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morning good evening good night good afternoon don't give me copyright flag though no no no you
can cut this out i sounded like a zombie just yeah in order to grow you gotta have like some
kind of goals microphone check i check one two one two what's up what's up man we're back baby
happy anniversary two years it's the two-year anniversary uh two years ago today i was setting
up a green screen in my basement because Gil had an album to promote that was the writing to heal
wow it's been two years since writing to heal wow yes a whole different mindset just in two years
so much happens yeah and we looked at we were gonna do it in your kitchen you remember and
we were like I was like I don't know how we're gonna hold the mics up like I don't know so
within like two weeks I was like come over I had the whole table set up with the green screen
and um recorded it's been such a learning curve since then like upgrading and going from there so
now we're not in the basement we're here lovely from live from venture x in the fishbowl
and then moving up making progress it's beautiful for real when you think about just the last two
years just all the stuff you did all the episodes all different types of people and subject matter
you covered like i'm proud of you bro real talk like that's crazy you manifested the hell out of
that I was like yo my man just went I didn't expect I thought it was gonna be like a side
like hobby or something because I know you're a very creative person but just the fact that you
took it where you did now we here that's amazing bro for real salute to you I appreciate it man
I appreciate it yeah it's one of those things where every time like you were and that's why
I wanted to bring you back on for this special episode because if not for I mean I'm sure I
may have got into podcasting, but you had a date, you had a deadline. A lot of people, and I do
consulting in the area for a few podcasts and everybody thinks and thinks and thinks. I didn't
do any of that. I had like, granted I had, I worked with your brother at Royal Entertainment
and a couple other studios. So I know the audio engineering to be able to mess with the stuff and
the tools, but I didn't have any of the tools at the time. It was just like.
oh it's on 11th street right yeah you remember that remember that studio wow that's when i was
recording windows to my soul yeah that was the album cover i'll see if i have it and i can pull
it up you had the bible in one hand and the world in the other i think that was the first one you
did for me you know what the only thing that wasn't timeless about that album cover and those
for those just joining now i've been doing gill's album artwork he's a lyricist out here in allentown
pennsylvania is a huge body of work what six seven albums five mixtapes it's a lot i think i counted
them all one day i think it's like 17 or something 17 projects maybe seven of them that's on all
streaming platforms but yeah it's a lot of albums a lot of work but i'll see if i can throw it up
the windows to the soul album had you the only non-timeless thing about it was the uh the white
t oh yeah didn't we do that it was um it was outside of the mall the pictures or something
like that i think you sent me the picture i think i don't know i remember that i don't know
that's crazy bro when you think a body of work like two years doesn't feel so this will be i
think episode 60 it might be an even 60 so i was doing them every week for a little bit then dropped
to every two weeks but every time i had like a guess i remember when we had a phase and tug on
when tug dropped his project we didn't have the ability to do more than two mics so me and phase
are trying to figure out are we going to get a splitter like we ended up rigging it so that like
it all worked and nobody can tell nobody knows that i was in my basement you know how many people
tell me they're like where's your studio at and i'm like now you'd be surprised but yeah that's
crazy that you mentioned tug i just seen him recently at music fest he was like yo the next
one's coming so they got he's gonna be over here soon oh yeah that's what's up i can't wait to hear
shout out to tug and phase you know i mean they're doing real big things and hip-hop around here
crazy and he's been rapping forever you know did you hear the the new zero to one i don't wait i'm
not sure if i is that is this new job yeah um it's like a baby on the cover so yeah yeah i just i
didn't get to get all the way through it because i just heard about it recently i was like oh shit
so i tried to listen to he got like everybody on there yeah so yeah it was it was pretty dope so
you know him he's always blending like skits and then the way he he makes it cohesive the way this
one ends it bleeds into the other track he's very artistic with the way he puts his projects
together so shout out to phase yeah big shout out to phase and what i think has been cool about the
podcast itself is it's put me in a position like graphic design, especially working with a couple
artists. It's like that was my contribution since I stopped making music myself. But to have a voice,
a podcast, you know, there's tons of people that would love to be up here, tons of people with
projects that they want to promote. And I started to run into a thing where I'm like, man, with the
increased likes and increased engagement comes people that, for lack of a better term, just want
to get on the mic and shout out to everyone that reached out you know the conversation probably
didn't go very far if that was the idea but when somebody has something to bring to the show when
they don't ask well what's your listenership it's like well you're not paying for this anyway like
this is us co-collaborating you know for real yeah you build real like genuine relationships
just when you get up there you know you speak from your soul you could connect with people
sometimes and always about like how far can this get but you never know you could be somewhere
and because you heard an artist whether it's somebody that rhymes or they're doing something
in the community or they're a graffiti artist whatever you could because you made that connection
with them you could be somewhere else and you could forward them out that somebody else out
there that could get them further it's all a big community so a lot of times people always going
they're trying to leap to the highest person but it takes steps to get anywhere that's why
they don't know the opportunity to miss and i bet you probably like around the first episode
they're like i don't know if i want to get on this platform now they might see this i'm like yo
where tony yet yeah for sure in two years two years i mean there is there is a bit of
being able to set it up and do it but just like uh like we recently did something so i'm just
coming off hiatus this will be the first drop in almost a month my longest break since i started
in two years. But what I've been doing is building the pieces to be able to take the podcast
anywhere, take it outside of the basement. You know, it's great to have a controlled environment,
but sometimes, you know, people two years ago listened to podcasts. Nowadays, if it's not a 4k
experience, like, you know what I mean? Like people are not even listening to us. They're
like, Oh, I don't like the Chicago bulls. You know what I mean? Like they, they, they go in
and visualize, which is cool. But if you're going to do it, build with it. So being able to take
this like two phases studio, I don't know if you saw, we did an album breakdown. We listened to the
album, uh, in his studio, the multiple camera, everything like that. It got over a thousand
views on Facebook. That was the only platform we did it. It was like a side thing. And I'm like,
okay, I've been doing, I will not lose for two years now. I'm still going to make content for
that but rather than every other week have a different hip-hop artist up maybe put a different
lane for that where these artists are lending their projects to me trusting me as an ear you
know that's where I wanted to be so the benefits you know are we monetized are we making thousands
of dollars off talking not yet but the skills that you learn the network of people that go into like
i would tell anybody get into podcasting you should start a podcast i think about that all
the time but i'm like i don't what i try to weigh out is what things can i talk about what passion
in a brief manner and then keep it moving on a consistent basis because a lot of times you know
when you get passionate about something you could be long-winded and i know the way um the low
tension spans of this error is that um that doesn't work well for me and since i'm a married
man with two children i do a lot of things it's like i want to find the most concise way that i
could deliver that message if i can't then i kind of pull back and i kind of second guess it but i
mean maybe you're not the first person to say that to me because i have a lot of different thoughts
about so many different subjects so i am playing with the idea but we'll see the more i'm i'm
and stuff like this i'm like you know maybe i should do it i should get in there but one thing
i haven't done in over a year is record a solo episode like i had a real block i had all my
equipment packed up i took it out for one episode since reggae fest and we could talk about that for
a second did you see we put a little bit of content out but what happened was we recorded
so much during reggae fest and we all have our original schedules i'm like well you know i have
lisa measler's coming on to promote the casino night celebrity casino night uh this won't drop
beforehand but at the time of recording this this coming up week she's got celebrities coming to
a fundraiser to celebrate turning point of the lehigh valley i'm like you put so much energy
into recording her episode it has to come out now so we can't just drop reggae fest for eight weeks
so we started uh cutting it up and i got a little bit overwhelmed i was like you know
Big shout out to Eric Rodriguez for co-hosting.
