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Nov. 1, 2022 - This Past Weekend - Theo Von

02:17:21

E415 Bubba Sparxxx

Bubba Sparxxx is an American rapper from La Grange, Georgia. His singles include "Deliverance", "Ugly", and "Ms. New Booty" which peaked at number 7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. You can check out his latest single “Catastrophic” here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPDNtk1GKqQ Bubba Sparxxx joins Theo to talk about growing up in the south, football dreams, his rise in rap, the highs and lows of his success, and his eventual path to recovery. ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com Podcastville mugs and prints available now at https://theovon.pixels.com ------------------------------------------------- Support our Sponsors: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://www.amazon.com/stores/CELSIUS/ShopNow/page/95D581F4-E14E-4B01-91E7-6E2CA58A3C29 ------------------------------------------------- Music: "Shine" by Bishop Gunn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: http://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Alex https://www.instagram.com/mralexlagos/ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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	We got new merch, some new colorways in the Be Good to Yourself collection.
	We've got hoodies in plum and moss.
	We've also got t-shirts in lilac, moss, and blue mist.
	I hope you enjoy those.
	Those are good colors.
	Get that hitter and more at theovanstore.com.
	I want to let you know that we have some new tour dates to announce.
	January 11th and 12th in Grand Junction, Colorado.
	We've added a new show there.
	January 13th, Pueblo, Pueblo, Colorado.
	January 14th, Denver.
	We have two shows there.
	January 15th, down in Fort Collin, Colorado.
	We are excited to be at the fort.
	And March 1st, 3rd, and 4th in Boston, Massachusetts.
	And March 2nd, in Medford, Massachusetts.
	Those are all available at theova.com slash T-O-U-R.
	And that will be the Return of the Rat Tour.
	Today's guest has been a fixture in the rap and hip-hop community.
	He was a part of a lot of our adolescence and young adulthoods.
	He's a new friend, and I'm grateful to spend time with him and hear about his journey as an entertainer and as a human.
	Today's guest is Mr. Bubba Sparks.
	Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me And I will find a song I've been singing I love you!
	I love you!
	The sparks, baby, what's up, big Theo?
	Staying alive, man.
	Staying alive.
	Staying alive.
	Pleasantly present.
	Yeah, trying to be, that's a big thing is trying to stay present for me.
	I get so caught up sometimes in thinking about everything that I need to do or things I haven't done, and I will get… You probably heard it some of the same places that we've been.
	If you got one foot in tomorrow and one foot in yesterday, you're pissing and shitting all over the day.
	Yeah, man.
	I got a few sayings for you.
	Yeah, I bet we probably have a lot of the same.
	So you, because you and I kind of connected over like talking about sobriety and stuff.
	Right, right.
	You know?
	He moved this mic just over.
	No, no, you don't have to move, but you could move.
	It's whatever.
	As long as it's near your beak, yeah.
	There we go.
	And yeah, feel free to move it or whatever.
	I'll show you to do with my hands.
	Just do whatever.
	There's no real way to, you know what you do, man.
	I was doing Ricky Bobby.
	Oh.
	Yeah, so what's that been like in your life, man?
	Man, it's just been a back and forth journey.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I mean, it's just been, you know, I've had some periods of recovery.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And I've had some periods of sobriety, you know what I'm saying, that weren't necessarily like filled with great recovery.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And there's a difference, as you know.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Sometimes I was just kind of white knuckling it, you know, and sometimes, and then sometimes I'm kind of just either on the way to things getting bad or like on the way to things back getting good.
	You know what I'm saying?
	At what point is like that turn four, you know what I'm saying, so to speak, on the racetrack, you know?
	Yeah.
	But, you know, I just I went to treatment back in February, you know, and it was it was good.
	But I wouldn't claim to be sober right now.
	Was it a 30 to was it, what, what, what is it like?
	I mean, I did 35 days of inpatient, you know what I'm saying?
	And it was kind of weird because all the COVID protocols.
	So like, you know how normally when you go to treatment, you can like get to go to outside meetings and all that stuff.
	You can find a sponsor that way and all that stuff.
	We were literally like stuck in this one hole, this house like for, it was a cold month.
	So it was like kind of, it was a good deal to be stuck inside.
	But man, it got kind of stir crazy in that joint for sure.
	And was it all men in there?
	No, there was some women, but they had like a different little house that they actually would sleep in.
	And they had to go there, like after eight o'clock, they had to go get in their house.
	But I ain't going to say I heard tale of some intermingling after hours, you know what I'm saying?
	Yeah.
	But yeah, I definitely wasn't on that type of vibe.
	I have, you know, in other trips to treatment, I've kind of, you know, been all about the female patients.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Yeah, they get some real.
	Yeah.
	Especially, man, if I'm coming off of pills, I want to pet something, you know?
	Man, well, it's just anytime, you know, we fill that hole, that internal hole with external anything.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And so it's like, man, if you take away what my primary tool I was using to try to fill that hole, even though it was just ultimately making the hole bigger, but if you just, if you take that, whatever thing I was using, I'm about to find something else.
	It might be cheeseburgers.
	You know what I'm saying?
	It might be gambling.
	Might be women.
	It might be men, whatever.
	Oh, damn, bro.
	I haven't been there yet.
	Me neither.
	Dude, you hit me with the wrong eight ball.
	I'll fucking, I might meet some young fella, bro.
	I ain't meeting no old dude, though.
	That's fucked up.
	Man, I just, I don't know.
	I just never had that inclination.
	If I was gay, I would just be gay.
	You know what I'm saying?
	It wouldn't really, I mean, I can't say that growing up, it might not have been like kind of a tormenting type thing.
	Growing up in the rural South, you know, you had to be a real secret gay back then.
	But to be honest with you, like being a white rapper from LaGrange, Georgia, you know what I'm saying?
	It was, it was some of the same type of like, you know, I won't say oppression, but just ridicule that you faced, you know?
	I never even thought about that.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I guess people, yeah, people probably would have like think you're trying to blacken up or something like that.
	Well, it's kind of like not really accepted by either side, you know what I'm saying?
	Because where I grew up, LaGrange, Georgia, shout out to Trap County.
	But it's pretty much 50% black, 50% white.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And so, yeah, definitely the white side wasn't really too, you know what I'm saying, like open-minded to the prospect of me being a rapper at that time.
	But, you know, the hood side, the black folks really wasn't too receptive either.
	It's not like they were just waiting with open arms as far as that, like, come be a rapper over here.
	Well, you were early into, I mean, you were like, I mean, you were dang, you were like the dang Neil Armstrong out there.
	You was like one of the first on the moon, yeah.
	Yeah, you was like one of the first wiggers on the moon, kind of in a way, you know.
	No, I mean, as far as like, you know, a country boy from the south, you know, or did they have that?
	I don't know.
	They didn't have it.
	No, and that's been part of the journey, like, is there was no reference point.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, I grew up off like outcast.
	I was heavily influenced by outcasts, goodie mob, the organized noise, the dungeon family.
	So that was the closest thing because they were the first people to kind of like rep Georgia, you know what I'm saying, period, specifically Atlanta.
	But for me, I was brought up in the country about 60 miles down the road from Atlanta.
	Oh, damn.
	And so, yeah, there was, and just being a white boy or whatever, there was definitely nobody for me to look at.
	Even though I did learn from a lot of other white rappers that were successful, starting with the Beastie Boys, you know, going on to like Everlast, House of Pain, even third base to some degree.
	But then Eminem, you know what I'm saying?
	It was right, Eminem was about a year before me, you know what I'm saying?
	And when he came, I was like, oh, that's perfection right there, the way that was executed.
	But I knew, you know, shout out to Vanilla Ice.
	He's actually my dog.
	Like, I've done shows with him, and we've had a ball.
	Yeah, he's a cool cat.
	I've met him a few times.
	Yeah, he's a good dude, man.
	But at that time, there was like after his Ice Ice Baby reign, kind of, like, when he sold like 15 million albums, which you can't take, everybody was listening.
	Everybody was jamming Ice Ice Baby.
	I don't care what nobody says now.
	Oh, even Vietnamese are like, you know, Ice Ice Baby.
	You know, everybody had it.
	Hey, you know, projects, albums don't sell 15 million.
	Singles don't sell 30 million or whatever is sold without everybody liking that shit.
	You know what I mean?
	Dude, everybody liked that shit.
	Everybody got the big pants.
	When you really hit, when you affect people's, you know, when you go through their ears and come out their clothing.
	I mean, I remember so many white boys.
	Now, I wasn't quite old enough to attempt a stunt like this, but I remember white boys getting even like the little haircut that he had and shit.
	And it was just like, dang, man, you were so cool.
	You got a vanilla ice haircut.
	You know what I'm saying?
	But that wasn't really something I was on.
	But just to keep going, there was some kind of discrepancies with his story about where he was from and what he was representing as far as being a hood kid or whatever.
	And so after that, I kind of just learned it was like a lull.
	It was like a five or six year period where nobody was checking for white rappers.
	You know what I'm saying?
	But I knew like, you just got to represent who you are.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like everything that's in the spirit of hip hop and where hip hop comes from and like the principles, you know, the guiding principles are based on like, you know, just truly, truly, accurately, honestly, represent who you are, where you come from and what it was like there and tell your story honestly.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And that's going to work.
	You know what I'm saying?
	If you do it and you figure out a way to make it dope.
	And so I had developed that within myself.
	Cause like my first raps I ever wrote, like in 1992, like at my mom's kitchen table in the ninth grade were like, was just rolling in the benzo, letting the bass drop when five motherfuckers rolled by in a drop top.
	Like, you know, talking about like boys in the hood.
	Because I didn't know how to.
	And that was part of what you're talking about, like the whole journey of me trying to figure out how within using hip-hop is the outlet, expressing who I was and where I came from, you know, growing up on a farm, you know, saying in Lagrange.
	Yeah, farm.
	Some of the animals got gold chains on them.
	I just, I never cared about music.
	Music was all around me.
	I had an older brother that loved like metal bands like Iron Maiden.
	Big shout out to Russ.
	Iron Maiden's his favorite band, all-time band.
	So he was into that type of music.
	Then I had my oldest brother, Jay.
	Shout out to Jay.
	He liked like Parliament funk, Camelot, you know what I'm saying?
	George Clinton, all that kind of stuff.
	He had P-Funk.
	And then my dad likes like throwback country, you know, traditional country.
	And my mama just likes to dance.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So music was all around, but it just didn't speak to me.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I didn't care about it.
	It was just something in the background.
	But when I heard them, somebody say, hey, we want some put.
	When I heard that, I was like, what is that?
	Then when I heard Boys in the Hood, when I heard Too Short, I was like, what the fuck is this?
	Maybe you didn't even know you had it.
	It just spoke.
	I knew it was good.
	When I heard Brass Monkey by the Beastie Boys, I heard it.
	It was just like, man, this is going to be a part of my life forever.
	I just feel it.
	It just speaks to me.
	Like, I don't know the raw expression, the 808 drum.
	Like, man, it was a lot to do with that 808, honestly, man.
	Like, for real.
	Because that wasn't really a part.
	The boom bap was kind of like the New York wave of hip-hop when the West Coast finally got its turn.
	It was like too short in WA.
	Like that 808 drum was rattling.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Dude, I remember, yeah, when some of that shit came through our neighborhood, because I probably grew up, I didn't grow up country.
	I just grew up in like a rural kind of white area.
	Right.
	Because Louisiana doesn't get like a redneck vibe.
	Louisiana just, it's a lot of like grandchildren of Cajun people.
	Like further south.
	You got Cajun people.
	You got a lot of mix, kind of like a lot of yellow-skinned, kind of like light-skinned black dudes.
	You got some kind of dark.
	Creole type.
	Yeah, you got some people just fucking, you don't know what color they are, bro.
	They don't even know.
	Fuck.
	No, Louisiana's a different kind of place now.
	They got a lot of pirates.
	Grandchildren of pirates and shit like that.
	You know what I'm saying?
	She's got to old Broadnecks.
	There's a country rapper that's doing his thing right now.
	He's from Monroe, Louisiana.
	And they call him Broadneck?
	Broadnecks.
	That's his last name.
	Broadnex.
	Yeah, John.
	I think it's John Broadnecks or whatever, but he's representing Louisiana.
	He's got that Louisiana flavor about the way he does his thing, but it's like kind of country white boy, you know, Louisiana type flavor, which I wouldn't call it like country country, like farm type country.
	It's just more like swampy.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So you, so you're muted.
	So yeah, you were just trying to express yourself, really.
	Yeah.
	And then it was just, it's kind of like a puzzle, too.
	You're just trying to figure out how to fit the pieces together and make it seem cool, ultimately.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Because, I mean, there are some pretty interesting dynamics to rural life, you know what I'm saying, that maybe some people just aren't typically aware of, you know what I'm saying?
	But just how to, it's not, now I'm not trying to say that violence in a community and all that stuff is cool.
	It's a terrible thing.
	But ultimately, if you're representing yourself as a person that made it, persevered and made it through that, and that's your testimony of like, you know what I'm saying?
	That's cool.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And it's hard.
	You know what I'm saying?
	But basically, I just, I was like, well, this is it.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I got to just give it what I have to offer.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And I just told the story of what I'd been through and what my life had been like.
	And, you know, it was enough people that related to it for me to be able to keep doing this as a job without having to get a real job for 20-something years.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Yeah, dude.
	Everybody.
	I mean, I fucking, it was crazy, man.
	When you hit the scene, it was just.
	It was special, man.
	It was special, man.
	What was some of the pressure of that?
	Like, because, yeah, they just didn't have anything like you.
	All of a sudden, you're like kind of mixing two worlds.
	You're probably not like, yeah, maybe some, I could imagine maybe, especially where you're from, some white people could see, like, oh, this is too, this is too black for us.
	And the hood, the hood, you're never, the hood fucking, you're never hood enough.
	Even if you, like, the hood will always be like, you're never hood enough.
	You know, it's like, there's always that, even in the black community.
	But at the end of the day, when you just are being you, you know what I'm saying?
	Like, and I, and I never compromised me.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I really didn't.
	I never did.
	There were some things that I might have done that I would have preferred to have highlighted other aspects of who I really am.
	But any, there's nothing I did that wasn't, you know, a certain shade of like who I am.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like truthfully.
	And so it's kind of like just being at peace.
	You know, I went through so much when I was younger as far as like trying to really just figure out like, because I mean, to say that people didn't support me in my pursuit of this, of rap music, hip-hop as a career, would be a pretty big understatement.
	You know, I would say more like people didn't even kind of like stop chuckling behind my back until I had actually like, I was on MTV.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So I was well accustomed and adjusted to like people not supporting me, you know, to have to be that, that, that self-propelling, you know, type deal.
	Well, that happens, I think, with a lot of like, I remember when I was a comedian, like it was like, or until like you, somebody sees you on something, you are just some dude.
	You are like some guy that don't want to get a real job.
	And everybody just thinks you're full of, you know what I'm saying?
	Like everybody just thinks at the end of the day because, you know, I mean, I'm a creative person, you know what I'm saying?
	And I played football and that's like the big deal, like where I grew up, like high school football.
	You know, it's like Friday Night Lights type of deal for sure.
