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- [00:05]
A
Yeah Woke up in the morning and to God be the glory Thankful for another day to tell my story Put my opinions in the universe and let them orbit I'm from the dirty soul with a dirty mouth My knee orbit miss things things on me like a Norbit had to refuse them cause my bitch no rest Fusion she gorgeous as I doubt my sons up and kiss my daughter forehead Tell them we gonna get this money to my pocket Sn morbid Remember living in apartments now we playing mortgage scarcity marketing in a sense of like, damn, bro. Like, he ain't here, he ain't here. You know what I'm saying? And it's a lot, it's a lot of going on and we ain't hearing his opinion on it. Y so it's like a way of me taking those three weeks and just condensing into one episode shot up, went crazy.
- [00:52]
B
That's crazy.
- [00:52]
A
Then the next week we had the Kevin stage and that shot up, went crazy. And a couple of like this, some of those, some of those clips on the Kevin stage episode still going super duper viral. Like people repurposing them and all type of. So I was fire hot and Heartbeat Productions came to me.
- [01:14]
B
That's a Kevin Hart.
- [01:16]
A
So they was coming holl at me and they was like, well, we want you to put your on our platform though. And I'm like, nah, why they did. You know what I'm saying? That was the thing that's acquiesce. Like you can't take your shit and put it on our platform. I'm like, I ain't doing that.
- [01:35]
B
You know that.
- [01:36]
A
I was like, but if y' all want to goddamn sponsor the podcast with the grand car, y' all want to bring the grand carmina around here, we can do that.
- [01:45]
B
That's crazy. They try to catch your bluff because that's what I tell them. It's all products for them. They just trying to add as many products.
- [01:51]
A
Well, I already knew that.
- [01:52]
B
So yeah.
- [01:53]
A
So the thing is, is like I'm just like everybody else, bro. Like I. I consume the same media as everybody else. The only difference between me and else is I don't take everything at face.
- [02:03]
B
Process it.
- [02:03]
A
You process it and I critical think like what it makes. Yeah, right. Like having several streams of income do make sense. Working a 9 to 5 and being fully invested in stocks don't make sense to me because it's like you taking your hard earned money, like you could take a loss. You need something passive that you can invest. This just makes sense. If you listen to these people talk, they tell you everything, but they make it sound good. So like the person like you, for instance, which is why I wanted to bring you on. You're gonna give people like practical. When we was at the, it was technically Afro tech.
- [02:37]
B
Yeah.
- [02:37]
A
But when we was there and I was listening to you on your panel, the main thing that sparks like kind of perked my ears up was how you kind of like using tech and infusing it into the medical space.
- [02:49]
B
Yeah.
- [02:50]
A
To like make sure like underserved communities aren't getting like fast call response times and ambulance service. Oh yeah. By the way, this Chris Nates podcast, Deontay Kyle, this is Michael Morris, self made entrepreneur. You know what I'm saying? He do all the things. Y' all gonna figure out more about him. I'm gonna let him tell y' all more about himself than anything. Yeah, but I think the thing what you was doing is like you taking the knowledge and you reinvesting it back into the community in a way that's like palatable. It's not this thing of like social media money gurus that just makes shit sound like you could just achieve it tomorrow.
- [03:26]
B
That's it's straight. And look, I'm, I'm a big proponent of, you know, learning to speed up the learning curve. But you know, you pay these guys and his exorbitant amount of money and you go in there and it's that just, they just regurgitating, you know, a whole bunch of crap they had or they heard and they can't apply practically right now in our community. If you give us practical information, bro, that actually matches up to our environment, we could take that and we could run with it.
- [04:01]
A
Absolutely.
- [04:01]
B
We could absolutely run with it. But you have to make it practical. And you know, you go to all these conferences and it's always some pie in the sky. You know, they're talking generally and, and a lot of times people just talk to make themselves feel good.
- [04:17]
A
Yeah.
- [04:18]
B
You're not actually helping people, you know, giving them practical information. So every company I've started it, it's, it's, it started off of an issue or a problem. So whether a problem I'm facing because I deal with a lot of imposter syndrome, like if it ain't something I, I haven't dealt with or I can't explain to my 8 year old son on my 12 year old girl, I can't even, you know, I can't, I don't even want to approach it.
- [04:49]
A
Yeah, I don't Want to offer it.
- [04:50]
B
As a service, I don't want to sell it as a course. I don't do none of that. And I've been doing business for a long time, bro.
- [04:55]
A
Yeah.
- [04:57]
B
So I think especially in our community, what the need is, is to give practical information that we could take. And we got to do this fast, bro, because we, we behind like on eight Ball on everything.
- [05:08]
A
Yeah.
- [05:09]
B
You know, we behind and we need to start catching up, but we need to start doing it quick, quickly, like give people practical information. Not just, you know, go start an LLC or go do this or go do that. It has to be practical to where they actually get information and they could execute it. Because whatever the idea, if you can't execute, you wasting your time, bro, for sure it's a waste of time.
- [05:30]
A
I think the thing that a lot of people don't realize is like when it comes. Well, I think it's, it's realized now that a lot of times these money gurus and these like self help people or you know, these guys that come with you with turn this into this 10x, all this, all the money that they making is off the course. It's off the course. It's like I'mma put this big secret behind the paywall, but I'mma rent a Lamborghini or I'm going be in a private jet, or I'm going do this, this and that. And it's like, you know, optically, I can sell you the lifestyle. It's just con man, to be honest.
- [06:08]
B
It is, it is. And you know, to be honest with you, sometimes as an entrepreneur, you start to catch yourself in that and you have to slow down. Because it's not about selling people a lifestyle. It's not about, you know, it ain't even about how much money you make. Okay, my life story. I'm Nigerian. I don't know if you know, but I'm Nigerian. I moved here in 2001 and went to school for a little bit. Dropped out of school because I knew exactly what I wanted. I want to do business. And started the first business, this was a telecom business, which failed. I don't know if you, back in the day, if you wanted to call out the country, you have to use a phone card. You had to go buy a phone car. And so just hearing conversations of the complaints the community were having of them getting screwed over because they will call a phone card and they'll have like a connection fee and a disk fee. And by the time you bought a ten dollar card, you only have Two dollars. So started that, that failed and then pivot to another business which is a oiling ass, which is crazy. Like now I think about it, I don't know how the hell I'll be coming up with these ideas. But every one of my ideas was specific to a pain, a problem.
- [07:26]
A
Yeah.
- [07:27]
B
And the problem was back home in Nigeria on how energy was being produced and harnessed and in the Niger Delta specifically. So you know, started that and that took almost 15 years to kind of really get going. And you know, as I was waiting on that, I started Caraco, which is my transportation company, which is what I was speaking about. And I, the reason I started that was when my mom was sick in 2017 and she died afterwards. But you know, it's so difficult finding transportation for her in 2017. I was like, there's no way in hell. Yeah, this is happening. And I start diving into it and it's a major problem, especially in our community because it's poverty ridding. Most of them are Medicaid. And now you see what's going on with Medicaid being cut. You know, so we're the ones that are always taking the brunt of the hit. So every company that I create is not necessarily about creating a lifestyle. That amount of problems you solve or the, the, the breadth of the problem you solve, you're going to get paid for it.
- [08:34]
A
Absolutely.
- [08:35]
B
Period.
- [08:35]
A
But it has to be a solution based situation. Right. Like somebody just saying, oh well invest in this is like that's not really solving a problem.
- [08:44]
B
Solving the problem.
- [08:45]
A
His problem is his. Well, you know, it's solving the problem of whoever sit on the chair and like how are we going to get, yeah, how are we going to get more paid? Okay, let's pay this social media influencer until people, they come buy our stock and it's gonna do this, this and that. But what you talking about is response times from medical services. And also not only that, but the disproportionate amount of time they're taking to get to the black community versus other communities.
- [09:12]
B
Right? Yes.
- [09:13]
A
And that starts with okay, well if we don't have any hospitals that we own in this community, then we don't control how long they gonna take to get here. So then how do we get our own medical courier service or emergency EMT service? And that's the problem that you saw.
- [09:28]
B
Is, is so big. Like I believe in a black community in this country, if we, if we, there's an African saying that the, the, the best solution is usually the most simple one. Right. And a lot of things that's plaguing our community we could solve together if we just get past the fog.
- [09:54]
A
Right.
- [09:55]
B
And we just pull together. There's 45 million African Americans, roughly, I think, give or take. And a lot of the problems that we're facing, we could. We could actually pool our resources and it would be massive resources that we could solve majority's problem. So now, until that happens, you know, we have to do whatever we can and is. Is entrepreneurial since we're in a capitalistic country. It has to be through entrepreneurship.
- [10:24]
A
Right, Right.
- [10:25]
B
To what you're doing.
- [10:26]
A
That's the easy. That's the fastest way to raise your own personal capital.
- [10:29]
B
Yes.
- [10:30]
A
Is starting your own business.
- [10:31]
B
Correct.
- [10:33]
A
The one of the focuses that we talk about a lot on this show is the war on drugs. Because I try to make the parallels to the present. Right. So if you look at the business practices of drug dealers per se, everything is a flip. But you can't operate a legitimate business the same way.
- [10:51]
B
Oh yeah.
- [10:51]
A
Because you don't have the addiction aspect of it. Like drugs literally sell themselves. But whatever your product is, I don't need.
- [10:57]
B
You don't need that bad.
- [10:58]
A
Y' all need it that bad.
- [10:59]
B
I don't need that you'll be feeding. Yeah.
- [11:01]
A
You know what I'm saying? But also the way that you can treat customers that are addicted to something is not the way you treat people in service. So I also think about the trust factor that's been broken through. Wrong drugs. You know what I'm saying? When you get people that selling drugs to their family members, you just kind of breaking down a lot of different dynamics. Yeah. So I. I try to be very studious about that because if you don't know like what's broken, then you don't know what to repair.
- [11:28]
B
Right. I agree.
- [11:29]
A
So this is like my, My. My grandmother was here on episode 100. She actually did a year. She was in Legos for a year working with the education system. So she retired from here. And one of the things that she talked about is like creating a problem and then providing a solution. Right. So the energy company is in bed with the generation, the generator company. And so it's like we pull the plug on energy. If you got a it, it sells the generator.
- [12:00]
B
It's a mafia.
- [12:01]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [12:02]
B
And you know, it's interesting. We actually. Yeah. So we. The company before my dad had a company and we. We tried to. To putting so many bids on building a. A power plant. This was like 20 years ago. And that's when we figured out, oh, this is a. This is a cartel. Cartel.
- [12:23]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're moving different.
- [12:25]
B
They move. They move different. Like, so, you know, a lot of people say, oh, you, you know, go in Africa. Why can't you guys just get. Get this and get that? Oh, it's way deeper than that.
- [12:34]
A
Yeah, because you're talking about a foundational issue, right? Yeah, this is. So this is where I. What I talked to the community about is like, we got to figure out what our foundational issues are. Because if you kind of like, let's just say you in a building that's been demolished, right? You in the middle of this demolition, the only thing left is that rubble. You can't, like, lay new concrete on top of the rubble. You got to get rid of the rubble. Got to get to clear it out.
