Old Solomon (New Nostalgia) on THC - #78

EPISODE 78 — THE HEIR CAST 🎙️

This episode is straight from the source.

We sit down with Old Solomon — rapper, graffiti writer, and a true product of Miami’s Scarface era. This isn’t secondhand storytelling… this is someone who lived it.

We dive into his upbringing around real OG’s and break down what being an “OG” actually means — not the internet version, but the code, the respect, and the responsibility that comes with it.

Solomon is also here promoting his new album “New Nostalgia” — a project that blends past and present, giving you that authentic feeling with a modern perspective.

To close it out, we draft some of the best ways to express yourself — creatively, authentically, and without limits… because at the end of the day, that’s what this is all about.

Express yourself however you do it — music, art, business, life — and start by tapping into “New Nostalgia.”

⸻

STREAM “NEW NOSTALGIA” NOW 🔥

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

People are gonna hate me um for saying this. A lot of people are gonna have opinions about this. Um and I'll say my opinion transparently. Um it's it's too easy now to put out a record. Instead of wasting time telling lies in these books, we should be setting up kids on how to learn write their own checks and how to put money in the bank and how to invest and what's stocks and what's Bitcoin so they come out of high school with more knowledge on where the direction of the economy is going and how to prepare for simple things, right? How to apply for a job versus learning things that are no longer relevant. Work hard, play hard, take time to balance life because remember what's important is not always gonna be there. I appreciate that what you do. I was gonna say respectfully, man, like there's not enough people doing this. It is always about the podcasters saying it's about them or it's about who they want to put on or like their people, but they're not letting people in, especially in Miami. It's a very closed gate market, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Gatekeepers, and it's hard to get you imagine, it's almost you have it feels like you gotta pay to play, or you gotta just, you know, it's all a lot of like uh yes manning and a lot of uh you know dick riding for lack of better terms. Of course, yeah. I feel like that that comes from a world of like nowadays there's this uh often tropers like it's it's whack to try, it's lame to try, and it's hard. Like, nah, man, that's the best. The best is putting in effort. Like you gotta make be passionate about what you do, and yeah, you might push away some people, but if you're passionate about what you're doing, be passionate, and eventually you'll attract the right people. Right. And I think that's what what we're we're crafting here on the show, and it's to each his own. Not every conversation is so informant, not every conversation is deep. Some get religious, some get funny, some get heated. Yeah, you know, and that's the beauty of this show, just like music. There's no rules to do it.

SPEAKER_03 2:01

Yeah, because you're in a different mood every day, and you're whatever you're feeling at that moment is what you're gonna present. 100%. Um, but no, I love what you're doing. I appreciate it. I think that we need it more in Miami. I think, like you said, a lot of gatekeepers. I feel like people don't want you in sometimes. Like they'll tell you, yo, your shit is dope, or they'll they'll big it up. But if you say, yo, can I open up for you or hey, can I check this out? Uh yeah, maybe. You know what I'm saying? It's like they scared that you might outshine them. I noticed that a lot.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

It's like the famous quote, like uh people want to see you doing good but never better than them. Correct. And that's so crazy. I just heard little Duval say that, and I didn't even hear the full clip, but because I got so passionate when I heard him say I don't I don't get when people say that, and it's the truth because I don't get that either. Because I see like if you're eating and you blow up, I'm gonna eat and blow up too. You're just gonna help me get closer, like this is amazing. Like, that's that's why Rogan's winning. Shout out Rogan, and I have my opinions about him politically and all that, whatever. All that stuff aside, he puts his people on. And look how many art, look how many comedians, and not just comedians, scientists, people that you you would otherwise would never hear of. Yeah, yeah just because they sat on Buddy's show for a difference, and that's awesome. And salute to anybody that puts their people on and frequently, you feel me, and give you a platform to talk, and that's what Prime Rogan was about having debates and not being able to agree on everything, and yeah, for sure, we're gonna go back and forth, but that's what the world needs of because now people don't have these conversations.

SPEAKER_03 3:19

There's no healthy conversations, everybody everybody's right. A hundred percent. And and we can't all be right, right? We all got we all got our own views, but the most wise man listens because that's how you become wise. You gotta listen to what people are saying, understand the room, and say, Oh, like I'll sit in a room and they'll say, Why are you so quiet? Because I'm reading the room one and I'm listening. The person that talks the most in a room or is the loudest in the room is probably the least wise person in the room. A hundred because they're not learning nothing. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Just putting out, yeah, they just putting out what they want to hear themselves talk. 100% dog. Let me get the setting here because I got a new phone and no doubt. Take it to it. Let me see here. Display.

SPEAKER_03 4:05

Alrighty. This brought to you by Slice. Send me a send me a couple cans. Yo, for real. What's a soda? Yeah, but it's like one of the healthy soda. Yeah, it's like probiotic. It's only got a little bit of sugar.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Four grams of sugar.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

That's insane. For a soda? Four grams. I fuck with it.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

I gotta check that out. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

Shower, slice, okay. They got cherry cola and all that shit.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Well, welcome back to a slice of paradise here, folks. Uh, welcome back, folks. We already started, we already got it on and popping. I think what we started with was pretty far, to be honest on them. But uh, if uh you haven't already, make sure you like and subscribe, Aircast, for more great content like this. And uh for all the good vibes. And today we got a special treat for you all because we're gonna talk new nostalgia with old Solomon. Our guest today, born in Camden, New Jersey. Correct. And it moved out to Miami at 10 years old, right?

SPEAKER_03 4:51

Yeah, about nine, ten years old. Fifth grade. Wow, fifth grade, crazy.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

So uh well, I think it's different for like uh my generation, fifth grade was the end of elementary school, going and then middle school, sixth, seventh, and eighth, which is junior high, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:02

So I went, so I went to uh fifth, sixth grade, and then I went to Nautilus Middle School, which is in Miami. That's Miami, right? Yeah, and then I went to Beach High for two two years. I got into trouble, and my grandfather shipped me back to Philly. He was like, Living with you, Uncle, you go stay with your dad, go stay with your dad and figure that shit out. Work it out. Getting in too much trouble here.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Crazy. So, um, and then okay, so here on the aircast, we start one of the important questions because the people, the fans, the air force, everybody wants to know. Yeah. What exactly is the Scarface era? Well, describe the Squareface era.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

Oh, I love that. Uh, you know, when I came here, I think that's what the Scarface era was, and we were talking about it earlier. When people think about Miami Beach and South Beach, I know Miami Beach, South Beach as being scary. Like now you're like scary, South Beach? I'm like, yes, Miami Beach, South Beach, early 90s, late 80s, that shit was scary. I mean, we talking gangs, we talking Scarface Era, all the fucking the Cuban mob.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

So Marielle, like for like the like the gang culture, like that. That was a lot of crime culture, basically. Not even just gangs, just crime in general. Huge. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

I remember driving down South Beach one day. I was a fucking nine years old, maybe. Okay, so your parents are driving you in the way, big ass Cadillac, grandfather, big ass Cadillac, and broad daylight, just dudes on the side of the building shooting at each other. We just driving by nine years old. I just came from Philly and I'm living here. And my grandfather's like, yeah, Miami Beach is beautiful. We're retiring here. I'm like, this shit ain't beautiful. This shit is kind of a little bit more. Wow. So yeah, so Art Deco, Scarface era was a lot different than it is, you know, 2000 and up.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

So, and and you didn't you hadn't seen no crime or anything like that in Philly when you were in the middle?

SPEAKER_03 6:46

Oh, absolutely. I mean Camden County, highest crime rate in the United States. We were like number two next to Detroit.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

But you saw it like with your eyes as a kid? Okay, so you are your customers. So the shock was coming up to Miami with your family telling you, oh, this is paradise.

SPEAKER_03 7:01

This is the same shit. This is better, yeah. This is better because different settings with different crimes. Because South Jersey, Philly, you know, Camden was a was drugs. You know, it's like that's my corner, people shot over drug. Right. When I came to Miami, the culture was gang culture, not like blood and crisp. Well, you had the Latin kings, you had the Latin disciples. Disciples, you had all these gangs, and I was shocked valued in me. I'm like, gangs, you know what I'm saying? Um, but then I got into graffiti early. And and and there was a mix of like gang and graffiti. And I remember I got arrested for graffiti, Metro Day police beat the shit out of me.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

Said, what gang are you in? And they're showing me this picture of my tag, and I'm like, I ain't in no fucking gang. Smack me across my head. And I'm like 12 years old, bro.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Oh, well, because we were just talking before this, though. Yeah, gang culture basically, um, for lack of better terms, like, you know, swallowed up uh graffiti culture because all graffiti writers had to basically join a gang.

SPEAKER_03 7:59

Well you had to have you had to have a support system, I guess. Like I started a crew and some of the guys in my crew were Zulu Nation, not the New York Zulu Nation, but the gang, Miami Zulu Nation, um were graffiti writers too. So I was not a fan of gang culture. Like I was around it and my friends were involved in gangs, but I didn't want to mix it into the graffiti culture. But it was hard not to do that because it was relevant. Everybody was in a gang. Like your homeboys was in a gang, your your your your brother that was like your main. It's the influence, yeah. So I couldn't I couldn't avoid it. So I'm like, I just don't want to get confused as but the cops don't care, man. They see you writing graffiti automatically, you in a gang, they whooping your ass, what gang you in, and it's just the same shit. You know what I mean? It was all wrapped up.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

So, and then before moving to Miami, though, basically, what were like some early memories you have from New Jersey, like as a kid? Like, what do you have from out there?

