Convos About the Cool Table

just gotta focus the whole time on mixing records. Like it's just crazy and fuck glasses, like I realized, because my career is in this weird place, like it's right at the end of the West Coast greatness and at the beginning of what became the future and music like streaming apps, you know, Spotify, Title Apple, A lot of the projects I put out, A lot of the projects that I put out, they didn't weren't on streaming services. You know. It's more that pith Era. It's more than

that pith Era. So now that I have to put the music, I have to put the music on streaming sites, I get a chance to go in and really correct it, you know what I mean, And like I have far like my knowledge of making records at this point is far too vast, you know what I mean for me not to make adjustments to music when I hear it, you know, mistakes or different things when I hear it, Like it's hard for me to not make the changes

of percent. So, you know, re recording songs, you know, refreshing songs, remixing songs, just doing as much as I can to make sure when people listen to fuck Glasses Malone, even though it's going to say it came out of two thousand and eight, it has twenty twenty four knowledge from Glasses Malone. So it's just been a journey the last few days. And say the least man it shit is just dope.

were the coolest tables in the cafeteria. Sure, sure, I like to think of hip hop as the cool table in the cafeteria, right And hip hop has been at that table and running that table since the nineties. Since hip hop's inception, as you know, being a part of the music business in the late seventies early eighties, it has clearly made its way through all the other tables. Past the goth kids, the rock kids pasted all these

kids and became the cool table in America. And the reality is, when they first started off in the eighties, nobody wanted a piece of it. In the nineties, nobody wanted a piece of it. Everybody was so scared to go and mess with the poor kid at the cool table. Right fast forward, we get to two thousand, every body wants to do some kind of business and have an affiliation with the cool table. Right now, you have all of the brands, different people coming like, hey, we want

you to make us cool too, or our product cool. Right. Sure, before that, you had to really work your way to even be apart. You couldn't even just buy your way to the table. It was really expensive to buy your way into the cool table. That's hip hop you. I mean, like you had to spend some money. It was like, this is the cool table. Everybody can't sit at this table, you know what I mean. It wasn't like you couldn't just be at the table. They were hella hella, hella

on who said at that fucking table. They was like the plastics and mean girls. Bro, you could not sit at this fucking table, and they will kick your ass away from the table. They get your ass, kick your ass out of like you can't sit here anymore. You know what I'm saying. And what's been on my mind for the last couple of weeks is how cheap sitting at the cool table has become. Do you remember the cool kids when you was in school?

stupid yet. They were figuring out some way to make some money and do some things with their life, you know what I mean. But they came from the poor area. Like and it's funny because the richest kids was never the cool kids. Like at the schools I went to, the richest kids was never the coolest kids unless you got your money out the street. Like it was a lot more respect for culture, you know what I mean, and everybody respected to struggle, you know what I mean.

What was the cool table like in the OC, I.

karm board over there. I used to love Arteacher High School. I wanted to go there, but my mom, you know, this was right before she went to prison, so like, there's no way, you know what I mean. I was gonna make it there on time, didn't you know. We lived in Compas did so that just wasn't gonna happen. But you watch football at all. Yeah, So the cool table at paramunt High School. One of the main people that ran the cool tables, the cool tables that was

already in existence. Is the coach of the fucking la is the coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. Now the homie a paramount. Yes, Antonio Pierce and AP was a fuck up like AP used to get in trouble suspended. They used to run with a clique. They had these two cliques, nasty ass rascals and three o fos and them clicks used to fight all the fucking time, you

know what I'm saying. And so they had this area under the new building, and that would have been the cool tables, right, But while we fucked with people like I fucked with a couple people over there, we was I had just I'm fresh I did and got courted on. I'm already starting to hustle, so I'm not even finna go hang with the jocks or none of that. Like so me and my godbrothers, they were freshman, Steven and STEPHANU. Stephan passed away, but Steven is still breathing. The twins

shout out to my family. But we were going there, and we took this table from where the tables were close to the Senior Square, and we set them next to the it was a snack shack. We set them on the side of the snack shack right by the gym, like, and that became where we started sitting in the tenth grade. Right we had like one or two tables and we just be posted up. That was our spot because it was me, my godbrothers, and a couple hommies that was going there. So we would just be over there doing