He's been doing all the quality assurance.
I just handed him seven interviews.
I said, I got no energy, like six or seven.
I was like, I cut it up.
It's synced, but I haven't watched it.
Like I did everything technically that it should work.
So if you could just watch it.
And he did.
He just texted me last night.
So I'm going to cut that up the rest of the time.
I was in the barber shop yesterday before I set up here.
I was recording a podcast at Shout Out Law, The Barber, Evan Robinson of Exalt Jiu Jitsu.
Well, a bunch of those guys go to the barbershop and they're in my network. They're good friends
of mine. We get together and set goals every year. So we're like, let's document this. And now
there are other guests that are pushing me to say, OK, let me invest in some other equipment to,
you know, when you see the movies, they don't have mics on, you know, like they may be hidden.
but for the most part there's someone holding a boom somewhere so i'm like i wonder if we could
just mic up the whole shop and we just i'll be fired pick everybody up even the clippers but
now you're like in the experience rather than something like this which is like a studio
everything's quiet people are listening in their cars like they're not listening to dmx right now
like you know what i mean there's there's a different mode for it but my listeners
try not to lose podcasts or not gonna get hyped up yeah i like seeing too how you you were able
to you know what i mean um just um kind of combined with different minds because like you
said you got overwhelmed in that one moment so it's always good to have other people around you
that can assist you and um you have like-minded individuals that can see your vision and
understand it and comprehend it that's the biggest thing is comprehension on that because a lot of
times you'd be like oh yeah that's a cool little idea but once they really understand where you're
coming from um the meaning behind it all in your heart what you really want to accomplish that's
when people dive in they really get on board with it so there's a fact i see you expanding doing all
these things and just just like you mentioned like your jujitsu thing which we were kind of
talking about before like you've been in that you said all two two years now and that's that's crazy
you know what i mean because i remember you toying with the idea before because i think i mentioned
it to you i kind of wanted to learn something look you two years in i didn't even start yet
you know what i mean yeah right so i was like that's that's crazy bro just to see and like
shout out to you on that because i heard that's really hard on your body i heard people that get
jitsu i work with this one dude he'd be coming to you like yo i feel beat up right now yo so
i injured this shoulder uh first first year role and i was i wasn't out but like i was in pain
training for like six months and even like basic stuff like shrimping on i'll show you later it's
like how you get your hips away from someone uh if i go on to this side and i'm gonna give all
my weaknesses out so when they show up at my gym i gotta take both shoulders so they don't know
which one i'm talking about but uh no like um you train through it like they say the journey to
black belt is like it's not a straight line up like there's a lot of valleys and you got to climb
yourself back up you got injuries you got all sorts of stuff you got life that comes up you know
but you do a little bit of something like people see all this equipment here they think i got a
bank loan or something, or they think, you know, my parents just said, here's thousands of dollars
to get all the equipment. But like that camera, I talk about it all the time. That one was $50.
I picked it up on marketplace and drove like 10 miles. That's somebody in a Burger King parking
lot. And I was like, I like that camera. So I sought it out, got that one off eBay. This one,
nothing is this, this roadcaster is the only thing that was, uh, like bought out. And it's crazy
because i only did it because i was so frustrated like after tugs i almost quit there's been like
we could talk about all the times that i almost quit like even coming off this hiatus i was like
would anybody notice if i just stopped putting out content like if that was just it but you run
into people they're like oh i see you got the podcast now i'm like i guess i do i gotta do it
you know what i mean yeah there's this it's crazy too bro because i don't know like it's like what
you do jitsu or like me with like my fitness and working out when you push through something like
that it also builds a resilience in your mind and gives you like more courage because when you're
pushing through those reps it's kind of like difficult situations that you could push through
in your life it kind of really really builds you up you know and gives you a better sense of what
true bravery is because if you're constantly like you don't know pain until like you're you're done
for the day and then you're still giving yourself that extra 10 minutes to put when your body's like
got nothing left you're sweating everything your body's hurting you already worked and i still went
to the gym and pushing out these reps and you do that over and over again your mind builds like a
callus like yo i got this i can do this and you become empowered people don't understand just like
by health as well just by taking care of yourself doing different things moving your body using it
in positive ways. And, you know what I mean? Just keeping yourself and watching your diet as well.
Cause you know, there's a lot of toxins and stuff that can go on our food, but when you just look
at it all and you take care of yourself, you feel better. And then you want to do more. Now I've
seen something just recently by people just doing squats. You, they end up living longer. Why?
Because when your legs are strong, that means you want to physically get up and go do things.
