Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Look who I'm with here. You're not going to believe this.
I'm live in Atlanta, Georgia, and there's one person you talk to when you come here about anything, politics, economy, life, sneakers. He just came right from a Puma commercial Killer Mike, Mike Render.
Great to see you in person, No less, I'm great.
Last time we came down here for the special election for Senator Warnock, we had a chance to talk. We were down at Ebenezer, but we weren't together. And it's great to see you at our set here today. It's fantastic. So look, this is someone who needs no introduction. You're a superstar Grammy Award winning artist, you're an actor.
Now you've got your own bank. You're also one of the faces of Georgia.
Tell her audience, people are watching Bloomberg TV all over the world what they need to know about your state, because tomorrow we're going to be here talking elections, talking issues. What is it that makes Georgia special this time?
I mean Georgia has the ability to effect election in a big way, the same way did And when I say affect the election, these elections are in first and foremost for George. I want people to think hyper local. Who are gonna be our two Supreme Court justices in Georgia avenues. We have two amazing women that are running. You know, how are we gonna make sure we get all soft back in there? First two times? I worked like a dog on the behalf of this campaign.
We got a man.
I had a call from him about a week and a half ago like, hey, you know, looking forward seeing out there again or not? Who's done a had OUs off at went and done an amazing job hitting the ground.
So you know, I think I think we got to hit the ground.
I think we got to galvanized, plot, plan, strategize, organized, and mobilize our way to the polls. It was important then, it's important now. And know Tie, you know what I understand. We don't have to stay in a perpetual state of feel that we're gonna lose it all if we're losing an election or this is important. My grandmother taught me that it was in the civic responsibility to vote Ms.
Ellison, who was an.
Absolute tyrant, and my civics teacher taught me to appreciate the Bill of Rights and Constitution because I had no rights in her classroom, and she made sure that I understood that I was lucky when I got outside their classroom. Exercise was right. So I'm always encouraged to help people get to the post. I'm always encouraged by every election, no matter how minuscule and small it is. And I encourage people to do their research. Going your Google while
you're on your lunch break. Yeh, see who's running in your district, who agrees with you? Talk to your neighbors, see who they want. And you, guys, you know, make demands of the politicians that you get in office. The day after they win, they should get a note from you. These are the potholes we want feel this week.
Well, a lot of people must have been talking to their neighbors because a million Georgians voted early.
That's a record. What do you make of that.
I'm excited and I know that this state that has been politically active for a very long time. And I think that whether it was the wise decision of William Hartsfield to give del to an extended contract here, or the wise decision or Maynord Jackson to say, hey, our own local companies, including being black, companies can build this air for it. I think those kind of local decisions have helped make us in the international city.
So I think that we're going to continue to do that. So go Georgiana.
This is a tough time for our economy, which we talk about a lot here on Bloomberg. As you know, you and I spent a lot of time talking about the deep banked last time you were on. Even if you have a bank account, now you're dealing with four and a half dollar gas, You're dealing with mortgage rates, a housing market that won't budge.
We're seeing food prices.
Go up now with this war underway, and I'm wondering to what extent that's impacting Atlanta as a city and decisions at the polls tomorrow.
It's impactful. Atlanta has more. I'll give you an example directly from my community. Atlanta has more black millionaires than any other city, Atlanta and DC at the top two. You look Atlanta that we have the greatest wealth disparities too, between the lords and ice. We actually are microcosm of America. Maria that probably has greater economic opportunity in the country, in the world. For a person that lands here on a boat one hundred years ago with someone that's getting
off the plane today. But with that said, we have some of the biggest disparities, and we have lack of education, lack of proper we have food deserts, we have lack of proper healthcare. We can fix these things. I think that our mayor in Atlanta near Dickens is an amazing job of getting people house. I think that small businesses like the One TI and Open TI and I have open called man Kit Seafood, which employees nearly forty people, are important. We have millions of small businesses that are
in the country. Everyone cannot work for large corporations right for these small and medium businesses. As FIFA comes here and World Cup is here, we're going to have those small and medium businesses some growth, but we don't want them to go.
We want them to keep people employed.
So in these tough times, let's make sure we're supporting small and local that's school's going to keep people employed. Let's make sure that we demand more of our politicians in terms of if you look what our marrors done up in New York in terms of eliminating some debt to stuff and get breas and some pressure off people.
Let's look at those candidates. We're going to do that here, and let's spok for this.
I love that you first reached for Supreme Court in your first answer, Yes, because national coverage hasn't gone down to that level in most cases in Georgia. But I'm hearing more about those two Supreme Court seats than just about anything other than the big ones, the gubernatorial and Senate primaries.
And it has a lot to do with redrawing maps.
People started to really wake up to what they see as a potential opportunity here.
Is that why I'm hearing so much about it.
Yeah, the re district, that is the why.
And you know what what I'm encouraged by in Georgia is because being discussed racially, and it does in fact impact my community from a racial standpoint, because some places it's going to be used to deny to break up
black constituents from proper representation. But I would like to implore right now that the working class understands that the master class of the planning class in the South three four hundred years ago did not care about the poor workers that they were working in the fields, whether they would look like near you. They didn't care if they were the people that were labeled rednecks.