our thing. By the time I graduated, you know, it was so many motherfucking tables over there. It might have been like eight tables in our little section. And that area became just as cool as the new building area. And if I've never like just ran and did what the cool people did, like I just I've always thought I was fine no matter what, like you know what I mean. I don't know if I was cool as the word, but I always thought that I was a special person. So I never fell into shit that I

didn't want to do just to be accepted. So like we made our section cool. Right now, the new building still was the cool area, but our section was justice booming, And by the time we graduated, it was so many people that would sit with us, like we twenty thirty people sitting with us, you know what I mean, We just doing our thing. I say all that to say, when I'm looking at hip hop right now, the cool table, I'm looking at different people trying to make their way

into the cool table. Do you ever watch DJ Vlad? Yeah?

But to vlast credit, and this is something that I don't know how many people know about Vlad, but Vlad has been like as far as covering it, probably before I start putting out music, I was doing Vlad TVs back in two thousand and four and five, you know what I mean, And at that time, like how Vlad Show is now, Vlad is like somewhere else, you know what I mean, doing the interview remote and he just does a good voiceover. So it sounds like he's in a room, but he's not in the same room as

a lot of the guests. But at that time, Vlad would like I used to have Vlad coming to watts bro Like he would come to the seven and post up and just be getting his footage talking to the g homies. So I always gave Blad credit as somebody where he really was gonna put itself on the line to go be a part and get you know, information about the culture, whatever it was. And I always gave him that credit. Back then, Vlad used to do mixtapes. A lot of people don't know this, you know what

I mean. They just think he started some interview platform and blah blah blah. But this dude was really smart as a DJ. He was sharp. He could pick a good song, a good record. So he's not totally void of knowledge when it comes to hip hop, you know what I mean. He's not some fool for all, Like, Vlad is very much in the know when it comes to this music shit, like when it comes to hip hop music, sure, but fast forward, it's like that his goal was always to be a part of the culture.

Now because rest is sure like the culture made DJ Blad Flat TV. No question, the culture made DJ bla Blat TV, like the culture Street Urban culture made lat TV. Does he not have a right to sit at the cool table at that point if people want to use his platform? Does that make sense? You know what I mean? When you have that conversation, Does that not make sense? Does he not? Did he not earn his his seat at the table?

but I never looked at because like a culture vuture. Yeah, he always had a genuine interest in the coach of lad had a fucking black woman back then, you know what I mean. And I'm not saying because you get some black pussy that make you a part of said culture. But he was hell a vested in it, you know what I mean. He wasn't just some motherfucking But don't get me wrong. I don't think he was living the culture,

you know what I mean. He's not living the street life, but he made it his job to cover it and back then, to put himself in danger, you know, to go see exactly what's going down. He's doing these interviews currently with different people when he's talking about the BMF dudes, and it's funny because I hear Cuz talking. He'd be like, yeah, you know, well I did the He was talking about how he hung with be Amth for like two or

three days. He's like, yeah, man, they're blowing money and they're in clubs, and you know, I know, they're not selling any records. So I had to separate myself. And I was thinking to myself, like, glad, nobody, no federal law enforcement would think you are selling drugs and a part of BMF. I don't know if it was really that that important cover. You just separate yourself into that degree outside of upcoming artist.

of those terms. Yeah, I'm just saying, if you want to do a disc track on them, you know, you could, you can run that. You know, people don't do it, but you know, there's it depends on how you want to define it, you know.

You know, he's carrying himself like he's of said culture. Now, don't get me wrong. I think there's plenty of white people who love Alan Iverson. I'm sure because Ai is such a fucking iconic anomaly as an athlete and as a hooper, like it's just out of this world, even as a fashion icon and what he represented to the NBA for years to come. Right, Yeah, it's another thing when you call yourself the white version of him, you

know what I mean? And then you braid your hair to the back and you put on some loaches, some dark shades, and then like later on he comes out and he's like, yeah, I'm not really a rapper or it was something loosely around he's not really down with the culture to that degree.

so people can't take the credit he puts on. You know, he's done songs with Roddy Rich, different people from the Migos, twenty one Savage, all the urban acts, you know what I mean. But somewhere along the line he disassociated himself with the culture, and that, to me is a culture vulture, right when you play off people's especially the culture's desire to have representation, right, because everybody knows the culture wants representation in all shades. You know, we love it in

all shades. We want to be represented to see that people are down with the struggle. Right. And then so when you wake up, you're like, yeah, I'm not fucking with that that I just did that for that, I mean, to me, that's being a culture.

