I gotta be honest, babe. Sometimes I struggle with pushing black excellence because I don't want to push in a way that seems like I'm trying to assimilate to whiteness.
M you see what I'm saying.
You might have to elaborate on that with me. When I think about black excellence and black power, I just feel like we need to keep creating more spaces and arenas to celebrate ourselves so we don't have to feel like we need to assimilate.
Dead Ass. It all started with real talk, unfiltered, honest, and straight from the heart. Since then, we've gone on to become Webby Award winning podcasters in New York Times bestselling authors.
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Because we got a lot to talk about.
Story time. The funny thing is Tripple was just like, YO, tell us a story about the time you realize the difference between black power and black excellence, And I knew exactly where to go. I was coaching at Aviator at the time, and we had a couple of athletes who were part of the group. It was about forty guys in our college group, and we had two guys who were not black. And one time the dude came. I don't want to say his name because people go back
and look. He came to workout, was late, and I'm screaming and balking and I'm just like, yo, like you got to be on time. He's not saying nothing because they know that I don't deal with the excuses. Right The next day, the whole group was late, and I got pessed at what the fuck is going on? All thirty of them kids, the black kids, right well, almost forty went to pick the one white kid up from the bus stop because he had issues with the bust at the bus stop the day before, which is why
he was late. All of my college kids, all of them black kids, went to go pick that white kid up, and they pressed whoever was at the bus stop, and then they came and they were all late, and they all ran together because they knew they was late. So and part of the reason why I love them kids too, My prototype kids y'all know who y'all are. I love
y'all to death. Part of the reason why I said black power versus Black excellence is because although it was excellent that those guys all stayed together to help this one white kid, right, what bothered me is that it was a group of black kids that was giving the white kid a problem to begin And that's what showed the power of all of these black men going to stand up and say, yo, like, in this moment, he one of us. He and this is the funny part.
This is the funny part. I'll never forget this. I'm gonna say this one kid name, his name is Rogers.
Everybody knows, you know, Roger.
And Roger kept saying, we don't give a fuck if he's white. If he late, we all got to run. So since we all got a run, we fucking y'all up and he late, and I was like, y'all was really it was like, yo, we're not running because he late. And they all banded together. But the problem, the reason why I said it wasn't black excellence because they was giving the white boar problem just for being white, and that part of Brooklyn to get to where his workout was.
I wouldn't call that black excellence, because that's the things we fought against in this country, not feeling accepted or not feeling like we can go anywhere, and here we made someone else feel that way. And it took thirty to forty young black brothers in college to go there and be like, yo, we're not doing this right.
I think there's an excellence in that they were able to band together said listen, we're not doing that and collectively either we're all gonna run or we're all not gonna run, because I think you did you make him run? If they were they coming back with him going to defend him.
I didn't. And now here's the funny part. I didn't know why they were all late when they came back. So when they all came in late, I said, nobody, say nothing to me. Get on the fucking line.
The lines they were prepared.
They were prepared them.
Yes. And the funny thing is I didn't call it black excellence, even though it is excellence, because it came from a bad spot, from a bunch of young blackies. But it also showed the power of numbers and the fact that they were able to go back into their own community and be like, yo, we're not doing this. But there was powering that not just excellence, but also power. There's power and telling other people to stand down. So that's why I chose black.
But how to treat you?
Absolutely, karaoke time, karaoke time. I couldn't pick a song.
It's several. I feel like that comes to mind when you think about black power.
So I decided to kind of mix too. Okay, one of course, shout out to Hove and it's just the beginning. Everybody knows it's black excellency, black legacy, legacy, legacy, black excellency. But I'm gonna go right into a fight power.
That's I see you dressed for the occasion to come. I missed the today, I missed the look at me looking like a I don't know what I look like right now.
I'm have to say this ain't nothing to do with black excellency of black power. But you've been losing weight and working out and you're looking great.
Thank you.
This thing is like like it's just one thing.
It's one thing, and it's swallowing me up right now. It's given me a little bit of comfort as I'm still trying to get well from me and sick. But yeah, I needed warm and fuzzy. It's giving warm and fuzzy, isn't it. Do I look warm and fuzzy?
It's one thing. And when you walk by me, that thing in the back was.
Still going like this, Well she ain't lost that.
Let's take a break and we'll be back with the whole gang.
Indeed, all right, y'all were back. One thing I'm gonna do is cut up in between breaks. We over here paying bills and they're over here making fun of me. So josh, what I look like today?
Goog go?
As long as they're gluten free, thanks, then, oh my god, truth will take me out of my miserbel who we got for today? Uh?
Firstdeen look like she.
Was like, no, i'mnna leave you alone.
Listen underneath this, Okay, this this garment, this frock. I'm coming for all the BBO allegations this summer, y'all. I've been in the gym. I'm coming for the allegations period. That's the fact I'm getting it together, y'all.
Right, I'm right.
I don't know if I want to sabotage or not, because people be asking could.
Get a b bl Oh my god.
But this summer, I might be like, I don't know, girl.
It's been around me the longest and most consistently. I say you well other than you, But people will probably automatically assume that my husband would like keep my dark secrets. Matt, I feel like sees me the most. Have you ever seen me in recovery from anything other than the It was that one day.
I've been seeing you working out. When I go to the gym, I think Kadeen. When I get tired, I'll be like, Kadean.
Do you really do?
I love that because every time I look in the mirror, I don't see Kadeen.
That's triple.
Every day everything she does, what is kadem She.
Will like, you ain't bodied up over there? You gonna do is twenty minutes? If you walk twenty minutes every day, be straight, I'm gonna do that.
You give me three.
You don't work out every day?
No?
I work out like three times a week.
I tried to mean, that's not bad.
Average American does not work out. Ever, Yeah, the average American, I believe it does not.
That's what America looks like the way they look.
Matter of fact, This has nothing to do with this, but I do want to say this, right. A study show that the average American child can't do one pull up right. The average American child does not sweat enough to rid itself of any of the purities in its body for it to be a normal child. So think about where children will be twenty years from now, living the way Americans live. Think about it, Brook eating all of the process, Cookie, I'm probably gonna be obese to.
Then, all right, but I did see something really exciting that I can wait to talk to you about. The varn Nell Hill spin off series, Let's Go Yo, Man Can.
Hollywood Swinging is my favorite episode that finally went to Hollywood.
God Man Can Boy.
It was a two part episode too, so that made a great too. Is he playing it?
Tommy Davidson is starring in it, And it sounds like it's gonna be like thirty Rock, So it's gonna be focusing on the behind the scenes of the Varndale Hills show and how he's trying to stay relevant after so many years on the air.
It sounds like it's gonna be really good and it's kind of documentary, is right.
