I'm Tamika D.
Mallory and the Ship Boy my Son in general.
We are your host of t M I.
Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation and.
Inspiration, New Energy. I'm good, I'm good. I'm a little you know, it's been it is, oh.
Right, Yeah, I'm Black History.
I mean, everything we've we've been talking about all month is about black people, but we certainly need to kind of focus on Black History Month.
And like the I guess the what do we call.
It, the observance, that's the word.
It's the observance of it all.
So we haven't really been able to get to that because the country is very, very very different. Interesting, It's not so much it is different different.
I don't know.
I struggle with saying that it's different. I think that it is worse.
So if it's worse, it different.
Yeah, I guess so, But I still think it was pretty bad already. I mean, I just don't I don't know. I just feel like we've got to be coming to a crashing halt because we're in the we're in a we're in when a woman is across the world in Pakistan talking about running my money, I.
Am I don't know.
But I don't know, but she has now made her way to every outlet at least all the blogs are covering it.
I don't know.
I don't think the quote unquote mainstream media is covering it. But this woman, it's in my DMS. People send it to me like what is going on? But somebody sent me something which I don't know if it was her, because you know, first Ai, second of all, the way that it was positioned, because now other people are creating
like parodies to this thing and making skits. But it looked like a person who looks like her was counting money if they paid that late, because it seemed to me like there were Pakistani.
People.
Know.
It's no way that folks don't know that the lady thought or she met somebody I believe online and he must have professed his love for her and told her he was going to marry her. And then somehow I don't know if he invited her or what happened. I'm sure he found out she had little mental health, and
then he might have a little mental health too. And then she traveled from wherever sounds like the USA because she sound black as black, and took herself over there to Pakistan and talking about she wants her money and she's not leaving until she gets her land, and it's really a thing.
But the thing about it is that I said Pakistan Pakistanians. I don't know.
That is something I need to figure out. How do you say the people versus the place? Is it Pakistanians?
I believe, right?
Okay, so you would just say Pakistanians. Okay, So the Pakistanian people, some of them seem to be entertaining them.
Dave's having press conferences. People must be bored, hilarious, people must.
Be and she is.
Saying now she had to tell people that she's raising money so they could send her home. She told people to send her money.
Seemed like she had some If it's her that I saw in this, she definitely.
Raised money, Ain't no question about that. You know, the internet love to just give money to crazy people.
Well, anyway, by the time people see this sho, there would have been some updates and I will probably be late, like this will probably be old give So that's why I'm saying, like, what like every day the world just proves how much crazier it can actually get. So I guess it's different.
It's definitely different.
You're like, I think I was the person, the first person to send it to you, because Tiffany Laughton sent it to me in the middle of the night. She sends me like five videos and she's screaming like, this is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life.
Then I just kept seeing it and seeing it.
Then that's why I said, let me send it to you, and you know whoever else is in our little group. Then I sent it to Linda and she just is like this this world.
Then the lady she has his job on.
She was wearing a hi job, but she had it tied like some kind of bothing on this. So I just have never seen them wear they're jobs like this. It's just it's different.
It's different. It's different.
It's very very very much. It is extremely different.
It is black history, mom, and was She's a part of black history.
And there people listen, this is the last thing I'll say about this.
I've also watched the commentary of a few people who are like, bruh, I don't you know. I would never do it. It's comical. But the lady is on business. She over there, like I needy't to round me my land and my money, and if you want me to leave, you gotta pay for me to leave, because I came over here to marry my husband. And by the way, the husband would have been like nineteen years old and
she's thirty three. Like if that lady, don't go somewhere and sit her ass down anyway, what else is up her history?
So look, there's a meme that's been going around for a couple of years, and I know I seen it yesterday again and it's a reporter talking to I believe it's Morgan Freeman, and they talking about black history mon and Morgan Freeman says to him, I don't want black history.
Man.
He's like, why should my history be relegated to one month? Your history is not relegated to one month, So I don't want it. Don't give me no one month of my history. And when I thought about it, I understood his point of view. But then I was like, but we live in America, right in the reality of America is that they don't celebrate black.
History, they don't talk about our history.
They don't give us the opportunity to actually hone in on the great you know, accomplishes, accomplishments and feats that our ancestors have made.
And I kind of.
Enjoyed Black history one. Look, I get to throw on my stuff.
I get to get yeah, I.
Mean I get I need to get I get to get into it. And you know, I was thinking, what do you think about it? Do you think that it's a bad thing that they give us black heresy is? It doesn't make it seem like our history is less because.
Of or I mean, we do get the short this month, and you know, and I do understand people who say that, but I also feel like observances are exactly what they are.
They're observances.
So you know, you don't have President's Day being celebrated every day.
You have a day that.
Is specified for you to focus on presidents, veterans, people you.
Know who who what do you call it? Memorial?
Memorial Day is for people who have died in war and what have you and you know, and also other I think they have kind of expanded it. I know we have expanded it to also acknowledging people who are service.
Workers, people who are you know, who take care of folks.
And so I mean, I you know, everything has its time and I think that that one entire month we should really take as much advantage of it as possible, especially now when we see there is a attack on our history, there's an attack on anything that has to do with you know, forcing the world to sit still and have to look at, as you said, the accomplishments
and the fights that we have fought and won. You know, there's been a lot that we've contributed to society, and if it were not for the fact that there is this time that's been set aside, you know, people probably wouldn't hear much about us at all. So I see, you know, I see, I'm not saying that I don't understand how once they put it in February, which happens to be the shortest month of the year, then after that they may say, well, they don't want to hear
about it again. But then that's not true because the next thing, you know, you got doctor King. Well before then you have you know, doctor King's birthday that comes up, and I feel like people celebrate doctor King's birthday for the entire month January. You know, I hear at least at least beginning around the fifteenth, when his actual birthday takes place, then they go all the way and then it.
Goes all the accomplishments.
Yeah, so you know, well, I mean.
