Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 401 - Health Is Self Defense ft. Sticman

Episode Date: June 18, 2020

Stic.man (Khnum Muata Ibomu) is an American rapper, activist, author, and half of the rap group duo, Dead Prez. Stic.man was diagnosed with gout at the age of 21 which led him to quit drinking, smoking, as well as begin training in Jeet Kune Do and following a vegan diet. Follow Stic.man on IG: https://www.instagram.com/stic/ Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Support the show by visiting our sponsors! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Icon Meals: http://iconmeals.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Mark Bell's Power Project podcast, hosted by Mark Bell, co-hosted by Nseema Iyang, and myself, Andrew Zaragoza. This episode is recorded on June 17th, and it is with Stickman. Stick is half of the legendary rap group Dead Prez. He is a huge fitness advocate. He created what he calls Fit Hop, which of course is a combination of fitness and hip hop, therefore Fit Hop. He follows a plant-based diet and is a big advocate

for living a holistic life. Stick is known for some of his controversial music. We talked about the debut album of Dead Prez, how it wasn't necessarily received very well by the masses, but it was really, really cool hearing the history of how that whole thing came to be, how him and M1 met up in college and how they both kind of were on the same path of trying to educate the masses and really trying to get their message out to the world. We got Stick's opinions on the current events going on in the world today. So, we did talk a lot about that. We talked about whether or not we should be defunding the police. We got his opinions on that.

And really, the conversation just kind of always kept coming back to fitness. It was really, really cool to see that he's actually in the process of opening up his own gym. And Mark just really wants to remind everybody that just because you may or may not agree with what someone says doesn't mean you can just get triggered and start, you know, spouting crazy things on the internet. Just listen. We're just having the conversation. We really hope you guys do find some value out of today's conversation. He said some very, very powerful and impactful stuff. So again, just have an open mind. And if you guys do like what you're hearing, we're going to put Stick's social

media links down in the description down below or the iTunes show notes. Please reach out, let them know what you guys think and let them know that you guys heard them on our podcast. Because it was just an honor to be able to have Stick on our podcast. I said it several times. I'm just a big fan of his. We've worked together in the past. So it was really cool that things came full circle. Before we get into the episode, I just want to remind everybody, please take advantage of markbell.com right now. They are still offering a free 30 day trial. That includes the paid site and the paid premium side of things, which of course, that's where you guys can put up points on the scoreboard, literally points on the scoreboard. It's a awesome motivational tool and a way to keep yourself accountable.

But for the extra premium side, the extra more betterest side, you guys can actually train with Team Super Training. If you're not in the Sacramento area, we'll bring the gym to you. You guys can follow everything that Team Super Training is doing, the whole program. It'll all be laid out for you so you guys can train with the team even if you guys aren't in the area. Again, it's absolutely free. The only thing is you have to register before the end of June because after that, the 30-day free trial will be gone. That's it for me. I really hope you guys enjoy this episode. Again, please reach out to Stick. Reach out to us.

Let us know what you guys think. And ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy the show with Stickman. So, and Seema is still hanging out at the podcast studio. Have you ever... No, this isn't the studio. This is actually the background of Zoom. Oh, okay. That's a really, really good

background. Yeah, it doesn't look pixelated at all. No. They've done updates. Yeah. I was just thinking maybe you just never left. No, man. I just got the, you know, just like your background. Mine is just HD.

I'm excited for today's podcast, man. It should be good. Yeah, dude. I'm really stoked. I worked with Stickman somewhere around podcast, man. It should be good. Yeah, dude, I'm really stoked. I worked with Stickman somewhere around 2010, 2011 on a video that we filmed in Oakland. It was right after the Oscar Grant Bart thing. Yeah, so that was heavy on our minds. And yeah, so, but I mean, first and foremost, I've just been a huge fan of Dead Prez since

their first album. And what's like, you know how like when you're at that age, like you'll like that music more than anything. And that's why I'm like the grumpy old man that doesn't like new hip hop. But like that was like a perfect storm because I didn't like school and they had a lot of political raps and stuff and it was just like,

yeah, man, fuck school. And it was just perfect. So that did not help my relationship with school, but when I got to meet him, talk to him about it, he's actually such a chill dude. You guys are really going to like him. Cool.

Yeah. I thought, I mean, it's a powerful to hear, you know, at such a young age that he was, uh, rapping about these,

the kind of matters that are like really front and center right now. You know, he's been, he's been rapping about them for a long time. And then, um, you know, according to our information,

he like, wasn't allowed to perform at like And then, um, you know, according to our information, he like, wasn't allowed to perform at like a school, um, you know, uh, function. He wasn't allowed to, uh, do his song. And so he protested and so did a bunch of other students. And I, that's really cool. That's powerful stuff. You know, especially if you're listening to it, uh, if you were listening to him as a kid, kind of knowing that he was that kind of person, that's definitely very influential. Yeah. So before we get any further, this episode is sponsored by Piedmontese Beef.

You guys have any steak yesterday? I had three more burgers. My wife made a chicken salad and I knew that the chicken salad just wasn't going to cut it. So I ate three burgers while she was making that up. And that helped a lot. We always, we talk a lot about how good the damn burgers are on this, on this show. I don't know what the difference is. I don't know if it's because it's like they made the burger versus me, you know, putting the patty together but for some reason those taste a little better than me than just a regular ground beef but it's probably just because

i'm lazy yeah all right go ahead no same thing same exact thing two flat irons yesterday i don't think i can ever just eat one at this point anymore so double the flat irons and they were just so damn good yeah i'm not sure what's yeah what the deal is with their the hamburger patties but i had one with a bun for the first time and i wasn't just any bun it it was the uh the hawaiian sweet roll you know those are great dude when i say it it right it just spooge all over our podcast. Right. Dang it. Well, I'm glad I don't stand up there all the time.

I'm not lying when I say so. Now that that was like a little bit of a cheat meal, having the bun and everything in that. But it did rival like, oh, like your favorite hamburger restaurant. Right. Like, but I would say even better. Like, I just I know even better. Like I just, I know it sounds like, like I'm, you know, blowing gas up everyone's ass or whatever they say, blowing smoke. There you go. Gassing you up. Kevin farts up your ass. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It

sounds like I'm farting up everyone's ass, but dude, I was just like, I sat there staring at it just like, I can't believe it tastes this good. It was mind-boggling for sure. Love it. Don't forget about those sliders. And also, you know, it's the time of year for some barbecuing, so get yourself some hot dogs from Piedmontese. There you go. 21 grams of protein, 10 grams of fat. Heck, yeah.

For more information, please head over to piedmontese.com. That's P-I-E-D-M-O-n-t-e-s-e.com at checkout enter promo code power project for 25 off your order and if your order is 99 or more you get free two-day shipping it's a heck of a deal y'all okay send this out that hot dog ratio isn't bad like i was thinking if i ate what 10 hot dogs 200 grams of protein and like 100 grams of fat it's not bad it's not bad yeah i know it's amazing i love those hot dogs and it's the uh those sliders are amazing too i don't know if like uh the sliders are different fat composition or something but they're delicious too i throw them i usually just throw in a pan, and then I throw a bunch of cheese on top of them.

And then the cheese kind of cooks in with the hamburger fat on the actual pan, and it gets crusted over. Ridiculous. That's good. So you're back in Bodega Bay, Mark. Couldn't take the heat, huh? I'm back. I'm back. Yeah, just for like a day or two

gonna hide out up here and then we we have our uh our uh team uh party so i just wanted to come up here for a day or two and kind of chill out yeah brought uh brought my son up here so we're gonna go on a big old fat walk a little bit later on today. Yeah, just kind of kick it. Got a lot of days of lifting in while I was at super training, though. Trained every day and kind of brutalized myself for a little bit. So come up here and try to kick back and relax and reload and then come back down there again, kick some more ass. I did full-on yoga this morning. Nice. How'd it feel?

Wow. Yeah. You quickly realize that it's way harder and but i mean i guess we all kind of understand that i think well the three of us do understand that like okay yeah it's it looks like it's just you're moving and posing and it's not it's not lifting but it's like it is hard especially for me like my core is weak. So, in some of, like, the planking, you know, holds or whatever they're called, like, I'd start shaking. And it's like, oh, shit. Like, what's going on here?

But just the way my back's been, even that was, like, a strain at times. I know you're not supposed to strain, but, like, getting up off the ground was, like, pretty tough. So, but, I mean, it wasn't terrible. tough. So, um, but I mean, it wasn't terrible, um, on a scale of one to 10, it's still low, but because of the, um, like inexperience that I have and because it was difficult for me, it was kind of fun because like, I did have a hard time getting through the whole thing, uh, without like, like, you know, Oh, focus on your breathing. it's like i'm trying and it's not working right now so it was cool uh i'm gonna stick with it and um yeah just try to get the back strong and start feeling better again did you do some of that yoga with the old lady so she already had

started working but i just asked her for like a uh like a routine or whatever and she set me all up and i just followed it on the tv she's always a few steps ahead of you yeah no it's like i'll never catch up no i'm interested to talk to stickman about um you know his choice of the things that he raps about i think is is really cool i know that he's, he raps about, you know, multiple things, but I think rapping about fitness and, um, I think rapping about, you know, uh, you know, getting into a regimen, getting into a routine, all these things I think are, are, um, are great. It's motivational, you know? And I think, I think maybe, uh, people can use some more positivity in their lives. There's,

there's plenty of people, uh, rapping about other stuff, you know, that you can get, you can get good music from them as well. But it's, um, it kind of reminds me of, I didn't listen to a ton of his stuff. I'm not really super familiar with all of his work. Um, but over the last week I have listened to a handful of his things and it kind of reminds me in some, in some weird way of like, uh like uh uh you know a a comedian that chooses just not to cuss you know um just somebody who chooses to uh maybe go a slightly different route even though i know he's rapped about um you know inner city things and things he saw growing up and and he still rapped about many similar things um i like that they also chose to enlighten people with some different style of music.

