Busta Rhymes Finally Opens Up About His Grief, Depression & Recovery!

This is the bust of Rimas that none of us have seen before. Buster Rhymes says it himself. This is a bust. Rhymes that no one has seen before. You will come away from this conversation understanding not only what it takes to reach the peak of your powers. but to stay there for 33 years to have incredible consistency, discipline, dedication and, in his words, addiction to something that will take you to the top, but then you will also see the forces in life that will take you from that peak to the deepest depths. deep. of darkness and once you are in that darkness, how do you get out of it?

How did Buster take him from the darkest moment of his life that he had never talked about before to the peak of his powers? This is a human story. one of the most inspiring stories we've had on this show and it's a side of a guy we've known for many decades and had never seen before, thank you for this conversation and if you like this conversation, yes I like what we do here at D of Co before starting. I have a 10 second favor to ask you. About 62% of you who listen to this podcast frequently haven't hit the Subscribe button yet, so if you can.

Hit the subscribe button, it's the reason we can get guests like Buster Rymes to come here and have these conversations with me. I feel like we're a team here, give it a little, so if you can hit that button, subscribe. button, that would be absolutely amazing, that's the only favor I'll ask of you and I promise I'll do my best to give you more guests like this and I'm assuming you love it, enjoy this episode Buster, sometimes I think. that with maturity and with age we are able to look back at our early years and connect dots that only our maturity and only our own growth and development allow us to connect and those dots sometimes tell us why and how we became the person that they are today and that's really what I'm so compelled to understand with you is what is that early context that you look back on now when you leave, the reason I am the man that I am today sitting here is because of this early context and these things and these people, what do they honestly have to say, it starts with my mother and father, um, my mother and father were strict, you know what I'm saying, and they also made sure that I didn't need nothing. really enjoy what it was like to be a kid and you know no, I don't have to sit here and fool people like I come from a poor struggle and I come from this neighborhood like, I was in the neighborhood.

I was in Brooklyn East Flatbush Brooklyn New York and I was in the neighborhood with enough bullies and hooligans, but the difference between our era and the way you hear artists try to portray it now is that even the guys who were the bullies. and the gangsters and the troublemakers on the street had respect and they had integrity and they understood what it was like to have proper manners, like if my mother, as serious as she was, saw any of the other kids on the street, she was like me. I'm giving you an example of how it really took a village to raise a child like none of the Neighbors on the block see another child that they see grow from a toddler to a teenager or something and see that child misbehave and not reprimand him in the street even if they are not his parents so that my neighbors would have permission to bust my ass if I misbehaved and then they would tell my mother and if my mother felt that I misrepresented her to make another neighbor have to discipline me.

She was going to get me another beating, so you ended up getting two beatings for every trouble you caused. You know what I'm saying and that was important because I think as a community that's something that doesn't happen. It doesn't exist anymore, you can't tell anyone else, kid, nothing, kids don't try to listen to you, you don't tell them anything, they'll pick something up and throw it behind you or turn upside down if they disrespect you because just a totally different value. in the way things are done in the community, so it starts with my parents and the way they raised me in the house, having respect for my parents, having respect for my other elders, even if he wasn't my father. and besides, even if they were guys who were on the street, they were still adults, we had to respect them as adults, in return, that same respect that came from home and from you every time you went abroad and behaved that way.

It returns the same respect, so even if it was some guy on the street, on some street, the respect you showed that Elder still warranted some respect from them, they wouldn't disrespect you for the respect you were raised to have in your home. for their family and for them, so that respect was maintained and that integrity was upheld and that was a really solid foundation upon which all the other flaws were built that eventually evolved into a skyscraper for me, so I'm going to start Over there. with the kids then I'm going to go to the neighborhood because again, when my parents were around, I received the same discipline from the neighbors, the working middle class families, the less fortunate families that were still in the neighborhood, we were all in the same The agreement about discipline and respect was that it was easy to see when you look back how you could have taken another path in that context absolutely because all those things were still there, the drug dealing was still there, the shootings were still happening, the robberies were still there.

It was still happening, all of that was there, but the beautiful thing is that there was a serious presence of balance that was as impressionable as all things, that was the negative presence that was strong and that took hold of many of the young people. in the community at that time too, how come you didn't go the other way? I did. I was just lucky enough to have something like hip hop that could be an alternative that saved my life, changed my life and I had some. Amazing people who were around me supported me when I found this interest and identified with my gift as an artist to be able to entertain people, articulate my thoughts through songs and Ry Form and I had an incredible support system with my moms.

I had an incredible support system just with the other friends and family that I grew up with, being in a community and last but not least, the determination that I had in wanting to be able to not disappoint the people that I knew and that I really They were proud. of what I was doing right, wrong or indifferent who they were, they were all of them, they were all right, so, for example, I pissed off my mother when I decided I wanted to start selling marijuana and crack, and the guys who were on the street in which I was doing it when they realized that even though I was doing it and it was cool for us to do it, they didn't really want us to do it when they started to see that we had potential to do other things that were happening.

To keep us safe and off the street they often didn't have a better opportunity to offer us, so they made sure to be as present as possible to guide us through what they didn't. They even wanted us to do in the first place, which was the stupid thing that we were doing on the street, so they did everything they could to minimize the things that we got into so we wouldn't get killed, so we wouldn't go to jail, so you know None of that would happen, but once they realized they didn't have a better opportunity for us, that's what they felt was the best thing they could do if we're going to do what we need to be there. to protect them and make sure that they are righteous and we guide them so that they can do it the best way with the least amount of time when they were kids just when they started to see that this rap thing and this hip-hop and break dancing and graffiti and DJing and all of that was something that we started to generate interest in and that's when they started encouraging us to do more of that instead of cracking instead of selling drugs instead of selling marijuana instead of stealing this and taking that and So they were very happy to see that we had found another way that they wanted us to do that, so the more we did it, if we started to show them an indication as we went along, that we weren't still productive, now it felt like I was pissing off two parents.

