Shawn Ryan Show - #39 Struggle Jennings

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

Shawn Ryan Show Sponsored by Ridge Wallet. Check them out here: https://ridge.com/shawn USE CODE ''SHAWN'' Also sponsored by Bubs Naturals "Take the best S*%# of you life" https://www.bubsnaturals.com (USE CODE SHAWN) and by MUD/WTR https://www.mudwtr.com/shawn (USE CODE SHAWN) The story of William Harness AKA Struggle Jennings childhood drug dealing gang member to country music rap superstar. Please leave us a review on Apple/Spotify Podcasts: Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shawn-ryan-show/id1492492083 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5eodRZd3qR9VT1ip1wI7xQ?si=59f9d106e56a4509 Struggle Jennings Links: Website - https://www.strugglejennings.com Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/iamstruggle YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-1dnd5sdAQXHLCfDFTsFKg #VIGILANCEELITE #SHAWNRYANSHOW Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website - https://www.shawnryanshow.com Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/VigilanceElite TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnryanshow Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/shawnryan762 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey everybody, this next one is super important. This is about a guy that literally came from nothing and built himself an empire. This is important shit because there are so many people in the US today that feel that they don't have a chance or they're getting cheated and they can't make anything of themselves. That's complete bullshit and this is proof. Everybody has to start somewhere. Generally it works out better if you start from the bottom. Love you guys. Thank you for always being here and supporting me. Enjoy the show.

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Use the coupon code sh Sean for 10% off. Thank you Ridge Wallet for sponsoring the Sean Ryan show. for having me brother. It's so honored. Right back at you. So just a brief introduction, you grew up in a low-income family. Your grandpa was whaling Jennings. Your dad died when you were 10 years old. You're a former gang member and drug dealer. In fact, you were the biggest cocaine bust in Nashville still to this date, I believe. Maybe so. Maybe so. Yeah. I have a kept up with it in a while. Right on. You're a rapper, a father of seven, you own your own record label with artists underneath you. You show a lot of patriotism for the United States of America. And God we need you now was number one in the charts for multiple weeks. Weeks and I tunes months, billboard two weeks, two weeks in a row.

I think it actually hit number one, maybe three or four times, but number one for two weeks in a row, even the week that Drake released his album, which had millions of dollars of promotion behind it. At one point, I was number one, and he was number two through 20. Damn. On songs.

Were you expecting that to happen? Absolutely not. No. No, we had actually, no. We had actually dropped the song nine months before that happened. And it had cool momentum a little bit of steam. Got a bunch of views on YouTube. And then it started to die off. And we started working on, we actually released another song or two. And then out of nowhere, I get a call like, hey, man, your number fucking won on iTunes right now.

And I was like, get out of here. And I was like, no, for real. Like the song is number one. Number one on iTunes, out of all the- Out of everything, all genres. Damn. Independent. No, we didn't put a dollar behind it, marketing-wise.

It was literally a song from the heart and the people speaking up. That's incredible. Yeah. The cart wind, like all the videos of, you know, kept recycling because of all the issues that were going on in the world, you know back to back to back and it would just continuously

This is yeah, I'm gonna get this off Baby, I think my cars you just let them know that I completely kept up on off But if anybody calls you just let them know that I completely kept up on it. Um, yeah, so it just kept cycling because these new issues were happening and people were using it as their battle cry. And behind all the videos, you could hear God we need you now every time. And it was surreal. Yeah. So many monumental, like videos that went viral. And that's cool. But it's the meaning behind the videos,

you know, seeing just the destruction or the pleads of, you know, people putting these videos together and the flags flying in my song behind song behind it was just a whole different animal. Yeah, that's cool. This has got to be so much satisfaction and in multiple different areas where it's not just success as a musician, but it's also the message behind it, the people rallying, and the time,

what, that was 2020? 2021 is one hit, number one. We released it in 2020, and hit, the number one in 2021. Damn, and yeah, the timing, you know, when that came out, I remember it was just, it was perfect. Well, I guess it had been out, I remember it was just, it was perfect. Well, I guess it had been out, but it just caught a wave and took off. Yeah, we were released in 2020, you know, when everybody was fighting, you know, to gain some kind of ground. And then 2021, you know, with them pulling out and everything going crazy in the Middle East and then with the Canadian truckers, again, it's shot up.

So every time it's something big would happen, people were just gravitating towards that song and watching something that you put out and you create You never know how people are gonna Latch onto it, you know, it's just gonna fly over their head because this is for my heart. This is from And an idea that I have or feeling or an emotion that I have and you never know how it's gonna translate with fans Yeah, so when it does and then it does it in that much of a meaningful manner, you're just like, you know, it feels good. The satisfaction, like you said, the satisfaction and being able to be a part of history like that is the best aculade beyond any kind a word that I got hanging on my wall or you

know any amount of money that I make off of it those are the moments that you feel like you did something great. Yeah well we'll get into that more towards the end of the year. Everybody gets a gift. Oh wow So I'll tell you cool knives on your wall and I was like man, I should have brought this on I got a really nice collection. I actually just got this one Montana knife company nice you seen them yet. Yeah Seth Farochi, I just went and spent some time with him, trained with him, with William. No, I'm not. I asked him Sledge and American Roughnake.

He's a bodybuilder, just a tough Pittsburgh man's man. You know, bodybuilder and now he's probably the fastest growing. Definitely my favorite supplement company called Axon Sledge. Oh wow. There you go. We were just talking about sugar, so. Yes. I'll get you some more of those for your family. I really do.

I can only fit somebody in a box. Give me bears. My favorite. That's my thing too. I love like fruity. That's my thing over chocolate and shit. Cool. What do you dig We'll end those.

A big his vices are literally fruit snacks and peanut butter and jelly. Nice. And then Tom, I can lose weight and stay fucking strong. Peanut butter and jelly, that's all I need. Let's get into your background and your childhood. I did some research on you and that was just a fascinating piece of content

that I consumed, talked about your backstory and you're upbringing and how you got to where you're at today. So I know you grew up here in Franklin. Yeah. How was that? It was great. You know the first first 10 years of my life

Looking back Was completely different than the next 30 But it set us it planted a seed and It was a purpose for every you know every phase of my life. There and it was a purpose for every phase of my life. There's definitely been a purpose as I go back and analyze it, which I try to do all the time, to know where I wanna go, where I've been,

remember where I've been without losing sight of where I'm headed, knowing I don't wanna go back to where I've been without losing sight of where I'm headed. Knowing I don't wanna go back to where I've been, so trying to make the right decisions and moves throughout my life to continually progress. It's definitely important. So I analyze it a lot. First 10 years of my life, my mom, and my mom had me at 16.

She was a daughter of Wayne Jennings and Jesse Cotter. Actually, Duane Eddie was her biological father. And he was married to my grandmother, Jesse Cotter. And then Whalen and Jesse were putting the studio together to the same record label and ran off in the sunset together. So my mom was adopted by Whalen at an early age and was like her father. My grandfather, Duane Eddie, who's a famous guitar player

and musician, he's in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he actually still lives here in Franklin. Oh really? Yeah, so. Are you guys tonight? You know, I grew grew up he was my grandfather loved him loved my step-grandmother his wife did super close growing up life kind of

Portus in different directions Still I just talked to him recently just reached out to. He reached out to me while I was in prison, and I wrote him, you know, a long letter back and love him to death. He was definitely a great inspiration in my life. You know, it is, it is some family you see how to eye with and some you don't know.. We had a few issues, not me and him particularly, but they just kind of put that a little bit of wedge between us, but I love them more than anything. And been trying to see him since I've been home, but he's been battling with a couple of strokes and dealt with a lot of health issues. So they've been kind, but he's been battling with, he had a couple of strokes, and dealt with a lot of health issues,

so they've been kind of being careful about who I was around him, so. And I travel a lot, you know, some people just, some people, you know, they're a little bit more fearful. Different times now. Yeah, different times now. And I'm not, like, I don't walk up to anybody in a room of a thousand and shake your hand looking in the eye, you know, but

so Let's see where we have Growing up growing up here in Franklin my mom and my dad. She was 16 He was 18 they met at the skating rink my dad, she was 16. He was 18. They met at the skating rink. My dad was an old West Nashville bad boy, good old boy, you know, Joe Fastcars. He was the type of guy that would buy stolen guns from his friends at Rathese and sell them to his cobbladodies. You know, he's just one of those like, everybody loved him,

give the shirt off his back, come home two hours late from work, soaking wet, where he pulled over on the side of the inner state to help somebody change a tire. You know, just one of those guys. And, but he was, you know,

he was wild, Moe West Nashville, born in severe poverty, a big family. So him and my mother met at the skating rink. She was going to a private school, some friends and told her to come to West Nashville at the big skating rink. He was the king of the skating rink in high school. So they met, had me.

They lasted about four years. My grandfather, Wayland, had bought them a house here in Franklin to live and to have a place. So I guess I was about four when they split up so that my mom was just a single mom. She sang back up for Whalen and just went through a couple really abusive relationships. She was married for two years to a guy that, you know,

just beat the hell out of her all the time. And finally that came to an end. Did you see all that? Yeah, I saw it. You know, I heard it more than I saw it. There's a couple of times that I can vividly remember seeing him. There's one time in particular. She had been traveling, singing back up for my grandfather.

And I came home from school and saw her car in the driveway. So I rushed up to the house, riding my bike, get to the house, and front door's locked, I run around the back, and when I look through the back window, trying to get through a sliding glass door, he's just in there beating the shit out of her, and I ran next door, called my dad. So that's one moment that I can really remember, like vividly watching her beat the hell out of her,

watching him beat the hell out of her. And so like, you know, I beat it into my boys now, like you never put your hands on a woman. One of the last things that I can remember my dad really telling me was that is your job on the face of this planet is to care, love, protect the women in your life. Yeah.

They're the givers of life. They're the ones that birth children like they are, the superior. It is your job to just be the guy that works as a soft protector and make sure that she's got everything she needs. So, and then being raised by a single mother, of course my grandmother, Jessie's, you know, she's my rock. So I was raised by a lot of women.

So, you know, she went through some abusive relationships. How did she get out of them? Well, she finally, I remember there was a tipping point. My dad beat the hell out of him. My grandfather came over there, my grandfather whaling came over there and kicked him out. Told him, don't come back. And there was a few of those tipping points until they finally was like he was just gone. You know. I was

nine, I think. And she finally got out of that relationship. Shortly after I was outside playing, actually it deffenced. I was outside playing football with a bunch of friends and my mom calls me or yells out the door, hey your dad's on the phone. And I was like little bit involved with a bunch of friends and my mom calls me, where he yells out the door, hey, your dad's on the phone. And I was like, well, tell them I'll be back. I'll call them when I get back in. And I come home that night from playing football. I never, I remember like it was yesterday. I came in, sat down, had a friend of mine

that had been playing football with me, he came in the living room. We turned on Roseanne, TV show. and I hear my mom crying in there, and so I go and I'm listening, and she's bawling crying. So I tell my friend, I had an aunt that had cancer at the time. I tell my friend, I was like, hey, I think you need to go home, I think my aunt died. You know, she's got cancer. And a few minutes later, cars just start pulling

into the driveway. And they come in, family comes in, they sit me down there like your dad's no longer with us. So they had told me that it was a suicide. I lived with that regret and that feeling of, you know, that pain of what if I were to answer that phone because they told me it was a suicide. What if I were to answer that phone with things be different with my dad still be here?

How long did you struggle with that? My entire childhood and teens to the point where I was suicidal. Damn, most of my life, you know, my dad killed himself. I was going to go out the same way. Every time I, you know, hit a big road block in my life, which we'll talk about a bunch of those. First thing I would do is, you know, put a gun to my head, you know. And I actually even pulled the trigger before. I miss fired.

So, um, I actually, one time, I was sitting in a hotel room, ready to blow my brains out. And the people at the hotel are beating on the door because I'm in there six hours past, I'm supposed to be in there. I don't have the money to get the hotel room again. Sure. Uh, same day I found out that I had my first daughter,

was about to be born. Down. So, definitely a huge turn of my life. Crazy part about that was I struggled with it until my uncle, my uncle, Tadpole, who's my dad's brother. He got custody of me when I was 15. My mom just couldn't control me anymore. And I was, you know, I was burning around.

I was a gang member, you know, out breaking into cars, selling weed, you know, doing everything that you, the teenager, you know, living that life does. But, Uncle Tapo, finally, I was 18, looked at me and said, you know your dad didn't commit suicide. And I was like, what do you mean he didn't commit suicide?

He's like, he didn't kill himself, boy. And it's like, the autopsy came back, there was no possible way he killed himself, the angle of the gun, there was no way that it actually, that was, you know, the reason is death. And I was like, so you're telling me somebody killed my dad And he was like yeah, and I was like well, why would you let me live all those years with that regret? I feel like I could have done something different and

My father still be here and he said son. I would have rather you live with regret than revenge Some ten years, dad's gone. My grandpa's whaling Jennings. So, he literally walks into the school and goes, hey, just let y'all know he's not going to be here for the rest of the years. Dad passed, see you next year. You know, no, I don't have to do any schoolwork. Get it? Have to pass the fifth grade.

I'll just see you next year. You know, and I was, I was, went over there for a few weeks to Wayland's, stayed there, he lived right here in Brentwood, stayed there, you know, he'd take me in my uncle's shooter who's just a year older than me, he'd take us towards our Russ,

and you know, we had all the laser tag and all the, you know, cool stuff. And then going back home, I didn't have to go to school. So I'm riding around the neighborhood on my bike. The only people that aren't in school are the high school kids skipping. Well, they can't leave their house. So, because they'll get caught for truancy if they get caught out walking around,

I got the free pass. So I ended up becoming the neighborhood courier. Right? I'm the guy that, you know, you get these kids that are huffing Scotch Guard in high school. They send me to Kroger with $5 to go get them two cans of Scotch Guard or whatever it was. Or you got, hey, you go pick up this bag of weed from this guy on the other side of the neighborhood because they can't, they don't have cars.

And I've got this free pass, so I'm just doing whatever the high school kids want me to do, kind of running around the neighborhood and, uh, didn't realize that that was the start of a long, uh, career and trafficking. Damn. So that was, that was a 10. 10. Do you even know what you were? I don't know.

You're just, I mean, just whatever the cook it said. Literally just the messenger. Just, yeah, just riding back and forth, you know. And so, you know, that went on for a little while. Wailing that next year, six grade, put me in BGA, battle ground academy here in Franklin, footed the bill, and for me to go to BGA, and it's like suit and tie private school. I made it about three quarters of the year,

and then some guys tried to jump me in a friend, older kids tried to jump me in a friend in the basement of the gymnasium and We fought back as well as we could I pick up a fire hydrant and Swing in the fire hydrant at the guys that were trying to you know, they were just building us picking on us because we were younger and then I sprayed them with the fire hydrant we ran well, I get expelled

because of hitting one of them with the fire hydrant and spraying the fire hydrant. And they're like, you know, football team, high schoolers, were, you know, middle schoolers. Of course, they took their word over ours. And so I get kicked out. My mother decides that she's gonna get into another relationship.

Just got out of that terrible divorce. My dad just died. Here she is jumping into another relationship with a guy that she had met. And my grandpa, wait, I was like, Jenny, no. Like, stop. Just take some time, work on your career. My mom's got one of the most beautiful voices and

You know work on your career Leave these fucking guys alone and You know just focus on your son and your career She didn't want to hear that, you know, he said, well, how about this then? That guy's not moving into that house I bought. You know, I'm not going to have no free load and guy moving in because he was a musician also. The guy that she was dating.

And so she moved this guy all the way from California to come be with her. And, Williams, like, absolutely not. And she's like, well, you're not my father. You know, and Wayland's been raising her since she was a baby. Yeah. So that, of course, you know, in turn, my mom was like, you know, what? I want to do it on my own. I'm going to show you out on me. Your money, you know, I'm going to get it on my own. I want to meet your money. I'm going to get it on my own, right into low income housing.

