Wake that ass up in the morning.
The Breakfast Club Morning.
Everybody is the j Envy just hilarious.
Charlamagne the guy. We are the Breakfast Club. We got some special guests in the building. Yes, indeed, we got the cast of the wire.
We'll see.
Yes, I'm gonna say the stage names.
You say their real names, all right, all right?
We got Poop Trey Oh Tree changey, I guess.
Okay, trade change j D william.
Hi Son Johnson on one.
Oh, you don't wanted me to get that because you wanted me to mess it up. You know what I'm saying, he was saying. But it's on one.
And one and one. Welcome fellas.
How your feeling twenty three years morning? Number?
What does that mean to you?
When y'all hear that, it's crazy because I tell people, see this the first time in a minute we've been together and be doing an interview. But I always say when I get interview, I don't care what none of y'all say.
We didn't know what we was doing, yeah, shooting them up. All we was trying to.
See was whose called time was the next morning so we could go out and get something to drink, hang out for I was on the continuous from Odds, so I knew we had something special.
I had picked that up.
I had picked that up.
It was the first time, like I'm looking at people that's coming up that I was watching they work the same way they was watching my work.
When I did Odds.
Everybody was already kind of famous, already you know what I'm saying. But when we got here that made us and I saw I saw that work coming down.
But I think the thing with me, nobody don't know. The Wire was my first job as an actor, so that was my first time I ever auditioned for a role, first job. So just being around these guys, I'm like, yo, I remember asking JD a whole bunch of questions, Bro, what is.
What is the trailer?
You know, telling me to do it look like rehearsal. I'm like, all right, But you know, like I said, it may be here twenty three years later and still just getting to it.
You know, everybody healthy, living and breathing, you know what I'm saying.
I mean, it's just it's people finding new every day. Somebody find the show in the day, so it don't really more.
Popular now some years later than it was it.
None of y'all knew it was going to be a cultural staple.
I feel like.
That I ain't know that cultural statement. You know, when you're moving around anywhere in the world though they know you, you know what I mean, like somebody might just stop and say, man, run them lines real quick. They quote your lines, you know. I mean it was like, yeah, you know, but it's like the study part of it. Like when I first came on set, try and tell you we was right there. We was an interesting trailer and we was running lives and just like what else
you've been on. I was like, this is my first time outright. He was like the first time I aware, I say, first time on the block. So we were shooting in the funeral home in Baltimore, like broad day night funeral home, and we was there. A lot of people don't know the twelve hours twelve hours hot days turn around, you turn around. So we out there, we busting it and we randomized. We were out there, it was raining, and we take Bresh for lunch. It was just a family and we still family to today.
Yeah.
Man, Now I want to talk from the beginning of the wire. So when y'all got the call, to do the wire break that down when you first read the script, and how did y'all know that y'all wanted to do it?
So they I initially auditioned for we Beae initially character, and I remember going in there with Pat Moran out there in Baltimore and she like, YO, quote this monologue. So two weeks later I get a call she said, we got some bad and good news. She said, the bad news is you didn't get the characters we maye, but you was cast for the character Poop. And I was only supposed to be in the first two episodes in the first season.
And then spoil Alert ended up getting.
Poop all five seasons last you know what I'm saying. So I was just happy, you know, getting that script. And throughout the years, throughout the seasons, it never said I was getting killed, you know.
Because think with the wires, you never knew was getting off. They didn't tell you before.
They were just you get the script and you read that's like when Snoop shot at me, you know what I'm saying, They like, Poop falls to the ground, he's bleeding.
I'm like, okay, this is it.
And then I went up take this in the consideration trade.
How you just said that. I don't know if y'all remember or not. The why almost ain't even take.
Off because we auditioned before.
Nine to eleven, right, and the ship was shut down for three weeks at least, I'm gonna stand down, so right, anything to lower Manhattan. So that was Holland Tunnel, the Ferry and back, and the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge was shut You could only come in from g w or the Lincoln Tunnel for three weeks. I was selling sneakers at the time, so I was just busting moves back and you know.
Over the call as soon as they opened up.
But the thing is the callbacks was after they opened the city back of Alexa started.
Calling us back. I forgot all about this, that's true, I ain't think. So when I went in, I auditioned for D'Angelo.
Oh wow, brother, see down there it was open because Baltimore was opening. So actually when I auditioned, I auditioned for Marlo Stanfield. I auditioned for Marlow and then when I got the call they called me back. I was actually coming back from Houston with Steve Francis and I got the call. Pet was like, hey, you and she get it. She was like, you just laying the slim Charles on HBO and that was it. Moving character one slim char she told me.
She told me I was going to be body like I said. I wanted to.
I wanted to audition for d Angelo because I was like, I just came from playing a tough guy for it's gonna make me worse than I was already. And then she was like, no, this your part, read this part.