I just I pretty much agree with what you're saying. I just when I heard it again, it made me think. And it's just the time that we end, you know, it's just every time I think about, like you said, the d and what we're going through with this.
Government and diversity, equity and inclusion.
Diversity, equity and inclusion, you know, and what we're going through, you know, like you said, how they're trying to pretty much erase our history and to have this month is very much important at this time.
Yeah, I think before they're getting rid of shit left and.
Right, and they still don't want this even they don't.
Even want the government right, Like it's it's.
An education, which is the other big So they.
Don't want kids we must celebrated within education either.
They don't want like remember critical race theory and all of that. They want they don't want you to isolate and celebrate any particular holidays except for things that have to do with white men. I mean seriously, like it's just that's what it is. They're saying that they are going to especially, as you said, for the federal government, which the Department of Education is a part of the federal government. Right, they want to end the celebration of any particular group.
It's pretty.
I think the only way to describe it is just to look at the fact that, like the shrides that people have made, that's not just black folks. Like I think about the Muslim community and how in New York the Muslims didn't even have certain days observances for public schools, and they fought and fought and fought, and I remember when they won, and it was under Deblasio that these days became law, like they became chartered in New York State and in New York City, I know for sure,
I don't know about the state. And now there's like two or three dates on the calendar that that everybody, not just Muslim students of course, but everybody is off because they are observing these particular days. So, you know, I say all of that to say a lot of people have fought to ensure that we live in an inclusive society where everybody can be celebrated, and these.
Folks just don't want to do it anymore. But you know it, You have to do it. Well. I don't know if it's strange.
I think that they're actually sticking true to their uh, their their their existence.
Their beginning to me is this, how do you think that that is going to work? Right, because you've people have gotten used to celebrating and being acknowledged and seeing themselves and being themselves and coming.
To you know, I think what they're saying is you can celebrate it all you want, but it won't be But that's paid.
That's the first step of it, right, because what you do is you take you pretty much take the.
Knowledge president in February to so President's Day.
So they still going to take some of our stuff too in the month in the same Black History Month.
That's interesting. I never put that in the contest.
So that's what I'm saying, Like, if you look at if you look at most of the holidays that they're a black I mean they are white holidays that celebrate, Yeah, they celebrate their their accomplishments.
They still celebrate in that Columbus Day.
Yeah, So these are these are things that I'm saying. So so they think that's just gonna work. You just gonna erase the rest of the people here. You're gonna take back the Hollids and.
You're gonna do That's all I want to say.
Let me tell you what my thought of the day.
What Actually, it's not my thought of the day, but I could make it my thought of the day for today, since we are short for time before we have our guests, our Black History Month guest, because we focused on Black History Month today and not these people politics. Let me tell you that we are all, every single one of us hypocritical beings. I was listening to Angela Rode talking about this on their podcast, Native Lamp Pod, and it's true.
She was talking about Snoop and his performance at the Crypto Ball, and she was, you know, literally saying like, I'd rather call my brother on the phone to tell him how I feel directly, And she was acknowledging that, you know, there are people who probably will feel like, oh, you're being hypocritical, because if it was somebody that you don't really have a relationship with or whatever, you would
just say whatever. And I think that's true. I would hope that if you're brother sister did something that you wouldn't go to the Internet to tell the world about it.
I would hope.
But you know, hey, some people say what's good for the goose is good for again if they if they don't like whoever on the internet, and they don't like they mama and they sister, they brothers and cousins, they go right on to the Facebook and write it up there too. I mean, I guess that's but I understand both sides. But I wanted to say that we certainly
are and we live in contradiction all the time. Like hypocritical is probably a negative connotation to that word, so I wouldn't necessarily use it, but I just want to, you know, state it in a way that most people can understand. But I think the the conflicts, right, you know, and the complications of life, because I was somewhere a couple of evenings ago, and you know, I am, and I think you are like this too, which it took you some time to get there. So let me put
your business in the street. But I just don't want to hear r Kelly.
I just don't. That's not on my car.
My family members know not to play it at holidays, and in fact, it is starting to become something that I see less and less and less and less that's just I don't. I'm it's at the point now where no one has to tell the DJ at a.
Family event or whatever. They just they're just not doing it anymore.
But the other day, I was wherever I was, somewhere anyway, restaurant at night, late at night, and they started playing some good old R Kelly songs.
I mean, and I'm just so sorry, like I didn't. I forgot.
I totally forgot. I wasn't even drinking. I totally forgot. And the next thing you know, I was just sitting up there man in here wish and I was just all into it. And I was sitting there thinking to myself, Wow, we have to have a lot of grace for one another.
We have to have a lot of grace for one another, because.
It's not it's very hard, you know, for people to ignore the music and contributions that R Kelly has made. Like my whole childhood can be marked by al Kelly songs, Like I could tell you every year of my life based on R. Kelly song and what I was doing, the girl I liked, and the party we went to in the song and the first slow jam that you got you rubbed the little rub you got like R Kelly was that for us in the late eighties early wise he was.
It's just like he was.
But but I would say that, you know, and and I was having this conversation with someone else and they'd be like, yeah, but the parents, the parents took their kids there and whatever.
And that's fine.
I'm not because I believe that that is true, that there was some parents that literally took their children to him knowing that he something wasn't right. Like I'm never ever, ever, ever ever take get my granddaughter and I never did it with my son, to take them to somebody and a man, woman, whomever else it is, that's not a
family member or somebody that I trust. And even in those situations, we were always taught you don't even trust everybody in your family and just leaving my child there for days and whatever and not like, no, I'm just not ever doing that. So I understand people who say, but what about the parents, And I think that those parents have to deal with their children, They're gonna have to deal with different things. But guess what, I don't
know them. I don't buy their albums, I don't buy their shoes, clothes, don't I don't support them in any way.
With R.
Kelly, this is a grown ass man. You're a grown ass man. And if a person brings you their child and you allegedly allegedly do whatever to them, which you know whatever, allegedly do whatever things to them, and.
You know, then someth's wrong with you.