Damn. So where I had had this not picture perfect, because my father being murdered, running drugs and stuff for all the kids and they were like, definitely not picture perfect, but a very stable environment. You know, when the worst childhood a kid could have for sure, moving out to Nashville and moving out towards the hermitage area. Complete culture shop. Yeah.

We were now living in an apartment. Wasn't long there before my mom woke me up, bloody nose, black dye, from this new guy, saying we gotta get out of here. You know, so then they split up. from this new guy saying we gotta get out of here. So they split up. And it was just me and my mom living in a one bedroom. She took the, at one point she had took the living room. We were the daybed.

There's a bedroom and I had the bedroom where we swapped up, you know, cause we moved apartments. My mom had that, she had that thing in her, like she didn't really know how to face shit head on without changing everything, you know, it'd be like, we need to change. Yeah.

So we moved a lot. You know? Okay. Like, we just need a fresh start, we just need to change, which is very easy to do, you know, and I completely understand the concept. But I never really had friends because I was always the new guy, you know. So I was always like trying to fit in or just into a new situation, you know. Didn't really have a lot of friends that I like grew up with and got that,

you know, they got that experience to have friends all the way from elementary to high school. I went to four different high schools. I went to three, four different middle schools, five different middle schools, you know. Holy shit. But moving out out to Hermitage immediately I got wrapped up in the gangs. How did that happen? So the original way it happened, I was going to Dupont Tyler middle school. It was funny I'll work out with a guy now who went there at the same time. And we've been friends for quite a while. Didn't really know each other. Like I knew he was. He knew who I was, but we weren't really like friends back then because he grew up there

and he was like friends with everybody and he was one of the cool guys and I was just another new guy. But he, uh, we just had this conversation and talked about this other day and we were reminiscing on those days. So just got there. There was this girl in science class and she would talk to me every day. Nobody really talked to me. I was new. Nobody really knew I was. I had planks in my hair, little corn rolls and stuff, braids, you know, pants hanging

down around my knees. And nobody really knew who I was. So there's this girl that she talked to me every day. Well, all of a sudden, you know, she's telling me about her boyfriend. And, you know, we just talked every day, a couple weeks. And I admit a couple guys, you know, that automatically kind of clicked with, and I'd hang out with them after school sometimes. And there was a new guy at school. So I didn't even know this was going on.

I hang out, stay after school with these new friends that I met, Phillip Hardy and Rod Hardy and Tony Hardy. I hang out with them after school. When I get back to the apartments, they're like, hey, this car full of guys followed our bus home and they were looking for you. They were looking to jump you. And I'm like, I I gotta know who it was. I had no clue what it was.

So the next morning, I tell these new friends that I got, I'm like, hey man, I heard it's like some guys tried to follow my bus home yesterday. So they give me a 38, 38 pistol. Damn, how old are you? 12. 12 result you get in hand at the third pistol. Damn, how old are you? 12. 12. Result you getting handed to the third pistol. So I got it. It's a little 38 and I put it in my backpack and I carried around for a few days. You know, there's like rumors going around school. Oh, they're fixing to get you. They're fixing to get you. And so I'm just like trying to be cool, whatever. Walking out one day, and I see him there,

I'm still pictured right now. And I know everybody that was in the truck now, been friends with a bunch of them. We just buried one of them from a drug overdose not long ago. But Chris Mangrom and Jimmy Womack, which is warm, a good friend of mine, that just passed away. And then his brother Sam was the one that was dating the girl. So they're all sitting there, a little red S10 pickup truck. There's about six of them in the truck and they're waiting

for me. So I can remember, like it was just, it a tunnel vision. And I just see it. And that's why I reach in my back and I pull that 38 out and I've got it behind my back. And all of a sudden I just hit the ground. The school cop was just laying up against the pillar, against the brick pillar. And I just here comes this little kid walking by with a gun behind his back. Holy shit. He got me right there, took the gun from me, put me in handcuffs. And of course, once again, Whalen had a lot to do with me not going to juvenile for long, but they kicked me out of Metro Public Schools. So we had to leave that school.

What were you gonna do? Are you gonna wait for him to do something or were you just gonna... I was probably gonna pull it out and, you know, at that point I had never shot a gun. I was ready to though. Like I was gonna protect myself. Like I had it in my head.

Like if I'm not gonna get beat up, I'm not gonna let them jump me. I had played Cowboys and Indians enough in my life and I probably would have shot whatever. But I don't know. I haven't ever had anybody ask me that. I don't know what the hell I would have done. I might have dropped the gun and ran. I might have shot. I might have They might have all backed up and I might have took our front and you know

but So he kicked me out of Metro public schools for a year. There's like a no zero tolerance policy with a handgun and Some of my mother takes me to Mount Juliet, which is like the next town up. And she enros me in Mount Juliet Christian Academy. So I get there and here I am once again, you know, a little thug, no one knows who I am now, and a whole nother culture shock. You know, this is like country boys with like big jacked up trucks at a Christian school.

But we lived in this one little, it was an apartment complex, again, based on your income. And it was like just one little strip of one way in, one way out apartments. And it was the poor part of Mount Juliet. Just me and my mom at this point again. And so go to the school there for a couple months,

they say, hey, look, cause at this point, I'm in eighth grade, they're like, if the lights go out in eighth grade hallway, just stand up against the lockers, it's just the high schoolers coming in, you know, they're coming in and knock stuff off the walls, push a couple of people over and run out the other side of the hallway. Just like a hazing thing. So, lights go out. They're, you know, I see them running in, I just lean up against the locker, I'm like, you know, whatever.

And they stop right at me, grabbed me, and I'm like trying to fight back and they're like, hold me down. And I could feel them just like, it was like stabbing in my forehead, you know? And I guess it went on for about a minute or two and then they let me go and they took off that's the hallway.

So I went to the bathroom and they had a card in my forehead. Are you shit? Yeah. How old were you? I was 12 as well as 8th grade. Holy shit. Probably at this point. And so of course, you know, the teacher sends me to the office, I'm like, I blood coming down my face and it, I don't know if it was, I don't think it was like a knife per se or maybe a pen that was like super dry or whatever, but they like etched it in there to the point where you could read it for, you know, a month or so, a couple of weeks, a few weeks, or whatever, it was scatting and healing up.

But it was their senior soccer team. You know, they didn't have football at that school. They said soccer. So it was like they were the, you know, the soccer team that was winning the championship. You know, it was one of those things they just got the merits. The same thing. You would get chewing bubble gum. Well, around that time, I was still hanging out with the guys from the last school that I had met. And I went to the Hermitage Lanes every single weekend. It was like this bowling alley, and then there was a movie theater across the street. So we get dropped off at the movie theater by our parents, and then you'd walk across the street to the Bowling alley where all the high school kids

and everybody hung out. And I had told them, they're all gang members and I had told them, and I wanna be a part of that. And one day as I'm walking through, six guys come out from the bushes and they're like, he said, you want to be a part of it, let's go.

And sat there, I got a jump for six minutes by six people just fighting back. You know, boom, boom, boom. Trying not to hit the ground every time I hit the ground, I'm trying to get right back up and ended with a hug and went up to the lanes to the Bolin Alley, you know, got a coat hung out and started that path of, then after that point,

it didn't matter what neighborhood I went to, where my mom moved me to, I had people there. Yeah. I went just a new kid. I'm like, oh, you're... Initially, why did you want to join the game? Was it for protection? You were tired of getting fucked up.

I think it was just, I didn't have, I was raised by a single mom. I didn't have any siblings. You just wanted to belong to something. Yeah, I just wanted to be a part of something. You know, I wanted to have friends. I wanted to, you know, feel like, you know, I was a part of something.

Yeah. My mom, you know, my was a part of something. Tell me. Yeah. My mom, you know, at that point, she's working two jobs and going to Cosmetology School and trying to work on her music. You know, she was doing everything she could, just, you know, digging in the mud, trying to get us out, you know, and trying to prove that she could do it on her own

and trying to make a way. And it on her own and trying to make a way. And that's one thing that I can say about my mom is she may have what some people would think gave up a lot of times, but she was a fighter. She never gave up. She's even to this day. She's still trying to make ends meet. I do everything I can for, of course, now.

So she's not just, she definitely doesn't struggle at this point. But she's still, she's still not a struggle, you know. I've got a little brother that's 18, that she's raising and taking care of. We don't really see eye to eye on that. He hasn't left the house in five years. He's in plays video games and it's caught this bubble, you know, and she's, you know, he kind of runs her ragged and tells her what to do

and aggravates the shit out of me. You know, I want to go there and beat his ass. And my mom's like, well, not as he's like off limits. And I'm like, you're fucking enabling him. Yeah. He hasn't walked out the front door in five years, mom. He's gonna be fucked up. He's gonna be a fucking, you know, but, you know,

she's got a million excuses for him, like any mom would. And, you know, it's just, kind of having to let her deal with that on her own, you know. Not deal with on her own, I'm here for 100%, but I'm having to let her make that decision because if it was up to me, I go drag his ass out there, fucking house, I said, no, you're gonna go to work, you're gonna go to the fucking gym,

you're gonna finish high school, you know, he's online school gaming all day. And you know, who knows, he might be the next fucking, he might invent the biggest video game in the world and be a multi-millionaire. But it drives me crazy to watch, especially when I talk to my mom, and she's running the three different fast food joints

to get him food. When he likes fries from here and he likes the Coke from here and he likes the meal from here and I'm like, make his fucking ass get up and go get it. He's 18, he's never drove a car like. Yeah, but I say all that definitely not to bash her because I love her and she's doing the best that she knows to do.

We can always do better, you know, in any of us in life. So I don't wanna use a term best she can do because we can all do better, but it is frustrating, especially like, you know, I'm a man's man. I like to be outside, like hard work, I like labor, you know, I'm a man's man. I like to be outside of hard work, I like labor, working 70, 80 hours a week.

Well, let's go see, walk back in the bowling alley. Yeah, so I was in the game now. And that was the beginning of me becoming a gang member. And was it immediate acceptance? Oh yeah, we walked in there. Yeah, for sure, especially there, because of who brought me in. Now, through those years, especially like as I'm going to different neighborhoods, moving to different places,

meeting other members, there was a lot of discrepancy on if white boys could be GD, you know, that's where I was a part of Gagshut disciple. What's it called? Gagshut disciple. Okay. GD, Larry Hover, which you know they're fighting to get him out of prison now, because he's got hundreds of years been in Super Max, Kanye West Drake just teamed up with his son, Larry Hoover Jr. to get him out because his thing about GD that made me gravitate towards it was it was originally gangster disciple, but then it evolved into growth and development. And as Larry Hoover, who was a street guy from Chicago, was, you know, he started this

gang and it progressed as he went to jail and he started seeing the way things were and started to grow up as a man himself. It became less of a gang in more of an organization, and he changed, he evolved it from gangster to cypul and to growth and development, and would write, you know, these pieces of literature and knowledge to try to inspire these, what what once were violent gang members into being business owners and to being, you know, politicians or, you know, whatever. So a lot of the knowledge that came from it will live with me forever. There's a lot of pieces of their literature

that are inspiring, you know, there's laws and policies, there's codes, you know, you don't, a lot of these other gangs are free for all, killing each other and robbing and raping, not a lot of rob, not a lot of rape, not a lot of, you know, there was like a lot of rules that made you uphold a certain amount of integrity. Now of course everybody in the gangs not doing that, you know, it's still one of the most dangerous gangs in the world to this point,

especially in the prison systems. How many members roughly do you know? I don't know, for sure. I'll definitely say anywhere from 750,000 to 1.5 million, I mean, it's out for sure. Is it the global? Yeah, well, national. National. Yeah, definitely. Holy shit, that's a big fucking gang.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's, would be one of the largest, it's probably, you know, it probably is the largest, if you take away, you know, bloods and crypts, which are just, you know, they're the, they're, but like once again, there's so many sets of those that a lot of crypts don't get along with other crypts, you know, you got the five dudes Hoover don't like the rolling 60s Or you know, whatever they're constantly beefing amongst those gangs to where GD was one

organization That was you know governed and actually you, had literature and laws and policies. And so it was definitely, there was, for me, always having those seeds planted of righteousness. Yeah. It was, that was what I gravitated towards. You know, I had friends that were in all the gangs that I was seeing growing up. But that was always the one that, was seeing growing up, but that was always the one that you know, sexied of me.

That was the one that was like, I want to be that, you know. So and you know, and in the prison systems as well, they're the same. Like you see the way that the GDs move in prison is completely different than a lot of other gangs. You know, they're more uniformed. like you see the way that the GDs move in prison is completely different than a lot of other games. They're more uniformed. They're out there working out. They're trying to better themselves. If they really follow the teachings of Larry Hoover

or people in position that have written that literature about better in yourself, you know. So, definitely was a major part of my life for 20 years, you know, 25 years. So getting a gang, next move after the whole thing, it mounted really Christian Cat, and we moved back to Franklin. He moved back to Franklin. He moved back to Franklin. This time we moved to the apartments right on the other side of Cherokee projects down by the ball field. Lived in the back of the apartments. Once again, based on your income, the little trail goes up right into Cherokee projects. I don't know if you know where that is.

I get on. But so my mom's back working. Two jobs going to Cosmotology School. I'm at home by myself all the time. And you know how it is especially starting high school you're the kid whose parents are never home. So my house my apartment became the hangout spot. And it was, you know, the same thing, like I was, I'd go to Waylands on the weekends to spend time with Shooter. And at Waylands, how she knows Cadillac, Jaguar, Mercedes, Big House, I knew what was possible.

Hearing the stories of Wayland coming from nothing, dirt, floor and Texas, to becoming the icon that he was and the man that he was at the time. Or it will always be, but having him as a fatherly figure in my life, of course I wanted what he had. Going back to my neighborhood on the weekdays, the only guys that had Mercedes, catalogs, Jaguars with the drug dealers. My mom was never at home.

She was working her ass off to barely make ends meet. I've watched my mom break down while I was in high school in tears because I asked her for lunch money and she didn't have it to give me, you know, which once again, you know, that was her warning, you know, I see the nobility in it, I see her wanting to prove that she could do it on her own. And I hope that she doesn't have a lot of regret from that, because I could have had a completely different life.

Yeah. You know, if she'd have listened to Wayland and listened to the family, and we got all make our own path, and she felt she was doing the right thing by breaking away from that. I try to teach my kids that now. Like, I'm not trying to keep you under a rule. I'm not trying to keep you contained. I want you to blossom, but I've been through shit. I've seen shit. I don't want you to have to see that I don't ever want you to have to go through. It's kind of the same thing Waylo was doing her, but she rebelled wanting to prove that she didn't need their money. She didn't need, you know, it's like, yeah, you don't need my money, you know, all my

kids, you know, you don't need my money. Even go out there and get it. Like, you can be 10 times more successful than I can ever be. You don't have to go through all this shit that I already went through. You know, if you just listen to me, it'll path will be a little easier. Yeah. Like I said, it's gonna be easy at all. By any means, it's not gonna be easy.

Everybody's path needs some roughness to it for you to even appreciate where you get. But you know when I look back at it I do see the nobility and I see that she was you know really trying you know when I was younger I had a little bit of resentment because I thought it was just stubbornness. And I was like, oh, she was just bucking the system. And now, looking at me, life I've had to live and things I've had to endure because I wouldn't change any of it. And now I applaud her for it. But also, you know, I want to tell my kids, like, hey, don't do that.

Yeah. You know, like, but so we moved back to Franklin, started Franklin high school, still had the gang affiliation. So, you know, I would still make trips to go see the guys harmony, or they'd come down to Franklin, automatically linked up with the guys that were a part of the same gang in Franklin, you know, run around wild Franklin for years. At what point did you start running drugs for them? Well, so I never actually ran drugs for the gang per se. Okay. Yeah.