Just go and do your job. I went in, came out, and they built under characters so much.
I didn't know where it was gonna go with, but I'm glad I think we were. David Simon leaned over the clock and said.
He leaned over the clock and said, we may. And I was so hot because I was tearing my ship up. I was in the zone.
I caught my side like yo, hold on, relaxed. But you know, when you're in the room, that's your moment.
You take it.
You can go off in there.
You go off as long as it's taking or so they threw me off, but I caught it.
But that's where they were.
Saying, like what it is that guy, this guy, you're that guy, but you gotta get in carry till though, because like, that was my first audition. So when I read for Marlow, they was like, you know, come in, you don't care about nothing hooding. First do my hoodie. And I went in there and read for it, and I was like, you know, it was like, what's your name? I said, Marlow? She said what's your name? I said Marlow? She said, I said he had don't you understand.
Different?
Roots said in my back because that was my first audition, So she said no, that was great. That was also. I read again and then I came out and I was like, so what am I supposed to do now? She's like, no, we're gonna get your call. So I didn't really know. That's why I said, we don't really know what we want.
You alreadykneway, that was my first because I should see all in the club every night with me.
That proximity. That's proximity though, and everything. Come on now, man, I should sit right next to you and just behave.
We was getting arrested on the weekend out it was day. I think I was the first one.
I got that club dream and a dream, Oh my god, players was and there what was it they played for the team they played for they was.
The college was college dude?
Yeah, it was me and him idrisy.
Little club never changed.
And that's what side on us, ye on us and dream club dreaming like who Fred was like that's where Fred, that's my bro.
You don't go You ain't have to head off.
Friend family.
And smack everything like you're getting in trouble.
And like Georgia and David and was like the big the uncles they come to because I know I was on the show. I got locked up for a gun. They had me in legal times and everything. They came for me and everything. They came to court and I was like, this is there for me? And they was like no, no, it's good. You got you reason blow the way that we should because we didn't get in trouble the right way.
You know what I'm saying.
It was quiet. We was quiet.
We have respect for each other.
We didn't.
We wasn't just completely messing up. If we would have got had some type of scandal or something like that, it would have caught on.
Like the second season.
Mailed me out like twice in the lobby at the precincts.
You know what so you know what. You know, what's so crazy?
Social media wasn't what it is now that all the stories and things getting locked up in different situations like that. It wasn't video like when I was in the Just think natural, Yeah, it was.
That is what I was never understand.
That is what I never understand about Hollywood.
Everything they say doesn't work always works and works in historic ways. Not only was the Wire name the greatest TV show the twenty first century majority black cast, and you're telling me that that was that was like a lot of y'all's first time even at that they.
Didn't know what they was doing.
That's shot.
That's crazy because it was like we were the largest African American cast and thirty principal role everybody, everybody, everybody had a main character. Crazy how you keep up with that?
So how does Hollywood convince people that black ship don't work?
I don't know, because but behind closed doors you get them exacts respectfully. I tell you your how y'all the ones we get all that ship from y'all. I mean, just to show y'all story, y'all keep letting us do it. I said, now, how the gate keeper telling me how did this.
Another thing Hollywood.
Most of the time they only want one at a time, one or two people at a time. That's real. So they're gonna squeeze you in and squeeze you out if you figure out how to make your own niche and that's it. But the time they're not gonna grind it out on fire still on five Man, it'll blow your mind. I read for so many roles, man, my head, like what you're doing. I'm reading, kid, I'm reading. I just read for this. I just read for four episodes on FBI. I don't know if I'm getting for that shoe, you
know what I mean. They can't have a good TV show without somebody from the Wire on it. No show out right now without somebody from Me and.
JD did six seasons on Saintsan Centers, Bounce TV, Hulo, me and JD. Okay being Meth season two and season three, Me and j D. You know what I'm saying, So like us being like the dynamic duo. It started on the Wire together with Homeboys on the Wire. Now it's I think Satan Senters. Though we were at odds, we was enemies senior.
Like that.
You know.
The script was improv though how much did y'all improv? Did y'all go off script?
Because none of its not a lot.
That's how ill it was. It was all on the paper.
Ye can't. They don't let you do like you might just say one word and that, but they want that They say, cut, hey, you need your line, run them in this line. I always said, I don't. I don't want nobody to say, throw me my line. Facts. I just closed the though I cut everything off of study. But yeah, the ad leven, they don't really go for it. Like respectfully, I did not say or the ad lib or improv that Knicks line. And season one Angelot come back and I said, he said, what you doing? I said,
on watching the Knicks? Fuck they draft up right, that's exactly what we said. That's like, I wonder how they let me in the guard and after that, But David wrote that they would let me get away.
He would let me get away with a lot of stuff.
But I would test it out first, like I would use it on one take and then if they like it, they just say, don't do that.
But then most of the time they said say that again'll do that.
