Watch up and welcome back to another episode of No Sealers Podcast with your hosts now fuck that with your loaw glasses Malone. So give me your thesis on Rick Ross again and hip hop. But give me Ross. Look Ross, let me prefix this. Ross is my guy. He's always been a stand up man. But again, when we have in these conversations, these conversations be rooted and you know, pursuing a different level of truth and and really just
inspiration for everybody else, kind of setting a platform. So even if the conversations could come across a little unfavorable, it doesn't change that people are still who they are and it doesn't negate their talent. So I just that's my disclaimer.
And I don't even think for me, I don't I wasn't gonna come in that direction.
You know.
I think that he's, you know, the illustration of a case study for a model that's probably fairly common in the space. I think where Ross is fine is that Ross didn't say anything that you should have believed anyway. I mean like he went out of his way to tell a story that was not plausibly believable, if not for any other reason than his age. He was hanging out with Noriega. When was it he was four years old?
What are we talking about? You know, it's a lot different than coming out and saying like, yeah, I was up and down slosson and not from such and such and this, like.
That's very specific.
It would be believable that somebody might come out tomorrow and do a song suggesting that and saying that, who's actually done it? And if someone didn't do it, like now, you're using real characters in real time to sell a lie. He told what was clearly a story that didn't exploit or take advantage of specific people.
By and large.
I mean, yeah, he moved six billion dollars in their scale powder all over South Man, the fuck out of here. Come on, and you just by the time you were twenty two years old and or whatever the fucking decided.
To start rapping.
Come on, yeah, come on.
I think that that there's some consideration for that versus some other people.
Like you don't think to some level, it's still like him putting on for the culture of.
Okay, it's taking advantage of the of.
That you know, vertical, you know, of cocaine selling and of everything that happened in the city of Miami. But you know there's you can just make just as much of the case growing up it's surrounding for damaged just as much growing up through that as you know from the result of it what was going on around him.
So it's not like he owed it to these people.
Those people probably fucked up his neighborhood badly enough as it was. Is it feel I'll say in the post, like say Gez, for example, I don't know, Jeez. I know there's been some you know, pimpsy call him out about this and that and all these other things or whatever. So hypothetically a guy like Jez coming out and saying
things that are specific. You're talking about zips, you're talking about single packs and all this kind of stuff that you would be doing plausibly if you weren't doing that and you sold it like you just stopped doing it yesterday. That to me is different than saying I was up in Panama on Columbia and I was seventeen years old and da da da da dah.
That's just different to me. But you don't think that's the same thing. One is just elevating kind of the idea.
Okay, let's get different because one one you're obviously Ernest Hemingway and the other one you're writing an autobiography about a person that isn't you and putting your face on the cover of the book. Rick Ross is a lot closer to Ernest Hemingway than John Gotto or something like you know.
What I'm saying.
Sure, okay, but man, because hip hop, hip hop did start off as okay, you have the culture right. And this is the confusing part because even when you had the conversations with different people like I see a word me and my niece, shout out to my niece DJNA, follow her on Twitter, piece of names. She's really dope,
smart telling end I'm so proud of this kid. But hip hop was always the culture, right, and then the artist expressing said culture, sure, right, and most artists like even the Ice Q Right who was successful at sixteen, seventeen years old, he writes a smashit record for easy you know, Boys in the Hood seventy eighteen years old, so obviously he probably wasn't out here so Rocks or
his summer vacation when he made my summer vacation. It's a very much a first person told story, but I think we all knew he was representing the journey of people from out of that section or maybe even in LA in general. You hear my summer vacation, and that was true in the.
Time, even like talking about Vegacy and nice Tea speaking a while ago.
Sure cop Killer.
Wasn't him killing cops. Sure it's pretty obvious, you know, But when does it separate? When does it separate from the origin of hip hop? Right, the the artist being a.
Like like a reporter to the rest of the world about the culture that they were born in, to Rick Ross where it's like, you know, he was talking about the boobie Boys. He was talking about Burt convertible Burt and all of the legendary names I heard in Miami,
you know, d boy lifestyle. And I agree that it's fair to say that he makes a little movie magic right, minus the Norier and all of the because those are like to me, like MC, like MC's when they're trying to get you to get a point, they overdo it till you get it. So it's like, yeah, like I want you to know I sell dope, but I need to put it to somewhere that the average person who's never touched, you know, a quarter piece some most of these people never saw a nickel rock outside of a
picture on the computer. So he's trying to get them to understand the journey, right of a Miami d boy, right, and that journey, So he puts it on extra right, no different than any other artists you know before that. When does it separate and it start being too far from the origin.
