#265 - Jason Lee

of like the Well. First of all, I always preferred Hollywood Unlocked over Shade Room and Baller Alert because I always thought, you guys when we would do sh'll just be controversial out there. Gate No, no no, no, I'm being honest, damn if I what's up? No, no, no, They're great. I'm letting you know. If I if you were to go to my saved posts over the last like six years, ninety percent of all of my news is Hollywood Unlocked. Bro,

Why why Hollywood on lot? I just feel like you guys were like like, I feel like you guys are more like active I guess if that makes sense. I feel like Baller Alert sometimes, like I might get like five or six posts a day. Some days we're like if I'm like really trying to see what the fuck's like going on, like in real time, like I'll go to you or you know, even like my mixtapes like post shit, like I like, but I'm pretty active, they're

like super active. But I do feel like, you know, you've kind of all for me, been like a great source of like doing show prep, you know, just as a radio personality, and now you're fucking killing it. I've you know, I loved what you were doing with Damage during the pandemic and to see you kind of turn into Jason Lee being kind of like as big or bigger than your company and the Jason Lee show Man.

Just congrats, thank you, thank you. Yeah. I first wanted to shout out Robin and Angie, two amazing women who you know, inspire me in different ways. Angie at the Shave Room was somebody who was Shade Rooms like the like the the Michael Jordan of this right there. Well, we're all different, you know, That's the thing. You know, when I first came in the game, everybody was saying, oh, don't do Hollywood a lot because the Shade Room and

Baller Alert's been here before. Everybody in Shade Room has as many followers and there's no room in the space. And I always believed in myself. I was like, fuck what y'all talking about. I'm gonna do whatever I want to do. I mean, I'm a person who survived the hood. I came out of nothing that I've fucking been shot. I've seen all types of shit happen, Like, there's no way you survive all that and think that you can't

be anything you want to be. ANGI if the Shade Room was the first to really like guide me on how to build She's super cool too, She's a sweetheart. Yeah, how to build audience, how to really connect with them, and how to focus on your content. And then Robin, when I lost my Instagram, was the person who guided me through the lawsuit and checked on me every day and even still today with the new show, text on me and we have a great relations And they have

a dope ball baller alert Radio is dope. You're both dope ball alerts in the films. We're all just very different. I think the one thing that makes us unique where I think you see me more is Jason Lee is also a brand in the face of Hollywood, So you see me a lot more you hear my shows and my interviews, and so you see me more. I don't know that's what whoever's posting for y'all is just on top of it. Brouh, They're on it. They killing it.

Like I'm like, it's crazy because like it used to be like let me check TMZ or so I'm like, no, let me see this. Hollywood A lot posted yo. I know when you posted that the Queen died. Me and my co host James Jefferson, we were like praying. We were like, and this is like a bad thing. Okay, we weren't. We weren't praying that she now y'all want her to be dead. No, we didn't want her to

be dead. You wanted the story. But I was like very like, I was like, oh, this is huge, bossile, this would be huge if Jason Nails's how like when something like that happens. Obviously didn't end up. She ended up passing away after but allegedly listen social media, you know they killed me. Oh I was wrong, and then you know, you didn't really see her, and then they came back and said, oh, Jason was right the whole time.

You know, you know, I have to say in the business that I'm in, you have to trust your sources. I've learned a lot since that experience, though, Like I still trust the source because the source. If I ever said the source, which I won't, I mean, it's somebody that all of us would just gag if you just heard the person who told me. But then try to printerry. I'm kidding, I wish but no, I mean, like, but then at this on the other hand, it was a huge gamble, and you know, we rolled the dice and

you know, sometimes you hid and sometimes you don't. And it was just one of those things where I loved that I went through that because it just showed everybody that I was human. We made a mistake, you know, we came back and owned it and we corrected and we kept it pushing and we were still getting deals. We're still growing, you know. So for people who don't know, are you from Stockton? Stockton? Yea, So the two O nine is a very serious place. People don't understand it.

Like that's why they were talking about how ruthless the industry is. No go to stock Dockton's crazy. It's a lot. My manager, Brian Samson is from Stockton, I mean, unfortunately for both of us. And one day he convinced me to not take us a flight home from San Francisco because I was gonna fly from San Francisco back to Burbank and he was driving, and he was like, bro, I don't want to drive alone. Just just drive with me. You know you'll get You'll get there in the morning.

So I'm like, fine, I'll go with you to Stockton. No, no, no, we're supposed to drive from the Bay back to La Okay. So I passed out in the front seat and I wake up in the middle of the fucking the trenches of Stockton while he's giving me an unvolunteered like hood vlog tour at like one in the morning, and it yeah, it's a rough place, man, Stockton's serious. Tell me a

little bit about just like a childhood growing up man. Yeah, Brian's a hometown hero too, because even earlier in my you know, when I was before the industry, I always heard of he would always he did great making in La working in the music business, and then he would always go home and DJ fly and he would give people hope that they could make it in the business. But and I don't have a relationship with him. I just know of them. Of course. Lucky for you. By

the way, Stockton is great. I mean, you know, even though it's a difficult city, I really feel like it has its challenges, like most inner city communities around the world, around the country. I grew up with a white mom and a black father who was always married to his wife. She just passed away a couple of weeks ago, And you know, I didn't have a relationship with him the way that I have my mom. But you know, I

was a produe to my community. I tried to sell drugs and good at that got shot, watch my brother get murdered, had lots of friends that I was talking to my friend the other day that when I think about how many people died in the year of just nineteen ninety seven alone, my brother, tons of friends. I was almost at a funeral every other week for like three or four months. And I really look at Stockton as the place where I first got my interest in

the business. I met Queen Latifa. That light, that idea that I could be more than my community was there. But now I'm back building my foundation and working with my mayor and my city Council to launch an initiative called the Iron Ready Initiative, where we're going to target black and brown kids to bring in all the people I built a relationship with to create programming and you know, zoom meetings and stuff with these kids to give them hope.

But then embedded in that as a lot of behavioral change and program and systemic changes that they have to make in order to be eligible. So I'm excited. I don't see. I know the narrative about Stockton, and it's true, it is dangerous, but there's also so much hope there. And I always look at an opportunity where Okay, yeah it may be fucked up, but if the right people care enough, then they'll do what it takes to make it better. Yeah, it seems like a lot of the

up and coming artists like have died recently. It's rough man, there's like super dope, thriving hip hops. To me, Stockton is like the most exciting scene in hip hop in like in California. It's bubbling. I'm not as tapped in on the music. It's lit. Yeah, shout out to everybody doing their thing out there. We had the Haiti Baby, do you know of course, of course that freestyle on

our show that we no no because of you. I saw him and then he came on my show, and I think he came on my show at a time where he wasn't really ready to be media because he was just new. But he's super talented. And now that I've seen him grow and come to LA and I've I've had lunch with him and met him again. Very articulate, super solid dude man, very good person. And here's these very talented and I know a lot of people who met are watching him. Yeah geez, just he's just signed

a CTE with Cheezy Nice, So congrats to him. So how do you get from being a kid from Stockton who's been through so much shit to La. Well, I had a job, I mean, before entertainment, I worked for a labor union called SCIU. I was the staff director for Kaiser Permanente so Kaiser Hospitals all throughout California. I was one of the three directors who led a team

of organizers who organized all the hospitals and clinics. So that came by way of me losing my job, but being very vocal with the city about what I felt was right or wrong about the firing. They saw me advocating for myself, they offered me a job. I was a Kaiser patient at the time. I felt like, Yo, now I'm going to be a Kaiser patient with the privilege of advocating for other patients at the level of

organizing the leader. So I did that work for eleven years and when we merged with at the time it was Local two fifty, merged with Local three ninety nine, became SCIUHW. I was the first staff to come down and help lead the statewide program to really move people into what the union was going to be about. And when I got here, I had established so many relationships from visiting over the years, having met Queen and Tea for thirty years ago, and just over the years many people.

When I got here and I started going to supper club, I started going to Le Doux, I started going to Guardnaviden, and then I started popping up a Jamie Fox. I just fell in love with the industry again from an idea that I could abandon my job to follow my dreams, and overtime it happened, and naturally when it was time, I just went Hollywood on line full time. When did you like make the decision to quit the job. Was it like because you made a certain amount of money?

How they fired me? Oh? They fired you, So you had really kind of like no choice. They didn't fire me because I did anything wrong. When we merged with the unions, there became a lot of inner union fighting that I was just was beyond my pay grade. So when they removed our president, I was very loyal to the leadership, and I'm a loyal person, like when I ride for you or write with you, I'm ten toes down. Period. I don't care what nobody says unless you do some

real crazy shit, right. So they removed the president and they took all the staff. There was probably three hundred some staff. They took us all into different hotels around the state, and we were faced with a decision. You either sign a letter and say that to all the members you for all these years, that you were lying to them all the time, or you just quit. So we were faced with a decision of lying to the people or quitting, and I just decided to quit, and

I just quit. So from there it was like I'm all in now and there's no choice. There's no choice. That's when I saw a conglomerate group and I started putting, Oh you want Chris Brown, Oh you want this person? Okay, I started ten percenting my way into survival mode, middleman and a lot of deals. Absolutely, I still do. It's a great hustle. I still do it to this day. Yeah.