A lot of times I used to like and that was because also with the dynamic that my group, my crew had, we had this fill up kind of space, you know what I'm saying. We got Andre Royal over acting up, we got us having this communication.
And then we got the young boys. So it was always something in it.
But but most of the time, like you said, especially because we had to figure out that.
Be more dialect a lot of times. How was that?
That was hard? We ain't doing it, I'm saying.
So it's kind of hard for New Yorkers.
To get the action. But see, I'm from DC, just like the the doug you know, get you know what. DJ Baltimore will pour your neck out if they know you faking it. You can't. You can't drag it too long with it. You just gotta do it. Like like even with New York, Like when I did Deduce, I had to learn dialogue, you know. I mean we shot that, We shot that in Brooklyn and then we went the Silver Cup the Queens, so I shot that whole show.
We was back there. We did it, and it's just like you gotta sit outside of New York to smell it air to know what the New York would go through to fill it. You got to get in that into that character. So it's like, damn, it's right here, we hear.
I want to get stuck with that accent.
I think that depends on the era of New York, Super New York.
Snoop with Felicia she as years ago. She got that, she got that Baltimore that that is in her. Oh no, it's snoop a.
That y'all would have never understood.
Nothing like.
This brother come in see it like this?
Yeah, nice like that guy. But that was so many Baltimore I was filming out there.
It was fun.
That was fun, just like that they got they got the food coming off.
Meth was getting his head braided outside.
It was just like.
They opened you up, but when you messing that money up, they'll let you know. Man, y'all y'all got going to block. Y'all know, yeah, like really they was like really sure, we want to.
Shut down for a little ten minutes.
But they wasn't packing up though they weren't.
It was a quick rainstorm.
What about the all about food?
Hold on, let me say this one times come out. We were not sing saying they eat all our food. We were shooting the scene. It was like maybe five below out it'd be more and we took a break hold. It was me, bangor Lisha, a couple of other people and they ordered pizza bro They had like ten pieces
on the thing. It was like the pi. This mean jumped up on the table, knocked the pizza that everybody broke, and they just came jumped, jumped on the joont knocked the whole boxes off, and then everybody just bumped big joints first, Big Ben. He jumped up and knocked everything down. Yeah. With the with the shootout when I shot Mike, know when he shoot me, there's a rat running across the ship in the background. He did that in the episode like this and be more look like this like dogs.
Did y'all did y'all Did y'all recognize the greatness and interests back then? Did y'all see where it could go?
Or with something like issues? Was funny? I met him? What's the hotel on Saint Paul right downtown?
Treat Treat double.
The first the night before we feel so it was the Grant and the Forming fight, Grand Informant for it, Grandman Grant feel.
It might have been Holy Feel and Grant Fight. That night I met it's just in the lobby.
We was gonna walk down to the harbor to the Hyatt and watch it down there. It's just talking regular with a with a regular accent. Time and got on the phone with his mother and I stopped walking down the block. He just started talking that that chatting started that London ship and I stopped.
Walking. He probably looked back like what was like.
Acting like the Bronx or something, and he was practicing on us.
But you, uh, I knew it right there, like you wanted the one things.
It was a scene what we did, me and him sitting in the cars, the scene where my character does this with his with my waist. And we were sitting in that car for a couple of hours and we was just talking and I remember us getting to the point I was like, yo, because he wanted to have this magazine in the car that I ain't gonna get too deep about it. They told him not to have it because of who was on it. So he was like, I'm going after this anyway. Anyway, we're gonna be that alone.
So anyway, we're in the car and I'm like, you know, when you leave here, you you're gonna be that guy like he's like, well, I think a couple of us gonna do it.
I'm like yeah, but like you kind of like right under Denzel looking like.
Look like you about to go to him.
Look. And he said it was crazy because when it was time for his character that, you know, to happen, he didn't want that because we was filming. We filmed that whole morning. Yo.
Yeah, was like.
Cloud come, yeah. He had no idea that it was turned out.
You got the tip because look, we used to film. They do the tandems now.
So they do these blocks where you can shoot two or three episodes. We really shot the two week episodes and we started on a Monday, and we wrapped the next week Thursday, and then it was a rehearsal Friday and on Monday.
Yes, thirteen times.
They're gonna change something.
They changing within that.
The thing is, look, we we wrapped on an episode your new scripts in your trailer, the new stript right in your trailer right there.
Look, everybody started catching on and doing this. They head out the trailer.
Going out tonight. Somebody always was like tough, bro, don't know you know whoever getting killed that opening that door.
Like that, it was had Michael like, oh, that's what we taking you out tonight, drinksing up.
Had to die, especially the angel the Angelo that I thought he was going to get get away with it though, you know what I'm saying, such.
My memory, who kills brother Maso Omar bro Yeah who put the head on?
It wasn't the Angelo.
Mother that was.