To me personally as a fan, yeah, just as an observer when, like you said, ice Cube does a song, ice Tea does a song, a guy does a song, and it's you know, it's finite. It's a finite moment versus you built this. This is your brand, This is who you are, This is all of this stuff. If your brand and who you are and all of.
This stuff is.
Too close, it is plausibly too close to reality not to be you know, identified as a story that you're not telling based off of your resume, then that's the line to me, because now your whole brand and your whole career is based off of a perceived personal credibility that you don't have.
I don't.
I mean, I'm sure there were enough people who thought Rick Ross really did sell five hundred birds a year.
Sure, his name is Rick Roak.
Yeah.
To me, he definitely put it into a place where he couldn't lose. Okay, if marketing first off, no Ceilings, this is the no Ceilings podcast. Gl Pete is in California for this podcast. I couldn't get the cameras up and running, so we didn't take it. But the conversation is everything in podcasting.
But as long as we say that I'm in California, that allows us to say I'm in California routinely with no cameras and no one will no, I'll be to Rick Ross of geography, oh man anyway.
So I'm saying right, he's still just covering kind of the experience. And I agree. So you feel like in other artists you get more of them, like like and who's to say, like I got listen. I in my mind, I've never been critical of Ross, right, but I have said things that were a bit honest, you know, when somebody's asking me about my journey, Like I talked to Charlotte Mane on the Breakfast Club. Y'all go check that out. It was an interview from twenty to nineteen. Really dope, conversation.
We was talking about twupac months die and I told him that I felt forced to be more honest and transparent with the experiences of Los Angeles street urban culture because of artists like Rick Ross right where he was like he put it on so thick, so the average everyday person could see the image, right because I actually sold dope right in high school. I so dope, like I actually touched birds, like I've actually, you know, had a key load too, I've actually had gallons of PCP.
Like these are not things as far. But again, if you tell people that it's hard for the average person who's not around and remember hip hop is this very you know, ghetto or street urban culture is a very small place a spec in America. It's not like it's a lot of ghettos in America. That's the confusion, as people believe there's a lot of ghettos in America and
they're not. I mean, there's only a handful. And that's what it makes somebody like you, you know, when you come to watch and you come to where we're from, is you could tell like this shit is really it's a regular community, but this is real. So when when I look at somebody like like Rose right, and and he's trying to paint the image of Miami drug dealer. But and this is the brilliance of what he does as a marketing person. Go ahead, I'm.
Sorry, No, I was gonna say, I think that, really, maybe we're missing all of what Rick's whole thing is. I would step back and look at the totality of his career. He's selling opulent consumption.
Go further, opulent consumption.
His he's really really selling a lust for money and expensive ship. In the first album, there was a lot of It was a lot of how'd I get how would you have the money, how would you know a person with this kind of money spend it?
Or whatnot. It's really a lot about Maybach music.
He did.
He didn't call it fish scale music. Go to Maybock, sure. And it was about cars and speeding and the boats.
And the and the perception of wealth.
Yeah, and and and he kind of graduated, or at least gradually drifted away from talking about I did all this drug dealing to spend all this money to just.
I'm just buying all this shit all time.
That's where the albums or.
He's just talking about all the crap is buying.
And I agree, but even to the motherfucking marketing mind of what he's doing, you know, I'm lending this thought to the marketing mind. He understood something that I didn't understood. He understood most people have no idea about dope dyling. Because I agree. Ross's goal was to sell wealth. He always painted it from the beginning to the end. Now to the place where he don't even have to talk
about selling dope. He can just talk about wealth. Yeah, right, But he was saying, hey, this person, the reason I have wealth is because of this lifestyle, this street urban culture that Miami made famous. And he knew most people didn't have any ideas of what it is. So he painted the people. He connected most people who never had any experience and said culture. He gave them points to where they can get into what he was saying. Because
he did say he knew nord Riega. Because if he says he knew Rayful, you know, if he knew Rayful Edmunds, they wouldn't know who that is. If he said he knew who was the first King Zoe or whatever Waterhead bowl Waterhead Bowl out here, or if you knew little Daryl in the Bay. People wouldn't know who that that is. He knew that they would know who Norie is because most Americans have heard that person's name because the government
pursued him. He also dressed like the movie idea of drug dealing, like the Colombian guys in the film Scarface, whereas Lenen and.
That's not how he used the Scarface track beat.
