The Midnight Library

Summary

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The Friend Zone: "The Midnight Library"

Loud Speakers Network | November 19, 2025 | Hosts: Dustin Ross, Hey Fran Hey (Francesca), Asante

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the concept of alternate lives, inspired by the novel "The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig—a recent Friend Zone book club (Situation series) pick. The hosts dive deep into the choices and circumstances that shaped their lives, contemplating "what-ifs" and exploring how different decisions might have led them down radically different paths. The discussion is rich with personal anecdotes, vulnerability, and humor, as the hosts draw parallels between the book’s themes and their lived experiences. Listeners are invited to reflect on their own alternate lives, and the conversation is peppered with thoughtful recaps, listener feedback, music, and TV picks.

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Highlights & Segment Timestamps

1. Viral Moments & Pop Culture Skewering (01:01–08:20)

• Discussion of the Ariana Grande Premiere Incident:
  • Dustin dives into the recent incident at the Singapore premiere of "Wicked" where fan Johnson Wynn assaulted Ariana Grande.
    • Cynthia Erivo intervened protectively.
    • Johnson is a self-proclaimed troll with prior stunts (e.g., rushing Katy Perry, The Weeknd).
    • He received a 9-day jail sentence for being a public nuisance.
  • The hosts critique celebrity access entitlement and debate appropriate consequences.
  • Memorable exchange on boundaries:
    • Dustin (06:10): “Motherfuckers really have to start creating a boundary between their thoughts and what the real world is, right?”

2. Hosts’ Life Updates: Community, Routines & Food (08:24–18:35)

• Personal Check-ins: Colorful wardrobe banter, weekend recaps, Dustin prepping for comedy shows (09:44), Fran “strict parenting” her own mental health (11:41).
• Portland Korean Food Recommendation: Fran enthusiastically recommends Jeju, praising their ramen essence fried chicken and chopped cheese bao buns. She connects with Marquis, a friendly staff member from South Carolina (13:19).
• Credit Card “Hacks” and Restaurant Perks: Fran's Chase Sapphire Reserve covers her meal (16:40), sparking a quick masterclass on optimizing credit card rewards.

3. Announcements, Recaps & Listener Feedback (20:17–47:19)

• Patreon News: Upcoming Friend Zone live event (21:24), holiday break announcement.
• Panel Feature: Dustin features on Revolt’s The People’s Brief for a discussion on Black masculinity (22:31).
• Black Business Spotlight: Shout out to “Crystal’s Couch” podcast by Crystal (25:28).
• Listener Recaps & Societal Tech Trends:
  • Audience reactions to AI, home robots, digital privacy, and de-digitalization.
  • Nostalgia for cursive handwriting and handwriting’s connection to retention (36:07).
• Homeownership Debate: Mixed emotions from listeners—many bought homes during the pandemic at low rates, weighing the emotional and financial complexities of ownership vs. renting (45:05, email from Nicole at 49:01).
  • Dustin: “You don’t put goodness into the universe and never see a return on it in some way.” (47:19)

4. Main Topic: The Midnight Library & Alternate Lives Discussion (61:07–121:48)

Introduction to "The Midnight Library" (Fran, 61:07)

• Recaps the book and its premise: Nora Seed is suspended between life and death, exploring infinite alternate lives shaped by different choices, and grappling with regret, possibility, and what makes life worth living.

Personal "Midnight Library" Moments

• Asante (66:22):

  • Wondered “what if” he’d stuck with playing cello and orchestra as a kid. Imagines living as a touring classical musician, very different from his current lifestyle.
  • Reflects on how alternate versions of himself—nerd, techie, scientist—still contain the same essence, just colored by different experiences.

• Dustin (67:18):

  • Regrets not coming out earlier: “I would have come out right as soon as I got my first gay erection.” (67:18)
  • Wishes he’d been freed from shame early; believes it set him back a decade in self-development.
  • Alternative paths: missing out on rap and boxing careers due to childhood circumstances.

• Francesca (70:33):

  • Ponders how her life would differ if her biological father had remained present, or if her mother hadn’t married someone who profoundly affected/fractured her trust in adults.
    • “Some people take up so much of your life… it just took up so much of my mind.” (73:43)
  • Considers her calm nature versus her parents’ emotional volatility, and possible implications for her wiring if things had been different.

• Collective Insights:

  • All acknowledge they like who they are now but see how alternate pasts might have led to entirely different skill sets, personalities, or even families.

Friendship and Social Circles

• Changing Schools, Changing Lives:
  • Both Fran and Asante discuss the “what-ifs” of remaining with childhood friend groups and the pain of being pulled out of familiar communities for “better” opportunities (83:03).
    • Fran: “I missed my fucking friends… I just got ripped away from all that I knew.” (84:41)
    • Fran’s mom’s perspective: “Girl, I ripped you from gang violence… not from a vocal performance.” (86:28)

Love, Family, and Parenthood

• Dustin: Reflects on what life might be like if he’d had children earlier and experienced fatherhood the “traditional” way (113:08).
• Fran: Wondered about having siblings; as an only child, she’s fascinated by the sibling dynamic and how it shapes a person (115:25).

Career & Creative Roads Not Taken

• Music Careers (Fran & Dustin):

  • Fran’s thwarted music path: battled controlling industry figures, had natural talent but “so many controlling people.” Considers whether the universe was saving her from something darker (104:59).
    • “No one ever said, ‘What’s the music you want to make?’… It just was hard.”
  • Dustin: Wished he’d pursued rap and boxing; believes he could have found acclaim and a platform for greater activism (89:03).

• Acting Dreams (Asante):

  • Regrets not sticking with a performing arts magnet; wonders if he’d have been an actor today, working with legends.

Memorable Quote

• Dustin, on queer childhood:
  “Why is it doing this for a boy, Mama?” (67:32)

Meta Reflection

• The hosts (Fran especially) note the power of parallel realities: "These are lives that are always in the back of my head...they are existing somewhere right now. That's why you’re thinking about them." (121:20)
• Listeners are invited to share their own “Midnight Library” moments.

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5. Community Impact & Wellness (123:38)

• Listener Impact Stories:
  • Two heartfelt emails spotlight the ripple effect of the Friend Zone highlighting Black-led orgs, resulting in listeners becoming board members or enabling major organizational growth (125:25–129:42).
  • Dustin: “People can talk all this shit they want about going to church on Sunday…that is what God looks like to me.” (133:44)

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6. Music Man & Songs Playlist Lately (137:41–156:44)

• Discussion of R&B women’s catalogues, album covers (Carrie Hilson, 140:34), and new releases (Summer Walker, Tweet, Jalen Josie & Xavier Omar, Tiana Major9, Sampha, Wale).
• Several tracks played as mood-lifters; playlist features both new and classic picks.
• Notable praise: “Summer Walker, she can make really, really classic, timeless sounding songs.” (161:12)

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7. TV Land – What to Watch (163:49–183:57)

• Reality TV:
  • “Baddies USA Chapter 1” returns to form; Dustin gleefully recaps an explosive brawl and ongoing drama (165:52).
  • Dustin recommends watching “All Her Fault” on Peacock (167:39), lauding Dakota Fanning and a supporting cast’s performances.
• Other Recs:
  • “A Different World” reboot announcement excites the crew (173:17), with a new cohort of Black talent and Debbie Allen directing.
  • Shout to Debbie Allen’s honorary Oscar, plus buzz from BravoCon: new RHOA cast members, major drama recapped from Bravo panels.
  • Fran plugs new Eddie Murphy doc on Netflix (183:33).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Boundaries and Celebrity Culture:
  • Dustin: “People have to start creating a boundary between their thoughts and what the real world is, right?” (06:10)
• On Regret & Coming Out:
  • “I should have just released myself from shame and all the things that really, honestly held me back for a long time.” (Dustin, 67:32)
• On Childhood Friendships Lost:
  • Fran: “I missed the friends that we were figuring out life with… all of a sudden, I got thrown into a world that did not feel right for me.” (84:41)
• On Parenting and Sibling Dynamics:
  • Dustin: "I would have liked to have experienced that in my lifetime... Damn, wow. My kids running and playing. I just wonder what that would have felt like.” (115:25)
• Listener Impact Email:
  • “You didn’t just amplify us, you helped position us to save more lives…That episode dropped on the exact same day that our tour launched…the kind of timing you can’t plan nor explain.” (Listener Kenesha, 126:06)

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Takeaways

• Personal Choices Shape Us—But Every Life Contains Its Blessings & Struggles

  • The hosts recognize that while “what ifs” are natural, each path—no matter how imperfect—produces beauty and resilience.
  • Alternate realities both haunt and comfort us, but actual self-acceptance and gratitude are at the core of mental wealth.

• Community Power & Representation Matter

  • Highlighting Black- and LGBTQ-led organizations can create serious, measurable change.
  • Diverse representation (in media, leadership, and the arts) shapes possibilities for generations.

• Don’t Sleep on Your Playlist

  • R&B still reigns, and the legacy of women in the genre needs ongoing celebration.

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Next Week's Prompt:
Fran invites listeners to share their own “Midnight Library” alternate realities:
"What are some alternate lives you have thought about? Something you daydream about or were almost living—until something or someone changed your course?"

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For more:

• Join the Patreon for live events, book club, and the Situation series.
• Support featured Black businesses: Ifly Youth (iflyouth.org) and Black Girls Can, Inc.

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Stay Black and protect your magic!

Transcript

[Asante]

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[Dustin Ross]

A no name QB and an injured rookie running back.

[Asante]

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[Asante]

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[Asante]

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[Commercial Voice]

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[Dustin Ross]

Welcome to the friend Zone.

[Francesca]

Every time I'm in the zone.

[Asante]

My name is Dustin.

[Francesca]

I'm Francesca, also known as hey friend.

[Asante]

Hey. My name is Asante. This is the friend zone.

[Dustin Ross]

Let's start the show.

[Francesca]

Because look at the end of the day people do what the you allow. This is a child and I ain't got time for that damn direct.

[Dustin Ross]

Do we need it again? Let's run it back this week.

[Francesca]

Because look at the end of the day, people do what the you allow. This is a child and I ain't got time for that. That.

[Dustin Ross]

That's right. Yeah. And so the child that I'm referring to this week is. I don't know if you guys have seen it or not. I'm sure you have, but there was a, you know, Wicked for Good just came out, the sequel to the movie Wicked. They're having premieres all over the world. They recently had a premiere in Singapore. And at the premiere, Ariana Grande, Cynthia Rivo and other cast members were walking the carpet. And this maniac fan, this guy with, he has the bottom portion of his hair dyed turquoise and then it's like black and spiky. Otherwise he considers himself a troll. He's a self proclaimed troll. And he ran down on the carpet, grabbed Ariana Grande around her neck and was like holding her neck like this, right? Cynthia Erivo. He literally hopped a barricade and ran down on the carpet. Cynthia. And so security comes in, but before security can even intervene, Cynthia Erivo puts her body, she pushes him and pushes her body in between him and Ariana Grande and kind of like shields Ariana Grande. We've all seen their press tour for the first film in the franchise, so we know that they Just they friends.

[Francesca]

They are friends.

[Dustin Ross]

And so Cynthia Revo protected her. But then videos kept coming up. This has done this to other people too. He ran up on the stage. I don't know if y' all remember, but Katy Perry was performing on her tour one time and this ran up on the stage and Katie was like, what the. She was like, just enjoy it. It's only gonna happen once. And like the security came and got him. He ran up on the weekend stage too.

[Asante]

Oh my.

[Francesca]

Okay, so this really is.

[Dustin Ross]

Security grabbed him. So after he ran up on Ariana Grande or what have you, he made a video and this is what he had to say after he made the video. This is who he is. For those of you who are on Patreon, crazy. And the hair just like I described it, right? Right.

[Francesca]

Oh, yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

Anyway, this is what he said after he ran down on Ariana Grande on the curse.

[Francesca]

Yes, finally I dreamed about meeting Ariana Grande. And finally my Dre dream that came true. Look how cool that is. He's like a Disney villain.

[Dustin Ross]

So the nigga's name is Johnson Wynn. Johnson Win is the last name. He's an Australian man and he was the one who ran down on Ariana at the premiere in Singapore. He was actually arrested by the authorities and then later charged in court for being a public nuisance, which to me is at least that they could call them. And yeah, he was arrested and so now he's been sentenced to a nine day jail sentence. Right. For this he's been sent to a nine day stand. My thing is this right? What the is wrong with you? Like Roli said at the beginning of the show, only do what you allow them to do. Right him up. If you always running down on celebrities and. And running up interrupting tours and concerts, you know what I'm saying? We've performed in a live space. We know, we've produced live events. We know how much work and shit goes into that. You interrupting that is just not okay to do number one. It's a huge safety concern because I don't know you bitch. You could be a goddamn. What you are a crazy motherfucker off the street. You know what I'm saying? Running up on me like that. He's lucky that he's running up on the right events because to me, part of his sentencing needs to be that he has to do. Since that's what you want to do. Do it other now that's TV premieres.

[Asante]

Do it.

[Dustin Ross]

Do it to some of them Tubi movie premieres.

[Asante]

He run up on who is it? Burner boy who be beating the out.

[Francesca]

Of them people to play with?

[Dustin Ross]

Run up on Will. Remember when Will Smith smacked that?

[Asante]

Oh my God.

[Dustin Ross]

You know what I'm saying?

[Francesca]

But my thing is, shouldn't they. Shouldn't he do more time when they put together all of these incidents? Like, you know what I mean? It shouldn't be an individual case by case. Like this is a public nuisance for years now. So something. It should be a greater charge, I would assume.

[Dustin Ross]

I assume I took public stoning. Death by public stoning. That's what I want to see happen. But here's the thing, because you ain't run up on my. I got comedy shows coming up. Run up on my stage if you want to.

[Francesca]

Nah.

[Dustin Ross]

Okay, look, the joke is literally going to be on you, but I just don't think that that's cool, man. And motherfuckers really have to start boundaring like creating a boundary between their thoughts and what the real world is, right? I think that with the introduction of accessibility to celebrities and shit through social media and through them being more attainable, people feel entitled to certain access. And he thinks it's okay. Like, you see what he said? I wanted to meet Ariana granny. It's so cool that I got to do that. That's what that said. So it's a joke to him until it's not. Make an example out of him. Rock his job.

[Francesca]

That's what I mean.

[Dustin Ross]

Rock his jaw. I wish Cynthia, she got them now. She should have scratched them. Oh my God, she should have scratched him when he ran down on them. You know what I'm saying? Give him something to talk about.

[Francesca]

Is he a content creator?

[Dustin Ross]

He's a self proclaimed troll named Johnson.

[Francesca]

Okay, because I thought, I'm like, is he streaming this? Is he posting this? Like, is this his brand or he's just a dude that wants to meet these people this badly.

[Dustin Ross]

He describes himself as a troll in, in his Instagram bio. And that's according to USA Today.

[Francesca]

That's crazy.

[Dustin Ross]

So. And if you got a problem with that, you can take that up with Anna Kaufman because that's who wrote the article. But I am sick of him and I want somebody to beat his ass. I don't understand why he keeps doing that to these people. If you a celebrity and he runs up on that stage, push him off. We all know what happens when people fall off of concert stages. Bad consequences, right? So push him off the stage. Push him in the. Let his ass crowd surf. He want to meet people. Let him Meet them fans that don't like what he did to Ariana Grande. You want to go to her concert so bad, push him out in the crowd to crowd surf, you know what I'm saying? Let's get creative with the punishments and consequences here because he has decided to imagine a world. Speaking of Ariana Grande, Imagine. That's my favorite song by her. But anyway, that's really the only song I know by her.

[Asante]

Yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

But anyway, fuck him. And I want him to run up on the baddies and so that they can have target practice with his ass. Run down on Tommy. Run down on the premiere, Jocelyn's cabaret, you know what I'm saying? Run down on some of them. That's what he deserves. So with that being said, understood and dispelled, because we don't want him to do that to nobody else. Right? Welcome to the Friend Zone, Your weekly looking all things mental health. Mental health. Message. Anyway. Hey, friend. Hey, Asante. How you doing?

[Francesca]

How y' all doing? Y' all look good. I was saying earlier, I love all the colors today.

[Dustin Ross]

Thank you so much.

[Francesca]

Y' all look very festive. Y' all killing it with the green today.

[Asante]

Thank you.

[Dustin Ross]

I'm actually wearing green and beige, but we're gonna say gold because Bishop Don Magic wand said, green is for the money and gold is for the honeys. I like both.

[Francesca]

Y' all look so good. How are your weekends? What did y' all get up to?

[Dustin Ross]

Thank you.

[Asante]

Good. Weekend was good. Weather's been weathering.

[Francesca]

Mm.

[Asante]

So I'm trying to work my way with that. Not really sure which way it goes. It's like cold. It's, like cold, but then it's not too cold sometimes, but then they get real cold. And then it was raining for a little bit, but now it's not raining, so just doing a little bit of a lot. I don't really like that. Did I say that? Everything's good. Life is good. I'm actually wearing blue, but because of color, it looks like it. So it's striped blue and there's, like, white in between. But it's like kind of like a darkish way, like a brownish white a little bit. So it makes it look green, but.

[Francesca]

I think that's cool. I love that shirt every time you wear it.

[Asante]

Thank you. Thank you. That's why I bought it, because it's. It looks. It does look green, hence the green beanie to set it off. But it is blue if you look real close. So just a little dumb shit like that. Yeah. How about you, Dustin?

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah, Had a good weekend. I was deeply, deeply in workshop on a new set for my comedy shows coming up. Got three shows on the calendar right now. Head over to dustinrosslive.com I actually went out and tested some jokes somewhere where didn't nobody know me this weekend, and they was a hit.

[Francesca]

That's cool.

[Asante]

So.

[Dustin Ross]

So, like, so you know what I'm saying? And it was a different audience. Okay. But still my me 100% me. Just like I'm gonna do on that stage and it works. So I was like. Because, you know, you always want your jokes to be one size fits most. You know what I'm saying?

[Francesca]

Right?

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah. But anyway, so I did that this weekend. Got some things done around the crib, and I also had some very important. Y' all know, I had to adjust our schedule for some business matters on Monday. So God is good. I'm. I'm saying that and praying that. Okay.

[Francesca]

Amen.

[Dustin Ross]

Rolling like that and you know, so that's what I'm on. I had a working. A weekend of working, but it was productive. Yeah.

[Francesca]

Yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

What about you, Francesca?

[Francesca]

I'm feeling really good. I'm ending this year feeling much better. I feel like the year as a whole felt a little weird, which I mentioned before. I just felt a little off. I came into it off. Remember our listener Joseph reminded me or reminded us in the comments that I had mentioned I cried on New Year's. So I feel like that's why you.

[Dustin Ross]

Need to roll with me this year.

[Francesca]

Right? I. Right. For New Year's. I'm actually gonna be in Oakland for New Year's, which I'm not really excited.

[Asante]

Oh, you gonna go get hypy?

[Dustin Ross]

I'm have you looking like that picture Diana Ross in the club. You know that picture? You know what picture I'm talking about?

[Francesca]

No, I'm be in Oakland, which is gonna be super cute. But I. I mentioned yes, you know, it. I mentioned that. And ha. Which would be really nice.

[Dustin Ross]

Hey, Ha.

[Francesca]

Hey, Ha.

[Asante]

What up, Haas?