Zo was going back to get the revenge, said, oh my joint, put down yourself.
You know he was supposed to pee on him.
It was like, yeah, I wasn't gonna bring that.
I'm just saying, interest treat you all afterwards?
Did he ever like himself from you?
All that?
But he was gone reach him. Everybody is always reachable, Broy. We're family. That's just like the plate.
Just get kind of thick and you gotta work like we always talk talk.
We talked interesting interested the intro for my documentary Underniable, the trade changing story which all of us are are part of. And reaching out to him. It wasn't It wasn't hard to, you know, reach out to him started together.
You know, he across the him doing that. You know what I'm saying, It really was. It was a good look for me. Was a young kid at the time. Yeah, boy, and was with him and seeing his success.
Well for me, I mean me, him and Jad always was together on set, even my separate scenes that I had with Michael B.
Jordan. It was, you know, he was special. You know what I'm saying.
You knew that early.
Yeah, she was in the.
Trailer with him and they had too many scenes with him. But I used to kick it with his mother.
I love how family oriented he was.
Bro Mom, Duke, I love you.
Yeah.
Got him to get yeah, and it was it was good money because he said he had a lot of big brothers to watch out for him and what he was doing. Like the way me and him, like he used to come up, come out with me all the time. She used to let him come out with me. I took him to Vegas, went the Magic you.
Know, all the little places.
And so we was always around.
But we all got together and he came up with the right mindset and so he was like set up pretty good from getting he was. But when we did this, when we did the scene we took the killing, he wasn't gonna never work again.
Yeah, he said that I was setting.
Again.
He that he felt at that time to heat it.
Man. Right now trade, yeah, because he was messed up behind that only on one season he did one.
They smoked him in episode twelve right ends, Yeah.
And he set up Saturday.
We gave, We hugged him up.
Somebody was said, look, man, at the after this episode go off, they're gonna be looking for your name and there and nobody never gonna forget you.
They always gonna be.
Looking for you.
And then he do Hardball he did ye from.
Do you think the Y could be made today in like the same raw way? I'm gonna have to be sensitive death because it.
Wasn't an HD but.
Raw. But but yeah, that too, another city made, not the why not Baltimore game? I think he would have to be a whole nother city. I don't even think they'll let them be like they was.
It was, it was, it was.
It was too authentic like that.
That's not like human resource problem, like more like you.
Can't get no city like chump city like it was. It's just beautiful, like the people, everything about Baltimore, how we shot it, the family, it was just a family. It's too aumaic, man, What about the extras? Like just was.
And you can't get.
Right there they knew, they knew everything about Baltimore to cut the alleys like you can go like whenever, you know, the same when I killed the guy in the alley, like you had to like clean the alley like ten times. I ain't gonna say no name, but one person they want to for one person, they want to fall in the alley. Bro, Bro, you got it's down in But it was. It was a moment I said, we falling
out is all the time, So it's not. It's the difference between us growing up and we from the hood, and then you get on the hood show it's like, it's not hard, it's not you know what I mean. So it just was a blessing because the show saved my life. But I don't care. Nobody said, you know, Brown one of the top five gangster characters ever to play, and that wasn't easy. So I don't care what nobody say, Like as much as they think it's easy for us to pull like as were from the Inner.
City or this that, it's not people, it's not easy.
There's been growing up in the hood and actually being a criminal.
About clinging clips something.
All that, and we go to the wire.
What's what's your opinion on that off and reboot to But that's when you had said something else.
Ala, Man, where would you start envy? Where would you pick it up at?
Michael k not here, which I'm sure would be a real center stupid residentston Pia.
Michael K Right, that's who you would definitely have to have, right lands Gone.
There's so many people, right, what would you even if you try to pick up off where it.
Left off with with with Matt right with Trista where he killed Snoop. He was supposed to be like.
Follow him or you could follow Marlow wherever he gonna hide out.
Yeah, because Marlow got out him out. I bought the connect at the end from Marlow. But it was crazy because the whole pard was when prop Joe, you know, when meth he did that and not killed me, kill Cheese. Everything was flipping around because we had the co op. We were sitting there. It was on us at first, body on us, off people.
Just even my character, the character arc from on the streets and I ended up working at foot Log.
So it's like character to come to a.
Different city, take somebody and move into another city.
Yeah, coming to Bridge City be a.
Three O. Ma was in New York and then they never even showed that again he did come up, but then he came back, remember they they they wow, remember and said when he came back, he came back for something.
I forgot why, but get somebody.
I just don't think I'll be able to be written like because you see extra was any of it? Impriv it was like real dialogue. I'm from Baltimore, like talk like that.
I got one hundred percent my whole.
Life growing up.
I literally thought all of y'all from Baltimore.
Just growing up.
I thought it was so I knew it.
Just elbow wasn't because it was a.
Couple get mad and.
That actually that part you might be telling, that part when he tried to get me to kill Clay Davis.