Yeah, so Dead Prez's first album, I believe it's their first album. They might have had some underground stuff that I wasn't able to get my hands on. But the Let's Get Free album, I mean, it went against the grain in so many different ways. I mean, at that time,

I know there was like uh socially or what they call them yeah socially conscious rappers or conscious rappers but nobody did it on a platform the way they did and like i remember that album like i i saw it on the shelves you know i bought it and then when i go back to like sam goodie i don't know if you guys remember that store back in the day tower records, I would see their album cover and it would have stickers all over it. And it would say, due to the powers that be, we can't show our album cover or something like that. And just like, whoa, okay. So, they were, you know, not only were they going against the grain, but also like they were getting a lot of blowback from the stuff that they were talking about in the album cover that they had on.

So it was, I mean, like I said, I don't think anybody else was doing it at that time. This was probably like, you know, 2000 maybe. And maybe even,

no, it was about 2000. And, um, it was just cool that they like just didn't give a fuck. You know, they're just like, Nope,

this is what we want to talk about. We could easily sell out, you know, and go the mainstream route because they him and m1 are just so damn talented but they're just like nope that's not what we want to talk about so it's always interesting to me when um rappers tend to like they don't do what's popular like like nowadays the big thing uh or yeah the big thing for a while has been, like, mumble rap. And when rappers still tend to hold substance, it's really enjoyable. Yeah, it's not mainstream, and it's not what everyone is listening to. But when a rapper chooses to forego that easy money for something that is really, maybe not as much and, um, tends to be a little bit less popular because that's what they want

to do. That's where you have like a really, really, really interesting person. Yeah. This could be the kind of stuff that's a transformative because, you know, when you're, when you're down and out, you know, you're, um, you're more than likely not going to listen to something that like, uh, you're not gonna listen to something that like either enrages you or, um, or like moves you to be like really, uh, emotional, maybe in like a, uh, positive or stronger way. You're going to, you want to listen to stuff that's like, you want to listen to stuff that's just deeper, you know, stuff that's deeply rooted in, into something. And, um, you know,

for each person that, that kind of music, that style of music will be, will be, be, will be quite different, but, you know, uh, rapping about, um, you know, like, like fuck the police type stuff, like that, that kind of stuff. Um, you know, from like NWA back in the day, a huge fan. I love all that kind of music, but when you're sad and when you're like upset over something, that's not the kind of music you're probably going to put on, you know? Here we go. There he is. Stick. What's going on, man?

What's up brothers. How are are y'all? Doing well. Alright. So, it's Mark, and what's your name, brother? In red? Oh, Encima. Encima, okay. Yeah, and my name is Andrew. I don't know if you remember back in about 2011

when you did a track with Brown Buffalo, the Corazon remix. Ah, Corazon, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I was actually the one that filmed that video. So that was the first time you and I worked on something. Okay, fine.

Yeah, so I'm grateful that you hopped on our podcast, man. It's really cool to get to talk to you again. Unfortunately, back then, you know, that was right after Oscar Grant at BART station had happened. The laws in Arizona had just changed to where basically you get pulled over for being Mexican. So a lot of the stuff that we were talking about in that track, unfortunately, still going on today. So that's another reason why we wanted to get you on the podcast, because you've been, been you know kind of like a good voice for uh you know especially like people in hip-hop but the black community itself also a lot of people look up to you so again we're just really grateful that you would spend some

time with us today talk about current you know uh situations going on with george floyd and everything that's happening but uh first and foremost, man, how are you doing? Well, I'm solid, man. You know, I've been around this rodeo a few times. You know what I mean? And I've been using a lot of holistic practices to just keep my same fraud, you know what I mean? My composure under the pressure., uh, yeah, I'm, I'm feeling grateful for that and I'm inspired by all the uprisings.

Yeah. I like what you said. I was listening to something you said, um, maybe about three years ago and you were talking about, um, black lives matter and you were saying how, um, you know, it needs to matter to the community in more were saying how, you know, it needs to matter to the community in more ways than one. You know, it can't only matter in terms of police brutality. It has to matter in people taking care of themselves. And I can't agree with you more. I think in general, all people show a lack of the ability to really care for themselves, really take care of themselves.

show a lack of the ability to really care for themselves, really take care of themselves. And it's hard sometimes to identify with somebody who continues, maybe somebody continues to come to us and they say, Hey man, like, I don't know how to, you know, I don't know how to get, gain control of my diet. You know, I don't know how to do this, do that. But at the same time, maybe every weekend they're going out drinking and they're doing stuff where you're like, well, you know that that's not productive. You know that that's not a good way to show that you're caring for yourself. So if you can expand upon that a little bit, I like I like like what you said about how many people die from diabetes and heart disease and things of that nature. Yeah. Well, I mean, wow, that's a it's touchy, right? Because

what you just said is 100% correct. Like if our lives matter, human beings, planet, animals, black folk, white folk, whoever, then we want to be about self-care. You know what I mean? Period. You know, self-defense

is self-care. You know, drinking water know self-defense and self-care you know drinking water is self-defense right you know is but in oppressed situations right some things that may be common sense to a community or lifestyle that's familiar with these things. Certain communities don't have the same access to information, access to certain resources, and then on top of that, a lot of the cultural ways oppressed people cope is through things that are harmful, you know, but it gives us escape in the meantime.

So I totally agree with what you're saying, but out of respect to this time, you know, you had to put it in context, you know. It's one thing if I'm choosing to eat a greasy piece of bacon, you know what I mean, and block my own arteries versus a police is choosing to block my artery. You know what I'm saying? That's two different things. But yeah,

they're both important and that's one of the reasons why we do what we do because there is no separation between our right for justice and freedom and pursuit of happiness and all the good stuff this land is supposed to be about. And our ability to, you know, have self-care. A lot of times that's the only care we get, you know what I mean It's self-care anyway. So while we wait on the government or whoever else to do it, I think it's good agency. It's good to be proactive and at least take care of what you can take care of on a daily basis.

Yeah, I like what you're saying right there. And it it's important to be mindful of some people are trying to survive day in and day out. to be mindful of some people are trying to survive day in and day out. Some people just have a, they start out life in a different spot. And as we have seen time and time again, with black individuals in particular, you guys are kind of, you're set back a little bit, you know, your every day is a little bit harder to climb forward. And when people are trying to survive, it's hard to maybe think about the gym or maybe it's hard to think about, you know, proper ways to eat. Maybe somebody's not even has just never even learned a proper way to eat because it's just not, you know, in that particular community. But I think guys like yourself can help change that, especially with the stuff that you're rapping about and promoting holistic health. I know that you have also changed up your diet.

You're on a vegan style diet. Is that right? Well, that's what I'm probably most known for because my wife is a nutritionist and how I kind of got on a healthy path was through going plant based for 10 years. So, you know, I could certainly advocate plant-based, being healthy, and tell my journey, but I don't consider myself a vegan for a lot of reasons. And I'm not a one-thing- all type of type of thinker. Right. I think that there's healthy ways that you can eat meat and have a balanced diet. There's healthy ways. There's unhealthy ways you can be realize that we eat different diets as things change in our life. A grown man don't eat the same thing as a baby.

An elder woman might not eat the same thing as Michael Jordan. You know what I mean? It depends on who you are, your activity, even your cultural DNA matters. A lot of black and brown folks are lactose intolerant. You know, a lot of European descent people, it doesn't bother them. You know what I mean? So to advocate one diet is not where I come from. You know, I believe that holistic nutrition is something that anybody can apply and you

can kind of like experiment and find, uh, what's working for you at this period in your life and just keep, keep it moving, you know? Yeah. You know, yeah. I was curious about something. Um, and especially with everything that's going on right now, um, George Floyd, uh, Brianna Taylor, all those types of things. First off, these types of things has happened, happened for a long time. I think one of the big reasons why it's spreading right now is because number one, people have

phones, media spread is much larger. And then also people aren't like people People are stuck at home, right? So it's like the perfect storm for a lot of things. Exactly. Perfect storm for a lot of things to be brought to light and for people to be paying attention to it. But when you look at your music with the Dead Prez, even from a while ago, it seems like that music, it was relevant then. But it seems to be even more relevant now because everybody's eyes are on these types of situations. So I was curious, how does it first off feel to have that music last so long in terms of its messaging?

It kind of almost is sad that the message is still relevant. You know what I mean? Yeah, I feel exactly how you're saying it, man. You described it to a T. It's unfortunate that a song like Police State, right, can be one of the most relevant songs 20 years later. You know what I mean? This should be in a museum somewhere.