I actually dealt to most of them. I guess I was probably, first time I ever started selling drugs was around 12. 12 years old? Yeah, in middle school. Getting small amounts of weed, cocaine, anything that I could sell to make a little bit of money. Fourteen, when we were living here, is when I got my first large amount, I got my first pound of weed. They were building cool springs,

galleria. It wasn't even up yet. And I was living in some apartments called the landings right behind it. That was after Franklin High School went there for a year, got into a bunch of trouble, running from the police, skipping school, fighting, and so my mom had tried to move us more once again, fresh start, move us out

towards cool springs, I went to Brentwood High School, which was once again another culture shock, you know, just those different environments, which really taught me that the environment doesn't change the person. You know, you can adapt to the environment if you're willing, and the environment can definitely inspire you or you can progress or fall backwards if you allow the environment to affect you like that. But the person is the person, regardless where she put me, I was still the same person.

I might change the way I dressed. I might change my accent a little bit, you know, but I was always the same person deep inside. So, brought with high school, get a pound of weed from a guy, an older kid, and broke it up, and I remember the day they opened cool springs, I was in there with a backpack full of dime bags.

No shit. All my friends were like walking around trying to honor the girls and I'm trying to sell dime bags a week. You know, backpack full of, you know, pound a weed. And that was 94, 95. So it's 14 15. So what was the conversation like with the whoever gave you the pound of weed? I mean, they were just like, hey, here's a pound of weed. No, it was me looking for it. You were looking for it. Yeah, I was always looking for it.

I had kind of decided, you know, so I spent the weekends throughout my childhood, a lot of times either going to shooters and waylands or going out and seeing my dad's side of the family in West Nashville. So when I would go out there with Monk or Tapo to West Nashville as a child, that's when I was around a lot of that. And I'd see the guys that were like, you know, Huslan and Selling Wheat and Selling cocaine. So I had pretty much made a decision by the time I was 12 that I want to be a drug dealer.

Okay. You know, we were just talking about the other day in the gym with my friend Bobby. I was like, man, I still want to go get those Jordans from 92, the red and black ones, they had the blue and purple ones and then they had the red and black ones and the things crossed across the front of them because I couldn't afford them. Back then my mom couldn't afford to get them to me, get them for me. And I remember a guy named Randy Ryzen, he had him with the matching bulls jersey. And I remember it like yesterday I wanted those shoes, both pair, the Charlotte colored ones and the Chicago Bulls colored ones.

So we just talked about that the other day, but it was around that era, you know, moving in Nashville and seeing, you know, guys that I would hear were selling drugs and, you know, they had the shoes I wanted or they had the pretty girlfriend or they had a car, you know, before they were even old enough to drive. And so I had realized that a young age that I wanted to do that. So was the money. So was the money. It was the money. I was tired of seeing my mom struggle.

I wanted to make something. I was hearing my mother say that. I can do it without you. I can do it on my own. I can do it on my own. I can do it on my own. I can hear my dad's voice, son. Sometimes you might have to do wrong for what's right.

You take care of your family by any means necessary. You know, it's okay to do wrong if it's for the right reasons. You know, those, those irrational beliefs that were instilled in especially poverty areas, you know, and the families and it's that way of thinking, you know, there's like, by any means necessary, whatever you got to do to feed your family, you know, try not to hurt nobody, but whatever you got to do, family over everything, you know. And that was a big part of prison, stripping those irrational beliefs, tearing down all those, you know, those things that I had been ingrained with and taught for years as being law and truth,

you know, and realizing like, you know, like, it says completely fucking irrational. Yeah. Yeah, protect your family by any cost. But when I went to prison, the same people that I had justified all my actions and said I'm doing this for my family, I'm doing this to feed my kids, I'm doing this to give my kids a better life.

They're the ones that ended up in the fucking projects in drug houses being molested and drug through the mud while I'm in prison and can't protect them. Yeah. You know what I mean? So they became the victims when I justified all my fuck shit and all my poor decisions by I was being a man and taking care of my family

when in actuality I was ruined my family, you know. I, they went through so much because of the decision that I made. So that was a major, major part of my transformation. Oh, God. And me saying, here I am in prison, a guy that thinks, I've got everything figured out,

and I've got all this control, I've got this power in the street, I've got this figured out and I've got all this control. I've got this power in the street. I've got this power through money. I've got this say so. You know, I have no control. I'm behind bars. Anything can happen to them. They're going through this and I can't do anything.

Yeah, I can maybe send a friend over there to try to protect them if something happened. Or I can send a friend over there to try to protect them if something happened or I can send a friend over there with a couple dollars to cover rent. But that's not, you know, the mother of my children was falling victim to addiction. So she's dragging them to the mud. She died two years ago from a drug overdose,

youngest three's mom. So watching that happen and saying, I don't have any control. Yeah. This point, the only control I have is of me, and of what I do at this time, and the control, the opportunity to sit here and figure out what I want out of life, who I want to be, who am I, who I not want to be and who do I want to be.

Yeah, I know. And stripping all of that out, getting rid of all of it. Let's stay on. Yeah, yeah, because I can be a little bit worse. Let's stay on games first. We'll get to prison. Yeah. And then into music.

But so you're 14, 14 13 or 14 15 you got Seven drugs selling drugs at the Galleria. Yeah, and what did that develop into? Developed into Just the same cycle for years hanging out with a bunch of friends You know running around wild, breaking into cars. It comes to the point where my mother, I had ran away for a little while. She called the police, of course, the police officer that showed up to the house, she kind of had a relationship with him.

So, fast forward, few months later, I call her and I'm like, hey, you know, I think I wanna go back to Brentwood, you know, at this time I'm at the new school, they had just built Centennial. I'm like, I think I want to go back to Brentwood. You know, can we see if we can get rezone there, see if we can get me back in there. I'm just, I'm in the wrong crowd. I'm just at this point, I'm like driving a stolen car to and from school

Breaking into cars at night. I'm selling weed during the day, you know, and She goes in my room for whatever reason Find some stuff that she thinks looks sketchy Caused her cop friend says hey if there's stuff in the house, youy, calls her cop friend, says, hey, if there's stuff in the house, you know, well, I'll be charged with it. And he's like, oh, yeah, sure. And you know, whatever. He comes over there, searches the room, fire arm, stole bag full of stolen radios, bags,

weed residue, scales, you know, and so he come pick me up from school. Trying to run, didn't work. Took me to juvenile. Sitting in juvenile, you know, my mom, when I get in there, they're interrogating me, they're asking me about the gang, asking me about my trips to Nashville to get drugs. Because by this point, you know, I'm giving my mom money and she's my mom. You know, she was the only thing I ever had for a long time.

So I had confided in her about some of my criminal activity and about what I was doing. And so she had told them, of course, everything I had told her. about some of my criminal activity and about what I was doing and The so she had told them of course everything I had told her and So I get in there and they're interrogating me and I just you know, I just completely shut down didn't tell them anything Going to court They're seeking to send me off to DYD, which is a department of youth development, could have been there as far as up to 21, you know,

but probably 18, it's probably where, it probably would have been about three years in carcerated. So this is a 15, you guys have 15. Yeah, it's a 15. And I'd already been to Juvia a couple of times before for a grand theft auto. Yeah, my mom's store got kicked in for that. She had been with,

she was in another abusive relationship. Me and the guy actually pulled guns on each other at 15 right before all that other stuff happened. And, but he was the same way. He was putting his hands on her and stuff, which we got him back the good way. We had a BMW, he thought it was all cool, you know. He came out one day, and things was completely destroyed, no windows, no tires, no wheels, the gas tank, full of sugar, you know, just we completely put his hands on my mom.

One, two minutes. But, so I'm sitting in juvenile, they're looking to send me a D.I.D. and it was like out of a movie, like in the courtroom and like a door swings open. And you hear these fucking cowboy boots clicking across the floor. And it was wailing. And he came in there and talked to the judge behind the chambers and pretty much just told him,

like, hey, this kid just needs a father figure, his uncle, Tadpole, who was my dad's brother. Has stepped up, said he wants to take custody of him. You know, just give his kid another chance. So moved from Franklin to West Nashville to where my dad's other family was. Monk with tapole was hustler. Drug dealer, hard- in motherfucker though construction

cars hydraulic work, I mean every bit of it he can do it. He's great at it and he's always been super hard worker But of course, you know if he make a couple extra dollars selling a couple pounds of weight, he would you know like to grow his own weed and I don't know how he would, you know, like to grow his own weed. And I didn't know any of that at this point. You know, like I moved in like, oh man, I'm going to, it's in me to prison.

Like he's fixing to kick my ass cause he's just all West Nashville tough motherfucker. So I get with him, I get taken out of my mom's custody, and get put into custody with my uncle, Tab Ho. He automatically straight out the gate, puts me to work, I got chores, you know, taught me how to rebuild a motor, teaching me construction,

you know, doing construction on the weekends, whatever job he may be on at the time. And I'm, I live with him for about two years, but so I'm moving out to West Nashville with him. And of course, new environment, same thing. I know a lot of the kids already, because I had been out there on the weekends,

and you know, went to the skating rink, and, you know, changed high schools, went to high school out there, immediately found the guys that smoked weed, started smoking weed. One of the neighbors that I had known from the skating rink happened to be a weed dealer jumped right back into it. Felt right back into it. But tapo was a different animal. You couldn't get over on him.

You know, anything that you're doing, he's gonna know. So where with my mom, I could walk to the store, smoke a cup of joints and come back high, she wouldn't know how high. You know, taffles like, word of the age, you get that. You know, like, well, it was going on. And so, once I had kind of proved myself to him, you know, then he started to like, okay, well, it's in you.

You're not going to just change overnight. Let me just teach you how to be smart, how to do good business, how to work hard. And he taught me how to be a man, you know, He taught me how to work with my hands, not be afraid of hard work and putting work in myself. Talked me how to grow weed. Talked me how to sell weed. Talked me how to not get caught by the ponies.

You know, talk me how to budget money, feed my family. Don't you lot of shit. Talk me a lot of shit. you know, budget money, feed my family. Don't you a lot of shit. Tell me a lot of shit, you know. Just found out a few days ago, he's got stage four cancer. There's a couple of his long out. He been hiding it from me. Damn.

It's just so tough, some ditch, but. Sorry to hear that. Yeah, he's going, I think he'll, I think he's got a lot of fight left in him. He'll be around for a while. I don't see this being. Then, of anything yet. But, you know, if it is, he lived a fucking hell of a life. Yeah.

And he definitely, uh, his legacy will live on through me and my kids. Because I still, you know, I still teach my kids a lot of the same principles that he instilled in me. But so moving to West Nashville, found right back in the same thing. When did it go from weed to opiates to cocaine? What did it go from weed to opiates to cocaine? Yeah, so it was weed and cocaine out of the gate. And then ended up just being weed for a long time.

When I was 17, I got addicted to cocaine. Okay. I was selling cocaine, start playing with it a little bit. I guess 16, yeah, 16, because it was my prom. I'd been up for four days. And my, I've got some friends that still pop up my prom pictures every once in a while. You're like, fuck in my eyes. It doesn't make me like bleached blonde hair and shit before him and him bleached blonde hair

eyes being his hell. But um, yeah, so I guess about 16, you know, late 16 early 17. How much cocaine were you pushing? When it first started just a couple ounces at a time, you know, which is still, you know, a few thousand dollars. So, um, 16 years old, you know, you got 10 grand put up, you're rich. Yeah. So, um, started off and I was doing, And I was doing, I was probably consuming a half ounce a day, you know, just between party and with everybody. But I was selling enough to, well, I was still making good money in. But dealing with cocaine, you burn a lot of bridges, especially when you're using. So I was burning bridges left and right

and then got to a point where I was a quote unquote cowboy, you know, I was robbing just as much as I was selling. Damn. Kicking him, you know, finding big lakes and, you know, kicking doors and and wilding out like, literally being a fucking young terrorist, you know, just terrorizing in any form that I could write about 18, 19 found out that I was having my first daughter. I had just been low level drug dealer. I guess it was 18, and I found out low level drug dealer,

selling enough to keep my habit and still make money and where gold jewelry and drive a decent car and party and be known for being a drug dealer, but definitely nothing substantial. And I found out that through, when you're living that life, you may be rich one day, and then next day, lose it all.

So right before I found out of next day, lose it all. You know. So, right before I found out, the day I found out earlier that day, my hotel room was up, didn't have any cocaine, didn't know what I was going to do, where I was going to go. Put a 9-millimeter that I had had out, put it to my head, crying tears, ready to just end it all, still living with that regret, you know, from my father, thinking that he

committed suicide. The girl that I was with it left me, you know? And right as I pull it back they're just beating on the door. And I just, all I remember is thinking, I don't know where to go. I can't go to my mom's. This point I'm kicked out, me and Tape, all of them already fell out.

We're not seeing eye to eye right now. Really, no friends that I trust. You know, nobody that I can really call on to go crash on their couch. So the gang wasn't really working out at this point? No, they're on the same position I'm in. Yeah. I'm the same situations.

They're all doing the same thing that I'm doing. And so I remember vividly being like, this isn't what I want to die. I'm in the Congress and on Dickerson Road, like shitty hotel. You know, this can't be it. Get up and I leave. I went and walked to my mom's house, which was straight up the street about three, four miles. I go over there, get a couple of my things, pack a little bag. I'm not allowed to stay there. She's got a, at this point, she's got a fiance that's doing really good for himself. You know, he's not abusive. He's, he was an awesome guy.

She was with him for a couple of years. And they gave us, they gave me a chance to live there before and I got into a shootout with a guy and blew this half of my finger off. Who was a shootout over? Drugs. Same shit as always. Um, but my mom had came home and I was laying on her couch, passed out, covered in blood

and shit. Um, and so there was just a lot of times when they were those moments where she was just like, I've had enough. I can't do this, you know, she never gave up on me though. Again, like, this while as soon as I got a record label, I recorded an album with her because, you know, trying to give her that back and be able to give her some of that because she gave up her career. A lot of it, you know, we talked about her nobility and stubbornness and stuff, but a lot of it was chasing my bad ass around, you know, and trying to figureiness and stuff, but a lot of it was chasing my bad ass around,

and trying to figure, we were figuring life out together. She was 16, she was just a baby. We kind of raised each other. But, so I was kicked out of my mom's, my best friend, Crazy J, who he's doing 82 years. He had just got picked up. That's for an crazy J who he's doing 82 years. He had just got picked up. When I got kicked out of my mom's, he was staying with me. So he went out to South Nashville to stay with another friend

of ours. And somebody had robbed them. He chased the guy down, the guy shot at him. He shot back, killed the guy. Freaked out because he was 17. Freaked out. There was a, you know, a junkie. Drug addict running around the neighborhood. He paid the guy $20 to get rid of the body.

Because he didn't know what to do. He was 17. He flipped out. The guy drags the body around the back of the body. He didn't know what to do. He was 17, he flipped it. The guy drags the body around the back of the store, throws a mattress over it, sets it on fire. Takes the gun, takes everything out, the guy's pockets. So when the police come, it looks like a robbery and somebody tampering with the body.

You know, there's no proof of a shootout, no proof the guy shot at my cousin, or my best friend first. You know, so he's been sitting in prison. Hopefully, it looks like this year he might get some love and maybe get, because he's been in 25 years, you know, since he was 17. He's 42 now.

And it was self-defense, you know. There's no proof of that. there's no way to prove that. But I know that Governor Bill Lee is trying to do some reform with some of those old martyrs, guys that, you know, got life sentences 17 to 21 and have done over 20 years of their sentence given them parole options. They don't have that So Hopefully he's gonna get some love but so he had just went, you know, I didn't really have anybody else at the time Took a Bus back to West Nashville because at the time I was living in East Nashville, where my mom had been and where the girl that I had met and was dating had been. But me and her

were like broke up whatever. Move back to West Nashville and she comes out there and tells me that day. She was because I called her from a pay phone like, hey, just letting you know I'm in West Nashville now. So I got something I got to tell you where you at. You gave her that address. She pulled up over there and told me I'm pregnant. It sure is. I'm like, we ain't been together in six months.

