it to keep a group together?  You rarely find a group that lasts.  They were friends in school. But when they became professionals, they stopped being personal friends. And they became a business. They became business partners. New additions, same thing. Business partners. And what happened is you have to separate that. You can't be, oh, that's my best friend no more. You're a business entity and they looked at it like that. And that's how they've been able to survive. Because they don't, they're not like, because what happens is that if you don't do that, you, your emotions get involved. But when you got a platinum album and you start growing and egos changed too. Gold, you started to, you're talking to the chart and they're like, where am I money at? It's a whole bunch going on. And it's not just that. It's also like, like with my group, like I started being asked to come fly places and can you do some backgrounds? But you know, but sign this NDA so they don't know it's you. But we need your voice. We need to hear that. We need to hear that. They try to separate you because they love your voice and they don't want anybody else. And when it happens, when your boys find out, like I'm on that Jason's Lyric soundtrack. You're on the Jason's Lyric soundtrack. Ain't no love in the heart of the city. A child is born through pain and sin. That's me, that's me.  But what happened is I was told, but see, this is what happened. That sound good. Ham was like, well, I'm gonna have you go solo. He was gonna have me and EJ go solo. And I was like, well, no, I don't think that's the right time. Because you know, when you form a group, I was like, no, we need to be together for a couple of years and establish that. Because in how DRL, me being on that soundtrack happened, I was asked to do it, I was asked actually to do, if you think you're lonely now. Because KC had opted out of it. And what happened is I went in the studio to record if you think you're lonely now. And I think I was doing a good job that the engineer was like, man, you banging on this. But then I think KC must have heard I was in the studio and they said, no offense, dudes, but we're gonna do this. We're not gonna have you do that song, but we want you to write a song for it. This is what we want you to use. So they gave me the elements of Ain't No Love and they said, we want you to write. And so they showed me the copy of the movie and everything and so I wrote to it. And then the whole nine got with me and me and JB from DRS. And I told him, I said, I don't wanna make it a solo song because I knew my boys at the time we started fighting. And so I wanted us to come together. So I said, we're gonna do this as DRS together. It's not gonna be a Lamar Deuce Lubin project, it'll be a DRS project. And that's what happened. Because at the time, EJ was like, I ain't singing no more because he was getting mad about the money part. So I actually had to trick him. So when you hear it, he's in the beginning of the ending of the song. I actually tricked him and told him, hey, come on, because he moved to Sacramento, I was still in the bay and we were recording. I said, hey, I was like, EJ, come on down real quick. Let's kick it. And I took him to the studio and I played, we played the track and we was like, don't you think? I said, he'd be so tired if you did this on this song. He got in there and he sang and he was like, oh dude, she talked me into it. So he did it. He said, what did he do? He sang the ending part of, Ain't no love. Ain't no love. And so we put that on Jason's lyric soundtrack. And then we were part of, that you will know song.  Go from boys to men. So we did that. And so I was, I was, I was in my hope. I was thinking, oh, we were about to, because there was only three of us left. And I just knew and then, you know, my boy JB got caught up and went to prison. I went to jail and he got a charge. And kind of, you know what I'm saying? When your boy goes away, it kind of. Put a damper under my head. Put a damper. And then you don't have the money. Didn't they use to parallel y'all with like boys and men? Like, like, like, you know, like, like y'all came out during the same look, the era. No, they were before us. They were before you, but still y'all was a group. Yeah, we were a group, but they were, they were looking at us like, because what happened is that when our album came out, we had some songs, like I did, I did this song called Scoundrels Get Lonely Two.   And then we tried to do Doomy Baby over. This is? Yeah, we did that. Yeah, I'm not the right one.  No, just here we, you know, it's kind of corny. It's really different. Don't go back, just here. Oh, y'all just got to change it.  Don't go back, I got you. Here we are in this little old room. Nanny Chellidown. Who came up with this? Who came up with this? With Ian. And the funny one, I got to tell you this. So when we did the album release, we were at the Sahara in Vegas. Okay.  Yeah. They started saying, man, you're the man with the voice. Yeah. And they started saying, you look, you look, you know, and we have our iconic picture, which is kind of funny where I'm in the middle. I don't know if you've ever seen the poster. And there's the guy who took it. He told me the reason, this is so funny. This is how groups do. He said, Deuce, I want this to be the picture because you are like that. You're like the teddy pina grants of the group to me. And he said, I think you're gonna break out one day. He said, so I'm going to suggest that you pick this picture. But the picture, the other, there's two pictures.  He says, if you pick this picture, they're all gonna pick this up picture. So I said, okay, I'll try it. So I went and picked this picture. And my boys was like, we don't like it. We want this one.  Yeah. They didn't even get it. You're not in psychology. Because you know, but that's what happens in group. And then what happens is, is like, when you start getting a star magazine, the magazines start coming, then they start asking, oh, we want this member to talk. So I would ask sometimes to talk because they want to talk to me and say, hey, who's your, who you like? Who, who, you know, who, like, who are your influences? Man, jealousy is something else. That's Korean gas. Oh man. Especially in groups. Oh man. Because sometimes they want to break you. They want you as a solo artist. They're preparing you. They already planned all of that. They love your voice. They want you over here. So once the group breaks up, they can sign you over here.  They want the whole group. So it goes both ways. Well, that's, well, I'll be honest with you. When we signed, we went, so we went down to audition in front of Hammer because we were like, okay, Hammer wants us to come down. So we had a van come. We got in there. This was before the album. This was before the album. I remember a photo of the album. He was gonna hammer all that. That was going on during this time. Yeah. And he was with the pants and everything. Yeah, but this is when he had his. But remember, this is when he started getting the flak because he bought the helicopter for Oakland PD and he bought the battle ram and all that stuff. So he had to change his image. And what was sad was that all the stuff that Hammer tried to prevent, like the image all the rappers do now. So it's like, it's funny. Like he was the architect for all that. All that product. I mean, think about it. I got toothpaste. I have a Hammer Time toothpaste. I have a Hammer Time game. You know what I'm saying? He had Hammer Time. He did that before everyone else. And what happened with black people was that they mocked him and talked about him and didn't understand that. Cause lots of people don't know this. Hammer, at one time, was one of the largest black talent agents. He had salt and pepper. He had heavy D. He had Ralph Trezman. He had, I'm thinking about three, five, seven. He had special generation. He had, think about it, uncle, whatever. He had all those groups and they were under his management. Him and his brother, Lewis Burrell. They were all under his management. We had tons. I mean, a lot of people don't know this, but Ralph used to live in Fremont, California. When he did his albums, he was under us as well. A lot of people don't know that. Hammer really. Y'all don't want to broke up new addition. No. Yeah, let's just be real about it. New addition broke up new addition. Why Ralph over there? You didn't say Mike, Ronnie, Bobby and Ricky was over there. You say Ralph was over there. And that makes me understand that Ralph had disconnected for some kind of reason. Yeah, he was over here talking about other things. And I liked that the story kind of told his story. Yeah, I seen that. Because I'll be honest with you. Was he lying down on that? I remember when Ralph lived in Fremont with his wife and I remember him coming down to the studio playing sensitivity. I remember when he first came out. They all was bad. That was too much talent in one group. That's why they was tripping. Well, you know what? No, but I'm gonna tell you what happened with my group. My group got to the point where it was even hard to take pictures for magazines because everybody wanted a position. I'm over here. I want to be over here. I want to do this. A lot of pictures you'll see that I'm kind of in the back or I'm turned away because we're moving. Because they always tell you, oh, move, yeah, I move this way. And I always got pushed. I always got pushed to like make sure this nigga don't get to the front. I always got pushed. And they might say, oh, dude, that's not true, but that is true. And then, you know, and so it got to the point where people really start tripping about the money. Like who's getting extra money? Who's getting extra perks? I'll be honest with you. There was a group that Madonna had. I think my people YMV and so some people are going to say, oh, what do you say is the reason why the group broke up? I am not the reason the group broke up. Let's get it straight. I'm not. But I will tell you what did happen. And this is on working on my reality to let people know what's really going on. I met a guy from the group YMV. We were in Savannah, Georgia doing a show. And he comes up to me. And this is the reason why I believe that we need to really teach the youngsters about business. Don't just get in the game and just get in the game. Take a course. Learn about business, because it's business. Exactly. I mean, we have talent, but it's also business. To them, they see the dollars. Cha-ching, cha-ching. And he said to me, what's in your writer? And I said, writer? What the hell's a writer? Now, I got the number one song in the country right now. And I don't know what a writer is.  