[Francesca]

I mentioned that one mental health hack that works for me when I don't feel good is I become a strict parent on myself. And what that looks like is bedtimes, wake up times, scheduled food. Like, my breakfast, lunch, and dinner are the same time every day. I'm at the gym at the same time every day. We have our blocks from when we film. You know, like, everything is just super tight. There's almost like no room for error. And I notice that when I'm not feeling well. That helps me to do that because it's almost like I put myself on this autopilot, autopilot, where my brain doesn't have as much time to be so flowy and go in all the places that it starts going in. And I've been doing that for the past month. And I feel like, you know, it's just like a relief. Like, I just feel a lot better, so. And, you know, it's a good way to battle this. This gloomy kind of end of year weather that's. That's kicking up on this side and apparently on y' all side too. But, yeah, it's chilly out here, too. And we also tried a new restaurant. So good. It's called Jeju. If anyone is out here or around here or coming to Portland to. To eat, because really, that's what we're good for. It's this Korean restaurant named Jeju. J E J U Y' all the best fried chicken I've had in a long time. I won't say ever, but I'll say in a long time. Oh, my God.

[Asante]

The Koreans can fry some chicken now and then.

[Francesca]

They call it ramen essence. So it's a ramen essence double fried chicken. Are you kidding me? We were sitting there like. And you know what? I want to shout out Marquis, he's this young black kid that works there. He's from South Carolina. And he saw us eating the chicken. He was like, it's good, ain't it? I don't know why that was just so funny for us. And it was cool because we could tell, oh, he's not from here. Just the way he was, like, playful with us. And we ended up talking to him after and connecting. We talked to him for, like, 15 minutes. I know he was like, shit, I gotta go and bust my tables.

[Dustin Ross]

That's cool.

[Francesca]

But he was so cool. And we just talked about, like, what brought him out here. What brought us out here. You know, he gave us some more suggestions on places to eat, and it was just really cool. I had to shout him out because he made the experience extra fun. And. Yeah, good. I just. I get happy when we find a new restaurant. I'm like, yes, another one like that.

[Dustin Ross]

It's nothing like that. Because you want to have a surplus.

[Francesca]

You want to have that little your go to list. Especially when you get visitors, you know, like, where to take everybody, you know.

[Dustin Ross]

And you get tired of shit. When you do find things you like and you start getting it a lot, you get tired of it. So you need options.

[Francesca]

Yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

You know, there's also a story Behind Why that. Why Korean fried chicken is so good. But that's a whole nother episode.

[Francesca]

I remember it was the soldiers, right? The soldiers were teaching them. And I remember. I remember looking that up. Cause I was like, where do they get. This is so. It is so good. But they killed it. That spot. It's also a really nice date spot. If you're out here. Not that you even need to go. Someone, you deserve it, go by yourself. It's just a beautiful restaurant. It's small, but really beautiful. Beautiful lighting. Everyone that works there is super fun and nice and has great energy. Just a really good place. And so I'm adding that to my arsenal. And Claude on. All our family and friends come, right When y' all come, I got some plates for.

[Dustin Ross]

Y' all go down there and tip them at Jeju. Y' all go down there and tip the sad bottle.

[Francesca]

Y' all go get you some food. They also had a chopped cheese bao bun.

[Asante]

Really?

[Francesca]

Talk about fusion bao bun with chopped cheese from New York. And at first I rolled my eyes. I'm not gonna lie. Cause I was like, I hate when they be trying to elevate a chopped cheese.

[Dustin Ross]

But it was good.

[Asante]

But then you took that bite.

[Dustin Ross]

I was like, jeju been hanging out with juju. How you know how to make that order?

[Asante]

That.

[Francesca]

That's what I said. I said, what in the. It was so good.

[Dustin Ross]

Well, my interest is peaked.

[Asante]

Okay.

[Francesca]

That's the. Yeah.

[Asante]

Just reminiscence. Fried chicken, Chuck cheese, bow bun.

[Francesca]

What? It was just. They understand some things.

[Dustin Ross]

What you say, what kind of bun you said it was.

[Francesca]

And Kool Aid.

[Dustin Ross]

Oh, my God.

[Asante]

What was that drink they used to sell at Amy Roos? It was like the.

[Dustin Ross]

Oh, that red. The red sugary, sweet. Oh, I go back just for that.

[Asante]

Because it was like Kool Aid. But it was like a half Kool Aid. Half some.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's good, and it's red, and it come in the things from the Chinese food place.

[Francesca]

Oh, so you know it's the little Y. Yep. And you know what was the best part? The dinner was free. Because of my Chase Reserve, I have a sapphire card. This restaurant is in a collection, apparently, of restaurant collections that are in partnership with the card. And so the girl was like, oh, you're part of the collection thing. And I was like, yeah. And our meal was free.

[Dustin Ross]

Get out of here. Actually, get in there. You need to go back.

[Asante]

That is crazy.

[Dustin Ross]

Wow, that's cool.

[Francesca]

I was like, that is so great. Cause people need to look into cards More too. Cause you can use your points. You know, you're. You're. You don't know what partnerships they have. That'll give you really cool discounts. And that was just. That just made it.

[Dustin Ross]

That's incredible. And what really makes it dope is that it wasn't just. You would have been grateful for a discount as well. But the fact that the mail was just free.

[Francesca]

Just free.

[Dustin Ross]

That's a. That's what I'm talking about, I think.

[Francesca]

Because on that card, you get a 300 annual credit towards restaurants within their collection.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah, See, people usually think that that's something that has to accrue at a small PA that takes forever to amount to something real. That's a good rewards program.

[Francesca]

Hell, yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

Really actually see the impact like that in real time.

[Francesca]

All those cars are really worth it, honestly, because you get travel credit towards.

[Asante]

When you be looking at them hotel things, you'll be getting them free.

[Dustin Ross]

Nice.

[Asante]

And. And free upgrades.

[Francesca]

Yep. The card has a thing called the edit, where you. That's like their curated hotel collection. And they give you, I think, $300. I think it's 3 or 500 towards hotels. It might be 5, actually. You get money towards the flight, which is 300. You get money towards restaurants and, you know, it has its own lounge. People usually only talk about amex. Obviously. I understand that's like peace and tin.

[Asante]

But like, literally, literally all credit cards have, like, different categories because even smaller credit cards, there are so many.

[Francesca]

Capital One I hear a lot about.

[Asante]

There are some smaller credit card. Well, Capital One is still a pretty big bank, but, like, there are smaller ones that will give you, like, hotel stays. They'll be like, all right, if you buy two nights, we'll give you two nights free. And it's like, not just two, and then a one. Like two and two. Like, I'd be looking at certain credit cards. Like, shit, I'm gonna just give me one of them bad boys just to get this, you know?

[Francesca]

Yeah, it's worth it.

[Asante]

Everybody has different categories for different things. That's why people that, like, grocery shop a lot. Some. Sometimes they'll get a credit card that'll give them like 5 or 10% cash back versus the one that'll just give them the 1% cash back. So, yeah, it's a game. But, you know, if you play it right, you're gonna end up like, friend having some free meals.

[Francesca]

And I think it's worth it because we're gonna have credit cards. Right. You get one that works to your advantage in different ways you need to.

[Asante]

Get ones that suit your needs.

[Francesca]

Yeah. Whether it's miles for your flights, whatever it is.

[Asante]

Yep.

[Francesca]

Yeah. So I think that's something that I feel like the past couple years, I've been a little bit more, like, intentional about. Cause it's just so cool. Like, you're just like, oh, shit. And Open Table is the app that I use when I make reservations or resi. Resi is good too, but I tend to like Open Table and Open Table. When you click on the restaurant, it'll let you know what partnerships it has that will show you, like, which card you can use for that particular payment. And that's just so cool to me.

[Dustin Ross]

I love this Big Macs in tech.

[Francesca]

Ain't it, though? But anyways, that's my little spiel. Let's jump. Do you guys have any Big Macs in tech? It's crazy.

[Asante]

Crazy.

[Francesca]

Do you have any announcements or anything you want the folks to know?

[Dustin Ross]

Go ahead, tell you.

[Asante]

First, if you are a member of our Patreon, there are a couple of special things happening. And you all need to know if you're listening to this episode today, Wednesday, that this episode drops on the 19th. We're actually going live tonight. Okay. Next week is Thanksgiving and we are thankful to have you as part of our Patreon, which is why we are going live tonight. Okay, that is Wednesday the 19th, 8:00pm Eastern Standard Time. You can see us. You can come be part of lechat. Lechat. Y' all know what's up. Y' all know we love y'. All. If you don't know what Lechat is, go to patreon.com friendsonpodcast you can find out. The second announcement is if you love the live and you're not going to be able to make it tonight, you know we always have that. That rewind for you. But next month we will be going on break in December. December 17th is the date of our final live for the year. So you have time to see us tonight, you have time to see us next month. You have time to finish this year strong with the Friend Zone community. We love you all. Patreon.com friendzone podcast Want to make sure I gave you all the notice.

[Francesca]

Nice. That'll be fun. I always love the lives. Anything else, y'? All?

[Dustin Ross]

Hell yeah. So shout out to Revolt and shout out to Lanae Vanille. I was a guest. I was featured on her show the People's Brief, an incredible show where she does great work. If you're not familiar with her get that way. But yes. So you can go on Revolt's YouTube channel and look up La Navenie, the people's brief. I was featured in a conversation about black masculinity and how multifaceted it is, what it looks like. I was a part of an incredible. Thank you. I was part of an incredible panel with Steve Sanders, Obo Jones, Deontay Kyle, and myself and Lenaevan. He basically gave us. He's incredible, man. All these guys are great. And we shout out to all of them, too. I have been. I've actually talked about Steve Sanders on this show before. Before I even know he worked in that capacity because his wife was featured on Married to medicine last season. Dr. Mimi and I used to always say, Dr. Mimi, husband be having that shit on. You know what I'm saying?

[Francesca]

Interesting.

[Dustin Ross]

So we get in the green room. We in Atlanta at the Revolt studios. We get in the green room, and I'm looking at him, I'm like, I know this nigga, man. Like, I went and used the back of my camera. I said, n. I know exactly who you are. I said. And we had a conversation about his clothes. Steve is cool as hell. Super, super, super smart. Really smart, really great commentator, and had a really great comment contribution to that conversation. So Deontay Kyle as well, hosted Grits and Eggs podcast. And then, of course, Obo Jones, an incredible content creator. All really strong guys that I was honored to share that space with. So check it out. It's on YouTube. I'll send it to the powers that be over here at the Friend Zone.

[Francesca]

I was putting it in there. Congratulations.

[Dustin Ross]

Thank you so much. That's really dope. So run that up, y'. All. Go watch it. Leave a comment. Everybody's socials up. Y' all know what to do. We appreciate the love, and that way we can do it again.

[Francesca]

Absolutely.

[Dustin Ross]

Also, and if you want to laugh, I'm talking cash. November 30th in Charlotte at the Comedy Bar. The show is at 3pm It's a matinee show on November 30, then also on December 4 in Miami at the Miami Improv. And another show that I can't talk about yet, but we announcing this week. So. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Almost told, too.

[Francesca]

Shit, they gonna be excited about that.

[Dustin Ross]

Hell, yeah. So that's all I got to say this week. We could move on.

[Francesca]

All right, well, congratulations.

[Dustin Ross]

Thank you.

[Francesca]

Let's highlight our black business of the week. One of our siblings has a new show. There's a new kid on the Block.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah.

[Francesca]

Chris Couch. You know we have to shout our sister.

[Dustin Ross]

Hell yeah.

[Francesca]

So it says, come in and take a seat on Crystal's couch. Each week, Crystal brings sharp truth along with her own lived experience and insight to listener letters, solo reflections, and candid conversations. Equal parts culture, critique and care. This trailer that she posted this week, or last week rather, introduced the show's mix of honest advice, tough love, and gentle accountability. So you'll know what it feels like to be heard, challenged, and maybe a little bit healed. Tune in and get comfortable. This isn't therapy, but it just might be the next best thing. I love that description. Crystal. It was so good seeing the trailer and then the drop of the first episode. And we have to shout out Jade.

[Dustin Ross]

Yes.

[Francesca]

Who is in the background lending her comedy, her own insight and just her energy, which I think the two of them together is just pure magic. So I'm excited about this. Crystal's couch. And you can find it wherever you get your favorite podcast.

[Dustin Ross]

Yes. And on YouTube.

[Francesca]

And it's on YouTube. The visuals are on YouTube, so make sure to check that out. Leave comments, press like and just support it. Share it in any way that you can.

[Dustin Ross]

Crystal, we're the fans of Crystal's couch and our. Our fan name is the Couch Potatoes. So just so everybody knows, I love that that's what we are, we the Couch Potatoes. Yup.

[Francesca]

And I love the logo with Lainey. So damn cute. I can't take it.

[Dustin Ross]

Shout out to my girl, man.

[Francesca]

Shout out to Happy for Crystal. Right now. Let's jump into the recap segment. So the week before last, Asante dropped an episode titled mouth. Was it mouth and height?

[Dustin Ross]

Yes.

[Francesca]

Thank you. Thank you, Dustin Ross. I kept thinking people are gonna think we misspelled, misspelled it.

[Dustin Ross]

They got it.

[Francesca]

They actually knew. Yes.

[Dustin Ross]

You saw, started posting clips.

[Asante]

You know what I'm saying?

[Francesca]

We discussed the latest AI, robot and tech developments and those of you listening had a lot to say. Who stood out to you? Asante?

[Asante]

Shout out to everybody in the Spotify streets. A lot of very funny comments. I'll share just a few of them. First one is from Tay Hamilton. Tay says the Latoya Jackson title is sending me already. Just shout out to you for having known that that was just a wow. What a special audience that we have. Also want to give a shout out to Shan 1985. Speaking of our smart, smart audience, Shan says, I'm always amazed by the number of people who have obviously never seen smart house, iRobot companion, or even Megan, like be for real. Why are people being so trust of robots and technology? If I had extra 20k, I'd be traveling rather than buying a damn robot to fold my laundry. Shan was speaking to the conversation we were having about one of the new robots that was on the market that I was mentioning called Neo that was up for pre order that people and since then other robots have hit the market. So there are at least like four robots out right now that they're talking about coming to market for next year. So just glad that I brought that up. Even if it was to piss y' all off just a little bit.

[Dustin Ross]

I'mma tell you right motherfucking now too. I don't discriminate. If your robot roll up on me, it's broke. I'm telling you right? You better have some insurance on that motherfucker for real. Because if your robot come up on me like it's going down, it's going down. I'mma break your robot, I'm telling you right now.

[Asante]

Well, Dustin, this last comment I'll share is for you. It's from La La Cater.

[Dustin Ross]

You could keep it. It's not no damn caterer wanna argue today.

[Asante]

This is somebody you might have to fight for or with because they you on this. Lala Ryan8847 says the way I was in the shower when Dustin said the robot, it's gonna pull the curtain back because remember the US So imagine being.

[Dustin Ross]

In the shower and hearing a fire catch.

[Asante]

Oh my God, I am so so. That was so damn funny.

[Francesca]

That had me.

[Asante]

That's it for the mountain height episode. Friend, what did you find out there in them streets?

[Francesca]

So I was in SoundCloud. Hey SoundCloud. Briana said, hey, friend zone. Another great episode. As always, I wanted to make a quick note about the NEO home robot. When I heard that someone would be operating the robot remotely, my antennas shot up. I have a background in marketing and the first thing that came to mind was big data. The big data and analytics market is projected to reach nearly $1 trillion by 2032. And I wouldn't be surprised if the early stages of Neo, or even the later stages end up being used to quietly survey the products and layout of your home. That kind of information could help create a profile that's uniquely tailored to you. With AI and advanced analytics, they could very accurately predict the types of products you'd be interested in and sell that data to major companies looking to target you with highly specific strategic ads. My God. And then Chioma in the soundcloud street says, I looked Right. I always have. I looked up the robotics company because I had never heard of it. Y'. All. They are only paying the operators 23 to 32 dollars per hour to run these in your home. And there's no experience required. It could literally be anyone with that much access to your home and personal data. And you know these robots are about to be seeing everything.

[Asante]

Wow.

[Francesca]

I love that our listeners go and dig in.

[Asante]

Yeah.

[Francesca]

Because that's.

[Dustin Ross]

And they get it like we get it. The robot ain't gonna be seeing over here. I can tell you that much. Okay.

[Francesca]

And then one last one. Right. Emmy Hale. This is actually in the gated community. Emmy said. A friend of mine and I have been undergoing what we call de digitalization and it's been for a minute now just reverting back to how things were when we were coming up. She's a bit more intense about it than I am. She barely has any apps on her phone anymore. She's canceled not. She's canceled all but two of her streaming services and started buying DVDs of anything she wants to watch. She even uses physical maps and walking guys instead of gps. And we've both recently gotten off of Spotify and started leaning into our CD and vinyl collections. But on the go access to my music is still something I need. Especially since I drive a lot and my car no longer has a CD player. I also have a child with increasingly particular music tastes and I don't live in a super walkable transit heavy city. So while she makes playlists with a CD burner and carries a walkman around. Wow. She is not playing with y'. All.

[Asante]

Dedicated.

[Francesca]

I've made the transition to Apple music. All the reels and chat function endless pop ups and real people don't make their playlists anymore. It's all AI. So you just get pushed the same artist over and over again. She also said the owner of Spotify recently invested millions into AI military drone companies and has been running ICE recruitment ads on the platform. So all that to say I'm active actively working on simplifying many aspects of my life again and engaging as ethically as possible. And I have to say that it feels better in my brain. She also added, and for those wondering about how to move platforms without losing your whole catalog or spending forever doing a manual transfer. Apparently Apple recently built in the Song Shift software into the iPhone so you can easily transfer your entire library from one platform to another.

[Dustin Ross]

Ain't they? Nevermind. Because she her heart in the right place.

[Francesca]

So I her friend is intense But I admire that, that she said, gps, I'm getting maps. No streaming services. I am using my DVDs and CDs.

[Dustin Ross]

What's your Internet off? You bad.

[Francesca]

One thing at a time, brother.

[Dustin Ross]

Get rid of your Internet. You so bad. No, I'm just playing. I'm just.

[Francesca]

I think it's cool.

[Asante]

I will say that there is something to that, too, because with all of the technology that comes out, we're becoming lazier and lazier in ways that we don't even realize lies.

[Francesca]

Right?

[Asante]

Like, I was looking at, like, one of those Instagram things that said skills that won't exist in X amount of years or whatever. One of them was like, cursive, because, you know, don't write cursive no more. And then it was saying even. Even reading a map, you know, everyone's so reliant on gps, which has been a complaint of mine for years, how people just rely on the gps. And I'm like, don't you live here? You don't know how to go to. You don't know how to get to where you're going in your city. Like, if you knew or, you know, you're just visiting. Sure. But if you have lived there, you have to have the GPS every time you get in the car. So, I mean, not that I want to pull out an actual physical map every motherfucking time, but I don't think people even know how to read those because the GPS just tells them what to do.

[Dustin Ross]

I'm going to tell you on this. I think you need to have an internal compass at some point, right. If you. And you shouldn't be relying on the gps. You need to know what's up, what's north and south, what's east and west. And then you can place things in your mind in locations and understand how to navigate and traverse the area. You grown ass. You need to get off that app and like Asante said, put the tip of your finger on a map somewhere and feel it go that way. You know which way you're going?

[Asante]

No.

[Dustin Ross]

Because you know what you're doing?

[Francesca]

No, but I told y', all, my sense of direction is t rash.

[Asante]

Have you ever seen someone.

[Dustin Ross]

What's the word? I'm looking. You're. What's the word I'm looking for? You have immunity.