That's dope. Yeah, I mean that's good to know. So for you, like when did you do you remember like a month or like a point in time where you really realized like there was really like some tread hitting the ground with Hollywood unlocked, like you could you could turn this into something that was like I mean, I can't remember the moment where I go, this is actually doing something Like I remember when we first started. We started with one hundred dollars. What year was this, twenty

fifteen October one hundred dollars and Instagram website. And then while I was building it, I called Mona to get on love and hip hop. But while I was doing it, we were so headed down in the work that we weren't paying attention to the girls. We just we weren't

counting numbers, counting followers, counting comments. We were just so into the work and perfecting the storytelling and what was going to differentiate us from our competitors, and how were we working with those competitors be collaborators, and we just head down and then I remember we went for like zero followers to like I remember, I remember the day we went to we had sixty thousand, because that was the day where we were all like, Dad, we got

sixty thousand followers, it's a lot. That's a lot. And then and then I remember one day in one hundred and it was three hundred, and it was five hundred, and it was a million. And so I remember all those moments of where we were hitting those milestones, and we just kept trying to perfect the consumer experience because ultimately we at first were just a place where were

talking about what was what was going on. But then people started picking us up and we were going all across the world in different news trades, and then we started seeing politicians reach out, so we're like, oh damn. Then I remember an article came out that we swayed an election, So I'm like, okay, we have real influence. Which election was it? This was back home in Stockton.

I literally just said my opinion on something, and then it got picked up by LA Times and then different people ran in and then the vote literally it swayed, and the person came out and said that it disgruntled work, a disgruntled former resident. You use his platform for him to lose, And it wasn't true. It was just that you weren't a good mayor and you need to go.

So once it started seeing our influence, then I was like, yeah, we were really honing in on making sure that we were hitting all demographics, so pop culture, all things culture, politics. How do we hit all these three things from a world perspective, like what do people want to hear that the whole world can talk about? What can they talk about in Nigeria that they'll talk about in London, that they'll talk about in la that they're going to talk

about in Arkansas. How do we create that content? And then it became a very strategic thing where then we started looking at the needle like okay, this got twelve million views of this got okay, now this show got x amount of That's how we really looked at the growth and now we're just growing. Yeah, you're also like what I appreciate about you is that you're very like you'll hop on the feed of the and like, hey, if you're serious about your business, period, hit us up.

Because so many people think that success comes by luck. Yeah, maybe if you hit the winning ticket in the lottery. Right. This shit is a fucking grind. And I tell everybody online that keeps posting these fucking tiktoks and he's boring ass pieces of content. You're lazy and nobody likes lazy content. Everybody can tell what's lazy. Some people may get that quick, you know, overnight success, the boom gangs, the one hit

Wonders or whatever. And that's fine if that's what you want, But if you want sustainable success, you have to invest in your brand. I paid for advertising. I advertise Hollywood Aloe, and I marketed the fuck out of my shit. Can if you have an up becoming business or like a product, why wouldn't you advertise your shit, especially on a platform that creates small business programs for people who are new.

You know, we have the fashion novas of the world or the McDonald's and Pepsis, but then there's you know, somebody may start a haircare company or a t shirt line or something. You know, we make sure we carve out space for those people to be able to, you know, advertise a brand that's dope man for you, When did you kind of like want to expand because you know,

Instagram's one business model. Being a blog is a business model, but you've kind of expanded the brand into so many different like branches of like, uh, just expanding the portfolio. You know. Obviously now we have the Jason Lee Show, which which congrats on the first episode with Cardi B. But when did you kind of realize, like, yo, there's just way there's just so much more here than just being a blog or being the gossip site. When my Instagram went down, because that was like where most of

our revenue was coming from. And when that shit was that twenty nineteen it was twenty shit, I don't even know, it was probably twenty seventeen, twenty eight. It maybe maybe been twenty It's a blur now it's been. It was too it was I remember when that happened because I and then I would try to there was like a different page you guys had right there. We had we

had a fucking what do you call those? A backup page? Yeah, the backup page going Yeah, and then that became complicated because then Instagram was like, if you lost Hollywood Unlock, you can't have a backup to that because you lost it, because you lost it for a reason, company violid, you know whatever. It was crazy. I think once I lost that, it scared me because I think the thing that for me that I never followed my dreams early on was the fear of not being able to pay my bills.

That's everybody's dream, that's that's everybody's fear, which is why a lot of people are afraid to start their own brands and they're afraid to quit their full time job. The union was paying me five thousand every week, every other week, So every other week I was I was hood rich on Thursday. On Friday, I was hood rich. On Thursday, I was broke. But every other Friday I

was I have money. So to leave that, I was forced to leave it, but then hustling to then leave all that, to really focus everything into put all my eggs in one basket was scary. And so when I lost the Instagram, my whole focus was, Okay, fuck that. When I come back, we're going to diversify this brand. We're going to have at least ten to fifteen streams of revenue, and if ten to fifteen streams of revenue are bringing in five thousand needs, you can kind of

do the math. If we do that on a monthly basis. Now, of course we're you know, making close to seven fifth yours every month. But so now it's a more sustainable model because now that the brand has become validated and it has created its own lane, now it's just about how to we plug and play into other areas. Yeah. Yeah, I think like the one thing that most people you were saying earlier, the fear of paying your bills. It's

like it kind of like paralyzes people's progress. Like so many people I know, like in my personal life, have so much potential, and I always am like, like, yo, you should do this. Like I got a homie he was like in the best shape every works out every day, and I've been trying to convince him to be like a personal trainer and start a gym for like it feels like my entire adulthood. And now he just has a normal job and he's miserable, and I'm like, dude,

you got to roll the dice. Sometimes you have to feel like your dreams are worth fighting through the fear. You know, my whole model. When I wrote my book, God must have forgotten about me. I wrote about fear over faith, a faith over fear. You know, when I used to get on a plane early on, I'd be like, oh my God, this plan is going to crash, this plan is going to be all the turbulent is We're

gonna die. But then on one hand, I'm over here listening to gospel music telling people that you have to have faith in God, you have to have faith in this. So I had to really go back into what I believe. What is my faith? What is the foundation of the Jason Lee person, and what is the what is the foundational belief that the Jason Lee experiencedick Zoot faith over fear. So my faith is I had to find the faith that I believed in myself enough to get through the

fear and most people. When I talked to him, like I was talking about therapists today in therapy, I was saying to him I'm going to do I said, I'm gonna do this new show that I'm selling to this network, and I want to bring you in to do this therapeuticccession. But I was telling my creative idea for it, And I said, well, why don't you do a show where you sit down and work with people who've been canceled and work through why they've been canceled in a way

that makes them, you know, uncancellable. That sounds like a million dollar idea. We're talking about it. He was like, yeah, I would do that because he works with other celebrity and public figures. And I'm like, yo, I started telling my ideas and he was like, yo, you're You're just You're able to come up with ideas that is unlike anybody else. I said, that's not true. I'm able to focus because that is something that I believe in, and anybody that believes in something, they can just push past

the fear, Like I feel like anything responsible. Yeah. I saw you do like a breakdown of like all the new shit that's rolling out. And it's not just the Jason Lee Show. No, it's like you're doing a live streams Jason Lee experience. You're doing like Monday through Friday.

There's like gonna be something, right. So there's the Jason Lee Show on Revolt and you're the first person on this whole run for people to ask me this question because I think people are and I love that people are focused on the show, but what people were when you made that announcement, I was like, oh shit, yeah, that's that's a lot. So the Jason Lee Show on Revolt we filmed. We filmed five episodes last last week

before I went on the Press Store. But that's gonna air once a week on Revolt ten pm Eastern on Revolt TV Cable. Then the audio for that rolls out the day before, and so what was holding up the deal was trying to figure out where's this audio going to live because I was also in the negotiations for a podcast deal. So the audio now rolled out on the Jason Lee Podcast on Mondays. It airzon Revolt Cable

on Tuesdays and then Revote YouTube on Wednesdays. And the experience is different because you get a forty four minute cut down on Revolt, but then you get like CARDIV. We gave a forty four minute cut down on Revolt TV, but then we did an hour and twenty seven minutes on Revote YouTube. So it's all the stuff that you don't see on the TV show you see on the YouTube.

And then I felt like Okay, what is it that I don't want to be the talk show host, so the host that just talks to the audience, I want to hear from them what the fuck they think about what we're talking about. So we created Jason Lee after Dark, where that Wednesday, when the YouTube hits and everybody's heard it on audio, watched on cable, watch it on YouTube.

They can then come into a live experience like a watch what Happens lifestyle environment at night and we can be drinking and talking and fans can come in and ask questions, video or call in talk their shit. And then the Jason Lee podcast will air on Fridays then and so the Jason Lee after Dark will be on Hollywood onlock dot com. We have a paid a membership places there. Right. Hey, we got to stop the interview to tell you about our folks at my bookie. That's right, baby,

super Bowl's coming. Well, you know in a month or so, we got the playoffs. Right now, you could get those future bets in on who you think out of this barrage of teams that made it to the playoffs is gonna win the super Bowl? You could bet player props. We can go NBA action on them. So much ways to make money with all the sports going on, and you could do it all at my Bookie. Right now.