Remember when human beings was ignorant and we grew and you know i mean now now we out here everybody's helping each other all that but the reality is when we were uh trying to spearhead this kind of consciousness right the industry of music and in the in the greater society itself uh try to put us in a radical bag. What you're talking about is radical. Really? Justice in the United States is radical? Really? You know, revolutionary ideas in this country was founded on the American Revolution, right? Not being

exploited by Britain, right? Not being exploited by Britain, right? Not being under the tyranny of, you know, other people. The right to pursue happiness and have freedom, right? Like, this is all we've ever talked about. But because we're black, right? And because real freedom and justice is a threat to exploitation and oppression, you know, more inspired by the new people, the new young people, the millennials, who was like, screw listening

to some of the rap. We in the streets. This the precinct that did that? It's ours now. You know what I mean? Seattle was like, we're going to hold this block down. Minnesota was like, we don't need police no more. We're going to do something different. We're going to have public safety and we're going to get the community involved.

Why does the if a mental health person, the person with mental health issues is going through something? Why does the armed police go? Why not the mental health council? Right. If a domestic violence case is cracking up, why is the police going killing people instead of a marriage council? You know, I'm saying like it's different ways to live. And I think this generation is is they've seen it. They've heard about it. And but when it hit them, they reacted. They responded. And now we get getting some unprecedented uh unprecedented uh moments of clarity and you i mean so many every day i wake up uh what was the one i woke up to this morning

um california voted for uh so don't forget it's so many but it was like I never thought I would see that um if it comes to me I'll remember but it's just every there's uh uh new results from people being fed up and to add to what you said bro um not only is it that we have phones not only is it that we are sitting, you know, sitting idle, largely. Right. But it's worldwide. Right. When Rodney King got killed, it was the United States. It was L.A. and then it was the United States. When when Abner Louima got raped with the plunger by police, when Sean Bell got shot 52 times, when this is my youth

era, right? But these same names now, George Floyd, Armin Arbery, Breonna Taylor, you know, and there's some in the middle and it's all over, but when it was happening then, it was a U.S. thing. But George Floyd and the

modern lynchings right now, the world responded. You know, in human history, it's the biggest worldwide police brutality protest in human history that has happened in 2020. And this is the 20th anniversary

of our album, Let's Get Free. So what a gift that the world said yeah let's like like let's actually get free man you know what do you think are some possible solutions to the situation with the police um with police brutality and like i hear people talking about defunding the police some people are saying hey we need to fund them more. We need to educate them more so that they can have better training and various things. What are some of your thoughts on that? Well, I think. Well, I think experts, you know, they're experts who study sociology and political science and law enforcement and, you know, all these ideologies and things that I would defer to for a comprehensive.

I think I think those people put put together what we already have, though. OK, well, there you go. So my my my opinion is more of I think, people have the answers, but individually, we have, you know, a piece, you know what I mean? So I say that humbly to say this. So definitely, I feel like giving

police more money, right, doesn't make any sense. Giving police even more money, right, doesn't make any sense. Giving police even more training, right, doesn't make any sense. Because think about what you're saying when you say, you know, police, we know police is killing everybody, killing black folks and other people left and right. and right. Being their administrator, even if a person is quote unquote guilty of whatever they're doing,

the job of the police is not to kill them, right? But we're arguing over that as a community. So to say, oh, if you had more training, you would know you're not supposed to choke that man like that. You know what I'm saying? I don't feel like

it's a lack of training or even a lack of education. It's the racism and it's the impunity within a greater system that can happen. And they feel like nothing, you know, they can get away with it. And they are getting away with it, even on body cams. You can't buy enough body cams. We watch it on the body cam and they get off. You know, how much equipment, how much education, how much legislation, you know, like none of this stuff is stopping people like George Floyd from getting murdered. So I think like many other people think that you have to say this bureaucracy called a police

department is defunct. It is not working. It was set up to be a slave-catching institution and it's not rehabilitating people. The prison industrial complex, etc., is horrible.

If we want to talk about police, let's not even start talking about the conditions in prison and the inhumane treatment in the railroad and the criminal corruption and that whole equation. So you have to do away with that whole department.

And you have to say, how can the community make itself safe without make itself safe without oppressing itself. There's a whole lot of ways to demilitarize that structure. There's a whole lot of ways to decriminalize a lot of things that have become criminal. So I think

the smarter people in our collective room are starting to think along that line and even the more maverick city council men and even certain governors in certain places are trying to say, look, we're going to move this

money from the police. We're going to move this money from the police. We're going to put it towards preventative things and more care minded things. So I think that's a start. And we'll see, you know, you know, we'll see where it goes. Yeah. When did you discover that you might have a voice to speak out on some of these topics when, know you're in a you know you're pursuing goals of being a rap artist and looking around there was gangster rap which and sema has a really good take on but then like when let's get free came out right like the mainstream rap sounded nothing like dead prez so what was it that made you guys go that route versus the mainstream route so way way before dad prez you know professional group or whatnot picture me right i'm in i'm in ninth grade in um what color county right this is a 30 miles south of Tallahassee, Florida, the capital of Florida. I'm going to this high school. You get off the bus and the sidewalk that you go into the school makes an X like this.

And it's called as a Confederate flag. Right. This is this how we get to school every day. You walk across the Confederate flag. Right. And this is the type of mentality surrounding my high school, right? So just so happens I have been rapping. I'm a fan of Big Daddy Kane, all the original, you know what I mean? I'm battling. I'm beating everybody in the country, right? I'm the one. But I ain't talking about nothing significant, nothing of substance.

I'm just talking about how nice I am on the mic. And this teacher named Miss Green, who had a natural hairstyle, the only lady I knew besides in my family and aunts and stuff that had a natural hairstyle, she stopped me in the hall one day. She said, you're always rapping, man. But what do you be talking about? I was like, she don't know nothing about rapping. She ain't going to understand

what we're doing. It's hip-hop. Long story short, she gave me an opportunity. She said, do you know this is the first year in the history of this school that there will be a Black History Assembly? A

moment to acknowledge Black history. And I was like, what's Black history? Right? This is how I was on it. So she's like, see, y'all don't know nothing. Boom. So she gave me some books and she was like, if you write around

about your history, I'll let you perform at the assembly and you can do one of your battle r I'll let you perform at the assembly, and you can do one of your battle raps and the stuff you want to do. I was like, oh, do some school shit real quick. Then I can rock.

I was like, yeah, no problem. Got me some instrumentals. Long story short, I start looking, and I'm like, I see Huey Newton. You know what I mean? I'm like, who is Huey Newton. You know what I mean? I'm like, who is Huey Newton? Go down that rabbit hole. Malcolm X. All these, you know, leaders

and heroic people I had never even heard of. And they talking about the issues that's going on, but I never... So I'm like, boom, I'm Neo in the Matrix. And I write this song called Black As I Could Get, right? In that moment, like, I'm black as I could

get. Not just black. If I could get more black, I'm more black, right? And, you know, just that passion, right? And I write this song about our history, all this stuff I wasn't learning in school. And I get on stage for the assembly. I'm the beat

bumping. I'm center stage. I'm hitting it. And all of a sudden, my principal at the school, a guy named Wade Nobles, who was the Trump of my era, cut the mic off in the middle of my performance and

walk on stage and start talking over me like, we're not having that. All this. And just like now in 2020 when we thought we thought that just we used to justice not being served right we're used to that we expect no justice right that's exactly what i expected in that moment but the people stood up just like we did in 2020. And the kids was not having it. It was like, why he can't say it if it's true.

Next thing I know, full melee mode. Every kid is, wow, windows getting broke. All type of shit is going down. And I became the center, not intentionally, but I became the center of this protest, of this rebellion, of this moment that I had the right to say what I was going to say. This was our assembly, and we should have that right. And the parents, everybody in the whole community came. I'm speeding forward because this was an impactful time this was a shaping moment

in my journey but I got adopted by the community because I got kicked out of school and I got expelled but the community groups adopted me the Nation of Islam, the church the Baptist church

the Greek organizations the Alphas, the cubes, street gangs, you know, everybody in the community was like, we're not going to let them railroad this young brother. And you're welcome here to learn, to be supported. And that obviously made me realize the power of when you speak and you speak to the issues in the community, you know, that that's powerful and is needed to put voice to issues that don't have a voice. So that shaped my revolutionary mentality early. And then I went in that process of being incubated with different groups. And I eventually joined a revolutionary organization called the African People's Socialist Party. And I became a member and I got political education. I did security. I built in certain real estate. We did have classes, martial arts, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

And then I met M1. You know what I mean? And he was on the same shit. And then we organized for years, Chicago, Oakland, Florida, St. Petersburg. And then we said, let's rap. So just, you know, a lot of, just to answer where that came from, it was way before the music. just the answer where that came from it was way before the music and um and uh yeah that was the mission of let's get free was to be the plat the voice for those platforms you know seems uh seems so ridiculous to be censored you know during black history month rapping about rapping about

black history but i think sometimes sometimes uh like ridiculous behavior sometimes leads to uh better action like what's going on in chas i think some people look at chas and they're like what the hell is going on like this is complete madness but uh well you were mentioning earlier about um you know freedom and the way the united states was developed in the first place um a lot of chaos and a lot of crazy things were going on. People were fighting each other. People were killing each other, unfortunately. So, you know, hopefully at some point, you know, some of this chaos leads to us correcting old errors and we just stopped making

the stupid, you know, same mistakes. And we're hopefully another 20 years from now, we're not talking about the same thing. Right. I agree, Mark, man. And it will, it will. I think that the human journey is an evolution, you know what I mean? It's definitely, or it can be a devolution, but you know, I'm optimistic. I'm hopeful that, and I think we are, I really do. I think even the fact that we can have this conversation right now,

you know, 50 years ago, like, I don't know if that would have been the case, you know what I mean? So, you know, that's progress. Yeah. I'm curious also because, first off, we already kind of touched on how you, like, yourself, there's guys like Most think most deaf too like guys i listen to like most deaf talib kweli and common those are a lot of artists that i listened to back

then but you were also part of that part of those individuals that had a lot of substance in the way they rapped right um and obviously there was also the gangster rap side of things and the thing about gangster rap is that it was more popular, right? So I don't know if this is necessarily correct, but the reason why I thought about this a lot is because gangster rap is what a lot of people saw as, okay, this is what black people are. Fuck the police and blah, blah, blah. This is what they, this is what they talk about.

