Omari Hardwick on Ghost, Evolution of Power, Working with 50 Cent & What’s Next

FOLLOW THE PIVOT PODCAST: MERCH | https://pivotpodcast.com YOUTUBE | https://www.youtube.com/thepivotpodcast INSTAGRAM | https://instagram.com/thepivot TWITTER | https://twitter.com/thepivot TIKTOK | https://tiktok.com/@thepivot FACEBOOK | https://www.facebook.com/thepivotpodcast FOLLOW HAPPY DAD: https://www.instagram.com/happydad FIND HAPPY DAD: https://www.happydad.com/find Most well known for his starring role as James “Ghost” St Patrick in the hit Starz series Power, Omari Hardwick sits down with the guys to talk about his career, behind the scenes life and how his character translates into his everyday persona. Crediting the show Power and the evolution of his character Ghost, Omari say his role allowed people to relate to the imperfections all of us deal with and made a cultural impact no just in the black community but resonating with all people. Omari opens up about his relationship with 50 Cent and how it helped shape his career and also shares insight about the personal bonds formed. An athlete before acting, Omari relates to the preparation and mindset one has when seeking perfection and trying to be the best at their craft. He explains to Fred, Ryan and Channing that the people who are a little off are the ones who we often admire as they choose to take risks and put themselves out there. Ryan dives into Omari’s upbringing and family life as he deals with personal choices under a microscope along the way, including his marriage to wife Jennifer. Channing asks about the sex scenes and what it’s really like with a camera that close during those moments! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 0:30Ryan Clark?

  Hey, man, we're back again, man. Here, talk a little bit about PrizePix. I just want to tell y'all, I went five for five.

• 0:36Fred Taylor?

  Here you go.

• 0:36Ryan Clark?

  I put in 750, I came out with 7,500. You know why, though? Because PrizePix wants you to win. Listen, if you use the promo code PIVOT, they will match you up to $100. And Chad, and you know, we already in the big states.

• 0:50Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, Florida, California, Texas. We got all the big states, 75% of them. Man, we're rolling. And I'm telling you, it's so much fun, because you can be a fan of sports, and then you can bet on guys. And that's what nowadays, people like people. This guy, that guy, he's better, that better. So I'm winning money off Jimmy Buckets. My man Butler is that doo-doo right now. But yeah, so I'mma wear your ass out. I see you had a good run, but we about to wear your ass out here in these Eastern Conference, Western Conference Finals.

• 1:17Fred Taylor?

  This guy will not stop talking, but I'mma simplify daily fantasy, player props. Pick your favorite players, put money in, get money out. Go do it.

• 1:28Ryan Clark?

  PrizePix.

• 1:29Channing Crowder?

  You want to show the app? I got an app too. I'm gonna show the app.

• 1:32Fred Taylor?

  Screenshot your pics and show us. Let's do it.

• 1:38Speaker 04

  Hey, hey, hey. What up, dawg? What's up, y'all? How y'all doing, man? What's up, baby? What's up? How you?

• 1:44Ryan Clark?

  What up, my guy? What's up, Ross? How you?

• 1:47Speaker 04

  Put the skin tie on, huh?

• 1:48Ryan Clark?

  You know what I mean? You gonna show it to him? You know what I mean? Like I'm backpedaling. Every time he hit me in the morning, he like, "Yeah, I'm in the gym, dawg." Every time, I'm in the gym.

• 1:57Channing Crowder?

  We be in, bro, we be in group meetings, team meetings. This is my [bleep] being on Peloton, breathing hard, asking questions.

• 2:04Channing Crowder?

  So if we get this endorsement.

• 2:07Speaker 04

  That's hilarious.

• 2:07Ryan Clark?

  I'm gonna start the show, man.

• 2:08Speaker 04

  That's hilarious. I thought we did start the show. I thought this was it.

• 2:13Ryan Clark?

  I got stuff I gotta do, man.

• 2:36Ryan Clark?

  Hey, the pivot has actually already started, you know what I'm saying? So make sure you subscribe, like YouTube, Spotify, Apple. Please like, we appreciate all the support. But I mean, we already started, man. We got a lot of power in the room today, though.

• 2:50Speaker 04

  Oh, man. I look at that word.

• 2:51Ryan Clark?

  We got a lot of power in the room. We got old Freddie T, Shannon. We got our boy Amari, though, you know what I mean?

• 2:56Speaker 04

  We here, man.

• 2:57Ryan Clark?

  I just want y'all to know, every morning we text, though. I'm in the gym. I feel like he was trying to let me know, you know what I'm saying?

• 3:03Speaker 04

  Like, what up?

• 3:03Ryan Clark?

  Come on, be right.

• 3:04Speaker 04

  Come on.

• 3:05Channing Crowder?

  Right, no, no, no, you gotta know, O, though. He let us know when you text him.

• 3:10Speaker 04

  Oh, he'll tell, he'll be like?

• 3:11Channing Crowder?

  My boy, O, just hit me, so I'll be like, bruh.

• 3:13Ryan Clark?

  He's my guy.

• 3:16Speaker 04

  But you know what's crazy, though? You and I get to hang when we get back home, home.

• 3:20Channing Crowder?

  Home, home. Back in the A, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He don't slide through the A too much.

• 3:24Speaker 04

  He gonna slide.

• 3:25Channing Crowder?

  I'm gonna pull him out tonight.

• 3:27Speaker 04

  No, I'm home, I'm home. He live here. He from here. I'm from here, but I live in South Florida.

• 3:33Channing Crowder?

  Oh, so he'll never come down there.

• 3:36Speaker 04

  Oh, you ain't coming down?

• 3:36Fred Taylor?

  You at the crib for real?

• 3:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, bro.

• 3:39Ryan Clark?

  We gotta slide, we gotta slide.

• 3:41Speaker 04

  That'd be cool, wouldn't it?

• 3:42Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:43Speaker 04

  Fred and I met a long time ago.

• 3:45Fred Taylor?

  Long, long time ago. He back in with Hines and Big Stroud.

• 3:50Speaker 04

  But you played with Hines?

• 3:51Fred Taylor?

  Fellas.

• 3:52Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, I played with Hines in Pittsburgh, yeah. I played with Hines in Pittsburgh. Shoot, Hines was there, what, four years with me?

• 3:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:57Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, Hines was there four years with me.

• 3:58Fred Taylor?

  So this was, this was the time we used to tear that ass up. The Gators was good. We was, we used to mop y'all too.

• 4:05Ryan Clark?

  But you, but yeah, you remember though when y'all were number one? And then y'all came to LSU?

• 4:10Fred Taylor?

  You're gonna always remind me of that. We've had thirty shows and he remind me of that ten times already.

• 4:16Channing Crowder?

  You remember when y'all were nine and oh and we came and whooped y'all's ass in Baton Rouge? You don't remember that? I know he was in the league. We twelve and one in championship, motherfucker. Don't act crazy now.

• 4:27Ryan Clark?

  No, I'm, I'm fine.

• 4:28Speaker 04

  This is so, like the pivot ain't had this before.

• 4:30Ryan Clark?

  Now this is deep. This is, you did it. It's your fault.

• 4:33Speaker 04

  I did do it.

• 4:34Ryan Clark?

  You should know why?

• 4:35Speaker 04

  Cause you got on the murder kit.

• 4:36Ryan Clark?

  I got on the murder kit. I got on the, I got on the Ghost. The Ghost fade job, somebody finna get shot tonight.

• 4:43Speaker 04

  And, and you went closer to the color blood, like that ain't.

• 4:46Ryan Clark?

  Well, cause I always see you used to clean off real good. I'm still mad at you for killing Roller, cause he was your friend.

• 4:51Speaker 04

  Roller was my guy.

• 4:52Ryan Clark?

  Roller was your friend. He said it too. He said, I'm your friend. And he had the one thug tear like the zil.

• 4:57Channing Crowder?

  I think I cried.

• 4:58Ryan Clark?

  Did you, did you cry? You shouldn't have shot Roller.

• 5:02Fred Taylor?

  Everybody wanna know, is Ghost really there, bro? Like.

• 5:06Speaker 04

  Why, and why they wanna know Fred? Cause I, cause you know why I'm asking?

• 5:10Fred Taylor?

  We never seen a character, we never seen nobody like that. We've never, ever, ever seen nobody like that. The closest we got to that was, you know, they talk about Al Pacino and, you know, but they're, they're of Latin descent. They're in a different country, but New York, the way you ran things, like we, we ain't never seen that.

• 5:28Speaker 04

  I feel like all of us saw it in a real small, pubescent version of some uncle. Who kinda put us up on game and taught us what not to do. And particularly with the four of us having promised athletically that we could then, of course, have a career in football or go even in another sport or get, you know, an opportunity as you three have segwayed into being now journalists and all these business opportunities that we haven't even talked about that all four of us are now privy to. There's definitely those uncles and even uncle figures within the neighborhood that were like Ghost, who would grab you up and go, don't go this direction. This is the direction you supposed to be going. Allen Iverson included.