Just like Jesu Jesu. If you listen to TM one on one. I was saying it the other day, like it's probably one of the top five greatest albums out of the South. But I never realized how fucking Cornea was until recently because I heard all of the Scarface inn window and I didn't pick because I never saw that movie. But you know when I kind of over that time since it first came out to now I've
seen little parts on YouTube. Obviously YouTube is the thing Instagram, so you see clips and now you're starting to kind
of be a little bit more familiar. Even though nothing has demanded for me to watch the film, right it's like, nothing really about it seems interesting to me still right now, but listening to those parts and now when I listen to tam one O one you know, Jeezy and them sonically did the same thing Ross did you know, and Ross just painted it, you know, in a way to where more people could be like, oh, I see what
he's about. Like the story was a lot more consumable for mainstream America, even if not for us, because I don't think I ever cared if he actually so dope at I don't think I ever even started off thinking like he's so dope. Honestly, I don't think that was my thought when I first heard hustling. Hustling always felt like I don't give a fuck if you got a carpet cleaning business, you hustling. You know, That's the feel
it always gave me. So I think he had that part right, you know what I mean, Because like, as somebody like Iced Tea always tell me, like whenever we talk, he like, man, you are so rich in culture, how you talk. Most people don't know what the fuck you're talking about because you talk like everybody from where we're from. And it hit me like the average person don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Like if I start talking that shit and I'm like, yeah, two sticks for
two sticks for twenty. People don't know that I'm talking about two cigarettes that have been submerged in PCP for twenty dollars. You can get two cigarettes where the tobacco the top of it has been submerged and the PCP liquid for twenty dollars. Because when I talk, I just say two sticks for a doug and ice cube. I think was brilliant. And maybe that's because he went to TAFF his high school time, you know what I mean, where
he understood how to translate things to people. That's not where we're from.
We went to Paramount.
Yeah, but for some reason, Yeah, it's just not working those shit I thought of it. I think Paramount helped me speak. So when people hear me speak, they can say, you know, you can hear the AP classes when I speak. You can hear the soberness when I speak. I don't think you can hear it in my wraps, in my rap it sound like Nigga like crazy.
Yeah, And I mean if it's due TAFT high school culturally on campus environment versus paramounts or pretty far.
And I had AP classes. But again also it could be maybe who's.
Walking around the quad, who you interact with in the Hallway.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know because I don't I don't, I don't know. I know it's in the valley, so it probably is. Uh, I've been by the yeah macan them live out there, Happy birthday Mac mac ten. I just don't know when is it right? Like when is it too far? Like is it too is he going too far? Like do we really say that the hip hop if if? Honestly, I think he's been punished, you know what I mean, honestly, I think he's been punished.
I think when people realize that he had a job as a correctional officer.
That's that that is a little bit of a thing.
It's different than just having been like a janitor a local office building or something that is a little.
Bit almost like the police or the police. So it's like yeah, so it's like I think that was his point. I think at that point, the culture that consumes hip hop was like, you will never be the number one guy, because I think his talent probably would have been worthy of a double triple quadruple.
Play yeah, and his timing there was everything kind of triangulated pretty favorably.
So for him to not have that opportunity, I think that was the culture punishing him for not being close enough per se to the genuine article. Sure, sure, but I'm saying, when is it too far? Like like I notice people say that about King Vaughn. I'm like, Vn, King Vaughn is a gang member, like he got his ship. But it's like he wasn't a rapper, he just started rapping. I don't know, man, Like I just been thinking about that.
To me, the line.
Like you we were saying before we started about like what's worse lying or.
Telling on yourself?
If you want to look, if you want to get on, if you if you put in the work and you want to go, try to capitalize on it, because you don't make a lot of money doing it, but this is your way to.
Cash it out.
Go ahead, if it gets your ass in trouble. You those you three sixty, You did the work and did the song, you got the trouble doesn't bother me one bit, not even as a listener.
I don't even believe in that snitching on yourself, if you it's ridiculous to me. It's not that you can't snitch on yourself.
Yeah you can be you can take a calculated risk for the money or tear haphazard moro.
On or take accountability. Yeah, there's not a lot. You can't snitch on yourself. There's no shame in admitting you did something wrong.
No, And to me, if that's that's all part of the risk and and the lifestyle. I don't mean like the hip hop lifestyle. I mean like the outlaw lifestyle. Most of the time you're doing it for money. Yeah, if you made ten thousand dollars or whatever net, you know, for the last three months doing all that shit, and that's not enough for you, and you have an opportunity to make a million dollars telling the story about it.
It's your fucking story.