So the longer you're moving and doing things, the less you're sitting idle and going to just
wither away and die so having strong legs for a long period of time is going to make you live
longer because you're going to be out there doing shit so just thinking a little shit like that
people oh why are you in the gym i don't feel like doing all that well if you don't if you don't
invest in in your health now you're going to be in having to invest in your illness later because
now you're paying all these bills so that's why i look at it like that like when i when me and my
wife and go to the gym together and stuff like that it's not about oh i don't want you to blow
up on me it's more like i made a commitment to be with you for the rest of my life and you said the
same thing to me so the best thing that i could do that is to be here as long as i can for you
and our children how can i do that by taking care of me not just physically but my mind too because
we all go through shit you know yeah as men's black men you know we go through a lot of shit
all the time that we hold in our hearts and our minds and we need to keep ourselves in a healthy
space set boundaries um know when we need time to ourself and be honest with that like there's
times that i've learned over the years people might have wanted me to go someplace i'm like
you know what i can't do that and maybe when i was younger i'd be like you drag yourself into it and
then your energy's bad around people that you love i've learned to just walk away and be like you
know what i'm gonna get up with you later i need this time for myself but that comes with growth
bro you just gotta learn yourself and then keep moving forward with positivity that's how i look
at it. You know what I mean? That was a Thursday for me. Well, we're recording this on a Saturday
morning, Thursday, or maybe it was Wednesday at this point, but I was up from pretty much
eight in the morning till about two or 3am. Like I put 16 hours in and I was spent, but I also had
to get up for a dentist appointment at eight 30 the next morning. So for three days before that
16 hours i was only sleeping three four hours and some of it was cutting up reggae fest content
because i was like this just isn't gonna sit anywhere like i was like you're just gonna do it
but i also had projects i took on you know like you said i still see this as a hobby like all
the guests come on they're like this is a passion now it's like yeah you could be passionate about
a hobby but i wanted to finish cutting a little bit yesterday and thursday night i just it was
like 6 p.m i had nothing on i wasn't going to sleep but i had no music i might have thrown on
binaural beats you know my phone was off all the lights are off and i'm just laying on the couch
no stimuli at all i was like i need this to like i'm so tired i'm starting to hallucinate i'm seeing
things weird and then like i remind myself okay this is the grind when you don't have sleep and
you don't have that mental health that's when the negative thoughts start to creep in you know what
i mean 100 bro for real that's why it's funny you say that um my my job is 20 minutes away from
my house i get up three hours before i have to be there because i need to set myself up before i'm
able to deal with people i meditate you know i sit there and i when i'm driving to work i don't even
listen to music i listen to like frequencies like 528 hertz or 963 hertz or 174 to deal with pain
and stuff like that and i just let that and i kind of just zoned out and then once i park in
the parking lot, like 45 minutes before I have to sign it, I sit there and I'll do breathing
techniques because I have to get myself right. And in a peaceful state before I deal with all
these people that I deal with every day, because I want people to get the best version of me.
You never know what somebody else is going through. So if I'm at the best version of myself,
then when they speak to me, I can bathe in gratitude and lead with love in any situation.
And that's why, that way, by the end of the day, when I look at myself in the mirror, you know,
I'm like, you know, I'm proud of you, Gil. You know, you did the best you could. You set yourself
fought for success. So even if you didn't, if you didn't run to the goal, I jogged to that shit.
You know what I mean? At least I got there. You know what I mean? So, and that's how I look at,
I hold myself accountable every day. Did I do enough today? Did I look in this person's eyes
when I was talking to them? Did I give them my full attention or did I have my phone in my hand
and act like what they were saying wasn't important, wasn't vital to me? I look at all
the things that I do as a human being and I try and I push every day to get better. Why? Because
not only for me, but my kids, my kids, they see me every day. If my energy is off, it's going to
kind of disrupt their growth and their process. That's why every day, like I talk to my son and
he calls me before he goes to school. Cause I'm out of the house before anybody wakes up. He calls
me and we have a mantra that we do every day because I want to like inception, put things in
his mind. I tell him every day and we go through a mantra that we say and say, I am honest. I am
pure. I'm loving. I will be the best I can be today. I am a champion in life. I have him saying
these things. I don't just say it. I'll say, now say it back to me. And then we say, you got this
baby. I have to say that because that's my prince. He's going to be a king. And I got to make sure
he feels that and knows from his dad, from the day that when he starts his day and he's like,
before I even get to school around other kids, I know that this man loves me. He got my back.
And I'm going to be an honest, pure, loving individual. And I'm a champion in life. And I
got this. I tell him that every day, even on my worst days when I'm just like, damn, I'm out of
it. I'm tired. He deserves the energy from me because he's my legacy. Before I affect anybody
else, I need to affect him. And that's how I look at it. I give him a kiss on the forehead every day.