• 6:11Speaker 04

  He had enough of those guys that were very Jamie to Ghost. I wouldn't say James St. Patrick, but I think Fred, maybe James St. Patrick is the apparition, the ghost, if you will, of what Ghost and Jamie as a two-headed monster wanted to become.

• 6:28Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 6:28Speaker 04

  So the third-headed monster of James St. Patrick becoming this polished.

• 6:34Speaker 04

  You know, entrepreneur who was equally probably able and aptitude and then brain capacity, able to work Wall Street numbers if he wanted to. Right. He could have done so many different things. You think about the Michael Jordans and the Magic Johnsons and what they've been able to spin off in terms of the business conglomerates, corporations that they've been able to create. Curating jobs for all kinds of people left and right. You could almost call Nike Mikey for the rest of our time on this earth. And what he did for Phil Knight and that, to me, was what was so beautiful about Jamie Ghost trying to become James St. Patrick is that he absolutely was on the same, in his

• 7:17Speaker 04

  mind, which by the way, we are the master of our fate. Nobody else is. We go home to spouses, some of us, we go home to children, we got a lot of dependents that are not just our spouses or our children, people that definitely, especially within the black community, we have to put money in their pockets. We gotta put money on the books, whether they're incarcerated actually, or whether this, you know, big ass America has incarcerated them in some capacity. And then you get a ghost saying even to Natasha and to his homie, who the black conglomerate, excuse me, or the culture has embraced in, that being Joseph Shakur's Tommy, and all of a sudden, he's saying to both of these people, who are his brackets on the shelf,

• 8:02Speaker 04

  if he's a book, they on the left and the right, before the kids came, and obviously over that is of course the McNamara's presence of 50's Canaan, and you get a ghost saying to everybody, yo, we can really crack it open. Right. There's a real aha moment to be had, like, let's really run the table. And not in a dirty way, but like in a clean way. The beautiful thing, Fred, as to why we were so addicted to this guy, and me in it still enough, but also one foot out of it enough, to look back at this cat and to know that he truly was the hero.

• 8:42Speaker 04

  Put on paper, he's the anti-hero. And you agree?

• 8:47Fred Taylor?

  100%. We've seen that, we see that.

• 8:49Channing Crowder?

  I gotta get me a house.

• 8:53Speaker 04

  It went deep.

• 8:55Fred Taylor?

  We see that, though. We see that in, you know, in our environment, in our demographic, right?

• 9:01Speaker 04

  We do, we see heroes that we tout as heroes, but that others make so not heroic. And then we equally know that the Crips and the Bloods oftentimes have nothing on the government.

• 9:10Fred Taylor?

  100%. So with that, in a perfect world, just playing it out, how would you have liked to see, you know, Ghost, you know, the ending, right?

• 9:22Speaker 04

  And maybe that begs the question, the great question that you ask. It was the way that you, see, nobody has said, nobody has asked it that way. The way that FT just hit it was really different for me, Ryan and Channing, I'll tell you why. Because when people ask it, they go, "Yo, there was no coffin."

• 9:44Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 9:45Speaker 04

  "Yo, you didn't actually take your last breath on the ground." Or at least the camera didn't necessarily show that. It showed you trying to make sure that Tommy didn't shoot your son. The way that you ask it, Fred, was, "We never seen no cat like that." So that makes me realize that no matter what Instagram post I post, "Bro, it can be about, yo, it's Brave's 7th birthday." "It's my son's 7th birthday, yo, Wingo's coming back."

• 10:16Speaker 04

  "Bro, I actually said, it's his birthday."

• 10:18Channing Crowder?

  Right, right, right.

• 10:20Speaker 04

  "Yo, I'm on this next project, I want y'all all to check it out." "I actually filmed it, I don't know, 8 months ago." "It's coming out next week, yo, Wingo's coming back."

• 10:28Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  And after a while, of course, you got fans, and God bless them, who will absolutely go, "Yo, I rock with this butt." And there's always that hefty butt. So the way you posed it was, when I said, Fred, why? Why do, why does, or why do people want to know? And why does everyone want to know? And you said, "Because we never saw no cat like that." And in my mind, I'm like, and honestly, Fred, I'mma throw it back to you, and Channing, you need 2 brews for this one. Because this one gonna really go deep. You have, though.

• 10:59Speaker 04

  Because Fred Taylor is full of Ghost. Ryan Clark is full of Ghost. Channing Crowder, full of Ghost. Omari Hardwick, full of Ghost. It begs the confusion. When I run up on this cat in airport, who am I meeting? Oh, a ghost.

• 11:19Speaker 04

  Fred, Ryan, and Channing are so ghosts that y'all would go.

• 11:24Speaker 04

  It's a little bit of both. Got it. There's gotta be a little bit of "Oh" in every character he plays. Yeah, but he just played a affable, funny, doting, loving, charming, almost eight-year-old kid-like character on the left side.

• 11:41Speaker 04

  Then he just aged himself and played alongside or across Toni Collette in this other project.

• 11:48Speaker 04

  I'm confused. And Fred, the reality is, not only have we never seen a guy like this, perhaps, in a visual space, when you brought up Al Pacino's Scarface, or, you know, obviously, Al Pacino's equal, Michael Corleone, the son of the genius, rest in peace, Marlon Brando, having played Godfather. Blacks are highly Velcroed to the Italian story. We are. Particularly if the Italian story via Sicilian bloodline is the story. Because Sicily, as you know, is right next to Africa, and absolutely, there's some more blood up in that. Right. But we never had no black story like this outside of a movie with Wesley playing, perhaps, Nino Brown, if you will.

• 12:34Speaker 04

  But Ghost wanting to go right, Nino had no desire to go right. Wesley's Nino had no desire to go right. It's Ghost's desire to break good from being bad that's so sexy. But when you say that we've never had it, I don't agree because he's in so many of us. We just didn't get to watch with Grandma to the Left. Wifey to the right, kids there, friends, eating salty or sweet, drinking wine or drinking whiskey, watching it Sunday night, coming in pervasively, not only into your living room, but in your spirit, for six and a half years. We didn't get to see that guy, but he's in a lot of the brothers that I watch.

• 13:10Ryan Clark?

  But I think the other piece of it, though, that you said earlier, though, was you did have three different personas.

• 13:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure.

• 13:17Ryan Clark?

  So the only thing, like, if you're gonna think about something we got to watch for six years, it would be the wire, right?

• 13:23Speaker 04

  There you go.

• 13:24Ryan Clark?

  But Omar wasn't really like that. Stringer Bell wasn't like Avon.

• 13:28Speaker 04

  With the suit on, running the city with the suit on.

• 13:31Ryan Clark?

  Right, they didn't build anybody up like that. So when you talk about a little bit of, oh, having to be in everything that he plays, what were the experiences and things you had to pull from? Whether it was to be in front of Tasha, talking about running a family or getting out of the game? You know, whether it was doing the deals and trying to get the clubs up and get the different troops up? Or if it was talking to Angie about, hey, look, when I'm done over here, it's me and you? Like, it's a lot of stuff. It was complex, but you have to play it, though, right? So let's get out of what Ghost was and what O had to be to go to work every day and make that come to life.

• 14:09Speaker 04

  What a great question. I'll marry it to Fred's question and the answer to how I would have wanted it to play out, to your question. And it's so similar to athletes. It's, you know, y'all know, y'all watch me, and all the athletes, people go, oh, you mentor so many athletes? It's because the Freds, the Ryans, and the Chanties go, O was a ballplayer. He's a poet and he's a ballplayer. The marriage is perhaps the actor. That's it. So the way I would have liked to see it play out in a poetic justice type of way, and not the movie, Fred, but just figuratively speaking, poetic justice-wise, similar to the turn of what Denzel's brilliant character, obviously brilliantly portrayed by Denzel, gave us in Man on Fire. A life for a life.

• 14:52Speaker 04

  When he went to give his life for Dakota Fanning's character, that's what I would have wanted. I envisioned, and I shared it with Courtney as well as with Joseph, I envisioned Tommy getting caught up in some shit, and Ghost had decidedly, after trying every turn...

• 15:10Speaker 04

  This is where athletes come in. We leave it all on the field. Or so the coach requests that we leave it all on the field. When Ghost decidedly felt like every turn, I've gone left, right, backwards, forward, sideways, whatever, up, down.

• 15:25Speaker 04

  I did leave it all on the field and it's still not working for me the way I wanted it to work for me. So, after that, exhausting all of the options to be bigger and to be everything he wanted to be. What makes him so addictive is that we all can relate to someone so grounded, they never get too big for their britches. The britches of which they put on when they first started. Tommy is that. You started with Tommy. So, he gets caught up in some shit. What I envisioned was me having to go give a life for life. If it was such a beautiful moment, I probably shared it with Courtney first, but when I shared it with Joseph, he was like, "Yo, I love it." And I said, "Instead of Romeo and Juliet, it's like Romeo and Romeo."