He was like.
Mad a little bit. Yeah, man, now I gotta ask right here, you hate this mean?
I didn't use that right because nobody understood it. Nobody under I knew where you knew. Nobody understood it. But then it started catching on, especially with the younger kids. Hold on, I get my uncle on with the educate them to where that they will be like, that's you from the mean, but they don't know where it's from you know what I mean.
I mean, oh, what is this dope and show in the world?
Not because I was on it, but because it's dope fact and then check it out.
It made it timeless. The memes just made everything time.
Yeah.
Man, it don't get oh it don't get old, don't get don't I came front.
Wasn't ask that y'all mentioned how did?
How did?
The loss with Michael K.
Williams and pack Yard was tough. I was mad, Hey, remember when we I was on the balcony in l A. They was We was on the phone FaceTime JD Tray Mike and I had just talked to Mike to a before that because he was like some people was looking for me for a role and he was like, bro we down here, you gotta get down here, get out
of that city, come down. I was like Wow. Then he wanted He called me about another piece that they was trying to get me to work on the boot my band Backyard d C. So after that, I told to Trey and we was talking and then I had just talked to him and snoop. Then it hit. But that don't crushed me.
It crushed me because that was might always say, Michael K. Williams, he was they were doing. Michael K. Williams wasn't an industry person he was. He was more so like bro how's your mom, dad, your wife, your kids?
Like he was that I was trying to say the world man and talking to him before that he passed.
It was just like.
You know, I say what I'm saying.
You say they climbed well like the people that served him, they slimmed back because because they knew what they was doing, they knew who Mike was, and it was all out of bounds and anybody with a heart. That's why when they did catch up caught up with him, I didn't feel bad at all. Throw him under the jaz know, hustlers gotta feed their family.
But y'all, slim my.
Broca got him b y'all that how thirsty because it was COVID right.
Right, so so so any other under any other circumstances, Mike wanted to put itself on the.
Front line like that man, but like a real one.
Two right, oh, he in the streets looks Irvington all of essence County right and for the I don't know why, but for the last like three years that he was around me.
We was always kind of.
Always in the same area. So you my daughter was born after we had finished the show my daughter was doing. For some reason, he only lived a couple of blocks away from in East Orange, and I'm like, we was on the block. Yeah, we can't say it on that, yeah, but I over there my daughter, you know, first time person, I'm showing my daughter and everything, and and then going up from then all the way up till now, like we were cross paths on shows. We did a couple
more shows together. We would just be in the same neighborhoods, family friends.
It was just something.
I don't know why we ended up being around each other so much when that happened.
So when it did happen, and he had a special type of service in the UH in thea Stornge where we were, and it was like, you know that stuff don't feel real to you at first, You're like, how you do all of this?
And then now it's just.
You do all of this right because he like that, he.
Was that hands on her FaceTime, You're like, pick up that phone, like and it was it was just like you know, you used to seeing that and hearing that, but you don't got it no more of that, Jon't it hits you man, Mike and checked you like like my story that I'll never forget with Mike. And I think just when I was staying at the Clarion though, by the monument on Charles, so every Sunday might go
to church. He ain't come knock on my door to go to church, but at the church, he come knock on my door every Sunday.
And we walk up to the to the market, to the to the to the We're I'm trying to say les about.
I don't know what was talking about.
We walk up there and gonna get that lump crab cake shout out fries the cold slore with the crackers in the funny that used to be thirteen dollars, two biggest lump crab cakes in your face.
For thirteen dollars.
Sunday, I got you. You got me? Next week, I got you.
Just looked every Sunday.
Can he ain't gonna do it like police though.
Yeah, like I'm coming.
You just can't from praising the.
Lord when he's seen it in Atlanta, my daughter, when he's seen it in Atlanta, like a couple of weeks before he passed. We were out there shooting Saints and centers and uh, I'm in the grocery store. I get to tap on my shoulder, Dray, come on, let's get in the car. That was the first thing he said, just out of note.
I'm like, what you doing?
Like I'm filming something out here. I think he was doing. Happen leonter out thereater with him.
It ended up turning into a whole like party, like we went in the jone he was cooking, like called JD.
Tasha Smith. Shout out to Smith. He was in there just kicking it.
Man.
Why was his balcony across the street from my balcom.
From where we were staying at the twelve And he's standing at the street, so like we can kind.
Of see each other again, hold on and angel for what.
Was going on.
He took groceries back to his house and y'all cooked.
No, no, no, no, that's.
No way the grocery store in public. We was just staying. I was staying at the twelve.
People staying across the street at another hotel, so he was in there with somebody. They were grabbing food. I was grabbing food. He like bro come to come to my place. Tell JD to pull up.
I'm gonna be over here cooking, y'all. Just pull up. So I took my groceries back to my hotel, and then I went across the street. I kept my food.