I'm already pissing off my parents because I'm with them on the street now they see me making this music they like it they're proud of me so if I don't do well in that now I'm also disappointing them what was the consequence of your parents separating 11 years old because I think about myself when I was 11 years old and I remember a conversation my mom my mom is Nigerian I was born in Bwana my dad's English right I remember around that I was about 10 years old and my parents called me and basically told me that now They didn't love each other and it was like the world had split in half, yeah, it's like you can't understand the concept of these two people being apart. torn into two pieces, what was it like for you when you were 11 when you found out that was disastrous for me because like you said, you can never understand that as a kid and you don't know how to conceptualize. that obviously there were things that I could do and it was an enjoyment that I could have when I spent time with my father that I couldn't get when I was with my mother there were things that I could always go as far as caring, caring and being a baby for my mother that I couldn't I was able to get it from my father and obviously the divine order is for Mother and Father to make the baby well, so I definitely didn't want to lose either of them.

Did you change? I definitely changed because um I wasn't um I couldn't figure out how to find my my my uh the well behaved child that I was even though I was still getting into it I really started once my mother and my father got divorced, the bad behavior. It really started to increase, the disrespect started to increase and intensify, the anger was much greater because it overwhelmed me more because I just wasn't happy with my situation and then I wasn't happy. with the way his problem directly impacted me, so as you know, there would be times when, if my mother and father did not get along, new disagreements arose between the two of us, say like the day my father posted for pick me up and my brother because I only have one younger brother and I say he sent a message to come pick us up that day and particularly during his visiting weekend, if an argument started with the two of us that morning, you know my father would come home and So my mother wouldn't even let us go and we would look at him and see him in the front of the house from the window and my mother's would just be on something, how did you feel looking at him from the window?

It was crazy that you wanted to I guess of course you know what I'm saying because there were things and there was other family that was obviously on my dad's side, cousins ​​and kids from cousins' neighborhoods, part of Brooklyn or Queens and different areas of NY. York that we would go that we had friends and with the family and with the neighborhood friends that we met through our other family and other cousins ​​and things of that nature in a different neighborhood, we wouldn't be able to see these people until dad came to pick us up because mom wasn't really okay with that side of the family that way, my dad's side of the family wasn't really okay with my mom's side of the family that way, so if that rotation didn't happen on visits We couldn't enjoy that we missed our father, we only had the opportunity to see him, you know, once a week, once every two weeks or sometimes once a month, if they fought among themselves, did you relationship with your father at that point straightened out a little when because of that problem you started seeing him less and less, yes.

I think my conflict with my father started to happen more and more because, obviously, you know, the lack of a father. Presence has an effect in different ways, and as a son I don't know what it is, but I think children instinctively cling more to their mothers. I don't know if that's always the case, but in most cases it tends to be that way. I think my father's personality was a little conflicting for me with the way my personality was and the contrast of my father's personality compared to my mother's personality also conflicted me because my father was not that interested in what I wanted to do or what I was interested in as a kid, like he was always more serious about what he felt was best for my future, was the only thing that mattered, it wasn't about what I thought, it was about what that he thought that.

I always started to feel like having the comparison and seeing the contrast between that and the support that my mother gave me to what she wanted to do. You know, the first time I got something, I was able to go tell my mom that she could sit me down. and tell my mom how she felt she, you know what I'm saying, she could sit me down and tell my moms about my first wet dream or something. I could talk to my moms and about the music I'm making in the studio with my group leaders from a new school at the time and I could come home and I could play that at home I could show up whenever I could, as long as I did What I was supposed to do in My Mother's House was with everyone else as long as I was productive and got away from the problems on the street that relieved her.

My father, you tried to talk to him at that time about a rap. He's like I'm not. I don't want to hear that's ita lot and you're wasting your time with it that's how I talked you know what I'm saying now at that moment I didn't respect it and at that moment I felt very excited about it because it was like I could be doing something real. I actually still have one foot in because I'm not. I have not been successful in this. It doesn't make me money, I do this because I love it, I just love it, so when I can do that, I love it with my friends and with my people, it's entertaining to do it with them it's because I have this thing with the team that there is a collective enjoyment we are getting from making this music.

Are you still trying to prove him wrong to some extent? Did you find yourself trying to prove him wrong? So no, because I had the opportunity to do it. But before that moment, before that moment, yes, absolutely, I was trying to prove him wrong. I was so determined to prove him wrong that he forced me to stand out because the more he wanted me to do what he wanted me to do. which was my father was a licensed electrical contractor, okay, so he used to make me go to work. His way of keeping me off the street was to bring me to work for him because he had his own company as a licensed electrical contractor, what?

I'm sorry about that, I was upset about it because we worked in these nasty buildings with rats and cockroaches running around and it took time from my childhood because I couldn't be outside and play, that's really what I wanted to do and how old I was. You were 12 then, he started a little younger than that, but around 12 is when he got serious. I would say around age 10 was when it started. 12 is when it got serious because my mom used to send us to different countries every summer. with my father just so I could explore what it was like to live in Jamaica for a summer with the family.

Same with England, my mother used to send us to England, so when I was there, there was one summer we came here. 10 I was about 10 11 my brother was younger than me he's about seven I stay in Morham them time and Preston and we went to karate school here we went to primary school here and we were break dancing and I had these cousins ​​who used to Named Samantha and Michaela, they used to take me to Val, they used to take me to these little clubs because they used to bring us to this little area where it was like, uh, I wouldn't call it a downtown area, but there was an area like downtown in the area. from Morom and in the Preston area and in the Blackpool area and we would go and break dance with the little kids who were from England and you know, we had our New York style of doing it.

York and we, we, we, we were, we were getting, we were a little dangerous, now let me know we were busy, we were making it happen, you know, we twisted and exploded and all this, like that, it was something that we just got into. we convert. We are part of this break dancing community and they were always eager to see us. We went there three or four times a week. Other people, the promoters, saw us and started hiring us to go to the clubs. Obviously we are too young. going to a club so they would let us come and perform for 10 minutes and 15 minutes and then we had to leave immediately, so we made a little money that way, we got a little bit of 10 PBS here for a show, a little bit of 20 PBS there for a show, but these are the things we grew up around, so when I was around all this and it started to die down, dad said, "Okay, you guys aren't going anywhere this summer, you're coming to work." ". go to work I don't want to be an electrician I don't want to run BX wires through sheetrock I don't want to hammer nails and then stub my toe I don't want to see rats and Ro crawling on my shoes and my wooden boots and I don't want to do any of that and I'm watching the kids riding up and down and Dad doing wheelies on the bike and listening to music outside and I can't do that.