Like, do you have M&M's?   I said, oh no, whatever they put back there.  Or do you come and, you know, get money now and you get the rest of the money when you get there? So, give me my money up front. And I was like, well, I don't take care of that. Him, the office does that. And he was like, what? You let the office do that for you? And he, I've always been blessed in my, God's always brought people in my life. Hey, man. Oh, I'll be honest with you. Listen, man, I'm gonna tell you this one thing. What happened is that he took me to Tower Books and bought me this book called All You Need to Know about the music business. And the one that Kashife, All About the Music Business by Kashife and Donald Passman, All About the Music Business. And he said, look, take these two books and I want you to start reading them. And I started reading them. By the time I got to Omaha, Nebraska, I was pissed.  Oh my God. And so I knew that nobody could mimic me. No one could do my parts. And so I told Hammer one night, I was in the hotel, I said, I ain't going on stage. And he said, no, no, no, you got to go. What do you mean you ain't going on stage? I'm not going on stage. I said, I got asthma. I ain't got no healthcare. I could die, I'm in the great planes. You know, I got asthma. I got grass all over the place. If I get sick, who gonna take care of me?  I have nothing to fall back on. That's how I'm not going. And he was like, doos, doos, just do this. Doos, doos, just go on stage. Just do this, Joe. And when you get back, we gonna talk. We gonna talk. And so at that point, I realized that I had, I was like, dang, you know, I got this talent. I'm doing this. And I said, people don't understand what it's like to go to a hotel and to be number one in the country and have fans, one your autograph. And you can't buy yourself a drink. Wow.  That's heavy, man. And you know what I'm saying?  You can't even buy yourself a drink. Man, and that's when you look at and say, dang, like, what's really up?  Boy, I say it again. They would know Vaseline. But at least, and like, this is my joke, at least the Jews might screw you, but they give you some Vaseline so it won't hurt so much. Boy, what you talking about? You know what I'm saying? At least a little bit. You know what I'm saying? Just a little bit. And so this, let me go back to this though. I'm listening. So when we auditioned for Hammer, I wanted to be like Ice Cube. I wanted to be the member that didn't sign, but I'ma help y'all with whatever y'all want to. And when Hammer saw and we sang, he told the group, if he doesn't come with you, I don't want the group.  You know, he was like, ooh, a hundred bucks. Ooh, a hundred bucks. That buck gave us a bill. That buck gave us a bill. A little face. Everybody gave a hundred dollars, bought us some tennis shoes. We was like, ooh! It's on, we got us some tennis shoes too. We got to go eat and I remember telling my boys, I will sign only if you guys say we're going to be like brothers and we're going to work together and be like a family. And of course, they was hungry. Yeah, we're going to do that. Well, I swear, one for one, we together and I signed. And let me tell you the reason why I'm talking about favor.  When I got back, I ain't gonna lie, the Holy Spirit told me not to sign. I went against the Holy Spirit and I signed because I was like, well God, these boys have been doing this for so many years. Who am I not to give them their dream if I need to sign? And when I got home, when I opened the door and my mother saw my face and my mother said, you signed. And my mother said, let's pray right now. She called my grandma and said, we're gonna pray.  And I think, and I tell my mother this day, I think it's the prayers that really got me through because I could be in prison right now. I've done stuff when I was a kid that ain't gonna lie.   I got homies that really didn't do the crime, but they was in the car. And because they got caught with the people in the car, they doing life sentences, you know what I'm saying? But they didn't do nothing. They just said, hey, let me get in the car, let me jump in the car. And that's what happened with my last homie from DRS. He jumped in the car with somebody and he was on parole and they was on parole. And he didn't really know. And when they drove out the parking lot, police was 10 cop cars there. Let me ask you this, you didn't ever deal with Ice Cube. I see you mentioned him a while ago. No, we went on tour at Ice Cube. You did? Yeah, I don't think Ice Cube liked my group so much. It gets cool to me. Well, you know. It was rowdy, wasn't it? Well, no, no, no, no. There's something going on. No, no, you know what? I'm be honest with you. You know what? When I met Ice Cube and I kicked it with Ice Cube, I'm be honest with you. Very intelligent. This is a true story.  So we went and got some 40s and got some weed and we was like, okay, we're gonna go back to the hotel and kick it in. We walked in there and with the Cube, where the hose at? He's like, shh, my wife is in the other home. I was like, you married? You know what I'm saying? And I was like, I am, she was married. And I said, hey.   And I said wadea. I said, what's some wadea? And he's like, he was laughing, water. I'm drinking water.  He's drinking 40s, he's doing all that. But then I realized that it's a smart brother. You know what I'm saying? He knows his audience. He knows what he's doing. He know he can't be lit all night long and make sure he watching everything and stuff like that. I mean, and some people gonna get mad at me saying this, but think about this. The number one person that owns the number one family entertainment company, family entertainment is owned by Ice Cube. Think about that. Think about that. For that again? The number one family entertainment company. As far as the movies, all that stuff, family-orientated. What's the name of that company? I can't think of his name.  All that stuff. Those are all family-orientated things from the number one gangster in America. Think about it. Think about that. Think about that. The brother came up. He did a good job, man. The brother did a good job. We interviewed him. The brother came up. Good Taurus, the guy to make, do a lot of his production of Clint Payback Sands, man. Good guy. You know him? You ever heard of him? Yeah, Clint. He's out of LA. But I'm just saying, and so that's what I'm saying. So we have a lot of perceptions sometimes, and they're wrong. You know what I'm saying? We come up to the artist and we think, oh, this is how they live, and this is what they do, and this really ain't. You know, I tell, I really sad when what you call it that passed away. I can't think right now. In LA, you know my boy, Nipsey, Nipsey also.  Well, you gotta realize, you gotta realize, Aramis, we went by his store, because of this store. Think about it. I wouldn't met his father, his brother, me and my wife would go by there when I would go, I went when nobody wasn't going because we do the same thing. If you think about it, it makes sense. So when I would go to LA, I would go straight by there if I'm in Miami, I'm in Purple Carpet, wherever there's a family owned business where you got my sons there, both of my sons are now.  You know, cause nobody's really doing stuff for the community like that. It's very, you would be surprised and amazed at how few there are of us. It ain't many. Everybody doing anything and they don't care about building up the community like that. So that was dear to me. So yeah, Nipsey, and I met him at the Palms in Vegas. He was a dope guy. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. So when you... Oh, QVision is what it's called. It's called QVision? QVision, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. QVision. Big quarter in Santa Monica, California. Yeah, yeah. Right, right alone. Right alone, one and two. Yeah. Yeah, this old boy, hey, I'm telling you, man, we gotta give kudos and flowers to our guys while they're here so we can give them flowers now. Most of the time, I hate this new stigma with Dolph just dying. I hate this new stigma where it seems like it's almost a norm for people to act a certain way the day after someone passes on the internet they post in and they got, it's a whole algorithm that goes on and it's became a thing where I believe it's almost like staged. People loving views and people loving to get those comments and people loving to... I got pictures with them. Yeah, and all that. And then it dies out within a couple of weeks, maybe a month. And it's only waiting on the next one to happen. It seemed that way. Maybe I'm tripping. No, I agree with you. Well, you know what? And it's kind of sad that, and this is what I tell people sometimes when I sing excellent, it's sad that even though I'm, for me, I'm happy, I'm able to sing it and people still love it, but it's sad that the history of it is the same. 25 years later. The harsher algorithm. We're still doing the same thing. Same thing.  Can you sing? It's hard to say goodbye. And so we were practicing it. And I remember Chris said, this nigga wouldn't want us to sing this as general because he was a street nigga. And he said, we need to make a song about our homies. What's going on today? And that's basically how gangsta lean started. And we were like, yeah, let's make a song that talks about our generation, our homies. Cause at the time in the nineties, 92, 93, think about it. A lot of killings. A lot of, we lost a lot of people don't know that we lost a whole generation of people that should be here right now. Just based on just us hating on each other and claiming territory that we don't even own. And you know what I'm saying? And killing each other, you know? For silly, for silly. You know, this is the truth before I tell people.  And they go, what you doing? You stepped on my toes. You didn't say, excuse me. Now we old enough where we say, it's okay, I gotta go to work tomorrow. I gotta have a mortgage to pay. I got kids, I got a fee.   