If you go to my Bookie and you sign up for a new account, used the promo code boot leg, and they will match your first deposit up to one thousand dollars. You know what's dope about my Bookie. Not only can you bet on your favorite sports, what's your good? Also good little blackjack going, little slot machines and that dang me email roulette. Yeah me, so much ways to get paid on my Bookie. The most important thing is, though, if you sign up and you use the promo code

boot leg at my Bookie. Go to my Bookie, my Bookie, my Bookie, my Bookie, use the promo code boot leg, and they're gonna match your first deposit up to one thousand dollar right fucking now. Listen, I'm a degenerate, but I'm pretty good at this. I've been using my Bookie for like ten years. All right, very trusted. They're the best. Trust me, they are the fucking best. Wherever you're at you're watching this, you can sign up from my Bookie

account one more time. That's my book You used a promo code Bootleg and they will double your first deposit up two thousand dollars, free fucking money. Let's get to it all right, boys, back to the interview. Help me understand because I see a lot of big podcasts are going the direction of doing deals with Revolt and having their content live on revolts YouTube channel. I'm sure that

the monetary compensation is the main motivation for that. For you, though, you feel like a really strategic guy, why not have the Jason Lee Show live on your own channel that you own and you control. I mean, I know it's money, but just from like a person on this side of the camera, like, I'm just curious, you know, because I see a lot of people. Yeah, okay, that's a great question.

One shout out to Datavio. Samuel's the CEO of Revolt. Brilliant, brilliant black man who believes in culture, who believes in black creators, who believes in creators a culture period. And I've been really big on ownership of your content, being able to create strategic partnerships to elevate your brand, finding people who believe in you as much as you believe

in yourself. And to Tavio, did that. You know, I talked about faith over fear and being able to have like you know, there was a fear to like run up on Ditty for a deal or to hit Diddy for a deal, and then I've got over that and I got his number and I called him directly, and he put me with Datavio and Dion at this honesty, and we've been able to really craft a relationship with Dion on the Dailyon's side and with them on a Revolt.

What I love about them and why I chose them over all the other networks we're talking about is because when we got into the weeds of the deal, ownership was important to me. So I I share the ownership of the content I created with them, but I owned the show name and I own a share in the profit of the show equally, so we're partners. I don't

work for them, they don't work for me. But our teams have integrated and aligned in a way where I went with a five person publicist team and there's six publicists team and now there's eleven publicists working on the show. That only amplifies adjacent Lee brand, that only amplifies the isabelity, and I love the fact that they pay. They also do paid media as much as we do earn media.

So the way we just work this whole rollout with CARTI, over four billion media impressions, over seven million social media impressions trended number two on I saw you posts like the email screenshot of like the stats. It was crazy And that's the first episode we plan to keep going. So yeah, I think the fact that they believe in the ownership and the content was great. I don't know

why everybody else did. The money is good. I won't say it's not, but you know what, I've been offered deals where people come to me and said, what if we offer you fifteen million dollars to come over here, but we own all your content outright? You own? Are you fucking done? Fuck that? Nah, because I can get because because you're obviously financially well off compared to like a lot of people, like I'm not in your business,

but you're not doing too bad. But you could easily I mean you did it with Hollywood the Hollywood Unlock Show, right, but you could easily have pulled off this entire thing without revolts help I could have but for you. But I do think that This is also a lesson that like some people get so hung up and being like, nah, I got this, I'm over here on my own. That it's, like you said, strategic partnerships that can benefit what you're doing.

I think some people, especially in like hip hop culture, are so like hung up on being independent now and not necessarily like sometimes it's very beneficial to partner because the bag is bigger in the long run. Yeah, but you got to pay attention, like pay attention to all the grades that out there, because I'm paying attention. Right. We just got our evaluation, fifty million dollars valuation. Congratulations, that's all you guys just lock down some funding for

like one point eight million dollars. Well it's a little bit more than one point seven, but because of the way it's structured, we can only announce to one point seven now. But there's more to come. But you know, we have some really good strategic partners. A lot of people offer me money, oh this and that, whatever. I still own ninety percent of the company. I still have control of the company, and I still I make the ten percent investors. Correct, there's a group of people that

are strategics. So you know, again these are people who you know have access to billions of dollars, have access to huge infrastructure. I just met with somebody yesterday who was like, don't close that round until I can get in there. And this person, I mean, you're going to open the whole world up in terms of brands. So when I look at how I built it, you know, jay Z said, you know somebody who you know? People

are afraid to sell equity in their business. I mean, if do you want to get to that billion dollar status, it's not about what you give away, It's about how you how you sell it off or how do you allow people to get in strategically. So, if I have fifty percent of a company that's worth a billion dollars, I walk away five hundred million, or would you rather have one hundred percent of the company is worth a million dollars? Right right? So that really you just have

to decide what you want to do. And that for me was always like I look at the jay Z's I look at like the puff It is the best marketer in the business if you followed his career from uptown and I followed it. And so to be able to be on a network that's black owned that he's actually greenlit and that Datavio is leading. I mean also even like even did he look to him like did he bad Boy had partners in the you know whoever, they're major distributory. I mean, it's so rack there's a

liquor partner there. Did he's the face of it, but it's like he's an extremely smart man. I'd be very clear everybody's I don't have a relationship with him like that. I mean, I got his number, he's on text, but we're not on the phone every day like I am with other people. I don't have that relationship with him, and I don't know where the relationship will go, and

I don't know what the future holds. But for right now, I really just really love what we're doing over there, and you know, we have we have ideas for where we want to take the show. Of course, this is like we're dating now. We're trying to see episode one is a success. That's for sure. Episode one was colossal, but you know that comes with a lot of pressure. What this episode two going to do it? You know,

or episode three? But I don't have any I'm not worried about it because I know that I'm more locked into this and I've been in anything done for you. You have some strong alliances with artists that you are, your actual friends, Cardi being one of them. Obviously, there's probably not anybody else who could get the interview that you just got. How careful are you about covering people

who are your friends. I'm not careful. I will say that my team is I have to shout out the Hollywood on long team, especially the social people, and they're gonna love that you highlight them because nobody ever gives them credit. They are when shit goes down, and if say, if it's involving somebody they know I'm close with, they'll say, heads up, this is out. We're gonna run it. Here's our idea. They'll tell me it because like here's the

angle we're gonna run it. Yeah, they're gonna run what it is, but they'll tell us like, this is what we're gonna say, this is what we're gonna do. They give me an opportunity to call the person say, hey, this is about to run. Do you want to tell me what's what's going on? Give me some input some most people will give it to me, others will not. And then we'll run it. But if I hear from them something that makes me go, we ain't running that, you know, like this this is bullshit. And I've done

that many times. Why I've killed stuff that my team wants to run because based on all the information I have, it doesn't make sense. Uh. But yeah, I mean, I don't you know. I was telling that Cardi said on the show. How I told her I didn't like hot shit. You know, we were in a heated argument about something completely unrelated because we don't really talk about music or the news. We just talked about live shit like that's I fucking love this girl, right, So we're talking, but

we're in a heated argument. She's cussing me out, I'm cussing her out, and uh, I said, oh, and I think hot shit is whack, you know. And she was quiet and I really felt like I heard her feelings. But she's a thug, so she you know, she came back at me whatever, But she appreciates me enough to give me the space to be honest with her and I to her and she criticizes me, So I don't know. I don't have that relationship with everybody though, but one person I will say that most people don't know I

know or have access to that I don't. I won't. I won't lie and say that we're friends. But we are very friendly on text and on the phone. We need to be is the weekend, and he always comes at the He only reaches out when he's giving me my flowers, which is which is weird because we write about when his voice fell out at the show and he just walked off, or when this or that or the good things, you know, when he's become hits all these different goals whatever. But we're not like super chatty

on the phone. But it's something weird about this guy where he always tunes in to give me my flowers when I'm making moves, And you know, it's people like that that like, sometimes I just don't call because I feel like they're they're going to feel some type way about me or the work that I do, so I'm like, I just kind of stay away. But to the people that I do have real personal, deep relationships with, I'm

never going to compromise what I do. And those people that are my friends know what I do and they appreciate what I do, so they can at least understand like you have a job to do. They'll call me and be like, that was fucked up. I'm like, okay, well, what you want to give me the you know which you want to give me, Like, what are we doing?

You know? How many have you? Like, has there been a certain amount of times you've taken stuff down because someone asked you, like, hey, look, if only I can only say that I took the one thing that comes to mind and I and I won't say it because it was a very very tricky, tricky thing. I did take one thing down once that I knew. I put it up on purpose to get the attention, and once the attention was got, I was able to say, okay, I'll take that down. But I only did that one time.