It sounds like it might be either documentary or like thirty Rock wasn't documentary, but it did have like since it was behind the scenes, it kind of gave like real life field.
My opinion, I'm tired of reboots. I'm gonna be honest to reboots. I feel like Tommy Davison was such a force in the nineties. I wish they would have given him his time when he was at like the peak, like Tommy Davison during that time and did Booty Call with Jamie Fox was great, and that he was on Martin. I just wish that they would have gave it his time twenty years ago.
That's all I wish.
I mean, I'm probably gonna tune in because I love, you know, Tommy Davison. Yeah, but I just wish it twenty five years ago.
I hear, I got no app today.
No, I like the Fresh Prince.
Sorry, y'all.
Well, I for when I'm looking forward to it. I do like that character, Varnel Hill character. I think it was great, and I'm looking forward to see who he has coming on the show, because if it's if it's a spin off of his character, his actual character being a TV host or that daytime or night time.
He's a nighttime TV host.
He has to have guests, and hopefully they're incorporating that into the show. I'm looking forward to the possibilities of it. Tommy Davison is always a good time pause.
Jimmy Davison is a legend. Bro.
Yeah, for sure, hope you have jobs on the show.
And Martin comes down this.
I want Martin to be on the show. That's one of the.
Most classic TV moments, Bro. I feel you though, Gosh, that would actually be dope because the nostalgia of the guests and stuff will be Yeah, triple what you got ready now, I'm ready for it.
I like that it's an extension of the Martin universe. I think it's going to be different, not really a reboot, because it's not. He wasn't a regular character. He was on two episodes, so this is like an extension that really has nothing to do with the show so much.
And then I want him to do that. The one thing I do want.
Him to do from the Martin Show is say take the children.
Is man, yo, let us wrong with us.
With Tommy Davis him. Did y'all seeing Martin break character?
Absolutely was that even on the sides I just want to know now, don't know. There was no script. I'm sure all was improvsh.
Is delicious, Martin lost Tom Davis.
That was the goal, though, I saw in a recent interview. The goal was to break the Martin on that show, like anybody we had, whether it was the cast or they wanted to break him. Yeah, because he was a kid at that point. Yeah, so I get it. Specifically Martin or not or other they want to break.
They want to break because he would always break that. He was always funny and they had to kind of learn how to be funny. You can tell like Tacha Campbell, No, she didn't get funny to like season three.
Yea, yeah, she admits to it.
She did.
She was like sort of passive.
Yeah. She would have let Martin say stuff to her until it was like YO, say something back and she would come back with us.
Right, and then I feel like she evolved into kind of yeah, definitely, and that's what I kind of was, like, I don't know, girl over the top after Yeah, it was a little bit too to Martin. Like Martin.
That's another one of my favorite episodes.
We got the kids saying it that time. We took them to Arizona.
It was such a thing.
It's the Martin Reunion episode, right, Well, Martin, it was black excellence and he was black power.
That was a fact. That is a fact.
Oh my goodness, think about all this. It comes back in the day. I think they all were exhibiting a level of black excellence and power.
If you go back to those times, watch how so many of those artists at the time wore black college.
Yeah, a different world.
It was part of the movement.
Martin always had like negro league jersey, which I thought it was really bring in.
Black college and university sweaters.
And all that.
It's the stuff that you realize when you watched this stuff years later. You weren't really thinking about that in that moment as kids. He was just like, you know, but yeah, pretty dope, we'll.
Be I next, I got an opera? Was that real quick?
And goes to the topic what's that is Bill Cosby black power and black excellence as well?
I think at a certain time he was black excellence and he used his he created black power because of his stature. I think it's unfortunate that he's also a perverb.
But can be true.
Yeah, and not even talking about that but he also there were other people who were coming up during that time, artists like rap artists and all that. He was opposed to a lot of those vernacular their speech, with how they how they spoke.
So did you see his arguments, Well, they just showed an interview with him talking about how purposeful he was with NBC. But he used to have a psychologist on set, and they would say he told them he never wanted black people to be in a negative light on his TV show, So when they wrote things and they scripted things out, they had a psychologist on set to say whether or not this would be perceived by black people in a negative light. Really, yes, he was that deliberate.
Bill Cosby was about making sure that people were seen in the way that they had never been seen before. And this goes to what Trouble was saying the last time. He wanted black people to see themselves as attorneys and doctors, but not as black attorneys and doctors. He made it very clear that I don't want to be known as a black comedian as the black sitcom. He's like, I want to be known as the standard for sitcoms that happens to be black.
Which then in turn had people thinking that this was like not realistic, right.
But that's what life and that's the thing that's his life. If you're living at a certain level of affluence and you are used to having a finer things in life as a black man, no matter what environment you're in, and then now you have people talk to you about like, well, you're just a good black actor. Yeah, he's just good. I'm going to want to create something that represents what I am and as opposed to what the world says I should be. That makes sense.
Well, did you also know that the Cosby Show wasn't his first sitcom? He had a sitcom before that called Cosby that Fait Miserable.
Talked about it.
Too, Cosby, which came after on CBS or something like that Cosby Show.
And then what was when you said the one before that was just called Cosby? Okay, that was just called Cosby and it was it failed miserably and he said it was because he allowed the studios to tell him how he was going to be received on TV, and when it failed, he was just like, I'm never listening to them again. And then he started to promote his own I mean, he had little Bill it wasn't just a Cosby show. He had a bunch of which is I hate saying this because people always equate one with
the other. But when I look at what I want to do as a creator, I often look at Bill Cosby. Right. Not only did he have a TV show, he was also doing films like Ghost Dad. He also had Little Bill. He had so many different mediums and projects that wasn't around the Cosby show that showed black people in a
positive light but also talked about black history. I want to do the same thing with us and the yellisis a lot of times when you say you want to do something like people would be like what you want to and I'm like, why does it have to go there? Right? When we're talking about content and what he did for that aspect.
I even think about the way they spoke on the show, like did you ever notice like the way they were pronounced certain words like mature and you know there were certain words that they wouldn't just they were very It was almost like they studied voice addiction when they were speaking.
On the show, and he was sence I know you're talking about and play.
And even just and even Felicia rashat like the way they spoke was very very so you think we had the episode on code switching and like how to speak properly, And I feel like I even think I remember hearing at one point that he was also very invested in the other actors, like the children, so people who played Vanessa and Theo.
And Rudy and her. She was like, yo, I'm not trying to beat this version of me right exactly.
So I can see when he got pushed back, she's not doing it right. She wasn't signing up to that. But I did see. I can see how in creating this stand of excellence that he saw for his show and for the people involved in his show, how probably those things like a psychologist or maybe somebody even for speech was involved in the process.
Yeah.
Yeah, I feel like.