	And I was pretty good at football.
	My best friend, Steve Hernandez, shout out to him.
	He was great at football.
	You know what I'm saying?
	He was one of the top 100 highest recruited players in the country.
	Went to Georgia, was all SEC, played in the NFL for seven years.
	But so I love football.
	Football is my first love, to be honest with you.
	And it was interesting because music was actually his first love.
	And we ended up living vicariously through one another.
	But when I saw how I was like, man, he's what the deal deal is.
	And I'm just not quite that.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So, man, what could I be great, great at?
	You know what I'm saying?
	And I had never bumped my, I bumped my head on the ceiling as far as my potential with football pretty early.
	But I was like, man, I just really think I can do the music thing.
	I just, the first time I ever sat down to write a rap, I was like, man, I just got a knack for this, for just putting words together, making them rhyme and just being clever.
	And just, I don't know.
	I just always, somewhere deep down in my heart, even though I tried to do other things because it wasn't easy.
	Like I said, there was no acceptance for it.
	You know, we all crave being accepted, you know what I'm saying, on some level or another by the people around us.
	And nobody was really, my closest friends, like Big Steve, like he, he believed in me 100%.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I'd be up at the University of Georgia.
	I ended up moving up to Athens, Georgia, and being up there, like, you know, freestyling after football games and stuff.
	And like all the guys on the team, you know what I'm saying?
	Just like Andy's what they call me back then.
	And just like, Andy, float for him one time, float for him one time.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, and just all those guys being up there and just being like.
	That's much before they had iPod.
	You was the iPod.
	No doubt.
	And like, as far as battling, like everybody would try to go back home and find the best rapper in their little area and get him to come up.
	Get him.
	I'll bring his little ass out of the box.
	He's going to serve your boy.
	He's going to serve your boy.
	And then, you know what I'm saying?
	It just wasn't happening.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So I would sit there and literally go back and just write and write.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Because I've never been a freestyler because I didn't grow up around other people rapping.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So people develop that freestyling ability, I think, when they're in groups of people rapping.
	But it was a long time before I was around other people that were like seriously even, you know, rapping, putting words together like that.
	So when you like, so how did you start to take off?
	How did your career, how did it go from that where you're just kind of rapping and becoming like acclaimed amongst people in Georgia, amongst like after parties and stuff like that, before social media, how did you get to that next stage?
	That's a good question because I always tell people now, like, this era the way it is, I don't even, I wouldn't know where to start telling somebody how to get on.
	You know what I'm saying?
	How to make it happen.
	You know, just when people ask me for advice, I'm like, look, just pray that this is what God wants for you if it's what you really want.
	You know, and burn bridges.
	Like, and I don't mean burn bridges in terms of relationships, but in the pursuit of this thing, if you leave yourself outs, and I know you know this as far as like the comedy thing too, if you leave yourself outs, at some point you're going to take one of them.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Because it's tough.
	And so I burnt some bridges or as coach Georgia Kirby Smart would say, burn the boats.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like there was just nowhere for me to go other than this.
	You know what I'm saying?
	If this didn't happen, I shudder to think what might happen.
	You know, a certain number of years in, especially.
	It's like once you get up to like 25, 20, people are like, what's going on?
	You're not in college.
	You don't have this degree.
	You don't have a child.
	You don't have a family.
	People are like, you better show something.
	You know, and my best friend was like playing football at Georgia.
	And, you know, he was on the way to the NFL.
	And it was honestly, it hurt me so bad because I loved him so much and was so supportive of him.
	And I now believe that that was God preparing me, you know, because like I learned how to not be a hater.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And a lot of people probably looked at me, definitely looked at me as like a hindrance on him even.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, you know, Steve B. R. If, you know, if he just get away from old Andy, you know what I'm saying?
	Like, kind of looked at me as like the loser, but Steve, he never bought into that.
	He never subscribed to that.
	You know what I'm saying?
	He was always like, tell people like, you know, he going to do something big.
	I don't know when it's going to be or what exactly it's going to be.
	Maybe this music thing, maybe not, but he gonna do something big.
	You know, he always believed in me, never blinked.
	And then.
	Had you had that kind of belief before in your life?
	Had you had someone you feel like believe in you like that?
	No, other than him, honestly.
	I mean, it's not that my parents and his parents, it was love, you know what I'm saying?
	But it was like it was just so far beyond their realm of comprehension, you know, that it might even be remotely feasible for something like that to happen, especially being a white boy and coming from down there.
	But I just always looked at it like this.
	I always had like this innate feeling like, hey, I'm just, I'm going to do something special.
	I'm special.
	I'm different, you know, not, not in a bad way because I've never not been humble, but just like, you know, just really feeling like there's just something out there waiting for me that I just got to find it and pluck it out of the sky or whatever.
	And so I just basically like, I didn't ever think sometimes I felt like, you know, it was going to be something like, because my fallback plan was being a high school history teacher and a high school football coach.
	Oh, damn.
	I'd love to see you fucking remix.
	Oh, bro.
	Oh, man.
	I love that.
	Remix the Civil War, though?
	Yeah.
	I love to see that, bro.
	Fucking get, get, get, get, get it.
	I got a crazy theory on that, too.
	On, like, you know, like, you know, when you have like the feeling, this is a tangential.
	I think it's a city.
	There's people listening just because people right now are stacking shell.
	They're driving Amazon.
	They're fucking beating their spouse.
	They don't know what the fuck.
	Y'all rock steady out there.
	But as far as like, man, I just, I feel like in the future, like, I think, you know, how we get that feeling, like, everybody says, like, you just know something's in the room with you or you like hear something crazy or whatever.
	I've kind of developed a theory on this.
	And maybe you, I'd like to hear your thoughts on it.
	So I think that in the future, you know, like how in history class now, you know, like we go through books and look at pictures and listen to speeches or whatever that mark these certain, you know, historical events or whatever.
	I think in the future, the reason that we hear these weird things and like, it's like these, I don't know what you would call it, not ghosts, but like some of them probably are mistaken for ghosts.
	I think in the future, time travel is actually possible and people come back and like can actually be present, but it's like in a different dimension.
	So they can like see it, but they're not really present.
	They're like in danger and actually be on the battlefield at Gettysburg and stuff like that.
	Oh, wow.
	Yeah, that's that's just something that.
	So you're saying like in the future, you could have like Gettysburg.
	Yeah, basically people.
	A whole class, a whole field.
	They're just sitting there looking at the battle actually taking place.
	Damn.
	But see, they're not, the whole back to the future.
	Right, they don't know that they're there.
	And the whole, no, yeah, the people that are fighting the battle don't, but like the whole back to the future thing and like about like, you know, messing it up and all that stuff, that's not a threat because you're like in a different dimension.
	Right.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So you can observe it, but you're not actually present.
	But man, I really think that's like you threw some like secret drywall or something.
	Like they don't know you're there.
	Yeah, it's just you're in a different, some kind of different, you know, like dude.
	I used to think, look, I love this shit.
	I used to think that, so people had CDs and this and that.
	People had...
	In a vehicle.
	And you would just press in whatever you wanted to listen to.
	And then like Bubba Spark would come and perform on your dashboard like a hologram.
	Yeah.
	I always thought that that would be the next thing.
	Like if you wanted to watch ACDC, you would just type it in.
	Yeah.
	And then damn, they would come out there and actually, you're just driving and they're right there, you know?
	That's like the next step in the evolution of just music videos and like streaming period though.
	You know what I'm saying?
	It's probably not, it's probably, because they have those holograms like a Tupac.
	I remember that was like that thing.
	So, I mean, we, technology, if you went back 100 years from this, like, so if you went back to 1922.
	It was a little bit blow somebody's mind.
	I mean, but like so much more than you would if you went from 1922 to 1822.
	Right.
	They wouldn't be that shocked.
	Right, exactly.
	Like the world didn't change that much.
	They'd be like, that's a wheel bit.
	But that's just the evidence of the fact that technology is evolving at a much more rapid rate.
	So imagine 100 years from now.
	We can't comprehend it.
	We literally cannot comprehend it.
	And so.
	Dude, you know what?
	Somebody was telling me about comp, I was talking with someone about this and they had you were talking about a guy with a ladder and another guy said, hey, one day I think we could get to the moon.
	And this dude could only think, nah, we can't get to, we can maybe get to the top of a tree or something.
	Right.
	But I'm not doing a good job explaining.
	Anyway, it's something I'm not, but I don't remember that.
	I see that same thing all the time.
	It's like sometimes we can't comprehend things.
	We don't have the words for it sometimes.
	Right.
	And it's beyond our brain to even, because we're still thinking within the limitations.
	It's a three-dimensional thing of this world.
	We're thinking of our limitations.
	One of the hardest things I ever saw was like the way, I forget, I was watching something.
	This is probably 10, 15 years ago, but they were explaining the difference.
	Because, you know, mathematics is like proving that there's like nine dimensions.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, we just aren't aware of them or haven't discovered them or figured out how to interpret them or, you know, or just see them or be present in them, whatever the case is.
	But so like, you know, if we lived in a two-dimensional world, my finger coming at you would just look like a dot.
	But because it's a three-dimensional world, you can see all sides of my finger.
	You know what I'm saying?
	But imagine this, if there was some being, God, perhaps.
	Some people might call that being.
	They could do time the same way.
	Who's to say?
	You know what I'm saying?
	I see what you're saying.
	Yeah, like look all around time.
	Like, you know, the time thing.
	Right, right.
	Because time for us just flows like this.
	Right.
	But what if some dude just.
	Yeah, this would be like, okay, this is like looking at it from looking at 2022 from 2014.
	Okay, now I'm going to go look at 2022 from 2036.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So I don't.
	Yeah, I wonder if there's other realms we're going to crack.
	I feel like that has to be the next one.
	You would have to believe, that's what God would be.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, because I remember when I was real little, you know, my pops, I wouldn't necessarily call him like an intellectual, but he's a pretty smart guy.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And he would say, I'd be like trying to get him to explain God to me, you know, like in all these, because I was a very inquisitive kid.
	And he'd just be like, it's just beyond our realm of comprehension.
	You know, that would shut me up every time.
	He's like, you just can't even understand it.
	You know what I mean?
	and honestly, like, that's the truth.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, whatever it is we're talking about, whatever might be, or could be, or could we could evolve into, it's just hard to know.
	But I was listening to something the other day.
	I watch a lot of YouTube videos.
	You know what I mean, man?
	I'll go down to YouTube.
	I love that one with you and Randy Aitkins.
	Oh, Rodney Akins.
	Rodney Akinski.
	Yeah, man.
	Shout out to Rodney, man.
	Wright.
	Wrecking.
	I liked Wright.
	Wright, I really, really love.
	I like Wrecking.
	That's what's up.
	I like Wrecking Man, but I really, really did like Wright.
	I don't know what it was.
	Nah, that was a pretty good example.
	To me, that's something I don't normally do on the countryside.
	That's like country music with rap on it.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I feel like I do country hip-hop.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Really, it should be called hip-hop country because hip-hop is the first thing that I've, you know what I'm saying?
	Got it.
	You know, I represent all things that I am.
	I'm white, you know what I'm saying, or whatever.
	I'm country hip-hop, but I'd say I'm hip-hop before I'm anything.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Because it's just that the hip-hop music and culture has done so much for me.
	I'm so grateful.
	To be all over the world.
	I just want to complete land on that thought about Wright.
	Some guys like Big Smo, Colt Ford.
	I would say those are kind of the forefathers of that sound.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Where it's really just more like country music, just with some rapping on it.
	And it's dope.
	And that song is incredible.
	Shout out to Nora Gordon, who worked on writing that song with us.
	But yeah, and Rodney, I had just come to Nashville.
	And that was kind of like the 2012 area of when Florida, Georgia Line was first blowing up and the TV show Nashville was on.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Nashville was kind of like getting that first like, oh, it's like becoming like an international, like cool place.
	Yeah, it was putting this little skirt on.
	Yeah, it wasn't just Redneck Hollywood anymore.
	Yeah.
	And so like, you know, and I came up here and, you know, Rodney, he took a chance on, you know what I'm saying?
	It wasn't the cool, now like this genre bending collaborations.
	Yeah, now you got like Morgan Wallen, Lil Dirk, it's kind of like, it's just like the norm.
	Everything's real mixed up.
	But back then, it was, you know, it was actually a kind of rolling the dice, you know what I'm saying, with your career to try something like that and to step over that line.
	And so I'm appreciative of the people that did because, you know, country, I always sought to build a bridge between people, you know what I'm saying?
	Between hip-hop and country, the hood and country, you know what I'm saying?
	Because lower class people just aren't that different.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Well, that's the thing I was thinking about next.
	I always wonder why don't I feel like poor, because as a poor white kid, the first thing you wanted to be was black, I felt like.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I was a poor white, well, I'm not a poor white kid anymore.
	I'm not a kid.
	Yeah.
	You know, and I hate some of the times I hate having even made any money because I'm not fucking poor anymore.
	I can't have the same feelings I had.
	Yeah, no, there's something about that.
	You know what I'm saying?
	What did CeeLo say?
	He said, I kind of like being poor.
	At least I know what my friends here for.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Oh, wow.
	My mom used to say, she would say, if you don't have anything, they can't take anything away from you, she would say.
	That's right.
	And it was kind of like...
	You know what I'm saying?
	You don't fucking lose, bro.
	You don't care.
	When death don't even seem like that bad of an alternative.
	Sue me, fuck me, whatever you want to do, man.
	Yeah, nothing's going to get you.
	It don't matter.
	But for some reason, yeah, when I think, I've related so much, I feel like, to poor black kids when I was young.
	And I think that it's also just a thing like we had Miss Pat on.
	She said, she's like, black people make things cool, she said.
	And I don't know if I agree about that with everything.
	Something for sure.
	You know, black folks are creators.
	I mean, there's, you know, there's, there's nothing that you could really, if you look at, you know, I mean, all that's been created by black folks in America, I mean, it's a lot when it comes to artists.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Well, they got more art kind of built into them, you know.
	Even I feel like if you punch a black dude, a cool sound comes out of them, you know?
	It's like, but I just, I'm always a little bit fascinated by what it is, even in my own life, why I felt like I related to poor black people.
	You know what I think, though?
	I think a lot of times raw creativity comes from poverty and oppression.
	You know what I'm saying?
	From just the struggle.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Yeah, maybe I like the org because poor black people always had a when I was young, they didn't even have any rich black people.
	They only had like Michael Werv and I think yeah, Bill Cosby and maybe like the Dallas Cowboys, it felt like.
	And, you know, they probably weren't even that rich.
	Like, you know, what you would, what we thought was rich at that time, probably we wouldn't, they probably were making like half a million dollars a year or something, you know, or maybe because contracts weren't even that lucrative back then.
	You know what I'm saying?
	No, the producers were making all the money back then.
	I mean, they really had them boxed up.
	But even like, I remember if they had like, like the best job a black person could get in our town was probably like our teacher, you know?
	Like Baton Rouge?
	This was in Covington, Louisiana.
	So it's like.
	Coaches.
	Yeah, coaches.
	Now you see a lot more.
	Like I went to the first black doctor like about maybe seven months ago.
	I go into the doctor and it was a black doctor.
