Vince Staples

00:00:00
Speaker 1: The Questlove Show is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to an episode of the Questlove Show. My name is Questlove. I'm going to be very honest with you. Most artists have integrity, their integrity meter that sort of flickers. And I feel like our guest today sort of pinned that meter on full. And I'll be honest with you, since day one, I've been a fan of his, but I'll make a confession here on this platform, which is that I was afraid to work with our guest today because I talked myself in my head that I would be the one blemish on what is otherwise probably one of the most, this is not brown smoke, you know, hyperbole, but, you know, I feel like his career is really like one of the most exemplary, remarkable runs of artistic growth that an artist can hope for. Like you've seen artists that will evolve forever. from point A to point B, and then they make this Radical record, and then they make a Departure record, and then they make a Jazz record, and then they make whatever. But, you know, I've watched him pull off, like, musical impossibilities, like, in this entire career. 10-plus projects, be it LPs or EPs or mixtapes or whatever, and somehow he's managed to turn all types of emotions, be it fear, anger, surrealism, and to a kind of cathartic means of expression. And, you know, he's also armed with wit, humor. Really, I mean, his number one weapon, I would probably say, is honesty. And it does it with absolute bullseye execution and manages to sort of speak to every generation from references that only boomers would know, that Gen X would only know, that millennials would only know, and alphas and whatever, so on, And especially on his latest album, which, you know, one could say is rock leaning. Cry Baby is no exception. I didn't bring him here necessarily to figure out like what makes him tick. But I kind of brought him here so I could learn something because I'd need people to follow suit. And I really hate over-praising people in front of them because I think it makes them uncomfortable. But I feel like a genius of his order really needs to be studied and followed. And I don't feel like the world really puts him in the conversation of, you know, artiste or, you know, italicized artist enough. And he kind of makes the rest of us out here feel like we're cosplaying as artists. So... I want to welcome someone that I really admire as a fan, Vince Staples.

00:03:20
Speaker 2: Thanks, man. I appreciate that.

00:03:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:03:22
Speaker 2: That was kind of you.

00:03:23
Speaker 1: Because I believe that you have not even high standard, just a general standard. And sometimes people will say this to me often. They'll often say to Roots, like, oh, man, I feel like a fraud in front of you guys. And there's always been an isolation thing. For you, though, do you... feel as though you have community support or is it just like the if you know you know thing that sort of fuels the gas in your car?

00:03:51
Speaker 2: I think it really depends on what you consider community to be and what you consider support to be. Right. I think aspiring is a strong motivator for a lot of people even if we don't notice it. So people can only support you within the boundaries of what they want for themselves. So if people want to get out of the hood and they feel like you've gotten out the hood, then they'll support that. If they support, I guess, your creativity or they support your background, if they support the financial elements of it or whatever they think your politics might be, then they'll support that. So I think that we do have, or I do have a decent amount of support and community, but I think it's scattered because people kind of view me in different lights. You know, it's not like an overall consensus of this is how I feel about this person with me, I feel.

00:04:44
Speaker 1: I've learned this myself. I'm definitely in the zone where I'm like all things to all people. And I have first five Roots albums only people I got. I was seven when you guys did that song on Yo Gabba Gabba people. I had people that, you know, only saw like my Finding Your Roots episode. I mean, for you, though. there's different ways that we enter you. I know people that just know you just for your Netflix show. I know people that know you because you give like one of the greatest interviews ever. So like your sizzle reel of just your quotables on your interviews alone is like, yeah, man, he's crazy. He's funny. He's like, you know, that sort of thing. Does it frustrate you that sometimes they don't look under the hood to see what it is that you really do?

00:05:34
Speaker 2: When I started making music, it wasn't, that many people around. I think that's kind of carried over to today. So when I first started making music as a teenager, I don't want to miss anybody, but there was a guy named DJ that lived near me. His rap name was Lavish at the time. This guy named Chuck Rubin. Rubin's producer name was Chuck One. And there was a guy named Emmanuel. I think his rap name was E-Mans. And there was a studio on 60th and John across the street from Bret Hart local school. We recorded there and it was pretty much only us. And then after that, whether that's working very specifically with Mike G or Sid and Matt that later kind of formed the internet or working with Earl Sweatshirt or Speaks or kind of these people, there were never that many people around So there was never, I guess I would say crowdsourcing. There was never like a brainstorm, like when it came to making music. And I think that.

00:06:47
Speaker 1: So you never did like focus groups? Like, what do you think about this?

00:06:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, never. So I think I just was kind of stuck with my own perception of things and the way that I view the world or kind of my own thoughts. And because I was from such a different, I guess, background and everybody else, I didn't have any relatability factor. When it came to if people thought it was good or not. So at the beginning, I really didn't have any connection to music because I was just, I would say the middle part when I got with like kind of sitting in my, just was making whatever kind of fit into their world just because I didn't really have anywhere to go. And I wasn't going to school and stuff like that, to be honest. I was just like hanging because I had a nice house and shit. So I was like, I don't want to kind of spoil that because it was cool. And then mom cooked and it was a bunch of like cool stuff going on over there. So I think that was a big part of it. But when it came time to actually make music, I kind of only had my own thoughts. So I never had anyone say, this is too dark or this is too much. It was a really weird thing to where anyone that I worked with knew me on an extremely personal level. So it wasn't as bad as it kind of could have been or wasn't as dark as it could have been, I guess, if we want to talk about the darkness of it. But I think that the thoughtfulness that's kind of applied to the music is an entry point thing. So when you think about just to kind of round out what you were saying, the interview shit is like, all right, people kind of get uncomfortable. When people get uncomfortable, they laugh. Or it's like, oh, I can't believe he says whatever he wants to say. And it's like, that's kind of funny. And then the show shit is just an easy entry point because when we think about how people digest music, especially hip-hop music now, it's not kind of what it used to be. When I was younger, if people would ask me if I was into music or I listened to a lot of music, I would have said no just because it meant a much different thing. But now, You have people that listen to thousands of songs and they don't necessarily covet them as much as I might have coveted the couple songs that I knew no matter where I got them from. But I think I would probably have more music logic than would be considered typical for someone that makes the music I make within the genres that I make it. So I think it's just kind of a snowball of just time passing. And I think that I've been dated. stylistically or just in the way that I perceive music since I came out. And that's because people kind of knew who I was three or four years after Tyler and Earl and all those people. So I was newer in 2014, 15, 13, but I had been making music since 2009, if that makes sense.

00:09:24
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like the way that the whole idea of the concept of our future, when it was first presented to me, Weird enough, it was presented to me back when the Lonely Island guys were still on SNL. And they would come down and suggest shit and whatever. So they were explaining to me, like, yo, there's a new collective out there with all these rappers and everything. And then one night I went to go see them perform, and it was just like 30 people on a New York stage. And then I learned that later, like, these are different collectives and whatnot. Like, were you ever officially in?

00:10:00
Speaker 2: In that circle? No, I just knew them. Yeah, I just knew them. And Sid had a studio in her guest home.

00:10:08
Speaker 1: Right.

00:10:09
Speaker 2: And a lot of people recorded there. I just think I'm one of the people that was able to sustain something on my own.

00:10:16
Speaker 1: Right.

00:10:17
Speaker 2: Not on my own as if I didn't have help, but just outside of that collective structure. And I know that's very, very important to hip hop. At least it used to be. So it's like you have to be tied to something, even if it's just like in theory.

00:10:29
Speaker 1: Right. Well, I love the idea of a collective. That's what I try to do with Soulquarians. And it was never on purpose. Literally, the Soulquarians ended the day we did that vibe shoot. We did a thing, it was like, you know, D'Angelo, me, Erica, most, like, all these little suspects. The day we took that photo, immediately, that's when our powers kept, like, oh, wait, we're a collective? And then that's when it fell apart. But for a good four years, it was just, you knew that you could use the bathroom at Electric Lady because the three of us would have all the studios locked down. Mm-hmm. And then you get on keyboards and start jamming and the next thing you know, the tape is running and you're making a song. But I just always like romanticize the idea of a collective. And, you know, I kind of, in my mind, and I guess that might be a Gen X thing. Like I just wanted to see that thing again that I saw Wu-Tang do. And then I saw the Native Tongues do. And that, you know, so.

00:11:31
Speaker 2: And I think music translated from it being something that you don't, needed other people to do to kind of something that you were able to do in your bedroom on your own through splice loops and things of that nature and YouTube and social media. So like my first projects didn't have like a home. It was like media fire links and things of that nature that you just put on the internet. Right. And, um, so as time changes, these things change, but I feel like it's all historical context. Like if we're trying to reference something that happened yesterday or last week or last year or last decade, We're going to need a name for it. It's just a human thing. It's never bothered me. But I've never worked closely with anybody, to be honest. I don't think I've ever worked with anybody for more than maybe a project and a half, if that.

00:12:20
Speaker 1: I can tell that. And the fact that you can make it. Your albums do sound like it was created by one person. You know what I mean? And that's what I admire the most about it. Now, that was my pre-question. My first real question is to you. What is your idea of perfect happiness? And do you believe that it's genuinely obtainable?

00:12:43
Speaker 2: I think happiness is allowing yourself to be content within your circumstances. And, you know, the success and the failures of life and just being content with that. So I do think it's attainable. I don't think a lot of people want it. I feel like, especially within a creative medium, you kind of need chip on your shoulder or you just need something to kind of propel you forward yeah the conflict is important so um but for me I don't I'm not like a competitive type person like I've never been that kind of person so I think it's relatively easy for me to find some sort of happiness or peace you know in life like I'm very realistic about where I am like creatively financially um I've been able to sustain a lifestyle and take care of my family with having music that most people don't know Or, you know, be in a face that most people don't know. More people know me from Abbott Elementary than my two-decade-long music career.

00:13:41
Speaker 1: Same.