from eminem, you know what I mean. Like, I always respected that they I don't know if it was him or the Regulabel, but they made his hair blond. They made him a white person. Don't get me wrong, he might have had you know, some trendy gear, you know, but niggas wasn't looking at Eminem for fashion tips. So I think I enjoyed the fact that they made him a white man and let him talk about problems that

the culture thinks white people have. Right, he's upset with his mother on drug or she mistreated him, or his baby mom. That was a real connecting point for certain black people. Him wanting to raise his daughter, you know. And I think you know, you was able to see that white people had problems, like they were poor. Like we love to see poor white people because it makes us realize we're not alone. But it's like, you know, we see Eminem me like, you know, he he got

problems like us, right, So that was dope. But somebody like post Malone is different right where he used the culture to position himself, you know what I mean, And then now he's able to walk freely about the cabin. And I think that's what we regret the most when we do let people sit at the cool table like a machine gun. Kelly shout out to Kelly, Right, he's a really dope dude. But soon as you get in

the door, you go back to being a white person. Now, you were always white, you know, even when you came in, but you tend to look like you was catering to the culture itself, like, hey, I'm a representation of this too. Like he has this really dope song east Side Till I Die About East Cleveland and it's nothing but brothers in the video. But now you're looking at this video and it's not you know it's it's it's completely different. He's completely different, and his think.

But I think when I think of culture vultures, I think of that type of situation, specifically with post Malon, where it's like, damn, you used us to get on Like you you used a cool table to get in good with the principal, but really you went into the principal's office and start talking about the type of shit we was doing and saying you wasn't down. It brings

me to my next thought. Adam twenty two. Adam twenty two. Yeah, I know you said you didn't know who he was, but he he's the owner of a platform, a digital platform called no Jumper. Now no Jumper is a platform that Adam twenty two was, if I understand correct, he was like a bicyclist, like a like a like a style, like a bmx GT style bicyclist. And most people don't know this, but bicyclists in Los Angeles and skaters have

a deep urban tradition of street urban shit. It's not the same as like where like where I'm from and company watch. But you remember, you old enough to remember, Pete, how the skaters used to be. They were like kind of like outlaws, little thuggish kind of guy. They were really rebellious. They were ride they skateboards where they didn't have permission that they'll bust your asseside the head. They will still shot out to seven eleven. They were. They

were the punk rock kids. Right. Punk rock and hip hop are step brothers. Right, it's the same same father. Right, The oppression and poverty that creates culture different mothers, different places, you know, in the community, different earths, you know, I mean, you put that in different earths and it sprouts out

different ways. So Adam twenty two was a bicyclist, if I remember correctly, and he started a platform, right, which is No Jumper, and he started talking to different people of cultural backgrounds mainly artists, right, and different other professionals in different fields. And when this platform first launched, it was interesting, you know what I mean. He he had a certain conversational skill, you know what I mean, He could conversate really well. He would think, you know what

I mean. He wasn't scared to ask hard questions. He was sharp. Well, No Jumper has evolved, and I don't know if it's evolved or devolved into either a really type of you know, it's putting culture under a different microphone, or I don't know if it's devolved into a much more primitive place where it's like all of the conversations. So let me rewind back. Hip hop itself is street urban culture personified through the arts, aka the elements. Right.

Initially the elements were m sing right, djang, graffiti, graffiti and breaking be right. They added knowledge and a couple other things along the way, but it was street urban culture personified through these things because m singing existed long before hip hop. Djang existed long before hip hop, dancing existed before hip hop, even breaking existed before hip hop, and graffiti existed before hip hop. But when you put the street urban culture, the ghettos take on art in it.