And I'm growing learning how to not use the platform like that to intentionally get people's attention, because for a while, when the doors went open for me, I was like, you have to shake the cage a little. I have a relationship with every artist in the world. Every artist in the world I do through Hollywood on lock. Some just don't participate. If you participate, there's one experience. If you don't, then you leave us to assume or gather the facts that we get and then once it hits

the internet, it is what it is. Yea. So people are learning like I'm not really trying to be the bad guy, but make no mistake about it. I don't give a fuck. And I'm from Stockton, California, where I'm where I was born and raised. You know what's gonna happen. Y'all gonna kill me because I said some Okay, well, if that's the way I'm going out, I'll be legendary. I'm not worried about I was gonna say, like, I

feel like you made a transition. Everybody has growth, but from being like the Jason Lee who wasn't as big as Hollywood and locked and now your brand is kind

of parallel to your company. Do you feel like there was like because you've had some public spats with artists, like you said early on you would shake the k jump I mean the nikky thing alone is, you know, But do you feel like there was like an incident or a moment in which you kind of decided to move a little differently in terms of like stirring up unnecessary shit. See the thing, I really don't feel like I ever started unnecessary shit I feel like everything I've

started or started up was necessary. I'm not gonna let you bully me. I don't care who you are. And I've had moments with everybody. I mean with everybody you can think of. I mean I've had moments with people that people haven't even seen. I don't think I've ever done anything unnecessarily have I just now choose more strategically how I respond. You know, sometimes I'll deal stuff with behind the scenes or whatever. I'm trying to really live

in my purpose. Now. I'm forty five years old. I'm still very hungry, but I'm also very blessed and have a lot of opportunities in front of me. And so I think back about a conversation Queen Lyativa when I had where she said, really focus on building your audience and then take them on a journey with you, but don't never abandon them. So the people who love the tea, That's what the Jason Lee podcast is gonna be about. Big opinions, very unapologetic. Every Friday. You're gonna kind of

like wrap up the week. Oh my god, very unfiltered. Yes, but you know, let's the whole dick plussy fuck this that I mean just you know, but very very blunted, and then very unapologetic. And then I think the Jason Lee Show. I want to interview Michelle Obama. I want to talk to Barack Obama. These are people that are important to me. I don't want to scare people to the extent that they don't want to talk to me.

But I also want to be able to keep it real and ask the questions if people want to know, Like I have to ask Carti about the song that Quevo did that involved Sleety, I have to ask her about the lawsuit with Tasha k or nobody else can ask these questions. By the way, well they can't. They can get the interview. I don't know. I don't know, no, no, no, listen, what's gonna happen. Carti's gonna go to whatever she does

her run. There's gonna be a long list from Dwight from Atlantic, and it's gonna be like, you can't talk about this. She can't talk about this, she can't talk about you're not getting that list. I got the list. She throw it away, she threw it away. Wow, I got the list, long fucking list. It's a lot. Carti said, nah, we're doing it anything. I mean, you're you're good, You're good, You're good. Let me say this, people don't understand the fucking hard shit that people that do this go through.

What I've said at Hollywood unlock. I'm not letting the publicist tell me what I can and can't ask. I'm not laying to manager. If you want my audience, if you want my consumer base, if you want to talk to me, if you want me to make your shit look good for my world, you can say you don't need it. You're not going to tell me because they would never do it to Oprah. Never. You would never

tell Oprah you can't talk about this. Oprah gonna sit down and say, Meghan and Ellen or any of these fucking Meghan, how you thought your black ass was gonna go over there with the white folks in London put a crown on, and they weren't gonna look at you as a black girl. A girl. Bye. You're never gonna be able to tell Opra what you can and can't ask. And so when I look at the culture now and how how talk is just very much like let's talk about your album. I don't want to just talk about

your fucking album. I want to talk CARTI wasn't on a radio run. CARTI didn't have anything to promote, right, She just pulled up and when this list came, I'm not gonna say what I said, but I didn't. CARTI called me as soon as I got the list because I was in a chat because she knew what I was going to say, and she just it was funny. We had a moment. But then she pulled up and she said, ask whatever you want, because she knew that

she could trust I was going to be. You're not gonna try to set her up with some gotcha shit. I don't do that, and the great platforms don't do that. Yeah, yeah, I don't do that. But I do feel like a lot of the platforms that do do it is because they got to get something, because you ain't. You fucking tell them. They can't talk about Jesus, they can't talk about oxygen, they can't talk about water, they can't talk about this table, they can't even talk how about how

about you just don't ask me any questions. So you just want me to talk about your album. That's it. I'm never that person, and I hate radio runs when publicists will say, and this is just for example, because I love this person. Gucci man has an album. Okay, look if I'm number five on that, I ain't gonna what the fuck to ask him because I'm not. You know, that's where you're gonna. That's where you know he's gonna walk into an interview and I'm playing GEEZI yeah, to

create a conversation or move. But I don't want that no more. I want to be able to authentically interview a Gucci and Akisha and be like, Yo, you guys are the epitome of black love and hip hop. Where we watch you guy? She's told me a story about how was that interview coming soon? I hope? So, Gucci, I want you and Keisha loves me and I love her. But you know her story of how she like held him down while he was in prison and started his fitness thing with him and how they got fit together.

Great yeah yeah uh for you like that list though, see y'all don't know yeah yeah. Those of you watching who want to get in this world, just know, grind your fucking ass off and be unapologetic, because that was the one thing that really pushed me to not give a fuck because I would call different people that I knew I helped out when I was the plug, Like I knew you when you couldn't get in the club. I knew you when you wanted to go over there and fuck on old boy, and I put you with him.

And now all of a sudden, you're this and that, So now I don't get no love. That's when I started saying, like, I see the games y'all gonna play, But how about this? How about I just because I'm too in the business to know what's going on to just sit silent and be a co conspirate in your bullshit. So why do I just put it out there and force you? Because if I say something and Vanity Fair picks it up, you may not like Urban press or black media and shit on us and think we're not important.

But now you got to answer the Vanity Fair Vanyfair is going to ask you the question based on what I said, and they're going to cite me anyway. So I still got the credit. So I figured out the way of like, really, mind fucking the business, where like you don't have to participate in the relationship, I can still get your attention. Yeah, I think that one of the like when I when I first watched that Kanye interview did it was almost two years ago now maybe

a year and a half a year. That was like where I was like, Oh, this guy's this guy's got it like this this because you got a great Ya interview with Luck and shout out to what Whack helped make that back one. That's Whack one hundred. He's the secret sauce behind that relationship. Yeah, I love Whack's a great guy man. He doesn't get the credit he deserved. I always I've been friends with Whack for over ten years, and I always say he's one of the smartest dudes

in the game. I know sometimes Whack It's on Clubhouse and Whack is going to whack. Whack is very He's brilliant. Ye, he's brilliant. Yeah, people don't give him the credit. And then the other thing I love and he told this story recently that and I want to say that, like when when I opened my studio, Hollywood Blocked Studios, the idea first was very focused on a space for creators

to create peer space type situation. Yeah like that, and then uh, the day at open I was sitting in my kitchen with Blue, who was my former co host on the podcast. I was like in Damage, like, how are we gonna I think Damage? I know Blues there because I was like, how are we going to market? How am I going to market it? I don't know how to really do it, Like I don't have never built the space, now how do we market it? Phone rings is whack? Literally, yo, yo yo, nephew, is yo

your studio open? I'm like yeah. He's like, yeah, I got somebody that want to rent it. It's okay, put it. Let me talk to him. So he puts Kanye on the phone. Wow. Hello, He's like, Yo, this is yay. You know, nice to meet you. You You know, I got and I'm like sitting there. Put them on speakerphone and we're like gagging, like what the fuck you know? And he's like, I want to use my cousin pocket. When can you come to dinner? Where can you pull up on someone? You want me an hour? I said, okay,

I went to Craigs whack. This is the thing that, again doesn't really happen because people who plug people in want to be the gatekeeper of that relationship and eat off of that too. Forever Whack came in. He sat me down next to Kanye and he sat all the way across the room completely, let me and Yay sit there and buy for about four hours and really talk and listen to music, and he let me hear all the you know, different stuff he had coming out for down to two and then we started vibing and I

started just telling him who I was. When I was about out, we clicked. And then the next day he called and said, what you doing now? So I got Floyd Maywell and Evan Ross at my studio were chilling and look at the space. He was like, you want to have a dinner tonight. I got Madonna, asked Floyd if he wanted to come, and then we had this epic ass dinner and then he got in a fight with the I think I saw the pictures from that night. It was like you and Madonna was there, was Antonio

Brown there there? Yeah? Yeah, And then he got in a fight with the paparazzi that night. Called me the next day and said, well, Wax said, like, you know you can help me with this, that you have a platform that I apologize. I wasn't aware. Yeah, talking about Hollywood and like he said, okay, let me know if I can come by. I said, okay, who'll come by? You know, we'll talk about it whenever. So I sent

her the address and I went into a meeting. And I'm in a meeting with this woman and our artist and we're sitting there chilling, and then the ding dong at the door. Hell, Johnny, my video director went open the door and was Kanye. It was crazy. He was like, let's do it now the interview now, well prep no, yeah, we did it. Hey, what up's bout? Leg cav here to stop the interview and tell you about bluech you, yes, do you have a dick? Does your husband have a dick? Maybe?

Does your boyfriend got a dick? Does your wife have a dick? Who knows? It could be harder. I'll tell you that. Yeah. Blue Choo will get your dick real hard to kick off that new year. You know what I'm saying. If you want your dick harder than advanced trigonometry senior year high school, then go to blue choo dot com right now, use the promo code Bootleg and get one month's supply for free. That's right free. All you got to do is pay five dollars in shipping.