[Asante]

You know you do. Have you ever seen someone freak out after missing their exit? Now, there's a few. There's a few reasons to freak out, right? There's a reason to freak out because you know you have to go all the way back around, There's a reason to freak out, because maybe you won't be able to get to where you're going for another 10 to 15 minutes. But if you are literally freaking out because you don't know how to. How to get back, back to the ex. The previous exit that you just missed, like, it's the highway, you know, all you gotta do is get off and come back around. And sometimes it might be a little bit more complicated, but you should always have, like, a general idea of what to do. And certain people just don't. Like, they're just like. I don't even know. Like, if I can look at the street sign and see, like, this is northwest, and be like, all right, well, this is northwest. So if I should follow this. No. Oh, damn. Ah, Fizzle sticks. But, yeah. But, yeah, people just don't even know how to, like, find that. And I think that that's a problem. Like, if you can, like, take a moment and find it. All right, good. But if you really just, like. I don't know how to, like, start. I gotta get my phone ac.

[Dustin Ross]

Your ass don't need to be driving if you don't have an understanding that the highway goes in two different directions. If you can't. If you're. Let's keep it. Let's take it there. If you can't.

[Asante]

Because when you're riding, you're new. There are people that have been on the road for years that just don't and won't.

[Francesca]

And I'm just like, yeah, it's possible because I'm still, like, half the time.

[Dustin Ross]

If you can't grasp the concept that the highway goes in two opposite directions and that if you need to reverse your course, you have to get off and come back the other way and then go back where you were coming from, your ass don't need. You ain't got no business driving. You ain't got no business doing a lot of stuff. But if you can't understand that as a concept, get off the road. I'm sorry.

[Francesca]

I feel you. And I wanted to point asante mentioning cursive writing. So Kia was talking about how she feels like her penmanship has gotten worse because she takes notes and does most of her work on the computer. Now, I am someone that writes down everything. I can't do anything on the computer. I can't take notes on the computer. I can't. I'd never. If I was in college right now, I'd probably be the weirdo with a notebook book and A pen. Just write.

[Asante]

Everybody got their laptops.

[Francesca]

I just. There's something about it that I feel like I remember things better and more if I write it out. It's something about how it registers in my brain as opposed to typing it. Do y' all not have that?

[Asante]

Yep.

[Dustin Ross]

Same when it. When I have to study things. Even like my comedy shows especially study handwritten so that I understand for some reason it registers.

[Francesca]

Yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

Even more. And then I, of course, some type of mind.

[Francesca]

The hand connection. Yeah. It's like it makes it click. And so that's why even, like, y' all see, I've always. Anyone that. That watches us on Patreon, you always see, I have my. My. This whole notebook is this. This year of friend zones. All my notes and research and all that. I have to write it out and from scratch. From scratch, literally. And I had to. And Lark, the father from loan, he had sent me an email. And it was a 12 page letter, handwritten, that he wrote incursive for his wife that he wanted me to read. And my brain was like, whoa. When I saw the cursive. Because I was like, when was the last time you read cursive? Handwriting came right back to. You took so long to read 12 pages. No, but it took me like, my brain was like, whoa.

[Asante]

Because you was really trying. Cause you hadn't seen the letters in so long. It's like you knew them.

[Francesca]

But, like, think about it. When was the last time you sat and read 12 pages of cursive?

[Dustin Ross]

True.

[Francesca]

My brain was slow. I was like, this is bad. I need to read more cursive. I need to write more cursive. I couldn't even tell you. Aside from our signatures, obviously. I don't remember the last time I wrote a full thought out or something in a full. You know, in cursive.

[Asante]

I have never written a full.

[Francesca]

Maybe too.

[Asante]

I remember in school practicing cursive and maybe writing sentences. Sentences. But I don't think I've ever wrote. Written like a full paper or pages.

[Dustin Ross]

Because, you know, faster. Right. Writing and cursive for me.

[Asante]

Right. When you.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah, because it was faster.

[Francesca]

Like in a diary, maybe. Yeah, I could see that. So interesting.

[Dustin Ross]

General especially. And then like, my mom could. My mom knows shorthand, so she could, like take notes in shorthand and like that. And break down. Look at that. And break it all the way down. Like, read you a whole thing and it ain't nothing but three words. I'm like, how does she know how to do that shit? So it's a lot of people that, you know, understand me personally. I could just write cursive. Cursive is going to be for the next generation what calligraphy was for us.

[Francesca]

Yeah, I could see that.

[Dustin Ross]

That's what it's going to be.

[Francesca]

The unique way it looks like a specialty where you're just like, oh wow, look. I remember my grandpa used to sit with this really fancy pen and a ruler. That's how obsessive he was. He would write with a ruler so that everything.

[Dustin Ross]

Everything was straight out.

[Francesca]

Was straight. Which is crazy cause the paper had lines. But he still needed a ruler.

[Asante]

Precision.

[Francesca]

Right? It was so. But it was. He had the most beautiful handwriting. And I just feel like we have lost the recipes.

[Asante]

Yeah, I'm left handed. My regular writing looks like trash. My cursive looks like trash. And not to say that every left handed person does. I know some left handed people that have like a beautiful cursive and I'm like, damn, I don't know how you did it but. But I ain't make it there.

[Dustin Ross]

Well, and also most doctors, most of the smartest people, you know, look at how your prescriptions look when they're exactly.

[Asante]

Y. Yeah, that's what people tell me about my signature. They'd be like, they be like, are you in? I'm like, I'm not. I look like I can force some signatures.

[Francesca]

I write like a high school girl.

[Dustin Ross]

Like the bubble letters, a heart over the lowercase.

[Asante]

I. Why did you just take the words out my mouth?

[Francesca]

I was about to say, and the eye has a little heart. And I usually write in colors like purple pens. Like my. All my.

[Dustin Ross]

I'm very Lisa Frank with it.

[Francesca]

I really am.

[Asante]

I.

[Francesca]

That's all. I use the paper mate jelly pens and all the colors. I like switching colors based on the thought and the theme. You know, it helps me. That's what. When Kia be telling me like the ballpoint should be like. I use a 3.5. I'm like like cool. I used the blue.

[Asante]

This is a look. This is a red or blue ink classroom.

[Dustin Ross]

You know, buying somebody like a nice ink pen is a nice gift to buy someone like a Mont Blanc pen.

[Francesca]

You know what I'm saying? Absolutely.

[Dustin Ross]

That's a nice gift.

[Francesca]

Yeah. Especially someone that has a business or some kind of. Yeah, I think that would be really nice. I actually always wanted to get into the fancy pens. But then I just. Just go to the school aisle. What is it? The.

[Dustin Ross]

So the stationary.

[Francesca]

Stationary aisle and whatever store and just get my little colorful.

[Asante]

See, I'm so basic. Because I like a. Like, I like the pen when it's like normal, right? Like, I don't like when they too wet.

[Francesca]

Like, you know, like the ink comes off the pen.

[Asante]

I like this type of pen. But you know when they're like real, like the shit just come falling out the damn pen. Like, I don't like it because maybe because I'm left handed, it'll like fuck up my hand. Smear. Yep.

[Francesca]

I hate that. And then it ends up on the other side of the page too. The little ink blots. Anyway, we have lost sight.

[Dustin Ross]

I always like the ink pen. Writing with a pen because if you ever had to pop somebody in their head with it and you had the cap on the other end while you was writing, it was. It had that extra weight. I love that part about it.

[Francesca]

Y' all so funny. Okay, so the episode we did last week, Married at Losing Sight. Thank you once again. That's the Ross. It was a Shoot the shit. That means no hop button, no segments, just whatever wanted to come up. And those of you listening, as always, had a lot to say. Who stood out to you? Asante.

[Asante]

A lot of you stood out to me. Shout out to everybody's comments because it was a Shoot the shit episode. We talked about home ownership, friend. There were a lot of comments on that. One of them that I would share is. Is this Carmi. Carm. C A R M E153. Their comment says, on the home ownership piece, I have three properties in my portfolio. My rents cover the mortgage on two properties and the cash flow from those properties cover where I live now. It's changed my financial life. And then they plug their. Their home ownership for millennials. Let's give it up to them.

[Dustin Ross]

Give it up to them, Absolutely.

[Francesca]

Because that's what we need.

[Asante]

A lot of people, a lot of people also had a lot to say about my recommendation. All her fault, which I found funny a lot. I watched it.

[Francesca]

I did too.

[Dustin Ross]

I finished it.

[Asante]

You watched the whole thing?

[Dustin Ross]

I did too.

[Francesca]

I did too. In like two days.

[Asante]

Yeah. Fuck, Peter.

[Francesca]

It's good. It's good. All I'll say is it got very soap opera ish.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah. At a certain point.

[Francesca]

Yeah, for me, at some point I was like, okay, you know what it is? But it was good.

[Asante]

But they still had brought it back around because I was like, oh, okay. Because with the whole thing with Lawrence, I was like, what? But then Lawrence started reading. And then Lawrence took a turn of events and they had brought me back. It kept me.

[Dustin Ross]

So the minute I Met him in that damn show. I guess this is the TV land part, but whatever. The minute I left, I met him in that show, I knew he wasn't shit. He had his arm on old girl's shoulder too, too long in that first scene. Y' all know exactly what I'm talking about. When he first came in and he was like, like, everything's gonna be okay. I was like, wait a minute. It just. I'm not saying they was fucking around. What I'm saying is it gave me a reason not to trust him. I was like, he's untrustworthy. And ever since then, I knew something was up. I knew something was up. And as it unfolded, I was like, kehlani folded. You know what I'm saying? There he is right there. Like, I don't know. Anyway, well, a lot of you all.

[Asante]

Watched it and I saw your comments. We love you all. Thank you all for commenting. Friend, what did you find out them straight.

[Francesca]

So I wanted to shout out Chris B. In the gated community. Chris said, to answer Fran's question about homeownership, I'm conflicted. I consider selling every other month. He said, I consider selling every other month. I know I have trauma from housing insecurity, so my attachment to owning my home is more emotional. I feel that my BS father of my kids bought a home. I had issues with not being married and contributing to a home that legally didn't belong to me. Smart. Long story short, I bought my own and now we have two.

[Dustin Ross]

Okay, I like this person.

[Francesca]

This is.

[Asante]

This is my kind of person right here.

[Francesca]

My parents rent, AKA pay my mortgage on my home while my kids and I live with my bf. My parents don't pay more than the mortgage, so upkeep and any repairs I take care of or will occasionally, occasionally split the cost. So it actually cost me money to have my parents live in my home, but they're on a fixed income as well, so they can't afford some of the costs. Yeah, this is interesting. My parents would likely struggle if I sold it. And I know it means a lot to my mom to feel like she has a place to call home. Some years are hard and my home is old, so I need to regularly maintain it. I do need to replace the roof soon, which isn't cheap. I keep telling myself I'm in a place of privilege, and I am because I can help family and afford to feel emotionally safe. But honestly, when I check those numbers, I don't know if the equity really compensates my time and overall cost. I Was also fortunate to buy during the pandemic. So my interest rate is really low and the price of my home was low, which feels like another reason to. Hold on. I heard that a lot in the emails and messages we got. A lot of our listeners purchased homes during the pandemic and they got like a 3% interest rate, which is amazing. Could you imagine? Right, right.

[Dustin Ross]

Their heart is in the right place and they're going to be blessed.

[Francesca]

Conflict. Yeah.

[Asante]

Yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

Something's going to happen financially for them. I'm not, I don't have no crystal ball. Okay.

[Francesca]

Right.

[Dustin Ross]

But I just feel like something is good is going to happen for them financially because that, you don't. You don't put goodness into the universe. That. And never see a return on it in some way. And not that you should do it for that reason, but just to encourage them because, you know, I think that's so beautiful, Chris.

[Francesca]

Yeah. And they said one more note. As the first homeowner in my family, there's so many rules or do's and don'ts that are not intuitive. If you've rented your whole life, you're constantly preventing water damage infestations, managing increased costs and property taxes or home insurance. The silver lining, however, is that my kids will never deal with housing insecurity on my watch. I love that. That's so inspiring. I also wanted to read one more. An email we actually got from Nicole who said, I love. Nicole said, I love that you brought up the topic of renting versus buying. And I low he low key hope that the budget needs to chimes in. You already know we gonna have it back around. Now that I'm a homeowner, I'm confused about the true perks of home ownership. My husband and I are both 40 and we moved back to Atlanta from the Bay Area to be close to our moms. While looking at rentals, we were offered a chance to buy a home from a family member. The mortgage was substantially less expensive than rent and we knew that that house was a temporary solution. It was a money pit that constantly needed repairs. However, selling that home allowed us to finance and build our dream home.

[Asante]

Amen.

[Francesca]

Okay, so we built our dream home outside of Atlanta with the vision of having a little farm. We both had student loan debt, so we haven't been able to put money into retirement like we wanted to. So the thought was that the dream house would be passed down to our son one day and he could keep it or sell it and make money off of it. It a year into moving into our Dream home. Our son was formerly diagnosed with autism, and Georgia is one of the worst states for people with disabilities. So now we're planning on moving back to our hometown in New England. We love our house, but never like being in a red state. Now that we're planning to move, we're talking a lot about renting versus buying, and all that obviously comes with. My husband likes the stability of home ownership. You move once, you don't have to worry about a landlord or selling or buying. He also likes that we can customize the home and make it ours. But I don't like dealing with the maintenance. The cost of home repairs are not fun, but the inconvenience of home repairs is the most annoying aspect. Our old house had a leak in the bathroom. They gutted the bathroom, then they remodeled it, and the leak was back six months later. She ends the email saying, if you already have other investments, and I don't see the benefits of homeownership, but I can't wait to hear what other people have to say. It will definitely help me as my family reconsiders renting versus buying in the future. We'll definitely have Budgenisa come back at the top of the year, which would be good time, too, to have her come in and, you know, start your new year, because she does give great advice. I love that it was like, mixed emotions in the comments, but I think that that is how people feel about home ownership, right? Most people feel that, yes, it's something that you should do, but it comes with so much. And like anything, there's pros and cons, right? And a lot of people have just been sharing the challenges financially where they say that. Most people say, like, oh, it's smarter than renting, but no one talks about, like, the constant repairs, you know, the water damage you're constantly worried about, and the other, the bullshit people don't consider when they're just simply comparing the mortgage payment and the rent payment. But there's so much more to it than that. And so thank you guys for being vulnerable and sharing. There was one email trying to find it where the person said the best thing that they did was just get a very cheap house, one that they could pay for two, three times over. And they kind of had to give up their idea of, like, having a big fancy house because they just had to keep the cost as low as possible so that it never became a burden in any way. And that thought process seems to be the only people that have been like, okay financially with their houses. That's the challenge because I'm like. But I. I be looking at houses.

[Dustin Ross]

That I'm like, I've been waiting on working all this damn time. I want to slide my foot across. Rick Ross got a song about tiptoeing on the marble floor. I want to slide my foot across in the morning. Make me some toast and a wolf. You know what I'm saying? Stove with them red knobs and shit. Make my oatmeal with a pot filler on the back of that stove and shit. You know, I like to organize my refrigerator. Want to have my oat milk and shit and beer and shit in my fridge.

[Francesca]

The problem, when I read the email, I said, that's so smart.

[Dustin Ross]

But I. I don't want to do that. And I'm not saying anything's wrong. I'm not saying it's right or wrong.

[Francesca]

No. I'm saying this is where I would go wrong, because I'm over here on selling Sunset.

[Asante]

Yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

I'm like, oh, you know, I want to.

[Francesca]

I saw a house here that was 3.2, and I was like, how could I make that?

[Dustin Ross]

It still felt like you sacrificing some of your needs and wants in the house. I guarantee you. I guarantee you it's still some. She was like, well, I can deal with that. You know what I'm saying? That's what I'm saying.

[Francesca]

We crazy as hell, but thank you, guys.

[Dustin Ross]

I'm sorry.

[Francesca]

Thank you, guys. I did want to read one last one. I don't know if I'll say this one is funny, because it's not, but it just made me chuckle a little bit.

[Dustin Ross]

I'm finna roll.

[Francesca]

Hold on, let me find it. So Tarlesha in the gated community said the law. Hey, Tarlesha. The law y' all are talking about is what got Fantasia caught up with her second child's father.

[Asante]

Somebody coming?

[Dustin Ross]

Carolina.

[Francesca]

Yeah, North Carolina. Don't play about marriage. He was married, and the wife sued and won. And then she wrote Whispers. The wife was the principal at a school I taught at for a couple of years. And the students would sing when I see you. And she pissed me off.

[Dustin Ross]

Oh, my God.

[Francesca]

That's so up.

[Dustin Ross]

Yo, the kids are all right, man. I'm telling you, like, every day, they renew my face.

[Francesca]

How did they know about the kids?

[Dustin Ross]

Oh, my God.

[Francesca]

I knew that.

[Dustin Ross]

Shout out to that. Shout out to that listener. Shout out to them, including that note. Because it's all right. You could do that with us especially. This was hilarious.

[Asante]

Amazing.

[Francesca]

What about you, Dustin Ross? Would you finally.

[Dustin Ross]

I don't even give a about nothing else I got to say, because that was brilliant. Damn, what was her name again?

[Asante]

Who wrote that I love Darisha or Tarlesha? Okay, Tara.

[Dustin Ross]

Okay, Tarlisha, you need to come on our live Tar. Lisa need to come on our Wednesday Night Live. Anyway, I only got one tweet for y' all this week. Shout out to the aux God Twitter account. But it's spelled the Ox God, but it's actually the Ox God or whatever. They posted a full episode of BET show Midnight Love from the year 1998. Yeah, I saved it. I. I actually will. You know what? We putting that in the show notes too. I'm about to send that to you now. But it felt so good to watch a collection of these R B deep cut music videos, you know what I'm saying? That they play later in the evenings, you know what I'm saying? I think that BET and Noah. Nobody else either. BET needs to bring back Midnight Love Love, Rap City and Caribbean Rhythms. Flat out. We need all three right now. Yeah, we need, we need Midnight Love, we need Rap City, we need Caribbean Rhythms and we need a countdown show too. We need that like, like what was the comedy one? Comic View.

[Francesca]

Comic View.

[Dustin Ross]

And let me host it and put it on BET plus so we can cuss like this. Pat. Now I'm telling you, like, like Ray shows.

[Francesca]

That would work now. Wow.

[Dustin Ross]

It made me feel so good to watch that. You would have thought Velvet died when I seen that text, that tweet with the episode in it. Cause I was like, you know, I was so happy when I saw it and so I put it up there. Speaking of which, Cynthia looks so pretty at Bravo Con all weekend. You know Bravo Con was this weekend. She looked like a model when it was the.

[Francesca]

Look at that hair.

[Dustin Ross]

It looked like your hair.

[Francesca]

Feel about that. Yes, friends, that's what I'm trying to grow it out to.

[Dustin Ross]

Yes. It was beautiful. She looked good all weekend. Long gone too. So good.

[Francesca]

Shout out to you, Cynthia. That would be. I would love for BET to bring back all the old shows. All right, that's it for this intro. That was very long today. We got a lot to say and.

[Dustin Ross]

Put the old episodes on streaming. I would go back and watch old ass episodes of Video Soul Rap City, Midnight Love. I will watch that. I would binge watch that right now. Put that on streaming. We ready to see Donnie Simpson and Sherry Carter. Yeah. And Rachel, you know what I'm saying? Put that up at Sita. Hell, put that on streaming Bet Hell.