It was a powerful show to see the Huxtable family and the light that they were in. But however, like you said, black people are not a monolith, and so black people who didn't have that experience because that type of family, that type of black family does exist where there's generations of successful, college educated black people who speak properly and have professional jobs and you know, have money
and can afford to have five kids. But then there's also black people who are poor and they live in the hood and they talk a different way, and so they growing up, Yeah, they think it's married. Even to see a married black couple like I have. My mom has nine sisters, two brothers, and one of my mom's sisters,
my aunt be. She was married to Uncle Phil and we used to call them the Huxtables because he did wear sweaters, he was a teacher, they had a house, and it was not something that was like normal in our family, right right, right, And so still even though you want, you know this, this certain type of blackness to be seen in a certain light for black people to aspire to, sometimes it can make black people feel othered. And I think that is kind of what the idea of black excellence can do.
Instead of empowering people.
Makes them feel powerless. Yes, yeah, that's insane. I think
about how that's a really good point triple. And I think about people make the correlation with Divalanna all the time and say we're like the new age Huxtables or like our families like the cause we show because I guess we're what we portray, which is just how real life to people is essentially something that a lot of people aren't accustomed to, maybe not accustomed to seeing someone be together, or two people be together from a young age to develop into who we are today, or you know,
still being madly in love with each other, or having parents on both sides who are still married. Like those are anominly situations to some people. Were to us, it's our norm. But I never thought about that idea of excellence making others feel powerless.
In all honesty, my brother's second baby mother did tell my brother like, y'all the fucking Ellis, y'all the fucking huxtables, Your brother married, your parents married, her parents married, And I was like, just the fact that we were married and still married in his second baby's mother's eyes, that was like I never seen that, Like that shit ain't real. And I had to start taking into account how serious
that is too. Because I mentored over four hundred, over four hundred athletes over ten years, seventy five percent of those athletes came from single parent homes. That is a fact. That's not something I can like, I'm making up over four hundred athletes, over three hundred of them were only moms.
I just want to say this. Don't ever feel any sort of way because it's different. The fact that you guys are not the norm doesn't mean that whatever is happening outside of your family it should be expected, right like because of whatever happened to prison, industrial conpplexy and drugs and you know, on education and all that. Because people are not haven't been together for so long, or our community doesn't have two parent households. And because she
pointed out to you doesn't necessarily make that abnormal. You know what I mean.
I know what you mean. Because they haven't seen it doesn't mean this abnormal.
It's a weird thing to hear that that you found it surprising because it's just the world.
I think. No, I said, I found it surprising because think about it, we come from where we come from. I only saw my mom and dad. Then I only saw my grandparents. The only broken family I saw was my mom's mom, who ended up getting remarried. So in my normal, everybody got married. Yeah, the aspiration was and that was for me. And then I had to step out of that and get in the real world and realized that seventy five percent of the kids that I
trained had a different lifestyle. So then I had to say, oh, I in my demographic with these kids, I'm the anomaly. So I can't make my lifestyle like, for example, your lifestyle can't be considered black excellence. Yeah, if most of the people in that same demographic are doing something difference, now they feel slighted, like shit, I didn't get Like, for example, if you're a woman, no one wanted to marry me, am I not excellent. If you're a man, if you couldn't find a woman too married him, I'm
not excellent. If you a child, if my kids, I can understand where Tripp's coming from, but I understand it's exposure.
Bro. I just think it's exposure. Like my parents married for forty something years forty three years next month, and then their friends have also been married. I don't think my parents really have divorced friends, like all of their friends are married.
That's what you're saying, married parents, Your parents are not going to have married friends, like I grew up with. My dad didn't get married until I was fourteen, so my mom had friends who were working mothers who didn't have husbands. And so it's not about it being normal or abnormal. It's about you having the perspective that other things exist. You're putting for something, it doesn't mean that somebody is going to receive it in the same way
that you think that it will be received. Even if my mom did have a married couple that she brought around, it would still be like that is crazy.
It wouldn't be like you know what I mean, It would be like.
Okay, that's possible.
Yeah, it wouldn't be like that's now normal. It's just a different perspective.
Yeah, I mean, And ultimately, all that glitters is not gold, right because you have the standard of excellence that we say, oh, it's these married couples, and we know several of them who are all fucking miserable, who are all miserable and within their own marriage that we deem excellent. They're all feeling powerless because they can't get out of a situation that they're ultimately wanted to be. But then I see people who are single moms who are thriving, doing well,
children successful. That's black excellence in itself too. That's the power that these single have given their their their sons. You know, for example, a couple couple of mothers who we know who are doing really amazing things with their children, you know, and single dads too. There's excellence in that and power in that.
So let me ask a question, do y'all do y'all? How we define black excellence pretty much is problematic because it's not monolithic. We have to change what black excellence looks like. What about how we define black power though?
Like?
What is what is the difference between black excellence and black power? I know what my example of black and in my mind when I think about black power, Well, let me start with black excellence. Black excellence is a representation, right, this is what black excellence is supposed to be. Everybody looks at it and says, boom, that's black excellence. Black power is more of an action word, like what are we doing to move a market? For example? Just an easy example,
the Montgomery the Montgomery bus boycott. That to me was an example of black power. Now, I also feel that black power is black excellence. But I also don't feel like black excellence is always black power.
You don't always feel like excellent, Okay, And.
I'll give you why. Black excellence to me is an image, right. For example, example, that image is Barack and Michelle Obama, black men, black women, both marry, both attorneys, two beautiful daughters president of the United States. But if we go back to what Trible said, right, what if you're a single mom and you can't relate to that vision of black excellence and you feel powerwerless? Right, So that vision of black excellence doesn't relate to someone. Black power, regardless,
relates to everybody. Every black person looks at the Montgomery bus boycott and feels powerful. No one looks at that and says I feel powerless because I can't relate to that. That to me is the difference between black power and Black excellence. Black excellence is more like an adjective, It describes something. Black power is more like a verb, like a movement, a movement. That's how I see.
I'm glad you brought up the Montgomery boycott specifically because that's a really great, great, great example about what is problematic about black excellence in terms of black power.
So I do agree.
Black excellence is more individual focused and black power is about the collective.
Now, the way that.
The Montgomery Boycott's bus boycott started is because a fifteen year old pregnant girl named claudeke Covin sat down on the bus, but because she was fifteen and pregnant and unmarried.
She couldn't be.
They made Rosa Parks the face of that situation, which Rosa Parks could be seen as black and excellent because she's light skinned, she's an adult, she's married, and claudiak Covin could not, even though it shouldn't matter because the message of the boycott would be the same.
We are not going to sit in the back of the bus.
Are they saying that because she had she she's unmarried and pregnant, she's not excellent and therefore she's not good enough to protect it.