How did, you see what I'm saying? That's a different place. Like the whole song, the tempo was something else. And I just wanna know how you, how did you dig and find that place in that verse? I had a cousin named Amir, Amir Warkely Howard. And he had kinda, when we were, you know, we were broke when we was trying to come up. And my cousin, he worked for Safeway. He used to do the bottling, you know, the recycling. And we would come down to Oakland to record with the whole nine. And he, people would sometimes just leave him bottles. And my cousin, when he got the leftovers, he would just pile up and he would cash it in. And instead of keeping it for himself, he would actually, even though he was my cousin, he would pass it out to all the members in the group. Like when we come, because we stay in his house, you know, and he would say, here's 20 for you, here's 20. Y'all go eat and do all that kind of stuff. And when I got, when I decided to sign, I knew I was gonna be in the Bay because I was in Sacramento at the time. And I called him and I said, hey, I'm gonna be in the Bay with you. And we was like, oh man, we're gonna, we're gonna have a mirror with us. And, oh man, we're gonna, you know, be able to kick it with a mirror and do all that. And the weekend before I got to go to Hams and start recording, there's a thing called siding in the Bay Area that they do, they rev the car up. And he had just had a dream about dying. His father had passed and he had bought a DeLorean and he said it was too fast for him. He had dreamed that he was gonna die. So he went and bought a Trans Am. And he got scared of that. So he decided that night to go out with his homies and let them drive it. His homie had a Mustang and, you know, the drop and he was in it and he was in the back seat and he told his boy, hey, they started siding. He said, hey, if you're gonna do this, let me out. Let me out. And he started to try to get out.  And he rev the car up.  And when his homie saw that, he got nervous and the car just started spinning, spinning and crash and killed the other guys well in the back. And then the guy in the front seat, the passenger, he became paralyzed and the driver. Nothing. Nothing. And that's how you went there. So when I got there to sing the song, I'll be honest with you. At first it was like, my God, my God. And then I remember Chris and them came in and they said, you're not singing it the way you need to.  He was saying, think about a mirror. And when I got there, I started singing it and I kind of was mad. And so when you hear that, my God, I was kind of mad at God. I was like, why would you do this to me? You know what I'm saying? So that's why you hear that. Yeah, I could feel it was something there, man. That's heavy because, like I said, not only it was needed for the time because it was a place where a lot of people was at. And then my homie YB was gone. Yeah. And people had to feel that. People had to feel that through your music to resonate with it. Yeah. And then I started thinking about all these homies. And then when I got in there and we started singing, we started thinking about all these homies that we had. Exactly.    You know what I'm saying?  There's nobody there to really tell you, hey, you don't need to do this. You need to stop. Yeah, yeah. You know, luckily I have a brother who, you know, he was crimped. And he kind of, he told me when I was younger, you different.  Definitely, definitely. I mean, I, one time I did a beer run and my brother found out I was, I'm proud. I drove my car, we drove, you know, the beer running. We grabbed the beers and came back. My brother was like, oh, you did this? He said, oh really? He goes, yeah, yeah, oh, your little brother did this, he did this, yeah. He said, where the beer at? And I was like, right here. And my brother took every single beer bottle that I had and smashed it on the ground. And he said, that's for them niggas to do. Niggas, you're going to college.  That's good, that's a good brother. And when he, and you know what, and I do thank him for that because I had one day I had to just sit down and say, I thank you for that. I thank you for going in the refrigerator and saying, hey, and when I'm in the hood, like when he went to prison and he was opening up the refrigerator or opening, and he was like, I was like, what are you doing? He goes, I want to see if the light clothes. And he says, when you locked up, you don't have that. You can't just get up in the middle of the night and just walk in. And he goes, no. And at the time I was chubby.  He said, don't like sardines, you know what I'm saying? And stuff like that. And so I learned a lot from him. But growing up when people were telling you all these positive things that you weren't, that your life had more than just this to it. Did you believe them? Did you listen to them?  I ain't going to lie. I think as a black male, I still think that. I'm going to be real with you.  I'm like, I'm just a little more, just do this. You know, you don't really look back. And I've had to learn now that you, and I just recently learned this a couple of years ago.  You have to take it and say thank you. You have to say thank you. Because what's happening is that you're blocking your blessings. If they want to bless you, you got to say, okay, you got to reciprocate and say, and I think with our people, we're so, you know what I'm saying? We're so like, oh, I'm cool. I don't need, you know what I'm saying? I don't want to be weak. I don't want to look like I'm weak. I'm cool and all that. And we need to drop that. That's why I ate that food this morning. Cause I used to be that guy that wouldn't take from nobody. There's certain things you have to let your guards down on and say, man, I'm blessing you to invite you into my world. To say, okay, I'm going to eat this because you brought it, because that says something. And I don't want to block your blessing because you're blessing me. Yeah, yeah, because we're blessing us. We appreciate it. Exactly. But that's how we got to teach our people now. We need to learn, you know, it needs, and one thing I have to say about when I was going back to East Palo Alto, one thing we did used to do is we used to have an annual picnic and we would have, it was for the whole town. And I remember mama easily, she would get the food, like the meats and stuff and she'd say, everybody bring side dishes. And what we would do, the whole town would come through. You know what I'm saying? And you have mothers, a lot of single mothers, bring plates, bring Tupperware. And they'd have food for the whole week. I mean, growing up in the city, I remember my mom would call her girlfriends and this is what they do. My mom would say, Patty, you got some biscuits. You know, she'd say, yeah, but I ain't got no milk. I got milk. Who got some eggs? Kendrick's mom would say, oh, I got eggs. And they would actually, we would walk to each other's houses with the stuff. And one mother, one mother would actually cook a whole, would cook a whole meal for us. That's the kind of, that's what we need now. I know I'm just talking. But even going back to that, about appreciating a gift or when somebody give you a compliment, because like for me personally growing up, I was that person would tell anybody, thank you. You tell me something nice, I'll tell you thank you, but I don't mean that I believed in what you're saying, even if it's a compliment to myself. I'd be like, yeah, thank you, but... So it was just words. It was just words. My auntie said that, my auntie said, my auntie one time said, you know, I always tell people I'm sorry, but I really don't mean it. And I just learned to say, I'm sorry to get best.  You know, it's like in yourself, you're like, I know that I'm all right, but I'm not, just like you said, you didn't know, you could sing as well as everybody loved you to sing. Well, because I was brought, let me be honest with you, my mother always talked, my mother always thought, well, I don't want him. She goes, well, I never really wanted to tell you, he was that good because I didn't want you to get hurt.  Can we try to keep our kids humble? Cause I'll tell my daughter, I said, you gotta learn how to stay humble.    But if you notice the ones that the parents that don't have talent and they say, my babe is the greatest of the ones that make it. If you notice that, and they have so much, I've met some people in Hollywood that have no talent at all, but have so much confidence that we're, they're on reality shows now. No offense to them, but you know what I'm saying? And they've gone because they have been taught to have that, I can do this, I'm good.  I don't care what nobody say. Hollywood gets mad, I'm gonna say that. And I say, I say everybody in Hollywood, these bipolar, schizophrenic, you got some deficiency. Some is going on. Most successful people are, look at Kanye. Oh yeah.  That's my guy. That's your guy. Oh my goodness man. But he is, he is very talented. Shout out to Kanye, who, yeah, he's.  A lot, a lot of money right now. I know y'all did try a little Tinder. Yeah, that's my guy. You ain't need to have me on the track next time. That's my song, Kanye. Oh, so maybe we're a young girls do get weirded. We're a left same old shaggy dress.  Come on, get ready. Boy, are you ready, man? But did you read that about Kanye the other day?  It's on the way, it's on the way. He don't want to divorce another. I saw that, that's what I was saying. He said that God said, God said that he needs to save because he needs to set an example for all these people who are watching him because whenever he was going through this, some people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but he wants to show people that there is reconciliation. There you go. After a problem, and that's what. What a friend we have in Jesus.  No, but I love that. I love, cause when I was reading it, I was like, you know, I'm like, that's awesome. Like if he goes through all of this and I pray that they do get back together, you know, and do this, cause a lot of people do watch them and all people do idolize them. And it could save a lot of other people. Let me be honest with you. So many times we always count people out too early guys. God is working on each and every one of us. And we're all a work in progress and we're evolving all the time. But a lot of times because of the bumps in the road, all the potholes we hit in life, we drop people off at that pothole. And I think that's the worst. Well, I'm gonna be honest with you. The reason why I want to do my reality shows cause I'm very controversial.  