This is how they are. And it kind of even hit home to me because I have a lot of family in Nigeria. So I went to Nigeria when I was 16 to go visit family. Right. And I was there for like, I was there for almost a month and people could tell, even though I was Nigerian, people could tell that this is a kid from America just because of the way I

walked and the way I spoke. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, but, but bro, like when I was talking to like younger kids and teenagers they'd be like hey what's up nigga like are you part of the bloods crips and stuff like that i'm

like uh i'm i'm not in a gang like this and and but the thing is is like that's what those people even in that country saw of what american black person was and i was just like yo you know if people in other countries think I'm already like that and they haven't even met me, I'm not surprised when people in my country automatically stereotype me for being that way because of what they see on TV, you know? So my question is like, how do you feel about that?

Yeah, that's a great point, man. And I've witnessed that around the world in traveling and you in different places and white boys be like, what up, my nigga? You know, you know, I mean, like that and you like, hey, bro, I'm going to tell you one time, you know, that ain't cool. That ain't cool. I know you heard it, but that ain't cool. But yeah, I totally agree that that fits into a general perception of what the black community is. But I also understand gangster rap and its validity as an art form, you know what I mean? and its validity as an art form. You know what I mean?

And where it comes from and why, you know, N.W.A. chose to say, fuck the police. Because where we are at, right? But it also is connected to the conditions. You know, N.W.A.

had Express Yourself. You know, they had Fuck the Police. They had 100 miles and running. It was gangster because LA was gang culture and they capitalized

on that reality. And the nuances in oppression, you're not going to find monks in the projects just sitting in the projects, just peaceful, just tolerating all kind of mistreatment. That's not the culture. You know what I mean?

So gangster rap gave voice to really what was happening on the street level, whereas before that, R&B and hip-hop and gospel music and all of that would act like that's the underbelly. We all had people in our families doing gangster shit and all that, but that wasn't a public

discourse. You know what I'm saying? That community, that reality found its voice and it was important because that's who discourse. You know what I'm saying? So that community, that reality found his voice. And it was important because that's who said, fuck the police and told you why. None of the positive

rap, none of that wasn't talking about that. So even though I agree that but it also made Slang and Dope cool. You know what I mean? I remember when EZN, EZN, Ice Cube had them starter jackets and the curl and all that. Everybody wanted the curl and a starter jacket and some Jordans and whatever it took to get that.

You know what I mean? You was willing to do it, you know? But we know that to really blame gangster rap for the quote-unquote negative image of our community, we know it's way bigger than that. We know that they've been promoting images of our community as

negative, as backwards, as three-fifths of a human being, you know, since colonization, you know? So, gangster rap is just a symptom of the self hate and the corruption of society in the first place. So I would rather gangster rap exists so that we could discuss it and unpack it, then sweep it under the rug, just so we could look squeaky clean,

you know what I mean? to the rest of the world. You know, that's my two cents. You've gone as far as getting arrested and standing up for your rights more than once. Can you speak about that a little bit? Because I find that I find that to be interesting because, you know, we know how dangerous that situation can be. So you figure you just be like, hey, I'm going to, you know, do what the hell, do what the hell you say. But you were, you were standing up for stuff that you, you believe in. And then you believe that you were being harassed probably I would imagine.

Right. Yes, sir. Um, but no, I've definitely tried, like, I don't, you know, just growing up black, just being outside, you, you're going to get handcuffed. You're going to get stopped, frisk, intimidated, questioned, just being outside, you're going to get handcuffed. You're going to get stopped, frisked, intimidated, questioned. Just being black, that just happens. And plenty of times, I try

to be like, what? I didn't do nothing. What do you want? And you still get harassed. So at a certain point, I just was like, man, I'm just not going for it. i don't feel like feeling pumped today you know what i mean i got my own shit going on and now here this dude come you know so you start resisting the intimidation for no reason and then i start

racking up disorderly conduct i learned that that's a charge that police can pull out on you because you don't you don't say yes sir boss yes sir because you don't, you know, say yes sir boss, yes sir boss. You know what I mean? You know, disorderly conduct. And then back you're going to jail, now you're paying fees and taking pleas and all this shit. So, but you know, that was just early young

teenage shit. But then as I started to move in the movement, I learned that it's your responsibility to stand up for your rights, to survive. You got to make noise. You got to get eyeballs on you. You got to make sure people are paying attention anytime you're in the presence of police because, like you said, anything can happen. can happen. And in several situations, like

one in particular, there's been many, but one, we were in Brooklyn, New York, down the street from my spot, Dean Street, Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York, black community. And we were in front of one of my friends,

his building. You know, we were standing on the stools, and we were going to do a photo shoot. We had all the homies came out, and You know, we were standing on the stools and we were going to do a photo shoot. We had all the homies came out and, you know, he lives here. We're going to do the shoot on our block, on our thing. And we're just standing there getting ready to get assembled to take some photos.

Okay, police see this gathering, the beat cops, the ones that's just walking the block and they see us and they're like, hey, what y'all doing? So we got protocol. Any interaction with y'all could end up in

death or jail. So I ain't got nothing to say to you at all. Have a nice day. I asked you what y'all doing. We're taking care of our business and we're in the middle of it and you're interrupting it. Thank you. Right. Let me see some ID. I don't need to show you any ID.

I'm in the middle of my work and you're interrupting. Next thing I know, we, we squabbled with police. We squabbled, right? Police real get cracked. My homie had to get yanked out his head we all handcuffed we in a box and we was like yo how did that happen like you know now now we we sit in downtown and we and we

being processed and we going through all this shit and the Malcolm X grassroots attorneys you know we that are comrades of ours you know it was like, whatever y'all need, we put a case together and we end up suing the New York movement and then the rest, we bought our music equipment and we started a mixtape series called Turn Off the Radio. So you started to defund the police

a long time ago. Yep, yep. And the police paid for that. So anytime you hear Turn Off the Radio, volume 1, 2, 3, 4, yeah, 1, 2, 3, and 4, the police paid for that. So thank you very much. So can you uh explain what uh the uh i guess i'll just say rbg stands for yeah so rbg is an acronym um that is very flexible right so it is is the simplest

origin of it is Marcus Garvey created the African Liberation flag and the colors Red, black and green, red for The blood, black for the community And green for the land And prosperity, right And so we, you know

That was since the 1920s Right, but in our era There was not There was not no big connection to Marcus Darby. You know what I mean? People didn't know who that was. So we reimagined that and said, how can we make that more appealing to where we're from

and how we do? So we put the red, black, and green. We put the bandana on the red and the bandana on the black and the bandana on the green. And we said, this is RBG. This is revolutionary, but gangster. This is, you know, reading about Garvey. This is rice, beans and greens.

You know, we gave it a way that the culture could hip hop, you know, our liberation and feel, you know, make it stylish, make it make it fun and add some lingo to it. Right. And a point that my brother was making about gangster rap. Right. Why? Why? Why? We always considered ourselves not conscious and not gangster, but revolutionary but gangster, is because simply this. A revolutionary, right, it doesn't always have to be like burned down shit and destructive. A

revolutionary really just wants fundamental change that empowers people, right? They want the power in the hands of the masses of people to control their own lives. That's a revolutionary. Some people do that shit peacefully, some do it with the AK, whatever, but they're trying

to unend corruption. They're trying to overthrow corruption. The gangster, though, the gangster is somebody who says, look, my job is not to change the corruption. My job is to dominate in a corrupt environment and not be a pawn, not be a victim.

So the combination of that is we want change. We want positive change. That's the revolutionary side. But we recognize we live in a gangster system. We live in a gangster world that operates of gang law and gang tactics. You know, the police, the military, you know, the corporations, all this shit is gang shit. So we're not under the illusion that that is not the reality. And so wherever we happen to be gangsters, you know, that is

common sense. And, you know, but our ultimate goal is to make, to change it fundamentally. You know what I mean? That's where we were coming from as young, what the fuck do we know, 17, 18, 19 year olds. You know what I mean? Over time, you know, I've grown as an individual, as a man.

I'm a father of two sons. I'm a husband of 27 years this year. You know what I'm saying? My health has transformed. My holistic practices. I do yoga. I'm a long-distance running coach. I meditate every day.

You know what I mean? So my mentality of that rage and that outrage has shifted. And I recognize that stress and rage will consume you.

I recognize that's what was fueling me to drink alcohol and to try to be high every second. And, you know, all the arguments and just negative energy that come with being frustrated. Right. And I learned holistic practices. So and I had to say, all right, now it's time for RBG to expand. So RBG became reaching bigger goals, right? It became refined, build, and grow. You know what I mean? And so it's an evolution in progress. You know what I mean? You can't have revolution without evolution. So RBG means a lot of things. And you got people who feel like RBG is their way they see it.