	I'd never been.
	Are you serious?
	Yeah, and I didn't mean anything, but I know there's black doctors, but I just had never been to one.
	And I'm like, is this going to, I was like, and then I'm thinking, black people, their whole life been going to white doctors.
	What do they think about that?
	Well, you know, I mean, just growing up in, like, because, you know, the South is different than the rest of the country.
	Like, there's black folks in pretty much every major city.
	The difference in the South and the rest of the country is you go an hour outside into the country in the South, and there's still a bunch of black folks.
	You go an hour outside of like Minneapolis, you know what I'm saying, or Milwaukee, and there's really not any black folks, you know what I'm saying?
	That's a good point.
	So to speak.
	And so I just feel, I think like Atlanta, especially like with Atlanta having spent, that's kind of like my, that's my home major city.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I lived in Atlanta for, that's where I live now.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So it's like February started a damn city over there.
	I mean, it's just, you know, and I always tell People, when I bump into like black folks in Idaho or something that just have never been around a lot of other black folks, I say, you need to go live in Atlanta for two years.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And go experience a city that's a black city, not just in terms of like the metro population being a lot of black folks, but also the infrastructure.
	You know what I'm saying?
	The mayor's black, you know what I'm saying?
	The city council, you know, a lot of the policemen, the sheriff, you know what I'm saying?
	It's just, it's that kind of city.
	And I tell white people in those same areas that, you know, because you ever notice like a lot of those like hate groups and stuff will be like in Idaho and, you know, the militias and all that stuff.
	And I'm like, there's no black, when have you ever been around black people to know you have a problem with them?
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, you know, but I tell, you know, white folks the same thing.
	Go live in Atlanta for a couple of years.
	See what it's like for that shoe to be on the other, the foot, you know what I'm saying?
	Other foot.
	And you should experience that.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Because I think that just evolves your perspective to a point where you might be a little more sympathetic and empathetic of somebody.
	You know what I'm saying?
	If you really just looked at the world the way they had been forced to see it, you know.
	Yeah, it's interesting.
	I just, I guess I was really just, yeah, I'm just thinking about like why.
	I guess why, I guess, maybe it's a lot of music.
	I wonder what it was that made me relate when I was real young.
	I was in this, you know, it was hip-hop, man.
	I'm going to tell you.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Hip-hop shaped a lot of hearts and changed a lot of potentially racist, you know, hearts.
	Like, I would say, like, broke that cycle in families in the South, you know, a lot of because I just knew people that would otherwise, I'd be like, man, that joke was racist.
	But I just love Tupac so much, they just couldn't be.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And that one thing, because they just love Tupac, hypothetically, so much, it just slowly changed their whole perspective on just black folks in general.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Well, yeah, you'd have, like, I always had this vision.
	You'd have a dude out in his yard just yelling the N-word, but then he closed the door and he's in there fucking moonwalking.
	Right.
	You know, that's the MTV generation.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Because you think about it, like, people that grew up in the, that's why these songwriters here in Nashville, when they write, like, every genre is present.
	You know what I'm saying?
	They're bringing that tool bag of every genre because the MTV generation and especially now the way streaming is, you know what I'm saying?
	Because back in, you know, when you had to like seek out your music, you know what I'm saying?
	You had to go to the record store and seek out whatever kind of music your taste preferred.
	It was a little different.
	You know what I'm saying?
	But then when MTV started playing everything, they'd have those blocks.
	I don't know if you remember that.
	They'd have like the blocks where they have hip-hop, a hip-hop block, a rock block, R ⁇ B block.
	Yeah.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So if you're just sitting there watching MTV, which during the summertime, that's just what we did as kids.
	You were going to see that NWA video.
	You were going to see that, you know, Will Smith summertime video.
	And then you were going to see Nirvana.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And then you might even see some Tim McGraw and some, you know, whatever.
	So this generation, that generation and moving forward, everybody was just, everything was just that accessible.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So everybody has been touched by every genre of music in some kind of way.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And now you start to see, and this is interesting too, you see a lot of black country guys on TikTok.
	I see a lot of.
	There's a lot.
	It's getting kind of wild, dude.
	Like, I'll meet like, everything is just a lot more mixed.
	I've always had this theory that it's going to, like, in three generations, everybody's going to be beige.
	Yeah.
	You know, I say that same thing, man.
	We all started the same color.
	I believe, you know, I mean, look, I wasn't there.
	I can't personally.
	Well, what color is a zygote or whatever, like a baby woman?
	Well, I just think that in that part of the world, that particular part of the world where the world was allegedly based on what we've been told, born, you know, people look a certain way.
	And then I think as we migrated to different areas, you know what I'm saying?
	Like our ancestors migrated to this cold place up here and then had to be in caves for six months out of the year.
	And, you know what I'm saying?
	So over thousands of years of that reduced exposure to the sun, skin just got paler.
	So we'd split up.
	But then now in the last, what, 100, 200 years, everybody's come back together.
	So yeah, it's just a matter of time for we go back to that same color, which is You're going to need a chart if you want to be racist, dude.
	People still going to hate themselves, though, Theo.
	That's what it boils down to.
	That's a game for me, bro.
	They know, but the easiest person for me to hate is my father.
	Myself.
	And honestly, I can't hate anybody else unless I hate myself.
	And I can't love anybody else unless I hate myself.
	I don't love myself.
	You know, that's just the way it is.
	So get me to the point where your music really takes.
	Okay, so basically I moved up to Athens where Big Steve was at and met Bobby Stamps, who was my manager for 20 years.
	And he introduced me to a guy.
	He introduced me to Colt Ford and to a guy named Shannon Houchins, who owns a label.
	Him and Colt have a label here in town called Average Joe's Entertainment in Nashville.
	But I started just, it was a roundabout way, but I started just really finding myself in the studio, you know, because I was, you know what I'm saying?
	The first time I ever went to a studio, I was working as an electrician's apprentice, running condo, Ben and Pike.
	And I saved up like $350 over one summer.
	And the only other guy that I could find that was a rap, you know what I'm saying, that even any inkling of like wanting to be a rapper, oh, Rodney was his name.
	He was a different kind of guy, you know what I'm saying?
	And what you mean?
	Autism or something?
	Nah, he was just a different type of cat.
	I don't really know how to put it.
	He didn't come from like, he didn't, everybody played sports.
	You know what I'm saying?
	That was like your biggest badge of honor you could have.
	And he wasn't that kind of guy.
	He was really like a kind of like an Eminem type.
	Like when you hear Eminem talk about like the way he grew up, you know what I'm saying?
	Like kind of like that kind of deal, you know, like in the trailer, like the little small mobile home, you know what I'm saying?
	They'd never seen it before like him, huh?
	Yeah, well, I mean, I wouldn't say that it was even that rare, but it just wasn't most people, He was just kind of like the kind of person that was just visible to most people.
	He was red-headed.
	Yes, he was.
	Dude, and he liked black culture?
	Yes.
	Bro, tell me this, bro.
	Tell me.
	You just blew my mind with that.
	The first, dude, the first, the guy that was always wearing a North Carolina jersey and hanging out with black people was always a red-headed dude, bro.
	Don't even tell me it wasn't, bro.
	Man.
	I don't know how it worked out, bro.
	I don't know how the sun hit him or whatever.
	But I think our generation, at least where I was growing up, like we kind of were the first generation to like just, we all kicked it, you know what I'm saying?
	Because football was the most important thing.
	You can keep people together.
	You know, and like if you play football, like we only color that matters is Navy.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And so, you know, but as far as the story of finishing, we saved up.
	We went to the studio.
	We get to the studio up in Atlanta.
	It was called Eight Ball Recording Studios.
	I'll never forget.
	So I had my $300.
	He had his $300.
	We got like a 12-hour block.
	Oh, damn, boy.
	But does that mean producers are in there with us?
	No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
	Listen, so then we get in there and he's like, all right, where's y'all's beats?
	And we're like, huh?
	It hadn't even occurred to us that we were going to need beats.
	And so basically, so we saved up all this money over a period of months to short.
	That's a lot of money at that point.
	And he's kind of representing to me like, he's, man, I know what to do.
	I know what to do.
	But we get there and we ain't got no beats and we don't know how to make no beats.
	But the guy was actually cool enough to sit there and kind of like allow us to like, he basically made some garbage beat, but, you know, like held our hands there when we felt like we were doing it or something.
	And we recorded two songs.
	One was called Nothing But Game, Theo.
	Oh, it ain't nothing but game coming out my mouth, player.
	Player.
	It was like the rap was like, right quick, I'm bringing tight shit for these jealous marks to jock belling through the parking lot with my partner Spark the Chop.
	Now I'm feeling kind of strange, like my state of mind done changed.
	Off that hurricane and dank, I'm starting to think that I'm deranged.
	Hey, bro.
	Tight shit.
	You know what I mean?
	Yeah.
	That's how to make it feel good now.
	Oh, man.
	It was terrible, man.
	Like, it really was.
	But I was so proud.
	I mean, I had something recorded on a cassette tape and we could ride around and listen to it.
	I can feel it right now.
	I'm telling you, bro.
	Like, we fucked up.
	But the people, when I got to Athens, it was just that wasn't that good.
	Nothing was near that good.
	It was that one Oscar.
	But basically, like, I just felt like, man, this is it.
	Like, I felt like I had already made it, basically.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Even though I'm still working three jobs and selling mid-grade weed.
	But I'm like, dang, man, this is it.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, girls come around.
	Yeah, I'm a rapper.
	What do you mean?
	Oh, I'll play you my song.
	You know what I'm saying?
	You got a business card now.
	Oh, man.
	Don't let me steal a laminate from a tour or something, like so-so-def, because Fat Shannon, the producer that I ended up working with in Athens and all those guys, Bobby and Cole, were close to Jermaine Dupree.
	They worked with Jermaine Dupree, and they had like all these stuffed jackets and stuff that said so-so-def on it.
	So anytime I could, like, I would try to get that jacket for a night and go just close to, oh, this whole thing, what do you mean?
	And so just flexing, you know what I mean?
	It's like feeling like I kind of like manifested certain things by, like, I would tell girls, you know, the dungeon family is a big, a very important, what's the word?
	I mean, a musical family in Atlanta that consists of outcasts, goodie mob.
	Like a dynasty or something?
	I mean, just the forefathers.
	They're the pillars of, in my view, of hip-hop in Atlanta, as far as representing Atlanta for real, for real, in an accurate way.
	But I used to tell girls that I was the white member of the dungeon family.
	Like five years before.
	No, like, no, I was the white rapper.
	Yeah, like, like, and like, there was, it was said, and I think it probably was said by Rico from Organized Noise.
	He was kind of the dungeon was his mother's basement.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Okay.
	His mother's house.
	So he was kind of the patriarch.
	Is that a good way to put it?
	Yeah, the Airbnb owner.
	Yeah, for sure.
	And so I had heard that he said white folks shouldn't be participating in hip-hop or something like that.
	But I was always like, well, he gonna love me.
	He gonna love me because I'm for real.
	Like I'm real with my shit.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I'm representing who I am, you know, and some Georgia shit the right way.
	He gonna love me.
	Watch this.
	That's what I would tell like my friends.
	But I would tell girls that, yeah, I'm in the Dungeon family.
	What do you mean?
	Like way before it could have even been anything remotely, you know, resembling reality.
	And I'd be damned if I didn't become a white boy in the Dungeon family.
	Manifest.
	Almost.
	Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
	So I guess that's what I get from fake it till you make it.
	You know what I mean?
	And, you know, me and Rico, that's my brother.
	You know what I'm saying?
	The guy that allegedly has said that.
	I mean, he's as close to me as anybody I've met in the music business period.
	So, man, it's just crazy how life can unfold.
	But I had so much faith back then, man.
	Really?
	So you had faith in, you mean in God, you mean?
	I mean, in God, but in God's plan for me.
	Just in that God had a plan for me, you know what I'm saying?
	To do something that was going to impact the world.
	I just always felt like I had a spirit, man, that I want to be an extension of whatever that ultimate love, you know, love-based energy or spirit that God is.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I always just felt like an extension of that because, you know, I like to be a purveyor of love and light, so to speak.
	And I just felt like there was some plan where I was going to just have an impact on the world in some kind of way, you know, based on that.
	And, you know, in some ways it's worked out exactly how I could have drawn it up and in some ways not.
	You know what I'm saying?
	But it's been a hell of a journey.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And I still do not for one second question God's involvement in the whole thing.
	You know what I'm saying?
	That's just me.
	You know what I'm saying?
	People are welcome to believe anything they want.
	And all of our experiences and our upbringing and our experiences as adults, everything shapes us.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Our DNA is a part of that too.
	But I just believe what I believe and something that I feel, and it can't be quantified in words.
	It's just beyond us.
	But I know when I'm being creative, Theo, like when I'm writing, when I really get in that zone, there's nothing I can ever do to feel closer to God or, you know, to just that energy source, that love.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, I just feel it.
	It's like I'm in such harmony in the way time can just disappear.
	It's like I'm doing what I was put here to do.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And whoever created me is pleased at this time.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And then it's like I feel some like internal turmoil at times too.
	And it's like, I'm not doing what I was put here to do.
	And that spirit's not pleased.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I can feel that too.
	Not abandoned, though.
	do you Man, I got some terrible, terrible, like, this is like the third podcast I've done.
	And landing things.
	You know what I'm saying?
	It's like I love talking about every aspect of my story, but I'm definitely trying to work on landing shit.
	I think you've done a nice job.
	There's a couple times where you're like, well, let's finish this point before we go on to something else.
	Because I sometimes kind of forget what's, I don't forget what's going on, but it's hard for me to like remember and be thinking at the same time.
	No shit.
	Well put.
	But to go back to the, so at the studio, you know what I'm saying?
	So we get that song done.
	Right, you and my fucking boy are in there.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And he was, because look, dude, I'm telling you, this, the first time they had a white dude that wanted to be black in our area, bro.
	They never seen it before.
	They put him in special ed, bro.
	Wow.
	You hear that, man?
	That's crazy.
	They put him in special fucking ed, bro.
	Shout out Brian Purvis, dog.
	Praise God.
	BP, boy.
	Oh, he's still, he just got locked up for something.
	Bring him up.
	Free that man.
	Free BP.
	I don't know, bro.
	Y'all don't know.
	I know what he did yet.
	I know what he did.
	I don't know what he did.
	That's true.
	I had social studies with him, and he fucking, he was.
	But he'd have been on a hell of a journey, though.
	This dude, he's been through it all.
	He took those bullets.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Yeah, he really, something happened to him.
	Yeah.
	P, you, yeah, there you go.
	Bring him up.
	That'd be right there.
	What BP do?
	What he do?
	Attempted murder.
	That's hypothetical.
	Yeah.
	Attempted.
	We ain't paying the $4 to find out.
	That's it, B. That'd be Hanukkah.
	Yeah, that's all we got for you, bro.
	Stay well, baby.
	Yeah, man.
	But they put him in there, dog.
	You can't be good.
	Be good at it.
	They put him in there, man.
	Damn.
	Yeah.
	But you knew him pretty well.
	Was y'all cool?
	We were cool for a while.
	He was hard to really get close to, man.
