Run the Jewels

And he said, essentially, I want this to be your opportunity to do your mayor, because most wanted a record where all you gotta do is be killing Mike, say whatever you want to say as many times as you want to say it to whoever you want to say it too. And originally was supposed to be three or

four different producers. I collaborated with Jamie and I spent the day in the studio together and I told Jay he has to produce the whole record I want on the thirty day campaign, aggravating the shoot out of Jamie to do the record, and Jason um when found the budget force and and it's a it's it's you know, it's it's love at first sound after that, and we've been pounding the pavement together ever since. Well, let's go a little bit slower. How did you know Jason from

the cartoon network? Jason is Atlanta is a small town that masquerades is a big city. So Jason um had done something with These daya witch doctor who's who's also of the Dungeon family. I kind of knew the William Street angle, but he was doing something in particular with Grand Hustle, And it was after I had separated from Big Boy's Purple Ribbon label and I was rolling with the TIA's label, Grand Hustle in my imprint grind Time. That's why we were putting out Pledge three and the

other mixtapes and street albums. And Um, Jason, we knew each other from a meeting that he had over there, and we just kept in contact. We both had a love of all muscle cars and um, we just kept talking around Atlanta stuff and just built a friendship. And the next thing you know, I got a call would you be interested in? And I accepted it. Jamie, how did you how did you hook up with Jason? I knew I knew Jay for years I had. I had founded a record label called Deaf Jokes, which I ran

Definitive Jokes. It was it was Definitive Jokes after after death, Jan sent to cease and desist because they didn't see the joke. But but I I knew him because he was a fan of my music, and we had some mutual friends and we ended up um just getting to know each other. I started kind of giving him some music for interstitial stuff on on Adult Swim, and we ended up with my label doing a few um sort of free music compilations in conjunction with with Adult Swim

and and and his label that he was doing. And we just built a relationship over the years. We just became friends. Um, he's just a wonderful guy. And so when he when he called me to do this the you know, to see if I would like to get the studio of Mike, Um, I knew who Mike was.

I had just sort of gotten familiar with my coincidentally, like I had just become a fan of Mike's I sort of missed sort of his debut album, but I had started to become a fan of Mix from his um Pledge allegiance to the Grind series, which was a bunch of make safe that he put out um that I that I started to catch onto And so probably about around the second one, I started to like be

really listening to to Mike. And it was really around the same year, honestly that I started to really be really familiar and Jay asked me if I would come and meet him, and I was in I was in the middle of sort of doing my I had just gotten a deal to do my next solo album to take me out of you know, destitution I had. My label had collapsed. Everything that I had worked for for

ten years was gone. I was I had to move into a little hardman and need egg sandwiches for a year, and I didn't know what what For the first time in my life, I didn't know what the hell I was gonna do and and and you know, so I said, Okay, sure, I'll come out and do you know, I can try and do a couple of songs with him. And I went out and met Mike and at the point being we were friend I was friends with Jay said Jay

telling me you should you should meet this guy. That was a big deal to me, and I was like, Okay, Yes, and I also appreciated Mike and from a distance, and when and when I got there, it was just clearly magic immediately in terms of just the music and what was happening in the studio, and also I liked the guy.

And and I went home and I started getting these phone calls from Jay, who was obviously getting phone calls from Mike, and then I get the phone calls from Mike, and it was always it was, you have to produce the whole record and I and I was just like, no, hell now, oh god, god, no, I'm not doing that right now. I can't. I have to. I have to look after me. I have I've been spending my up the last decade of my life investing my time and other people's stuff, and I gotta do. I have to

save myself. I have to do music. And you know, and they just wore me down. I mean, you know, they wore me down with the fact that it was magical. In any event, Jamie, you wanted to do your solo album and they want you to do the complete album for a killer Mike, and I said no, no, damn it no, And I just couldn't resist. I mean, like I you know, I think that it's it's just testimony to the fact that thinking that you know what is

best for you is kind of a joke. Thinking that you can control the future is kind of a joke. And I sort of just I liked Mike. I just liked him and and he and he got me. He got me as a producer, were the same age. He

really got the references. You know, he knew exactly what I was kind to do, and he was excited about the music, and I was just I just had a sort of a I just thought about it, and I was like, you know what, fuck it, man, this guy is great, and who am I to You know, every plan that I've made over the past ten years is

completely disintegrated and completely exploded in my face. Maybe it's time that I stopped, you know, trying to like, you know, control of this situation and just said, you know what, all right, let's go, let's do it. And so you agree to produce the album, At what point do you decide you're gonna work together as the act that came later? That came, that came. But we did the records. I mean, I did my solo album that I did his album

same year. We were both on each other's albums. We both guest guested on each other's records, you know, um which we loved and we thought sounding great, And then we went on tour together. Um Our records surprisingly came out. We didn't plan it, but they ended up coming out a week apart from each other. So we were like, oh, ship, why don't we why don't we take this ack on

the road? Why don't we want to be tour? And we did, and afterwards if we had a great time, I think both me and Mike felt like that we was. It was you know, for two guys who kind of were looking at down the barrel of obscurity, you know, and kind of wondering like, well, you know, maybe we'll just be we can just be happy just kind of you know, playing four or five people at night and and working and doing the music we want to do.

And we had really like come to the same place at the same time, like not bitter, not and not giving up, but just basically being like, you know, this is good, this is what we could be happy this way. And after that happened, after we did the tour, and we had definitely grown tighter through touring and through performing together and you know already we're having a good time. I just sort of said, you know, Mike was like,

what are you gonna do after the tour? And I said, well, I think I'm gonna just go into the woods somewhere at some studio and take a bunch of mushrooms and make some music and maybe put something out for free to do, like a mixtape or something for free. And Mike just said outcome and and that was it. That was as much of a plan as we had. I mean, you know, there was no there was no master plan. Bob Okay. So you live in New York State and

Mike lives in hot Atlanta. When you say I'll come, is that does he literally say I'm gonna come to your house? That we didn't do it to my house. I found a place at uh en uugh State, New York that there was a studio in up state New York, and I had already booked the time and just to get out of the get out of my place and just go somewhere with no expectations. And he came in. He came to that studio. We spent about two weeks, me him, our tacot ak little Shalamar was now a

co producer on all the records as well. UM and UM. We just hung out and drank and smoked meat and did mushrooms and joke for each other and somehow this record happened. And we don't even know how. It just was we you know, it was. It was more like I was going to do a record and he was going to have a couple of guests verses on it, and we just were having so much fun. We just kept going. By the time we had about six songs our friends and played it for Jason DeMarco and our

front Taco. We were like, this is pretty good, isn't it. This is like actually this is you know, and they were like, yeah, actually you should make an album. This is about four songs away from an album. Why don't you just making an album? And we were like, yeah, okay, cool, you know that was and that was it. Okay, So what is you've made a number of albums. What is the process literally when you go in the studio, how much do you have prepared and what does each of

you do in the studio? Oh no, I mean, you know, I I usually the way that we do it is that I kind of go in once we've agreed that we're gonna do another record, because sort of throughout this whole process, we've never been like, we're definitely doing another record. We've always asked each other, you know, I always just looked at each other, been like monitor on the record, and always just been like, Yeah, that was that was fun, Let's do it on the record. I mean that that

stopped around the time after Religiuals two. We knew that we were going to keep doing records, but Reliduls two was with that question. But usually what happens is that I go in for several months and just make a bunch of music, and then we we schedule a time to get together in the studio and I play Mike all of the stuff that I think is worthy of us, sort of all the music that is worthy of us getting on and and just sort of wait to see

what what what inspires us. Um. I just you know, make sure that whatever I'm playing him is not is something that I can live with. And then and then I just try and see when I see that mischievous glance in his eyes and he starts pacing around the room and sort of freestylen to himself. I'm like, Okay, it's it's happening. It's happening. But it's just that it's

that process. Make the music, get up with my see what happens between us, and then based on what happens betwe you go back and tweak the music, and then we beat again and and then there's an all sort of repeating process. So Mike, do you prepare or you just come to the studio hot and ready? Um? I mean,

I don't know what prepared means. I just come to the studio looking to be inspired because I'm working with the dopest producer, slash Rapper and all the lands, so you know, it's kind of like the preparedness is for me just I'm just always trying to outdo whatever I did the last time. So yeah, I'm always rather win

another ring with them, you know. So um, I kind of you know this go around we were for we were like recording in upstate New York, and um, that can get kind of lonely when you got wife and kids. So this time I think we found a great Um, we found a great meeting and that we're recorded in Malibu at Shango Law and I got a chance to get back into l A as I needed it, just to kind of soak up some of the city and

then take that inspiration back into a room. So I probably don't want to record in a rural area so much anymore. As much as I like, I like city lights and some of the excitement. But it's not it's not It's not hard to get inspired, Jamie makes I was born to rap over lpbat so that inspiration is always just a button or right, you just turn up the volume, you know. Okay, let's talk Mike. You graduate from high school? Is that at the end of your schooling? Now?

I did a year at more House, and then I decided, you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna take all this pride my grandma has from me getting into the greatest song black Mail College and all the land, and I'm gonna say, you know what, I'm gonna be an artist, and I'll never forget my family just losing their fucking minds, you know what I mean. So I would have graduated around the same year I got a record deal, So that's the only regret I have. I wish I would have stayed in just to make her happy. But I

brought her a Grammy. She was pretty happy about that. But I graduated high school, I tend More House. I meet big boys, little brother who attends Morris Brown. His best friend is a guy named Celo Reddick, not Celo Green from the Dungeon family, but Ready whose father is a prominent lawyer in Savannah. But CeeLo Um starts one half of the Beat Bullies who produced to hit record Kryptonite.

And he introduced me the Big Boy and me him and a guy named Rocky who's the guy who brought Kryptonite to Big Boy, and a guy named Frank Goplins. Today we're just a little crew and we're big boys, little brothers, little crew. And he takes notice in me and tells me, I'm gonna give you a record deal one man. I shrug my shoulders like okay, And a few years later he makes true on his word. Okay, three years after you drop out of Morehouse. Yeah, what do you do to stay alive for those three years?

Because you talk about being an artist, but usually there's a word that starts before that, starving artist. Yeah. Yeah, that's exact same thing my father told me, and I told him I was going to be an artist. Um, I know, and loved cars, so I worked fullshit, shitty jobs that I don't like in places like Advance and Auto Zone. I sell, um marijuana, pretty good marijuana, not

bad marijuana. And then I stopped doing those things, and for a couple of years I teach kids how to organize because as a child, I had learned how to organize. So I kind of put down, you know, put down the regular work and stiff gig because I was never really good for jobs. I was just stealing their money whatever they were paying me an hour. I didn't work to expectations. I always told my managers I never would. I remember a got autos Zone saying you could be

a manager. I said, tell me how many spark plugs you need to sell this month to get your manager's bonus, and I'll make sure you make it every month. Just don't ever mention me being a manager again, you know. And I um. He stopped me years later and saying, man, you really did it. You became a rapper. I was like, ship, you thought I was bullshit, and I want to build the work of the autos Zone. So um, being an organizer and teaching kids to organize was a lot less

dangerous than selling a little bit slower. What is an organizer and how do you monetize them? Well? As an organize, what you have is you have. UM. When I was fifteen years old, which was like thirty years ago, UM, we were a group of kids in Atlanta, and some

of the kids were doctors and lawyers kids. Some of the kids were just regular working steps kids, and some of the kids were gang members, members of the gangs of Disciples and particulars, and and and the crypts, and kids were just getting counter funcked with by the transit police and the kids who were members of street fraternities or what people call gangs. That started kind of pushing back.