00:13:42
Speaker 2: And I don't look at that as if it's a negative thing. I look at it as, oh, I get to go to the grocery store. Or, you know what I mean? I get to go to the park or ride a bike or yada yada. So I think that there's something to look forward to in everything. And I think that's probably just because of my background and things of that nature. So you kind of do certain things and you live certain types of lifestyles. certain things just kind of be minuscule and like almost silly. So when it comes to like happiness and things of that nature, like if you can be content with who you are and where you are, I think that's a beautiful thing. But also I think it reflects in writing because you're able to kind of stay on you and your life because that's really what people care about, your perspective, but you're able to kind of give a new outlook on it because as you become more content with your surroundings and you're more aware of where you actually are, You're able to kind of have a new outlook on the same stories.

00:14:33
Speaker 1: Are you at all concerned about being typecast? I'll give an example. So I know that there's a sect of fans that love the idea of a depressed Mary J. Blige because she will then express a kind of blue misery that they themselves feel and that they can relate to. And then every two albums, Mary finds happiness and a bright spot. And then the fans are a little like, man, she's happy now. Fuck this. Do you ever worry that finding content and happiness might affect the product that is attracting us to you?

00:15:18
Speaker 2: It starts early, right? Because for one, you have family. So being an outlier within your own family, then kind of being an outlier within your community and like being an outlier within the kind of micro communities that exist in these communities. And, you know, being the weird dude from the weird gang in the weird city, music is relatively easy. The entire time I've made music, most people haven't liked my music. And I don't think it's because. Yeah, for sure. But I don't think it's because of.

00:15:51
Speaker 1: So I don't count.

00:15:53
Speaker 2: This is what I mean, right? We look at things from a certain vantage point. Okay, he's from California. Okay, he's from Los Angeles. Okay, he's a gang member making gangster rap. They don't look like that. Automatically, people are thrown off since I've started making music. So I think not really necessarily fitting into how people perceive things isn't a me problem and it's also not a them problem. That's just the gaze of how we understand things. So I think proximity and like your reality being defined like I don't want to say it in a negative way but just not being full of shit are important because if I know that most people don't understand these street dynamics I know most black people are good and kind and hardworking God fearing people that go to church every Sunday and have grandma with the groceries and I say that in a good way not to make it sound like a slight people just think I'm always being an asshole nowadays but it's the comedy shit but then I don't It doesn't bother me that people are probably more comfortable seeing this black woman depressed or more comfortable seeing this black man rap about the street or more comfortable seeing, you know what I mean? These kind of, I don't want to say stereotypes, but these kind of tropes that are very real in a lot of our communities and are the easier connection points. So I think that because of the people I started making music with, like, I remember when that stuff started with, you know, Tyler and Tebbe and all these guys. Most people locally called them weird and didn't support them. And to this day, it's very hard to find local people within our communities that support their music. A lot of people support the success that's been garnered from it, but people to this day still talk about if Tyler's a real L.A. artist or things like that when he's playing in Renions and it's kind of world-renowned. It's silly to me. So I think that I've always noticed that. So when it comes to people wanting things from me, I understand they're wanting something based on their perception of something that they have no idea of for real.

00:17:59
Speaker 1: Do you have a morning routine? And what is it? Like, what's the first thing you did in the half hour this morning? What did you do?

00:18:07
Speaker 2: Today I flew here when I got here.

00:18:10
Speaker 1: Oh, you literally landed and shit.

00:18:13
Speaker 2: 8 a.m. All right.

00:18:14
Speaker 1: I appreciate this.

00:18:15
Speaker 2: No, it's all good, bro. Yeah, usually I wake up like 4 o'clock. let the dogs outside, do some stuff around the house, kind of do some family stuff. But I'm relatively simple, bro. I never thought I would do anything. So I never had any dream or aspiration or anything like that growing up. So life is pretty simple for me, as wild as that might seem. But I think it's important to think and kind of be within your own thoughts because that's kind of our job. So I just try to have as much... clarity as possible like I rarely work like on music I rarely I don't have meetings we don't do any of that Corey pretty much does everything to be honest.

00:19:03
Speaker 3: Um but it's like Corey hello yeah hello Corey yeah the people can hear that wave Corey Corey Smith I don't really ask for much bro but I think um stillness is kind of important quiet is important um Because without that, I can't really think. And I'm still in the same place where I grew up. I still know the same people and have the same friends where I grew up. So my life is extremely simple, bro.

00:19:33
Speaker 1: Got you. What time do you typically go to sleep?

00:19:37
Speaker 2: Like 9, something. Maybe 10 or something. Somebody call me.

00:19:41
Speaker 1: Every lyrical genius I know has the same routine, which is... They want to be in bed by... 8.39 so that they can get up. Tariq might get up at 3.30 a.m. just so that he can have four to five hours of no kids, no, like he gets the house to himself. And like silence is his favorite thing on earth.

00:20:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't have a lot of music. I know, of course, more now, and I try to study as much as I can, learn as much as I can, but my musical knowledge is few and far between. So it's like for me to be able to receive what other people are saying, what other people are trying to push musically, I think I have to know where I am at all times. Because even when it comes to translation, if I have an idea... I have to go find the music to explain it to someone. I don't have, hey, let's make an album that sounds like this. And I feel like that's very valuable, especially working with producers and things like that. So I just really need the time to figure out what I'm thinking and what I'm trying to not really say, but do.

00:21:08
Speaker 1: What singular event or occurrence that happened in your life was the tipping point? Like what singular event changed your life that brought you kind of here to this day?

00:21:20
Speaker 2: I think it's going to be hard just because I've kind of been an attentive person for a long time. I always notice like a certain complacency or just like a laziness in my broader family. And I knew I didn't want to do that. And I was going to kind of figure it out. I didn't want to be one of those people that kind of just let life happen to them. And there have been a lot of things that have happened in my family, to my family, to where I feel like I would have reacted differently. And I think coming from an immature place, being a kid, it was kind of like out of disdain for them. So ever since I was a kid, I kind of didn't relate to my family. Or like even my friends. I don't want to put it specifically on my family, but I think the people of my environment, I had an understanding of what the environment was and how the environment got there. I just didn't realize like, for example, this is an example. I grew up with no white friends or like white people around us, period. So it's like when we got to school, like it's not that you're not speaking to your teachers. It's just that I'm not speaking to white people. Because I see no point. Because you go, you're at home and grandma's talking about the man and crackers and this and that and that. But then it's like, why are y'all speaking to them? Like being a child, not knowing.

00:22:44
Speaker 1: Right.

00:22:45
Speaker 2: Understanding kind of like the socioeconomics of the fucking world. So it's like, I always felt like I was one of those people that was like, if you don't like something, like do something about it. Like complaining about it felt weird to me. So like, that's just a silly example of like doing things that don't make sense. Kind of put you on an island by yourself.

00:23:02
Speaker 1: So you always felt like the black sheep or the outcast of whatever situation that you were in?

00:23:07
Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn't even say that because I don't think I was ever treated poorly for the most part. I think that I just had a different perspective on things. So like, I didn't really try to find it for a long time, but I never felt, it's kind of hard to explain, but I've never felt like I was working towards something or against something. I was just kind of like existing, so to say. So when it came to music, And just even other things, but music is the first thing I've ever, like, done. I've never done anything before music. Anything else? You know, you play sports and shit like that as a kid, but, like, you don't really care about that. You skateboard and things like that. When you're just doing child stuff, and music is, like, the first thing I've ever, like, been, like, I'm going to do this. And I think I was, like, 14, 15, probably. And I'm still relatively young, like, in retrospect. I'm 33 now. So I think, like, it just never seemed difficult to me. Because if I'm counting the amount of people that I'm counting, it was microscopic, for lack of better words. I don't know a lot about a lot of music, but I know a lot of Blue Albums and MERS and things of that nature that were kind of more local in the area. So I was like, oh, that's kind of what, not success, but that's what practice, music and practice looked like to me. That's not hard to just go get up and do to me because I'm like, okay, if I'm at school and four or five people know who this person is, this person is going to be a success and I just need four or five listeners, so to say. So I think there was never like a turning point. It was just like consistent. If I had to pick, it's just to be real, it's just like Corey doing shit because I've never done anything except for like try to get better at making music.

00:24:55
Speaker 1: Are you saying that like blue and exile was sort of like a, I'm not alone moment or most people have their calling when they hear an album or something like, Oh my God, this is me. Like, who did you feel was speaking to you? Or did you just listen to hip hop as like a them thing? Like I listened to NWA as a them thing. Like this is what they're talking about.

00:25:19
Speaker 2: Even though like, but I think I was too late in the game. Cause you, cause like, I explained to Corey one time that, um, He was talking about 50 Cent, and I was like, I remember getting Richard I. Tron like I was in the third grade. And that was... Oh, God, I'm over it. You get what I'm saying? So I can't say there's ever been a moment where hip-hop wasn't... Like, I know Rebirth of Slick. I know Houdini songs. I know.

00:25:43
Speaker 1: You know mad references for the time period that you should not be knowing that shit. And I'm like, who's the older person in your life that's like.

00:25:50
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, my parents... Oh, my parents weren't listening to rap music at all, to be honest. But what I'm saying is, like, I think just the access was different in the time and where I grew up because you have VH1. We didn't have cable. So you go to grandma's house or godmother's house and you're on TV all day. So you got MTV jams and VH1 and things like that. So these things were just playing all the time. You know what I mean?

00:26:12
Speaker 1: Right. Okay.

00:26:13
Speaker 2: So I think like whether it's Cyndi Lauper or like Wham and things like that, it's just I only know big music.

00:26:22
Speaker 1: You took it in?

