Jeezy opens up on having no regrets, from the pressure of Atlanta streets to culture icon, musical evolution, betting on himself, arrest turning point, depression, co-parenting, Jay-Z bond & new Vegas residency

“I regret none of it, I lived the best of both worlds.” Jeezy We couldn't hide the excitement on this one, sitting with the man behind the soundtrack of our young adult lives... In this powerful episode of The Pivot Podcast, Jeezy pulls up for a raw and reflective conversation about the journey that shaped him—from the pressures and grind of Atlanta’s streets to becoming a defining voice in hip hop culture. He opens up about the evolution of his music, how his mindset shifted over the years, and what it really means to bet on yourself when the odds aren’t in your favor. Jeezy speaks candidly about carrying the weight of being a culture icon, the responsibility that comes with it, and how Atlanta’s influence helped mold not just his sound, but an entire era of music. The guys go deep into his phases of life, the transition of growth in his albums, using music as his message to culture, betting on himself when all else fails and taking risks despite being advised not to. Beyond the spotlight, he dives into personal battles with depression, offering a rare look at the emotional challenges behind the success. Jeezy also reflects on a pivotal moment in his life—being arrested—and how that experience became a turning point that forced him to reassess his path and ultimately change the trajectory of his life. Ofcourse, we have our laughs and lighter moments, when Channing calls him out on owing him money from the days of his music influencing his car purchases and the amount of money spent in strip clubs as well as the catalyst that pushed him back into the studio away from the outside noise. The conversation also explores his growth as a father and the realities of co-parenting, highlighting the importance of maturity, communication, and legacy. Jeezy reflects on his long-standing bond with Jay-Z, sharing insights into their mutual respect and what he’s learned from one of the game’s greats. To top it off, he talks about his new Las Vegas residency and what this next chapter represents—not just as an artist, but as a man continuing to evolve while creating an experience for people to truly reflect on the longevity of music, message and motivation. This episode is about resilience, reinvention, and the power of staying true to your vision—no matter where you start. Pivot Family, comment, like, hit the subscribe button, we enjoy hearing and learning from you- the good and the bad, we want to know! 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-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.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Jay, Jeezy Jenkins. I mean, this dude invented corporate thugging. His 2005 debut solo album, Thug Motivation 101, became an anthem for all hustlers. But the conversation today isn't just about that start, but how far he's come. He's already chronicled his bouts with depression in his New York Times bestselling book, Adversity for Sale. But today with The Pivot, he dives even deeper into those struggles. He's in a better place now. He's healthier, he's happier, he's whole. But he still remembers the trials it took to get him here. He goes back to the decision to leave the streets, why it was both the most frightening and best thing he's done. He lost his voice right out of the gate. I mean, he was performing in Jacksonville right in front of Freddie T. Worked with Justin Bieber's voice coach.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  I mean, if you don't believe me, just ask the UPS man. Jeezy and Chan go back and forth about strip club money totals. Let's just say one guy had two stacks, and the other guy had two garbage bags full of money. Yeah, it's the king of the ad-libs. But he had to ad-live in life. He talks cutting friends off, his last arrest, what he's learned from his past relationships, and why he and Jay-Z will always have one another's back. He's in the best place he's ever been, and he's headed into his Legend of the Snowman residency in Las Vegas. We're happy the storm blew the snowman through The Pivot. So relax and enjoy as we kick off our conversation with Chan's uncle, yeah, the one and only, Jeezy.

• 2:17Channing Crowder?

  I brought Jeezy to Gainesville.

• 2:21Speaker 03

  My boy.

• 2:21Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, a pleasure, legend.

• 2:22Speaker 03

  A pleasure, brother.

• 2:23Channing Crowder?

  Yes, sir, yes, sir.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  Already.

• 2:25Ryan Clark?

  Chance said he brought you to Gainesville with him, now.

• 2:28Speaker 03

  Man.

• 2:28Ryan Clark?

  He said 05.

• 2:29Channing Crowder?

  Man, I got to college in 02 with that trap or die.

• 2:32Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:33Channing Crowder?

  And the Mississippi Dale Monte, they said, "Bro, what's that?" "Don't worry, I'll burn you one, I ain't buy it."

• 2:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, no. They won for sale.

• 2:42Fred Taylor?

  You say you brought him to Gainesville, this is a real-life story. I don't know if you remember, 2004 Super Bowl in Jacksonville.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:50Fred Taylor?

  You came down and did a show.

• 2:51Speaker 03

  Yup.

• 2:52Fred Taylor?

  Bam, promoter, that was my homeboy. I actually gave him the bread to bring you to Jacksonville.

• 2:56Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 2:57Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, I was in a wheelchair on crutches, I was a little banged up, but you did your thing.

• 3:01Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 3:01Fred Taylor?

  Left.

• 3:01Speaker 03

  He was good, though, you say where?

• 3:03Fred Taylor?

  He just passed away, heart attack.

• 3:04Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 3:05Fred Taylor?

  But you, legendary, for sure.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  You know what's crazy about that story is that's where I lost my voice at. That show.

• 3:12Fred Taylor?

  Wow.

• 3:12Speaker 03

  That's when it actually happened, nobody taught me how to perform, you know, because I'm coming straight from the streets, you know, and it started to work over the years, and now I gotta do these performances, and that was like the biggest show I had ever done.

• 3:25Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 3:25Speaker 03

  Because before then, all the shows I was doing was like in these hole-in-the-wall clubs, didn't even have stages, you had to stand on the speakers.

• 3:32Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 3:32Speaker 03

  And I was so excited about coming to Jacksonville for the Super Bowl, show about 100-deep, three tour buses.

• 3:38Fred Taylor?

  Yup.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  You know, and we pull up all black, go in there mobbing, I get the mic, the sound system a little hot, I'm yelling, screaming, and I get back to the bus after the show and I can't talk.

• 3:51Fred Taylor?

  Wow.

• 3:51Speaker 03

  And I couldn't talk for like maybe almost eight months after that.

• 3:54Fred Taylor?

  That's crazy.

• 3:55Speaker 03

  And I had to get surgery, Coach K had to take me to get surgery, I was embarrassed to tell him I ain't have insurance, you know what I'm saying? I had, you know, two Ferraris in the driveway.

• 4:05Ryan Clark?