So we arranged some meetings to meet with one another to settle some disputes, and then to meet with the police and settle some disputes. And that was the beginning of an organizing career because we organized ourselves to sit across the table from the transit authority and say, hey, you can't treat us this way, and here's why. Shortly after that, we decided that a larger group of kids should be able to talk. And at the time and Drew young UM Ambassador Young just off the phone, was

actually on another interview. He was the mayor of Atlanta, and we sat them down and said, hey, we want you to give us the money so we can take um collection of what kids have to say throughout Atlanta in Fulton County and the only condition is adults going to be able to come. But you guys can't say anything. You just have to listen. That started an organization called Kids for a Change. That organization, along with an organization I belonged to called Black Team to Advancements, which is

all boys. Organization, helped to broker not only a peace treaty between the Martyr Coops at that time and kids. They helped to bring out the voice of over. I think we did over a few thousand kids in Fulton County and give recommendations to the county for how to improve things such as education, um get you know, how to deal with what was the education? It was police harassment and endangement, and it was something else that we

pointed out. We gave those recommendations to the county and then after it was over, we shrugged our shoulders and said, there it must be more stuff to organize around. So we would pick other things, and those things could be something that simple is helping out a homeless shelters or things more complex in terms of putting different syllabus is in school to represent things that were not exactly why

the angles accident Protestants. Um, I did that for a number of years, and then I came back and I taught other kids how to do it. Okay, where did this entrepreneurial spirit had come from for me selling marijuana? I mean, your father was a policeman, and did your mother work outside the home. My mother was an artist by nature. She was a florist by nature, and to be very honest and adamant, my mother and father had me as teenagers, so they were never married and never

lived a very like lifestyle. At one point, I woke up at fifteen years old, two three weeks before before I was before my birthday, to see that a woman was arrested and Griffin Georgia for attempted to buy sing key laws um cocagne. That was my mother. My mother at one point could have been classified as a queen pan Her and her friends, which were considered my aunt's, all dated very successful drug dealers and they all lived

a lifestyle that was in conjunction with that. So my mom um, I learned entrepreneurship from her and my grandparents. You know my mom, you know, my grandpa soul liquor, my uncle's you know, did things of that nature. So what I did know is I wasn't much good for working. So my dad even said, he said, I remember sending you out to the yard to reg leves as a kid and just looking out the window like my kids never gonna works. I knew. I knew I wasn't going

to work. But what I did do very young was my mom gave me twenty bucks to kurt her grass. I took our lawnmowre, paid the kids next to me, next door to me ten bucks to cut the grass, and he did it so well. I marched us around the neighborhood and got five more yards to cut. I took ten off every yard, gave him the other ten and realized, as mom, as I had the lawnmore negotiation skills, that was a lot easier than pushing the lawnmore. So, I've probably been an entrepreneur, you know, since I was

ten or eleven years old. Okay, and you say your parents never lived together. Do you have half siblings? I don't have any half siblings. All my siblings are my whole siblings. I have five sisters to my mother Boar Loving and Lashonda, and three my mom to or what people would call a stepmother board, and that's Sharika, Candide and Monique. And my family were blended from top to bottom. We don't use the term step or half. Those are just your sisters. Okay, where are you in the hierarchy?

I'm the oldest and only boy, and usually well those two things combined. Usually the oldest has all the hopes and dreams of the family imbued in them, and in addition being a boy, it's like a double thing. Yeah, I've been told my entire life. You know, don't be a failure because you're an example for the five people under you. And your other job is to take care of your sisters. And that doesn't mean my sisters aren't

independent and dynamic women, because they are. But I have a particular interest in making sure my sisters okay, and in tire my sisters do the same for me. You know, if my sisters see I've had a problematic day publicly, they're the first people to call me privately and encourage me if there are things that I'm not aware of in regards to my children, because I'm traveling a touring. My sisters are the greatest aunties and that are there.

So I'm very lucky that my grandparents raised me and my sisters to be very independent and to take care of one another. And do you financially support any of these members of your family? Know? What I do is I provide economic opportunity. So I've hired and fired my own son, I've hired and fired my own nephew. My niece is dynamic, so she has been hired and been kept and it's probably going to be running what we

call a store. My wife and I own barbershops, to be calling stores because we participate in retail out of them. But my family, I've told all the boys in my family, should you choose to be a barber, um, I'll put you through trade school for free and you can come work for me. So I've given him the same opportunities that my uncle, who was an entrepreneur, gave me. My uncle who was a legitimate entrepreneur. My uncle's who were illegal entrepreneurs, they didn't give me that opportunity. I had

to go things on my own. But um, yeah, my wife and I married a woman. My my wife is from housing projects. When y'am across village in Savannah, Georgia, and her grandmother ran ran a shot house. Her grandmother was very enterprising. So I married a woman who who thought and taught in numbers. And she's very intelligent. So I was smart enough to marry smart and Um, through through all of my ignorance and kind of terms of finance and stuff, she's been a guy in wasn't term

to protecting my ass my assets literally and figured. Okay, Jamie, you graduate from high school. What does your life look like? I did not graduate from high school. Okay, well let's go back to the beginning. Your parents, your mother and father. What were their lives looking like? My father and mother UM split up when I was six. My father left the state. UM, Me and my mother and my two sisters, one of which was the child of my mother and my father, the other which was the child of my

father who he left with us. UM who was my sister as far as I was concerned, But she she wasn't. She is UM my half sister, you know by blood we moved to Brooklyn. Um and um, you know, saying, well mom, household, three kids. Um, sort of moved around. Some good years, some bad years. You know. My mother was a writer. Um, she worked in advertising. Um and uh I got yeah, I ended up getting kicked out of high school. Um and you got kicked out of

high school? Why you know this day, I don't really know, but I think it was because I was an asshole. I'm pretty sure. Um, well, we've all been too high school, and there are reasons to be an asshole, and we all try to contain us. But then there are some people who were just born to make trouble. Which which one? Where do you fall on that spectrum? I think that I have a little bit of both, a little bit

of both. I think I was a little bit of a smartass, for sure, But um I also had a little bit of a rough you know, uh go of it, and I was angry. Um. You know, there have been some things and you know whatever in my in my childhood that probably lent themselves towards me being a little bit more of a uh fuck you kind of kid. You know, I wasn't. I thought I was smarter than everybody in the whole school. I thought I was smarter

than the teachers and the staffs. Okay, okay, thirty thirty years later, were you smarter than everybody in the whole school? Absolutely not. But what I will say is that when I did get kicked out of school, and I had

the choice, but my mother was very specific. She said, Okay, well, you're either going to become the type of person who can do this, can do school and I have to not being a problem, or you're going to figure out some other thing that you're going to do, because you're not going to just be some guy who just doesn't do anything. And I told her at sixteen, I said what every white mom wants to hear, which is I'm gonna be a rapper. And uh, mom, I'm going to be a rapper. And and she and you know, she

knew that I was already making music. I mean, I had already been making music and trying to make demos and stuff since I was about twelve, and and so wasn't how much was shocked to her, but I'm sure it was a little bit of one. But she she what ultimately, ultimately what happened was I ended up getting my g E. D. And I went to Musical Engineering School at sixteen, which so Center for the Media Arts, which was in Manhattan, right near F I T which now no longer exists. Um and I was. I was

the youngest dude in that school. I mean, how did you how did you pay for it? My mother paid for it. My mother paid for it. Yeah, it was. It was a two year course essentially, um and uh. And you know, I was all of a sudden, I was like I was a kid trying. I just wanted to be in the studio. I just wanted to learn what it was like to be in the studio. I knew I wanted to be a producer. I knew I wanted to experience that. Um, I didn't know what else

to do. But once I got there, and I was mostly surrounded by like five to thirty five year old dudes who just kind of to be engineers, you know. Um. But I was only there. I knew I was only there just to learn some of the tools of the trade and and then to go on to be a musician. But once I got there, all of a sudden, all of my disinterests, all of my um, you know, malaise and disinterest in learning, UM and all of the things

that I just couldn't force myself to do. I was really bad at making myself do things I didn't want to do, and you know, school being the obvious result, and UM that changed for me completely and all of a sudden, I was I was obsessed and excelled and you know, UM so, you know, getting around music and getting around the thing that I knew that I wanted

to do completely changed my life. By the time I was able to go to college, I had gotten such a high score on my g D that I had basically gotten a free ride to a few different colleges of New York that that I was able to um pick from. Well, not a free ride, I gotta almost free rode because there's a there's like a there's a quotation of like, you know g D students that they had to let into these schools. So I ended up

going to and I was at the top. So I ended up going to Hunter College for you know, a couple of semesters and it was just for me. I was like, you know, I was looking around and all of a sudden, I had been rejoined. I had rejoined my age group and all of these kids who were now getting in the in the college, and I'm standing there and I'm like, I don't, like, none of these people know what they want to do. I already I'm already doing what I want to do. I don't there's

no way that I want to know about this. I don't want to take history right now. And uh, I got put my first record out that you know. I ended up putting my first record out at seventeen and just being like, or eighteen, I didn't made it when I was seventeen. That came out when I was a teen, right around my first year of college. So I was just like, I'm not I'm not doing this. I'm a rap star now. Okay, Deeples says, put school behind. When

do you make some money? I didn't really beg buddy still until that I was living in in a loft with by with with the other guy in the first group that I had done called Company Flow, and we were working at Tower Records mail order department on Lafayette in New York. Okay, that begs the question how much did you steal? I saw everything that wasn't sucking tied down everything. Dude, you're the van for knowing that I've had, like, straight up, let me tell you a story. So here's

the thing. So we worked in this fucking mail order department. Right, there's two sections of the mail order department. There's the mail order department in the front where you have to wear shitty slacks and and and and and a wedding shirt and then and you enter in the orders on because before the Internet, of course, everyone got their records from mail order and power records. Mail order was a big deal in that Areena and so my so my

other partner, my my other partner in company Flow. But one of you know who became my partner in that group, he was in the front and he was wearing shitty slacks in the shirt and he had access to the computers. I was in the back with the work release program dudes, where there was absolutely no there was no you know, I just wasn't good enough to be in the front, So I was in the back. So I was actually

boxing up the records. I'm personally responsible for sending out probably ten thousand Bone Thugs and Harmony CDs to to to to the Greater America. UM and we were working, we were taking our money and we would you know, pay our rent or whatever, and then we would at night we would go to the studio and we would record these songs. So around six when um we finally got a record pressed up um with eight songs on it. UM and it was because of a mistake at the

record pressing plant. It cost about half as much as it was supposed to. And what we realized was if you punching this into the computer, then I do this. We can send all this ship out all across America for free. So my first group, the first one that put me on the map, that like made noise and got me into the business. We fucking we we literally did it all on the dime of power Mail Order Department.