I try to embody it as I grow to be true and authentic to my reality. It sounds like working out and fitness has helped you to maybe just think about your outrage a little bit more and then make better decisions about what to do about these situations. Is that right? Yes, sir. A hundred percent because studying things like I'm not a religious person or whatever, but things like Buddhism and things like Taoism have been really helpful to.

You ever listen to Alan Watts? You ever listen to that guy, Alan Watts? Yeah. I dig that kind of stuff myself. Yeah, man. You know, it's like the Tao Te Ching and just the philosophy of nature and how it works within our minds and spirit and body versus you 17 another person that got murdered your pops on crack your brothers

on crack and you start learning about the Black Panther Party and you start learning about the Nation of Islam and read Malcolm X and the white man is the devil and you know that's a whole nother perspective you know what I mean that can a whole nother perspective. You know what I mean?

That can it can be empowering, right? To a point. But then you have to manage that emotional atmosphere, right? And a lot of the political isms

don't really address the human mind, the human suffering, the human development. It's all focused on political systems and external institutions. And I felt like that was only half the equation for me. I felt like it left me feeling like, but how am I going to deal with, how am I going to make my relationship work? Right? How am I, you know what I mean? Like, how am I going to be a whole person?

Right? You know, I'm just a ticking time bomb, just ready to, you know, explode on something. And that's not healthy. It's hard to be a father like that. It's hard to, you know what I mean? So Taoism, Buddhism, something. And that's not healthy. It's hard to be a father like that. You know what I mean? So Taoism, Buddhism,

and just different internal practices from Qigong, all these different things, man, just made me realize there was more to solving this equation

than one dogmatic political idea, you know what I mean? And I also had real time experience seeing the difference between the ideal and the application of certain things. So people would have the best political speech and yada, yada, and whatever, but how are you treating the members? How are you interacting as a human being with people and taking care of people when they make certain sacrifices? I start seeing that it's the same thing. Corruption is I don't care if you all the way right or you all the way left or you somewhere, whatever, whatever.

The human condition, if there's corruption possible, it'll happen. You know what I mean? People, because we don't do the self-work, we don't do the inner work that makes us show up in a way

that can manage those kind of impulses, right? And so the long story short, not to beat it in the head, for me, meditation, just the simple shit of meditation, a dedicated fitness practice, and my diet having a more high vibrational quality to it, that helped me break out of that toxic trance. It doesn't mean I don't believe we don't need revolution, that we don't need justice,

that we don't need change, but the way I would go about it is a lot more, I would hope wise. I would hope a lot more wise and a lot more holistic-minded I would hope, you know, a lot more wise and a lot more holistic minded as opposed to in your face. Fuck that. And not being able to listen and hear the other sides in the equation. I think a lot of times we're really charged by our feelings and we're only living in the experience. We're only living in that particular, uh, that particular way that we're feeling is making us gravitate towards, uh, acting a certain way, being a certain way and having some more self-awareness can really help. I mean, you've ever heard someone say, Hey man, you're really pissed off, you know, go, go smash a heavy bag and smash a heavy bag and you feel a little bit better and you feel a little bit more logical and somebody could actually now have a conversation with you about what you were upset about and you can kind of work your way through it facts man in every level you know i mean imagine how a child if a father don't find that that grace right don't find that space, right? How is the child going to come up under that

father? You know what I mean? Bitter, hostile, you name it. You know what I mean? Whatever vices I would have, they're going to see that, feel like that's normal, that's how you deal with life, etc. So then I'm taking the

systemic oppression that I'm feeling and then I'm taking the systemic oppression that I'm feeling and then I'm passing it down through my habits and actions. Right. So one of the things that really inspired me is that I can break that cycle. Right. Like I can't change the whole shit. But me personally, I can be as the best guy I can be for my wife, for my sons I can do that I can definitely do that

I can work on me, I can get my shit in order and really be the best person I can be for them and to me that's striking at the man you know what I mean, that's getting back at this shit because it seems like it's set up

to make our shit dysfunctional so if I can find harmony and function and excel based on me controlling myself then I'm winning even if the whole equation is not solved we still making progress so

that's what drives me every day to hit them miles when i wake up and to hit that bag when i need to and lift that iron which i'll do much of but when i go get it when i when i feel like i need it you know that was very impactful man i think that's uh that's going to be something that everybody's going to be able to start implementing right away that's uh so thank you so much for sharing that. One thing I want to ask is, have you had any conversations with the current events with some of your colleagues? Because I know Immortal Technique has been speaking out a lot on Instagram. But I don't know. I just wanted to... In my head, I'm a fan, right? So, in my head, I'm thinking all my favorite rappers,

they all speak on the phone or something like that, you know, on their off days. So have you talked to anybody else and like gotten their thoughts? Yeah, man. Actually, I just did Roots. They have a podcast. And me and Tyreek Black Thought from Roots, we just chopped it up for like an hour.

Another buddy of mine from a maven band named The Medicine for the People, Knocko Bear. We just did a live talk. And I've been talking to different homies of mine, you know. But this ain't like, oh, let's have a new conversation of this new thing that's going on. We've been talking about this shit for years, man.

More than I've been talking, I've been intentionally silent. I've been intentionally listening. I've been in the woods, man. I've been in the forest, in the water, meditating, and just

allowing myself space away from the chaos. I'm about proactive because I know if I'm not proactive and stay in that equanimity, you know what I mean, I'm going to get triggered, you know what I mean? And right now is not that time to just be a loose cannon out there. So, man, I've seen certain shit popping off. You know what I mean? And right now is not that time to just be a loose cannon of it. So I've been I've seen certain shit popping off. I was like, I need to get in the forest. You know what I mean? And that's been really helping me stay grounded.

And when I do have something to say, I hope that it's not reacting. I'm not trying to add on to the confusion. I'm not trying to pump nobody up or do nothing stupid. And I'm not trying to tell nobody not to stand up for justice. You know, I just I want people to be safe and I want justice to be realized. You know what I mean? So we share kind of what you just said very often on this podcast. When we think about when we talk about uh nutrition you know we ask people hey what triggers you you know what what trick what triggers you what's a what's a food that's a slippery slope for you you're just like oh i'm just gonna have

a couple potato chips and the next thing you know you're you're you're way off you're way off your plan you know and i think the same thing people need to consider what they ingest from Instagram, social media. They need to say, hey, when they get that feeling, they need to recognize that and say, okay, this shit is triggering me. I need to take myself out of the situation. You're going to make a stupid post or you're going to say something that's just – you want to think about how can it be helpful. What are you putting out there? How can it be helpful? And maybe if you took your time to think about it a little bit more, maybe you can come back with something that would be helpful.

Yep. Exactly, man. I've been part of the confusion too, you know? Like when I listen to my old records, it's not like everything. I'll be seeing these memes. There's a meme going around that says, Dan Perez was right about everything, right? And I get it. You know what I mean? I'll be seeing these memes. There's a meme going around that says, uh, dad, Prez was right about everything.

Right. And, and I get it. You know what I mean? I get, I get what they're saying, but I don't agree with that. We,

dad, Prez was not right about everything. We're not today. Right. It wasn't ever. We, we had a right to say what we're saying and to extend it, saying to speak,

you know, from that space that you that that is your right. But it doesn't mean I'm right about everything. And there are plenty of things I would approach different. You know what I mean? With hindsight being 2020. So, you know, it's good to be silent and quiet sometime and reflect and listen and try to get to the heart of the matter instead of just creating noise around yourself so you can feel important you know in different trending moments like that's not my intention i just want to be helpful or be quiet tell us a little bit about your uh your workouts how'd you how'd you get into uh fitness in the first place so uh the big

the big thing was uh like i said i'm in the streets i'm in a struggle mad blunts alcohol wendy's burger king chinese takeout all that good stuff mega stress Wake up one morning in Brooklyn with an ankle this big. Found out I had gout at 21, 22 years old. That's how hard I was going. The doctors do,

they be like, write you a prescription. Let's get you in the system. My wife, my girlfriend, let's get you in the system, you know? And, and my, my, my wife, you know, my girlfriend and same, been with same person. Uh,

she, uh, she said, nah, like you don't, you're too young for this. And, and I,

and she said this quote that I always remember. She said, I believe in the body's natural ability to heal itself. If given the proper tools. And I was like, I right, I trust you. What do I got to do? She put me on a plant-based green diet. I did all these colonics, which was not fun.

But I got rid of gout naturally, no medicine. And now I have this leg that I haven't taken for granted, right, because I'm limping and, you know, just crippled, 21, 22-year-old. Now I got my leg back. I'm ready to run, kick, jump, do everything. And it just so happened there was a kung fu school in Crown Heights on Fulton in Nordstrom. And I was like, oh, this was right on the block.

Went in, signed up for two years. I'm banging out. Who's you? Come from, from, from Gal, right.

And, and that experience was so powerful, bro, because obviously I had to, I had to become disciplined to, to even show up the class. Um, I had to, when to even show up to class. I had to, when I'm not in class, I had to work on my different

codders with, you know, belts and just to have stamina in the training, it just took over my life. And I found, like, I really like this hard shit. I really like the discipline of this. Man, I needed this.

Started doing my research and I would write some passages in different societies and how young people, young men in particular, go through warrior training to channel that rage

and that potential for destruction in a harmonious way. And I realized that's what martial arts could be for me. And so, you know, I was studying that about the African culture. So I was like, well, if Asia has Wushu Kwan and Kung Fu or whatever, what Africa got? That's where everybody comes from. They had to have some martial arts. guy. That's where everybody comes from.