I'm gonna be honest with you. Some people are like, I've seen you here. I've done everything there is and I ain't ashamed of it. I've done some things that I'm proud of. I've done some things that I ain't proud of. You know, I've been a part of different communities. But you're standing in it. But my thing is I tell people, but you know what? But those are the choices I decided to make. I'm the only one that has to go to God at the end and say, hey, this is why I did it. This is how I did it. This is why I did it. And my thing is I've learned now that I gotta live my life. And my mom says I have the Peter Pan syndrome. You know, you always want to be young. You always want to do this. Won't go here and go there.  I don't want to go through my life going back, going, oh, what was me? I wish you would have did this. I want to, I want my life to- Say you did everything you could. I want to go like, God, thank you for my life. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the opportunity that you've given me.  You know, that's why I want to do the show. The show is called Second Coming.  I want to see what was the reason why you fell off and what do you want to do now? Do you want to come back? Is it done? Was it a fluke?  A lot of people, because right now, you know, where are they now? Yes. And a lot of people do wonder because there are many groups or actors, actresses be like, man, I used to love watching this person. What happened to them? You know, first thing people think about, are they working in a grocery store or something? You know, where are they? I ain't gonna lie, look, I ran a grocery store for eight years. I was an assistant manager. And I remember one time, Faith came in because she used to live in the neighborhood I did. And I remember Faith was like, what you doing? And I said, I got to work. I need to make some money. You know what I'm saying? I remember when... And that's real. When they tried. Now let me tell you, this is how real I am. When it first broke out about hammer and the money in situation, what happened is I was in Hollywood, I was living in LA. And I needed money. And even though my song was on the chart and I was doing these background and I was getting this and that, I went and got a job with UPS. And I went to capital in my UPS outfit. And I remember, I mean, it's in Sister's Sister magazine. One of the execs said, is this a Halloween costume? I said no. And I said, and they put my quote. I said, no, I gotta eat. And like, but you got a song, it's number one right now. And I said, hey. They ain't paying the bills though. They ain't paying the bills. I got to work. And that's what I want people to know. What is really like?  Do you want the money? What are you waiting for? But it's so many different young people, especially the rappers that are coming up. And it's because of people like you, because of the things that you guys have laid out in the history of what we, see some drove us to where we're at now. So a lot of these kids not making money right now. A lot of these kids just putting up videos. It's easy to put up a video. It's easy to, you know, a million streams is only $4,000. That's all it equates to. Well, and that's the reason why they got, that's the reason why they learned. Now that I'm saying Hammer did all this before, thinking about Hammer was doing all that merchandising before. A lot of rappers and stuff merchandise. I was trying to get my shirts out of here and my buttons, you know, because that's how you make your money now. You got to do it. You got to do it.   You might have, I mean. The comedians got it. They do. Yeah, they do. But the thing is, I gotta give a shout out to my girl Hope Floods, if she watching. I don't know if you heard of her to Hope Flood. She does a comedian. She does a comments rock convention every year. She has a thing called High Hopes, which is Edibles and stuff like that. So that's my little gig I do with her. I help sell her Edibles sometimes. So I need some Edibles, y'all. Hey! I brought some of her.  I do, you know, but I'm beyond with you.  You know, I do everything.  I do a thing called feeding the emotion with my auntie in LA, where we get the food boxes and we do that. You do know the LA culture. Oh yeah, oh yeah. I've been in LA for 21 years now.  He went and looked at, he researched it for three years and he found some things out there that he has exposed in Texas people do not try to be like those people. That's not our culture.  That's they stuff. Well, okay. But you have to understand that when you say something like that, you have to understand that like, we're like Melvin and all them, H.A. gangsters from the 60s. You have to understand that even though it is an LA culture and it started, you know, when it came to the LA culture, you have to understand that once the gangster rap came out, once us, you know, you have to understand that it didn't just go, it went all over the world. I mean, I was in Japan, I was in Japan in the 90s, like almost 2000s, and they had people in Japan that were dressing up with Pendletons and we're looking like, we're dressing like DRS. They had Pendletons on, they had the SAG, they had the Afros on, they were Japanese and they were putting blackface on. You know what I'm saying? So you have to understand that it's not just LA, it's all over. And I think what, to me, what went wrong with the gangs is that I don't think they realized how much power they really had, how much the community they really had because they start turning on each other. And I think that if they would have kind of put a common bond, you know what I'm saying? That could have been a, you know what kind of corporation that could have been? Yeah, I definitely know what it is.  I mean, I mean, we looked, I'd be honest with you, I mean, that's what got me, got me looking up to my brothers, looking up to those people, 29th Street and Sacramento, looking up to them, that's what, those were our fathers. But when you think about it. Think about it. Those OGs were, those were the, those were our examples in the neighborhood. Now, whether you say it was good or bad, that's the only examples we had. And that's who we inspired to be like. My God, Charles says that these gang members would kill people in these communities. And then the gangsters that was surrounding them would hide them after people with kids or mothers would get killed. He says that they would hide each other and look out for each other when they know that this was stuff that was affecting and hurting our community. Okay, so let me ask you this. What's the difference? Okay, so you know about the Costa Nostra? No. That's the Italian mafia. So, so think about this. When you watch them, they killed, they killed all day long. Yeah, that doesn't make it right. It doesn't know, it doesn't know. I'm not saying that that was right, but I'm just saying. You know what I'm saying? Because the gangs, they're like a family. They were like brothers. You know what I'm saying? Like a brotherhood. Because think about it, we didn't, a lot of us didn't come up with these true family.  Now you find out, none of them fuckers knew each other. They all come from single families.  You know what I'm saying?  You know what I'm saying? Oh, this is the kind of family I want. And in reality, nobody had that. Nobody had, nobody, nobody's cutting dry. We make mistakes. Not everything's gonna be right. Now he's talking about what don't do, what LA do, but y'all got your own stuff that y'all do out here. We have our own things. You have your own things. You have your own killings and stuff that you do out here.  You remember the guy that was killed in the club? Well, the guy that was killed, Mo3 was killed last year on 535 and 1155 during the game. Oh, is that, oh, that's one of them. Shot him on the, but I mean, I don't think that was gang related. No, that was just some people that didn't like each other. So you can't just blame it on LA. You have to understand that that is our culture now. That is what we've been doing. We've been hating on each other no matter if you're in a gang or you're not in a gang. But where does it stop? Where's the resolution? How can we as older men try to do something to penetrate that culture in a positive way where we can say we was wrong for doing that? If we're not doing that, if we're not doing it, that's a problem. You gotta do like I did. You have to like, I didn't have to apologize. You gotta apologize to the youth and say, you know what? I apologize for letting y'all think that this is the way of life that you should live. That you should walk around every day with the braids and smoking joints all day long and that kind of stuff. You know what I'm saying? We have to apologize to those people. Oh, stop. No, no, no, no, keep going. Apologize to them and let them know. It's, I mean, I don't know why, but in saying, you know what? I was wrong. You know, I apologize. You know what I'm saying? I got my cousins and my nephews and stuff. They all want to be rappers and they all want to smoke weed all day long and then they get mad at them. I can't find a job. Well, of course you can't find a job because they want a drug test. You know what I'm saying? But it's legal now. And how they get around these in the, you know what I mean? Even though it's legal now. But that's only because that's federal, but you gotta realize when you go to state jobs in California, you say, I take a drug test and if you don't pass the drug test, you don't get the job. So my thing is this, this is what we have to learn. Even though we, I don't believe this new census. I don't believe we only rose by 1% the black population. I think that it's, you know, I think a lot of us probably didn't do the census this year because we don't want the government in our business. But this is what I think. This is what our people need to be. We need to be the owners. We don't need to be the workers anymore. We need to own. We need to own our own stuff. I remember when I did Jason's lyric, you know, we did that song, you will know. I remember Kenny Green, he said, think about this. We got 40 people on stage. All of them got number one song. They said we had sold a combination of 80 million albums. Back then, albums were like 13 to $20. Then you divide 80 million by, go 80 million times, who got a calculator? 