I used to be very angry that every day with my father what did you want to do instead I wanted to rap I wanted to make music I wanted to break dance I wanted to do everything that hip-hop consisted of like I became the embodiment of hip-hop and It was what was my excuse for not going to work Why did you want to rap? Well, number one. First I wanted to be the DJ. Do you know what I'm telling myself? The DJ thing, although I never got good at it. being the DJ I could do it but I was never nice enough to become the DJ Superstar and at that time the DJ was super important because all the groups had the name of DJ then the Grand Master Flash and the furious five Jam Master J Run DMC like the DJ was always the soloist, it was like he was the big shot, so when I couldn't, I'm not really the tech guy, you know what I say, so all this equipment was just a little bit.

Complicated for me and then I became an MC by accident and the interesting part about that was that I found two Chargers selling crack when I was 12 and luckily the laws were different and I was underage so I didn't see anything serious. trouble but I was definitely on my way to getting in serious trouble if I didn't if my mother didn't say enough about this we have to get you out of here that's when she took me out of Brooklyn and brought me to Long Island when I got to Long Island that's when met Brown C Brown from the leaders of the new school dink OD D from the leaders of the new school Milo is my mother's sister's son, so he is my blood first cousin, but before bringing Milo he was and even before we brought Dinko, it was me, Dinko and another guy named Mystery Mystery were also on the street, but when we went to Long Island, a lot of other families thought like my mother, they also brought their children from Brooklyn.

Long Island, from Queens to Long Island, from the Bronx to Long Island, so we left the neighborhood, which is the neighborhood we grew up in, we left the neighborhood to come to the suburbs and still be around a group of neighborhood kids, do you know what i? I'm saying the same thing you were running from, we found a way to do the same thing in these nice neighborhoods now and here we come as the generation that terrorizes these beautiful neighborhoods and we, these neighborhoods, rise up when you say you became an accidental MC, this is what happened I wasn't rapping yet I was just break dancing I was just making pop and I was DJing a little bit and I was playing with graffiti I still wasn't rapping so when I moved to Long Island I met Charlie Brown, I met The Mystery and what ends up happening is that at this high school they now have lip sync contests, rap contests and you know, now we

finally

get the chance to experience what it's like to be at school where you have different periods. in classes and you in a class for 45 minutes to an hour, then the bell rings and you change.

I have the hallway action, everyone talks, go to the next class, flirt with a couple of girls on the way to the next class, so all that interaction. and as of now puberty is going crazy, you know, 13 years old, 12 13, now you're starting to make your owners move differently, so you're obviously going through a stage in your life where you want to impress to everyone you want to be the cool kid in school, so every time you came to Long Island from the five burrows it was one thing oh, that's the new kid from Brooklyn oh, that's the new kid from Queens oh, that It's the new kid from the Bronx, that's the new kid from Stat Island, so I'm One of the new kids from Brooklyn created this talk and the rap thing is happening.

Charlie Brown was like the guy who was like the number one rapper in the school at the time, so one day I leave school and we get to the school yard and you know some of the kids wait on the school buses, some of the kids are waiting to see you, you know, the football game or the basketball game after school, there was like a figure that formed on this particular day and it was a big one and it was C Brown rapping and two other kids and then uh C Brown was getting most of the shine.

I come up to the cipher and I started beatboxing okay and uh Brown, he's doing his rap on my beatbox or whatever and you know I'm keeping the beat for him and then, everything was fine at first, like you know he just he was ramming it was all good and you know it sounds good and then I probably like a good 30 or 40 seconds he just started disrespecting me so I was beatboxing for him and he was belittling me and I was like torn between should I Punch this guy in the face or should I just keep beatboxing and not be the party pooper to the party energy we have here and you, how old was I, 12 years old, I was, now I was 13 years old and I say to myself same as I'm from Brooklyn and the mentality back then was that everyone was from Long Island, you know, it's the suburbs. the green grass is the flower beds are the nice houses we come from Concrete Jungle we come from projects we come from struggles so I'm looking at this guy and I just look at him like he's You get up in like two seconds because you're missing my nerve respect in front of all these people and if I don't do something then they'll look at me like I'm one too while I'm getting ready to do something stupid, the rhyme stopped like it was over and everyone was hyping it up and you know, I don't want to look like a badass. loser even though there was no battle, he just decided to look down on me for no reason and I couldn't.

Understand it because I'm like he's here to support you right now. I'm giving you the rhythm and everything you're doing. Long story short, that was the day I said, "Okay, I'm going to go home and write a rhyme tonight and I'll come back tomorrow and disrespect this young man in front of everyone the same way he disrespected me in front of everyone." everyone and the next day I arrived at school I waited all day I didn't tell anyone, we went back to that same yard, a big crowd, the next day he charged again I started hitting boxing for him again, as if it was exactly what. same thing that happened the day before so we go and I'm doing what I'm doing and everything is fine and no one has no idea because I didn't tell anyone about having RS ready and the crazy thing is when I wrote my

rhymes

I was listening to a lot of LL Cool J because at that time LL was fighting everyone on the record you know what I'm saying fighting Kumo D battle IC the battle you know he was just he was the one trying to take everyone's heads off. and I was like yo, I want to come as LL so I can destroy this guy.

I left so I ended up making my and it kind of went from me beatboxing to him and him and me telling him why don't you make a beat for me and he was like, "Oh, you got raps ready today, like just make a rhythm". Let me try something so he made the beat and I started with the r kind of calmly and then when I started to get into the lines of disrespect, that's when it all started to happen on its own, like my frustration and then I saw people reacting to me the way I wanted just made me more confident, more cocky, more charismatic and that's when the whole RS bust thing started happening and my name wasn't even Buster rhs at that time when I had a good reputation. name at that time what was it?

My name was terrible, I had two names at that time. I got my name from being part of the FR nation of Gods and Earth, whose name was cooler, that was Lord tahim, right, but somehow I abandoned it to become like the rappers who had three-part names, is there Any reason you're not telling me? I'm getting to that. I'm just trying to help. I'm setting it up with the proper prerequisites. LL Cool J is a three part name, yeah, Jam Master J is a three part name, all the guys from The Fat Boys Prince Mary D cool rock ski, those guys had three part names, right?

I changed my name to chill or ski that. The name is so terrible I know, I'm sorry bro, the name was terrible and you know what's so crazy. I kept that name for a long time because I really thought it was because I felt like chill OSI Chill O ski terrible bro, I know it's terrible but I was really proud of it. I got a three-part name like my favorites and if you want to be like your favorites you have to do that thing that's a replica of your favorites and then I destroyed Charlie Brown so bad that at the end of that night, the end of that little battle that afternoon after school, he just walked over to the side and said, we should be in a group together and that's really the day that I guess Buster Rhymes, I guess that's a catalytic moment.