I kiss my daughter. I let her know I love her with all my heart because they need to hear these
things. And that's the future. People, they work so much and we do a lot, but you still need to
look at your kids in the eyes and tell them how important they are how much value they have that
they can do everything and if you fall i got you i'm right here you know i mean for sure and that's
how i look at it bro is um i think so deeply and passionate about things but i make sure i start
on my home first because if my home is terrible how can i go outside and try to teach anybody
anything they're gonna look at me like yo your home is trash bro for sure so that's why i want
to i try to lead by example and then learn from people too as i you know i mean every day as i
get older it's easy to have the perception on facebook or anything like that but before i get
into that i wanted to ask you do you parent different between the boy and the girl uh yes
and no i mean my oldest she she's so bright she's very smart she's like he's a class president she
gets straight a's like she's she's incredible her mind like i was just talking to her like i
to drop her off at dance before i came here and like sometimes i forget i'm talking to my kid
because we're just she's telling me she's very into um like science and stuff so she's breaking
down all this stuff that she learned to me and i'm just like yo i didn't even know that like
so it's the way i talk to her is a little different because when you're raising a woman
it's more like i kind of let my wife lead in that manner because she's a woman so she understands
more what she's going through first. I look at it for a source of protection and I let her know
that she's loved and I, and I give her her space. Like the moment, you know what I mean? She started
hitting puberty and stuff like that. I was like, all right, I don't walk in the door. I knock,
I give her her space. You know what I mean? That is your time and stuff like that. So it's kind of
like, I set her up in a way that you're always going to be protected and I'm here, but you're
allowed to live your life. Just respect the rules in the house, be a good human being that respects
people always say how you feel. I tell her that all the time. I was like, but if you're speaking
to an adult, just do it in a respectful way, baby. But I don't want you holding it how you feel
because that's how you build up resentment. I was like, if you think I'm wrong about something,
I will give you the space, the voice that just don't ever disrespect me when you're told don't
be yelling at me, but I will listen to everything you have to say because you're going through
something. You're living in a period of time that's different from mine. Like I blew her mind
today just by telling her um that we actually all used to have to use faucet water at one point
she thought that there was water bottles all our life bro she was like really i was like yes
like there was a point like just oh you remember how big i forgot about crazy right because like
it was a whole thing about plastic like you get the little magazines in school and they'd be like
all these water bottles are in the ocean and stuff like that yeah like that blew her mind she was
like what like she i was like i was like i'm dead ass i'm like i'm dead ass there's a couple of them
that blow my mind when i'm talking to my son about like even just accessibility to music you know
what i mean like he's i mean we have all this this is still somewhat analog but like he's got
an interface to go into his phone or we're gonna get him one because he wants to learn like but
my son does think i'm the man he was at our podcast yesterday and he thinks all the stuff
i do is cool but i think there's something where he wants to kind of like make it his own way or
whatever which i can respect like you know what i mean personality's developing yeah i didn't come
from nepotism so why would i just be like okay you know he's into music and stuff like that
he's got a train to a certain point i told him and we've agreed he has to have five tracks ready
before we can go to producers and say hey help me with this with a sound or shop beats or anything
like this you're not just recording into your phone on you know what i mean with airpods
throwing the beat over top uploading it to tiktok and going and swiping your tiktok account when we
go to like you know some of the producers in this area so um i'm gonna bring him through it but like
i push him you gotta you gotta be ready to create this you gotta look we got time you're this old
you have nothing but time i'm not gonna push you like crazy but now that you started high school
like especially if you don't have crazy homework like that like he goes to a music school you know
what i mean so you should be shooting your own music video you have all the tools and i could
show you here's how you do it and stuff but he shows me stuff i didn't know about cap cut before
my son and a lot of videographers will say cap cut look at the time of recording this cap cut got
more users than the subscription stuff and granted it's free but there's a constant change in whatever
you do. Like, I like how you said you don't live in the same world. And that's how we kind of went
off. Like for you to recognize that all you could do is set your kids up to do the best in their
world for me is big on pushing them to do stuff with information. Like, and I started that before
disinformation was rampant, but like you used to have to walk to the one room schoolhouse to get
the books on the wall, like an encyclopedia Britannica, there might be one for the village
or whatever like now everybody has access to all information always you got to know what to do with
that yeah and this it's very um on the other side too just with um having a son also like with my
son in particular it's always going to be a little bit different than my daughter the older he gets
because my daughter is always going to be like behind me protection you know until like if she
gets married and then now she's protected by her husband my son I kind of got to be like all right
at a certain point you got to pick up the shield and a spear you know you got to learn how to do
exactly what I'm doing so it's a different mindset it's kind of like a passion that's
a torch you're going to be the man you're going to be the protector of your own space at some point
if my daughter gets married she's going to be protected by her husband and I'll still be like
a different form of protection from her but that's going to be her primary source of protection
as her husband, if she chooses to get married and same thing, my son, he's going to have to
learn the responsibility of it all. And so there is a bit more of a toughness, but because he's
only 11 right now, I'm not like crazy on him about it, but I just, I do let him know certain
things. Like you have to be firm like this. Like he just sees the way, like I opened doors for,
for his mom, just the way, yeah. Or when he opens up the doors and he'll see the way I do,
or I walk on outside of the street,
like little gentlemen-like things.
So hopefully one day when he has to court a woman
that he's very interested in,
he'll be more gentleman-like.
He'll speak to them properly.
He won't say derogatory comments
that'll bring their energy down.
He'll know how to present himself
in a way that he comes off as intelligent,
loving, caring, but still strong
and willing to protect you.
And those things take time.
I don't like to try to rush those on him
because he's still a kid
and he's like in the video games
and he's dancing so i as as he talks to me and i see our conversation progressing then i add
something all right now now maybe i'm gonna give you this extra chore and stuff like that i don't
want to rush it on him because i always tell my kids be a kid for as long as you can be because
this world is ridiculous i was like i was like and i got your back you know what i mean same way
and uh you got to meet the kids where they're at like uh my daughter doesn't respond the same way
as my son so you have to have not let you can still have the same morals and the same values
you're trying to instill but like you can't do it the same way you know and our parents it seems to
be a thing because our parents said oh you guys don't know how good you have it generation before
them was like you guys don't know how good you had it we survived a plague a world war we're
hoarding napkins we're thinking they're gonna drop the bombs on us you know what i mean you guys go
to college. So it's like, uh, you know, you grow and you go from there and it's easy to have a
great outward looking, you know what I mean? Like there's accomplishments and stuff and we have
problems and we have great things that I'm, I look at other people, but it's all a matter of
perspective. You know, like you can never tell there's no book on parenting that says you did
it right. There's no way you could do it right. And your child still ends up in prison or doing
something wrong it happens all the time so it's like you don't have we're not with our kids right
now yeah they're being influenced by some outsourced outside force right now so you know i
like the i like to lead by example that's one of my biggest ways of parenting you know what i mean
i may not have the strictest hand with my daughter you know she says i can't really figure out what
your major flaws are i was like don't get me wrong i have them but i'm constantly working on them you
know what i mean whether it's journaling or going to therapy or having somebody to bounce off you
know what i mean i get my kids all into that and supporting strong mental health you know they
don't get the sleep just yet i'm trying to and and when you're younger it works a little bit
more in your favor you know you can get off on five six hours but yeah you know um i remember
when i first had my son and i saw what it was like to not sleep the whole night before that
like even my early 20s it was just like you can go to sleep and you can get up when you have to
and do what you have to do for the day now it's like oh no there's this schedule as somebody else
is so that's wild i don't miss those sleepless days that was crazy i'm glad to see you're still
doing the getting up three hours i should cut pieces from our original i gotta see how much
time i have to put this out but i would cut from the original conversation when you're like
i get up two hours before i think you said two back then now it's three
you get older you get less tolerant of people like no i need that extra hour bro
should be crazy out here man no the worst for me is after i'm working like 16 like that day that
i worked 16 hours uh big shout out to cliff of los domineros but we were going over the reality
show that I'm working on with him. So after my day contract, I worked for a little bit,
drove out to him and then drove out to my buddy Ron, the host of Fed Up Podcast. And we're getting
him moved from audio to video. Like I said, I was doing podcast consultation. I'm sitting there and
I'm like, you know, a little bit ago I said, this is a lane I want to get into, that it was going
to be hard to find me without a mic. And then by putting my head down and saying like, okay,
I'm going to do it I'm here manifesting it so even though it's hard work I'm not sad but I had
five meetings at the day contract two meetings after that throughout 16 hours I met with seven
eight people and each of those people I need to give the energy of the first person of the day
you know I can't give you different energy because I'm tired or whatever and you do but you got to
just be cognizant of it. So when I walked to Wawa to get something to eat, like I've literally had
problems just like a week or two ago, somebody came up to me. They're like, do you feel some
sort of way? I'm like, dude, I'm just so tired. You know what I mean? I'm like, I had a long day
and stuff. I was like, geez. So even that woke me up. I'm like, okay, maybe just hit the drive
through, take a little longer, but don't get out the car. If you're that tired, like there's certain
Sometimes you just need to not be around people.