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Well, remember when that I went back. So there's a lot of shit. Um, you know, I think surprisingly, I started finding about hip hop in South Jersey. I I was hearing like fucking uh, you know, Curtis Blow, run DMC. Okay, but I wasn't like Diving deep into Yeah, I just was hearing, I was like, oh this shit is cool. I'm a kid. Cool, yeah. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 9:20

You're not getting into music as a kid.

SPEAKER_03 9:22

I was going to elementary school in the city, you know what I mean? They was breakdance battles and shit, and I just was taking all that shit in.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Yeah, you're taking life in.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

Yeah, as a kid. And then when I came to Miami, I started learning graffiti. Like I met one of my homeboys, Rest in Peace Realm. He started showing me graffiti, he lived in my neighborhood, and I was just so intrigued by graffiti, so I got into graffiti writing, and while I was on that journey, I just started writing lyrics. Um, and started listening to like Tribe Call Quest.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

I was gonna ask, so you you picked up graffiti writing first, but then from there, listening to music, you're like, yo, I can write my own lyric. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was it a situation where were you freestyling like what homies, or you started writing first?

SPEAKER_03 10:00

I started writing first. That's cool. That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

You learn what the what you're gonna spit.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

Because when you first start, you usually are nervous. Like you're not you're not confident enough. I don't feel that 100%. I agree. You're like, I'm writing, and people are like, yo, spits. I'm nah, man, I'm not ready yet.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Yeah, and on the reverse of that, like you have other homies too that could just go off. They just start going off, and you feel me? But a lot of times, too, they ain't they ain't saying shit. But it's like I feel you in the sense where you want to approach where like you want to know where you're saying, especially as a kid. You want to fucking like that was my first type of writing. My first type of uh writings was I'd write remixes. I'd like I'd wrote like a remix to what's beef in like fifth for fourth grade. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:35

And it was easy because you could take the beat that you really like and put your own.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

You have a path, you have a you have a template, you have like a template. Okay, this is how this guy raps, let me just rap in my own way. And you know, you figure out your own ways of doing it. So you were doing the same thing, but this is in correlation, like a direct parallel with you graffiti writing. So you're doing both of those.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

Right, because you know the elements of hip hop is you know, graffiti, breakdance, DJing, and and then and then rapping.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

So wow, the grumpy OGs was gonna love to have you on the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

So, so the reality is, is I I I tried break dancing, I sucked at it, and then I found I found graffiti and I was like, yo, I'm pretty good at this shit, and I was getting better, and then I started writing rhymes because I was listening to, you know, De La Soul, Tribe Call Quest, Brand Newbie, and um Public Enemy, and I was like, yo, this is you know, because graffiti is a form of rebellion, right? That's cool. Hip hop is also then was a form of rebellion, right? Like fuck the police and all that shit. So all of that was inside the culture already. Like, you know, I was getting my ass whooped by cops. So when the artist was telling me fuck the police or saying their story, I was relating to the to the rap shit. Like I was like, You're living through that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and not on some, you know, some harsh shit like some people dealt with and minorities deal with on the stage.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

No, you can get a ticket and be like, oh, it's a matter of the way the cop gives you the ticket. The cop could be a dick, it's like, oh, fuck the cops, you know. Not to say all cops are rap, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:58

No, like, but that's the that was the culture, right? So I related to the culture. It it intrigued me, and I started writing rhymes and I I studied the best, like Rock Him, and the way they just wrote shit down that was like, wow, this guy should just fucking write a book. He's a masterpiece. Different level.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Yeah, just way ahead of his time, you know what I mean? Way ahead. Way ahead. That's a gangster. Um, and then so yeah, I was gonna ask, so on that same note, are there like any direct parallels between like graffiti writing and rap? Like, do you see like the like what are some of like the biggest similarities you think? Like, damn, this is kind of the similar.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

Well, you know, we talked about the rebellion side of it, but the art itself of just being like a battle rapper wants to be the best battle rapper, wants to write the best lyrics, and he's battling another guy. Graffiti artist is competitive, okay. I want to have the best tag, I want to have the most tags everywhere. I want to have the best piece and the coolest place on the where you can see it from the subway. You know, it was all part of the culture because it was about bragging. You know what I mean? It was like, yo, I got the best chain, I got the best kicks, I got the best tags. You see my shit everywhere. So all of that came from, and all that comes from not coming from nothing, right? Hip hop started from not coming from nothing. Like this is me and my opportunity getting out. So if you had nothing your whole life, and now you walk your tags all over the Miami or New York or Philly, and you or and you got the dopest shoes on, that's like bragging rights, right? A different feeling. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 13:28

It brings your confidence up.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

That is dope. That is dope. That is dope. And then oh, so what was your writer name? You said before.

SPEAKER_03 13:34

Scene. So I scene. They used to call me Crazy Scene and Little Scene because I was on I was 13 years old running around with fucking juvenile delinquents that were like 19 years old. You know what I'm saying? So I was they would thought I was fucking crazy because I was jumping on buses, going climbing fucking trees to tag and part of three clicks too, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:53

You're like three clicks, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

Shout out to uh uh TVC, shout out to Roz Term, KV, um Revo. Um, and then I was a part of WBB before that. RIP snare and Realm both passed away, big WB writers. Um, yeah, and I grew up. Like Realm taught me, he he passed the torch to me, and then he passed away. And you gotta understand, I lost dude who was my taught me that brought me into the graffiti culture and put me in WB at a young age. So that was my main homeboy, and he got killed.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

So that was like, then I really went out. Like I was like, oh fuck the world, I'm crazy, you know what I'm saying? So it was hard losing dude at a young age when he was such an influence to my graffiti writing, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Um Damn, and and that that was that was uh you you you you kind of mentioned it before we started, and there was it was a big story that that was like uh because it was like uh you said it was a rival gang that thought he was gangbanging and he wasn't because it was a mistake, right? It was a mistake in identity situation.

SPEAKER_03 14:52

Yeah, so he um I was on the news actually. They uh interviewed me when I was at the hospital, yeah. Somebody has the tape somewhere. This we talking a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

I think I could find it online.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

You might. I tried to find it, I couldn't. You got you but Realm passed away, he went to South Miami High School, and I'm just trying to remember the year, but it was it was like probably early 90s, maybe. Um I know his full name too, so you might I'll give it to you so you can look that shit up. Yeah, so so he he went to go visit a girl, he was talking to he. I guess he met her online with them chat shits back in the day. They used to do phone chat.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

But he was starting he met her and he started dating her, and he went he went to meet her after school. And he was hanging out with some dudes um from South Beach Posse, uh, which was Miami Beach crew, because we were from North Miami, Miami Beach. Okay, so he was hanging out with these gang dudes, but he was a graffiti right.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

And South Beach Posse was on the gang shit, right?

SPEAKER_03 15:49

They was on the gang shit.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

So they were a known gang. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:51

And he he was uh he was rolling with them, like, and he was just chilling. You know what I mean? Then all of a sudden these cats came out of South Miami, they started looking at him, like, yo, who's these cats? We don't know.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Oh, but it wasn't just with Realm, it was with the whole group. It was with his group. Right. Oh, the group got hit up or Realm just got hit up.

SPEAKER_03 16:08

Yeah, but Realm is the Realm was the type of dude, because I seen him fight, um, he wouldn't go down. Oh, yeah. Like most people be like, yo, there's too many. Let me just buckle up and take my licks. He was the type of dude that's probably whooping us. Yeah. So some one of the dudes from the crew, and I I I won't say who it was. He got I think he got a long time in jail. He grabbed something off like a big branch or some shit off the ground.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

And hit dude in the head like a couple times. And he was he was he was brain dead. When he got to the hospital, they said he was he was on a machine. His mom had to make a decision on, but I was there at the hospital, so they interviewed me, like how you know, how's it feel to lose your friend?

SPEAKER_00 16:47

I'm sorry for having rehashed.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

No, no, but I mean I'm I was mad young. Yeah, yeah. But like, but you know what I'm saying? It's like that's the type of shit that I was seeing at 13, 14 years old.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Oh, dude, that is tough shit, man. Yeah, yeah. That is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03 17:00

And to see his mom and shit, like lose her son, always trying to tell him like you're going the wrong direction, and you know what I mean. He's like, mom, I'm just a graffiti writer. I'm not, you know, I'm not doing nothing to die that way, you know what I mean? On the sh on the streets by or affiliated with gangs, you know what I mean? So, and them cats he was hanging with, respectfully, they wasn't for him. Like they they didn't give a fuck about him. They just knew he could fight good and they like being around people like that for their own selfishness.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Yeah, for self-defense. That's that's what that is.

SPEAKER_03 17:31

He shouldn't even have been with them dudes. Because he probably, if he would have came by himself, or just like with me, they probably would have just not even looked at dude. And but he was there with like a little click that had some affiliation to some shit, and then automatically he's guilty by association.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Yeah, man, your diet is not just what you put in your body, it's also you know what you consume and who you spend your time around with people. So be cautious. If there's anything you take from that, is uh be uh you know, value the time you have and cherish the time you have, and you know, be picky, be selfish, be greedy with who you spend your time with. You know, we're allowed to be that way because all it takes is one bad moment and one bad situation.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

Absolutely. And and my my grandfather used to tell me, you are who you hang out with. You know what I mean? Like success. If if you hang around with bums, guess where you're gonna end up? And I I preach it to my son, you know what I mean? Like, you are who you're gonna hang out with. I put my son in the private school because I want to put him around people that are goal-oriented, successful.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

It doesn't mean there's not bad kids, but no, of course, but it just you that increases the uh chances of people that are gonna be more focused. Correct. 100% that's that's a good logic to have.