Yeah, she can sen her ass on.
The back of the bus because she had a baby out she.
Was finding exactly according to whose standards?
Those were our standards exactly. So I feel like.
That's that is the problem, because black power is about the collective. Like during the Black Lives Matter movement when George Floyd was murdered, and we we all now we get upset when people bring up the fact that George Floyd was a criminal or he was on drugs. He didn't deserve to be strangled, And that is black power. That is every black person, no matter what your stature is in life, saying that no matter what his stature is in life, he doesn't deserve to be murdered.
Let me explain something to you. I want wholeheartedly to argue with you right now.
He came out with.
For everybody today.
I said, Wade, the spirit of areas wants to come out.
Yo. It's so bad. But nah, I feel you like that's that is the perfect definition. Black excellence speaks to a personal preference. It's very idealistic, and it's very like picturesque. Yes, black power don't hold no bars. We don't give a fuck who the person is. We gotta defend. We don't care how flawed they are. Black power is defending what's right, what's.
Just so not.
My question is are there any spaces where black excellence and black power can coexist?
So they need to exist? Can you name?
Can you name an example?
Because I can name examples where they can, but they have not.
Because I think.
That being black excellence is black exceptionalism. And we were talking about code switching, and I feel like those people, those people who are considering themselves black and excellent, they've had to do things to distance themselves from blackness in a way that is not excellent.
I agree.
So therefore they can't really standing with the collective because they're distancing themselves from these other black people. They think if these black people would just be excellent, then we could all. Instead of saying it doesn't matter where you are in life, we can all still. So I haven't seen it happen. I think that it could, but I don't see.
The theory it should.
It should should be a.
A perfect example, right, we've just seen it.
There are certain entertainers and actors who only do pr and marketing with white outlets. I'm not gonna out them or give them any credence, but we know who they are. It's certain people.
You only see them on certain platforms.
Right. Athletes too, just certain athletes who just do that. When we watched Michael b and Ryan Coogler do every podcast from the smallest black podcast to the largest USA Today to variety, that's an example of black power and black excellence. We watched Ryan Coogler stand up there in his normal set and speak excellently about the frames of the different millimeter cameras. That's black power and that's black excellence.
Because he never tried to change who he was. I am exactly authentically myself, and I'm doing it at a high level. That's excellence and power because no one, no black person in that moment didn't feel seen, you know what I'm saying, which not for nothing. Remember when the after show Josh said Deval will admit when he figured something. I went upstairs, right, and I was thinking about our debate. I'm gonna tell you why I think Tripple was right.
When you have a black person that stands up there in their blackness right and speaks excellently about anything, it then changes the perspective of what excellence is. And that's what you were saying. Yeah, And the fact that he doesn't have to change his vernacular at all, and people could just be like, man, that man is smart, even though he sounded like he from Oakland, is black excellence
and black power. And I feel like Ryan stood in that because even in hearing him speak, you can tell he's not as comfortable speaking in front of people, but he chose to still do that the same way him and Michael Be chose to do every outlet from.
Variety to this, Like he's on podcasts of people that have.
One hundred and fifty follows. That to me is black pound black excellence, Like I got to shout them them brothers out, and they're not the first to do that at all. To be honest, Easter Ray, if I'm being honest, is the one who coined that I am going to speak to she said it.
You know what I'm saying.
That's black pound want black excellence. Is the crazy part black people killing Easter Ray on the internet right now talking about her Black Mirror episode.
Oh, I didn't see the Black Man? What was about? Did you see it?
You have to watch it. I don't want to ruin it for people.
I love to watch it, and I I actually.
Predicted that it was going to happen and my gay self, No, I just predicted that she was gonna be doing some gay ship.
Gar. I didn't even see.
That episode she was gay. I thought the episode was brilliant. I watched it with Tristan Okay, I can understand why people are confused in the episode, she's not she becomes someone else and she's not supposed to know anything that's going on in the fucking episode, So it seems like she's underware and awkward, and all people kept saying online was like, she's so awkward and unaware, she has no idea what's going on.
That was the point the people that don't watch Her mirror making comments like, you watch Black Mirror, you understand those worlds are not the worlds that we currently live in. Yes, and she also her YouTube was an awkward black girl, wasn't it? Like that's I think. I think I've seen her in every film and I think she's awkward.
A lot of people like to know her exactly where they saw her first. She's evolved as a creator, and I think sometimes when people don't get the concept of art, they try to keep them back to where they was. This is Black Mirror. This ain't insecure. She's not being Eastern race. She's a whole another character. Like it's a different thing, but that.
Intelligence, Yes, that is right.
No, seriously, it is because like Josha, there's people who don't watch Black Mirror who are commenting, creating whole opinion pieces, and it's like, you don't even watch the show to know what it is.
Do you also think that maybe like subconsciously, because Eaterray was the only black person in that episode, I feel like subconsciously, sometimes black people have a problem with something and they don't know what it is or they don't know how to express it, so they kind of lash out because I'm like, maybe they felt uncomfortable with her doing some gay shit, Maybe they felt uncomfortable with the character she was playing, or that like there was no
other black people in there she was kissing a white lady.
That could make them feel weird. They don't know that.
I think so, and I do think that sometimes people feel uncomfortable and they don't know what to do or say, so the first thing they do is do what they have control over, So they go online and they leave opinions hoping for someone else to agree with them.
That's how we have y'all, because you don't have to have an opinion, especially when you haven't watched. Like if there's a universe of a show that you don't typically watch and then you watch one episode, it was like, I didn't get it. You probably weren't supposed to get it because you don't even know what the show is about.
I think too, it is true that niggas just don't be knowing what y'all talking about. That too, because they were talking about Ray in terms of the movie One of Them Days, which I just watched.
It is so good. I loved it. But they're talking about as if she.
Wrote the movie. She did not write it. She produced it. That means she paid for it to get made. Somebody else wrote it. But they were saying, like, what is isano about struggling and have to having to pay Her parents are rich. I don't mean that she had money, but she also talks about when she came up as a filmmaker having to like having no money to make films. It is a very expensive thing to do, and having
to ask her friends to work for free. If you watch the original Awkward Black Girl, you could tell that it's low budget.
They had what they had, so she worked to get it done.
Just because her parents have money, don't mean parents could have easily said, yo, you got to figure this out. I was about to say that.
This is a moment we have money, you.
Know, But I'm glad you brought that up. Trouble, because that also is the thing that bothers me as we talk about black excellence and black power, right, it's this idea that black excellence is only associated with struggle.
Well, I think it's the opposite.
I feel like, like I was saying, people that feel left out of that black excellence conversation, is black excellence.
I don't think anybody can argue with that.
