2 Chainz

So I just wanted my book to have a light substance. A lot of people that like my music, they like songs like I'm different birthday song stuff like that. Where it's more like good time, use a good vibes is meant to uplift and make you feel good. But this book is meant to uplift, make you feel good and teach you something a little bit about yourself and also challenge you to try a few personal methods of how you quiet down the outside noise. First time author, first time writing the book. First book. First book, so. So that's cool. Yeah, that's a cool book. It's cool when you care about something to get out there and talk about it. It's cool. Yeah, but just. Different energy. You know, it living in different spaces even outside of hip hop is, it was important for me too when I was, you know, putting this book together. It was important that it was able to live, you know, outside of hip hop as well. So did you feel like it was like a like a first, not only writing the book, but like getting outside of a career that's so big and all encompassing in some ways. But like getting outside of it to do something different and getting away from it in a way is almost like weird how you don't do that until you do it. And then because I've done it as well. But was that like a first for you, getting like stepping away from that and doing something else? And, you know, that was the first time for me, but I also found a way to kind of tie what I love about music until the book without talking about music. And I said, I just say, you know, the storytelling aspect of it. Yeah. You know, even when creating the audio book, I thought about, you know, albums that had skits. And so my audio book has production throughout the scenes where you can actually feel what's going on. That's cool. Yeah. So I was able to collide worlds, kind of mix some of the things I like about creating music with creating this this piece of literature. Have you ever heard anyone do that before? No, it was the first time. That's a really good idea. This is a dope idea. That's a real innovation. Think about that. That just kind of hit me because I don't read. I listen to books because I'm like dyslexic and and all the things. So what in order to read a book, I have to listen to it. And I always thought that audio books were a little fucking. Let's just say some are better than others. Some are better than others. Let's just say that you think about it and you go because we are we're like audible people. We listen to things first, probably. Yeah. And so when you go to listen to an audio audio book, it leaves a lot to desire. Yeah. And that's why I think, you know, a podcast is to me, I started a show and it is a podcast because people listen to it. But actually, it's a TV show. OK. Actually, this is what this is. But it's listened to by a bunch of people and watched. But I think we think about sound and visual or when you listen to something, does it make you think? Does it make you imagine? Does it make? Is it like a movie? And I think coming from music, it makes sense that a musician would innovate the audio book space. Yeah. That's kind of what's what's a ton of people do. What you just did with your book, take it up a notch, man. Yeah. You know, make it cinematic. We've had those books that are interesting, but depending on who's reading it, you know, and then we've had I'm somebody that listens to listens to audio books as well. So when creating this and it was important that I that one, I read the book, it was important that I read it and to add that that touch of movie score. Vibe was one describing a certain scene you're able to hear in the background, whatever's going on in the scene. So yeah, it's got to kind of feel like a movie. Yeah. If I write a book, I want it to feel like I want it to read and feel like there's a like there's an arc. Because I feel like I always think about whenever I have to. I don't know when I think about my own life, I think of it in terms of like, if I zoom out, I kind of always say, me and my brother talk about this all the time. We're like, well, how do you want the movie to go? At this stage, at this stage, so that you keep kind of betting on yourself as the main character. And, you know, you're either going to be the hero or the or the story or not. So when we all got we all got to try to be the hero of our own story. I think as artists and as people that are in creative careers, we have arcs. You know, you have moments and then after that moment, sometimes, you know, 10 years in, 20 years in, 30 years in, you go, am I good for anything else? Am I done? Right. Does anyone care? And then you almost it's like, you can't live and die by the success of a song. That's something that we do. But then you start doing other things. Yeah. And it's pretty interesting when artists get when that switch hits and they realize that they they hit the ball really well. Yeah. And that they can that the creative brain that they apply to music is actually a creative brain that can solve a lot of problems and. Innovate audio books or invest in things or or create other things that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I have a chapter called Remind Them by rebranding. And it's just if you start to get that business mentality, you start noticing how businesses operate. Most of the top businesses that we see out here, they rebrand themselves every three to five years. Right. They don't necessarily change the slogan, but they the logo changes. Something something changes just to keep, you know, for