	He just had a rattle.
	He had that fucking rattle in him, bro.
	You could tell he never slept.
	Damn.
	He probably, he didn't sleep.
	No drugs.
	No drugs.
	Oh, bro.
	He had drugs built in.
	He was fucking up.
	I think we know that now as mental illness.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Oh, yeah.
	But back then, it was just, damn.
	Yeah.
	He was just, he looked like he fucking was early and late at the same time, bro.
	Damn.
	He would just, you know, his eyes never shut.
	He looked like he didn't sleep, man.
	He made a story.
	Who knows what he went through, man?
	Who knows what his home life was like that made him grow?
	I'm sure it was great.
	Where he stayed that wired.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, I always, this is something I think about now, and I'm sure you got some insight and a perspective on this, too.
	What if we went back through history, Theo, and looked at every violent crime, every murder, every even rape that's ever been committed in the history of planet Earth?
	Going back.
	I wonder what percentage of those violent crimes were committed by people that had they had a thorough psychiatric evaluation or mentally, it was a mental illness.
	You know what I'm saying?
	It was something that, you know, at the time, just obviously there was no, there was nothing, when did mental illness, mental health even become a thing like last 50 years.
	And it's even been like a slow and, you know, jagged like ascent to where we are now.
	But I'm just, I thought about that.
	Like if we, you know, there's, there's just something to be said for that, though, that, like, hurt people hurt people.
	Oh, 100%, man.
	Well, they just had a guy on Joe Rogan, this guy, Gabber Mate.
	Gabermate.
	And he is like, I want to say he's a psychiatrist, but he's like a really good thinker.
	Some people are real good at thinking.
	And he talks a lot about trauma.
	And trauma is kind of a buzzword that people use a lot now.
	But one thing that he was saying.
	That resonates.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, yeah.
	That really resonates.
	Yeah, that really resonates.
	Yeah, that fucking resonates, bro.
	Raising nets, bro.
	It's so close.
	Raising eights.
	But he was saying how pain and stuff can be transferred through DNA.
	And maybe some of that's believable or not, but it can definitely be transferred through the way that you treat people and the new things that have, like the way that you, it's so crazy how many times something happens to somebody when they're a child and then the same, they do the exact same thing.
	They do the exact same thing.
	It's interesting, man.
	It is.
	And it's just a lot of like, we're just now getting to the point too where we have so much reflection of ourselves because of we have such a recording of how people operate and behave now that you're able to see a lot of like, okay, and compare it, you know?
	Right.
	And just document it.
	So I think it's like we're getting to a point where it's like we're really documenting how much pain has been like just in the in the damn gene pool of humanity.
	And it makes you wonder kind of what the future will be like.
	Will we be able to solve that kind of thing?
	Or will we just be able to continue to just.
	Because I don't think we are more aware of like, of just, you know, mental illnesses.
	But I don't necessarily think that we've really figured out the best ways to treat them.
	Yeah.
	You know what I'm saying?
	To give somebody, you know, because it's like, You know, I've been on meds before, you know, at different times.
	And it's like, okay, I don't feel that way anymore, but now I feel this way, which is equally terrible, or it affects, you know, some other aspect of my being that just makes it either worse for me ultimately or at best, like just a trade-off.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So, you know, I just, treating everything with chemical, with man-made medicine, you know what I'm saying?
	Right.
	It might not be the way.
	Yeah, it might not be.
	And we might look in 30 years, you might look back and be like, okay, we took a real bad turn as a society with treatment.
	Like back in the late 1800s, when they were like drilling, you know, screws in people's, you know, in the, at your temples, and they would like, just kill that frontal lobe.
	That's how they would make people like chill out.
	Yeah, that's like, that was about that time.
	That was 125 years ago.
	And then you had to pay for that dude to come on.
	Yeah.
	And your family's there like, how did that work?
	Literally, you're just like.
	Yeah, dude.
	Man, that's crazy.
	Damn.
	You got birds landing on a little nail on your head.
	Man, it's insane, dude.
	Did your cousin come and hang his hat on that?
	Literally, you're just like for like 60 years.
	Like, it's crazy, man.
	Like, did they, like, who came up with that?
	Like, they should have done.
	I hope that that was what that person at some point in their life.
	I hope whoever thought of that first and started doing that.
	I hope they had to experience it.
	Man, that's crazy.
	And they were also saying on that episode just about how people take care of their children and stuff like that.
	Like, just that there's not enough connection between families and stuff these days.
	People used to be in tribes.
	A lot of that has been talked about in the past 10 years about how people used to be in tribes and were closer.
	So not only did your mother see you, but your aunt saw you.
	Your grandmother was right there.
	There was constant attention and evaluation of what was going on with you and that they think people developed the healthier then.
	I don't know if that's true, but it's just like it was a theory that that man was talking about.
	You know, I just, I think that this the gap between human beings, period, is just getting wider and wider.
	That is weird.
	You know what I mean?
	And we were talking about it last night, like social media.
	You know, it's designed to bring us all closer together, but ultimately it creates such polarized, you know, like views of things.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like social media is probably as much to blame as anything for the way our country has, it's always been these two drastically different choices that we had when it came to political stuff.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And I just want to say for the record, fuck both of them.
	But it's like, because that's just not, that just doesn't make good sense to me.
	Like our two choices are these two radically different like viewpoints and it's just crazy.
	But like social media has driven that wedge and just made it that much wider, that gap.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Yeah, it definitely led to that.
	Because people don't seek information.
	They seek affirmation.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So they follow things that they know are going to continue to feed them the same thing they've been on.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And sometimes I think each side is right, you know, at different times.
	I think the sensible compromise of the middle is kind of, it just makes a little too much sense to me.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like sometimes, you know, this way of thinking is going to be the best way to go about it.
	And then sometimes this way of thinking is going to be the best way to go about it.
	But, you know, you'll have like these 280 character or less like, you know, just, what do you call it?
	Hot takes, basically, like of just saying something or reporting a certain event in a certain way that's going to reaffirm to that group of people that, yep, see, you know what I'm saying?
	Yep.
	This is it.
	Exactly.
	And so, and then they, it's like the whole, the old adage, a lacking will travel around the world before the truth has a chance to put his pants on or whatever.
	I butchered it, but yeah, something like that.
	But I understand it, yeah.
	Yeah, people share stuff, you know what I'm saying?
	And next thing you know, it's just, it spreads like that.
	We used to play that game, the telephone game.
	Remember when you was kids, we'd play the telephone game.
	Oh, yeah, like sit there and whisper and tell this person, this person.
	And then by the time it got to the end, it was something.
	Somebody lied.
	Oh, we had one kid, bro.
	This is kind of fucked up.
	But he would just yell.
	When it came back to him, he would just say it was the N-word every time, bro.
	This motherfucker.
	Yeah, he was just, I don't even think he was, I think he was just mentally unwell, you know?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Because it would be like.
	He thought it was funny.
	Oh, no, something was wrong with him.
	But it would be like hurricane, and it would break around.
	And every time, and the teacher would fucking.
	But he just knew that word, man.
	He knew it, like, got a reaction probably.
	he might have had he didn't understand it He might have had mental disability.
	Right.
	But so take me through.
	So the music is popping.
	Things get going.
	I apologize.
	I like to talk about a variety of shit.
	No, this is great, bro.
	This is what it is.
	This is.
	I don't want to de-emphasize the fact that I've had an incredible journey through music.
	So yeah, so then I'm in Athens at that point.
	I'm starting to make some connections.
	And we ended up putting out my first album, my first major release on Beat Club Timberlands record label.
	The first single Ugly was on this album.
	We put out an independent version of that album by the same name about two years before the major label version came out.
	So that's what people started hearing about it.
	Yeah, so it started spreading around Georgia.
	And it was like, people always talk about marketing plans.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And like, we got to come up with the perfect, you know, when something's the shit shit.
	It's just word of mouth is the marketing plan.
	And it was that kind of deal, you know, and I'm just blessed to have been a part of it and to, you know, to have had that clarity at that particular point in time to be able to do something that people fuck with to that degree.
	But literally, like one person, two people, two people, four people, four people, eight people, and so on and so on and so on.
	And yeah, so pretty soon, and there was a lot of other like, you know, interesting details, tidbits of information to the story.
	But short story long, basically, we signed with Interscope Records.
	You know, Jimmy Iveen, the same after in 1999, when I first saw High, my name is, I was destroyed.
	Why?
	Because you thought he beat you the punch?
	I thought at that time as a white rapper, you pretty much felt like ain't going to be with one more.
	Like, if they ever, if one ever gets back in the door, it's just going to be one.
	And then it's like, I saw that, and I was like, whoa, he did it perfect.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And I remember my best friend, Big Steve, and I was just all depressed.
	And he came and he was like, man, I think he got it fucked up, man.
	He's like, yeah, that's some awesome shit.
	He said, but you southern country, you're you, it's different.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, you, you still straight.
	You know what I'm saying?
	You still got your lane.
	I was like, keep it coming.
	Keep it coming.
	All right.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And then I got back up, you know, eventually and got back to work.
	And two years later, I was signed to the same label as him.
	Did you ever get to meet him?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I did.
	I met him at the anger management tour in 2003.
	It's a crazy experience.
	I thought you were going to say anger management meetings.
	That's what I thought you could say.
	Oh, no, no, no.
	I've been to some of them.
	You know, he was, I don't know, he was a little, he was on the private plane level.
	You know what I'm saying?
	When I was still flying commercial, or I'm still flying commercial, but I was definitely on up there in first class and all that.
	But, you know, he jumped very quickly to private plane level, you know what I'm saying?
	Where he was just moving at his own pace.
	But we met, man, and he was very complimentary.
	You know what I'm saying?
	It was probably the only time I've ever been starstruck in my life when I met Eminem.
	It was just like, wow, that's the real Eminem right there.
	You know what I'm saying?
	But man, he was extremely complimentary, you know, of me.
	And he always has been.
	Even when there was a diss song where he dissed me and Paul Wall that leaked.
	And even in the diss, I feel like he was complimentary of me.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, he was, and he was actually, I don't know where the information that he, but it was the wrong drug he said I was on or whatever.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I hate that when people get your drug.
	Yeah, man.
	It's like, come on, man.
	Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
	But it is what it is.
	You know, Paul Rosenberg, his manager, was always super cool to me.
	And the whole shady record staff.
	I never have had a chance to get close to Eminem like that as far as building like a super, you know, close personal relationship.
	But, man, he would ask people about me.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Anytime he would see somebody that like he knew fucked with me, he would be like, how's Bubba doing?
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like a couple times.
	So, you know, I got a number of respect for him, man.
	Love and respect.
	And so, but to go on back, so I was signed to Interscope Records for about nine months.
	And after having so much success, Jimmy Ive, shout out to Jimmy Iveen, just an absolute iconic figure in music and entertainment, period.
	And that man believed in me a great deal.
	I still don't even necessarily understand what it was about me that made him believe in me so much.
	But he did.
	I'm saying, he's a genius type of human being.
	So that always gave me confidence just to know that, like, man, the baddest motherfucker in this whole business.
	I saw something in me.
	Yeah, like, he believes in me to the point where he's going to push the biggest button that Interscope Records, the number one label in music, you know, could push.
	You know what I'm saying?
	$6 million spent on me in marketing.
	People know the name Bubba Sparks.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And so, but he, after the Eminem and Dre success, he kind of was like, I might be onto something with this whole black producer, white boy, give him credibility, you know, off top.
	And so he tried a couple other routes, you know what I'm saying, as far as hooking me up with people.
	And the chemistry just wasn't there.
	And then finally, he asked me one night.
	He called me and he was like, I'm about to meet with Timberland.
	He's like, what do you think about that?
	I was like, oh, that'd be perfect, dude.
	I was like, that's it.
	You know what I'm saying?
	That's it.
	Next morning, I was on a flight out to L.A. and the rest was history.
	And I was the first artist released that Timberland, as far as it being his record label and him releasing the artist, I was the first artist he ever overall, right?
	Yes, sir.
	And so what was your personal life like at that point?
	Because life gets crazy, bro.
	When you start getting where- And just a kid, man, that just, you know, I just loved life at that time, though.
	You know what I'm saying?
	We were just.
	Were you happy?
	Marie Stoked?
	Were you just living?
	At that time, man, on that first album, you damn right I was.
	Yeah.
	You know, I was really happy, man.
	I was going to London and just man, everything was so like, you know, performing on Saturday Night Live, man.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Derek Jeter's the host.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Me and Shakira are the musical guests.
	And I'm in the green room before I perform on Saturday Night Live.
	And they knock on the doors about 15 minutes far ago and they're like, Mr. Sparks, there are two guests here that would just like to say hello.
	If they're interrupting you or disturbing you, it's fine.
	They can come back later.
	But if they could just say hello, it's Chris Rock and Jamie Foxx.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So I'm just kicking it like, you know, and I'm just like, country-ass boy.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, I'm just like, what's up, man?
	You know what I'm saying?
	I don't know other way to be.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And like I said, I didn't have a reference point of another example of somebody like me, you know, to show me how to act a different way other than just being me.
	Like, I just, and it's like, sometimes it's just because I, for lack of a understanding of any other way I could possibly act or be, I would just, fuck it, I'm just going to be me again.
	I'm going to keep being me and keep being me.
	Yeah, sometimes it served me well, sometimes it was fucked up.
	Well, there's a lot of parts inside of you, obviously.
	No doubt.
	So that's really the highs, man.
	Yeah, that was.
	Did you perform on VMAs and stuff like that?
	I never performed on the VMAs.
	I went to several VMAs.
	Did you go to the one with NSYNC at it?
	When Eminem came out with all the different things?
	No, no, no.
	I came into the game the year after that one.
	I tell you, when I came into the game, I was sitting right here at my first VMAs when Alicia Keys was at the VMAs playing Falling.
	Beautiful.
	Falling on the piano.
	And I remember just being like, I can't help Molly.
	Is that me?
	Yeah.
	Where's you?
	Oh, man.
	Dude, I was just like, I'm here.
	I'm in this business.
	Yeah.
	Dude, I remember I sat, it was right after Chris Farley had died.
	I sat behind his brothers.
	And I sat by the God bless the dead, man.
	Chris Farley.
	That was my guy.
	I sat by Shawshank Redemption, the guy, the prisoner.
	Like Tim Robbins?
	Tim Robbins, yep.
	What was his name in the movie?
	Christopher.
	No, that's Christopher Robbins, I'm thinking of.
	I don't know, bro.
	Who was it?
	That's a great movie, though.
	That was crazy.
	And I fell asleep when NSYNC was performing, bro.
	I fucking fell asleep in my seat, bro.
	But Nelly came by and he fucking dapped me up when he came by.
	That was pretty cool.
	So that was a highlight bitch.
	That's the craziest, bro.
	That was hard.
	Afterwards, I got invited to a threesome with these ladies, and one of them gave me some cocaine, and I got all fucking scared because I'd never done that.
	Is that the story you told on Joe Rogan or something?
	I watched where you were talking about like the time you were like in New York.
	Now you were supposed to do something the next morning.
	Oh, that was with Daryl Strawberry.
	Yes.
	You were interviewing Daryl Strawberry.
	Man, that was a tough night.