SPEAKER_03 18:37

And he's in he plays football, he's you know, he's he's he's an honor student. That's awesome. All the shit I wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

That's how that's beautiful. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Which made me work hard to make sure that he was not what I was, even though I I got out of it and I became successful, it wasn't an easy road. I just made it a little easier for him.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

And education is the biggest thing. I think that's what this country is lacking the most of, huh? That's that's that's what we need. A lot of I hear a lot of talk of, oh, we need this, we need that. No, I think what we need the most of is education, not even jobs. Because there's money out here, there's a lot of things to be made and there's a lot of opportunities, but it's just people aren't educated enough to go out and help some people are just educated wrong on how to spend their money and how to just live their lives and and diets in general with our health. Our health is crazy. Like they were we our health.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

They were saying, like, instead of teaching people uh, you know, his story, uh say that in in a subliminal way, but instead of wasting time telling lies in these books, we should be setting up kids on learn how to learn to write their own checks and how to put money in the bank and how to invest and what's stocks and what's Bitcoin so they come out of high school with more knowledge on where the direction of the economy is going and how to prepare for simple things, right? How to apply for a job versus learning things that are no longer relevant, which is bullshit anyways.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

A lot of his lies and but where the pale hor horse, right? Behold the pale horse, right? That's imagine that I think that that book tells people that they're just training us to be like factory workers or an employee workers. So that's a real that's some real stuff, man. That that is really.

SPEAKER_03 20:08

Teach kids to be their own boss. That's what we should be teaching kids, right? So we're not working for they're not working for somebody else the rest of their life, making somebody else a millionaire, right? Because that's where I messed up. You know what I mean? I followed the structure, but I was a rebellious kid. But when I finally got online and my son was born, I realized like, yo, I wasted a lot of time. I'm older now, I gotta jump on this corporate ship, and all I'm doing now is making somebody else rich. Now I got my side hustle, and eventually I want to build that to help my son out later. But the reality is I had no choice. I got into this mix where I'm paying bills, and that's that's where they want me. They want you in a mix where you check to check to check weekends and then you do it again.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

They're starving us out here, man. You know how many commercials are out for gambling apps. So every time you open up your TV or screen or anything, even your phone apps, it's constantly an ad for hooper eats, gambling, anything. It's just all different ways to spend your money and kill your health and distract yourself 100%. 100%, man. Um what does OG mean to you?

SPEAKER_03 21:05

Well, the original term is original gangster, which is iced tea, you know, and I think I put the word OG, but I think it's more symbolic to protecting somebody from a golden era of certain um street code, certain certain rules that that we follow that that we hold dear. Like, you know, some things like never tell and um treat people the way they treat you.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

But just to be clear, is is gangster crime like streets, like cause I I feel like you could be gangsters but not be like in the streets like this. You could be corporate gangster, like yeah, that's a gangster way to be corporate, like you feel me? Like if you if you're not f like I I like to hear your your kind of explanation, cause I a lot of people uh there's a lot of different explanations to what like gangster means, but most importantly OG, because of course, like you said, OG comes from original gangster. But the golden era of like wisdom, you mean like coming like from

SPEAKER_03 22:00

Just the code of OG. Like the go the era of where we come from. Like when I say that's my OG or that's an OG, meaning like he understands how we did things in our era. He respects certain code that we live by, right? Doesn't mean that he's a gangster or I say OG. Like when I coach, people call me coach OG. That doesn't mean like I'm a gangster. You know, the young cats call me OG. Because I came from an old era and I came from like I've been around some gangster shit. I've seen some gangster shit. I'm not a gangster, you know. Right, but I wasn't in a gang, but they were saying like you you go by a different code of that era of an OG, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:40

And that surviving that makes you gangster. Like that's the way I look at it. That's why I that's why I don't have an issue with like, yeah, you are a gangster. You're an OG. You know it's a blessing to be alive this long. Like you feel me? Because a lot of OGs are. You gotta celebrate that. You feel me? That's real shit. A lot of OGs are RP, you feel me? So nobody that gets to make it this. I told my homies my age. Like, homie, we're blessed when we get to make it to 25, 22, comes up, 28, 30.

SPEAKER_03 23:01

Like living in camp, young cats, 17, 16, shooting each other, talking uh in Philly, and it's just crazy. The crime rate is bananas. North Philly, my boy's doing life. Uh uh, he was a graffiti writer, he was a rapper, and he was just a product of his environment. You know, my boy Nazin, he's he's in jail right now, he'd never get out. And I used to go to Cyphers with his cat, rap with him, and he I was in a crew with him, and like he was my boy, bro. He goes back to Philly for a couple days, and I'm like, yo, come don't do no dumb shit. Come back to Miami and let's do this rap shit. And he went over there and did some shit, and he fled. He came over here and they got, you know, fucking feds got him.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Feds are feds, yeah, feds are everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 23:45

For murder for murder, you know?

SPEAKER_00 23:46

God damn. Yeah, yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

So it's like you gotta, again, it's a route, a productive environment. Sometimes you gotta get out of that environment. It's not as easy as it says, but you when you become somebody in that environment, you start following the way everybody else moves. Because if you don't, then it's like, all right, you become the victim, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:08

You gotta the four the four agreements, you gotta you can take accountability for everything. Make it like you know, make everything your responsibility, even when it's not, but in a way, kind of do that because that just it's like an OG mentality, like like teach people like yo, this ain't gonna go what the way you want it.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

There's two roads, and that's it. You all the elders say that. Like when I grew up, all the elders would, and we still saying it, right? Yeah, there's only two directions that or jail, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:31

It's always there's always, you know, there's always at least two choices, man. You always have a choice, facts to get out of it, yes. And how do you feel about common sense? Like not the rapper.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

I was gonna say the rapper was common now. Um, yeah, just common sense. I mean, I think there's not enough of it, right? Like we don't have enough common sense. Like I tell my son, he's very book smart, but he doesn't have any street knowledge, which I figure street knowledge is a little bit of common sense, right? Like watch your back, make sure you uh like we just talked about, I'd like to sit with my eyes facing the door. I don't like my you know, just simple shit like that. I is always in my head just because of where I came from. My son don't think about that shit, right? And I maybe I don't want him to, right? Because I want him to be a little bit of naive, but I also want to know that once you get out in the real world and I'm not here like to hold your hand and show you direction, because I'm not gonna be here forever. Life hits you hard as shit. So have common sense. Stop reading shit that's irrelevant and learn some common sense shit.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

I think the idea as a parent is like you want your kids to know that, but you don't want them to be always in a situation or arena where that's constantly where they gotta live. Like you feel me? I think that's constantly like I don't have kids yet, but I I my puppy, you feel me? Like, we we almost got him a little brother the other day, but the dog bit him and shit like that. And I just look at it like, yeah, maybe put them out with other dogs, but like you don't, you feel me? Like, don't put them constantly in that situation. So that that's kind of like the private school, public school thing. It's like, yeah, put them around more people, they're gonna be more on point. And yeah, you might have some bad apples everywhere. There's gonna be bad kids and bad crowds everywhere, but you know, you're gonna increase the likelihood.

SPEAKER_03 26:03

Some people don't have the choice, right? They are they're at where they're at, they can't afford private school.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

But that's a choice you make as a parent. You feel me? You have your choice, what do I want to invest in, and that's an investment you make, you know.

SPEAKER_03 26:13

Work my ass off just to make sure that he's in the right environment.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

The OGs didn't let you shoot, right? The OGs never let you shoot.

SPEAKER_03 26:21

Yeah, so I like that you said that's crazy. That's one of my lines in my so that song, yeah, that's growing up in Miami.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Yeah, I'm honored.

SPEAKER_03 26:29

Like you, the young cat, do your graffiti thing, don't follow us outside. Or don't go out with us and do that gang shit, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Is it almost like an idea of like, yo, you got the future? Like you you could take us out of the hood type of thing, or it's just like you're not on this, like be out of both.