You know it's mine. She was like, trust me, it sure is. It's six months. I wouldn't fuck with nobody else when we were fucking around. So then I was like, okay, well this is the time when I need to change my life. Quit doing cocaine, quit robbing and settle down to become a weed dealer. Right?

It's got to what you did. But you got to do it in my day, right? Like you settle down to do good business instead of... Settle living on the edge. Yeah. So, of course, I had a lot of bridges. I had to mend and I had a reputation. I had to rebuild because, you know,

nobody's gonna meet me in a dark alley to buy weed from me. Yeah. I think I'm a robber or something. So, linked up with some people, sort of selling weed again, rebuilt that. A lot of those relationships in the streets, bought our first house, and then it just snowballed. Met a friend from high school, died and seen in a long time. Come to find out he was the man. He had since high school had moved up the ranks

and had a lot of weed. So, you know, went from one or two pounds to getting 100 pounds. Would you build a weed network or a weed business or any drug business? How did you start? I mean, because it's not like you're getting referrals and shit, right? Yeah, a lot of times. You gotta get it.

You're meeting people. You're hanging out at parties, just handing it out or... You just live in life and everybody smokes weed back then. I guess everybody really smokes weed now. It's illegal half the places, but... And then you just get a reputation for having good weed, doing good business, you know. I always try to be super competitive or priceless.

And I always just had good energy. People wanted to buy from it. People wanted to be friends. They wanted to be a part of whatever I was doing. Okay. There's one thing that I always had. It was that light in me. You know, that light.

Like, I'm gonna do something great. I don't know what the fuck it is, but I'ma do something. So I was, you know, especially in those older years, I was super popular, you know, as far as well known, I guess it's what it would be. Hey, yeah, it is that you built a network, you know, you just, a lot of times like, oh yeah, you know, the person that I'm selling weed to goes and tells the person that you survived weed from.

And then eventually you just get clientele. Was it territorial at all back then? I'm worried about where you're selling. I never really dealt with that that much because, um, you know, I was a gang member. Okay. Uh, even in my height when I was selling, you know, kilos of cocaine and hundreds of pounds of weed, I would sell to the other major gang members, you know, like the guys that were the big homies. Okay So yeah, I didn't have too much. I never really had a lot of problems with

people trying to rob me because I already had the reputation of having a gun and using a gun and being willing to go to any lengths to, you know, protect mine. How many shootouts do you think you've been in? More than I could count. How would they transfer? We shot twice.

You only shot twice. We shot twice, yeah. What was the question? Yes. How would they kind of transfer? I'm gonna shot twice. I'm gonna shot twice, yeah. Or was it, what was the question? How would they kind of transpire? You know what, most of the times that I've been in shootouts has been me coming to the aid of somebody else,

two people getting into an argument, somebody robbing somebody that I knew or trying to rob somebody that I knew and me going to try to save somebody. So a lot of this wasn't actually from Deeland. It comes with it because I feel like you got a gown on the other side of town that tries to rob one of your good friends of some of your stuff. Okay, they're robbing drugs.

Yeah, robbing drugs or... I've got two assault charges on my record. Both of them are from seeing a guy beating up a girl, intervening, getting the guy off the girl. Both times a girl called the cops on me That I just saved her fucking ass. See you know, they like all of the a lot of the trouble a lot of the violence that I've been in has always been Coming to the aid of somebody else because like I said nobody really brought it to my door I had a reputation of I will come down through there and light this bitch up. Okay. You know.

So a lot of things, and I've always been one of those guys, my dad told me when I was a kid, told me that my name William met Defender of the Week. So I always had that in the back of my head. So anytime, you know, some of us getting bullied or, you know, through high school doing things, I never condone that. I would be the first one to jump in front of five people

and try to fight off five of them for picking on somebody. You know, because my dad had just instilled that in me and gave me that. So I held onto that as well as, you know, protecting the women that I love and the women in my life and all women. I held onto those as like badges of honor because it was, you know, the last thing that I remember my dad really talking to me about. So yeah, I've been in a lot of shootouts. You got shot twice. Been shot twice.

Same. Same shot in the shed and then in the back of the leg. Same gun fight? No, two totally different ones. Let's go into those. Yeah, where'd you get hit first? The first time was in the back of the leg uh and once again, a friend of mine, we're at the movie theaters. He had heard his girls cheating on him

pulls up to the movie runs it runs in can't find her. We go out back to smoke a cigarette. She's out back to smoke a cigarette. She's out back with the guy. We run over there. All his friends are there. My friends, Frantic, his girlfriend's messing around on him. And quick scuffle, gun, running. I'm shooting back. They're shooting at us. Didn't even realize I was hit. Felt the pressure, kind of knocked me down, thought I had tripped, a few minutes later, felt the burning, thumping pain of it, you know, hit me in the back of the leg, and my hamstring. Second time, Hamstring. Second time, the window Smiths Parking Lot, West Nashville on the corner of Mara Road in Charlotte. I had been in another shootout where I had actually hit somebody. Where'd you hit him? A shoulder leg, twice leg, and it was a retaliation. Gas saw me. It was like a struggle. Quick altercation, car to car. He draws a duck. I'm shooting over the car. He's shooting.

Bullet comes underneath the car. Catch is just the right way. Bounces off the concrete. It's me right here in the shed. None of the bone. Yeah. Yeah. Shattered that thing. What happened to the guy you hit? Uh, you know, he lived. I had a friend who called me and said, hey man, I got a guy that's got something. These guys went about 10 pounds.

I really need to do this deal. I need to make some money. My girl's pregnant. My car is cool, you know, whatever. Go to do the deal with them. It was a setup. We get in the car, my buddy goes, does the transaction, comes back, money's counterfeit.

I don't know what's counterfeit. As soon as you put it in my hand. So, one of the guys that's in the front seat is one of their friends. So of course, I'll put a gun to him, like tell the other guy, catch up to him. Pull up side by side, I'm like, hey man, I'm yelling through the window.

Hey, money's no good. Let's just make this easy. Make this exchange. They're like, they're gonna pull the weed. I put the weed out the window. Pull the bag back. 9 millimeter buretta comes out the window. Tudu, Tudu, Tudu.

I'm wearing a two door saturn. I'm in the back seat. Shit. They fired every one of those into that back window Yeah, that's a little last one dope. Yeah, every one of them And I just remember just sitting there and I'm like fucking praying in my head You know what I mean like there's nothing I can do right now, you know, I mean, it's just fire fire fire fire fire fire I'm froze.

As soon as I hear it's stopped, they're pulling off, I raise up, start shooting, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I've got a 44 short dog like revolver. Got two speed rotors locked in my pocket, lighting the car up, we're driving like this we're on Bradley Parkway. Finally the car goes to the side. Vears off, we're driving too fast. We pull up. I see one of the guys take off running. We go up, come back down the exit, come back up and one of the guys has hit the other guys are gone out of the car. The guy who is with

me, they had thrown a bag out before they went off. We stopped and said go get that and wait right here for us. You know, of course he didn't. He ran off to which we found them all. And, you know, I got all my stuff back. But, when we looked at that car the next morning, it looked like, and I had, you know, my face was like a strawberry, you know, like powder burnt and stuff. Like I had marks on me and stuff.

When it, a single time. Damn. Every one of those bullet holes was through the seat. No, no sitting like literally like they went through me. Every single one of them. Wow. Another one of those moments that brought me closer to God. Yeah. Okay. There's definitely somebody's got my back right now

Shouldn't just happen like this. Yeah, this that's not it's you know, I have some kind of purpose Had a few instances like that is reason I quit smoking weed when I was 21 Front of mine called me said I got these stories for days one friend of mine called me, said, I got these stories for days, dog. That friend calls me, he's like, hey man, I got somebody wants to buy some weed. I'm like, all right, cool. Come to the house, he comes to the house,

we ride over, I pick it up from where I kept everything. And me and my baby mom at the time had been arguing. So I had a bag full of clothes where I had went and stayed at a hotel because me and her been arguing. So I had a bag full of clothes where I had went and stayed at a hotel because me and her are arguing. Got a bag full of clothes in the bag. Running and grab 10 pounds, he wants, put in the car, drive to the park and I've been, you know, I'm sitting here smoking back to back, you know, blunts. And I'm sitting in the car when the park waiting on him, you know, his person to come pick it up or whatever.

While son of a hear a scuffle and they start shooting. And so I put the car and drive and duck down, mash the gas as he's jumping in the front of the car, blew the headrest off my seat. car blew the headrest off my seat. They had run up from my side, but because I was smoking, I wasn't paying any attention. And I quit smoking weed that day because I was like, you know what, I can't live this life and be out of my element. Man, how, like, you know, a lot of people get a, coming from military background and being in war for 14 years, you get addicted to this shit. Oh yeah.

I mean, out of journal, and there's no drug in the world that can give you a high like fucking get shot at in the middle of a gunfight. No, for sure. Especially if you're allowed to do it. Deep. I shit. Well, I think it might be more journal than if you're not allowed to do it. Deep. I shit. Well, I think it might be more journal

than if you're not allowed to do it. Yeah, that was a good extra. Because then you got two things to worry about. But, do you think you got addicted to that lifestyle or addicted to that adrenaline at all? 100% and I still cry that. Yeah. You know, I've been out of prison six years now.

I did five years in prison. So I'm 11 years removed from that life. 11 years, because I was all the way up to the day. I locked up, but 11 years removed from that life. And I still crave it. I've got, I have friends that don't do anything illegal, but they'll keep something illegal around them just because they crave having something to hide.

Yeah. Having something to feel like they're still in that element, you know. That's interesting. Yeah, I definitely, of course, craved it. I find a lot of relief in the gym, touring, on stage, you know, I get to release a lot of it writing songs about it,

you know, but I still I crave, I crave the chaos. Yeah. You know, and my life's chaotic enough to where I get enough of it, And I've still got so much, even though I'm removed, you know, I still get calls of, you know, so many family members dying from overdoses, gang violence, DUI, suicides, like nonstop. That's why I did the song, did the cover for Have You Ever Seen the Right?

Because it's like, even though this is my best life yet, and it seems like our brightest hour, it is still at the understorming on us. And I still have a lot of that chaos. I'm removed enough from it, you know, to where, how I deal with it is my choice now. Yeah. You can manage it.

I can manage it. I don't put, I'm not in a. I don't put myself in situations to where it's fight or flight. I have to deal with it right there. I've got a couple of friends that I still call to get a little bit of the tea, get a little gossip to see what's going on in the neighborhood just to kind of keep a pulse on. Yeah, you got to feel a few minutes like, what happened? You know, but

Yeah, no, it's definitely Definitely addicting more than the money. Yeah, you know being the man or Having that power and that constant strategic, well, I got to move like this because they're moving like this and You know playing that game is so addictive. The tactics of it all. Yes, especially when you get like up to higher levels you know like one of the most fulfilling things is when I sit down or I used to sit down with a guy and be like You know, like one of the most fulfilling things is when I sit down, well, I used to sit down with a guy and be like, you know, he had reached out to a friend, wanting to get drugs from me, you know,

wanting to get some weight. And he reached out to a friend. And so I sit down with him, you know, I'm like, okay, we're cool, like I'll sit down, we'll talk, meet at a restaurant on, you know, Thursday or something. And I sit down with him and I'm like, all right, cool. So what are you looking for?

He tells me, how much he wants. I'm like, all right, cool. What do you want to drop off at your mom's house, your baby mom's house, your sister's house? And he's like, how do you know where all those people live? And I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you if I didn't know where all those people live? I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you if I didn't know where all those people lived. You know, there's like a power and like a adrenaline

and even being that strategic and being that guy, you know? You let them know, you know? You fuck me over. Yeah, I know where everybody lives. Yeah, I'm here. So, of course, there's like, and, you know, as much as we can sit here and talk about it, and you kind of rout up, there's no glory in it. Yeah.

You know, to me, like, it's, it tears the threads of this beautiful country apart. Yeah. I'm watching so many loved ones, fucking great people, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, die from drugs, especially with this, you know, fentanyl and the opiates now. In the last four years, I watched my three youngest kids and my two-step children's entire family

disappear. Damn. So me and my wife, we've been best friends for, like I said, 20 years. We're in two, we're in different relationships. I was with my ex-wife who I had three kids with. And my wife now was our best friend. And she lived with us, the mother, my kids had a drug problem, often on most of our relationship. And so she'd be in and out, not physically, but mentally and drug-wise.

And so my wife now, taboo, she helped me raise my 16 year old daughter, Isi, like she was there from birth, because the mother of my child was, you know, of course she'd double post part of him and use that as an excuse to stay fucked up for months and But she was one of our best friends and Then when my ex-wife's brother got out of prison. They hooked up so my wife

then and my wife now so my wife that I my ex-wife that I had three kids with, her brother and my wife now had two kids. So your sister-in-law, not bud? Yeah, but not bud. They actually never got married. Okay. But so, so you got me and my wife now, I was with a girl, and my wife now was with the girl, I was with his brother.

Okay. So our kids are first cousins. Gotcha. But then when I, by the time I came home from prison, my wife went all the way out, my ex-wife went all the way out, my ex-wife went all the way out bad to the point of, you know, back page and she was out there out there. I was right. And I tried to savor. We sent her to multiple rehabs.

You know, every time she'd be in and out of them, we'd buy her new clothes and try to, you know, give her a support system. But she had left the kids. My kids were in foster care when I came home from prison. Damn. But in the last I've watched my ex-wife die from an overdose, her dad died from an overdose. My step-kids, my ex-wife's brother, my wife now is a baby daddy, just died in February from a drug overdose. Their other brother, Zach, just died from a drug overdose.

Their grandmother died from an overdose, and their mom just died from an overdose. Holy shit. So my kids grandpa, grandma, great grandma, my kids grandpa grandma great grandma My kids mother Uncle's uncle and then my stepkids father and grandmother like Our five of our kids just lost six of their family members in two three four years Shed drug overdoses You know, and that's one of the beautiful parts about me and my wife's relationship is we're the two that made it

out of that fire. You know, when I came home from prison, I was like, I want to be with you, I want to spend my life with you, you're my best friend. And she was like, fuck you. It seems like I'm not having it, you know. But as she says, I was persistent, you know, I knew it it could be we had been through

hell together, you know. So I knew and I knew I had a rough road, I knew that, you know, fight me, cut me my kids back, stay clean, break in the, break in the statistics, you know, not going back to my old ways, really focusing on music and focusing on whatever I was going to do to pay the bills. I know it's going to be a tough road, while dealing with probation and parole, you know, but I was determined and I had went through so much in those five years in prison, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, that I knew I was ready and I knew I was going to make the best out of the rest of my life. And that I was not going to go back, I was not going to fall victim to those, you know,

to the streets and to my own way of thinking, my own way of thinking. Let's take a quick break. Yeah. Then when we come back, I want to talk about the big bus in Nashville Airport, prison, how you got started in music. Sounds good. A lot of you have heard me talk about my psychedelic journey this year and all the benefits that came from doing it.

One being, I haven't drank in seven months, I haven't had any caffeine in seven months, my anxiety has gone, my anger has gone. A whole list of benefits came from that. And that led me down this journey of researching benefits of mushrooms and fungi in general. And in my research I found this company called Mudwater. Mudwater is a coffee alternative with four adeptogenic mushrooms and herbs. With a fraction of the caffeine as a cup of coffee, you get energy without anxiety, jitters, or the crash of coffee. What I really like about Mudwater is that they took the time to find the perfect ingredients to make a product that's going to make you feel better every day.