refreshing, whether it's Sprite or McDonald's, whatever it is, whatever corporation, they do little small things. So I started implementing those things into my career to just give it a boost and give it that that refresh. This book, The Voice in My Head is God is about my intuition and tapping into that inner voice. Tapping into what I like to call your intuition, the gut feeling. This is just simple as that. That gut feeling of almost feeling like you have superpowers because you can honestly say, man, I knew that was going to happen. Yeah. I knew something was going like. Absolutely. You know, and when I started working on the book, I felt like some people would be able to understand. And I feel like others wouldn't. Right. Because this is a book I couldn't have put together in my 20s. This book is it has God in the title, but it's not like a religious book. It's really based on how I or how I'm talking about God through my experiences. Yeah. You know, through my experiences and The Voice is my conscience. The Voice is my intuition. It's my man, something told me, you know, something told me, man, I'm glad to see you, man. Something told me that is that. And then God is me giving credit to something higher than myself because like me listening to that voice of me listening to my conscience has led me right here in front of you right now. Like, which is like, I feel like has led me to success. Absolutely. I think it's the language of God. Yeah. The subconscious. That's it. It's we pray to find it again. We pray to meditate to get back into. I think this is my my perspective. This is strictly opinion based. My thought is there's a transcendent part of life, which is you could call it God. So the transcendent part of life is that there's something else that life is worth living because there's something higher than us. And what does that do? Well, if we believe in God in a higher power. Okay, again, I'm just saying from what I believe, right? Yes. Because I was excited to talk to you because of the book. Of course, I love your music, but we've both been in the music business a long time. Yeah, you meet some people and it's full of all kinds of things. So like, you don't always want to meet everybody. And sometimes you do, you know, but then you see someone do something different and you go, man, that's fucking cool. I want to talk to him. And to write a book about your experience and your understanding of God, of self, of the subconscious, which is what leads all artists, all of our artists subconscious. Whether we think we're talking about this, when you go a layer beneath it, we're actually talking about that. Right. So and then we are, we are feeding people subconscious. What do they do when they listen to music? They're working out, they're falling asleep, they're doing. So they're driving in their car, they're deep in thought most of the time when they listen to our music. So there's a subconscious thing always happening. And for you to take it and actually put it into a piece of art and work and literature that people could actually take as an idea they could grasp because of your experience is brilliant because no one talks about it. No one talks about. Did you have a feeling about that? How did you feel about that? Or did you have a sense that or so? So no one's training us to sense things, to feel things. Now, when you, when you're in like a survival situation, you're a lot more in tune with your senses because you're kind of like, what was that? What was that? They call it animal instinct. That's right. And you're like in tune. The problem with that can be though, is when you're in a survival situation where there's threat and then you get out of that, you make it out of that and you get into a life of whether there is no threat. Right? We've mitigated, we've got ourselves to a safe place where we have everything we need. We're not in danger of food, shelter, an actual danger of predators, all that. We can become anxious people because we always think there's a threat and then we can start actually putting ourselves into threat when we don't need to be. Which is what I see with a lot of artists. They put themselves around the wrong people and the wrong places where they could literally just not be there. Right? When you take the idea of what you have in your book and the voice of God, your subconscious, your feelings, your instincts, all of that. And you put it and you share that experience and thought with people. First of all, it's kind of vulnerable to do. No, it's just, no doubt it's very vulnerable. Right? So that's powerful. To another thing I've learned is to be vulnerable is actually really powerful because it just shows strength to me, it shows power. So to me, it's pushing forward the idea that there is more to us all. And I think when we believe that there is more, when we trust that the God voice, our subconscious, we become more evolved, compassionate people. And then we are all more connected and therefore we all hurt each other less. It happens unconsciously a lot. It happens accidentally a lot. You go somewhere and you be like, yo, what's up, man? You know, I had no idea I was going to see you. And they say, you know, something told me to come out of that drain. That person said something told me to like that connection is something that we just ignore. Too many times. We ignore it too many times. All the time. And so I'm not like someone that's just really thinking everything is coincidental. I really feel like it's a set up. It's a it's a it's like it's set for this to