SPEAKER_03 26:44

Okay, cool. I think it was more of like you're a good kid, right? Like you got talent, like boys in the hood, like get out the car, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's a good analogy. That wasn't that you're not meant for this shit. We get out the car while you can, and I'm not gonna say nothing. So yeah, the OG said they wouldn't let me shoot because they were like, we we don't need nothing to happen to you. You're young, you're gifted, and we want to make sure that you get somewhere. We we already in this shit, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Those same OGs, is there any other clear piece of advice that maybe they gave you that you give maybe to your son or the younger old younger Gs now? Or maybe something you wish they told you.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

No, I think I think you know, at that time a lot of the OGs weren't thinking about the future. They were thinking about the now. You know what I'm saying? Nobody that was going out doing shit. We're never thinking about the next two days. They was always thinking about like right that moment. We're gonna go do this, we're gonna do that. No consequence, right? Not thinking about anything that could happen, just that moment, right? So that's the difference that I would teach my children. Or I wish somebody would say to me, like, yo, here's a consequence to this, right? Like when you keep doing this, this is what's gonna happen. I know it seems fun, like my son did some dumb shit on New Year's. I won't bring it up because I know my wife might watch the podcast. So I ain't gonna throw him out like that. Maybe they both do, but this listen, and I I sat down with him. Like I didn't come at him like, yo, what the f you know what I'm saying? Delivery is very important. Yeah, so I said, listen, I get it, right? Like you're young, you only get some time to have fun, and I want you to enjoy life. I know school's hard, sports and everything, all this stuff is gonna be overwhelming. Like, I'm talking to him like a man, right? Like a like a young man, right? And I'm telling you, like, but the reality is, right? You hanging out with these cats that are doing dumb shit is gonna you just gotta be there. I talk about Realm. Like him being with these cats cost him his life.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Tell them that story. Oh, you've told them the realm story? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:54

I said, so you you going out with these dudes that are door knocking and running, or whatever the fuck dumb shit they doing, and one of them gets shot, or locked up, yeah, or whatever it is, yeah, you just had to be there. So that's why who you're with is so important. When you see people doing dumb shit, let them know that's not for me. Like, go ahead, do it. I'm not get out the car. You know, like okay to say no. Ice Q, dupe, doughboy, get out the car. It's not for you. Yeah. It's okay to be your own person. Yeah, exactly. Originality is important right now.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

So important. So important. And then as a journalistic uh veteran yourself, right? Shout out a rap radio talk.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Rap radio talk. Sounds familiar.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

I thought you had like a show, I think, on one of your older YouTubes. You had like a show at you had like one. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. It was real rap. Real rap. Rap radio talk, yes, real rap.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

Real rap with W. We did it with that to make fun of like the AM stations. But yeah, I did we did it for a minute, me and my man O'Rion Pax, um and we interviewed this dude who religiously says that he's met aliens. And I want to get off topic, but it was Kat was mad interesting.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Oh, is it Mr. Galaxy, right? That was Mr. Galaxy, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

Mad interesting dude. So he he looks like an alien. Like if you meet him in person, you'd be like something. But he's mad cool, right? So we just I was like, yo, let's do a let's try interviewing this dude. Similar to you, like I didn't care about, you know, it's a good way to open doors.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Yeah, um network and get the numbers on it.

SPEAKER_03 30:25

But it's fun. I always thought interviewing and shit was fun to me too. I like I enjoy what you know you're doing. I like to do that shit too. I appreciate you saying that. And what and you're opening doors for people. And I wanted him to tell the story because I felt like he could be heard. Now I I had some laughs and made some fun of some of the stuff, but I also let him talk about some important things about the government hiding certain shit. We know there's some shit in there. They asked Obama. All kinds of shit, yeah. They asked Obama, is there aliens and you saw it? He said, Yeah, real fast.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Oh, yeah, he just came out with confirming.

SPEAKER_03 30:55

He just didn't say Obama's a real one, man. Shout out to Obama, though. So so it for him to say it that fast, like we we ain't dumb, man. Like the government acts like we're we're stupid. We're not dumb, man. Well, we're not the only people in the galaxy, it's too big, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Yeah, but I I feel the same way. Uh, but on that same note, I brought up the the the talk show because I wanted to ask, as an artist, what's something you think uh me as as uh journalist and interviewer, myself, and other interviewers out there, people doing podcasts, what's something you'd like to see more from them when it comes to talking with musicians and artists in general?

SPEAKER_03 31:24

No man, I think keep doing what you're doing. I think that to give somebody a platform is you don't have to do no more, man. Like you could be super selfish and make it about you, and instead because you're an artist too, right? Like, shout out to you like you're a good artist. You could just be focusing on that, but instead you said, I'm gonna give a platform to other artists and other talented people to come sit and talk with me. So I appreciate it. I don't think there's nothing you need to do but just keep doing what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

So I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_03 31:53

Yeah, man, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Oh, yeah, though. Uh and naturally, so graffiti writing, writing, is there any other like ways you express yourself artistically, or maybe like just in general? Like you play ball or shit or anything like that?

SPEAKER_03 32:04

I used to play football. Uh okay, cool. I was uh kick returner slash wide receiver. Oh, okay. Yeah, and so I coached for a while.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Like that's what you coach now football?

SPEAKER_03 32:14

Yeah, my son, I coached him from like U6 to U12.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Nice, okay. So he's playing with pads at a young age. That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 32:21

Yeah, well, he started Flag real young, and I was coaching this flag team, and then he got into like optimus football, and it was crazy because life changing, dude. I didn't play with pods till high school. I didn't what I wanted to see how bad he wanted it. So I put him in the hardest Optimus Club director, like the roughest one, like the worst current.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

That's good though.

SPEAKER_03 32:42

Because I was like, yo, if you survive this, then I'll know you really want it. He got his ass whooped. Like the first day he he was he could barely talk. He couldn't even, he we had to put him in an ice bath. And I looked at him, I was like, You still want to do this? And it's like, yeah, dad.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Wow, that's cool, man.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

I mean, I see the I see him got he got laid out like three, four times, like dirty hits on purpose because they wanted him out of there. That's part of the game. He was the new kid. Okay. Like, yo, we don't know this kid. Why might hit him hardest shit? Got right up. So my son is tough as shit. I was like, all right. That's now I know you want it.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

That's a smart way to approach it because you gotta put him through the ringer because that you're gonna get it eventually. So might as well get it out of the way now and be like, this is what it's for. This is an appetizer, it's gonna get worse. Way worse. But it's different is you get better and you get stronger.

SPEAKER_03 33:23

Like life. And not only that, like, even if you don't play football, which I I can see he might be losing interest, but he it's a life lesson of teamwork and getting up and failing and succeeding.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Mental fortitude and strength just testing your body and your body limits and just yo, this is something I could go through. Like, it's different, homie. And carrying pads on your body, like that's an extra like five, six hundred pounds and getting rocked. Getting knocked at like 30 miles an hour, bam!

SPEAKER_03 33:50

Yeah, so yeah, yeah. He's he's got it.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Uh, do you have any opinions about how music's being consumed nowadays? Like the the lack of physical media and like now everything's like streaming and algorithms.

SPEAKER_03 34:00

People gonna hate me um for saying this. A lot of people are gonna have opinions about this. Um, and I'll say my opinion transparently. Um it's it's too easy now to put out a record. And it it's people think that's a good thing, and it is. It's great that we have more control.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Accessibility is a good thing. The fact that we can make music is good.

SPEAKER_03 34:22

Right, because record labels now have less control, right? For for exploiting us, right? So that's the positive. But the negative is anybody can get a laptop, a microphone, and become a rapper, right? Like um, anybody. My grandmother could do it, right? Doesn't mean they're good, right? Right. So the saturation of artists is insane. And what hurts me about that is there's so many good artists that they're getting pushed and saturated by all the bullshit on top. You gotta go through so much bullshit to find good artists, right? And listen, it's all perception, like what's a good artist to you, right? I've been doing this for a long time. I've been around a lot of talented people. I know somebody, even if it's not my flavor, if they're good. Like this guy's talented, no matter what. If I whether I would listen to it or not, I can tell you got talent or you don't.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Quality music. There's a difference between quality music and something that you you like, you know. Like you could admit something is quality without yo saying it was my favorite. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 35:23

And that that's my second love of something I always wanted to do more like a executive producer, AR, because I see talent. Like I can I know and everything I predicted, like this cat's gonna blow up or this song's gonna blow up, it happens. You have a good hit, right? Yeah, so my ear is really good for listening to shit and knowing shit, whether I fuck with it or not. Um, but the problem is that cat that's really good, he's gotta go through so much to get where he wants to get, to be heard. And it's a money scheme now. It's like you gotta spend a lot of money to get heard, you gotta get and promote yourself, and it's if you want to be a rapper now, it's like I would say it's harder than winning a lotto, like to be a big artist. And I hate to say that because people get upset when I say that. I've been in a room where we're like, what do you mean, man? It's you just gotta be consistent and you can have anything you want, yes, but it's not easy, man, because back in the day, it would be you made a dope record, you had to go to the studio, you had to get a dope producer, you needed a dope engineer, you needed all these tools.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

It's not just like I I I I'm a big preacher of hard work, and you know, especially like with working out and all that, like yes, hard work and being consistent is true, and with many things, consistency is true, but music is a little bit more elaborate, not just music, art in general, like making a movie, making an album, anything it's more than just being consistent because you could show up every day yourself, but if you're only just doing so much, you're only just doing so much. It takes a village, it takes a team, it takes work, it takes networking, it takes politicking, it takes you know, getting out of that introvert. I know a lot of artists that are introverts and don't like to go out and network and it's like, homie, you're never gonna change your situation. When you think somebody's gonna stumble upon you online, like nah, you gotta go out. You gotta work, gotta work in multiple ways of working.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

I got an artist that I'm working with. Um, I produced one of his records. You wanna shout him out? Twin to God. He he's gonna listen to this from Queens. Yeah big record. Uh Static Selector already played it on Shady XM. Wow. So shout out to uh static static for he's supporting New York underground artists, playing his record. But when I heard him, I was like, yo, this record's big. Like it was it's a big record. Um and he just started to put it out. And he's a dude that's gonna take it to another level because he's got the look, he's got the consistency, he's got everything you need as an artist. But he's dealing with so much bullshit in the industry. Like, how many people hit him up every day? Like, fucking, uh, you want to buy uh I could put you in a magazine, I could, you know, it's it's like so much shit that he don't know what's real and what's not.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

There's a market for that. I don't know if it's happening to you. I'm sure it is. It's crazy. Any artist, like at least me, buy everything, but you get mad spam DMs of yo, you want to meet followers, you want to this and that.