You also so the parents and you it doesn't It's not like because of the parents then you somehow are exampt Yet No, no, no, you also have an issue. And I'm not finna be buying maybe, but I know I'm not finna be buying the music. I'm not finna be two step in. I'm not gonna do none of that. I did get me a little twist in the chair on a from then eventually I said no, I didn't even do that. I just said I'm gonna be very vulnerable.
I just, you know, I was like, I'm gonna be vulnerable and talk about this because you know, I don't want. I hate for people to be walking around in the world feeling like everything is a zero sum. That's what this world makes you believe. It makes you believe that if you don't do everything exactly perfectly as they say, whoever they is then, or whoever they are, then you just have failed. And I don't think that that's right.
I think we all come short, come up short in terms of how we live and the things that we do every day.
And I just wanted to say that, you.
Know what, I had a moment, but I put myself back together.
I mean, sometimes you have a moment, you snapped out.
Of it, you know.
And then there was people in the restaurant and I was like, damn, they musn't paying me no attention. But I was just thinking to myself, Wow, I really don't do our like at all, but today the paparazzi people could have caught me, and I look like I'm just a hypocrite because.
I need to.
Doing the doing it. So yeah, a nission whatever, ANISSI let's not give it an.
I don't do too much, don't do too much. But that's it. That's what happened.
Listen, everybody got our own cross and sins the bed. You know, let he who was without sin through the first.
Yeah, you sound really.
Religious.
No, anyway, I'm just gonna let it go.
So today is another one of our friends.
We have a guest. It's like a brother of mine's. You know, he is a world renowned publisher. He has published over one hundred and thirty books in thirteen years. He is He has published books from Everybody to our friend Yandy to styles p you know, so the list goes on and on.
And he does children's books. This is his specialty.
He's the publisher of all three of my books, Raising Kings. We have I Know My Rights and we have Echoes in the Streets. Which is my last book, and currently.
It's not your last. It is your latest, okay, it is my latest last, and your latest.
It is my latest.
And he is none other than Hedred McBride, the owner of McBride's Stories. How are you doing today, month?
Brother peace? Brother. We know each other for so long and you still say my name.
I always because I always just call you McBride. That was up.
Everybody everybody calls me McBride. You know, it depends on when you met me. But now I'm honored to be with you guys, and most most respect to you too. And you know, it's just a great journey to be here with you. I'm watching everybody. I'm a fan as well as a supporter and a brother. So I'm grateful to be here.
Thank you so much. It's good to have you.
It's so funny because every time we talk about you on the show, my son is like McBride.
Every single time.
I always get his name room, I always say.
I can't believe you don't know this. Where are you from? Where's your family from?
Your roots?
Well, my father is from the South, We're from some to South Carolina, moved to New York, hallm in the Bronx. My mom is from Saint Croix, moved to the Bronx.
I knew there was somebody that has some Caribbean blood running through their their their veins because I don't know does blood run through your veins or does blood run through your body through your veins?
So that's how they get it out. They go in the van. I just to make sure because sometimes I don't be knowing stuff.
But anyway, but I know Hendrick is absolutely a Caribbean inspired name. So that's why I kind of know it because I know a lot of men name Hedrick who has somebody in their family that comes from the Islands.
And it's a beautiful name. It's a beautiful name.
So sometimes people need to be calling you Hedrick and not just McBride.
I'm gonna give Hendrick Saint Croix, you know that.
So that's what's up.
I think everything. As a child, Sedric heard it all and Drake I heard it all.
So this so, you know, we're celebrating Black History Month, and you know, we wanted to celebrate you because most of the books that you have pretty much exuberate black history right like they they focus on it. You know, most of the authors focus on how we better our communities. It shows us in a light that you know, young kids get to see black people and brown people and the light that is always positive. So what made you start writing these books?
Just that's a great question, that's the million dollar question. It started off by being a parent reading to my daughter, Scylla McBride. She's sixteen, well she'll be seventeen next week. She's sixteen. So I used to read with her nightly basis, and I found myself reading books that were not culturally relevant to her. I'm reading Cat and Had, I'm reading Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, just children's books that we all grew up on. Like, how can kids in this day
relate to these books? So I said that they don't have any characters that look like us, they don't have storylines that look like us. Back in those days, I was a younger man, so I'm wearing a Yankee hat all the time. So I said, we need representation. And that really made me start this journey. And then when I started it, it was so many people related to it and wanted it, and that's when I kept going.
And then I'm becoming an educator. I've been a school teacher in Brownsville, you know, one of the poorest districts in New York City, and I would state test scores was so low. I was a fifth grade teacher and I was wondering. I said, these kids are so smart, why are the test score so low? And kids really tell you because the books don't represent us. We don't
want to read. We're not even interested in reading. If you ever picked up a state test booklet, the stuff that's in there is not even relatable to the kids. So they just check out. You see these scores, and this shows that the black and brown, the black Hispanic population of scoring so low. It's not because they're not smart enough, it's because they're just not interested. It's not
for them. I pretty much started a crusade, like I started a mission, a mission to save our kids, because you know the correlation between education and the prison system.
That's right, That's right, that's right.
Well, you know what, I appreciate you saying that, and I want to simplify it because the way you said it was so eloquent, so educated. It's born. That's the bottom line is it's boring. Nobody wants to read it.
And to be quite honest, if you really go back once we get a little bit older and we have and you get some a level of consciousness and you go back and read some of the these stories, it's really kind of racist too, like you know what I mean, it's like and also for you to be forced as a teacher and student and parent to have to read some of the material and take that stuff in, which is teaching you, you know, Goldilocks, who's a white person
with certain types of hair, that that's you know, that's a pretty woman.
You know what I'm saying. They're not telling you never for tid. They're not telling.
You anything about people who look like you, and they're forcing you to have to like learn this. It's already enforcing stereotypes about us that we have issues overcoming later on in life. They literally are teaching you in the school system that to be light or white is to be better than anything else.
That's a sair.