[Francesca]

This week's episode.

[Dustin Ross]

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[Francesca]

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[Francesca]

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[Francesca]

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[Francesca]

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[Francesca]

You gift the good stuff. Shop [e-mail] or find a store near you. If you follow us on Patreon, if you're a subscriber, you know that we have a series on there called the Situation, where we discuss books. We each facilitate a book for about. About, I'd say, six to eight weeks usually on average. Right. And we have our discussions, we pull out the themes, conversations, really engaging with our listeners and viewers as well. And it's just personally, it's my favorite part of our Patreon. Yeah, it is. I love our discussions. I love the books that we've read. For those of you watching, I mentioned before, this little stack right here that you can see behind me is my proud situation stack, which I just think it just makes me happy. And one of the books that we read this year was it over the summer. I believe it was over the summer. So a few months back was called the Midnight Library. And it was a book that Asante brought to the table. And it was so good.

[Dustin Ross]

I loved it.

[Francesca]

We had a blast with that book. Such a great conversation, you know that Asante and I love weird OA multi dimensional quantum conversations in this. And it pulled Dustin in.

[Dustin Ross]

So it got me. It was so good, for real.

[Francesca]

That's how, you know, it was just a job well done. And our listeners had a great time, too. And that that book was so motivating for me and made me feel like, ooh, there's a conversation in there that I want to pull from. And I wanted to do it on the main show so that everyone can be a part of it. And this was obviously months ago that I had planned it, but it's just finally now I have the space to have this conversation. And so the book, like I mentioned, is called the Midnight Library. And for those of you who are unfamiliar, the Midnight Library is a 2020 novel by Matt Haig. And it's about a young woman named Nora Seed. She's a woman who finds herself in a library between life and death. In this library, she can explore infinite alternate lives that she could have lived based on different choices. Right? So searching for a life that makes her truly happy, that was her goal. And the book is sort of like a philosophical exploration of regret and choices and what makes a life worth living. And she's guided by this librarian from her past, and she tries on various lives, right? We see her become a rock star because she was actually really good at writing music and singing. We also see her become a glaciologist because she loved. And we also remember that she was a really good swimmer as a kid, and her father had pushed for her to keep going with it. And she eventually stopped. But she wanted to see what if she had kept going and became like a famous Olympian. And she tries on that life. And as she experiences these different realities through the book, what she realizes is that none of them are actually perfect. Perfect. And that the grass isn't always greener. And it ended up being just such a really great conversation that inspired us to start thinking about the choices that we've made, right? And the decisions that have shifted the trajectory of our lives and just different circumstances that if they were different, how different would we be? And it made us start considering those things. We spoke about it in passing, but I was like, wait, we have to have a much larger conversation about this.

[Dustin Ross]

This.

[Francesca]

I was like, let's put a pin in that. And so that's what this week's episode is. We're calling it the Midnight Library. And I wanted to ask the guys and also look for myself and also the listeners, especially, what decisions have you made that you sometimes wonder about where you're like, how differently would my life have turned out if I had done X instead of Z? You know what I mean? Or if I know. We discuss if from Sante. I think it was saying, if your dad, you know, had played a different role, and that was for the same for me. I wondered if he was around, like, how different would I be as a person? So let's get into those alternate lives that we sometimes daydream about or think about or consider based on our decision making. So what are some who wants to start with an alternate life that they've thought about, especially after reading this book?

[Asante]

I want to start.

[Francesca]

Please do.

[Asante]

Okay, so per the Midnight Library, right? There's Nora Seed, her root life. So I think about my root life. I think about some of the things that have happened and some of the things that I've, you know, done and stopped doing or some of the things that I just forgot about. Just little things along the way from. I'll start with like a small random one. When I was in elementary school, I used to be in the orchestra, right. I started playing a couple different instruments. One of the instruments that I remember that I liked a lot was the cello. But one day got into a fight, cello got took. It's a long story, right? So I think to my. I wonder to myself, like, what would have happened if I would have stayed, like, on or in orchestra? Like, if I would have kept playing the cello or even the viola. Like, I thought to myself, how dope that would be if I was that type of. Like, real quick, as of. Just real quick, random note. One of the things about Nora's lives that I did appreciate, even though she was going through those different experiences and obviously don't want to ruin the ending of the book without the Antarctica life, I pretty much felt like she was comfortable in all those lives. Right. Like, she liked all of those circumstances, except for those things that she was missing that kept taking her back to her life. Right. So I think to myself, one of the things that I. I'm always going to love these different ideas of myself or these different variations. So when I think about myself in orchestra, I think about how different I would be compared to how I am now. Like, I feel like I would be, I don't know, probably pretentious Negro. I don't know. I just feel like I would be different.

[Francesca]

Yeah.

[Asante]

But there are still parts of myself that I would love in that version. But I know that version of me would just be so different. Like, I just think about if I would have kept reading music and gone touring, doing that type of thing. Like, how I wouldn't even be listening to certain artists today, probably. Or I probably wouldn't be on half the. That I'm on, because it's like, I'd be in a classical lane or I'd be thinking about that now. I'd probably still listen to Beyonce and whatnot. But I don't know. I just think that would be so different. I don't even know how to categorize or visualize how different that would be. But I always think about that as one of those lives. Like, I just know if I would have went down that musical path in that manner, my life would be. I would have traveled the world and been in different places doing shit. I just couldn't see it. I can see it. I can feel it. I know it's happened to a different version of myself. And good for you, man.

[Francesca]

That's a cute version. What about you, Dustin? What are some trajectories you've daydreamed about?

[Dustin Ross]

Well, I have a bunch of them, but I have in my notes that I would have come out. Out right as soon as I got my first gay erection.

[Francesca]

You know what?

[Dustin Ross]

I should have. I should have been open about that. And then I have in my notes, quote, why is it doing this for a Boy, Mama.

[Francesca]

Oh.

[Dustin Ross]

End quote. Because I believe, right, that. That taking away the stigma of shame and. And, you know, this being a secret or something when it first happened. And the questions I had should have been pregunta's on the piso for all of us, right? Like, it shouldn't have been no inner turmoil or nothing. I should have just felt free enough to, like. I just should have released myself from shame and all the things that really, honestly held me back for a long time. You know what I'm saying? And so that's what I have in my notes for that part. I just really wish that I had been free of that, because being a concern, being an issue, being a anything, because it really, truly did handicap me from a lot of great progress. I could. I could have been out of here.

[Francesca]

Okay, that was my next question.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah, but.

[Francesca]

Because it would have made your life different.

[Dustin Ross]

It would have freed me from a lot. A lot of my time. I feel. I feel like I'm, like, 10 years behind, right? And I feel like that's because I. There was a period of my life where I had to investigate and understand, you know what I'm saying, who I was as a person and how that played into how my life turned out. When you add in religious doctrine with cultural stigma and shame, you know what I'm saying? It just creates the ultimate hurdle that you just cannot overcome until you get over that motherfucker. And so I just wonder what my life would have been like. Even me, like, my personality and shit. I just wonder what my life would have been like if that was never a concern for me and if the very first time my dick got hard, okay? For a boy, I would have been like, hey, y', all, somebody tell me what this is about, because that's a boy. You know what I'm saying? I wish we could have just worked it out together as opposed to it causing a wedge for so many relationships, you know? Y' all know what the.

[Asante]

I'm saying?

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah, that's what. That's mine. What about you, friend?

[Francesca]

That's real.

[Asante]

That was a good one, Dustin. For real.

[Francesca]

That was a good one. The one that I would pick first would have to do with. It's two people. It's my dad, right? And then the person that my mom did end up marrying. I feel like the two of them affected me in such different ways. And I wonder, if my dad had stayed, how would that have changed my household, right? Like, if he was around. Cause I don't think that I ever fantasized about that. Like, you know, as a kid, there's some kids that feel like really sad and they miss their dad and they're looking out the window like, when's dad coming? I just didn't think. I think I. I don't know if I repressed it or I just was a kid that was like, well, he's not here, so I'm not gonna like pine over someone that doesn't wanna be here. And I just kind of kept it moving.

[Asante]

I was the same way, friend, right?

[Francesca]

And then.

[Asante]

So I have those same questions too, friend, like, am I just disassociating or do I really not care or. Or like, am I like, you know.

[Francesca]

It was just, can you not miss what you don't know? Like it was it that. Or maybe we're just kids that became avoidant because it just wasn't an option and so I would always toil with that. But I do remember, and I think I mentioned this before, that my aunt, actually, that aunt that we saw that worked at Pathmark, remember that day, she keep coming up. She's funny, man.

[Asante]

She need to play the numbers. Blessings to her.

[Francesca]

That's my aunt Normal. She said to me one day, I hate to say this to you because he's my brother. She was like, but you were better off. She was like, he's so fucking crazy. And I remember she told me he had a lot of issues emotionally and would have been so strict that it would have stunted me. He's a military man. And she always felt that I was better off. She's like, you already have to deal with a lot and not having a. A serious, rigid, traumatized, like bitter, angry man that is in the military that's going to like project a bunch of shit on you about his views on women, you know, like, she just, I remember she told it to me straight and was like, I hope you've never fantasized about that because it would not have been helpful in any way. And I remember thinking, damn, that's funny how sometimes you can think about how differently your life would have turned out if this person had been there. But low key, you probably got the best card in terms of how it played out. Obviously I deserved a great dad, you know, but I always wondered how when she told me that, I wondered, like, damn, my life could have been. I could have been like a super duper weirdo, you know, that had been really sheltered and probably controlled beyond a personality.

[Dustin Ross]

The remix of Daddy Issues. Right, right.

[Asante]

Daddy Issues.

[Dustin Ross]

Just the remix, yeah.

[Francesca]

And then the man in my mom did end up marrying was so troubling for me. And I think he consumed my life in so many ways. How he affected me and impacted me that I. Moments, like, how differently would I have been of a person if I hadn't had this person that just changed the trajectory of my life the way that he did? And I had more space to, like, be a completely different human being. Because for many years, the frustration I was feeling and the sadness and the grief and a bunch of other layered things that he brought to the table, it just took up so much of my mind, you know what I mean? Where you almost think, like, some people take up so much of your life and your heart and your beingness that you just wonder how much better your life would have been if they just, like, never existed or never came around. And you almost get angry that they had, you know, that. That power in that moment. And so I always wonder, like, how differently of a person would I have come to be if he just, like, never came into our life?

[Asante]

Yeah.

[Francesca]

You know, it's hard not to think of, but at the same time, and we talked about this, the paradox, too, where. But I also really like who I am now.

[Asante]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If anything.

[Francesca]

But I didn't deserve any of that.

[Dustin Ross]

You're greater than you already are. Look at it like that. I would have more incredible job.

[Francesca]

Yeah, yeah.

[Asante]

That's what I was saying at the top. Like, you know, one thing about Nora was like, you know, there was essence of her in each one of those lives. Like, there was love for herself in those lives, which is why I feel like there was that remorse there. Right. Like, she felt like she was taking someone else's life. Like it was her life, but she could see that love that those people had for that version of Nora. It was like there was that guilt building there. So back to, like, what you were saying about, you know, the father thing. For me, it hits hard as a man, because it's like, I would have loved to have my father there, but when I was younger, I didn't really think about that. Like, when I was really young, it was just kind of like, oh, blah, blah, blah, daddy, or this, that, and third. And I was just like, okay, cool. Like, it wasn't like, well, damn, where's my father? Like, I saw him a few times when I was younger. Then he was just gone for a period, and I was just kind of like, okay. But I do wonder to myself, and I have wondered to myself to what you're talking about, about, is it great that he wasn't around because we bump heads in my adulthood, and I see how alike that we already are, and I'm like, yeah, how would this have worked when I was younger? Now, don't get me wrong, I would have definitely loved to experience that. Right. You know, in my head, whatever that fantasy is. But what if the reality was, like, me and the was just gonna be arguing all the time and we just. And, you know, and I'm leaving the house like, you know, the home that I, you know, grew up so comfortable in. And, you know, if he's there now, then I'm not so comfortable because, you know, young boys need their daddies, and sometimes daddies are strict, but sometimes, you know, people. Not even just daddy. Sometimes people are crazy. And you don't know, like, I don't know what the would have been on then at that point in his life. I know he was an adult that he was.

[Francesca]

Yeah.

[Asante]

Being going in the 40s now, like, thinking about him when I'm younger, what he was doing in his 20s and 30s and 40s, like, little I'm. I want to make time for you. Like, you know, my heart says I should, but, you know, America's telling me that I owe for this. And, you know, like, I'm dealing with trauma from this from before I was a man. My damn. Like, you know, there are just so many factors that I take into consideration. So it's like, I don't look at my date and be like, you ain't. I look at him and I'm like, thank. You know, I'm thankful that he's back around now. You know, like, I'm thankful that we've been able to come full circle and have that moment. So it's like, I feel like the fantasy that I have of having my dad has kind of already been fulfilled in a way. Like, maybe, because, like I said, I don't know if I necessarily. I definitely needed him. But, you know, the way that I am now, I love this version of myself. I don't know how this version of myself would have reacted to him.

[Francesca]

Yeah, it's so interesting because you would have absolutely been a different person. That's a whole other person's life being poured into you, Their thoughts, how they move through the world. Like, that's a lot. And so it's like, like, I, I. When I. I don't see. But you know your dad in a very intimate way. Like, you know, how he thinks, you know, how he moves. You guys have conversations. I don't know my dad like, that I Just know I've probably met him twice or three times in my life, and. And it was very, like, quick. It was like. And he just didn't have. We just don't have that. So I can't even say. But based on what my. How my family has described, and especially my mom, who has never talked shit about him, she don't really play that, but she has been honest about his emotional issues, you know, and so that's why I'm like, ooh, imagine having a man in the house that. Emotional issues. Like, how would that have affected me? You know what I mean? And so I think.

[Asante]

And you're only feeling that through conversations, so if you were like. To feel that in person and be like, ooh, like, you know, then I'm sure that really would have affected you.

[Francesca]

Yeah. I was already dealing with a mom that had a lot of. She had struggles with emotional regulation. That was my mom. Mom's thing. Like, she would get so piped up about things. And I'm a really calm person. Like, I've been this way as a child. So imagine you're this calm child. It almost irritated her more because she's, like, piped up, and I'm just sitting there like, you good? Like, what's happening right now? And so I think, you know, imagine having that hot mama and then another hot dad. It's like, I probably would have been, like, out of there much earlier. And so I just think it's funny as people how we. And kind of what Nora was learning through this book is like, she would fantasize about certain things, and then when she stepped into that life, she realized, like, oh, shit, hell, no. This is not. Take me back. Take me back to my root life. And I think that that's a lot of what this trajectory feels like. It probably would have been even crazier and not much to fantasize about, but with the guy that my mom married, it just fractured my trust in adults and people. And so I think. I wonder what would happen if I didn't have that fracture in particular, how that would have changed my ability to connect with humans in a much more. In a much purer way, you know, without having these reference points that made me think of humans and adults in particular very differently. So. So that's probably the biggest one that jumped out to me when I was considering alternate lives. What's another one that y' all thought about?

[Asante]

This is gonna be random.

[Francesca]

Aren't they all?

[Asante]

Disclaimer. My mother is a married woman, but there was a time where she wasn't. And she had friends, right? So one of her friends, he was a really, really cool guy. Like, the. Was always just really friendly to us, just bringing us books and shit, just acknowledging us and going on about his day. Wasn't really trying to do too much. Really appreciate the dude. One of the things that he really got me involved in was like, technology and science. Like, he's one of the reasons that I can think about, like, obviously being a young boy, I always wanted toys and cool shit any damn way. But he was one of the reasons, like, I actually would, like, try to read up on, like, concepts and understand things. And I think that if he was still around, not that he needs to be, you know, hopefully he's living his life on somewhere else, but if he was still around. Oh, my God, I'm more than sure that.

[Dustin Ross]

I thought you meant if he's still around, not that he needs to be.

[Asante]

You just said the same thing again. I don't know what you mean by.

[Dustin Ross]

What you took from him. Like, if he's still around, comma or parentheses. Not that he needs to be still around. Like he can be romantically.

[Francesca]

Romantically, because my mother is married now.

[Dustin Ross]

I thought you were saying, like, you hope he's dead. Yeah.

[Asante]

God.

[Dustin Ross]

Okay. It's a totally different direction then. Okay.

[Asante]

I'd definitely be a nerd by now. Like, I probably would have, like, gone to school for something tech related or science related and I'd be in a white coat right now. Like, and we see that, huh?

[Francesca]

We see glimpses of that.

[Asante]

That's what I'm saying. Like, there's. There are these essences that I think about of myself. Like, what. What did those little things mean? Like, why am I so, like, into science and technology? And I think about him and I think about, like, if they would have been a thing, how I probably would have gone to school to try to make him happy as my pseudo father figure at the time. Time. And I'd probably have a Nobel Peace Prize or some. I don't know, I feel like I. I feel like if I would have been in science, like, doing this because the way that I carry myself in certain rooms and if I have like, data to back it up and I've done the research on my own, I think I would have really been onto something. I would have. So, yeah, that's a life that. But also. But also I'm so social. Like, I don't know how that would have. I don't know how that would have looked. Like, maybe that probably would have taken me further in my career. I don't know. But, like, there are just certain things that I thought. Think. Because I probably wouldn't have taken, like, my acting classes in high school. I don't know. So I'd probably be not as extroverted. But just think about those little steps along the way, how different things can go. It just makes it so interesting, and it gets me excited to think about. But also, again, I. I'd love any of those versions of myself just as much as I love this one. But I feel like I'm doing pretty well. But we've covered, like, family stuff, professional stuff stuff. Are there any love things that you guys think about? Like, you know, if the cards were played differently and it doesn't have to be romantic, it can be like, you know, friendship things. Because there are certain friendships that I feel like if the cards were different, like, we. I'd have, like, different friendships. Not that I wouldn't be friends with y', all, but, like, there are certain people that will probably still be around or.

[Francesca]

What do you mean, though? If the cards were different in terms of friendship?

[Asante]

So, like, think about. This is so random. I always think about how in middle school, I moved around a lot. Like, I went to three for middle school, so it's like, my friend groups always changed. So it's like, if I would have stayed at certain middle school because there were certain people I reconnected with in high school, so it was like, oh, boom, we ain't even miss a beat. But then there were certain people that were like, either they moved or certain things, like, I don't know, you know, how you just don't see no more. And it's like, damn, because you're your kids, you know, life for their parents. They moved on or whatever the. But I just think to myself, oh, I'd have stayed in certain middle schools. How I would have gone on a different track and probably been in different places with people. I probably would still be in Atlanta being a hood rat with certain niggas. But, like, have, like, my own business by now. I don't know. I just think about that type of thing. That's what I mean when I say, like, friendships, too.

[Francesca]

I do have one for that. It was just funny because my mom actually heard me talking about it on the show and checked me on it because I said she pulled me out of. Well, a teacher suggested that she pulled me out of the public school system, right? Because he was like, she's really bright, and I think she needs to be challenged And I have a school that I can think of. They actually have a slot. Remember I mentioned that Zoe Jackson, the daughter of Samuel L. Jackson, he was moving, so her spot opened, and I interviewed for it and was able to get picked for the school that changed my life. Because I'm a kid coming from this project that has always been around. The other kids from the project, everyone, we all were in the same life, you know what I mean?

[Asante]

Yeah.

[Francesca]

To be plucked out of that. Think about the school already. If I'm telling you that Samuel Jackson's daughter is who left. So now I'm here, everyone's like, oh, hell no. Who the hell is this?

