Spout pop and norb my girl is in the building. Eric, go Ford, can we can? We? I feel like we must celebrate today because there is a there is a baton pass? Is that an actual baton? Actual? And for those like Angie feel the baton, it's real, right, It's a real baton, real baton. I don't even know if I ever knew what a baton was or want touched the baton And what's happening with this now? This baton is going to be the symbol of we me passing the leadership of life camp. It says end of an era. Oh,
you're actually giving this is the baton? Yes, and you're handing it to Tiffany, Lamela and Princess. So it says, Tiffany and Princess, We're going to we gotta go back for one second, Eric, Before the last time she was here. First of all, Erica Ford has been on my show many many times. Throughout the years. She has done I mean countless work in this city and and beyond two to keep peace in the streets and to stop violence. And she has advocated for all types of moments, the
important moments. And I was thinking about it today and that time is coming to an end because you're about to step down. Pass the baton. But the last time you were here on the show, we talked about some health challenges that you were having, which has led to this moment. Yes, so, so first tell me what happened after our interview last time. So after the interview, I went to Queen of Four. I stayed there for a month. You some guys, some of you might have heard of Queen
of Four. She's a heal holistic healer. I know Lauren London has done a lot of stuff. Eric Folk, Yeah, okay, And so I felt she she brought me to a space where I felt she reached out to you. Yes, she reached out to me. Russell reached out to me
right. And so then after I left Queen of Four. And the thing that was good about Queen of Four because I was able to be at the house of one of my original students to marry Simmons, who now when you look at the tables have turned like I took care of her twenty years ago when she came into Life Camp, and now she was taking care of me, helping me stay alive. Twenty years later, when you were on the show, you were not sure health wise. You knew something was wrong.
You said you hadn't been sleeping. You said you'd you'd lost all this weight, but you didn't know why. You had like no answers. Right, And I was listening to the interview that time I lost forty pounds. Subsequently, I've lost sixty two pounds. Wow. Right, And after Queen of four, still didn't know what was wrong. So I went to Bali and so to just rest, and I was there for a month. I was
getting ready to leave. I toltally. I tried to hang out with Russell one day, and hanging out with Russell is doing yoga in the morning, walking, going to the gym, doing all of these exercises, and going into that cold freezer. I totally passed out. I totally passed out. I was thrown up all night. I had to They had a nurse come and stay with me, and a doctor came and the doctor said, if
you try to leave now, you'll die. And she said, because the reasons why people can't see what's wrong with you is because you've totally depleted your nervous system. So a lot of times we don't I looked at a video that they did for me. It was supposed to be a surprise for Sunday and one of the young people said, Erica runs into the fire so that we don't get burned, and that something it all up in my head. For thirty six years, I've been running in the fires so that somebody else
don't get burned. And it has totally depleted my body, right, and so I just needed rest. And so I rest in Bali for two months, and I said I need to come back to see how I could exist with resting and working at a different level. This is an addiction. I couldn't do it. It happened for a minute the first day when the car picked me up and was bringing me from the airport, we was driving through
the hood. The police had pulled somebody over and was harassing them. I rolled down the window like I was getting ready to do something and I could barely even stand out. And so wow, it worked for a little while. But you hear that term you give your life to this work, and you literally have given your life to this work. But I literally am not going to give my life. Well it's yeah, no, but you've given a large party your life and health and well being and all you know,
you haven't given it fully. We want you here, We want you to have life left. Which is why for all of those who say you can't pass up, like, oh, yes you can, and yes she needs to, and yes she should, Yes yeah I have to. And I think that that. You know, I used to be caught in the phase of like feeling guilty in a sense because it's like, who are you after
you you've done this work for so long? Who are you right? And it's like you'll figure out the next and I and I and I and I gave myself permission to do nothing, to just sit still and do nothing and allow the universe to develop as it should. Wow, how does that feel? It's scary? Scary. We all have this thing that we like.