Yeah, those little pockets of space that you get in between things is everything.
Like, that's why I said sometimes I dry out and even play music, bro.
You sometimes just need to be with your thoughts.
You need that personal time to be like, all right, how am I going to say this?
How am I going to move?
And you need that because we're so overly stimulated by everything.
It's insane.
We don't, people hate quiet.
Like, tell a person to be quiet for 10 minutes.
Like, turn off your phone, turn off the TV, and just go stand outside and just close your eyes.
most people can't do it. They're so jittery because we're overstimulated. You could just
scroll all day. You got Netflix, you got billions of things to watch. You could go so many different
places. It's like they don't know how to keep their mind still. But when I've kept my mind
silent is when I found the most beautiful discoveries about myself and what I really
wanted. And sometimes you push things off because I'm busy. I got this responsibility. I need to
think about this, but you keep going down that rabbit hole. Soon, you're going to forget who
you are and you're just going to be basically like a machine. You're going to be operating
on all these mental systems and your cerebellum that are constantly just moving. It's kind of
like you ever be driving somewhere that you're familiar with and then lose time for like 10
minutes. And then you'd be like, dang, you know, you were driving, your body was still doing it,
but you lost time is because that's all in your cerebellum. Like you get, it becomes a program.
so at some point we become zombies literally we're just our minds operating off of familiar systems
that's why you got to like bring awareness to it where am i at right now um what am i doing i'm in
front of a mic it has a blue ring like had i not just looked at it i wouldn't even know that it
was a blue ring yeah no it's beautiful look where we look where we are right now it's hard with the
headphones on too watch do this for a second take the noise canceling off we're really here right
like yo i hear everything the frequencies are speaking to me these are a while in this shit
no but um yeah so do you have any new projects coming up you mentioned to me when i saw you uh
at allen when i saw you at allen yeah that's right that was at allen that was at the performance
yeah um yeah both of our sons was kendrick was dancing and jay was uh singing coldplay
yeah that's dope yeah um i just finished recording an album um not too long ago right now it's in the
mixing and mastering phases you know once i get done with that then i send you the album we start
working on the cover so um yeah right now it's in mixing and mastering but my recording portion is
done um yeah it's called conquer and cultivate cc so um yeah it's a very very deep album but
it's had but it's so versatile it's one of those albums that's it's um it's deeper than it feels
initially because it's got a lot of energy to it's a more um especially in the first half of
it's really anthem based um but everything that i'm saying in there is definitely a reflection
of how i feel now and just um different things that i've observed in the world and just um
came to that peace with from going through my own journey with therapy and just looking out in the
world and sometimes just like what we did with like be okay a couple years ago and um just putting
yourself out there with people you just you really get in a space where you want to take the time
where if i am writing i want to say something important there's something that means something
to me you know what i mean like i sit down i'm not just like oh let me get at this dude's net
and the hip-hop story and that's still good because that's what we came up on but like i'll
just sit there and it's like you know i mean what i discovered all my years in this earth your
respect is defined by the cheers and the turf is bullshit and the cause of the fears that you birth
now we're drowning from the waves of the tears we could serve uh so this is victory you hear the
track spitting i'm trying for my people that thought we lack winning i speak truth leaving
the bulk of the flack then and showing love and adulation for all of my black women alice h parker
born in new jersey gets a spotlight this queen is too worthy highly educated out of how would
university graduated with honors i'm pledging respect so earnestly these days we flaunt our
last purchase this woman here invented the gas furnace don't get me started on how women get it
down that reminds me marie van britain brown jamaica queens new york is where she's from
but living in the slums made her calculate the sum of her creative mind drenched in the purity
wisdom was in the soul and made the first security system like that's the shit i want to talk about
now in my 40s you know what i mean yeah i don't want to just talk shit for you know i mean i want
to give you some shit from my soul you know i mean that i really feel that um is articulate
and it's expressive of um knowledge and wisdom and passing out something and really telling you
what's in my soul and that's it sometimes it takes you a minute to get to a point where everything
you rap um comes out like that you know what i mean that was the uh do you hear that verse i put
on john i shot a music video it might have been this year it might have been last year or whatever
it was was it your song where you just featured on it i was featured on it featured on it right
where you was i was the positive light to like the whole thing i do remember you sharing that
the one time i do remember i was like i didn't think it was your song i think you weren't
somebody else i thought it was a feature because if you would have dropped the album i'd be like
yo what is it coming out but no my point was no there's only so much energy i could put to music
like i had to do something to see and it was just right i heard the beat he's like you should write
something to this then it was like you should record something then it was like we should shoot
a music video so it was like all right you know one thing led to another we put it he's like nah
the thing is it was all mental health you know what i mean like i said self-love and reflection
now that's success now i put together um just a positive verse speaking on positivity speaking
about self-reflection speaking about coming and having your back against the wall and then like
getting out of it like that's a flex you know what i mean um i'll put the verse in just so people
could hear it or whatever it's worth or i'll just cut this whole section out we'll figure it out but
uh no that was dope that was dope what you dropped man i'm excited to hear the album what do you have
for beats and instrumentation like uh you're using the same producer yeah my boy yeah triple threes