• 16:07Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 16:07Speaker 04

  What also made it kind of cool, Fred and Ryan, tell me if I'm wrong, and I had to tap into a thing I'm about to say to your point. The brotherhood, the camaraderie, actually being raised with four boys in the house for me. And then also being around a gazillion men as it pertained to being an athlete, particularly the sport of football. We all tried our hand at basketball and baseball, but football comes like a set. It comes like the set of that which you do a podcast around, or the set of all sets, which is a movie set, having about 90 people on set. Football's the same way.

• 16:39Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:40Speaker 04

  Traveling squad included, those who don't make the traveling squad once you get in NFL, it's still about 80 people, trainers included, that you're dealing with. So, to me, the camaraderie, Ryan, that I always have with men, particularly black men, that was the first obvious insertion I put into this guy. I injected it like heroin. I'm a guy's guy. I can't erase it. Every dude who comes up to me and goes, "Yo, my girl loves you, homie, can I get a picture?" I always say, "You don't love me?"

• 17:10Speaker 04

  You don't love me? You gotta love me first. You the king of your household. She can fanfare me. My girl might fanfare the three of these men.

• 17:21Speaker 04

  But the man's gotta rock with the man.

• 17:24Speaker 04

  Women are brighter, stronger, smarter, quicker. But every smart, stronger, brighter, quicker woman in here would all raise their hand in agreement, listening or viewing this podcast and say, it is factual as to what Omari's about to say, and here's the about, that unfortunately, as bright and as quick-thinking and as strong and as more powerful than men/women are, they still interpersonally, between women, don't rock out the way that men interpersonally rock out. 100%. They just don't. And all the smart, strong women would go, "That's true." So I had to first insert that. Like, I gotta get the guys. You don't go for women. "Oh, Mari, I want you to embrace your sexuality." That was said to be my Jay Hardwick.

• 18:08Speaker 04

  But Jay Hardwick forgot, "You're a woman, I'm a man." I'll embrace sexuality, which is very difficult to do, but in embracing my sexuality, if you want me to become that, which obviously shows her level of security, what I am very good at is embracing how much I'm not afraid to love on men, particularly black men. Super different. There's not a lot of actors who have that. So that's the first insertion for me, Ryan. Like, let me be an activist with this guy. Like, if John Lewis did what he did, if Dr. King did what he did, if Malcolm did what he did, if Fred Hampton did what he did, Stokely, you know, all the way over to Huey P. Newton, and just young cats on the block right now that we don't know who are rocking out for their community. Even a cat like Dolph, rest in peace. That young rapper did a lot for the hood. He did.

• 18:54Speaker 04

  I decidedly made this guy of activism. It was my secret weapon. I got in the Bible one day and I said, "Oh, he saw awaiting God striking him off the horse for being such a badass." And not bad isn't good. And now he's hit by the light, and now he's Paul. But if we could make it Fred, Channing, and also Ryan, to the point where we never see him quite make it to that status of being the elevated one, then we would keep watching every Sunday. Because we're rooting for him to get to that place. That was my whole mission with the guy. So for me, part of getting cut short, no, he almost made it, would be to go save Tommy. Because I still got everybody's affinity, their empathy, their,

• 19:38Speaker 04

  man, I feel bad for the cat. That's how I envision him going out. And by the way, Fred, had I left it all on the floor in that way, I don't necessarily know if the fans would be so fanatical about my return. Because it would have all been there.

• 19:51Channing Crowder?

  Right. But consciously, you think about that. Because I was gonna ask, like, that ghost, and I just said, like, the dude that run the streets with a suit on.

• 19:58Speaker 04

  Which is a great point, Channing.

• 20:00Channing Crowder?

  Which is just like, when I used to see him.

• 20:02Speaker 04

  Did Idris wear that? Did Idris wear that at Stringer?

• 20:04Ryan Clark?

  Nah, straight, you know, straight, that was back in the day, they had the big slacks and button ups. Yeah, he was, it was, it was.

• 20:09Channing Crowder?

  Those were pimps. You know what I'm saying? Like, they had the flashy cars, like, go slot. But I want to ask you, like, that, that.

• 20:16Speaker 04

  He was dressed to the nines.

• 20:18Channing Crowder?

  We done said the word ghost more than we done said Omar. You know what I'm saying? I wanted to ask, man, when you saw that script, did you know it was special? Because we know you're a black activist. Like, we, we know you, you, you know what I'm saying, you for the people, the culture and all. But how does ghost become ghost? Like, is that you? Do you try to follow a script? Because, bro, when I, when we started watching Power, and I'm looking at you like that uncle, like, this is how men move, no matter what they do, no matter what their, their, their, their stream of income is.

• 20:52Speaker 04

  And the operative word is.

• 20:53Channing Crowder?

  What created that?

• 20:54Speaker 04

  And the operative word is do. You're right about that. The first thing that created it was looking at the script, Channing, looking at it, and, and then running from it. I've, I have read an article about, uh, the great Chilwell Toad, edge of for right, playing, uh, Twelve Year Slave. And they said, Chilwell Toad, how did you know you wanted to do it? He said, because I ran from it. Wow. So the fear, right? And I am aware, Channing, that equal to the 11-year-old who's out on someone's football field right now, whether it's become a danger or whether we've become more aware that it's a dangerous sport that we play. And some of us are not allowing our sons to play ball like we did. And they're playing everything from flag ball to baseball, which you could play forever, to hoop, whatever it may be. That 11-year-old on a football field right now, because it's such a difficult sport.

• 21:39Speaker 04

  He is hearing in his right ear, everybody's saying, "Oh, my God, you could be, you could be, you could be." And on the left side, Channing, he's got this thing called fear ways, like, I don't know.

• 21:50Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior-like beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser-Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 22:20Speaker 04

  Channing, I was 11 years old at 37, looking at this script and going, "I could be, I could be, I could be, I could be." And on this side, I was like, "Ah, this is fucking, ah, this is crazy."

• 22:35Speaker 04

  Because there were so many layers, to your point, Ryan. There was so much complexity in the bag, and it forced me that moment, that quiet moment within my own meditative space to go, "Damn, nigga, you were gifted," as Deion Sanders said to me one time, "with such a bag of gift." And I had to say it to myself, Channing. And that, bro, especially when you're raised humble, is super difficult. Somebody asked me recently, "How do people get to, you know, the Tigers and the Michaels and the Kobes?" You know, I just told her, I said, "They almost go sociopathic." So, so, Channing, I have the aptitude, I said to your wife, I said, "You wouldn't be with Channing if he wasn't crazy?" She goes, "Facts." So, so, I'm aware that I'm off.

• 23:17Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 23:18Speaker 04

  I'm aware. I, I know why we respect firefighters.

• 23:20Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, to do things we can't.

• 23:23Speaker 04

  Fred, Ryan, and Channing, firefighters are off. Why would you run into a burning building?

• 23:27Ryan Clark?

  When everybody else is running away.

• 23:28Speaker 04

  Everybody's, they're off. So, Channing, I was aware I was off. All the other roles I had played up to that point allowed my off to be qualified. This asks for my off. So when I answered the young guy who asked me in Spain upon ending that film, "How do people get to that?" And y'all Negroes know Michael Jordan. He goes sociopathic.

• 23:48Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  Is Ghost sociopath? Is Tommy a psychopath? She said, "Great question, both a spectrum." Sociopath ish. Psychopath ish. On the spectrum. So what I had to do first, Channing, was that. I had to go, "Oh, where are you most off? Like, what's your issues?" You know, when no one's around you, family included. When you go in that room and you close the door, where do you sit and go, "Fuck, I hate this side of myself. I feel so ashamed of this." And then equally, where do you go to that place? When probably now you don't mind doing it when your family's around, of course, right? Where do you go and how do you go? When you think about yourself as big and as proud of what you've done

• 24:33Speaker 04

  and what you can accomplish? I had to marry the two of those together. But all of it for me, Channing, was mostly, all of it, was focused more on the column of my flaws and my bullshit. I can play the honor of the guy.

• 24:46Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 24:47Speaker 04

  I can play that.

• 24:48Channing Crowder?

  Because you gotta play it all the time in life.

• 24:50Speaker 04

  As a football player, Channing, you are constantly asked to make the play. Make the play, and we got a mask. And we're not 6'6" on average. And the closest row to us at a football stadium is about 35 feet away from us, from sideline to someone leaning over and doing this to us. People could talk about Kyrie responding to what he did the other day. It's not a happenstance that NBA ballplayers keep getting fined for these things when it's unfair that they're getting fined because fans are being protected unfairly. Respectful fans should be protected, but not disrespectful fans. And they are clothed, opposite, as you stated, of Ghost wearing a suit.

• 25:35Speaker 04

  But I'm also wearing the suit almost naked because who's not looking at a well-dressed man? So in basketball, everyone's looking at not only a well-dressed man, but it's all exposed. Channing, wearing helmets, dog. So we learn humility without knowing it in football because we're wearing helmets. Ghost was exposed. Channing, the script made me feel naked. Like, damn, I gotta show all my gifts?