They had to have some martial arts. Did my research, found Ile Ijala. Started taking that African martial art a couple years. Bruce Lee always been a hero of mine. I found out in Canarsie, which was like three train rides from where

I live, there was a Jeet Kune Do school. I went, I begged the instructor. He took me on it was like a really small high highly skilled class of like eight people and I was the new new dude and he I begged him let me take I sweep the floor whatever whatever he let me take the class and then Jeet Kune Do became my core martial art um philosophically and practically speaking. And I've been, you know, I practiced with C4 Ralph Mitchell for a couple of years and then I moved to Atlanta. But I kept the principles of all those arts from in Atlanta.

I got went into Atlanta, all the boxing with my son, banged out on boxing. And in boxing, you got to do a lot of running. So I started running, and I fell in love with that shit to the point where I did marathons and all that. And then I got certified to be a long-distance running coach with RRCA. Then I got into an old thing that I used to do in the sticks, which was archery. And I just, you know, I got me a little ball, started messing around, and then a buddy of mine was an archery teacher. So I went through his training and became a level two archery instructor. And I just keep

adding on physical challenges as a therapy, you know, to keep me focused and do something with all this energy I got. And I even, I stepped into you guys' world a little bit with the iron because I've always been an ectomorph. I've always been, you know, I'm plant-based and all that stuff. So trying to gain weight and all that wasn't my thing. And I did an experiment with my wife as the nutritionist and my shrimp coach, Scott Shetland, who was a vegan powerlifter.

And he put me a program together for the training. She put the nutrition together. I was the guinea pig. putting nutrition together, I was the guinea pig and I gained 20 pounds, plant-based, no supplements, whole foods with all of my allergies. And I kept running 10 miles every other day with three days of lifting in between. And I gained 20 pounds in two and a half months, right? And that became this book right here. I don't know if it's backwards but

it's called eat plants lift iron and um so that was me doing an experiment on on if i if i add weight lifting um to my regimen you know would i still be able to pack on some weight and finally get a little muscle um and i did that was was a couple of years ago, though, so the muscle's gone now. I love that. I love that story. I love so much of it came from you working on yourself within, you know, and I think that that's a great place. I wish more people would start there.

I know a lot of people, like, they feel upset that they're heavy or overweight and they want to make some changes. But I think if you work on changing yourself internally, the external kind of comes along with it as a, as a reward for the hard work. Yeah. I'm so grateful, bro. Like I wake up every day. I don't care what's going on in the world. I got, I'm grateful. I, I really, I was telling my wife the other day,

I really realized that I am rich. I really have realized that. What I mean by that is I'm rich in the essence of everything I've ever wanted, I have. I've been with my wife

27 years. I got two sons. We got a house, transportation. I got two sons. We got a house, transportation. I'm an entrepreneur. I say what I want to say and what I do. I create for

the benefit of my community. You know what I mean? We can be richer in degree, but if fundamental things are missing, then we're going to fill that gap. We're going to feel impoverished in certain areas. But when you have your whole wheel of life, so to speak, is at least there's something in each bucket. You're rich, and I hold on to that, man.

I'm grateful. I can literally enjoy the breeze. A lot of people can feel the breeze but not even realize the breeze is blowing. You know what I'm saying? You know, I get excited on a sunny day when I walk in the woods. You know, I'm rich,

man, so I just really feel thankful, grateful, fulfilled, even though there's plenty of work to do. And I know all of that comes through these practices. And it helps you realize the richness and the subtle things. Like you said, the internal space. And then everything outside of you is just a plus. It's a degree.

It's a degree. It's a bonus. You know what I mean? What do you think the key is to holding it all together for 27 years and also having two children? Andrew is a rookie in this whole game and Seema is still in the amateur the Bush League still. Maybe you can fill us in with some good advice. I've been married myself

for almost 20 years. Salute. Yeah, man. It really is the two people involved, man. It's an equation, you know what I mean? Like, for me and my wife, it's a genuine friendship.

Like, you know, like, she's really my friend, and we really, we're just best friends. Like, when we first met, we just clicked in a certain really, we're just best friends. Like we, when we first met, we just clicked in a certain way. It was just a blessing. And we've,

we've had every issue you can imagine, you know, you know, you know, we, we've been through and go through, you know, normal shit in a relationship, but fundamentally we're best friends.

And, and through, through even betrayal and me doing suckers shit, more shit in a relationship. But fundamentally, we're best friends. And through even betrayal and me doing sucker shit, infidelity, you know what I mean? She saw and believed that I had more potential

than I was living up to. And at a certain point, I actually got humble enough to realize what I had and to actually be a man about my word and my responsibilities. You know what I mean? And she hung in there until I caught up to her maturity. You feel me? And that's us in particular. And that's us in particular. So for, you know, other people, the dynamic may be different. But for me, if you grow, if you continue to grow and your spouse continues to grow and you have respect for each other, like, you know what I mean?

It's going to work out. You know? Yeah. So we got to get you down to Super Training Gym. That uh that's our gym it's the strongest gym in the west it's the biggest free gym in the world it's absolutely free to everybody to come out but we do yeah we listen to the workout uh especially the uh back on my regimen that's like my uh like i mean i wake up every day listening to that you know it gets me focused back on what i need to be focused on as far as, you know, back on my weight gain, back on my discipline. I love that because I've been an ectomorph, you know, obviously my whole life too.

And I was looking for it, but it got packed up. But I actually bought your book back in the day because I was lost. I didn't really know what diet I wanted to pursue because I just, you know, there's so much information out there so i'm like let me see what sticks up too but um you got the workout two do you have any new music coming out soon yeah well i just dropped workout two february so right right when the pandemic hit workout two dropped so you know uh that was that that's my latest project man um uh i'm working on some some things with my brand rbg fit club uh some books uh and actually a gym space um in atlanta but it's it's kind of a radical approach to a gym So yeah The latest music I put out was

Workout 2 And I did this partnership With Lululemon I worked with them from time to time On different creative things And they The project was called Experience Fit Hop

Which is for people who don't know, that's what I call my genre of music that blends hip-hop with healthy living. We told this story in a short doc that I co-directed with Maya Table about

this young girl who is 14 years old now. She was 10 when she started boxing. And she wanted to box. Her dad was old school, like, girl ain't boxing. She did it anyway. And now she's a 12-time national champion. She just made Team USA for the Olympics.

And she's just a little badass. And she trains to my music. So we got to kind of tell that story in promotion of the album and just spreading the word on Fithop. So I'm doing those kinds of things. I'm working right now with a director on this movie called Runner about a refugee named Gore Maker who was literally from the Sudan in a refugee camp. He escaped

and he became an Olympian. It's his journey. I've got a lot of running songs. I'm trying to blend these worlds together and create a project so sometimes think about uh some of these lyrics like when you're training yourself when you're exercising yourself you're like man i need to i need to put that into a song because like maybe

maybe you uh lost a little uh motivation like during a particular workout yeah you that's exactly how fit hop is made like i'll make a beat right and then i'll be like all right the beat is ready i'll be raining because first you know you're just chopping you're playing around with sounds you're getting a feeling of emotion but then i said okay now let me make a three minute sequence or let me make a 30 minute just repeat and then I'll take it on my run. Now I'm in the run or I'll do calisthenic pyramids. Y'all know what

that is, right? You'll start with 15 pushups, then 14 and 13. I'll put beats on. It's like method acting where, you know what I mean, if you're going to play a smoker, you got to smoke. So if I want

to express running or lifting or whatever, I'm going to do it to the beat. And then I'm like, what came to me? Like the song back on my regimen was my mind is infinite. My trainer Scott used to tell me, this is what the song back on my regimen was My Mind Is Infinite.

My trainer Scott used to tell me this is what lips. You know what I mean? If you be like, oh, this shit's too heavy, you ain't in the right frame of mind. Definitely all the lyrics come from I try to put myself

where I can get insights. I believe it's writing music and fitness. All these things are spiritual. All these things are, there's a certain part of it that we don't control. I'm not the rapper that'll say,

oh, yo, I'm nice. Let me add it. I'm more like, I have to put myself in a space that's open, that welcomes, that creative thing to happen, and I have to make sure I write that shit down. You know what I mean? So I'm taking notes from the spirit as what might move me or what might move somebody else.

And then every time I release the album, I'm testing it. Because if people say, ah, get that shit out of here. That's whack. I don't like it. I wasn't trained to that. I'm learning. Like, okay. But so far, people have been like, yo, you know, I ran a marathon

of this shit. So, yeah, man. But I believe it comes from the spirit and, um, I just put myself in, um, I put the beat on and put myself in the activity and that shit just comes. Yeah. That's awesome. Thank you. I'll go ahead and see him.

I wanted to know, cause you mentioned that you're opening a gym and it was a radical take on a gym. So are you able to talk about what that means or is that something you're keeping under wraps right now? Let me see. What can I say? I'll say I can say think outside the box. I can say that. OK. You know, I mean, raise the roof. I can say that. Okay. You know what I mean? Raise the roof. I can say that, you know?

No. I can say breaking the glass ceiling. You know, I can say stuff like that. But if you know me, I like, I love the outdoors. I love being outside. So our concept of a gym is kind of like beyond the doors. And, you know, it's kind of a radical innovation on it. So obviously I want to present it before I start talking about it. But I'm so excited I done brought it up.