he's he's doing most of the album and then um my boy um mr soundproof who did um half the
production on my last album um right into hill so i have both of them again you know i mean they're
that you know i'm getting something from mr soundproof he's more um when he plays me beats
he he's like like real anthem based so like his stuff has a lot of energy to it so his tracks
tend to get me in like my my hype bag and then um like triple threes he gets me in my contemplative
like i'm very like oh man i gotta think of the i'm thinking the most creative stuff ever when
i'm on his type of beats or i'm i'm get really long-winded on his stuff because his stuff is
really like like musical he'll start it off with this sound and by the time the track ends it then
formulate into something else it's like a living breathing thing whereas mr soundproof is give you
those anthems you're like it's like a you need a hook you need a dope hook yeah like as soon as i
you know as soon as i hear mr soundproof stuff my boy angel like i get i'll immediately start
thinking of hooks sounds like oh this feels like a single like but when i get triple threes i'm like
i'm thinking of the album cut stuff like that he gets me in my album cut bag where i want to do my
really detailed writing and stuff like that so by putting the both of those energies together because
they were both throwing me beats like crazy i just started piecing together album and it and i wrote
And it's crazy because I wrote it slow
Like what you hear is going to have so much depth
And so much stuff
Like that one verse I spit is on a track there
But I wrote this stuff slow
Like in between me being a husband, a father working
I wasn't rushed
I'm not on a label
So I could write it as I want to, you know what I mean?
But it came out beautifully
And I'm very excited for the world to hear it
Like I cannot wait, bro
Like I was just writing this
I was like, because we know as MCs
certain albums we do where i like go highly conceptual like my palm readings i know people
that want to get lit ain't listening to that that's like the more headphone album but when i
did um when the music speaks out was all soul samples that's more like the 90s vibe and stuff
like that when i did the now i know album i had more trap stuff on there so that was the one that
the younger um generation loved the most because they had more trap sounds on it you know i mean
this is the type of album literally all those groups you could just just press play you're
gonna love the album that's how crazy it is because i have so many sounds coming at me so
my style is constantly changing i'm doing different um cadences and um just the way my
couplets are coming together and it just happened organically and when i put it all together i was
like wow this album is very cohesive but it goes so many different directions you know i mean and
i really love the way it feels i was going over it with some people and they were like yo
this is crazy bro so i can't wait for the world to hear i feel like i'm about to like
have a get rich or die trying moment around here like if it feels like it's the one it just feels
like it but i would like it would be bittersweet because i'm at the point where i rap for
therapeutic purposes and because i'm an mc i don't really look at it as oh i'm trying to like
you know i mean take over the world like i did in 07 or something like i don't look at it like
that anymore I'm like at peace with the fact that I just love being an emcee and I do it for the
culture well I let all the tiktok comments bounce off you know what I mean I let all the tiktok the
whole uh your beat selection could be this by the way I sell beats go to govillabeats.com five
dollars for a three-pack it's like the the world it's funny because it's that is kind of the way
it was you just had people physically coming up to you and trying to sell you beats like there was
no rights there was no like distro kid or as cap it was just like yo i got five beats pay me fifty
dollars you could have them that's crazy but why watch this would be the one that that everybody
starts flocking to and they like now they want you to start some crazy career i'm like man you
want to do this to me i'm in my 40s now i'm trying to chill bro now now this would be the one to blow
up right it'd be crazy i mean i'll take it whatever but i mean i'm at peace where i'm at
you know i do there's people that i guess they'll do the culture um and about oh you're too you're
too old to rep you're only too old to rep if you're not handling responsibilities yeah no absolutely
we we talked about that where we had angel up here hitman uh angel hey on the his episode title is
keep creating because he's like everybody thinks you got to be like a teenager they think you got
to be you know 19 years old to create content and all that and it's like even when i talk to
younger streamers because i don't try to sun anybody i don't be like we know the way it is
i'm like yo if you if you're in high school now and you got four hours a day to mess around with
cap cut you're gonna be like a movie director by the time like just because you know the tools
it's easier to do the things that took longer before so when i'm talking to younger streamers
they're like look you can stream this you're just going to gather the crowd that's more into the
positivity and the stuff like that you know it's not going to be so much entertainment and
we also got to take advantage of the fact that we don't look young i hate that you said you were in
your 40s because even without the gray beard like you know what i mean you could tell you're healthy
so it's like hey if you don't have a radio like if you got a radio face they call it you know
there's still plenty of lane for audio only podcasts that you don't have to go video or
anything like that that's true that's very true you know there's a lot of good things going on
in this area he just came to the top of my mind shout out to chino gomez over at the podcast house
they got a bunch of shows coming out there right down the street from here
got a lot of different things going on uh i don't know if i'm allowed to announce it yet but he's
been having all over facebook uh johnny bills has got a podcast he's working on putting together
nice talking to him consulting uh big shout out to all the music that dropped this year i've been
really listening to the local scene thinking off the top of my head eric rose quesa the artist
johnny bills i've been listening to a lot of 0610 definitely phase one devin haley was in my top
five like if i throw my dj on for spotify it plays mostly local music nice um a town slim
for sure everybody in that whole lane that that phase produces and stuff is without great projects
i just started getting into black dre big shout out to black dre his name comes up all the time