I sent out thousands of these records to DJs all over the country overnight straight up to their like it was. It was. It was an amazing scam. And um yeah, so kudas to you for understanding that anybody who worked at Tire Records, you either either you were a life long like loser forever, you know, or you were scamming the place. And you know, absolutely, let's just go forward. You said, you know, you get a dark spot before you worked with Mike, where you were essentially broke? How

did that happen? So I never took any money. I never took a salary or anything for this record label that we did. You know, we did. We created this record label. This was after my company Flow experience with Raucus Records, and I was kind of I and then company Flow broke up and I was trying to figure out my next move. I had fallen out of love with the Raucus situation. I didn't think that they were making the right moves, and I kind of felt like

I knew how to do it better. Of course, you know, I didn't, but I thought I knew how to do it better, and I decided to start this record label. You know, ten years in, I still hadn't taken any money. Um, I hadn't taken a salary. I hadn't taken I hadn't you know, Um, I had sold my own record you know, I put my own records out on it a lot with a lot of other lecords that did well on an indie level. So and I did, and I had a career. I was doing show so I made money

that way. But whenever the record label would hit a rough spot. I would take my money that I had and I would float the record label UM and this happened, and then I would get it back. You know, a couple of months, I get it back. We just need to get a you know, a hunder grand. We need a underground and that would be like all my money that I had, and I'd put it in and I hold my breath, and then the money will come back, and I'd be like, all right, cool, we lived to

fight another day. And we did this a bunch of times. The last time that I did it, the money didn't come back, and and the whole thing collapsed and we we had. You know, what happened to us was what happened to a lot of indie record labels UM historically, and especially during the time in which the switch between the dropping physical and the profitability of streaming and all

that was not leveled out. In other words, that we went from one year, you went from hundred a hundred thousands to the next year you you're sounding fifty thousand records label wyy. And but you did so well with a few records that you staffed up, You got bigger, you got an office. You gotta fucking Xerox machine, you know. And and you know, so we had a situation where we had a lot of overhead and we weren't we weren't.

The physical had just been dropping, dropping and dropping, and so yeah, it just kind of collapsed out from under me. Um and and I was you know, when I look back on it now, I think it was probably the best thing that it could have ever happened for me personally, because I was miserable for a long time doing that. I wasn't happy doing it. I never wanted to be a record label guy. I just wanted to make music.

I started a label because I thought it would be a cool way to work with people that I liked and put music out that I thought was good without having an audition it for the greater masses, you know, just say, hey, this is interesting, listen to it. But that's what happened. I just got I just lost my money. And where are you hundred k? That's a lot of money. Where'd you get a hundred k my royalties and touring? You know, I would I would just save my money and and and I you know, I had I had

give or take. You know, you know that probably at the end that was probably that was all the money I had in the world. And um, but I had a good touring career, an indie touring career, but you know, and also we we did really well with my records. Um and for an indie label comparatively or overhead was really low obviously for you know, compared to like a major label or something. So when the operation was small

and tight, I was making some money. And then the operation on the backs of those records that started to kind of get really big exposure and bow up, we started to get bigger. We started to add more people and more weight to the to the whole thing. And then it started to kind of be like, I'm not making I don't have a record label because I'm making records. I'm making records because I have a record label, like you know, And that wasn't what I wanted to do.

It was very unhappy for me, and so I you know, I got myself into a situation where I lost it all. I didn't have two fucking pennies in my pocket for a minute, and um that that that was a tough period for me. But you know, I had I had been broke before. You know, I guess you know, when you start to make a little bit of money, you can forget what it's like to not have it. Um, And for me, money was never to be. I never had the type of money that I could buy things.

I had the type of money where I could pay rent. Worried about it. You know, that was cool. That was my success and so in all classed underneath. And by the time Mike met me, UM, I had gone through all that. I had been humbled, a lot of relationships and a lot of things, and a lot of just sort of self regard that I had in relation to me not failing had had hit me. I had failed. There was no there was no getting around it. It was. It was gone. And I didn't know what I was

gonna do. I had a lot of I had a lot of um fear. And for the first time insecurity, I mean, from sixteen on, I knew what I was gonna do, and I didn't know one had ever told me I wasn't gonna do it. And I did it,

and I went out and I made it happen. And here I was, however, many years later, and for the first time that thought it occurred to me, this, this might not work now I might be, I might be over and and and then I got the deal for for the new solo record through Fat Possum Records, which changed everything for me because I um, I had a little bit of money and I finally again and I could you know, I could get an apartment that was you know that I could live in and and and

that's it might meant me. Not long after that, to be honest, I was. I was right sort of starting that process of rebuilding myself, like refocused and being like, all right, I'm getting a second chance. I'm gonna I'm gonna do it right this time, and I'm gonna do it for the right reasons. And then I met Mike and everything all my all my plans changed. Okay, let's go back to Mike. So, Mike, how old you when you get married? Honestly, my wife and I have been

married fourteen years this year, so it's thirty one years old. Okay, So you were estopped if you were making money when you got married, Uh, yeah, but I wasn't. So I got a major label deal first. Um was big Boy andre Um originally on Eric Quim and I Records, and I think he got like an eighties, was an advanced or whatnot? I already had two children at that point, in the third one coming, so a thirty one year old. Just just so I understand you had the children before

you got married. Yeah, okay. How old were you when you had your first child? Nineteen years old? Okay? How the fund do you support? That kid? Oh? You sell the marijuana? I said, you're you established the marijuana industry that now corporations run. That's uh. You and you make good grades in school. That's okay. So the woman you're married to now your wife? How many of the kids is she the mother? We came as a package deal. Okay.

She came without many and you came without many. Yeah, we cat you know, we I brought all the kids. Me and the kids came like, hey, dad loves you. Why don't you marry us? And there are five kids? You said, therefore, therefore, my wife tells people she has five children, including her husband. I get that. Let's go back to the muscle car thing. So when do you get into muscle cars? Oh? What have I not been in the muscle cars? So when I was when I

was young, Um, my grandpa and grandma raised me. So my wife helped me realize I grew up rich, and I didn't know that. I always thought rich meant money, but rich really means experiences an opportunity. So my grandparents, Um, they kept the rental house, they owned the RV. They did old people ship, you know what I mean. We went on vacations, we fished, we hunted, we did old Southern people stuff that I didn't realize that the rest

of the world didn't do. But one of those things was my grandfather believed in me having stuff that went fast. So he bought an old gold card and motor scooter from like the white guys he worked with. He worked in the brickyard Chattahoochee brick It was one of the more famous brick yards in Georgia. And I remember him bringing an orange gold card home and taking the old

motor off and putting up plowd motor on it. So a plow motor is what she used to till the ground, or when you have a garden in a garden in the backyard. But I think this one might have been like either like four or five, four or six horsepower, and he tweaked it a little and make it a little faster. So by the time we finished building that thing and I was sipping up and down the church parking lot. Next we got a Honda Spree. I remember he got me the scooter and it was one of

the lights were bent. We had to bend it back. He caught me trying to get on the Expressway at twelve years old, that with that Honda's free. I remember him just I remember, like literally from to get on the express I finally get to go fifty five and him like, god, damn it, what a man. I can hear him from them, just like, oh ship. I looked across the street and it was him. He made me take it back home, and he didn't let me drive it for like a month, but he let me borrow um.

And I don't even think I had a license, you know. Oh people don't give a ship you can drive, you can drive. Let me. He let me borrow. When I got my learners and his Plymouth Vlaire which wasn't very fads but it was four doors. It was a car and Kesha Wilcox and it was a bench seat. She kissed me um, and it was after that I was just like, yo, I'm into this car. Thing, and next my grandma let me drive her Regal. But all my

cousins had very fast cars. They had our rocks. My mom had a Firebird, my my I have a bio and a non bio dad. My bio dad, Big Mike, he drove a muscle car. He drove a Camaro. My non bio dad drove a four Galaxy five hundred. He had a chiveil. So I grew up in and I grew up going to drag strips and seeing races. And my grandpa ran shine. So he liked um, he liked contiacts. Um, he was into like the g T O s. He was into. He taught me to the pontiact. Judge was right. Now,

I got a sixty nine Firebird. My wife has a sixty eight fire Bird. Yeah. Yeah, the Firebird with the uh the hood word Ramsey ran exactly exactly, so we all you know, I got I got l S three's, I got a l S seven in mine, I got LS three and her. So I just like going fast, you know, I like going right? Okay, that but that does beg How many cars are you on right now? I think I'm about tenants twelve? Okay, do you own a Tesla. No, I never would. No, you've been in

a Tesla ass right, Yeah. I like the Tesla truck. Let me see this, not I've got very specific You like to go fast, do we know? I like the smell of gaseline and and oxygen mixing too. That's the only thing about a Tesla's you don't get the You don't get the raw smell of fuel burning. You don't get the subtle nuances like but I like them. I like the Tesla truck enough to buy, But I have not been captivated enough by Tesla car that I want to own. I already put my order in for the

Tesla truck. By the way, i'd like to say that. Okay, wait, let's stay with the truck. You guys got past the how it looks. Yeah, yeah, you understand that, Bob. I'm not gonna miss out on my generation's DeLorean. Okay. It's the most ridiculous looking thing in the world, and I'm absolutely buying a ship. But I grew up on traum you know, things like that's like the low the low polygon shape. Yeah, that's that's taps right into my general How about you, Mike, who me the shape of the

Tesla truck. The Tesla truck. What's crazy is I honestly think if you if you it, there's a car. I gotta remember that popped in my head the other day. I said, this son of a bitch elon musk It it is an eighties car of some type. It may even be the DeLorean turned backwards. So if you look at the Tesla truck, the front of it is the ass of a DeLorean. But if you turn it backwards. But yeah, I'm just it just looks like at any moment it's gonna turn into a Transformer. So I like

it for the novelty. So but I drive with that said, my wife bought me a FOURD f to fifty super duty diesel for for my birthday. So again, man, I'm just a believer in Bernard fossil fuels, those dining staurs that. But I want to be specific. I drive a fossil fuel car myself. Yeah, but being in people's testlas, the acceleration is mind blowing crazy crazy. Yeah, no idea has a Tesla. But it's it's there's a certain there's a certain danger that you miss. Like I like the test flat,

it's it pulls fast. I like the fact that you could don't have to drive it. You could get stone, gonna sleep and wake up in your home. The problem is driving my hellcat. Death is always next to me. The fact that the fact that I'm seven hundred and seven horse a hunted and I think I've gotten her up to a hundred and sixty four mile an hour on the regular street. The fact that I know this could be the moment to die, so me make sure you're listening to good music. That that danger. I'm missing

a Tesla. It's kind of like driving a Vovo. It's it's just you're safe. Zack Zack dell Rocha has a Testla act and riding around in his Tetla, I don't. I rarely feel like I'm on a roller coaster. And when I'm in a car, like going from gero to sixty and however quickly that happens in a Tesla act, it's that ship feels dangerous. I have to admit I know it. I think so too. You know, I don't know.