SPEAKER_03 38:08

It's like producers, like I love y'all. I love y'all, and I'm glad that y'all are making beats, but like I got a product uh producer team that I fuck with only, and these cats, I'm getting mad beats sent to me, like 300 producers. That's annoying. Like so many producers, and I feel bad for them cats. Yeah, yeah, because it's hard. That's another industry. It's hard to be a producer.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

But you are you referencing like people actually send you beats? Because I'm I'm like, I just I literally just deleted like 700 emails from my email of like like I'm on like I guess I guess I stand up for beats at one time, but then you get part of this producer email it's every day.

SPEAKER_03 38:44

Like my Gmail's full with beats. And I made a mistake and I was like, you know, to get reach my team, I put my Gmail out there and I just got fucking 100 beats fucking from behind a thousand different producers. They will find and some of this shit is like I'm like, what the floor is like you heard my music and this is the beat you sent me.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

No, that's what I'm saying. I think of a lot of it's just bought it. A lot of it's maybe they're using like an AI and they're just finding people with their emails out that have rapper or artists in their the title and they're just sending the uh a template email out, you know?

SPEAKER_03 39:14

Some of it pays their bills, right? They sell beats for$25,$30 with no license, meaning you don't get full exclusives. So that's how that that's their hustle. Sometimes they'll sell enough beats to make a little bit of money. Respect that, right? But you gotta know your lane, right? Like if you if if you got beats that sound like they're for um, you know, young thug, you don't reach out to Nas. Like, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 39:36

But don't you? I don't know if you answer let me know if you feel the same way about this, but I kind of feel like that's just like because me personally, like, I love working producers, but and I love when producers send me beats, but like when they're actually sending me the beats, I feel like what we're talking about right now is like the producers are like kind of just putting you like on a list with a bunch of other artists and like blasting, right? They didn't put no effort, so they're probably not even listening to you filming our music, they're just saying, yo, I'm just gonna send and hopefully all it takes is one one rapper, one person on the internet that's not me or you that's gonna read that email and be like, yo, this person heard my music, and they're gonna listen to the beats, and maybe they'll lie to themselves and be like, yo, this sounds like one of my beats. This is perfect. All it takes is one purchase for that gotta justify his business properties.

SPEAKER_03 40:16

But it gotta, it goes back to that work ethic, right? Right? You didn't take no time to study my music.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

No, no passion, no care.

SPEAKER_03 40:22

And and to listen to what I fuck with and to send me something in that lane and say, yo, you would sound dope on this. 100% versus just sending me 30 beats, like, yo, check out my beats. No, fuck you. I ain't checking. I don't have time to sit through 30 beats that sound like they're not even in something I would touch.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

If I was a producer though, what I would do though, I haven't made beats yet. But if I was a hungry producer, I do. I make beats too, for like for my homeboy. I just thought of this. Is this not a creative business approach? Because as an artist, this is one of my goals, like to be at a point where people make official air type beats. You feel me? It's like whatever type of sounding beats. Because I drop all kinds of shit. But you know how have you ever seen like Drake type beat, you know, uh Gucci Man type beat? You feel me? It's like a specific.

SPEAKER_03 41:03

A guy is doing that shit.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

But if I was a beat, if I was making beats and I was trying to sell my beats, I would target specific artists and I'd be like, yo, King Solomon, here are King Solomon type beats. And obviously pick beats that really sound like your shit, but just titling them King Solomon type beats, like as an artist, right? I'm gonna be like, oh, okay, you made some King Solomon type beats. Let me hear what you think I sound like. Like, I don't know what artists are looking like. Like making more tailor-made to the person you're picturing.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

That's harder than just sending out the generic facts.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

The blast, yeah, the blast, the email blast. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 41:32

There's no effort. There's no effort, there's no work ethic.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

It all goes down back to ethics.

unknown 41:37

You're talking about actually working.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Yeah, you're talking about titing it different every time. What?

SPEAKER_03 41:41

They're asking cats to send 30 beats to like 800 MCs, because there's probably a lot more they send it to.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

No, but imagine doing it different every time. They're one shot.

SPEAKER_03 41:50

Yeah, because there's so many artists, right? And they're like trying to get all their music their beats to all these different artists, so they don't have time to maybe, but I feel like they're gonna fail every time they do that. Yeah, they might get lucky once in a while, but that's why they're in the position they're in, right?

SPEAKER_02 42:04

That's why they're at the level they're at.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

Yeah. Like I met with Twin. I know he fucks with that Queen's mob deep shit. Like, he's on that real queen. So I said, yo, I made this shit specifically for sounds like loved it. Like, yo, give me that shit. But if I would have sent him like 30 beats that I made for whoever, he would have been like, what? Come on, man. Crazy. Yeah, and he's my homeboy. He'd be like, I'm not listening to this.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Crazy. And is uh is the Jordan 11 your favorite 11 or why why was it originally Solomon 11?

SPEAKER_03 42:32

Good question. So I had a lot of fucking names. My homeboys make um I I was I was Solomon Wise and uh First? Solomon Wise was first? Okay, and then I became, and this is the era of like Wu-Tang. Like I was I I was in the Wu-Tang era, and everybody was like, you know what I mean, spec to deck and Solomon the wise, and yeah, I mean, so I was fucking with that vibe. And then as I grew as an artist, um, and try to rebrand myself because I felt like I I was trying to be humble by saying Solomon wise is is a big thing to say. Like you, you're you're the w you know, I'm a wise Solomon, King Solomon. You know, I don't even call myself King Solomon. I never that didn't exist in my vocabulary or as a name. Solomon 11 is my birthday, the 11. And the le the the eleven was symbolic to king.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

The day or the month? The day. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 43:24

The day um was symbolic to king. If you look up the number 11. So um the Bible, Kings 11, 11 is a story of King Solomon losing everything he had because he started worshiping false idolship, false gods. So God took everything. Yeah, got yeah, because of his wives.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

So God Oh, like he started chasing pussy, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:47

He started praying to their gods.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

Yeah, oh his wives had different wives, oh different religions, different gods. Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:56

It wasn't Yahweh, it wasn't you know, yeah. And he didn't fall for it.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

So he was switching, he was switching, okay.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

He was switching up.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

He was like, Yeah, I love Buddhism. Let's get it.

SPEAKER_03 44:06

I think it's deeper than that, though. I think it was just the f the fact of he's worshiping more lust than just God.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

That's what it is. Maybe he didn't even believe in the religion at all, and he was just chasing pussy.

SPEAKER_03 44:15

Yeah, so God was like, I'm taking your kingdom, your jewels, your everything away from you. More loyalty. So that's what Kings 1111 is, and it's a reminder, Solomon 11 was a reminder of me, like, don't forget your path.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

So Gucci did to Walker. That's doing it. He tweeted about it. Like, yo, somebody take this disloyal guy's contract.

SPEAKER_03 44:28

Like on my back, I have Kings 1111. Oh shit, really? Yeah, as a reminder, like, remember, stay humble and and and give thanks all the time. You know what I mean? And don't forget the reason why you're here, right? Um, whatever you believe in, right? Your path and where you're supposed to go. So the 11 was symbolic to that. And then I just was like so tired of the music shit. So I did it almost as a joke, because it's like little John, young thug, young.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Oh, that's what the oldest is.

SPEAKER_03 44:56

So I was like, I'm old, I'm old. That's what I mean. And I'm cool with that. Like, fucking call me old Solomon, right? Man, like, oh gee, you old, man. Stop talking about fucking you back in the day, you old. Okay, so I'm old. All right, I'm calling old Solomon.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:09

So it stuck with me. And then I I think it's never gonna change again.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

Nah, it's dope, dog. And like, you know, you could always like reap, like it part of life is you level up and you grow into different entities. And that's that's part of your natural progression as a human being. So that's a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_03 45:24

I went from Crazy Scene, the graffiti writer, to Solomon Wise, the the biblical rapper, and uh with the fucking crazy ass words that you know, like that wu-tang shit. And then I got into like some knowledge shit.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

And you're and like like Solomon built the first temple, I think, in Jerusalem. You're building your career, and that's what we do. We build our lives, you know. So like it's it's very poetic. I educated myself on the Solomon stuff, you know, and research for this pod. So I appreciate that. That's a dope name, man. I'm glad people were listening to that.

SPEAKER_03 45:51

And shout out to you for doing that, because a lot of these cats get on the podcast to interview somebody and they just throw ridiculous questions out instead of saying, instead of researching and shit. So that shows your work ethic.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

I mean, it's it's it's easy to you know, shoot the shoot the shit and just talk fun because you're appreciated, which we always do on the show too. Not to say we don't do that, but this, you know, it's always fun to you know get into the backstory because that's why do you call yourself that? Why, why, why, you know, you feel me? It sucks to not ask it. You know, I'd hate odd and somebody watching the show and at the end of the episode be like, damn, but why why does he call you so?

SPEAKER_03 46:21

Where is he from? He ain't asking where he's from.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Type shit. And then let's make sure we get this out the way. Where does the name new nostalgia come from for the new album?

SPEAKER_03 46:30

So new nostalgia is a mix of old and new, right? So like the word nostalgia means like an old feeling, right? Like when I think of nostalgia, I feel it like the old school Cadillac or the the you know, like all the old pictures we used to take with Polaroids and the feeling of just nostalgia is old. It's still like Memory Lane, yeah. Memory lane, golden error, like we talked about the OG. So the music I am putting out is new nostalgia. So it has that old nostalgic feeling, but it's a new way of you know, it's a new nostalgia. I like that. So it's old school, new school.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

I got a movie in New York, you know why, from Queens. And uh he got something called New Vintage, yeah. Similar to similar, yeah, yeah. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 47:12

And I put a record out right before I put that out called Nostalgic.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

That's dope.