[Dustin Ross]

A fresh princess.

[Francesca]

Yeah. She don't got no family pedigree or legacy. My dad didn't work in some, you know, nothing. Like, it just was hard emotionally, you know what I'm saying? So my mom always said she didn't consider that part of how that felt for me to be thrown into a world that I had knew nothing about. I didn't really know white people like that, to be honest. Like, maybe the one or two hood ones that lived in my block, but, like, not in this world. And it was a lot emotionally. And I missed my fucking friends.

[Asante]

Yeah.

[Francesca]

I missed the friends that, like, we were figuring out life and the cars that we had been dealt and where, like, would daydream about how we were gonna change shit. And now all of a sudden, I got thrown into a world that, like, just did not feel right for me. And it was so hard. And I sometimes wonder if. If I had stayed. And obviously now as an adult, it was the best decision in a lot of ways. I understand why she did that. And I don't fought her for it or the teacher. I think they made the decision that changed my life for the better. But emotionally, I wonder what it would have been like if I had gone to LaGuardia, which is what I wanted to do for vocal performance with all my friends. And what would have come from us going into high school together and maybe us pushing each other to get into college together, you know, like, what would that have looked like?

[Asante]

Taking places together.

[Francesca]

Yeah. And it was that feeling because I really had such a phenomenon. Phenomenal friend group. I've always been blessed with having really great friend groups. That's one thing I'm super thankful for. And my friends in elementary were still so cool. And I hated the pull away from them and their lives because my life changed so much that we grew apart completely. And to this day, I don't even know what Half of them are. I don't know if they made it past high school and college. I hope they did. And it just got. I just got ripped away from, like, all that I knew. And that was hard. But my mom, when she heard me talking about, she was like, girl, I ripped you from gang violence. She was like, you're over here talking about vocal performance.

[Asante]

She was like, that is so funny.

[Francesca]

She was like, they were stabbing kids in recess and cutting their necks and stealing their. She was like, it was bad at that time.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah.

[Asante]

Yo, that's hilarious. Because they'll be. Mama friend. Yeah, we love you here.

[Francesca]

Thinking. Thinking about what you would have majored in. And she was concerned about me taking a train to these terrible ass high schools and having to be fighting at.

[Dustin Ross]

Risk of all of that. Yes.

[Francesca]

She was so irritated.

[Dustin Ross]

We. Sorry, mama friend.

[Francesca]

I know. I was like. I was just saying my feelings.

[Asante]

But you know what? That's perspective for your ass, though. Because it's so funny when you watch.

[Francesca]

A kid you don't know. Yeah, really. Really.

[Asante]

When you watch these movies, movies and shows nowadays, you see the kids reacting the way they reacting, and it's like, get this child up out of here. But then, like, when you are that child, like, that really is your world. Like, because, friend, you talking to everything that I'd always felt like every time I'm switching schools, I'm like, damn, I gotta leave. Like, I done met some cool motherfuckers up in this space. I done made my markup in here. Yeah. Like, I'm trying to be part of the community. I think it's so dope. Like, not on no small town shit. I'm not from a small town. But, like, when people have been friends, like, all their lives, they're like, yeah, I know that nigga from elementary school. And, you know, we go to the club, we from the. We got the same hood. Like, just niggas knowing each other.

[Francesca]

We were in kindergarten. Like. And those are the types of friends that we absolute well.

[Dustin Ross]

Stay stuck right there where you met they motherfucking ass at. We gonna tell the truth today, you know what I'm saying? Them the friends that never evolve, never do nothing. They stay stuck there. All the same people that could still be in judgment of them. It still. They hit a glass ceiling, you know what I'm saying? The freshest I got with my day ones. We done moved around. We living separate lives, but we just maintained our connection.

[Francesca]

Yeah.

[Asante]

You know what I'm saying?

[Dustin Ross]

We didn't stay lockstep in the same place in life. And that, honestly, is the outcome of that story. More often than not, I hate to take the rose colored tint out of the lenses.

[Francesca]

You sound like my mom, you know what I'm saying? She was like, fuck that.

[Dustin Ross]

Now since y' all did two, I'm finna do two. The first one I'm gonna do. And this is just me being honest, you know what I'm saying? Y' all know that Asante, you spoke about having a Nobel Peace Prize, you know what I'm saying? I feel like I might have one too, because Kendrick Lamar has one. And God damn it, I should have been a rapper. I feel like when I was like, I feel like, to be honest with you, I should have started studying music and tried to rap back in, like, middle school when I really started connecting with, like, the violence in rap lyrics, you know what I'm saying?

[Francesca]

Okay, tell us more.

[Dustin Ross]

I feel like I should have just really started rapping in when I was like, shoot the motherfucker in his head and a killer motherfucker got dead. Like, I should have been like. Because I was making sense of that. The Master P Mute, the no Limit era, the Cash Money era, all that shit was connecting with me. And it felt like an opportunity, but it felt so far outside of the way that me and my. My religious household was living, you know what I'm saying? And I was in Flint, Michigan, where, yes, we had, like, MC Breed and like, Ready for the World and the Dayton family, You know, there was a lot of people who had success in music, but it just wasn't common. And careers in the performing arts in any way, in entertainment in any way. It was not pushed as something real and tangible as an option. But I got a mouth motherfucking piece on me. I know how to talk shit two times because I can make it funny, you know what I'm saying?

[Francesca]

Right, right.

[Dustin Ross]

And I honestly feel like I could have seen success as a rapper. I'm naturally attracted to the rap artist lifestyle. Like, I am. That's a huge part of who I am as a person. And I'm not even an artist like that, you know, I'm a comedian, you know what I'm saying? Like, so.

[Francesca]

Right, right.

[Dustin Ross]

So I. I just believe that there would have been a place in Grammys and. And accolades unlimited for me as a rapper, you know what I'm saying? And I would have fucked around and came out on y' all too, once I really figured out what was going on. So it just, you know, so there's that then. The second thing, I've always been fascinated by professional boxers, okay, for multiple reasons. Like, as a, as a 40 plus, you know, adult male right now, it sounds pretty good to me to really only have to work two days out of year and make $300 million, you know what I'm saying? Like that, like, hey, so like, and again, the lifestyle and, and Muhammad Ali's story on some real shit. The, the, the way, the way that Muhammad Ali leaned directly into, like, social justice and like, the world, what was going on, you know what I'm saying? I really feel like I should have learned how to box professionally as a child and a preteen and pursue professional boxing and beat up all the white racist boxers and made that my thing. Like, if you a racist, you getting in the ring with me and I'mma beat your ass for, like, the culture, you know what I'm saying? In addition to running a foundation that's saving people's lives and shit, I just went heavy into. I'm a professional boxer and my whole mission and the heartbeat to my shit is making it right for the world. World. That's. That's what I would have done.

[Francesca]

Did you ever box at all as a kid? Like.

[Asante]

Not professional.

[Dustin Ross]

So like, you know, but, but, but yeah, I really do. I feel like I should have. I would have loved to marry. I'm attracted to people who make music about, like, just real. I'm not even gonna go too deep because we already been talking for a long toy. Y' all had. Have been talking for a long time.

[Asante]

You know what I'm saying? So then go deep. Since we've been talking for so long.

[Dustin Ross]

See, you just had to say that, you know what I'm saying? But I do. I wish I would have pursued, like, boxing and music, you know what I'm saying? For the right reasons, though. I really could see a life for myself like that. That's all.

[Francesca]

I like that one. Boxing and. What was that? And a rapper.

[Dustin Ross]

Yup.

[Asante]

I see both of those.

[Dustin Ross]

I said started both.

[Francesca]

I can see the rapper. I see the rapper because I feel like when y'. All. Well, I know y' all hate it now, but.

[Asante]

I can see the boxing too, though. Dustin, he. He trains, he goes to the gym. Like, I can see him being regimented. Like, I could. I could see that for you, though.

[Dustin Ross]

Like, just be the one. I'd be sitting up there, some shit would go down in the press or in the. In the world, you know what I'm saying? God forbid, Frank, can't you see him.

[Asante]

At Your weigh in talking shit.

[Dustin Ross]

I'm gonna beat your ass.

[Francesca]

Yup. All up in the dude's face.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah, you a pretty bitch too. I'm gonna beat just saying horrible things to them as a fighter, you know what I'm saying?

[Asante]

Yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

In the name of black and brown people all over the world, you know what I'm saying? I'll be one of them. The Thriller in Manila on y' all ass. We'd be fighting all over the world. I'm serious. Like, I. I would have done that and married my success as a boxer. As a. As a precisely trained boxer that'll knock your lights out and pull your plug. Okay. I would marry that.

[Francesca]

I can't even watch it. I'm so overstimulated. I think it's horrible.

[Asante]

Well, you know what you could do.

[Francesca]

So terrible y' all are hitting.

[Dustin Ross]

You would still be in my life because I would need. After my fight, I would go straight into wellness.

[Asante]

Yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

So you'd be on my team as the. As my. My life, my wellness manager.

[Francesca]

I would be like. Dustin, do you. Do you really feel you need to do this?

[Dustin Ross]

King, you gotta raise days. I just won.

[Asante]

You.

[Dustin Ross]

You could buy all the ranches you.

[Francesca]

Want in that 3.5 million dollar house.

[Asante]

Okay, Dusty, you sure you want to do it?

[Francesca]

Look, I mean, I don't mind, but.

[Asante]

Look, even fix the little parts you ain't like, you can get a new teepee. Some parts that you don't like at a house girl, not a new teepee.

[Dustin Ross]

You can get a new teepee on your land. You know, I know you have it just laid out like that. And I would really invest into not just health, not just health and wellness for me, but for all the boxers that was on the right side of shit.

[Francesca]

Yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

You know what I'm saying? I would just totally change the game as a boxer. And I. I have always been fascinated by the life of a professional boxer. And when I learned a lot about Muhammad Ali, you know what I'm saying? I just was like, damn. So like the whole civil rights era, just the alignment of those two things.

[Francesca]

I'm like the role they play. Yeah. I could see that.

[Dustin Ross]

That could have been me and them history books in that moment, you know what I'm saying?

[Francesca]

That I could see.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah. Good for all.

[Asante]

You know what I'm saying?

[Francesca]

Yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

That's it. So that's all.

[Asante]

I have a couple that I want to add to the pot. Since you brought up music, you need to know one.

[Francesca]

You know, that's where I'm headed Since.

[Asante]

You brought up music, I always think about A and R. How I still would have loved to have just like had that moment where like, like I brought like a group or a rapper, like an act or something to a label and like made that mark that way. Like, I would have loved to A and R. I would love to like been a music manager. And then for the second one, when you were talking about rapping initially in the lifestyle, I. I went to a performing arts high school for acting. I was part of the acting magnet. I left like the. In the. I left junior year. But if I would have stayed and just endured the. Because there was just happening behind the scenes adult that I just did not feel like was appropriate if I was in school. Yes. And if I would have just endured that and just kept my mouth shut and just, you know, went through the machine and kept it moving. I just think about how differently my life would be. Like, I would have loved to have pursued acting seriously. I would have loved to have gotten an agent, just been taking classes, done a movie with Denzel. Like, I love that. Like, that was the era. That era of actors. I just think about if I would have gotten a chance to work with them even if it was like small role. Anthony Anderson. There are just certain people it had been cool to. I mean, I can still touch the screen with Anthony Anderson, but just certain people at a point in what would have been my earlier part of my career, it would have been dope to have worked with them.

[Dustin Ross]

You could have worked with me. You could have been an actor and we could have did our own. Remember the time before Michael Jackson even picked the camera up? We could have had our on. We could have done a mega music video to one of my songs. You know what I'm saying? You could have been in that, being funny or serious. What do you mean? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, could have.

[Francesca]

Just wait. But these are things you can still do, though.

[Asante]

That's what I'm saying.

[Francesca]

This don't have.

[Asante]

But that's what I'm saying. In the earlier part of my career, back when, like that era of actors. That's what I'm saying. Like I can still do. I can still do any of these things. For real.

[Francesca]

Say, you can still be.

[Asante]

But that was the part of group.

[Francesca]

The two things you just brought up. I feel like they don't have an expiration date, you know?

[Asante]

Yeah, for sure.

[Francesca]

You should still consider it.

[Asante]

Yeah, these are. But to the point of the book, though, these are all things that we can all still do, right? Like, I'm just thinking about, like, for the essence of if I would've.

[Dustin Ross]

Y' all think I'm finna be up there looking like salt. Yeah.

[Asante]

You can start an old nigga boxing league. But I think about if I would have been. If I would have completed that track in school and taken that part into education. Like, if I would have gone those tracks, like, if I even would have backed up, because I could still go to school and, you know, get my music education, business education, and, like, do that today. But I feel like my ear is different now. Like, sounds are different now. I have a perspective that I could still share. Right? But, like, at that time when I just feel like I was hitting, I was always meeting somebody that I felt like should be doing something, or I was always meeting people that were doing things. Things that was just basically affirming, like, hey, this is the. You're supposed to be in this industry. You're supposed to be in these rooms with these people. Like, being in college and meeting India, and India being like, oh, yeah. Everyone always sound how I sound like Brandi. And it's like, girl, you do sound like Brandi, but you also sound like your own. Like this, that, and the third. And she was like, thank you. Because it's like people were pulling her in a room just to do backgrounds or demos for other artists. But it's like she was this artist waiting the bud. And then Fran, we didn't even know each other, but you knew. You kept hearing about this girl. You're like, who is this girl? I have to meet her. So it's like, these were all just little things that. That just threads of, like, I'm supposed to be in music, or it's like, maybe I'm supposed to do music or push music or whatever. And, like, here I am still pushing music. So you're right. These are things I can totally still do. It's just a matter of how to figure out to do it today.

[Francesca]

Yeah.

[Asante]

And music. There are certain things about the music industry I learned, too, that also kind of turned me off. So maybe you can. Look. I was gonna say maybe you could pick up the baton here, because I know you said you had a musical you wanted to share.

[Dustin Ross]

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[Dustin Ross]

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[Asante]

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[Francesca]

Well, yeah, for me, it's my music career. You know, I was watching an interview with Erykah Badu. Damn, I forget who it was. I don't know if it was the New York Times she recently performed at. And she had a podcast interview before the performance. And one thing that stood out to me is that she said when she was making music, she didn't have anyone in her ear telling her anything, like, about what kind of music she should make, what she. You know, what type of career she should try to have. She said everything was just so open. She made the music she wanted to. She said she was working with her cousin, I believe, and he was real cool with whatever she wanted the sound to be.

[Dustin Ross]

That's why it's perfect.

[Francesca]

It's like she just never got tainted. No one was trying to control her. She literally was handing out her demo at south by Southwest and met a friend of Kadar Massenburg, and he was, at the time managing d'. Angelo. And so when. When the friend got the mixtape or the demo, they were like, you need to check this girl out. Like, everything was just so, like, flowy and mental. Divine timing, you know? And when she was describing it, I was like, shit. Because that's just the opposite of what I felt. And it started making me think of, like, is that because it just wasn't a trajectory that I was supposed to do, or was it because I was supposed to, like, try to figure out how to fight through all the obstacles that I was met with because I had so many controlling people. It was crazy. Like, no one ever said, what's the music you want to make? I never met a producer that was like, let's just focus on, like, the sound that naturally comes from you. Every single person was like, you gotta do it this way. Then I'd go work with someone else. You gotta do it this way. Then the producers would try to control that, then the engineers. And then it was just all these men that were constantly not allowing me to flourish as the artist that I wanted to try to be. It was like, and Claude is my best friend, but he was killing it. So crazy at one point that even he was like, trust me, you know, like, you gotta do it this way. And it was hard because he was killing it. So you kind of want to lean on the person that's killing it, because clearly there's something there. But I was always so resistant because I was like, I don't want to make that kind of music. And even me connecting with a producer that at the time was one of the pioneers of the neo soul movement. But by the time I came into his space, he was resentful of the neo soul movement because he felt that it boxed everyone. And when you listen to interviews, they all kind of felt that way. Maybe not resentful. That's probably a strong word for everyone. But there was a bit of, like, don't let.

[Dustin Ross]

By definition, it makes sense.

[Francesca]

Yeah. Like, we're black artists who are gonna make black music in whatever capacity that looks like sounds like, and we want the freedom for it to be whatever it needs to be at the time.

[Asante]

Yeah.

[Francesca]

And he was kind of in that space, and so he was kind of annoyed that I was still wanting to make a certain sound. And so it's like, I just kept being around people that were interfering so much, and it was exhausting, especially when you're young and you don't have backing. I remember I finally got a meeting with this really prominent lawyer, and he literally said to me, you got to get the fuck away from all these people. Like, he literally was like, this person, that person, get away. You need to get away. And I said to him, but how do I do that? How does one do that? And he was like, because I was so young. And then when I started leaning on him because I felt like what he was saying made sense. But then he started putting in some control mechanisms as well. And so there was just always that feeling of, like, golly, I don't think this industry is for me.

[Asante]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. There are certain parts of the music.

[Francesca]

Industry where I just wanted to be in the studio. I wanted to sing, I wanted to write. I wanted to see what came of that. Claude had gotten my voice to a point that it was so incredible that every meeting I had, every person I met was like, yes, yes, yes, yes. So that was clear. Career. But the business end and the having to be around men in particular, as a young woman that they knew didn't have any team or protections around her, was just too vulnerable. And it was ugly and frustrating and hard. And I'm not like a meek person that wanted success so badly that I was gonna be like, it. I'm gonna just do everything. Like, I just never felt that way. I felt like, this don't feel right. This is too challenging. I tried going in a couple of different directions, different corners, different people, and it Just always met with the same control mechanism, the same. You got to do a little, you know, some little strange for some change. It was just like, what is this industry? It was so dark for me and too hypersexual, too controlling, too many men, that's. That got in my way in terms of like, you need to listen to me. And I was like, fuck that. And I just didn't have it in me to fight through that. And I've had those conversations with a lot of the women that I know that started young and the shit that they have gone through. I'm just like, fuck that. Yeah, I didn't have it. And that makes me sad because I know for a fact, fact that if I had found a way somehow with the way that my voice had gotten so strong and Claude and I worked so hard on my writing skills, my singing skills, how to put a song together, we worked so hard for so many years, I would have done really, really well.

[Asante]

Yep. You being a big ass house, one of your few houses right now, you.

[Francesca]

Know, music, which to me there's probably nothing that would have made me happy. But then when I look at the state of the industry, you know, how artists, the shit that they deal with, I don't even know if sometimes I'm like, maybe I was saved from that too. Yeah, you know, similar to how you daydream about certain trajectories. And like Nora, right in the book, she was always sad that she didn't keep up with the swimming because she was phenomenal at it. So when she tried on the Olympic swim life where she was this Olympian, she realized that, yes, she had the awards, she was doing the speaker speaking gig, she had the beautiful house, she was revered, she was all the things. But what she didn't have was family. She didn't have a good support group because she had taken so much of her life dedicated to this one thing, that she didn't have space to develop any. Anything else, really. And so she realized in that life, like, damn, yes, I'm an Olympian. But like, what else else? And I think that's a lot of what people don't consider with these like high levels of fame or whatever level, mid tier, whatever, there's a lot of sacrifice that stops you from developing a lot of other aspects of your life, you know, like your friendships, your family, even love. Like, it's a lot. It's a lot of mental toiling that. I don't know, sometimes I think about it and I'm like, I just really loved music, but I Don't know that I loved the industry and I don't know that I ever would have because I just would have consistently been coming up against people that wanted to have me go in a direction I didn't want to.

