'I Made Him Millions' — Then They Pushed Me To The Side — The D.O.C.

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Without going all the way through all the stories that you tell often, I still want to be able to get to kind of the meat of who you are so that some of these other questions towards the end, you know, with the things that you're doing now and the charity work and all that kind of stuff makes a lot more sense. Right. So I'm curious about one of the things. When you were weaned and your grandmother, I guess, who was initially raising you couldn't read, and you were reading for her. I mean, I love the story. I'd love you to tell about how that affected your writing ability as a lyricist and. And just how it affected you as a kid reading for her. [00:00:37] Speaker B: You know, when you're. When you're young, you. You really crave that. That affection from the. From your, you know, from the people that you love. Yeah, and my older cousins, we all, you know, all hanging around our grandmother. They didn't read too well, but I did. I was the younger. I was the youngest one. [00:01:04] Speaker A: And at what age? About. [00:01:07] Speaker B: I'm in the seventh grade maybe at that time, so 12. 12. And my cousins are all teenagers, have to be 16, 17. They're all driving cars, and we're all boys on that side, so they. They're street guys, and I'm not. So I'm in the house with my grandmother, you know, and she just loved the fact that I read so well. And, you know, when somebody. When you get that hit of dopamine, you just. You want more of it. And so I would read all the time. And one rap came. I just had a lot of words, phrases, you know, that, that. That I could just throw back. Back up. And anybody, when you're reading a book or anything, the. Whoever. Whoever wrote that piece that you're reading, no matter what it is, has a rhythm. And you can hear the rhythm in the writing if you're paying attention. Wow. [00:02:23] Speaker A: You know, never thought of it that way. [00:02:26] Speaker B: When you write, you write it a certain way. In your mind, you're thinking, it doesn't sound right with that word. I need to take that out. That's a rhythm you're creating. [00:02:37] Speaker A: I hear it. Yep, that's exactly right. You just need the right number of syllables so that it doesn't just expand your brain the wrong way. That's fascinating. I never even thought of it that way before. As much as I still write. I haven't thought about that before. [00:02:50] Speaker B: You know, we all have that. We all have that innate sort of ability to. To follow a pattern. And. And so when Rap came. It was easy for me to structure. [00:03:05] Speaker A: And you were still, you were weaned by several different people. You would say, right. You were, you were with your mother, [00:03:11] Speaker B: grandmother, father, grand grandmother, grandmother, father, sister, aunt. You know, from about 10 years old till about 16, I changed, change homes every year. [00:03:25] Speaker A: And that typically is a recipe for disaster as, as you know, you know, because you have kids that are either without a parent or any parent or going back and forth that typically. And they end up in the street or in gangs or whatever. What do you, what do you think kept you on the, on the path? [00:03:42] Speaker B: The arts? When my parents had their problems and went their separate ways, I was in the sixth grade, I found out that, that I could sing in the sixth grade. I found out I was pretty good at it. And so the teachers in the sixth grade, they, they petitioned my mother to, to send me to a US junior high school that developed the arts in a student. They thought I had something special. And you should send him to this school. And my mother did. I got busted this road. The little bus. [00:04:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:24] Speaker B: To this school called Griner Middle School in, in Oak Cliff. And it, and it specialized in choir and the kids went on acting and that kind of thing. And I, I went there and I got sort of into. Got the acting bug by dealing with those kids and went to competition and did well. And that dopamine kept hitting. You know, you, you meet new people that aren't as. Uptight about the differences. You know, at Griner it was all shades and colors, but everybody was into their art. [00:05:09] Speaker A: Everybody's kind of artsy. [00:05:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:05:11] Speaker A: A little more laid back kind of folks there. So you sang and at. You thought you were good, but apparently other people thought you were good too. What, what do you think inspired you to flip that role? And is this maybe at the point. I don't know how early you met Erica or not, but I remember you saying at one point that she was rapping and you were singing and ended up kind of flip flopping that. [00:05:37] Speaker B: No, we, we were both rapping at that time. [00:05:39] Speaker A: Okay. [00:05:40] Speaker B: Like, I didn't know she could sing. Okay. When I, when I met her as a kid, we was both, both rapping. Yeah. When I was singing, I didn't know her seventh grade, eighth grade. By the time high school came around and you start going to the little kids functions, little kids clubs around town, at skating rinks, on this side, on that side, that's where you start to meet kids from the other side of town. [00:06:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:09] Speaker B: And that's just about the time rap started coming around and everybody was a rapper, you know, and he was a rapper from West Dallas. So you was a rapper from South Dallas. So you was a rapper from Oak Cliff. And who was the best here? And it was the best. You know, there's a lot of that going on. But I was new and I thought I was pretty damn good, you know, and so as far as Eric is concerned, she was a rapper from South Dallas, I was a rapper from West Dallas. And we'd be at some of the same little teen clubs and battling against each other. [00:06:52] Speaker A: Just on the mic, like old school. [00:06:53] Speaker B: Just rap. Not even on the mic, just in a circle. [00:06:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:57] Speaker B: With a bunch of kids. [00:06:59] Speaker A: And so was that stuff written or was it freestyled? Or how would those things go back then? [00:07:06] Speaker B: Well, my, my thing was I would make people think it was a freestyle, but I had already planned it. You know, I was a. I'm a writer. [00:07:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:16] Speaker B: I don't like to. I like to win. And so, yeah, I'm a cheat. I'm a write all mine down. You're going to think it's because I'm going to know subtle things about that I could point to. It's acting. It's all acting, bro. [00:07:33] Speaker A: Is a lot of it that. Anyway, even today? Because you think after you've written just novels full of different sets of lyrics about different things, is that what a lot of people pull from or, or is it literally just a magic trick where you're just going completely off the top of your head? Or would. You know. [00:07:51] Speaker B: No, I, I, if I had to guess, I would say everybody's doing that. You know, some, some folks have a, have a unique skill that they could do that. Yeah. I would say not very many. Yeah. And it's not going to be as good as most of these people are when they say they're freestyling. I'm, I just think you wrote it and it. You had it in the back somewhere. Right. [00:08:16] Speaker A: And you. Yeah. And you don't have time to put the actual thought into it. So the lyrics are kind of meaningless. They all rhyme. And some of them are. It's to me as a novice, I'm a musician, but, you know, rapping is not something I'm necessarily good at, but I absolutely appreciate it. Just seems like it's a magic trick versus more of the art side of actually being a lyricist. Does that stand true to you or. [00:08:43] Speaker B: No, Whether you, no matter how you do it, to me, there's art to it. You know, some people are as anal as I am. About perfection. Yeah. [00:08:58] Speaker A: And so you started writing for breakdance stuff. [00:09:03] Speaker B: Is that. [00:09:03] Speaker A: Does that where it started, or were you. Were you doing the battle stuff kind of first? [00:09:08] Speaker B: No, it started me writing intro for a breakdance group called the Rockets, and they asked me to write the song. Write us an intro. We're going to enter this neighborhood contest, you know, talent show. Yeah. And if you write us an intro, we. We rap. We wrap our. We wrap ourselves out there, and we think we. You know, it'll make us stand out. So I wrote the rap. None of them can do it, so they say, you got to do it. And so. Okay, I'll do it. Okay. What's your name going to be? And one of the guys that break that. That was one of the dancers. He worked at a clinic, neighborhood clinic, and he had a doctor's coat on. And I put the doctor's coat on. It was too small a thing came to. You know, he was shorter than me, but I kept it and just called myself Doctor. And from that point on, that's who I was until I got to California and it morphed into Doc. You. Yeah. [00:10:25] Speaker A: And that. That kind of brings us to that point, too, where you were kind of getting yourself inserted into the scene a little bit. As that was growing and rap was becoming more of a. Of a mainstay around here, and everything kind of flowed. At least then everything flowed from LA this way. But you were establishing yourself, too, and had relationships and all this kind of stuff. And you were young, so how was it that you got enticed to go to la? And how did that feel like as a youngster? Because you were not very old when you just up and moved, do you think? Some of the. [00:11:01] Speaker B: I was 18. [00:11:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:03] Speaker B: And it was either that or the armed service. And I'm not a street guy. I'm not a fighter, per se. And I just didn't fancy the idea. [00:11:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:19] Speaker B: Having to go and do that war thing, it's