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They taste amazing and man, I got a lot of energy now. Anyways, go to bobsnaturals.com, use promo code Sean to take 20% off your order. Thank you, bobsnaturals, for being a sponsor of the Sean Ryan Show. All right, Stravel. So we're back from the break. We're getting into the biggest cocaine bust in Nashville history, which was...

Maybe still to this day. Oh, yeah. Yeah, all my guys, man. So let's walk through that deal. Whoop. Well, I'll kind of start from the beginning, because the story is even going farther. I haven't actually ever said this on an interview just six months ago.

I guess it's been six months, baby, baby, baby. About six months ago, they called me and they tell me that my dad's sister, baby, baby, my aunt is passing. She's only got a couple days to live. And this woman was like, you know, my aunt, she's been, you know, such a great, great force in my life. Like, she's always there when I needed her, you know, whether it was financial problems, legal problems. She always showed up.

Baby, baby, it was a warrior. She had two sons that are my two cousins that are still on death row right now. For killing their dad. Who was abusive, you know. But she's, she was just, you know, she's been through hell and back. Baby babies, you know, she's been at the bottom of the barrel, grounded her way up, hustled her whole life, scratched clawed,

you know, been in terrible relationships, you know. And she just, just choose a survivor. So they call me and they tell me baby's passing. She's only got a couple of days. She might not make it through tonight. So I go over there and I see her and her spirit is just one that I hope that I have in my final days. You know, her son was like, mama,

this is the most I've seen you eat in days. And she goes, it's the last supper motherfucker. Yeah, that. So it's just that spirit, you know. And I'm like, baby, what are you doing? She's like, I am. I'm just waiting to see what's on the other side of this door, baby, baby.

You know. So that's why we call it a baby, baby, because you all say, oh, yeah, baby, baby. Like, as you talk, so. But so we're sitting there. And I've got more room around, baby, baby. And like I said, this woman's been a very, very, very powerful force of my life. Like a rock. I mean, never gave up on me. You know, I would want my daughters to strive to be a strong as this woman. She's been through hell and back and never gave up, never lost hope, you know,

always just been a fighter. It never took shit from anybody. Yeah, you literally pulled up to her house before and she's sitting out by her pool and bullet holes all in the window. I'm like, baby, what the hell happened? She was like, oh, that motherfucker. Talk about her husband, cluck.

That motherfucker, he got to talking shit. I tried to get his ass up out of here. You know, she's just, she's all fighting, bro. It's like, I got more I'm around, baby, baby. And I'm hugging her, and I know it's gonna be the last time I ever see her. And my other aunt says, hey, your uncle's on the phone. He wants to talk to you. And this is Uncle of mine, Uncle Paul. He was military. Came

back super fucked up. Drinking heavy, got into a bar fight, stabbed a guy in the eye with his thumb, you know, with the prison, in and out of J.O.'s, Drinking Heavy, then gave his life to God and quit drinking, built a huge rock company, like Riverbed Rock and stuff to live in rock, built a huge company, has done great for himself. But I haven't talked to him in, I was in prison for five years, I've been home for six. Don't think I've talked to him since I've been home, been a while. So he gets on the phone, I'm sitting here

on the phone, speaker phone, and he's such crying. I'm like, what's he going on, Paul? And he's just mumbling. I can't understand what he's saying because he's so like frantic and I'm looking around the room and I'm filling the energy change right and I look at look around. I'm like what is he saying and my cousin? Go something he shouldn't be fucking talking about So I kind of I kind of at that moment. I'm like okay. I'm like Paul. What are you saying? and go something he shouldn't be fucking talking about. So I kinda at that moment, I'm like, okay, I'm like, Paul, what are you saying?

And he was like, I'm so sorry to tell you this, but baby, baby's the one that killed your dad. And I've got my arm around her, you know? And it was one of those moments where it tested everything that I've been through in life. And it was one of those moments where it tested everything that I've been through in life. I didn't feel any different about baby baby. Whatever reason that she killed my dad,

31 years ago, I don't know. I wasn't there, you know. I don't know. I wasn't there, you know. Of course, I wish she wouldn't have done it. I miss my dad. I love my dad. He was my fucking hero. My life would have been completely different

with him in it. But here I am right now. I wouldn't change anything that happened in my life in any hard time any Decision that I made at this point I wouldn't change it because it all led for me to be right here where I'm at right now Doing what I love to do having a testimony to share with others But it was that that moment where you know 10 years ago I might not have been in the same place you know I might have fucking choked her out and killed everybody in the

damn house. But I didn't feel any different about her and she was such a gangster. She didn't budge. She didn't make a face. She didn't move. You know, like when he said that out loud, the whole room got silent. And I just said, Paul, we're not here to talk about that right now. That was not a time. She passed that night. You know, and I don't know what the reason was, you know, could have been a numerous things. Do you think Paul knows the reason? They all did. And you know what?

There's much, because there's two brothers and there's two brothers, two sisters, to my dad. Might be more that I'm missing, just not thinking right now, but in the tight circle. And I don't hold it against any of them. I know that at this point, I've had conversations with a few other people. And it was one of those moments where it was like, damn, we just lost our brother. We don't want to lose our sister. Whatever the instance was, if it was an accident, if it was, you know, he to the moment, if they were arguing, gun went off, whatever it was,

it was definitely something that they all made a pact and held on to, which I respect, you know. And, you know, it sucks that I'll never know what really happened. Like, I would have loved to have had one more day with her to just say, hey, baby, look, I'm not mad at you. That's when it would happen, you know? Like, what, what, to bring some closure to myself, which closure was already met because when I was told that he didn't die from the suicide, that was closure from that one chapter where I was suicide of my whole life thinking

Living with that regret and thinking that I could have changed that But then when my uncle told me that He had been killed Then you got another 20 years where I'm like revengeful and like who killed him? I want to know like like, what was it? You know, my dad was a hustler. He didn't, I found out he had made $1.85 $100 gambling that night.

He was going through a divorce with my little brother's mom. You know, was there somebody that was jealous behind that? Did they rob him? Like, you know, so then finding out that it was her did bring closure to that second, you know, so then finding out that it was her did bring closure to that second, you know, time period of living with revenge. Because now I don't have revenge, you know.

I got rid of the regret, then I got rid of the revenge. So it brought me to a place of just other peace with that situation that, you know, tormented me since I was 10 in different ways and different aspects, making me suicidal, making me violent, making me seek revenge, guilt, you know. So definitely close the chapters, you know, close, it was some really great closure. I would love to just, I would have loved a dollar, you know, close. It was some really great closure. I would love to just, I would have loved to know

what really happened that night. But it is good to, you know, have that, find that piece, whatever the cost may be, you know. Yeah. Let's go back to when you're after dad died There's a lot of lessons that I learned in it, you know I've been selling weed selling pills Cocaine here and there

The 16 year old kid that came and got weed from me. He was living on his own. Took care of his mom. He lived in his own place, had a baby, had a wife, you know, young Hispanic kid, 16, 17. He would come and get weed from me, fronted. He worked a full-time construction job, hard-working kid. If you met him, you'd think he was 25-30, like a young guy, though. And he was getting weed from me, you know, 10 pounds at a time, for a while, pay his bills. He tells me one day he's like, man, he's like, I'm tired of Nicolin Diamond. He's like, I'm going to see my family. He leaves, goes and sees some of his family,

comes back the man. And like, this man comes back with a semi-following and set up a whole organization. And I can talk about a lot of this because the stature limitations are passed. But I just fell right into line. It was one of those things. It's like, I learned early, especially in the drug business. I may be the boss today. You may be the boss tomorrow. line, you know, is one of those things. It's like, you know, I learned early, especially in the drug business, I may be the boss today, you may be the boss tomorrow. You have two options. Either fight each other or follow my work together, you know. A motor has a thousand

parts, thermostat being one of the smallest ones. But if that thermostat goes out, that old motor is going to run hot and not run. So always, I always never had jealousy. It was always player position. Same way he played his position when I was the big guy. So kid comes back and he was, you know, he had a lot of big dreams. He started getting huge loads in.

Still he's obviously connected with the American cartels. Yeah, there was actually, he was from Honduras. He's actually in Honduras right now. Okay. They sent him back stuff, contact with him. You know, he's turned his life around as much as you can in Honduras.

You know, like since he's been over there, he's been shot, ran over by the police, been in a couple of huge accidents. It's a different world over there, for sure. And he was born and Honduras, but brought here when he was three. Oh, God. So he lived here his whole life.

When we went down, he was 24. And a multi, multi millionaire. But they, you know, of course they took everything he had. So, you know, there was loads coming in every way that we could find a way to get them in, you know, sometimes by vehicle, sometimes by plane, sometimes by, you sometimes by car, semi, whatever. There's a lot of different ways to transport. When I was actually doing transportation, we'd have false bottoms and pick up truck beds, dash compartments, where the whole airbag would come out like a lift up like a fucking transformer.

You know? Yeah. And so that load got busted. At the airport? Yeah. What was it in? It was in the airplane. It was in the airplane?

I mean, in a suitcase. I'm not sure how I was actually packaged that time. OK. There was also a load that came up at the same time in a truck. And that's what caught it all was there was a guy on the case who had got busted. And he was giving them.

He didn't want to snitch on us or rat us out, but the fads had him and they were, he was spoon feeding them whatever he could to stay free. So one thing led to another where they had had enough of of enough surveillance and they had GPS on a lot of the vehicles. So they caught an actual truck coming up. It delivered. They caught the truck coming out with cash. Small amount of cash, transporters only get like per unit paid, but they get paid cash right then per unit.

So save is transporting 50 kilos of cocaine. He was giving a thousand bucks a kilo the transporter was. So he made the drive from Southern California to Nashville, made 50 grand three days. Catch him with the cash. Same night they hit four different houses. Found one with like half a million dollars cash in it. Found house full of guns. There had actually just been a robbery a couple of weeks before that where they got my guy and us for, you know, a large, large amount of money. So it was kind of like when they busted it was like on a rebound. And I don't know the four details of the airport. Okay, I just I know because my where my portion of the case came in was from the truck.

The airport was a same load, different route. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but what I read was $2 million in cocaine at that time. It was actually $4 million. What is $4 million in cocaine? How much is that? That would be about 140 keys, 150 keys. Let's say, four million.

150 keys, that's a lot of coke. Yeah, actually it would have been 200 keys. Even more. Yeah. But, you know, they also do street value. So when they say, when they say $2 million, right? When they say $2 million, to us that would be 80 keys. Okay.

So then that could be 50 keys. Because they're looking at street value compared to wholesale. Gotcha. So yeah, $2 million would have been 50 keys, and then it was another 50 kilos in the truck. So it was what would have been $4 million, in reality, you know, probably three amongst the two and a half almost the two loads

But that's also before it we get it and re Package it because you know we're getting cocaine at a certain level a certain percentage to where we're able to break it back down to a paste with a nice guitar and acetone, reprint the bricks and take 50 keys and turn it into 60. Yeah, chip. Which is a quarter million dollars profit on a wholesale level, not even on a street value level. Just, you know, in the night of re-breaking them, you know.

Are you giving a directive on how much you can dilute it? Or no. No, it's all up to you. Yeah. It's the changes that's in your hands, it's all up to you. Yeah, it's ours, but, you know, we sell, we sell to a lot of people that, you know, used it for purposes to like recook.

So they would turn it into crack, which anytime you're dealing with people that are using it for that purpose, it has to stay pure enough to where they don't lose. Okay. Because they'll take the product and they'll cook it up to see what comes back, you know, because it'll come down to its peers form. So, and of course you want to always compete and have the best, you know, unless you're just dumping it off to make money, you know, but there's a lot more pride and power and having really good product. Got you? So, never sold any badge and bad shit. All right, you don't stay in business long if you do or the guys that really diluted too much

or short lived or, you know. But, yeah, so drug bus happens hits the, hits the news, right? Um, they're calling it the George Burley cartel, right? When the, when it first hits the news. I'm looking at a, I'm watching the news. So you see the shit all happening? Yeah, like literally. See your shipment, you're watching your shipment get busted. Not only that, I'm watching,

because that robbery had just happened. So they had, when that happened, my guys lost all their guns. So I had just brought them a whole bunch of guns. So I had just brought them a whole bunch of guns. So I'm looking at all this cocaine, all this money, all this weed, and some of my favorite guns I've I had ever owned in my life sitting on this table on the fucking news, just like holy fuck. They call it the George Burley drug cartel The name George Burley was just a fake ID. It wasn't anybody's real name The guy they had him booked at first under George Burley then they changed the talk to him Palmer

Neither one of those were his name, you know Octavian Palmer, neither one of those were his name, you know. But the house I was living in was under George Burley, lights, water, all of that. Oh wow. So I'm sitting there like literally looking out the mini blinds like holy fuck, they are coming for me full force to the point that I moved out of the house, took my wife at the time and kids and went and lived in a hotel in

Brentwood and one of those extended stays. Yeah, like I've got this 5,000 square foot house in Brentwood and I want him to step foot on the property. Nine months go by. David came to got me. I'm fighting a federal case on pills already. I had a good friend of mine. I'd been dealing, we wanted a little bit, I'd been dealing with this girl for years,

getting pharmaceuticals. She would bring me tens of thousands of lower-taffed pain pills, a week. And I've been doing that with her for a while. How many? About 20, 10 to 20,000. 10 to 20,000 a week? Yeah.

You give it all this? I'll ever bit of a fashion and we could keep them. My wife who's here with me now used to break them out of counting them and run them all over town for me. She was my best friend at the time. And crazy. I had a job. I was the maintenance supervisor

of apartment complex in West Nashville, where it's all one bedroom apartments, and literally gated community, I could sit in an apartment that I had rented, showed as rented, to a fake file, sit there and watch every person come through that gate and he could run him down. Poor apartment complex probably still has thousands

of empty bottles behind the dry wall. You know. But at our little organization in those apartments, it was a long lived. But so she had told me she said, hey, I wanna, you know, take a little break. And I was like, all right, cool. Like, you know, we made a bunch of money,

so she takes a break. Literally six months later, she caused me back. Like, hey, you ready to work again? And I'm already doing five with everything else. And I'm like, yeah, sure, like, you know, it's extra money. We had always done good business, made a lot of money together. She goes, well, all I have is the big ones, talking about OxyContin. And I was like, I don't mess with those. I had a friend pass from them,

I'm watching the opiate. You know, I didn't feel the, feel this bad selling lower tabs. A lot of people that buy lower tabs are the construction workers, the car dealers, the mechanics, people that pop a couple of pain pills and go on about their day, work, take care of their business. Still terrible drug, but not to the level that I'm watching, OxyCotten destroy people's lives. You got a 10 milligram pain pill, you got a 10 milligram pain pill and you got an 80 milligram pain pill

that they're snorting and shooting and jacking, you know. It was a big difference for me morally in the two drugs. So I had never sold one or ingested one ever. Still to this day, I've never sold one or taken one. Did five years in prison for them. So she calls, she's like, hey, I've got these, I'm like, absolutely not. One of my best friends at the time, Army Ranger went and did two tours in Iraq.

I wore dog tags while he was gone, watched over his kids. He was like, man, dude, my benefits ain't kicked in yet. I can't do anything with weed and cocaine. All the guys at the fucking base will buy these, man. They're taking these pills. Please get them for me. So I'm like, he's like, look, man, you're getting them for this price. They sell for this. He was like, I can make a lot of money. I'll make you some money. So it's like, all right, you know, we'll get him. She's supposed to bring him to me.