They're going to deliver the Blue Choe right to your fucking door in discrete packaging, all right, same active ingredient as viagrancialis in a chewable form, very discrete packaging mail to your house. You don't have to go to a doctor's appointment in person with anybody. You don't have to worry about embarrassing conversations with strangers about your fucking dick. Bro, nobody wants to talk about their dick with a stranger. I take that back. I take that back. Lots of

people like to talk about their dicks with strangers. If you're not that kind of guy or girl or them, all you gotta do is go to Blue Cheo right now and use the promo code Bootleg, and you're gonna get it sent straight to your door. That's right. They also got the new mint chewable that's the same active ingredients as Levitra. So there's a lot of options to get your dick right in the new year. It's twenty twenty three. Yeah, your dick shouldn't be flaccid after a nice, long,

stressful night. No, your dick should be ready. You don't want to be a you know, a victim of too much stress, too much anxiety, and then you look down and you can't stay hard. You imagine how fucking embarrassing that is. You get yourself a nice, lovely, fucking young lady, you bring it to the place you're nervous, she's a little maybe she's a little out of your fucking league, and you start thinking too much and that dick's not gonna perform. It's not it's not gonna perform how you'd

like it to. But you know how it will perform. If you're on that fucking blue choo, you're gonna put in a fucking luka donkic sixty one point fucking performance on that pussy. All right, So go to blue choo dot com right now, use that promo code Bootleg. Let's get back to the interview. It's crazy too because like then, obviously you're kind of put in charge of his what what was your title? I was head of media right for a very short stint seven months. Great, I left

amazing thing to throw on the resume. Uh yeah, I didn't think it would be a I mean I want to kind of cause you're you could probably be like the best PR guy in the game. If you wanted to be a situation like yay, if you're his PR person, how do you do how do you bring him back? How do you uncancel the situation? Let's say he's level headed, he got through whatever, this weird like Hitler White Lives Matter shit was going like, what do you what's the

advice you give if he calls you to more? Since I, well, I called him to give him the advice. I'm gonna tell you what I was gonna give him right now. And I haven't told nobody this and I didn't give it to him because of his response to me what I call it. I'm a very genuine, authentic person. I don't play games. I'm not gonna like sell nobody on nothing. Even if he wasn't in his right mind, if he at least wanted to stop the bleeding to be able to focus on finding his right mind to then get

back to the center, what I would have done. And let's be clear that interview I did with him actually brought him closer back to the center because the culture forgave him. We followed up with a media brunch with all the top black storytellers, all Walks of media. I mean we did to do Facebook. I mean we did. I mean he was centered. He chose to be uncentered. Again, what I called him to tell him that, I didn't get to tell him directly because he wanted me to

put it in a text. I don't text, because he would have plbay screenshoted it and then posted it and been like which is why I chose not to text what he could have done. Because let's be very clear what Yay was saying. The topic that he was talking about was a real topic. The power construct of the industry, the power, the lack of resources, the manipulation. There's a lot of gems in that Drink Champs interview that get overlooked because of the other shitt he said. The delivery

was just completely fucking wrong for sure. You know, Jewish people and black people, Mexicans, all different groups have had

very challenging experiences in their communities, the Holocaust, slavery. Why do we need a politic pain, Like everybody's been through their shit, right and I've been have relationships with Jewish people who've brought me in and I felt a sense of community where they were all equally interested in my success and pulling together resources, unlike how sometimes my community does.

So what he was saying in terms of you know, different power constructs and you know opportunities and who owns what is true how they did that, I would say, we have as a Black community, have to own some of that because we choose to politic positions. Or I'm over here running this so I'm not gonna let these niggas in. I'm gonna let these niggas in, or I'm gonna grandfather homies in, but not put this nigga on.

Who's on? Like, there's so many people who could have done more for me when they saw me coming because they saw the potential, but they didn't fuck with Maybe I'm gay, I'm this, I'm loud and whatever. Funck them on. Now I got more money than them. So when I look at with Yay, I said what he was doing. I agreed with the topic that he was addressing, but

I didn't agree with the delivery. What I told him, what I would have told him FM Dubike could have did was during the time when he was burning out with All Lives Matter, Candae Sowans all that and doing every random fucking interview. First thing, I would have said, is you need to move very strategic. I would have backed up from it all. I would have hired a production company. I would have turned this whole experience into

a documentary. I would have pulled in Kyrie Irving. I would have examined America and race relations in the world based on his activity. I would have made it look like I did it on purpose. On purpose, I would have here's this piece of art. I would have flipped it all up very artistically on its head. I would have interviewed people from the Jewish corper I would have pulled everybody in. Candice Owens, the founder of Black Lives Matter. I would have put everybody into this very inclusive work

of art. Who could have made us all take a step back to examine how he was destroyed when he said what he said. When we have people who are white climbing up the Capitol trying to kill the vice president and overturn an election, who are still not in prison, you know, there's a real conversation to be had, and they still have their bank accounts, And they still have their bank accounts. You know, since when does a bank say,

come get your money out because the news is saying it. Well, Wells Fargo probably told them that because they stole Wendy Williams money. I don't know if it's Wells Fargo Chase, but they I think it was Chase. They've all done funck shit. You know, Wells Fargo taking all of Wendy Williams money because they thought she was incompetent. There was no court document or nothing that said that. You know, when do you say pull out all of your money.

You do that because you want to be in the news, because you want people to go and look at your products and services. They used him, and he allowed himself to be used. What I'm really big on is controlling your narrative. How do you create a conversation that may make the whole world blow up, but when you shake it out, it shapes into this work of art that actually makes people go back and start having critical thinking.

He wasn't able to really do that because I think he was too emotionally involved in it, you know, and he had some really good people around him that could have helped him. And then unfortunately he wanted me to text him that, but I said, I'm not going to text you, no problem, because I told him I said, I don't want you to pay me for this idea. I don't want to be involved with this idea. I don't want any credit for this idea. I don't want any public association with this idea. That's what I was

going to tell him. I just want you to be able to stop the noise of what you've created now with this whole conversation around a topic that is a real topic we could have elevated through our relationship, but that you chose to go nuclear on because you had

a point to prove. And now you're being sued by everybody, and you're going to lose everything, and you're going to feel like you or right because ultimately, if he runs for president now and Trump runs for president and he loses, he can say the only reason Trump won is because white lives matter. He can say that. But by this point,

you've turned the whole world off from listening to that. Yeah, I feel like he kind of like he kind of like unintentionally wore himself out to the alt right content space to where like and I don't think it was

his intent, you know what I mean? But I think that like when you go on like certain podcasts and you talk to certain people, it's like you're kind of just like giving them all the ammunition that they need to kind of continue to push hate on their side while you're kind of oblivious to that because you think that you're like, it's just very he's my favorite artist ever.

So it's like I said, he's he definitely is gaslighting the culture and he's serving up white supremacy, you know, And it's unfortunate because I will say this, as much as I've been critical, I'm also very much a fan. I think he's one of the most brilliant artists in the world. He's definitely a culture disrupt their culture shift, their culture leader, icon all that. He's all of that,

but all of that, you can still be flawed. I think the one flaw that Yay has, and I say this with love, is that he just he the Putin and the Hitler references is more about kind of being that uncheckable dictator that controls the world as he wants to see it and not be questioned. But that's just not the reality where we live in, you know. I think you got to like read the room, and I think the Hitler shit that he was saying was like coming from a place of like, Jesus loves everybody. Jesus

forgives everybody. I love Hitler, I love Jews, but I just felt like, yeah, sometimes you got to read the room. Man. You know, Jesus may forgive everybody, but that I mean you ain't going to and I mean you ain't going to go to hell and burn to death. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, it was just unfortunate to see. Like you said, it's like we've never seen. This is a one of one situation. Probably the most culturally important

person that hip hop has probably ever had. He's moved fashion musically, he's that guy, and it just kind of like four months and it's just evaporated. It's kind of crazy. Crazy thing is I think he could come back. I think he could too, you know, I think he can come back, but like he has. You know, I will say it was an honor to be able to be there. My whole goal was not to be like known for

being his head to meet and all that. That's great that people know that he put me in a room with the president of Gap, with the presidents of Adidas, with the leaders of these organizations who at the time were spending no money in marketing, no money in our communities to seed programs, And so as head of media, I found my way into conversations with people to say, if he makes you three billion dollars, can you not put five percent towards programs in our community? And they

were on board with this. They were like they were hungry for ideas. He just needed a green light. He

never did. So the frustrating part was the idea of what we wanted to do was we had a billion dollar commitment outside of the US to raise to get this money to buy all these media conglomerates, to be able to put them under one house that I would sit on and help to really shape narrative for the culture, and on top of that, be able to get these fortune five hundred brands to be able to spend hundreds

of millions of dollars pouring back into our community. That's the privilege that I thought I had there, And then it became a circus. And when I realized, like I'm a very strategic person. Once I saw like this is not what it is. I don't want to spend the time I have on earth like playing around, like I want to leave an imprinted legacy. Do you think he