- [12:57]
B
Yep.
- [12:57]
A
And so, like, the things that we talk about is, like, clearing it out. Like, honestly, too, it's gonna have some. We're gonna have some tough conversations. There's gonna be some systemic things we can point into. And then there's gonna be the situation of, like, personal accountability that has to.
- [13:11]
B
Come into play, too, once it filters down.
- [13:13]
A
So it's like both things can be true at once. Like, I think people think there's this thing where it's like you either take responsibility or you blame the system. It's like, no, we can do both.
- [13:22]
B
The system.
- [13:23]
A
We say the things we did, and we can kind of. And we can take those things too.
- [13:26]
B
You're absolutely right.
- [13:27]
A
And it actually makes it a yes, because it's like, I'm in control of this shit, and I know who's in control.
- [13:34]
B
Who's in control of that other spare.
- [13:36]
A
Right there, the umbrella of it. All, right? So, like, if I can point to who put me in this situation, but I also understand how I can get myself out this situation where you gonna win.
- [13:45]
B
You gonna win it, period. So it's like, you have to evaluate the situation, okay?
- [13:53]
A
Some super Nigerian.
- [13:57]
B
You gotta evaluate the shit. Because let me tell you, this fun. Even doing business in, like, Africa, which everyone. If you're black and you're not going to Africa to do business now, you're about to be. You're about to be behind on the whole mark in the next five to 10 years, which I explain a little bit. But what we did, for example, with oil and gas firm. What we. What we provide is gasoliquid, which is renewable energy. You see where they flare gas and, you know what is a refinery? See that gas flaring so we, we, we, we put together and we partner with a company in England and they took a whole GTL plant, which is a gas liquid plant, and they shrunk it down to a 40 foot container. That's scalable. So we could go into where the oil and gas companies are producing oil. Now every time they flare that gas, they have to pay a flaring fee. So we just capture that gas, we transform the gas into a synthetic fuel, which is a cleaner fuel. We sell it back to them. Okay. Even that, it sounds great on paper. Right. But these people have been doing business a certain way. They have mafia over there, they got all this stuff that they're doing. What we had to do was evaluate if we're going to make this work. The people, we have to realize that the people who are, you know, for example, the guys like the generator guys, the mafias, you have to find a solution for them.
- [15:20]
A
Yeah. They. You need something to replace.
- [15:22]
B
You need something to replace. You can't just come in and create that vacuum.
- [15:25]
A
Right.
- [15:26]
B
You know, you have to placate them as well as take care of the oil and gas company.
- [15:32]
A
Right. I think that the, the big part that people miss, and this is, you know, the idealistic part of people versus the realistic part is that these people have established.
- [15:42]
B
Yes.
- [15:43]
A
Business.
- [15:43]
B
Business.
- [15:44]
A
And, and, and whether you view it.
- [15:46]
B
As corrupt, whether you agree with or not.
- [15:48]
A
Yeah, yeah, it's corrupt for sure. But it's also a part of the ecosystem. Like this is actually how. A part of the economy at this point.
- [15:55]
B
Yes.
- [15:56]
A
So they need somewhere they can still make money.
- [15:59]
B
Yes.
- [15:59]
A
And it's like, you know, you can, you can't sell them on. Y' all gotta just stop doing.
- [16:04]
B
Yeah.
- [16:05]
A
Solution. Like how do I. Well, how the fuck am I going? How are you gonna make money? Yeah, because I've been making money just like. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?
- [16:12]
B
And they go with it.
- [16:13]
A
And the thing is, it's like, this may be an issue for you, but it ain't an issue for me.
- [16:16]
B
It's not.
- [16:17]
A
And so like, even in situations like that, of corruption, these people need solutions.
- [16:22]
B
Yes.
- [16:23]
A
Like even if it was a thing, like we're gonna go legit with it, we don't find a lane for y' all to go legit. You know what I'm saying? Not only is this good for you, but it's good for the overall.
- [16:31]
B
It has to be. That's, that's, that's the beauty of doing businesses. You go in, you analyze a situation and then you make sure Everyone, everyone may not get 100 of what they want, but you make sure at least everyone is kind of taken care of. Yeah, that's what we had to do. And that's what I believe in our community here we have to do. We have to look at things very, very pragmatically and say, okay, this is what we do. These folks are not going to give up power. Just hand it to you because it's, you know, it's the right thing to do.
- [17:05]
A
Yeah, it's working too good for them.
- [17:06]
B
You know, it's working too good and you can't blame them. If I was in that situation, I probably would think same way, right?
- [17:11]
A
Yeah. I mean, reasonably.
- [17:13]
B
Reasonably. So what you have to do is we have to find a way. And I think this is where, you know, whether it be through entrepreneurship, but a lot of things that were, I think we're missing is the, the cohesion as a community. I think that's the, that's the major missing part. Because math, I'm, I'm thinking math all day. Okay, you have 45 million people. If we pull our resources every month, not 45 million, let's say, you know, 50% of that, you know, and you have 20, 20 plus million people pulling resources every month. Now you're having billions of dollars. That's just compounding that we could put into our communities, that we could put into our hospitals, that could put into transportation, put into schools that we could put into, you know, the neighborhoods that will raise the, the property taxes that will then go into the schools of those neighborhoods. We give scholarships. We have, we basically create a government within government.
- [18:09]
A
Yeah, well, and this is the, this is where people start calling me a black nationalist. But I don't be giving a. Because it's like, honestly, it's just economy.
- [18:18]
B
It's, it's practical.
- [18:19]
A
We have our own economy. And a big part of our economy is literally propping up other groups of people right through our consumption. Where it may seem far fetched that we can have our own hospital, but we don't look at the power of our collective dollar. We look for some one person, right? So we look at like somebody like a Jay Z and say, well, he got billions of dollars, why don't he build a hospital? But like to somebody like Jay Z, it's like, yeah, but why the fuck.
- [18:47]
B
Why would I, why would I give up my money to build? And that's not, you can't put it on one person.
- [18:52]
A
Well, yeah, everyone has also too. It's like, we'll get away we will find a lot more like power in our group economics if we do it without needing a cosign of some one rich person because we can't hold these ideals all in the same. Like me, I'm, I'm a big proponent of like you know, taxing the rich, you know what I'm saying? And, and letting that trickle down to like the rest of society instead of taxing poor people more money that they don't have. But we can't hold these same ideas of like fuck the billionaires, but also why ain't the billionaires doing stuff for us? Yeah, like it got to be one of the others. So I think if it is fuck the billionaires then it got to be like group economics in the sense of like it can't just be this individual plight of I want to look good, I want to feel good, but like what's good for the community, right. So like if, if granny got to get back and forth to the hospital three times a week and we don't have our own medical transportation service, then we kind of beholden to like whatever's available. And a lot of times when you pour and you on Medicaid, what's available.
- [19:54]
B
To you is bullshit, is complete crap. Like it is so much crap if you have a elderly person that's in a wheelchair, it probably takes them a week to get a ride. Like just a schedule, you don't matter what it is. So you can imagine the quality of life not being able to be mobile.
- [20:10]
A
Yeah. So, and also the real estate, it takes up in your mind just thinking about, thinking about it, am I going to be able to get this ride? Are they going to be on time and like think about if you've ever had a bad experience where you missed an appointment, so you went all the way down there, missed the appointment, had to reschedule, just to wait to go back and do it all over again. It makes it almost to the point where they don't want to engage with the service.
- [20:32]
B
They don't only want to engage in the service, they lose faith in the whole system for sure. And so what we, what when I, when I started a company, when you start a company you want to make sure you have the right client. And this is where a lot of people mess things up is they think the client is just a low hanging fruit. So in the company, you know, most mom and pops will take their clients as actual patient. That's not our client, so that's our end user. And what we have to do is, is kind of filter it down. And we notice in the data that 50% of appointments in the United States are missed medical appointments. So with 50% of appointments missed, you have companies that are losing so much revenue because if you're, that your grandma's going to the hospital for medical, we know how much things cost. And you have ibuprofen is $120 for one pill. So you can imagine what a normal procedure will cost. So we have to go to the actual facilities and insurance companies and tell them, look, you're the actual customer. So if you're, you want these patients that are Medicaid and Medicare and you're just, you know, leaving it up to Medicare and Medicare to bring them over, you actually missing out on revenue because now you have 50 no show, why don't you hire us? Okay, your average procedure is $15,000. We could take that 50 no show rate and bring it down to 2%. Right? So you see how we made both parties win. So now they're paying me directly, and then I could bring people in our community for free. They ain't got to pay. So now the facilities are our clients.
- [22:11]
A
So, and it's not on the, like you said, the end user to foot the bill to foot. You're not dependent on the end use to make money. And once you don't have to worry about making money off the end user.
- [22:21]
B
Then you cannot deal with the impact. And this is where you, you mentioned drug dealing. This is where we're killing ourselves in the community like we're in Houston. You can't go out to, to a club or restaurant and, you know, shout out to all my buddies who do it. But we have to rethink, you know, how we do these things, because then you get there, they charge you a hundred dollars if you're driving a nice car. They, they kind of gauge what kind of car you're driving. I'm like, my buddy just paid you $20. Why are you charging me a hundred dollars?
- [22:50]
A
Right.
- [22:51]
B
You know, and then you get in the service is crap. But then they're charging you 200 for laptop.
- [22:56]
A
It's, it's the, you know, the drug dealer mentality. This is what I'm saying. It's, it's the, it's the disregard of the user experience.
- [23:05]
B
Yes.
- [23:05]
A
And it's all about, hey, we're here, we are the nightlife. You want to engage in the nightlife, then this is what it is. And if this becomes the standard, then this also just becomes the product that people are accustomed to. And when People, we know, you human beings, we need those third spaces, those places where we can congregate and, like, have fun together. And if it's a. If it's one big money grab, it's up to the consumer to say, I'm not doing it anymore.
- [23:33]
B
And there will eventually be consumer fatigue to the point where, you know, they're gonna be like, look, I ain't paying.
- [23:40]
A
What it really takes, though. And. And. And that in your example, what it takes is another entrepreneur to come in and say, no, this is the problem y' all having. Okay, well, when you come here, parking is free.
- [23:52]
B
Yep.
- [23:53]
A
When you come here, standard entry is 20 bucks.
- [23:55]
B
Yep.
- [23:56]
A
When you come here, the average plate is 40 to 50. And, you know, we're gonna have great service.
- [24:01]
B
Great service.
- [24:02]
A
Great service. Yep. You know what I'm saying? Like, whereas. Whereas for 100 people, I got five waitresses. I'm gonna update the 10 per hundred.
- [24:11]
B
Yep.
- [24:11]
A
And make sure that your experience is, like, fruitful.
- [24:14]
B
Yeah.
- [24:14]
A
Because. And also, like, really, in reality, if it's 100, you really need 20, because you need five person. Five.
- [24:20]
B
Yeah.
- [24:21]
A
One person can take on five tables. Right. And in an environment, like. Like a club, like, environment, it's gonna be like, we're gonna. We're gonna simplify the menu down.
- [24:29]
B
Yeah.
- [24:30]
A
Like, simplify the menu. Fair prices, free parking. You, You. You. You don't have a line out.