She calls me last minutes as I need you to meet me halfway to Memphis. I'm like, all right, cool. Jumping the truck, driving out there. She calls, hey, my car's late. Getting out of the shop. I need you to come all the way to Memphis By this time I'm already halfway there. I'm like all right, fuck it Caught it like hey where we meet and she's like hey, just meet me at Walmart. I had to run in Walmart real quick Just meet me at this Walmart, you know, we'll go do the deal I'm like all right cool

pull in It's me and him and my ex-brother-in-law going to the past. And we pull up, she hops in the back of the truck. I got the radio up a little bit so the the wire is not that good, you know, but Long story short, I show her some money She goes, okay jumps out the truck and runs across the parking lot So automatically I'm scrambling hit the button for the you know the dash pops up on all the vehicles that we drove shoved the money in there

and Next thing I know, lights everywhere. They hit the truck. No transaction went through, they didn't find the money. They take us, they interrogate us, they confiscate the truck, put us out in the middle of Memphis. Like I guess trying to be, you know, trying to scare us or whatever. So we get people to come pick us up from Nashville,

don't hear anything. Month later they come and arrest me. I get a bond, of course. I'm out on bond fighting that case. My guy who was the Army Ranger, I'm not gonna say his name, because I'll never do that to him. We're not friends anymore of course. He completely told all me, told him everything, gave him everything that he could give him to save his ass and you know I justified it by saying

you know they would have took all his benefits. He was disabled. He called, kicked in the door, some shit blew in his face, lost his lung behind it. You know, he went through hell. So I just cut ties with him. He told on me, but, you know, I never see Mervin Johnan, because, you know,

it's, he was a really good friend. Not every, you can't expect everybody to fucking really stand in the face of the federal government and say, no, I'm gonna fucking own this and take the fall. I made the decision to knowing you know that I was gonna be gone. I was gonna go away from my kids.

They were gonna go through some shit. I was gonna go through some shit, you know. But I wanted to come out with my head high and know that I never told on anybody and that I accepted my fucking my charge and accepted my responsibility and laid down did what I was supposed to Because that's how it's raised, but you can't expect everybody to do that and 8 out of 10 them won't you know as well

It's one of the thousand reasons I would never sell drugs again. Yeah It's one of the thousand reasons I would never sell drugs again. But so I was fighting that case already. And the big cocaine bus happened and I'm just like, I'm knowing they're coming for me. I'm literally, those 10, 11 months were torture. I mean, you know, like I said, I lived in a hotel for a while that I moved in, actually me and Jelly Roll moved in together, got a place,

but it was like you didn't want to really, I didn't want to, you didn't want to You know growing your roots anywhere. Yeah, because they're there come fixing to come pick me up and charge me with millions of dollars of cocaine Shit ton of guns and a whole lot of weed So you know, it was a really really rough time just knowing they were coming, but not knowing when. I get a call. My guy's in there. He's like, hey man, feds dropped the charts. We're all getting out.

They originally rested 11 of them. I think the first night. None of them legal. Legal to a point, you know what I mean? But all of them from different El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico. And he calls me, like, man, Feds dropped the charge. They didn't have enough evidence. So I'm like, oh man, like, fucking, yes,

my guys are coming home. This is behind us. Couple days later, I get a call from the Feds, like, always, hey, you come take a drug test. I'm like, all right, cool. Go to take a drug test. I'm like, all right, cool. Go to take a drug test, I'm in gym clothes. Not to go to the gym. Go take a drug test.

Go up, take my drug test. They're like, hey, can you just hang out for just a second, somebody needs to talk to you. Like, all right, cool. And here they come. Hey, with the, you know, joke task force, Metro, you're under arrest, and I'm like, for what? And they're like, conspiracy of 200 kilos of cocaine

and 300 pounds of marijuana in a school zone. And I'm like, fuck. All right, so I go in, they set my bond to half a million dollars. Yellow Wolf is one of the first people that I called. He's like, man, I'll come make the bond. I could get out 50 grand. He's like, I'll come make it. But then the fans put a hold on me me because I was already fighting the federal case. So it was one of those days, it was just like,

okay, I'm here. And a reality sunk in. I was gonna be there for a while. And I decided to make the best of it. But as the case went on, of course, the first offers they were throwing around were like 40, 50 years for the cocaine. It wasn't, but a couple months into it when they started realizing they didn't have as

much Wi-Fi out of motion to get the GPS thrown out. The while, all the wire taps were illegal is fuck. So as their case starts unraveling, they started, they went from 40 for me to 15. And of course I asked my lawyer, I'm like, well, it's 200 keys of cocaine, 300 pounds of weed. I've never been caught with anything. They don't have me talking about anything but money.

Can we not just like plead out and say that I was selling weed. And he's like, yeah, if you make a statement that you're about to weed from these guys, I was like, well, I'm not going to make a fucking statement that I was doing anything with these guys. You know, like that's just straight out snitching. So ended up, uh, I played guilty to cocaine conspiracy, a special amounts. I got a 13 year sentence class A felony 13 year sentence. Supposed to be a run concurrent with my bedtime. In the process, I go to court for the feds,

they give me 57 months for attempt to possess with the intent to distribute oxycotin, which is the dumbest charge and the attempted to possess with the intentions to distribute. Now, but it's all falls on a conspiracy, you know, like I'm a third time convicted drug felon, international drug trafficker, have all these tags and labels on my record, and I've never been caught with anything.

Wow. It's always been phone conversation, hearsay, or you know, just wrong place, wrong time for them, you know. But you were doing it. Oh, I was 100% doing it. Yeah. And that was why I didn't fight. I fought fought enough to make sure I were going to be gone forever. You know, like I got a great lawyer and you know, we made some valid points and you know, show that they had holes in their case. But it was when I went to jail, it was such a relief. It was like this brick, to the pallet of bricks, lifted off my chest, you know, because I'm like, okay, I don't, I don't have to, of course, I'm in prison, so I got to watch

my bag, but I'm going to watch over my shoulder for the police. I don't got to keep hiding, running, you know, it was a, as much as prison is chaotic in its own, it was such a piece from the mental and emotional turmoil that you go through in living in that life. Yeah, so, you know, prison was literally the best thing that's ever happened to me. How long were you in prison for? In five years. Did you feel like relieved the whole time here and there, one did you start getting Nancy? Uh, it was often on, you know, like I was relieved when I got there. And then of course you wanna get home.

You know, I'm watching my whole world fall apart. I'm watching the mother of my kids and my wife at the time. Start dating other guys, getting into drugs again. Like when I left she was sober. So watching her fall back into that vicious cycle, calling home, my five year old daughter is crying, you know, mommy hasn't woke up all day. You know, I've got a 10 month old baby at home,

a three year old daughter and a five year old daughter, a two and a half year old daughter and a five year old daughter. And having to talk my half year old daughter and a five year old daughter. And having a talk, my five year old through how to teach her how to make macaroni and cheese so she can feed her siblings from a prison phone because they haven't eaten two days. Damn. You know, or hearing her cry because mommy's passed out on the front porch and she won't wake up. My 10 month old baby sincere, my son, he was like one and a half got completely ran over by a car

in the driveway, because they're all over their own drugs and he's just playing in the driveway. They backed over him, like literally. And then back, back over him whenever I say it ran over him. Luckily, he was just soft enough as a child to not break any bones, but had like tire tracks and his fucking forehead. Jesus.

You know, I'm not going to say names, but had daughters molested in drug houses. You know, just everything, just crumbling, and just falling apart and watching them, just get drug in like, kids couldn't come see me because they were so ate up with bedbugs. You know what I mean? And here I just had them in this big mansion and living this whole life and all this money and thinking that I was doing this for a righteous cause or the fucking Give them a better life and I drug them through a deeper hole than I'd ever been through

damn, you know And so it was that realization that like realization that like I have to let go of all those fucking irrational beliefs. There were ever telling me that that was okay because Right now in that moment, I'm a pure piece of fucking shit. You know the main yeah Well, I thought I was this noble stand-up father, good father, feed my kids, got them in nice schools, nice clothes, were driving fancy cars. Now I'm just a deadbeaten prison and my kids are out there fucking living the worst life possible. Being drug completely through the mud by my decisions.

You know, and that's what really started me saying, you know, fuck this, I'm gonna get out, I'm gonna be a good father, I'm gonna give those kids a real life, real stability. I'm gonna break this cycle, because it's the same life that their mother had lived, you know. I didn't live it as much, because my mom wasn't an addict. Had a lot of family members that were alcoholics and addicts, but not to the point where it affected my childhood.

My mom was a good fucking mom, and she may have dealt with a lot of abuse of husbands and shit like that, but I didn't have that kind of, I didn't have to go through that. And so watching them go through that was like, okay, yeah, this is not what I want for them. You know, and I'm gonna make sure this never fucking happens to them again.

And I knew, like I told you before, I knew I had lost control of anything outside. I had friends, incredible friends that would go through and break a little rent money. Half the time it wouldn't get spent on rent. You know, if there was, you know, a situation I could, you know, get people to go help out. But we were only about, I was only about two years into my prison sentence when she completely lost control. And the kids went in a foster care. Luckily they went with some friends of mine at first.

And throughout the whole time they're in foster care, they're with foster parents that I knew, at least, they became one point where they were getting close to going, being separated and sent to separate foster. And a lady stepped in and got custody, you know, became a foster parent and fostered all of them. But that also came with me like, finding friends to make sure that money was, you know, that extra money was helping the kids and you know, like it was the last person that finally had had them in her foster care.

She was in love with me and that was turned into a whole another thing where she was using them against me to try to manipulate me to be with her when I came home. So that was a battle and then they were getting taken from her where they had to be adopted because it had been the foster system for too long. So it got to a point where it got down to the wire to where like, no, you're gonna have to sign these papers and never see your kids again. And not be allowed to reach out to them ever.

You know, and I'm fresh out of prison at this point like, absolutely not. Like, fuck that, whatever it takes, whatever, whatever I gotta do, you know. And um, within my new rational belief system, though, of course, you know, because the old me, if I wouldn't have went through everything, I went through in prison transitioning and, you know, transforming into the man that I am now, you know, I would have made the same decisions when I came out. And that's what happens to a lot of guys. They go in, they make a lot of changes.

They got all these goals and all these aspirations and all this shit they're gonna do when they get out. And when you get out, the fucking life hits you, you know. Obstacles, obstacles, obstacles. And you have to be able to persevere. You have to say, I am not going back there. I will fucking dig ditches. I will do whatever I gotta do to make an honest living. I'm not going back to prison. And if you really have that mindset, you won't go back. The pro system, it's not designed to put you back in prison.

It's designed to keep you out, transition you back into society and help you build, but so many people bucket and they just had, they had those same irrational beliefs that it's us versus them, you know, that, you know, I hear it all the time. I'm sitting in my parole office. I gotta go there every time I need a travel pass and I'm sitting there and I'm listening. You know, I hear it all the time. I'm sitting in my parole office. I gotta go there every time I need a travel pass, and I'm sitting there, and I'm listening to these guys.

Now, she trying to violate me. She doesn't wanna see me do good. I can't get no job, I can't. I'm sitting there like, dude, I've seen guys come out of 25-year prison bids from murder and get a job the next day. Like, if you want it, you can have it. And that's something that I've really been able to like,

really preach to my platform and my fan base. It's like, look man, I came home six years ago with nothing. Had an ankle bracelet sleeping in my brother's basement. Six years later, I got custody of my kids when I was a foster care. Six years later, I got custody of all kids when I'm foster care. Six years later, I got custody of all of my kids. We got seven kids, just bought my family the biggest house we've ever stepped foot in.

And then I give them this little spill, I'm like, you know what, I just did the other day, I was walking a family member through the house, giving them the tour. And after about the fifth time she said it, I had to stop her. She kept saying, boy, you're so lucky. I had to finally say this thing, I got none to do a luck.

This is faith and hard work. The American dream is alive and well. If you wanted, you can have it. You just got to fucking stand on your feet and grab it. You have to put the fucking work in. Faith and hard work. So all it takes, believe, believe in yourself. So through that whole process, I've been able to really,

is giving me a purpose. My kids of course give me purpose, but the fans give me such a purpose as well. I get to see them, meet them, and they're like hugging me like, man, dude, your music got me off drugs, got me through a prison sentence, got me through a divorce, divorce took me back to my wife got me back with my kids whatever they've been through

My music has been up to inspire them to just keep pushing and Those are the moments that fuel my next step, you know, cuz I'm like, man, I can't let these people down. I can't take steps backwards. They're looking at me like I made it out. I did time in the streets. I did time in prison. I was addicted to drugs. I was addicted to the life.

I've been through all of this and I'm just like them, but I made the decision to fucking change. And now, you know, here I am, I beat the statistics, you know, recidivisions three years. And I think it's like 70% or some shit of people that go back to prison within the first three years. I beat that twice now. You know what I mean? I wish six years out. I mean, that's speeding ticket. So, you know, being able to show people that that's possible

has been, and to be able to be inspired by their stories, the strength and hope in their eyes and what they've gained from my music and what they've been through in their life and made it through, it just continues to fuel that fire and keep my integrity in check, keep my path in check, you know.

Well, that's definitely a positive message. When did you discover your talent music? I've been writing poems since I was a little kid. I wanted to sing. I wanted to rap, you know, I was an world. And a huge two-pock fan, you know. So I always love music. I had the opportunity, like in summertime, sometimes to go on the road with Whalen. When my mom was singing back up and get to go see shows and going tour with them, riding the tour bus, staying hotel, be backstage and Whalen's concerts.

And so I always had a love for music. Deep, deep, deep. It's what I can literally pinpoint every moment or time in my life to a song. No. And what song was just the soundtrack of that year, or that three months, or that, you know what I mean? I've always just really held on to music like that and like really gravitated towards

the emotion and music. So, I always wanted to do it. Early teens, you know, while I'm selling drugs and stuff, I used to always take these little tape recorders and record me rap and freestyle rap and When I was 21 I caught my first set of drug charges for sale the 25 pounds of marijuana And I went and did 13 months for that came out was on community corrections for three years I went and did 13 months for that. Came out with own community corrections for three years. Single father with Brianna and Little Will,

which are my two oldest, Brianna's now an artist, working on her second solo album, 22 years old, fucking killing it. That's amazing. You know, she's the one that I really like, changed my life for. And in the first time, I changed my life,

got off drugs and, you know, but I was sitting in jail then and in 2002 and all these guys, well, they were writing these songs and rapping like they'd be in a circle in County, jail. So one day I was just in there, I was like, maybe I won't write a verse. I'm writing, writing, writing. And I sat there and practiced it, but I actually practiced it.

Came over there one day there just in the circle and I just got the nerve of to walk over there. I just started rapping and they're like, oh, shit. Like, we didn't know you rap. And so there's a friend of mine in there. He had a song on the radio, but it caught a charge, George, George was sitting in jail. And got named Lil' Homey Rip.

And now he goes by Cash Villets, but he was my celly at the time. And so then I got out and recorded a song with him and then I was like, man, I want to do this friend of mine. Um, his mother passed away and he got like a little settlement or, you know, whatever he got from her passing and he bought a home studio. So we put it in my apartment. I was a single dad with two kids and just started recording songs and decided,

this is what I want to do And of course it wasn't paying the bills so it started in a small apartment. Oh, yeah with your buddies inheritance Yeah Which probably wasn't much he got like 17 grand. He spent like Five of it on some studio equipment bought a car that got stolen two weeks later and a bunch of clothes that were in the truck of the car They got stolen and it was completely broke within three months of his mom died but

You know, but we had the studio you know for years and He Yeah, so it started and started in there recording me and jelly roll met I Was out passing out flyers for a show that I was doing selling my CD. He was there hosting a rap battle downtown and we bumped into each other and just became best friends.