• 26:00Fred Taylor?

  But you did it well.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  And I really, really am forever humbled that you feel that I did it well.

• 26:06Fred Taylor?

  No, you did it great.

• 26:07Speaker 04

  It was super dangerous for my spirit to dive into that level of a dive.

• 26:12Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 26:12Speaker 04

  Especially my flaws. That's Omari's flaws. It's not all Ghost and not all 50. It's not all Courtney always says that part of it was written after her father. But what about the guy playing them? I gotta, my process is very unique. So you can say what you want Courtney about who you created it after. 50, you can give me whatever wisdom you want to give me as to what your ghost life was, because you had one, but I gotta play it.

• 26:33Fred Taylor?

  What do you mean process though? Your process is different.

• 26:35Speaker 04

  That part. I think a lot of people just play it, right? And they just go, okay, I can kind of play the beats and let me just, the guy is bad, but now he's breaking good. But I had to fall in love with how bad he was. I don't know if every actor, well, I know, I shouldn't say that, that's ignorant. Every actor, Ryan, doesn't play the beats the same way. Which is why when you and Wifey are watching something, Ryan, you go, I didn't feel it here. You know the actors that make you feel it here. It's because they went down there and grabbed it, Ryan. Then they gave it to you. So of course you feel it there because they grabbed it.

• 27:07Fred Taylor?

  But see, that's the point I'm trying to make. And I think without what you did in Power, no one would really care about Power Force. What, well, Tummy, that's a difference. But the other power, the Power Universe, you did it so well that, you know, now we're peeking into everything else that they're doing after, after Ghost, right? But you're saying how deep you got into it. I, I've heard a lot of people talk about, you know, Pac changing from this poet. And it's amazing person after he played Bishop.

• 27:38Speaker 04

  Oh Fred, that's deep, bro.

• 27:39Fred Taylor?

  And he turned into Tupac. See, but you're able to flip that switch. And here we are with Omari. You know, even though you played the [BLEEP] out of Ghost, like you know who you are. Tupac, I think, extended the role of Bishop into his everyday. And it ended tragically.

• 28:00Speaker 04

  Completely. And the inadvertent tragic reality was Biggie.

• 28:04Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 28:05Speaker 04

  Biggie's the innocent caught up in that shit. Pac is one of the most powerful human beings on earth. And we do forget that that power that Omari speaks of, only piggybacking your great point. That's a great analogy Fred. Was 25 years old. That nigga was gone by 25, but he, he worked as if he was on the earth for at least 55 years. So it just shows the gift and genius that he came with, but I agree with you completely. He was not at the level of maturity yet to be able to separate the poet, who sounded very different in that 17-year-old interview we've all seen, as the son of a freedom fighter, and that being Afeni. And Matula was like a stepfather, whatnot.

• 28:48Speaker 04

  And he was born Lassane, remember Tupac is Lassane, then named Tupac. He was so different, but didn't have the maturity enough. And the years enough, bro, let's give him some grace and mercy to sit and go, "Oh, I'm a, I'm an actor, I'm a thespian." Not that he wasn't great, you know, as Stretch with, with, with the great Tim Roth in "Gridlock." I liked him a lot in "Gridlock." And I didn't mind him at all in, in, and of course, "Poetic Justice with Janet." Cause he's so gifted anyway, the camera catches that, Fred.

• 29:18Speaker 00

  Right.

• 29:19Speaker 04

  Like you and I are unafraid to look at each other as black men. So many brothers have become so look-awayable that it's even look-awayable if you compliment another brother by preceding it with no homo. Right. Huh? So Pac was one of those great men, but the man was cut short at 25 years old. And now that we've all, the four of us and others like us, grown further from that age of 25, we look back and go, "Damn, we kinda expected a lot from him." He was a baby. He was a baby. He was a baby. But you're right, I was brought into this, reminded that I was a thespian, and I needed to be able to switch in and out of different roles. Flip the switch, to your point, and maybe he wasn't.

• 30:01Speaker 04

  That got involved, then it's like, do I play the character of that, or? Like, who is that? Are the old rappers really themselves? And the new rappers are putting on the front, like? Right. And the Instagram adds to that. Social media adds to like, "I'm just gonna be a commercial." Huh?

• 30:18Speaker 04

  Gotta sell.

• 30:18Ryan Clark?

  When you mentioned earlier, Jay Hardwick, who's your wife.

• 30:20Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 30:21Ryan Clark?

  You mentioned her saying about tapping into your sexuality.

• 30:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:25Ryan Clark?

  The one thing that we've learned as a community, for sure, is if it's ours, we grab it and hold it like it can't be for nobody else.

• 30:32Speaker 04

  For sure, sure.

• 30:32Ryan Clark?

  Right, and so, and also the other thing is too, like, we've been, we talked about ghosts for the first 20 minutes because people sometimes forget that you are Omari. You've been a thespian for two decades before this even happens, and now you've become ghost, and we grab you and we hold you.

• 30:48Speaker 04

  That's humbling, man. I think it's 20, I think it's 20 years.

• 30:51Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, like your hours, and then, obviously, your, your family becomes public, and you start to take heat.

• 30:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:57Ryan Clark?

  For not being married to a black woman.

• 30:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:59Ryan Clark?

  And you're in Fred, kind of mentioning, it leaking into your life. How, how, how did that make you feel when you know, like you said yourself, I'm trying to bring y'all to activists?

• 31:08Speaker 04

  Yeah. I was in a such a, you know, we're born in, Fred, you, you know, the latter 70s, and I'm the middle of the 70s.

• 31:16Ryan Clark?

  I'm 79.

• 31:17Speaker 04

  79, and I'm 74. We're 70s babies, and even the early 80s babies are this, Reaganomics babies, right? The crack epidemic child.

• 31:25Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 31:26Speaker 04

  We are a conduit of sorts between that 90-year-old great-grandparent, or grandparent, depending on when parents or grandparents had kids, and our children, who some of whom are as young as five years old, three years old. We are the middle. That 70s, 80s shit is weird, bro. So by nature, being from the South, hell, 15 minutes away from this interview, Decatur, Georgia, straight up Wesley Chapel, snap finger. I absolutely, at times, had to deal with my own, not fear, but perhaps apprehension, again, yeah, okay, apprehension could be a next-door neighbor to fear, but my apprehension because of being raised in the generation,

• 32:09Speaker 04

  whereas a 14-year-old presently to about, I don't know, 30-year-old would go, what does it matter? She's incredible, and she's hot, and she's pretty, and she's wild, and she's, and she's into the Bible, and she... But, but, but for, but for me, Ryan, it's a great point. I, I wasn't necessarily as free as I should have been. But I realized where I was free always. I was always free. And I remember even going to like Virginia Highlands and different parts of Atlanta that no brothers went to to write poems and then go back to of course Decatur where it was nothing but people who looked like me. I absolutely was unapologetic about that shit, but obviously enough apologetic nature that my pops kept saying, "Stop being apologetic."

• 32:50Ryan Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:51Speaker 04

  So there was a quality in me, and Fred is shaking his head and he understands this. I was in a cafeteria table, and always will use this as the analogy. I was in a cafeteria, excuse me, at the table colored black. Latinos get to be involved, sometimes, sometimes.

• 33:08Speaker 04

  And I'm not saying that right. I'm saying our culture would say, "Sometimes." But I was always at the cafeteria table within that big cafeteria space, Ryan, thinking, "Shit, we more powerful if those of us tapped and called by God to roam around the cafeteria, get up and fucking roam around the cafeteria table? Why the would I relegate myself to the field? I'm a master. Why would I relegate myself to being that? I'm naturally, by nature, a worker who would be denoted or coined or monickered or labeled as enslaved times.

• 33:44Speaker 04

  But I'm also a field meets a master. That's a funky combination. So I was walking around the cafeteria table, and by the time I got to a J, I realized nobody can tell me where to go and what table to go to and how to go to it and what person, because by the way, I'm so different and quite unique with my humility as the foundation of who I am included. Because there's so many arrogant people around me, because just people in general are arrogant, even if it's not about bragging, but it's about stabbing each other in the back and moving on and trying this and that. The worst animals on earth, Ryan, are human beings, not animals. So for me, I looked in the mirror one day and I thought, "I'm doing it again."

• 34:27Speaker 04

  And damn God, why you, shit, I'm doing it again. I'm now bringing not anything to make our community better. You don't marry outside of your race to make your community better. That's not what you're doing. You are open to what God is saying that will make you individually better. We as a culture, Ryan, you astutely brilliantly said it, we're so fucking Velcro to each other that we then think, "You think you're bringing that thing over here to make us all better? No."