happen. It's it's divine. It's divine. And so, you know, I didn't want to put something together that was preachy, but I did want to put something together that can add to my legacy, like a piece of literature that can live way, you know, way after I'm gone. But past those teaching moments. And we all enjoy like teachers that had cool ways to teach and innovative ways to teach. Right. Yeah. So instead of me just doing a regular cliche autobiography and talking about myself the whole time, I'm talking about myself in here. But a lot of these stories, I started from the event, the trauma, whatever it was. And I went from that and I went backwards and it led me to the voice every time. Like I knew this was going to happen. Now, whether I paid attention or not is different, but I would trace back. Like when I first started, you know, because like I said, this book is based off experience. I had to really wake up and be like, I get it now. Like I get it. They say, you know, you're made in the image of God. God is in you. The blessings come. You get all these like cliche things. You just be here and why you just walking through life. You got to the truth of them now. Yeah. It's like when you keep saying when you get that something told me, right? Mm hmm. Something told me not to do something. Mm hmm. I give this one. This is something that I feel like most creatives and artists have done. We get on the plane. We're having this kind of trouble. We have this kind of trouble. Mm hmm. You know, they tell us to get out the plane. Every one of us has said, hey, man, it's a good thing. We, you know, something probably was going, you know, that's a sign from God. Uh huh. You know, you in our mind, we think in that plane was going to go down and we got saved. Right. The plane doesn't go down. None of that happened. Like we're not that. We're just trained to be like, we're going to try to find another plane. This is not working. And we, we are like, stop arguing about that. Okay. That's a, hey, man, we got to listen, man. What's not, this is what we say. Must not be meant to be. That's right. Oh man. Yeah. Man, you want to go, you want to do something bad. Just now it just popped up. I had a show in Vegas. I love Vegas. Yeah. Love Vegas. I love performing in Vegas. Yeah. Okay. It's a good time. I'm in Miami. I love Miami. Yeah. I'm leaving this event, getting to a car accident, like crack, like two of my rails, bro, a real bad car accident. Like they can't even wait on like the ambulance. They don't take me like a fire truck or something. I can't even remember. But like, I got to get there. I'm like, man, I got to get to Vegas. They said, sir, you're not going to make it to Vegas tonight. I'm like, I got to get there. Man, I have to do this show. And they like, we have to watch you make sure you don't have any internally and blah, blah. And then, you know, somebody comes to me and say, bro, it must not be meant to be, it must not be meant for us to go. That's it. Okay. You're right. You know what I mean? But it was just something I wanted to do really bad. And that's when it happens. Like something just slows you down. Sometimes something that's out of your control. So I just want to have a like substance. A lot of people that like my music, they like songs like I'm different birthday song, stuff like that. Where's more like good time, music, good vibes. It's meant to uplift and make you feel good. But this book is meant to uplift, make you feel good and teach you something a little bit about yourself and also challenge you to try a few personal methods of how you quiet down the outside noise. Try it. Like it's hard to believe it because it's like talking about things you can't see. Yeah. So it's like, I'm telling you, my boys be like, just basically my boys be like, just do it. You know, they want to argue. I only want to argue with it at this point. And then stuff just seems to go smoothly. So I just challenge people to, you know, to either read or check out the really dope audio book. You're speaking my language. Really? This is all I think about. Really? Yes. Well, I do this show. So let me ask you this. Yeah. If I ask you, or if you say something told me like what would be your something told me, I have anything about anything. It could be some large, small, so I would. So I will I'll say before I answer that I live in that space. I live in it and I have for probably a decade now. I changed my life when I left home at 17 with a backpack and had nothing and set out into the world with my brother and started trying something. Told you to do that. Yeah, of course. So this is a start. There's something because to be 17. This is your chance. Yeah. Right. I had a very hard home life, not to my mom's not my mom's fault. Love my mom. It was just like one trouble after the other. And then we were getting evicted for the last time and we said, mom, take care of we're going to sister and we're out. You don't have to worry about us. We're gone. We hit the road hitchhiked when all gone. A movie. And then that's a movie. That's a movie. That's a movie. And 1998, you know, just hit the road from the down in the sticks in Maryland. Beautiful place. I'm not putting that place down. It's far away from the world. And just hit this is our chance. Got to go. Got to go right now. We hit the road middle of the night. That kind of thing was crazy. Like from then, I think we've always been those kinds of something tells me guys. But every most of the things we've done, including like the bad people, we're like, man, I don't