  You had car insurance, though.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  I had no insurance. I didn't understand the concept, you know what I'm saying? But until I had to do it, so I had to get surgery, and that was right around the time that I signed my first deal with Def Jam, so I was hiding out from them, because they was looking for me to do promo run, but I couldn't talk, but I didn't want the label to know that.

• 4:22Fred Taylor?

  Wow.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  So we was all concerned that once I got the surgery, I might not sound the same. You know what I mean? So that was the kind of feel. But that's Jacksonville. That's what I do.

• 4:31Ryan Clark?

  Well, I mean, if you heard the voice or see the face, you know exactly who it is already. Jay Jeezy Jenkins.

• 4:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, Jenkins.

• 4:38Ryan Clark?

  Jenkins, as they probably call him in Atlanta. This is Fred Taylor. This is Shanny Crowder. I'm Ryan Clark.

• 4:43Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 4:43Ryan Clark?

  Pivot fam, man. Thank you for pivoting with us. There's another funny story that, though. What was Justin Bieber's voice coach?

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Oh, yes. How do you remember that? Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 4:52Ryan Clark?

  And then you say like the UPS.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:54Ryan Clark?

  Tell us that story.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  So this was around the same time.

• 4:56Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  So I got everybody living in my house with me. Like, my, I got my whole neighborhood. Everybody living in my house in Alpharetta. And after surgery, we come off the road because I can't perform. So everybody's just at my house. And I gotta do vocal lessons to get my voice back. Lady, shout out to Ms. Jan. She's the best. She was Justin Bieber's and Selena Gomez's vocal coach. When she become to be that. And she had me play these CDs and sing along with them. So it'd be like fa la la la la. So imagine being in the house full of people from your neighborhood and you singing in the shower trying to get your voice back. So it was crazy. And then we was in there rehearsing one day, going through the different notes. And I guess the UPS guy normally just drop packages off there.

• 5:41Speaker 03

  And it's like, you know, he just come in. How you, Jan, how you doing? He came in, dropped the packages off. Hey, Jan, how you doing? I'm back there fa la la la la. He got to the door. He was like, is that Jeezy? I was like.

• 5:52Speaker 03

  I was like, oh, man. Probably one of the hardest things I ever had to do. Because, you know, my ego was, you know, yeah. Because I had to get better. I was scared I lost my voice for good, but I was trying to get it back. But, man, it was hard, man. Because, you know, the homies get to cracking jokes, man. I mean, you know, it's crazy.

• 6:13Ryan Clark?

  Being the meal ticket, like you said, when did you have to stop that? Because you can't have a whole. Yeah, you can't have a whole hood live with you forever. When did you have to stop that?

• 6:20Speaker 03

  No, I did. I did, man. I moved to Malibu. I got a place in Malibu for a while. Don't know where that came from, but I just always wanted to live there. And I was out in Malibu, got a place, put a studio in the basement. I was recording. But at the time, I was kind of away from Atlanta. So I just started seeing things differently. I would like, I was doing little remixes and hearing stuff there. But I was changing what I was saying because I was reading a lot more. And I was just more exposed to other things that were going on in the world than just in Atlanta. And I get this call from Farrakhan. He calls my phone. Shout out to Farrakhan. And he said, Jeezy, you know, you know, your enemy's coming because your message is changing. And I was like, with all due respect, Mr. Farrakhan, my enemies are in my hood. You know what I'm saying?

• 7:04Speaker 03

  No one near Malibu, I'm gonna be all right. I didn't understand what he was saying. He was basically telling me that my message was changing and there was other forces that were working against me. And what happened was I was on tour with Khalifa. Sold out tour, we doing forty thousand people a night, great. The whole tour run was great. I only took the right people, I didn't have any extra people. It was everybody that was working, my assistant, my drivers, my security. I had one of the homies with me because he just was good on the road. And I get off the stage, we get to Bay. And we do the show and normally I stay and watch Wiz perform because I go on right before he does. But it was so many people backstage that I opted out and I went to the hotel.

• 7:46Speaker 03

  And when I got to the hotel, one of my guys called me and told me don't come back to the venue. And I didn't understand why. And somebody had got killed in front of our tour bus backstage. And they thought we had something to do with it. We went through that whole thing and they finally came and got me the next morning. And they canceled the next show, which was in San Diego. And now we got a free day off. So now I get to LA before the last show that's in Anaheim. And Chris Brown calls me and asks me to come to his album release party. I go to his album release party and this is the night the shooting happened with Suge and everybody got shot. I'm standing right there, you know what I'm saying?

• 8:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  And just so happened, when we leave there, I go to the hotel room. Now I'm exhausted and I'm tired. And I tell my man, hey, in the morning, just call me a car service and I'll get on the car instead of the bus. Because I've been on the bus the whole time. My guy looks at me and says, hey, man, you should just ride the bus so you can rest. I say, you know what, you right. Get on the bus the next morning, go to the venue, guess what happens? Call DJ Drama, hey, everything cool at the venue? He's all good. It must be light-skinned tendencies because he was like, it's all good. Everything, everything's fine here, just a little extra security. Man, we get there. I'm laying in the back of the bus and we sitting at the gate for like thirty minutes. I know I go on at like forty-five minutes. I'm like, what's going on? So I'm asleep.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  So when I get up, I hear somebody knocking on the door, and it's the police. But it's police from the back of the bus where I'm at, all the way to the front. So all the police came from the bay, and all these detectives about what happened in the bay. But they know that the firearms was on the bus because my security was on the bus, but they're not on the bus now. So it's just us on the bus. So they lock us up. And I go to jail, and they don't let me finish the last show. I'm looking at my stage set as they're putting handcuffs on me. Everybody's standing backstage.

• 9:38Ryan Clark?

  When stuff like that is happening, and you feel like you moved away

• 9:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:42Ryan Clark?

  from not only that life, but physically took yourself

• 9:46Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:46Ryan Clark?

  from where you were doing certain things.

• 9:49Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:49Ryan Clark?

  Did it feel like your past was almost chasing you?

• 9:51Speaker 03

  It was.

• 9:52Ryan Clark?

  In a way?