• 35:01Speaker 04

  It's about me. It's about me. And if I get better, then we all go get better. So I had to just come to that understanding. And then in coming to that, I realized part of what made J so incredible was that she was so fucking strong in ways that a lot of black women weren't aware that white women could be. So in her proving that she don't fucking go nowhere, you can throw a million stones at her, Mary Magdalene, she don't move. It made, because as black people, this is the greatest quality we possess. Our greatest of swag is that we have to be connected to God differently because we're trampled every other day. And the next greatest of our swag is that in that, all we really care about at the end of the day is you,

• 35:44Speaker 04

  is you, whomever it is, that doesn't look like us, withstanding the fire that we've withstood. If you can stand- You got to see in that heat. And if we see you do that, we go, alright, cool. You made it in. And that's not bad. It's the same as a white comedian, Jim Carrey included, not necessarily being affirmed unless the black audience laughs at his jokes. It's similar. So it's why it's easy, Channing, for me to be so about black movement and mobility, but equally to understand that part of that is we need everybody on the team. Athletics are special because we were forced very early to understand that someone who looks like Joseph's Tommy

• 36:25Speaker 04

  is equally as viable and needed for someone who looks like Omari's ghost. It can be the same way romantically. And so people come in and they got a lot to say, and why would they not? As you get bigger, I've started to learn, the light bulb is on you, a microphone's in front of your face, and now unfortunately, Ryan, the microphone's in front of everybody's face. So they all get to have an opinion on that. And they didn't prior.

• 36:48Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, and it's a thought, it's like, damn, Spider-Man or something. Great power-

• 36:51Speaker 04

  With great power comes great responsibility.

• 36:54Channing Crowder?

  And being there, and now, do you get asked about that?

• 36:57Speaker 04

  No, not at all.

• 36:58Channing Crowder?

  Do you get presented with that because, you know what I'm saying? You are one of the most known black men in the world, bro. And now you got these dudes looking and seeing and being like, oh, he's not married to a black woman?

• 37:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:12Channing Crowder?

  Because they see what you portray in the world, they see your activism, they see what you're doing. We do the, what is it, Blue Apple?

• 37:19Speaker 04

  Blue Apple Poetry.

• 37:19Channing Crowder?

  Blue Apple Poetry, bro, you are a fucking genius. I'm not gonna lie to you.

• 37:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, so maybe do both of those things, play ball and poetry.

• 37:28Channing Crowder?

  Play ball, poetry, the acting, like you, you're, the dynamic way that you've approached life and now knowing you and knowing who you are.

• 37:36Speaker 04

  But you know what I realized, Janine?

• 37:37Channing Crowder?

  That pushback, that pushback, does that pushback get to you?

• 37:40Speaker 04

  Because you're like, listen, bro. Hell, yeah, because I'm a human. But, Janine, I'm secondly a brother. That took a long time to figure out. Janine, I'm secondly a brother. But I'm first God's kid.

• 37:53Speaker 04

  And a lot of us go to church on Sunday or don't go to church, whatever, you know, religion is man-made. God is real, religion is man-made, whether you believe in religion or God or not, religion is man-made. The most numbered murders on earth are all related to religion.

• 38:09Speaker 04

  But if you go to some institution, even if it's your bathroom on the toilet,

• 38:15Speaker 04

  and talk to God or someone higher,

• 38:19Speaker 04

  you're doing that, Janine, because you are embracing that you're under something bigger than you. As a brother, Janine, I'm not bigger than the next brother. And I think after a while, there's so many black women, mostly because they are our first, we come through their womb. They have been now privy to my communication and even in this response to you and your elegant question, they would say, oh, he's really that, and he's like all of that, he's a nigga, he's a negro, he's a proud African-American, he's a black man, he's, I'm all of that. Nigga, I won't trust you if you ain't got no nigga in you. But see, Janine, I also won't trust a white person if they ain't got enough nigga in them. So my shit is just different, dawg. It's just different. And it's taken me so many years to just be able to say that out loud.

• 39:04Speaker 04

  It's a very interesting interview because I'm different. It took me forever to say that. Everybody's been hashtagging for a very long time on Instagram. And everybody that's doing that or creating hashtags, as you know, Channing, they're younger than me, you, Fred, and Ryan. They are. But if I could hashtag what they do a lot, which is hashtag different. A lot of times, we be like, "I don't know if you're that different."

• 39:27Ryan Clark?

  Kinda look the same as everybody else.

• 39:30Speaker 04

  Kinda smell the same, kinda look the same, kinda think the same. I was lamenting one day, to your point, Channing. I might have been crying, who knows, bro? I was talking to Big Brother. Y'all know him as Big Daddy Kane. And I was talking to Big Daddy Kane one day, and I said, "Damn, Kane." And it wasn't anything to do with... Because Jay's biggest fanbase is black women. Now, Channing, Fred, and Ryan know that. Her biggest fanbase is the same fanbase that we are supposing stoned her. Supposing is the operative. I ain't saying it. Y'all ain't gonna get me to say that black women stone Jay. I understand that black women feel a way because we are their natural diamond. We're their oil. Duh.

• 40:15Speaker 04

  And they are ours. But if I'm first gods, well, then, homie, I gotta first rock out with what God is telling me to do directionally.

• 40:24Fred Taylor?

  A lot of it is through the lens of lust, though. They see you and they say, "Damn, he fine as a mother..." You know, so...

• 40:32Speaker 04

  Only you, Fred. Fred, I can be honest. Only you, Fred, would put it that way.

• 40:36Ryan Clark?

  Cause Junior just laughed. Ryan, Junior just laughed. But I'ma tell you why.

• 40:40Fred Taylor?

  That's what they gonna say, and that's why. Freddie gonna give you flowers, bro. You gonna get flowers. But it's deeper than that.

• 40:45Speaker 04

  You know why I'm saying only Fred? Because the three... Because this is an interesting interview. There are some interviews where there are black men in the interview space only. So, like, for our Latino and other Latin diaspora viewers and listeners.

• 41:03Fred Taylor?

  Did Angela teach you that?

• 41:04Speaker 04

  No. The irony is that in the midst of that, if Fred says it, you could have equally said it, Ryan, because you're a flower giver. Channing, you could have equally said it, because you're a flower giver. And also ironically, it is four brothers who many, many a sister, a black woman, even a black woman lost, who doesn't really realize she's black, would absolutely say, well shit, I rock with all them brothers. In whatever that means, not just from a sexual standpoint, but from what we possess in our noggin, to how we physically look, to how we present ourselves, to how we care about our families, which is obviously sexy. That might be the most sexy thing. To our beliefs, what have you.

• 41:48Speaker 04

  But I do understand it being from the lust perspective. But ironically, Fred, I never spent time on that one.

• 41:54Fred Taylor?

  No, I agree with you.

• 41:55Speaker 04

  Does that make sense?

• 41:56Fred Taylor?

  But I'm talking about the simple, the simplistic views.

• 41:59Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 42:00Fred Taylor?

  That they say, no, why are you over here?

• 42:02Speaker 04

  And the reason I don't spend time on that one is because if they say, we should have you, then this begs the point that I'm making about Big Daddy Kane saying to me, when I said, yo, what is? I feel not only different, but I just feel like I'm so misunderstood, Big Daddy. And Kane responded, you ain't supposed to be understood. You fly at a different frequency. And he said, what's dopeo is that you never forget that your frequency of flight is for first and foremost, our people. First and foremost.

• 42:33Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 42:34Speaker 04

  I said, I can. He said, well, you don't, which is great. Whether you can or not, many do. Even if they can't, they choose to fly away from us as a culture. You haven't. And so I understand from your great point, Fred, yes, from a lust perspective, from a perspective of us four being 15 years old in the mall and looking at a chick walk by and only being sexual in our thought. Hell, sometimes brothers, I know, women, close your ears. Sometimes brothers can be talking about a friend of theirs that just got murdered. And if a bad girl walks by, we literally be like, yo, yeah, so bro, the way he was shot was crazy, bro. So we all have that lens of that of being lust. But I do understand to Channing's point, oh, you've become such an influential

• 43:18Speaker 04

  embodiment of black masculinity. Not from a sexual standpoint, but for what we want black men to be from that standpoint. If you're not with the one that's on your arm that matches the people that are and of course it is more, you know, related to being black women. Of, of course, because women by nature will, will go, no, it's my, they're nurturers. So even in some of the grabbing of Omari and go, no, no, no, don't marry outside of the race. I've gracefully and with mercy embraced it as it's almost nurturing. No, no, no, I rock you better. But it just means that we all gotta get a little bit less afraid to get up from our own

• 44:00Speaker 04

  solitude called cafeteria table colored black and walk around a little bit. You might in fact run into a J as a black woman and go, damn, she dope as hell. If she was black, I'd set her, I'd set her up with my homie Omari. You ever thought about that?

• 44:17Speaker 04

  She dope. If she were black, I'd set her up. But damn, imagine God going, if she were black, I absolutely never put that in the clause. But we as human beings put it in the clause.

• 44:27Fred Taylor?

  I can't say every episode that exposure leads to expansion, but that's what you're saying. You gotta separate yourself from this table and go and explore.

• 44:37Speaker 04

  So that we

• 44:38Fred Taylor?