And so we did music. I was, you know, did good for like six years till about 2008 and then I got back into the drug industry. Probably 2007. Got back into the drug industry and took off from there. Why did you give back in the drug industry where you just getting discouraged that you weren't? Yeah, it was just straight up,

like I literally got an eviction notice on the door. Okay. You know, and I was working full-time, worked at a restaurant, I'd waited tables, went back to working for my uncle tap, all doing construction, you know, wintertime, hit, no work. By this time I'm, I've got two kids that I've been a single dad with. Now I got a new old lady, her two brothers are living with us because they're underage and their mom's a drug addict. Now I've had my third child innocence and it was just, you know, I had a lot of mouths to feed and I can sit here and justify it, but it was because I wanted money, and I could have went and tried to find a better job

or picked up a second job, but there's a lot of things I could have done in hindsight. But in that moment with the belief system, and that I had been raised up with and instilled with, I was like, man, you got no choice. Yeah, I mean, fuck you up there. Yeah, fuck you no choice. Yeah, I mean, fuck you. What the heck about you now? Yeah. And that's how I got back in seven drugs. And then I got a record deal. They were going to do a movie

about my life. Signed to a record label out of New York, named Mass Bomb. They had another artist signed at the time and came down sort of recording records. Signed me to a deal, went down to Atlanta, recorded a bunch of records with drummer boy who at the time had, he's a huge producer, had tons of fucking songs on the radio, all the GZ implies, and all the stuff that was happening right then. And then the owner of the label was father passed away. And his dad was his best friend, mentor, father. And so he just kind of like lost his shit

and shut the label down. And I had quit selling drugs again. You know, just living off the label and you know, just recorded this album, fixing to try to, you know, have my big break. And then that tragedy happened in his family. And he shut the label down. I went back to selling drugs, got super discouraged,

was like, fuck music. You know, this isn't it for me. I'm tired of, you know, doing it. Still ended up releasing the project as like a mixed tape. And then he came back. I got indicted for the federal charge. Right after I got indicted for the federal charge. Right after I got indicted for the federal charge, he hits me up like, hey man, like, you know, I'm so sorry, man,

you know, I just had some personal shit I had to deal with when my dad lit, you know, died. And I was like, well, I'm going to prison. I just caught a federal indictment. And he's like, man, I'm so sorry. I was like, it was not your fault, you know what I mean? Like, but so then he jumped back into the picture, winded up scurrying between that year and a half

that I was fighting that federal charge before all the state shit happened. And I got picked up on the cocaine bust. He jumped back into the picture and we were just working. I was recording, recording, recording, recording. And that's where outlaw shit came from, which now has 60 million views

and started an entire genre. Damn. That's, you know, so, and then he stuck by my side all the way through prison. Like he started my Instagram. I was in prison when Instagram way through prison. Like he started my Instagram. I was in prison when Instagram started. You know, he started my Instagram, started my YouTube channel,

started everything and really helped build my brand up. Right, these like inspirational letters from prison. He would fucking type them up and post them, you know, and built my fan base through my entire journey of me before prison and going into prison. And he's still my right hand man. He's the one that I said he's in Florida right now. And he's usually following me with a camera because I mean, do we have documentary footage starting in 2007.

Nice. To today. Nice. Going to prison and me getting out of prison. Holy shit. Like, he picked prison and me getting out of prison. Holy shit. Like, he picked me up from prison with the cameras. Wow. So we've got, which there's some great episodes on YouTube.

I think there's like 15, maybe 17 episodes before prison and then after prison. But they're getting pulled Pretty sewn because we're gearing up to Set get that puppy on Netflix. That's awesome. Yeah, cuz it's a We've got a lot that never that we never put on YouTube Because it was like too dark and too deep. Yeah, we've got final interviews from the mother of my child of my children before she died.

Like in full blown hair went out in the middle of the streets like some gangster shit. Like damn dude. So we've got, you know, we've got a lot of stuff that we haven't put out. So we're working on putting that together as a collective whole now. But so, you know, he came back in, we were scurrying, we got, I am struggling, we got a, I am struggling, finished right before I went to prison. And then of course, I got,

we didn't all, I was gonna get locked up when I got locked up. We released outlaw shit the morning they arrested me. The morning? The morning dude, like, so I was on the house. Like I just got my first video out, you know, and then boom, I got arrested that morning. So you know, watching, there was no country rap when I released that. Like co-forward was kind of starting and had like a little, you know, name buzzing, but there was no like major country rap records.

And I hear I had a whole project of them. So as we dropped that, it just really sparked this whole genre, you know, of music that is now massive. But uh, so he, he stuck by my side through all that, um, through prison. And did you release anything when you were in prison? Well, I released that album when I was in prison. And that album had a song on it called Black curtains. And it was a sample of Wayland singing a white room. And a white room with black curtains, right? And the song is talking about me breaking the cycle from my father to me to my son. I'm sitting in County, jailing there like,

man, we really need to shoot a video. We got to figure out how to shoot a video. So they shoot this whole storyline and they're like, man, we just really need to get some footage of you. So this Cam crew, they had already been in and done a couple of documentaries for people in prison. And Nashville scene had just come in there

and did an interview with me for an article they were doing on me. So I was like, well, y'all can try. So they get in. They come in, we do an interview like me and you are doing. I give a whole bunch of inspirational stuff, which has all been used in documentary stuff. But then we're sit there in the PR for the the publicists for the J.O.s there. And they're like, would you mind if he wrapped this verse and she's like, oh, no, that'd be cool.

So I wrapped the verse, turned it into a music video, get sued, they try to take it down, the sheriff at the time, fucking, he loses his shit. He actually walked in on his kids watching the video. Oh, shit. Right, and here it is, an inmate, in county jail, maximum security in my uniform. Wrapping.

Wrapping. And then the camera following me through there, fucking jail. Holy shit. You know what I mean? So like, he was super pissed. We had all the proper paperwork's that. Yeah. But it was all the news. I'm in prison by this point, right? I had already got moved from jail to prison. So if anybody wants to know the layout of the Nashville jail, they just got to watch the video. Yeah, they could have. They could have.

But so I'm sitting in prison, they're like, struggle, you're on fucking the news. I'm like, oh God, here we go. I think I got another indictment, like some other bus that's happening is going down and I go in there and it's literally my music videos playing on the news. You can look it up and it's fucking hilarious. And that poor publicist, she was just trying to, she was trying to scramble to a savor ass. You know what I mean? She was like, we were completely duped.

He, you know, they acted like they were coming in here to do a documentary. And then we didn't know they were going to turn it to a music video, which we did do the documentary is out. We didn't lie. We just used it to our advantage to get some things that we didn't. Some extra curriculum. Yeah. Thank God I was already in prison by the time that happened. And he probably would have sent some of them goons in there to beat my ass and share if

he was so mad. He tried to make us take it down, but we had all the proper paperwork, so we just refused and They let it sit up and the thing was it was a really good fucking story. It's a good message You know so as much as much as they wanted to try to you know Be mad. It's like fuck. What do you know? So that that hit one viral? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll had that fired everybody up in prison. Oh, yeah, no, that was nuts. And I didn't actually get to see the whole video until I was being transported, I made

parole from the state and I was being transported to the feds. So they'll throw you in a van, they'll take you to these little poat out towns, going from state prison, which was an East Tennessee, all the way down to Oceola, Georgia, and then fly me from Atlanta to Oklahoma, but that to where their classification is, the vans. But all of the, they'd like, take me in a van, drop me off at a county jail, dip out, three days later another van come pick me up, take me to another county jail. So I was like in this transportation for like a month. And one of those little county jails I was sitting in the whole in sail and one of the guards kept looking at me and I was like, man, I don't think he's got

likes me. He's like, hey man, are you struggle Jennings? And I was like, yeah. And he's like, he's like, man, I don't think he's got likes me. He's like, hey man, are you struggle Jennings? And I was like, yeah. And he's like, he's like, man, I fucking love them. Outlaw shit and black curtains video. And I was like, dude, I haven't even got to see black curtains. He said, well, you have now, and he turned this big screen around and it play on that thing.

I'm sitting in the jail cell, you know, through glass, but I got to watch the video for the first time. Oh, that's cool. I bought like a baby. Fucking so emotional. So I was, you know, I was gaining steam in momentum while I was in there. And of course, Yellow Wolf was one of my best friends before.

Jelly Roll was my best friend before. And so they're gaining a bunch of momentum. Yellow Wolf had signed with him and them, jelly rose climbing up the ranks, you know, bussiness ass touring and putting out music and the whole time they're screaming free struggle, free struggle, free struggle. So when I came home I had that sense of hope also, you know, watching them making it and then both St. Bro, it's possible. Stoke it back to prison.

Just keep working, it's possible. So I hit the ground with just full faith and full motivation and full, you know, determination and discipline and dedication and you know just stuck to it, stuck to my guns and kept doing it and it's just continued to grow you know. That's incredible. So what was the next big hit after you got out? So when I first got out, Yellow Wolf produced a whole project on me. And there was one on there called, like, Father-like son.

Kind of the same thing as Black Curtain just talking about the, you know, my grandfather and then my dad becoming who my grandfather was and then me becoming who my dad was. And it's a point in my show every night still where I get to give a speech and say, you know, the biggest thing that I learned in prison was, I gotta be the man I would want my sons to be. I gotta be the man I would want my daughters to date. It's up to me to break that cycle. I tell them to go home and raise those boys

to be the fucking men we need. It's like a really good, powerful moment, but in the show, but that was the next Big hit that came out and I was fresh out of you know fresh out of prison and They been trying to send me back once because I was releasing these documentary series on YouTube and the Federal halfway house was like, oh, fuck no. Like a feds were like, no, what are you doing?

Like, you're not allowed to do this, you know? And so they tried to send me back, violated me. What, hold on. You're not allowed to do what, release content? No, why? Not at what the time you weren't because that's not like you're supposed to be doing this. Okay. You're supposed to have a job, go to work every day. Like how like so one of the the loophole where they were trying to send me back was because when I left

the federal prison, they give you five hours to get to the halfway house. It's a three hour drive. I haven't seen my kids in five years. Sushi restaurant, Hibachi restaurant, one block from the halfway house. I stopped and ate with my kids. They told me I couldn't veer from the path. So I thought that meant like, don't go way out the fucking way. Don't be somewhere you're not supposed to be. I stopped to eat before I went to the halfway house

where my kids hadn't seen my kids in five years. Why I'd seen them in like visit, but first time seeing them free. And so they used that saying that I wasn't supposed to stop and eat is what they're trying to violate me for. But the lady was like total con about it. She was like, listen, you know,

I think your message is bullshit. I think you're just another convict. I saw I watched your little documentary series. I don't fall for any of it. You're going back to prison. And I go to work that day, which was at the studio I was employed at a studio so I could record.

But I wouldn't allow to record. I was having to say that I was just working at the studio so that I could be there recording. And so I go that day, tell my kids, I'm gone. I gotta go back to prison for a year or so sorry. They cried, we hug, fucking emotional terrible time. I go back to the halfway house and the staffs like him and Marshall's a beer in the morning

to get you. I gotta go back. Like, all right man, I pack up all my shit. You know, my buddy comes and picks up everything so that I don't get, you know, I got to tow nothing there. They come wake me up early in the morning. He's like, come on man. I'm like, all the marshals here. He's like, no, come on. So I go down there and that lady that was violating me on the phone and she's just giving it to me. Everything I just told you is what she's saying. I don't believe your message is

or should do it. She said, but somebody above me seems to think different So I'm putting an ankle bracelet on your ass and you got one more chance I'm like oh Shit Like I got one more chance. I'm like okay So they hang up with her no, she she's actually in the room. She gets up and leaves They hit speaker phone on the phone that's in there and this lady comes across and she was like, I just want to tell you that I love your message.

She was like, I'm actually going to start using your documentary as training for all of the federal government staff on transition houses because we tend to get too caught up in black and white and forget the greatness in the gray areas. I had to put the ankle bracelet on you because that lady was giving us hell and she wanted it. She was like, but in return, I'm going to give you an extra 10 hours a week free to record your album. She was like, go out there and make us proud and fucking, yeah, it was like, so there's an episode about it on YouTube called SilverMans. Damn. But so I, you know, I had a lot of shit like that happen, you know, that...

That's amazing. Yeah. That is amazing. Do you keep in touch with her? No, I don't, but I'm going back. Yeah. Actually, Devin was supposed to set it up with the charity that does all the federal halfway houses

and go back and speak. Oh, man, that would be it. Yeah, that would be it. You know, they kind of want, you know, I'm getting to that point now where I've proven that I'm not going back, you know, they don't, they're really careful about who they let come back in there.

A lot of times it'll be somebody that's like 10, 15, 20 years released, you know what I mean? Yeah. But I'm getting to that point now where like now I'm coming off a state parole so I can go back into the state facilities. I can go into a lot of these places like right now I'm kind of confined to like public schools Which I've went and done

Public schools. I've went and done some rehabs So but now being able to get back in those actual facilities and get clearance to like go in the jail prison federal halfway houses and be able to share this with people that are because I I shared every night with a bunch of fucking survivors, you know, people that are in that crowd that have been through hell and back and but I think it'll be even more effective to be able to do it to the guys that are right there on that edge. Because when you're coming home or you're about to come home from prison, like that's when you're on that edge or when you're in prison, what are you going to do with the rest of your time? Because you walk into prison, there's really only two

kind of guys. You got the guys that are gambling, smoking, eating honey buns, watching TV all day, maybe working, you know, just getting by, really just living that life. And then you got the guys that are fucking reading every book they can, they're trying in like fucking animals, they're better, they're going every class they can, they're training like fucking animals, they're better, they're going to every class they can, they're bettering themselves. And as soon as I got the person I knew where I wanted to be, I didn't want to be fucking smoking cigarettes, which I'll smoke again now, but I didn't want to be in their smoking cigarettes, looking to eat honey buns, watching TV, wasting my time. Now I wanted to become the best person, father, human being that I could become. And

I did, I took every class. What kind of classes were you taking? I took every class. It took psychology. I took parenting. I took health and nutrition. I took, I did all the drug programs, anger management, to the point where I was teaching the classes about time I left. Because of course I had a passion to grow and it become better, but then that turned into a passion to help others become the best people they could be. And I've always had a good job with, I've always had been really good at relating to people, you know, made me super effective like when we're in the drug program,

and I ended up becoming, you know, like a mentor in there, to be able to dig into some of these guys that were stone cold killers that were, you know, had been been through didn't trust a fucking person on the face of the planet you know and being able to crack that shell down in there you know and say hey bro you can do this and I've got a couple of them and I still talked to this dad's talk to one we're talking about sentable family vacation together this guy was toughest the tough, born in a fucking border town, whole family, half white, half Hispanic,

cartel running shit back and forth. And this guy had a super rough life. Nice, you know, making a couple hundred grand a year welding owns his own fucking iron business. Like, and this dude, I didn't think he'd ever make it out of prison. I mean, I did, I saw it in him, but like all the signs were there that he was gonna, if he even got out, he was gonna come right back.

Yeah. And now, you know, but I worked my ass off to like really, you know, crack that shelly had and he put a lot of work in. And now he's great, he's got all his kids, you know, he's living the dream. You're gonna have a lot of impact on these guys. I think so and I'm really excited for it. And I really think that it would be an incredible,

credible phase in my life to be able to go in there and do that. I mean, do you realize the impact you might have? Definitely. Yeah. Definitely. Which it's intimidating. Yeah. At the same time, it's like bring it on like, you know, but that comes with me keeping my integrity

intact too. That's the, that's the toughest part about it. Yeah. It's like, you know, I was telling you earlier that I just recently slowed down on drinking my integrity and tag too, that's the toughest part about it. Yeah. It's like, you know, I was telling you earlier that I just recently slowed down on drinking and quit drinking at shows, because I was starting to lean on that and saying I couldn't, you know, go out there and perform without having a few drinks, few drinks turns into a bottle of tequila.

And so I'm going out and I'm giving this powerful message every night. And then I'm going back on the bus and I'm shit face drunk. And I'm laying there like fiddling like I'm making this huge impact and I'm doing God's work. But I'm sitting there preaching to these people drunk as fuck, you know. And so, and of course I was beating my body up and stuff, but more than anything, it was just that, that spiritual battle that I was in, you know, like. You weren't the example that you wanted to be.