That's what made it hip hop. Right, So adam twenty two. Obviously with Showcase artistic you know people the artists that express street urban culture. That's how you know, I remember his platform initially. Fast forward when in twenty twenty four. At this point, Bro, he's just showing street urban culture. They are not artists. They're not personifying it through art

or brilliance of excellence. It's just a culture. Like instead of getting at one time, you would have had to go get you know, if you wanted a representation of the West Side South Central experience, you would have to talk to Corrupt, right, you had to talk to dub C.

that's the tail of the cow. Right, pig, any part because pigs are cheap, right, any part cooked them a certain way because you wanted them to be flavorful, so you would really over season them because that made them digestible and delicious to the to the palate. So I like him to think hip hop as soulful. You know, you cook a certain thing in the way you cook it. Soul food is always being expanded, right, Like like you ever seen black people tacos, We call them nigga tacos.

That's soulfuld, right. We Friday shells, the ground meat that soul food, you know, invented over the last forty years. A spaghetro, you know ghetto spaghetti where you actually cook the damn noodles in the sauce. That's soul fool, right. So soul food always was a twist on cuisine, you know what I mean. It wasn't about the actual particular food item as much as it was about how we

cooked the food item. Right. So it was again back to the point of soul food being this overseasoned thing to make really bad food digestible, like horrible you know, vegetables digestible, you know, at that degree Adam twenty two, at this point is just selling the seasoning like a tablespoon of salt. Sol hip hop in its earliest you know, its in its infancy, and even coming into the two thousands when you would die just hip hop, you know

what I mean. Don't get me wrong, If you keep eating this shit for sixty seventy years, you might have a fucking heart attack or some diabetes or shit, you know what I mean. Because it is overseason right, sure, but at least it carried you along the way, right, It connected you to your people, It connected you to the struggle, right, and it still had nourishing elements. It

still was a nourishing meal. It might have you didn't get you know, the greatest years, all the hundred years of life, because you know, you didn't get the best stuff, but it still had nourishment. Adam and no Jumper, they're selling a tablespoon of fucking salt. There is no nourishment.

You don't listen and get information that is substantial to your life like you would out of hip hop, where you could get some stuff to get you through hard days, not only just you know, tough times or attitude, but things that really made you feel like he wasn't alone in the world. At this point, Couz is selling straight fucking seasoning like he's like a tablespoon of old bay.

So there is no nourishment with it, right. But I say all that to say, you know, because he understands what he's selling, and I can respect his business mind, but at this point, cause it's causing so much drama, Like my little cousin in Georgia was like, oh, why

you don't want to talk about it? Like she sent me a message, and I'm like, I don't know if I agree with the thought that Adam twenty two is a culture vulture bro, Like I don't, like, I don't agree with what he's doing as far as how he's being irresponsible with this type of information that has cost hundreds to thousands of men in their lives cuz. But I also don't know if he's wrong for having a platform if you want to go on there and express

that's what's on your mind. I'm not quite sure if he's a culture vuture because he's providing a platform that people want to talk, you know on Because I've been on Adam twenty two's podcast the early in twenty nineteen, I did another no Jumper, I did three or four different no Jumper things, and I've never said anything that created a problem in Los Angeles because obviously I'm being responsible for what I say, and if I wanted to make a problem, I will call the specific artist or

whichever community I have an issue with and make a real problem right there, not to go on a public platform and try to shame anybody. So I don't know how I feel. Is he a culture vulture or is people you know, the same poverty and oppression that makes people want to share their story so they can feel like they matter, you know what I mean? Like, don't I don't know which way am I going left for right?

you know what I mean. I would tell him that, But at the end of the day, I'm not going to demand he stopped it, because he's not twisting none of these niggas arms to go over there and be a part of it, you know what I mean. Like some people saying, you know he's giving people opportunity. It has value for him, you know what I mean, if given opportunity has value for you. I don't even know if that's really even given opportunity. But I also can't be I can't say that you're just using people, you

know what I'm saying, like, give an opportunity. So I just was thinking about it, and of course Adam and Vlad want to sit at the fucking cool table. There's no way in the fucking world they were sitting at no cool table before now. If they would have came to the cool table years ago, man, before any of

this shit, bro, they have a fucking problem. But now they have something of value to the table itself, to the people that sit at the table, because at the end of the day, that people sitting at the table, they don't even want to be poor or forced to have to do the stuff that make them cool in the first place, like we all forced to do the shit. Niggas don't want to have to sell dope. Niggas be selling dope. It's the best trade going on in the

community at the time. You know what I mean that people that we know are involved in.