00:26:23
Speaker 2: Very small shit. Yeah, because it was just there. So when I think about, I think Blue in Exile and those kinds of things, I forgot the guy's name, but it was a project named Ghetto Pop Life, Atmosphere. These are all things that my friends knew. And that was the first time that something was brought to me in that kind of transactional kind of situation, I think, in elementary school. And that's Aaron Liddy and Jackson DeLoach and the music that they listened to. And, um, Kai Burleson knew a lot more of the local LA kind of stuff. Cause we have similar backgrounds. Jackson and Aaron had different backgrounds than me and Kai had, but I went to a small school in Compton behind the liquor store from fourth to eighth grade. Steve Lacey went there too. So there weren't that many people that I ran across cause I didn't really do that well in school earlier. I got in trouble early and later, but went on to that school was fine. But, um, It was all black people, one Hispanic kid named Jose and one white kid named Tristan because Mother Thomas, who worked at the front desk, was his grandmother. And other than that, it was only black people from Long Beach, Compton, Gardena, surrounding areas type of thing. So hip hop being so ingrained in black culture at that time, I don't remember when it wasn't around. I think my earliest hip hop memories are probably with my father, which would probably be like outcast but he didn't like any other kind of rap music and then like my sister's uh my sister's husband at the time had like spice one and dj quick and stuff like that because he from cross atlantic so he had all the blood music right you know i mean so and he had a bunch of cds and he had other stuff too but um so it it really was more so the first thing that i guess signified my childhood and not something that was passed down i think in california At the time I was born and what hip hop music had became, it was something that was hereditary because culturally it aligned more so with gang culture and gang culture is hereditary. So Snoop and Quick and A, these people's Mossberg, Banging on Wax, these people, music is passed down if you're into a certain kind of lifestyle thing. And I don't think it's on purpose. I don't think it's like some mischievous thing that's happening within the black community. I just think it's... Creative epigenetics just gets passed down. Yeah, it just is what it is. So I think when it came to Blue and MERS and things like that, it was escapism, so to say, just because... And I don't want to make it seem like these people didn't grow up where we grew up because Jackson lived in Sunny Cove. He's still there to this day and part of the park villages in Compton and his pops live around the corner from Stevenson Village in Carson and Aaron lived. in Gardena on like 134th or 5th. So these are still people that grew up in the same environments that we grew up in, but they just had a different outlook. And yeah, I remember being handed that, but I'm not making the connection to blue and common and I'm not making a connection to Snoop and Slick Rick, the same way a lot of people now don't make the connection to Draco the Ruler and Earl Sweatshirt, which goes into MF Doom. So I just think it felt familiar enough, but it felt different enough. And I think that kind of opened up my eyes to the way that I viewed music. And like I said, that's elementary to middle school, and I started making music. I dropped out of high school in, what, 10th grade? And I started making music in the 10th grade, so it wasn't that far away.

00:30:04
Speaker 1: I'm glad you explained that to me, because, like, I came from a generation where the boomers who raised us were heavy with the kind of desk-pounding, no-listening-to-secular music.

00:30:18
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.

00:30:19
Speaker 1: Like, if you know the story of the Clark sisters, like, they would have to sneak to listen to Stevie Wonder. Like, in what life is Stevie Wonder, like, contraband? Mm-hmm. You know, so most of my punishments were always music related. Like, I was listening to Prince at 12. And that was like hell to pay if you're caught listening to that, you know, whatever. You know, I was jarred listening to... I have a theory about Give Rich or Die Trying. I mean, that came out in 2003. I was 32 years old. And there's a song in there called Heat. The song when J'Dre has the drums. I kill you.

00:30:55
Speaker 2: I ain't playing. You know what I'm saying?

00:30:56
Speaker 1: Right. So my manager... Made an observation. My manager, Richard Nichols, made an observation. He said he played the trump card. And I was like, what do you mean? And he predicted. He says, gangster rap is officially over. And I was like, what are you talking about? Rich is one of those guys where, like, his heroes are, like, Greg Tate, Stanley Crouch, like, the first generation of black critical thinkers.

00:31:21
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.

00:31:22
Speaker 1: Rich will call me at six in the morning. Like a lot of my personality is just the accumulated 20 year cycle of Rich calling me between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. where we just for four hours, just this. But more like, oh, and yo, man, like the state of jazz is fucked up right now. So he'll go off on a tangent. And, you know, that wears off on you. But he had a theory. And this is around the time in which let's cut like four or five years later when, you know, there's a point when graduation is about to come out for yay. And the third album from 50 Curtis. Yeah. Curtis. Yeah. And there was the whole thing like, who's going to win? Who's going to win? So naturally everyone's like had their money on 50 and we, and rich is like, no, this is going to be the tortoise and the hare story. And 50 sort of planted his ending without knowing it. And I was like, how do you figure? And he said that the Trump card, of the song Heat, the one trump card we never played, like the threat, the threat of gangsters.

00:32:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll kill you. I ain't playing my heart bleeds for you, nigga. I can't wait to get to you. Right.

00:32:35
Speaker 1: And so he said, never on history have we just ever said, nigga, I'll kill you. And his thing was like, basically, the Andre 3000, like, don't pull the thing out unless you prefer it. Like, if there's no killing that happens, then you're no longer scary. And it's almost after that moment where we stopped being scary, which as a result of now, we see like the blatant actions. Like no one's scared of us anymore as they used to be because I feel like the threat of us was more.

00:33:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's more Eminem. That's no longer an undo with 50.

00:33:12
Speaker 1: Explain.

00:33:13
Speaker 2: They do this thing, right?

00:33:15
Speaker 1: Where.

00:33:17
Speaker 2: They give you something or they help you with something and then act like it's their ideation right so it's when q did i'm gonna let you have it and he did some aid talking about how they stumped they hung me out and all kind of stuff or early banging on wax stuff i can just say california even kind of some more texas type stuff or bay stuff there was actuality behind um things that were happening there. A lot of things that happened with the original No Limit kind of regime in the Bay Area. There was a lot of ties to those things, but it only involved us. So it was kind of taboo. They weren't involved. I think that even if you think about the beat to heat and a lot of the perception of kind of popular culture, white America's connectivity with 50 was through their affinity for Eminem. And it was like, he's with us. Not that 50 cares about that or not. I don't think he would agree with that at all. But I feel like 50s, I wouldn't call it a drop off, but just the way that they kind of moved on to something else happens when it's not in our hands. Because when I was a child.

00:34:25
Speaker 1: Oh, we're disposable.

00:34:27
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? So when I was a child and 50 Cent came out and Kanye came out, being a young black child, with two hands, it's like we can carry both of these things. We're not ever the ones that sit us down. Like we didn't sit down Michael Jackson. We didn't sit down 50 Cent. We don't sit down any of our artists. Like they sit our artists down. So I think that a big part of that 50 thing was just white people being like, okay, what are we doing next? And AL technology is a thing. So, you know what I mean?

00:35:03
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you were going to have this eye-opening moment. I was waiting for some shit I never thought about.

00:35:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, Justin Timberlake. It's like white people. Sometimes they put us down, and it's like we never happen. A lot of the time, especially when it comes to the artists and our artists that they have an affinity for, they feel like they choose when it's over. But it's really interesting because they have so much buying power and such a control over... kind of the way that we think just based on, you know, institutional racism over hundreds of years that if they put them down, then we'll put them down too.

00:35:37
Speaker 1: Okay, so a person's disposable if their market rate is.

00:35:41
Speaker 2: So that's why I got to give 50, not give 50 because he doesn't need anything from me, but when it comes to some of our artists, it's like what I saw with that, and I was young, so maybe this is me being ignorant.

00:35:51
Speaker 1: Did it make an impression on you? What did you think as a third grader?

00:35:54
Speaker 2: Well, I just thought, oh, the white people picked Kanye up and they put 50 down. It's like a toy. It's like they want to play with Kanye now. They don't want to play with 50 anymore. This is our version of a Negro that we like. We don't like the gangster Negro anymore. It's just a little bit much for us. Let's get the nigger in the backpack. It's kind of how I viewed the whole.

00:36:14
Speaker 1: That's how you viewed it?

00:36:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, even like the fucking standoff, like they're fighting and stuff like that was very interesting.

00:36:20
Speaker 1: Slavery.

00:36:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, very interesting.

00:36:22
Speaker 1: Do you ever think there's a point where, and I say this sort of theoretically like, In your mind, is there ever a cosmic shift where like we can have four people be at the top or these.

00:36:38
Speaker 2: Group of people? I think when it comes to black people, we would prefer for us all to be at the top. We're just aware of the structure in which we have to kind of exist in. And I feel like a lot of the times when things happen, like black Marxism is still Marxism, which means the white people matter. did it first and okay, maybe they won't kill us all for trying this now. So I think that there's a, there's a self-awareness of the world that we exist in, in America for a lot of black people. And I feel like, um, even my gangster rap is always going to be around. I can play you 10 songs from 10 motherfuckers and I got killed for him. And, but if they don't touch it, then it's like, it's not real. You get what I'm saying? So I think it's a very, um, I just have kind of compassion for the artists or just our people when it comes to certain things, because it's like I'm pretty sure if you walked around Queens at that time or just New York or California, because before the game, the game 50 thing played more into how people perceived him where I come from than the Kanye thing. But I'm pretty sure no one was like, we want to give up on 50 Cent. after the massacre came out, that's a pool of funding or a few with the label or the, those are those things. And like I said, those aren't, they aren't necessarily up to us. We just know one day we stopped seeing as much of a person as we did before, but we're not really pulling those strings ever, you know, because gangster rap is bigger than it's ever been, you know, cause you can now, cause now, now they like real criminals. So since they like real criminals and like 50 Cent took his upbringing and became a musician from it, 50 Cent is a person that knew Jam Master Jay. It's not like he just popped up out of thin air with a gun. But now you can pop out of thin air with a gun if the YouTube video has enough views. And then you get a mini doc.

00:38:41
Speaker 1: Are you, and this is a dark question to ask. Are you surprised you're still here?

00:38:50
Speaker 2: Oh, not at all.

00:38:52
Speaker 1: So you even passed that.

00:38:53
Speaker 2: I'm from a racist place though. Like Long Beach is very racially segregated. Like our, our gang dynamics are all racial. So I'm, it doesn't, it wasn't like surprising to me. Like it's still like, that's getting better though.

00:39:08
Speaker 1: But, uh, So have you envisioned, have you dreamt or do you think in terms of like, yeah, in 2040, I will. Like for me back in 93, like 2004, you crazy? Yeah. Like I couldn't imagine that.