had a lot of yes people around him? And you're obviously not a yes man, so like being in that short amount of time, would you say that his inner circle was pretty just kind of like, No, I won't

say that. I'll say that he had a lot of really good people who did the work that needed to be done, and when it was time to say no, would say no, but it was typically through me, which made me the bad guy, right And when they said no, they said it in ways that would get him to understand there's a need to pause, and then I would come in with the no why. And I think strategically we all worked well together, like everybody had their lane. I wasn't management, I was, you know, but I became

a how do we put out this fire? What's your advice on how we do this? And he never wanted to do it, so, you know, it wasn't that I didn't have all the answers or that he didn't need all the answers. I just think that he wanted to do things his way and now he can look at his world and see that that probably didn't work out in his favor. But I won't say it's because everybody

around him was bad. He had really good people. I mean, he had the best divorce attorney, the only one I think they could have beat Kim Kardasher at least leveled it out for him. He had the best other attorneys, the gap person. I mean, everybody around him was They were good people. But you know, he chose what he chose, and here we are. Yeah, you executive produced the show. Is it Bobby Light? Is that the name? Bobby? I

love you Perry. Yeah, it's crazy because now like I feel like on off, I go to like a Hollywood and lock. You guys post a lot of clips from uh, they buy a lot of advertising. What's the name of the network networks? Oh my god, Zeus Network is lit. They're killing it, Jesus killing it. They lemeo shot to Limeo. They buy advertising, they do great and they pay on time.

So that's so let me ask you that. Because you guys will post like every show that they have, there's like a clip that goes on holiday pay for it. So that is paid advertising. Yeah, we're paid media. We're not earned media. Well that's dople because I want people to realize, like Zeus Network is killing it, and they're they're paying for Adverati, they're investing in their brand. Lemeo does a great he has agreed. He does a great

job of cultivating relationship. He nurtures the relationship with his talent. He makes them feel valuable. He gives the back end on top of what he pays, so like he paid me to executive produce it. He paid me, so there's front end pay, there's back in pay. He paid me

the host, he pays for advertising. I mean, he really invest in his brand, and I'm sure he's reading the benefits confis I imagine two million, one million, two million, you know, subscribers at five ninety nine, they're killing them.

It's crazy when you see something like a Blue Face and Krishan Rock situation that like obviously is very probably good for numbers for Hollywood unlocks because every other day there's some going up, but it's obviously very toxic, a toxic and it could end up being a tragic situation. I just feel like it's like spiraling into a place that like, like I saw the No Jumper thing that happened yesterday and I was just like fuck man, Like it's there's been domestic violence. There's been a lot of

wild shit. Do you ever feel like we contribute to that? Yeah, I know where you're going with that. Let me say that they are my next guests on my show Okay, Episode two, Episode two, very different but very similar, but

also very different. They didn't kick shit, break shit, and it was none of that because when I went into that interview, I wanted to try to humanize the madness because I see what we post and there are times where I will call leme and say, Okay, I think it's going a little too far, like I'm not doing this ad or we do this because but at the same time, there's also a part of the culture that wants that, Like there is an a that follows us that likes that, and that kind of shit has been

missing from the entertainment space for a while. Well. Love and hip hop had to soften itself up once the George Floyd ss have happened because Black Lives Matter was and also like Jerry Springer's gone. So I feel like that's kind of like low key like and here's my excuse, and this is what I and people are gonna say. That's no excuse. It is an excuse. This is a black owned network. And if we're going to profit off our pain or profit off our struggle or our community issues,

I'm more comfortable doing it with people than Viacom. Than Viacom because b ET is owned by a white woman Jewish women, and people don't know that. And I'm not gonna politic my answers around that, but I just feel like it's different. Like Lemeo took this talent Bobby Joslyn Nale none who are on mainstream networks, who were not getting paid what they were doing, who are not getting, you know, the money that they should have gotten on the back end. Joslyn helped build Love and hip Hop,

I mean Love and hip Hop. Well when they got Atlanta's when it really blew out. Oh for sure, No, no, no, no, no for sure, right for sure. And I know and it's no Shade de Moona who gave us all an opportunity, but like Viacom, did not pay us what we were When I did Love in Hip Hop season one, I got a thousand per episode, Wow, the thousand perposes. So the episode I threw a drink on hanzel Y, I

got paid a thousand dollars for that. Killed me in many ways because it forced me into a space that I did something I regretted and I could not fix it because they weren't even willing to help me fix it. There's a publicist over there. I think her name is. I think it's Shelly. I can't think. I can't think her name, but Kelly. Her name is Kelly. This woman who didn't look like me did nothing to help me fix your image or my image or no personal She

did nothing to help and then tried to. She tried to black bombing from going to the VMA, She tried to all types of shit because she wanted to flex her power, when really this was a show where a bunch of black people were coming treated like bottom feeders and given scraps to go and beat each other up for the for the fame. I never wanted love and hip hop for that. I use it as a marketing tool, like this is a stepping stone to get in front the world, launch my brand, Like I don't know what

the fuck these niggas doing. I don't care about knowing these people like that. I don't want to be mixy anyway. Literally, if you saw me on set, it was how much more time Okay, we filming a five four to three to do my thing, and I was out. I never politics with them, I never hung out. I never wanted to be friends with these people because it was never about that for me. And when I look at Zeus,

he's taking jos on them. These people are making more money than they probably have ever made in television, and he's given them ownership over the show's EP credits. So I give him his props for that, But I do sometimes look at the content go this doesn't necessarily align with what Jason Lee is about, but it is in the ecosystem of what Hollywood Unlocked is and that's where when you talk about it, and I appreciate you saying that, where the Jason Lee brand and the Hollywood Unlocked brand

are two separate brands. Although I own Hollywood a lot, I'm putting me out more so you see that my core brand is focused on empowerment, entertainment, and in the education. So through empowerment through my foundation, entertainment through my platform and shows, and education through my courses. Hey, we got to stop the interview real quick to tell you about our family at Hard Dean. That's right, Hard Dean Las Vegas, the craziest dispensary in the world, the number one dispensary

in the United States, let alone in Las Vegas. All right, maybe you're hitting Vegas with your friends, your girlfriends, whatever. Maybe it's a bachelor party, whatever's going on. You're going to go watch the raider suckcock, whatever it is. Make sure you pull up to Hardean Las Vegas. Tell them I sent you. They got the craziest selection of premium cannabis I've ever seen in my fucking life. The pre rolls, the cartridges, the edibles, the flower all top notch, all

the best. The bud tenders are so friendly. It smells great. It smells so good inside of hard Dean that they have their own Harden's signature scent candle. See I sniffed that, and I just think of Las Vegas and picking up some amazing weed. All right, So go follow them right now, Hardan Underscore Las Vegas. Shoot them a follow, get all the details you need. You can get you some of this fly ass Hardeen merch at Hardinlasvegas dot com. Shout

out to our family in Vegas. I'm excited too, because coming up we're gonna be doing our very first podcast from Hardeen in Vegas with Young Gravy. Oh yeah, it's going down, all right, let's get back to the interview. I'm always curious man being gay in the hip hop industry. Yeah, it's obviously a very homophobic genre of music historically. Yeah, because the rappers sucking dick ain't gonna tell you. They're not gonna tell you. These niggas out here sucking dick,

fucking trans they're not gonna tell you. These motherfuckers out here fucking and you know what, they never really fuck with me because one I think, I mean, of course I'm cute, I'm well dressed, I'm rich. And by the way, you're forty five and you're yeah, forty five. Black don't crack, God bless you. Does crack when you're broke? Okay, black don't crack when you got a good dermatagic. Well you look great, thank you. But the thing about it is,

I mean, my career is fucked off. My dating opportunity in the hip hop here because these niggas ain't gonna slide on my dms because they like or they don't know, they assume that I'm gonna put them on blast, which if they follow me. I don't out people. I don't attack children, and you know, there's one more thing I can't think of. But you know, there's just some certain

things that I don't do. But I know that a lot of reasons why some of these hip hop artists don't call my show is they have skeletons and they think that if they sit in that chair, I'm gonna throw them out. I would never out them, you know. But I also feel like they've never outright disrespected me for being gay, because you know, you throw some shit at me. I'm with no pun intendent I'm gonna through some shit at you. But I don't really feel like

I don't get disrespected. But I do feel like there's a sense of some artist's sense of fear to, you know, come and sit and talk with me because of what they think I may say. I was gonna say. Do you feel like that the like, like it feels like the homophobia is kind of chilling out a bit when you got a guy like Lil nas X, who's obviously a fucking pop star, but you know, guys like yourself, do you feel like the level of that shit as

a least kind of like started to kind of. I will say that I think that mainstream still uses artists like Little Nasax or Saucy Santana to break the barrier by showing a image of what being black and gay looks like. That's not always what it looks like. I'm proud of Saucy Santana in his hustle because I've seen him behind the scenes. I went to the rehearsal with him and Madonna Madonna and by this super nice guy, super but super professional, He's on his shit, like he

really is excited. I had like one of my funniest interviews with him ever, Like he was great, He's great, and Little Nasacs for him to be able to continue to live in his truth and do what he's doing, I mean, I'm fans of both, but I also believe that like the industry for years has made the black male, the black gay male experience on TV and in mainstream being accessory to a reality star, housewife or fucking wearing

heels and makeup, and that's not all of us. Like some of us are just real niggas who grew up in the hood and who happened to be gay. But like who I'm fucking and who's in my bed should have no Martin, It should have no influence over our relationship because I'm not trying to fuck half the people that think I'm trying to fuck them, right, But I will say that I do think it's getting easier now for people to see us because the representation is there.