But then people are thinking, well, she's black excellence because her parents had money and she had more opportunity. That's why she's able to get it, when I shouldn't be talking about my experience.
And that's what I'm saying. I feel like that's unfair to say that this person has to go through this struggle to have a black tag, to say this is.
Black, to just be able to understand black people in black life. I don't think that you have to necessarily go through the same things. And then she didn't write the movie.
That's that's the big The biggest thing is she didn't write the movie. The same way people was asking me, like, why you make the tickets for a fell a little so expensive question?
Blown argument with somebody that he knows about that, and it went completely left and I was like that I did not set the ticket prices. We had nothing to do with the ticket prices, y'all. We don't set that as producer.
But but but that's the point that you niggas don't be knowing, they don't know how to just go online and say things. And there's a whole bunch of other niggas who don't.
Know ship will pull a piggyback on it.
And before I say, niggas to do that, like only black people do that. No, if you if you only follow the shade room, you only hear black news.
That's true.
Go to other rooms, go to the Indian shade room or the Asian shade room. They be in there getting on each other too. Right, this is gonna be funny, right, Okay funny?
Is it really gonna be funny to vout somebody gonna be offended?
No, it's actually gonna be fun things somebody somebody might be somebody might be a fan.
But I don't give a fuck. I'm gonna say what I say anyway.
Right in my group chats, Right, there's a bunch of young black dudes who are all like in their late twenties or thirties, all my prototype kids, right, and they constantly kept saying to me, like black people are the only people that do this. Black people are the only people that do this, right, And then we had gotten to the argument about black women and black men, and they were like, black women are the only women on
the internet talking about black men. So at that point I chose to introduce them to different parts of the digital space. You only follow neighborhood Talk, you only follow the Shade Room, so you only hear black women's opinions. So I started sharing with them all these different opinions from all these different women from different cultures, and it sounded exactly the same. And I said, this is the point, y'all. What you read, what you listen to, your algorithm is
going to keep sending that to you. So your algorithm is only sending you stuff like the Shade Room and neighborhood Talk, so you feel that only black people are speaking about these things, when in reality, the whole world is having the same converse. And you're upset at black women because those are the women you frequent, same thing with black women. You upset a black men because black men are the only ones saying this. No no, no, no no.
Go to them. Go to the Asian Shade Room and watch how they talk about Asian man.
Is the Asian Shade Room is I don't know.
I'm gonna keep my mouth.
Shut but but you understand what I'm saying.
I get what you're saying.
What you're saying like we we also as black people, if we want to talk about what black excellence is and what black power is, we have to expand our perspective, right, That's what Josh.
Was saying into saying, Yeah, like you can't own you can't only watch the Shade Room and then say to me all black women anything.
I don't know your opinion doesn't matter to me at all at this point. Like if you look at someone's homepage on the Instagram, that tells you where their mind is most of the time.
So I was as the conversation is going, I even thought about the conversation that we had on the Code Switching episode where we talked about the oscars, right, and we said that they're just out here, you know, voting off vibes. And we have always aspired to I think in generalist people, if the standard of excellence within film is to get an Oscar, we all black people included
aspire to that as actors. Right, So when talking about black excellence and Black power and spaces and arenas that we have now curated for ourself to celebrate each other. Where are those spaces and what do they look like? So, for example, what came to mind for me was essence Black Women in Hollywood. That's a space that I've been invited to where I go because sometimes you need to be in a space where you feel celebrated amongst your peers.
You can aspire and be inspired, you can kind of get a recharge and a reset in a forum that you know has been specifically designed to celebrate the excellence but also the power behind being in numbers of women who are like minded and doing the things that you want to do or have done, or aspire to do. So we have like the Black and since Black Women in Hollywood, I was just at to accelerate her conference in Miami. So what are other spaces that you think
that we are now saying? You know what, we need to now create these spaces for ourselves because we can't always rely on other folks to celebrate us and how that ties into excellence in power We've.
Been doing go ahead, no, no, good God, I think we've been doing it for since since the establishment of us in this country.
I was want to say the same thing.
We got the Divine nine, we got Black organizations that celebrate us Jack and Jill, Jack and jail, Right, So, I think I think there's always been us making space for ourselves. That's why we got a black college and universities like we we've recognized that we need space to empower ourselves and become excellent at the same time.
Right.
I think things like these, these organizations, are these these exposed or yeah, conferences, conferences that you are just a microcosm of that shared Black experience that we you know, are subsectors. But I think we've always been doing it.
Yeah, I would agree with Josh. If you think about reconstruction. There are so many black cities in black towns who were built off of black excellence and black power. The problem is history has shown us that when you build something off black excellence and black power, they're gonna take it, or they gonna drown it, or they gonna and burn it.
You see what I'm saying. Like you talk about Tols, you think about Seneca Falls, There's so many examples of black excellence and black power that has just been disintegrated by white superiority. So I feel like in these last fifty years, black people have decided to find their excellence and their power and keep it quiet and keep it private. For example, I work at Tyler Perry Studios. Right, this
is not a humble brag. I make more money than ninety percent of the people working on Hollywood and they're white. Because my employer is a black owner. He owns the land, he owns the studios, he owns the content, He decides who makes what money. I think we're finally reaching a point where I no longer have to run to another version of what I want to do right to be celebrated, and.
I think those are spaces where we then celebrate like this is a group of black affluent people, this is a group of black students. So when you talked about in the code switching episode, sometimes you don't want to be known as the first black actor to do this, or I am a black actor who did that, or
I'm a black father. It's like, how do we tow the line between wanting to celebrate that in the excellence and power that stands with it, but then how do we also say, you know what, I want to be seen as just a great man, just a great woman, just a great father, just a great mother.
So you' just gonna come here today and put your journalism degree to work.
Because that's a good question, because.
Yeah, because like how do we coexist in that space?
That's a good point. You know, I'm not gonna lie. I struggle with that, like Trible, I told Go told Jackson. I was like, yo. He was like, Dad, you're gonna win in Oscar. You're gonna do all this other stuff. And I was like, man, when I do win in Oscar, I don't want them to be like he's the third black person to win and that. And then I was like, nah, I do want them to do that because other black
kids need to see that this is excellence. And then I was struggling, like do I want them to announce it that way to marginalize it, or do I want them to say this is the first Oscar for Deval he beat out so and so. And then it's just yeah, you know, I'm struggling. I don't have the answer.
Think about what number one on the call sheet? Did you guys watch that on Netflix?
Yeah?
So it's great and it's two parts. They have a couple gentlemen and then they have the women who spoke about it. But particularly the episode with the women where They were talking about Whoopy Goldberg and her being one of the first and only, you know of her time to win an oscar and there were only like three or four black women in a span of decades.