00:39:26
Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing. If you're talking about like being alive, I don't, it just, it happens. Like, if somebody catch you, they catch you. And that can be, whether it's a car accident or cancer or things like that, like, anything can happen to anybody. I'm kind of more for that moment. Like, I don't, I don't fear those days, but it's very possible. But for me, when I was a kid, I knew, like, you sign your permission slip. you have this Los Angeles kind of perception and then you get there and you're like, okay, most people out here that are black people aren't from gangs, don't commit crimes, don't get in trouble. So if you decide to be that small minority and something happens to you, I think everyone's kind of understanding that what they did, like it's not, sometimes you can just wake up and it happens to you, but no, it's pretty thought out. And you know, you kind of, you're indoctrinated by the lifestyle before you even do those things. You know, there's days of school and fights before you end up being from a clique. And then you end up being from a clique. And then before you end up being from a gang. And then you end up getting in 10 fights before you shoot one gun. And you end up shooting 10 guns before you shoot one person. And you shoot five people before you kill one person. So it's like at any point you can be like, ah, this is a little too much. Because I have a lot of homies from my neighborhood who like have never shot a gun before. Like a lot. And no one thinks less of them because they're our friends. You know what I mean? But I don't think the outside world knows that if if I start calling like my homies, like from my neighbor specifically, probably eight out of 10 people are at work right now. And then if I start calling just my overall friends, the numbers are going to increase. You know what I mean? Of people that are just living regular day to day lives. And if something happens, something happens.

00:41:09
Speaker 1: Are you allowed to get out of it? I've never heard someone speak of.

00:41:14
Speaker 2: All the other the shift from colors.

00:41:18
Speaker 1: This is when I hate this platform. One of my fears of ever talking to someone that has a proximity to this, this happened when Wallow was on the show. And what he told me about what prison is actually like is not like how it's sold to me on television. And the jaw-dropping reality, like my dad put me through hell to avoid prison. the Hollywoodization of what it was. And, you know, while it was borderline telling me, like, prison is one of the most serene, calm, like, and in my mind, I'm still thinking of, like, you know, I was forced to watch Scared Straight first came on, and I was six years old in 1977. Yeah. Yeah, I mean... So I grew up with the father that's pointing to.

00:42:14
Speaker 2: But he was supposed to do that, though. You know what I mean? I don't- You don't think so?

00:42:18
Speaker 1: You know what? That's what I'm wrestling right now in my life.

00:42:23
Speaker 2: That's my friend. He got 25 years for attempted murder. He's on a level 40180 yard, which is the highest security prison you can be on. Look at his book and look at the message underneath it.

00:42:33
Speaker 1: Am I allowed to read this?

00:42:34
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, you can.

00:42:35
Speaker 1: All right. The green is you.

00:42:36
Speaker 2: Or the- Yeah, the green is me, but read the gray.

00:42:40
Speaker 1: Okay. So green says, what's his name? Or are you allowed to?

00:42:44
Speaker 2: His name is, let me see, let me see, let me see, let me see. I got you.

00:42:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, you read your own narrative. Yeah, I'm like.

00:42:52
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, read all the gray, and I'll tell you what he's reading later.

00:42:55
Speaker 1: Okay. So there's a photo of a bunch of books, and he says. One book. Oh, well, it's a big box, so I thought it was a few books. This shit's a great book. I got to read more classics. I'm 13 chapters in out of 117.

00:43:10
Speaker 2: He's reading like the Odyssey or some shit.

00:43:15
Speaker 1: You send this to him? No, that's him.

00:43:17
Speaker 2: That's his life in prison on a 180 yard. So that ties in with what Waldo was saying. I've never seen him with a book in my life. But one day you might read the Odyssey. One day somebody might get stabbed to death. But that's life. You know what I mean? That can happen at work or on the bus or what's the pharmaceutical dude that got poked up? Yeah. It just happens, you know? So, I mean, your dad's kind of right, but I do understand what you're saying. I just think that when it comes to the street shit, I think people, human beings, have an issue with accountability. And through the game of telephone, it becomes, and I can only speak for where I'm from. I don't know what happens in West Virginia or anywhere else, but it's not.

00:43:57
Speaker 1: I've received the worst version of that narrative, which then thus explains... the rigid need for safety in my life, because I've been told, like, life was cool up until 11, and then my dad's like, you're a threat, you're a threat, you're a threat. So suddenly, like, I mean, he was raised in the Emmett Till era, so.

00:44:17
Speaker 2: You get what I'm saying?

00:44:18
Speaker 1: I can't walk behind white women. I got to run over here, like, I spent my whole life running. And so to sort of hear.

00:44:28
Speaker 2: I mean, just everyone has their different methods. You know, my parents are old. My mom is 70. My dad is around there a little bit younger. And my sister's old enough to be my mother.

00:44:40
Speaker 1: You're the youngest?

00:44:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I have a, it was just don't let nothing happen to you. You know, come home. But that's after a long bout with the reality of your current situation. So I think I was brought up in a very realistic situation. Like they knew the, They're coming from, my mom was born in Compton in the 1950s before a lot of black people start migrating, you know? So my family has been in California for a very long time. So I say that to say that they had a lot of time to sit with their reality and know the ins and outs and every nook and cranny of the community that they were in. And this is when the Spook Hunters was out and they was lynching people and setting people on fire and stuff like that. So to see Compton in the 50s, and then to see Compton in the 90s, and then we moved to Long Beach. I think they were able to be very honest kind of with me, especially things that kind of happened with my siblings earlier. I'll tell you off camera one day. But they were just a realistic approach to how I went through life, and that translated in music. So to this day, I don't really think about death or anything like that. I don't even think that my music or anything like that is that morbid. I just think it's realistic. But I don't think that a lot of people come from these environments with this sort of critical thought. Because my music is, I mean, there are things in my music that you'll find in Cypress Hill, that you'll find in King T, that you'll find in Ice-T, whether it's early Ice-T or Body Count, and that you'll find in, you know, a lot of things, you know?

00:46:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trying not to, because I also hate that whole, I'm pretty sure it irks you too, like when people start the fetishization thing, Of like, wow, here's someone really eloquent that can, you know, that can be both sides of it. And I know that's like.

00:46:35
Speaker 2: Well, see, I don't even get that mad at that because they don't know anyone. So if you don't know anybody from these areas that you've only heard these horror stories about, then you meet someone. Then you think that it's either extreme. It's either that they're really smart or they're really dumb. So like this is a community with a diverse range of people. that come from it. Um, so I don't, I don't really blame them for that. I just think they, they haven't spent much time or any time in a lot of these areas. Um, cause there are a lot to run away from, you know what I mean? So I think that like that, that's something that is very, I mean, Corey met a lot of my friends and he was like, yeah, I didn't know that it was like this out here because I think a lot of people put it on because they were working at the end of the day. So if you think that you're selling this within this industry, of course, you're going to display whatever you think the best product is based on the perception. I started young enough and I had enough diversity musically and kind of my friend group that I never, I still don't know what the industry or the music business is like about. I don't dabble. I don't do the parties. The other day I did, you'll think you'll like this. We did a Grammy museum thing, right? this guy that works KCRW or something like that came and did our, he was our mediator, really, really nice guy. And he was like, you haven't done any press. Why? And that's must be something new for you. And I was like, I don't like to really do press. And I really think I had anything to say that wasn't in the music. I think I did a good enough job with the music. So I just didn't think we needed to say anything. And then he was like, well, yada, yada, yada. Certain people might misunderstand you. And my response was, well, I just think most people aren't familiar with my music and that's okay. And then he was like, that's impossible because we're here and there's 200 people here. And I went project by project of who's heard this, who's heard that. And most people in the crowd have only heard probably one or two albums of mine. And they stood in line for hours to watch us speak. You know what I mean? So I think that there's such a disconnect nowadays between the actual study of the music and just being able to just blatantly say, I like this or just having an underlying appreciation for it. And I think it's never really bothered me because I always came up in an era where it's been the Internet. So more people dislike it than like it. But you see it. It's in your face. But you can survive off of it. So it's not that much pressure, if that makes sense. Damn, man.

00:49:05
Speaker 1: You're dropping. I got a lot to think about. I'm sorry. What is the fear that you've had since childhood that you find hard to let go?

00:49:15
Speaker 2: I just think being complacent. Kind of just letting life happen to you. is something I've kind of seen a lot of my family, as I was saying earlier.

00:49:22
Speaker 1: Being complacent as in, like, satisfied?

00:49:25
Speaker 2: No, just, like, what's the difference between, like, being, and I don't know if they mean the same thing, but it's, like, my viewpoint of, like, being content and, like, being complacent. Like, okay, I think you still have to strive for something to be content with it. All my family ever really gave anyone was like, you get like church and like Jesus and it's like, okay, pray and everything will be okay. And I was always the dumbest shit in the world to me. Like it makes no fucking sense to me. So I didn't want to be one of those people. Like I just see, I saw a lot of people just not try to do anything.

00:49:59
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of fear into that.

00:50:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. But I also think that I don't think people realize like, the severity of like California redlining and like, like the segregation of how the city's built. So like, if I got so many homies that have never been to the airport or like never been to, unless you like in somebody else hood, like never been to the Valley or never.

00:50:26
Speaker 1: Been to North Hollywood is like an experience for them. Yeah.

00:50:29
Speaker 2: Well, they, they'll never go. Like I had never really been to certain parts of LA until I started making music. And I don't think a lot of people come to Long Beach or like, it's like now it's a little bit different because the internet, when I was growing up, you didn't really venture out that much into these other places. So I just think it's limited. Like I had, until I was a grown ass man, like I didn't know where USC was or UCLA was or any of these kinds of things. So I just think that people, a lot of people that grow up in like these kind of, in these ghettos don't really know where else to go or know how to venture out. Like, and maybe I could be speaking for myself and my limited worldview, but We weren't really intertwined or aware of museums and live shows. I don't know one friend growing up that had ever been like, I'm going to a concert. I've never heard that in my life. I've never heard of certain things until I started making music. And I think just being in these bubbles kind of diminished us. I know in my family that wasn't.

00:51:23
Speaker 1: Were you an exception to that rule or you didn't start until you became an artist?

00:51:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I never been to a concert before.

00:51:29
Speaker 1: When's the first time that you were a patron to watch someone perform? And not like, I'm coming to support and I'm standing backstage with three songs and then I'm out.

00:51:38
Speaker 2: Probably my mid-20s.