care how much money he's talking about something. Not right here. Let's go. Yeah. Right. Lots of those stories. Yeah. Yeah. This this this really helps you navigate through a lot of business situations once you tap into that. That's right. So it's what does yes feel like and what does no feel like? Here's the problem with trauma because we also had like childhood trauma type stuff and it was just a it was a crazy 18 in the first 18 years were were tough. So trauma can damage you and injure you in a way where if you don't break the leg and set it, it won't heal right. And then you're limping around. And when you're traumatized, it starts you get upside down in what yes and no feel like. So part of my work was was healing. So I had to like go to therapy, talk to somebody, really unpack some stuff. Because I never did it. I never I never wanted to look at it. And I think that we we if you come from a tough childhood, you start to tell yourself a story you can live with so that you don't have to look at the ugly parts, right? And then if you go and you do the work because it's painful, admitting that you got hurt is hard to do when you have to be tough, right? To survive life. And I think if you can share, though, and you can you can be vulnerable and you can say, yeah, it really hurt me when, you know, growing up without your dad around really was painful, you know. And now I think you start to unpack those things and you heal. And then and then you then you actually get past it. And you can also look at all the things you got from it, you gain from it, you the strengths you got. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a lot plenty of that too, which is great. It's data in there, too. Some it's some it's some data you can use to like, yeah. And then answer these questions for you. That's right. And then and then and then also like, you know, well, what kind of father did I become a great father? Absolutely. What kind of kind of, you know, so this made you that. Exactly. So when I got turned right side up and I really got to trusting my own instincts, right, the voice that you're talking about. Yes, feels like yes. It feels like spike the football. Strong. Yeah. A strong. Yes. Strong. Yes. And then and then no feels like no. You're like, man, I don't care what you're talking about. I do not for whatever reason, you came in the room and I noticed you in a bad way. Yeah. And I got a bad feeling. And it doesn't matter if you're a billionaire or you're a fucking famous person or you're a beautiful girl, I got a bad feeling. And I felt it right away and I don't ignore it. And so that became very clear to me once I got right side up. And I wasn't all spun and upside down because of all the years of trauma and things. So I think your book is going to be very successful because you're very successful. Whether it was early on you realize this or later on in your in your adult life, which what what makes us what makes us grown men? Well, we have kids, we raise them, we build lives. We do all that on the other side of not just a success career. Again, I think we're taught what success is. It is doing stuff, right? It's it's hit records or it's building businesses or it's that's one part of success. The other part of success is being a functional person who can live in the world. And once you do, you bring those two together and you actually build a life, you become this grown man with success and wisdom and then you can write a book. Yeah. Yeah. Then you're able to then you're able to do. I'm not saying you can't write a book in your twenties. Obviously, I'm just talking about a book of this type of magnitude with this type of information, the thesis and the and the message of this book, which I was. That's why I fuck with it because I was like, oh, he's speaking my my language. It's something only someone that has lived some life can share and you will listen to them. A 20 year old could absolutely write a book like this. You wouldn't take it the same way because we inherently know when someone's lived a lot of life and when someone has it, it's just human nature. So it's it's you could write a book at any age, but there's some things you can only earn, gain, acquire through lived experience. True. And for you to be sitting here, you are exactly where you are in your life because of that voice, but it's also a choice to listen to that voice. And it's a choice to go forward. It's a choice to go upward. It's a choice along the way you've made a bunch of little decisions and big ones that got you here versus. And I would say this for everyone. It's choose your own adventure. There's so many different paths, but good, solid choices on top of each other is how you build a good, solid life. And it's one at a time, you know, and obviously we all made mistakes and stuff, but it's it's getting back up from those mistakes pretty quickly and recovering from them and trying to learn from that information. But listening to that voice is hard to do for a lot of people because of the noise. Like you said, there's a lot of noise, a lot of bad information out there, too. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you you differ and it's a lot of voices. You know, and you because you can get influence from the neighborhood. You can have, you know, you get voices from different situations. I differentiate the voices by saying that love, if it has some type of love in it, then they got they got God in it. Yeah. You know, and so a lot of time when you crash out, it's not a lot of love there. So I can't say that the voice that's hinted that you're hearing say, man, crash, I don't think that's that's the voice. So, yeah, you know, I think we may be over complicated some things along the way. I try to simplify them. And I know it's like, man, it's too simple. It can't be that easy. But what if it is what if the something told you is what if that what if that is God whispering? What if it is? Yeah. I don't know. So this is about simplifying some things in life and making it very digestible to read and understand from my perspective from someone that's lived it like. I'm not talking about someone else's, you know, life or experiences like I had a roller coaster when I had a doozy myself and actually this book with I would go on record and say this is my first therapist. I haven't sat down with anyone yet. But that's cool. I can tell that during this promo in this run that I probably normalized a lot of trauma, like, I mean, I just normalize normalize just a lot of stuff that just was far from normal. I mean, just just what I'm seeing. This is what I'm, you know, it's just, you know, just all you a lot of times, all you know is what you see or what you're around. So I can't really far anyone for that. You just get to going around and get to. Oh. Oh, well, you know, it just became a lot of behaviors just became normal. Yeah. That's funny how that works. Yeah. That's interesting, dude. I bet you any amount of money, your subconscious leads you down all the roads you've been down. I know, I know, I know because I know that you've diversified and you do a lot of things and I think that's like, to me, I think really highly intelligent people, they get bored, especially if they're really good at something. You've had plenty of success in music that you could say is it's not that you're bored, it's not you're bored with it, but it's not necessarily challenging you. The game that you, that you, when you started out in music was a game that was new to you and you, but you, you beat the game and you beat it again. And then it's a game, you know, the game and you'll, it's not that we don't like to play the game. I love music, I love the music business. It's not that it's boring, but then you go like, I wonder if I could play that game and then you go do that and you have success there. And that's still the voice. But this book is so funny. So you've never been to therapy. But I mean, as I keep doing it to her, like I listen to you. No, I can tell you, I mean, it seems like you've probably been through some stuff to leave home at 17 and, you know, and then, you know, I don't know what I'm scared of. It'll probably be some good conversations. I actually have a degree in psychology too. So sometimes I do. Yeah. Sometimes I think I like self evaluate and self medicate myself. Obviously I self medicate myself a lot. But I'm still in a weird place where I don't even want to be fixed. Right. I'm just like, like I don't want the edge. Like I still want my edge. I don't want to knock off, you know, I think identifying that I do have triggers, yeah, but knowing I got them and knowing like in my mind that like really telling myself this or don't let it trick you like this is me talking when a trick is trying to trigger me like inside of myself is like. So that's what I mean. Like and once again, this is an opinion based show. Y'all, this is like just how I operate. But I literally just something will be, you know, something to happen. And I just be like, maybe this drunk ass pan and every like, you know, yelling. I'm like, yeah, yeah. They be like, can I take a picture? I'm like, yes, they play. Do you mind if I take a picture? I'm like, yes, they play. It's OK if I take a picture. I say, man, God, the damn. Sure. Said yes. You know, it's like, you know, I said yes eight times. You know, I mean, it's like what is like that is calm down. OK, this is this is triggering for you. OK, calm down, you know. But most of the time I'm not a lead read. I don't really drink like that. So it's like, yeah, me either. I'm like this. You're like, you know, you're a fan, but you're been drinking all day. You know, then you you you're not even not even listening to me. You ask me, but you're not like so then sometimes. So I got I got a funny little little triggers. I'd say that's pretty that someone is in touch with them. So yeah, I'd say it's a grounded perspective where you're you as much success as you've had, you're still on the ground. And I think when someone is not grounded in their behavior, that it probably triggers you because your sanity. Yeah, I'm just so cool. It's just so much stuff that I wouldn't do. No, I don't know who I saw. I like that. Yeah. So it's like, man. The way I look at therapy, I'll just share with you the way I look at it after 12 years. You've been getting therapy for 12 years. I look at it like going into I look at it like martial arts. Let me ask you this. Is it the same person or you switched there? Same guy for the last I had to look for a few. And then I found a guy who's incredible. And it's like y'all been locked in for 20 years. And it's like we it's like we're in the the gym. It's not sitting on a couch and crying, even though I have once or twice or three times or in a who's kind of every week. But it feels to me like I'm learning martial arts. If I can master my own inner self, what it's done for me is it's slowed the game down so slow. I can process in real time what something feels like. And I can also see something coming a mile away. I can see someone is anxious. I can see someone who's got low