but i was late to hop on to the music so um there's still a couple other people that i want
to do more of a deep dive into Murdoch. Um, but it's cool to have a ear to the point where people
are like, okay, look, he's not trying to exploit all the artists and get them up here to sell
content and tick tocks and pay nothing back. Like I'm up here to collaborate with artists, with
like minds, with people. It's not even just a hip hop thing. You know, some of the people I've had
in recovery. Those episodes have done really well where people need to hear that there is a
light on the other end of the tunnel, if that makes sense. Like, I like to hear the story of,
like you said, I'm not, and that's the original premise of our first episode. It's like, I'm not
Jay-Z, you know, but this is what music does for me. This is that therapy. And I had no idea the
podcast would be such a level for therapy myself. And that's why I'm sitting up here and I'm like,
do i want to go back to doing the solo episodes where like people connected do i want to keep
doing the like where do i want to go with this and then i just sit meditate and pray on the fact
that we're here like we're still doing it after two years who knows where we'll be in a year from
now we'll be in a castle the fortress right i'm gonna have a crown on it the whole room
it we're flying first class with mr elon musk right now because nah i can never get elon musk
because i shouted out that i didn't want him when i first started the podcast i was like i don't want
the elon musk's i don't want the i want the they're gonna pull up the clips yeah right they
got the receipts i'm sorry but uh yeah no but um even just to be uh the podcast producer even just
for people to be like yo let me pick your brain let me do this and stuff and let me throw you a
couple bucks for your expertise i'm like that's super dope but you man if you want to start a
podcast you want to put this stuff together i mean let me know i'm always upgrading equipment
but these mics you can get for less than 100 bucks and i uh yeah man that's the biggest reason
i don't do the the live you know oh that's shout out to dj focus podcast he's gotta you you check
them out on thursdays at all i haven't had to put you on a dj focus man big shout out to them
and quantitated they have a show they go live pull like 50 to 100 viewers every week and people are
going nuts in the chat they talk about things that i'd be scared to talk about you know what i mean
like controversial with a little bit but it's cool because they have differing opinions it's not
arguments you know it's highly watchable so big shout out to them uh that's a tutty podcast with
gt roberts you can't be in the scene and not know the scene as well too and know who's making moves
and stuff and you just watch for a little bit empower 610 you know what i mean they're coming
back or have they been off a hiatus for a little bit they've been putting out content dope
individuals only with eric rodriguez um i could get you on there when you're ready to drop the
album he'll definitely interview you he's got a great show that's hard yeah i'm so good i don't
even have a release date yet for real for i'm just trying to like because you know you got you got
bills to pay and getting mixing mastering and all that so that costs money so i'm just trying to
make sure it come out right but i'm i'm proud of it like i got the you know the the half mixed
version that i listened to just to make sure my performance is right and i'm happy with it already
and it's not even mixing master yet so i can't bro i can't wait for you to hear this album you
i'm like yo bro this is this is different but it's fire you know it's like it's like an immediate
it you know what i mean it's not something that has to grow on you you feel it right away you
know what i mean so just like if that that verse that i spit was any indication that's like i'm
just going different areas this is where my brain and where it took me yeah i mean where it took me
this is what i wanted to say in that moment this was in my heart and i just wrote it no and i can
relate with that so drop before i spit drop your uh any promos you got coming up anyone you want
want to shout out just just my family you know my family my wife my kids my brother my niece my
nephews like i love y'all you know i mean just in anybody that i come in contact with on the daily
you know that um i interact with that affects me in any positive way or just shares um their
experience with me whether positive or negative just know that it's a place of learning and growth
me at all times i look at every experience as a an opportunity for growth i try not to um
just kind of rest on the fact that um oh this this is bad's happening to me and the world hates me
i believe every day that i have a choice and i try not to stay angry at things because most of
the things that happen to us is really most of our reaction it'd be like 10 of what actually happened
into 90 reaction if somebody comes in here right now while we're doing this podcast he's like y'all
suck i could be like all right cool and then they could walk away and then we continue the podcast
or i could be like yo who you talking to son and then stand up fight everything gets messed up
glass breaks and now we're in prison like all that happened because i didn't know how to handle
myself and that because you didn't know how to react exactly and that's how life is like we
we want to punch people and break everything in here instead of just being like all right cool
and keeping it moving and having a beautiful day and when you look at things through that lens you
realize like you know a lot of my shit that happens to me is my fault i try to blame everybody else
but really you might lack maturity you know that you need and then the emotional maturity that's
the one thing people don't have emotional maturity i can talk i'm out of space and i'm so proud to
say this more than almost anything is that i can literally talk about anything and not get defensive
somebody could ask me any type of question and I could be like, all right, then I could talk about
it. I could talk about the people I lost in death. I could talk about crazy shit that happened to me
when I was younger. I could go through it all. And I'd be like, I'm not ready to talk about that
because I went through therapy. I've dealt with my emotions. I'll go through my brain. I hold
myself accountable. So I know how to talk about these things and articulate myself in a way that
it comes through where you can understand me and still be like, even though I've came this far,
I know where I still need to grow at. Cause I look at myself every day and I'm like, yo,
I got this. I can do this. You know what I mean? I'm a King. I'm powerful. I'm worthy and wise.