We we we put a title on ourselves. We're addict, like we're all And especially if you do stuff with passion, you're addicted to it because you you like what even if it's self, even if you're doing things for other people, there is still something that fills you, that serves you. And so, like you said, you've become addicted to it and not even taking care of yourself. I'm so happy that you have made the decision to put
yourself in your health first. Yes, I mean, of course, you know, and I'm sure you have empowered many people to continue the work and they won't do it like me. And so people don't need to go to life care looking for what Erika did, or say Erica used to do this, or Erica this, or Erica's not there. Yeah right, And you got to respect new leadership. You got to respect new ideas because new things are allowed to happen, they should happen. It's the way, you know,
it's the universe evolution for sure. You know. Wow, how do you feel now? Well? It's emotional, right, It's an emotional roller coaster, but it's also a physical roller coaster because you know, like the lady said, if I come back and do the same thing, I'm not going to get better. And I came back and didn't do the same I did the same thing. Do you have to get out of here? I do. I got to get out of here mentally and physically. Mentally is
the most important thing. Yeah right, because you know, unless I'm someplace where there's no service, then you know, I have to have the you want to do the work. You always just want to do that. And that's why I come on here and talk about it, right because some of your listeners see me in the airport and they be like, what are you doing. You're not supposed to be going on. You'll see me like, what are you doing? I love that and I love that you told me
that happened last time from our interview. That made me so happy that people were on you because I need that you do that. Yes, I don't have the internal discipline to do you know, And when I say do nothing, you know, running the operation is a thing, you know, showing up to events and speaking that's nothing to me. That's like, you know, you could do that, but preparing the event or making sure everything is going right and making sure that we're responding when a young person as an incident
or the police situation, and it's so many situations. Yeah, it's still going on. It's unfortunately probably for the rest of our lives. We're going it's you know, it's going to be going on. And it's Tupac said, we could like the spark in somebody to make the revolution, but we might not be here for the revolution. And I'm cool. You've done a
lot of sparks, You've done a lot of work. Basically, this lady Carolyn Dixon, she's the mother who lost her son, and she's just texted me and said, I would not be here if if it wasn't for you in life camp. And she's like, for real, I wouldn't be here. And you know, like you see the look on people's face sometimes and
you see in them that they they're empty, the soul is empty. And so with me trying to give them life, you know, it's taking from my life because you're giving your life to other people so that they can live, you know, And and you know there's a lot of people that are here because of our work. That must make you proud. You got to have so much pride in that. Let go of the addiction and just sitting the pride, Sit in the pride, Let go of the addiction. Past
the baton. The baton's getting passed. When on Sunday, right Sunday, Wow, Oh you're going to be so emotional. So the work will continue though, right, it'll be a tr TRL moment. What is this that you're showing me? This is why I started, right, And so this is a lot of the folks who I grew up with besides Biggie and Tupac, of course, but who got killed in the eighties, right, And I saw what happened to their children. I saw what happened to their families.
I saw what happened to their friends who went to jail for twenty thirty years after these individuals got killed. And it led me to to want to start life Life Camp, to do the work of the Code Foundation with Tupac that we you know, talked about so many times on your show. But I bought the beginning and the end of this particular era. Wow, you know, the beginning and the baton. Yes, that is powerful. Baby.
Well, we love you and appreciate you, and you have that and I've said this to you one hundred times, but you have done enough. Yes, you have done enough. When you get that urge and that pool starts coming in, that addiction starts kicking in, just you know, remind yourself it's an addiction and you've already done enough. I mean, I know it's probably so hard, but wow, wow, what a legacy. When
you think about Life Camp, what are like? You know, some people might be younger, not new, you know, new to your story, even now, what do you reflect on as like the highlights or the most or just some amazing moments of life camp So what I was thinking of the other day, I was talking to this gentleman from the Department of Justice, Eddie, who you know is a fully incocerated guy who's now working in the
Department of Justice. Him even having that job, right, is something that came from our work and our activism, our conversations and advocacy to the government. And so so many people are able to feed their families, so many people are able to change their lifestyle, their life styles because of the infrastructure and industry that we built. So we you know, we can look at hip hop and say hip hop was built during this time. It didn't exist
before this time. This work around gun violence prevention didn't exist when I first started right, And there was a lot of doors that I had to knock down, a lot of people that I had to curse out, and a lot of roads that we had to build for this to exist. And so I can sit and say, like we did that. I did that in my lifetime, helped create an industry so that brothers coming home from jail and other brothers and sisters who most people forget about, can feed their family and
change their conditions in their communities. And we got Greg and the White House and so many people. We got a system here in New York City that as high as formally incarcerated men and women to serve right alongside the police and help and keep peace in our streets. That didn't exist. It wouldn't, it wouldn't even like they told me, it wasn't gonna happen, right, So there's so many. Our bus, the Piece Mobile, the Peace Mobile is now in other cities. Love that it's send like five other cities.
We just partnered with a nonprofit funding agency who's gonna help us put it in more cities. Senator to Shuma gave us money to get another Piece Mobile, so it there'll be another life care Piece Mobile coming out. And I think there's so many. There's so many. I have so many just from the outside. I have so many members of you, like you know, like especially earlier in my career where I was like this, not even looking up.