- [24:39]
B
You have a line out of the door.
- [24:40]
A
You have a line out the door. And $20 is to. As an entry fee that actually covers what you need in parking. But what they trying to do is kill everybody at every turn. You know what I'm saying? It's one big scam, to be honest.
- [24:55]
B
I don't. I don't fault anybody for making as much money as you can, but we have to. It's like the people who are. That are the patrons that are going through and, you know, patronizing that business is like, that. The onus is on them. To ask himself the question, you know, what am I missing? Why am I willing to.
- [25:20]
A
Yeah. To keep. I'm engaging in a scam.
- [25:23]
B
In a scam.
- [25:24]
A
Yeah. Well, so the thing is, like, I've thought about this several times about, like, when I do. When I. When I. If I. If I get to a space where I want to start doing businesses outside of media, I want to create these social clubs that are literally what I just said.
- [25:42]
B
Yeah.
- [25:42]
A
Like, let's make sure there's enough parking. Let's make sure we're not making people pay for parking.
- [25:47]
B
Yeah.
- [25:48]
A
You know, What I'm saying, easy surcharge to get in the building. The. The 200 bottle is now half that.
- [25:54]
B
Yeah. Because it really still makes a profit.
- [25:56]
A
It really costs 40 bucks.
- [25:59]
B
Yep.
- [25:59]
A
And you charging 200 for it. I'm gonna charge a hundred. I'm. I'm making 200. But you're gonna buy more bottles and more people are gonna come. So they don't think about the. They think the way that they do business is in the scarce mindset.
- [26:14]
B
It is.
- [26:15]
A
And I'm thinking in an abundant mindset.
- [26:16]
B
Mindset.
- [26:17]
A
Okay. Yo, club where you pay. Where everybody paid $20 for parking, but only 50 people came.
- [26:23]
B
Yeah.
- [26:24]
A
Nobody pays for parking, but everybody pays 20 at the door and 200 people came.
- [26:29]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a way. There's a way to do it.
- [26:32]
A
Right.
- [26:33]
B
And even if, even if people are packed and you're charging them an arm and a leg, it doesn't necessarily mean, you know, you're making an impact.
- [26:42]
A
No. You know, it really means that they don't have anywhere.
- [26:45]
B
They don't have anywhere else to go, you know, and it's kind of tough because, you know, these are. You want the entrepreneurs to win, but there's also a way to win and make an impact.
- [26:57]
A
Yeah.
- [26:58]
B
It's not all about money.
- [27:00]
A
Right.
- [27:00]
B
And it comes to a point in this, in this day and age with social media and everyone is flash and you always feel the need to keep making and making and making and making. What impact are you having, you know, on one your community? What impact are you having your kids? You know, this is a question you have to actually, because this is a question I ask myself. And if it's, if it's not, because we, we also do like music festivals and things in Houston. And if it's not having an impact, like, why are we doing it?
- [27:32]
A
Right.
- [27:33]
B
Even if we make money or lose money, why are we doing it? Because that's the actual fuel that's going to keep it, to keep going. If you have a clear understanding of what it is I want to do, how do I want to do it? That would actually determine the outcome. And if it's just money. Yeah, that's.
- [27:49]
A
Well, it's going to be very apparent that it's just for money, Right. Like, even with this situation is like the situation of beauty supply stores, right. It's like more people's like, okay, well we can own our own beauty supply stores. And it's like, okay, And I agree with that. Make sure you sourcing it. You're probably not going to Source it the same way that Asian people.
- [28:10]
B
No, dude.
- [28:10]
A
Because they're getting it directly from.
- [28:11]
B
Yeah.
- [28:12]
A
Likely a family member, you know what I'm saying? So if you on the outside looking in, playing ball like that, then you can expect the cost differential to be slightly higher. But I would. But see, the simple model of that is not understood to the everyday consumer. So you have to figure out like. Like what you said. How do you take the burden off the end user?
- [28:33]
B
Yep.
- [28:33]
A
And that's what you've done with your different shape.
- [28:35]
B
Yep.
- [28:36]
A
And if I figure out how to take the burden off the end user, then the user experience is like, delightful, bro. They have a good time. And it's like, also, I want to keep coming back.
- [28:45]
B
You want to build any. Those. That's where you have these brands that last for centuries, tens, decades, man.
- [28:52]
A
Yeah.
- [28:52]
B
Because then they figure out how to make sure everyone in that whole ecosystem is taken care of.
- [28:59]
A
Right.
- [29:00]
B
So you might win for five, 10 years, blow it out the water. But eventually people evolve and they're gonna be like, oh, you've always been a freaking fox or wolf.
- [29:11]
A
Yeah.
- [29:12]
B
You just been chowing on my pockets all this time. Because you have my best interest at heart.
- [29:17]
A
Right.
- [29:17]
B
And it's sad because in the. Especially in the community, most of these businesses will. Will portray themselves as black business, you know, so we have to. We're kind of. We feel obligated to go, you know, utilize them. But once you utilize them, you know, a few times you're like, man, this. This ain't it, man.
- [29:35]
A
Yeah.
- [29:36]
B
Because I feel violated when I go to a black owned business versus a white business and they're doing things, you know, they're not price gouging and not doing anything. And I think the thing that we.
- [29:48]
A
Don'T consider when we talking about business is the end consumer is like, okay, I'm patronizing a black business. Does the black business have the black customer in mind?
- [29:59]
B
Yes.
- [30:01]
A
Are you here in a space of where you're catering to my experience here? If you in the service industry, the service should be the top. Should be the top, like, priority. Right. So when I've worked in chain restaurants, I've worked in privately owned restaurants, and most businesses that I worked in that are service based, the main thing they preach is about the customer. The customer experience. And yeah, like, the customer is always right is like some cliche shit. But it's like they have it right in the sense that this is where we make our money. If they're happy, they're gonna come back.
- [30:35]
B
They come Back. They spend that money.
- [30:37]
A
They spend the money, and they tell other people that they had a good experience. Now, when you get to chain restaurant area, like Chili's or something like that, you gotta understand that it's not even about selling niggas on Chili's. It's like, are we the best? Do people have the best experience here on this block?
- [30:52]
B
Yep.
- [30:53]
A
Cause they got Olive Garden right there, and they got this right here, and they got that right there. So it's like, when. When they get a taste for Southwest egg rolls, do they say, yeah, let's just go to Chili's, or do they say, man, every time I go on that Chili's, it'd be some bullshit. Let's go to the one on the outside.
- [31:07]
B
Let's get the one outside.
- [31:08]
A
You see what I'm saying? And that's really what it come down to. But, like, a lot of people are focused on business first, and. And they think about business as only making money, but they're not thinking about the customer experience. Like, that's the most paramount part.
- [31:22]
B
That is the. And it. You know, in the last. I think in the last five years, five to, like, eight years since COVID has been, you know, with social media and the. This big light has been shown on entrepreneurship and everything like that. So it's kind of, like, cool. And so everyone associates, you know, money, money, money, money. You have to make all this money with being an entrepreneurship. They don't see the behind, you know, a struggle of being an entrepreneur, of not knowing, of going through a lot of tough times. They don't see that. That side. And when you have a business that you don't really have an impact for it or you don't really have. Have a vision for other than just making money, it usually feels away pretty quickly because there will come the valleys, and trust me, they come. Yeah, well, you got to get creative. You got to sell some. You got to do. You got to do a lot of stuff to stay alive.
- [32:26]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [32:27]
B
That's not the pretty side. And I'll tell you about.
- [32:28]
A
Yeah. And I was just telling my partner that today, like, we be in them ebbs and flows, like the peaks and valleys is a real thing. And it's like, the one thing I know is when I'm in a valley, I've always come out of it.
- [32:41]
B
Yeah.
- [32:42]
A
So it's like you just keep the main thing. The main thing. Boom. You know what I'm saying? Like, whatever was working with you when you was at your peak is the same thing that's going to get you out the valley.
- [32:50]
B
You cut back, you know, and those. That's the life of an entrepreneur, period, period. It ain't pretty, but you stay even keel. When you're, when you're high, just keep it, keep it going even. When you're low, keep it going even.
- [33:05]
A
Yeah, you just gotta, you gotta stay the same. You gotta stay the same because like, I, I know that like when people are saying. And this could, it could be a little cynical on my behalf too, but it's like when I'm on fire on social media and people like, man, like you killing it right now. It's like, look, bro, I know that this is temporary though. Like, I know that there's gonna come a time where it's like, it's gonna be. Ain't clicking. Yeah. CHIRPS But I also know that I'm gonna get back hot again. So, like, if I just stay like, okay, the only thing I'm focused on is my schedule.
- [33:33]
B
That's it.
- [33:34]
A
10, 2 and 6. That's the only thing I'm focused on. I posted 10, I posted 2, I posted 6 everywhere.
- [33:40]
B
That's it.
- [33:40]
A
And I just. And I'm gonna stick to that formula and some. And like, the thing is, is if it works and it gets me a million views and it don't work and it get me 2000 views, it's the same process.
- [33:51]
B
It's the same process. Why? Because that's what you have control over. Yeah, because we all. Everyone's trying to figure out, oh, yeah.
- [33:57]
A
I can't control the algorithm. I can't control what people engaging with. I can't control who see the video. What I can't control is doing my.
- [34:08]
B
Once you figure that out and just put them blinders on, Brad, just go.
- [34:12]
A
With it and just keep going.
- [34:14]
B
Forget about the cheers, forget about the jeers.
- [34:17]
A
Yeah.
- [34:17]
B
And just keep pushing. You just keep. And you over time, you will now see those things start paying off. And once as you. One thing I advice I would give is as you're, you know, sticking to what you're. You're. You have control over, go back and just analyze the data. Now that's a new thing now, but it really is powerful when you analyze and you can say, oh, this is what happened, you know, when I hit a million or this is what happened that I didn't do here. And you can start looking and noticing patterns and boom, you start tightening up and it's like a game, bro. Once you feel like it's like playing a game and you're you're going to each level. You fail, you get killed. You gotta start over. I did this, did this. And once you start doing that, forget about the destination, forget about what you're trying to build. You know, you have that goal, but, man, you just getting it done. Getting it done.
- [35:10]
A
Yeah.
- [35:10]
B
And before you know it, 10 years later, you'd be like, oh, man, look at where I was. Look at where I started, man.
- [35:17]
A
I. Yeah, because I, I just to think, like, I'm gonna go to the root 100 in New York and it's dope, bruh. In March, I was driving for a lumber company, you know what I'm saying?
- [35:32]
B
In March of this year.
- [35:33]
A
Yeah.
- [35:34]
B
That's crazy, man.
- [35:35]
A
You know what I'm saying? So it's like, crazy. Yeah. So even like when I'm saying, like, I was thinking about this today because it's like, you know, we, we trying out some new things. So we seen like, you know, dipping views here and there. Dipping views and like YouTube and things like that. We're trying to figure it out. And I was sitting there like, bruh, that. You know what I'm saying? I was like, bro, what a hell of a year.
- [35:57]
B
Yeah.
- [35:58]
A
But like, I'm worried about this. I need to like, what the hell.