But what really makes it easier is when you see a Jack Harlowe perform with the Lilina X, not when you see Ilona's X perform at the BT Awards in front of the people and then they pan to the hip hop artists and ever acting uncomfortable when half of your fucking trends and behind your baby mama's back. So that kind of shit makes me uncomfortable because I'm like, don't fucking play around. Don't fucking play around, because what you don't want is you don't want me to stop

wanting to protect your secrets. When I could really level the playing field and say, Okay, so and so you and my homeboys such and such and then boom, now they're on my show. I would never do that, But I'm just saying, like I do get frustrated sometimes when I see certain artists seemingly uncomfortable when you know, we know, if we pull the curtain back, there's a skirt under there, right, Yeah.

I think that. Like there's a few instances over the last couple of years where I was just like, like me and Boozy talked like he was on my show and I was trying to explain to him why he's pretty homophobic, and he just was not agreeing with me the whole time. I want him on my show. That'd be great. We're talking if you if you that listen, I'd pay I'd pay good money to watch you. And

I'm working on it. That would be great working because I think I think he you know, people meet me and they have a different experience and it allows them to be open minded. I don't know, he has put he's been ten tones down for what he believes in, and I'm ten toes down for what I believe in. But I'm able to have a conversation where I can

help a person see. Like, you know, if you think about it, if you are a woman and you're homophobic, then you're you're you don't believe in feminist rights of women having equal paid them in you don't believe in being able to have the right to vote. You don't believe in any you know, you don't believe in having

control over your bodies. If you believe in all those things, then how could you not believe another community have the same belief that they should have those rights too, Because it's not going to take away from what you got me. Fucking some dude ain't gonna make it. It doesn't mean I want to fuck your kid, doesn't mean I want to fuck your husband. We're not pedophiles, but we're just in our community. So what is it that that makes you uncomfortable about what we're doing when it has no

effect on what you're doing. Now If you say, oh, well, my kids have to see it your kids. You also paid for your kid to get head from a woman who gave you head. So who could say that they would pay to get their dick suck and then let that same mouth go suck the dick of their underage child. You can call that what you want, little strange, little strange. Every community has this shit, But you can't say that's a little strange. But then look at our community and

say that's fucking weird. It's all weird. If weird is weird, it's all weird or it's just your preference in ours. We prefer to do shit that you don't do. You prefer to do shit that we don't do. But we have to get to a place where like gay niggas ain't going nowhere, and these these these these hood nigga who grew up with whatever they grew up with, they're not going to where. So how do we co exist in the world where we're not judging each other and

attacking each other, but you're just co existing. Yeah, I think, uh, I think we're getting we'll probably be to a place in like twenty or thirty years where like just like everyone's fucking everybody, it'll be there. When Me and Boozy had to interview, me and boy, me and Boosy is on my short list. I respect him enough to have the diet. Oh he's a legend. Yeah, and he's uncancellable. He's like one of the few guys who could just do anything. And it's like he's he's fucking boozy, Like,

what do you want from him? My cousin loves Boosy. Boozy's going Boozy Boosy. My cousin Anthony from Stockton, he said, bro, you gotta get This is like when I wasn't really on Boozy because at first it was a lot to digest. Well, listen, being from the West Coast, I also I knew about Boozy. I knew some of his ship. But then I moved to Florida and I really saw, like, oh, he's there Tupac for real. Really Like I moved to Tampa, Florida

when he got out of jail. I was living there. Yeah, you'd have thought, like the good Loves Jesus got resurrected out of the fucking Clearwater Beach oce, like they love they love me. My cousin's he's the barometer of the Boozy and the NBA Young Boys and all that world. He's like, yo, you gotta get Boozy. So I'm working on it. Okay, before you go, I want to play the uncanceled game with you one time. Okay, Okay, You're put in charge of Tory Lanez and his pr two scenarios. What.

Tory is a good friend of mine, So I like Tori. I know he's a good guy. I mean, listen, he fucked up obviously, so he's been a good guy to me. Let's just say that. But let's say the day after all this happens, he's in jail. You're a pr guy. How do you handle this? What do you tell him to do? Stay off the phone? But I'm saying like, okay, when you realize all this is going to come out, it's getting ugly, do you tell me just come out

and admit it? No? I mean I think you know, whatever a person goes through legally is there privately is their business. But I feel like once you get on there, once you make a song and then you write horse or something referencing horse. When you know, Meghan the Stallion, you put out the album today that the what was the verdict of the of the young lady who got killed by the cops? Uh? Browna Taylor, Branda Taylor, Yeah,

the same. Yeah, it was okay when you pop out, when you have debate, when you have uh, when you pull up on the baby sat right after Megan got off stage of Rolling Loud, when you yeah, when you do all of that, I mean like you're not I'll quit, you know, I quit, Like you can't really, But when you politic the media to try to create a narrative that you're innocent, when you know that the trial's coming,

and at some point the stakes are so high. Your freedom in this country is at steak, your career is at steak. Women, your audience with women are sick, like you're going at some point. You're making all these decisions because people believe the court of public opinion is more

important than anything. So you're trying to gaslight people. But what he failed to realize is that ultimately, women who've been victimi by men for years are going to switch whenever the conversation changes and the conversation change, And so yeah, I would have just advised him to stay focused on his music, stay focused on rehabilitating that relationship, stay focused on all things positive. You can change the narrative positive content. But he wanted to be the bad boy of R

and BN or whatever. He doesn't right where he is. Any advice you would give for up and coming content creators go to my go to. This is a plug mediamionnaires dot com. Literally right now. Our courses have been We sold some courses during Black Friday and then we shut it down to really focus on the community that we're building. Media Manaire University wanting to do bi weekly coaching sessions and all this stuff that we're building to give these people access to people who are creating change

in the game. I would say, you have to find a way to invest in yourself and get educated. If it's not my course, go to college and take the courses that are important to you, or you know, go watch all a bunch of podcasts. But you have to be educated on what you want to do and be very strategic, know what your exit strategy is, or else should be working ten years at something that has no end.

I have an end in ten years. I have a plan to be fully gone if I want to be or politics, you know, I would say that the only reason I would say no to politics is because I've done so much fuck shit that by ten years from now they're gonna be like that nigga never But then Donald Trump again Trump, this guy, this guy Trump was, he was mister fuck fuck Boyard. I will say, you know, I do. If I wasn't doing what I'm doing now, i'd be doing politics, or I'd be working in the Union.

But I have ambitions to be an investor. I want to invest and help build companies and partner and seed in companies. So yeah, I don't know if politics, But I won't lie. My foundation is very much organized, built on an organizing model where we do want to have influence in local and national politics. Hey, we got to stop the interview to tell you about our family at odd socks. That's right, the most comfortable socks in the

mother fucking world. Go to odd socksofficial dot com right now, use that promo code bootleg and you'll save twenty percent off. Christmas time is a coming. And let me tell you something their Black Friday sale. If you're watching this before Black Friday, you might be watching it after Black Friday. But if Black Friday hasn't came yet, just like Cyrus hasn't came yet, it's been a while. He's on a drought.

Guess what odd socksoficial dot com promo code bootleg twenty percent off plus whatever the fuck else is going on with their Black Friday sale. And let me tell you they got some new licenses. We got to talk about boys, my particular favorites, one of the greatest shows of all time. They got the Beaves and butt heeads, you know what

I mean. And this is really a big deal. The Big Lebowski, that's right, the greatest movie to ever exist, And shout out to all you rappers and people who be pouring your lean into this bullshit some Mountain Dew Baja Blast socks Casino, great fucking movie. You know what I mean? These are pretty fly bub malicious. Yeah, that's right, little bubblelicious. And this is the big, one, big deal here. We got Coca Cola socks. Baby, that's right. Coke's on board.

Coke is on board, you know what I mean. We get to put the coke hat on. This hat doesn't work for me, does It doesn't work for me? Anyway? You could get you this hat though, Hey, Cyrus, take a coke hat. There you go, go to odd socksofficial dot com. Use the promo code bootleg right now, save twenty percent off, and go purge their website for Black Friday. Get gifts for your family. Your fucking family will love you if you buy them the most comfortable socks in

the world. It's that simple. Or you could buy them some fucking bullshit socks. You could go buy them some garbage ass fucking Ethhica or some bullshit ass fucking Nike socks. Fuck them, get odd socks. Let's get back to the interview for you like being close with like the democratic

side of of the political spectrum. The last four years is been like very well, last six years has been just I feel like we're like still like in a south Park episode kind of it's it's kind of fucking crazy, but like the like the left has kind of rebounded a bit, and now there's all these Joe Biden documents that are popping up in fucking a million different places.