self-esteem. I can see someone who doesn't. I can see a lot in learning myself because we're all the same kind of. OK. And and I think it's made me more one. Obviously, it's made me happier. And I've also gotten to a place where I do really, truly understand how my brain works, what my triggers are, what what things I got to look out for. You know, old stuff that that's still there. It's not like it ever goes away, but you become acutely aware how the past influences the present and what you could be getting in the way of if you if you don't keep an eye on it, you know. So I would always I would say if you find someone that you respect, you can get a lot of really good work done. But I think the book like you recognized it as like a therapeutic process. There's a lot of other ways to do therapy. OK. You know, and I think that this was for me like to hear that you've never done therapy, which it was not like I'm like you could never do therapy and still do therapy and you become aware of what's therapeutic for you and what's not. But it is like it's like this trend that that sin where a lot of people are doing therapy and it almost makes it seem like I don't think like. Oh, God. Another another podcast, another this is almost like, you know, I kind of I kind of feel that way when I kind of tiptoe through there like. Yeah, no, I feel I hadn't you know, I hadn't done the work because I see so many people like I done the work, I done the work, done work. Like I know like I'm smart enough to like know some of these things like. Well, you have a degree. Yeah, I think that that that too. And then that's what. So I had to go to that. That was maybe my college. I probably got a degree by now because my therapist is like a teacher as well. But you went and learned. So I'm saying the style of therapy, maybe you haven't done, but you have done that. Yeah, I got you. You know, I got you. I got you. I can see that. I think it's necessary to grow to work on ourselves, whatever that means. Some people, it's physical. It's like they are in the gym or they're doing martial arts or they're doing whatever to do something that causes you to grow. It's why I was excited to talk to you because anyone that would create a book. That's not just another look, you have an interesting life. Right. It goes without saying because of who you are. It's an interesting life. But to take that and put it into a book in a way that's more thoughtful and more what I think is therapeutic. Yeah. Because what you're doing is you're allowing people to take with something that you've realized and apply it to their life in hopes that they maybe find and improve their life. Yeah, like whether they listen to it or not, try to hear it first. Yeah. That's a start. Yeah. Or if you have heard or acknowledged it, you know, you can call it, you can give it a name for all I care. Yeah, you can really have an imaginary. That's what you think about as someone, an imaginary friend, ideas probably are that kind of thing matter came from. You see people talking to themselves. You don't know. Well, you think about kids. They're like the most honest beings on the planet. And you're probably right. Like their imaginary friend is likely. Yeah. It's just really like playing with a doll like, you know, move. You stop. They just be in their own little world. Yeah. It just depends on how you see stuff. You know, man, it was it was something. Are you happy with the result? I am. I am because it's a conversation piece. And that's something that we need, man. What's going on in the world is just something to get the conversation started. Man, it's not it's definitely not going to solve the problems that we're dealing with in the world. But I think this is my way of giving back to my community and even people outside of like I said, outside of hip hop. I like, you know, it's like it's my legacy play. Me giving them like it's going to ultimately like my cheat sheet. Like how you keep getting A's on the exam? Like, you know, something told me to just like do this and then it worked, you know? And so I feel like you get an A plus for your career. Yeah, that's that's dope. We need a form for an O. Yeah. We need the valedictorian, man. Are you happy with it? I'm very happy, man. I'm happy with it, man. You know, yeah, great career. Yeah. It's awesome, man. Yeah, it's not easy to get that. No, longevity is you know, sometimes you look up and you got a career. You've been doing it long enough to call it a career. But it says a lot. It's a consistent person that works hard because people see the highlight reels always, they don't see the in between. They don't see practice. Yeah, it's interesting because like and if anything, the world has a tendency to celebrate our falls, our injuries. It's like we watch sports, we see someone get injured and we're like, oh, it's it's oh, we have compassion. We can feel the pain of like this incredible athlete just ended their career and everyone it's like a sad moment. But what's what's the part is when they come back? Yeah. And we are scared. Not the person that comes back. We're looking like, man, is he coming back too early? But they know the work they put in. Yeah. They know the sleep. They know what they we so we're not privy to a lot of that. But that's what this is, man. It's like sometimes it's about showing the practice for this too. You know, and that's kind of what this is. I'm just revealing some layers back. I still very much love music. I have an album coming out this year called Players Only Live Once because that's what