just not in me. Who. [00:11:23] Speaker A: How did that choice come about? [00:11:25] Speaker B: My mother. [00:11:25] Speaker A: Your mother just said, it's this or this. [00:11:27] Speaker B: I tried. Yep. I dropped out of high school. She said, okay, well, if you're not doing that, you're gonna do that. My uncle went to the Marines, and he turned out to be a really good guy. And she wanted me to take after him. Yeah. And I love Monk Pleaser. He's a really good man. But I don't wanna go to the Marines. At least I didn't then. And I had met Dr. Dre maybe about six months before that. [00:11:56] Speaker A: How so? [00:11:58] Speaker B: Well, one of the guys that was in my group was. He was a DJ in LA before she came here to be a DJ on the radio. All right. And when his radio show got popular here, he started inviting a lot of those guys down to be, like, guests on his show. So when Eazy E's record blew up on the Underground, he invited all those guys down, and Dre heard me rapping, and the DJ invited us to do some work together down here. We did a couple songs, and Dre was like, man, you're incredible. If you were in California, we'd be rich. I guarantee it. I was like, oh. I told him no at first, you know, until I got that ultimatum. He left me with a card, and I used that card, and the rest is history. [00:12:53] Speaker A: The rest is history. So you ended up saying, all right, I'm going to just pack my bags and move. So that process is kind of overlooked a lot of times. Again, you're 18. You're like, I definitely don't want to do the military. I understand that. It's for some and not for you. So you just up and moved. Where did you. Where did you stay? How did you start making money? How did you get established? Were these guys already kind of making enough money to where you kind of integrate? [00:13:21] Speaker B: No, they. They were broke when I got there. In fact, Dre was living with his aunt. He said, I don't have a place to stay for you. You know, I said, don't worry about that. You know, I believed in myself, I believed in my skill set, and I believed in Dre. I knew something special about that guy. [00:13:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:43] Speaker B: And. But one of the guys that I knew from here says, I got. My brother lives in Compton. He's taking care of his brother, who is an invalid, so that government pays for the house, and, you know, he just stays there and takes care of. You could sleep on the couch. I was like, cool. Yeah. You know? And so I went there, and it took about maybe three or four days. We went to the studio, and. And that first day, we made a song called We Want Easy. That. That song, in about a week, Time was the number one song on radio in the state of California. And so I don't know how the money came, but it came right after that. And it gave Dre enough money to get his own place. And I moved in with Dre and slept on his floor, and we started making records. [00:14:43] Speaker A: It was the NWA outfit already set up by then, and they had everything spotted out. [00:14:49] Speaker B: All the guys were there, but they hadn't legally come together. The majority of the songs that we made were new songs, so they hadn't found themselves yet. Right. But. But they had already took the pictures of their group, you know, without you. I wasn't there yet. [00:15:14] Speaker A: Yeah, right. So, I mean, just sort of established themselves, but weren't a big deal yet. [00:15:19] Speaker B: Yeah. They hadn't found the key. The key came from Texas. [00:15:23] Speaker A: Damn right. [00:15:25] Speaker B: And. But when I got there, you know, it just. It really clicked. And in between Ice Cube, myself, and Ran, we were. We were. We sort of honed each other's skill sets in ways that made us all better during that time period. And Dre is who he is and was becoming who he would be becoming. So it was just a moment in time. Yeah. [00:15:54] Speaker A: And you. When you referenced the rap battles and stuff when you were coming up, you were saying they were relentless, right? They were. They were hardcore. They were. You really had to win. You know, everybody's doing whatever they can to win. How do you think that manifest in the. The way that. That your writing was integrated into the. Into the group? Do you think anybody was protective of their own kind of identity with some of the writing that. In other words, if. If you were contributing to. To writing Easy's lyrics, for instance, you think it was, you know, because you're still just kids, was it him being protective and trying not to allow someone to know that perhaps you wrote these lyrics? [00:16:40] Speaker B: I'm sure there was. I'm sure there was some of that. [00:16:44] Speaker A: Yeah, just a natural jealousy or something. [00:16:46] Speaker B: I don't know if it's jealousy. I think he's. He's just very astute in. In business and, you know, he was clear about money, where we were young artists trying to be great at art, or at least I was. Yeah. And. But the writers, we were all, you know, we were. We were in competition. Everybody wanted to be the one, you know, I just wanted to be the one worse than everybody else did. And we, you know, we went back and forth. Like I said, we, you know, we. We sharpened each other's swords, and through that process, we all got really good. [00:17:32] Speaker A: So who was the actual decision maker maker then? Because I know you've talked about times where you. You had a track and then a couple of guys would come up and. And spit, and then you'd figure out kind of who's worked the best. It wasn't. It wasn't like a morph of different lyrics. It was, you know, whoever's. [00:17:50] Speaker B: Yeah, whoever. Whoever wins. [00:17:52] Speaker A: So. So how do you know who wins or Was it that obvious? [00:17:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it's obvious. [00:17:56] Speaker A: Okay. [00:17:57] Speaker B: It's obvious when, when a verse comes out, that's the one and then. And usually it's. Everybody wins because the song is great. And when you're talking about three people rapping, Cube, myself and Ran, those verses all came from. And so I'm easy most of the time. And so now we're battling to see who's. Who's the best out of the three. So everybody wins because you're going to get the best you can get from everybody involved. [00:18:36] Speaker A: Everybody's trying to up their game just to be in the room and. And then you were. You co wrote a lot of the bigger hits that they had. And in part of your approach was different too. When you can you, can you elaborate a little bit on the, the gangster rap approach and then what you kind of brought to the table to make it a little more commercial. [00:18:58] Speaker B: Sure. When they first started making records, their claim to fame was that they were cursing and you would call these records blue because it was, it was not meant for commercial success. It was meant for. They just wanted to be the great, great. They wanted to be successful in their [00:19:21] Speaker A: neighborhood, kind of the underground. [00:19:23] Speaker B: Yeah, but in order to be commercially successful, you have to have the radio. You, you can't, you can't be a huge success without this, the system on some level. And so I knew my approach was that in order to make these records that could cross over. Yeah, they have to be entertaining. More entertaining than, than negative that you could. They could still be hard and not, not soft, you know, commercial pop records, but they still could be worded properly so that you didn't make people afraid of you. You know, you can make them laugh at you or laugh with you. You know. And that's what I did with Easy, you know, more, you know, easy. It was really easy. No, no pun intended. Because he was super short and he talked more noise than everybody else and he got all the girls. And so it made it easy to turn him into a caricature of that gangster image. You know, it's like going to, going to the, to the beach and there's always a guy drawing your picture. And then if you had a, you had an AK and he draws your picture, it'd be you with this over inflated gun and your head would be huge and no one would be offended by that picture because it would be funny. [00:21:03] Speaker A: Yeah, the caricature type. [00:21:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:21:06] Speaker A: And that's the. Was that your approach when you wrote his lyrics? [00:21:09] Speaker B: That was. [00:21:10] Speaker A: And how do you think you got left off so many of these things because even. I mean, you contributed to even, you know, the f. The police. And you were involved in that one too, right? I mean, so even some of the. The harder, you know, more popular in retrospect, how do you think that actually ended up happening? Because there wasn't necessarily a leader within the group. Necessarily. You say it was kind of a popular decision, which is most bands or whatever. But how'd that happen? [00:21:38] Speaker B: I'm from Texas, you know, and them boys is all from California. And they were already a set group, you know. And if I'm being honest, I used to talk a lot of cash money to those boys. I don't think they liked it very much, but. But I was. But it was true. So what could they say, you know? And so I just think that they had their. Their group, their set people that they. That. That they would let in. And this is our guy, and I was their guy. I just wasn't one of those guys, you know. And it bothered me, really, to be honest, which is where my name came from. That's where Doc actually came from. I felt like they were. I always felt like they were trying to ease me out of the frame. Like when we were making records, we're all together in this studio and we're happy, but when the records come out and they're taking pictures, they asked me to move to the side or, you know, when. When we want easy the video came. They wouldn't let me be in the video. It was so. It was tough from that perspective. So I put the. The. The periods in my name and made it an acronym because they had periods in their name. So I figured