The first thing is Whoopy Goldberg was so talented, right, she could do stand up, she could sing, she could write, and she could act. She was so gifted they didn't even know what to do with her. Right. Now, here's the crazy part. All of the movies that Whoopy's done, critically acclaimed and box office success were all roles written by, written for and by white men, but either white women on white men, and they didn't want to do it. So Whoopy said, I'll do it, and.
We people didn't want.
Eddie was.
Well, she said that Patrick Swayze was the one who wanted her. I love Patrick, you know me and Dirty Dancing, y'all.
So yeah, your favorite, that's a good that's a good movie to Eddie. I'm not Eddie Wesley Snie, that's my guy. But she she talked about how even being excellent in Hollywood during that time, there was no such thing as black excellence. She was just excellent, and because there was no space for black people, they didn't even know what to do with her. And when I watched that, I
was just like wow. Like, but that's also the challenge when you say black excellence, those people don't know what to do with black excellent even when you say excellence, because Whoopy was never celebrated as a black excellent person. She was just excellent and they still didn't though. So that's what leaves me kind of confused, Like how do
you exactly navigate it? Because I don't want them to make all of my accomplish Smith's about black, but I need all these black boys and black girls to be like, yo, yeah he did that. You know what I'm saying. It's hard.
It sort of talks to a point about when you brought up Tyler Perry and your earnings based off of him seeing you. I think it talks to black excellence having to move hand in hand with black power, right like I think I think we shouldn't separate the two. I think, all right, being good at your craft and being excellent at your craft needs to move with power, like you need that power to be able to It can't be ideology, yes, it can be ideology, exactly right.
It has to show its strength yea, and it has to be able to move right. We're talking money talks, right, Money's power.
Right.
We live in a capitalist country. Right, politics on mean nothing here. Fact right, the only thing that meat that moves anything or anyone is the money money. Right, And you can't be excellent without the money, because once you're excellent, you're giving room for people to say, nah, we're gonna go with somebody else. Forget that they're good. We can get somebody else that's white, that's good. We can get somebody else that does this in a in a completely
different way. Or we don't have to fund it. The government doesn't have to fund what we do. But when we move with power, we can more or less break barriers, or we can we don't have to.
Get what you're saying. No, no, no, I get what you're saying, and you articulated it perfectly. Like black excellence is an ideology. Black power is an actual action item, like what are we doing to move us forward? Black excellence is this idea? Right, the idea is Barack Obama and Michelle.
Or it comes after attaining some sort of power.
Move right, No, well, no, well, the excellence, you're right, Excellence typically does come after, like.
What deems excellent, what's deemed something excellent after going through something process.
Just give our listeners like some actual tangible examples.
I'll say I'll say this about I'll stick with the Tyler Perry example, because again, black excellence is based on your individual accomplishments.
Black power is based on the collective. So, okay, Tyler Perry.
It's not the money that makes him powerful. It's the fact that he makes black content for Black people, by black people. He continues to do that and he doesn't have to answer to anybody else about what he makes.
Yes, that's the power.
And then he's deemed excellent because of that.
Exactly, he's deemed excellent because he makes a bunch of money he's able to do. You know, he built his empire off making these black plays and black people going to see him. That's his excellence. He makes good content for the people that he makes it for. And now he's empowered other black people, black artists, even black consumers
that there is space for them in the world of art, TV, movies, theater. Now, one thing that I don't the one thing that I hate about Beyonce is that she will go to the Grammys every year sit in that audience and watch them play in her face and not give her Artists of the Year. And it's not And we always say, we say every year that she has been nominated, they are
not giving it to her because she's black. Because as a musician, regardless of you know, color, her art is better than everybody else on the dock, especially the winner. But she doesn't show up at the Soul Train Awards or the BET Awards. And Beyonce has the power behind the collective because she has made the art that we enjoy and she has stayed true to her blackness that
black black Beyonce fans are dedicated to her. She has and just fans overall are so dedicated to her that she has the power to draw away viewership from the Grammys if she were to show up at the Soul Train Awards to say this is the that I care about, and so that I feel like that she is not using the power that she has, or black power or empowering black spaces with the powers exactly.
I agree that I agree with you. I want to add something so that you understand a little perspective of what artists go through because me and Kadeen go through this, right, and I'm not outing any black publications, right, but when Kadeen and I have looked at numbers and everything, Kadeen and I aren't celebrated amongst black publications at all. We aren't celebrated. But let a white publication then celebrate us. Then the black want to come back. Can Kadeen and
de Val come here? And it's like, wait a minute, all those years when we were doing this just for our people, you never cared enough about us. We've been doing this podcast for.
Seventy six years, seven.
Years, sixteen seasons, won to Webbe Award, never been nominated for an NAACP Image Award, right, never been talked about by essence And this is It's not a play for me to get nominated.
I'm not asking for that because we don't do this for that.
But what I'm saying is is that numbers wise, we've been better than a bunch of podcasts that they've had nominated and win. When you look at metrics and the things that we've talked about have been better, and we haven't been recognized by those black publications. Let emmy come and say, hey, we want to honor the Valenkadeen at the Emmy Awards, right, and then we go those same black people will be like, oh, they're gonna go to the Emmys, but they don't go to the Soul Train Awards.
Well, y'all haven't celebrated us the whole grind.
Y'all wait intil white people celebrated us, and now you want us to come back. So in the beginning it was fuck me and my little podcast, but now white people said, hey, we like this, and now I feel like that I'm not gonna lie and I'm a part of the BT family and I'm a part of all of this stuff. But fuck them too, because we bet we've had the number one show on television for seven years. You've never seen any one of them women a show
led by five black women. None of them women ever went up there to get in a war by Soul training, none of them ever went to get an n Double ACP Image Award. But let one of them women go up there to go get a Grammy or go get an Emmy. All of them same people are gonna be being like, she didn't come down here with us, y'all didn't y'all didn't recognize it. So when it comes to Beyonce and them, I understand people's thought process, and you're
absolutely right. I just wonder what happened to that point and if there was a point like that we felt like because.
I felt like that, I think Beyonce doesn't It's not just the Black Awards that she doesn't go to. I don't think she goes to like the A m As anymore. Like I think the only award she really goes to is the Grammys, Right.
I don't wonder if they're voting off the vibes too, or if it's just all of these This was crazy.
I think the Sole Train Awards and the nuble A CP Image Awards vote so vibes too, because there's no way you gave other people awards and didn't think about us, Like, are you fucking kidding me? I'm starting to get pissed.
I wonder how it was.
We don't.
Tell what it is.
Yeah, I'm just being honest, right, I hear for the last six years, there has been nobody who's done anything as far as has done as much work when it comes to fatherhood and representing a family man in a black space on social media as much as I have an inclusion started friends and my family.
You started it.