And it's silent. It's just a battery, you know. Okay, Okay, let's go back to Mike and you're talking to the LS three, the L seven, etcetera. But what do we know? The American cars are good in the street line, yeah, and the European The European cars he handled, generally speaking better. So is this a religious issue? It must be American? No. I I tell people I like American muscling, like German performance. So for my fiftieth birthday, I'm gonna I'm gonna, I'm

gonna get it. I'm gonna get that Porsche. I'm gonna do what you're supposed to do when you're old. I get that, get to get a quarter million dollar Porsche. My wife, My wife, My wife drives. I bought her and that's five fifty that I drive like a fucking race car. Absolutely love. I wanted her to get to sixty three and as sixty five, and she was like absolutely not. Um So I'm a I'm a big fan of German cars. I'm a big fan of the performance she's I remember she had a little she had to

m him four or five BMW. But I drove that god damn car like a race car. In fact, she had a Honda Accord V six that I drove on an everyday basis, just because I liked the acceleration of it. So no, it's not it's not American or nothing for me. But if someone's putting two cars on the headstone or a couple of companies, it's probably definitely gonna be Chevrolet and Mercedes bench through me. Okay, let's go to Let's go to Dodge, Let's go to the hell cap. How

long do the tires last? I go through about it? I spent about two a month on top of go through about a new set about every thirty forty five days, every thirty or forty five days. Yeah, if I don't buy a pair of new ties a month, I just then drive a car a lot. Okay, let's go to you, Jamie. Mike is known as be very political. Are you political or did Mike make you political? Or you're more a political I'm just not as I'm just not as out there as Mike is in terms of actually literally being

in the political spectrum. But I think that if you look back at my career in my catalog, and what I've been talking about is very consistent with what I do now, which is that I absolutely have been talking about um sort of macro political perspective stuff. Um, for sure, we just have a different um tack in the way that we approach it. And I really like Mike's tack. I really it's really cool to know, to be down

with some Mike. What I'll tell you. I'll tell you what Mike did do for me, because when me and Mike met, we one of the things that we bonded on was that we had a very similar perspective political perspective, and that we had that we shared a few really fundamental ideas about the power structure in this world and about the abuses that that that come out of it, um and And there are a lot of differences in approach and experience in the way that we've looked at

things UM and that translated in the way that we do what we do. I guess I've in records I am mostly philosophical about it, where it might tends to be very direct about it, and he gets you know, UM, but I think that we've discovered that together those perspectives

work really well. Often, like you know, I'm I'm, I end up being macro and and and sort of um philosophical about the relationship between you know, people and the power structures that are and Mike gets into it UM from a sort of feed on the ground level, and it's made these it's it's kind of given us this really cool thing that neither of us had when we

were making our music separately. But yes, I've been political in my perspective, but what Mike did for me in terms of literal politics in the sense that UM, well, a few things. But but it's really nice to know somebody who's who has genuinely been involved on on the technical level of politics. You know. For for for my life, it has never been about that. It's always been about my perspective. It's always been about what I read. It's always been about what I've seen, and so always been

about how I felt about things. It hasn't necessarily been about UM. It hasn't been like Mike, where Mike is literally stumping for a presidential candidate. That's not where I have been and that's not where I leaned towards UM.

So that's the answer to that question. But you know, there's the thing that worked with me and Mike was that we both did have long histories of writing about the dynamics of power and and that was something that we could find um uh common ground and in terms of making songs together because it's something that we both want to express and we just had our different ways of doing it. I really like the fact that I have might to balance me out, and I think that

it works both ways a bit, you know. Um Yeah, Okay, Mike, that's it. That's all you wanted. I thought he wanted for me, Bob, than the answer to the question we go do with? You know, it's not like nor am I but I'm over here ordering a Tesla truck. What's the final number gonna be on that Tesla truck? They got it? The one I liked about sixty nine or probably costs about eighty. Is there a rebateing Georgia on

electric cars? Yeah? That I think. I think they finally I think we finally got progressive enough to do that. I think we got u They got the best parking spots at all the fancy malls now, so there has to be some type of rebated rich people are buying them like that. Okay, Mike, let's say, as he seems to be saying, Trump does not leave office, what happens, Well, one or two things happens. Either we comply on the tyranny or we do what the founding forefathers of this

country did, and we rebelled against it. It's it's not a not as hard, you know, it's not very difficult. The question is will we comply with tyranny or will we do what the principles of this nation require us to do? And that's um, you know, that's resists here and he had all costs. Well, what would that look like? Well, I don't know what it will look like. Um. On one hand, it could look like all workers refusing to

produce or go into work and halting the country. On another hand, it could mean all consumers refused to participate in anything except food consumption or medicine buying. In the worst case scenario, we could mean the dire use of our Second Amendment rights and taking up farms versus the government. That's one that I don't wish to see, but I think that we should exhaust every means and measure before that. But I do believe in protecting that right since that's

kind of what got us here. Well, if we look at George Floyd six months ago, there was spontaneous combustion, Okay, there were there we since Ferguson, there was heat etcetera. And it unexpectedly happened and then it spread it really around the world. Well, it's always it's always happening. I think that as important as a as a former activist and always advocate, it's important to note that this is

always happening. In when the Los Angeles riots happening, rioting happened nationwide, didn't happen everywhere, but it happened in major hot spots. There were stuff popped up in Houston, Louisiana, Atlanta. I write it personally as a high school student. Right, we went to the foot lockers, sooking, we get some mair Force ones in their Jordan's you know, we did what what you did. When you compress pain and anguish and anxiety, it does explode. So I don't, you know,

I don't. I don't think that, um, the sponineity we should be surprised by it, because people do a lot to kind of try to stay in line and believe that that that the that the ark of the universe bench towards justice, even when it feels like it doesn't. Um, you know, but I just and and okay, a couple of things and you can jump in here Jamie too. If you want, yes, I hear you that they were writing another place, uh writing demonstrating. They were demonstrating in

Idaho trying. Let me tell you the most beautiful thing I saw, The most beautiful thing I saw because a lot of people don't understand that the Rainbow Coalition is something we've always heard Jesse Jackson talk about and it's been an abstract thing. But the Rainbow Coalition was started, was started, was started by Fred Hampton, twenty one year old christ like figure, amazing organizing educator in the Black

Panther Party and the Check Illinois Chapter and um. The Rainbow Coalition brought everyone together, poor people, gay people, white people, and Native people, um Asian people. It was for all of us. The most beautiful I saw things I saw doing all these demonstrations riots were when Amish protesters showed up. When I saw the Amish show up, I literally wanted to say to the State of America, shame on you. These are probably the most enclosed, insulated people in these

United States. And for them to show up on the behalf of a black man being killed by an agent of the state shows you that the propaganda that everything is okay it's bullshit. When the Amish, the fucking Amish, pop up buggies and horses and told, I imagine to say enough is enough. We as a country should know, Okay, we're sucking up. We need to reset this ship. Because they like the Amish, got big screen TVs watching, got d M, CNN every night. They got the word through

a bird, you know what I mean. So I was really I would like to thank the Amish community and the Mennonite community out of Ohio, which one of my mentors is. But they have been amazing in this fight, protracted and and even in the short term, just them showing up has been an amazing thing. Okay, you're well known as a Bernie Sanders supporter. Bernie came very close in. I was a Warren person until she blew herself up

on the healthcare and I was a Bernie person. I like Bernie, who I certainly voted for in the primary or whatever. Why did it not happen for Bernie? Two questions? Why did it generally not happen forgetting that the everybody coalescent dropped out and conspired with Biden, But why did the youth not come out? Well, the the youth. The youth I want to come out. They did come out, um in places that they felt heard and seen. I think that the South is I know that the South

is fifty black. I wish that the Sanders campaign after would have kept representatives in South Carolina in particular, and in places like Georgia where they could have where we could flit the state. I wish that they would have worked the next three and a half four years, people like um Nina Turner, other people that were notable, like Cordell West, people that were a part of his campaign. Um my brother mar reached out in Georgia that ended up,

you know, not coming back. I wish that they had had an opportunity or I wish this campaign would have understood the importance of three and three and a half years of relationship building because in the South we tend to be total line Democrats, because Democrats and the federal government have been the safe haven amidst some of the most dire racism and bigotry through legislation that you've ever seen.

And it's very hard to trust the greater good, even though you know it's the greater good, when you have only been able to depend on one particular party and the federal government even more so than your local municipalities. So when that party says fall in line, your leadership tends to fall in line, and they tend to ask of you to fall in line, simply because even though you are what Bernie Sanders campaign was exactly what black

people have asked for. It was exactly what the doctor King campaign of his last two years has said that we needed, including but not limited to once not being pro reparations, saying that he would be willing to sign the HR forty reparations bill to study reparations like Commers had tried to get past this nine including that that would have happened. But to be honest, it's just fear. There's fear mongering on both sides. Donald Trump is trying to win an election right now under law and order.

If that's not one of the most fascist statements I've ever heard, I don't know what is law in order to think about that. Law and order over humanity, law and order over over over basic morality in this country, law and order over your rights. It is equivalent to see in the Seattle police officer ride over the head

of a protester that's that's painted on a bicycle. So you know, with Sanders, I think that in the South, we could have had a better strategy or the campaign could have had a better strategy for how to get to know Mr Sanders better and how to get to know him more. I feel like they found or they made a caricature of him. The National Democratic Party, I think, and I think that there was some nefarious things that happened on the ground which I saw personally in terms

of the national part of the undermining him. And I think that um and even in his absence, though locally he won. If you look at a place like Atlanta, Hartston, Georgia had a guy named Mayor Ted who was progressive enough to decriminalize marijuana before Atlanta, the Cab County or any of those other counties with black leadership and a majority black vote. Ted is now taking a six commissioned seat in the Cab County, one of the more powerful seats there. He was the only candidate in the local

elections that I publicly endorsed. He won his candidacy, and we're going to see that that county, which is a soldad county, become an even more progressive County now under the leadership of Michael Thurman, the CEO there, who's a brother I like a lot, and Paple like Mayor Ted. So ultimately, I think Sanders did not lose because if you look at it around the around the country now I'm seeing more progressives get elected. But I wish I could have seen him take fellow office and be the

President of the United States. Okay, let's just snap our fingers and Biden his president. That's a huge snap. But for the sake of this conversation, now, Okay, as someone who supported Sanders, if Biden's in there much better than Trump, and I will vote for Biden. But are the problems, the endemic problems of this country really going to be addressed? No, no,

not unless we pushed the line. And the reason I say that is the endemic problems in this country are not going to be addressed because we've allowed lobbyists and money um to corrupt the political class for over a hundred years, and at some point we're going to have to take stock of that. There is there is there is trepidation that we move with as the people who pay our taxes, that we shouldn't move with. We should be bold in our moves. I met with the governor

of Georgia UM a couple of weeks ago. Some people were encouraged by that, some people were not. Didn't matter to me much. I pay my taxes in the state of Georgia. I'm going to talk to the leader because I think that there are things that this state that used to better help my community. So no matter who becomes president, we must be prepared to push the line out of my meeting, seventy young black men out of my zip CO and women are going to be able to get a free trade school education. Out of my

meeting with the governor who's Republican. That meeting, I get to talk to and help form a campaign that's gonna make your working class and poor kids get an opportunity to go to trade school because they aren't doing an effective job of talking to those And that happens out of that So and in matters of you know, what happens with Joe is like, what are we gonna push the Democrats in the Democratic Party to do if we flipped Georgia. We have more black legislators than any other

state under under an old Gold Dome. But our legislation doesn't look like that. So we have to start to radically redefine how we do politics in this country. We have to bring politics back down to a very local and statewide level. We have to stop allowing big money to Trump, you know, contended the interests of the working classman and woman in this country, or we're going to give this country to the one percent for the rest

of its existence. And we're gonna have to contend with the fact that we allowed that to happen on our watch, and we don't have to. You have to be more politically active than just voting. And I'm not saying that from a place on high as a celebrity that's smoking weed and going to strip clubs. I'm saying that as the five year child next to a woman from Tuskegee, Alabama, who drugged me to every political campaign from Carter to Reagan to versus Reagan to Mondale, versus Reagan to do Cacusa.