- [36:00]
B
Of a six months?
- [36:02]
A
Crazy.
- [36:02]
B
That's crazy, man.
- [36:03]
A
It's like I had to take a step back. Like, bro, you worried about the wrong. Right?
- [36:07]
B
Appreciate what you just built in six months.
- [36:10]
A
You know what I'm saying? It's like, but that ain't going away. You know what I'm saying? I'm not going away. I just had a hell of a year. But I need to be reflecting on that instead of worrying about like, oh, well, I gotta make sure the views. It's like, bro, that, yeah, the views, it's gonna come and go.
- [36:24]
B
Yeah.
- [36:25]
A
You know what I'm saying? I look at people that got like, damn near a million subscribers and some of their videos hit 2500 views. It's like, it's just. This is just this, this is what this social media is, bro.
- [36:35]
B
Yeah.
- [36:35]
A
It's like you control your controllables, right? Like, but I need to be reflecting on, like, the type of year I had. Like, bro, this is a hell of a year, bro.
- [36:42]
B
And that's important. That's extremely important. Sometimes just slow down because it's. We constantly chase it, man. It's like every company is like, we have our quarterly goals and we have our annual goals, and we have our three year goals, and you have your. And everyone's pushing. Oh, we got to hit this number. And then you just have to stop and say, look, what did we do last year at the same time? And they were like, oh, you blew it out the water. Okay. Yeah, it's okay. Yeah.
- [37:09]
A
So let's just be like, let's. Let's be okay.
- [37:11]
B
Let's be okay.
- [37:12]
A
Let's be okay. You know? You know what I'm saying? I think. I think it's. It's a natural thing because it's like, I'm ambitious and I, you know, I start to see, like, okay, well, I can.
- [37:21]
B
Yeah.
- [37:22]
A
Start thinking about the next thing. But it's like, no. The main thing is this is what's working.
- [37:27]
B
Yep.
- [37:27]
A
This is what got me here. I gotta cater to this every day. And I. I diversify by diversifying the type of people that I sit down.
- [37:34]
B
That you sit down.
- [37:35]
A
So sitting down with you is vastly different from sitting down with a rapper that I sat down with last week, and I sat down with Astrophysicist the week before that. But this is all black people doing their own thing.
- [37:44]
B
Yes.
- [37:45]
A
In their spaces.
- [37:46]
B
Yes.
- [37:47]
A
One thing I was going to ask you about is the oil and gas company. So I worked for this company when I was younger. Probably the best job I could get at that time. I worked for this recycling company.
- [37:59]
B
What's wrong, boo? No, sorry, mama.
- [38:02]
A
You okay? You want to lay down somewhere?
- [38:07]
B
Okay, you drink some water?
- [38:08]
A
Yeah, Lay down on the couch. Is that. You got water?
- [38:13]
B
You want some water?
- [38:14]
A
You want.
- [38:14]
B
Yeah, drink some water.
- [38:15]
A
You want me get you a bottle of water?
- [38:17]
B
Yeah.
- [38:18]
A
All right. First gonna get you some water.
- [38:21]
B
Yeah.
- [38:21]
A
Just lay your head, baby.
- [38:27]
B
Drink some water.
- [38:27]
A
Try to get you some Z's.
- [38:30]
B
Sit up and drink some water.
- [38:31]
A
Yeah. Try to get you some Z's, boo. Throw that hoodie on. But working for the oil and gas company, it was a whole process that we was doing where we was taking plastics and we was melting them down and by, like, heating them up and then condensing it with that cool water, it was turning into synthetic fuel.
- [38:52]
B
Synthetic. Yeah.
- [38:53]
A
And it's like, on the surface, this is a way to get a little waste.
- [38:57]
B
Yep.
- [38:57]
A
And create a alternative fuel source. And I don't know why I went. Like, for whatever reason, the company went belly up. And maybe just like, bad investments, lack of care on they side financially, but there also was, like, a lot of hiccups in the process. Like, the process is just very complicated. It was hard for them to get a streamlined process down to the minute. Right. On a good day, you could do it like you could do it every 12 minutes and there's eight machines running simultaneously. So every 12 minutes you should be X, Y and Z. But if something go wrong that drastically.
- [39:32]
B
Yeah.
- [39:33]
A
And it's too many centers, it's like eight stations and everything has to be flowing right, every station for them to get like the optimal experience. And ultimately it ain't never going to run smooth.
- [39:44]
B
Yeah. You know, with, with, with oil and gas first of all, that's a very vast, vast industry. So you have, you know, renewable energies, you have upstream, you have downstream, you have a lot of things you could do within it. Where, where, where we went in was, you know, we always had Nigeria specific, you know, and we always looked at the problems that existed in Nigeria. So in Nigeria, I don't know if you remember over in Louisiana when they had to spill in, I think bp, well that has been going on in Nigeria for decades since they discovered oil in the 50s. And so the oil majors would just flare and do whatever they want and then they'll pay the government and they bribe them.
- [40:33]
A
Yeah.
- [40:34]
B
So you have the whole Niger Delta, which is, the area is one of the most oil rich areas in the world. And these people were fisher people, fishermen, farmers. And the whole area was devastated, bro. Like our team took a satellite image of the area at night and that whole place was lit up like what you think it was New York City. Now this is an era of nothing, just trees and, but it lit up like it's New York City. And that's basically all the gas being flared as they're producing this oil with oil spills everywhere. The whole area had the highest infant debt rate, highest mortality, adult debt rate, just devastated the whole community. So that's where I decide, okay, what can we do to actually fix this? And you know, it sounds like such a big idea, but once you take out, you know, the reason why you actually want to do something and if it's worth doing and it's worth impacting some people, man, it could, it could take forever. And you still be pumped up, you still be, you still keep you going. Because that took us almost 15 years. And the only reason why it took off was random because Barack Obama and the 2015 Climate Accord and all those countries decided to sign on and then Nigeria is one of them. But because they didn't have any, anything prepared, they're like, okay, which companies I've been talking about. Yeah, that's how we came in a conversation.
- [42:07]
A
Yeah.
- [42:07]
B
So it's, it's with oil and gas is vast Europe systems have to be in place. Europe, because it's a very capital intensive business and ain't no business. You just come up and, you know, you have to have people who are backing because there's a lot of money involved and you have to do it to where you know, for example, the business you're talking about, maybe their end user was in cahoots or was against the actual process of things being done. So in other words, what. I mean, if, if, you know, the whole system of delivery and purchasing has already been set and their business is not in line with the, the status quo, they're just going to choke. It's going to chuck them out.
- [42:51]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [42:52]
B
They have to find a way to align to whatever is already in place because the, the people who are running the industry, they have everything down, packed.
- [43:02]
A
And it was a, it was to me what it felt like more than anything is kind of an experiment because we would cycle through all these different plastics and it's like, well, this plastic burns better than this, than that. This plastic leaves less residue. It's easier to clean. And so like you just gotta find like that perfect, you know, process. And while it does solve a problem, the problem of plastic waste, it's also like, well, what about oil and gas companies that have to like, mine for this shit?
- [43:32]
B
Yeah.
- [43:33]
A
They looking at you like you shortcutting them. Like you kind of like you synthetic, you making synthetic oil out this like you ain't, you ain't giving me.
- [43:40]
B
But you know, another thing is a lot of times it's the oil and gas majors that actually fund companies like that just to say that they're fun competition. Yeah, right, right.
- [43:51]
A
Like you said, they can choke them out though, too.
- [43:52]
B
Like, you know what I mean is sometimes the oil and gas majors actually are the ones who own those companies and fund them. So they could say, oh, we're doing something, we're doing research, you know, to make sure the. Because they catch a lot of flack about the environment. So a lot of times they own a lot of these, you know, wind farms and renewable energy companies. They'll fund it. Know full well they're gonna kill or they. Nothing's gonna happen with that. Yeah, but they're gonna fund it just.
- [44:21]
A
Like a little check and balance.
- [44:22]
B
Yeah, they're like, oh man, it's good press.
- [44:24]
A
It's good press. What about, do you, do you follow the young dude that does the plastoline? Have you seen that?
- [44:31]
B
The plast. I don't think.
- [44:33]
A
What's that young man name? Hold on I'm gonna find it right now.
- [44:36]
B
The plastine. It's like plastic company.
- [44:45]
A
It's. It's. It's basically so he. He taking crude oil, basically transforming plastic waste into diesel fuel, Right.
- [44:57]
B
Oh, I think I seen that.
- [44:58]
A
Yeah.
- [44:58]
B
The young dude. Yeah, the young black dude.
- [45:00]
A
Yeah.
- [45:00]
B
I think it's in Canada.
- [45:01]
A
Julian Brown.
- [45:03]
B
Yeah. There's a lot of. There's a lot of technology that's always existed like that that won't see the light of day until I think it's.
- [45:13]
A
Exciting for people to see the alternative.
- [45:15]
B
Yeah.
- [45:16]
A
But I just don't think that. And oftentimes unfortunate thing but like you up against real giants.
- [45:22]
B
Yeah, you're up. Yeah, yeah.
- [45:23]
A
And not only giants, but like billionaires, man. He's overly billionaires.
- [45:29]
B
It's trillions like that. The industry that day.
- [45:32]
A
The Saudis, like the Saudis, bro, they got trillions.
- [45:34]
B
Yeah. You're not gonna come out with there's technology that, that cars could run on water for the longest.
- [45:42]
A
Yeah. Discovered that just end up missing.
- [45:45]
B
Yeah, that's been around the longest.
- [45:47]
A
They go missing quick, bruh. And so like people was worried about this young dude. But I was telling them, like, I think that they've kind of proven their point when it comes to stuff like that. The only thing, like they don't have to get rid of him because those technologies aren't like they're even around. They always going to be around and like, it's good to see it, but it's also. It's like then they're just never going to let it get as big as what they got.
- [46:10]
B
They won't.
- [46:11]
A
And even if you do, it won't replace Shell. You know what I'm saying?
- [46:14]
B
If you look at it as actually, I can't remember what it's called as a curve to. Whereas before something becomes adopted, a mass adoption, you know. You know, if you look at the curve for windows, horses to when cars took over and I think the cost of the previous thing, there has to be a savings of close to 85 to 95 or something like that. So there's a curve. So even if they release that technology today, just like you have electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, the cost is way less. But it still has to go through that curve before it hits mass adoption where everyone is not driving it. So these guys are not worried about that. You know, they've. They're not worried about, you know, electric vehicles. They're not worried about none of that. Because you still need fossil fuels for a lot of. I mean Yeah, a lot of stuff.
- [47:07]
A
Yeah. The. The, you know, unfortunate part is, like, a lot of these things, especially when you're talking about raw. Raw materials and resources, they need to be mined. There's going to be amount of. A certain amount of blood that just come with that.
- [47:23]
B
Yes.
- [47:23]
A
Everybody doesn't want to, like, account for it. Like, you don't want to go look at the DRC and really see what.
- [47:28]
B
Like, what's going on back.