[Asante]

Yeah. What about now?

[Dustin Ross]

What about doing like a passion project? Even if it's like a single that you release independently, where you just write some music and do it. Would you do that now?

[Francesca]

Me and Jesse shout out to Jesse Boykins.

[Dustin Ross]

Hell yeah.

[Francesca]

We've played around with music because he's one the of of the few friends I have to say in the music industry that when we would work on music, it was just fun.

[Asante]

Yeah.

[Francesca]

And I always appreciate him for that. I always appreciate it. We talk about music, we're just like two kids that love music. He was never like, you should do it like this. You should like nothing. It was just like, let's just see what comes. And that's the type of people I want to be around that you just like, see what comes. Let's not try to make this anything like so, you know, we've played around with that, but it's nothing. I think I have so much like trauma. Trauma from how hard it was for so many years. And the people that came into my life, my lord, sometimes I'm like, who was I in a past life?

[Asante]

Yeah.

[Francesca]

I feel you people have been horrendous and I'm just like, what the fuck did I do? Who did I kill?

[Dustin Ross]

The past life on some real shit though. You still got time. Time when it come to the music shit. I know it's a much more nuanced conversation and I respect it. But just speaking generally about you still having an opportunity, you absolutely still have not just an opportunity, but a. A bankable opportunity to like put some music out. People, people would eat your single up right now. They would eat a bomb ass single. If you got in the studio, forgive me, cause I'm starting to get pissed. Passionate. But if you got in the.

[Francesca]

My voice isn't even the same.

[Dustin Ross]

You say that now, darling, but it's like riding a bike, Right? And whatever your voice is saying, I.

[Asante]

Can still do it.

[Francesca]

You can still, but a voice is an instrument. Whatever your voice is, you have to take care of.

[Dustin Ross]

We got AI now. I can get the AI. But, but, but absolutely you still sound good. Because even when you playfully sing on the show now, people are. Are blown away by your vocals. Like you. You might not sound like you did 20 years ago. You know what I'm saying?

[Francesca]

Yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

But you still have A voice, especially for the type of music that I feel like you would want to sing. Now, I'm not trying to sell you. I'm just telling, like. Like.

[Francesca]

No, I get it. Because it's the same. Like I was just saying to Asante, there's some trajectories that don't necessarily have deadlines.

[Dustin Ross]

Have y' all heard Tweets news? Well, I was imma play it in Music man segment, but Tweet got a.

[Francesca]

New song out called I've Heard it, and she.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah, but she's sitting on a couch just singing. I'm like, friend. Looking fly. I'm like, friend. You really.

[Francesca]

The industry just so.

[Dustin Ross]

I hate the music industry, but you. That's what I'm saying. You can have the. The recurring theme through what you just told about your reflection was you not having control and being vulnerable to negativity.

[Francesca]

From all being at the mercy of troubled men.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah, but at this stage of the game, right. I think that you could circumvent all that and have, like, a lot more control in your experience and still get the release of putting out the music that's still inside of you. Because I know you, and I know. I just know. But anyway. Yeah, that's okay. My turn.

[Asante]

Let me see.

[Dustin Ross]

Okay, here's one. I would have been straight and had a kid.

[Francesca]

Oh, my God.

[Dustin Ross]

And had a kid in my late 20s so that I could still fight with them at school when they had conflicts.

[Francesca]

You're so crazy.

[Asante]

So you can fight with them at.

[Dustin Ross]

School when they experienced conflict. You know, it needs some backup. I would still be able to jump in there with them and. Yeah. Fatherhood, man. I think about fatherhood. I do. I think about fatherhood.

[Francesca]

That doesn't have a deadline, y'. All. Well, for y', all, it don't.

[Asante]

I mean. No, but still, it's just like, I think about what I. I don't want to be old on the kids. You know what I'm saying?

[Dustin Ross]

For me, right? What I mean is that, like, I would have had the experience of being in a heterosexual relationship and fathering a child or some children, or like Toya Bush Harris from Married to Medicine said some childs, you know, you are so great. I would have liked to have experienced that in my lifetime. I would. And I would have liked to have done it at a young enough age that I could have had two. I joke about it, but I'm dead serious. I would have had two sets of kids. I would have had some. Some older kids that I had in, like, my late 20s. And then like in my 40s, late 30s, 40s, I would have had like two, maybe one or two more like little kids. And then my kids would've loved each other. And it would have been what it was. I would. And I would have been an incredible father, number one, but also co parent because I would have took care of the mothers of my children. They'd only been two, though. It would have been out of control. But I would have took care of the mothers of my kids.

[Francesca]

Only Dustin fantasize.

[Dustin Ross]

I'm just being honest about a reflection. Like, I wonder what life would have looked like if I would have had the experience of fathering a child. Some children, some child else in that relationship model. I just wonder what that experience would have been like. Now I'm very glad. Again, this does not take away anything. Y' all know. I'm very happy to be a gay man. I feel like it saved me a lot. I'm not on Facebook. Look at this meat right here. I grilled today. You know what I'm saying? Like, I live in a credible life.

[Francesca]

But it's natural to think of.

[Dustin Ross]

But I just wonder what that would have been like. Like, damn, wow. My kids running and playing. I just wonder what that would have felt like. That's.

[Francesca]

Yeah, I think that's. I think that's so cute. I thought. I've thought of siblings. Being an only child. I used to always imagine, like, what is that? Like when you grow up with these people in your house.

[Dustin Ross]

Lots of highs and lows.

[Francesca]

Just because they're your siblings don't mean you like them. Right. Just because they're your siblings don't mean y' all are two human beings that, like, click.

[Dustin Ross]

Or doesn't. That's the thing.

[Francesca]

Right? Right.

[Dustin Ross]

It either does mean those things or either doesn't mean those things.

[Francesca]

And that's what I've always been fascinated by because you have to share space with people and it's. And you. It's like a luck of draw, whether y' all make it work or not. And I see that with a lot of my friends that have lots of siblings. I see that with the kids in my life, just the way that they interact, how some are like this. Like, it's just like, it just works. And then some are just like, whoa. Like, y' all are never.

[Dustin Ross]

People are people, friend.

[Asante]

People are people.

[Francesca]

But I find that fascinating in the sibling dynamic because y' all had to be in this house together, like, oh, my God, for so plenty of time.

[Dustin Ross]

To hate the fuck out of you. Right. Or. Or either miss being in the house together. Right, Right.

[Francesca]

It's either the sweetness of it or the hell of it. And I think that's so fascinating. Cause I just did not. Not ever have to experience that I was by myself as the only child with a single parent. It's just two of us. When I came home from school, I go in my room, do my homework. Like, it just was such an isolated, peaceful. Which probably is why I am a lot of the way I am now. I'm a bit of a lone wolf, but I just always imagine, like, while.

[Asante]

The rest of us are out here living like Crookland friends. No, I'm just playing.

[Francesca]

And you. You too. You have sisters. It's just like that, to me, was always. How does that impact you as a person, too? Because there's. That's. They have their personalities that are gonna affect you so much.

[Dustin Ross]

Thank God. Right? Well, y'.

[Asante]

All.

[Dustin Ross]

I ain't even gotta go into no detail. Y' all know how much my brother and my sister mean to me. And the thing is, I. I'm younger than them, Much younger than them. But I never. They never made me feel like the little kid or feel like I would get in trouble. Trouble for crossing a line with them.

[Francesca]

Right.

[Dustin Ross]

Together we cussed together, we snuck around. We did all that. They would take me with them and be honest. You better not say that type. We always had a camaraderie to me, and. And I'm. I am eternally grateful for the influence of my brother and my sister.

[Francesca]

Like, what a blessing. But what a blessing that those were the cars you were dealt with.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah, I'm grateful. Especially as a practicing homosexual, you know what I'm saying?

[Francesca]

Could have been a whole different.

[Dustin Ross]

Thank God for them to have that layer when I have experienced the opposite reaction in other cases, you know what I'm saying? So I'm eternally grateful for just their friendship and. And just on a human to human level. And the fact that we're siblings. And when we do. Actually, have y' all seen it? Y' all know me and my brother are exactly alike. He just straight and I'm gay. You know what I'm saying?

[Francesca]

And how much he loves you.

[Dustin Ross]

How much I love that nigga. Like, for real, you know, Like, I can't even imagine. Imagine. So I get it. And I know it's not always like that. I know that. So I'm just that much more grateful for them, though, in that regard. Like, on my mama, my sister, like, my mama. My sister will hold me the Foot. Y' all know. Y' all already know. Like, I love my sisters, and I'm like her damn father. I hold her ass down. We just. We locked in for real. You know what I'm saying? What a blessing.

[Francesca]

I see that with my best friend. Her and her brother, they're twins, so that's a whole different level of connection. And then she had an older sister. And the way that they connect, it just. Like, their house is so fun. They're so funny. They get on each other, but it's, like, in fun. And they understand each other's humor, so nobody gets butthurt. Like, it's just so fun.

[Dustin Ross]

You can't hate your parents together as a unit.

[Francesca]

Yeah. And, like, the way they've gotten each other through shit that the parents don't know, you know, like, it's just. It just seemed like such a phenomenal support system. And I remember I used to tell my best friend, you are lucky. Because I've also seen the opposite. Opposite. Where the siblings have made their lives such hell that it changed them as a person, you know? And it fucked up their childhood. Growing up in a house where, like, they were with people that did not like them and made their life hard. Yeah. And that sucks. I'm like, I can't imagine I'm the.

[Dustin Ross]

Type this probably telling too much about business. But I will tell this. Say hypothetically, like, right. Like, my brother or my sister had had an argument with my mom and them, I would call them and be like, I don't like what you said to them. You know what I'm saying? I will call the pa. We ride together, flat the fuck out. Cause I don't like nobody mistreating them. I don't give a fuck who it is. Okay. I don't like seeing them upset and sad. So it's just a thing.

[Francesca]

Yeah. See, I think that's beautiful. And it's something that I'm like, damn. I understand people gonna have the amount of kids they can have, and I respect it. But I'm always like, give them a little sibling. Give someone life with. Right. Meanwhile, they hate each other.

[Asante]

Okay.

[Francesca]

But anyways, thank you, guys for sharing your alternate lives that you have thought about and daydreamed about. I think it's. You know, and the thing about this, too, is, like, these are lives that are always in the back of my head. And I. It's not something that I just randomly think about, but it's something. And, you know, when we get in our quantum bag, when we're just like. But they're existing somewhere right now. That's why you're thinking about them. There is the boxer. There is the rapper. There is other.

[Asante]

Me just got another Nobel peace Prize. I felt it.

[Francesca]

Right. I know that there's a version of me out there that made it in the music industry, made it far, and is having the time of her life.

[Asante]

Someone came in, friend, some woman with experience came in and held your hand and told all them in the. Shut up, up and let a real one do her thing.

[Francesca]

Yes, Lord, I would have loved your.

[Asante]

Is plaqued out right now.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah.

[Asante]

In several different realities, girl. I promise you, friend, in that reality.

[Dustin Ross]

Phyllis Hyman is still alive. And she was the one who came in and was like, let her be.

[Francesca]

Come, little girl.

[Dustin Ross]

It was Phyllis Hyman.

[Francesca]

God, I wish, man. There need to be more wonderful women in the industry. If you're considering this as a career, do it. There's little girls that need you, that needs your hand.

[Dustin Ross]

I made it as a hand being held. We always was great friends. We used to sit by each other at the awards. Everybody thought. Yep. They thought we was messing around. And we would always be like, no, we just. We like siblings. And then they accepted it.

[Asante]

Y' all in each other's biographies.

[Dustin Ross]

Yep. Our families ended up. You and your partner, me and my. My wife or husband or whatever. I probably would have been.

[Francesca]

He said wife or husband. I love.

[Dustin Ross]

So yes. Yes. That's what happened in that life.

[Francesca]

Oh, I love this. This is the midnight library. I'm so curious, those of you listening, if you're comfortable, of course. What are some alternate lives that you have thought about? Whether it's something you just daydreaming about or something that you actually were on the precipice. Right. Come on, words. You actually were there. But someone or something or a circumstance completely derailed that. And you can't help but think what life would have been like if that didn't happen. So let's tap into that, and depending.

[Asante]

On what it is, you still might have time.

[Dustin Ross]

What if we would have did. What if we would have had them write you got me by the roots? And that was our song. I did the rap and you sung.

[Asante]

The parts and we went.

[Francesca]

I was thinking more fab and Lil Mo, but you right, you right.

[Dustin Ross]

Fran would have got out that blue Escalade and that fur coat so fast.

[Asante]

Fran and Dustin being like, da, da da da da da da da da da da.

[Francesca]

On that note, that's perfect. Let's jump to this week's segments. So this week in Wellness. I actually just wanted to read two emails that I received that just. Just made my heart flutter. I feel like with all the heaviness in the world, you need all the joy. Yeah, you can get anywhere you can get it from. And I was like, I'm gonna share this on the show. The first one, the subject line had me howling. It said black business praise report. And this is. This is from a listener named Shalia. She says, I wanted to share some awesome news that I just received. Received a little while ago. The friend zone featured a non profit organization named Ifly Youth. Remember that program that I mentioned where they help the young girls travel, is based out of D.C. she says it's the program that sponsors young women to travel internationally while equipping them with leadership skills. I've been looking for ways to enlarge my capacity for generosity through philanthropy. And as soon as I heard about Ifly, I knew I wanted to be a of Part. Part. So I reached out to the founder to introduce myself and to see if there were any opportunities to be involved. She let me know that they were opening up applications for board members and that she would circle back so I could apply. I'm not going to lie. I was so nervous because this is the first time I've attempted to do something like this. But I've promised myself to be more courageous as I enter the last year of my 30s.

[Dustin Ross]

I love that.

[Francesca]

And I had an interview with the President on October 21, y'. All. I just received an email that I was chosen to be a board member. Yay.

[Dustin Ross]

Congratulations.

[Francesca]

That makes me so happy. A board member.

[Asante]

Did she say entering her 30s too? Congrats.

[Francesca]

No, entering the last year of her 30s.

[Asante]

Oh. Probably still looking like she's entering her 30s. Sorry, continue.

[Francesca]

You know how we do.

[Asante]

I do.

[Francesca]

She said, I just received an email that I was chosen to be a board member with Iflight and I cannot officially be voted in in December. I wanted to give you an update and thank you for introducing me to Ifly, but more importantly, for inspiring me to give myself a chance. Because you never know what experiences you're missing out on because of fear. Thank you again. And she signed it, your new board member and longtime listener, Shalayah. That's so cool.

[Asante]

Congratulations, Shalaya.

[Dustin Ross]

On the board.

[Asante]

Sh.

[Dustin Ross]

That's on the board.

[Asante]

Okay.

[Francesca]

I just love that we, by, you know, sharing this incredible organization, were able to connect someone to it and now they're the board member.

[Dustin Ross]

Like, makes it all worth it.

[Francesca]

It makes it all worth it for me. The last email I wanted to share. So remember I talked about Kenesha who is the executive that I had worked with when I was doing my meta campaign the year before Blast and she had a tour that was kicking off called Pathway to Power Tour with her organization. She actually hit us up as well and she said, I've been meaning to sit down and write this with my full heart because what you did moved mountains. I usually listen to the podcast in the evenings on the day it drops, but that day I hadn't listened yet. I was still riding high from our Pathway to Power Tour kickoff in Queens, New York, York. I had a huge wave of emails and dms and at first I thought it was just the momentum for the tour, but then I saw one message that said I heard it on the Friend Zone and I froze. And then I cried. You didn't just mention us, you moved something. That episode dropped on the exact same day that our tour launched. The same day. The kind of timing you can't plan manner explained is just God and what followed felt like confirmation, overflow and divine alignment all at once. I knew your power from working with you while at Facebook, but experiencing it firsthand through my nonprofit hit. On a completely different level, the Fran effect is so real. People don't just trust you, they move when you speak. And this time they moved for us. Since that moment, we've received outreach from school principals, superintendents and parents wanting to bring the tour to their campuses. We have psychologists, doctors, social workers offering their time and services and tons of brands reaching out to fill swag bags and partner with us all. From one mention on the Friend Zone.

[Dustin Ross]

Beautiful. Thank you. To the thank you.

[Asante]

Congratulations.

[Francesca]

I was like my God, she said. You didn't just amplify us, you helped position us to save more lives. Black girls, the ones often overlooked and under supported like I mentioned earlier in the show, are now being centered in rooms they may have never accessed without this. Also LOL at Dustin saying the A in steam stands for attitude. She said. Let's be honest, it kind of does. She said it officially stands for arts, but attitude is required. So he was still right.

[Dustin Ross]

That's right.

[Francesca]

Thank you, she said. We're in Detroit in Dustin's hometown this week and Asante though you're in Charlotte, Atlanta is the first stop on the spring leg of our tour.

[Dustin Ross]

I love this man, she said.

[Francesca]

Thank you for your heart, for the way you carry community, for seeing us and saying something. What you, Dustin and Ahsante have built continues to bless and reach in ways you may never Fully know y' all remind me every time that community is currency, that love can travel, and that purpose lands. Thank you deeply here for y', all, always with so much love and respect. Ken.

[Asante]

Oh, man. Thank you to the listeners.

[Dustin Ross]

Hell, yeah.

[Asante]

Thank you to the listeners. It's because of you guys that stuff like that. That, like, Fran doesn't get up here and talk about trash, as you all well know. Okay, I. I have partaken in my share, I must admit, but Fran is always doing something amazing. And I love the fact that the listeners, without you guys listening and doing your big one for us, like, these things couldn't happen. These are things that we know that the community need, and that's why we choose to speak up. Fran, always you. Always you and Dustin, you guys, always. And myself, we always pick businesses and opportunities because we want to help communities. So the fact that you are community does you. You help with that push. Just thank you to all of you out there listening and congratulations. Kenesha, girl, right?

[Francesca]

When she said superintendents and teachers, principals and doctors, that's why I had to.

[Asante]

Say to the listeners first, because I'm like. Because, you know, because when people come up to me and I remember this man, he was. He's like, I'm a little lawyer. I listened to y', all, and I'm.

[Francesca]

Just like, sir, we even got mediums.

[Dustin Ross]

People from all walks of life. And I think the thing that ties all those people together is goodness. Right?

[Asante]

Yeah. This is.

[Dustin Ross]

This is. This was a call to action that was initiated by you, friend, because of your good nature. And you wanted to bring awareness to this mission and bring awareness to the character of Kenesha, which you had a personal witness to, right? Once you put that call out there from a good place, all of these people listen to the professions that you just mentioned, right? All of these extremely busy people found time to offer and donate their services because they believed in the cause and the intention. That says a lot about what kind of people they are. And I love the fact that our show can cast a net just of good people. People, you know what I'm saying? Across our walks of life. We gonna talk our. We gonna have fun. You see, she was laughing at the jokes in her. Her beautiful letter that she wrote. You know, we're gonna talk our. We gonna have fun. We're gonna have differing opinions, but the. The. The. The through line here is good intention, and I think that that always being the compass will result in success and in beautiful stories like this. So I'm really grateful and. And I'm so glad you mentioned it, and I'm so glad our listeners hearts were moved, you know what I'm saying? To actually engage, sometimes you might want an opportunity to help or to put goodness back into the world, but with so much shit going on, you don't even know where to start, you know what I'm saying? To offer to help. This is a great opportunity for a lot of people. I think that's why you got such an overwhelming response. So shout out to Kenesha, man. Much love, man.