this is a way I could connect myself to this group so when people see me, they'll know that's me too, man. [00:23:14] Speaker A: It took a while for people to recognize this though, right? I mean, it. It seems like some of it is the immaturity again. It's kind of what I'm getting back to where, you know, they're kind of being protective also. Everybody's sort of fighting for themselves because you don' a proper manager at the time. You know, it's really telling you how the business goes. You got somebody else that's on the take. So it just. How did. Can you describe, like, how you would respond to somebody saying, hey, man, scoot out of the frame? That just seems like that would be the time would you would say, I need to figure out what the hell's going on here? [00:23:49] Speaker B: No, it was fuel. It was fuel. You Know, that's why my record was so good. [00:23:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it would. [00:23:56] Speaker B: It would. It would piss me off, you know, and I would be like, okay, you know, you think you got. Just wait a minute. Because in my mind, I was better than all of them. [00:24:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:08] Speaker B: And in a minute, I'm going to show you boys what it's really supposed to be like. [00:24:13] Speaker A: And the one thing they did was allow you to do that because you did some opening for them on the. On the road. [00:24:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:20] Speaker A: Tell me how. How that felt. And. And was it any kind of secondary happy place for you, knowing that you kind of been pushed out? But they're giving you a chance to perform and write. [00:24:34] Speaker B: This is when, you know, they. They first started beginning to gain some traction. And we would do shows along the Southwest and then toward the Midwest. They hadn't fully fledged yet, but they would give me seven minutes at the beginning of their set to get out there and just work my material, because I got tired of just watching them. I want to do something, too. And they said, well, don't nobody know you. You know, they're going to boo you and, you know, don't nobody want to see you. And so they let me at a skating ring in Arizona. I remember they were all outside, and I knew what was going to happen. You know, I knew when it. When that song came on, I knew the kids was going to lose it. And they did. And those guys were outside, and all they heard was later is just the boom of that basin, and the whole place erupted. And from then, they knew, you know, Dennis got serious. Yeah. Because I was pretty good as a performer. [00:25:50] Speaker A: And you. But you. Did you get help from Dre or somebody in terms of the tracks, how did you come up with the. The whole tune at that time? [00:25:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Drake did all. All the production. Dre and I put the show together. It was DAT tapes back then. [00:26:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:05] Speaker B: And so he put all the. Is three or four songs on a dad tape and do the whole song, you know, and the DJ controls it. Right. And I just get up there and do my little two or three songs and see what the crowd and. And to be. To be honest, sometimes the crowd didn't want me up there. They would be like, who is this guy? You know, we came to see them. Where are they? And by that time, I was drinking, so I'd cuss them out, whoever they were. But, you know, it was. I was sharpening my skill set. [00:26:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:43] Speaker B: So for. When the moment came that it wasn't there to her, it was mine. Yeah. [00:26:50] Speaker A: And how did that end up then morphing into your first record? Then? How'd you. [00:26:55] Speaker B: No, we were the. While we were. The songs I was doing was. Would be eventually be my record. Right. I was testing the songs out. Right. If you will. And so I knew which songs people really loved and. But. But I only did 13 songs and 12 and all. And only one didn't make it to the album. It was a little too blue. It was more of their kind of music than it was mine. Yeah. And the. The. The record label, Atlantic was like, we don't like that one. You know, And I see why. You know, I was a clean cut guy. Great verbiage. Good look, you know, they didn't want to damage the property with that stuff. [00:27:44] Speaker A: Yeah. And it sets yourself apart too. And did that make you any money since? Do you got. You signed to that Atlantic deal on your own? [00:27:55] Speaker B: No, Easy. I was Eazy's artist. Easy got the deal. Okay. And then Easy paid me to sign to him. Okay. [00:28:05] Speaker A: And did that. Was it anything remarkable? It was kind of the first money you got, but it was still kind of unremarkable. [00:28:12] Speaker B: $25,000 I took. I probably made the dude at least a couple million by that time. But you don't know. You're a kid, you know, I'm 20 years old by that time. [00:28:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:27] Speaker B: And happy to be there, bro. Happy to be on the road experiencing these things and coming from Dallas, Texas, because that wave hadn't even hit Dallas yet. And I'm out there doing it, you know, it hadn't even come to Dallas yet. [00:28:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember you talking about a time where you brought some of your tunage back to Dallas and let your. Let your friends listen to it. They didn't get it. [00:28:54] Speaker B: They didn't get it. It's like. I mean, it's cool, you know, but. But listen to our stuff and I understand, you know, it ain't for everybody to understand, but those guys never made it, by the way, and they weren't really that good, you know, if I'm being honest. [00:29:16] Speaker A: Well, plus, it was new. I mean, you're bringing something new and not everybody's going to get the new. That's the whole point of it. Because you're kind of taking it in a different direction. [00:29:24] Speaker B: Right. [00:29:25] Speaker A: Especially your stuff. When you're taken off of what is really the new thing and you're spinning it yourself, your own kind of spin on it. [00:29:33] Speaker B: I think those kids in. In Dallas at that time was just into themselves trying to figure out who they. They're going to be. They, they, they didn't know that if they got behind me, I could make a way for, for all of us. [00:29:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:49] Speaker B: You know, but when they, when they were discouraging, even though the NWA situation wasn't the best, it was closer to where the action was. And so when I, when I came home, if, if, if this community would have wrapped its arms around me, I probably wouldn't have went back out there, [00:30:13] Speaker A: you know, it would have been a different trajectory. [00:30:16] Speaker B: But everything happens for a reason, right? [00:30:18] Speaker A: Not necessarily better, just different. [00:30:19] Speaker B: That's right. [00:30:21] Speaker A: So how did, how did the Death Row situation fit into that time period? How did you start getting involved there and ended up getting left out of that too, ultimately? Right. [00:30:31] Speaker B: Well, Suge and I became really good friends during that Death, during that Ruthless period. And Suge was very vocal about me being the reason why things are really starting to take off. And he was the first one to point out that those guys are taking advantage of you. What, 25 grand? That's all you got, bro. You did this and you owe this and you this. And we began to talk about building a separate label of our own with a guy named DJ Quick and a couple of other acts. We were going to do our own sort of Ruthless over a year, and we began to work together with a guy from Beverly Hills with. Who would put the money up. And we had offices in Beverly Hills and it was a huge deal. And I felt like I was on top of the world. And, you know, that. That lasted for about two, three months. My album is getting ready to come out and they're planning a tour for me, and so I'm on top of the world. Yeah. And then a couple months later, that accident happens and it's. It just took my, my wind out, [00:31:53] Speaker A: you know, so that was that your accident, which we'll go into here. But that coincides a lot with the launch of Death Row. And it's kind of how that whole separation happened, which I'm curious about too, if you'll walk us through the accident, which I know you've done a million times, but I appreciate it because we got new people to talk to here. [00:32:11] Speaker B: Sure. [00:32:12] Speaker A: And then, and then how that actually separated you from some of these things almost solidified the fact that you're not going to be able to get some of that return on, on your effort. [00:32:25] Speaker B: Well, like I said, I was just about to go on, on tour. I started shooting two videos over the course of one weekend because I was leaving the next week and Young and dumb, you know, I'm partying on set, I'm drinking and falling asleep, and somebody offered me something that they thought could help me stay up, and I accepted that. And over the next 24 hours, while I'm shooting this stuff, I'm just way up in the air. By the time it's all over and I'm going home, it's about 4 o' clock in the morning and I fall asleep in the car and, you know, have the accident. When I woke up, my voice was gone. Still happy to be here after everybody told me what had happened. But as time went by over the following weeks and my voice didn't get any better. It didn't feel like it was coming back. It was just difficult. And over the following months, it didn't get any better. And, you know, it started needing alcohol to. To feel like getting up in the morning. And, you know, it was a hard time. But what Suge and I had began to build was still on the pot, right? And so I gave. I gave it my best shot, but I just didn't have the win. I didn't have, you know, what it took. And so I complained to Suge, I'm not going to be able to do this. I'm going to need some help. I need. I need Dre to help me out [00:34:23] Speaker