I was just trying to and you'd be like, hey, we need you over here, and I'd be like okay, okay, okay, and you'd be like, no, no, we need you over here. It would be like you would smack me upside the head ten times to express to me how important it was to be at whatever event you were doing to encourage people to have peace and whatever. It was like you were just so diligent, and sometimes you'd be like okay, Erica, but then you then you go and you show up and you go, this is the work, this
is good work. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to whatever, lend my voice and whatever, because you were You're doing work that allows us to lend our voice to something you're already creating. And so so many times of that with you. But then also like there's just other moments. There was a moment we were at a protest. Oh yeah, it was women's it was it was around the International Women's Day. I don't know, it was something. What was the march for? I don't remember what we were
marching Ford. I know people started getting arrested, people started getting arrested. But I will be honest with you, when I showed up to that march, I had already been warned that people might get arrested. And at that point, I believe this was like early Black Lives Matter movements we had, we were in that time, and it was I don't remember exactly what the meaning of the march was for that day, but I had been told we might get arrested. The cops are gonna come, and I was like,
y'all was in my like, I don't care. Yes, so we're going, We're gonna it's the right thing to do. I'll get arrested. I've never been arrested and I'm clostrophobic, but if I got to get arrested for the cause, I'm gonna get arrested today. So I went there with the assumption that that could happen, and I'm okay with it. Yes, around they were so mad at me, But that's a whole other story. So then we get to the thing. Everybody sits on the cops come, they're
like, you're gonna get arrested, and nobody leaves. We all sit on the floor. So I'm sitting on the floor. People around me. They start arresting everybody and I'm sitting there like, fine, here's what a here come Erica Ford through the crowd. Angie, get up. Now, this is a woman who I respect so much. In his space who I would think would be the person to tell me get arrested for the cause. She was like, Angie, getmp off the floor. She was like, you
you don't help us in jail. You help us. You help us by going back to the radio and talking about the day and what the thing was. This doesn't help anybody. I was like, Okay, I picked myself up off the floor. And then there was some of some of the people even should tell at the time who was my sister at the time she got arrested, Like mad people got arrested. You remember that. But I had that memory of you coming through the crowd to be like, get off the
floor. Were I will always have that memory of you in the middle of all the sea of things. But there's that moment, for sure. But there's so many moments, so many great things that you've done that I've been so happy for you to call me to be part of. So I just you know how I feel about you. I respect you, I adore you. I'm so happy that you're taking care of yourself. And yes, we want you around for a long time, for a long time, and you
have planted the seed, so the work has to continue. And so what happens with life Camp now and how do we support and phenomenal co executive directors because it took two women to take my place. And so Tiffany Lamela and Princess Diana Lemon, they're taken over. They've already taken over Sunday it becomes official or ceremonial, right, and they're leading the team. They have a phenomenal street team. They have a team that works in the school, Tina
works in the hospital, Tina works in the jails. And people just have to be patient with them. They have to respect their decisions and their new leadership because it's not going to be what Erica Ford. There's nobody like Erika Ford. Like there's nobody like anybody else of us, right, And I realized, like I was crazy, like the things I look back and give me the craziest Erica Ford. Now, when you look back, you go,
I was wilent. I was wildent. There was a there was a couple, and I'm definitely one with a police or police anything, right, me fighting the police because the police used to, you know, have my picture in their thing, and like get her because she's gonna lead the war, right or the riot. So definitely. Like one time we were at some we were at a funeral or something. We got to call that the
police for attacking folks in the hood. We jumped in my little Camaro I think it was or whatever, ran every light, every light ran up on the scene, even hit the police car as I was coming on the scene because I guess I was going so fast I didn't even stop. And we jumped out like yo, and then stiff jumped off. We can't it got crazy. Needed me to call Erica, get get out of the get get away from the police car. But we were able to refuse the situation from
them. You know, the brawl that was happening at the development. It's been you know, we've interrupted so many brals like those brals interrupting because you know, people you would think like they used to have real brawls with the police, real bras like and you know, we we we had a mediation between the young people and the police, and they set up a way that
they would show up and exist in the community together. They didn't like each other, but they learned to respect each other and it changed the relationship of that community drastically. Drastically. There was another one where it was, and somebody just gave me the tape the other day. This is like firsthand if I mean, you know, so there was a zoom of all these white groups, these big I call them the Walmart groups of gun violence prevention,
and I cussed them out and it's a videotape. It's so on tape. I knew that somebody recorded it, and no one would ever say and any other day, heir, Holy moly, here comes a tape of me. I was like, but where did this come from? But I imagine that you stand by everything that you said on that stand by everything that I said. But listening to it, of course, you know it sounds very aggressive, aggressive, right, angry piece stop, you know, the angry peacemaker,