It's only like this when it comes to black people and hip hop. Because you look at Francis Coppola. Nobody calls him stupid for making The Godfather. Yeah, nobody calls uh, well, they do be tripping on Edward James almost. They don't not really people over there, they just Edward James almost what he did American Meeting, he had to actually deal with some real consequence.
But again or people around him, Edward James almost.
Wasn't telling his story.
He wasn't telling he he got he got too close, you know, he got too close. Princetopher Copla didn't get too close, but France for a couple also. That was one thing that I recommend watching it. He spoke with the people he did like that. That Paramount single season series was very interesting. It was well made, it was it was entertaining. It was a good little thing.
I really don't like The Godfather, like I think it's shot like I think it's shot well, but I think it's just loan man. The story is and it's not like it's this fantastic story as much as it's a standard story for gangster rhythm. I prefer like, Oh Western really ain't into the mind, the only My move, the only My Man. Few movies I really like, I mean no, only say only because there's a few. Might Casino would probably be my favorite?
Yeah, right, Sino and.
Good Fellas were done by the same guy, and that's who is that's a different.
Guy, right, I don't know, because they were a lot more shinyer than they were.
They were made more in a newer generation.
Movie where there's a lot entertaining.
Yeah.
Yeah, The Godfather to me was more from an era like Gone with the Wind. That's a lot more about story and subtlety, a different world of cinema.
And I don't even really like that that level of like. I don't even think I really like films that pre date the seventies.
I understand why I don't really like.
I don't think. I don't think I really have a like. I tried to enjoy the black sploitation films, but they are a bit like I've consumed three so far? Right, Dola miight the movie with? What's the movie? JD's Revenge? Jad's Revenge is doope? What's funny? Is my favorite film from that from If there is a film from that time period, and this film is probably a little later, it's probably like The Warriors. The Warriors would be probably
the oldest film that I like. Yeah, and The Warriors was probably that it was.
The action packed the lulls of story, and I think, like you can see the same thing. It's kind of true all across Entertainment's true with hip hop. You're talking about hip hop is a distillation of another song, taking the most entertaining part and condensing it.
But that's street urban culture in general. Yeah, great point.
You're a learning curve.
You've been around the community of me in time. It's not bullshit going on most of the time. It's pretty much just regular things happen, the same thing out of Newport Beach.
Yeah, and like.
I like Willie Hutch, but Willie Hutch is the Godfather and ut Care Project Pat taking the most interesting bars or whatever out of the man.
It's a different said Pap in general fast Break and the Truth.
It's true of movies.
If you grew up as movies are, in that phase of it of its own learning as an art. You didn't even have cameras before, like nineteen forty really, so you're going from Charlie Chaplin, the Guy with the Wind of the Godfather.
Well, now you're going from Spider Man and X Men words to the Godfather.
It's like going back to the model a pickup truck from the you know, from the.
Raptor to a degree, what's the oldest film that you like? Like the oldest film? And when I say like, I don't mean you enjoyed it or you watched it and you thought it was quality, because that would be saying for me, excuse me. The third film I was talking about was a shaft gotcha. But I would never watch Cheff again, Like I would never choose to watch Dolomite again, and I would never choose to watch JD's Revenge. You get like, maybe I watch JD's Revenge because it was kind of fun.
Even the Shaft song it's like thirteen minutes long. It doesn't start till like minutes six.
But weirdly, I enjoyed music. I would listen to a million songs from the fIF I probably heard I Got a Woman a million times just playing it, you know, Ray Charles, and that's in the fifties. I love records from the fifties, sixties and seventy I love music more then than today.
They have gotten too concentrated to that.
Yeah, they just things went.
From being like Okay, it's a little too long, you hit a sweet spot. Now it's attention deaths of disorder.
But what's crazy is I was telling my homeboy, when you think about the technology that's always determined, you know, the technology that music, you know, was delivered, like the phonograph. You didn't have hit records because the fucking songs was too long. But then the birth of the seven inch, the forty five created the record the hit records because it was something that you could remember and it was
short songs. Then you know Maurice Williams and the Zodiac Stay, you know the songs that if you ever saw that Temptation many docu series, there's a song called Stay and Stay is like a song that's probably a minute in thirty six seconds. Stay just a little bit long. Please please please tell me that, yeah, going to that song
is about a minute and thirty second songs. Twist songs were short initially, right because you were dealing with the seven inch, the technology of the seven inch to forty five when.