But like I remember virtually every local campaign because my grandmother made sure I was there. And I'm thinking that we need a resurgence of that type of local fire. It isn't about how many less celebrities can do a drop and say come out. It's about that one lady that's making sure nine other people get to the polls. How are we gonna help her? How are we going to make sure there's a van there for them in sandwiches and they got orange use and they don't have

to stand in line for six hours. Those are the things we're gonna have to do to truly hold whoever is president accountable, because if we don't, we've just given this country over to the people that pay. Okay, both of you. In today's world, the internet rules. And if you go to Spotify, which is the largest streaming service, and you' of the Spotify top fifty dominated by hip hop. Okay, and as much as African Americans adopt hip hop culture,

it's astounding how many whites adopt hip hop culture. You know, I grew up in an era where you literally could see in the sixties who were the Republicans. How do you explain that these people are fans of hip hop yet they vote for Trump. Cognitive dissonance, I think is

what there's other words they're looking for. You know, um, I don't understand it personally, but I think that you're just also contending with the fact that hip hop is just that good, it's just that dominant, it's just that exciting, it's just become that ubiquitous, you know. I mean, it is the last uh you know, great um art form created in music that that you can that you can point to and say, this is new, this is a force.

I mean, me and Mike grew up in a time where just telling people, just telling anyone over the age of thirty that you were going to be a rapper or do or be involved in hip hop music, you had to get the pre records in lecture about how it's just a fad, kid, it's just a fad like disco. Trust me, I was there. I saw it. You know,

there was in We Gone in the year you know. So, I mean, you know, I I almost think that to some degree, it's it's it's a question that is rooted a little bit in the idea that it's still a surprise that hip hop is as such a dominant force in music as it is. But you know the truth

is that we also contend with that. You know, we have people kind of you know, there are people that said us like, you know, I love I love you guys, but I don't agree with any your politics and it's just like wow, you know, you know, and your already response to that is like it's like, well a, thanks for the love and be I'm willing, I'm I'm okay for you to go listen to the music a little closer, and uh, it's okay with me if you change your mind there nobody UM not a big deal. We're pretty

secure in our ship. So okay, let's talk about hip hop in general. You know, when pip hip hops really started to gain uh mainstream traction, there were a lot of samples, most of them not cleared, and there were a lot of lawsuits and a lot of issue and then we went to beat creation and for the last I'm teen years, we have the eight O eight, which I remembers being innovative in the eighties. What do you

two guys think about? And it's a big field, but the general state of hip hop man um as a producer who started off just doing what everyone else is else did with hip hop us is just trying and find a cool roof and wrap over because you were a kid and nothing mattered and you never had a

shot of making any money off of it anyway. And it was literally just a hobby, like someone would be drawing a picture in their bedroom, um, you know, uh to to then becoming a producer and putting records out that now years later I've had to re release because they were on streaming and I had to go back and clean up some of the sample, clear stuff or whatever, you know what I mean. It's interesting there's this intersection where spontaneity and creativity and then the reality of business,

you know meat. But I think that um, you know, one thing that hip hop music and people who are involved in hip hop music has always been have always been a dept at it is um adapting um. And And you know, the point is is that is not about the point is not that all we have to sample. The point is not all we have to have money in order to afford to make music. The point is

that we want to create music. Now. Hip hop sampling started because people didn't because Reagan cut the the arts funding in you know, in America, and all of a sudden, no one had any music classes, and people who wanted to be musicians, who were poor didn't have any access to music, and so they created music based on what was around in their living room, and the mother had a turntable, and they learned how to, you know, play with that and make that into something that they can

make music with. And so it's invention and it's always going to be that um and so, you know, I think the state of hip hop personally is an amazing place, especially because of how huge it is and how many different ways there are now to approach it. Me and Mike came up at a time when everywhere every hip hop record that came out was a new advancement in the way that you could do it. Every time it

came out, you ran. And this is why me and my bond we didn't grow up in the same city, but we were the same age, and we didn't grow up in the same community, but we were the same a level of obsessed with the music. And so every time a record came out, being Public Enemy came out, the BDP came out, you know, you know, all of these things. Every time you heard a new record, it was not only a new way to do hip hop music, but it was literally a new way to do music.

And that's what's always been so exciting about hip hop is that it's so young, it's so fresh. It's absolutely writing its rules as it goes, and then that and those rules end up getting reflected for decades back on the rest of the world. I mean, you really consider how pop music and how pop culture has been has has been a reflection of what has been happening and what was the one point considered the small little community

of musicians. It's incredible. You can't go on the radio and listen to an R and B song without seeing the connection to hip hop music. It cannot happen anymore. I remember when R and B records started to incorporate elements of hip hop. It was exciting. Now it's almost like you're interested to hear somebody like singing R and B record if they would put it on the radio if there weren't hip hop elements in the you know, okay,

but let's flip the glass to half empty. There's certainly a lot of beefs in the hip hop world and their beasts against people like Little YACHTI and I don't know what I'm trying to say is you know there are people say, oh, it's too simplistic. You know, on one extreme we have Kendrick and the other one, what do you guys view about that hip hop, the hip to the hippity hip hip. Him, you don't talk, you know, you know you're talking to two dudes who don't have

that perspective. You're not, We don't have that perspective. Like the way that I look at it. Man, anything someone who's young and excited about music wants to do that's funky that people like thumbs up, you know what I mean? Like, and I think that there's an old guard perspective. I think a lot of people who come out of it. You know, it's something that in me and Mike's generation, it's very common for people who are our as to be pretty fucking bitner about what the company. Well, well

it's coming from your city, I will say. Coming from my region, it's not as common Bunby, is that Yeah? Yeah, Like, like I gotta say, in the South, sampling was important from the South for this reason. My mother when she left to marry my non bio dad, she left me with the record collection. Right, so I five six years old, you got just your mom's your mom's sucking one. She doesn't even It's more of a big sister little brother relationship. She teaches me how to put records on. I get

to play the Osley Brothers, Curtis Mayfield, Willie Hutch. I'm playing these records and hip hop introduces my friends to these sounds that I now can tell my friends, Oh yeah, that's Oza Hayes. Let me let you listen to it after school. So Sampling, I just want to tell older musicians that didn't appreciate what Sampling brought because they were being robbed. They had been robbed by their record companies. We didn't understand that even after samples had to get clear,

the money didn't go to the artist. Where does serve to go? It went to the people who owned the artist publishing. That's the greatest evil of it. So you know, not only do you have now an artists, it's like this little motherfucker ripped my ship. Then it's like, not only did he do it, now that he's getting paid, the motherfucker who ripped me off originally is getting paid. But Curtis Mayfield mentored outcast and what he taught outcasts

and organized, nor he mentor organized a little bit slower. Literally, how did Curtis Mayfield uh mentor outcast? Not outcast directly, but organized noise. Who are the mentors and the founders of the sound of the Dungeon family, Patrick Brown, Ray Murray, Enrico Wade. These guys were working out of Mayfield Studio. They were working with when they were working with people like pimps and people um there were ex pimps that got into music and stuff. It really was a black

waitation film. But he taught them that sampling, however, was good. That you could create the same vibe, you could create the same feeling. So when you listen to players ball, you're not listening to a sample as much as you're listening to someone that captured the feeling of what the black exquotation era and what that soul in that funk was. So sampling was important. But sampling in the South is radically different from Tennessee. Houston. Tennessee is more of a

Willie Hug bop that three S has. If you're listening to say Houston music, you're listening to more of a slow down, a screwed, a more soulfl version. In Atlanta and Miami, at one point we're just fast like bouti Cheq. So sampling was important because to me it helped me understand what musicians were doing what before me. The reason I know Bob changed, the reason I know colonelist month. The reason I know this is because Sampling introduced me. I got the chance to look and see where it

came from and in terms of how people view younger artists. Now, my thing with hip hop is just like what you like, because the beautiful thing about hip hop is there's always been everything for everybody. You know, people talk shit about how soft hip hop has gotten. Motherfucker p m Don was jamming. That's just a break, you know what I'm saying. And even though I was one to look no, kids kept trying to front on that ship at the school dance when that ship came on and cool J I

need love songs of all time. But it was Llo cool J and he was hardest. It's hardest. It was incredible exactly. So for me, yeah, I don't shoot on the little kids. It's mental interesting you mentioned y'all. Y'alllly's father went to the same high school. He's older than me, but he's a prominent photographer in Atlanta. Um. He's just a great brother. So I've known Yadi since he was miles like little beautiful, awesome child Moles And the dopest thing about him is he's true to himself, and that's

why he found audience. He found audience because my kids did not grow up with the same experience as me. So n w A hits my kids, even if they like it in a totally different way than it hit me. At twil the cops kicked my fucking ass. So fuk the police meant something different than when my my daughter, who's you know? Here's it now? It's a radically different reasons he writes it, But she understands the concept because of what she sees on television. Daddy understood the concept

because the cops kicks Daddy's ass. I think that. I think that also when you get when when you find yourself getting a little bit older and you get that crossroads where you start um instinctively being a little bit bitter about whatever the new music is, you have to have a come to Jesus moment and ask yourself, Am I a music fan or a I nostalgic for the things that made me feel something at a time in which I was really feeling things? Are you still feeling things?

Is it wrong that there are things out there that you're not feeling. Does that make those things inferior? Me and Mike are pretty clear about the fact that once you start thinking in that way, you're starting to get old. And I don't think that I don't think that that's the right way to look at things and listen. I would also like to point out real quickly on the production level and on the sampling issue or the sampling conversation,

this was again necessity. These are musicians trying to express themselves, and there and there I have. Now we've gone pretty far through hip hop production, and what you have are and have emerged throughout it where different schools of approach,

different schools of different types of sampling. I was sampling records really from the jump, but when I really started to get in my own and become known as a producer for having a sound, my approach to sampling was very different in the sense that I wasn't just looping records. I was using the sampler as my my, my, my paints. You know, Um, a sound became another sound. Um. You know. Hip hop is one of the first forms of music production in which you could turn something else into a baseline.

You could turn something that was not supposed to be a guitar into a guitar. You could take recordings that were recorded in different studios and different errors by different people and smash them together and use a snare from one session and a kick from another session. It was collage art. It was mashing it all together, and it

was beautiful and beyond all that. It takes real fucking creativity and real genius to turn that into something that is yours, and it has been the beginning point for a lot of producers that have ended up affecting the world of music in a huge fucking way. So you know, I always um, you know, I always understood and was aware of the perspectives on it. But it's like, look, man, I was a kid when I was stealing. Now I'm a fucking musician, you know. Now I'm a musician. Like

I needed to I needed training wheels. But now with me and Mike sample, now it's on purpose. It's like, you know we're gonna do We did that with runn Jewels four. We were like, we're gonna sample. We're gonna just clearly sample, not just a little hidden things that are sprinkled about what you do and you're hiding. As part of the fun event, We're gonna loop some ship up, like as an homage to that part of what we

love about hip hop music. Because it's time. It felt like there was time to references honorably and be like, we are doing this. It just so happens that me and Mike could this time afford to do it. You know. But it's an art, okay, So what's the dream for Run the Jewels? On some level, you're living the dream. You're making your art, You're making some money. But are you satisfied where you are? Do you want something in

the future? What is your desire? It would be nice to do a show again, That would be fucking nice, Bob. We're all we're all laboring under those constructs. But in terms of quel let me let me put it in a different way. Okay. In the sixties in the eighties, there was a mono culture. There's an AM radio in the sixties, and there was MTV in the eighties, and if you were a successful record, literally everybody in America knew that record, whether they liked it or not, because

they were exposed to it. Today today, you can take the number one record on Spotify and of Americans never even heard it, never mind how a judgment. So usually an artist, their number one goal is to reach more people. So, you know, artistically, in career wise, what are the desires of you guys personally? And I'll just say this and I'll have my answer. But that was never my goal. Um.