SPEAKER_03 47:16

So I was trying to like twist it to say this is new nostalgia. It's like the sequel. It's new vintage.

SPEAKER_00 47:21

Yes, that's like the sequel. I love it. That is dope. That is dope. And uh right now, when you were making uh giving the explanation, it made me think of a quote like uh have you ever heard the quote of like the good times are now? Yeah, yeah, you feel me? And that that's kind of like the best memories of your life, you don't know it until after you've lived them, and then you look back like damn, those are great times, you feel me? Like that that's kind of like what that name could mean. You feel me? Like, this is a great moment in the future, you feel me? The new old days, the good new days.

SPEAKER_03 47:49

Yeah, so originally I was gonna name the album the new old. The new old, those are the you know what I'm saying? So this is the new old. You know when they say like 30 is the new 40? Yes, that's the new old. It's constantly changing. It's the new so the next project might be the new old. That's fire. Yeah, so like old ain't what it used to be. Old now is a little different, right? We hip, we understand, we got more, we got knowledge of self, and we know what's going on, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

And um are are you into comic books? Did you ever like uh have a comic book phase?

SPEAKER_03 48:17

Uh not really. I had uh a big fucking um He-Man, G.I. Joe Star Wars.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

They're about to do come out with uh He-Man. Yeah, He-Man, G.I. Joe, Star Wars. Yeah, but they're all those are all like TV shows and movies.

SPEAKER_03 48:29

So that's what yeah, like I feel like comic, my my pops was in the big time, and he saved me and left me all these comic books. Oh, really? That's cool. I lost them.

SPEAKER_01 48:39

No.

SPEAKER_03 48:40

I'm talking about like probably worth thousands of dollars. Oh man. Yeah, and I lost them when I moved. I think somebody stole them, but whatever, you know. But um, no, he was in the comic books, but I was into that, yeah, I was in that cartoon shit, like Saturday morning, fucking sitting front of TV with your fucking cereal.

SPEAKER_00 48:55

Awesome. What's your favorite cereal? Or were you going for cereal? Try to pick one, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_03 48:59

Cap and crunch, probably fucked up.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

What kind of Cap and Crunch though? Which one? Are you getting like the ones with the berries, the peanut butter?

SPEAKER_03 49:05

No, the original, whatever the original. I think they were like not berries. They were like not hunt, were they honey? I think I don't remember. I think the the flake itself, like the round barrel. And it yeah, and it fucked your mouth up every time you ate it. The roof of your mouth. You still ate this shit. I love it too. I love it too. I love it too. Now I'm still eating frosted flakes and shit, though.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

It's like three cereals in one. The first phase of it is the one where it hurts the top of your mouth, and then it starts to get a little bit soggy, and that's the perfect one. It's like in the middle. And then the third phase is like it's too soggy. Either way, it's like three different cereals. It's an experience. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_03 49:37

Cereal's never old, that's new nostalgia. I'm getting back into it now, but I'm having a bad thing. Every night, man, cereal is like that's why I can't lose weight because I can't let go of cereals. So I yeah, that's that's my thinking, my next phase. Because I was doing the ice cream and shit. At night I got the big ass cooking bowl. My wife's looking at me, what the fuck are you doing? I'm like, yeah, this shit is good. Like this.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

And I fucked it up, and now my thing is that I get I get like these protein granolas and I just throw that bitch in the special K because you can never get enough I break them up.

SPEAKER_03 50:03

I break the uh protein granolas up in a bowl and I put milk in it and eat it like cereal. I'll do that too.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

I was doing that, but I'll just mix it up the special K on some real protein shit. There you go. It's not good. It's not good.

SPEAKER_03 50:14

My son is heavy on that protein shit, like always yelling, it's not enough protein in the house, dad.

SPEAKER_00 50:19

That's good that he's that he's on that as a young age. Seven days a week.

SPEAKER_03 50:21

It's a way to lose weight, ironically. He's in the gym seven days a week, my son. That's amazing. Have you seen him? This kid is a fucking animal. That's awesome. Like I never seen anybody his age look like that, bro.

SPEAKER_00 50:32

He's in high school or in high school. High school, okay, good. Okay, so that's good, though. Wow. He's a monster.

SPEAKER_03 50:36

And he gets mad if he don't go. Like, I'll get mad. I didn't go to the gym, dad.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Oh, he keeps you account. Oh no, if you don't know. I take him, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:42

I'm driving him there. So he's like, driving. Sometimes I go on with him, but I can't even keep up with him. When I was earlier, I was like, yo, you can't fuck with me, son. And then now it's just like that changes things. Yeah, now he's lifting heaven.

SPEAKER_00 50:54

Once you learn how to work out if you're gonna get it. I'm like, you good, man.

SPEAKER_03 50:56

I'll still whoop your ass, though. Just listen, let's get that straight.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

You already got something going, like you with the music.

SPEAKER_03 51:01

Multiple videos I should put out.

SPEAKER_00 51:03

And it's not it that's I first bought the camera for that. Logo, now I don't gotta pay videographers to do videos, I can just do my own shit. But it turned into me just doing all kinds of shit and go out and just film. And now, you know, it got you, it's kind of like like when people say if you want to own a restaurant, you gotta do every position. Right. You feel me? I feel like when it comes to us as artists, like we gotta learn every position to really be at the best of our game. Because then when we hire, you know, Director X and and you know, all these and Spike Lee and all these raw people to do our videos, we know better how to articulate what we want. Absolutely. You feel me? Because we have our our experience of like no, no, we can shoot it this way and that way, you know.

SPEAKER_03 51:36

My my homeboy is dealing with dealing with directors that producing his video, and he fucking paid the dude, and he's chasing him now for his fucking film back. It's been like wait. Like, so that's another problem. Like, you gotta do shit yourself if you want to get it done because you can't rely on people.

SPEAKER_00 51:51

You could do you could do a lot yourself, but like we mentioned earlier, you know, if the little team's community, it comes and and you know, and that's part of the process. You're gonna have bad experiences, but that's why you gotta value when you got a good people. You feel me? And you gotta value the time you got with good people because that's just not gonna last forever. People are gonna grow and people are gonna have other endeavors, and you know, that's part of relationships. Doesn't mean shit showers, but take advantage of the moment, see the opportunity when it's hot, strike the iron when it's hot.

SPEAKER_03 52:17

Well, my homie comes from New York. We go out the camera all day and just shoot multiple videos for different songs, and we get all this content in one day.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

And that's you and him being like-minded, being on the same page.

SPEAKER_03 52:26

We just shot my last video that just released um uh I said what I said.

SPEAKER_00 52:31

Oh, we'll drop a clip, we'll drop a video.

SPEAKER_03 52:32

Yeah, I said what I said is uh new video, and he was the fucking film guy. He nice and then I edited at the crib and we put it out.

SPEAKER_00 52:40

Nice. And who who did the scratching on the album?

SPEAKER_03 52:43

Uh I think some of the scratching was done by me just through um Florida Studio.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

Okay, added it like that.

SPEAKER_03 52:51

The only DJ that's recently scratched on my shit. Fuck, I'm gonna kill myself.

SPEAKER_00 52:56

I think it's the outro that there's some scratching on it, right?

SPEAKER_03 52:58

Yeah, uh my man did a scratch for a song with me and RJ Payne. Xs. DJ X's one.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

XS?

SPEAKER_03 53:06

XS. DJ XS One? No way That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 53:12

DJ XS1, shout out the homie.

SPEAKER_03 53:14

Yeah, DJ X is one did the cuts on my uh That's crazy. Okay, that's fucking dope. Yeah, they were dope. And it was the RJ Payne song, and he did the he did the hook for us. Yes, and he did like a pick uh big pun and something else. It was dope.

SPEAKER_00 53:27

That's dope.

SPEAKER_03 53:28

Wow, okay, insane. Yeah, shout out to DJ XS.

SPEAKER_00 53:30

And then uh talking about another Miami Chico, let's paint the picture for me here. You're coming up in the battle scene in Miami and you cross paths with that Chico Pit Bull. I knew that was coming up.

SPEAKER_03 53:40

Um yeah, so in in early 2000, I was doing a lot of rap battle competitions in South Beach, wherever they were. I was in every site.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

Where are they taking place at?

SPEAKER_03 53:50

Like, at this time, this particular one was at Club Cream. It was called Club Cream. Nightclub? Nightclub. Okay. And it was hosted by DJ Epps. My boy, shout out to DJ Epps. He's the first dude that actually did a mixtape with me. Mixtape, right? Your first mixtape with the biggest. Shout out to Epps. Night Breeders, shout out to Night Breeders. Night Breeders, yeah, yeah, that's my people right there. So back then, um, yeah, I went in and he told me to shoot through, you know, he's like getting this battle, and he would put two people against each other, and then you'd make it to the next round.

SPEAKER_00 54:19

Okay, like a tournament style.

SPEAKER_03 54:20

Yeah, and then to be in the finals, and then that's was in front of like a lot, like a bunch of people.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

Nice, okay.

SPEAKER_03 54:25

Um, and this was just a showcase to get you in. So my first dude that I battled was uh they put me against was Pitbull.

SPEAKER_01 54:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 54:32

I'm not gonna say a one. But the crazy shit about what they don't know about Pitbull, and I want to say I respect Pitbull because and we spoke about this, Pitbull will show up anywhere and everywhere by himself all the time, right? So I respect Hustle like that because you never see him with a squad, you never see him in there causing trouble.