	Well, just that.
	I know that feeling.
	The fun part is fun, but the unfun part ain't fun.
	That inside-out feeling and just knowing that you're functioning at about 36%.
	Oh, I get so much anxiety.
	But I was at this threesome, but I wanted to remember it.
	So they had a bag of little sex toys in there.
	So I copped one of them on the way out, right?
	I snuck one and I put it in like my belt, kind of, you know.
	So then I was in New York City.
	I went to like a little bodega to get some snack or something, a little coconut water.
	They had just come out with coconut water and I tried it.
	And a little, I think I got a little thing of donuts or something.
	But while I was in there, this little sex toy thing fell out on the floor in there, bruh.
	And dude, it was like a migrant family.
	You put this shit back up in the bullet.
	It was a Vietnamese family owned it or something, you know.
	And they had a little kid in there, bro.
	And he fucking brought it over to me.
	He didn't know what it was, man.
	He just thought it was a toy.
	Oh, and I just.
	It wasn't a toy, but.
	It was.
	It just broke my.
	The whole shit was just bad.
	But anyway, man.
	So you and I talked about like, when did you start to realize that you feel like you had like a, some addiction issues?
	I was, well, you know, I pretty much just kind of like partied.
	You know what I'm saying?
	It's like then I was in a snowmobile accident, ice fishing in Canada.
	It was like, you know, real fucked up.
	And got prescribed like, I mean, I had dabbled with like, you know, popping a Laura tab or something, you know, not to mention specific drugs, but you know what I'm saying?
	No, it's fine, man.
	I took some Somas one time and I drove into a driveway and there wasn't a driveway.
	Hey, them Somas ain't no joke, boy.
	Flexor Real and Soma.
	Dude, and my buddy, this gay fella, R.I.P.
	Billy Conforto, he was like one of the first gay prize fighters in America.
	What is this?
	This is Celsius something.
	You got you.
	See what this thing is hitting on.
	And I thought, I don't know if he tried to take advantage of me or what, but whatever.
	Anyway, bro.
	But yeah, so when do you start to know that you had an issue?
	I was on tour with Blink 182.
	Shout out to my boy Trav, Travis Parker.
	And I had been prescribed Percocets for about six months, and then they just cut them cold turkey.
	And I knew nothing about addiction or, you know, or physical dependence or withdrawals, dopesine.
	I knew nothing about shit.
	Then shit about shit.
	I knew shit about shit.
	And I had run out.
	And I just think I'm just done with that.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And I remember I had this process.
	The bus would get into wherever we were going like that morning.
	And I would go in the hotel.
	I would sleep till like 3 o'clock.
	I would get up slowly.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I'd take a shower and stuff.
	And then before I would leave the hotel at like 5 o'clock, I would take, like, I think I would take two pills and then like four shots of Patron.
	And that would get me like in the go be me in public and, you know, start angling towards showtime, you know?
	And I remember I didn't, I obviously didn't have the pills and I laid down trying to go to sleep like normal.
	30 minutes later, I wake up sweating, just like, oh, feeling inside out.
	I'm like, oh, shit, I'm sick.
	This is crazy.
	Like, like, I think I'm just sick, like, cold or flu or something.
	And I'm like, oh, man.
	And I try to lay back down.
	I maybe take some cold medicine, lay back down, can't sleep.
	And I'm like, man, what is wrong?
	It's a unique feeling.
	This is like a, I've never felt this exact type of thing before.
	And then it hit me.
	And I was like, damn, it's because I ain't got no pills.
	I was like, damn, am I addicted to these things?
	And I remember I talked to somebody, like, probably my manager or somebody and was like, you think I'm addicted to them?
	He's like, I don't know.
	Maybe so.
	He's like, were you taking more of them than you were supposed to?
	And I was like, yeah.
	I mean, of course.
	But I was just like, you know, I don't, I don't know.
	I just, it was just a foreign concept to me.
	You know, it's just, that was definitely one of those things.
	Like, I had known some, some addicts, you know what I'm saying, some drunks, a lot of drunks.
	You know what I'm saying?
	That's all they used to call them, really.
	Yeah, right.
	And, but for me, I just never, nobody ever thinks it's going to, it could happen to them until it does.
	But I just remember being like, damn, I'm addicted to these motherfuckers.
	But I was moving so fast, I said, you know what, when I get to a stopping point, you know, a resting area, I'll take care of it and get on off of them.
	But for now, I just need to buy them on the street.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So I started buying them on the street real heavy.
	My boy Trey, Chunky Trey, shout out to Chunky Trey.
	He's like seven years sober now or some shit.
	Gang, gang.
	Big Steve's 15 years sober.
	You know, I'm the only dip shit that just hadn't been able to, you know, find that willingness or whatever.
	Like to, you know, I'm a thinker.
	You know what I'm saying?
	That can be a big fucking hindrance to recovery.
	When you're creative, you create a lot of ways you can fit yourself.
	Buddy.
	That's the same.
	I just got like I think I'm like one maybe 150 days maybe yeah I remember talking to you we were both like at the same time we're on the sit to the same journey I don't know if I'll have you know these days forever we'll see but um just to so people so you started having to get them like behind the scenes yeah so I was buying them on the street and short story long that was like in 2004 I think and and then I ended up finally going to rehab like pretty much at the peak of miss
	new booty you know what I'm saying of that I did not enjoy that you know you were asking did I enjoy the the when I first came into the game the ugly when ugly was my first number first ever release as far as a single and my first number one record and and that was a great time but the miss new booty time man it was just trying to be in places traveling around running out of pills just having to white knuckle it be tough
	you know what I'm saying like and get through you know just big shit you know what I mean and things that I should have you know I should have been enjoying you know I'm saying it was a huge record you know and just so many blessings came from it you know but my my perception at that time was was really fucked you know I'm saying but I remember I had like half a million dollars worth of shows over like a two-month period and I told my manager Bobby I
	was like man I gotta go you know what I'm saying I said I'm I can't do it anymore man I said I'm about to get on about to check out of here or something I don't know what's and um like how was it get did it get pretty like because I've had like I'll go I've had some times I probably went to some strange you know I've been to some strange places trying to get some coaches you know what it was for me getting chumped by people like meaning like I got the number one song in the world at this time and these motherfuckers got me sitting at this bowling alley
	for six hours yeah and it just I couldn't take it anymore you know what I'm saying it's just like man I can't be a punk ass motherfucker but so long you know I'm saying like that's just the way I'm the way my account is set up oh I want to do what I'm hilarious the way my account is set up I want to do what I want to do man that's all I've always been that way because you always just to know that somebody that they on the phone laughing to their homeboys talking about man I got but bubble spoke man I got him sitting up here at this bowl of an alley man this shit crazy you know that kind of shit and I'm just like you mean waiting
	for drug kids yeah I'm just sitting there like they're like giving the money and then they they gonna ride up whatever and I'm sitting there for six hours on a Saturday and probably missing some shit that I'm supposed to be you know what I mean and just just I you know I just couldn't I couldn't do it anymore you know what I'm saying and then just tired of being dope sick man like you know that was that was the deal at that time you know what I'm saying was the opiates you know what I'm saying and you know I've I don't go down the same street you
	know what I'm saying like like multiple times very often you know I'm saying as far as that goes but I I would have never at that time I could have never seen there being a day a six hour period where I didn't use like some type of opiate at that time and I thought I would never be able to get beyond that you know and I and I did you know and I could Suboxone is a part of my journey you know I'm saying I can say that's the only way I was able to stop and stay stopped as far as and
	people say like you just traded one addiction for another yes and no because the difference is if I'm out here taking Roxy's and Oxycontin and whatever else especially this fentanyl world that's that's this going down out here now that's that's a whole different level but but when you take Suboxone you can take four milligrams a day this is just my experience now you know I'm not the judge jury and executioner on on anything you know I'm saying my opinion
	in 250 I'll get you Coca-Cola but man you sound like Riff Raff bro y'all got some of the same thing man it's real interesting you know I ain't never met Riff Raff man but I know I've I know it's just certain people you just know you fuck with them you know he's a special guy man he's cool he real creative too no man he did with the tennis rack at that time man some of the most unbelievable I ever seen man he's a deep dude and we got several mutual you know but anyway so um but you know your tolerance doesn't go up on the Suboxone
	you can take the same amount and it's never gonna your tolerance is never gonna like you know force you to take more whereas you know when when you're taking the other stuff like your tolerance is just gonna slowly build and I've always wanted to do methadone I've never done it yeah I I've taken some methadone but not as like a solution but just as a that's all you got but um um but yeah so and um but did you think so a lot of times like I I've been in and
	out of the program for maybe six years right six years I've been in and out since 2007 so what's that 15 and I never thought I had this problem I thought everything was pretty normal in my life you know and it came on really later in my you know I thought for me but when people came in with opiate addiction I always thought to me it seemed like you had people that were real alcoholics that were in there but then some people just got so like somebody goes in because they hurt their
	back that's not a person that's and then they get I mean people were getting so addicted though but your mind doesn't know the difference is the thing you know what I'm saying like if it's just like I know people my old sponsor shout out to Stephen K down on the Grange but he uh he was like I ain't taking nothing he said I don't care what happens to me I ain't taking no pain medication he said cuz my brain's not gonna know the difference you know saying that shit gets in my system it's gonna do what it does you know saying regardless of the reason being righteous or
	you know it being prescribed by a doctor or anything like that you know what I'm saying I feel like they made a cheat code when they made uh opiate stuff when they made like some of these opiates it feels like the these companies I mean it's like they made so many more people addicts that were oh man you can't tell me it was and I you know I could break it down even even on a more freakier level, man.
	It's just like it's very interesting to me that 2000, up to say 2008, they were paying pills everywhere.
	And you could, you could, there's about three or four cities in America you could get heroin in, port cities type stuff, like, you know, New York, LA, maybe Baltimore, New Orleans.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, you just couldn't get heroin a lot of places.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And I would know, you know, especially like anything that was actually anywhere close to resembling actual real heroin.
	And then, I don't know, we go fight a war, you know what I'm saying?
	In the golden triangle where the poppy fields, the most poppy fields are in the whole world.
	And I'm not saying that's the only reason that that war took place or there's a primary reason, but here, fast forward to now, hell, it's damn difficult to get a pain pill.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like a lot of parents of kids that had overdosed and died started going to Congress, started basically letting their presence be felt and letting their feelings be felt and voicing their angst and sorrow.
	And I think some pressure was applied as far as the pain pills to tighten up on that.
	But then now, here comes this fentanyl shit.
	But even before that, I mean, they got selling heroin in Huntsville, Alabama.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, this shit's all over the place.
	But the pills were cleaned up to a large measure.
	You know what I'm saying?
	But it's just interesting.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I mean, you know, I wouldn't be shocked if our government is selling our own drugs to it.
	Or somebody is.
	Who knows who it could be?
	Like, you know, it could be some corporation that just has that much pool and, you know, they just, you know, funded this one campaign of this one person who has influence.
	Who knows?
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, I'm, like I said, I just, I can only speculate because they damn sure don't invite me to the meetings of whatever kind of shit they're running.
	I don't even need an email.
	Yeah, for real.
	You know, and so I don't know, but those things, what Arsenio Hall used to say, things that make you go, hmm.
	I got to go on his show one time.
	That was a real holiday show.
	Oh, man, that would have been the shit.
	When his show came back on, that was the first show I ever got to do stand-up comedy on was Arsenio.
	Arsenio, man, that was so epic when I was young.
	Dude, it was huge, man.
	And then in Living Color, bro.
	Yeah, Living Color.
	You know, I used to watch Johnny Carson, too.
	I actually remember watching Johnny Carson.
	Wow.
	You know, and that was, and I remember when Jay Leno took over for me, and I actually ended up doing the Jay Leno show.
	Wow.
	Yeah, and Jay Leno used to do the Cool Ranch Dorito commercials.
	But, yeah, man, David Letterman did David, man.
	What a blessed journey, man.
	Yeah, you've gotten to have so many unique experiences, especially for, you know, somebody from.
	Not bad for a farmer with a pitchfork.
	Not bad at all.
	Man.
	You know, my old high school football coach used to say, guys, you don't have to take a back seat to anybody.
	Rest in peace, Jim Holly.
	You know, and that's something that just stuck with me through life.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Anytime I feel overwhelmed or feel like, oh, I'm not worthy of this.
	No, no, you don't have to take a back seat to anybody.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Anything or anybody.
	You know what I'm saying?
	You worked hard to get here just like everybody else.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like they say, you put your socks on one leg at a time just like everybody else.
	I take shits, they take shits.
	I fart, they fart.
	I like chalupas.
	They may or may not.
	They may or may not.
	Yeah, sometimes I think my thing I struggle with sometimes, I mean, I struggle with a lot of stuff, but I really struggle with, I think, like making like what other people think of me.
	Yeah.
	You know, that's always been really hard.
	I think that's a good thing.
	Anybody that says that they don't is either just not cursed with any self-awareness, and some people are just like that.
	Sometimes the biggest stars, they don't have self-awareness.
	They don't.
	Right, so they're not even thinking about it.
	But how do they, how are people perceiving them?
	You know what I'm saying?
	Yeah.
	And it would be awesome.
	It could be a curse and a blessing.
	You know what I'm saying?
	That's just the way it is with everything.
	But yeah, I wish that didn't.
	Because here's what I wish.
	I had a little bit more of my own.
	I wish I'd had a bit more somebody helping me build my own self-worth when I was young.
	So I had a little bit more.
	It just wasn't a part of the culture of growing up.
	Yeah, but some people got it because I just feel like some people got it.
	I'm not like having a pity party.
	No, I understand.
	I just wish that I had a little more.
	And it's tragic that you don't have kids.
	You know what I'm saying?
	It's tragic that I don't have.
	I know a lot of, and that's what we talk about, that gap between males and females that keeps getting wider and wider.
	You know what I mean?
	Like in the way that we connect with one another, just what's your cash app?
	It's gotten a lot more just outfront transactional, it seems like.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And so I don't, since I got divorced in 2019, I haven't seriously dated anybody because I don't know how to fucking date in this world.
	But that's a whole nother story.
	But I'm saying, like, we're over 40. You know what I'm saying?
	And so, like, bro, I mean, like, I just know.
	I'm a kid, man.
	I'm going to get a fucking kid, bro.
	I know a lot of real deal men that need to have kids.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Because I would like to know what a child with my stuff.
	I love my parents, man.
	This isn't no, they, they did the best they could with what they were equipped with.
	You know what I'm saying?
	What they'd been given.
	And they did a great job because, you know, I've done a lot of things and they're a part of that.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And they love me.
	But as far as just believing in a child and giving him the freedom to really express himself and encouraging him, you know what I mean?
	Like, and still being stern, you know what I'm saying?
	And being a disciplinarian, but just not discouraging dreams.
	And they were just trying to protect me.
	You know what I'm saying?
	By discouraging dreams, by saying, you know, that's just silly foolishness.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, you need to, you know, have a different plan.
	You know what I'm saying?
	You need to have a practical plan, one that's realistic.
	You know what I'm saying?
	They're just trying to, you know, but I know now that all that's bullshit.
	That's programming.
	You know what I'm saying?