It was always welcomed. It was always something that I wanted on some level, because that's what being an artist is. You want people to see what you do. Um. But my goal is to do what I love to do unhindered and to continue to be able to do it without without having an answer to anybody about it and um, and to continue to extract joy from it and and and you know, I love the idea of us being exposed to more people. And it has happened. It's happened for us in a big way. Um, you know, and

that's amazing. The things that I love about it though, that we didn't change ourselves to get there, and by the time we finally get there, it was just us and there was we We lost our opportunity to be the assholes who have overnight successful long time ago. You know, I always I always lament that, like damn if I had, if I had gotten money, you know, and blew up when I was first starting, I you know, I could have been such an asshole. But it's a little too

late for us. Man. We're we're we're just kind of who we are. And we were happy playing five person rooms because we were we were we were doing it on our turns. We loved each other, we loved the energy. It was fun and it was and we were able to sustain ourselves to keep doing it. And neither of us want to work a fucking day job, that's for sure. But in all honesty, not the fucking this is not the like the the you know, this is not the

pseudo humble ship. In all honestly, all I ever wanted was to get the chance to do creative stuff on any level that I wanted to do. I think that me and might have a lot of things that we want to do together as creative partners, like a movie. We're we're working on what we're working on doing a movie.

We want to get into that realm um, and you know, and but really just the ability to make music and keep doing what I love and not have to answer two assholes about it, um, not have to ask permission. And um, that's it, that's that's I'll die happy. Then I'll die happy if I could pay the rent make my weird ass music. I'm good, Mike, I'm minute for a hunt a million of better. Okay, but let's stop. Okay, let's just say tomorrow, tomorrow, will you lose your voice permanently?

You got enough money to get to the end. Well, I live. I live at a means that I have the things that I've always wanted. So you're hearing me tell a joke I say about I have friends. I have three friends, now have two friends, now have three that are that are white folk rich. So in the South, you here, hey man, I'm need ro rich, you know,

white folk rich. So I need grow rich, meaning I have enough to to to to to make it for the rest of my natural days, because I have invested in some enterprises that, in addition to music, provide away from me that doesn't you know, including to real estate, things that my wife did, barbershops, some other cool stuff. So and I live adam below the means that I've always thought was cool. I I could have bought a million and a half dollar house. I have a five

hundred thousand dollar house. I could have moved to North Fulton, where the athletes who slam Dumpton run balls live. I live in South Fulton, where all the black retirees who are secretly millionaires live. You know what I mean. So it's I made the decisions my grandparents would have made, but for me. I'm not working for me at this point. I have children and my my my life has been under financial darrest because I chose to have children out of wetlock. And it does not mean in a bad way.

That just means I've had to work with the knowledge of whatever I make while I'm here, it's going to be left or not left to someone, depending on the decisions I make. And I want to leave my children more than sneakers and muscle cars, just like my great grandparents who were sharecroppers and the children of people who were enslaved, left the farm that my family still profits from the day we all got a little five hundred dollar check from the timber company that grows timber on

our land. I want to be able to win my absence for for for Malik and the Naya and Pony and Mikey's children, to say my grandfather. He sang, and he danced, He went in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He left an incredible musical legacy. But more than that, he made sure that we each had a trust so that we didn't have to do things that were morally objective to out the way we were raised in order to pay for our school or for for our own children. I just want to do what my

great grandparents did, and that's leaves something for them. So I am not satisfied with enough. And and I don't mean that I don't have enough because I'm not looking for a new house. I'm not trying to buy a new car, except for that test of truck you put

me on. But what I but what I am going to make sure is that whichever one of my children you know, or all of them have grandchildren, that something from all this singing and dancing is going to give them an advance and stabilization, because, to be honest with you, people who look like me in this country have not had that. My wife Um really helped me realize how fortunate I am and how fortunate she is. My wife, her father is from the Gecheon Gala community. Her father

is from Hilton Head Island. Her grandfather just received God Bless the Dead an award from the gechean Gala community there because he was one of the areg just landowners, had family, had commerce, and his family you can see on that side of her family is much tighter. They're much more stable, the children are more affluent and and and we're able. But she grew up in Savannah with her mother's family who was who was not as fortunate,

but they had a lot of love and care. But my wife has really helped me to understand the importance of what economics means in the family. So as for me, in my half of Rue of the Jewels, I not only am having the time of my life, I have the greatest job on earth. I am always have to think with the perspective that, Michael, what you do today it's going to matter to people with your last name in fifty and sixty years, some who you may not see. So take the care of your ship and don't suck

it up on drugs and strip clubs. Okay, but you mentioned the record, by the way, I'll take a hundred million to Yeah, yeah, that's we're gonna get that. My next question, how you get. How do you plan to get a hundred million? Well, you get, you get a hundred million magic, Johnson said, it takes the same amount of time to do a hundred million dollar deals a million allar deal. And we're the same group. We we We didn't go into this album like, man, we're gonna

make more money. We went into this album like we're gonna top ourselves and we're gonna show our audience we can keep evolving, and um, if that works out cool and we play bigger shows, that will be cooler for us financially too. And that's what happened about proxy. We want to be the best we can possibly be, and by proxy, um in this cool system of making music, and if people enjoy it they buy ship from you,

that equaled more money. But I can honestly say that, Um, the goal is always to be the best run the jewels. And what I do think we have to our advantage is we're honest and pure and our intentions. We love making music together. I honestly think we were born to make music together. And we just got a bunch of cool lass artistic people who follow us, who collaborate with us, who help us think things through, and I think that art um like Dolly, like Picasso, like henryoso our Tanner.

I think that art has value to the human soul and spirit. So my hope is that we can keep creating art, both musically and visually in film and television, and that can be what we have offered to the culture, to this country, this worldwide culture of hip hop and music. And I hope that that value. Like bands I've loved, including led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and Grateful Dead, n W, A Public Enemy, ice Cube, I hope that our value holds over the long term because of what we bring in,

the inspiration we bring through. Dami, you're gonna say something, No, I mean everything he's saying is exactly how I feel. And you know for me, you know, I've always only been happy when I've been allowed to create. Okay, But let's say you're in you're in the studio, Okay. Do you consciously say I want to create a hit. Let me define this. Doesn't that, that doesn't mean it's that does not mean it's number one on the chart. Do you want to create something so good that it spreads

because people can't get enough? Is that in your brain? It'll feel it. Yea, yes, but it's a different context. We want to create something. We want to create something that we know motherfucker's who feel like us are gonna have to smile and nod their head to no matter what, no matter if they've ever heard us and not. We know that there's something magical about the music that we love that if you get it right, it will put

a fucking smile on somebody's face. And we do want to do that, or it will put a or put a thought into somebody's head. Yes, we want to make the most banging, undeniable music possible, But the hit word never comes into it. They hit own. It's only because A, we're too fu smart to know. We're too fu smart, Bob. We know we're not making hit. That's not that's not what Run the Jewels does. A hit for us, it's something that gets played on the radio. That's rare for us.

We have we have some songs that are now getting played on the radio. But you know, for us, we want to make uh something that's undeniable and something that we can walk out of the studio and be like fuck you, fuck you. This is you know, like if you don't like it, fine, but we put everything we had into it. And you know now, but we don't

think that. We don't think in terms of hit. We know who we are, what we're doing, and what I've been doing all my life, hopefully, and what I bring to the group, hopefully is engaging in the age old craft of making albums and trying to make real records that tying into each other and make real moments on records that are not looked at at sectioned off into little singles and they're not thought about in any terms that are economic, but that the first track in the

last track relate to each other, and there's a point to it. And we want to make art. Me and Mike, we're both visual artists, were both you know, when we were kids. I wasn't probably as good as my we we we We were both avid comic book readers. We were both art fans. We're both movie heads. We were

obsessed with art our whole lives. I just happened to be from the generation of people that still really wants to make a cohesive thing that starts from beginning to end and has a point and has a relationship internally to itself. I want to make this art. This art is my life. So in answering your other question again, what I would say is that all I really want is to get the chance to create things, and it

is to get the chance to spread my wings. Is actually fit if I want to direct the movie someday, I want to be in a position where what I'm doing is successful enough to allow me that leeway to write and direct the movie. Um, this is what my whole life has has has only been. And that's the sixteen year old kid who didn't. I did not have any fucking plan. B I just didn't. I walked right I I out of high school. It was a failure, and it was like, this is all I'm all in,

This is all this is all I have. So of course I want to you know, I'm a fucking you know, I'm a fucking man in this world. Of course I want to find actual security. But that doesn't play into us when we're in the studio, because the only thing that's ever been successful for us has us been completely ignoring all that ship and going directly with what our heart is about this music. That's it, that's the only

reason why we're here. How was that of voters. Voters rally at t I S Trap Music Museum and we have a we have a business partnership around a fifty yard restaurant that we we we have a food truck run around promoter now called banc At Seafood. And I was I was talked. We were backstage before we walked out and just gave people, you know, the fire up to get out, make sure they get out and vote um.

And it was like, what you're doing. I was like, yo, I'm I'm listening to my album, um, getting getting my memorization tightened up because we're gonna have to performance. And he was like, you memorize the whole album. I was like, well, I say, how do I explain this? I say, so, look, Um, you make a lot of money when you do shows because you have hit records. You have records that people say, man, I was at the prom making love to this record.

I say, you got records that are burning the people's memory for the rest of their lives because you got it. And he looks at me like, yeah, that's natural. And I say, well, I make a bunch of money performing because I make albums that people experience life with with that album I say, so that gives me the value of having a hit, So I probably are never gonna have you can you can have whatever you like. But

I got run to jewels too. We vote just irrupted laughter because I'm like, that's how we play festivals, and that's why we tour so much, because we don't go to make the hit, because don't play yourself chasing something. Realize what type of your what your strength is. Dennis Robbins one of the greatest basketball players on earth because he knew that if I play defense to to the to the tilt better than anyone else, and I get this ball in the hand of those shooters, I'm going

to play. My part of this team is gonna win championships. Jamie and I understand that we are the last vestiges in hip hop um one of the last that are is prepared to give you a full musical experience in a way that that you don't have to in hip hop. To be very frank with you, you can have hit records, you could drop them, You can do that for twenty thirty years, but there's something about completing that record. There's something about following a group that takes you through that art.

It pulls you back again and again. It is the reason I love Outcast. It is the reason I love Tribe Call Quest. It is the reason I love Gang Star. It is the reason I love you g K. If you haven't listened to you g K Ryan, Dirty, Miss get Stoned as Fun Bob and you g CA's riding Dirty because all the skits were done by Smoked, who was in jail. So he's he's talking you. You're hearing a real occurrence, like so those are the things to

me Scarface Records. When you will hear j Prince talk at the beginning and end of the records, it was like going to the play as a kid. You hear that order, you set the scene for you just like uh yeah, back again and for the next hour, I just didn't give a ship what was happening outside of my room. So for for us, the hit is the record at giving you that full thirty forty fifty minute experience of cohesiveness and tapestry of the goods, the bads,

the wins, the losses. It's you know, it's almost cliche to say a movie on audio, but it is a theatric experience on audio, and and that's what you try to master again and again and again. And you are talking to two guys who put who put every single record out, but we also give it away for free. So if we were completely obsessed with oh yeah, with money.