I want to ask you, how hard was it the breakout of your wide characters when it came time to audition for other roles.
Man, I'm gonna tell y'all, man, I didn't the wire ended in two thousand and eight. I didn't work again what they would consider mainstream into twenty fifteen when I booked Saints and Centers, which was a six season show, a job, I guess, but being you know what they call typecast or whatever. All right, I'm going into rooms with the cast and directors, with the directors, producers, but with me, not like booking certain jobs or whatever. I just started creating my own you know what I'm saying.
So when I started changing Vision Entertainment, my company, I'm partnering up with cash like food with the camera, shout out to my brother. I'm producing my own films in Lives, Lovin Larsty. I'm partnering up with people like Anthony Clark, Dana Freeman and were just doing a whole bunch of like my own independent projects, which is really you know what got me to the place booking what they considered mainstream.
We own this city, being f because I stood on the streets of Washington, d C. From third from twenty ten to twenty fifteen selling all of my independent films out the trunk of my car. That was something that most celebrities wouldn't dare do, you know. So it's people walking up like, man.
You put from the wire, what you doing out here? I'm like, bruh, the wire was the wire, and I learned a lot.
But if we're gonna sit up here and consider myself a working actor, yeah, yeah, I'm out here. I'm out here taking it back to the street. I'm pumping my own website chainywait dot com. And then that led to my man, George Pierre, who was casting for Saintsan Centers, Like, yeah, shout out George Pierre, man passing me for Saintan sentence the Kishiko bio pic bingf like, that's that's our brother
out there in Atlanta. But he called me one day like, yo, I heard what you're doing in the streets man, Like you pumped your own merch and your own movies out the trunk of your car, and I'm like, yeah, man, I mean but just the way that I'm getting it. And I was like creating, like really developing my fan base because people seeing like celebrity out on the street just getting to it.
You know, it just helped me in so many ways. And now it did in.
Your work, Like I've seen that even before you hit BM Math and on uh We're on the City.
It's a lot of your projects on TV.
I've watched them. Yeah, I appreciate that definitely, So definitely was out here still.
I just produced this joint called Hitting Lives.
Like I said, you know, I exacutive produced, I started, and I cast with my brother j D Williams.
Clifton is me Cliff.
Yeah.
We just having the fun with that one. Like I said, Underniable.
The Trade Chaney Story is out right now on my YouTube channel, Trade Chaney One YouTube channel. I've been putting out a lot of different projects and like I said, these brothers are are just involved in everything I'm doing. It feels amazing to call them and say, bro, man, let's go get to it. Doing like the Wind of reunion party.
A reunion party.
You said, what happened?
How long it been twenty eight?
How many?
Twenty eight? Twenty eight years?
Okay years.
Twenty three plus together. It's just like the answer, like how you say, how do you break out for other role? It ain't even so much breaking out more so than that's what they want. Yeah, that's they want. The week, they the body when you come in the room.
They definitely do because it's it's something that going viral of that's gone viral of you. I do not know where you can tell me so I can go watch it. You're like, I don't how you know what's best for my family?
Yeah?
Yeah, I dude, listen. Yeah that was on Showtime okay for two seasons. They weren't ready for us. They were no, no, no, it was a blessing shout out show Time Now. But we didn't make it to that third to the contract yet.
Okay, you know what I'm saying.
That's good you got like that.
Man. It would have been like if we do this, not even that, not even anywhere to show where the story is going. Yeah, that would have changed the spectrum, like you know what I mean, like the like the criteria for for cable TV. You know what I mean, because it's not it was on Showtime, it ain't Netflix, it ain't Hulu, it was none of that, and they just let me go.
They let me go.
It was like that was like it is watching that was hilarious.
You don't have to.
And I really don't.
What the you know about my.
That was one thing that doing that in one take and wouldn't have thought that would go viral. Yeah, exactly what you gonna want.
It's the it's the pieces.
Man.
Like right after that, I was on.
You know, I had to learn that.
I had to learn like the parish, the accent of New Orleans, you know what I'm saying. So I had to do that and then come right back up. I was on the on the Duce for HBO. Yeah, I shot Paid Your paid your Pascale from Game of Throws. We shot Prospect and Seattle. I did that. I've been working, but it's like you, I had to learn to close the door and study. Man, when I watched when I watched j D, all these guys like they they know
what they're doing. You gotta be able to say that director say I like work, I'll bring them back again. So they called me back out there and I shot Taste and then they shot the other parts, and in China came back and we shot the ones and I was I played the chef because they liked it what I did in Deduce. So I be getting my little joints.
Man. But it's like a period.