You know what I mean? So we purchased some land. We purchased three acres in a Southeast Atlanta Lakewood. It's a residential area. And yeah, we, you know, I believe that a gym can be so much more than a place to lift weights. You know what I mean? I think it should uplift you. You know what I mean?

And you certainly can be uplifted in a regular gym. You definitely can. But I think sometimes the culture of gyms emphasizes the physical aesthetic result. Right?

And not necessarily the holistic uh nurturing of yourself and people will do anything to get that your chest swole i'm gonna do i'm gonna do i'm taking anything i can take look like you look you know i mean don't don't you your genetics your work ethic none of that don't matter you know i? I would just take this shit that, you know, look like you look, you know? And I think that comes with the culture of gym life, you know what I mean? And too much. And so I feel like in order to have a different effect, you actually have to create a different atmosphere

and take people out that box. You still be strong as an ox, but you don't necessarily have to be inside a box. You know what I mean? At the same time. So we've been working on it for a couple of years, you know, developing the idea and,

and, and how to make the business of it make sense. Cause I'm interested in how you guys have a free gym. You know what I mean? How does that work business-wise? Because we've been talking. It doesn't really work out great business-wise. But I created some products.

I'll have Andrew maybe get in touch with you um through the through some email and we can send out some products to you so you can check them out but i created a product a long time ago about 10 years ago now uh called the slingshot it's a upper body device for like push-ups bench press dips things like that and then behind that we created a bunch of other products like knee sleeves elbow sleeves wrist wraps all that kind of stuff so we So we'll, we'll send some out to you. And that's how the gym is free because I've had some great customers over the years, uh, you know, who enjoy the product. People share the product. People are

excited about it and it helps people. So I've been very fortunate to be able, I've always wanted to have a free gym since the time I was a kid. i first started going to a gym not being able to afford the gym trying to sneak in all the time without my without a legit membership pretty much ever right i always wanted to uh open up a free gym and when i was you know had the ability to uh something i that uh just kind of called to me so i wanted to do it that's that's beautiful bro salute on that yeah i, I'm a little. Cool, my man. Where can people find you? Where can people find out more

about you? So we are in the digital space rbgfitclub.com is our website. And then on Instagram STIC. I got the blue check. You can find me STIC. Yeah, we blue check. You can find me, STIC.

Yeah, we in the world. Are you still getting some of that mailbox money? Is the money still coming in from some old music that you did? Are you getting some residual checks, especially with all the stuff that's going on now and people saying that you guys had it right from the beginning? Man, yeah, man. I love it.

We're stacking now. I love it. We stacking now. I love it. Hey man. Thank you so much for coming on today. Really appreciate your time. I appreciate you guys, man. Thanks for having me,

man. All the best. Y'all stay safe. Stay strong. Thank you so much. Same to you. Thank you. Peace.

Stick, man. I remember, uh, I think it was like Everlast. He was on Joe Rogan. He was talking about mailbox money coming in. Just like residual checks from iTunes or something from selling music. That's got to be pretty cool.

Like we've been talking about, he made music 20 years ago. It still has a lot of relevance today. So I'm sure there's a lot of people that are, you know, a lot of people are just researching stuff in general, you know, um, about race and racism and,

uh, you know, how to, how to deal with it better and stuff. So I imagine, yeah, people are probably checking out his music. Yeah.

He has a lot of powerful stuff. Um, but man, just such a cool dude. And I think he said some really impactful things on this podcast. So I'm glad that we finally made this happen. Yeah, he has a lot of powerful stuff. But man, just such a cool dude. And I think he said some really impactful things on this podcast. So I'm glad that we finally made this happen. Initially, I think it was back when we first started having a bunch of people from the carnivore community.

And I was like, man, we don't have any good representation of a plant-based athlete know uh athlete and i just know like looking at some of the videos like he's like damn dude like stick is jacked like we should probably reach out and he and his wife have a have a podcast and of course you know she's a she's the nutritionist so we try to reach out to see if like like hey man are you going on tour and you're going to be in sack like let's make this happen and then of course everything with like covid and you know it just didn't work out so to get them this way it was really cool but it'd be cool to have them in the gym getting a solid workout yeah people that are listening to this you know i know like we're not always going to

all agree you know even the three of us aren't going to agree on stuff and sometimes when you have a guest on maybe there's some things that someone says, but all we're trying to do is give people a voice, let people talk. You know, all the stuff that he said today is his opinion. And I think that and all the stuff I say, you know, and all the stuff that Seema says and Andrew says, it's just opinion. And we're, you know, we're just trying to let out some of our thoughts about, you know, some of the things that are going on in today's world, whether it be COVID, whether it be a particular nutrition idea, or whether it be talking about race. I think this is important, and people are like, oh, it's virtue signaling or whatever they want to say. But I personally don't believe that there's anything wrong with highlighting a problem that's been around for a long time. And, and actually, uh, so what,

if someone wants to call it virtue signaling, I think it's okay to say, Hey, this has been a problem for a long time. Let's put this like front and center. Let's talk about it more, get people to, I think a lot of times it's hard to have good perspective, you know, from somebody else, from another ethnicity. They might say something repeatedly. I mean, we repeatedly have heard the same thing from the black community for a long time. And for whatever reason, it just maybe people were maybe people were hearing it, but they weren't truly listening. And they weren't no one really was making any steps towards anything different.

And so, you know, when we have some guests on the show and they maybe talk about how they're in favor of defunding the police, I don't think there's any reason for you to get triggered about that. I think it's just something to be to think about. Maybe maybe he does have a good point. Maybe maybe he does have a good point. Maybe we don't have good solutions at the moment. And maybe bringing up something, maybe bringing up, hey, like maybe we bring in the military versus do we want people, you know, if, if somebody goes through a stop sign, do we want that person to go right to jail, you know, because they went through the stop sign? Do we want the person to be prosecuted at all? Do we want the person that, you know, can think about it? Like, let's, let's think about it because maybe now is a good time to discuss, you know, a reform of, of what we once had, we once had in the past. You know, especially with what he was saying from defunding the police,

I want to say I don't necessarily think that that's the answer, but you got to understand when people talk about that idea, like Mark said, it's a good idea to try to maybe, try to envision what that would be like, maybe try to understand why people are thinking that CNN posted some audio from a former

police chief that was talking about how when his precinct had to hit quotas, former police chief, how they would purposefully try to aim for young black men, because they'd be easier to pull over and they'd be easier to help them hit their quota of tickets or arrests that they needed to get. And this is like a quota. And why is there a quota? Why is there a quota? Now you see like you can't, a lot of people try to just say, well, look at the statistics. Statistically, this doesn't make sense. Well, statistics don't actually always reflect what may be actually going on. Some statistics may be wrong. Just like when you see individuals falsifying police reports, but then you see what actually happens. You got to imagine that some of that probably does happen in the

system too. So it's just like, again, I think Jock, like yesterday, Jock was on Rogan and there's this snippet that he has that is a very informative piece of content where he talks about giving the police actually more money, but he goes about it in a way that I've never heard anybody actually talk about as far as reasoning with facts. For example, police only get what two to four hours of, um, uh, it's like a sensitivity training potentially a year. Whereas Jocko and the military, like they have to have 18 months of training before they went on six months of deployment. Right. So, so, so that's something to think about. Like these guys are literally are not getting training. And that is where you could understand where stick comes in. He's like, well,

shoot, we've been doing this for so long and we've been doing all this training and nothing's really changing. Why are they here? You can kind of see it. Even if you don't agree with it, you can see where both sides are coming from. Imagine if it was your job to squat and you only squatted for a couple hours every year, it was your job to bench press and you only bench pressed a couple times every year. And none of this is an attack on the police

at all either. I have a lot of friends that are in the police department and I have great respect for anybody that wants to do that job. That is a, that is a, you know, I don't think anyone's going to argue that it's a really, really tough job. I just think that it makes a lot of sense at the moment to reconsider. I think on the Joe Rogan podcast with Jocko Willink, which you guys should listen to, highly recommend it. It is three hours, but I think that you should dedicate the time to listen to it because they talked about a lot of things that made sense. They talked about a couple of things that maybe didn't make sense, but they talked about a lot of things that did make a lot of sense. I feel like, uh, especially when it comes to,

you know, the police department or police officers in general, just having like more training and it's not more training so they can beat up more people. It's not more training so they can kill more people. It's a more training so they can kill more people. It's more training so they can have de-escalation training. They can communicate with people better. Maybe they have more talks and more conferences and get together more and say, hey, you know, we got to be out there in the community and we got to, rather than like knocking on people's doors and saying, hey, what's going on in there kind of thing, or, or being frustrated with the, with people in the community, why not walk the streets a little bit more? Why not communicate with people more? And, uh, now, you know, you know, you know, the neighborhood cop, you know, the neighborhood police officer. And when he sees you, uh, maybe

doing something that, you know, maybe you're not supposed to. He's like, Hey dude, come on. Like, I know your dad. Like, I know, I know your mom. Like, what, like, what are you, dude, what are you doing? Why are you hanging out with these guys? You know, you know, better than that. That's way different. Right. Then you know, chucking somebody down on the ground and doing, you know, whatever, whatever the hell's been going on. And so I think, you know, it's just a good time to really consider those things but yeah jaco had some really fantastic ideas that i don't think would be hard to implement

yeah it was it was a really really good really eye-opening podcast there in terms of the things that he was speaking about as far as funding them more so they could add so they could actually become parts of the community. What he was saying, it was making me think of making police more like teachers. It really just makes you think of, oh, your sixth grade teacher, you know who she is. She knows who you are. She knows your parents. It's almost like police become kind of like that. That's going to take a lot of money.