• 9:52Speaker 03

  And to answer your question, why did I change? It's because I didn't do anything wrong that time, and it still came and found me. And I knew right then and there that I had to make a change. And a lot of people that I loved that was around then, I just had to make a decision to let that go because it was just bringing things into my life that it didn't even matter if I did the right thing. It was there. And the only way that I was gonna put a buffer between that and me if I just created my own space and I knew that everything around me was in good energy.

• 10:24Ryan Clark?

  But how did people see that, though, bro? You know, because for us, when you make it, we all supposed to make it.

• 10:29Speaker 03

  Hardest decision I ever made in my life. Hardest decision I ever made in my life. You know, I love everybody. I'm never gonna... I got love for anybody that ever had love for me. But I also understand what my purpose is on this earth as a leader. I understand that truly. Like, I take solitude. I go by myself. I do the things that I need to do to point at myself so I can do those things for other people. And it took years of giving myself grace, allowing myself, you know, the space to evolve, and understanding, like, this is my path. This is what I gotta walk on. We hear the phrase, "It's lonely at the top." You know, that shit real. You know what I'm saying? It's really real.

• 11:03Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 11:04Speaker 03

  But there's a reason for that. You gotta, you gotta get comfortable with your own company. You gotta get comfortable with your own discipline, your own sacrifices. And what I will tell anybody, at first, it's like everything, it's messy in the beginning, it's tricky in the middle, but it's beautiful in the end. The space I'm in right now, like, I had to battle myself. Nobody, it was nobody else. I had to battle, you know, my vices. I had to battle my mindset. I had to battle me wanting to do what's easy because I just thought that was gonna make life easy, but it actually made life hard. And I had to also battle what I known because I've always had this safety net of knowing that I can go back to what I knew if this didn't work. And I had to kind of throw that out the window.

• 11:44Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  So now I'm out here. Hardest decision I've ever made, bro. Because it's like, when you really look at it, you're right. When we make it, we all supposed to make it. And then, you know, when you hear that, man, he ain't looked out for me. But when I start to look at the world, I see everybody go through that. Actors, lawyers, doctors. It ain't just us anymore.

• 12:02Fred Taylor?

  Yep.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? Athletes. And so, once you see that, you know that it's a pattern. And the only thing that's gonna make you, or, or put you in the place you need to be, is if you continue to evolve. Because it took me, I was in my 40s, to have real friends.

• 12:15Fred Taylor?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:16Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? People that I could depend on, that hold me accountable. People that, you know, do things for me without me even asking, or, or check on me when they ain't heard from me in a little bit.

• 12:25Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? Or guys that support me instead of saying, you know, I don't know if that's gonna work. They'll call you, like, I had like 10 calls this morning where guys were just like, man, congratulations on the residency. Me and wifey got tickets and we coming, we supporting, we pulling up. It wasn't always like that because, you know, sometimes your success may make the people around you look at you different. Not because you did anything to them, but because now the new you makes the old, well, that makes them feel uncomfortable.

• 12:54Fred Taylor?

  Hmm.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  Right? The new you. And it's just like, the money is good, the success is good, but what I thrive for most is the peace. You know what I'm saying? And if it ain't aligned with my piece, then I gotta choose me. You know what I'm saying?

• 13:08Fred Taylor?

  It's unfortunate, man, but it's a sad truth that you don't really hear other communities talk about looking back. In our community, if someone makes it and then you've kind of changed your life and you've expanded and, you know, you've grown, it's frowned upon almost.

• 13:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:26Fred Taylor?

  You know what I'm saying? And you'll get more toxicity and negative comments because you've done your thing and the expectation is you gotta pull us together. But it's usually just our own community.

• 13:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 13:38Fred Taylor?

  My question would be if your old self, Trapper Die Jeezy Era, were to sit across from you right now, what would he respect the most in this journey of you?

• 13:48Speaker 03

  And it's funny you say that about our community, but just as I look at you brothers, you can tell y'all like-minded. You just had to find your tribe. You know what I'm saying? And that's how you dialing on your tribe. I think he would tell me that, you know, he's very proud because I chose myself for a change. I've always been a provider, a leader, somebody who really, you know, I took penitentiary chances to take care of my family. You know what I'm saying? My sister and my mother, you know, we grew up in a trailer that wasn't bigger than this room, you know, when I had to move back to the States with my mother. And I bought her that trailer. It was $3,500 for the trailer. You from Tampa, you know.

• 14:25Speaker 03

  I think he would tell me that he proud because I made a decision and I stuck with it even when it got hard, even when I was lonely, even when I was confused, even when I was unsure, you know? And it's just like, I've done that before. I made a decision to leave the streets and what I knew when everybody thought it was funny because I was in the studio. And now when people starting to get indicted and go to prison, my career is actually taking off. But I made that decision a long time ago. You know, people were buying new Ferraris and new chains. And I was just like, I'm just gonna sit in this somewhere. I don't put this 200 into the studio. They're like, why would you do that? You know? And it worked, but I did that and then this life came.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  But, you know, my uncle used to tell me back in the day, you know, you gotta work on you because... You may gain all these accolades. You may be the guy in the Rolls Royce. But if your mental ain't right, you gonna just be somebody in the Rolls Royce with some problems. Or the same problems.

• 15:22Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  So I took pride in working on myself. And I think he would tell me that he's proud of that. Because that's the biggest battle that anybody gonna go through. Especially being a black man. Like, you know, you coming out of depression. You coming out of pressure.

• 15:35Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  I mean, you worn with the world every day. You coming home, you looking at your wounds and you trying to figure it out. And, you know, like, all of us, we're making something out of nothing. We don't have a physical product. We don't have something in our hand that's ours, that our family created and built. And we're taking it and we're just enhancing it. You know, we gotta get out of the field.

• 15:53Ryan Clark?

  It's not generational wealth handed down.

• 15:54Speaker 03

  Right. We gotta get on the field. We gotta get on the stage. We gotta get in the studio. And it's like, we're creating. Or we're pushing our bodies to the limit to take care of people. And that gets heavy on you, man. You know what I'm saying?

• 16:04Channing Crowder?

  Talking about trap or die, Jeezy.

• 16:07Speaker 03

  Uh-oh.

• 16:09Speaker 03

  He said, hey, man, I ain't trying to tell you all that.

• 16:11Channing Crowder?

  Hey, hey, everybody, none of that. But we gotta settle up, man.

• 16:14Speaker 03

  Where that black bandana at?

• 16:15Channing Crowder?