It's indirect. It's training us to not have high self esteem, not to have goals, just to celebrate others than our selves. So our books celebrate us. It makes us feel good about ourselves. And even when we were children, our TV shows, you know, even if you had a different strokes that we loved them. They always had a white rich family or Webster or you know, like it just it just showed us like it could never just be a black
family thriving. Now, these were our role models, and we were so thirsty to see black people on the show that we would attach to it right. Well, that that changed the game a different world. These are things that changed the game. And this is what we're trying to do again because it.
So for how many years you've been doing you said, thirteen years is the first time you started this book. Have you seen like the books that you have written with other authors, have you seen changed Like do you see that when you bring these books to the schools, Are you seeing the kids more engaged.
It is similar to rap music where sometimes our bigger, biggest consumers is not even our people, because everybody wants to know our culture. They want to know what's going on. And not to toot your own horn that I know. My rights book that we published together came about during the George Floyd, you know, around those times when COVID started, and that book to date is my biggest selling book, and it has reached so many people. You know, and and and you know how organic how that book came about.
You and I met at a restaurant. I won't say the name because they my son and myself of not paying our task.
We met.
That's where we met.
I don't know who it was, so, you know, saving the world and saving.
I don't think they knew. I don't think they do. They wouldn't know. But yeah, he had.
He had reached out to me through a mutual friend and and she hit me like, yo, do I have this publisher. He wants to meet with you. He's interested in doing book with you. So I was like, all right, hit me up.
Who was it signed? Hit me up?
And she did, like, yo, listen, I got he's a good friend of mine. I want you to meet.
And it was a perfect match.
It was a perfect match.
And we sat down and he was like, yo, listen, I got a perfect idea for you.
You know, I wasn't really thinking.
I was thinking about writing my own book and my memoir and all these things. And he said, I think you should write a book about the first ten amendments of the Constitution and just break it down for children. And I was just like, I was like, wow, I said that really made SI. And He's like, I'm telling you, you got a good following.
People listen to you.
You know, you're already in that space, you're dealing with kids, and you have all of these people following you.
I think it'd be a dope. I there, And within the next week or two weeks, we had the book work.
Wow.
We wrote the book and the response from it was just like he said, it was amazing.
People gravitated. We still want to book.
We still have not.
Put the type of energy that we could into the book. I know y'all have, but I'm saying, like your team, we still we've done a little bit, but not even as much as we could do that the book could be all.
Over this toll. Yeah, right, we take the book.
Yeah, you're gonna attach ourselves to Tamika's tour because Tamika got her book tour and starting next week, so.
It starts this week.
So what I'm gonna do is attach myself with our books right while she's selling over goad.
Look, we got book over here, something you can get for the kids.
See what I mean.
And what I mean by that by saying like we haven't, what I mean is that every single day, new opportunities come about where people are looking for stuff to for their children, like because especially here we are in this time when people are feeling really attacked, our rights are under attack, and it's a new moment to say to emerge and say listen, even though they don't care nothing about the Constitution right now, but nonetheless it does exist.
And our kids need to know. They need to know the difference between what we see in front of our faces and what people have fought and died, like people put blood, sweat and tears to create a society that had a level some level of fairness and for you to be able to fight, you know, And I think one of the things that's a little scary is that
at one point. Actually, I was having a conversation with doctor Bernice King, doctor Martin Luther King Junior's daughter, the other day, and she was saying that the scary thing is that at one point you at least had the courts that you could appeal to as black people for
some level of protection, and now that's going away. So y'all need a part too, because you guys need to somehow find a way to talk about where we currently stand and how the Constitution is actually being ignored with some of the stuff that oh boys doing over there over there over there, I'm not I've been calling him something that I'm not going to put on this show today while McBride is on here, so he don't got to go home with that on him.
But yeah, So anyway, what was the first book you wrote.
The first book I wrote was Parkville High And I used to work for with Developmental Disabilities for people with developmental disabilities, and I saw firsthand that they are no different than anyone else. So I just wanted to bring away to people with disabilities, like just because I have a disability, that doesn't mean I'm a regular. I'm not a regular person. So that was the first book we wrote for kids that attended They all had a different disability,
but they attended public high school. So it showed people to not judge a book by his cover because we're all the same. We're all the same.
I love that.
I love that, And so would you say that of all the books you said, my Son is like your best selling But what give us some other big collaborations that you have on in the McBride stories repertoire.
So it's so many different feelings and thoughts. Because my Metalworld piece, which is roun Our Test a basketball player. He's a high school teammate of mine. So he was the first influenza slash celebrity to attach himself to McBride's stories. And by having that partnership, it was it enabled me to attract other celebrities. So guys both know it's always a copycat league. Nobody wants to be the first person
to do something. So he was a risk taker and he invested in me and we published books together, and that that enabled me to sign Yandy. That enabled me to sign a Marvel a Negro, like we have books in different languages. You know, it just helps build your resume. You need that one person to stamp you. Wow, that's metalworld piece. He was on the Lakers. That's when he
won the championship for the Lakers. You know, he was on top of his career, but you know he needed like a pr boost and he my high school friend. So it was that was like a memorable He had books on our books, was on CBS shows, ESPN, like everywhere. That was like, what really took me to the next level. So I'll always be in debt indebted to him. Just saying with my daughter now or she's the reason for the company, but she's published five books now you know
she's still in high school. So just just being able to have these valuable partnerships with good people. Yandy is a friend of mine from high school days. Like just to have these partnerships are so valuable because we were helping so many people. But you surrounded by people that you you know, respecting and have luck.
That's that's great.
What advice would you give a young publisher that wants to write books that's looking into What advice would you give a young author and a publish that wants to do both, Like what would you.