The day Buster was born, you talked about how that kind of moment helped you develop your style and your charisma and the way you carried yourself and from then until you sign at 17 I'm curious to know what happens at that moment because that en You actually know a lot of people who are 12 or 10 years old or whatever who want to be actors or hip-hop stars or who want to be whatever they want to be musicians, but very, very few make it to the top. What happens between the playground that day and when you're 17 they sign you?

When you look back and leave, it was for that reason. Was it natural? Talent is hard work. Is it all of the above? It's all of the above,but the first thing for me was the addiction to the reaction that I was getting from people and I was watching it and how it felt in real time and just watching the fact that I came up with something in my crib by myself in my room which was driven by a determination to want to defend myself like a fight and many times I don't think I would have said it like that.

I've said it before, but I don't think I've said it much. I don't know if it would have been me, I had the same desire to want to be in Hip Hop, I had the same desire to want to be Ry DJ, but I don't know if that moment didn't happen, I don't know. If I had continued being an MC at that moment, it probably wouldn't have happened. I sat here with a There are a lot of people who are comedians, entertainers, actors and the biggest movies in the world and it's so interesting to me that there tends to be an early Catalyst moment where they perform maybe in front of the family at Christmas or at the stage or whatever. is and they have this reaction and at that moment that reaction does something to them on a psychological level that becomes that the word that you used is the word that I hear becomes this addiction, yes, and I often ask myself why a lot of other people They will experience that reaction and not develop the addiction, so the reaction that seems to me is to do something for those people that they needed at that moment yes, they needed it at that moment.

I'm going to tell you something that actually happened before that and I wanted to be an MC happened at that time, the addiction to entertaining people that happened when I was seven eight years old, maybe even six six years old, because where it started for me initially was, You know, at that time and particularly when I was saying how the neighborhood was back then and how we were raised in our house back then, my mother and father, you know, we had to go to bed at 9:00 on a school night. and on weekends, when we were so young, we could stay. until 10 o'clock, but we still had to go to bed at a certain time when my mother had company or, like my father, and they had like family and friends, you know, they just met their little adults and they can baby a little bit, sometimes you know they get so entertained by each other's company that they forget to send us to bed at nine o'clock, they play music and I used to have to do things that I tried to find creative ways around them.

They sent me to bed at 9:00, so when they played music, the first thing I always did was reenactments of Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five and James Brown dance routines, so I used to do that and I was nice to him. split up and circle around and move on. I'm doing all kinds of things and I'm up for hours until I was literally sweating through my clothes, but it was so entertaining at times all the company I was there for was my family, my mother. and my father ended up cheering me on and encouraging me to continue and raving to my mom about how much talent his son has and wasn't that feeling then that you were chasing?

That was the first thing. That's what I was saying as I. I wasn't thinking about knowing how to swaddle him, but I knew what that feeling felt like and I always wanted that feeling and that feeling started in the crib and then translated into me trying to get that attention in the classrooms, which made me a joker in the classroom. class, so I would do it to get the attention of the class crowd and I would turn into a class clown guy and get in trouble and then it would translate to That Into You Know Me, break dancing and doing all this hip- hop because I loved hip-hop and I was starting to see what was being created as a movement and what was being created as an interest that took over like it didn't matter what else was cool at the time that hip-hop started to realize that there was nothing more important than knowing how to make something that was a representation of hip-hop.

If you were a graffiti artist and you were a dork, you became something that was at the level of celebrity status, but that's when graffiti started being put on clothes and everyone who was involved with hip-hop or some kind of representation of hip-hop became a kind of celebrity, so for me that's why I wanted to learn how to do everything in hip-hop because I didn't know what yet. I wanted to DJ, I made break Dan and I don't like the bruises he had all the time, you know what I'm saying and the graffiti, I was fine with it, but it was really when that situation happened with me and C Brown, that's when I found out. that I could have the feeling of when I was a little kid dancing for my parents and their company and at the same time I was able to have that focus on me being the rapper, so that's like All of this became what I started to develop, not just this I don't appreciate it, but I started to get addicted to it, that's what I expected in terms of I was just trying to figure out the psychological reason why you got so addicted.

To this because listen, I come from a background where a lot of my friends started rapping and most of them fell off and then there's like one or two of them that just because it became their medication for some and I've always wondered why they just like that individual had stuck with it for all those years, but in that response we have the um, I think the biggest addiction for me from all of this was being able to tell my father that I wanted to be able to experience the day without knowing if it would ever come. , but it was a very serious thing, like I used to write this on my wall and just on a piece of paper and stick it on the wall and say one day I'm going to get a deal I'm G sign a contract I'm G come home with so much money that I will be able to tell my father that I told you so that's all I wanted to be able to do and I wrote that and I put it on the wall and I looked at it every day and there were still days when he told me I had to go to work and I would look at that sign and then I would see it outside in the truck and I would leave that house and I would be very angry and what I love about my father as I grew up is that I understood what he wanted, he just wanted to make sure that He wasn't wasting his time, he built this company, he wants to approve it. down was love is love was he needed his son to succeed I am his pride and joy and failure is not an option with my father and I guess where it came from you know it's the same with my mother my mother when I told her that I was 18 years old and I wasn't going to go to university.

She didn't talk to me for years, but she comes from Nigeria. She left school at 7 years old. Today she does not know how to read or write. Wow, so I was the only one of her four children. the only one who says I'm not going to go to college right now stood in my way and said not to start a business etc., but in my maturity I go, she stood in my way because she absolutely loved me at that time and everyone goes through, a lot of people go through especially immigrant immigrant children and stuff, mainly yes, because that pain and that struggle, that suffering that they come from, that's not no, that's not this what we were raised on, that you know me and that we.

Obviously, even if you were born there, you weren't, you didn't spend your years there to experience the pain they suffered, so you come here now, you still don't know, they fight, they know, even though they will never forget it. they obviously want the best for their babies man my dad came to the Apollo to see us and this made him even more sure to disrespect me and disrespect rap me and my new school team leaders that we had the opportunity to perform at the Apollo at the amateur night at the Apollo and we got there and they booed us a lot one of the first times, you know, when Charlie Brown and I decided to form the group, the mysterious guy who was with us originally got tired of the weight.