I remember even like, uh, we did this funny for ap US History. We had to do like after the ap tests because we do either do nationwide. There's like a few weeks left the school, you know, because we don't get out on the West coast when they do
in Iowa. So one of our things we had to do was like Dot Project was Jim Morrison of the Doors my little group chose to do and I remember like light My Fire with their first big hit song, and they had the album version and they had the radio version which is about hath of.
Lex Good, you know, so that's I think a good example.
Also, I mean in the same way, like cinema has the ability to instantly capture the imagination with effects now that it didn't have forty fifty years ago, so it had to capture it with anticipation and story.
The oldest film, like I said, The Warriors is the film that I've watched a few I'm probably watch it soon. Yeah, And I've watched that a few times. And I like storyline films, but I guess I don't like vintage storyline films. I guess it is a bit slower.
It does to me.
It kind of depends, like that's what I'm looking for at the time. Same with kind of music. If I just need a two minute shot of energy, I'm not going to put on an epic six minute song. It starts slow and eventually crescendos too.
Whatever Little John, Yeah, whatever exactly. I mean, I probably would Michael Jackson Rock with You, Yeah right, Michael Jackson Rock with You is like my true energy song. Okay, So then is it wrong for us to punish Ross like not me because Ross is in my top five?
But is it wrong for people to say that because they feel like it's so far away from the true possibilities of who he could be, even though he may be close or giving somewhat of a skewed view of you know, this Miami street urban culture experience of selling dope.
I don't know, it's so rot with like ridiculous hypocrisy based off of not only who's doing the judging, mostly these fans.
It's not like some fans like like me, I'm like, I've taken the front.
I took all these fucking cocaine penitentiary chances based off of you when you were lying, I could have I could have got myself killed the Fox's the matter with
It's like, that's not really what's going on. I think that if you see the same thing with a lot of people that exist and then are adjacent to people who really are with the ship, and those people because they're getting money, they're okay with it, Like I don't know the guy's life like that, but I think like to a degree, like gun Play, for example, who work with Rick all the time, was much more probably with the ship than Rick by comparison, and he's you know,
it's it's it's in his career interest to just let it slide because they're in and some of the time, a lot of those guys are probably trying to get into music because they don't want to do this shit anymore, you know. So there's that too, so so you know, but like like even with.
Death Row, like.
They had a brand even through Sugar that got to the point. These are a big group of like violent gangster maniacs coming through and whatever. They're kind of like whyild West, like real life modern day Cowboy is just modern.
Yeah, And you know, in a lot of cases.
It was it was you know, it's it's it's the fringe. People that aren't on the records, that aren't on TV or whatever. They really hold that line and they you know, they're getting paid to be there and do security or whatever fuck else.
They let him do it.
So there's not a self policing by fans. Fans are different. One fan might be, you know, listen to music, different songs, trying to get something else out of it. One fan might be so you know, Sammy Smith from Santa Clarita, who just whatever. Some people like to beat, people like the lyrics and people trying to learn. Some people just trying
to be entertained. It's a whole tapestry of shit. I mean to me, it's it's like who's doing the criticizing and why it's important and who do you expect to hold the hold the guy accountable.
I don't know, because I don't think I really ever cared about that, And and somebody was on my head. They was like, man, you don't care about the integrity.
I'm like, were you listening to hip hop to get exposed to a drug dealer?
Like?
Not me.
Well there you have it.
Maybe somebody else is listening to hip hop because they don't have access to that, but they have a personal interest in that, you know, So their opportunity to get exposed to a world that they are not privy to is through hip hop. And they're like, man, this is the greatest sense rec rouss a cool sac of all time.
Wait what it is? Fake? They might be done with pissed.
Okay, that's fair. That's fair, I guess genuinely, because I am the culture or I am the you know what, it is weird to really walk that line of being genuinely what I know, who I am or what it is, versus just rapping about it. But to me, that's also what made my career such a challenge, Like people ask me, and I'm like, bro, I did really well for somebody, It's no way I should have been this far. And I mean, like, right now, the things that are happening
to me, now that's about to happen. I'm finally gonna get my gold album. I'm finally gonna get my platinum single. Right is because I learned what records and being a rapper and hip hop and marketing was about, versus you know, you're making millions of dollars and don't have no idea what it's about.
Sure, and Rick, probably to his credit, learned all that you were learning firsthand, all the shit he was talking about, and he was about rapping because he.
Wanted That's how I really feel, bro Like when you really think about it, like like I look at somebody like Ice Tea, Like Ice Tea wasn't really a rapper like Ice Tea. Stuff happened for Ice Tea pretty fast. Yeah, And so you know, people somebody was saying to me they felt like, man, when you think Ice T's career,
and I'm like, well, Ice Tea, he did amazing. Ice Team came into the rap game driving a Porsche he was already successful at being the culture itself, you know, at that point, and he always you know, makes a big deal.