80 million times 15, $16. How much money is that? Man, I gotta get on my calculator. How much money? Tell me how much money that is. Okay. 80 million by how much? 80 million records they said we sold, right? 80 million records, okay? By how much? 80 million. So back then, so say back then, the records used to be like $15, $16. $1,200 million? So $15 equals, that's $1,200, what's that? $1,200,000. $1,200,000, ain't it? So think about this. When we did Black Million Nighting, we were estimated a worth of $1,200,000,000. Now Kenny said, just think if we decided to strike and say, we ain't doing this no more. And I remember one of the, after seven, I don't know if it was Jason, I forgot which one, he said, but there'd be 40 other niggas behind us don't understand what we're trying to do and take our jobs. And that's what the problem is right now with that we have to realize that, I mean, how come a boycott in our community don't really work?  But guess what, nothing gets done. The only way it's gonna get done is if me and you, we take over, instead of letting these old senators and you can't represent me, you don't know how I live, you don't know where I live, you don't know how I feel. You don't know what is, man I'm gonna tell you, you don't know what it's like to be in a car with no tags, right?   I'm gonna skip subjects on you for a second. I wanna ask you about like, has there ever been a run-in with say another R&B group that they just didn't, y'all just didn't vibe? Not, you know, this is old stuff, so we can talk about it now. You've been looking at stuff, huh? So just talk about it a little bit. Well, okay, so I don't know if it's still on YouTube or in the whatever, but yes, my group, we got, so what helped us out was that, remember when the trial came and Reginald Denny got beat, so at that same time, we were in Virginia, we were in Richmond, Virginia and my boy got shot. My security guard got shot and my road manager was shot and that was because in Virginia, I guess when we got there, but they were saying, yeah, y'all think we punks?  And they had a beef with West, but at the time, when we would go back east, they would always say, y'all think y'all are that, y'all gangsta, y'all think y'all, you know, this and that and they would come for us. And there was a time when there was a guy who owned the club, who wanted us to perform at his club, but Hammer had a friend that actually owned the club in Richmond and he said, no, don't go to that club, you gotta go to my boy's club. So we went there and when we got out, the dude was mad and he was like, yeah, y'all niggas from Cali, niggas, niggas, niggas.    And the dude came and said, hey, and he said, yeah, I'll put a cap in y'all. And Chris got on the bus and said, pick us his name, they call him. We got that too. And he showed the gun and put it back and got on the bus. And all of a sudden, and I was known as Deuce Deuce to Shooter back then. Hey, Deuce Deuce to Shooter in him. So y'all gonna stop playing. And I only cared, then y'all gonna laugh at this out there. So I carried a 22, 22, like a BB gun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pop, pop, pop. But it can do some damage out. If it is, it can mess you up. But I, and I was known for having like a anger management back then. So him would say, take Deuce's 22 from him because when he gets mad, he might go off and do something. So they took, so my house was our, house took my gun. He had it. And what happened is, I'm always talking.  That's what's up. And I was, and so we leave in the club and when this is all taking place, I am still in the club about to go out. And all of a sudden I hear the gunshots. And house is on one side trying to shoot. And the rest of them are inside the bus or van, I mean the tour bus. I'm out in the front door and I'm trying to get on the bus but his name was Richard Carpenter. Guy rest his soul. He was Boyce de Men's security guard. He happened to be in Richmond. I think he lived there. And he was rolling with us and we didn't even pay him. And Richard and his other partner, they put me back and jumped on top of me. God is my witness, man. While the people are shooting at me and they jumped up and they opened the club door and they threw me back in and said, lock the door. They locked the door and the people trying to get at me. The guy, the club that was in, he had a car. He put me in a trunk and they drove me to the hospital and my Craig, I remember he got arrested. So he, he's no Craig Brooks. He used to live in Dallas. He was Dion Sanders, right hand man. He was my, he was our road manager. He worked with Hammer. And he just died this last year. When he lived in Dallas. I'm sorry to hear that. And so Craig got shot and my, I think of Frosty, one of my security got shot. And the tribute, and then when I get on the bus, the phone rings and Hammer's on it. I'm like, nigga, you fine. You were supposed to be on the bus with him. You were supposed to be on the bus with him. Because they didn't know where I was at. They was all nervous. They didn't know, yeah. And so we had that happen. And so after that happened, we started getting like, like necessarily up and coming groups. You know, like we'd be somewhere and we would get like tripping with us a little bit. You know? What groups? Just, I can't, I don't want to name. Why? I mean, it's, oh it's just 20 years old now. I don't want to name the groups. It's 25 years old. Some people, some people in LA know some things that happened. You know, I had a couple of beefs with some people that I don't know how I got in the beef with them. But, you know, that would be for the reality show, but there's- Oh, see, I got one. See that? We don't get this clue. There's some big time people that I got in beefs with them. I don't know how I got in the beefs with. You know what I'm saying? Man, I got a story. When I do do the reality, it's y'all gonna really trip out. Wow. Cause my boys left me hanging like I don't know what. Give me something, man!    Can I take this one, too fast story? So we're on the road with Tupac. We was in Chicago and we had to go to South Bend. And you had to take that little plane to go from Chicago to South Bend. And we had a debt back then. We used to carry these big old debt players that bought this big. Well, we didn't know they took the debt system. They said, well, there's too much luggage on here. We have to take some stuff off. So the plane was late. So by the time we got to the venue, Pac was upset and he put MC Breed on for us. But we was like, no, are we here? What are we going on? And MC Breed had our dressing room and everything. So we made MC Breed leave his dressing room. And he went to Pac's dressing room. And all I could hear was somebody, and see, I knew Pac from Digio Underground. I knew, because I'm from the Bay. And him and my cousin, Amir, the one that was, they used to be really good friends. And if you ever watched, I get around video. No, the Humpty Dance. Two Pacs on it and my cousins on it. Right, yeah? Yeah, he's dancing on it and stuff. Yeah, they together. Yeah, you see him dancing and stuff. And so what happened is, is that my boys was like, well, ain't Pac your friend? I said, well, yeah, I know Pac. And they said, what's going on?  And somebody was throwing a chair and doing some stuff. And it was Pac. So what I did was I went over and I said, well, I'll talk to him. So I go in and knock on the door. And the guy said, what's up? I said, hey, tell Pac it's juice, it's Lamar. Tell him, you all right? Hold on. So he goes, now at the time I asked the group, did y'all want to come with me? They said, no. But by the time he was going to go with Pac, they opened the door. Everything cool. So they all come out. So now they're behind me. So when Pac comes to the door, Pac is like, what's up? And I said, oh, I was just trying to make sure he was okay, I heard some stuff like that. Oh, he goes on. Now me and Pac know each other, right? Personally. Like we've had a bond. We've talked, we know each other. We from the bay, you know, all that stuff. He flipped out. Oh, man, did he flip out?  Me and you was cool. And I was like, and I, at the meeting said, oh man, no, Pac, look, I was by myself. They just came out. And so, I think Chris might have said something kind of like, we just making shows. So he goes back in. So that we did the show, great show. Get back to the hotel. I see Pac. I'm thinking we're gonna be like we were before. Pac gets on the elevator with his bodyguards. And he just sits there still. I said, hey, Pac, that was a great show. Hey, Pac, you ready for tomorrow? Don't say nothing to me. He didn't speak. Pac didn't speak to me for years. How many years? Oh my God, it was, it was some, actually when they did, I get around. Yeah. What happened is money was there. And I remember I called Monday and said, oh my God, y'all down. I said, I wanna come. And Monday said, I said, but I know Pac. Is Pac still mad at me?  I said, are you sure? Cause he ain't spoke to me. And he went over there and he was like, hey, come on down to the, what you call it? Cause I really, cause you know what? I really thought, one thing I say about Pac, and Money B always tells this story. Shout out to Money B. Money B was my manager for a while. He would say, if Pac believed that the sky was blue, but you told him it's not actually blue, it's actually a reflection from the water. He wouldn't believe it. If Pac, even though it's blue right there, if Pac said, no, that's orange, you could not convince him that that was not orange. So he was that one, he just one dimensional when it come down to what he thinks. If Pac thought that. But how did y'all, man, resolve the issue? How did you end up, whenever you finally started talking back? Or did you ever? I never discussed it, it was just, I mean, I had heard that, I mean, I know that some people were like, yeah, we like Deuce, but we're not too cool with the rest of the group. I used to get there sometimes, you know what I'm saying? And so, but it was cool. I have to admit, they took out of, Pac wasn't just, ah, what was I gonna say? He wasn't just a hero for our generation. Pac was consciousness for our generation. You know what I'm saying? A lot of things that he said, people are now doing or listening to and going, damn, Pac was really deep. You know what I'm saying? And that's because, like I said, we were raised in that, we were raised in that, like I have to give it to my mom, being with Nairobi College. Being, learning about where we come from. Growing up, learning what names were. Learning Swahili. Learning about your culture. Learning that a lot of black people don't know this. Kwanzaa is not an African tradition. It's from Long Beach, where DJ Kelly from. It's from Long Beach, California. Karenga, he just, he decided to put African principles in it. But when you learn your true history, you know what I'm saying? Like, people gonna be mad for me saying this. Not every African in Africa liked us and some of them helped sell us out and get us over here.  