It was it a period, yeah, I had. I had like it was a throwback that look that it was on the musicians and to the music. Music, to the music. So it's like you get them, you get them rolls and then you then you don't get them rolls. And you used to be on the jone like that. Man, I'm telling you, bro, they ain't picking. And then I get into this and when we left you but baby, you're so tall. So even even like Bolwalk Empire, so audition for dumb personally. So when Michael Kate found out that,
he said, Bro, Pistol, why you ain't call me? I said, I wanted to get in the surprise, got the role. He murdered the role the guy, and I gave him a hub for the permit. I said, Bro, you killed that. Joe. He was like, man, when I heard you was going out saying I want to get it. I said, Bro, you are dumb person. You gotta get the.
Man.
Somebody that got on told me went out for did.
Yeah, he burned that role. So it's like I read for stuff all the time, like and I know my brothers know we we auditioned daily, you know what I mean. I just had some stuff. My agent shot up mister Hodie Robinson rn A management right here in Brooklyn, you know what I mean. So it's like she sent me stuff like and you just gotta keep It's a road.
It's a road that I need to manifest. Listen to this thirteen years in the projects. My mentality is, what, kid, you talk a good one, but you don't want it.
Sometimes I wonder it sometimes what you want.
You and J gonna do project?
Well, no, we have it.
Gave me his blessing me and haven't been talking for two and a half years, and you know the press is running with a TMZ and.
And like right now, bro, definitely like we've been talking.
And my thing is this like just studying everything, like because the project would have to be about what made them speak like this, even if we all got an idea of why they recorded these records.
Or while they were speaking like that, It got it.
It has to be the backstory, the mindset of why these nineteen year old brothers were we're doing this.
Have you read Prodigy My Infamous Life?
No, I'm glad that ship should be a movie.
Yeah.
I got a chance to have lunch with lunch and dinner with Prodigy a couple of times.
And I was in a lot of the bunch and I was in a whole bunch of videos. I know how Prodigy is, and I got a chance to kick it with him. Even he was a good dude, real good, a lot of respect.
If that comes around, that comes around, don't.
Want to take it.
And like I said, man, I'm well prepared. Like I'm well prepared, the beer will get shaved off. I'm already to get.
Change.
I'm in the gym at five forty five am every morning. I'm out by seven me Like, I'm well prepared. And Havoc knows this, you know, we've been having conversations, and like I said, man, it's just and I seen my brother J. D. Williams is Prodigy, and and when I was up at the beginning, you gotta start.
It from hitting from the back, Yeah, that's the song, y'all.
That's a song.
You know it from the back of mobs first song that with commercial to go through the whole thing and happened I had done his Sonny.
Language came.
Just the conversations behind the scenes. It's like, all right, you know whenever it come into fruition. But I'm gonna bring it into fruition.
Man.
That's why you gotta read My infamous life literally tell you.
Now, you gotta get that.
That's that's the movie.
Yes, that's more the more proudig I.
Mean, but you can't tell that.
He don't tell his story without.
Having of course, you gotta go through the whole thing for production, because I still think chook Ones is the best production that that.
Hot that it was a movie.
It was a movie. Yeah, bront Map Bridge opened up with Queens and going over Queen's Bridge.
That was so on New York. That just was read the summer and some violent ship about to have.
So look, we're gonna call down some funding for that.
Anybody out there already it happened to Mom.
The family, we would do it and me, I'm just they all know, I just I just stay as busy as I can I'm back and forth here, uh Georgia, back and forth to here.
I just finished up, like you said, we just finish during this season of b m F. It's gonna be crazy as hell.
I tell you that season bad.
We don't know.
I mean, look the whole thing, that whole debacle or whatever that was, that was great promotion, like and so all I knew was like whether Fifth did it on his own or they all did together to make that was really looks sad every day. I don't think that this might be it, but they had already. It's gonna be fire. Everybody just like.
And also trying to get into this space to not this, but you know, so it's just staying busy.
But I want to shout out on Cannabis ten X because they, you know, for the twenty three year anniversary of the wire, they presented me with they said, trade you in the service business.
You'd be promoting real hard.
So this Cannabis ten X kind of ten X line with my man Ben Jason and Holly over there, they like, Yo, you need your own strains, we need lighters, you need merch So so I want to shout them out because like we're talking about doing more tours, you know, like Wire reunion tours and really just bringing the cast members together to do these meet and Greek panels to talk have discussions about what it felt like, you know, leading up to booking the Wire, after the Wire, in between,
what the cast members are doing. So Man, Candaton X Man, those those are my people's over there, you know, so right now we just we're putting it together.
You know.
Is that a phone from the wire that you got?
Body?
Hey, yo, the same phone that you had when you was on the couch outside.
I'm authentic.
Burn galaxies over there in my bad but I'm saying that's right there. Yeah, that's my right there, because iody got it, and I know people forgot to see it. I'd be like, what one last question?
So look that I forgot what season it was, But remember when I think it was the male one of them congressmen. Right, It was like because you'all would stop selling drugs or whatever. So he had a block designated Hamsterdam.
When that was shut.