  So you can see what's out there.

• 44:39Speaker 04

  So that we can expand. Never for me, Fred.

• 44:41Fred Taylor?

  No, no, not

• 44:42Speaker 04

  No, I'm saying your setup was crazy. So if you just threw it like Chris Paul, I'm coming down with it.

• 44:49Fred Taylor?

  Take us back, because I know where Ryan wants to go.

• 44:51Ryan Clark?

  No, actually, I wasn't even, I'm not even gonna go back. In the sense of what the conversation was here, I want to go back actually to a different Omari. We get to sit up here now as Fred at this age, Channing at this age, Ryan at this age, and having experienced things and having gained success, but it hasn't always been that way for you. And a lot of times through our adversity comes the wisdom, right? Through our adversity comes the lack of fear, right? Because we also start to understand that, you know what, like, life is short. And so what are some of those moments you went through or some of the things that you gained living out of a car? Some of the things that you gained working odd jobs so you could get to this point to where,

• 45:35Ryan Clark?

  because truth be told, as great of an athlete as you were, as great of a poet, as great of an actor as you are now, without the success that you have now, we are not sitting here where we're not listening to this in the same way. So what are some of the things

• 45:50Speaker 04

  What you talking about me, Dee? Your teammates is crazy, Dee.

• 45:55Speaker 04

  You talk about.

• 45:57Ryan Clark?

  But you're saying, so, so what are some of those things, though, that you dealt with? That people don't associate with who Amari is now?

• 46:03Speaker 04

  Okay, so my turn for flowers, right? To my right sits a fellow free agent from LSU, who played a multitude of seasons and became a hella fired free safety. To your right, Fred Taylor was one of the dopest running backs in all of SEC history. Hell, yeah, he was. Okay, so Fred Taylor goes 12 years in the league, 13, because we all came out together. Fred and I were together. Yup. Ryan's a little bit younger, we were together, so I really know this one. But I know when Ryan came out, I'm like, damn, Ryan got to the place I didn't get to. And now my college roommate just walked into the Hall of Fame. Champ might arguably be the second greatest cover of all time. Deion was in the tackle, Deion tackled with his booty.

• 46:51Speaker 04

  You know Prime gonna see this, right?

• 46:53Ryan Clark?

  Throw that ass on him.

• 46:54Speaker 04

  But Deion Sanders, ironically, and he knows this, is the greatest of corner of all time. It's arguable that Champ is right there. I, you know, I can hear God saying, Darryl Green, Amari, I know, I know. Champ's, you know, he's in the conversation. And then to Fred's right is Channing, having played one of the hardest positions in the NFL, and definitely as it pertains to protecting one's knees. Fred, the same, you know, the running back or fullback is the linebacker on offense. And now Channing plays six or seven seasons. You guys got to a quicker paycheck. Ryan, you asked such a great question because I never got to money quick.

• 47:39Speaker 04

  And I've absolutely heard that Biggie said it 30,000 times, because we all played it 30,000 times. More money, more problems. I get it, but I also hear my father saying, but resources matter. Some of that money, you could pay for a shrink to help your shit.

• 47:58Speaker 04

  Money will give you a trink. You can go and lay down and they will liken goodwill hunting with Matt Damon laying down and Robin Williams overseeing him, rest in peace, Robin. They will figure or help you figure your shit out. But you need money for that. You three really got to that cash differently. And I just love where y'all now are because y'all are not the sad story of what went wrong. Giving a young black man, usually from socioeconomic backgrounds that are lower, inner-city included, some dollars. But ironically, Ryan, you right. I was truly in the car with no money. So now what I deal with a lot, and Junior just said this yesterday on set, yours has

• 48:40Speaker 04

  been such a marathon run, oh, that sometimes you get on sets and some people forget all that you are and all you've done. So they play you lower.

• 48:54Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior-like beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser-Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 49:24Speaker 04

  And it had him hot yesterday. And guess what, Ryan? He gets to be the bad guy then, even if being the bad guy is relegated to him inside being hot. Not snapping on any respective producer, but inside feeling like if I could do something for my guy, this is what I would change. The stature has taken longer. That's the pitfall. Because the stature was not necessarily longer. Let Ryan, Fred, or Channing tell it from your POV, by the time I was coming off a Grid Hour game, y'all were like, he's really gonna rock. Watch him fly. But, bro, we as black men haven't often dealt in titles because we don't come with titles.

• 50:03Speaker 04

  But in our industries respective financial, medicine, religion, entertainment, education, there are people who deal in titles. So until you're at that title, they ain't necessarily with you the way that they should be. 100%. Or the way that God would say, you've earned with you. You guys got to a title quicker. Even if not the championship title, you were Wikipedia'd in a way that, oh, wasn't yet. So it's very interesting to go through all of that, but have the thing that y'all possess. The three of you have the core of not just being an athlete, but the football thing. It's absolutely why I'm where I'm at.

• 50:40Channing Crowder?

  When was oh, good?

• 50:42Speaker 04

  When was oh, good financially?

• 50:43Channing Crowder?

  When did you look financially, just like I, I know you have more to do.

• 50:46Speaker 04

  Cause I still haven't made what I should have made.

• 50:48Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, bro.

• 50:49Speaker 04

  I still have never made the money. No, the money, I've never made what I should have made, never.

• 50:53Channing Crowder?

  On the back end?

• 50:54Speaker 04

  Period. It's happening now, finally.

• 50:57Channing Crowder?

  But when, when did you, when did you sit back? You said, like you said, you talked to yourself and said, I done made it, the world knows me, and my kids will never have to worry about nothing.

• 51:06Speaker 04

  After power.

• 51:07Channing Crowder?

  All the movies you did before that?

• 51:09Speaker 04

  I made $5.

• 51:13Ryan Clark?

  Correct me if I'm wrong, cause you know, the internet and different things. I feel like there was the time 50 was talking about lending, lending people money. It came out that he lent you money and you were like, but I paid it back plus interest.

• 51:24Speaker 04

  I think he forever just really, really respects the shit out of me for that. We just not taught that in our community. Barely do we pay anybody back. But then once we pay them back, you're not thinking about me. How many times has Fred Taylor, Ryan Clark, and Channing Crowder been fucking hit up for money?

• 51:41Channing Crowder?

  Dozens, dozens.

• 51:42Speaker 04

  So once we're hit up for money, and I, and I am financially obviously stable at this point, once we're hit up for money, we don't expect it back. Sometimes we wish it could come back from the person who might have promised seven times they'd return it. Like damn, seven? That's like a heavenly number. You ain't gonna say seven and not give me at least seven bucks of whatever I gave you back.

• 52:04Channing Crowder?

  Something.

• 52:05Speaker 04

  So.

• 52:05Channing Crowder?

  I always say, I always say.

• 52:07Speaker 04

  Can you, can you give wifey a ride somewhere?

• 52:10Channing Crowder?

  I always say, I don't loan money.

• 52:11Speaker 04

  Something?

• 52:13Ryan Clark?

  You know what I mean? I, I, I give money. I don't loan money. I give money because most of the times I don't expect it back.

• 52:18Speaker 04

  So for me to give it back to 50 with interest, I just, I was so proud to be able to do that. And it was early. He felt like, damn, oh, you can't be messed up. You need money. And it was the summer and it was after season one and then it was the summer after season two and he gave me 20,000 and the next summer he gave me 23,000. Absolutely because he adores Jay and the kids. He might like them more than me. It was absolutely given in a way of like, you know, take care of the family, bro. Use that.

• 52:42Ryan Clark?

  Up to that point though, in your career, you still weren't making money where you were taking loans?

• 52:48Speaker 04

  On power, I never got that. In the end of it, never, Ryan, never.

• 52:53Channing Crowder?

  Oh, 20,000.

• 52:55Ryan Clark?

  Time now, you made me St. Patrick.

• 52:57Speaker 04

  How much do you think I made a week? An episode?

• 53:01Channing Crowder?

  I would think 20,000.

• 53:03Ryan Clark?

  Angela Bassett makes 250 on 911. She's the highest paid.

• 53:07Speaker 04

  She makes 250 a week?

• 53:08Ryan Clark?

  A week. So you had at least 150?

• 53:11Speaker 04

  No, then you got it right. First time I've ever disclosed it. But I was also the face of the network. Right. Angela's not the face of that network. She's one of the greatest actresses that ever graced the planet, but she's not the face of that network. It's metrics. When we go to renegotiate contracts as athletes, what do you Fred and Channing do? You go, "Coach, this, this, this, this, this many sacks, this many tackles, this much, this many. I got my Yak yardage is this." Fred, we're not talking Yak yardage. No, we are. We are talking Yak yardage because there's that too. I sustain after getting hit five times. I usually give you three more yards after being hit five times. One, five. I'm a football cat, Ryan. Metrics speak. You know why I like sports?