They came out of the UK.
They didn't care if the people they looked at that they brought from the shores out. But they cared about economic domination. And if you think that this is not a working class issue and it is only a racial issue, it will only be so long before there you are on the chopping block and there's no one there to
advocate an ally. So I would implore the working class right now to make sure that you get people in office that are going to represent the you, and I would encourage the corporate class to make sure that they're there. Or what you want to see is a break in this country that we haven't seen and nearly.
Well, that's fascinating because the redrawing of congressional districts, particularly after the Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act, seemed to be distinctly racial.
Is it not, Well, at that time, it had to be. I'm just saying that at the time that Martin Luther King was fighting for proper workers' rights in the fair ways for black people in Mississippi, the most underpaid people and people who were resisting him the most were also white and Passipians. At the time that Colin Kaepernick, skip bag.
Was still an amazing thing.
One time, Joe he said that I think it was in Pittsburgh everyone kneeled in solidarity with kapern Kaepernick one player did not.
Believe he was a white player.
The player, of course patriotic, believed in this country, and that was great. But the NFL was notorious for having a bully pit in terms of negotiations with the players' association. Skip said that guy doesn't understand and what he did. He broke solidarity and broke the ability for them to move as a unit beyond this particular issue. So I want to say that even if it feels distinctly racial, understand that if the tactics work on race based on me,
who will work on class to you. So I say, whether you're in the Appalachians or Atlanta, you had better beware of than anybody that wants to read.
These are incredibly important points that you're making. Will Georgia Redraw do you think that's done?
I don't. It's something I disagree with my governor on.
Yeah, you know, and I think he's ruled with a pretty fair hand, and I think he's absolutely wrong. So I say that to him. I say that on national television. I think it is not a wise thing to do. I think that Georgia has shown itself to be emotionally intelligent terms of going in the voting booth.
I think that our.
Mayors in Atlanta have done a great job of working with our governors, be the Democrat or Republican, from Joe Frank Harris, A Zell Miller on through to our Tremc Gerran current governor. I think that it throws the balance of Georgia. Often it makes us copy states that are not as progressive as you think.
Politics.
All day there's music a hobby at this point. This is it's amazing to listen to you.
No, I love, I love so most of the day I'm thinking, oh my god, how can I make sure this restaurant doesn't cost me any more money? So I'm thinking bank kase foul. I'm thinking music because I'm going to be working on Michael too this summer. But lately I've been thinking about acting. I've been luckily you sure you're not the only handsome guy. Get to look in his eyes and we talk. But I get to I get to sit across from Ethan Hawk on the show calls a Low Now, and I've been brought in for
seasons called Yeah. It's very fun working with Scarpettit is amazing, But Scarpett is an amazing show.
How do you prepare for an acting role differently than you would for a musical show?
Or to sit down and record something?
Well, music you count you can record just emotionally get it out and men you can go back and learn the song and you can imitate the emotion. Interesting with with acting, it's important that you do what you do in kindergarten repetition. Let me learn these words. I have to say my ABC perfectly or.
I have a horrible memory. I could never do this.
So your mom won't let you go outside till you say all ABCIX. And you have to treat yourself like that. I see my actors and writers have to get along because you get there in solitude, and then you got a good reading partner. I have a filmmaker friend whose name is on Michael Allen, and he reads with me. I have friends in the industry that give me good advice. So I think you know more than anything. Kindergarten taught your repetition about that, and once you learn it, put some more repetition.
Indeed.
But everything we're talking about is a creative exercise that you're involved in. And there are big questions about the way AI is about to change or is already changed this. Whether you're a visual artist a music shouldn't I could. I was talking to Chuck Level about this a little bit earlier. You could listen to AI music that's not even made by a person anymore.
Is that a good or a bad thing?
Well?
I knew, I know.
A producer sent me a track last night that I ended up getting on. This an amazing track. He said, I couldn't wait for a singer to sing it, so I sang it myself and made AI fix my voice. Wow, ah man, he sounded amazing. I'll never let him sing it live. We're going to find a real singing but it was it enabled him to get his idea out.
And what I found with technology.
And it's interesting because I was just told by the president of Georgia Tech that they're actually bringing a program that teaches technology through creativity.
You're going to be able to learn music. But at the same time be learning colding.
I think that's absolutely genius and chut friend from childhood rahem b I, who's a professor of maritis over here. But what happens is I think that AI is going to give musicians and artists the ability to have another tool to use their imagination. Yes, I can imagine a sketch before I draw it. But the ability to use AI to say, do the sketch and then I'll draw might work.
Might help.
That's important though, so it would augment your work now replace you as the Artist's.
A possibility there if we take advantage.
Of it, if we do it right, if we do it right.
Yeah, you don't do some wrong before you do it right.
Playing with AI is this part of your world. And you got claud, You've got John.
And I I am as ignorant as can be. I know much about a AI as my grandpa knew about it.
Well, listen, maybe we'll learn together.
The Absolutely, it means a lot to us that you came all the way here to see us appreciate having you on Bloomberg. I'm very happy for your success and I'm looking forward to the next show.