	That's fear-based programming.
	And we can do a lot in this world.
	You know it.
	You're evidence of it.
	And so for us to have children and be able to just, and it might go all, you know, awry.
	It might go awry.
	Like, cause we might, they might, because there's some craziness to the way we're wired too.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And they might, a little too much love and not quite enough rigid upbringing might make it where they just go be hellions or something.
	Right, which might go the other way.
	Yeah.
	But, you know, I just know a lot of men that Polo Da Don, Cliff Kingsbury, friends of mine that over 40 and don't have kids.
	Cliff that coaches Cardinals?
	Yeah, yeah, that's my boy.
	Oh, yeah, really?
	Shout out to Cliff.
	Yeah, dude, Cliff is a king.
	We got to be real cool when he was coaching at Texas Tech before he got that job, man.
	And that's a great fella right there, man.
	He seems real cool, man.
	He's a steam guy, man.
	I'm telling you in every area.
	I think Cliff Kingsbury should run for president, honestly.
	Dang, bro.
	I mean, he's just that kind of guy.
	Like, man, he can just relate to anybody.
	He's a principled guy.
	His principles don't get compromised for anything.
	You know what I'm saying?
	He stands on what he stands for.
	And, you know, I'm just using him as an example.
	Yeah, now.
	Holocaust, great guy.
	You know what I'm saying?
	He's a brother of mine, not a friend, but a brother, super producer, produced 32, 33 number one records.
	You know, don't have kids.
	I don't have kids.
	You don't have kids.
	It's just, that was almost unheard of, you know, like in the 1950s or whatever.
	Having kids is the only thing you did.
	You know, I worry sometimes, honestly, I think I worry that if I did have kids, that there would be a, I'd somehow do the same thing.
	I think.
	I think there's probably some fear of it.
	My girlfriend was pregnant at one time.
	This is like 2006.
	Yeah, like right around that same new booty time when everything was coming to a head.
	And she had a miscarriage at, I think it's like four months.
	And just in those four months, I know the way I felt thinking I was getting ready to be a father, man, it's a different feeling, man.
	Like, it's like, I got to get my shit together because I can let myself down.
	You know what I'm saying?
	But I can't let a mini me down.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I got to get it right, get it tight for this little joker right here.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I can't be playing about another life.
	And I can only imagine a child being born and looking at that child and seeing yourself in it.
	Like some physical thing, your eyes or something.
	I can only imagine how that would feel.
	And I never thought I wouldn't have kids, but I was kind of careful back in the quote-unquote heyday.
	Because I had so many friends that had multiple baby mamas and everybody's life was just miserable when that was the case.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like three baby mamas and they got two other baby dads.
	You know what I'm saying?
	It's not good on the side.
	It's like Red Rover at Thanksgiving.
	So I didn't want that.
	I didn't want to be a part of perpetuating that type of deal.
	And so I was, you know, and then God bless my ex-wife.
	I think maybe with us, just by the time we actually got married, maybe we were already kind of coming unraveled.
	And it just, spiritually, it just never lined up the right way.
	You think it'll still happen?
	I haven't given up.
	I'm not too thrilled about the prospects of being 86 years old at my child's high school graduation.
	But, you know.
	My dad was 70 when I was born, which is crazy, man.
	Pops.
	That's what's up.
	I only say that is because I keep finding myself talking to guys who are, we getting older and we don't have any children yet.
	So I started, I used to think my dad was crazy and I'm like, damn, I just, if I could beat him by 10 years or something, just because we were just dream chasing, man, like, you know.
	That's a good point, man.
	You know what?
	Dream chasing was like other things to me seemed boring, bro.
	Right.
	It was like, I could go have a family.
	Somebody had me and they ain't doing shit out here.
	I could go fucking do that in a half hour if I was.
	I felt that like I wanted something creep.
	I wanted to like, what can I do?
	I want to.
	I just did not.
	I was scared to death of being in my 20s or something and feeling like my whole life was planned out.
	Like, okay, so I'm going to do this for like 46 years and then retire.
	Like, oh my God.
	Like, hey, much respect to anybody that works like that because I'm not cut out for it.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I'm not.
	Right, right.
	I'm not saying, yeah, I'm not saying it was horrible.
	I'm just saying I'm not, I could not have it.
	It's not for me.
	You know what I mean?
	It just was not.
	I would, I would have, if I didn't have creativity, you know, this outlet of creativity that I have with writing, you know, recording music and stuff, like, I would have probably already checked out of here.
	You know what I'm saying?
	It's that vital to me.
	And so just to be able to live that way, you know what I'm saying, and make a living that way, crucial.
	You know what I'm saying?
	But that's why I always tell people, like, man, I'm going to be 90 years old rapping.
	Like, fuck, I don't give a fuck what you like or don't like, like what you say about me.
	You know, oh, you're old.
	Who cares?
	Like, still don't make more money than you ever going to make your whole life.
	But sorry, I had to.
	I had to.
	Look, good.
	A lot of people never get a chance to make millions of dollars.
	But my point is this, is like, it's not a job.
	It's not a hobby.
	It's not like it's a, it's at the core of who I am.
	It's a function of my spirit, man.
	Like, you know what I'm saying?
	I remember Jay-Z had a line where he said, get a grip, bitch.
	This is how I get through life.
	You know, but how I get through life and how I always related to that is this.
	You know what I'm saying?
	This is, you know, this was a, man, it's just been so special.
	Like, like this, this art form, you know.
	Shout out to those people, you know, the black and brown people in the Bronx, New York in the 70s that, you know, were doing what they was doing and living the way they was living.
	And all that formed this perfect storm that, you know, this music and this art form, I mean, In this culture, you know, sprung from, man, I'm just, I'm so grateful it found me, you know, on the dirt road 20 minutes north of LaGrange, Georgia.
	It's kind of wild, huh?
	Changed my life, man.
	Like, you know, so I honor that at every turn.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, there's nothing I put ahead of.
	I think hip-hop is a religion.
	I mean, what, aside from, like, the quote-unquote traditional religions, name something that's brought more people together from different walks of life worldwide.
	Man, it's had quite an impact on this globe, man.
	You know, yeah, music.
	Music has.
	Yeah, I think.
	I mean, but especially hip-hop, because like I said, hip-hop unified.
	You know, maybe it was just part of the timing of like when hip-hop kind of exploded, you know, onto the scene.
	But, man, it was just a lot of, like I said, a lot of racist hearts, potentially racist hearts that could, or hearts that could have developed into, you know, being exactly what their parents and their grandparents, you know, and going on back down the line were in the way they thought, you know what I'm saying?
	But I know people, you know, that, like I said, it might just be that one thing they can hang their hat on.
	Like, man, I love podcasts so much.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I want to be racist, but damn, man.
	Like, yeah.
	Because the lesson to be learned is the 3-6 mafia that shakes me up.
	1,000%.
	And the lesson to be learned is, you know what?
	We're all human.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So we all have flaws.
	And sweeping indictments and broad-ass generalizations, you know what I'm saying?
	Trying to lump everybody that looks a certain way into any kind of bowl that just says, all those people are just like this.
	You know what I'm saying?
	There's no fruit on that tree.
	I wish you could.
	It would definitely make things easier.
	Yeah, but I just don't, you know, I have brothers that look a lot of different ways.
	Charlie's my brother.
	He's a black guy.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I got a lot of black brothers.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I got some white brothers too.
	Makes some Puerto Rican brothers.
	And so, you know, a brother to me is someone that shares the same ideals and principles that I have, that I try to live with.
	Yeah, it's funny, man.
	I got this new fitness guy or this athletic coach, man, this black guy.
	And I've, man, I just love, he's like, I love being around the dude, bro.
	Yeah.
	Energy, man.
	I mean, he likes to.
	He inspires me up.
	He inspires me.
	He like, and he's like one of the best fitness.
	That's what a trainer's got to be, too, man.
	He got to make you just want to be there, like to be near it and just get in the thick of this shit with it.
	Yeah, he does that, but it also tone like even more of just like, I don't know, yeah.
	It's like, man, it makes me, I feel inspired by him.
	That's, you know, man.
	That's great, man.
	I love being inspired.
	Like, that's inspiring.
	I love being inspired, bro.
	That's my drug.
	That's my true drug.
	That's the reason I would ever do drugs or, you know what I'm saying?
	Like, because, man, if I'm inspired, man, there's not much I couldn't do, bro.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, if I'm inspired, I really feel like I could have been president or something.
	But if I'm not inspired, you might want to get somebody else to help you carry the groceries in from the car.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, I'm pretty useless.
	So going through, do you feel like that having an addiction and struggling with it, that it had an effect on your career?
	Or do you feel like your career has played out just kind of how it has?
	Yeah, 100% because, first of all, right after New Booty and after that – Because that was a top one.
	My Wikipedia, there's some.
	Oh, I didn't even look at your Wikipedia.
	I've tried to change stuff on there, man.
	Like, I don't, they change it back.
	It's just crazy.
	Oh, they're fucking, that's a mafia.
	I don't know what's going on with that.
	But anyway, and I'm not fucking 5'9 either.
	You can take that ugly ass picture off of there.
	Bro, my picture's horrible, bro.
	Bring my shit back.
	It's the worst.
	Look at my Wikipedia, dude.
	I don't look like you decide who ugly.
	You know what I said?
	Whoever's ugly.
	Whoever controls the gates of my page, I must have fucked their girlfriend or something at some point.
	Like, I'm sorry.
	I didn't know.
	Who's a bad?
	Both of us got a visit.
	Look at that right down to the right.
	Oh, damn, bro.
	Click on it.
	Oh, my God.
	Dude, you look like a hitman at an Asian restaurant, bro.
	Damn, bro.
	Vladimir.
	You look like a rush.
	Like I'm in America trying to kind of dress cool, but like, it's like flea market shit.
	Now bring mine up there.
	My shit looks horrible too, bro.
	I look like I've been struggling, man.
	That shit hugged it.
	Look bad.
	Damn, look at me.
	I look fucking red.
	It just don't look like you.
	I look mentally retarded, bro.
	No offense if anybody's retarded.
	Yeah, I mean, yeah.
	Shout out to me sometimes.
	Me too.
	Do you remember when you took that picture?
	I just remember.
	I look damn cross-eyed.
	I look something wrong with me.
	I wonder how old that picture was.
	It's probably six years ago.
	Shit, I mean, that picture of me, that's the fucked up part about it.
	You got a nice outfit on.
	2005.
	Yeah, but you always say, he's like, don't ever shave your fucking beard again.
	That's what people say.
	I'm like, well, somebody should have told me that a little earlier in this process.
	There's a lot of pictures out there of me.
	But anyway, and I had this egghead.
	Like, I used to have this.
	I would be lazy and not want to go to the real barber.
	I'm big on haircuts and shit now.
	But I just shave my own head off, you know, like down to the whatever.
	Yeah, I cut my hair for like probably 32 years, man.
	Yeah, man.
	Or whenever I could, so probably only about 16 years.
	But man, you don't look bad there.
	I feel like I look bad, but I feel like right there, you just don't look like you.
	That doesn't even look like you.
	Yeah, I went through a period.
	I was trying to fit in in Hollywood and look more clean cut.
	Yeah, you look like, you know what you look like?
	You look like Dane Cook's like little brother, out of shape brother or something.
	Yeah, like Shane Cook.
	Shane Cook.
	He looked like Dude Daddy.
	Blow mood.
	Johnny Depp Daddy.
	He don't look like Ray Liota.
	Man, right there on that part right there.
	Oh, I can maybe see that.
	Yeah, I said like the younger, like good fellas, Ray Liota.
	I can kind of see that.
	Yeah, kind of good.
	Rest in peace, Ray Liota.
	I know.
	Nobody even cared that he died, bro.
	That's just the world we fucking live in, man.
	Nobody even cared.
	These days, nobody, it's like, it used to be like this.
	It's just like even a hit song now, man.
	It's like, you know, it goes up.
	Yeah, it's like you get a week, you know what I'm saying?
	And then everybody's on to something else.
	dude, I remember we went camping one time when I was a kid with like a Boy Scouts or somebody.
	I don't know.
	It could have just been a damn pedophile, bro.
	Oh, Lord.
	But we was out.
	And I told everybody before we left, I said, you know, Jay Leno died.
	And they didn't have any social media.
	And so everybody the whole weekend was like, damn, Jay Leno died, man.
	And people were talking about it.
	Some kid's dad was even crying about it.
	And then we got back and everybody's like, this motherfucker lied, bro.
	But nobody knew for three days.
	But it was like.
	Wow, what's the point of doing that?
	I think just I wanted to create some ambiance or something, you know?
	You want to create some like, what do you call it?
	Like not nostalgic, but like morale, like everybody's.
	Yeah, we're in this.
	Let's do it for Jay, huh?
	And, but I don't know what I was even talking about.
	So take me through.
	Yeah, so let's just, so I want to be able to relate.
	A lot of our audience struggles with addiction and just different things.
	That's a lot of our audience.
	A lot of people do nowadays.
	You know, they were saying the other day, 70% of adults in America are on one medication, or at least one medication.
	So what effects did you feel like it had on you as you started to do that?
	So here's the deal.
	All right.
	So when I first went to rehab and I got out, like, that was the height of my career.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I just, you know.
	How hard was it to be in rehab while your career was going?
	Well, I mean, at that time.
	That's the time when I was like, like, trying to fuck everything with a vagina and breasts and stuff.
	Like, you know what I'm saying?
	So I was kind of on that tip.
	Like, I remember like, but that's when I, honestly, when I got over, you know, being a homophobe, you know, because there were a lot of people, you know, I kind of went down there on some arrogant stuff.
	I'm withdrawing.
	I'm like, yeah, I heard y'all like to make people room with gay people too.
	Put me in no room with no gay people.
	Really?
	Yeah, I was, man, I'm from, you know what I'm saying?
	I'm from the South, man.
	Like, I'm a pretty enlightened guy, but I just, I'd never been around any gay people, to be honest with you.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	I really wasn't around any gays until we fear what we don't, you know, what we haven't been exposed to, what we don't understand, what just a certain like presentation and depiction of something that we receive.
	And, you know, and one of the, you know, coolest, a couple of cool cats that I was in treatment with were gay, man, and they some of the best people I've ever known.
	Oh, yeah.
	And it just, you know, I'm saying, it's like, I was always so focused on black folks and white folks because that's really what I was, you know, in the mud with, you know what I'm saying?
	And so, but then I would be, could be judgmental in some other way to some other group of people.
	It just, it was just so flawed me, you know what I'm saying?
	But, but I'm being around that experience and meeting those guys and then countless other gay folks since then that I've had the pleasure of knowing.
	You know, I'm just not fucked up with it.
	I don't care.
	As long as you don't harm children, elderly people, mentally handicapped people, animals, or just people that can't defend themselves.
	I'm not really judging a lot in this world.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Because I don't know what the hell you've been through.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I don't know what it's like inside your head and what your experiences have shaped you into becoming.
	But there's just certain lines you can't cross.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And that's just the way it is.
	Yeah, I feel that with you.
	If you do, we got to get you out of here.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, you can't be messing with children.
	And, you know, you just can't be just recklessly pillaging humanity, you know, helpless humanity.