  Wire, ACA, just Venmo, whatever. You know, we could just settle up. Because you owe me a hundred thousand dollars.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  I do?

• 16:21Channing Crowder?

  Yes.

• 16:22Speaker 03

  What happened?

• 16:23Ryan Clark?

  You promoted?

• 16:24Speaker 03

  Uh-huh.

• 16:24Ryan Clark?

  You promoted for it?

• 16:25Channing Crowder?

  No. He told me that I have to get a Chevy same color Tropicana on it.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:32Channing Crowder?

  You told me that.

• 16:33Speaker 03

  That's me and you both, though. We got a brother. Because I had it too.

• 16:36Channing Crowder?

  Well, I got my check as soon as I signed. I ain't even had no check. I got a credit line.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 16:42Channing Crowder?

  Before I bought my mama something, before I bought a pair of Jabo jeans, before I got a shirt. I went and got an 83 Monte Carlo SS.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 16:49Channing Crowder?

  And you know what color I painted it?

• 16:51Speaker 03

  Tropicana.

• 16:51Channing Crowder?

  Tropicana orange juice. Alligator skin interior.

• 16:54Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 16:55Channing Crowder?

  JLW12. I had to go to Juwan because you told her that's why I get my sound right.

• 16:59Speaker 03

  Oh, you went to Juwan?

• 16:59Channing Crowder?

  Yes, that's why I gotta get my sound right. So it was a terrible investment, man.

• 17:04Speaker 03

  Shout out to Juwan. Shout out to the war, man.

• 17:08Channing Crowder?

  But did you, did you know that young, like, honestly, me, I was so influenced by you that as soon as I got money, I had to go do what Jeezy told me to do.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  You know what it was, was I, I, I had a vivid imagination because like I used to be, you know, in these different places trying to get my money up. And when I, the first time I went to Florida, which was Fort Lauderdale, and I got with some guys down there, I saw the culture of that. You know what I'm saying? Like the purple Chevys with the go, like, it was like, I couldn't believe it. You know what I'm saying? And when I went back to Atlanta, you know, I was like, man, I'm gonna get me a, you know what I'm saying, up and spray me one up Chevy. Like, I didn't know nothing about Chevys like that. Cause you know, Atlanta, we did like, uh, old schools on button kicks. Like, we did like the classic, uh, uh, four, four, twos or Chevilles. But I'm bringing this up to, uh, you know, to Georgia from what I learned from Florida. And people were so receptive to it.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  So when I was rapping about it, I was speaking my truth, but I'm, in my heart, I was kinda hurting cause I couldn't afford a Rolls Royce. You know what I'm saying? So this was the next best thing, you know what I'm saying? And when I made Trap or Die, I knew that was gonna be an anthem, but I did not know that somebody else was gonna paint their car on. So I'll tell you that right now.

• 18:23Channing Crowder?

  Some people, hey, some people you can mold into what you wanna be. Chandler was coachable. He did everything you said.

• 18:29Speaker 03

  He would've got the crocodile skin. You know what I'm saying?

• 19:02Ryan Clark?

  You know, obviously, man, you know, in 2005, July 26, I believe it was. Thug Motivation changed, in my opinion, it changed rap. Right? Because you look at what Atlanta was, obviously OutKast is the greatest duo of all time. T.I. was already giving us Atlanta, you know, trap music, and then it was just totally different. You kind of became like the true godfather of trap music that led to what Atlanta was to be. And I think that was a soundtrack for all of us in 05. But I want to move to recession and recession 2.

• 19:39Ryan Clark?

  And because I think now, some of the things you did around meeting with Joe Biden in 2020, "My President is Black," right, on the first recession, spoke so much to you being more socially conscious in your space. What was the transition of growth that took you from "Trap or Die" to in those two moments, thinking outside of yourself, even to record "My President is Black" four months before he won?

• 20:11Speaker 03

  Well, let me say this, from Streets is Watching to "Trap or Die" to "Thug Motivation", I was in a very dark space. I know it looked good on paper and everybody thought, but I was battling what we're talking about. I was battling the fact that I was having to choose myself over what I knew. I was having to make real decisions, like, you know, because Thug Motivation, it was one foot in, one foot out. Like, I was really, like, literally trying to balance it, you know what I mean? And that's when Tip came in and told me, you know, you can't do both. And I didn't understand that, because I'm like, ain't y'all all doing both? So I was in a dark place, drinking a lot, partying a lot, you know what I'm saying? Just into vices because I was trying to cope with what was going on. I didn't know.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  You know, I come from a culture where, you know, in an era where you couldn't really plan for Christmas, because you didn't know if you was gonna make it, you know what I'm saying? You can't plan for, you know, certain things, because you just don't know. Like, people are going to jail and dying around you every day, and it's just like, that's your reality. I would wake up, you know, and have these nightmares of, you know, just things that would happen. And I would get these phone calls from people that it was just like, you know, they just picked such and such up. I'd be like, damn. And in your mind, you're like, they coming to get me next, because that's the only thing I could, what was next? And I woke up one day, and this is around 2008.

• 21:32Speaker 03

  And I woke up and I was, you know, because I had been drinking, so I was overweight. I saw myself on TV, my skin was bad. You know, I wasn't really just on point and I just was like, you know what? I'm done with everything. So I just stopped drinking, stopped, you know, hanging, partying. I put my cards up, put my jury up. I just started to get in shape, drinking more water because I was like, I was drinking more Cristal than water for sure. You know what I'm saying? I just started to get healthy and then that led to me like having time for myself and to start like working on my mental. And I just started to work on my mental and I started to get back outside of the box and talk to people who was outside of my world. And I was at dinner with these guys one night and they was talking about the recession. And I didn't, I didn't really know what it meant at first, but I know these guys were wealthy.

• 22:17Speaker 03

  And for me, I was like, why are they concerned about money if they already got money? And I asked him and he told me, he said, hey, man, this is, this is real. Like this is going to affect the whole world. And my first mind was, I gotta go tell my people. So how do I tell them? So now I'm doing the research and I'm, you know, I'm, I'm watching the news, I'm reading books. I'm, I'm taking the time to ask questions and I'm putting together this project in the back of my mind and I'm going. And it was crazy because I literally went in the studio like two days and picked beats. Like I've never done this before because I normally like do a song here, do a song there. I went to studio two days and picked beats from like Midnight Black. I think it was D-Rin and a few more people. And I instantly went in the studio and I stayed in there about 10 days and I knocked this whole album out.