Not once have I been nominated for Social Media Person of the Year by the NAACP imas you was. Now, I plan on continuing to go and do stuff when I go get nominated by something else and then soul train you want to come back? No, am I wrong for saying y'all ignored me for all these years? But finally the white publications said I was good, but now you're am I wrong for that? At that point was.
Me and my friends.
We have this phrase that we use and it phrases black Nigga Productions and I love black people. I love black businesses.
B MP, but BEMP black people.
Sometimes they run businesses in a way that you're like, fuck and BT, I feel like dust stuff like that, Like they will like nominate the same people every year instead of recognizing people who actually coming up in the space I feel. So it feels to me like Black Nika Productions, like who y'all got started two weeks.
Ago on this Like you know what I'm saying, It feels like.
That to be sometimes Yeah, you know, it ain't.
Just uses wasn't celebrated by the NAACP. Image awards and by b Et when she had her YouTube series, And it wasn't until Insecure became mainstream and white people started pointing at east Ray did anyone in the black space start to pay attention to east Ray? So I'm not saying this as if it's a slight on me. This has been happening to us by our own people for years.
I think, you know what, I think it's ultimately for you Bae, for example, winning something like social Media Person of the Year or whatever. You're just not a social media person. There's just so much more to you. You're a legitimate actor. That's what you want to do, that's what you want to be. So when those things haven't come your way, I was just like, you know what, that's just maybe putting you in that box of the social media influencer, which is something that you don't necessarily
want to be. It's what we do as a means to an end to get art in our work out there, to be hired as actors. But you don't want that to be you know, what you're defined as. So maybe we can look at it that way.
That's fair, and that's why I don't think that much about it. But let's be honest. In the last six years, New York Times bestselling author, over four million followers on all platforms, two number one shows, web be award winning podcasts. I think what else we've done? And when they do social Media Person of the Year, they've gone from Kevin Hart, right, all the way down to Kevin Lee, right, Keith Lee, Keith Lee, and Keith Lee at the time when they nominate him had half as many as I did.
And then so my thing is.
What's the criteria?
Right?
What is the criteria? If you went from Kevin Hart to Keith Lee, you went from Entertainer of the Year.
From Kicky Palmer, Kekey Palmer.
All the way to Tyler Perry entertainer of the year. Right, this is the but you've never mentioned other people who have only been celebrated in black spaces. Do you play the game? People?
Do you play the game?
Do I play what game?
The politics game?
Do you play the game? Name a time in the last six years that I've said no to any publication.
That's going to be runner.
That's why I be so tired. I've gone to essence and done stuff for free. I've gone to the Soul Train Awards, I've been to ABFF and worked as a correspondent. My point is, I'm not going to give them any passes. The same way I call out white publications, I'm gonna call them out to a lot of Black publications don't big up their black creatives when they're on the rise. They only big up the black creatives once white people
have finally said this is the person. And then when that person goes to the enemy's then the black publications want to point out that they don't go to them. But it was like y'all shot on me for years while I was building. And that's just a fact, and not for nothing. A lot of it does have to do with the fact that black publications don't have the same resources. They can't celebrate us the way they want
to celebrate us. So what they try to do is reach out to the A list stars that have already got celebrated to come to these events to get more sponsors. Like I understand, if you're your bet, it's like, we gotta get Kevin Hart, we gotta get we gotta get this person. But but this creators right now in this space that y'all don't know who are going to be those people, y'all ignoring them right now, and when.
Those people become those people don't go back to them.
Then one one publication told us we couldn't be on the cover because Kate wasn't black enough, Josh, you know, because you was out photographer. This is not lies, this is facts.
I know he's black? Is she black?
You know?
You know till it's day when I bring it up to them, and they'd be like, we said, we said.
I remember when you called me. He was like, d man, like I pissed him for this, but and I was like, are you fucking kidding me? He was like, bro this and I was. I was pissed. I was pissed for my wife more than anything, because here's another example where blackness is only defined by what you say blackness.
Is amongst our own black folks, right yeah.
And now now that same publication it posts mixed racial, mixed racial couples black and white, like it does what I'm saying it.
And the only reason why they're doing it now is because post and mixed race couples probably got them a bigger except this absolutely proximity. They use artists for proximity the same way people use it for proximity publications do to That is a fact.
Put y'all on Game Today on how it works.
Huh yeah, I mean this has happened. I mean this has happened to me. I did a short film and like a brand shoot for a haircare a very very popular black haircare line back in the day, like twenty seventeen, and they scrap the whole thing because the short film, which somebody else wrote, was about two women getting married, and they were like, no gay shit over here. Wow when yeah, never put it out, never use the pictures. I got paid, but I would have liked to see myself. You know what I'm saying.
Relax, I guarantee you this.
If you did the same project and a white publication picked it up, that black publication would have called you an asker.
They can run it as well.
Yeah, it's and as unfair as it is. I understand why they're fighting for This is just an example. But Tyler has spoken about this well. Tyler Perry is the highest grossing producer in Hollywood. No one ever talks about it, like producer, director, actor, No one has gross more money
than him box office wise. It is a fact. Largest studio all the same words number on everything when it comes down to get money for projects, Right, Yellowstone gets something like twenty four to twenty six million per episode to do their episode. You know how much Tyler gets per episode? Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Oh my god, a fraction.
Now. The reason why this is important is because this is why I don't get so upset. I do get upset talking about it. But if you're a publication, you're fighting for resources that you don't have access to. So it's like, what's the best way can I get this?
How can I get it done quickly?
We're gonna go to somebody deval or we're gonna nominate Kevin Hart. Sorry Kevin. You know, yeah, the same thing the NBA. In the nl Man, I didn't get drafted. Marcus Colston got drafted right when my senior year. I was a number one receiver. Marcus had just came back off of injury. I was leading and receiving yards and touchdowns up to the last two games. Got hurt when
it came down to the draft. Pick. Right the draft, are you going to draft a five to ten, one hundred and seventy pound receiver or you're gonna draft six y five, two hundred and forty. I would draft Marcus Coaston ten times out of ten. So I'm not upset. I just understand what it is. I just want the
people to understand too. When you see your favorite celebrities sometimes say I'm not going back to be ET, it's probably because they feel like they got shitted on by BT for mad years and being that I'm in here in BT right now, I hear it all the time. I hear and then I hear from the BT exactly like the villa. We're fighting with resources. We can't pay y'all. Like I did a project for Netflix and they sent me on tour press ye pay for everything because it's Netflix. BT hit me like, ll.
You want to tour, we don't have money for Graham.
And I'm like, okay, I got it. This is for me anyway, So I'll pay to promote to promote my show, so I'll pay for myself and I'll write it off on taxes. But some celebrities after a while just be like, man, I'm not doing that for BT no more. And that's the fucked up part. I'm gonna do this for BET till I die, because I want those kids to see me.