SPEAKER_00 54:55

Can't rely on it.

SPEAKER_03 54:56

He was just there walking in by himself, networking, and then moving. I go to Steve, I go to the studio in North Miami, I think it was Green Studio Green something, right or something like that. I walk in, pit bulls in the booth. I I go to a club uh in Fifth uh Club Fifth, I think it was South Beach. Um Deja Vu. Okay. I think it was. Anyway, Pitts in there, networking. Like everywhere I would go, I would see this dude.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

Mr. Worldwide for real.

SPEAKER_03 55:25

Yeah, and I knew, like, even seeing him and battling him, I'm like, yo, this guy is fucking working, man. He's gonna make it. And as soon as he linked with Laz and Laz started spinning his record, shout out to DJ Laz. Because that's what we miss. I think also when we talk about like music now and then, is like the DJ putting the artist on, right? Like the radio's helping the artist get out. I feel like that's disappearing, right? You still got hot 97 like Funk Flex and shit like that, where they're helping artists and and um static selector on XM radio and DJ Prime, shout out Prime helping independent artists. But on a worldwide, like iHeartRadio or or or Odyssey Radio, these companies aren't spinning local artists anymore, right? Because there would be no pit bull if it wasn't for Laz pushing them on Power 96 and then pushing that to where he got on 99 Jams, and then he met Lil John, and then his he signed TNT Records, and that was it. He fucking was gone. Yeah, yeah. TNT almost signed me, by the way. TVT. Was it TVT? I thought it was TNT. It was TVT. TV T my bad, TVT. Yeah, I sat with the AR before. But um, yeah, like it none of that would happen if local radio didn't support him at the time. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? I don't see that shit anymore. We don't do that no more. Crazy.

SPEAKER_00 56:45

Yeah, yeah, it's you know, it's it's everything's money oriented, you know. Correct. People sell out for the bag, and it creates uh hostile environment. Yeah, hostile environment, and and and you know, for lack of the territory, it whores that out. It whores it out the whole system and like it becomes about money and just chasing money. It's it's not a good thing. Um, so as a graffiti writer, I did want to ask this. Do you do uh do you do you type your music when you write it or do you like write it down physically?

SPEAKER_03 57:09

I write it physically. Physically, that's an important thing too. Always as a graffiti artist, you're just always using, yeah, like even when I write my lyrics, it looks like graffiti.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

So it's not even like have you ever tried typing in it?

SPEAKER_03 57:21

It's just not the same, but yeah, no, it's not I the only time I type it is on my phone, like where I'm like thinking and I gotta get it down, I'll type it down.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

And you just get the idea down, but then you actually write bars like that.

SPEAKER_03 57:32

Even when I write it on my notes in on my phone when I get home, I'll just write it out. On a notebook. So I got notebooks everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

Pen?

SPEAKER_03 57:39

Old school pen, yeah. Okay, cool. All the time.

SPEAKER_00 57:42

That's cool. That's quite I I I you know my handwriting's always sucked. And I'm uh I'm a guy that, you know, I'll fuck with my words and the word pay a lot, so like I love the utility of being able to delete and you know. It's dope. And then you got the voice where you can say it, and then it's that's crazy. I I yeah, that's good too, though. That is true. That is true, yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_03 57:59

But if I got a note in my head or a tune or something, I'll I'll record it.

SPEAKER_00 58:03

Was the pitbull a battle before or after the picture with Khaled? You have a picture performing with Khaled in the background? Was that around that era? Before.

SPEAKER_03 58:11

Before I no, no way. I'm sorry, that was that was after.

SPEAKER_00 58:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 58:15

Yeah, Khaled was doing something with reggae wear, which was a big hip-hop clothing uh store. If you if you're old heads are they're gonna comment that no reggae wear. Khaled was the host DJ for reggae wear, and it was open mic, and I was battle rapping there too.

SPEAKER_00 58:31

That was crazy, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:32

But it wasn't like a battle rap where you you move up. It was just like open mic. Open mic, yeah. Yeah, we would just get on there and just fucking. Everybody has a chance to get back. It was mad pictures of like me and Khaled back in the day. I remember Khaled used to drive a little BMW, and we used to help him load his records. I remember he was K R S one performed at um Club Renegade, I think it's called now in Fort Lauderdale. I just remember Khaled as a little BMW. Working. So people laughed. They're like, yo, you got a picture of skinny Khaled? I'm like, yeah, man. He was out hustling. Out here, for real. He was doing he was doing his thing, DJing everywhere. Yeah. And he started as a DJ on a radio station.

SPEAKER_00 59:09

So Oh yeah. From the bottom. Yeah. And uh you got some big features uh Killer Priest? You got some bigs?

SPEAKER_03 59:17

Yeah, I got four songs with Killer Priest now. Wow. He was uh I gotta give love to the priest. I was in New York recording one of my real first albums, like my big project. It's like a big deal to me, man. And I I call him and I'm like, yo, I'm in New York, Manhattan Studio, and you link up, and he came and showed up, dropped the verse. No money. We just been building because I had met him in Miami, and my homegirl was uh she ran a newspaper called The Cipher, which was a hip hop newspaper.

SPEAKER_00 59:51

That's a cool name.

SPEAKER_03 59:52

Yeah. And she interviewed him and linked us up. And when I came to New York, I shouted him out, man. He showed right up. Like, yo, let me help you with something. Like Pay, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:04

Linked up with uh from Brand Nubian?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:07

Dot X. We got we got four song three or four songs too. Crazy. Mad Cool Dot Dot. I mean, it's crazy to me because that's my first one of my first introductions to hip hop.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:17

To hip hop?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:17

Like listening to Brand Nubians slow down. And now I got a record with dude. That's like I could go now. I know that sounds crazy, but like I could say, I did shit that I'm I I'm I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:30

And that means something to you. So I I I like to play this uh game or uh segment with my uh guests that you know are in the fields of creation. It's the shoot your shot segment. So what's an old G artist that maybe you grew up listening to that's still in the game now, and maybe a a younger cat, a younger artist that you like to work with and uh shoot your shot to collab with on the music tip?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:48

I would say old school artists that I really want to work with would be Rock Kim.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:53

Okay. Legendary.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:55

Um New School. Man, this has to be something, you know, just something you want to work with. You know, I I had the privilege of working with some really dope new school artists like RJ Payne. He's not real new school, but he's coming up doing his thing. It's huge. Uh-huh. Hus Kingpin, I've got the honor to work with him. Um so you know, if there's an artist out there that I really would that probably would I wouldn't be able to get near, um, it would be somebody like J. Cole.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:24

Legends.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:25

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:26

Like, yeah, just to get saying he's retiring now, but I don't know. Yeah, they say he's retiring. I love J. Cole. He's one of my top three, if not my favorite for the longest. I don't I think he's gonna, I think he's just gonna come back with a different rap name or something. They used to go by the therapist.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:37

I think I think whoever makes your music better, like that's why I respect artists. Like if you're a good artist, I don't sometimes get too involved with the name. I get involved with the sound. Like when I heard a record, I was like, yo, I hear Sadot X on this record.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:52

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:52

So I reached out to Dot and like, yo, I hear you on this record. I wasn't even like I didn't, hey, I gotta get Dot. I want to work with him. Like I always wanted to work with him, but just the fact that a record had his so if I could get with an artist that makes the record better, that's that's what it's for, right? That's great. Because music's for listening to, right? We want to create this art that you can put artists don't sound right on a record, and you're like, yo, yeah just to say you worked with him. Yeah, exactly. You see that a lot, right? Like big artists coming out with collaborations, like, what the fuck is this? A lot of times, yeah, a lot of times.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:22

Um, and then uh yeah, we end every episode with uh with the big three draft segment. So uh I'm not sure. Are are are you are you uh you're you seem very informed of Solomon, so you're informed like the Bible? Okay, you think we could draft three Bible books like each? So the big three is like we pick uh like the best or worst of any specific whatever the topic is. So do you think we could pick like three books in the Bible? That you know maybe we could uh tell people that like uh must read books or you're just our favorites or guess. Just three favorite books? Yeah, but we go one by one. It's a draft, it's draft style. You feel me? So if you say Genesis, I can't say Genesis, you know. If I say eclect these, you can't say MCs or something.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:01

He seems like he's more in you know in tune with other shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:04

I yeah, I know I I'm I'm definitely in a religious sense, like biblical sense of reading um culture, but there's a lot of good are we just saying books in general, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

Like Well, I'm saying Bible books because of the play on your name, but we could we could switch it up. We could switch it up and we could do something else.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:19

When you say Bible books, it's like this I only there's three books that I think of is the Torah, the Quran, right, and the Old Testament and the New Testament. But when you say books that are related to In the Bible, right, type shit. To stories in in the Bible.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:34

Right. So you have like uh you have like like Genesis, you have to call it books by Torah, it's like those are all stories. There's stories in the Bible, they're split up into the books. I go back to books. I read the Torah, I read the Torah. And that's why the theme of the show is you learn and you laugh, because I forgot about that, and now I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:51

Let's go with books in general, because I think like Yeah, let's do all kinds of books.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:54

Yeah, whatever, whatever you're coming. Because we've done like self-help books before as a draft, but now to not do the same thing, we can do all kinds of books.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:00

Yeah, well just tell them the Torah's the first five, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:03

The Torah's the first five books? Exodus. Genesis, Exodus. You know what I mean? Genesis, Exodus.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:11

Man, you you got me off my Bible study.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:14