as Deepak used to say. Right. And the reason why is because like people don't respect us, and they think that they could just walk over us and act like we're not there. And and on the other side, my colleagues, right, I was a person who broke down the barrier. Right. I was the one, as a young man said, that ran into the fire. So me cussing those people out was able to back them
down. And so many things happened because of that, But most people won't say it was because Erica did da da da da da, why we're able to do da da da da da. Right. They'll just like, yeah, I did this, you know, and then say, you see how mean Erica sell. You don't want to work with her. She's mean, she's evil, she's angry. Work with me. I'll be able to, you know, take care of those blacks, you know, because these big
conglomerates get funding. Now is money in this work. Before, when there was no money in this work, didn't nobody want to do the work, got it. Didn't nobody want to do the work. It's around the the you were doing the work when there was no money, exactly. And so now people do the work to try to get the one hundred thousand nar from the big company that the supports that they have that they have laying on the side for said calls. Right exactly, yeah, exactly. Games changed,
Yeah, and they get millions of dollars. If not, they get millions of dollars these big organizations, wow to come back and give to us blacks, got it right. I don't need you to go get the money for me. Give me the money directly. I don't need no in road. I'm not in road, right, and those who are closest to the problem are closest to the solution. So allow us in our neighborhood to resolve our issues. There's great men and women throughout this nation. They could do the
work without you. We don't need them, right, they exist the middleman. Yeah, yeah, anyway, Hey, not your problem anymore. That's the addiction right there. You can't, that's it. You should. You should allow yourself like a once a month consultan call with people. Other than that, you should be off the grid so you could feed your need to serve and use what you're good at once a month, a calm, little
consultation call, and then that's it. Yes, if I see you on the sideline, protest it or at any crazy, any crazy, any crazy event that you have no business at. I told I'm gonna be the one that shows up and be like, get off the floor. I told you I was. I wasn't gonna go to Fat Joe's thing at the Apollo because I said it was gonna be too many people, it's gonna be too hectic. It was good though. I told the folks who I was with, I said, see this is what I need because I feel free, like
you could screaming. Yeah, It's just it was just so fun. It was so it took me back to you know, the old school hip hop days. There was a vibe and there was a vibe in there, and I was like, this is what I'm gonna be doing when y'all can't find me. I'm gonna be in a concert somewhere, in a football game, a basketball game, and I am going to teach other young women some of
the things that I've learned. So I'm gonna, as you talked about that once a month council, it will be with a group of women leaders. Oh good, to teach and train some of the wisdom that I've learned throughout the years. I love that. Yes, So this Sunday, we're at p sixty. Can go? Can people go? Or it could go on our website buy tickets. Oh wow, the nicest DJ. Nicest DJ Wow. It's the Sneaker Gala too, Ragger Gala. You know we have your
best kicks. We are hopefully flight Flight Club is giving away the prize to the fly Sneakers nice So you know, come come right. What does the ticket cost? I don't know. Going to website, there's different ticket prices for different people's pockets. I got it. You know, if you got money in your pocket, there's a price for you. You don't have no
money in your pocket, there's a price for you. We work with everybody, and it's also for a good it's great, and it's also to support a legend who has done you know, countless work in this city that we should all lift up when we came. So I hope everybody shows up. We'll put all the information on the site and other things so that they they were doing gaming for peace too, Okay, that's the thing that I was doing with Beanie Siegual. We partnered with beans and this group that he works
with, Marvin Bing, and so we're doing gaming for peace. So we had a competition NBA two K competition. Five hundred and twelve people competed two days. Top four will be at your college on Saturday for a twenty thousand dollars pool prize. Wow. Yeah, we got to get into gaming clearly, so one of them is and then they also giving back to an organization. Yeah from the prize. The last thing because I just remember that you got the license the weed license. Yeah, can that's a cannabis license?
Send me to what are you going to do with that? What happens with that? So we we we've been running. We've been going through a roller coaster of landlords, racist landlords in New York City. Who you know? Or just this is just such about money grab and were's the equity? Like, it's just it's been a challenge. Just another documentary movie. Erica Ford on her journey to open up her retail cannabis store. The games people play part one, But we are, we are, but it will have the
process good. They might have me smoking weed before this is finished. I don't even smoke weed, hater. There might not be the worst thing ever. The funny thing apollow. I was like, oh wow, this is not bothering me. I'm able to stand here with all of this smoke. It's not bothered me. Yo. By the time I got to Queens and I got to my house, I was like, Yo, what's called on? Oh my head? Was I call a contact that? The Joe concert?
Definitely caute a contact The fat Joe Concert. Yesterday's price, today's price. Erica, four ladies and gentlemen, The amazing job well done. We're gonna post all the ways that people can support you in the description so that they know they could come out. And I know this won't be the end. We'll we'll, we'll talk about other things on the next time. Congratulations golf, and teach the golf that