Actually I want to I want to get to that, but I want to stop one spot before because you're talking about movies, Mike, what did you learn about doing your Netflix show man? What I learned was it's not easy, all right, So television not easy. Anybody can't just get on TV and be a star, no matter how cares attic you are. I don't want to work for sixteen hour days anymore unless um the money is life changing, but the show of life changing. So I have no regrets.

I learned that, Um did I have a talent for television, and you're more likely than not gonna see me on television a lot more if I have anything to do with it. Um. I have loved hip hop and television since I was a child. Um, And unlike working four or five hours at UPS or AutoZone, I could work sixteen or twenty hours and wouldn't flinch. I would love it, and I would hate every minute I was doing anything that was not artistic and creative by way of music

or television, and I'm absolutely obsessed with doing more of it. Okay, what did you literally learn from doing the show? I learned that people are always going to well, not always. I learned that celebrity is probably the most powerful piece of propaganda, um in this country. On the last episode, there was a young woman who was just more qualified to lead than me. She had worked with the people,

she had walked amongst them. She knew the issues and the concerns and the campaigns that they wanted waged, and they still voted for me at the end because the perception was it was my show. The perception was I had more money, and the perception was that I was more popular. Um. That's when, on a Marie micro level, I understood what's happening in this country now. Um. The reason that we have someone who's potentially a tiring or despot in this country is because over the last thirty years,

they they crafted him. Um or he's he's been in your living room via WWF wrestling, via his own television shows. He's one of the most mentioned people in rap songs. UM. So I learned the power of celebrity and and and which makes me far more cautious was how I use it and who I stand next to um, Because celebrity can be the most powerful piece of propaganda the capitalistic society, and it could lead us all down hallways. I don't think you need to go Okay, let's go back to

the records. In terms of your income file, how much comes from recordings, how much you know you know before this crazy pandemic stuff, how much comes to recording, how much comes from live, how much comes from merch or if you have another revenue stream. I would sly live first. Live has traditionally been one of the biggest sources of gonna come for us. I mean, we've toured obsessively like

a rock band. When we got the chance to tour for a year and a half straight, we toured for a year and half straight, and damn there fucking broke our spirits. But we were we we knew that this was a rare opportunity that people still wanted us to tour even a year and a half after our records. We we've we've got in a reputation for our live show and then has catapulted us up into the upper Aschlans where our font size has grown from. You have to have a magnifying glass too. It's at the top,

you know, And that's an amazing thing to accomplish for us. Traditionally, that's really been where we made the money. And I think that we have we have a lot of we and we and we do well with merch and we do well with licensing. We get a lot of licensing. People love our music for film and tv UM, which

has been amazing for us UM. And I think that one of the one of the calculations that we made originally was when we did this, was it was sort of not a genuine calculation, but it was more of a spiritual calculation where we were like, well, let's give this ship away for free because we don't have any money behind us. Let's see if we can get the hearts in the minds of people because the music is going to react. Uh, they're going to react to the music in a positive way. We didn't know what was

gonna happen. We just thought it was a gesture. We figured we want to have a relationship with people, so let's see if we don't put a wall between them and and having this music. If someone doesn't have to have a subscription to some streaming service, or if someone can't afford something that they don't know about, they're probably

not going to buy it. Um. So we put it out there for free, and we assumed correctly that if people liked it, we get the chance to perform, and if people came to the show, then we can make a living and we could sell some merch And it was kind of as as as complicated as a god when we first started. We just didn't know what was gonna happen. We've been very lucky. We've we've got the chance to do a lot of business based around this and still maintain our ability to to adhere to that

principle of giving people something. And our thought behind that is, look, we want your heart and your mind. We want to earn um. We want to earn this and and when we do earn it, when you do finally spend that buck with us. We wanted to be because you just decided you had to. You like these guys, you like this music, You're gonna spend this book because you got the chance to think about it. It didn't we didn't trick you into buying an album because we had one

hot single, here's the fucking album. And when we first started that ship, when we would go to distribute distribution companies or labels or whatever, they looked at us like, we were fucking crazy, what are you talking about. You're not going to give the record away for free? And we said, no, actually, we are doing that, and if you'd like to, you know, get a business with us,

you can do that too. But time we got around a run until three, everybody was like, so, we're giving it away for free, right, you know, you know, and we were like, yeah, we're gonna give it away for free. Minute now, give us this check, you know, and you know, so it's been a very organic approach to us. You know,

it's been a leap of faith the whole time. Um. And the one thing that we knew was that if we you know, going back to the shell thing, you know, like we fucking work our asses off to de great performers and the kid pit shows, and and that is something that we take really seriously because we knew it was one of the only things that at our disposal that we could really control that levels the playing field. We we we never had a ship hunt of money

behind us. We never had a ship to the promotion behind us, but you were not going to see a show like you're gonna see when you see our show. This is we are in a different category on purpose, We're in a different category of performance when it comes to you know, the ship around us. Not to say we're the best performers in the world and no one

else is. Every there's amazing performers out there. We just knew that we wanted to if we got that chance to get in front of people, that we were going to give them an experience that where they knew we were taking a ship seriously, like he goes are Michael Jackson kicks though, I think for a big I think I think that that's what really pushed us over the edge. Yeah, okay, just staying on that same tip, Kanye has been on

wild about the traditional major label business. And you know, the unfortunate thing with Kanye is he's literally ill, irrelevant. You know, he's bipolar. Anybody who's dealt with him, you know he's not the usual customer. Shall I say, is this something you see as a side show for you that you were doing your own thing, or is this something you have of you point on, just because you're ill doesn't mean you're dumb. No. I first, he's brilliant. Yeah, so I love me just as a son of a

manic depressed My mother was brilliant. But like you say, it could be, it could be, it could be a little madness around the brilliance. But Jamie has had an answer um over the years that that makes so much sense.

It's it's it's it's really in whatever works best for you. Now, you know it's wrong to trick artists how the masters and publishing, and think what's wrong for us not to share some some of mastering to be able to control if it's wrong the trick artists out of publishing, which we know happened in the thirties, forties, fifties, sixty, seventies, eighties.

You know, we know that. But it's also you know, once educated and once you know, once people know certain deals, you know what I mean, it's it's gonna be you to decide. Jamie and I could have did bigger deals than the big deal we did. We chose to remain and keep some of our autonomy, so we took less of things in order to be more of us. Because once you marriage and married, and it's hard to get

out of a marriage, you know what I mean. So, UM, I respect his words, like in terms of I don't have any say on whether I'm arguing for against or what them, but I respect someone who says something and then the next day says, I'm giving Artist of Theirs back,

because that's beyond saying that's doing. Everything Kanye is saying is right, It's just it's caught up in the history of everything else he's doing, like running for president, and said, yeah, but he's doing it also, Darren lasted difference, lasts of difference, you know, like the correction Mike, he's not saying and I don't like talking about other people because it always becomes sensationalized. But what he's actually saying and people are

interpreting and is like he's giving them fifty back. What he's saying is I'm giving them my steak exactly. Yeah, I was gonna saying he's not giving my fifty that all I'm giving them what I get. Yeah, And you know, hey, great listen. You know for us, you know I think that, Um, we walk into everything with our eyes open and we're very deliberate about what we're doing, you know, business wise, and and like he said, we made our decision based on what we believe we need in terms of autonomy.

For instance, um, we could have had you know, there are different deals that we could have taken, but what we wanted was to do a deal where we didn't know someone more than one record. That was very important to us. UM. That came out of a lot of experience over the years, and that came out of us understanding the importance of being able to bargain and also the importance of being able to hold the people that

you're working with to some sort of standard. I think that it is a mistake for people to get into um my personal thought is that it was a mistake for us. I'm not able to say people it's a mistake. It was. It would be a mistake for us to get into some long protracted contractual thing with anybody who we don't know are going to go to bad for us. And if you do go to bad for us, you get rewarded with a relationship. And we're very you know, we're very real about that. UM. So I think that

um uh. For me and Mike, we look at everything and just us everything in every mood that we make really as a part of how we see what are what we want our options to be. Um, it can be restricted because it doesn't mean that you don't It means that we're not going out there and getting you know, you know several you know, like you know, we're not going out there and getting a fifteen million dollar recording contract because we don't want you, um, we don't want

to give away in the next four albums, you know. Um. Okay, So you two guys, you make a lot of money from going on the road. There's a long history of African Americans on the road and racism and even white people who have traveled with African Americans. You're sort of a unique act. There are other multiracial acts, but in your particular case, there's only two guys. Do you guys

experience racism? I'm talking about you. I know, I know, Mom, I know, Michael say general there's racing on the road and you know and Jamie are there are times you say that people people will talk to you as a poe us to talk to Mike, or they'll treat you differently. No, No,

I haven't. I haven't quite noticed that But what I have noticed is that there's this there's this thing that there's this dynamic between me and Mike that that puts people in this awkward position because what a lot of people want to ask us, but they can't because they're

too conflicted and constricted in themselves. And we've called people out on it and been like just to ask man just had what we do experience as this multi racial group of friends who go out on the road, is that when we talk to people, people just want to ask, how is it possible that your friends, uh, you know? And they just don't. They just want to know they they don't know because they don't have that same experience. I grew up in New York City. I grew up

in a very multicultural in New York City. Um it was um and I I thought New York was it was like a micro causem of the world when I was when I was a kid, I just assume that because I grew up in New York that that I that I knew how the world worked, and I prepared me for going everywhere. And you know that I prepared me for getting everywhere. And what I realized I didn't really get to see America. Until I started touring, I didn't get you know, and I started touring in my

early pointies, I didn't get to see. I didn't know that not only was what I said wrong, but it was actually in verse. And actually growing up in New York was one of the biggest handicaps you could ever fucking have when it comes to the Greater America. And I was shocked to see the And yes there had I have been in situations where people that I was with who were black, or people that I was with who were Asian, or people that UM had It's like

right in front of my face. Absolutely experienced crazy, like crazy ship like you know, very obvious racism for sure. I think that me and Mike were were at what we experienced is more like a discomfort in people who you know, want to get to the bottom of this thing, like they talked to us and you know, and they're just like they want so desperately to ask the question, like I don't you know, I'm just to say I don't understand. It's like it's cool, man, we get that

it's cool. You can say it just as just ask, you know, But that particular scenario that you're describing where like I'm getting treated well and Mike isn't getting treated well because to my knowledge, I don't remember that we directly encountered that very obviously, but maybe Mike can illuminate me to that you have a prospective on this life perspect I'm a black man, just you know, you see this ship everywhere, so it's like, but it's it's not.

I grew up in the South, So I took my wife to the Florida Panhandle a few weeks back, and we grow through George, Alabama, and Florida, and every state had still has their version of the Confederate flag as the state flag. So it's not like something that I haven't learned to live with. But I grew up the opposite of Jamie. I grew up in a totally black environment. My side of town was black, my neighborhood was black. My schools were black. They were named for black people.