To he's really like an innovator.
Yeah, and shout out to school he d because I don't want to take credit from school. But it's like, you know, when school kind of had this idea ice heard, it was like, Okay, I know how to clean this idea up and perfect it as a rapper. It's hard. I used to have this conversation with Cam. It's hard for people that's genuinely the culture to get far in this business. Like I like, I listened to Snoop Dogg
tells stories about being a rapper. Snoop was rapping back in elementary, like Domino taught Snoop how to Domino taught Snoop how to write raps in the elementary. Domino who goes on to have a platinum album and huge smash record right So he who is he signed to? Depth? Jim Okay. So this is the craziest thing. The homies
put me up on this. Shout out to the homye DJ Rashid from out of Houston by way of Pittsburgh and New York and and and and and the true member of the Licks, right, But he was telling me harry O's wife, Lydia had a deal with Russell Simmons. Outburst is that connection for Lydia and Russell Simmons. Harry O's wife, harry O is the guy that funded Death Row. Okay, gotcha right, shout out to her home. Now that's how you won't see me really deep, brother, I heard great
things about it. I never met him still, but I heard good things about him. But Lydia right had the situation with Russell with Outburst Records, which was death Jam, and Domino was signed to that.
Was Warren g also signed to Death Jam.
Yes, okay.
And they all went to the same high school.
Right, yeah, they all went to fucking Pop all from the same game. I said, yeah, okay, I got you right, So they were all friends. But just the point is Snoop was learning how to be a rapper in elementary Sure. Yeah, you talking about eleven twelve years old, y'all. I didn't know a rapping or eleven and twelve. I didn't know nothing like they was just songs.
Sure, you know.
So sometimes when I really want to be hard on myself about not achieving, I didn't even have goals, and as a rapper, I only had goals in business. So but again, that's why those lines have always went crazy, right. It's like the guys that kind of became rappers, they learned how to rap, and they started learning everything about making records. Like Bishop is like that Bishop told me he was rapping in junior high school. Mike stro told
me he was rapping in junior high school. I didn't rap till I was I was already a four year veteran that selling dope out of high school. It's the first time I rapped twenty two years old. So again, like me sacrificing so much for it is different. I mean it kind of rewarded me first and then kind of gave myself to it after.
Do you think that like with people that are more close to you know, ground zero, so to speak, is it in a lot of cases they either like you were saying, you find yourself in the middle of the music sector without deliberately like not like deliberately anticipating it, but you kind of find you just kind of like find yourself there off of a quick turn, versus like.
Or is there to a degree because of.
Your background prior to you were less apt, more self constrained in the way you're gonna kind of project the art down a more narrow highway of reality, whereas like Rick Ross has no constraint on a narrow highway of reality.
Yeah, there's definitely more. It's more responsibilities and because if you really out there, you are more than likely to be held accountable. Sure, something simple like if I start saying I had twenty million dollars, there's people that I am supposed to help.
Yeah, like if you were well, if you if you came out and you know album two were saying you're buying eighteen wheelers full of powder directly from uh Choppo or some shit you know, like like the West Coast equivalent or whatever.
Yeah, Like people aren't gonna be like, oh, he's you know, I don't think he really did that. They're gonna know you're making fucking albums.
Like I'm in the album making business and I'm making albums, but you.
Know what the yes, and that is something about the streets that if you really from the streets, you kind of have a different respect for it, like like like your admiration for people. I used to always say this when Chuck. When I first started fucking with Game in Black Wall Street. Game would have lines and rap songs like I Run my Hood. I could never say that.
It's not that I could say it. I could say I run my hood right now on this podcast and really plug you know Shady Moon Boo as Fats, certain older homies, you know what I mean, Big Jay. They wouldn't really say nothing like Oh Glasses said this. I mean they would hear it in probably the fuck, But I wouldn't say it because I wouldn't want to disrespect the people that I admire and listen to for wisdom
and knowledge. I would never put myself in their place just off of sheer respect for things Maine and Mike and and again TJ t Lo got me through.
Would those guys take it that way or would they know okay, jeez.
If I said it. If I said it, I don't think for two seconds plucked with a batter eye, I don't think for two seconds. Maybe somebody called him and be like Glass tell about he running seven man, They don't run nothing. But I don't think he would make it a campaign to tell other people like he wouldn't. It wouldn't mean much but honestly, my respect for him and for them is why I would never say it. It's not it's not I think I could get away
with saying a million different things. It really wouldn't people challenge me on. But then there's also about being who you really are, and and I don't know if that works out the greatest, you know, in entertainment, because it is very constraining.