00:51:39
Speaker 1: Who's the first concert?

00:51:44
Speaker 2: Does it count if someone I know has a show and I happen to go?

00:51:48
Speaker 1: But even then, if it's Erica or somebody or Jill, I'm going to watch from backstage because it's like, oh, my peer. I'm going to stop by. Yeah, I'll come through support. I hate that. I'm coming to the support. Correction, I actually sat in the audience and watched you as if like a real and watched from soup to nuts the entire show. But for you, like, is there someone that you were a fan of that you went to go see like them perform or that part just passed you by?

00:52:16
Speaker 2: My mom wanted to go see a Mother's Day concert at the Hollywood Bowl. It was like Dana Ross or some shit. And I was like in my mid-20s and we went there. When I was on tour once with Earl, We were in Vegas and he wanted to see some of Yeezus, so we were there for like five minutes because then they wanted to go do something else. He just wanted to stop in really quick because we were staying at the hotel that they had the venue at. That might be it until like, I think we recently started watching shows during festivals and stuff. We watched Tame Impala and LCD Sound System. at Primavera, I think 2015, 16. And I had never heard Tame Impala before. So that was like a cool experience. I know a couple of LCD Sound System songs, but I've never really like been to any concerts like that if it wasn't like for working. But no, like I said, you got to have good people around you. Corey gave me a bunch of CDs to listen to when I was a kid because I hadn't heard a lot of stuff. So usually like, you know, that's the thing about hip hop. is that people share and like alchemists is like that too. Like Tyler, like that too. They'll give you stuff to listen to or stuff to watch and things like that. So when, when it is like when someone tells me to listen to something or pay attention to something, I always go back and research, but I just, I just wasn't that aware. And I think that's kind of one thing that kind of helped me stay out of trouble was that I used to take the bus and the train to go to LA to record. It took like an hour and a half hour, 45 minutes. And just seeing certain stuff, like being, I had never been to Hollywood before in my life. So going there, and being older when I was like 16, 17, when I started going a lot, it was like kind of escapism, even though it was close. It was just interesting. Like it felt like a whole different world because I had never kind of seen those things or been in those areas before. I used to go on every single, uh, this guy has studio on, uh, Selma that we used to go to. Our guy, I think was on my studio. We used to go to a lot. It's one of those place streets. And I've been in every single one of those buildings. I done seen all them little bullshit ass museums and shops and things like that just because I had never experienced anything like that in my life.

00:54:29
Speaker 1: Once you get immersed inside of the river of the industry, has there been a figure that you allowed yourself to be sort of awestruck? Like, holy shit, I'm meeting blah, blah, blah.

00:54:40
Speaker 2: I haven't really met that many people because I kind of just work and go home. Like, I've never really been like the hangout type of person.

00:54:48
Speaker 1: Do you have a hero?

00:54:49
Speaker 2: Like, sports, politics, music. No, but I appreciate kind of what people contribute to the world. But I just don't think that's kind of my personality. But I don't think it's because I think that I'm above it. I just think I kind of just appreciate people who they are and what they do because that's very like baseline respect is like extremely important where I come from because it's like it can get you in a pickle. So I think if you tell me that you're a scientist, for sure. Until I see that you're not a scientist, that's questing. And because it's science, that's the homie that do science.

00:55:28
Speaker 1: So a person gets one chance to get your respect.

00:55:31
Speaker 2: Because you don't really get the lie. You don't get the lie like that. Look at basic interaction, right? So it's like, say, it's going to sound stupid, but just follow me. You meet somebody one day and it's like, my name is Whoopty Whoop and I'm from here. If I'm, oh, my name's Quest, and I'm from the podcast. And it's like, oh, that's Quest. That's the homie from the podcast. And we just start hanging out. And then, like, then one day you meet Corey. And it's like, oh, what's up? Oh, Corey, you from the podcast? Quest from the podcast, too. And then Corey go, I don't know that nigga.

00:56:00
Speaker 1: Does this happen a lot? A lot.

00:56:01
Speaker 2: Then it's like, oh. You not really from the podcast. You've been hanging out with us this whole time.

00:56:08
Speaker 1: Is this a California thing? Yeah. The idea of pulling someone's card. These are subjects that I only hear in California-based things.

00:56:14
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, but that's because I just think people just believe you. You feel me? It's like, if you over here, because it's not the best circumstances a lot of these times, these kind of red line underserved communities. So it's like, you're just not lying about- Oh, what's up? I'm whoop-de-whoop and I'm going down the wrong path in life. Nice to meet you. It's like, that's not a thing. So what I'm saying is if you tell me you from XYZ and your name is XYZ, I'm going to believe you until proven otherwise. So taking that same logic to music is like, oh, I'm so-and-so. I'm a producer. I'm so-and-so. I'm an artist. I'm so-and-so. I'm a rapper. I never was like, prove it. I like your music or I don't like your music. I don't listen to people's music if I meet them. It's like, and if I meet you, like, you know what I'm saying? If you meet an artist and they say, tell you artists and I'll keep playing my song.

00:57:04
Speaker 1: Can you do this?

00:57:05
Speaker 2: I'm going to do it. But I'm not going to go back and research and be like, do I think this nigga trash or not? Like, that's just not in my head. You know, I was raised in an environment where like you kind of had to live in your truth because you didn't want the alternative could be much worse. So I took that.

00:57:21
Speaker 1: What's the price of getting found out?

00:57:23
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's something as simple as like, if you say you from somewhere, you're not from there, you might get fucked up. If you say you're not from somewhere and you are from there, you might get fucked up. Somebody might kill you. So it's like, at least, like, it's stupid stuff that used to, because pride used to be important, right? So I talked to a lot of my homies and they'll be like telling these kids like, hey man, if somebody run up on you and ask you where you from and they got a gun, say nowhere. But when I was a kid, it's like, nigga, you supposed to die.

00:57:52
Speaker 1: Is that an option?

00:57:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, but when I was a kid, you're supposed to bang the hood and die and blah, blah, blah, because your pride is all you have. And I think that now we just have more options. So what I'm saying is I took the I was trusting in people's stances of who they were when it came to music. And I think that allowed me to meet or like work with some good people. For example, my first song that kind of was of some notoriety was a song called Blue Suede. We were in Toronto and we were supposed to do a session with the producer. And they were like, uh, the guy canceled. And they were like, well, this is other guy named Hagler you can meet with. He's not quite whatever they thought the other guy was. He's like, but he said he got some stuff. I believe that he has something because he said it. And then we got that one beat. But I learned that from just life. That's not something I picked up in music where you second guess everything and you think everyone's lying. That's what I mean by the industry shit. It's like all smoke and mirrors. But if anyone ever said they wanted to work, I've never said no It just haven't been that many people that wanted to work, which is fine. But what I'm saying is like my life experiences of like come from where I come from, like you kind of have to stand on what you believe in. And there are a lot of liars and things happen, but that teaches you to kind of double down on your reality and kind of who you are. I think it served me well and I think a lot of the times when people think about California or Los Angeles they confuse a business economy with like an actual community of people and I don't think that they intersect that often like I don't think that there are that many California local especially black people like hanging out at the soul house or at the Capitol building or, you know, these other places where people might run into those kinds of instances, I think is very, very separated. Um, but yeah, music has been something that's like, I would look at it like it was just my job. I guess never like been the end all be all for me.

00:59:50
Speaker 1: Not a passion.

00:59:51
Speaker 2: Oh, no, but I appreciate it.

00:59:53
Speaker 1: Do you have a hobby? Fishing?

00:59:56
Speaker 2: Nah, man.

00:59:56
Speaker 1: Video games?

00:59:58
Speaker 2: Nah, I just, you know, I do music and then I live life. I think I didn't have the ability to kind of create a routine or habits or a thing like that when I was a kid. So I think that's kind of my hobby now, so to say.

01:00:20
Speaker 1: I definitely want to talk about the series, which is... Still in my mind, a possibility. Like, I refuse to accept, you know, endings. And I'm talking about the Vince Staples show on Netflix, which the hammer came down at the end of season two. I would like to know, okay, so you play, like, a fictionalized version of yourself on this show that, you know, is, to me, like, surrealist comedy. Where does the character on that show... end and where does the real Vince Staples begin like when it's cut do you just go home and it's like I'm Vince Staples.

01:01:03
Speaker 2: Or like I mean I don't think I learned that yet like when it came to the show I kind of was learning how to do everything on the fly and I think I had so many different things to do it was never like just doing one thing so from learning how to write to learning how to act to learning how to produce I had to like kind of learn how to do everything at once so I didn't really have I never mentally prepared to do the show.

01:01:27
Speaker 1: Was it always the intention of the story arc of the show? I will say that season one was very much surrealist, whereas season two had this arc of the funeral.

01:01:39
Speaker 2: And the road trip of it all. Oh, yeah. Bingeability.

01:01:42
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:01:42
Speaker 2: That's a network note.

01:01:44
Speaker 1: Oh, so their note was instead.

01:01:45
Speaker 2: Of- That's Corey.

01:01:47
Speaker 1: Present.

01:01:48
Speaker 2: He right there.

01:01:49
Speaker 1: So that was a network note.

01:01:50
Speaker 2: But the whole season is network notes. They told me I couldn't make the show I wanted to make.

01:01:56
Speaker 1: By the way, when we, shockers, you came to game night. That was the most shocking. And this is a night where, like, I'm meeting Monica Lewinsky for the first time and, like, other people, like, holy shit, like, Weird Al's playing with Megan Thee Stallion. But when you showed up, we all looked at each other like, shit, like, you always struck me as a person that would, like, I ain't doing that corny shit.

01:02:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, Quinta asked me to go.

01:02:19
Speaker 1: There you go.

01:02:20
Speaker 2: That's my guy.

01:02:22
Speaker 1: Thank you, Quinn. So, otherwise, you would have said. Not at all.

01:02:26
Speaker 2: That's my guy. Thank you, bro. If you asked me, I would have went, too. But she's one of those. She asked me to go. She would have just sent it to me and not, like, had a conversation. I wouldn't have showed up.

01:02:34
Speaker 1: Was it cool?