- [47:30]
A
Yeah, it's rough. Same thing with sand, Sudan. It's like you got to kind of account for the amount of blood that's gonna be on your hands when it comes to these, like, in new inventions. And I think the thing is when people think about, like, clean energy, wind turbines or solar energy and things like that, the part that oil and gas company is gonna look at, it's like, look, bro, you can get your 20. You can get like, 25 of the market. But we never let y' all be majority of the market because they. They wait to make too much money and they lobby the governments. Like, they pay the governments.
- [48:04]
B
They make too much. There's a show. I don't know if you guys seen a landman.
- [48:08]
A
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
- [48:11]
B
That's a very descriptive show.
- [48:13]
A
Yeah. That money, that network, it's vast.
- [48:19]
B
It's extreme, extensive.
- [48:20]
A
And it reaches, like, to what you was talking about before.
- [48:23]
B
The.
- [48:24]
A
The ones in America, especially in Texas, reach to Mexican cartels. Like, they. Oh, yeah, it's all connected. So it's like, you got to think. It's not even about the amount of money. It's the amount of corruption that's in power, the control. The only way to really uproot that is uproot the entire system. And people is just. They not gonna. They'll kill for it.
- [48:43]
B
Oh, yeah, they already do that. You know, they already do that. And until, you know, you go in and you find solution for them to replace that which they are looking at. So obviously that's part of business. Sometimes you have a Runway of how long, you know, the industry will last, and you have to pivot. So, you know, that industry is looking at renewables. They're looking at, you know, things like wind, solar, and anything else. So once they find that, boom, they have the war chest. They have the money to start really delving into it.
- [49:19]
A
Yeah, they're gonna be the people that propagated. Right? Like, they, they. It's. This is gonna be a transference of wealth really more than anything, and they got to figure out how to make the money.
- [49:27]
B
They're Gonna figure it out.
- [49:29]
A
And this is like with what oftentimes what drug dealers like struggle with. Right. It's like when drug dealers got legit, nine times out of 10, like a real hustling drug dealer, it's not gonna go legit to a 9 to 5 because, you know, he can't control the money, so he gotta go into entrepreneurship. And what they're looking for oftentimes is like, how do I replace. What percentage am I cool with walking away from this shit with? Right?
- [49:51]
B
Yeah.
- [49:51]
A
So if I make, If I make $20,000 a week.
- [49:55]
B
Yeah.
- [49:55]
A
If I can get that number to like 12 and legitimate money, I'll walk all the way.
- [50:00]
B
I'll walk away.
- [50:01]
A
But if that number sits around six to eight, I just can't justify it.
- [50:05]
B
They can't do it.
- [50:06]
A
Yeah. You know what I'm saying? You been. So when you moved here in 2001.
- [50:10]
B
2001, right. Man, I was 18. Yeah, right.
- [50:16]
A
You moved here. I don't know. You moved with your folks?
- [50:18]
B
I moved there by myself.
- [50:19]
A
Oh, you was like as soon as I turned 18 in my mouth, I was out, man. So being here is all of your adult life. I think a lot of times, you know, the issues that we talk about, when we talk about the diaspora, when we talk about the differences, always we get caught up on like one or two differences between African Americans and native born Africans. I want to know from your experience, what are some parallels that you see in Nigeria and America and when it comes to our communities?
- [50:51]
B
So first of all, I think, you know, the biggest, the biggest impediment that the community, the black community has, period, is how we're pit against each other.
- [51:03]
A
Correct.
- [51:04]
B
It is, it's. It's something that we're starting to unravel and we're starting to see that, hey, we actually have all the cars in our hands. We've always had it, you know, and the, the biggest con is how they, they made us feel and how they made us pit each other against each other over the most basic stupid.
- [51:31]
A
That question. Yeah. It's the most ridiculous. I don't care about the differences. I want to know what the commonalities are.
- [51:36]
B
You know, the commonalities is everything. That's really, that. Look, man, there's really the, the hard work. Because anytime you hear somebody say something derogatory about you or and they don't really know you, it's usually projection. Right. It's like they call African Americans lazy. It's like really, you're gonna call the people who actually, as Slaves would work until the muscles came off their bones, Right? That's who you call them, lazy.
- [52:05]
A
The labor that built this country, that built the whole country right in the minds. They innovated a lot of and, and invented a lot of things that everything.
- [52:13]
B
Life livable, there's no, no difference in, in Africa. That's why you hear the same, it's the same DNA. Okay? And if you look at the outlay of business right now, every room that I go into, whether it be private equity, venture capitalists, they're all talking about Africa, Right? And they're talking about Africa because why Africa has right now the largest population under 25 on the 25 years. Over a billion people are under 25.
- [52:45]
A
Sheesh.
- [52:46]
B
Everywhere else around the entire, you know, other continents are all aging. They're aging out. These are people about to die in the next 10, 15 years.
- [52:55]
A
Yeah. Capitalism will do that to you, though.
- [52:58]
B
Capitalism will do that to you because.
- [53:00]
A
And I talked about this, you've commodified natural born processes, right?
- [53:04]
B
Yes.
- [53:04]
A
The process of having a child is a natural born thing.
- [53:06]
B
Natural born thing.
- [53:07]
A
But if you commodify it, then, you know, now you get people that are getting older and older, having babies less and less.
- [53:15]
B
Yes.
- [53:15]
A
And also the older you get, the more complicated pregnancy can become.
- [53:18]
B
Yes, absolutely.
- [53:19]
A
It gets a little nasty also, too. You have to make it to a point where it's like, is, can I afford to have.
- [53:25]
B
Can you afford to have kids?
- [53:26]
A
Which is crazy.
- [53:27]
B
It's crazy. Especially in this country.
- [53:29]
A
Human history, bro. Never in human history has that been a question.
- [53:33]
B
It's, it's, it's kind of crazy.
- [53:35]
A
Yes. It's, it's, it's a natural born process that we ask, can I afford?
- [53:38]
B
Can you afford? Which is insane, because if from an African perspective, everything that is expensive is free, Right. The food that you eat should be free, is grown from the ground. Right. You don't need a babysitter because usually in Africa, the whole community comes together. I could watch your kids. If you're gonna do anything. It's community over here. Everyone is alienated. Stay in your house. Stay in your house. Stay in your house. Yeah, right. You know, if you need help, you go to your neighbor. It's community based. And that's what they've taken away. That's what they've put a veil on. During slavery that has brought African American, Africans here. And they make them feel like, oh, we have to pit. I have to fight against this guy to be able to get ahead. It makes life competitive, makes Life competitive.
- [54:28]
A
Right? And we don't naturally even. That shit doesn't exist. Right. So you remember a few weeks ago, it was a trending thing, this girl was calling around to churches and like to tell them, like, oh, I need a can of baby formula. And a significant amount of Christian churches turned her away. I'm not saying black churches helped. Black churches, Masjid helped, the mosque, they helped. And the church of Satan helped. Without question. Right? Without question, Right. But this is the thing. And a lot of black people were saying, shit, you could have just called my mama, you know what I'm saying? Like, you didn't have to call the church. You could have called me. Shit. Because our community, like that DNA is like prevalent. Like, we want to look out for each other, but we also live in like, like unnatural world. Like, this ain't weird. This is weird. Right? Like, you remember fur growing up when you could drink water out the water hose? No problem.
- [55:25]
B
Yes.
- [55:25]
A
That's too free.
- [55:27]
B
That's too free.
- [55:27]
A
That's too free.
- [55:29]
B
Water.
- [55:29]
A
Nah, we gotta.
- [55:30]
B
I mean, this is painful.
- [55:32]
A
You paying for plastic bottles. And. And the thing is, is that now, and I don't know when it made the switch, but there was a time where it's like, damn, yo, this tastes weird now.
- [55:42]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [55:43]
A
And I also don't want to drink it. And like our bodies is that fine tuned to just like something, right?
- [55:51]
B
With this, it's. It's crazy. I grew up, you know, in Africa because I played soccer and skip the bus, going to school. And you just walk to school and you guys play soccer, you go to school, you get them hoes, you drink water. Life is good, man.
- [56:07]
A
Yeah.
- [56:07]
B
You eat, food is fresh.
- [56:09]
A
Yeah.
- [56:10]
B
You don't have the most money, but you just happy. Everyone is content now. In every stage, everyone has gripe with something. There's always back then we're griping about something, whether it was the government or whatever it was. But when you look back and you're like, man, it's slowly getting worse. As is getting better, you know, as quote unquote getting better.
- [56:33]
A
Yeah. Because the things that make our life like worth living get commodified.
- [56:38]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [56:38]
A
So like water, food and shelter, those three things you could take like health care, education. Right. We talking about just like basic things that we need. When those things are at low cost or readily available, most people are going to be genuinely generally happy.
- [56:52]
B
Happy.
- [56:52]
A
You know what I'm saying?
- [56:53]
B
That's right.
- [56:53]
A
Go. Comes when people start worried about where they gonna sleep, what they gonna eat, and do they have Enough to drink.
- [56:58]
B
It's getting so bad. You know, water is going to be one of the most expensive commodities in the United States in probably the next decade or so. Because if you look at the scarcity of what's happening. If you look in California, there's one family that owns majority of the water rights.
- [57:15]
A
And how the.
- [57:16]
B
I don't know how that happens.
- [57:18]
A
This is the thing, bro. This is like white people's specialty. It's like owning resources, bro. Yeah, like. Like that the Earth naturally produces. They like, you know what? Let me own it now. How the fuck you gonna own some shit you didn't make?
- [57:32]
B
You know? And it's crazy because God has given us everything. Everything.
- [57:38]
A
We don't need any. We really don't need anything. A lot of this shit. A lot of this shit is like, yo, you niggas are crazy. Because the thing is, is, like, in a city, right? And this is how the car industry fucks up Southern progress, right? Houston, Atlanta. The biggest struggle with living in those two cities is traffic, but also not being walkable to the point where if I don't have a car, I can't.
- [58:05]
B
Literally can't live. Yep.
- [58:08]
A
My quality of living is if I don't have a car. But everybody having a car is what creates the problem.
- [58:15]
B
And you know what? That's why it's important, why I. I pivot back to group economics as a people. Because if, you know, every one of the instances you just mentioned would be the oil and gas, the car industry. You see, these. These entities have an economic base that the government respects. And when you have a large enough economic base, you could end lobby, and they actually take you seriously. Right now, we don't have a voice. It's, you know, it's. It's always one person here or one person there. There's no unison. The closest thing, you know that has been done like that is the. The International Jewish Fund, where the Jewish people put together money as small as their population was. They're very powerful now, and they have a lobby. That's why nothing happens, you know, that's pertaining to Israel or pertaining to any Jewish community, United States, without the government, you know, rah Ryan, we have to do the same. We have to pull our resources together. We can't ask for it. If we want the respect and we want the attention that everyone else is getting, we have to do that together. And then once we get to that point, we can then come to the table, because that's the ticket to be able to sit at that table. It Ain't morality. It's not. You can't.
- [59:39]
A
Yeah. It's not a moral issue. It's not a more power.
- [59:41]
B
It's never given.
- [59:42]
A
It's like people that are subject. Guys, you aren't gonna like. There's profit in your subjugation, right. And what's the biggest profit that they have in the black community? Is prison.
- [59:52]
B
Yeah.