It what is your primary objective?
Well, my primary objective is to fulfill my own possibilities to be the greatest version that Glasses could be in life. But by being Glasses exactly.
I remember you're saying one of the best things someone said to you was you're you're the realest person out or something like that. Somebody hearing that's like your premium thing. So it's more nuanced, you know, in the industry than just simply I want to sell the most records or I want to give the most people the record that they want, you know, it's it's a different track.
And that that could be a problem because those things are, you know, in the top five. But being glasses is the most important thing, Like you gotta happen with Glasses being glasses. If I got to take penis up the rectum to do it. That wouldn't be glasses being glasses because I know, for real, I don't have a desire to take penis from another guy. Like that just wouldn't work for me. Like if I had to give that much of myself, which is one event, it would spoil
it for me. It wouldn't even be worth having. Yeah, straight up, you know what I mean. So like if I have to kind of like if somebody said had glasses, if you say you run the seven I mean, and it'll make you be the number one rapper. If you say you run crips and you'll be the number one rapper. What I say, if I thought for two seconds, you
know what I mean? Because I genuinely think I could say I run all the watch and I don't think really much would Hall Is Central and I don't think and I will walk up Central and Wilmington now and shoot a video and I don't think nothing happened to me. I'm sure nothing happened to me. And I could say that, and you know, I don't think it would be like
it would go all the way back. But it's just it would be disingenuous and that mattered to me, you know what I mean, Like being genuine matters to me.
Bro.
Like, so it's it's it's tough for me to just go out there and do shit, and then I don't know if it's gonna work. Now if I if I if I knew, if I said, I run Wats, you know what I mean? Man, I run Wats and and and it would you know, make me have that that that gold album that I want and that platinum single I said, I'd go that far. I mean, I've work it out with the people that I actually think really run Wats and it'll be looking better anyway. I mean.
But again, like it's not even worth the gamble to disrespect the people that I feel like run Wats. I mean, maybe they wouldn't even look at it as disrespect. Maybe a glasses tripping you know, niggas might listen, man, glasses you better. My big homie told me Pluck was like glasses may yo has a real game member, Bro, And you don't even take the hommies. I'm like, I don't want to exploit the homies, Like how do you exploit
niggas as your friend? And I'm like, that's not the point I don't like going nowhere with you because you told me how to be by myself. He like everybody else, this is what they think, So why are you not presenting with them what they think? I'm like, but I'm really it. He like, they don't know what it really is. All they know is this And that became my thing with like somebody like Rose, Whereas like I remember, people respect you really so dope. Why you don't wear suits?
I'm like, suits don't nobody. But because that closest thing the average American has came to Adult Dealer. It's on television. It's scarface. Rick Ross looks like the clips I saw from the film's scarface. Like. It didn't hit me because I never watched car faces like Nigga, I know niggas, that's really scarf.
I know.
I ain't know Franklin Saint. That's a like I know cuz I don't fucking care about fucking scarf. I know these real people. So the way I felt about it, you know what I mean, it didn't really make sense. But I do think there's a level of marketing brilliance with Ross for him to understand that they don't know. Most people don't know, and if you want to translate a point, you gotta put it, you know, in the wheelhouse, you gotta speak it into a place that.
He took the whole supply chain and condensed it down into in a blender, into one glass and handed it to you. I mean, he's everything from retail to like the most level one wholesaler offshore in the same song.
You know that's not.
No, it's not. But to the average person, there are you know, cultural gems that he gave people, you know what I mean, Like he will you'll know who the booby boy. You're gonna look up the booby Boys. You can go look up convertible bird, you can go look up the people he's talking about you, I mean, and it gives you an insight to culture. He will talk about Carol City, and you can get a little closer to Miami, you know, you can connect from one ghetto
to the next. And that's why it's still real hip hop. He's still giving you culture, even if he's making it a little bit more digestible for people who have no idea what culture is or this level of culture. Yeah.
Yeah, he's a you know, he's a pretty positive guy.
Yeah, yeah, Ross Ross came to video shoot song Come Up. I'll never forget it man, And and uh he shook everybody hand. I mean he shook all my homeboys, everybody I brought with me. Shit, man, I'm Ross, you know what's up? I like and that that left of impression in my mind with him, where it's like, you know what,
you're all right? Man? Sure, Like I might have a criticism about not as art because he in my top five, but I can have a critical I can have a criticism about maybe how authentic these raps are, which I really don't give a fuck about.