So they would have us go capture the people and bring them over. You know what I'm saying? Some people get mad at that, but it is what it is. And that's like I tell people, just because we came over on boats doesn't mean our people ain't great.  Cause you never know who they come from. They might be royalty. We don't know our heritage. I could be a king's great, great, great, great grandson. But even you could be, but would you ever find out eventually? Well, you know what- Is there a way? Cause- Well, like I found out, I did my DNA.  You know what I'm saying? You know what tribe? But my people from Mali. But my people from Mali, Mali. Right, but you don't know- And the greatest king, but the greatest king ever was from Mali. Right, but you don't know if you descended from that king in particular, or you just- Well, I can have dreams. That's true. Okay. I'm sorry, I'm just- No, no, you didn't took over the show and I'm glad you came a long ways to take over the show. I love your spirit, your energy. You made my job easy and I'm glad you came and you can always come back here. And I'm not just capping. This is real talk. I love your energy. I love your vibe. I love your energy. I love your vibe. We ain't got the vibe yet. You've just been doing all the talking. That's what it's here for. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But we brought up- This is where we- DJ King, when you put a old school legend on, they ain't been on television in a long time. Man, I love it, man. You're doing a great job. You got it, you know. But I'm gonna be honest with you guys. I thank you guys for letting me come up and talk and stuff like that. Man, I'm enjoying it. Because you don't get to put pearls of wisdom out there for people. And let them, you know what I'm saying? You can do it on Facebook and stuff like that. But here, people are really gonna listen. And they're gonna take note. And some people ain't gonna like what I got to say, which is fine. But even the music industry- Y'all get in the house part, I'm gonna step away for a second. Okay, I'll get in there in a second. But even in the music industry, the way how it is now compared to what it used to be, I see more artists gravitating to the business side. Because before it was, I'm just an artist. I'll have my manager here. I'll have this person. I just wanna sing. I just wanna rap. I don't wanna do nothing else. Now you have more artists.  I'm not gonna take these threes. I'm independent. I'm this, I'm that. So in order for them to do all of that, they have to know the business. So what do you think about where the artists have been now compared to where it used to be? Well, I'm happy for them. I'm happy that a lot of them have taken their own and said, look, I'm not gonna go with the record company. I'm gonna go independent. I'm gonna watch my own money. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna market myself. I love it because we didn't have those opportunities back then. We had what we called the 800-pound gorilla which was the record company. And the record companies would manage everything. You know, I was trying to tell them about when we did Gangsta Lean, I remember the next video was called Scoundrels Get Lonely Too. I wanted us to be riding up in limos or cars and stuff. And I remember the record company telling me, no, we're not gonna fund you for that. We want you to be in the streets. We want you to still be grimy.  And I'm like, but people know we just sold two million or more records. I know they know that we're coming up. So why don't you let my people see us coming up and the record companies didn't want to do that. How hard is it for you to adjust to the new way of life where the music industry right now compared to where you're coming from? Well, you know, like I tell people in Cali. And social media. DJ Cali will tell you, I'm still old school. So it's kind of, you know, I'm trying to catch up. You know what I'm saying? Like I have Facebook. I'm that old. I know I try to look you up on Instagram and I can find you. Yeah, I'm on Instagram, but I'm DRS underscore Gangsta Lean. So what happens is, but what happens is I forget about Instagram and that's all the youngsters be like, hey, dudes. Instagram, TikTok, you gotta be on all of that. I'm not even on Twitter. They're like, what's wrong with you? Yeah, you gotta be on Instagram. And I'll be honest with you, I give them props because that takes a lot of time to be able to upload this and do this and put this on Instagram, Facebook. It's a business. It's a business. But you can get paid. Yeah, well, now I'm learning that. Someone said, well, just put it on Instagram and you can have it go both. I'm just learning that. So I have to admit there is a curve there for us older artists and stuff like that.  You know what I'm saying? That's really gonna help them out. Because that's the new technology. That's the new thing. Think about it. One thing I did do though, during the pandemic, not taking anything from, what's his name, the DJ, but I actually during the whole pandemic, God woke me up and said, go online and start doing concerts. So if you guys go and you look on YouTube, you'll see that during the pandemic, I started in my living room. And I just started doing, I call the deuces, get down.  You know what I mean? And that's what social media does for an artist or for individuals, people who are internet famous.  You know what I mean? So tell us about. You okay? So tell us about House Party. Okay, now House Party. Now, y'all see DJ, DJ, now this is my new venture that I'm doing. This is DJ Cali remix. And I met him through my cousin, Candace. Candace Joseph was like, you gotta meet DJ Cali. You gotta meet him. You gotta work together, do some stuff. So we got online together.  We gonna do this and that. This is a brother that really does work. And he says what he's gonna do. And he means what he says. And so he was like, I wrote a song called Put Your Ballad In My Box. And basically what it was, just before the election, God was like, hey, you need to write a song about the election. And I was like, okay, but I don't want no corny song, you know what I'm saying? So I got this idea called Put Your Ballad In My Box.   I put my ballot in her box. You know, I got sidetracked when I seen her big old booty. So I kept thinking these things and I was like, well, you know, I don't know if the public's gonna really take to it. And my boys, when I went to the studio to record it, they was like, dude, shoot crazy. Ain't nobody gonna listen to this. But I did it. And I put it on, let me tell you what we was talking about technology, this is what I did wrong. I put it on Facebook. I got 15,000 views. But I really should have put it on YouTube and then put it on Facebook. So what happened is, and she's from Houston, Tammy Mack, KJLH heard it. She called me. She said, dude, you got MP3 on that? I said, yeah, she goes, give it to me. And so she played it in KJLH and LA. And people were like, man, who is this? And she, let's do some DRS. And they were like, oh man. So I got this little, you know, it's what you call it, Southern Soul. Got the beat and everything. So he heard it and he was like, man, you need to start doing some Southern Soul. And I've been told this, because R&B is kind of out the door now. There really ain't no true R&B. It's not out the door. Well, no, there's not really no, no, there's not really no true R&B. These new R&B singers aren't really singing R&B. Really the Southern Soul singers are doing the real R&B. That gut wrenching that, you know what I'm saying? They're doing that. And DJ Khali is in the forefront. DJ Khali, he's in the forefront of doing that. So he called me and he said, amen, let's work together. And he got me on a show out here in Dallas, called The House Party. Go ahead, talk. Yeah, this DJ Khali remix. Yeah, I got him on a show out here in Dallas. I got him on a show coming up in Galveston, January 22nd. And I got him on a show. We are in New Role, Louisiana, DRS. Lamar is going to New Role, Louisiana in January 21st. And I think we're in Lufkin on February 12th, pre-Valentine day. And then Waco, February 11th, and Waco. So we moving, we also working- Well, tell me about tonight. Oh, tonight is The House Party, you know what I'm saying? We're Frida Robinson, right here at the Expo Center.  Y'all gotta come out and see him do, y'all gonna take Teddy Pinnagrath and came back. You know what I'm saying? Oh my God, you don't tell me. You better be right and let me tell you something, man. Let me be real with you.  Listen, listen, man. No, let me just be honest with you, man. It's a lot of people, you know. There's a lot of, it ain't just turn off the lights, TKO and all those songs that ain't done. Listen, man. It's pressure when you start dealing with Teddy, man. If you gotta go back and listen to him and that I want to feel the fire, I think that was Stephanie Mill. Listen, man, don't play with that stuff, if you're not ready, because that there'll get you in trouble. If I should lose your love for the reason, and reason at all, just let my record show.  