A: and help you out in what way? Financially? [00:34:26] Speaker B: No, I need his help creatively. [00:34:29] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:34:30] Speaker B: I can't do this by myself because I can't do it physically. I can't do it anymore. I need somebody that I. That I, you know. And so Sugar and I developed a plan where we would introduce Dre to the things that I had seen. Look at what these people did. I'd gotten a hold of my contracts and saw all the misappropriation. I said, show it to Dre. Look what they did to me. If they did it to me, they did it to Cube. They might have did it to you. That made him curious. And he started asking questions about his situation. He couldn't get the answers he was looking for. And so he decided that he would join Suge and I and building our own situation. And that was the beginning of Death Row. [00:35:25] Speaker A: And you had already. And how was Snoop involved by then? [00:35:29] Speaker B: It wasn't there yet. [00:35:30] Speaker A: Not yet. So that's. That's how that started. You essentially brought to their attention, like this is. Or Suge did to you, and then you to Dre and the. And the rest. And then you just. Notably, the injury that you lost, your voice was from an intubation during the accident period. And then Scar tissue that was there that a doctor decided to remove early at your. At your behest. But you're not a doctor, right? [00:36:00] Speaker B: Well, they told me if. If you. Because I. I wanted to know, when is this thing going to get better? And they said, well, if you remove scar tissue, it will help expedite the healing process. And I'm like, let's get it. You know, whatever it's going to take to hurry this thing up. What I found out later was that when once they did that, there was no. No shot that it was ever going to come back. [00:36:28] Speaker A: Were you alone in the car? [00:36:32] Speaker B: Thank God. [00:36:33] Speaker A: How did Snoop ended up coming into the picture? And how active were you then? Because you were kind of. As much as you were getting Dre into the situation, you were also kind of backing out because you were kind of losing your confidence. And then this doctor told you, if you get rid of the scar tissue, this will help heal it, and in turn ended up damaging it permanently. And that's what essentially set you up. [00:36:57] Speaker B: That was all of that. The scar tissue operation happened. Still wasn't getting better. Well, I'm still making music within wa. At the time, we still. We made the For Life album during that period, so I still have work to do. I could still write. And even though I couldn't say it to you, I developed a. A way for Dre to read the cadence using. When I was little. When I was a little kid, there was cartoons that came on in the morning before school, merry melodies, and. And it would have these sort of almost like operatic sort of songs throughout the cartoon. And it was a little bouncing white ball that would bounce over the word in rhythm. And I remembered that, and so I started putting those balls over the. The corresponding rhythm of the word so that Drake could read the cadence and. And I didn't have to tell it to him. [00:38:28] Speaker A: I understand kind of where the emphasis was supposed to be in the different lines and all. [00:38:32] Speaker B: And if you stay true to that pocket, then it would put itself where it's supposed to be. [00:38:38] Speaker A: So were you able to even articulate much at all? I mean, you can completely understand what you're saying now. Back then, was it worse and more difficult for you to only had a [00:38:47] Speaker B: whisper at this point? [00:38:48] Speaker A: Okay, so any kind of literally impossible to. To even do it once for somebody to hear. And that's fascinating. So you created your own way to actually. Your own rap nomenclature. [00:39:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I still use it to this day. It's a. Because I write a lot of. Lot of songs. And so to. To be Able to remember how they go. You just make sure you. [00:39:13] Speaker A: Man, I would love to see one of those. That's fascinating. You have anything that you could show my phone? [00:39:19] Speaker B: The zeros is the one beat 1-0-234.0234. So if the. If. If the word comes after the two or on the two, you know that. That, that particular word drags right after that second beat, or if it's right on the beat, then, you know, you put that word right on the beat and all the rest of the words have fallen place. [00:39:47] Speaker A: That's fascinating. I love it. That's how so innovative, too, that you can actually teach that to somebody too. Where Dre understood it. [00:39:56] Speaker B: I mean, it's easy. It's easy once you got it, if you can read it. Yeah. You know, I was smoking weed and saw that cartoon and figured it out. [00:40:10] Speaker A: The perfect combination of the time. [00:40:11] Speaker B: Yeah, man. [00:40:12] Speaker A: Oh, that's awesome. So how. What happened to you from then? Because again, there was a separation, an ultimate separation from the. The music industry out there at some point because of this injury and how you responded to it. So talk about, you know, maybe how you ended up because you. You still did a lot of work with Snoop and. And influenced him tremendously, teaching him how to write. I don't know if you used that number system with him or not, but I'd be curious about that. And then how you ended up ultimately separating after figuring out, you know, that you were kind of getting left behind. [00:40:50] Speaker B: Yeah. While we made the. The NWA's follow up album, I learned that. That skill set and. And it was clear to me that my only superpower, the only way that I could stay close to making the music was to do it for somebody else. And so when Sh and I brought Dre over, we decided we would do our own thing. I had to talk Dre into doing Suno album. He didn't think he could do it. I knew he could do it. He may not be, you know, your classic solo artist in the terms and with respect to being that commanding solo talent on stage with all the personality, everything he needed to get it across. And I told him, I'm gonna write these songs for you. They're gonna be great. So. But he didn't believe. He believed enough to start working. And we were doing good work. It was great songs. But one of his friends was getting married through the guy Bachelor Party. And in that bachelor party, Dre's little brother, his name is Warren G. Warren G played a demo tape of a group that he's in called 213. 213 consisted of one G. Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg. And when. When he played that song, everybody in that party loved it. And Dre was like, who is that? And it was Snoop. And Dre asked, why don't you please bring him to the studio, you know, next week. Snoop came to the studio, Dre put up a beat, Snoop freestyled, and that was it. You know, Dre was like, this is our guy. And when Dre said, this is our guy, then I took. Took it upon myself to. To give Snoop the benefit of the knowledge I had where. Where song structure is concerned or ideas about how to connect with people. And Snoop was a great student. He. He was really open to learn this stuff from me, and we made a great team, you know, helps to not [00:43:20] Speaker A: have an ego in the way. [00:43:21] Speaker B: Snoop is just a great kid. He was a great kid. He was a humble kid. Still is. And between all of those kids, the Nates and Jewel and Rage and Corrupt and Daz, and we had a really great nucleus to make great music, you know, and we did. And. [00:43:45] Speaker A: And they obviously appreciated your tutoring and. And. And help in that way, too. And how did the separation ultimately happen? How long did you stay down there and try to keep doing your thing? [00:44:00] Speaker B: Well, at first, it was. It was all good, because in my mind, this record label belongs to Dre and me. The. The early paperwork said that Dre and I owned the label 35% each, and Suge and another guy named Griffey owned that other 30%, respectively. [00:44:25] Speaker A: Okay. [00:44:26] Speaker B: And, you know, we went to making the records at. And after a while, things started change, and the atmosphere starts to get dark and more. That street element, that prison element started coming around, and it just got uncomfortable. And the next thing I know, Dre and Suge are at Interscope, and they're doing this deal, and I'm not a part of the business anymore. Dre's advice was, go get a lawyer, you know, and it's great advice, or it could have been deadly advice, you know, and so I weighed those options and thought it's probably best for me to figure out another way to make this thing work. You know, I want to ride it out for a while. I know that this is going to be successful. Maybe there'll come a time when they've got enough and we can start, you know? [00:45:34] Speaker A: And that's been the pattern your whole life to that point, too. You almost don't know any different. You constantly getting pushed over. Was it Shug, I guess, that initiated that whole thing? Because it seems like you and Dre. And Dre didn't have the type of personality. Doesn't seem like. Versus a show. [00:45:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:51] Speaker A: To kind of initiate. [00:45:53] Speaker B: To knowingly just screw you over. But. But he's not going to stand in the way of somebody else screwing you over, obviously. Yeah. And so I'm sure you again, you know, went and did all the business that he had to do, and he had made that situation really uncomfortable to think about trying to fight somebody, you know, because in my. From my perspective, I was out there by myself. [00:46:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:31] Speaker B: And if Dre. If you're not gonna get back to. Back with me, then. Then I can't. [00:46:37] Speaker A: You feel alone. [00:46:38] Speaker B: Beat the whole. Yeah. Blood gang up by myself, you know. Right. And so I let it ride until it got to the point where I saw it's never going to stop. You know, they're never going to have