• 53:55Speaker 04

  Because sports is about X's and O's. There is no objective. No, you either make the play or you ride the bench. Straight up. No subjectivity to it, no. That's it. So it's that person who's an activist and a poet who is full of grace and mercy to absolutely be like stars, I'm still super humbled. 50 and Courtney, I'll thank you forever, but all of them know.

• 54:24Speaker 04

  He didn't really make no money. They knew it before I knew it. That's crazy to me. Because they're higher up in the company. You don't think Jerry Kraus knows every dollar that Scottie was fighting for before Scottie remembers that he's fighting for the dollar? It's all the same. It's just the money is quicker and bigger in a very abrupt way for the athlete, Ryan. I'm super proud that as a free agent, you found as much length in career. Right, Dr. King said longevity has its place. You found longevity in a career where Fred Taylor was touted as one of the greats.

• 55:03Speaker 04

  You then came in, obviously stupidly gifted, unsigned free agent and becomes what you dog. Appreciate it, bro. You don't have to think about that. I appreciate it. Think about the dollars that reach and it's a, you go, and in the third year, they, it's subjective. So whether they give Scottie what he was owed, when Michael was like, Scottie, I know, but let's just get through the year and then we'll talk about the money. Whether that's given or not, at some point, even an unsigned free agent, there is that moment of metrics stating, shit, what does that other free safety make from that team? That doesn't, that didn't happen necessarily. That doesn't necessarily.

• 55:43Channing Crowder?

  Because the player empowerment movement, when KD was moving around, LeBron moving around.

• 55:47Speaker 04

  Great point, Jay.

• 55:47Channing Crowder?

  And all that. Football now. The football, now Debo, Debo and them boys saying, I want to hit it. Is there an actor empowerment movement? How do, how do you get that, the leverage, it's, I'm gonna call it leverage, the leverage you talking about, bro? Do you have it now? How do actors get that leverage?

• 56:03Speaker 04

  It's now coming. Some of how you get it for me, because remember my brand chanting was first and foremost storytelling, to Fred's point. The flip of the switch. My brand was, wow, he's an interesting actor who can kind of play. A lot of different things. He looks like a leading man, but he might almost be a character actor. A black Brad Pitt, if you will. Brad Pitt looks like a Ken doll leading man. But Brad can play all over the place.

• 56:28Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 56:29Speaker 04

  Brad can play a pikey talking boxer in Snatch and then go over here and play Meet Joe Black and then come back and play a weed toking whatever in True Romance and then play in Legends of the Fall. And I mean Fight Club with Ed Norton, Brad's kind of all over the place. But he walks in a room and you go Brad Pitt. Leading man. Put him over there in that casting. Yeah, but he can do a lot of different things. No, put him right there. So Channing, part of it, bro, was that I came in with a big ass bag to Deion Sanders' point. I love Deion. That nigga girl texts me every week reminding me how gifted I am. It's so meaningful because my brand has only been the gift. I had to get to the place where I was reminding rooms, Channing, that I was not just the artist,

• 57:12Speaker 04

  but I'm a business savvy cat equally. That's when they get resist, ah, because I was presenting first and foremost, and maybe too much, the artsy fartsy kid. That's the point. But nigga, I like money too.

• 57:28Fred Taylor?

  You have to be, to what Channing was saying, you have to be selective in the roles you take because you can give that leverage away.

• 57:37Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 57:38Fred Taylor?

  Right?

• 57:38Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 57:38Fred Taylor?

  Much like in today's game, you know, guys are trying to, you know, figure out where they want to go and selective in the deals they take because they can reset, you know, the contracts for other players if they take some bullshit.

• 57:52Speaker 04

  For sure. And pace is everything. And not only did we pace differently than the actor born in 1998.

• 57:59Fred Taylor?

  Barclay said we were all born at the right time.

• 58:01Speaker 04

  We were born at a very interesting time.

• 58:03Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 58:04Speaker 04

  There is a reason that Fred and Channing and Ryan and Omari can say, yes, yes, I know Manning is close and I know that, you know, Touchdown Joe is close, but okay, Tom Brady's the greatest quarterback ever to play. Because Fred, he paced. 12 yard outs, 7 yard outs, 35 and out, 12 yard out, Yak yardage. Making former quarterbacks who are 5'8 receivers.

• 58:33Fred Taylor?

  A lot of receivers were former college quarterbacks. And now, there's debate of whether some of them should walk in the Hall of Fame. That Brady paced.

• 58:44Speaker 04

  So that's the other thing Fred, for me, it was always remembering, even though Nipsey dead at 33, so if he died, what, three years ago, he died before Kobe, four years ago, whatever it was, he would now be 36, 37 years old. Nipsey is still allowed to be touted in that huddle of generation, where the greatest of his brand was aptly stated, marathon. It truly is a marathon Fred. It really is a marathon. And I think my leverage is partly from me thinking of it more like that. Like shit, I hate that it's a marathon. I wish I had the abrupt paycheck. I wish I had the 56 that the college roommate signed for nine years, right? Champ went to the 56 million over nine years, leaving Redskins going to Denver.

• 59:29Speaker 04

  Sure, I wish I had two out of the 56 million.

• 59:32Fred Taylor?

  Right, right.

• 59:33Speaker 04

  But I also understand that God beautifully made sports such a gladiator sport, particularly parenthetically stated, football, American football. Not that soccer is not included in that. And definitely hockey and lacrosse are included in that. But you can't have the same marathon that Omari has. Hence my pride in Fred and Ryan and Channing doing what you're doing, because you're still pacing. Look what you did in transitioning. A lot of people, where are they now?

• 1:00:00Fred Taylor?

  Since we're making comparisons, right? Sports, entertainment. You have so many different avenues now with all the different streaming platforms. And you can now go back and earn that, even in football. You know, we have the social media, there's so many different ways they can show the game. That's why the contracts are much larger. The same thing in what you're doing, you got the Netflix's, the Hulus, the Amazons. When you go back, maybe you just want it to be on a big screen. But it's so much more you could do now and can take.

• 1:00:30Speaker 04

  Damn Fred knows some shit.

• 1:00:32Fred Taylor?

  Does that make you feel excited? Because you have range.

• 1:00:36Speaker 04

  I absolutely wanted to be on the big screen. I thank you Fred. I wanted to be on the big screen. I definitely feel the age similarity of obviously down to almost a year. I think he's one year younger than me, only by months, and that being Leo DiCaprio. But I think the four of us would say for our generation, Leo is the last movie star as it's relegated to the big screen. Leo's the last of that. I only, after trying to quit acting and give up on it, just like we try to give up on a great girl that God gives you, you know what I mean? We all run, because men are babies. Yes, women, we are saying it. Men are babies. So maybe some of us are more man to be secure enough to say that we're babies.

• 1:01:21Speaker 04

  But even the most secure man is still a baby. So for the long time, I was, for the longest of time, excuse me, I was absolutely Fred on that thing, in that babyish way, being like, I'm supposed to be on big screen.

• 1:01:32Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 1:01:34Speaker 04

  There are way more avenues now, and 50 and Courtney and stars did give me a beautiful lob. And by the way, because I won't ever say it, because I know Fred, you don't want me to say it. But whatever has happened to this character ghost, whether he's dead or still alive, how about that Fred?

• 1:01:51Fred Taylor?

  I love it.

• 1:01:53Speaker 04

  This man, who played that man, absolutely has been now hired more on the Netflix world, or by the Netflix world, family, than I have by stars. Stars I had six and a half years, but I've almost done freaking six movies in only two years with Netflix, to your point about the streaming platforms. So I was talking to Joe D. one day, being Joe Dumars, the great Joe Dumars, and I had a conversation with him and he and Debbie's new house in Detroit, and I was out there doing a film with Casem Basyer, who was the director of A Boy, Girl, or Dream, doing another personal film he wanted me to do, and Joe said it best, he said, yeah, with

• 1:02:34Speaker 04

  all these streaming platforms, yes, you might not make the dollar upfront that, you know, your predecessor of brilliant Denzel Washington made immediately, but what you do, get to the point of being able to do now, is you're worldwide, because Netflix is not worldwide. So you might almost be on more platforms than them, and almost more internationally known than they were, but maybe the dollar is not there. So the leverage now Fred, to your great point, would be going to Netflix. You know, in, in, in desire, I can't ever state it arrogantly, but in desire, going to a Netflix and reminding them, I've done four to five. Can we now talk deal? That's the point. Can we talk, to your point about backend, to Channing's point about nothing on residual tip? Not just residual tip, I'll get paid off power forever.

• 1:03:17Speaker 04

  But how about like on some big hefty backend tip? Or a deal, Netflix is giving incredible deals. Apple is giving incredible deals. Kevin Hart and I have something in the works that I can't speak too much about, but it would be at one of those, it wouldn't be at, at, at Netflix, but it would be at one of those streaming platforms that we speak of. And it could come with a really hefty thing. And you, Ryan and, and Channing, you know, can absolutely have me back on and go, this is crazy. Oh, full circle from that first interview. You now are in that space where some of that leverage we talked about. And it is from that standpoint, like you said, it is from the standpoint of, but now, oh, if you've done your turn at showing how much you have range. Then there's no job that will say, yeah, but he can't do this.