- [59:53]
A
You know what I'm saying? You for profit prisons, you create impoverished areas. And we know poverty being precursor to crime. It's all one big system, right. And then you limit the dreams. Right. So if I'm in abject poverty, I want to get out by shooting straight to the star. So like, I gotta be an athlete or entertainer. These are the easy tickets out. Right. Education is a long path. Entrepreneurship is, Is not. It's not even on the minds of most people until it got hot during COVID And even that it was just LLC talk. Like niggas didn't even know what to do with their LLCs. I'm gonna ask you some questions about that too. I think the thing is, like, what you said, the fund and. Right. If we had an African American fund where we all chip in five bucks a month, I mean, we. We talking about damn near a billion dollars.
- [60:46]
B
You look at this math. Let's do this math.
- [60:48]
A
I mean, think about how much money the church is making, bro.
- [60:50]
B
Let me tell you.
- [60:51]
A
So let's go there.
- [60:52]
B
Let me tell you. If the Jewish people could do it, and there's less than five. I think there's five or six million people. Jewish people. You have 45 million African Americans. So let's. Let's look at this. 45 million African Americans. Let's say 20 million. Put $40 every month. It's not a big. It's not a big number. $40 every month. You're probably looking. In a decade, you're looking at about, about.
- [61:19]
A
That's a GDP, almost $200 billion. That's a real GDP.
- [61:23]
B
So with that money, this is what you could do with the money. You have a government within a government. So basically now you could raise people out of poverty. One how? People who are unemployed. If you qualify for unemployment from the government, we match it or we give you half of whatever. So now you have more.
- [61:43]
A
And then you can really give them 85k a year.
- [61:46]
B
Yeah, you can. You can actually pay the people who are on a. On the poverty.
- [61:50]
A
And it's like, you know, we're gonna monitor these things. We have systems in place.
- [61:53]
B
You have systems in place. And then you, you, you you just like I mentioned, the schools, you give money to the HBCUs and the schools in the, in the black neighborhoods, you build up their programs. How do you do that? You build up the neighborhoods. So all the real estate in neighborhoods, you build that up, give the people their vouchers. That way you're not pricing them out so they can still stay in the houses. The taxes go up. The taxes now go to the schools. Now the schools have money for funding the scholarships you give to the kids. They have to go to the HBCUs. So if you come to the black fund, you got to go to hbcu. Now you have all that black talent and athletes going there. What happens when that happens? Those sporting programs, boom, they start shooting up. Now you start having more leverage to negotiate for the viewing rights for all these networks. Now you're not building up those schools. That's another part. People who want to do business, oh, I'm going to go, I want some funding. Well, go get approved by the sba. If you get approved by the sba, we're going to match it. You see how that works now? They're going now. But once you have to do that, whatever business you create, you have to create it in one of our neighborhoods or you have to, you know, there's a way you have to pay back to the system that way. The system is, is an ecosystem that self sustains.
- [63:09]
A
Yeah.
- [63:09]
B
You understand, I'm saying we build hospitals that are sustainable in the, that not only sustainable, are profitable. So if you're in a neighborhood or if you're black, because Jewish people do this too. It's not discrimination. Just if you're Jewish and you come to the hospital, you get a better deal than somebody who's not right. They're going to take everybody. But if you're black and you, you come to one of our hospitals, you get either free health care if you're under the poverty line, or you get subsidized health care.
- [63:38]
A
So you now, as a people, created our own economy.
- [63:41]
B
We create our own economy while we're still taking benefits from the government.
- [63:46]
A
And you know what else that does too? It helps concentrate blackness. Yes, it helps people like say, okay, they got this thing going on in Atlanta. I want to live in Atlanta. But with this money also, we compete with, we lobby. Hey, if we're gonna be in this area, if you want our business, if you want our money, we need better.
- [64:07]
B
We need better transportation. Exactly. And that's how you lobby. Because you can't lobby if you ain't Doing nothing.
- [64:13]
A
Yeah.
- [64:13]
B
You can't love it.
- [64:14]
A
And it doesn't have to be this thing of, like, everybody. See, this is another thing too. It's like everybody wants to be individually rich. I don't think anybody understands the power of collective riches.
- [64:26]
B
They don't. That's. That's the, that's the nail in the head. You don't understand the power of collective richness.
- [64:32]
A
Because if all of us got it, then every. Then all of us got it, right? If we putting our money together. And this is, this is. Honestly, this is. Is socialism, right? This is the means of production. We, we. We. We own the means of production we put in. So we all benefit from it. Right? And this is the thing that happens a lot in America in small pockets, especially for, like, over uber capitalists. They operate in a socialist system amongst one another. Yeah, right. So, like, what's the biggest benefit of socialism? Like, the billionaires own the means of production of everything, Right. Even our tax dollars. So it bails their businesses out. Also, you know, when they do something criminal like poison a water supply, it's just a fine. That fine is 9 out of 10 paid for by taxpayer dollars. And it's like they just circulate all the fucking bread. And we sit back and it's like. The thing is, it's like, okay.
- [65:29]
B
This.
- [65:29]
A
Is as simple as I can make it right. We being bullied by people with guns, but we want to keep, like, fighting them with our fist. At least get a knife, go get a gun. If you go get a gun, they gonna respect. They're respected.
- [65:46]
B
They're gonna respect.
- [65:47]
A
And I think the cause, the radical thing is like, to, you know, to choke people out is like, you have to stop participating. But the individualism is already set in place where it's like, what if you don't.
- [66:00]
B
Yep.
- [66:00]
A
If you say, okay, we all gonna stop going to work. Right. But what if you don't stop?
- [66:04]
B
What if you don't.
- [66:04]
A
If you don't stop, then that means I stay home. I mean, I'm get fired, lose my job, and then you go back to the. But if it's 40amonth to the, you know, National Black Whatever, you know, whatever. Whatever acronym we come up with for this and we keep it outside of, like, we create a new thing with integrity that's not like, shaky, you know what I'm saying? We don't go for the spare. Yeah. I'm not dealing with the same old black leaders that y' all have appointed. These could be people that are integral. They have a Proven record. And also, like with technology and tech, it could be tracked, it could be trapped. We can see how much is going in. We can see where it's allocated to.
- [66:43]
B
With a technology now.
- [66:44]
A
With the technology now, it could be extremely transparent. It's an app.
- [66:48]
B
Put it on the blockchain. It could be on the blockchain. There's so many ways you could do it because, you know, we always have the excuse, oh, somebody's, you know, we don't want this guy, he's gonna steal the money or whatever. No, it's not going to be central. It shouldn't be a messiah complex where there's one person who's coming to save us.
- [67:05]
A
No, this should be a council. That's another thing too, that we don't deal with councils. And we get that from our presidency and how we do it. We elect one guy to run everything, essentially is what we think. But we don't look at the House of Representatives as a council. Congress is a chance of balances. It's all checks and balances. If we have our own, create our own councils. And it doesn't have to just be lawyers, it should be scientists, it should be entrepreneurs, it should be everybody. The whole community should be educators. It should be somebody. It should be 12 appointed people from every walk of life, every city.
- [67:35]
B
It should be so intentional and it's so simple to do, but it has to be intentional and there has to be buying. And why I say, even if half of, of our people do this, it's going to work.
- [67:50]
A
Oh, yeah, for sure.
- [67:51]
B
There's no.
- [67:52]
A
It's actually undeniable.
- [67:54]
B
It's undeniable. Yeah. I keep hearing people talk from here to dare. I was like, the. The solution is pretty easy. We just have to get past ourselves on one somebody else coming to do it for us. We have to do this ourselves. It's going to take a while. And why I say it takes a while. If you look at the example I gave of the Jewish community, remember when they started this fund, it was just after, I think it was after World War II, with everyone, every Jewish nation, they are all displaced and they had to come up with these funds. And that first generation had to sacrifice a lot, basically their generation, just to make sure their kids and, you know, their grandchildren were fine. And the jobs that they had at the time were trashy jobs, which is. Which now are the major industries. They are doing the film, which was seen as a flagrant, you know, kind of crazy industry they've been. Back then they were attorneys, which were Kind of look they were. Looked beneath.
- [69:01]
A
Yeah.
- [69:02]
B
So they were doing all these things that they were working in the fashion industries. So all the jobs that nobody else wanted. That's what the Jews were doing at the time. And it was safe and safe and safe. And they started sending their kids to all these good schools because they save and sacrifice. But they were putting that fund together and. And not a lot of people notice, but the funds that they put together is the funds they use to not only lobby, but also pay to buy where the state of Israel is now.
- [69:31]
A
Yeah.
- [69:32]
B
They slowly went and started buying parcels of land under the noses of the Palestine. And that's how they slowly. And then Truman, the president. President Truman at the time, one of his aides was. Was one of the main leaders of the Jewish Fund. And he was able to convince him to recognize this area as a state of Israel.
- [69:54]
A
You see how that just paid for it. They just paid for and quiet.
- [69:59]
B
And they just did what they had to do.
- [70:02]
A
Yeah.
- [70:02]
B
And they were discriminating against too. But not at the same rate as we are. But.
- [70:06]
A
Right.
- [70:07]
B
My point is it's doable.
- [70:09]
A
Yeah.
- [70:09]
B
You see a model that worked before we could do the same thing.
- [70:13]
A
And I think the biggest thing for us to remember is always like, what is the fear? Right. There was no fear that the Jewish people would rise up and become oppressors themselves. And they did. You know what I'm saying? In some aspects. Zionists did that. You know what I'm saying? I can't do that as a blanket across all Jews. But there are Zionists that participate in oppression that they faced 100 years ago.
- [70:37]
B
Right.
- [70:39]
A
The fear around black people unifying is that we're going to kind of do onto others as we've been done to. And I think the thing that most people don't realize about black people people, it's like we really don't care. We really not stunting y' all like that. If y' all would just leave us to alone, like, we'll be happy. Yeah. Because. And I think the thing is, it's like when black people are left alone, the innovations and the things that we come up with, it always this thing they have to come back and destroy. Yeah. And it's like everything. You don't want to create an air of competition. And the biggest air of competition is the competition of ideology. I can't sell supremacy to people if you doing better than them.
- [71:16]
B
Yes.
- [71:17]
A
And this is my biggest consumer base.
- [71:19]
B
Yep.
- [71:19]
A
This is what I've been talking about a lot like lately is White Americans being the biggest consumer base, you have to kind of pamper them.
- [71:26]
B
Yeah.
- [71:26]
A
You know what I'm saying? You gotta pamper them. You gotta. The job that you would get, that is 120, I gotta give them 175.
- [71:32]
B
Yeah.
- [71:32]
A
And they're gonna spend more money because they kind of fall into line a little bit better once you. It's like this thing of like, if I feel like I'm superior, I don't really need too much out of life. So it's just like, you can direct them.
- [71:45]
B
You can direct them. Yeah.
- [71:46]
A
You can direct a dollar if you'.
- [71:48]
B
Disappear if you.
- [71:48]
A
If. And if they feel it. So if they go outside and they feel it because they see it. You know what I'm saying? They see like all the homeless people they see are black.
- [71:56]
B
Yeah.