enough to let me get my little piece. Yeah. And so it's probably best for me to move on. [00:46:57] Speaker A: So how much of the. The Suge craziness was true? Was he. I mean, obviously, he's a. [00:47:03] Speaker B: Probably all of it. [00:47:04] Speaker A: Probably. [00:47:05] Speaker B: I wouldn't. I wouldn't doubt if every single bit of it was the truth. [00:47:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:10] Speaker B: Suge was a. He was a bit of a bully, but just a big kid, man. [00:47:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:18] Speaker B: Like. Like what happens when. What happened when you kiss a kid that. That wants all this power when you just give it to him and he fought show business. Show business will screw anybody over. It will. When you start living through that character that you create, when you start really being that person. [00:47:44] Speaker A: And everybody buys in because of the character and you do, you know, and [00:47:50] Speaker B: probably a lot of these young rappers today, they bought into the character that they created, whether it's in the streets or on those records. When you get away from the fact that you're just a man, no matter who you are, you bleed the same. You don't get to walk through bullets. You don't get to walk through this world without any pain. And when you cause pain, you're gonna find it's karma as a. Excuse my language. [00:48:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:21] Speaker B: And she is served cold. And, you know, I've always been a. A good guy, and I'm not going to change that aspect about myself and nobody. [00:48:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, you being here says a lot. I mean, you. Like I said, you. You would earn the. The badge of being somebody that could be an untouchable type of a. A superstar kind of a guy, but you're very personable and. And honorable, willing to talk to people and, you know, make it a human experience. I really appreciate that, brother. How long did it take once you split, to start doing your own music again? [00:49:02] Speaker B: Oh, I, I. When I left, I took beats with me. You know, I was a beat thief because I had made a song that everybody thought was really good. That song ended up on my Helter Skelter album, and I took that name, too, you know. Yeah, I was mad. Yeah. Dre and Ice Cube were going to do a record called Skelter, and they were trying to get me to write all of these songs about anarchy, you know, and really about where we are now in. In this day and age. And I started writing those songs 20 years ago. Yeah. And people were flipping out, man. This stuff is crazy. And I thought that they'd let me get on one. I don't like your voice. I don't want you on anything. So I took. Took my songs and left, you know, and there was a company. Get the name, that company. They gave me half a million bucks to make an album, to make that album, Elton Skelter. So when I left that situation, I left with songs and an opportunity to go, you know, make. Make it myself. [00:50:18] Speaker A: Finally getting a little nut out of something. [00:50:20] Speaker B: Unfortunately, the alcoholism and subsequent drug abuse followed me where I went, and I was just not in shape to. You know, the music may have been cool, but I, as a human being, wasn't in a place where I could do myself any good. Is. [00:50:42] Speaker A: Is part of that. Obviously, it was born of your circumstance, but as was part of that also just the grudges that you. That you had. I know you claim to not hold grudges, but there was kind of an epiphany that happened to you, so there was righteously several years that you carried those grudges with you. [00:51:02] Speaker B: I think the only person that I was really ever. No, man, you probably right. I was probably mad at a lot of people, you know, myself mostly, but I probably held some. Some tucked away. [00:51:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's. Yeah, that's human, too. I mean, sure, you know, you get older and you start figuring out what it means in the grand scheme, and then. [00:51:32] Speaker B: But by the time I started figuring that stuff out, easy was gone. Right. So it's hard to. To hold that grudge. But. But I was upset with him. Yeah, for a while, and I was upset with Dre for a while, and, you know, but. But. But it never stopped for me, you know, Like, I've never not had money. It wasn't. It wasn't mine, but I always had a Pocket full of it, you know, And I just. What I didn't have was the heart of that kid that went to California. I mean, that young kid who knew who he was and knew his worth and knew he was this. That part had left when that. When that accident came. Yeah. And it took a long time for it to come back. What. You know, and Andre and I, we went back and forth for many years. He'd call, hey, man, I miss you. Come make some music with me. I'm sure, you know, go back. And he'd put a bunch of money in my pocket, and I'd hang out for a while, and some of that old animosity would come up, and I'd say something, and then he'd say something, and we're fighting again and separate for another two, three years. When he called me about making the 2001 record, I was wide open to was the way that everybody was gonna get back together. And it was a cool deal. We were all getting back together after we had all separated, you know, this is after the. The whole Tupac came and everybody passed away, you know. Yeah. And I went out there and did music with this guy. And by the time we got to celebrate that, I began to spend time around Erica. Well, actually, right before that, I had to spending time around Erica. And during that tour, I got close to this program called the Hip Hop Summit. Brought the Hip Hop Summit to Dallas. And Erica showed up. She spoke. She had turned into this really beautiful woman. And we hung out and we talked about all that old stuff and battle rapping, and we became close. And she connected me. She began to connect me back to that guy, that young guy who knew who he was and blah, blah, blah. And then she gave me this beautiful little girl. And for me, you know, life was great. I was good. We had done our thing out there, and then Dre called me about five years later, started talking about making music. I went back. Erica had cleaned me up. No more drinking, no more drugs. I'm a vegan now, and yada, yada, yada, awesome. But went back out there to make records with. With this guy, and she didn't want. She didn't want it. She knew what was going to happen and what she thought was going to happen happened. [00:55:21] Speaker A: Relapse type. [00:55:24] Speaker B: Went right back to the hole. And, you know, it didn't end well again, but. But I was looking for the end of the story, I think, more so than anything else. Like, how was. When I think of myself as a character in this play, how does that story End. You know, that's what I think. I was chasing and almost picking up [00:55:49] Speaker A: from where you left off in la too. Right. When you're just in that environment, kind of changes your perspective on what you're doing. [00:55:57] Speaker B: But it didn't work out. Had to come back home and lost that other relationship. And, you know, things got horrible. I was still on the bottle, and then I'm getting. Ended up getting locked up for 13 months behind the bottle for. [00:56:22] Speaker A: You mind specifying or drinking and driving? [00:56:25] Speaker B: Yeah. They catch you drinking and driving. They don't like that in Texas. [00:56:31] Speaker A: They don't do that your first time out. You got 13 months. [00:56:34] Speaker B: Are you kidding? Okay. [00:56:36] Speaker A: Trust that. I've heard some lenient stories too, but no. [00:56:39] Speaker B: And so this time they said, we're going to give you something, some time to think about it. [00:56:45] Speaker A: Okay. [00:56:46] Speaker B: And after that, I got it. [00:56:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:49] Speaker B: You know, this. You know, this is something I think I don't want to do. Yeah. [00:56:52] Speaker A: That's not in your character. So that makes sense that that was actually rehabilitated for someone like you. [00:56:57] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And so I went and sat down. When I got out, I said, I'm going to do something different. Tried to go back to the music. It didn't work. But after a while, folks started chasing me about, AI, you should do. You should try that. You know, I tried everything else. I was just tired of it. But it made me curious, you know. Now I went and saw a doctor in 2010 about this throat. He said, there's nothing anybody could do, Doc. It's. That's. That's what it is, you know? And so I was. This is where I was. That same doctor called me 2019. He says, Things have changed. We've gained some insight. I think I know where I could help you. They had been chasing me about doing a documentary. I didn't want to do a documentary because the story didn't ever happen any. Nobody wants to see a story without a happy ending, bro. Nobody wants to see that. Like. But I thought, if this dude is going to give me my voice back, there's your happy ending. [00:58:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:24] Speaker B: I'm going to document this whole thing. Sure. With a. I'm going to go follow through with this. What this doctor is talking about. [00:58:32] Speaker A: It's a stem cell thing or something back then, or. [00:58:35] Speaker B: No. You want to do a surgery. [00:58:36] Speaker A: Okay. [00:58:41] Speaker B: To take out cartilage and replace what was missing. Okay. And so I said, this is. This is a great end. You know, I'm gonna let them see me get my voice back. And that's going to be the end of the movie. And so I call people this right before COVID now my brother calling my brother. He's not my blood brother. I grew up with him. Okay. We grew up in. In the house next door to each other from 8 years old. In fact, the first time I took a drink of liquor, it was. It was out of his dad's stash. Stash. And we got drunk that night. Yeah. Got in trouble the next day