I would say, don't always focus on yourself and your needs because you have to see what the needs are of the people. Like sometimes people would write about whatever they always wanted to put out, but you have to think about what people would want to hear about or what's suiting them. So you have to be open minded
because a lot of like nowadays we're so publishing. You can put out anything you can put out of you know, a book about making oxtels with your grandmother, but you just have to know if it will people receive this, is this what people need? Like when my soign and myself always collaborate, is never about us. It's always about are we providing a solution? And I know everyone doesn't right to be so serious, but that's that's the you know, that's what we wear on our shoulders because we want
to change the world. We want to you know, help out. So when we collaborate, it's always about what's needed, what what do people need to hear? So some people write for fun, but you know, we not in that type of business were you know, we freedom fighters and and I do it a different way. I do it through literacy because like people don't know it or not, but education is if you're not educated, you already at a disadvantage,
and we make these books. If you see his raising kings, like these books are beautiful, Like people love to look at the book.
Yes, the artwork is amazing. They really should. Yes, artwork is amazing.
It's amazing.
And he's a rapper, he's you know, he's an author, so you know the words are going to sound good as well. So it's the same way as a dope rap song when you got doctor dre and then you got a good lyricist and you make a perfect mix. So that's what we're kind of trying to do with these books, Like we have perfect illustrations with perfect words, Like we're just trying to I don't know, just you know, just trying to just trying to help out and just
trying to save the world, so to speak. Like it's crazy to say, but we're trying to save the world.
So let me ask you two quick things. One is you said you mentioned having other additional.
Languages, So how did that happen? Is it? What other languages do you carry?
Because one thing about black and brown, you could be we've been transported all over the world, you know that, sister, Like that's how we all got here. Everybody was dropped off somewhere. So that partnership with a marl I Negra showed me because she's dark, darker than anybody, any of us. So she we did her book in Spanish and French because people all over the world can relate to somebody that looks like her. So we just want to represent everyone.
We have books in different language, my Song's book and this is something like that that he keeps it so real because I asked him, I said, you want to do it in France, you want to do it in English Spanish? He said, I'm from the Bronx McBride. He said, I grew up with black and Hispanic people. So there's a Spanish version of I know my rights. He didn't even want the French because he said, I grew up in the Bronx. This is what I grew up with. So it's all about representation.
Yeah, that's great.
My second question is understand like, what would be something that you would say you need to help your business go to the next level. And the reason why I'm asking you that is because right now we're in a weird time in the world, especially where a lot of corporations are coming under fire for you know, not supporting diversity, equity and inclusion. You know, some of them have been in their own ways in terms of their relationship to their.
Employees.
They have you know, serious violations, human rights violations, and people are calling for there to be an exodus, if you will, of black folks from these brands target and the list goes on and on and on. So my question for you is in terms of distribution, like what would you be What would be something that if you had an aim right now that could come and help you, that you think would allow you to get in more households into more of the hands of our young people.
That's a great question. I feel like, and this is a debate I have with loved ones and family and friends. I like to move a certain way because and my song will tell you, we make most of our money in schools and organizations, like we like, not in the mainstream with everything. So it's like you have to move a certain way because I feel like attaching yourself to certain companies and organizations you might not be in alignment
with all of their values. And we see this every day, like companies that we trusted for all these years, you know, sometime they pop out and they're not in alignment. So I like to move this way, Like I don't need to be a millionaire yet. I just feel like if we're making six figures or so, we just moving how we move, because sometimes you have to stay not attached to people. And we just saw with a lot of the leaders, a lot of the people that just fell.
These are people like five years ago that we looked up to and you know, we would have honored to be attached to them. So I feel like, and one thing about my son, he always say integrity over income, and that's why he's one of my favorite partners. And I'm not just saying this because I'm on here, but it's like your integrity, if you keep your character and you move how you move, you still gonna get what
you deserve. Like some people would jump out the window and partner with a big cup corporation, and then what happens if something, you know, something hits the fan. It's like, I like to move like this, to be honest, and I won't nay names, but I was offered. I've been offered. Please, I've been it's thirteen years. I've been offered by a lot of major corporations to you know, buy my catalog or you know, create caught tunes for me. And then I looked into their company and in align with what
I'm into. So sometime being independent is good.
But I love that. And that's one thing have you looked into. I think because our books I think should be cartoons. Like I really been thinking about that. I think if we just had a cartoon with our books, I think it would take it to the next level. So that's something that I think we should look into.
I think because most all of the books that I've seen you wrote, not just my book, but just every book that you have written that I know, like with other authors, they have a real good substance, and they have really good themes.
You know that some is about bullying, some is about being different.
So it's just so many different you know, I've seen the one that you had with Devo and his wife, you know, the time Machine, the Black and when they traveling through time and they talking about things that happen in black and like these.
These books are necessary in history.
Yeah, they traveling through the timas and they showing us different things in times and it's a dope idea. You know, so I think all of these books could be cartoons. You know, I think that's I think that should be the next thing that you think of. But I want to ask this, This is the last question I'm going to ask you, like who would you want to do a book with?
Like who have you? What artists?
So whatever that you look at, it was like, you know what, this book right here would be dope. I'm not don't tell me the idea because we don't want to give away.
Just being selfish and wanting to give rich overnight. I would love Lebron James, I would love Na. So were out of here, We out of here. But all in terms of I almost did a book with Dick Gregory before he passed away. And this was when Bill Cosby had got incarcerated. We was just close to doing a book with Dick Gregory because I said, you would be the grandfather. Like a lot of people, we respect Dick Gregory,
but these legacies are not carried on. So if I would have did a series like he would have been the grandfather telling stories, I thought that would have been fired. But on a sofa tip, I need a Rihanna, I need Lebron, come get me.
What would you like for your legacy to be in the end. And by the way, you when you said, I'm not just saying this because my son is sitting right here and I just thought of this little joke that Hedricks don't lie, Hedricks tell.
Them the straight truth every time.
But what would be your like, what's the thing that you want to see come from your efforts? Because this is not just I would say, it's not just being an author and a publisher. You are also this is a spiritual journey right anytime we are able to bring information to our young people that's different from this mess that they receive, their being bombarded with garbage every day.
And for you to try to cut through because if.