01:02:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was cool, man.

01:02:36
Speaker 1: I was real nervous. I was like, oh, man, I hope you.

01:02:38
Speaker 2: Don't think I'm corny. Nah, I got some ice cream, man. It's all good.

01:02:41
Speaker 1: Okay. But you told me at game night that they're. Was a hidden episode or a lost episode from season one that never made it to the.

01:02:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, but see, season one is like... I look at the show like it was a cool experience to kind of learn how to do something, but it was never as intended. The whole thing is just me trying to figure it out.

01:03:02
Speaker 1: Were you satisfied with the results?

01:03:04
Speaker 2: No, not at all.

01:03:06
Speaker 1: Oh, really?

01:03:07
Speaker 2: It wasn't that good. Oh, damn. It's okay.

01:03:09
Speaker 1: Do you think of me less because I love the show?

01:03:12
Speaker 2: No, not at all. I don't know.

01:03:13
Speaker 1: So you had a more extreme version of that show.

01:03:16
Speaker 2: My statement was, correct me if I'm wrong, look at Corey. The ideas that I had were too esoteric for the audience. And this would be a great show if it was on HBO, but we can't make this at Netflix. Am I right?

01:03:38
Speaker 1: They have trillions.

01:03:40
Speaker 2: That's my point. But it's okay. You just add some fried chicken and like a mom and a family union.

01:03:46
Speaker 1: Big mama. So seriously, like all the, I love the extreme of it. I love the fact that.

01:03:53
Speaker 2: It's, I love surrealism. And it's perfectly fine too. It's like, I don't feel no way about it. But it's like, yeah, I look at it like a learning experience. You know what I mean? But I think you have to know how to work within the confines of what needs to be created. And I think coming from music, television is so much more specific. specific especially like streamer television because it's based on certain things so you just have to find your way to work with an algorithm i think that was a very very uh important lesson to learn the original idea was way more vignette than what it ended up being and then we had to kind of find a way to serialize a little bit more because that was a request and then um trying to make something a little bit more creative not creative but just a little bit more um deep rooted as far as like a camera selection or kind of our, our, our literary, um, sources and kind of, uh, alluding to certain things and kind of paying tribute to certain films and books and things like that. And, uh, you know, along the line, we just lost audience and moving to Canada and things like that. It was a lot that had to happen. It was, it kind of just fell apart.

01:05:01
Speaker 1: Damn. I'm disappointed to hear that version of it because for me, I thought it was such a, But step in the right direction. Because I think that we've been told, like, our story has to be just base level reality and point A to point B, point C. Like, basically the rules of an old model. And the reason why I loved the surrealist nature of the show. Because, and I'm into this experimental phase where, you know, we've been taught to survive and hustle so much. Mm-hmm. that we don't allow ourselves to do the opposite of that which is like dream and sometimes if you tell a story that even if it's jarring enough to be like what the hell is going on here like that's us thinking and that puts us in a dream space more than just.

01:05:53
Speaker 2: Like yeah and i think it worked a lot just having to write so many episodes like getting so many no's not really being able to produce like we shot the first season with no playback like we had iPhones recording the screen to see what was going on so we can make our adjustments and things like that. Well, you know, it's different budgets. And I think we had a decent budget. You got to figure out how to allocate and then move into a place with virtually no black people and only getting two Americans per episode to go up to Canada. You had to learn how to budget correctly and how to kind of just work with what happens. It was a really, really good learning experience for me, at least. And I learned a lot about overarching thing but the truth of the matter is like you know on one hand you want to be able to try to explore these things but on two you know they know what works and what doesn't work because you know 10 that 10 times more people watch nemesis or something like that than my show so you got to know what works has this.

01:06:48
Speaker 1: Discouraged you from ever wanting to attempt something of this level again.

01:06:54
Speaker 2: I mean who knows but as of right now i'm not i'm not doing that right now but It was, like I said, it was a really good experience. We met a lot of good people. Like, especially season two, we met a lot of good people. Season one as well. But it was just, it was very, very, very interesting.

01:07:12
Speaker 1: What secret talent do you have that you're still trying to hone that we don't know about?

01:07:18
Speaker 2: I don't know how to do anything, bro.

01:07:21
Speaker 1: Cook?

01:07:22
Speaker 2: That's a life skill. I learned that over time. You got to feed yourself.

01:07:26
Speaker 1: There's got to be a secret talent, man.

01:07:27
Speaker 2: Like, Do I got secret talent? Corey? He's athletic a little bit.

01:07:32
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that's talent. I don't know.

01:07:35
Speaker 2: That's just slavery, though.

01:07:36
Speaker 1: All right, man. I'm going to let you have it.

01:07:42
Speaker 2: No, I'm just saying slavery, you know. They got us for a reason. But, yeah, no, I'm pretty surface level, bro. As surprising as it might seem. Yeah, but I don't narcotic or alcohol. So, like, I got to dip. My memory is getting a little bit worse, but I'm working on it. I'm trying to get my shit back.

01:07:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, you definitely strike me as a person who never lets the small shit slide.

01:08:02
Speaker 2: I let so much slide, bro. I don't hold anything against anybody. But I remember random things. I'll be like, oh, that was actually Tuesday. I'll remember insignificant shit, but I'm not a grudgy person.

01:08:19
Speaker 1: Is there an album that you have listened to more than five times in a... 24-hour period.

01:08:30
Speaker 2: Well, probably, yes, when we're working on music, that's all I listen to.

01:08:34
Speaker 1: So you don't allow other music in when you're working on a project?

01:08:38
Speaker 2: I listen to the same couple songs, bro, for my entire life. It was a surprise. I do listen to new music, too, but if I'm working on a project and I listen to it all day, every day, because I got to figure out how to make it, you know what I mean?

01:08:50
Speaker 1: Okay.

01:08:50
Speaker 2: But I listen to... Oh, shit. I'm trying to think what I listen to a lot.

01:08:56
Speaker 1: Like, okay, you're in the car and your phone's on Bluetooth What is.

01:09:01
Speaker 2: I don't listen to music in the car. Probably like a book, if anything, but usually just quiet.

01:09:07
Speaker 1: How many audio books do you read?

01:09:09
Speaker 2: A couple. I read the same things over and over again.

01:09:13
Speaker 1: What books do you read?

01:09:14
Speaker 2: Save the Cat. It was important.

01:09:17
Speaker 1: Who wrote that?

01:09:18
Speaker 2: Shit, I don't fucking know. It's a screenwriting book.

01:09:21
Speaker 1: Okay.

01:09:21
Speaker 2: Then I have, I'll tell you right now, hold on. I read this, I was reading like a lot of film stuff.

01:09:30
Speaker 1: Okay.

01:09:31
Speaker 2: Just how to learn how to make the show.

01:09:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a book that Pee Wee Herman recommended that he read. That's hilarious.

01:09:39
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, he- That's funny as hell.

01:09:42
Speaker 1: No, there's a book that he followed to make Pee Wee's Big Adventure that is pretty much the Bible. for screenwriters right now?

01:09:50
Speaker 2: Blake Snyder wrote Save the Cat. Then I listened to The Method by Isaac Butler. Trying to learn some acting shit, but I never finished it. The other day, Kenny told me to listen to the Miles Davis unabridged autobiography. I got to that. I got a little bit of John Steinbeck here and there.

01:10:08
Speaker 3: Okay.

01:10:09
Speaker 2: And Razor's Edge. But I kind of, those are the only audio books I listen to.

01:10:14
Speaker 1: The direction of Cry Baby is, hats off to it, Thank you, brother. It's structured like a funkadelic album where George Clinton in one song will have micro-choruses, a different bridge, and it's almost like it's seven choruses inside of one song. And so can you just talk about the creative process of what led you to want to do this album in this way and how it came off so authentic sounding?

01:10:44
Speaker 2: I think, I mean, just from... I guess life experiences are kind of where I grew up. That music is accessible, I would probably say. I got songs like this on every project. It's just few and far between because no one can play instruments. That was the issue that we had with this album. No one knows how to play any instruments. So I had to kind of find things that kind of fit. I got a song like Fire. A lot of Summertime 06 is pretty drum and bass heavy. A couple of synthesizers here and there. You know, it's a Joy Division flip for the album cover. FM is a Dookie flip for the album cover. Hell Can Wait is a Robin in the Hood Sublime flip for the album cover. So it's like, I think it's just having enough access and time and kind of cachet for people to make what you ask them to make, to be 100% honest, like committed.

01:11:39
Speaker 1: Was it harder to execute this record than the other projects that came before?

01:11:43
Speaker 2: Way easier. I mean, I did it by myself. I always make music by myself, but it's harder when it's like work with other people and their schedules and things like that. And I think technology is just a pass. So I was like, hey, send me 90 beats and then I'll send like one song that I find that's close enough to what I'm trying to do. But like, I think the familiarity is there just because of how I grew up, you know what I mean? And the timing where I grew up. Because when I was in school, I think my first year in high school was 2007. Mm-hmm. So that's Jim Class Hero was big. N.E.R.D. was big. Charades was always big. Limp Bizkit was always big. And that's like a rap group to me. Long Beach, you got enough white people to where it's like you run across certain things. And also the Hispanic community is big into different kinds of music. So I just think it was around. But to make this, I just think it was, I never have a reason for anything that I make. I know it's going to sound crazy, but it's just like, Something just pop up in my head and I'm like, I want to make, this is what all the songs are and this is what it needs to sound like. And I kind of have everything done in my head before I start.

01:12:51
Speaker 1: I don't think that's crazy at all. If anything, I think this is what leads to the authenticity of it because, I mean, nothing about you comes off pretentious or calculating. I mean, I'll be the first to admit with music, I'm so calculating. I will... write fake record reviews of what I want my pitchfork rating to be. I will like, cause you know, again, I was kind of raised in a people pleasing environment. So of course I'm like, ah, I gotta make a critically acclaimed record. And you know, true artistry is actually just like, you know, how do I feel today? Random day, whatever, September 9th, Like, how do I feel today? And I mean, you can clearly feel that when you listen to this. Even before I heard, do you even know the devil? One of the questions I wanted to ask you, initially I was going to ask you, were you atheist? But I am not an atheist. However, I do not believe in the concept of a devil. I believe like a devil was a spooky creature. figure that was created to keep us.