I feel like Donald Trump radicalized like an entire part of the country that was just a sleep and while doing that also radicalized everybody who's on the extreme far left. How the fuck do we like move together as a nation, in your opinion and try to kind of like because I feel like just the divisiveness of the country, I thought that like Biden getting elected might help it, but it doesn't feel like it's you know, listen, he's kind of just a zombie up there, just you know, trying

to get through his fucking term. I'll say, Joe Biden is he's doing a lot for the black community that has overlooked because all the other stuff, and kind of so is he because you've heard, because I've heard I've heard I've heard people be a little like like I've heard Charlamagne say that he had made some promises that he did not follow up. I mean the George for Pol actor me and like me and Charlomagne made agree

to disagree with. Charlemagne's far more intelligent than I am in politics, so I kind of just let him do whatever and whatever. But I mean, like they did develop We talked about this on Breakfast Club the other day, Like they did establish the anti lynchion Bill, which is the first time in history, which should have been done a long time ago, but he did that. You know, the person running the defense right now as a black man. The person managing the national budget is a black woman.

When you look at you know, the press secretary for the president and the vice president, they're both black women. One's a black queer woman. So he has done a lot in the terms of putting us in positions to be able to like see visibility and see us there. But then also like him exonerating all the people who've been arrested for federal marijuana charges. I mean, you know, the student loans. I mean, he's done a lot, and

a lot's always never enough. But I'm not going to say it's perfect, because you know that would be a lot. But you know what's the alternative Trump? Oh no, no no, no, listen. I voted for Joe Biden if he's if it's Joe Biden's corpse or Donald Trump in twenty twenty whatever the fuck twenty twenty fours, I'm right, give me the skeleton. But I will say, if I had to give advice to people, man, fuck all that national shit. That's something of Pittons do a local politics. We just got Karen

Bass elected here in La. Karen Bass is somebody who helped me get somebody out of prison. I interviewed her on my show. I felt she was the real deal. I work with politicians for years at the Union. I called her on this side and say, hey, I've been trying to get a friend of mine out who's twenty four years old. He's locked up in a prison recently in Kansas a couple of years ago. He was twenty

four at the time from my hometown. Was somebody that we all knew and first time offender, got arrested for a pound in marijuana and he got eight years, and I just felt like that was so I called everybody from Kim Kardashian to Van Jones to this group, to this group, and I was feeling helpless. But then I started feeling like, again with anything I do in my career, if I feel like I wanted bad enough, I'm not

going to fucking play. And he would call me every other day, still being very positive, but you know, it felt like what happened was wrong and wanted me to help them. So I called Karen on the side, say hey, I really feel passionate about this, and she started talking about challenges with prison reform and that this was a real thing and blah blah blah. And then COVID happened. So I was calling the governor in that state. Governor

wouldn't return my calls. Karen got her attorney as the congresswoman. Wow, on the phone with the governor and her attorney and negotiated his release and fully exonerated him and now he just got his license. Wow. So like she's the real deal. So when she said she was running from mayor, I was like, no fucking way, I'm not helping her. And

then to see Kim Kardashian snooping. Different people come out and support for the other guy, the other guy who had just become a former Republican who just became a Democrat because he's running in LA Yeah, exactly. But people don't pay enough attention to the local politics where that's what affects your shit, that's what affects what's at home. So yeah, that national shit is important. The local shit is the most important, though, it's the most important to

get involved. And once you get involved with local politics, you start to understand like how to be involved local, statewide, nationally, like how you understand climate change. You know, conversations happening in Paris for the whole world affect us. And when we when our president says we don't believe in that ship pulls out and then you start seeing, you know, you go to New York and there's no fucking snow on the ground, Like, yo, it's warm, it's beautiful in

New York. Now, motherfucker, this is this is not good because there's not snow on the ground. It's not snowing in New York in the winter. That means that climate control is out of control. And what is this going to look like for your kids and your kids kids? And I don't think people are connected enough because they're too busy fucking tiktoking and wearing the right photo on Instagram that they're disconnected from the fact that the world's faun apartment. It's kind of by design too, of course.

Look at TikTok like China TikTok Teddy Bears. Yeah, in China, the TikTok experience for kids is way different. Yeah. Out here they're like, yeah, well, how did you see them? All the bullshit? Yeah? Keep them distracted, it's crazy. Well listen, man, you got a lot going on. Ones episode two come out with krashaan Rock and Bluff Free Tuesday night, ten pm Eastern on Revolt, And then the YouTube is winnesdayday. Yep, Monday is the audio. Monday is the audio. You can

download the Jason Lee Potts. Thursday is after dark Wednesday. Wednesday night after Friday is the Jason Lee podcast. Thursdays, we're giving them a break. Thursday, nothing going on. I mean you can really you could take a break. You can take a break. Yeah, Hollywood unlocked. Anything else you want to plug your You obviously got your charity. No, just you know, I'm just living life. I appreciate you know, people like you doing your homework and being a good

interview fan. Man, I think you're dope, and like I you know, you got into it with a friend of mine. Uh, Peter Rosenberg's my boy, you know, But I forget I no, no, no. But it's funny because when you got into it with him, I had your side, did you really? Yeah? Because I did you talk to them about it? No? But I i'd like DM them about or something. I just I thought that, like I actually forgot what actually the argument

was about. But I think in terms you were kind of speaking from somebody who's like an owner who owns your ship. Well, and I appreciate it. Here I'll say this, Okay, Peter, if you're watching, I love Pete man. That's I never wanted to hate on Peter. And he's a good he's a great guy. He probably is like here's my deal, don't fucking start ship with me, Like I literally be minding my business unless it's my business to mind the business that we're speaking, right, And I never hated on him.

I never you know, he's whatever. He's Peter Rosberg. He's built his name and I'm building mine. But I do take it personal when people personally when they personalize and attack me and think that I'm not going to tack back. So I did say to Noriega, Yo, I'm coming on drink Chand's bro. I'm gonna fucking come on there and just talk my shit. But I didn't even tell Peter Rosberg, and I wasn't even focused on Peter. But once he asked about about Peter on the show, I made it

by him. But I did see recently like he kind of I think he emailed me or DM me or something. I think he tried to connect with me and we haven't connected. He's a nice guy, but I did say, fuck Hot ninety seven as a company, fuck that whole brand. Fuck everybody over there is up. We don't support them.

They recently try to interview me to them and fuck them no, and you know what, until they make good and make even I'm not sucking nobody's dick, No pun intend it for a fucking look, because I have the look, I have the platform or radio. I'm not gonna do that. I don't need to go do a fucking radio run with you know, these fucking losers. Hebro from from Sacramento Hero Before he was he was from Sack. But I knew hero before. But you know he has selective memory.

I don't know if it's agent or Whatay he just forgot me, doesn't remember well whatever. But I had a lot of respect for Hebro is like, lookal Molly mal from Stockton. Absolutely, I grew up with Molly and my brother are best friends. Yeah, but you know, I don't hate Ebro either. I'm just not. I don't. I don't. You know, I'm not none of these I'm not subservient to none of these guys. Hebro still comments on Hollywood and we haven't blocked them, you know we haven't. I

don't blocked a lot of people. Huh. What's the block list over there with more than a thousand? Nah? Nah, we really don't block people, like because what about you me? Oh my ship? Yeah, my ship? Yeah yeah, probably I got at least I got at least two thousand people blocked. I don't have that many or the early love and hip hop days. Yeah, like when people like leave some like when I would like say some political ship and

some maga motherfucker be in my comments of block. But you can filter your comment now and you can restrict people so they don't know you blocked him. I restrict people. I don't block them. When you retrict them, they can't leave comments somewhere. Yeah. But I will say Floyd told me a long time ago, why would you give somebody the privilege of knowing they got your attention, because because if you block them, they're like, oh they I got to him, right, He's like, he was like, I don't.

He was like, I don't. I don't even you know. But of course he's a billionaire. So if you and Floyd are close, you have a money team. Bracelet Now, I know plenty of strippers walking around Los Angeles right now that have Rolexes. Per the money team. I mean, I have Rolexes. I have rolex I have a Hublow. But he that's his token of appreciation to his team in general, the man and the women. The women get us a certain type of watch, and the men get

a certain type of watch. And for a long time I wouldn't accept any gifts from him because I really wanted him to know the relationship was genuine. It was really I was just I was really inspired to see somebody come from a Stockton Grand Rapids and fucking hustle become a billionaire off of this talent, right, and I wanted to and I had a front row seat to learn from this guy. I talked to him today, matter

of fact, on the way over here. Yeah, talk to him, so, I mean, yeah, I mean he's been a great support. So once I on one of my birthdays several years ago, he gave me the Hu blow when he was fighting. I don't know if it was Packyar or whoever he was fighting, gave me a blow. He gave us all of us in the room and Hu blow. And then when I got my flash podcast deal with Fox Soul, he gave me a Rolex. But now I bought my own watches. You know, I bout my own jewelry. Hey,

you're rich rich man. I'm not rich rich, but I'm fifty million dollar evaluation rich Hollywood unlocked. Congratulations on that, and thank you for coming man. That's a hard work and dedication. Hard work and dedication. There it is. Hey, Jason Lee, my guy, thanks for the time. Yes, sir,