Were they all people that y'all cast it or y'all just were they real cra because was that like a real thing?
There was extious but all those people lived there they did.
That block wasn't abandoned, No.
Baltimore block.
Like it was like only two people living in like the whole that whole block. So it was kind of empty.
But you know that was the truth. That was true, that you really can go right there. That's why I said Baltimore is.
You don't get locked up, you don't get you know nothing, You just gotta stay there.
That's a lot of money. It's a lot of money in city. Don't go out there, a lot of you know, you're good. It's a lot of money.
And it was control control crime.
My last question, what do people still misunderstand about the Wire even after all these years.
That's telling me, you know that that is not a black show. That's you know, that's what I think people, that's it's an American show. It's about America.
It's just so happened. We telling the stories of mostly black people. But it got layers.
It's about how the street affects the police, the police affect the politicians, politicians, street education.
So that's what it's about.
People, corn jobs coming in that show. The Wires taught you everything about what you need to know about life.
And like I keep saying to all other shows that you see, and that's why you see cass Front the wires sprinkled in all other shows.
And the retrospect.
The people appreciate it because I get people all the time, like on Cameo when I do my little shoutouts I'm watching that.
I'm watching the show with my husband. He being patient with me. But but I don't like all this stuff with the politics, and and I gotta hit them with a.
Solas and I gotta hit them with a soliloquy like no, listen, you gotta stay paid be patient with him because the writing comes full circle.
Like I was mad I didn't watch season two at first. Right now, I was like everybody else, like with the guys.
And then if I would do it over, I would have I would have traded season two for season three.
I would have bought ma all ow In earlier and the Greeks in them later.
Sorty talent, and definitely we would have raised charlm Maine that we would have rightfully deserved at the time, because.
If you think about it, we went on hiatus.
Yeah, people doing the show got it, never got canceled.
We got cast five seasons in seven years.
Six years year and then they just all the different characters started coming and the show just went crazy.
But you got it.
It was something that was ahead of its time. So when when David and them was pinning it, they was like, no, this is the sequence. I know he probably knew it. Yo, he ain't not gonna like this, but you know it'll come forth.
It was the reason why.
That was.
My my favorite season is one and four.
One and four.
One and four was the beginning for it was the education the young Mac.
That's one and four. Show you what your kids was doing while you was doing what you was doing. What you know what I mean, that's what that's what we need and like each Now I gotta plug my We got a nonprofit Hugs not slugs. Yeah, and I'm gonna have to get my brothers to come through where we go to schools and talk to the kids. A lot of kids not getting hugs at home. They're only getting
slugs when they walk out their building. As a little kid, I was going to school and they had a dead body by the trash can, still raining on the guy and then they finally put a top top on the middle and he's still there when we came out at three fourteen put the Newspeople and all that. So it's it's crazy to mess with your mind. So we hugs not slugs, and we gotta teach these kids, you know what I mean. They gotta know you know what I mean. They ain't getting no hugs at home. They don't even
know what a hug is. Right as your brain right this backyard, this is backyard for ya.
This guy.
We had the Roof's picnic the thirty first for June first the Roof's Picnic, and then we at the Cousin's Festival.
Will push your tea. Yeah yeah, so we're gonna be down there too. So shout out to my.
One.
So y'all.
Real quick. I one shout out. I want to shout out my wife. I used your cheney. You know I've been I've been married for twenty years. She made this jacket.
She's one of the biggest fashion designers in the world. Eyebody. When I walked in here, y'all see that. Y'all got the new Framerancey and it's all be available on Cheneywade dot com. I do director consumer up, so you come straight time. But my shout out to my wife, I used to shout out to my son, Malakai Cheney, who just finished this freshman year strong at Savannah State University, my daughter Martina, and my granddaughter Morocco.
Morocco just turned from my grandfather.
Yeah.
Yo, when I when I met my wife twenty three years ago, I met my eight year old daughter. Not only did I consider her, you know, I made a vow to her mother. Not only did I consider my daughter, I never consider it my step daughter. So I raised her from the time she was you.
Know, your son bigger than you two in the game we was at the has not been now he's.
My son is almost six ft.
But I'm just proud, man, I'm proud to still be here man, doing what we love, taking care of our families.
Man, I'm about to.
Say, what's the three of us is grandfathers?
Yeah?
They said you here over there.
I just turned seventeen, shout out, but somebody here on my phone.
Yeah, and then I know that.
That's what is about.
You want to get to that age your family?
Twenty three years.
You got, man. I love this.
I love y'all so much. I watched the wire every year like I've never seen it before my life.
I don't care.
I'm still putting people on with it.
It's the best show.
They cannot be implicated, can't be remade, can't none of it.
I want to catch you in his last I want to I want to cast you in my new movie.
Ask me some ship.
It at the Breakfast Club. Good morning, wake that ass up in the morning.
The Breakfast Club