[Francesca]

Right. And if you want to check out these organizations, iFlyouth.org and then that's the one run by a young lady named Sydney. And then Kenesha's org is Black Girls Can, Inc. And they're both doing incredible work. I feel deeply connected to organizations like this because like I mentioned when we were discussing the Midnight Library, a lot of what I got derailed is not having the right people be there to support my dreams in a way that. That wasn't them trying to be predatory.

[Dustin Ross]

Right.

[Francesca]

And so these types of orgs, they instill so many things into these young women. How to speak up for themselves, how to move through the world, advocacy. I mean, it's. And even just being a hand to guide them through whatever it is that they want to do. That's why I feel so sensitive to these orgs, because I feel like it's so needed with young girls that don't have guidance. Guidance and are trying to navigate this world on their own in a lot of ways. And so I am. When I saw those emails, it just made my heart swell. Like I was like, I love that we can highlight these orgs, but also that our listeners want to do something with these orgs and help keep them afloat, keep them running, fund them, I mean, in all the ways that we show up.

[Dustin Ross]

So I'm just gonna say it. People can talk all this they want about going to church on Sunday, organized religion, all that other, other. But that's what God looks like to me, where people can just agree to be on like, Move Mountain, the same page, for the best reason possible, helping some children, some black children at that.

[Francesca]

Right.

[Dustin Ross]

Like, to me, that sort of agreement to just a good intention and a good. A good action like that, that is, to me, that's what it looks like. The magical thing that makes everybody be like, yes, because it's the right thing to do. Yeah, that's what it looks like to me. Not other things.

[Francesca]

Other books. There's other books. Thank you to Ganesha. Thank you to Shalayah. And thank you to Sydney as well from Ifly Youth for giving Shalayah an opportunity to be a part of this wonderful org. And also to all the listeners. That also made me feel good because that means y' all really, really be listening, you know, because sometimes things can kind of go over your head. You're listening for entertainment. But this made me feel like, no, you're actually listening. And that felt really good. And I had to share that. Like I said, we need some joy up in this world to remind. A reminder that the world's still moving in beautiful ways. And so that's.

[Dustin Ross]

We need to do one of those TikToks with Kendrick Lamar's Super bowl performance. You can't fake influence. You really about to do it. We need to do one of them. Cause you can't fake that. You know what I'm saying? That support. You can't fake that, man.

[Francesca]

When she listed out the people that hit her. Anyway, that's it for this wonderful.

[Dustin Ross]

Did she say Maxine Waters had done? Nah, I'm just playing. I listen to the friend zone and I want to reach out.

[Asante]

You have a market stand.

[Francesca]

That's it for this wonderful week in wellness.

[Dustin Ross]

Yes. Welcome to the Friends.

[Asante]

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[Commercial Voice]

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[Dustin Ross]

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[Asante]

Sauce and participate in McDonald's for limited time. All right, this week in music. Just a couple of quick things to note. Note the first thing that I would want to do is give a shout out to a user on X, formerly known as Twitter, still known as Twitter in the streets Twitter. This Twitter user's name is at Ken's best Life with a Y. 20 hours ago, Ken tweeted. Well, as of this recording, Ken tweeted best song on this album is Eyes Emoji. Thinking Emoji. And the album screenshot is Carrie Hilson, In a Perfect World. And Carrie Hilson, she actually retweeted this tweet and said these replies are interesting. Now, Carrie Hilson, as controversial as she is, In a Perfect World is an album that was released many, many moons ago. And at the time I remember having various arguments with friends about what the best songs on that album were. And to this day, it's like been an ongoing thing. So when Kerry Hilson I first saw this as a retweet from Kerry Hilson saying these replies are interesting. It is interesting to always see what songs people like or don't like. So I just thought that I wanted to note that because that was a really good album. I'm not sure if you guys remember any of the songs.

[Dustin Ross]

How many times did you see where did he go in the comments? Because that's the answer to the question. So how many times did you see that in the comments? I'm a mess right now. Out of order I'm torn up apart. That's the best song on the album. That is interesting because I just.

[Asante]

I don't know what I would have pegged you for, but that is just interesting like that. I just didn't think that that would have been a selection.

[Dustin Ross]

I used to be doing like this. That was for Patreon somebody.

[Asante]

Also, there's a song by Kerry Hilson, one of my favorites at the time and probably would have been to this day is Quicksand. Quicksand is not available on Streaming. This comment is from Jimmy. Sold out. It says it. It still pains me to this day that Quicksand isn't available on streaming because it's easily tied top three. Quicksand was a very sexual, like sultry dope ass sound from Kerry Hilson at the time and it was perfect. In this song of In a Perfect World. This album cover is still. I don't want to shade her, but it still makes me laugh to this day. Why? But because the way she laying in that chair. Yes, it is just a funny album cover. Like I get what could have been the final vision. That just wasn't it for me.

[Dustin Ross]

We want your limbs to happen. So she just got it.

[Asante]

I'm just gonna do this just for Patreon really quickly and be done with it. But I love In a Perfect World.

[Dustin Ross]

Who's that? Keith Haring. She looks like a Keith Haring silhouette.

[Asante]

See.

[Francesca]

I don't think it's bad.

[Asante]

It's not bad. It's just not.

[Dustin Ross]

It really is the tights.

[Asante]

It's just a lot.

[Francesca]

Consider the time.

[Asante]

Yeah, that's the thing. It's a dated cover. Like, I just enjoyed that that conversation was happening on Twitter. I know Carrie Hilson had released music earlier this year and she's been dropping visuals as of late. So for me, I just love the fact that there are are women in R B that have been around that are still coming back around that we deserve to still hear from. And I feel like Carrie Hilson when she's singing is one of them. You know, I've been seeing a lot of Maya as of late. I always enjoy seeing Maya out in these streets. You know, I just feel like these women, they have great catalogs. There's still music to be made, whether it's new music music or just the old things just redone. Because I mean, let's face it, society loves a good sample. And some of that music is so good that the new artists can resample it and put it back out as new. Lou the T Pain was like it. Let me, you know, sample my own. Have Kalani on this and we gonna ride it. And I just think that there are just plenty of lanes in R B and we're just not talking about the R B women enough. But I want to make sure I mentioned Kerry Hilson. Last thing that I will mention is Summer Walk Walker. Summer Walker. She has completed her over it trilogy. This is finally over. It's a two disc set, nine tracks per disc, 18 songs, about an hour long. I've listened to the project. Now, this is what I.

[Francesca]

18 songs and it's only an hour long.

[Asante]

Yeah, I mean, you know, a couple of, you know, like the first one's like an intro and that seemed fast though, ain't it?

[Francesca]

Damn.

[Asante]

I mean, you know how music is today.

[Dustin Ross]

She also. I don't want to interrupt you, though, but she also went on record recently saying that she really preferred making longer form R B songs, but her label had discouraged. Discouraged her from doing that and they wanted shorter form songs. Yeah, it was like a whole conversation happening about that like last week.

[Francesca]

Damn.

[Asante]

I'm not. Yeah, I'm not particularly upset about. About the songs, the length of songs. What I will say is when this track list dropped and I saw the features, I'd already prepared myself mentally for this to be my least favorite of the trilogy. Just be. Well, because. And I'm glad you asked, friend. When I saw like Teddy Swims and stuff like that, I was like, I'm not. I don't really listen to his music. When I saw Mario the Scientist, I was like, I don't really enjoy her voice. Like, they were just. I already had like certain preconceived notions about how to receive certain tracks right. I actually enjoyed the Mariah the Scientist track before Mariah the Scientist and she happens later on in the song. So it's like I don't even get tired to have an opinion about whether I like her or not. But I do enjoy that it sounds like Mariah the Scientist style production and it's Summer on it. Maybe they were doing that for Mariah's part. I don't know. I didn't get there. But I. I enjoyed it. The reason that I mentioned why I thought that this was going to be my least favorite project of the trilogy, it still, still, it still is my least favorite of the trilogy. Just because I think about how hard the first two hit. But it still surprised me how much I still connected with a lot of the new music. And I see a lot of people weren't really enjoying this new summer. They felt like, oh, she's going into her departure mode, which it's finally over it. So she is going into her departure mode from, I guess, sad girl era. But that doesn't mean we're gonna stop getting sad girl music from her per se. I just feel like people read into that and they were just like, oh, so now she's going to be happy all the time. We're not going to enjoy her. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Which may be the case, may not be the case. I just found it interesting that I thought that this was probably where I was going to hop off the Summer Walker train. But I don't feel that way after listening to the project. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thoroughly enjoyed most of the music that I heard. She had a Bryson Tiller feature. She had a Chris Brown feature. Two different songs. People had their comments about them. I actually enjoyed both of those features. Both of those songs. The best feature on the album for me was the 21 Savage feature. But there are. There's a lot of great records on the album for me. I will say and I will play maybe one or two of them for the songs to playlist since lately portion. But that is it for the artist dimension part. Have you guys had a chance to listen to Summer Walker's project or did you have any opinions that you want to insert?

[Francesca]

I haven't had a chance to listen.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah, I haven't listened to the album yet, what I did, so I don't have an opinion on it one way or the other because I haven't listened. I like to know what I'm talking about. But what I did see was the video for her single fmt, which stands for my type. And visually, yeah, visually, that shit is beautiful. They're like out in the out west somewhere and I'm assuming, like, it looks like they're in the desert somewhere in a ranch and.

[Francesca]

Oh, and she had like a headpiece.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah, she's taking like a bath. These like, spiritual women or whatever it was.

[Asante]

So I am enjoying the rollout. I'm enjoying the looks, I'm enjoying the visuals so far. And honestly, again, she has other videos.

[Dustin Ross]

Or that's the only one.

[Asante]

Oh, that's the only video. But, like, as far as, like, her rollout, like, she had been putting, like, she did a video on her Instagram with the ladies from Poor Mom's podcast. Yes, I was liking, like, the rollout for this. And then even before we knew that her and this white man man out were part of this rollout, like, it was just funny when she had dropped her merch and stuff that it was the white man again, I was like, what is it with her and this white man? But Summer, it's just really, really funny. And I think that I. I'm connecting with the music because I didn't come into it wondering if she was gonna make some of the same songs. Like, I think people were looking for the same thing. They were like, oh, I want another Girls Need Love or I want another this or whatever. I kind of just came into wondering, like, all right, what's summer sound gonna be? Like? How she feeling? Like, what's that gonna look like? And I just. And I thoroughly just enjoyed it. Enjoyed, you know, from start to finish the story that was happening. I enjoy summer. I enjoyed the 1-800-heartbreak. Like, I. There are just a lot of really good songs on there that I'm enjoying. And I feel like people were like, oh, it's not as good as x, y or z, but there's still some good ass songs on there.

[Dustin Ross]

My thing is, do you like the music or not? I get so tired of concerning themselves with the wrong do you like the music or not? Like, everybody's so concerned about the format. Well, she ain't gonna make the hat happy song sad. So she ain't gonna make that. Do you like the music that she's making or not? And either way you answer that question is fine. I just get so tired of people concerning themselves with the wrong. As consumers, y' all cause a lot of your own stress. For real. Like all that stan war, it just is exhausting to me. You know what I'm saying? Like, either like it or not. Go ahead though.

[Asante]

That's it for that portion. Frank, I want to know what you have been over there listening to because this is the songs playlist lately.

[Francesca]

Hey. So y' all know I have mentioned how much I adore Jalen Josie. She has a collab with Xavier Omar, another artist that we adore. So you know, the two of them together, it's called painting the stars. It's off of Xavier's new project and this is how it goes.

[Asante]

Honey, honey.

[Dustin Ross]

You know what I want to do? I want to take you to the moon I want to take you to the Honey, honey yeah Every night I'm.

[Francesca]

Thinking I should be next to you O I should next to you and every day I'm thinking I need to make this true. Who would have thought we would be in now? I just knew we would make it somehow baby now I'm thinking against nothing we cannot do and baby, somehow Somehow we made it this far can't give you up I've tried all you got.

[Dustin Ross]

Me so.

[Francesca]

Didn'T want to stop it. That is a perfect song. They sound so good together. I love that project too. Definitely. Check it out. I also have been listening to where is it? Tiana Major 9.

[Asante]

Yes.

[Francesca]

Has a song with YBA.

[Asante]

Oh, wow.

[Francesca]

Yeah, right. And it's called always. And this is how it goes. I told my friends all about you they couldn't Wait to meet. Wanted to witness the passion this fire they wanted to see. Dark right now Cause our flame blew out. Will you come back round? You left your keys. This ain't home is house. Did I run you out? We have plans. Nice, right?

[Asante]

I like that. For Hell yeah. I like the production. Her voice, man.

[Francesca]

Everybody just sounding so good. And then lastly, let me see. I have so many to choose from. It's hard to pick. This one's for Dustin.

[Dustin Ross]

Come on.

[Francesca]

Sanford's back.

[Dustin Ross]

Hell yeah.

[Francesca]

That's for the OG listeners. Forgot a song called Cumulus. Cumulus slash memory that I really enjoyed. This is how it goes.

[Asante]

Making no sense the clock is puzzle still I try to command and pressure on your health A heavy expense you fear it intends to prevent you from making a change Rub that gold inside into these deep cuts Me holding my.

[Francesca]

Cup in your re Fire over there is yet to reach us.

[Asante]

Watching people float underneath the.

[Francesca]

I've been trying to climb out the.

[Asante]

Sewer Heavy was my mind it's become a struggle because the roots are so, so deep. Up came the zombie drifting in sleep.

[Francesca]

Just a nice chill little vibe play around the house. And those my three for this week.

[Asante]

Yes. All right, Dustin Ross, what have you been over there listening to lately?

[Dustin Ross]

All right, so this first song I'mma play, word up, you know what I'm saying? As the real that I am, it would be remiss if I did not play Max B. You know what I'm saying? I got a habit by Max B. That's my song.

[Francesca]

The wavy God.

[Dustin Ross]

We about to go in this one.

[Asante]

Waters. Yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

I mean, it's like we all got this special person we love, you know? Hello R to die.

[Francesca]

You know.

[Dustin Ross]

Ain'T nothing like a body die she come through and throw the 50 up another buck she even roll the piffy up who that?

[Asante]

In the spiffy truck sunk with the.

[Dustin Ross]

Blicky chuck Federalis tried to hit me up but my nice behind the wheel I'll be popping out the window I'm.

[Asante]

Nicer with the steel One thing a.

[Dustin Ross]

Could say is that so that's.

[Asante]

That's Max B with that.

[Dustin Ross]

The next song that I'm gonna play is by Tweet. This new single is called Toot Toot. I love Tweet.

[Francesca]

I don't care I with this and her beautiful daughter. Yes. From the first moment I saw you I knew I had to have you Big strong.

[Dustin Ross]

Y' all already know the vibe. Stop playing with Tweet. I'm actually playing two more songs. Cause it the next song I'm gonna play is by Jermaine Dupree featuring CeeLo Green. It's off of Jermaine Dupree's Magic City I album. Yeah, that album makes me feel good. This song is called Atlanta, My boy. I'm telling you, this it, man.

[Asante]

J.D.

[Dustin Ross]

Boy, I'm ready for the BET Awards with this.

[Asante]

Let's go.

[Francesca]

There isn't anywhere else that makes me feel the way you do I promise I'll always be true Sing that it's not a secret weary love that goes forever Every one of us yeah, I will love you for life Y' all.

[Dustin Ross]

Know what this is?

[Asante]

Come on now.

[Dustin Ross]

I love that song anyway, anyway. Because it samples and quit. I will always be there for you, which is one of my hallmark songs, you know what I'm saying? Of my life. So, yeah. Okay. And now the last song that I'm gonna play, you know what I'm saying? The last song I'm gonna play is by my boy, Juvenile BG and Jacques. This song is called Hot Boy Summer, featuring Trombone Shorty. It's a hot boy party. All the hot girls in the building I'm trying to stress that out I need some sexual he healing I'm on a serious vibe I don't be hiding my feelings I wanted you on my side now you right here in my vision and girl, I like it when you wear your hair breathed in different colors I can't let y' all my circle feel like I'm a ringling brother and we can have discussions about what we think of each other But I rather take my clothes off something doors off Some in those off Take my clothes off Some indoors off Take my clothes off Some in those off Take my clothes off some love me D oh, I see you sucking on your straw inside the snowball you in the twerking with your friends and y' all be showing off when you on fire call me up to turn the stove off Grab on the dick and hold it. Good song, right?

[Asante]

Yeah. That's a great song.

[Dustin Ross]

That's it for me this week.

[Asante]

That's a great song. It's an amazing song.

[Dustin Ross]

Thank you.

[Asante]

Since we are in the nola, I would like to play Teacher Moses. She dropped complex simplicity Reimagined featuring some of our faves popping up on my feet Speed Estelle to Duran, Bernard to a bunch of other people. But the song that I'm going to be playing is the out of My Head Reimagined featuring the one and only Don Rashad. And here's how it goes.

[Francesca]

Well, I think I'm going out of my head. Said I think I'm going out of my head. Cause my heart keeps yearning for you. Though I know that we are so dead Gotta let it go. So holding on to all the memories that we had in the past? It ain't worth my tears. You could never bring heartbreak again. I gave my heart, my soul to you. I put the work in never lurking you wor did My attention was on you. But you looking everywhere but where you're supposed to be. And I don't got the time to raise a boy to be a king. You delude Lou. Cause you loose.

[Asante]

Two of nola's. I mean, sweetest songbirds there. Next song I'm gonna play While they dropped a new project. This song is featuring Leon Thomas. It's called Watching Us.

[Francesca]

See, I don't mind before you even realize that you were mine. Skin been glowing lately. I know why? Why? I like to chase too much, you know you play too much Once I got you in front of me. No, I wouldn't take too much. I like to chase too much, you know you play too much Once I got you in front of me.

[Asante]

Shout out to Wale, man. One thing about him is he constantly puts out music, and the music is always good. Like whenever I check out Wale because sometimes I'll miss some of the songs. I'll check them out and, like, I'll be like, damn, he is always gonna be a rapper's rapper. That's one thing about Wale. But I love that song for a few reasons. One of the most recent, I just mentioned Poor Minds a little bit earlier in the show. Poor Minds, they just did a clip talking about how they don't want to hear Closer about cooperate when they at brunch. And so I thought it was funny that this. Because, you know, they had brunch, they like, I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear that. And I thought that was so real and funny because I was like, maybe I'm at that age where it's like, I don't mind hearing Guap.

[Francesca]

I want to hear that.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah, why not? I want to hear that. And NBA Young Boy.

[Asante]

Exactly. So. So this was another example, one of those songs getting sampled that's going to get thrown back into the rotation for that very reason. Reason. So they gonna hear go out play at brunch again because you know they're gonna mix them in. I'm struggling with my last selection because I said I want to play something off of Summer Walkers project. But I. I'm telling you, I really enjoy a lot of these songs.

[Dustin Ross]

Play the song with Nene.

[Francesca]

What?

[Asante]

I'm not playing that one. Nene is on one of the intros for the song.

[Francesca]

I thought he was joking.

[Asante]

It. I'm gonna play two. I'm like Dustin, first song that I'm gonna play is don't make me do it Slash tempted. Here's how how it goes.

[Francesca]

Baby. The best thing a man can do Is what he said he would and I can't say that you've been anything less than consistent. So tell me what's a sudden change to make you want to rearrange? I have for you. I'm trying to play you crazy, you know.