and the whole shot. But this guy, when I first started rapping, we. It was in his house tearing up his mother's record player. You know, got in trouble for that too. But when I left to go to California, He took to the streets. He's a different animal than me. Yeah, I'm a good natured guy. He is the opposite. And even though he's small and thin, small framed, he don't have no conscience, you know me. And so [01:00:21] Speaker A: he's tenacious. [01:00:24] Speaker B: It's best not. It's best to leave him alone because he's not gonna fight, right? He's gonna go straight to the. To the chase, right? [01:00:31] Speaker A: You know, look down the chopper. [01:00:34] Speaker B: That's it. [01:00:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:35] Speaker B: And so he went to the streets and made him a couple million bucks and then caught him 15 years behind it. But inside that space, this is. Over the. Over the 10, 15 years, I'm flailing, you know, out there in the world. Yeah, he's stuck behind those walls. But he. But he read the Bible every single day. And he found God in a way that changed his life. And 2019, right around the time the doctor called, he starts chasing me around. I had a dream. God gave me a vision. He's got something for you. And it's big. It's so big, you. But in order for you to get it, you're gonna have to read this book with me. He wanted me to do Bible study with him, okay. And he chased me around for two months with that story, man. I didn't feel like doing it, but he's my brother, I love him. I could see how serious he was. So I said, okay, you know, and I read the book with him. We went through Romans first. He says, I don't know why God wanted me to do this, but we're going to go through my Bible study backwards. We go through Romans and we go through the book of Job. Then I have to read the first five books and then we come back to the book of Acts and then we just jump around, right? But reading that book with him unlocked it for me. In a way that it hadn't been before. Yeah. Drew me closer to the understanding of what this journey was about. Of what maybe the reason was for what I had gone through. I remembered that when my mother made that ultimatum, I kneeled next to my. I was living with my sister then I kneeled next to her couch. That night when everybody was sleeping, I prayed. I said, God, I don't want to go to them. Said this is what I want to do and if you will allow me to have this, I promise you that when I get there, I going tell everybody it was you. It wasn't me. Now I hadn't get a. I didn't get a chance to get there to, to, to make that declaration for people. And so I thought for my. For a long time I thought that because I didn't do it in a timely manner, that's why God was displeased and took my voice from me. In fact, if you. The first album cover, no one could do it better. [01:03:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:30] Speaker B: Is me standing in front of statue of Jesus. That was me preparing my ministry, if you will. Really? [01:03:39] Speaker A: That was a conscious decision back then too. [01:03:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:41] Speaker A: Even though you hadn't really unlocked it yet, you still remembered the promise. [01:03:45] Speaker B: That's right. I knew that when I saw that statue, I was going to take a picture in front of that statue for my album cover because this is going to be the way I get in. But the kids the globe read the King of kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus is standing on the globe. But when I took the picture, the kids thought I was referring to myself. And I told you show business will get the best of you. Maybe sooner or later I start to think maybe I am the king of kings. Then the accident happens and you just throw it off. But what I learned through the ministry of my brother who's a 15 year felon, was I was still living in that prayer. That. That moment for me to make that declaration hadn't happened yet, you know, and that this doctor. So doctor thing could be a part of that whole thing. And so 2020, I started making this documentary documenting everything went through it. When I found out that what the doctor wanted to do was cut my temple open and remove cartilage and use that cartilage to repair the vocal cord. It took the wind out of me. Some folks were saying that docu, you're gonna think about it if you don't do it. Some people's like, you should do it. And. And some people's like, doc, don't do that. You know, and the doctor gave me all the. The. All this is in the movie, by the way. You're gonna love the movie, man. [01:05:25] Speaker A: I've been dying to find. I've only found little pieces, but. [01:05:28] Speaker B: Oh, you gotta love it. I know, but the doctor gave me all the numbers, you know, and not gonna tell you what I chose to do because it'll spoil the end of the movie for you. But obviously I didn't let him cut my. My head open. Right. But the movie was a great movie. I thought that. Still, the movie ends well because how it ended, it was. And the school thing is, I ended up changing my perspective and. Yeah. You know, and so doing the school became my. My passion. And. For the most part, I. I had resigned myself to. This is what, you know, I'm supposed to do this. This is where I'm supposed to be going. That's what I'm supposed to be doing. But then the AI thing came back and people really start pressuring me, and I saw somebody else do it, and I thought, man, you know, maybe. And so we really strongly considered opening up the film. I'm giving away too much. So I got my happy ending. I got my movie. [01:06:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:56] Speaker B: It took four years, three years to get the deal. But that I understand today that all that was faith, all that was perseverance and belief and the promise, you know. [01:07:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:11] Speaker B: And now whenever I go anywhere and stand up in front of people and start talking, the first thing I say is that it was all him who wasn't me. Start off with that. So nobody, you know, and people know that it's real. Right. You know, they can feel it. They sense that when I talk about this school or the things that I want to do, or they know it's real. And these. [01:07:35] Speaker A: These things that you're talking about are your testimony and you own such extraordinary experiences that that testimony is what makes it unique anyway. I mean, the ending is. I mean, the ending hasn't been written still. [01:07:48] Speaker B: That's right. [01:07:49] Speaker A: The end of the movie might be there, but you still don't have the end. [01:07:52] Speaker B: Right, brother? That's right. I just. It's the ending of that chapter. [01:07:57] Speaker A: Yes. [01:07:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Because we're in a new chapter now. Yep. And this new chapter is all about new beginnings, you know, And I liken that to where we are as a society right now. I think we're closing a chapter around here. But that only means we're about to start a new one. Right. You know, and it's going to be roses and blue bonnets for everybody. That's What? [01:08:22] Speaker A: I think not a blue record. Blue Bonnets. [01:08:25] Speaker B: That's right. [01:08:26] Speaker A: That's beautiful. And I love that you're seeing that forward, too, because I can see the trajectory of just battling to get back to where you were. Even the hyper focus on the voice when you can function with it. Okay. And that might just be it. And as soon as you just say that might not be it, and you let go of it, other things, other doors can open because you're not just hyper focus on something that you think is the end. [01:08:50] Speaker B: That's right, brother. [01:08:51] Speaker A: Yeah. I love it. That's a beautiful story, man. [01:08:53] Speaker B: Thank you, bro. [01:08:54] Speaker A: And you said it took along the same lines of those. Of those stories. It took that long for you to kind of let go of those grudges and stuff as well. What actually made you refocus on kids in general? I mean, I have the same affinity. I have, you know, a book. I donate all profits and same type of thing. I mean, you can stop cycles of violence. You can do. I mean, the. Your power in this position that you have is immense, and I admire you greatly for taking that route. I'm just curious. Based on all the things we've discussed, none of it really had a tie in. Is there a moment where you just realized, man, this is. This is really, you know, part of my. My life's mission in the movie. Okay. [01:09:37] Speaker B: It happened in the movie. I didn't know I was going to be doing it. Yeah. Until I saw myself doing it, and other people saw me doing it, and they went, wow, I really admire you for doing that. That dopamine hit came again. [01:09:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:52] Speaker B: And then I started doing it purposefully. And purpose breeds passion. Passion breeds success, you know? And now building for these kids is like songwriting for me. I want to win. Yeah. And I'm unceremonious about how I win. I mean, I don't care. I just want to win. [01:10:20] Speaker A: That hadn't changed. [01:10:21] Speaker B: That's right. I found it difficult to beg for my own money, but I don't have any problem begging for this. Yeah. Tap dancing, whatever. Got to do. Mow some lawns, bar mitzvahs. It don't matter to me. I'll get it done to serve them, you know? And one of the lines at the end of the film is, I don't want to be the greatest of all time. I don't want to be a goat. I want to be a servant, you know, because that's what I was meant to be. In fact, that's what we were all. [01:10:54] Speaker A: We. [01:10:54] Speaker B: We all were. Meant to be servant of our fellow man in a moment and realize that we're all one human. You know, we're all one race. The human race and the powers that be have been working so hard to define us and redefine us and classify us and reclassify us and. And it really only boils down to some people have a whole lot and some people ain't got