The principal was black, the superintendent was black, my mayor was black. So I grew up um and it was easy for me to be friends with Jamie because all of my heroes and villains looked like me. So what Dr King said about judging people by the content of their character was something that I got to do pretty easily because again, all the good people and assholes in my life had been black people, so I understood that, like James Baldwin tried to help people understand, we can

be all those things. We can be sinner as we can say so, we could be good, we could be bad. So it was a lot easier for me to get to to not engage in the all white people are are are diametrically opposed to me. You know, as I got older and understand a little nuanced, I was like, you know, some white people are just too quiet at the wrong times, and that's that's not the same thing as being evil, but you do got a bump them like, hey,

you should fucking say something right now, you know. But as a band, we do not go out and experience terrible amounts of racism. We've we've we've had subtle ship happened at Hotel check Is where they are realize that our white road managers working for both of us. As they're telling me the hold we've had, you know, German police officers opened the door, you know what I'm saying. And my wife, you know, um, my wife put all the full Muslim guards so that they don't funk with

her because they don't want that bad. But in terms of me, they searched to shoot out of me, like I come breaking on into the country. But we we have been lucky in that when people physically see us too, they see that there's a harmony there, even on our worst days. This is my brother's my friend. I love

my friend and brother. So when we hit the streets like we're two Americans, you know, if we're out of the country, looking over each other's shoulders, making sure each other's okay, And if we're in America, I'm making sure Jamie's okay, He's making sure I'm okay. So what we represent, before one world gets told is a friendship and the possibility to have people that are friends, that are not from the same place, not culturally or ethnically the same,

and yet somehow enjoy balance and the kinship. And I love the fact that our friendship just shows that, so we don't have to say it a lot, you know, forgetting color. Okay. The music world is littered with people who couldn't stand each other. All of the South, south of the Everly Brothers couldn't stand each other. Bands break up because they couldn't stand each other. You're in the reno, you're in the bus. You know, you played then X number of people, you're god. Then you're with the same

asshole that you know every day. So my question is, do you really like each other? You're really friends? And do you have blow ups or you know, what's the status? Here's the answer On the end of our album. There's a skit right and and and it's a and it's a sort of it's a sort of an homage to like the eighties action TV shows to me and I

grew up on like Dukes of Hazard, night Rider. You know, we got all that called Yankee and the Brave and and in the in the Skin the Narrow says they they friends exactly, these guys have a better chance of killing each other. Right, Uh, then what is it these guys brothers killing And they said, these guys have a better chance of killing each other than something something and then and then and then and then an area says, no, sir, their brothers, And um, I think that that's the truth. Look,

me and Mike do have boops. Me and Mike do have issues with each other that we end up ironing out. But we have real personality conflicts, and we have conflicts that come with being in close quarters and someone. We have conflicts that come with you know, years and years of wanting something from someone and and and and trying to trying to make their personality fit what you want

it to be versus what it really is. And and at the end of the day, the reason that we keep going is because we just fucked up and fell in love with each other and became a family. And and you know, you don't walk away from family and easily, you don't. You know you this, you know, and it's a different criteria. And yes, we're friends too, and and when we're at our best, we're great friends. And there are lots of times when we're not feeling each other.

It's just a fact, like me and might have known each other now for enough time to get over the honeymoon. And look, man, most people don't survive past the honeymoon. Usually. Usually that's like the honeymoon is over, the group is over, and we have survived passed the honeymoon to the point where we can genuinely say that we look, I don't consider people my real friend until I can tell them genuinely to go funk themselves, like like you know, like

a friend is a motherfucker. You can tell go fund yourself and you know that you're gonna be able to call tomorrow. And and it's not easy, and it's not but but we've been around long enough, man. We constantly remind each other that, you know, the truth is that we have to completely can we have to We have to constantly earn each other. That's a fact. Like it's not something you can take for granted. It's not like, oh, you can do any thing and it's just cool because

we'll job just be there tomorrow. We we we we know that we've got to earn each other. But the fact of the matter is that we've seen things. We've seen good things go bad. We were old enough to have seen good situations go the wrong way and for people to lose out on stuff because they weren't emotionally mature enough to at least take a step back and say, let's talk about this before and this gets any further.

And I think that if running Jewels had happened in an earlier time in our lives, me and I probably wouldn't have been on running jewels for we probably would have just, you know, done a couple of records and been out because it can get tough, and it's constantly something. It's constantly something that we talked about in the context of making sure if all us fails, if we're sucking not feeling each other, we at least do know logically that this is the same old story that we've seen

happen to other people. And if we know that logically, then we can get to the end of this, which is the happy ending, and work our way backwards. And that's what we're trying and do. That's so so, Mike, you let the Jamie get the last word. You're happy with that. I love it, man. I just a couple of words of wisdom. My wife reminds me a lot um. If you check my bios, it says um Shea's husband in one half of one of the Jews. She reminds me, I'm in two marriages and marriage is not easy. Marriage

is not the honeymoon period, but marriage is worth it. Um. I feel about this group, all the excitement, all the getty, nervous anxiety that I felt about rap music at twelve years old, when I was a kid that just wanted to do it. And I'm old enough now to understand when my egos getting in the way, or when apathy maybe getting in the way, or maybe I'm just fucking tired of being on a goddamn bust and there's nobody

else to grind the gifts with my partner. I'm I'm old enough now to kind of stand outside of me and be like, you know, well, this is what it is. We're also both love this group enough to take Jamie and Mike the human beings away and just have talks, you know, with one another. And I'm and I'm glad because i they're you know, their groups that hate each other that's still tour and and give the fans what

they want their tours. That their groups that still have genuine love for each other but refused to get on the stage, which robs the fans. And ultimately, this relationship is more than Jamie and Mike. People invested into us, The fans really invested into us. I always wanted to be as big as we are, and bigger as a rapper because I first saw rap with run DMC. I saw rapp in the arenas I didn't see rapping the club.

So I want to be on the stage with Jamie when I have silver hair and black denim outfits on running around that motherfucker like a hip hop a C d C. But the only way that happens like I wanted to happen is if I'm constantly working on the relationship with my friend and brother too. So as much as we do dope music together, UM, still a big part is just talking and just um having honest conversations

about us and what's going on. And you know, ship man, I went to see a therapist, fucked man with the I may lead a fucking country. Fuck this ship. I'm just calling to check on you. You know, those type of things you shouldn't lose, And sometimes you just need to drop off the grid for a month and allow each other to have vacation with wife and family. And I think that what we understand like a marriage is balanced. They're just gonna be times where we balance and counterbalancing

each other. And if we focus on staying balanced, I don't think we ever get unbalanced enough to be as shaky as we were, because there's a place where even the drama of solving drama becomes something that you don't feel like going through. I know certain parts, and when you know certain parts, you just evade it by doing this because it avoids that part and we can get to growing in other parts, you know what I mean. And and I feel like I feel like we're we're

evolving with each album and each year a friendship. So it's something that I'm still very excited about in terms of not only making music, but just evolving a kinship and a friendship with someone who is exactly the same age as me. We grew up seeing exactly the same things. And it makes this spin around, you know, this lifetime a lot less lonely because you know, my wife's a younger woman than me. She's a woman. I love being

married to her. But she's never gonna understand what the funk it sounded like the first time you heard b DP or two short. You know, she's never gonna understand you know what organized what what Organized Noise did by opening up Atlanta and having someone in tight kinship with like Jamie too. To have that and share that with means a lot to me. So the relationship is always

worth working on. It is and the deeper. The deeper we go, the harder the deeper the you know, you travel along the path with somebody and you know, the more and the issues become sometimes deeper, you know what I mean, they get they get harder, something like you would think it gets easier, and it does to some degree. What I think happens is that it's less ship. And then when the ship does pop up, it's deep ship and it's like and and and it's shipped. That like

requires attention. And it doesn't mean that we're always victorious in the sense that we can avoid the moment of blow up or avoid the moment of pain, you know. But again, at the end of the day, we've done a good job of trying our best to make sure that we don't fucus up. And you know, we already fell in love with each other. We know that when you know the ending, you know, it makes you try harder to to to justify it. It's like, all right, I know that the ending is happy, So how do

we how do we get there? You know? Though I love this group alpha ever love them, but man, but I saw Italica going to therapy, I just like get like I wanted Metallica to go into therapy to be happy, but I didn't want to see it, so I promised with me and Jamie du group there, we won't put it out. Uh. It was like watching your fucking heroes talk to the principle. I'm like, why am I the only Why am I? They hold on? Why am I the only person in the world who didn't like Metallica

until that? Like I literally like watching that movie, hold on, hold on, hold on. Let me just say this. Let me just say that watching that movie, I felt like watching Spinal Tap. And if you can watch Spinal Tap and not like the main characters of Spinal Tap after the movie's done, I don't understand you. Like I thought

this ship was hilarious and fucking endearing. Man, I was like, it was just that four minutes, just like James Laws, like, like you're human being, you know, and knowing those guys and being close to that camp and knowing them before the movie. You know, James used to be a drinker, and once once he stopped drinking, he was totally different. You know. It used to be in his presence and it'd be kind of intense, and now he's like a you know, a puppy dog. I saw James and a

hot rod and oh it was old roach style. It was. It was low to the ground, it was badass, all type of betina. And when he waved at me that and Lar's actually coming and standing side stage in our show just for me, I just tell him I love him. Thank them for making me feel badass as a kid. Man. I just watched that movie and I thought that they were just I just thought it was great. I was like, great, Well, one thing you did is keep the band together. We

know you guys are gonna be together. Uh, you know, literally, we could go on for hours. I got so much more to ask, but uh, we're coming to the end of the feeling we've known on this one. So gentlemen, thanks so much for doing this. Thank you Bob, Thanks for having us. Man, it's been a pleasure. And by the way, I just want to tell you something. So I've been I get your letter and I've been watch

tweted me. You once tweeted me to give me ship. Yeah, I remember, I was wondering my personality was going to be like I was wondering if you remember that I was just working with you. Man, I get your letter, and I've gotten your letter for years and years and years,

and I was reading your letter every day. And when Run the Jewels to drop, I got your letter and you talked about Run the Jewels in it, and you talked about how we had done the you know, the uh, the fake um like the joke sort of like album packages or whatever. And I just want to say that that was a proud day in my life. I just wanted to know that that was that was a problem

I was. I was like, damn, this is great because I didn't expect it, and I just I just read your ship every day and it was like, all right, yeah, so sorry. I fund with you on Twitter. You got only the only thing about working with me on Twitter is I can handle. People are working with me all day long. You know, every day I wake up and people are telling me God, I'm God, and people tell me I'm a ship head. You know, I could will whole Here's the story. Ten of the of of people

on the planet are certifiably insane. The only problem is is you don't know what ten percent it is. It's like people who are like, oh, they seem totally reasonable, and then they like they get totally out of control. I mean, I can tell you a story after story after story, and you get to the point where you have to put a mode around yourself because you've had too many bad experiences. Either they have to be a famous person I know them or someone else knew them.

Otherwise just too risky. And social media is the magnifying glass on the heat, you know, you know, intensifying the heat ray of insanity. Um, what did I feel like? I said, like, what is Bob leftarts think about? No, you gave me more direct ship without looking up. But the only reason it's important is not that ship, is that I assumed you'd be a dick on the screen and you're anything but understand like you know, you know, you know, I've been getting that my whole life. Man,

So I do apologize. I don't have to apologize. People have said things they need to apologize for that was not you're expressing them being given me ship. It goes on, but as I say, completely in real life, a completely different person. It's like just you know, we could talk TV out infinitum. But I don't know. If you watch Bosch, this guyever, he's the story. He's really intense on the show. So I'm talking to him. I got you know, the

guy was like a regular guy. I'm not saying he was wimpy whatever, but you can talk just like a talk to these people. It's just so funny how people are different. And then you know, then there are people who have a reputation for being assholes who are really assholes, but you don't cover that, certainly not. I'm like, Okay, thanks again guys for doing this. Okay, until next time. This is Bob Left sex