And like I remember, you know, like Tupac saying at one point in time, you have to do the hit song to do the content song. He's also done, like you know, buy back the Block. He also talks about getting a wingstop franchise. I don't say anybody can get a ringstop wingstop franchise tomorrow.
Anybody can set aside five.
Year goal to get a wing stop franchise in five years and it's not glamorous, but it's life changing. And I think that that's a very tremendous positive that stay off. That's bigger than listen, you know, suburban rat fings.
Listen. Rick Ross is in my top five, and he's made enough music that I truly enjoy and I appreciate his talent and what he offers culturally to where he's in my top five. Again, is everybody in my top five about a level of what I'm looking for? Uh, integrity? I don't think I listened to fucking musicians for integrity. I listened to hip hop for culture. See that's the best thing too. Like I once I started understanding hip hop,
I wouldn't go to hip hop for music. Give me to all the guys, including doctor Dre, you know, one of my favorite people in most talented people in the industry. But I would go listen in the war, you know what I mean, like slipping in the darkness or ghetto. Like I would not listen to a fucking hip hop song for fucking music. I'm gonna go where the musicians are, like where the wrong James Brown records all of notes,
where people can play. There's no reason for me to go to a break if I'm looking for just music. I come to hip hop for the culture, and I think that the five guys give you the culture. That's what that's what I appreciate about With Ross. I still get Miami street urban culture. I mean, at which place should entertainment be just about entertaining.
Honestly, that's what you're doing for a living.
And over the last again, over the last four or five years, like it took me ten years, I pretty much dedicated my thirties to understanding what hip hop records and marketing was. So I pretty much turned through over the prime years of my hip hop career just to understand what's going on because I did well in the in the first five years of me being in the business, four years of me being in a business, and now I have this really tight window. And it's not tight
because I'm not developing as a talent. I'm still developing, and I still understand more about records. But now like other things are starting to really come into play for me. When it comes to storytelling. It's like I'm looking at films different. I'm looking at comic books different, you know, I mean, shout out to my people, that's you know, that's helping me with the comics Domi keV. It's like I'm looking at television and everything different. Like now there's
more ways to tell a story. Like I'm trying to figure out how to do my own art, you know, exhibit with music, you know what I mean. I'm being fucking Baron was talking about doing a fucking hood opera, and it's interesting. It's not as interesting to make albums for me anymore. I get it. I still have a niche. I got about three albums in the can that matter to me that I know I need to deliver maybe
possibly for it, but I don't see ten. And I would never be the type of artist who's going to just be making rap records or making albums when I don't really have an idea, like right now, I've been spending the last so like, like I said, I kind of figured out what was going on around twenty nineteen twenty. Then I start getting all my catalog to streaming, fixing it, just making sure my whole you know, what will be
twenty titles. You know, when it's said and done, my twenty titles on streaming apps, right, will it'll be able to be consuming when people find out who I am and they go listen to these twenty albums, you know, I mean these twenty different records, twenty different albums, they can have a much clearer vision of who they fucking with. So I definitely get it now. Like I've fixed my brand. I think ross brand is premiere. I think I fixed
my brand at this point. Somebody's asked me the other day, like, you know about different artists, and I'm like, man, it's gonna be hard for an artist to be better than me today because I understand who you need to see, who you need to know, Like which parts of glasses matter to you that you need to understand. I know that now. I'm not giving you pretty much other stuff. I'm giving you the glasses that you need to know for you to understand and for you to actually want to,
you know, support my business. Now there's if you know I'm not in the business that convince you there's more to artists that's not my business.
I think people may under underestimate how brad the tapestry of hip hop is. There's there's portions of it that are like very much to make people dance.
That's that's the origin. Yeah, sure that hip hop started with dancing first. It's not the DJ rapping or the graffiti first. The first ship is the way they was moving to the break in records, how they started moving. That's the beginning of hip.
Hop, sure, and all songs where that's the target goal, no matter what the fuck you're really saying, the really really doesn't know.
Then there's.
The most like broadly generically entertaining, and then there's maybe the most conscious and educational, you know, and in general speak. But if you're in your own lane, be there. I don't think it makes that much of a difference, honestly.
And looking out for tuning into the No Sellers podcast, Please do us a favorite, subscribe, rate, commentist share. This episode was recorded right here on the West coast of the USA and produced by the Black Effect Podcast Network and now Hard Radio. Yeah