Well, bringing up teachers, I think, is is a really good point, because remember when you had a substitute teacher that wasn't really well respected? Like, remember, remember the actions of the classroom, you know, right? Like and I mean, I've had teachers we've had I've had I've seen teachers cry, you know, in the classroom because they just can't get they can't get the students to pay attention or to listen. Somebody's shooting a spitball across the room. Someone else throws gum in somebody else's hair or whatever the hell is going on. This craziness is going on in the classroom. And it's because that particular teacher doesn't have enough training. They don't know how to gain respect.

teacher doesn't have enough training. They don't know how to gain respect from, I mean, and how many teachers have you had before where you're like, you do not mess around in this person's classroom ever. You know, you don't, you don't take that risk. You don't, you don't mess around to see, to see what this guy is made out of. Cause you know, that, you know, that he's going to, you know, take command of the room and he's, and it's not like just a fearful thing. It's not like, not like you've seen the teacher beat the shit out of somebody before. It's just that they command a certain respect. And most often those people either had a background in sports or those people had a background in like military or they have some other type of training or they had a good physical presence. Maybe they work out and you're like i i

know i don't i remember i remember having teachers that that lifted you know and they were they were kind of strong and that was a thing as a kid and we all looked up to it we and we weren't going to mess around in that person's classroom and stuff like that so yeah what you guys are talking about you know about like knowing names and they know your parents and whatnot. Everybody listening can relate to having that one teacher or that one, I don't know, even security guard, whoever it was at your school that when you started to get in trouble, you can go to that person and be like, hey, can you talk to Mr. So-and-so of like why I was late or like why this happened? Or, you know, like you had some, you had an end that can refer you or that can stand up for you. So, it's almost like if, you know, like again, this would probably cost too much and I haven't

listened to the Rogan Jocko podcast, but like if there was like a, like an officer representation, not necessarily for each block, but like maybe like a certain you know quadrant of a neighborhood be like look if you have an issue with whatever it is you can you have your man you have your your officer right you have you and have their number you can text them whatever it may be so when something goes down you can be like dude officer so and so like this just happened to my friend like can you check in and see what's going on? So it brings the anxiety down. It kind of, you know, doesn't make it such like a, uh, like a pressure pot, you know, cooker, you know, like it can relieve some of that stress because that, that badge now has a face and a name and then they know yours. I think that could be pretty damn cool. that could be pretty damn cool. Yeah.

Knowing how to talk to people and knowing how to, uh, just take the anger or rage out of a situation is, is a huge skill. But a lot of times like the police don't have, you know, sometimes it's, um, there's,

there's people with higher levels of, of, uh, training that have that type of, uh, you know, that, that have that knowledge to be able to, you know, negotiate and be able to talk somebody down. And not every police department has, you know, a lot of people that can that have had that training to be able to assist. It's complicated because I think in some areas where they're going to pull back on police, I think they may see an uprise in some problems. But in other areas, maybe that will be effective.

It might depend on where they implement some of these things. And I also don't think like just paying police officers more money is anything that we're talking about either. I think that we're just saying like, you know, defunding them may cut off their ability to get trained properly, you know, and you want to think about how can they get the best training possible. And I think on Rogan, I think mentioned that a police officer should be purple belts. And I think that's, that's kind of interesting, but some physical standards, I don't know exactly what all those would be, but some physical standards and make some sense.

Yeah. I was thinking of like this yesterday, cause I was actually my mom and I were having a conversation about this and i was just like you know well when we think about a society with no police uh some would think that's a good idea but that just kind of seems like a a remedy for everything just to go haywire for people who want to take advantage of the lack of protection in certain places people are going to want to take advantage of the lack of protection in certain places, people are going to try to take advantage of that. Not everybody is going to be able to be armed to protect themselves. That's probably, in my opinion, not the best idea. But when you look at, when you think about schools that don't have good education, well, what do you do to try to help those students?

Do you take away funding? Do you do less because those students just aren't doing well, or you give up on those students because they're not hitting the standards that other schools are hitting? No, you try to put more money into getting them better books and to getting them better education and to, and to getting them just, just more resources so they could, so they could achieve right and and do better i'm like i look at that i look at that the same way you look at the systems as far as we have and far as far as police it doesn't necessarily make sense to you know take money away i know people are talking about reallocation but if we're really serious about trying to get the right people in the position for the job then a lot of structures do have to be torn down.

But they need to be torn down and rebuilt, not torn down and left there for us to have worse policing and worse quality police officers. I would imagine, too, for the police department to be kind of like audited or the police department to have its own police department, basically, you know, who's policing the police, right? That's going to probably cost money, you know? And so with this particular case, with this particular police officer, I mean, he was police officer for like 18 years, 19 years, something like that. It was a very long time, you know, has anybody checked in on this guy in a long time? I know he had a, you know, rap sheet of many instances, many complaints. I don't know. I never really looked into how severe those complaints are or were. But has anybody like, you know, do they do a psychological evaluation?

Do they check up on, you know, his, his last five arrests or something like that? I mean, some of the stuff I've heard is that he had some pretty severe complaints against him. And so just kind of like, can you have some strikes against you? And then they reevaluate your position. These are all things that I don't think are that hard to get answers to, you know, and I'm not a police officer. I've never considered that job, but anyone who has done that job for a long time or people that have been in law enforcement, they should be able to figure it out fairly

quickly, I think. Yeah, it'd be interesting if like even for just regular people to obtain weapons like a gun like you had to pass a physical test also because i was just thinking you know i know somebody he's responsible but he's he's smaller than me and you know with all this that's happening i'm just like shit man should that guy be able to have a gun like i don't know if that would be his first or second thing to reach for it if he was bigger maybe he wouldn't need to um so i just kind of crossed my mind just now if maybe everybody that is carrying like if that wasn't their first uh option you know maybe to handle somebody or some situation without a lethal weapon. I don't know, maybe it just helped the situation a little bit more as well. But I know asking the general public to,

you know, you have to be in shape to get a gun might freak people out too. You know, when it came to the situation with George Floyd, I don't know what they did and didn't do protocol-wise, but from the videos, it doesn't really look like they took their time to ask him very many questions and it doesn't look like they took their time to explain anything to him. When he's handcuffed and he is sitting down up against the wall and he's on the kind of corner of that street.

And then when he stands up, they just like pull him across the street and they bring him towards the car. But you can see that he is like he you can tell that he's kind of pleading his case. He's like asking questions. And there I don't see their mouths moving at all. And again, I don't know what happened and what didn't happen. But just imagine if if there was a lot more communication going on, I mean, none of this, none of this stuff would have happened. You know, if they said, Hey, you know, you're under arrest. Here's why it doesn't appear on the video. It doesn't appear like they, again, you know, I don't, I don't know for sure. And just using like brute force, you know, seems like seems like the worst thing to do. And it's got again, it's got to be tough to be a police officer because you deal with so many different things. They're stretched so thin they have to they're also going to domestic violence disputes. They're also answering calls because somebody is just acting because a homeless person is acting crazy and yelling and screaming.

You know, they might have to, you know, answer a call because like some kid threw a rock at a car or something stupid. You know, I mean, it's just like the variation of different things that they have to show up to and imagine you know they show up to a situation um and they bend to many situations that are shitty throughout the day i think something again that jaco brought up was like yep i'm about to go have a bunch of bad interactions with humans today like that's what police officers do like the entire day. You know, they're not really called for anything good. I can't think of anything that they're called for. You're right.

I mean, I'm going to call the police on you. You hear people say it all the time. Like sometimes a neighbor say, you keep that music up too loud. Who are they going to call? They're going to call the cops, which is kind of weird. It's kind of a weird system. Why would you, you know, it doesn't seem like you need, it seems like it's severe, you know,

call law enforcement because somebody's music is loud, but I don't know who else you would call. I don't have a solution to that, but it does bring up a lot of interesting questions. They're also just maybe stretched too thin on stuff. Yeah. Like, I think you mentioned it. Like you said, you know, a lot of people, you know, that have been former officers and it's just like they have a very bleak outlook on society as a whole.

Like they have a very low outlook on humanity because all of their interactions are having to do with something negative all day long. And you think about how that weighs down on an individual. They're not, you know, they're not typically checked up on, they don't, they're not able to just take breaks when they actually feel that stress. They just keep dealing with day in and day out. They're going to, a lot of them are going to take stupid actions. They're going to act emotionally in certain situations. They're going to

act angry in certain situations and they're going to do very horrible things because of the way that some of them view people. Well put. Take us on out of here, Andrew. Thank you everybody for checking out today's episode um yeah huge shout out to stick man for hanging out with us today that was really cool

uh thank you pete montes for sponsoring this episode for more information on them please check the podcast show notes and the youtube and facebook description down below uh please make sure you're following the podcast at mark Bell's power project on Instagram at MB power project on Twitter. Uh, we're also on LinkedIn and Facebook. My Instagram is at, I am Andrew Z. If you want to talk to in SEMA,

how could they do so? I'm seeing my ending on Instagram and YouTube. I'm seeing the ending on TikTok and Twitter. Mark. I'm at Mark's Millie Bell. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness, never strength.

Catch y'all later.