There was no real light at the end of the tunnel if we were going to have a chance at getting a record deal. He also sold drugs on the street. He decided that he wanted to go back to the street and do what he didn't want to do. to no longer be in a rap group, that's how space was made for Dinko to come into the group because we still felt like we needed to replace the third rapper, we have our Three Rap Guys, now it's me, Brown and Dinko, and then I said, we I need a DJ, let me find my cousin, so Milo came and we ended up doing the show at the Apollo, they bullied him and my dad was even hitting me with the I told you.

So that night look, I tell you and you waste your time with this little idiot rapper, for coming to work, that's what I'm going to tell you, for coming to work, so you can learn a little stability and stop wasting your time. time with this rapper, that's how you talk to me. Still in place, we're not really. I didn't even leave he just hit me over the head with this complete lack of respect but again at the time I hated him for it as we grew up and that day he came for me. I got my record deal when I was 17 and what was it about?

You thought this was the unique style and you had a completely different flow that attracted people and raised the energy on each record. What you played was definitely that and that came completely from the dance hall influence. Are you familiar with Sting? Yeah, okay then, the Sting clashes that used to happen from the '80s until the end. The only thing I saw in dance hall culture that I wasn't seeing in hip-hop was the way the dance hall artists were busy and crashing in front of over 105,000 thousand people in that audience, the energy they had to have to make sure they portrayed themselves in a way that was more than just the lyrics.

It was a complete show that was a collective of things - it was the outfit, it was the jumping, it was the kick on the foot, it was the movement of the hand and the way you acted on the microphone and the flow patterns and the intelligence of the lyrics and jokes. It was all these things and it was mind-blowing to me because I wasn't seeing the same thing in Hip Hop, in Hip Hop you see guys just walking around, you know they could hold their crutch and act like they're too cool to be so animated.

I love that I love kung fu movies I love karate movies so all that and the dancing and the dist and and that and the foot this I just took all that and said I'm going to turn this into what I'm going to do on these stages and I think if I master this and I can master my breathing and I don't get tired too soon, I try to jump all over the stage going crazy, I think I could become dangerous and it's hard to compete with. with because guys don't move like that on any stage I go to all the shows I'm being a student I'm in the clubs I'm on the street I'm everywhere just to see and learn and and and I was inspired somewhere and I got a lot of inspiration in different places, but that's when I thought looking at those Clash Sting Chokes and Jammies and Killer Monjaro like all those Saxon men and everything that was here Tipper I and all of them, men, like those guys, they raised me, it's very interesting because what you've described there is like my understanding of what creativity is, that you pull from so many different clouds of inspiration to create a new one, yeah, and I was thinking about I was thinking about your children, you told me before you started recording that you have six children and are now around 20 or 30 years old, depending on what you now understand about what made you stand out differently and what it took in terms of your mentality to use the word student there, if one of those children comes up to you now and tells you says dad, what are the fundamentals that I can learn from your journey up to that point, say, 21 years, that would increase my chances of Success no matter the industry, what are those fundamentals?

So the foundation that I would give to my children and that I already feel like I have been given to them is to first identify with what you love and once you love it, focus on it. that thing until you can master it to the point where people can identify that there is no doubt about your love for it, that's the thing. Once you love her to the point where your actions speak louder than anything you can say about how much you love her. The root of any success is always predetermined or destined to come to you, no matter what you choose to do, because what will really generate income is if you don't do it from the point of view of trying to do it. you generate the income you are going to do this anyway so it's not about the money for you you are fulfilling something in your soul in your body there is a feeling that not even money can give you there are people who have this money and I still can't Find that feeling, man, and there's nothing like it.

This is a feeling that really exists, brother, that can really make you the happiest person in the world. That's my music because and my kids now understand that I love my kids so much. and I love my family so much that I am not playing with anything that I know is going to give me the opportunity to make sure that I can show them and I can take care of them and I can without compromise find a way and a means to ensure the well-being of my family and I found something I love that you've given me that means and the ability to do it and I don't have to wonder how I'm going to get there any day I could be sick I could be sick and in the hospital and write a song and even if I'm too weak to say it , you could give it to someone and resolve whatever issue you need to resolve with that person, so they still make that same song God willing, the success of that hopefully embellished song reaches a level of success based on this creation fromfrom a feeling that inspired me or a feeling that I had that I cannot and cannot explain.

I don't give it to anyone other than through this music that will take care of not only my family, but could also take care of filling a space in the lives of millions of people who will hear this at some point, depending on the impact of the song. They're around and they'll see you in 20 years and you'll become the CEO of Google and they'll tell you I'm a fan, I love you, what this song did for me when I was 10, now I'm 30 and right now when I was 10. I remember wearing this little t-shirt with a yellow balloon face on it and I had my little bike outside and my mom let me play with my two friends two houses down, we played this song 10 times in a row until we had to come in and that song changed my mind. life and gave me the motivation to want to do this, evolve into this person, think in a new way that allowed me to pursue something that I discovered I love and now I'm a $200 million CEO and Google I'm a fan of yours, you're still doing what I love and I want to sit with you and discover something magical that we can do together it sounds addictive it's very addictive that's the most addictive thing in the world to me because it's like that's bigger than man you can't teach someone how to do that that's not a book science that's not school you know what I'm saying is that you identify with this gift we all have the gift this something we have We have all been blessed at some point if we listen to that little thing that speaks to us inside some people call it instinct some people They call it vibration some people call it energy whatever you call it some people call it voice whatever that thing is brother, if it generates the thought that changes the entire trajectory towards what your life can evolve because you took a second to listen to what you you are identifying with your blessing, you are identifying with your gift and at that point you learn what it is. and become one with it and walk in your purpose, brother, so that you can instill this in the lives of so many people that you will live forever through this thing that you have created, which is not a human thing, is not deeper than man that I am. absolutely addicted to it because when you really think about it it's something divine, it's strange to me when people find it strange when we call ourselves gods and Earths, right, because I'm saying what do you want it to be.