• 23:02Speaker 03

  Then I called my partner, Cool, shout out to Cool, and I said, yo, come listen to this. And we listened to it together. I hadn't let nobody else listen to it. And he's like, this it? And I said, I know. And I said, you think they're gonna receive it? But the one thing they did say when I started letting people hear was, I think you should take the My President record off because we don't know if he gonna win yet. And I said, no, he's gonna win. He's gotta win. Like, look at what's going on. And so, you know, I fought with the label, put it on there. And another magical thing happened around that time too. Kanye, you know, his mother had just passed and I had gave him one of the records me and Tip had. And it was called I Got Money. And he ended up doing Put On for me. And that was the first verse he did since his mother passed. And like he went in and when I went to the label, I was like, this is it.

• 23:46Speaker 03

  And everybody got behind it. I dropped it off to the radio station, Greg Street in Atlanta. Played it like a thousand times and it blew up from there. But my, my thought process was from that to that was I woke up one day and I was just like. Man, I'm a star. I'm alive and I'm free. Like, I can't even think about this no more. I gotta lean into, and I ain't gonna lie, like, you know, I see all fellas been in there working out. I got the working out. And I had the first show of the recession tour in Boston. And I'm literally on the stage. I'm in three songs in, and I just see shit flying on the stage. And I'm like, yo, man. I'm telling my security, I'm like, yo, they throwing stuff at me. He says, sir, those are panties and bras. I was like, oh, my God.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  I was like, wait, wait. Yeah. And I was like, yo, I'm never going back. Yeah. I'm never, like, meaning like, I'm never not gonna be healthy. Because I never, like, you gotta think, when I was doing my shows, it was always the gangsters in front. Yeah. It was really no women there. It was like 70, 30. Now, everything's changed and it's flipping. It's like 30, 70, you know what I'm saying? 30% guys, 70% women. And I'm like, yo, because you know, you hear when you, you know, you hear the word sex symbol, you like, you never think it could be you. You know what I'm saying? Like, they calling me handsome. Unless you, unless you him. Unless you him. Yeah, unless you him. But it changed my whole mindset about things. And it also gave me the freedom to still tap into the culture,

• 25:18Speaker 03

  but do it in the way that I was giving them information instead of just telling them about what I did before.

• 25:23Ryan Clark?

  You keep mentioning the dark place and adversity for sale. You said you didn't have, like, you talking about not having the words for depression?

• 25:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:31Ryan Clark?

  You eventually said publicly that it's just like you wake up and you just want to go back to sleep.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:38Ryan Clark?

  What was the hardest for you in those moments to be depressed, not be able to understand it, but know as a black man, especially where you come from, mental health is not a topic, right? We aren't taught to live through that, to understand that, to know that people saw you from the outside as Jeezy, the snowman. But every day, you have this internal battle.

• 26:03Speaker 03

  Because I was dealing with a lot of things at one time. You know, trauma for sure, a lot of post-traumatic stress. You know what I'm saying? A lot of not being able to connect with my emotions because I think at some point, after you lose so many people, like, and it, like, when I tell people the number, they like, they look at me like I'm crazy, but it's like, yeah. That's real, I mean, I've lived nine lives. I mean, I'm being honest. I've lived different lives with different sets of people. So I've been around a lot of people that's been into some things. And I've seen a lot of losses. And I just think at some point, my only defense mechanism was just to be able to become numb. And that means I was just numb all the way around. You know what I'm saying? It was just like, I didn't have any emotions. I wasn't attached to anything. And I could like, cut things off.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  And like what they say, if you can't walk away from it in thirty seconds, like they say on heat, that was me for real. Like, I could literally be like, oh, I'm good. And not even, you know what I'm saying? And it was like, I was operating from that. So I was operating from scarcity. And I think in this season of my life, I'm operating from abundance. And it's totally different because, you know, it's like I feel real, like I didn't have feelings. I didn't have, I just knew that I thought something was wrong with me. Because I didn't understand why I was anxious all the time. But if you gotta look over your shoulder every day, you worried about this, that, and the third, you don't know, like you're dealing with this every day. And the depressing part, I think, came because I was also lost too. And they say a man without a purpose, he's not even really a man. He don't know what he's doing.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? And you definitely can't leave nobody else because you can't leave yourself. It's like you waking up every day trying to get out of this situation you're in, and you don't know where to start. And I think that, when I found the name for it, that helped me understand there was something that I could fix. And I would have to be willing and brave enough to step in and fix it. And I tell people all the time, you know, I got a lot of my guys I talk to, like, therapy helped me out a lot. You know what I'm saying? But that was a thing. I can afford it now. So why wouldn't I? You know what I'm saying? Whatever it may cost. And I, you know, I got some of my guys, like, I'm not telling nobody what I'm going through. But once you start to go back and start to figure out why these things affect you, why you feel this way, it's like, you get into this space of you're learning yourself,

• 28:13Speaker 03

  you're learning yourself, you're getting confidence in certain areas, you're learning how to not, like, you know, where I came from, you know, the most aggressive, violent person is the one who everybody follows.

• 28:26Speaker 03

  Now it's like I'm having to get out of that and get into like I gotta think like a thinker. Like how was somebody who has wisdom, how would they handle this? Like why, I can't look at my kids and get the same aggression that I was if somebody pissed me off in the streets. Because I don't know the difference between the two. So as I started to get into that space where I was learning the names for things, why these things happen, what can I do? Like I didn't understand, like you can calm yourself down by breathing. You know what I'm saying? I didn't know that, you know, you gotta take a walk sometime to get some stress solved. You know what I'm saying? I didn't know that it's okay to like, open up to somebody that you really trust. Cause I could be going through hell and I'm not gonna tell nobody nothing. Yep. But now I got friends I can call and be like, yo, man, you ain't gonna believe this. And they be like, what? And you tell them and it's like there's no judgment there.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  That gives you the freedom to be open, like me and you were talking about, bruh. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm trying to give him the game that I got, you know? He was going through something like, I got the information. Like let's talk because I actually know what it's like to go through that. To me, that's the beauty of it all because I was really depressed. I was depressed in a way that when I was going to, you know, talk to people about this, physicians and the people in this field, they didn't understand how I was even operating with this amount of stress. Like I, my nerves were shot, my nervous system was bad. Like I was in fight or flight for almost fifteen years with no pause, imagine that. My whole body was tired, you know what I'm saying?