You made like you know, kind of like popping Who's zooming who books, if you made books about fashion and you know, fighting and carrying on, you probably could make a whole lot of money because there's a big market for that.
But to try to cut.
Through the noise and bring some level of history and stability to our young people that's very spiritual. And it's not just young people because I know we know from my sons books that families, entire families, they take those books they sit down together and they read them together, and everybody, especially for I know my rights, everybody was getting educated because we heard that many times.
A lot of times parents would call me and be like, hey, y'all, just read the book.
I didn't even know some of these rights.
You know.
I thought I was getting a book for my son or my daughter, and I ended up learning as much as they did, right, you know what I'm saying. So that was a blessing.
Yeah, so I think that's very spiritual, and you know, I hope you see it that way. So what would you say in the end, you want your legacy to be I want.
My legacy to be someone who you know, added diversity to children's literature, encouraged kids to read during the technology era. And you know, I'm from the hood too, So my friends call me the black Doctor Seuss. They go to the club, they say, my men beat Doctor Seuss. So the same way they celebrate Doctor Seus's birthday and all that stuff, I would love to be celebrated McBride's stories. You know, we change in the face of literature, of literacy for our kids, and is in a time where
it's so needed. Is this is this is a scary time with education, and you know, and you know, information is presented to kids so quickly we're throwing it down, we're giving them the fundamental If you read Raising Kings, he broke down every facet of being a young man. Like we taking our time with it. So we just want to build the fundamentals. We come from the eighties and nineties, growing up with fundamentals, right. You know, I play basketball, you have to have a left hand right
hand jump shot. You know, like we welwould come from fundamentals. Now everybody's getting things so fast that they don't know the fundamentals. So I just want to be that person that brought it back to the old school, so to speak, and just slow things down. Education doesn't have to be over like quick instant. Now you do a book report in ten minutes. We used to have to go to the library get three books and encyclopedia like it took a long time to do that stuff.
So AI is doing that.
AI is speeding up, you know, the process and if you will of information, which is you know, I think that I don't think there's anything wrong with having tools to help fine tune something that you have already had to do velap. But if you are able to just go to a system and say, write me a paper about McBride's stories, how many books does he did he do? And you know what's the names? And then it just pulls up everything and you don't got to do research.
That's a problem, right right, that's what we are.
And I wanted to say something. I don't like to brag too much. Even though you see my trophies and stuff in the back, I see it just to let my son know I used to do that. I used to do it with sham Garden. But I was just hired as a professor at Morgan State, which is my college, the English course as Introduction of adolescent literature. And one of your books is going to be a textbook at Morgan State University in the fall.
Congratulations, that's black history.
That's black. We celebrate you, mak history. Keep it going, King. We got a lot of work to do.
Man, you're an amazing person, not just a author, not just a publisher, but you're a good person. Like you know how you just meet people and his spirit just matching mind. You know, I'm a spirit person. Like if your energy and your spirit is off, I don't care what you got. I don't want to do nothing with you. So when I met him, he was very humble, but he's still you can tell that he's a man. You don't see I'm saying, very humble individual, but he's a man.
He's honest, He looks you in your eyes. Anything that he said to me, he did. And that's all I ever asked for. So I salute you, and it's numb, but loved brother. We got a lot of work to do. Keep being great and we got a lot of work to do.
That's it. That's it. Thank you for joining t in my first time. But it won't be the life.
We're gonna work on Tamika's book soon.
We're gonna work but children, but we get that.
We're gonna get that children's But don't worry about We gonna this is. This is how we do it.
We're gonna come with the cover and everything and and we're just gonna fill it in.
You're gonna fill it and watch anybody good. Twenty pages, that's what.
We need on this tour.
Serious artwork that we come with. We're gonna we're gonna get this. Don't listen, let me do the management.
We just go ahead, got a shameless plug. My song is about to drop echoes in the streets. The Newark additions. Newark Editions catered to Newark, New Jersey and New York all the time, but we want to focus on and that's where he does a lot of his work.
Yes, yes, like my song loves Newark. I believe one day he may live there.
So I mean I love Newark because Newark loves me.
Shout out to Shout out to Key should shoutout to shout out to do it all dupre shout out to who else?
I don't want to miss nobody. Who else.
Ball Cook like, oh yeah, definitely family.
Shout out to coach T the music teacher over there, West, I hi, who we do the program together, so they have foret.
Shout out to feed.
Shout out to new Direction like all a, it's a real ecosystem of people there who really love what they do and it's not like fake. They just not give me a yes. So that's what I'm saying. So it's a real ecosystem and they've embraced me. You know, they gave me opportunities act weall Cook said, I said, I want to do this program, so I come in do whatever you want to do, you know what I'm saying. And the music teacher, coach T is like my brother in there. And and it's not just a music program.
What we do.
It's called from from Drill Music to Hell Music, in which we take the whole beats and the concept of drill music, but we transform it and there's no spinning. Ain't nobody got no ops, ain't nobody shooting nobody, But were creating real music of substance, and it's raw music, and it still has the elements of the reality of which they deal with, but we just not promoting any violence. So we're not engaging in violence. And not only do we do the music, but it's mentoring that goes along.
We sit down and we have whole twenty and thirty minute conversations and they tell us about why they made these music or why they felt like they had to talk about this, and what's going on in their real lives, and a lot of them don't have nobody that could actually have conversations with them, and they open up, and you be so surprised to see some of the toughest dudes open up telling you about their reality, tell them what happened to their parents, tell them how one of
their friends got killed and shot, and then you start tearing back the layers and you start you change, and you transforming these kids.
And that's all I want to do.
Like I want kids from our communities who don't feel like they have opportunities and they don't have people that listen to them, to actually have somebody that listens to them, that has.
Been through what they've been through, that has lost.
Friends and family to the streets, into the prisons, and lost them to the graveyard. And I want to be able to let them know that we actually care about them. So they've given me opportunities to do that in new work, and I love that city.
So that's that it is. Thank you for being here with us.