Um, no, okay. No, I'm pretty sure. But if you haven't like the first five.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:19

Yes. So the the Torah is the original. Yes. The Torah is the original. Yes. Yes, correct. It's the what they would call the ju the Jewish version, the Jewish Bible, but they or Judaism. But it's the original Bible. That's all it is. It's the first, it's the first scripture, and then you got uh the the Quran, and then you have the um Old Testament and the New Testament. Here's my thought. And and this is gonna make a lot of people mad too since we just brought it up, and I'll make it quick because I know we're good, but we're wrapping up. Here's my thought. Everything that's human base or human touch has been f filtered for an agenda. A hundred percent. I agree with that so much. So the re and I say this very carefully because there's a lot of religious people that live by the Bible's words, and I'm not saying don't, or the Torah or the Quran. I'm just saying they were written, right? If they found them, they were still written. And there's a lot of belief that a lot of things were written for an agenda, especially in we look at the Roman era of when Rome wanted things a certain way. So they tapped into our books and our Bibles, similar to uh the USA tapping and the government tapping into our history books that we teach at the school.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:41

Right now, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:42

That we're teaching these things of because there's an agenda of what we want to teach and when people live by, right? I've always believed and I've lived by this, because I've been around my grandparents, my my grandmother's uh Holocaust surviv survivor.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:00

Ashkenazi Jewish. And my mother's the opposite. She's a Scottish, Polish, drunk. You know what I mean? She's Catholic. So she's like reading the you know the New Testament.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:10

Perspective. That's crazy. I've seen it all.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:13

Like I've I grew up around Buddhists. I grew around uh bet my some of my best friends are Muslim. So I've seen I've listened I listen. Remember, we talked about sitting in a room and listening and everything. And here's my thing, like what I learned is like if you when you do right, you can't go wrong. Without getting deep into biblical sense, meaning like when you treat people good, good things happen. And I believe that you manifestation of what you do is what you the results you get. And I I can't understand why there's wicked people in the world, but I can understand. Like when you do something wrong and you do something that's you know you did it. Like you feel it inside. That's God.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:52

Right? Like when you do something wrong, your guilty conscious is God. Is it's God telling you, like, come on.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:57

You know wrong.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:58

So if you follow a righteous path of doing right by what you know is right, I feel like it don't matter. You could pray to a lob, you could pray to God, you could pray to Jah. And higher there's a higher power out there that sees your good. And that's gonna manifest your future, whatever you do. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:16

I don't think they're gonna, you know, uh, when we go to heaven, I don't think they're like, oh, what Bible did you read? Like I don't I always I trip out when people go back and forth about religion because it's like God is God.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:26

I think sometimes religion helps people and it also separates people.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:29

It's I I look at it like it's like you feel me. I feel like it's music, you know. There's different genres of music, but good music could be whether it's hip-hop, rock, it's like you feel me. There's yeah, you there's different there's good songs with you with with music.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:42

There's good points in the Bible that's are are great stories and it are are are likely some are true or might have been edited to be something, whatever. However you look at it, right? Um it's a great book to read. Um, I'm not a Bible smasher, like I think it's a it's a the holy tourist, I loved it, and I didn't read it all yet, but you know, King Solomon and Solomon 1111, I felt something when I read that, right? Well that's true. Inside, like I when I was reading it, I felt something emotionally touch me. Yeah, so something with that is to me is a spiritual link to God.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:16

You know, I want to pivot on the big three draft. We're gonna draft three ways to three ways to express ourselves, three ways we could encourage people to express ourselves, and we could open it up to everything. Like the the the easy first round picks are probably gonna be music and maybe like exercise, things like that. But you know, we could get a little bit more complicated depending on where the draft goes. So what's the number one way you think people could express themselves? Or should express themselves, or try expressing themselves. Um especially in a world where you know we're all connected, people don't know how to express themselves. You know how to talk. I think it's important you get different outlets in life.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:46

So I feel like there's a lot of ways we're gonna communication in general, like just going just talking, just talking.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:52

Just just speech, speech, speech, speech with in person though. Communication build, just build it. Agree with that, agree with that. I agree with that. I'm gonna take uh I'm gonna take uh music. I'm gonna take music off the board because you know I think uh the few of us that are able to rhyme and sit down and come up with even if you're making beats, whatever the case may be, that's a form of expression. You could get lost in that work and lost in the art, and that's such a blessing, dude. Like, like I can't tell you how many times on this podcast alone we've already brought up that us artists, we write our best shit when we're going through life in the worst times.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:27

Biggest hits came out when you're going through something.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:29

My heart goes out to people like civilian people that aren't making music and aren't that don't know that feeling, don't have that cheat code, or you could just be going through it and be like, dog, let me just write something, let me just listen to a beat. So therapy. I I think that's beautiful. And anybody listening to this right now, maybe if you're going through maybe you got writer's block, embrace it. Have that hard conversation with yourself and try to write about that hard shit you don't want to think about. Maybe that's the the banger you need to write. Maybe that's the song that's gonna change your life. I love it. Yeah, I'll be right back. What's the second way you think people could express themselves?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:56

Um, I think I'll call it doodling, but you like drawing, like just that's a great tag.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:04

That's a great full circle to you tagging.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:06

Yeah, like writing. You know, they uh a wise person says, like you manifest what you write sometimes. Like if you have something in your mind that you really want, write that shit down. Start building a list of goals that you want, and don't stop just doing it once or twice. Whenever you're feeling a certain way, sit down and just keep writing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:22

Make it tangible when you see it. And full circle to what I was talking about, typing music. If I want to memorize a verse before performing it, I write it down on a notebook. Even though I'm not sure. Yeah, because you keep it to memory. I used to do that, yeah. That's that's the that's the funk right there. Rewrite it over and over. You do it like two or three times, you rewrite that. I think 16 times is like that. My memory's shit. Yeah, okay. So 17. Okay. So um you said uh like drawing drawing, drawing in general. That's dope. Second thing I'll say today. You know what? I'm gonna, it's kind of a chico because it's kind of creative writing like music. But I opened up music and my first pick was music in general, so you could like be a beatmaker and everything. Today I sat for like three hours on the phone with my homie Mauricio, episode 25. Um, and we wrote a screenplay. We came up with like he had an idea for a screenplay, and we sat for three and a half hours, bro. Just banged it out non-stop, no breaks, just back and forth ideas, testing things out. What at this? What about that? And honestly, man, I think her name was Ms. Ruben. I had a creative writing class freshman year. I just look back at that and it's like creative writing in general is fun. Yeah, you know, you can just get you you don't have to be a rapper, you don't have to be a full-blown author. Yeah, you don't have to you know you know, rhyme, just be creative.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:33

Yeah, I I embrace that.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:35

That's fun, man. I think writing in general, you know, do some creative writing. I used to write fanfiction wrestling scripts when I was a child, and it's like, yo, like, like, just just try writing. If you if you got it in you, you know, try typing something out, man. Writing's a good way. Oh, another cool thing too is like you if like whenever you're like uh have frustrations with somebody, you have a message you want to get across with somebody, like write it out. Write it down. You feel me? Write it out like this. So writing in general, creative writing is a good form of expression.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:57

Also, when you write it down, just like the lyricist and the artist that writes, it it helps you figure some emotions out. Yes. Like if you're going through depression when you write it out, it helps you figure out why you're going through a breakup, whatever it is. If you write down, you start answering questions that you have, and like, wow, and you figure some shit out. How you feel, a hundred percent. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:19

Last pick for ways to free people could express themselves.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:22

I'm gonna go with the shit I was terrible at. I'm gonna go with dance. Because I feel like dance is an expression, right? Like, you know, watching people express themselves with that form of art. We look at the elements of hip hop, you know, the dance is there for a reason because it's a a great form of expression and energy without saying anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:41

100%. And I'm gonna pivot off that and say exercise because health is wealth. And whether you're dancing, whether you're running with us every Wednesday, health is hip hop in our run club, or you know, you're hitting the weights like his son going hard, you know, training for football and being able to rock people. Well, you lifting them cheeseburgers yeah, or you're lifting some cheeseburgers, or you're lifting, you know, those graffiti cans tagging, whatever it is, man. If you're healthy, able to have more fun, yeah. Yeah, man. If whatever it is, you know, if you're healthier and you're expressing yourself like that daily, making that effort, if you're choosing to suffer a little bit in the gym or an exercise, you're gonna be able to really deal with the pressure of life when it's time to really suffer. So, yeah, express yourself like that, people. Because I can't tell you how many times I'll be feeling down, and then I walk in that gym, boy, and I'm like, oh man, I'm I'm here, man. Let's let's get this popping, let's get this shit going.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:26

Because it's a chemical scientific that there's a chemical in your body when you work out, it makes your serotonin work better. Meaning that you get happier, you feel better. So it's it's it's science. You can't, science don't lie, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:40

And uh this is mathematics, because every episode we end with a message to the people. One last message for the people before we get out of here, Solomon.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:47

Work hard, play hard, take time to balance life. Because remember what's important, it's not always gonna be there. So when you could work your ass off for this goal or this money or this financial gain, but miss time somewhere else. And none of that shit'll matter if the people that you love aren't there anymore. So focus on what you love and what you what matters the most first. All that shit is secondary.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:17

Wise words from King Solomon. Word up. That's that's real. That's real, real, real. Word up. Hey, uh, thank y'all for tuning in. Like I said at the beginning, like and subscribe, and uh we'll see you next week. Peace.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:28

You rock that, man. Thank you. Appreciate it.