I feel the fire, I'm gonna leave you alone, I can't do it. I got something for you. Two artists named by C. Jones, they gave Mr. Willie and Do Right Man, they up under me, too. Lamar is gonna be the newest member to DJ Cali team. Okay, C. Jones produced a song where he did a reversion of the Turn Off the Lights. Really? Which C. Jones got on it, then we put Billy Sway in the middle, he's down here to do the third part. He's gonna be putting it out probably like next month and probably be out. Man. But the song is amazing. You know what, let me ask you something, man. I don't know if he's gonna be able to edit this for tonight, but if y'all here, y'all come, I'm doing some Teddy, I'm doing some DRS, and I'm doing that new song, Put Your Bells In The House. I was trying to do something, that's why I wanted him to do the last part, so I could just cut out the last part and just throw me out a little skit just for y'all. Okay, man. Yeah, it can be done, and it can be done quick and thrilled on some ways where we got real penetration. But, man, how hard is it to, when you meet a guy like DJ Cali to, you know, this is a new relationship for you. To trust. To come up with, you know, to say, hey man, I'm gonna trust this guy with what I'm doing to come and I'm here. Well, he know my family. I ain't worried about, no, no, I'm talking about you, how you feel about it. But you know what, when I, I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm a praying man.   I'm rolling, if I, one thing about me, if I'm rolling with you, I'm rolling with you. And what happened is that when I started talking to him and he just started talking to me real with me, tell me, look, we, I'm gonna have to do like a little contract. We gotta do this and that. And I was like, okay, you're real. And I saw his hustle. And then once he got me to show, he was like, I got another show for you. And I was like, okay, if he believes in me, I need to believe in him and be like, okay. And so he said, we family. So I'm like, okay, we family, let's roll. We're gonna do this. You know what I'm saying? One thing is like I told him at the court one time. I'll work for you. I'll make you a millionaire, but you gotta give me something. You know what I'm saying? Let me come up as well. Because if I'm a millionaire, you're a millionaire and something goes wrong with you, if I'm a millionaire, I might be able to help you out.  But if we came up together and I got money and I'm slipping, I might say, hey, I'm alone, you're $200,000. You know the guy from Subway? The guy that started Subway, that he just died. He was like 89, 90 years old. He got a loan from his friend for $1,000. And he helped and that's how Subway got started. A $1,000 loan. He died a billionaire. Oh really? Think about that. Somebody went and loaned. So apparently that man had some money. You know what I'm saying? And now I'm pretty sure that he was like, hey, you need $500 million, you need a million dollars, you need, that's what we need to do in this community. And that's the reason why I'm rolling with him because I can tell that, because he wanna make money, I wanna make money. You know what I'm saying? Let's make money together. Let's roll together.  When I think of Southern Soul, I think of my guy, you know, Sir Charles Jones, you know what I'm saying? I think of Sir Charles Jones. I think of- L.J. Eccles. L.J. Eccles. L.J. Eccles. Pokey Bear. Pokey Bear. I went home to be the not side of these. That boy got- I love it. Let me tell you what he do to that little dance because you know we haven't come out to California in the, and then the ladies started throwing the panties. So I said, so when he got off, he didn't pick him up, and so I got on the mic because I was hosting.  Go ahead.  You know what I'm saying? I know a lot of people in the industry in the Southern Soul. And it's a guy that's been in the R&B for years. Start off with Zero and all them big people, Lil Kiki is named as Pirah. Patrick Rodriguez, y'all can look him up. But he's making noise right now in Southern Soul. If you listen to all this Southern Soul music that he produced, it's none of them sound the same. None of them. From Do Right, from Nipple In It. They're called on YouTube, it's called Nipple In It. You know what I'm saying? Songs like other songs that we then did. I also produced a song that I did. It re-dead of Tony, Tony, Tony, Tony. You know what I'm saying? The Man. So I got Do Right doing Missing You. And then I got this new artist, C. Jones, which is AKA Mr. Willie. But what I wanted to say, P. Rod is taking the time to work on this album.  So he's taking the time. He said, why he out here? Let's work, Cali. Let's work. And that's what I told him. I'm being honest with you, at home, you don't really find love like that anymore. You don't really find people that say, I believe in you. Let's do this. Let's work together. Let's come and do that. And that's what I want to do, this new round. I want to just inform brothers and sisters and say, you know what? Let's put down that guard. Let's be the owners of this. Let's, y'all got this, you know what I'm saying? I'm praying that people come, people see, and that's why I put it on my Facebook and say, hey, look what they got. Look what's going on.  Yeah, I love joggers. And when I came, when I was like, I could have came here yesterday. I went to the mall. But I didn't know about the place. But that's what we got to start doing. My mom has a little business. It's called Shirley Sugar and Spice. She do essential oils, all that kind of stuff. My mother makes beer cream. She do the, she has this back stuff that's really great. I got to get with her. Yeah, well, she's in Sacramento though. So you know what I'm saying? But they have like in Sacramento, it's called a Florence Square. But it used to be called the African Marketplace.  That's what we got to start doing. We got to start being collectives.  You know what I'm saying? You're not gonna get that one million discount. So you are gonna, maybe your shirt might be a little bit more. But what we got to understand is that if I uplift you, and this is what the problem is though, if I uplift you and I make your store and I'm giving you money, you got to get back to me as well. And that's what happens. A lot of times we don't do that. We keep the money, we keep getting the money in, we keep getting the money, and we'll do nothing for the community. I think that's one of the things that kept us in the community as long as we've been here is because of the things that we've had to do to help the community and help the, you know, whether it was giving back to single parents like your mother was. We had times when all single mothers came in and got free shoes. When everybody else was on tax free weekend, we gave stuff away that weekend. So this is the stuff that keeps us going. Homeless people, homeless guys who walk about here on a daily, you know, just getting an opportunity to help, you know, do things to keep people understanding they got a place they can come to that supports the community. That's not about trying to make the most out of every single item. That's, we've been here because we've always been the type of people to try to help others, man. I really do believe that, you know, so that's probably why your mother has been doing it long as she has. My mother's ankle line, I gotta give it up to my mom, Shirley Shepard, I love you, mom, if you watch this.   But I'll be honest with you. See, I come from my mama's ankle line. My mother used to drive around and she would see pine cones on the ground and she'd make us get out the car and say, pick them up when we embarrassed. No, mama, I wanna pick up these pine cones and she would get them and my mother would air dry them and she'd make reefs for Christmas and she'd do that. My mother did t-shirts. My mother did, she went to floral school so she could, mother had like a little floral company one time where she was trying to do the corsages and do all that kind of stuff. And my dad, even though I didn't grow up with my dad in the household, I did, one thing I have to say, I did grow up with my dad. My dad had a business, I had a barbecue restaurant, he had the yogurt, he had the car detail. My dad, so my parents always did something and before my dad died, I actually got my mom and dad to do a restaurant together and I tell people- I had to make you feel good. Man, you know what, as a kid, my prayer was always for my mother and father to be together. Whose prayer is not that? And you know what, and God had to remind me, even though they weren't married, when my mom opened up, she opened up a restaurant. And it was, you know, and I was living in LA and she was a Sacramento and I called my dad and I said, dad, you've had the restaurants, you've done this and that, I need help. And my dad came, he came over to Sacramento and helped my mother out. He did skis. And helped my mother out. And one day I'm sitting there and I walk in the place and my dad is on one side, barbecue and doing something. My mom was in the kitchen cooking and it was so nice to go, hey mom, hey dad. And you know what, and God said, I gave you what you wanted and it ain't how you wanted it. But you got it. But I got it, but you got it. And that's what we got to sometimes remember that when we pray things, sometimes it ain't the time you want or how you want it, but he'll give it to you. And be very, very particular of how you pray. Because sometimes we think we want something until you get it. And I always said God is a very humorous God. Oh, he is. Sometimes you pray for something and when you get it like, I didn't want it. You weren't very specific of how you wanted it. House party, you know, we getting back to house party because we get to be here. Y'all keep rolling past house party. I want to roll back to it again. Who all's guest is going to be there tonight? He's got a couple bands going to be there. I don't have a flyer that I know. Well, I have it, but my battery low. I know, like I said, my artist, C. Jones, A.K. and Mr. Willie going to be there singing and song, Mr. Willie, do right man. Nigel Perkins coming all the way from Atlanta. My boy Lamar. But I also want to say I got a good friend that just came in town. He's also coming to see you, man. He's the hottest, one of the hottest DJs in Los Angeles, Sam Bernardino. Don't work with everybody and won all the battles in the DJ battles in California. Mr. Mystery, right there, y'all. Right there. Well, that's the one making all that damn noise. Oh, you are. Hell, Mr. Ray. He want to have a hell of an entry.  