Good good day, Thank you for having me.
Peace, peace, King, Congratulations, brother man.
This is what I'm talking about. We're doing you know, it's it's slow.
We're moving slower than other people because we're choosing a route that doesn't include foolishness. And some people they're not doing foolishness, but they just for whatever reason, have a different I don't know what you call it. Like everybody's got their own blessing in their own time. Our The fact that we spend so much time being like front liners puts a little bit of distance between us and like the fast paced success, because.
I don't think I don't think we look for success in that way, right, Success for us is actually being able to transform, you know, the mind state of where we live at, the people that were around, to be able to actually get justice, like freedom and just those are the things that we look for in success.
So the rest of the things supposed to come along with her.
Somebody always told me, like, like when you work for accolades, they don't come.
You know what I'm saying.
You supposed to work for your heart. You were supposed to work from your heart and the accolades to come for you. So I think that's what it is for us. So you know, it's even though it's a slower route, it's more rewarding, it's more earned.
You know, you you you.
You feel it Like shout out to Rhapsody, I just remember that we never shout her out and she got her Grammy Wow. And it's like Rapper is such a dope rapper, right, and she's always been a dope rapper. But she took and she said in her speech that she didn't have to change. You know what I'm saying, like, she didn't have to sacrifice and compromise.
Who she was and what she believed.
That she just true to herself, to lyricism, to be honest to herself and the king.
And that's what we've done.
And despite what anybody can tell you, we can go to sleep at night knowing that we did is.
We did this.
We took, we took the stick around the back.
And that's it.
Man.
So shout out to Hedrick, Hedrick.
Hedrick, I know we did.
I'm just so used to say, I don't know. When I see h E, I'd be like he so.
But now Morgan is the textbook and come on, now, come on, now, come on, black history bla.
Black history making history. I'm really proud of you.
But that's why I say, because I know what you have sacrificed from the day that I met you, and I remember meeting someone so intelligent, so creative.
But very frustrated about just the whole world. And I'm may not have had all.
The pieces, but I did see in you something that I was like, Well, the movement needs this, like this person and this energy. The movement really truly needed you, and so it wasn't even me like I introduced you to Carmen Perez and that just like took off on its own, and you guys, you know, started going into prisons. And then you could tell each year you still were frustrated with a lot of things in this in a movement space. Obviously we making money in the movement. Still
today we haven't all the way figured that out. We're better than we were, but it's a tough process. But I would say that you, I would say that I began to watch the layers of the frustration kind of shedding as you began to have more accomplishments towards your goals and things that you wanted to do to find your people, find your tribe. As you've done that, more of that frustration of just being like, ain't nobody real.
Everybody just lied, they say they're gonna do this, they don't do it this, and people just full of shit.
Everybody's a sucker.
Then you started being like, Okay, I have found people that are not those things and people who I can build with, and so I think that's really good for you, mister McBride is one of those individuals who said he was gonna do something, He meant it, he stood by it. How many people have we met with and then they just all but he said he was gonna do something with you and he really did.
Yeah, he's been a man of his word in integrity. So shout out to him and shut out to you, like you said, for seeing whatever it was in me, because it was a lot that I was dealing with at that time, fresh home from prison and just trying to figure out, and.
You are really fashionate. I mean it was some years later.
No, it wasn't really that much years. It was years later, but it wasn't. It was because it's about five years, five years out of prison when you just ain't it's like, you know what I'm saying, you're trying to figure stuff out, You're trying to move around.
It was a lot.
It was a lot that I was dealing with. But I appreciate the opportunities.
And you did not disappoint.
That's that's always I always said. But just give me the opportunity. And I tell I tell that's what I tell the young kids all the time. Be prepared for the opportunity, right, people like y'all need this and that when you get the opportunity, you have to maximize on it. That's one thing that I've I pride myself on. When I got on FLEX and I finally got the opportunity, I maximized. When I got to the BT. I maximized when I got what's called.
The BT cipher. You are maximized.
Right when I was on the ten ten fifteen stage at the Millionaire, I'm maximized. Like I always said, when you get the opportunity, you have to make sure that you maximize it.
So I was gonna I'm laughing because there are two people on the internet who to me are like literally hilarious, but they are not joking. They serious as a doorknob, but they're hilarious. And that's Coach Stormy and.
Applies.
And so the other day Coach Stormy posted a video of Plies saying, don't call me with no problems. I don't care, I don't want to hear it. Don't call me complaining about why.
You can't do it.
You try, but you can't, but it ain't I don't know, he said, I know enough about problems as long as there is breath in my body. If you just wake me up, I'm gonna figure something out. Every single day, I'm gonna figure something out. And Coach Storm is over there, like this is what I'm talking about, because you know, they're both very intense individuals. But I can see from in her situation somebody that came from God knows. I mean, you know, her mom passed, watched when she was younger.
She's been through a lot. She came through poverty, through all the streets of Miami, the whole thing, to being a stripper and all of that, and now here she is not only making money. She's not she's not just making money, but she also has made millionaires.
And I know because I saw them. I was dead. I see them, and there are people I love.
You know, she she's done that, and so she don't really want to hear you with your storyline. The bus, but I was on my way. I was on my way. I'll try to get down there. But then the bus broke down. And then when I got off the bus, it was cold, it was raining. I had to stand under the ship. And then I tried, but I couldn't make it.
I couldn't. I couldn't download the software. I just don't nobody want.
To hear that, bloody don't want to hear it, especially not us. And that kind of brings me to my I don't get it because I don't get it kind of fits into that, right, because the reality of the situation is I've been sitting back right with this whole d diversity, equity and inclusion. God, we've been just dealing with I know you did, but I was just because I go on the internet, right, and there are these narratives that we have brought into as black people, right,
that nobody else has brought into. Right when we look at when we look at all of the institutions, the opportunities, the benefits, the resources, every other group of people benefits and capitalizes off of resources in America. Right, if we look at if you look at welfare, were not the people that get the most welfare.