I'm loving, you know what I mean? Like, and I know how to empower myself before I even speak
to anybody. I have to carry that energy in my frequency. So when I'm talking, when I shake
somebody's hand that they could feel it, that ain't like, Oh, Gil, he's got himself in a space
where he knows who he is and he doesn't have everything figured out, but damn it. If I want
to figure something out i'm gonna try he said to the handshake you know he said you should know
by my handshake that my house is it's an order baby you know you gotta feel the energy you know
you gotta you gotta bring that with you wherever you go because that's that's who you are i like
to leave with my spirit man i don't i don't like to and i've noticed too i i like my isolation so
much now because i usually go around people or i'm around people throughout my week at work
that are low frequency people they don't deal with their stuff they just kind of like you know
i mean go with the flow of things and that's why a lot of times i don't even i used to want to put
my opinion on people so much but like they come to me with something and i want i want to give
them a solution so bad but they might not be at the place of their life to hear the solution
sometimes people just need to vent you just seem like yo i got you bro you know anything you need
and just let them go you know i mean because a lot of times people need to go through a couple
things like yeah you got to be empathetic and realize too like when your teenagers are going
through something crazy you can't be like yo man i just lost twenty thousand dollars on a bad
account for someone i got to deal with that at school tomorrow or work you know what i mean like
you can't minimize their problems you can't do that with people and sometimes people are not
always just ready to like I'm the last one to judge anyone for drinking or anything like that
you know but it's usually not like you have one bad experience and then you quit drinking it's
usually like a slow thing where people are telling you for a while then finally it's like okay you
learn what that accountability means learn what's saying like okay if I'm in this situation you know
like I like I said this morning what did I do because I have enough control over my business
in my hobbies that I should not be up as late as I was. It was more like something I was going
through with insomnia that I just channeled into creating rather than just lay there and be
nervous. You know what I mean? Because I've dealt with that and I've been through times of insomnia
and it's like, okay, that's when I pray. I prayed for like an hour Tuesday night when I was up
because I was like, that's what's going to bring my center back. That's what's going to help with
the attention. And even if there's nothing but the science, if you want to be scientists and you
get upset that I'm spiritual and Gil is, then think about the fact that you're just focusing
your mind on centering, relaxing, things like that. That should have its own effect in bringing
you back to normal. And then last night I was like, man, all I got to do is just set this up
for the video to export out and i'll have more done as of tomorrow i was like no i deserve it
to gill he's coming through we have everything set up i literally can just walk in tomorrow
this would have taken a ton of time to set up if i didn't do last night but i got eight hours of
sleep so did that's amazing left at i i went into jujitsu and i said hey i got a hard stop at 10
you know what i mean we didn't do a ton of extra rolling around today but um everything came and
then as soon as i pull up you're like hey i'm a little bit early like you know what i mean like
who if you're early you're usually like 10 12 you were like 34 minutes early and so was i
i was like all right the frequencies is aligned that's the shit i'll be talking about bro like
we didn't even know it just happened you know what i mean but you carry yourself a certain way just
it seems to work out for you you know i mean because i was like damn i am a little bit early
and then i call you and here you go i was like that's crazy bro just pulling up that's insanity
bro i mean that's that's the way i like to live life just being as prepared as i can be and um
when you really know yourself you know things that hold you back like what keeps what makes
me late all the time like without you admitting it out in the public you know in your mind what
keeps you late what makes you be rude to a person what makes you do this you might not want to
vocalize it yet because maybe you didn't fully wrap your head and emotions around it but you
know it in your heart this is a lot of things that we feel uncomfortable about sharing and that's why
like i know i always always say to people about therapy or find somebody that you love that you
genuinely respect that you could just vent to and talk about things in your head because leaving all
that shit in your head is gonna make you lash out one day on the wrong person and it can two seconds
it could really change your life punch the wrong person face shoot the wrong person and you know
what i mean do something go rob somebody do something stupid cuss the wrong person out get
fired you know i mean at work say something really painful malicious to somebody that you loved and
respect and now y'all relationship is now fractured because of that i try to keep myself mindful of
all these things because a good person like for the for the rest of my life i could get up right
now and say something happened where i wasn't able to speak to you not because we had beef just our
lives once and i was never able to speak to you again and say afterwards i heard a year from now
you got mad and shot somebody and they had an interview with me it was like yo but i didn't
know tony was a bad person i was like tony was never a bad person you know i mean it was like
maybe something happened from the last time i've seen him that made him go down that path but he
was never a bad he was a good man and i have all these experiences that show that you know i mean
your character is what i'm forever going to remember and i always stand by that so that's
what i mean like it's just kind of when when you when you could get yourself in a in a good space
and really affect people in a in a positive way you know and um know that you tried your best
like i meant i made the whole jogging thing like some days i can't run to the finish line i gotta
i gotta jog today sometimes it might be a walk bro maybe even a crawl but guess what you didn't
stay stagnant you didn't stay still and for that anybody that at least crawled today if that's all
you can do, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you because there's people that stand still and then
years pass by and they're in that same spot. But if you crawl in today, a year from now,
the person that stood still is not, that was next to you can no longer see you. That's how far away
you got. And that's how much you progressed in your life. And people look at the small steps
and they shun on them, but you'd be surprised how far you can go with through just consistency
ceiling and willpower. And that's how I like to live my life, bro. Just if I can't run today,
damn it, I'm a crawl. You know what I mean? Sure, man. What's the rest of the day look like? You
crawling or got a lot of going on? I'm going to try to crawl, but the way my life is going nuts.
Yeah. I mean, it might, it might be. Yeah. Cause you know, my kids are in dance and there's always
a lot of random stuff happening, but I like to always leave space, you know what I mean? To where
i can get my mind right and um to be simple meditations or sometimes i try to i need to
read more the one year i was reading a little bit more but i want to start reading more challenging
myself to read again and and quiet my mind that way because i'm really good with meditation but
actual like using that time to read i don't for some reason my brain's not good with doing that
yeah that's something i'm working on i want to read more than i actually do my wife reads crate
bro tanya read freaking 50 something books this year already like she's 50 yeah she's going in
physical or audio books um she likes physical she doesn't like audio as much she doesn't like
audio like she well she'll listen to certain things audio but like she um like she loves
like getting the book holding it yeah for sure reading like sure she likes she'll have her tablet
for certain things she'll read on it um but she loves like actual book in her hand i'm trying to
do that more it's just that's that's my struggle oh man i'll be like man like i'll be trying to so
bad it'll be like i don't feel like reading these damn words i read a lot on a screen but uh i'm big
on audiobooks i got limited sight in this one eye so it's like a little it's like i wanted to get
into audio before i lose it all my stuff i do now like just in case i completely lose sight in my
right eye i want to like train myself like as dumb as it sounds even when i'm training that's
why i got into grappling and not so much striking because i've had disadvantage so i don't know
so you hear that right shoulder and uh right eye disadvantage so
i gotta take both of them and wear a patch over both my eyes so until he heals he is a master of
gun food like just know that before you try to get the drop on i mean no yeah there's a lot of
people that train and carry think about it like john wick had that stuff to fall back on in case
the other guy was able to disarm him yeah that's true you know how many times they got him out of
a situation he's getting his ass kicked and just boom he's like okay i fixed that problem but we'll
end on that man i'm gonna land the plane we've been going about an hour we'll chop some we'll
make a good episode about it, man. Happy anniversary. And thank you for pushing me
into this endeavor, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, man. I'm always here and I'm proud of you, bro.
Keep it going. I will not lose, baby. I will not lose. Thank you for listening.
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