01:14:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, before people brushed their teeth and shit. Yeah, they didn't know what they were talking about.

01:14:09
Speaker 1: Right, to keep us in line. What is your spiritual practice like? Do you... Are you an atheist? Are you.

01:14:15
Speaker 2: Nah, I mean, I don't really practice. I went to Catholic school, though, and I went to Christian school as a kid for a long time. I went to St. Albert the Great in Compton. I went to Our Lady of Victory in Compton, and I went to Altamont Christian Academy in Compton for a few weeks.

01:14:31
Speaker 1: Um.

01:14:32
Speaker 2: So I know all the Jesus shit and my whole family's into that shit. It's just never, I mean, I look at it like this, like if God is real, I'm going to hell anyway. And if God not real, then it's like, cool. Either way, either way is like, I don't really have a dog in the fight, but I do, I do appreciate the building. The buildings are nice. I think structurally certain things are very important to get people through their days and life is hard. So, but I feel like it's like, say you don't care about God, right? And then you go around trying to like, aha, and like disprove that shit. Like that's some loser shit. Like if you don't let granny pray and do her shit, she finna die. Like let granny pray is how I look at it.

01:15:15
Speaker 1: Is your nihilistic approach to this, do you acknowledge that it's a protective measure, a self-reservation measure for you?

01:15:25
Speaker 2: Well, see, I don't really.

01:15:26
Speaker 1: Like do you believe in anything?

01:15:27
Speaker 2: No, but I don't think I need to be preserved. Like who the fuck am I? I'm not special. I think you see enough shit. It's like you see somebody check out, right? It's like, I don't know where bro went, but I know he's not here no more. And most people see people die in the hospital or grandma at the house and everybody holding hands and crying. Nobody sees anybody die behind the Target and the Fat Burger. So it's a different thing when you see, I think, life and death in certain regards. And I think I just have had enough life experiences to where I'm like, we don't really know what's happening right now. And I think that's okay with me. But I also don't feel like I'm like this special divine creature. I think we all the same.

01:16:12
Speaker 1: All right. I've been purposely trying to avoid anything that leans towards like, again, fetishization. Tell me what it was like in your neighborhood stories. Have you seen someone die before?

01:16:25
Speaker 2: I've seen a lot of things in this life.

01:16:28
Speaker 1: How old were you when you first?

01:16:29
Speaker 2: I don't remember. It was a long time ago. It's just like people die. You know what I mean? It's the way I look at it. And I look at it as if it's like a part of life. But all I'm saying is like if the reason I bring that up is because if someone's in their final moments and it's all that they have to be like, I'm holding on to this thing because if I pass away right now, I'm going to go to heaven and I'm going to see God and my grandma and my uncle and my best friend. You know how foul of a motherfucker you got to be to be like, that's not true. It's like, what the fuck are we doing? You know what I mean? Like when everybody die and it's like, I've seen a lot of niggas, you know, try to wish their way out of it and everybody say God or Jesus or this or everybody do it. So I'm like... So do you.

01:17:16
Speaker 1: Believe that what people believe will wind up being the structure for which their life will go? Like if your grandma believes in heaven and hell, she'll go to heaven. I don't believe in that. I believe that we just... go to the next world?

01:17:30
Speaker 2: I would say I hope that they get whatever they strive for, no matter what that is. I hope if you want to go to heaven, you go to heaven. I hope if you want to go to Temecula, you can go to Temecula. I don't know what's what. I just hope everybody gets what they aspire for, you know?

01:17:50
Speaker 1: Who's the funniest person that you know?

01:17:52
Speaker 2: I don't know, Dave or D-Boy. Yeah, either Dave or D-Boy.

01:17:57
Speaker 1: You're speaking of Chappelle?

01:17:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Dave Chappelle or D-Boy, the homie. Or Black T, pretty funny.

01:18:03
Speaker 1: Okay.

01:18:04
Speaker 2: It's them three.

01:18:05
Speaker 1: What's the fastest way to lose your trust in someone?

01:18:09
Speaker 2: I don't ever get to that point.

01:18:13
Speaker 1: So you kind of walk into a situation knowing that you're probably going to disappoint me, so let me just lower my expectations and.

01:18:19
Speaker 2: Not even that. It's like, your life's not about me, right? So it's like, it's as crazy as it might sound. Say... somebody does something I don't necessarily agree with I try to take into consideration their life or their circumstances or whatever their parts are going through at a moment and it's not about me and I know I can figure out whatever I have to figure out so I don't really take I don't really take anything that personal except for like like if you care too much about the situation that's gonna irritate me it's like somebody's a thousand that like keeps saying It's like, leave me alone. I'm going to take that personal. Other than that, but only because like you're irritating me. But other than that, I don't take nothing serious. There's no skin off my back.

01:19:11
Speaker 1: There's a thing that often happens in your music, which is kind of the, it's not often, but it happens enough that I want to ask about it. It's the idea of the abrupt cutoff. You've had a few songs in which literally- They're just done. Even your Sprite commercial is cut off at the help.

01:19:31
Speaker 2: Is that a- Well, I didn't know how to loop beats for a long time.

01:19:39
Speaker 1: So this is just you, like, song's over.

01:19:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, the song just ended when they ended, trying to do as much as possible. And I think that's just something that people seen as something that I did.

01:19:48
Speaker 1: So I just wasted 20 minutes of, like, trying to analyze, like, every word you said that just literally abruptly cuts the song off.

01:19:55
Speaker 2: I mean, at a certain point in time, you start doing it for a feel. But, yeah, I just didn't have, my songs are like 45 seconds. But that didn't feel weird to me because that's like some old, like, punk rock CD they hand out at the liquor store type shit when I was a kid, like Zeds and stuff like that. But yeah, I think it just kind of tied into something that we, a lot of the things that end up happening to my music is because of lack of access. Then they become stylistic, if that makes sense.

01:20:20
Speaker 1: It does. What is the pressure of being the chosen one or the family breadwinner? Like, how do you establish boundaries? How comfortable are you with the word no?

01:20:35
Speaker 2: It's not that bad because my family on some urban diaspora shit, don't nobody ask for nothing. You might have to pay for a funeral every once in a while, but I don't aspire to live like a white person. So I'm good. I don't have any family members that are like, no one's ever can't even be like, hey. can you help me pay for college? Like that, because my family not trying to go to college. Like, just be real. Like, if we get real, ain't nobody in my family like, like, that's just not.

01:21:06
Speaker 1: Wait, man, in the last five seconds, I went from, wait a minute, how, how did you escape that bullet? Because, I don't know. The amount of motherfuckers that I have put in college.

01:21:20
Speaker 2: Is, Don't nobody want to go to college, man. Yeah, that's not, I mean, that's not our thing. Like, hey, I need a honey real quick. I'll pay you back on Thursday. Or I need a lawyer. That's, like, as far as it go. And then the most money I spend on shit is, like, a funeral is, like, $ 15, 000. And that's every couple years. Like, maybe somebody die every, what, quarter, four or five years? Yeah, it's not, like, it's not a lot.

01:21:49
Speaker 1: So there's no burden of being you and your family structure? Because... No, not at all. Mm-mm.

01:21:56
Speaker 2: They ain't leave me alone.

01:21:58
Speaker 1: And are you essentially treated the same?

01:22:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I ain't never been, like, the fit in. You know what I mean? So I don't think... But is that you sort of.

01:22:08
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out if you naturally came this way or... Like, people that have this outlook, to me, are in constant... It's a level fight or flight that's rarely talked about where... You know, said manager who, weird enough, one of my last conversations with him was actually about you. If you remember the String of Chappelle shows that he did at Radio City. My manager, Rich, who's really like the fifth beetle in the root circle, you know, he lived the last two years of his life with leukemia. And I would give him an update. So the night that we played with you was the last night that I had a fluid conversation with him before just everything stopped working. And... Actually, no, the night before. Listeners, Chappelle did, I think, maybe a string of 14 or 15 shows at Radio City. And we sort of had a role in playing behind certain people. So Vince was our next night. And so Rich asked me, like, well, who are you backing up? I said, you know, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And Vince Staples. And he was like, oh, that's what's up.

01:23:17
Speaker 2: So he was like- That's super cool.

01:23:20
Speaker 1: Literally, the last three minutes of our conversation was like, for him to like something, he's very much like you. He hates everything. No, I'm not saying you hate everything.

01:23:30
Speaker 2: No, I know exactly what you're saying. I know exactly what you're saying. But when he said- He's not excited.

01:23:34
Speaker 1: No, no, I fuck with him. And that's when I was like, okay, I'm going to- That's tight. That's how I got into the curiosity of what your world is. What is your most treasured possession? I'm not going to leave here until I find out you're passionate about something.

01:23:51
Speaker 2: You mean like an item or something from life or physically?

01:23:55
Speaker 1: Okay, an item. Yeah.

01:23:58
Speaker 2: Oh, shit. That make it harder.

01:23:59
Speaker 1: Okay. Life then.

01:24:01
Speaker 2: I mean, I value my family, my friends, because that's like few and far between. It's kind of a lifestyle choice. A lot of people end up dead, so you make it this long. It's pretty cool. That's pretty much it, though, bro. It's my ability to just live comfortably. like wake up every day and live comfortably. That's like really all I ask for. Yeah, but that's how I say like my family, my friends. I'm pretty, not insulated, but like I said, I'm still where I grew up at. So I have the same routine and same friends and shit like that since I was in elementary school. So I value that.

01:24:34
Speaker 1: What's the most difficult part of your life or profession that none of us get to see or none of your circle gets to experience?