nothing. And those people with a whole lot don't need all that. Yeah. And those people that don't have nothing need more. Yeah. [01:11:34] Speaker A: That's beautiful. And especially the kids that are born of the people who have less. All that does is perpetuate a problem that already exists. And then they turn to stuff like the streets, like somebody. You're like your brother. [01:11:45] Speaker B: And those kids are. One of my gifts that I get to give these kids is that you don't have to chase money. You are money. The system doesn't work without you. It's not the other way around, you know, and there are opportunities that these kids will never get if I don't help facilitate them. The job, all the jobs of tomorrow are technology based. [01:12:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:14] Speaker B: You know, the majority of them, but those lessons don't go to my kids. But because of the position that I'm in, the access that I have, I can get those lessons to those kids in a major way. [01:12:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So that was my other question is how you. And I've had the. I've had, you know, a worse thing because I liked helping kids in the poor community and I had more experience in black community too. But then you take an old white nerd to come in and try to preach to these people. It's different. It lands different, is passionate and, you know, and fervently as I can speak, it lands different. [01:12:50] Speaker B: Sure. [01:12:51] Speaker A: So how do you find. Obviously you're not young anymore, but you still maybe have something in common, but not necessarily either. How do you find yourself communicating? The best way to where they are actually taking what, what you have to offer. [01:13:06] Speaker B: It's, it's. We share that common sort of hurdle. But I'll tell you what. What? No matter who you are, what works. Just keep showing up. [01:13:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:19] Speaker B: Just keep showing up. After a while that, that, that shell breaks, you get a smile and then you get to talking, you know, and just show up, man. Because they don't trust you. [01:13:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:32] Speaker B: They don't believe you. Me too. Yeah, they don't trust me. They don't believe me either. [01:13:37] Speaker A: Yeah. That's why I asked. I mean, because there's keep showing up [01:13:40] Speaker B: Every week, if I keep making stupid jokes, one day one of those jokes land and then they start telling me stupid jokes, you know, And I got two young boys, and I always thought that if I do this, if I take. If I take this opportunity to do these things with my life now, somebody will be around to do for mine if I'm not around. [01:14:07] Speaker A: Well, I mean, it's a beautiful way to communicate because I think that that is, in essence, encouraging for everybody who wants to help. Because I know that was one of my barriers. I was like, man, I really want to figure out a way to help this. You know, when I come into a new situation, I realize that this is the barrier that needs to be broken and I want to contribute, but I got to figure out where I fit into that contribution. And showing up, regardless of what position you put yourself in, whether it's, you know, donating to somebody who's doing it or participating as much as you can, the showing up part is profound. I appreciate hearing that, too. That makes a whole lot of sense. It's the biggest piece with the kids thing. How do you think the. And this is going to sound like an old man question, too. [01:14:52] Speaker B: Sorry. [01:14:54] Speaker A: Because I'm an old man. How do you think the gangster lyrics and like, drill, this kind of stuff is the modern day? And this is. I'm only using rap because we're talking about that genre, but it exists in other genres also. So I'm not trying to just pick that out of nowhere, but the gangster type lyrics or violence or whatever, you know, how do you think that actually affects kids? Based on your experience and what you're seeing now in retrospect, does it have much of an impact? [01:15:23] Speaker B: Sure it does. You know, it's like any. Any other kind of indoctrination. If you feed it too much of it, they become desensitized to the negativity in it. If you don't balance it with positivity. You can't just hide kids away from the street. They exist. Can't hide them away from rap music. It exists, but you have to create some kind of balance. And the programming that they understand who they are and who they're not, does [01:16:00] Speaker A: that come maybe from defining more of the human aspect of it? Like you said, you worked with a bunch of cats who were known as the darkest, baddest gangsters ever, and most of them weren't. But a kid doesn't understand how to discern that. So is that kind of maybe part of the way? [01:16:16] Speaker B: Sure, you know, but that's the Responsibility of all of us, man. Even the guys that are making the music. One of the reasons I'm choosing the new. The new album that I'm making, the. The album with the AI Stuff connected to it. Yeah. I want to call that. That album nwg. Nwg that acronym stands for Nothing Without God. And if you could imagine what it would sound like if NWA made a gospel record. [01:16:54] Speaker A: I want to imagine that that's what it is. Probably the first in line. [01:16:58] Speaker B: Right. Because it's. Because it's so serious. Like the people that I need to take this message to the. The frequency that they're listening to match that frequency. Yeah. And so I need to get on a level, so to speak, to get some of these messages across in a way that I know that they could land. When I go and talk to these young boys in the street. Yeah. I use Samson a lot because Samson is a major patriarch in that. In that book. Although his story wasn't that long. Everybody know who he is. And when you look at him as a. As a person, he really only did two things. And preaching was not one of them. Getting people to come to the Lord wasn't one of them. [01:17:48] Speaker A: It was all [01:17:51] Speaker B: tail and whooped ass. [01:17:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:17:54] Speaker B: That's it. Yeah. The difference between these kids in the street, because that's all they want to do. Chase tail and whoop ass. The difference between Samson and them is when that moment came, that struggle came. Samson knew whose he was. Not necessarily who he was, but whose he was. And so I posed that question to these young men. When that moment comes, do you have somebody you can call? Yeah. [01:18:24] Speaker A: And able to humble yourself and recognize who you are? Yeah, man. They can call you. [01:18:31] Speaker B: Yeah. But I ain't got. You know, I don't answer prayers. Yeah. You have to call somebody that can get you out of there. And maybe God will send me, you know. Yeah. [01:18:42] Speaker A: Before they decide to take the wrong path, too. Man. You hope, I guess. I'm not going to ask you some of this stuff because you already said it was. Spoil the movie. I ain't looking to spoil the movie, even for myself. [01:18:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:55] Speaker A: If it's coming out this year, man, I'm looking forward to that. [01:18:57] Speaker B: Thanksgiving, bro. [01:18:58] Speaker A: Is it okay? [01:18:59] Speaker B: Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving. I'm pushing Thanksgiving because I just. Just got the deal. I'm in long form right now. I feel fantastic about it. I'm so excited. There's going to be so much stuff happening over the summer leading up to it. Yeah, it's. It's just a big. This is probably going to be My biggest year ever. [01:19:22] Speaker A: Amen. [01:19:23] Speaker B: I'm seven into it. I know it's a God thing. Y. I know the purpose of it happening, and so I'm gonna take it and do what I'm supposed to do with it. [01:19:32] Speaker A: Well, you're right. In the beginning of the next movie. [01:19:34] Speaker B: That's right, brother. [01:19:34] Speaker A: It's the sequel. [01:19:35] Speaker B: The. The. No, it's the. The series. Yeah. You know, I'm gonna. Taylor. Share it in it. There you go. There you go. Yeah, there you go. [01:19:47] Speaker A: I love that, too. All right, I have a couple more, and this one is just for kicks, so I'm gonna give a handful of names, and you just give me, like, a couple of sentences that just come to mind about these people. [01:20:03] Speaker B: Okay. [01:20:05] Speaker A: Cube. [01:20:07] Speaker B: Good man. Good man. Great father. Brilliant artist, great friend. Okay. Erica. Love savior, you know? Yeah. Beautiful lady. [01:20:27] Speaker A: Eminem. [01:20:29] Speaker B: Incredible talent. Sick individual. Good kid, though. [01:20:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:20:35] Speaker B: Great kid. [01:20:37] Speaker A: Suge. [01:20:40] Speaker B: Not to be fucked with. Excuse my language. Don't do it. [01:20:46] Speaker A: That's the first thing that comes to mind, is what I want. Easy. [01:20:53] Speaker B: Special human, unfortunate end. But I'm grateful for him. [01:21:04] Speaker A: Jerry Heller, [01:21:08] Speaker B: not a good guy, you know, Wrong. [01:21:16] Speaker A: Anything, any animosity still held for that. You let all that. [01:21:19] Speaker B: No. Jerry's gone. He's. He's out of here. [01:21:22] Speaker A: Yeah, but I mean, is this something you still hold? [01:21:27] Speaker B: In fact, I still communicate with his relatives. Okay. I'm a good guy, man. I. It's not Jerry's fault that he's who he is. He was. He was playing his part in this movie. If he does his thing different, I'm not who I am today. [01:21:44] Speaker A: You can't have good without evil. [01:21:45] Speaker B: That's right. And so those guys are playing their role. Yeah. I have to play my role. And hopefully we all end up in heaven. We can get an Oscar together. [01:21:56] Speaker A: Love that attitude. Snoop, [01:22:01] Speaker B: Great man, great friend, the dog, father. [01:22:08] Speaker A: And Dre, my brother, you know, can be a ding. [01:22:13] Speaker