I feel like I am, man. But I'm leaving my mark. This is a legacy play for me. This is something that like had to figure out something, man. And I'm not done. But this was something this is something that I'm I'm really confident in the work that I put in from the artistic cover. And that that cover was created by artists by the name of the Reese Walker. He does pastel art. So he he drew that cover for me, man. And it's just like everything about it is artistic. Everything about it is. Yeah, it's great. It's different. Me as a musician expressing myself in the in the book world, you know. And yeah, it's got style to it. He's got styles, got grace. It's putting on a on a on a display of how how you should put a book out and how you should do an audio book, how you should. It's a creative. It's an artistic. It's just you think about it like artists are just like that. Yeah, we have an eye for style. We're not afraid to say things different. And so I think I'm very happy you did this book. When's the album come out? The album is coming out in August. I would like to describe my album because I feel like you you're creative. You can feel it. Yeah. My album sounds like an all white suit or an all white party that's serving red wine. Yeah, it just feels like that. It's just upscale is high end. And you know, a white suit and red wine is it's diabolical. It's almost insane. It's crazy. It's if you can get back home without that stain on you. That's some that's a good that's that's you know, it's precision. It's a it's a like that's a kind of challenge in there, but it's kind of a vibe. It's precision. Yeah. And so that's what this is, man. You can't feel that you know, you can't fill it up too high. You know, you just got to know how to hold it. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so this is what my music sounds like. It feels like this, but it sounds like this. And it's just me being inside my head again and just me being me and just this is the best way I can describe the project that I'm putting out this year. So it falls in line with what I'm doing, what I'm doing. Do you feel like the album in the book or somehow connected? Yeah, because when we're not talking about players only live once, when I talk about players for people who want to like, what's up player? Does it it's not like I'm like dressing up like a player like players more like a demeanor, cool laid back. Man, players are like, look, that is like people who can have a source of game teaching, they like, man, it's in dear man. And when I say, you know, players only live once, it's like a comment, like real players. When they leave, they are felt like they felt ball because they touch so many people. They touch so many people along the way. Everybody got a good story about them. And so in this project, I have a song entitled Pops, which tells like this. I mean, I don't even know how I can fit a story like this in such a short, you know, three minutes span. But, you know, it has that kind of content. I have a song. I'm I'm married, but I have a song on there that not talk about me being having infidelity, but it just it talks about being in the industry and having someone that you love. I mean, so it just I touch on a lot of lifestyle stuff and then I touch on, you know, just where I am. Is pop about your dad? Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, my dad was like, well, like most kids, you know, like my first person I kind of looked up to. Of course. Like even like he had stories about him and knowing like his DNA was like I had that in me like somewhere like he ended up. Like the first maybe seven years of our life, we probably would have got together and then like the last seven years when he got out of prison, I moved him in with me and then he eventually end up passing in front of me. And so I talk about that, but in a way that it's a very similar. Pass. Yeah. Interesting, right? Yeah, interesting. Who knew we were together? Me and my dad were together in the beginning when I was young and then I didn't see him till the last 10 years of his life, which were actually great. What? What? Because you kind of swallowed that little you kind of want to be around him or be, you know, I was so happy. Like I picked him up from prison and I was like, man, you stand with me now. I was excited to know him. Yeah, it's like he moved in the house and like, I mean, I knew we talked on the phone. Yeah, but it was just like a lot. And I listened to a lot of the stuff he said, you know, I mean, I was like, I wasn't. But when he moved in, it was like able to wake up. Really bond. Yeah, bond, riding the same car together. We smoke, we smoke together. Yeah, that's cool. We, you know, it's bonding. It's something that you have to be bonding. That's the word. And it's weird with men. We can't really talk about it. But like, because it's like, I don't know, it's weird. We all have to kind of be tough. But yeah, like when you're little and you're just a kid and you don't know any better, what do you want? You want your dad to hug you? Yeah, you want to like you're five years old. You want to hold his hand. You feel safe. He's your hero. You all you want is your dad to say like, ah, good boy, good job. Yeah, or like, and I didn't get to have that. But because he was tough. He was really tough. Boys don't cry. Yeah, we're from that. Yeah, yeah, you get a lot of hugs. Yeah, a lot of hugs. Don't let them let them, you know, you fall down. You know, it's not like, you know, I'm from the same. You know, I feel like we just from