Being other than God, anything other than your original form is the worst state of your own existence because you are not even functioning within the nature you were created to be, so you can't make me call myself as a devil because you think that It is a blasphemous act for me to say that I am God or that I am like God or that I am made in the likeness of the highest. That mentality is the reason I function this way because I refuse to think that there is nothing I can do. I can't do Beyond Man Beyond Man if I could sit here and smoke a joint and eat a bowl of cereal and leave when I get to the place and when I take your right steps, I have you and the entire planet under control. is doing it, it doesn't matter what country I go to and then I get to Sweden and they say and and and yes yes yes yes yes I'm not from Sweden I don't know, I was just vibing and removing weed He made me fill a little joint with food, a little bowl of cereal and I was just joking in the crib and And he was laughing in my house.

I thought it was funny. I did this on disk. I like the funny but I also like the serious. There's always a balance between the guys that we find most entertaining of all the guys that were on television that we like, those were the criminals, they were always funny, right, Al Pino and Scarface, he was serious, but he was funny, Joe Pesi and Good Fellas, serious, but. funny right, we in the neighborhood love the balance between the serious and the fun. I try to incorporate the serious and the fun and my main goal is my children, the foundations that I want to give to all of you, find it, love it, identify with what you love, become one.

That thing, pursue it to the point where you become so immersed in it that you know nothing but to walk in your purpose, is what it evolves into, what kind of human beings need to have character traits? Okay, this is what some of that has to be, the first thing it may sound like is that you have to be selfish as hell, you have to be selfish. I don't care, it is, it is, it is, it is sacrifice, but without a great sacrifice and without a great risk there is no such thing. thing like a big reward I can't have one this there is no math it will never be math you know what I'm saying yes you have to have and I don't like this word but I'm going to say it because it's true you have to be a little manic with the maniac true that word is not good in many situations but when you are chasing your destiny when you identify with your destiny you have to be selfish you have to be manic You have to be uncompromising and you have to move in a way when it comes to those three things in which you function completely in a way that is an unwavering Faith, no matter how high it may seem, no matter how much I feel like it's not going to work delusional complete delusion you have to believe in the delusion because it's only delusional until it works then is it really delusional?

I'm just going to call it a hoax until it doesn't work for anyone else to see but for the whole. world to see and then once the world sees it there is nothing delusional about it now your illusion becomes oh he was a genius we didn't see it when he saw it we didn't understand it when he did it we thought this was crazy but he definitely always he thought this was the right thing to do and he's stuck in that when you say selfish, obviously that word has a lot of different connotations and meanings, but I heard that selfishness is focused on serving yourself and your loved ones. your dreams and your mission were kind of selfish when you said "I want to be a rapper" even though your dad says "I want you to come and be an electrical contractor" it was selfish of you to say no, "I want to take care of myself first." Selfish, I mean even more extreme than that, yeah, selfish with my father because and in a way I don't want to, I don't want to see it as being selfish with him, I was just into something that I don't want. doing what you want to do that's not really being selfish it's just having a difference of opinion true selfish when I say selfish I mean my children true I've had to miss moments that would never come back I missed my oldest son's high school Graduation from school Me I missed one of my daughter's college graduations.

I missed moments when I should have been there to teach my son how to drive or I should have been there to teach my son how to ride a bike. I missed a lot of that, right? and a lot of that had to do with circumstances and my circumstances that I obviously helped create for myself. I had to take responsibility for these decisions that I made and these circumstances that I created for myself and the situation that became a real life situation. For me, I was left with very few options, so there was an option where I could be there for everything and then the money wasn't where it needed to be or I was going to do what I love, not just because I love it and it brings me.

It gives me joy and it gives me peace of mind because I go to the studio and when I'm in that studio and I close the door and then I'm in those four walls I don't have to argue with the mother of a child. I don't have to argue with my wife. I don't get responses from people who choose to have a debate about that. It's not even worth debating all the unnecessary distractions I can leave out of that room and when I'm in it. In that room I am fulfilling my destiny, I am fulfilling my soul and I am mentally making myself reach a place where my peace of mind is, where it should be, that I am not only allowed to feel, think and evolve towards whatever it is. place where the mind takes me, then I can get to that place emotionally spiritually mentally create something put it in a song change the effect that I can have as an impact through this what I am blessed with as a gift and then I could come out of that and be in a happier place so that when I get back together with the people I have to argue with I'm in a better place to deal with them, is there any kind of guilt associated with that like you've done?

I kind of matured and understood it, and you know, I had time to reflect on missing those key moments. I'm very worried about this because I'm a workaholic and I think my job is, in many ways, a kind of psychological escape, um, and I'm worried that when I have a child, I have a partner, we've been together for four years, now I'm 31, I may use my job as an excuse not to be there or make the necessary adjustments to notice. I only have a moment of bike ride, so I'll tell you what: there is no right or wrong way when it comes to making that decision, other than what you know in your heart.

I definitely live with guilt. I feel like there were things. that I could have done without being there for my kids, but I also feel like it's me saying that I'm in a different place in my life right now than I was at that time and the mindset that I have now. It didn't exist then, right, and the mindset that needed to exist then to get to this mindset now was important and was part of the necessary components to exist in my journey to be able to have this conversation now this mindset. now it was that survival, it was definitely survival when you deal with four mothers, they all have you in court systems, they all receive a significant amount of money in child support, they all are not in the best place in terms of their relationship with you, sometimes Business is good, sometimes business is bad. to be able to be fast and changeable regardless of the circumstances to be able to stay because it doesn't matter if the business is good or bad, the courts don't care about the child support that must come every month, mothers must see it because they don't care when your kids need what they need they don't care because they didn't ask for this you can't make an excuse this is how I was raised your kid didn't ask to be put in a situation you can't do what you're supposed to do for them so this It's not their problem, you have to find a solution, it's a little pressure, it's a lot, it's a lot, but I also feel that when you identify with your gift, that's part of the gift. that's what makes it a gift because the higher ones usually don't give us more than we can handle, you know, and with that being said, we talk about all this stuff, which is one of the best questions that I love that you asked, TRUE?

Would I give it to my kids and do I keep coming back to it because I want my kids to understand that focusing on what you love is the most important thing? Being selfish and when I say selfish not only my children but even my wife, there may be many she wants to do it I'm sorry I can't do it now I can't do it now I could do it later and then there are times when you can do it and you take the time. and you do, you know, but until there is another it means being able to do what I love and find the satisfaction that I find while doing what I love.