We don't capitalize the most off welfare. Right. If you look at d.
We get criminalized for getting well.
But this is what I'm trying to tell you, Like we we we don't benefit the most off welfare. Right, White people get more welfare than anybody. Right, Jewish people capitalize off the systems where they housing and all of those things.
They capitalize off of that.
Right.
The Asians come here and they capitalize off resources they come in. The Dominicans, everybody comes.
Here and get they get they get funded, they get grants, everybody gets funded to do something, and nobody calls it a handout.
Black people who were brought here and chained and shackle who have did labor for free here, who for four hundred years were stripped of everything that they own.
We.
Right, but it's all us. But I just want us to understand we have we have.
Martin Luther King said that the best we are the only people have who have been who have been enslaved on American soil. We are the only people who have been stripped of our land, brought here with nothing and given absolutely nothing. But somehow they made us believe that they shouldn't give us nothing. And if we take something from this government that we pretty much built in America, that we built, that it's a handout, right like they
made it to They're telling you they made us. This is the craziest, it's the most craziest shit in the world.
They say, d I what you need something from them? For what do you mean they took our shit?
They literally took everything from us, and they're not even giving us one percent of the shit that they owe us. And you make it seem like we we there's something wrong with us forgetting the shit that they took, like it doesn't even make sense. Only black people your only black people. You see people pontificating there on the internet. We don't need nothing from nobody, but the rich people need something from someone. The people that own this land,
they getting all of the benefits. They getting the free shit, they getting the welfare, they getting the Social Security, they getting all of the stuff, they get the d I they figured the white women's figuring it. I'm gonna go and give me this d y'all. I'm gonna get this check. I'm gonna put this and make sure my son got it. And y'all want us to believe that every.
Time you get the E.
But what do you mean you're going, I'm gonna benefit of it?
Right because I understand, I understand that these programs exist. Right, I'm gonna go get like everybody else said, I'm gonna get the food stamps, I'm gonna get this and that, and they'll tell us. Oh man, you you want to hand out. You're looking for No, I'm not looking for a handout. I want to be able to benefit the same way everybody else's benefits because I'm gonna build my own ship. But they have benefits that we can get
because these rich people is getting the benefits. They getting free housing, they getting They telling their daughter and the wife, you don't need to go over there and get that free stuff over there.
They're telling them to get m w B.
Yeah, the white woman becomes her husband is the construction owner, but the white woman will put it in her name so that it can be under a minority women business.
They figured out how to beat the system. It's just like what Donald Trump said, y'all created the system. I ain't paying taxes because why should I. Y'all got the system there, y'all know the same way y'all get. Why do black people think that they're not supposed to figure out how to benefit off the system. Why do they make us believe that we shouldn't be able to capitalize off the shit that's there for us to capitalize.
Why do you make me think that.
If I tell a young boys growing up in the community, he worked hard. He went to school, he did this, and he studied, and now he wants to work at a job and they have a diversity, equity inclusion. He goes there, he's looking.
For a hand out.
He studied his whole life to go to that school. He studied his whole life to get that job. Everybody is not an entrepreneur. Everybody ain't gonna do the same shit. So trying to make people feel like they are not worthy or they're somehow weaker because they want to be able to get the resources that are afforded to them in America as black people. It's crazy to me. And
this is the reason why. This is the reason why we're still in the same reason, while we still only represent two percent of the wealth, everybody keep having we got we got so many people who talk about how we can do this, and we need to be doing this for own we you know, everybody else is figuring out They come in here and they getting the resources
and they getting three and four stores. Right, we ain't figuring out how to get the grants in our community because y'all made the people think it's a handout or I don't want that. Bottom line is there's a certain way that you can save your money. That's the bottom line. That's what I'm trying to tell you, because that's what they do. They figure out how to save their money.
They get they get housing, they get welfare, they get food stamps, and they make their money and they put their check in the draw and they stack it up until they're able to buy a house. Like people, this is what this is what everybody else is doing. We the only one that's not doing it.
I wouldn't say we don't do it. I think it's very and zero you know, zero sum or get absolutes we shouldn't do because I don't think that we don't do it.
I think for the most we have nothing.
But we could.
We can look at how to take the conscious like for instance, in these different places where you have anti violence groups and otherwise getting you know that can apply for contracts.
We need to do that.
We need to get the contracts to do the anti violence work or to open up youth services, food services and all of that, and not feel bad because we got a contract from the city, or even because we got food stamps or medicaid or whatever the case may be. But I do understand why the stigma has been attached to it, not just from us, It's not all just black people. There's a stigma that has been attached to these things in the world.
Woah.
But I'm trying to I hear what you're saying.
I don't believe that the stigma has been attached to it because everybody else is capitalized.
Well, I'm saying for black people, and it's not only us that.
And that's the problem. They put the stigma on it for us. They don't put the stigma on it for nobody else. There's nobody else there's stigmatized by that. So my thing is, I don't get it. And when we wake up and we figure out how do we benefit off this system that has benefited us for us for years, while we're still doing whatever else we need to be doing at the same time for centuries exactly, and while we're still building and calculating and then figuring out how we
build our own business. But we capitalize all of the things that's old to us, then we're gonna get a lot further. Until then, we're gonna keep having the same conversation that we've been having for the last one hundred years. I hear that and with that said, that brings us to the end of another episode. Shout out to Hendrick McBride and McBride's stories. Dope, brother man, keep doing what you're doing. Look, my book is now in the HBCU.
So very happy for you. Happy you deserve that to meet.
This book is out too, so make sure that you go get that. I live to tell the story. It is her memoir. It might bring a tears to us, because it's bringing tears to a lot of eyes, so make sure you get that. So make sure that you follow us at TMI Show PC on YouTube and tm my Underscore Show on Instagram.
Please follow us, keep us.
Being the number one podcast in the world, the number one podcast in the world.
We got this.
I'm not gonna always to me, it's not gonna always be wrong, but we will both always and I mean always, be authentic.
Salute.
That's how we own it.