• 1:04:02Speaker 04

  And even if I can't do it, if I've become a producer on five viable jobs over here, can I at least go produce that job that has a character that you guys aren't convinced or believing that I could play? Yeah, come in as a producer, because you've shown viability there. It's all numbers.

• 1:04:17Ryan Clark?

  And so the biggest thing for me is, because you mentioned athletics a ton, and that's where we all come from. And obviously, once you get out into the real world, there are some of those things we gotta pull back on, right? Because people who don't do what we do, or haven't done what we've done, don't understand.

• 1:04:32Speaker 04

  Can be very intimidated.

• 1:04:32Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, they don't understand that type of aggression. But then there's also some, some ways, to me, that gives us the advantage. And so now, you've parlayed this marathon into where you are going to get into production. But you mentioned Denzel Washington, and obviously, to, to me, he's the, he is the greatest actor I've ever seen. Denzel turns everybody into some form of Denzel, and that's who I want Denzel. And that's who that person is to me. Like Malcolm X is, is that person. Frank Lucas is, is that person.

• 1:05:01Speaker 04

  That's a great way to put it.

• 1:05:01Ryan Clark?

  But, but what I do.

• 1:05:02Speaker 04

  I thought you were gonna say reverse.

• 1:05:03Ryan Clark?

  But, but, but what I do love about it now, though, is every time Denzel Washington speaks, I listen. Every single time.

• 1:05:11Speaker 04

  If you want to see my wallet, I'll show it to you. That's my favorite phrase.

• 1:05:15Ryan Clark?

  Sitting here with you now, and just listening to you talk life, not even necessarily the business, it's made, it's given me that feeling. What's next for you? Not just what's next in the business of acting.

• 1:05:29Speaker 04

  I do believe that steeped in me, bro, is the activism of a Harabella Fonte, of a Sidney Poitier. I do understand that what makes the moment, or the much richer moment, when someone wins the national title, or the whatever you would call the NBA title, when our grayed-out, elegant, almost ethereal, floating on space, Bill Russell comes out and gives the trophy to whomever respectively won the championship, I'm still aware that so many hotels kicked him out because he was black. Not because he was necessarily 7'2", because it was 6'11" to 7'2", but because he was black. I'm aware of it. I'm aware that he didn't make the dollars that the brothers now make. The big ticket was called the big ticket for a reason.

• 1:06:13Speaker 04

  Garnett came in and changed the game, which equally changed football in a way. I'm aware that baseball players make the most money and nobody even knows them when they go to McDonald's. I'm aware of it, how it all goes. But in being aware of it, is that enough, Ryan? And I started realizing, if God introduced me even in the last hour, 25th hour of his life, and that being Muhammad Ali, and I got to sit in bed with Muhammad, and he's watching Power, and I'm watching a fight of his, and he's watching, which is facts. You don't get that opportunity unless it's God saying, "Listen to Muhammad Ali, even if he can't audibly be listened to, because he can no longer speak." And hear what I'm saying, which is, you are built like them. You're an activist, and you're an artist,

• 1:06:57Speaker 04

  but never let either one go. And that's what I've realized, Ryan. That's how I'll answer the question. Some people have become just that and let the other thing go. I keep hearing God go, "No, I'm forever gonna make you do the thing that makes Ryan admire Denzel, but while doing it, you gotta just keep giving back." I'm exhausted, God. I don't care. God, I wanna spend more time with Brave. He's 14 now and not 7. I wanna go on a daddy-daughter date with Nova. I know, handle that, juggle that. God, really? Yep, do it. All I know is... His mama thought I was gonna be a pastor. Denzel's mama thought he was gonna be a pastor. Paulette and Denzel had me in that house for twenty some years, you know that. Ryan, is that shit accident or not? It's not accident.

• 1:07:41Speaker 04

  So for me, it's a very well aware moment for me. I have clarity at another level now and I'm like, how can we build a country, say that we're created equal of this, that and the third, and it hasn't been shown at all? Obviously, women equally going through the detriment that we've gone through as black men. The double minority of black women being obviously handed the real, real thing. But you make a great point, Ryan. Oftentimes, because women are not as thought of as aggressive as black men, or our women not as aggressive, because they are women, we are more of the threat. So I would love to always insert whatever elegance and class I have, while being passionate, whatever I can insert in allowing a white elder statesman

• 1:08:26Speaker 04

  and all of the huddle around that to go, we gotta really start to listen to black men and what they feel. Because they are the leaders of their homes, the same way we're the leaders of our homes. So we should listen to what they're having to say. Because we've never listened, we just end up telling them what we think we know they already feel. Nah, but dog, listen to me. And I'll tell you. And so there's a way to, nah, dog, listen to me. There's a way to articulate that very differently and to make it where we can move forward. Is it idealistic? Absolutely, Ryan. Is it an apparition like James St. Patrick never being reached? And it really just being Jamie when he was love-struck and Ghost when he was killing? Absolutely. But why am I living if I'm not at least trying to get across that?

• 1:09:08Channing Crowder?

  It's crazy, you made it through this without... I gotta ask him, man. I knew it was coming. I'm the nasty dude on the show. You know, you met my wife. What did he just say? I'm nasty, bro. I know what you said, you met my wife. Angel over there saying, what was that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We just, thirteen years, bro, three kids. Yeah, you got kids, we get after it. Bro, those sex scenes on the show. How did they go? Because I saw you and Angela.

• 1:09:35Ryan Clark?

  I knew it was coming.

• 1:09:35Channing Crowder?

  You married, bro.

• 1:09:36Ryan Clark?

  You know that was coming?

• 1:09:37Speaker 04

  I was trying to save you from it.

• 1:09:39Channing Crowder?

  But then you didn't throw a pillow at him? Then I see you and Angela rolling around, and we might have cut power off a couple times and got after it after I saw y'all interacted. Like, how do those filmed sex scenes happen? Because I couldn't do it, bro. I'd be rock hard.

• 1:09:56Channing Crowder?

  I would be rock hard.

• 1:09:57Ryan Clark?

  It's very uncomfortable.

• 1:09:58Channing Crowder?

  Listen, I get rock hard right now with these cameras.

• 1:10:06Channing Crowder?

  Oh, let my wife walk over here and sit on my lap. Watch what happens.

• 1:10:13Channing Crowder?

  Bro, I don't know how y'all doing. Like, it's professional, but it's...

• 1:10:16Ryan Clark?

  But you got me sweating, dawg.

• 1:10:17Channing Crowder?

  It can't be that professional, like...

• 1:10:19Speaker 04

  But it's so, it's all of it, but it's this.

• 1:10:22Channing Crowder?

  Yes.

• 1:10:23Speaker 04

  But Channing, it's the lights and the cameras and this one. This camera's at you.

• 1:10:27Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:28Speaker 04

  Sometimes the camera operator is on the bed with the camera here. And you feel his foot more than you feel whatever's on her.

• 1:10:35Channing Crowder?

  Well, give me that foot.

• 1:10:38Speaker 04

  I'm feeling you, Channing.

• 1:10:40Channing Crowder?

  Bro, I just, fuck. If a fine woman, if a fine woman's sitting on me, bruh. The booty there, all of that. Bro, rock hard.

• 1:10:50Speaker 04

  I'm telling you, you wouldn't, bro.

• 1:10:52Channing Crowder?

  I might be a porn star. I don't know. I might have missed my calling, old.

• 1:10:57Speaker 04

  Let me tell you, you know what's funny? I was about to ask y'all, what made y'all name the show Pivot? And guess what? Channing just fucking answered it. We was here.

• 1:11:08Channing Crowder?

  It was deep.

• 1:11:09Speaker 04

  And Channing pivoted.

• 1:11:12Channing Crowder?

  To there. To there. I have to know, man.

• 1:11:15Speaker 04

  Ding ding ding.

• 1:11:16Ryan Clark?

  Welcome to the show. You finally made it to the show. Hey, we appreciate you, dawg. Man, that was amazing, man. Thank you so much, my guy. Appreciate you helping me, man.

• 1:11:25Fred Taylor?

  For everything you do, bruh.

• 1:11:26Speaker 04

  I love you, Fred. I love you, Ryan. I love you, Channing.

• 1:11:28Channing Crowder?

  So proud of you, man.

• 1:11:30Ryan Clark?

  Now, you're amazing. Appreciate it. Nah, you was a... That was crazy, though. I knew it was coming, too.

• 1:11:35Channing Crowder?

  I got it, man.

• 1:11:36Ryan Clark?

  God.

• 1:11:37Channing Crowder?

  Hey, hey, tell me, I've been wondering, too.

• 1:11:39Fred Taylor?

  I love, appreciate you.

• 1:11:40Channing Crowder?

  Hey, because they didn't do like the make love scenes on Power.

• 1:11:43Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:43Channing Crowder?

  They was effing.

• 1:12:08Speaker 05

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