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That day he was such a terrible brother. Wow, his life changed when this woman came into his life. I'm not going to go too deep into that part, but I'm definitely going to say that Chris's life changed not for the better when she came to her senses, so once that happened it started to change the energy between the Violator family and I really want that because I don't want this to be heard in a way where it seemed like I was about the woman because I'm not about the woman. I'm acknowledging the reality of the situation, as you can see, I'm not saying anything bad about the woman I'm just talking about. m I'm acknowledging a period of time where change occurred significantly and it happened after this woman appeared, that's it in a nutshell.

I think her daughter was coming home from college and he had to go meet her at Grand. Central Station in Manhattan, so she asked me to take him to Grand Central Station and I took him to Grand Central Station and that was the last day I saw him the next morning. I got the call from her assistant saying something happened to her. and I ask them what happened to him and they just said he got hurt, but they didn't say, you know he was dead, they were just like he got hurt, the assistant called this young woman, I forgot her name in the office and when the young woman answered the phone, we were in the threesome and she was crying and screaming on the phone and kept saying that chris got hurt chris got hurt and the assistant asks her what exactly did he do to her. she said she didn't know he just hurt himself and then we asked her if he was dead and then she said she didn't know so when we got to Chris's house we couldn't get in the house and he wasn't. until you saw the forensic van coming and when you saw the van and then they reversed it in the driveway to approach the door of the house, it was a door downstairs and then there was the normal door to go up the stairs and you enter the house from the front, but whatever happened to him, it happened downstairs because that's where his body was and they came in and they brought black bags with them, body bags and that's when it got real. when it changed everything changed when you saw, you saw the bags and uh we knew when they came out of the basement with the bags and his body was in the bags that's when you knew that Chris was never coming back so uh You know, the crying started and a lot of arguments started, a lot of arguments started threats and, uh, my life was going in a completely different direction after that and I didn't like it because I was confused about how to move and I was lost for a while. minute because I never had to manage my career without a manager and he wasn't just a manager, he was my brother, so I was scared for a minute.

I couldn't fix it, so I didn't play any records. for nine years and I started doing different types of business with signed artists and that's when we launched OT Genesis and had great success with it and signed some other artists, you know this artist. under the name Stove Stove God cooks and I signed you know another young artist called Killer Mo and I, um, I wasn't happy doing it like that and I just didn't feel comfortable putting out music. until I put the right support system in place and I couldn't make it when you say you couldn't make it, what does that mean?

What does it mean? That means that psychologically you couldn't achieve it. Psychologically I couldn't. put myself together because I didn't feel like I had a support system that I could believe in enough to make me feel psychologically able to move with the comfort and confidence and support that I know I'm going to need and the responsibility to try to wear all the hats myself. I was doing it myself, but I wasn't doing it to the level that Chris Light was capable of and at the same time you were absolutely heartbroken because I lost my father two years after Chris. the two most important male figures in my life Chris left 2012 I lost my father 2014 and you reconciled with him before I definitely reconciled with him before he passed away the problem is that I couldn't enjoy my time with him once we got together okay So that was a horrible feeling too because it's like all the time wasted not getting along was stupid, stupid, you know what I'm saying, that's part of the reason I really started to like getting unhealthy and he was trying everything. drowning out the pain, frustration and suffering of the lost is about overworking, drinking, smoking weed and cigarettes, and it got so bad that I reached the weight of 340 PBS.

I've never been like I am. I'm not even built. Being so heavy is funny it's like I looked at certain photos and saw how overweight I was. I look at my skin, yes, there are certain photos that I had. I had these like marks on my face. I hate those photos the way I see them. the darkness in those images, there is a book called The Body Has the Score, but the title is just what I have gained the most, it simply says that when things happen in our psychology, in our mind. the body will show it, yes man we will eat, we will drink, we will not sleep, but you will see it in the body before you see it in the mind, the mind is invisible, obviously the body is the first place.

To see it, I was reading that phase of your life and you were on some kind of ventilator when you were sleeping and things like I wasn't on a ventilator. I had sleep apnea AP sleep, yes, yes, I had sleep apnea. I was um. you drank until you were in a coma at one point, drank until you weren't in a coma, drank until you couldn't wake up, oh okay, my son and my security in LA had to wake me up. It took us about 45 minutes and I had just come back from hanging out at a club called poppies.

He sat me down the next day and said, listen, I don't want to hurt your feelings because you're my father and I don't even know if I have the strength. I want to tell you now, but I had a conversation with security. I need you to listen to them because I'm too afraid to tell you what I feel. How bad it was. My son has never spoken to me like that. my life, but I needed to hear it, but he couldn't even tell me because that's how much I was still trying to protect my feelings, but this is the first time I knew that I really let my son down, everything Bust Around was great. until this moment when he saw this and has been seeing it but this is when it reaches the lowest point that the doctor talks to me the next day with the pregnant woman and I went to the doctor I am breathing so loudly that outside the At the door, the doctor told me He asked why are you breathing like that and he wasn't even in the room with me, he came into the room and I told him breathing like that because I was doing it like that for so long over the last three years that it was starting to sound normal to me, the doctor said : I'll send you to the hospital because he put this down my throat and when he saw how big the palps were, it blocked 90% of my airway, he said will you send me.

At home and I take a shower and the central air system is blowing and I catch a draft that can lead to a cold and the last 10% of my breathing is blocked due to a swollen Gren due to a sore throat or something. die in his sleep that night he said I have to call an ambulance for you I'm in California He says I need you to go to the UCLA Medical Center right now to the emergency room and I'm going to call the chief at the hospital to admit you immediately You have to go to surgery tomorrow I said I'm not going to go in any ambulance he said well then you have to sign this document that will exemplify me if you don't listen and something happens and you die between now and when you get to the hospital I have never been talked to like that in my life.

That's when I knew this was crazy. My son is now calling him telling him to meet me at the hospital. We arrive at the hospital and I'm at the doctor's office and they are doing all the preliminary paperwork before admitting me to the emergency room. My son is talking to me and he tells me that I thought you were going to die last night and that I have never been like this. Scared dad, but I'm afraid you're going to die. I already lost my grandfather. I can't lose you too. Can you stop drinking? Can you quit smoking?

Could you please go back to the dad I know you are? I finished at that point I made a decision I'm going to have this surgery when I have this surgery I'm going to get in shape I'm going home on the way home Dexter Jackson The competitive bodybuilder used to compete in the Olympia and became Mr. The champion of Olympia, this man appears in my stories driving his car and Jackson Ville Florida and he is spitting the voices to put his hands with my question, he could see and then I hit him in the DM and said Mr.