- [71:57]
A
Or, you know, of color. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And then, you know, at their job, they go to the job and it's like, Yeah, I make 180k a year. Like, what do you mean you only make 85?
- [72:07]
B
85.
- [72:08]
A
What do you mean you only make 100? Oh, you should negotiate better. And he's like, no, they just. You didn't have to negotiate. They just gave it to you. Right, right. So it's like this thing of like loops and hoops for us, that's just standard for them. And I think for us it's like, what we truly want is like equity, but we can create the equity within ourselves.
- [72:25]
B
Within ourselves.
- [72:26]
A
You know what I'm saying? And, and I think that this is like the big, the big, like, what if for us it's like.
- [72:34]
B
What are.
- [72:35]
A
You willing to lose every month? Right. So like, what's a dollar amount that you. Cool with you. It's just, it wouldn't be in your mind. If it's $20, then we give in 20amonth.
- [72:44]
B
Yep.
- [72:45]
A
And, and then like, whatever. Some big things that we want to see accomplish in our neighborhood. Is that a bank? Is that everything a transportation system? Is that. You know what I'm saying? Because, like, the thing is, if we got our own transportation system that takes 100 cars off the street every day.
- [73:00]
B
Yeah.
- [73:01]
A
You understand what I'm saying?
- [73:02]
B
So much we could do. And because we, we complain about. Which is a very valid complaint that, you know, whether it be venture capitalism or private equity, African Americans or people of color, period, are given less than a half percent of funding.
- [73:20]
A
Right.
- [73:20]
B
Because we have the ideas, we have the, the, the manpower, we have the know how, but we just, we're not in a Proximity, Yeah. For me personally, if my brother came to me, I'm gonna lend him money first versus somebody that's not my brother.
- [73:36]
A
Right, right, right.
- [73:37]
B
So we have that disadvantage against ourselves.
- [73:40]
A
And we gotta be okay with participating in group economics without worrying about what other people are gonna say about us. It doesn't have to be this thing of like, well, when these people do it, fuck it, that conversation is over.
- [73:52]
B
It's over.
- [73:53]
A
I'm doing it and I'm doing it unapologetically. And I don't have to explain anything to you.
- [73:56]
B
You don't have to have no explanation.
- [73:58]
A
I don't have no supervisors in this world, bro.
- [74:00]
B
And we can, we could change so much so quickly. And why I say this is the best time. As you mentioned, technology is there. You know, people are starting to be more aware of these things that are available to them. And, you know, we have to, we have to be, to be very intentional. Let's not do it for, for the likes. Let's not do it for the, the fanfare. Do it because you see where life is going. And if you have children, you want your kids to live a better life in a community that not only looks like you, that's very inviting, that, that has the same value system as you do. And no one is going to do it except us, as there's nobody. And people will say, why don't I read the news? Or what? Because it's, it's the same. I hate, I hate hearing the same thing when we know what the solution is.
- [75:00]
A
Right.
- [75:00]
B
It's like hearing people complain about. It's like you complain about the same thing over and over again. And I'm looking at you, I know you know what the solution is.
- [75:07]
A
Right, Right.
- [75:07]
B
Right.
- [75:08]
A
At some point it's just like. Well, you just like, you just like to complain. Yeah.
- [75:12]
B
You know, and it's, I'm not saying that our, our, our, our gripe is valid, but we have to come up with solutions and there are solutions in front of us.
- [75:21]
A
Right.
- [75:21]
B
So we have to first come up with that. As you said, two things can be right at the same time. We still have to hold a government or whoever it is accountable for what's been done to the community and what's owed to the community. But until we do that, we have to do business as usual.
- [75:36]
A
If I think that's the biggest part that people miss from the civil rights movement is that as much as their vitriol and anger and judgment was placed at the structure, they still were doing for self. Right. So it's like Montgomery Bus boycott. Okay? You're gonna discriminate against us. We're gonna make it very clear that y' all discriminate against us. And these are the things we want. And. But until then, we're gonna take care of ourselves.
- [76:00]
B
We'll take care of ourselves. We're gonna figure out a way to go.
- [76:02]
A
We're gonna figure out a way to find y'. All. You know what I'm saying? We're not gonna let y' all centralize our transportation.
- [76:06]
B
Yep.
- [76:07]
A
If we gotta walk, if we got a carpool, no matter what we gotta do. And that went on for, you know, the better part of a year, a little bit over a year.
- [76:15]
B
And the message got across.
- [76:17]
A
Because the thing is, what we have to realize at the end of the day with these people in this country, the only thing they care about is money.
- [76:25]
B
That's it.
- [76:26]
A
That's the bottom line for most people. That's where they draw the line at anyway. It's like Target is going through it right now because black people collectively was like, we not putting out money. We not shopping with y' all no more. That's over. Black Friday, deal, DEI Re Institute, whatever you want to do. We not fucking with it no more. You already off of that.
- [76:46]
B
Yeah.
- [76:47]
A
You know what I'm saying? And they going through it, but it's like, we got to understand that not only is our economic power to withhold, but our collective economic power.
- [76:55]
B
Right?
- [76:56]
A
So this is the Star line. Marcus Garvey. His thing was, we here in America, but we got. We got business in Jamaica. We got business in Nigeria. We got business in Brazil. We can create our own import export system with people that look like us. And I understand this collective struggle because. Because we've all been impacted by colonialism. So we have that through line. Then we have cultural parallels. And honestly, we kind of want the same thing out of life. Like, I want to see the. When I drop my product off, I want the person I'm dropping it off.
- [77:27]
B
To look like me to look like you.
- [77:28]
A
That's it.
- [77:28]
B
Talk like, have the same value system.
- [77:30]
A
We got the value, same value system. We have the same needs and the same ones, and we want a better world for our children. You know what I'm saying? I tell people all the time, like, you might plant a tree that you don't get to enjoy the shade of stuff. No, she will enjoy the. You know what I'm saying? And that's got to be the bigger picture. It's like, you know, it's gonna be there's, there's benefits to plant trees.
- [77:51]
B
Yes.
- [77:53]
A
Absolutely benefit the playing tree. What, you gonna go through this life and complaining about the fact that you're not trees, but you ain't planting no tree?
- [78:00]
B
Planting no trees, that's a sacrifice. Look, I, I get it. Because you have to look at things from both points of view for sure. If, if, if as a people we've been denied for so long, it's okay right now that we're getting out of our system. Yeah, we gotta, we gotta get the money, we gotta stunt. We gotta do what we got to do to get, get out of systems. Like if they say if you win the lottery, go win 100 million, go blow 5 million real quick.
- [78:23]
A
Yeah. Just not just that other 95 million.
- [78:29]
B
So I think we're at the point where we have to stop being really intentional about, you know, our next generation. Sacrifices have to be made so, you know, collectively it has to be done. Collect. There's no, there's no pie in the sky solution for this.
- [78:49]
A
And there's no one individual that's, there's no one.
- [78:52]
B
There's no Martin Luther King coming.
- [78:53]
A
I tell people all the time, like, yeah, you know, thought leader, cool. Voice of the generation, cool. How many more voices can we have? Yeah, we need more. You know what I'm saying? It can't just be Deontay Kyle and then that's it. Yeah, like that's where it stopped. Because if some, if my account gets deleted tomorrow, my YouTube gets shut down, then what?
- [79:11]
B
That's it. That's it.
- [79:12]
A
We need to operate in a collective and a communal. And also too, the thing is, is like this shit is literally embedded in us to do it. It's not something we gotta think about.
- [79:20]
B
It's DNA. That's what it says, our DNA.
- [79:21]
A
This literally is how we've been operating for tens of thousands of years. You know what I'm saying? As soon as we start engaging in it, it's gonna activate.
- [79:29]
B
It is insane.
- [79:30]
A
It's a fear thing.
- [79:31]
B
It's a fear and we have to get out of our own heads because if you, you know, this is a big distraction, social media. We have to get real focused more now than ever. Because if you look at the landscape, everything, we have to be focused on what we want as a community and why I say we. It includes Africans and African American, any black person anywhere throughout the whole diaspora. Throughout the whole diaspora. And you have to be focused on Africa as well, because a lot of wealth is going to be created Africa in the next 10 to 20 years and everything. There's going to be a shift, you know, with. With everything going there. So the smart money is starting to move, which has. That hasn't happened. And I've been doing business back there. It ain't happening a long time. Yeah, a long time.
- [80:22]
A
So that means we don't benefit nothing from talking about, like, these minute differences that we have. Like, nothing. I'm. I'm not engaging with Africans or Caribbeans who talk badly about black Americans. I'm not so not engaging with black Americans because it's not beneficial. I don't. Look, I'm. I'm a proud black American. All my history is here, my lineage here. I know what my culture is. I with it. I love it, and I would never abandon it. I don't have to deny you.
- [80:52]
B
You don't have to deny.
- [80:53]
A
Yeah.
- [80:54]
B
My experience.
- [80:54]
A
I don't have to, like, not with you.
- [80:56]
B
Because you don't.
- [80:57]
A
Because at the end of the day, if we go look in our parallels of our history, it all intersects. Play, bro. It all intersects also, too. It's like, yeah, bro, Once we get off of that, over the bullshit, bro, we gonna realize how much we got in common. And that's such a. That's a through line, bro. We just go from there. And I think the thing is, like, they amplify the voices of division.
- [81:18]
B
Yes.
- [81:18]
A
In our community. Right. I want to be amplified for unity.
- [81:22]
B
For unity.
- [81:22]
A
Yeah.
- [81:23]
B
And once we start pushing that, make that cool, it will solve. Even the poverty here and all the issues we have here will be gone.
- [81:32]
A
It's not. It's over with.
- [81:33]
B
It's over.
- [81:34]
A
Yeah.
- [81:34]
B
Because that is the key business, you know, entrepreneurship, community building is just people collaborating. Once you figure it out, take your ego out the way, and we all have a. A goal. It's a rap.
- [81:50]
A
Yeah.
- [81:50]
B
You know, it's.
- [81:51]
A
Because then even to the point of, like, well, you know, you got. If, you know, Jamaicans, if. If I'm cool with you. What's the. What's the main produce that y' all like? What's what y'.
- [82:00]
B
All.
- [82:00]
A
What y' all produce? Okay. We're gonna create an import export system where y' all come. You know what I'm saying? And. And now our communities have this fruit, vegetable, this resource readily available to them because we got an import export system running back and forth. This is what Hispanics do. This is what Asians do. And oftentimes this is what Africans do.
- [82:19]
B
I just came back, I went Alaska with a fishing trip with. Yeah, it's like a group of CEOs and we go to Alaska, Kodak, Alaska. And we fish for like a week. It's not the most luxurious trip, but it's, it's eye openening and the amount of fish they got there, bro. And then, you know, just thinking, I start making calls in Nigeria like, hey, what y' all doing as far as fish? And we start connecting the dots.
- [82:54]
A
That's probably gonna be it.
- [82:55]
B
Cuz now we're gonna dry the fish, stock fish, and we start comparing prices. Oh, they got it cheaper in Norway and even more now we're probably gonna order from them and ship it to Nigeria. And that's how you, you, you, you, you have these connections that we have back home that I think our people, our community here are not tapping at all, bro. Now obviously the Africans that here know, but that's how a lot of them make a lot of the money is knowing the arbitrage. Oh, I could get this for here cheap and send it over there and sell it for whatever market is.