I think me and Matt talked about this. I want to be the celebrity that does a movie like Independence Day and they're like, y'all want to go see the Vow And the thing is, sit was crazy, But on Wednesday he was Zach m Because there's some family somewhere in Brooklyn who don't have the money to pay for a thirty dollars Imax ticket to go see Daval, but on Wednesday they could see Daval. Bzach Like, that's what I want to do. So I'm always gonna be there
for BG. Most of wonna be there for the big ones, but I'm gonna let them motherfuckers know along the way, like this is this shit ain't right, Like y'all gotta figure this out, you know what I'm saying.
Yeah, I love that.
Figure it out.
Let's figure out how to pay these bills, because that's one thing that's always gonna keep coming, all right. So we're gonna do that, and we're gonna move into listening letters. Stick around, y'all. All right, we're back and let's dive into this Sinstener letter for today. Hello, I am a thirty one year old j American woman and if you don't know, that's Jamaican American woman. And I'm engaged to
my fiance, thirty two years old black man. We've been dating for about five years, engaged for six months, and our wedding is in twenty twenty five. I recently I recently was out running errands and I noticed my engagement ring slipped off my finger.
Oh.
I retraced my steps, looked all over my car, but I couldn't find it, and believe it was stolen. I'm devastated. I found the police report and plan to continue going to local pondshots to see if I can find my ring. My fiance, unfortunately did not have the ring in shore yet he has been pretty chill about the whole situation. The ring cost him thirty five hundred dollars and we both don't make much money. We got into a little argument because I told him I will buy the same
ring with the wedding fund. But he made a good point that although I'm paying for majority of the wedding, I can't afford to spend an extra three grand on another ring. Plus, I'm more upset that the sentimental value of my engagement ring is gone, and all we have now are the memories of the proposal, which was simple
and intimate, like I had asked. So as of now, we both agreed that I will just wear a nice fake ring so I have something to wear for our engagement photos, my bridal shower, and our wedding, and then three years down the road, he'll buy me another ring. I admire you both, Kadeinia de Val and y'all's marriage. I want to get both of y'all's advice on this and what you guys would do if you were in our shoes. Thanks so much.
This is easy for me because the diamond industry is in shambles. Do not buy another fucking diamond ring. What you do is you go get a lab grown dom. He is going to cost you ten percent of the price and it's going to look exactly the same, no matter why. Because seeking admiration from people outside of your
relationship is going to do nothing for your relationship. Go get that fake ring, put on your finger, take your pictures, you and your fiance plan a perfect wedding for y'allself that y'all want, and to go on y'all merried way.
Mike Drop, that's really it and the fact that you guys are I mean, and they have a plan to put the fake ring on, get married, and then maybe three years down the line, you want to get another ring, get another ring. We've learned over time that literally these like these things are material. I understand the sentimental value. But Deval proposed with proposed to me with the ring that he had custom made. It was beautiful, roundstone, had
a K and a dee on it. It was beautiful and it was made by our jeweler Aria at the time recipes to Ari he died for after Yeah, yeah, And that for me was super sentimental because I'm like Ari made the ring, he made my ring, he made
original wedding band. It was just very sentimental. And then as the years go on, you live in the memory of it, but the material thing doesn't necessarily have the connection that you think it has to that memory because I've had my ring, this is the third ring I've had now because of out has changed and upgraded just
with the time and how my style has changed. So yeah, I think between the lab grown diamond, that's the that's the hack now because we have someone that we know who's getting a divorce and tried to sell her ring. Ring was valued at seventy five thousand dollars when her husband bought it for her. We took it to a local Julia to try to see she can turn it in. They weren't giving her more than fifteen thousand dollars. He paid seventy five thousand dollars for this ring.
Guys, I said, the market has changed so much because lab grown diamonds pretty much take the same This is how much science has changed.
It goes through the same process of coaling.
The diamond into a diamond that it does underground, so when they test it, it passes all the same test does. So now you can get the same exact diamond as you had before with no flaws, and it's going to pass all of the diamond laser tests.
Right.
I am not going to spend three thousand dollars when I can spend three fifty. That's I'm just not going to do it. I'm going to invest that money in and creating a greater future. There's some days I walk around and Kate don't got her ring on. K lost to tennants bracelet that I bought her, and she was so devastrated, crying and I said, it's a thing, and it's a thing like we have each other, like these things are going to come and go. Yeah.
Absolutely, good luck to y'all with the wedding planning and starting your life together. That's awesome.
All right, y'all.
If you want to be featured as one of our listener letters, email us at the Ellis's Advice. Well, the Ellis Advice at gmail dot com. Spell that out.
T H E L L wait t H E E L L I S A d V I C E at gmail dot com.
All right, let's go in to a moment of truth time. We're talking about black excellence and black power, black excellence versus black power. What is our final round out with this conversation? Take us away, trip.
I think the four election is a great example about how what matters black excellence or black power because other people that you might be trying to be like in the name of excellence, they don't even want the life that you want.
They don't want none of the shit.
So do everything that you do excellently and for the collective, for your people so we can all make it to the other side unscathed.
Amen.
Amen, Mommy, I don't think we need no more moments of truth. Child. That was a blank it statement for everybody. If but go ahead and they let me speak for you for.
Me, simple, let your light shine.
That's the only way black excellents happen.
Love that, but you got, Josh, I think black excellence cannot exist without black power.
Love that for you. Just always remember the black power portion of it is a verb. It's a movement, and by way of movement, we attain something that, like Triple told us, with black excellence is something that we as individuals can feel. So know that one has to work with the other simultaneously.
Your mine is easy. Black excellences in ideology, black powers an action item. Get out there and do stuff. Be powerful.
That's it, all right, y'all Be powerful and be excellent. And join us on Patreon if you have not yet, because that's that's the best way to be with the Eliss. We have our after show on there for Ellis ever After. We also have exclusive family content. You can find us there, So if you haven't joined Patreon yet, do so, and you can find us on social media at Ellis ever After. I'm at Skagene, I am.
And i am deval A Matt on the score, Ellis, excuse me, I said that wrong. I have a terrible name and I want to change it. If y'all can help me get a new Instagram name, please, But it's on the score Matt dot Elis. We confuse these people every single every weekday.
It's a new one every time.
And you can double click on my face at Joshua Underscore, Dwayne, I'm at.
Trips the Cool t ri ibb Z the Cool on Everything That's Right.
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Cot Ellis ever After is an iHeartMedia podcast. It's hosted by Kadeen and daval Ellis. It's produced by Triple Video, Production by Joshua Dwyane and Matthew Ellis, video editing by Leshan Roem
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