Jackson, I'm a big fan. About you as a professional bodybuilder, is there any way we can talk on the phone? I need his help, he hits me back, sends me his number. I call him on the phone. I told him thank you for calling me. I greet you, Mr. Jackson, can we please? find a way to get back in shape and the man told me you saw you were ready for the bus and I said absolutely, he said you have to come to Jacksonville and you have to stay here for 30 days, tell your girl no can come tell him.

You will see your children in 30 days. I need to put you through something for 30 days before I continue this journey. you survived these 30 days. I know, you're serious. I rented a mansion with about seven rooms. I would have gotten a cameraman to document it. my food prep chef my masseuse because I knew I was going to have that workout every day and I needed someone to rub these muscles. I turned on my recording engine so I didn't need to leave the house. I got an assistant and stuff. That's what it was about I stayed in the crib for 30 days I lost about 27 pounds in 30 days these guys around me through my first bodybuilding competitor coach Victor Muñoz and my second head coach, the legendary Mr Olympia Dexter Jackson, I was able to get well brother and once I got my health back and once I got my mind back and my spirit right and I started to be proud of myself when I looked at myself and my kids looked at me and said you can do it. just listen once you did what you had to do and put in the work you had to do to show that they can't say it if it doesn't look the way they need to see it to be able to say what they need to say when that happened, hear the right thing, feel the right love that lifted my spirit so much and then I'll tell you something: going through this pandemic was another serious challenge mentally, emotionally and spiritually, my brothers Farel Williams and Swiss Beats.

And thank you very much for Timberland too because the four of them are the executive producers of this new Blockbuster album, which is available now. Absolutely the Blockbuster album is out now and I'm so grateful to everyone who was involved in helping this magic happen and come together. This is the culmination of all the experience and all the life stories we've talked about, but what really caught my attention is that you made the decision to put young and emerging people on this album. artists that you haven't really worked with before and that you've worked with like everyone else, but you chose to give the platform to these younger artists for some reason, two reasons, the first reason is that I'm never going to listen to the narrative of this. where I would listen to it a little more regularly than I actually choose to listen to it, I never really want to listen to it, but it's about how the Elder States or the older MCs don't really respect what the new ones do. at least speaking for myself and the type of artist I surround myself with, we don't feel like that and we don't move like that, we encourage it because when we were young artists we wanted the big guys to embrace us. us and give us games and schools and teach us so we can be better, you know what I'm saying, Chuck D gave me my name, dad, Kan used to let me go to his crib and ask questions, he put me in his albums, he used to help me learn let me learn bring me the shows I was performing at um De La Soul they did the same for us like a lot of MCs gave us the guidance that made me great I feel like it's only fair that we do the same for the next generation especially if they get high and I'm fan of a lot of these new artists and I want to work with them because they still inspire me to want to go to the studio and stay with Shar with my knife when I get there.

You know what I'm saying and I see a lot of them paying tribute? There are a lot of them walking around with their hairstyles like the ones I used to wear with my dad there, a lot of those dresses and they throw their heavy jewelry on it. Do it like I used to do it and still do it. I just don't have the dredging anymore but everything else we still do but I just want to make sure you guys know when not toThey are only here to give. I will give you the answers, the mentoring, the guidance and the information so that you can be much sharper when you are creative or when you are sitting in the corporate office negotiating a deal with the lawyers and their managers, but I love you too. knowing that we love them too, we are fans of what they do, we see them all paying tribute and we want them to know that we pay tribute to them too.

One of the things that I always think is destined to own the future is when the past and the present come together and I say that with all due respect because sometimes people see projects like this when you pass the torch, but what really you're doing is sharing the flame, sharing the flame that you couldn't have said. It's better because I'm not putting out the flame anytime soon, you've been at this for 33 years, you're still selling out shows, making Arenas and killing the game, and I, I, I. I'm very excited about this project because, for those reasons, you have two types of generations coming together to create the future and That's what's so exciting and I have to say from this conversation that everything you say and understanding the man that Buster is It gives a lot more meaning to the lyrics of the album and the records, so everyone should go check out this album right now wherever they stream it. anything, please go see it because it's a great project and you know you talked about that Google CEO who you inspired when he was 10 years old, you were that person and you're still that person to me, thank you King.

It is a great honor to have to spend this time with you today. Thanks bro, same way, man, really. The questions you asked. The places you went. I did not expect. I'm glad I wasn't prepared. Glad to hear it. I was not ready. I'm glad you know what I'm saying. They just gave me a prerequisite of what is important that you want to say in this space on your platform and congratulations on your evolution and your success with what you have been able to do. Create for yourself, thank you and become a successful businessman. I was driven and inspired by the story they told me about you and I thought, oh no, I have to come and I'm taking my time, I appreciate it because I'm going to do this right and I've never done an interview in 33 years, I've never done one. interview, such a deep interview, number two, I have never sat with anyone for so long and I have not done any interviews in Europe in my life, nor have you, you.

You have a record brother. I honestly appreciate you. It is one of the greatest honors for me to be able to do this. To hear that from you. Thank you so much. B. Thank you. It is an honor and a pleasure, brother. I appreciate you. King. Quick background on hu, as you know they are a sponsor of this podcast and I am an investor in the company. It's

finally

here. 3 years of work from here to try to make a bar, a snack bar that is nutritionally complete as of the recording of this episode, they finally released these bars that are high in protein, 27 vitamins and minerals and only two grams of sugar .

The impossible is already done and it tastes so good. Often these snack bars are like high protein snack bars that taste like eating playdough or cardboard or something, it's very difficult to make one that is nutritionally complete and tastes good, and ladies and gentlemen, here we have it. I'm going to put the link in the description to get your bar below, try it and tag me and let me know exactly how it goes because it's so nice to finally have a bar that's nutritionally complete and doesn't actually taste like cardboard and tastes delicious . The impossible has been achieved, as you know, because I've been sending thousands of messages, these conversation cards sell out exceptionally quickly, so this is the deal I'm going to make with you.

If you join the waitlist found in the description below, you will receive access to purchase these conversation cards 1 hour before everyone else. They are in limited supply, so if you really want to get your hands on them, add your name to the waitlist in the description below and you can find that waitlist at theconversation cards.com, but I'll include that as well. in the description below wherever you are listening to this episode