• 29:55Speaker 03

  Cause I'm always on point about everything. And now my life is like, it's, it's so peaceful. And, and I choose peace over anything. Peace over any money, peace over any relationships, peace over any traveling, any friends, you know, even the stuff we're doing now with my team. It's like I'm choosing to do this, I don't have to do anything. I wanna choose to do this deal. I wanna choose to spend this time, you know what I'm saying? Like I wanna choose to take that solo trip at least twice a year to go somewhere I never been by myself. And then they not gonna even know who I am just cause I wanna roam and I wanna have that freedom. And not have to feel like I gotta talk to everybody I see. And it's all love, but I need that cause when I come back, I'm on, I got ideas.

• 30:39Speaker 03

  I'm flowing, but I could never do that in a depressed state because I was really depressed. And I ain't understand that and depressing makes you mad at everybody. You know what I'm saying? Like, everybody, for no reason. You know, I would literally be walking down. I remember one time I almost missed my flight in Atlanta. These are the same people that take care of me every day, man. I had to go back and apologize to all them folks, like, six months later. I'm like, I'm so sorry. You know what I'm saying? Because I lost it.

• 31:06Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 31:06Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? All because I was depressed and not really in a great space. But as time went. And by the way, let me say this too, because I know you asked me about people. There's been a lot of relationships that got damaged when I was in this bad space. But I made it my business to take some time and just go back and try to reconnect and smooth things out with people and tell them, like, hey, look, man, I was really in a bad space. Like, what I said or what I did had nothing to do with you, bro. You know, so I need you to know that. You know, you've always been straight up with me. You've always been a good person. But I just was, I was in a bad space. And I hope that they understand that's where I'm at now. Because it would be literally people, I would walk up on the street. They'd be like, hey, nigga, what up? You know what I'm saying? Like, because they probably feel like I'm about to be on something crazy. I'm like, no, brother, it's all good, baby.

• 31:51Fred Taylor?

  What's one thing you can point to that healing taught you that hustling or the streets could never teach you?

• 31:59Speaker 03

  How to love, man. How to love unconditionally. You know what I'm saying? How to understand that people are who they are. Like, I'm not put in this world to judge anyone or to change them. You know what I'm saying? And it's just like, it's okay. You know what I'm saying? It's okay for you to be the way you are. And it's like, I can respect that. We all are different. And I think the hustling taught you just to make everything about what's good for me. And the state I live in now is like, what's good for us? You know what I'm saying? And I think hustling teaches you how to be, you know, focused, but it also teaches you how to be empty. You feel what I'm saying? Like, you can operate with not being, like, like, full of love. It's just like...

• 32:44Speaker 03

  When you come off the road or you get that spare time, there's some people you just wanna build with, man, 'cause they just make you feel good, you know what I'm saying? Just to see them, just to talk to them. And I think hustling just puts us in a place where money is the motive. And that's cool when you're surviving. But when you're living out of abundance, like, that's love. That's good times, that's breaking bread. You know, I grew up in an era like, you know, some of my good friends, they come and stay at my house. They might fly in from out of the country, like, "We just gonna come stay with you for a couple of days and hang out." You know, you know where we come from, you searching to make somebody, ain't stealing nothing.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  Like, nah, I go out of town, I'm like, "Yo, I gotta go to, you know, Italy tomorrow." But, you know, y'all come here for two, three days, you know what I'm saying? Y'all can stay at the house. You know, we'll eat breakfast, hang out, you know what I'm saying? You know, go kick it a little bit, maybe play some golf. But I'm gone on Friday, you know what I'm saying? Y'all can stay, just, you know, leave the key at my house, we good. You know what I'm saying? But at the same time, that's a different space. But these people are coming and bringing good energy and bringing good. And I got real love for them. And they ain't gotta just be for my walk of life. And then it also gives me love for my brothers. It's like, when I see guys like y'all doing this, like, this is love, bro. Like, guys are actually pouring back into men. So it's like, I ain't got nothing but respect for that. But that's love, because I don't look at that as a direct threat or any type of competition.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  It's more so like, how can I help you guys, you know, add value to that? 'Cause I know y'all adding value for me just being here, you know, to me. You know what I'm saying? But it's just like, I think, and I'm gonna say this, and I think hustling, and it's good, because we all gotta hustle at some point. But I think hustling gives you the excuse to be selfish.

• 34:21Channing Crowder?

  But that hustle you talk about, and...

• 34:23Speaker 03

  Look at him, he ready.

• 34:27Speaker 03

  What about them hunters on the table, twitters on the floor?

• 34:30Channing Crowder?

  No, we know what trap or die means. We know when you say the snowman, you ain't talking about winter fun.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 34:36Channing Crowder?

  We know, we know that's the streets you talking about. But without those streets, if Lil' J had a mother and a father living in a nice house out in Roswell his whole life, you wouldn't have had the content for your music. So, like, the double-edged sword of that.

• 34:51Speaker 03

  No, no, no, but this is the thing. And that's what I wanna clarify. I regret none of it. I promise you, I tell myself that every day. You know, I regret, like I'm humble, man. Like I lived the best of both worlds. And like you can't tell me, like, that's why I don't get into arguments about it. Because what you gonna tell me about me? I done it. I ain't his brother, his cousin, his daddy, his uncle. I'm him. Like, there ain't nobody can tell me that. There ain't nobody can tell me that. You can go any place in the world, Fort Lauderdale, this place, DC, Atlanta. They gonna be like, nah, man, he solid. He one thousand. And I love that because people see me struggle, they see me grind, they see me hustle. And they see me also allow myself and give myself permission to evolve.

• 35:35Speaker 03

  Because I don't need anybody else's cosign for that. But I don't regret nothing because this is one thing I do know. We all know how life is. You up, you down, you left, you right. But I do know if anything was to ever happen, I know what I got the skills to do to get myself back to where I need to be. And that's to get focused, that's to tighten up my shoes, tighten up my belt, and do what I gotta do as far as like if I gotta go grind, if I gotta go create a business. I done been to the bottom before. So now, it's like, to be on top, yeah. But like, imagine these people that come from these families that just gave them a will or a trust or whatever. You know, they get this money and they pull through it. They don't know how to get back there. I got a mental GPS. You know what I'm saying?