Exactly. Like I'm sitting there telling them that they can do this, they can do that. All they got to do is get their life right and half the ones in the room. It might have been alcohol. They might be full blown alcoholics, and that's what was stopping their life from progressing.

And I might have been too, you know. Definitely know that, you know, since I swas, you know, slowed down and quit drinking, I've lost 50 pounds. I'm in the best shape of my life. So it was definitely holding me back from reaching goals that I wanted to reach. Yeah. And I noticed that I'm a lot sharper and stuff, you know.

Mentally. Mentally. Emotionally as well. I feel like I'm falling apart. I think that Takeda was keeping me good and loobed up. I quit drinking my knees, started popping, I'm like, damn. And a guy behead me, had me fluid. I get a grease of will. Yeah.

But, you know, and even now, you know, I still have a drink every once in a while. You know, it's picking your battles. If I know that in two weeks from now, I've got an event that I want to have a cup of drink sad with a couple of buddies. I want a drink to them. There's a lot of nights when friends might be having a drink or a glass of wine, and I'd be like, I can have one, and I'd be fine.

I'm like, fuck, I got legs tomorrow. You know, I got a big chess workout tomorrow. I'm gonna skip it tonight. Yeah. You know. So I'm just setting your priorities. Knowing your limits, knowing your boundaries, and finding that balance. Let's talk about God we need you now.

Yeah. When that came out. It was incredible. I mean, so I'll tell you how the song came about Caitlin Curtis was an artist that I signed To angels and outlaws my label and we had been working on her album Working on my new stuff 2020s in full swing. All right. So, hmm, everything's kind of still being

figured out, you know, like, okay, here's this COVID thing. Is it real? Is it not real? The mask, we got away the mask. God, fuck the fuck these masks. You know, all of it was kind of cycling. We're like, as things are happening, we're just figuring it out as people and with the information that not that we're given, because of course we're searching for information, right? Anybody that I'm close with,

we're gonna find our own information, we're not just gonna be fed what's given. So, so I'm like, you know, I'm reading this stuff and I'm in the studio and I'm kind of on my rants, you know, I'm like, man, this is crazy. You seeing this, you seeing this. And Caitlin wasn't, she didn't, she didn't know anything about writer, left, or, you know,

to me like, she didn't grow up in a political house. I didn't either, you know. Most of my life, I thought I was a Democrat because I was poor and I had food stamps and I thought this was the way it was supposed to be. You know, it wasn't until I became a man, a father, a business owner, you know, tax paying American that I was like, oh no, fuck,

what the fuck? Like, absolutely not. That's interesting. Is that a commonality? Super. Growing up like that, you just automatically assume, oh, we're Democrats. Automatically 100%. No, sure.

Because the Democrats have been so good at masking themselves as for the people, right? With welfare, healthcare, you know, racial equality, whatever the issue is, they do a great job at masking. I mean, Malcolm X was talking about it, you know, saying that the biggest enemy was the white liberal, because they were wolves and sheep clothing. They were masked like they were, and they would always use black, powerful leaders to try to get their message out.

They've been guilty of that for centuries. But so I always thought I was a Democrat because I live in the hood. I got, I'm on welfare, I've got food stamps, you know, that was just how I was raised thinking that that's what it was. I didn't know anything about real politics, you know, until I became, until it started to affect my life, you know, till I started seeing taxes, till I started seeing,

it's like, hold up, no, I'm not fixing it. I don't wanna give 50% of my money so that this person that doesn't want to get up off the fucking couch can live the same way as me like You don't like doing that. Oh absolutely not I was If you do like when I started getting their conversations about socialism dude I literally had one of my favorite artists in the entire world. I'm not gonna mention this night Sitting in the studio and he goes struggle, but don't you understand?

I'm not gonna mention this live. Send the studio and you go struggle, but don't you understand? Cars like me and you, we just have a knack to make money. You know, we have a lot of drive and shouldn't we give 50, 60% in taxes so that people that are lazy or just don't have the same drive we have can enjoy the same life that we do.

So real conversation? Yes. I'm beginning to think that liberal is a mental disorder. Seriously. I don't know fuck whatever I got some liberal friends and you know whatever but like Yeah, no, they really believe that shit. I literally had argument with another friend of mine He's like I'm like bro. This is the only country that you can come from nothing and become a fucking billionaire Because of the American dream because because because of capitalism and because of conservative beliefs. And he goes, yeah, struggle, but in socialist countries, nobody comes from nothing. I'm like, yeah, but nobody has anything past this.

You know what I mean? Like, there's a ceiling. You can't, that's the beauty of the American dream is you can go as high as you fucking want if you're willing to put the work in, take the fucking chances, sacrifice, you can have whatever you want. That's the beauty of the American dream.

You know, and yeah, it's a real conversation. That's interesting. I've not had to have that conversation live for. We don't have a lot of that in the military. Yeah, yeah. God. So, God, we need you now. We need you now.

We're not in the music business now. Yeah. I've heard. So, God, we need you now. So, I was doing my rant and, you know, Caitlin sends me a voice note a couple of days later. She was like, hey, I kind of got this from what you're saying the other day and this was just on my heart boom and I hear it and it's that hook and I'm like, holy shit, this is a fucking hit. You never really know a music, you know, like you can hear a thousand

songs and everyone that you really love, they don't and the ones that you hate end up being the ones you have to perform for 20 years. You should have loved it. You never know what his record is. You just gotta keep recording music and fucking hope that shit sticks. So hold on, now I'm getting off track, but fuck it. So when you record an album,

maybe 12 songs in an album, or 12 songs, yeah. You don't know which one's gonna be a hit? Absolutely. You're not like, what is your one? No, you hear it. You say that a bunch of times. Yeah.

And you're like, oh, this is the one. And it's not the one. It's the one that you're like, fuck, I don't really like this song, but I think they might like it. I don't know. And you put it out and it goes, hey, wire. And then for 10 years you got to fucking perform this song

that you hate. Boba Sparks, Miss New Booty. Dude, he still gets paid $5,000 to walk in the strip club and perform Miss New Booty. And he fucking hates that song. Damn, you know. No shit. Yeah.

It's like his least favorite song he's ever recorded But he has to do it because that's what he got. That's that's the one the blue But you called this one. I call this one. I said this is gonna be a big song It's gonna be great. It needs to be heard even if it fucking flops if ten people hear it and it brings them closer to God and make some stronger and make some rally up and feel strength right now, and this time of where a lot of people are feeling weak and vulnerable and afraid and fearful, this gives just a handful of people a little bit more umph in their fight than I'm happy, right? But I knew it was a good song.

So we released it. It did good. Five million views, I think on YouTube. It's like, oh, yeah, boom. And a couple months like it was smoking. I was like, oh, this is great. Well, then it starts to die down. We released the next single.

Next thing you know, right back to the top. I'm like, what is going on? Every viral video, Kaitlin's working it on TikTok, you know. And it just, it translated. And it just snowballed and snowballed. And I said, I'm watching this climb, the charts, climb the charts. And then here's a little,

I said, weo's name, Nas X knocked him out the top. Damn, and I'm like, man, they just, they put a million dollars behind this guy's album. We don't put a dollar. That means the people are speaking. Damn. That means the, and that's, that's iTunes. So that means they're hitting buy.

That's not just people listening to it. That's them hitting purchase. Number one Most sold rap song two weeks in a row on billboard. Wow During those two weeks Lona's X dropped Cardi B dropped and Drake dropped his whole album. At one point, I was number one and Drake had the next 19 slots on my tunes. Damn.

For all his songs off that album. Did you ever been on the charts before? Yeah, we hit iTunes charts quite a bit. Like, when we first released, we'll have a day or two, where we're, you know, on the top of the iTunes charts, because we got a great fan base. Yeah. This was singles.

This was one song, never had a song do that. Damn. And we, you know, me and Jelly had fallen on the fonts and called record. It didn't do that. Wow. So number one, and it's sat number one between number one and number five, skipping back and forth for like four or five months. No, shithons. Now, it was on number one on billboard. Two weeks in a row was the longest. I think it might have hit two or three times.

But for the longest, two weeks in a row, that's Billboard. That's every fucking song in the world. That's all genres. Yeah. So, we're on the long, no. No Billboard, it was rap. Okay.

But on iTunes, it was all genres. Holy shit. That's fucking incredible. You know, I tell them every night, I'm like, no record label, no management, no publicist, no big budgets, no marketing strategy, just a song from the heart and the people. And I let them know every night. I'm like, when I watch Lil Misex and Cardi B, get knocked out out at top slot. I knew and it solidified that the people's voice is still worth more than all the corporate sponsorships, all the dollars

that those corporations can throw around. The power is still in the people. And that song proved it last year. Damn, that's amazing. So that is is a thing. Now I gotta try to follow it up. Fuck. So what's next? So speaking of that, what is next? Yes. So we got coming. Got a new album coming. Working on it right now. Um, actually, we'll be record on it today. Um, album's called Monicarlo. Monicarlo. Mm-hmm. One's that coming out. Uh, it'll be out in November.

Nice. Uh, I'm gonna start It'll be out in November. Nice. I'm going to start releasing singles for it in the July. Do you want to make any predictions on what's going to be the hit? No, because I haven't recorded half of it. Still working on it. But the album, I think, and I think you'll love this concept. About an 84-money carlo. Completely original.

With all the chaos that I've seen, that I've been through, and the complexity of my life, and all the shit that I've been through and the complexity of my life and all the shit that I deal with I find my most peaceful moments in the simplest things in the simplicity right so like getting in that 84-money car low just has a fucking radio I don't even got a plug the plug the phone up. I can't even charge my phone in the car. All right, and just turn on that radio. And driving just this basic, you know, 1984,

the smell of the seats, smell of the motor reminds me of my childhood, you know. But it's so peaceful. Just driving that car. I don't have all the distractions, all the buttons. I can't, you know, answer my phone through the fucking speaker, you know what I mean? Like, it's just that simplicity that brings like a state of peace in the complex chaotic world I live in, right? So I said, you know what, I'm gonna buy that,

I'm gonna drive this car every day to the studio and I want to convey And I want to convey whatever comes from that, the nostalgia of the car, the chaos that I've been through, the peace that I've found, the complexities and the simplicity. I want to bundle that all into one project and tell my story. So it's turned out pretty fucking cool. That's awesome. Yeah. And it's turned out pretty cool. That's awesome. Yeah. And it's a lot more country. I'm actually singing a lot on it.

Some of the songs have 80s vibe. It's all over the place. It's going to be one of those albums that doesn't matter what kind of music you like, they'll be a song for you. That's gonna be one of those albums that it doesn't matter what kind of music you like, they'll be a song for you. That's it. You know, it's like gonna be that if you were to sit there and run through that radio, a little turn-dye radio and stop every other channel, that's what's gonna feel like. Something's on there for you. Something's on there for you. Something's on there for you. Nice.

I can't wait to hear it. Yeah, I'm excited. When you get it released. Oh, before I get it released, I'll send you a link. I'll send you a private link. Do you do vinyl? Do you release vinyl? I've been trying to do vinyl.

You know the problem of vinyl, and I'm gonna fix it this year. The only problem of vinyl and I'm gonna fix it this year. The only problem of vinyl is this like all these places that print vinyl are like eight to 12 to 16 weeks. Oh shit. How much time they need? Yeah. So to order enough vinyl, you know, you're talking about

$10,000, $20,000 to make a nice vinyl order. That's a lot of money to throw away for six months. Wait on a deal. I got you. You know what I mean? It's like, isn't it investment? But I am this year we're gonna do vinyl, because I love vinyl.

Well, if you do vinyl, I gotta request. I need one signed by you so I can frame it and put it up in the studio. I guess like a museum in here. I guess. I'm like a museum in here. I guess. I'm gonna do a vinyl. But man, best of luck to you.

I can't wait to hear it. And man, I just, you, in your six artists under your record label. Yeah, five, I'm the six, yeah. I just wish you guys the best of luck. The message you're putting out now, you know, where you came from is just, I mean, you don't hear a lot of positive shit in the world anymore, you know?

And from what you've come from, and what you've morphed into, I mean, it's amazing. And it should bring a hell of a lot of people hope. And the fact that you're gonna be going back and speaking, you know, the guys coming out of prison and you're living proof, hey, you know, there is a fucking second chance and if you really work at it, you know, life can be beautiful. And don't take it for granted because you on your end, you know a lot, on my end, I know a lot, guys that didn't get a second chance. Yeah, First time they got hit, first time they're gone.

And so for the guys like us that did get second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth chances, don't take it for granted. Yeah. You got another opportunity. I like to tell them every night, if you're here, your story has not ended. Do not let your past define you, make it refine you. You know, I use the analogy of gold a lot. To make gold pure, you put it in the fire, you pull it out, you wipe off the imperfections,

put it back in the fire. Don't be afraid of the fire. Now, falling in love with those flames, make them purify you. You gotta go through shit to appreciate, you know, you got to go through bad shit to appreciate the good. But like, you know, my whole life, Pupacera, you ready, and I said, I was born ready. I finally realized I was not fucking born ready. I had to go through hell to get ready.

To be able to handle, to be worthy of, and to be deserving of the blessings and the light that I have right now. I had to fucking go through some things, you know. And now I don't take it for granted. And so. Give her you. Yeah, that's a good one.

I appreciate it. One last question. Let's get it. If you had three people to recommend to come on the show, who would they be? I would love to see West Whitlock on here. You'd like to see West Whitlock. I would like to see it. Just to see what have you have you had a chance to tell him does he know about you wearing the oh yeah he's he's sent it over to us that was He cannot. Man, that's a hard question. Who do I want to really know the deep dark truth of?

I tell my wife, I said, man, another 30, 45 minutes with that guy, he gonna get some shit out of me. Nobody knows. Yeah. man another thirty forty five minutes with that guy he gonna get some shit out of me nobody knows get Matthew McConaughey on here oh man you know you know somebody that you there would be fucking badass on here oh I just opened up for him and he's a fucking bad shit crazy wild And he's a fucking bat shit crazy wild and real deal. Who had Nugent? Ted Nugent? The Nuged?

Dude. I know him. I just opened up for him in Panama City. Who come on the fucker up? I got you. I got you. I'll call his wife this week. Perfect.

For sure. Let me tell you something. That motherfucker, he is everything you think he is, he is that. He's going on the list. Yes, Ted Nugent. I don't know. Am I not have 340, but I got him and I'm gonna make it fucking happen. Perfect.

Well, man, I just... This is a real pleasure interviewing you. And I'm getting to know you. I'm gonna be in here. And I just wish you the best of luck. You... Like was. And your family. And I'll wish you the best of luck. You like us. And your family.

And I'll be watching. Yeah, man. I'll be watching too. Cool. I got it this morning. It was like, who do you have on there last? I was like, hey, great. They got it.

Fucking killed Ben Laden. Like, what am I going to talk about? Like, yeah, that's amazing, man. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. For you. Thank you. For sure. Thank you. Alright.

Thank you, brother. Cheers. Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Blair. Step into a new Jeep that you can count on from the awarded new Grand Cherokee to the capable 2022 Jeep Compass that Jeep lineup won't compromise on power, technology or comfort, delivering confidence and convenience for 29 years. Woodhouse Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Blair is your trusted auto partner.

Visit us off highway 30 in Blair or online at woodhouse ChrysepDodge.com. The Bullwork podcast focuses on political analysis and reporting without partisan loyalties. Real sense of day job is sprinkled on our PTSD. So things are going well, I guess. Every Monday through Friday, Charlie Sykes speaks with guests about the latest stories from Inside Washington

and around the world. You document in a very compelling way. All of the positive things have come out of this, but it also feels like we have this massive hangover. No shouting or grandstanding, principles over partisanship, the Bullwork podcast, wherever you listen.