I'm going to start one-on-one show. Yeah. I didn't even know the way it was back there. I was wondering what y'all was doing. I was like, okay. I was like, let me make sure you know what I'm trying to shoot. Nah, this ain't Cali, man. We good, I believe. I hope so. Okay, that's my boy, man. Good to have you, good to have you. Tell me y'all the stuff about DJing. He's the hottest dude in California, man. Wow, that's what I'm talking about, man. Unities, they say our people don't get along and get together, but you got all these people that have been built up on our backs, the Jay-Z's, the Kanye's, they start out in black communities, they get they uplifting first from the black community and then they're able to launch and cross over. It happens with us first and I think a lot of times people don't acknowledge that enough. It starts with the community that surrounds you and then you get uplifting through black people. Well, it's just like when Melvin told me, see, I didn't realize when he called me that time with Diamond Carter. Yeah. Okay, so Diamond was doing the show with y'all and so I'm the one when Diamond said, my brother was killed and he called me and said, can you do me a favor? Can you sing Gang Staling 4? So I sang Gang Staling 4 on the phone with her. That was me singing to her and just think how things come back around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I am on your show. Well, you're on the best show in Dallas, Texas right now. Really in the south. And probably in the world. In the south of show. Probably in the world. We ain't gonna win. No, we not gonna, we not just gonna. I'm not in California. Like he said, you gotta think about little brave things. I'm not in California. No, no, no, no. You will be after this. I'm going there.   So y'all want to say everywhere? Well, everywhere. Hey man, it's going down, baby.  Everywhere. How about this internet? You can be everywhere. I can be everywhere. Anytime you guys are here, man. Y'all know we love you, man. House party, man. And tonight, I think tickets is. Y'all got to get out there, man. It's 25, before 9 o'clock. And what time it starts? 40 dollars. It starts at 7 o'clock. The door's open. Starts at 8 o'clock. Now I go on about 11 o'clock, but you guys got to pass. We got to pass. So if you have whatever. I'm going to come a little later. I'm back here. I'm going to come a little later. I brought my cameras and my microphone. Stop playing. I can bring my cameras in my bag. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm cool with it. I can bring my mics and y'all. We can set up there. You got my release already. So you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got the release on you soon as you hit the door. You ain't for to just be telling us. I want to say one thing. He performing in Texas. He coming through. I need y'all there. And we ain't. We're going to be there. One on one. So I got to give it up for Melvin. Thank you. That's my guy. I know Melvin. Like Lamar, you talking too much. Yeah. That's the whole thing.  He probably back next week. He coming back. We trying to redo everything we did before. We're thinking about bringing it back. All the way back. I'm going to say this. Now I don't really know what his name was. I told him off. Charles White. I don't really know him. But I will say this, nothing negative. But I do like, I ain't going to lie. He does say some stuff that really. Make you think. No, it do really make you think. And I do love when he's talking about. Cause I said the same thing. We need to be the owners. And he says, he thinks that. Oh, you think that. We don't need to be the workers. And we need to be the owners. Because if we become the owners, then they'll learn about us. In our ways, in our customs, and how we do things, and how we treat people. Because then if we have that, think about it. We could really knock out some a little bit of racism. Listen, man. Because in the future, when white folks going to be mad about this, we all going to be brown or tan or something. It's something to Charles to white, man. Everybody, he, everybody. Either they hate him or they love him, but they damn sure watch him. Well, I was a gambler. To everybody. I was a gambler three weeks ago. And I didn't really, I heard about him. You know, I'm in LA with some stuff and there was some funk going on. And I was in the barbershop in Platinum Cuts in Galveston. And everybody was just glued watching. Told you. And I was like, okay, like NBA player? He was like, no, he just beat a case. And you know, when he was 17. And 13. He didn't beat the case.  It's a lot to it. No, I thought they exonerated him. But they did, they did after he, yeah. But he went through it already, yeah. Yeah, yeah, so, I mean, and I don't know if people know your story. You know, we really got to celebrate those that went in that came out with a different mindset. Because when you went in, you didn't have the same mindset. Say man, it's a song. He got to go through everything for a reason.  Yeah, I mean, but then, but and sometimes I think God does that for a reason. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes there has to be something to choke you and say, hold up, what you doing? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.  Definitely make you stronger. Yes. Definitely make you stronger. Well, I want y'all to come up and let's talk about House Party one more time. One more time. I'll give it one more time. I did forget somebody. I did forget somebody, y'all. Who did you forget? Ice Buck that sang the song with Nellie Travis. It's called Back That Countrytrain. That is Michael Jackson's first cousin. Really? He's also going to come up and interview him tonight, y'all. Michael Jackson's first cousin. Glenn, do me a favor. I think you say that one. Michael Jackson's first cousin. He don't want to roll the new album. Let's see that part real quick. Hold on. I'm going to tell y'all right now. First cousin. Whose son is he? That's the mother. That's the father. Father, sons, cousins, brothers. Hey, I need to get your top three artists of all time. You hear me? Hey, I need your top three artists. I'm just clowning right now. I need top three artists of all time. They're not alive. Any genre. All three. Number one. Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder, you're number one? Stevie Wonder, my number one. That's the first Stevie Wonder, y'all. I'm going to be honest with you. No, we've got to see how it goes. I like crazy songs by Stevie. Like Mr. Know It All and stuff like that. Number two. Number two would have to be... It'd have to be Teddy. I knew it. Turn it on. We knew Teddy was going to be in there somewhere. Number three. Well, you know what? Yeah, because when I was a kid, I didn't think I could sing because one of my aunties said, oh, Teddy, he'd just be hollering. He don't sing, so I didn't think I could sing. And number three. Number three. Oh, that's hard. Oh, number three is hard. Everybody said number three is hard. Number three is hard. But they don't want to bump it right now. But you got to pick one, though. But you, okay, it's a group, though. I'll let you do a group. Okay, no, I'll do an artist and then we do the group. No, you only have one choice. One choice left. Number three. And everyone's going to trip on this, but the OJs. Hey, the boys went hard, man. The boys went hard, yeah. That's our first OJ. I don't care what you say, the boys went hard. A lot of people have slept on the OJs. And if you hear and listen to them... What's your favorite song? That man and I, we cried together. Come on, sir. Oh, let's get that thing, man. Stairway to Heaven. Yeah, I'm dead. I don't know. How does that go? Man, let's stairway to heaven. Here we go. Oh, yeah, that's a nice song. Oh, man, you go, oh, hey, baby, here we go. Stairway to heaven. Yeah, yeah, it's going hard. Step by step. Yeah, you know what I mean? Step by step. Oh, man, when I was a kid, I heard that. The boys be on point, too.  And even though everybody love Eddie, Eddie Laverne. Oh, most definitely. Walter is a bad man. You like Walter. Oh, man, I really thought, because if you listen to EJ and me, I always thought we sounded like we could be the OJs. But when you think back to the OJs, y'all left that whole phase. Y'all come out with big Dickie suits on. Yeah, y'all niggas wasn't coming out like no OJs. You niggas had on Dickie suit. Well, you have to realize that that was the culture. Wait a minute, wait a minute.  Say that, wait a minute. Now that niggas just, I sagged, but you didn't see my drawers. But y'all, y'all see how it started out like that. Y'all was different, cause they come back to the mic when they were, they were singing and then they'll come back and come back to the mic. You niggas had on Dickie suits, jumping in cars with Oozies. That's something different. But I'm going to let you make it though. Wait a minute, wait a minute. So look, we got House Party Night. And it's Ice Buck. It's, let me get it on. Sea Jones. It is Addis Al Harrison and the Mojo Band. A DJ Callie live in the mix. We got Elroy Jackson and the Legends Be Funky. Do Right Man, Mr. Understanding. Taste the Flavor. And you got me, Deuce. And you got also, uh-oh. This Derrick, hold on, hold on my boy. And you got Nigel Perkins, the soul singing. And you got Cole, that Callie? Callie album release.  I know the tickets are like 25 a person, couples $40. I think they got tables and stuff. It's at the Expo event hall. That is 2550 West Redburn Lane. Sweet 300 Dallas, Texas. 75237. Next to Hair Gallery Beauty Supply. That's amazing. I can't wait to see it. So y'all come on. I'm going to do Gangsta Lean tonight. I'm going to do No More Love. I'm going to do some Teddy.   Yeah, go on about 11. Closing the show. So y'all be there. Oh, so you're closing the show. It starts at 8 and it ends at about 12. Yeah, 12, yeah. Okay, okay, okay. So come on out. Come on out and come see me. I hope y'all can stay till the end. But come see me here. I ain't going to lie. I ain't coming to make sure you got that dickie suit on. That's all I'm going to show you now. Yeah, nigga. Y'all don't know where the dickie suit is. I didn't bring the dickie suit. I do have one though. I do have one that I do wear sometime. But since this really wasn't a deal, this is Lamar Deuce Lubin's show.  So what is your style? Hold on, hold on, hold on. Like that, that's all. Yeah, we're going to shut it down, man. We love you. Oh, I love y'all, man. You love me too, DJ Khaled. But it's your show. No, we got no. No, we family. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Melvin, Melvin, you messed up. Save, man. It's been another great segment of Boss Talk 101. And we out.