• 36:20Speaker 03

  I know what's up. And then when I'm talking to the young brother, I'll be like, yo, man. Because the crazy thing is everybody act like they done reinvented the wheel. You gotta look at him and be like, man, there's nothing you done I ain't did. That is crazy right there. Like when Hovem used to tell me certain things, I thought I knew everything. You know what I'm saying? But now I'll be like, yo, he was right. He was absolute. I ain't never been to this part in my career. Well, I'm 20 years in, he done done that. So if he give me some game, what I look like telling him, he don't know what he talking about. Same thing when you come from the streets and you was, you was, and you still are, and you are. That's where you get the respect from. But where I get my motivation from is knowing where I don't want to go back to. And where I don't want to be. Yeah, which he right though.

• 37:03Speaker 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.

• 37:32Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, yeah. But talk about hundreds on the table, twenties on the floor.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:38Channing Crowder?

  We were in Strokers together, you didn't know it.

• 37:40Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah? Was it a light night, or was it a night night?

• 37:43Channing Crowder?

  It was a night night.

• 37:44Speaker 03

  Okay, okay.

• 37:44Channing Crowder?

  Yeah. And there was a woman called Amazon, six foot four, light-skinned girl. Yeah, she was by me.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  Oh, she was?

• 37:52Channing Crowder?

  And I had my 500.

• 37:53Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 37:54Channing Crowder?

  And then you walked in with garbage bags full of money.

• 37:58Channing Crowder?

  Because that sound about right? Do you have any idea how much money you're gonna throw in a strip club?

• 38:03Speaker 03

  Okay, so let me say this. I do not. But I'm quite sure my accountant and my CFO would probably lose their mind after hearing this interview. But I think where I get a pass at is I was actually, in my head, you know, y'all would call it a text write-off these days.

• 38:22Speaker 03

  Because you're working towards something. I actually thought I was marketing. I really thought, I was like, if I could go in here and throw a hundred thousand, like, how do you not go like my music? So I'm doing that, like, every time I get a chance. But I will, but you know I wear the jerseys with Jeezy on the back. I have my chain, because I'm looking at it like I'm marketing. Because I'm like, I'm getting my name out there. Because the one thing that I did understand, and you're right, I've never been in Strokers and did anything less than a 40. I know that for a fact. Um, yeah, and that's less than a 40. This is a hundred thousand dollar night, and that's for real. And we don't want to even get into Magic City, that's a whole nother. You know what I'm saying? But the one thing that I understood is that everybody that was in these clubs, especially in that time...

• 39:04Speaker 03

  Is they were from either a different city or a different state, but they were the who's is who's. So if they heard your music in there and saw how people reacted, it was nine times out of 10, you gonna take it back to where you from, you gonna take it back to where you from, you gonna take it back where you from. And then the people that rock with y'all would be like, oh, this, this, uh, okay, this was up. And that's how it was, the word was spreading.

• 39:26Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 39:26Speaker 03

  So I looked at it as marketing at first.

• 39:28Ryan Clark?

  It would make sense that

• 39:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:30Ryan Clark?

  the fire truck came when Jeezy was here.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  Right.

• 39:34Ryan Clark?

  I was like, this is such a good story. I don't want to stop the story. And I was like, when he finished, am I gonna have to be like, hey, y'all, that was a fire truck?

• 39:41Speaker 03

  Right, right, right, yeah. You gotta tell them it's a fire truck.

• 39:44Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, I was gonna be like, that is not the people coming to get Jeezy.

• 39:48Ryan Clark?

  He got He good now. He don't do that stuff no more.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  Hey, listen, I'm gonna be honest with you, my nerves are great now, because back then, boy, I would have been up out of here, you know what I'm saying?

• 39:56Ryan Clark?

  It makes sense that we had sirens at some point during the Jeezy show, though.

• 40:00Speaker 03

  But yeah, so it was, uh, it was, uh, I, I look at it as marketing. And then my man used to tell me, he's be like, yo, we supporting single mothers. I was like, I like that too.

• 40:10Ryan Clark?

  They all at nursing school.

• 40:12Speaker 03

  That makes sense.

• 40:13Ryan Clark?

  There's so many nurses in Atlanta, because everybody at nursing school.

• 40:18Speaker 03

  You put everybody through school?

• 40:19Ryan Clark?

  Everybody.

• 40:20Fred Taylor?

  Going back to Jay, you mentioned Hove, kind of skimmed over it. When I look at you two guys, right, it sees so many different parallels.

• 40:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:27Fred Taylor?

  And the way you've gone through the game from streets to the music. But it's so many parallels. How much of, uh, inspiration, you know, he was to you? How exciting was it to sign to Def Jam? I believe he was the president or he was over at that time, right?

• 40:41Speaker 03

  Kevin, Kevin Lyles signed me and L.A. Reid signed me. And then Kevin Lyles left two weeks later. And then I was kind of like flipping out. And he told me, he's like, you're gonna be good. The next guy coming over there, he gonna take care of you. And I'm going to the building one day. There's this parking thing where nobody's supposed to park, and I see a Maybach there. And the door opens. And he's walking in the building, this Hove, he like, Jeezy. I'm standing outside, like 60 of my guys trying to get up the death chair. He like, yo, you can come up with me. You know what I'm saying? I walked over here and left my people there. We got on the elevator, he was like, man, I got you. You know what I'm saying? But me and Hove Like, a lot of people are not gonna understand a lot when you're in that position because you're thinking about the future and setting things up for the decades to come.