- [83:27]
A
Right.
- [83:28]
B
And you're making money.
- [83:29]
A
But all of our comedy as black Americans is here. We don't have anything to.
- [83:33]
B
But the problem is where, where the consumers here.
- [83:35]
A
Yeah.
- [83:36]
B
We're spending exorbitant amount of money on.
- [83:40]
A
Yeah.
- [83:40]
B
Like you buy and that should be a hundred dollars. You're paying 15, 2, 2004.
- [83:47]
A
Right. And it's, it's amplified by our commodity, our commodity being entertainment. Our entertainers sell these ideas back to us.
- [83:55]
B
Back to us.
- [83:55]
A
Yeah.
- [83:56]
B
You know, and if you have it, spend it. Right. But the issue is, you know, across the community where it's like we have to keep up and so we're not making the right decisions as a community. Right. You know, but I think once this community connects back to the source, man, there's so much. When I say there's so much money and you always have to look down the road. Power is starting to shift, economies are starting to shift. Because we've always had the cars in Africa. Every resource that's natural that runs the whole West. That's why they there is from there.
- [84:32]
A
That's why they there.
- [84:33]
B
That's why they're there and that's why they keep soaring, discord and soaring. All this stuff back there. But now we're starting to realize the awareness is starting to grow. The leaders are starting to catch up. That looks, look, we really got all the cars to play here. Yeah, let's just slowly push them out and call them all their. Because now they can't say, oh, we're peaceful and we're doing. It's about to change.
- [84:53]
A
We see the history. We don't want a piece.
- [84:57]
B
We don't want a piece so much.
- [84:58]
A
Out. Out.
- [84:59]
B
And once we, we have control of that, you're going to now see how things start to change. You're going to now see investments pouring in Africa. And if you, you have. That you not have an advantage over there.
- [85:12]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [85:12]
B
That you never had before, for sure. You understand what I'm saying? And this is something we have to start empowering ourselves in making these moves because we're still stuck on, you know. No, no. Whether it be shade room or arguing about the dumbest stuff, man. You know, we have to be intentional as a community. We do a good job individually here and there.
- [85:34]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [85:34]
B
There's no doubt about that.
- [85:36]
A
But our group, our group thinking has to advance too. Is like, what do we invest our group thinking in? And then, you know, how is it benefiting us? It's not. You know what I mean? So I think, you know, just, you know, I'm, I'm so. And sees here. But like the thing is, is like what I said, having a diverse amount of. Yes. Black guests that come on here.
- [85:55]
B
Yes.
- [85:55]
A
That speak from different points of view. You can ask fur bruh. I done brought, I had, I had a, a theologist come in here. Astrophysicist. Then I had a doctor of psychology coming here.
- [86:08]
B
Oh yeah, you.
- [86:09]
A
Yeah, I mean, I'm just, I'm like, how do we. We're gonna have to.
- [86:13]
B
That's a dialogue. You have to have that dialogue. Cuz I. Look man, I'll be, I'll be talking and I'll be talking. I don't, I don't claim to have all the answers. I'm sure I'm not right 100 of the time, but I speak from experience. Everything I say. I'm in a group of business leaders that we meet every month. And you know what the rule is there? You can't give advice if you haven't actually experienced it.
- [86:43]
A
Right.
- [86:43]
B
Because people like to hear themselves talk all the time.
- [86:45]
A
Right, right, right.
- [86:47]
B
So if you can't give input on what you feel could work, that you have some sort of experience, don't even say because now we're going to have all these people talking about, oh, this you should do.
- [86:58]
A
Theory is. It's all theory, an opinion. This ain't.
- [87:01]
B
It ain't working. So everything I said here is, is be either looking at somebody who has done it, and I know it works as a community that I think we should do right. And we've tried to do it and we were stamped on and stopped during Black Wall street and things like that. So we know that works.
- [87:20]
A
We know it works. And we can't have the fear of not wanting to do it again because it's like, you know, the only thing I see from that is up the defenses.
- [87:29]
B
Yes.
- [87:29]
A
Up your defense. And don't let white women keep going. If you, you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? Keep the white women out. That's hilarious. Every time the white woman come around and say, these motherfuckers raped us, we lose all goddamn community. So it's just like, okay, number one rule, nobody waving.
- [87:52]
B
But, you know, that's why it's important. It has to be community based.
- [87:55]
A
Yeah.
- [87:55]
B
There's no one, you know, kill, point to where or if they kill Martin Luther King is the end of the.
- [88:01]
A
Yeah. It can't be the end of the movie.
- [88:03]
B
It can't be one person. And look, you know, we could strive. You know what? One thing I love, black people, period, wherever they are on the planet Earth. It's not about, you know, one. What I do well for myself. Doesn't have to be less for you. Right, Right. We believe it's in our DNA, and the African DNA is abundance. We take care of. There's not only abundance to take care of us, there's abundance. Take care of the animals, there's abundance to take care of the whole nature itself.
- [88:35]
A
Yeah.
- [88:35]
B
Okay. And once we tap back into that, get out of this, you know, individualistic mindset of, oh, I'm richer than you, or I'm doing better than you or, or I need to. I need to be above you to feel better about myself until we get out of that and we actually come together and say, hey, this what I could do to do this. This is what I could do to do this. Let's. Let's come together as a community. And it doesn't matter how big or how small it is. We have to make that a culture. Culture is actually your community, your people. It's you, it's me, it's my sister, it's your aunt. We coming together and building unison. That's actual culture. Okay? Because that's sustainable. That builds the next generation and the next generation and the next generation. We don't have that here now. And it's something we have to, we have to actually work on. It has to be intentional.
- [89:32]
A
Yeah.
- [89:32]
B
And we work on that and we.
- [89:34]
A
See the, you know, we can see the, the, the, the Several points of time in our history here where we've had it, you know what I'm saying? As to your point before, it's like, because it's destroyed don't mean it can't be rebuil. Don't mean it can't be rebuilt.
- [89:48]
B
Absolutely.
- [89:48]
A
Even with like the. The culture of hip hop coming, stemming out of street culture, it's like. Yeah, but then once that gets commodified by a corporation, now they get to dictate what the community is.
- [89:58]
B
Now they get to dictate everything.
- [89:59]
A
They get to dictate everything. And you kind of. And you lose access to it. Right?
- [90:03]
B
Yeah.
- [90:03]
A
And you lose access to who represents it. Right. So, yes, what you talking about is like just another rebuilding. Like, you know, it's been done time and time again before, and it's like if the people before us put forth the effort to do it, then we owe it to ourselves.
- [90:18]
B
We owe it to them, we owe it to ourselves. And we're. To the next generation. Absolutely.
- [90:22]
A
You know, Michael Morris, man, you got. You got anything you want to plug before you sign off?
- [90:29]
B
Not much. You could visit if you need transportation. We're actually expanding into Georgia. Caracal Healthcare. So you go to caracocare.com. we're expanding to Georgia and we'll probably start here beginning of the year. Actually, I think we've already started. I take that back. So we're in Georgia now, but yeah, other than that, we have other things coming up, like music festivals. If you're in Houston, we got to get you. Get you over there.
- [91:00]
A
Yeah. For sure.
- [91:01]
B
It. Other than that.
- [91:03]
A
Yeah.
- [91:04]
B
Instagram is the real Mike Morris. And that's it.
- [91:07]
A
Yeah. You got any bush you're reading right now, huh?
- [91:10]
B
Yes, I'm reading the. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. It's a good group book. Yeah. Five Dysfunctions of a Team. I'm going send you a copy. Actually. That's.
- [91:23]
A
Actually I've been reading In Between Worlds by Ta Nehisi Coast. That's where I'm at with it. I had. I had some. I had like a run of just non fiction.
- [91:31]
B
Yeah.
- [91:31]
A
I was like, I need some fiction. Just.
- [91:33]
B
Just cleans the palette real quick.
- [91:35]
A
At least for like November, December. Just cleans the palette.
- [91:38]
B
I can't do non fiction, man.
- [91:39]
A
Yeah, well, he's a great writer, so.
- [91:41]
B
He is a good writer.
- [91:42]
A
Even his fiction just feels real, you know what I'm saying?
- [91:45]
B
He's a really good writer based.
- [91:46]
A
I mean, he's brilliant. So it's like it makes sense. But, man, thank you for pulling up, man. I appreciate you.
- [91:51]
B
I appreciate you, you bringing us here, man. This is. This is actually dope.
- [91:54]
A
Absolutely, bro. You know, you come back, you know, we come. We could probably do this like bian or something.
- [91:59]
B
Come on, man.
- [92:00]
A
I like the conversation.
- [92:01]
B
Come on, man.
- [92:01]
A
Come check in in six months, see what progress.
- [92:03]
B
All right. That's right. No, I'm always down, man. I appreciate y'. All.
- [92:07]
A
Hell yeah, man. All right, well, you know, another episode. Big Cat ain't here today. Big Cat. Big Cat not feeling too well, you know what I'm saying? So we had to leave him behind today, but we'll catch our next week. Fur we out of there, baby.
- [92:22]
B
I just want to rap.
- [92:24]
A
Yeah, Yeah. They say without the proper labor, faith.
- [92:41]
B
Don'T stand a chance.
- [92:43]
A
I put my faith in faith and stand on fertile land I planted seeds that'll indeed turn into trees before rest in peace tease get printed the raise your hand if you've been putting off a dental cleaning, an annual checkup, or honestly, any kind of doctor's appointment. Yeah, yeah. My hands up too. When something feels off. I usually doom scroll my symptoms spiral quietly, convince myself it's probably fine, and then do absolutely nothing about it. But this year, I'm doing things different. I'm finding doctors that I actually feel good about seeing. And I'm booking my appointments with Zocdoc. And you can see it. You know, I went and got that good cleaning. Y' all remember, y' all used to make fun of my teeth because it was yellow. It's gone baby pearly whites now. Zocdoc is a free app and website that helps you find and book high quality in network doctors so you can find someone you love. We're talking about booking in network appointments with more than 150,000 providers across all 50 states. Whether you're looking for dermatology, dentistry, primary care, eye care, or one of the 200 plus specialties offered on Zocdoc, you can easily search by specialty or symptom to build the care team that's right for you. Want to see your doctor in person? Great. Prefer a video visit? You can do that too. You can also view thousands of verified patient reviews, which really helps you get a sense of who your doctor is. Whether they're super common, explain things clearly, or maybe even they root for the same sports team. And when you're ready, you can see their real time availability and click the book instantly. No phone tag, no waiting around. Appointments made through Zocdoc happen fast, typically within 24 to 72 hours of booking, and you can even score same day booking appointments. What I personally love is how much easier ZocDoc makes the whole process. Instead of putting things off or stressing about where to start, everything feels clear and manageable. It honestly removes a lot of the friction that used to keep me from booking appointments in the first place ways, which is exactly what I need. So stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to Zocdoc.com grits to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. That's Z O c d o c.com grits zocdoc.com grits.