that. And so that generation of men. Yeah, yeah. So we don't, you know, now they they encourage the boys and stuff to cry now. But yeah, it's it's it's it's like, just cry. Boy, I don't want to cry. No, but cry to make you feel like I don't know. You should get into what you're just go cry. Sensitive. Just go figure. Yeah. But but my dad was like, man, and it's crazy for him to be on some. Don't cry soon as he passed. I just like needed windshield wipers. I was crying. So I was too. Yeah, but but it's like. Oh, I was balling. Yeah, but it's it's. It's tough. Yeah, it is, man. But we don't know one. We don't talk about it at all. And we definitely don't make songs about it. So for like a rap dude, it like be like, man, I'm glad you know. I'm saying I'm really glad you did. Well, yeah, man, because I don't care who you are, man. You'd be the toughest guy in the world. You started as a little kid. You know, people are like they just came out 14. Yeah, you you just you were just born. Yeah, 21 and gangster. But see, that's what my dad was. So because he got a little gangster. He really told me like, you know, I shit, man, I had myself, you know, I I he claimed wasn't no doctors. And he just doled him. Just kind of came out and it was just him and you know, I mean, like get out of here, dude, but that's a defense mechanism for not getting love. Oh, word. I think so. My dad was the same. My dad, my my my granddad was a World War two vet and he was a tough house. And and he didn't get a lot of love either. He didn't get any affection. He didn't get any. Are you OK? Or like, hey, you know, whatever. So so then put, you know, drinking on top of that. And he was a very tough guy. And then when I got back with him later on in life, I was able because I was a grown man and I had kids and I'm pretty tender with my kids, man. I'm like, I like hug them and well now, you know, my son is a is a teenager. And he's he's like, but he's a dude. So I got back I'm back off. You do. Right. Yeah, because because he's he's like he's on his like he's a grown man type thing. So but when he was little, I was like, he was on my shoulder. He was like, you know, I do like, did he forget? You know what I mean? I was living vicariously through the relationship. Absolutely. Doing everything I wished I had, like whether it was fucking going and buying up Toys R Us or going to the whatever. I was just living vicariously through my kids when I had my kids because there was so much I felt I missed out on in my childhood that I would see in movies or I would see and I secretly like was like, I wish I had that. You know, you know. So then when I got an adult and had success in everything, it was like a big fucking kid in a candy shop. Every time my kids would me would do something. It was like me. I was the biggest kid in the equation. And so when my dad, the last 10 years of his life, we were we were really good friends. When we got to talk about it a little bit, he was pretty tough, but he heard me. And I know he heard me. And then when he passed away, it was it was it was sudden. And I was really sad. Those hurt. The sudden ones hurt. My dad was getting sick. And so it's like you kind of know something's wrong. But the sudden sudden I didn't get to say goodbye. Sudden deaths are the I didn't I felt like I did. My dad was in the hospital and he told me because I was about to go to a show. So I'm like, you cool. And he told me out of his mouth, I'm not about to die any time soon. He literally said, I'm not about to die on time. So when I came back, he was on like he was on like a breathing, he had a tube down his throat and his chest was going up now. Like I'm like, what happened since I've been you know, since I've been gone. So yeah, it's painful. My dad used to say, man, I'm healthy as a rat. Don't worry about me. And I was like, dad, I kind of worried about you because he was he was he was drinking. But he has a rat is man, I'm a hell of a rat. I was like, nothing's going to kill me. I'm not sure how to take that's kind of our rats. I mean, they do survive. They do survive. I mean, by it, but it seemed like he was like, I'm fine. I'm good old country, little back row. So he is a rat. He's a man. I'm healthy as a rat. I thought I heard everything. I never heard that. That was the first time I heard it, too. But I do feel like after he passed away, going back to the spiritual, like nature of life and the transcendent part of life, I feel closer to him. I feel like he's getting to be the father he didn't get to be on earth somehow spiritually. If you believe it, it is what it is. Yeah. But it doesn't we have very similar relationships with our dad? Similar paths. We've all seen plenty of people come and go and it's not a luck thing. It is absolutely a work thing and taking every single opportunity and analyzing it and deciding should I do that? Should I do that? That is that is how a career is built. So when I see guys like you, I always respect because I know the work, the hours, the minutes, the the dedication it takes to the craft, to the work and what you have to sacrifice sometimes to have it. So you get all my respect. Congrats on the book. I can't wait to listen to it. Thank you, man. Thanks, bro. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you for watching Art is Friendly. If you like this episode, please make sure you hit the like button. You follow the channel and please share it with your friends. I appreciate the support. That is why this show exists because you listen to it. Thank you guys. We'll see you next time.