	But so after.
	So you went to the rehab?
	Yeah, I blamed the music industry and music for.
	So I went two years without doing music.
	I didn't really go to the studio one day.
	I was going to NA meetings.
	I mean, I was going to, you know, 12-step recovery meetings.
	Were you getting better?
	Yeah, I was, but at the same time, I wasn't...
	I was pretty much just...
	At that time, I had some pretty good recovery.
	But you know what it was, man?
	I just wasn't.
	I was just sitting there.
	You know, and it got to a point where I started going to do shows, and it was kind of tormenting, like, you know, going in these clubs and just not being, that atmosphere of recovery internally, it just got weaker and weaker and weaker.
	But it got to the point where it felt clean and sober, like I really wanted to check out of here.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Because it just, I guess I just hadn't stuck around long enough for that spiritual change to happen or whatever, even though it was a long time, you know what I'm saying?
	Over a year.
	And I don't know.
	It just was really, really excruciating.
	And I was just white knuckling it.
	And I mean, finally, I was just, I had no, it was either pick up a pistol or pick up a drink, you know?
	And, but, you know, I can say that, like, you know, then the next time it was like drinking really became an issue.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I didn't go back to the pills or anything like that.
	But, you know, being an addict, like, I'll make anything enough if that's all there is.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Or if I've got myself convinced that that's all, you know, all that I can allow myself to do.
	You know, I can make anything, literally, like sex, you know, like any external thing, man.
	Like, if I like something, I'm probably going to do it till it makes me sick.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Yeah, me, yeah, man.
	I can do that.
	I can totally relate to that, man.
	I will find anything to take me out of the present moment, you know, to kind of take me away from having.
	Even McRibs are back for a month.
	I'm just going to eat them until I vomit McRib every, you know what I'm saying?
	Whatever.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, I just, oh, man, you had that new this or that, this new thing Taco Bell's got, you know, if I like it, I'm just going to eat it until I hate it.
	Yeah.
	You know, a person, a woman, like, come here.
	Oh, I love you.
	I love you.
	I love you.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, oh, we hate each other because, you know, because we're toxic and, you know, we're, we're like around each other too much.
	And, you know what I'm saying?
	It's like we melt into each other and you don't, you've lost perspective on who you are as a person, you know, because we, I just wanted to just give me, give me, give me, you know, I'm saying, fill up this hole inside of me, you know, and and uh, as I've learned, you know, that hole can only be filled with you know the spiritual component, really, like when that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but uh, because really all I think all we want is peace, you know, I just want some peace, man.
	You know, at this point, I, I, I don't know, I just, I know that I have given a lot to my addiction, you know what I'm saying?
	I, I can't say I lost it to my addiction, I can say I've, you know, I volunteered, you know what I mean?
	Yeah, but um, but at the same time, like I couldn't just, because it's been what it's been, I couldn't imagine it any other way, you know what I'm saying?
	Because I don't know, you know, my best friend, Big Steve, always says that, you know, when he went into rehab the first time, and he's been, he went to rehab one time, and he's been sober, so 06, so 16 years.
	I mean, he works in recovery.
	Oh, wow, yeah.
	Yeah.
	And he quit playing football and, you know, and started a whole new life.
	And he says, if I kept playing, if I hadn't just like abruptly just started a whole new chapter, he said, I wouldn't have been able to stay sober.
	You know, but me, because you don't, it's not like Brett Farr if your body starts letting you down and you age out of, you know, making music.
	You're still in it.
	Yeah.
	And so like, you know, I kept going.
	You know, it's just like I don't know what else to do.
	It's like, you know, it's just so, it's ingrained in me, man.
	It's just, like I said, a function of my spirit.
	And so then you start going back to other parts, you know, of it as far as like doing, because I really, the studio, I can handle, but it's that road, man.
	It's hard.
	Yeah, that road is what's going to ultimately always take me back to drinking.
	And, you know, then ultimately some type of drug or whatever.
	Yeah, you know, that's one of the toughest things, man.
	I was in so much pain.
	I remember sitting in my garage one day and saying, man, I'm just, I wasn't even doing anything.
	I was just sick of myself.
	Yeah.
	I'm like, man, I'm so, how do I, I'm just, I am literally sick of myself.
	Man, I love it.
	All I could think about was myself and it was kill.
	It was just like, I don't know what it was, man.
	I'm in awe of how great I can be, like how amazing I can be.
	And then I'm in awe of the piece of shit that I can be as well.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And it's like, it's crazy, man.
	I just, I know other people must be like, what the fuck is wrong with you, man?
	Because like, you know, because people, the people closest to me have been experiencing it just like I have.
	But even me, I'm like, what the fuck?
	You know what I mean?
	Because I've never, the only thing I've ever been consistent at is being inconsistent.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And I don't know what it is, man.
	It's just something about, something within me.
	It's like, I had a therapist, shout out to Richard Lee Nielsen in Atlanta.
	He said, he called it the saboteur.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like this, there's just something in, he said, there's a part of you, you know, inside of you that just wants you to be unhappy.
	There's a part of you that wants you to be unhappy.
	So like, that's like the self-destruct mechanism of like, things are going great.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Met this new girl, you know, got this new situation, whatever, things are going great.
	Oh, things are going great.
	I need to fuck some shit up.
	You know what I mean?
	Like, and it's not a conscious thing.
	Yeah, it's not even a conscious thing.
	That's what's amazing sometimes is I got this little motherfucker inside of me that wants to, you know.
	Just likes to get a ride back up.
	It's the same reason why I told people Jay Leno died, man.
	It really is, bro.
	I told everybody Jay Leno died.
	But it really is.
	It's because something inside of me, there needs to be, I need something to be messed up.
	Because it's the only, I feel like.
	I got to have somebody to fight.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like an idea that I'm fighting.
	If I don't have that, I'm pretty much useless.
	Like, I got to have that edge.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Something to light that fire.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I made up stuff and tricked myself into thinking shit or whatever.
	Like, just to, come on, let's get going.
	But yeah, that's crazy, man.
	But it's funny because it might be just this is exactly the way every, that's why a lot of times I believe I am exactly where I'm supposed to be because even if I behave that way, that's the same way I behave that got me to where.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Exactly.
	The double-edged sword.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And I think about that all the time too.
	It's like that it serves us and it just, it destroys us too.
	Like it's like balance, I think, is the thing that if we have like an ultimate purpose as far as internally, what I feel like we're supposed to accomplish while we're here is to learn some balance.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like in some discipline, you know, like they say, we're going to suffer pain.
	It's either the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.
	And I've suffered the pain of discipline at times and I reap the benefits.
	And I've not been disciplined at times, you know, and I've reaped the benefits.
	Unavoidably, yeah, the pain of regret, man.
	Yeah.
	It's hard, man.
	It's also hard.
	You know, it's not also like it's easy, but man, I can just totally relate to it.
	And nobody's got, like, everybody is saddled with something.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So just because a person doesn't have the same issues that I have, and that's true humility.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Is that self-awareness of understanding that, you know, I used to think humility was like acting inferior when you really thought you were superior.
	Like being sheepish, like, oh no, this whole thing, you know, or just whatever.
	Like, no, I'm not cute.
	Whatever the fuck.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Just not taking compliments well, all that kind of shit.
	Like, that's being humble to me.
	You know what I'm saying?
	But I've come to learn, you know, as I've grown and experienced life that humility is more like just kind of like a true understanding of self.
	Like, I got some good qualities about me.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I got some good shit going on, man.
	But I also got some fucked up shit that I need to work on.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And I'm in the process with it, with working on those things.
	And I'm okay with where I'm at.
	And I understand that I'm no better or worse than anybody else.
	You know what I'm saying?
	People just have, some people don't ever identify their strengths, you know, or, you know, it doesn't register with them that, dang, this is how I can benefit from my strengths.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, I can make a living or help others or whatever, you know what I'm saying?
	And so they just never turn them up or like shine that light on them and get them all the way, you know, hitting on all cylinders.
	But, you know, I've just been in instances where other people, you know, like I'm good in a social setting, you know what I'm saying?
	Like I'm a cocktail party superstar.
	You know what I mean?
	Like, you know, just I can shoot the shit with anybody.
	I get that from my pops, man.
	And so people that aren't good in those types of settings, that aren't like personable people like that, I used to kind of maybe like look down on them a little bit.
	Like, oh, man, you just ain't fly with it.
	Like me, you know what I'm saying?
	Like, until I was in a situation, I'm not going to speak on what this situation exactly entailed, but where I was completely lost.
	And a person that maybe I looked down on because they didn't have the social, quote unquote, social skills that I had was in their element.
	And it saved my ass big time.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And it just further hammered that point home.
	Like, we all got some shit that we're good at.
	You know what I'm saying?
	We all got some shit we need to work on, man.
	We're all humans.
	And we're all going to need each other.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I promise you we are, man.
	I know.
	I promise you.
	You know what I'm saying?
	It's just like anytime, whatever group that you say, you know, like, they're the problem.
	I promise you, you're going to be in a situation where you need somebody from that group.
	I promise you, I've seen it too many times.
	I mean, it's just, that's just the way the universe sorts shit out or God sorts things out.
	Like, however you want to look at that, you know, but I've seen it pop up repeatedly in my life and just, you know, other people that wanted to be judgmental, you know, because we just, we all, it makes us feel better to some degree to be able to just blame other people for, you know, something that's not going right, you know, in our own lives.
	But, you know, it's bullshit.
	Life's just going to life, man.
	Yeah, and it's interesting, like you said in the beginning, like if you could look at life through a whole spectrum of time, it's unfortunate we're only able to see life a lot of times, or a lot of us are, just as right now.
	We're not able to see the past 3,000 years.
	We're not able to see it.
	It's always right now.
	Right.
	And if we could get a whole, if we could really spend life like this and look at the spectrum of things, it would give us all a unique perspective.
	And maybe that's the perspective that's coming along in the future, like you were saying.
	Yeah, because I think even like when I was talking about like visiting battlefields of old battles and stuff, I think there's obviously becomes like a sicko element to it.
	They just go back and just like, they're just there with like this hot chick or something.
	You know what I mean?
	I'm going to take this broad out to the ying dynasty.
	Now this joker is going to figure out, not even that though, but like people going back in time.
	Like jerking off.
	Yeah, type shit.
	Dang, bro.
	That's going to be sad, man.
	But that's just humans, man.
	But you're going to have some dude going back in time.
	Ultimate beauty.
	Humans, we encompass the ultimate beauty.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, and the ultimate fucking ugliness, man.
	It's like, you know, our greatest gift is probably like if you were some like evolved like alien species, you know what I'm saying?
	Look, just looking at us, you'd be so envious of the fact that we can feel the way we feel.
	Because if you'd evolved to a place where you can't even feel.
	Yeah, you don't have, there's no love.
	There's no emotion in you.
	It's all just like logic and survival.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Yeah, imagine an alien comes back just to see like a mother hug a child.
	Yeah.
	Or to see somebody crying because their girlfriend broke up with them.
	Yeah, and they can't even have tears in their life.
	And they've actually evolved into just being one gender and they like spawn every spring and that's how the new, you know, the new, the gene pool, like that's how the new booty people come.
	Yeah, like, so there's no, it's just one gender.
	Like it evolved into that.
	Like that's ultimately what it feels like we're kind of being prompted towards.
	I know.
	You know, but somebody come all the way back in time just to see a breast or somebody's dick.
	Yeah.
	Because they don't have it.
	Just envious of just like, but also like, man, y'all are stupid as hell.
	Yeah.
	You know what I mean?
	Y'all feel shit.
	Why y'all want to feel shit?
	Feeling?
	Yeah.
	Damn, y'all.
	That's so played out.
	Man.
	Look at these people still feeling.
	That's why y'all keep damn blowing up shit and doing everything.
	Y'all be in y'all's feelings and shit, you know?
	So there's something to be said for, you know, you couldn't imagine a life without emotion and feelings and because it kind of is what drives us, you know what I'm saying?
	But I mean, it's just the double-edged sword that pretty much comes along with anything if you think about it.
	Dude, I think you have such a I just am fascinated by your perspective, man.
	The perspectives you've been able to live through and the perspective that you've been able to not create for yourself, but learn and evolve into as you've grown up.
	I don't rule anything out, man.
	And I just, I'm teachable.
	You know what I'm saying?
	That's one thing that I committed to always just be coachable and teachable because please present me with some, I beg anyone out there, present me with some new information that either improves upon some bad or dated information that I'm using.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, please give me some new information.
	If my information's wrong, I welcome it.
	I encourage it.
	I need it.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So, and sometimes it may not come from the people that you would want it to come from and the way you would want it to come.
	But hey, I can't tell help how to help me.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, so, you know, and that's just, and it's just about, I just wish more people would just be unconditionally open-minded, you know, because, man, it's just, you know, I got into astrology recently, you know, or in the past couple years and really started learning more about it, even though for most of my life I was like, you know, whatever.
	I just use it as a way to pick up girls.
	What's your sign?
	What's your sign?
	Look at this.
	A conversation starter.
	But it's starting to make sense to me that in the future, it could be certain aspects of astrology could be looked at as science because it only makes sense to me that now, if you were born at a certain time Of year in a certain place,
	the air pressure was, you know, this at that time, the humidity level, like all these things that we may not know, they could have a major impact on the way a human mind and body and spirit develops.
	You know, I just think that it's going to be in the future at some point, it's going to be a lot more credence to stuff like that.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And I think whereas religion, not religion, I don't even, religion is just a man-made, in my opinion, just something that man-made as a way to, you know, to try and connect to a higher power.
	Yeah, but I don't even think it was that.
	I think man can connect to a higher power by himself, you know, or by herself.
	But I think in some ways, religion was just to control people.
	You know what I'm saying?
	It's like when you look at various religious institutions, I mean, it's hard to say that what did they say in that movie, the Da Vinci Code or something?
	Oh, yeah, I just watched it.
	Well, he was like, he was like, asked the guy about God, and he said, no, don't tell me what man has told you about God.
	Tell me what you think about God.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And it's like, man, it's like anything I'm told by a man, I'm just, no, men are flawed.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Men and women are very flawed.
	So, you know, who knows what kind of bullshit might be attached to, you know, the reason that they're telling me this.
	You know, and that's not to say that I just would rule it out, but it's just to say I can't just accept it as just what it is, as my concrete fundamental truth.
	Yeah.
	You know, but, you know, religion's helped a lot of people.
	You know what I'm saying?
	And, you know, my mother and father are Christian.
	You know, and I'm a Christian, I would say.
	You know what I'm saying?
	But I'm just not going to just, you ain't going to just piss down my back, tell me it's raining, and me be like, okay, no, it's rain.
	You know, I'm going to investigate things for myself.
	I'm going to think for myself.
	Oh, yeah.
	Some of that's piss.
	Yeah, for sure.
	It's warm.
	Yeah.
	It's warm.
	And why three of y'all standing back?
	Yeah, man.
	Why three or four of y'all?
	Stopping drinking damn beer all day.
	Y'all ain't got out the pool one time.
	Bro, you and Riffre have got to get together and talk, man.
	I would listen to that for hours.
	I'd love to talk to him, man.
	It sounds so much like the same.