01:24:44
Speaker 2: To be honest, bro, The wildest thing, just hearing people say stupid shit. Cause none of the things that we, I don't want to say none of, but a lot of the things that we make ourselves become victims to are necessary. And like, I think a lot of it, I'm not to keep doing the same thing, but a lot of it falls on like Corey. Cause I've never, like I've never had these worries. And of course we always told the truth and they're going to sign you, but they don't really want to sign you. So you got to figure this out. Cool. Hey, Ain't none of these songs going to work. So we need to go tour. Cool. It's never been like a, I never aspire for nothing but comfort. And like I said, I'm still where I grew up at. I'm still living a regular life. And that's enough for me because I grew up with like my mom cashing checks at the liquor store down the street. And when I figured out, like we had a kind of, sorry, mom, I love you. We was moving to, my sister moved to Atlanta. She moved with my nephew and my niece, my whole family out there, so. I was like, I'm going to take my mom out there. And we had a call with my mom. And we was like, how much money did you make a year? We made some tax figures. We tried to figure out how much we need to make. And it was so small. And I had a really good quality of life as a kid. But the amount of money she made, of course, my dad did what he did when he was around. But my mom, by around, I mean incarcerated, not like absentee father thing. But she made so little money and we had everything that we needed that complaining just seems ridiculous to me. Like, to me, it's really not that serious. And I think there's a certain level of reality that comes into knowing who you are because if you don't know who you are, you're going to die. Like, where I come from is how I always looked at it when my parents told me literally growing up. So, like, I was seeing my pops not too long ago. And we talked about, it was my cousin's birthday, and he had me go over there with him. And my sister got picked up from school. We used to have to walk. So we would see my pops pick up my sister and we'd walk to school. And then one of my cousins was like, yeah, you already made us walk home. And we used to see you drive by and be hiding shit. And my dad was like, well, you had to know the people in your neighborhood and around you because you need these people one day.

01:27:00
Speaker 1: So that's by design?

01:27:02
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:27:02
Speaker 1: Did you buy that?

01:27:03
Speaker 2: He's right. Because when Long Beach has its racial conflicts and it's like, I know all the Mexican people that live on 7th Street, they're probably not going to shoot me. You get what I'm saying? Or I know certain people that live here, certain people that live here. And I used to take the bus places and I've caught the train places, but I've always known who I was. So if we reverse that into music, right? I'm not the most knowledgeable musically. I'm not the best salesman. I'm not the greatest performer. I'm not the most eccentric personality. I know how to write things. I'm like a decent writer. So I know what I am. And then I just try to figure out how to amplify that thing that I'm good at. But by knowing what I'm good at and knowing what viewpoint I have with the world I also have a realistic understanding of if that's what the world actually wants so based on me never kind of being like nothing about me says I'm gonna be this huge musician that's you know touring globally in arenas and stuff like that I never saw that for myself personally not saying it can't happen not saying it won't happen but just that's not something I aspired for so it's nothing difficult about it because like I'm able to provide for my family writing about my perceived reality of a small niche subculture within california within the black community that's only 13 of the u.s population so being able to buy a house or have a car and doing that in my opinion just seems fucking ridiculous so there's no stress you know what i'm saying and then people treat you differently when you start acting differently But do you not believe in growth? Yeah, I do believe in growth, but you have to define growth per circumstance. You can grow past certain people and past certain things, but are you communicating that properly? Because if somebody called me politic, I'd be like, hey, I'm not fucking around with that right now. And they're going to say, okay. No one's going to be like, oh, man, fuck this nigga, yada, yada, yada. But I've spent enough time where I've grown up at and I know enough people there. I think a lot of the times the unspoken thing is that people are lying. So when it's like when you lie about who you are and you lie about what you've done and you lie about certain shit in the streets and you lie about all these other things, then people come back and pull your car. But you got to think, just to be real, I've never had a security guard. I've never gotten assaulted. I've never gotten robbed. No one's ever came out and said Van Staples is not a real gang member. No one's ever came out and said Van Staples did anything like this or that. But it's not because I'm some super tough person because I've always been nice to people. And I've always been understanding of people and I treat people with respect. So maybe one day one of the few things I've done because I ain't done a bunch of shit to a bunch of people. I just think that would be kind of like self-hate like cool shit. But if something happens because of something I've done in my past, I got to eat that. And it's up for me to put in my work and tell the children, tell our children, tell, leave something for my grandchildren to be like, okay, I'm acknowledging my reality of my circumstance. Because when my pops got high and listened to Last Pulse on the couch, it was like, I hate crackers. He meant that shit. So I don't come from an environment where people lie. You get what I'm saying? I don't come from it. And like, maybe Corey can give more off-camera context to that. But I think that you're in the streets and you get not to come, not to swear. to rounded out your industries and they give you another name and then you do all this other stuff and then it's and then one day you turn 25 or 26 and it's like you're just yourself again because you've lived long enough through the childhood angst to just be exactly who you are and I think I made music at the exact same time that I was getting in trouble and I made music at the exact same time I dropped out of high school and the exact same time I started getting in the streets and the exact same time I grew up I made music through my kind of prepubescent years into like becoming a mature adult so music has always been something that I've done and I've never done music for other people so the people who my friends who look at me have never looked at me like that's Vincent and he's going to be a rapper now he's going to do this never changed I've just done the same thing my entire life you know.

01:31:14
Speaker 1: How how do your friends adjust to what I will call your integrity code like you strike me as a person that that integrity is step one with you? Do they adjust to you or do they try to pull you out of that?

01:31:31
Speaker 2: I think that's just where I come from.

01:31:33
Speaker 1: Are all of them this principle?

01:31:36
Speaker 2: I think there's a level of intelligence that's not spoken about now as it does with public school systems and rail lining and things like that. So you have some people that are smarter than others. I'm not going to pretend that that's not a thing. What I'm saying is if you meet a lot of institutionalized older black men or a lot of people that came from the streets or the people that kind of raised us in these communities, a lot of them are well-read. A lot of them have principles. A lot of them know the laws. A lot of them know a lot of these things. We just don't highlight those people as much. But I think that you have to kind of have these principles if you're drawing your own rules and your boundaries in a police state that is anti-black and that is hyper-capitalist.

01:32:08
Speaker 1: Okay. So if not Long Beach, where you're very familiar with your environment and whatnot, where is the most ideal place? Assuming that you've least world traveled a few times in your life. Where would be the ideal destination of where you would like to die?

01:32:30
Speaker 2: If not Long Beach?

01:32:32
Speaker 1: Long Beach is not the option.

01:32:34
Speaker 2: Probably like Compton, Seal Beach.

01:32:36
Speaker 1: Motherfucker, I mean like outside of California.

01:32:41
Speaker 2: Am I lying?

01:32:42
Speaker 1: Corey, where would you like him to wind up? In the world? In the world.

01:32:47
Speaker 2: Corey loves Long Beach now, so you lost with that one.

01:32:50
Speaker 1: I think there's places in the world that he does love. Like, I think he's found love in Tokyo.

01:32:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like everywhere I've been except for like Austria.

01:32:58
Speaker 1: Australia. We have really good times in Australia as he's coming up.

01:33:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. Austria was too hot. And the south of France, it's flies everywhere.

01:33:07
Speaker 1: Dog, yeah.

01:33:07
Speaker 2: And the food is disgusting. We opened up a Thai dollar sign in the south of France.

01:33:13
Speaker 1: And it was not ideal?

01:33:15
Speaker 2: They went on a boat tour and then he made them, the guy that drove the boat made them dinner. So that was cool, but I wasn't fucking around.

01:33:23
Speaker 1: Wait till you're 40. No, I'm playing with you.

01:33:25
Speaker 2: I don't like getting on boats with people from Europe.

01:33:31
Speaker 1: That's borderline the end of the episode. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

01:33:41
Speaker 2: Staying grounded. It's extremely kind of hard. I see it being a very difficult thing in this business. So just kind of reminding yourself is something that, while still growing, I guess, is interesting to me. Now that I'm older, I can kind of see it. So I think that that's something that I probably had to work very hard at in retrospect. I just haven't got there yet, but I'm pretty sure that's it.

01:34:02
Speaker 1: Well, because this was such an enlightening conversation, I feel like I knew I wanted a powerful opening one. And now that I'm on my last question, which is number 51... I feel weird asking it, but only because the character of death is so prevalent. And I don't think it's by design, but it's just the way that you refer to death or the possibility of it happening is so casual. How would you prefer your exodus from this life to be?

01:34:41
Speaker 2: I mean, look. Whatever car that's pulled is fine with me. You know, I think that's literally the point of life. You know, that's the jackpot. You die and then now you've lived. So we can assess it from point A to point B. And, yeah, it's just something that happens to everybody. So I think that that's literally why we're alive is to, because we're really not here that long if you really think about it. So, yeah, I think the story always rounds itself out.

01:35:13
Speaker 1: So not to end on a total downer, I will end with, what is the greatest love of your life?

01:35:20
Speaker 2: I will say something simple is like family. But I think it's just, to be honest, it's just the ability to have creativity. Because without that, my perspective on the other things don't matter as much. Because I view life through a creative lens. And if I wasn't able to do that, then it would be miserable for everybody else around me. So that's very important to the people around me and myself. Without that, I don't know what we have going on.

01:35:51
Speaker 1: Corey, I highly regret ducking and dodging the responsibility of working with this human.

01:36:01
Speaker 2: That's funny.

01:36:03
Speaker 1: Not since the days of D'Angelo and passing up on brown sugar have I regretted not being a part of the creative story. So we can hopefully fix that. Dude, I really appreciate you giving me a stellar conversation. And I am really a fan of your creativity. And I can't wait to see what's next. And thank you for inspiring me.

01:36:29
Speaker 2: Thank you, man. I appreciate you.

01:36:31
Speaker 1: Vince Staples, ladies and gentlemen. And we will see you on the next go-around of the Quest Love Show. Thank you. Questlove Show is hosted by me, Amir Questlove Thompson. The executive producers are Sean G., Brian Calhoun, and me. Produced by Brittany Benjamin and Jake Payne. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown. Edited by Alex Conroy. iHeart video support by Mark Canton. Logos, graphics, and animation by Nick Aloi. Additional support by Lance Coleman. Special thanks to Kathy Braun. Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe, rate, review, and share the Questlove show wherever you stream your podcasts. Make sure you follow us on socials. That's at QLS. Check out hundreds and hundreds of QLS episodes, including the Questlove Supreme shows in our podcast archives. Questlove Show is a production of iHeartRadio.