B: A lane. Yeah. Wait a minute. And I tell you this. This is a hot off the press. I called Dre and apologized. Dre this morning. When I text him an apology this morning because I got into him about a month ago, said something I didn't like. But I had a weird dream last night that made me feel. I got up this morning, like, bro, you need to call dude and apologize. So I did. [01:22:39] Speaker A: Good for you. So he is more like a brother. Because that's a brother, Stew. I mean, you're. You. You express yourself more to the people you love. You know, you feel more at liberty to say what you want. To say, Right. [01:22:51] Speaker B: Yeah, man. So that's. This is my guy. I love him. I wish nothing but the best for him. But if you say the wrong thing to me, he's gonna get it. [01:23:01] Speaker A: So who is the one person that you ended up influencing in some significant way that you never knew? Is there ever a time where. Where somebody came back to you and said, man, you've changed my life for something that you did one way or the other that you weren't aware of? [01:23:17] Speaker B: I think. I think every name on that list, I've significantly changed their path. I know it. I know they know it. Yeah. I think Badu is probably the only person that I didn't see. I didn't see that coming at all. And even though it didn't work out, it's still, you know, I still have real strong admiration. Yeah. For. For who she is. [01:23:50] Speaker A: That's awesome. And then you're still in Dallas, obviously, so. And I've seen you in your Mavs gear and stuff. [01:23:56] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:23:56] Speaker A: You have any comment on this? Luca for Nah, bro. [01:24:02] Speaker B: Luke is gone. Like, I know. No spill milk over here. [01:24:05] Speaker A: So you're back. You're not one of those guys. [01:24:07] Speaker B: You're not gonna like no Cooper Flag. I think Cooper Flag is going to mature into a really awesome NBA player. Yeah. I think he's going to be an all star for many years to come. He's out there dominating them boys as a rookie. [01:24:21] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm hoping that's the case. I mean, because he's got a defensive game too. [01:24:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So he's got Lucas just gifted. But. But Luca defense just was. That's why you said that. It's horrible. [01:24:35] Speaker A: Yeah. How dare you say Luca and defense in the same sentence? [01:24:39] Speaker B: I mean, I thought nobody would ever have worse defensive streels than Dirk. But. But, but Luke is killing him. [01:24:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:24:50] Speaker B: But I say that. I digress. Dirk gave us a ring. Yeah. On one of the most incredible playoff runs in history. He beat all the greats that year. [01:25:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:25:03] Speaker B: By the way. [01:25:03] Speaker A: Yeah. That was a team that was actually. I mean, you. You don't see often enough anymore. Team basketball. [01:25:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:11] Speaker A: Everybody's got. You have to have the two superstars. [01:25:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:14] Speaker A: You know, and blah, blah, blah. [01:25:15] Speaker B: Well, the guys in Oklahoma played like that last year. They still got that squad. Now we got a squad. But, but, but we're missing the General. You know, you can't win without the General. [01:25:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:25:28] Speaker B: I think when Kyrie come back, he's. What he's going to be able to do for Cooper is huge. Yeah. You Know, and we got some really great role players, and everybody is big, and everybody can play the game. Yeah. You know, and so I wouldn't count us out. Of course. I would like to have one more name out there. Yeah. [01:25:50] Speaker A: It's always helpful, you know, somebody like Lively. If he can stop getting hurt. I mean, he could be. You know, it could be really effective. I don't know how many of these cats we're going to end up keeping. Hopefully we keep Kyrie, too, because we. We were lucky to get Kyrie at the stage of his career that we got him. I mean, I know he's a stud as a youngster, but I think his head's in the right spot now. [01:26:09] Speaker B: I do, too. And he's a great. Like, he's a great team leader if you let the guy lead. [01:26:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:26:16] Speaker B: And we got a great coach. Kid's a great coach. I think you got the nucleus of something special. Yeah. I don't know about these owners. I was kind of mad at Cuban for making this deal, but I guess he's got to do what he got to do, so I'm grateful to him. [01:26:34] Speaker A: I mean, he still denies that he had anything to do with that deal. He says they. I mean, because he. What is he talking about? [01:26:40] Speaker B: The Luca deal? [01:26:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:26:43] Speaker B: Because what. [01:26:43] Speaker A: What. What percentage do you own? Like, 10 something. Yeah. They just went. They just went and made that deal behind his back. I don't think he ever would have made that deal. [01:26:54] Speaker B: What Mark Cuban did. See, one of the reasons it's hard for me to get on the Jerry Jones bandwagon is because of what he did with that team. Like, he took that team from here. I'm talking about the money now. From here to here. Now, his ego might let us put us in a bad spot as far as super bowl championships, but we got three. [01:27:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:27:23] Speaker B: You know. Yeah. I think he needs to spend some of that billion. [01:27:29] Speaker A: I know. That's what I'm saying. [01:27:31] Speaker B: Come on with that. [01:27:32] Speaker A: I know. See, you got. You got two boys. My boy. My boy's 30 years old and has never seen Cowboys have success. And I keep thinking, born in 95. He literally just missed it. The dude was born the same year that we won the thing, but. Good gosh, man. And he would have been so young, he wouldn't have been able to take notes. Anyway. [01:27:53] Speaker B: Sorry. She'd had plenty of pictures. [01:27:54] Speaker A: Yeah, boy, that's a tough one, too, so. [01:27:57] Speaker B: But we're coming back. I think next year is going to be a good year for us. Of course. I'M one of them cowboy fans that say that every year. [01:28:04] Speaker A: I know, Me too. [01:28:05] Speaker B: But I believe, Jerry. [01:28:08] Speaker A: I love it. Well, man, I can't thank you enough for Burning Time and. And heading all the way across town. Everything else I. I did donate to the charity. I'm hoping to get that record. [01:28:19] Speaker B: Absolutely. [01:28:20] Speaker A: Because I did. I went online and took care of that and, and I probably will do more as I learn more about it, but I definitely want to go. Go in ahead of that and, and make a contribution. And I will also make sure that I get all of your. Your links to the charity, number one, but any other social links or whatever too, that we can pass people on so that they can follow your activities and certainly follow the charity. See how that thing's going. [01:28:48] Speaker B: We're coming to forward when I think, I think that they're looking for a home for us here now. [01:28:57] Speaker A: Okay. [01:28:58] Speaker B: You know, I went into. When I first started, I did the pilot at a. Excuse me. A community center called Four Oak Cliffs. About 20, 25 kids went through my gaming game. Gaming game design course. Went through the roof. Kids loved it. These are kids that didn't think that they would be interested in taking a course like that, but they took all these great field trips and I let them talk to Snoop and Dre and Badu and all of these people and they really enjoyed it. It was a great hit. Now we're in a couple schools in. In Dallas and Texas. Cairns in Dallas. Yep. And they say they're looking for what would be a. For Oak Cliff space in Fort Worth, that I could go into that community and begin building. Because. Duh. The Dreams Experience Academy isn't just a build. Isn't just a building in Dallas. I mean. Yep. I needed to be a building in Dallas, a building in Fort Worth. Building in Waco, Oklahoma's called. [01:30:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:30:15] Speaker B: It's a curriculum that I want inside the school system itself because it puts, first of all, it puts me in contact with every kid. You know what I mean? Like, if you go. As long as you're going to school, I can touch you. [01:30:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:30:31] Speaker B: Because these are courses and they're STEM accredited. [01:30:37] Speaker A: Okay. [01:30:38] Speaker B: That they, the kids want to do. It's. It's the stuff they think that they're going to go out in the streets and do. But you can do that in school because you can't come to DEA and work with me unless you're in school. See, it's a, it's a way for me to curb the truancy rate, hold them accountable. That's Right. It's a way for me to put money in their pocket, which is what they're really looking for. [01:31:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:31:05] Speaker B: By giving them access to these jobs. Same jobs I'm doing. Yeah. When I go out and work on these jobs, my kids go with me. You know, when I work on commercials, they write with me. You know, they put. I'm putting access. I'm putting dollars in your pocket. Yeah. So if I put dollars in your pocket, then I can ask of you no different from the. The manager at McDonald's. If you're getting that check from Mickey D's, they're gonna ask of you to come in at certain times, dress certain way behavior. Then I have those same kind of desires. If you're gonna work with dea. Not that dea. [01:31:42] Speaker A: Right. [01:31:43] Speaker B: This. This the. Then you have to come on with it because. Yeah. Because we can go get it if you come on with it. Yeah. [01:31:49] Speaker A: Love it. Well, it's an honor to have you, my friend. Appreciate you, man. [01:31:53] Speaker B: Thank you, man.