were saying. The real conversation is, I was accountable for my actions and I went and paid for I went and paid for what I did the correct way without making sure anybody else got in trouble because of what happen with me. Right, So there's a pride in that sense of accountability. Right, he's like me, I walked off. But that's what they say, I walked off ten years I went, did my time. I didn't, you know, telling

somebody else to not, you know, be accountable. But when they don't use that term, people mistaken and automatically start thinking that, oh, well, they're proud because they went to jail. No, they're proud because they're accepted. They accepted their responsibility. They was accountable for whatever they did and the time that they would have to serve, whether or not they still saying they innocent or guilty. You know what I'm saying. They went and accepted the accountability of what needed to

happen and went and did it like a man. That's what they're proud of. Right, and problem solving, which is why people go out to ball, Right, people want to make money because they want to solve people problems. But the two fastest way to feel like a man is pussy and money, of course, and it is rooted in three different things, pussy, money, and respect. Right. So you have two different type of people in the ghetto when it comes to becoming a man. Right. You have the

guys that want to go out and hustle and make money. Right, that's their goal of literally, you know, becoming a problem solver. I'm gonna solve my mother's problem of poverty. Right, I'm gonna go make this money, and I'm gonna make some money, and I'm gonna be able to help people and help my people and help myself and feed myself. My mama not gonna be you know, she's not gonna be on

section eight Da da dah. Right. And then you have the other one, right, which is the warriors who go out in the street and be like, when you say my name, you're gonna have to respect me as a man because I've went and faced all adversities. I was accountable for everything that happened in this community, and I went and faced everything head on and did whatever it took for our survival. Now some people may think I

make it sound noble, but it's not. It's really the issues of being poor, right, It's a very primitive mindset. When resources are scarce and fought over, it goes into a real primitive mindset, like a fucking komodo dragon eating a fucking baby goat. You know, it gets primitive. What we hope is the sophistication of being humans kick in.

But without resources, without you know, without things that you need, right, without things that you need, the simple survival things that you need, right, you go into a very primitive space and it really will turn into those two things, that warrior mindset or I'm gonna get money. And then you got crazy dudes who do both. You know, that's their thing. So in that goal of being somebody, you know, the way you become somebody in the community is by standing

up and being a trooper a soldier. Right, But everybody wants you to know who they are. They want to be revered. They want a lot of it is because they don't want to keep getting into shit, so they want their reputation to carry so they don't have to do anything stupid no more. And I think that's where platforms like no Jumper and Flag come into where people finally feel like somebody else is listening. Because that type of poverty is hella isolating, you know what I mean,

It's a serious isolation. You don't know shit three miles away from you. Because the world of Watts felt so big to most of my own boys, like they never would have went outside or Compton. They never went outside these places because poverty does not allow a freedom to travel about the cabin mentally, you know what I mean. It's still only a dollar thirty at that time to ride a bus and get a couple of transfers and

go anywhere you want. But you wouldn't believe this existed because you were told people didn't want you other places. You know, you didn't want to go somewhere without money, not knowing the value of seeing other things and what it could do to your mind. You know, it's a

cage poverty and cage pete. And this is like all the times we be talking over four you know, three or four seasons, and I've been trying to get you to see it because it's so hard to imagine what it feels like or to listen to your friends talk about it. And it almost seems defeating, like where it's like, wait a minute, it can't be that bad. Yeah, because

it's that bad. So when they have an opportunity to garner some sense of fame, which that's normal for more humans, not for people to know who they are and know their story, and somebody saying, hey, we want you to come on a platform and express who you are and what you've been through, it's like a fucking therapist, you know what I mean? That people gonna hear your story and see value in you, and it's like a fucking therapist.

Except somewhere along the line, motherfuckers forget they are talking to tens of thousands and not hundreds of thousands of people people, So they preaching and talking to this nigga right to Adam or to any of his guest hosts like they're talking to a therapist, not realizing and as silly as it sound, not realizing this shit is gonna be heard by hundreds of thousands that maybe millions of people. But that's the mind state that that bread the culture.

You know, it has to come with some other type of traumas where there's not a true understanding of what's happening here.

Granted he gets more in the aggregate, but to suggest that would be the suggest that he's manipula and exploiting these people that are pretty savvy people, you know, Like it was, it's like you you gotta say to say he's exploiting somebody, you gotta say that person got exploit.