[Asante]

So that song good I really like. I love the fact that Summer Walker, she can make really, really like classic, timeless sounding songs. Like she can. If she really like dug in, like dug her heels in and like did some, she could put out like an amazing project. And hearing songs like, like that, it makes. It reminds me like, oh yeah, she's a bad. The last song that I'm gonna play is 1-800-heartbreak. This is with Anderson Pack but we ain't even gonna get there this is how it goes.

[Dustin Ross]

What.

[Francesca]

I don't want you to know that I've been in my bed so cold and I've been trying my best to not make it look like I can yeah know it's pretty hard to tell I've been looking better every day that goes by I've been outside driving fast and I guess and just see Being a princess Got my legs kicked up I'm catching fights but something's missing so I keep my head on so yeah.

[Asante]

That'S the glimpse of some walker she's finally over it Even though, though she don't sound over it in those songs that I played but that's why I'm still fucking with her she's still making some shit that I with. That's it for the Music man segment.

[Commercial Voice]

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[Asante]

Now we can move on to TV land. Dustin Ross, what have you been watching?

[Dustin Ross]

Let's chop it up and we're gonna start from the bottom this week as we Hear the Baddies USA Chapter 1 trailer dropped from Zeus network. And the reason that I decided to bring it to the main show, normally I keep all that, you know, conversation over on Patreon, but I'm bringing it to the main show because it's a return to form for Baddies and some of the characters, y' all know from Tuscany television, you know what I'm saying? So that's why I decided to talk about it here. Mariah Lynn from Loving Hip Hop New York is on there. Tommy Lee from Loving Hip Hop Atlanta is on there. Sukiana from Loving Hip Hop Miami is on there. Jayla. Her name is Jayla. Mina, Bajayla, Low London, Bri and Cat from Baddies from, excuse me, from Bad Girls Club are on here. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's just, it's a, it's a good mix of talent that we know from television and also the fights in that trailer. And those of us who have been keeping up with the show are familiar with the trio of girls called the big Three, Bad Dolly, Summer, None Other and Big Lex, not the little one. That's their names. And they have been a crew, a motley crew. They've been a crew, a bit a motley one, but they've been a crew since they debuted on the show and they have now imploded. They should have imploded a long time ago because they're extremely problematic, but they have now imploded and are enacting physical violence on each other to the point where we've seen some or none other, who is one of the most annoying characters I've ever seen portrayed on television, reality television and even streamed on the apps. Like Zeus is, right? I saw her with a busted, bloodied up face, right, that she got got. She's made off color remarks about Emmett Till, all sorts of things, right? So this is a desire.

[Francesca]

What I didn't see that.

[Dustin Ross]

But seeing her and she didn't see them fists of fury coming from Big Lex, not the little one, right, because she whooped, she kicked her ass. And they, and they, they show clips of it in the thing and they have been a, a die Hard Ride or Die crew. Come to find out they've been sleeping together. All kind of stuff. So it was fueled by. It was fueled by not just a typical disagreement, but it's like a lovers quarrel.

[Francesca]

Oh.

[Dustin Ross]

And so, yeah, so you know, they're imploding.

[Francesca]

Twists and turns to people.

[Asante]

I'm still stuck on you part cuz the fact see that.

[Francesca]

I thought you to say someone else from the show.

[Dustin Ross]

And the reason she need her ass whipped is because after she made the remark she made, she gonna sit up in a library somewhere with a. A turquoise wig on, have somebody record her reading a book about image. No, I sincerely apologize because I didn't know. This is really serious. We got to really educate ourselves. And even though she might have been sincere, it felt like a mockery. And so because it did, we're going to treat it as such. And so I took Glee and Joy. In fact, earlier I tweeted that picture. There was a white woman. I can't remember her name, but she was watching the protests in Washington D.C. and you could see people waving gay flags, celebrating. She's in a. A brown mint coat, she's got a champagne glass. Watching the protests in D.C. because she was happy to witness what she was witnessing. I was happy to behold the implosion of the big three. I might go put my fur on and pour me a glass of champagne when I watch Baddies on Sunday because I can't wait. So I just wanted to share that little nugget. If you watch the show, we can take a much deeper dive on Patreon. Now moving over to the Peacock act. We're still streaming, but we're moving over to the Peacock app. All her fought on Peacock.

[Francesca]

Oh my God. Can we talk about it?

[Dustin Ross]

So you might as well call me Tevin because I got a question for you. Can we talk now? Number one, I real talk. I didn't even have time to watch this, so I'm gonna go back and rewatch because a lot of it I was listening, not watching, right. But I would interrupt without because I was doing stuff. I was focused, but I was looking up when I needed to or when I couldn't help myself. You know what I'm saying? I stopped at 8. Smoked shit. But I had to watch it because it was that good. And this story took a lot of twists and turns. But I do love the fact that it was titled all her fault. Because in this show there was a recurring theme of women being blamed for stuff that you find out later on may not have been that outcome Right?

[Asante]

Yeah.

[Francesca]

Shitty husbands.

[Dustin Ross]

My God, all of them worse than.

[Francesca]

I mean, what the.

[Asante]

But right, Like, Dakota Fanny, her husband, like, it wasn't like he was making her fault, and it wasn't her fault. Especially when she finds out you're just eating Doritos in your car.

[Francesca]

I'm sorry.

[Asante]

What I'm, like, thinking, like, is he getting a mojo in the car? The motherfucker is literally just sitting there watching YouTube videos or in the parking lot.

[Dustin Ross]

Dakota Fanning is an incredible act actor. She shows her chop.

[Asante]

She.

[Dustin Ross]

This show definitely needs to be considered for award season. They need to submit whatever scenes they need to.

[Francesca]

I'm sure it will.

[Dustin Ross]

It's great. I just want to say that it's a great show.

[Asante]

The actress that played Marissa, every time she would, like, shake or, like, take that moment, like, when her husband was touching her, she couldn't handle. I was like, yo, Shiv, doing her thing over here.

[Dustin Ross]

She was shivering. Yeah, okay. It was.

[Francesca]

It's just, she did great, and I hate her husband on her it. Which means he did great.

[Dustin Ross]

If I'm not mistaken, he comes from the Ryan Murphy universe. I feel like I've seen him play a role.

[Francesca]

We saw him in the White Lotus is.

[Dustin Ross]

Maybe that's what I'm thinking about, is the White Lotus.

[Asante]

Was he the fiance?

[Dustin Ross]

Y. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is crazy.

[Francesca]

The, like, neurotic, right? And when I saw him, I was like, oh, this is the dude from White Love Notice.

[Dustin Ross]

And he did good.

[Asante]

He did.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah, right? He might as well play Bernardine's husband in the next week, Excel, right? We hate you. We hate you.

[Francesca]

But, yes, like I said, it felt like a soap opera after a while because it was like every episode was just some off, off the record ass, like, insane twists and turn. That was just like, what? What? But that's cool, too, that there was literally no way to guess or know what was gonna happen. And I think that's rare because sometimes on the show, you can, like, midway, be like, okay, I know who did this.

[Dustin Ross]

And especially with the spoilers that y' all see online, you're not gonna figure it out. I can tell you right now, even with the spoilers I've seen on Twitter, because I have been scouring Twitter to see what. You know what I'm saying, what people are talking about in connection to the show, because it was that good to me. Also, y' all was right when you told me that within the first two minutes, I was gonna be hooked on.

[Asante]

Like, the show was that good that early on and they carried it all the way through. Like, even if some. You got lost in some of those middle episodes, that last episode, like, everything about it, like, the way that the cop, like, his little part, even the cop's little part at the end, I was like, we need to be in chips.

[Francesca]

I love that dude that plays the cop. He's usually like a cop for some reason on the. And he's always, like. He's always, like, torn between good and evil, and I love him.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah. So I like him. The show is good, and people need to definitely tune in and watch all her falls.

[Francesca]

Yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

You'll be supporting Lawrence from Insecure. I don't know if that's gonna make you watch or not, but it should.

[Francesca]

He did great, too. I'm happy to see him. I'm always happy to see actors getting more work on really great shows.

[Dustin Ross]

Yeah, me too.

[Francesca]

Just keep going, brother.

[Dustin Ross]

Like Niecy Nash, which is why I'm gonna watch All's H Fair on Hulu. No matter what you say, I've been watching. It's good. And episode four was the best episode of the season so far.

[Francesca]

Okay.

[Dustin Ross]

Episode four. It focuses on Niecy Nash's character and her family, and it is just. It's well written. Niecy Nash is a hell of an actor, and so you already know she performed the. Out of it. And it's good. I like what I'm enjoying.

[Asante]

I'm.

[Dustin Ross]

I personally am having a good time watching All Fair. And I'm not saying that to combat or counteract any of the conversation or opinions that people are sharing, because I don't even give a. I know when I cut it on. On my tv, I'm enjoying it. So that's that. Yeah, I just want to share that also.

[Asante]

I've settled into the format of it, so, like, just watching it, like, it's set up a certain way, and once you just, like, follow that, it's good. It's a really good show. It's just Kim is going to take me out every time, and I'm sorry, but that's literally the only thing. So once I look past that one.

[Dustin Ross]

Thing, she comes up short consistently in the scenes when it comes to emoting all of that.

[Asante]

But literally everything else is, like, perfect. Like, when close be doing her thing. Sarah Paulson is having so much fun, and. And you could. I could just only imagine. So in my head, I'm like, the way that she is working this role and being this frigid is amazing, and I know she's loving it.

[Dustin Ross]

So it's good. Y' all should watch it. Also, keep talking about it. If you haven't been talking about it, start talking about about it. The Different World reboot that's coming to Netflix.

[Asante]

Yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

It is full of young black talent. Y' all always talking about how we need this, we need that. We need something for the younger people. We need new talent. This is new talent. A lot of fresh faces, some that you know, some that you don't. Malia Joy Moon is in it. She plays Whitley and Dwayne's daughter Deborah, who's the lead in it. She also was the lead in Hell's Kitchen on Broadway, which was the original play that featured all of Alicia Keys music, and she won a Tony for that. Okay, so she's the real deal. Tashina Arnold's daughter, Elijah Kai, who's been providing us so much joy, who also sidebar, if you take it to YouTube, Elijah Kai was interviewed on Reginae Carter's podcast. She has a podcast called Air Time H E I R Time, where she interviews children, other children of celebrities around her age. Right. Brilliant idea. And Reginae is full of personality, and she actually is a good interviewer if you watch it, so. But she has an episode with Elijah Kai where you can actually get to know them both as young black women. You know, where they at now in life and not just somebody else's kids. And you'll see, like, just how magnetic Elijah Kai's personality is. She's gonna do really, really good on that on a sitcom like. And it's produced by Debbie Allen. Debbie Allen is directing, I believe, the first three episodes of the first season. We all know Debbie Allen is responsible for the original A Different World. And speaking of that, so watch that and talk about it. Get excited about it. It's coming soon. Speaking of Debbie Allen, she just won an honorary Oscar for her work in entertainment at the Governor's Awards. We all know the Governor's Awards are where people are awarded and given honorary Oscars in whatever fields they work in. This was a lot of. It was a lot of black talent this year. And two people that mean a lot to black people got honorary Oscars. And that's Debbie Allen. Yeah, that's how Angela Bassett got hers. They gave her an honorary Oscar. And it's a big. It's an esteemed honor still, you know what I'm saying? Because it reflects them saying, you might not have won, but we're recognizing you as one of the best, you know?

[Asante]

Yeah.

[Dustin Ross]

So this year, two of the honorees were Were Angela Bassett. Not Angela Bassett, excuse me, Debbie Allen and Tom Cruise. And there's a video going around after one of the, at one of the after parties of Debbie Allen and Tom Cruise dancing to Maze and Frankie Beverly. And they are on the dance floor getting down to. Tom Cruise is so happy to be dancing.

[Francesca]

He's so.

[Dustin Ross]

Yes.

[Francesca]

Wait, he's never won an Oscar.

[Dustin Ross]

He has an honorary. He won an honorary Oscar.

[Asante]

That's surprising, right?

[Dustin Ross]

So him. And he's in the video dancing with Debbie Allen. And Jennifer Lewis is also in the video recording.

[Francesca]

People, get in there.

[Asante]

Come on.

[Francesca]

Look, Debbie, come on.

[Dustin Ross]

Tom on her cell phone and dancing.

[Asante]

It's just.

[Dustin Ross]

And all of Debbie, Debbie Allen's beautiful family is there. It's good. So that's a good thing. We're happy about Debbie Allen. Television news. You already know the job. You got to watch the Bell Collective reunion on OWN this Friday. Coming up, love and marriage Huntsville has resumed. So new episodes of that are back every Saturday on own. Watch those two shows. You also have to be knee deep into Real Housewives of Potomac. Monique Samuels has returned in the capacity of a friend of the show. Her and, and the, the former girls that she worked with, they're figuring things out. So watch that.

[Francesca]

Watch.

[Dustin Ross]

Bravo Con was last week. So we got a lot of news out of the Bravo sphere. There's a new iteration of the Real Housewives franchise coming called Real Housewives of Road island and Whoa, Rhode Island. I ought to play a fifth song because I need to be playing Money, Money, Money by the ojs right now. Because if you could have seen these sweeping, sprawling estates that these women were living in, how they were giving it up at polo matches. And it's an all white, looks like they're Italian cast, but it looks like it's going to be interesting. I don't know nobody's politics. I haven't dug into the cast yet. But just based on the two minute plus trailer that they showed at Bravo Con, they premiered it and it's now all over the Internet for people to consume. It's gonna be good. And yeah, that also go on the Peacock app. We're going back to streaming, but it's television related. At Bravo Con, they had a lot of panels on the main stage with currently airing shows. Right. The Real Housewives of Atlanta just wrapped filming their 17th season. We do know that the two additions to the show are K. Michelle and Pinky Cole from Slutty Vegan, who owns Slutty Vegan.

[Francesca]

What?

[Dustin Ross]

They're the two new people on the show. And so off the strength of Pinky alone being on the show, we have got to support the 17th season of the real housewives of Atlanta. The ladies who were on 16, who was was Phaedra Parks, Angela Oakley, Drew Sedora, Kelly Pharrell, who now is Kelly Potter, I believe. Shamia Morton Maguani, Portia Williams, Cynthia Bailey. They were all on the main stage. They did a panel, right? And there's a lot of. Of. There's a lot of friction amongst the cast because they just wrapped the season. So naturally. Naturally, there's a lot of different dynamics that we don't know yet on the panel. Drew Sedora literally checked Shamia and Kelly because they had been interviewed the day before. And it's been rumored that during season 17's filming, there was a rivalry. Rivalry between k. Michelle and Drew Sedora. And a big part of it was that or calling each other. They were saying, I'm a better singer than you. You know what I'm saying To each other, right?

[Francesca]

What?

[Dustin Ross]

So Shami and Kelly got asked on.

[Asante]

The red carpet who was.

[Dustin Ross]

Who was the better singer, Right? Of course, they don't like Druce. They said, well, k. Michelle, I mean, she's the one who's had to see amas, and she's the one who's at the award zone that's seeing whatever. Drew heard that she didn't appreciate that she set her ass up on that stage on that panel, and she said, you know, because they asked Kelly if they still. If she still thought Drew was a liar. It was moderated by Rachel Lindsay. Y' all know who she is. She was on a couple of the shows. He's an attorney, an author, a host. She was on the bachelor. Bachelorette. She was the bachelorette Black girl, Rachel Lindsay. Anyway, well, she was moderating it, right? She asked Kelly if she still thought that Drew was a liar. That was Drew's entry. Drew said, you know, first of all, I would be remiss not to address what I heard you guys say about me in the press earlier this week. She was like, shamia, you sitting there being messy. She said, she messi over here answers. That answers the question. She said, and it's crazy. You would pit me versus k. Michelle. She was like, when we both sing better than you, boo. She said live on stage at Bravo con in a. In front of an audience of literally no exaggeration, thousands of Bravo fans. So the audience starts going crazy. Erupted, erupted. She continued. She said, you know, I put out an album. You have only put out a Single. She was like, so you're basically a one hit wonder, she said. And then you got Kelly over here who has no talent, she said, but yet somehow it's always coming on mine or whatever. And then a couple minutes later, you know, Kelly has a successful restaurant called Nana's Chicken and Waffles in Atlanta. They just opened a second location, second brick and mortar location. And she has a pancake mix and other products that have been successfully retailing for a while now. And Drew said that she likes Waffle House better.

[Asante]

On the stage.

[Dustin Ross]

So I say that to say you can watch that pancake. It's available to be viewed on Peacock right now. If you go on Peacock, you can search bar Bravo Con and you'll see not just that panel, but the panels from the cast of Married to Medicine, the cast of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, the cast of the Real Housewives of Potomac had their own panel. Miami as well as Beverly Hills. The cast of Beverly Hills had their own panel too. Go consume all that content. It'll get you excited about the new seasons coming up. And you may see some of your faves who aren't on the cast cast anymore who returned, you know, so just go check. Grandam there made her big return. Shout out to Charles Harbison of Harbison Studio, who had literally created a beautiful couture ensemble for Karen to wear her grand return. Stunning. Stunning. I saw two looks from her. She looked gorgeous. And she got a standing ovation in the room. And all the Bravo talent was really happy to see her and hugged her on her and loved on her. So you know what I'm saying? Shout out to Karen. I was happy to see her. And I don't. Although it was a controversial reception because some people felt like it was celebrating Karen's crimes. But guess what, Guess what? Not y', all, of course.

[Francesca]

People who said, he's like, guess what.

[Dustin Ross]

Guess what? She paid her debt to society. So even if it was euphoria, felt like it was celebratory of her crimes. Ain't you can do about it because she already paid for them. She's in and she's out. Get over it. You know what I'm saying?

[Asante]

And.

[Dustin Ross]

And put all that energy instead of trying to block hers, instead of trying to block hers. Get your ass out there and get in the streets and. And do some work. Advocate. Get your ass at a foundation somewhere. Start a foundation, start driving Uber and give a drunk a ride if that's how you feel. You know what I'm saying? That's what I think you your ass need to do. You know what I'm saying? Get off of Karen and let this black woman, you know what I'm saying? Get hers on a network that has platformed white people who have gone through their own legal battles. Stop interrupting Karen's moment like that. That's not fair to her. She paid her debts to society. She's out of jail, the braids are out and her hair is done. Leave her alone. And with that being said, I see all on patreon.com friends on podcast for the binge, the situation and our win.

[Asante]

And the wind down tonight if you're listening.

[Francesca]

Yes. Also, I want to watch the new Eddie Murphy doc on Netflix. I just wanted to see Me too. I saw it pop up and I.

[Dustin Ross]

Was like, much respect.

[Francesca]

Didn't know it was happening. Very excited to watch that. I heard it's great.

[Dustin Ross]

Okay, I use one of his jokes from Raw and my new set for my shows is coming up.

[Francesca]

I love that.

[Dustin Ross]

And connection to something related to a housewife. That's all I' ma say. I'm not going to, but that's it.

[Francesca]

We love you guys. Thanks for hanging out with us yet another week. We love you so much. We'll catch you guys next week.

[Asante]

Stay black and protect your magic.

[Dustin Ross]

And shout out to the girl I saw in boxers in New York. I can't remember your name baby but you were so cool. She loves y'.

[Asante]

All.

[Dustin Ross]

You know who you are if you listen. Shout out to you who I seen Friday night in boxers. I love you.

[Asante]

Bye y'.

[Francesca]

All.

[Dustin Ross]

She was so sweet. Yes.

[Francesca]

Bye y'. All.

[Dustin Ross]

This is the trend doll.

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