	You got to get up, man, for real.
	Dude, yeah, I feel so grateful to have gotten to spend time with you.
	Yeah, it means a lot, man, that we finally got to do this because it's a long time coming for sure.
	Yeah.
	We should go have something to y'all get to eat or something?
	Yeah, we'd love to get something to eat.
	We'll go right down the street.
	If people want to check out more music, what else can they expect?
	What's going on?
	I mean, honestly, I've put out music with the exception of the two years that I was talking about, which really set me back because that was at a time when the internet was starting to dictate musical styles and trends evolving at a much more rapid rate.
	And that was like the worst time to take two years off.
	So it took me a while to just get caught up.
	And honestly, I feel like I'm better now than I've ever been.
	I was blessed to work with some really great producers early on.
	And so I was good always, but I benefited from working with some great people.
	Whereas now, I'm kind of like able to be a more self-contained entity.
	I can go in the studio by myself and write ahead.
	Every aspect of it.
	But I'm putting out music pretty consistently, man.
	I'll get kind of like in a lull for a year or so.
	Maybe do some other stuff.
	And then just at some point, I'm going to get riled back up on it, man.
	Because it just calls me.
	It's that real to me.
	And, you know, you're fortunate as long as I'm breathing on this planet.
	If you like listening to my music, if it just doesn't make you vomit, you know what I'm saying?
	The good news is, as long as I'm breathing, as long as my mental faculties will allow me to do so, I'm going to be rapping.
	Are there other...
	I was listening to a bunch of your music this week and there was there's I can't even explain it and I don't think it needs to be explained that's why well you know man it's like what I like about the way you do your thing man is it's like the honestly the first episode I ever saw was Boosie oh yeah and it was just dope man I was like this is weird to me like why is like this is just strange to me and then you started talking and realizing for bad ruse like everything and I was like this is fucking New South as fuck man this
	is like dope as hell you know what I'm saying and I started getting into just the the authentic way because look every person that's ever been born into this world has something unique about them that sets them apart from every other person that's ever been born into this world you know what I'm saying we all have something in us that just separates us from everybody else doesn't make us better or worse just makes us us and to me great art whether you're a quarterback a painter you know a musician a comedian great art is about
	the ability to make whatever it is that makes you unique and different from everybody else and special translate into your art you know what i'm saying and and so i just really get off when i when i encounter people or when i'm able to observe cats that are doing that you know what i'm saying it's like dang man like nobody can compete with that you know i'm saying if you just truly like get in your own lane and keep the even the attempt to compete with it is a loss you know what i'm saying it's like you know you just can't be another person you know and we're all inspired and
	influenced by by others that's not to say you know i have influences many influences i get influenced by things every day and i'm not scared to like i said acknowledge that give me some new information like you know inspire me in a different way whatever yeah but to really be it's that's the scariest thing i think is to try and be yourself and that's so fascinating that so so when you do finally learn who you really are and embrace it and accept it you cherish it man you know what i'm saying you cherish
	it like and and you definitely i i'm i'm sympathetic and empathetic to people that that haven't been able to to to discover themselves or or embrace you know who they truly are because i know people out here that can't that haven't been able to do it for themselves so they they they uh vent that that angst from not being able to to figure it out for themselves by you know judging and throwing stones at other people you know that and that's just the way it's gonna go man you know it's just hurt people hurt
	people but and lost lost people get people lost.
	Yeah.
	I would love to see you.
	I feel like you have such a calling to be able to just, I mean, you're already doing it, but your ability to communicate, man, it's really strong.
	And it's not a job.
	I didn't know, I didn't have a super strong idea of what you would be like as a human outside of what I've seen of you or heard of you.
	I've done a pretty bad job, honestly, of just, you know, I've kind of hidden.
	You know, it's been a rough, you know, like I'd say last five years.
	And I just, you know, us being, you know, the way we are as, you know, addicts or whatever it is that we're saddled with or blessed with, however you want to look at that, I isolate.
	You know what I mean?
	Oh, yeah, man.
	You know, and I get away from people and places and things or anything that could potentially cause more discomfort, you know, that gnawing, self-centered fear, that fear of nothing in particular.
	It's just like, if I go out there, I'm going to melt.
	You know, like just baseless.
	But yeah, and, you know, I got some good people I work with.
	Charlie, you know, it's also a brother of mine, my boy Boogie, Jason, like just people that are some good people around me, man.
	When not necessarily, some people left me.
	A lot of people left.
	Some were justified.
	Some weren't.
	But there were also a lot of people that I walked away.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I withdrew from everything and everybody at a certain point.
	And so the people that were still around me, like, and they weren't tapped, that's not something they signed up for.
	You know what I'm saying?
	To have this responsibility of fucking like salvaging or trying to get, you know what I mean?
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	We're confusing folks, man.
	You know, and it's like, and it's like, all I can ever promise somebody like that is the good's going to outweigh the bad.
	But, you know, it's, I've just been blessed, man.
	Like, that man sitting over there, man, I would not be here on this planet breathing.
	Really?
	He saved you a couple times, huh?
	I mean, not like Lil.
	Not like Larkam.
	No, no, no.
	But just, you know what I'm saying?
	Like, just, there was nobody else.
	Yeah.
	There was just nobody else.
	He was just ended up, you know, with that baton.
	And it's sad because I don't know sometimes if I could do that.
	If I'm real, I don't know if I could love somebody that, you know, cares.
	Oh, he didn't.
	I mean, trust me, he didn't want to.
	I think he at certain times, you know what I'm saying?
	Like, we done been into it, you know, and but he ain't perfect either.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So it's like sometimes the quote-unquote sick one can, you know, can.
	Yeah, the sick one got to be there for the sick people.
	Yeah.
	You know, because we all, just some old stupid ass human motherfuckers, man.
	Dude, I won't let.
	I'll tell you this.
	I won't listen to well people a lot of times.
	I can only hear.
	That sounds like somebody that's bullshitting to me, like a well person.
	Yeah, I got to hear from somebody that's sick.
	We was talking about that last night.
	We were talking about how, you know, just that therapeutic value, you know, of one act helping another, like when you know somebody's been through that shit, you know, the same, you know, and just attraction over promotion, you know, we were just talking about all these different principles and concepts.
	And yeah, you know, God bless anybody that's coming from a good place and trying to help.
	But I really can only be helped by somebody that can relate, you know, because I'm just, you know, we just feel like terminally unique.
	Was it terminally unique and fatally cool or something like that?
	Like, basically, like, I've always felt like not, that just, I couldn't just relate to people that just hadn't experienced like a, and we all experience pain.
	That's not what I'm saying.
	But it's almost like somebody that's like, would inflict pain on themselves like we do.
	You know what I'm saying?
	It's like, you know.
	Yeah, I'm a superstar with an inferiority complex.
	Well, I'm a people pleaser that don't give a fuck what nobody thinks about me.
	That's the real deal.
	But the egomaniac with the inferiority complex.
	Egomaniac with the inferiority complex, man.
	Just a crazy son, bitch.
	A lot of us are out there, man.
	And a lot of us don't even know that we have this, that, you know, that they have some element of it.
	You know, my old sponsor, again, used to say that he was the people that pick up the drug or the drink or whatever, they're the blessed ones because that gets us that much closer to the solution, whether we pick it up or not.
	But some people go through their whole lives and they never find the thing that brings everything to a head where they do identify the fact that they got some shit wrong with them.
	You know what I'm saying?
	So they just go through their lives red, restless, irritable, and discontent, and no idea why.
	You know what I'm saying?
	God, that is almost like a hell.
	Yeah, I mean, I know some people very close to me, I would say they fall into that category and there's just nothing and they'll talk at you all day about, you know what I mean, like, you know, you just got to be strong and all this stuff, you know, but it's like, I'm just sitting there seeing the quote unquote disease like all manifest itself in that person's life.
	And that's just not even a conversation they're willing because they attach it to the drug.
	You know what I'm saying?
	You know what I mean?
	When really that's just a symptom.
	You know what I'm saying?
	The proc.
	It's the us problem.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Oh, I never had an issue with drinking, man.
	I didn't like drinking.
	I had to go pee, like we probably all have to right now.
	I had to go pee, bro.
	And I hated having to go pee because I didn't want to miss being around people.
	And so I never liked drinking, man.
	Wow.
	Now, I like something.
	I did start to like cocaine because it, and drinking was, it took too long to feel some type of way.
	I wanted to, cocaine, it was like, you could feel this, you could feel this.
	And that hangover is awful, though.
	Oh, yeah, it was horrible.
	But I never, so it took me so long to realize that I had all these alcoholisms, that I had all this rigless irideline.
	Myself and me.
	Yeah.
	Because there was no like, it was so hard to pin the tail on the donkey, man.
	Yeah.
	Because you want to attach it to a certain substance or something.
	You know what I mean?
	Really, it's just, that's your solution for a while.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Whatever you pick up, that gambling, that food, at first it's your solution.
	It quiets the beast.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Yeah, because I don't want to sit here with myself.
	I don't want to sit in the fucking moment, bro.
	Because at some point in my life when I was a kid or a baby or whatever, the moment it wasn't good for me.
	So it was not a safe place to be.
	So anything that keeps me because the moment can see you clearly, the moment is a fucking mirror, you know, and I don't want to be right there, man, because I don't, you know, I mean, we could go all day about it.
	I literally just thought that made me break out of sweats.
	We could go all day about it.
	No doubt, man.
	But look, man, I'd love to chat again sometime.
	And I just think you have such a I'm I feel grateful to have heard some of the things you said today, and I mean that.
	Man, I appreciate that.
	And I'm glad that, you know, you don't need to isolate because we need you.
	Thank you, man.
	Thank you.
	For real, Theo.
	Thank you for giving me this opportunity just to be able to.
	Yeah, dude.
	You coming in, man.
	I've had so many people that were so excited, bro.
	So it's a blessing, man, too.
	Because, you know, that's another thing, too.
	It's just, you know, in your head, you're like, I don't know about it.
	I got this thing where I think people, at my shows, that people pay just because they hate me.
	Like, it's sickness, you know, utter sickness.
	So I don't think nobody gives a damn what I got to say or nothing, you know.
	That's just where it takes me, you know what I'm saying?
	But it's good to hear that.
	It's good to hear you say all those kind of things.
	Yeah, man.
	I just think because there's not you, there's no other you, man.
	Like you said a minute ago, there's not, I mean, look, man, I was listening to some of your verses a couple days ago, and it's like, nobody has whatever this is.
	Now, they have different versions of it and shit, and they got newer and older versions.
	And they got some things I don't have.
	Right.
	Agreed.
	Yeah.
	But I got some, I mean, you know.
	It was, yeah.
	I mean, you know, hey, I'm blessed, you know, and we all are.
	You know what I'm saying?
	That's the unique, that's the great thing about, you know, the way humans are set up, where our accounts are set up.
	You know, it's like, man, if you just, we all got some qualities, man, that can, that can be redeemable.
	You know what I'm saying?
	We just got to, you know, what we feed will flourish and what we starve will die, you know, in our own spirits.
	Yeah, man.
	I got to start feeding the good spots, man.
	We all do.
	We all got to, you know what I'm saying?
	That's, got to be vigilant as far as that goes.
	I damn sure, I'll tell myself a fucked up story.
	Oh.
	And let's say whatever story you're telling yourself is true.
	I know, and I get tired of living my old story, man.
	That's what, you know, I get tired.
	Sometimes I start to realize, man, is this, you know, whether it was your story or whether it was your truth or not growing up, how long you want to keep telling yourself that just because of what it makes you feel like.
	This is just who you are.
	This is just what it is.
	You know what I'm saying?
	That's the big, you know, that's the biggest cop out, you know, and I'm very guilty of it.
	You know what I'm saying?
	It's resignation almost, but it's like.
	But it's hard when it's giving you also the flint and the steel because you feel like you feel like you're going to rely on it.
	You know what I mean?
	If I diminish any aspect of it, then it's all gone.
	If I don't have my story, then who the fuck even am I?
	And it's kind of happened to me like that before, too.
	Like I just, I'd rather die than, I'd rather keep going way beyond the gates of insanity and hell than just sit there mundane and just like, that ain't it, bro.
	Like, that's not, you know, and like I said, sometimes maybe I didn't put in enough work, you know what I'm saying, inside the, you know, the pro, whatever, you know what I'm saying?
	And so I didn't ever reach that point where I could feel that peace and that freedom and still have my good shit.
	And then it's an ongoing process even from there.
	It's not like it just, it just happens one day and you're just like, oh, I'm good now.
	No, then it's an ongoing process, too.
	And it's like, how much do I want to take care of myself?
	Because there's a part of me that don't ever want to take care of myself because it ain't even my fucking job to do it.
	And that's the part too inside of me sometimes that this is somebody else's job.
	Why do I have to do it every day?
	You know, I still think like that sometimes.
	And some of that shit's hard to kill, bro.
	But I felt like I was in nine meetings today, man.
	No, that's what I feel like too, bro.
	I feel like that too, man.
	And I've been in the program for five and a half years, six years.
	And I've only, I'm still, I just got to step nine two days ago.
	That's crazy, bro.
	Well, see, you know, the particular fellowship I was in, like, just the steps are work slower, you know what I'm saying?
	You know, with the workbook and stuff.
	And that's the fellowship I prefer.
	But I know, like, you know, some of those, some, in other fellowships, you know what I'm saying?
	Like, they, like, you know how they used to do in the old days, like, you work all 12 steps over the weekend, you know what I mean?
	But yeah, you hear stories about that.
	Yeah, I mean, you know, because when you break it down to its simplest form, you know, what, what the steps are actually trying to accomplish, it's really not that complex a process.
	You know what I'm saying?
	It's just, you know, cleaning up and, you know, and trusting in God.
	Yeah, cleaning house.
	Cleaning house, you know, doing, taking a realistic inventory of yourself, trying to make amends for the wrong you've done, you know, and then trying to help other people.
	That's it.
	That's it.
	Will you help me today?
	Bubba Sparks, thanks so much for spending time, bro.
	Thank you, Theo.
	Much love, brother.
	Hey, man, tell Riffraff.
	I'm looking forward to it.
	I'm going to send him this link.
	He'll fucking love it.
	He'll love it, bro.
	He's one of us.
	Hey, look, he loved to hear his name.
	He loved to hear people care about him.
	Man, there's no, it's just, it's a joke that me and him hadn't, you know, that we hadn't connected already because I know we got several mutual friends and stuff.
	Yeah, y'all have to, man.
	Thanks again, bro.
	Much love, D. Now, I'm just footing on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
	I must be cornerstone.
	Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of mind I found I can feel it in my bones.
	But it's gonna take ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite, and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner.
	The answer may shock you.
	Sometimes I'll interview my friends.
	Sometimes I won't.
	And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head.
	You have three new voice messages.
	A lot of people are talking about Kite Club.
	I've been talking about Kite Club for so long, longer than anybody else.
	So great.
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	Easy deal.
	Anyone who doesn't listen to Kite Club is a dodgy bloody wanker.
	Jermaine.
	Hi, I'll take a quarter pounder with cheese and a McFlurry.
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	Oh, no!
	BEEP
	I think Tom Hanks just butt-dialed me.
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