• 41:26Speaker 03

  So a lot of the moves he does, people are not gonna understand it right now, but they will later. And that's one thing I respect about him because I call him like all the time. We still talk, you know what I'm saying? Like, oh, my man, I talked to him the other day. And I commend him on that because I know how hard that is for just me and the people who rock with me, meaning like the people who believe in my movement. For someone like himself, you're thinking world-class and globally about this. So that's a different type of pressure and a different type of, you know, understanding. And I always tell him like, no, that was the right move. We didn't ever really talk about music. We talk about life, you know what I'm saying? We talk about life, we talk about, you know, inspiring to do things, like what our dreams are. And Jay, to me, is like almost one of the guys.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  It's almost like, you know, if you ever had those guys who been to Vietnam and they did like three tours and they made it, and they just kinda just talk about life all the time because they just know their experience and they just know that they're there together and nobody else is really gonna get this. That's the type of conversation we always had. And it's crazy because Jay will call me, ask me about stuff all the time. Like, what would you do? And I'm like, yo, I'd do it like this. He'll hit me back, oh, that was it, done. Same thing with me, I hit him and be like, yo, check this out. And it's always honest, real advice, and it's coming from a grounded place because I trust his judgment, like I trust mine because we've both been through it. You know what I'm saying, on every level?

• 42:50Speaker 03

  And even as he continues to evolve and to grow into different things, that's still carving space for myself. But I look at it like I'm still here, connected to the people. So whatever information I get, I can pass it down through the culture. And that's got a lot to do with how I move, the way I move, because there's other people out there in the world who are doing things that I'm looking at getting inspired. You know what I'm saying, going like, okay, I can see that. You know, so that gives you something to work towards or for. But at the same time, as I'm moving, there are people behind me looking like, okay, I see how Jeezy move. Because you gotta know, some of the younger artists are calling me about certain things. And I'm like, yo, man, you know, and I feel for them. And that's the thing, like I think with this... Is when you know somebody come from your walk of life, you just got this different connection with them.

• 43:34Speaker 03

  So it's hard for me to see them get in these places in these situations and just give it all away or throw it all away. It's about making decisions based off their, you know, their anger, what they're going through, or their environments. And it hurts, but you know, the people who listen, you see how they evolve, right? And the same thing I feel like with me and Hope. We always listen to each other because I'm closer to it than he is. So if he gotta check the temperature, who he gonna call? His man. If I gotta check the temperature up there on the top of Mount Everest, I gotta give him a call, baby. Like, yo, what it look like up there?

• 44:07Ryan Clark?

  You know, you speak about evolution, and I think that's really what could be the name of the residency.

• 44:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:14Ryan Clark?

  Probably. It could be the evolution, right? Because it's all these things that take a person from where you started to where you are now. And you move from the streets into the studio, into the boardroom, right? And also too, like with family. We live in a place now where everybody wants to know everything about you. That's not how we grew up.

• 44:34Speaker 03

  No.

• 44:34Ryan Clark?

  Right? Like, house business is house business. Family business is family business. And after being so in the public, what did it teach you about the way you love your babies, the way you take care of your family, and being able to do that on your own terms?

• 44:53Speaker 03

  Two things. The first thing is, you know, my family, my kids are my joy. They're like my life, like, I love my babies. But I also understand the difference in what you do. Like, if you're in the, if you are a general, you're not bringing your babies to war. You know what I'm saying? You're not putting them on the front line with you. They're home in a secure place, and you're fighting for them and for their future, and that's how I feel. And also with my friends, you know what I'm saying? I'm very, I'm like, we laugh about it all the time. I'm the most public-private person you gonna know. When people come around me, ain't no cameras, ain't no, like, come to my house, we kicking, we having a good time. It's none of that, you know what I'm saying? Because that's how I live my life. But I also understand

• 45:38Speaker 03

  That I have to let people see what I'm doing that's in line with my purpose. But when it comes to my personal, that's what fuels me. So I don't let people into that purposely because I feel like that's not for them. Like, I don't have to prove that I'm a good father. You know what I'm saying? I don't have to prove that I'm a good person, what I do in my community. I don't have to prove that I'm a good friend. You ain't gotta see what I'm brushing my teeth, or when I'm eating, drinking my coffee, or when I'm eating. You know what I'm saying? Like, you gotta see all that for me. And I'm like you, I came from an era where people need to know what they need to know, and that's it. And then you gotta always keep some level of mystique. I mean, and I say this wholeheartedly because this is not the things, I'm all the things. I'm a father, first brother, you know, a son, all these things.

• 46:23Speaker 03

  But I actually came from an era of the streets, and I still live by that code. It's like you protect what you love, and you go do what you gotta do, and that's that. I'm not succumbing to what the industry feels like I have to do to be a part of them. Because I'm of this world, but I'm not a part of it. Like, you're not gonna see me congregating with a bunch of people that rap.

• 46:46Ryan Clark?

  Biblically, they say, "I'm in this world, but I'm not of this world."

• 46:50Speaker 03

  Because I really live like that. I got my friends, of course, I got tips and the Jays and the people that I actually know. But I'm not like trying to stay in the in-crowd and stay relevant. You know what I'm saying? I'm trying to keep it low-key. Like, you see me somewhere, you ain't supposed to be there. You gotta look at yourself and be like, "Yo." I'm like, "This is a private club, man." They don't let you take pictures in here, but that's how I live. You know, and I'd rather than to go hang out, you know, at a club or nightclub. I'm gonna go play golf with some millionaires, man, that I love. They love me. We're gonna smoke some cigars.

• 47:20Ryan Clark?

  Was that hard for you, though, Jeezy? When things happen so publicly and everybody wants a piece of it, though? Because, you know, you come from a world that, you know what I'm saying? You don't let your left hand know what your right hand do.

• 47:33Speaker 03

  Right.

• 47:34Ryan Clark?

  Right? And it's also a world where you talked about hustling, like, it is selfish. And so you don't feel like you have to give yourself to everybody.

• 47:45Speaker 03

  Well, two things. The first thing is, when you live by the code, that's just the code. Ain't no exceptions. You make the rules. It's like if you, like, all the hustlers that I know that came up, when they started to bend the rules, that's when they got tripped up, every time. The one thing that they did that they shouldn't have done, boom. Same thing with artists. The same, the one thing you know you shouldn't have done is just like... I'm a man first, so it's like, I don't wanna be a part of your club, bro. I'm cool with that. I could be on the island by myself. Trust me, you know what I'm saying? I'm already naturally an introvert. And by the way, if they saw what I did every day, it'd probably trip about. You know what I'm saying? Because I live a different type of life for somebody who has the reputation that I have. It's very peaceful. It's very grounded. It's very real.

• 48:29Speaker 03

  And it's just like, I don't wanna get caught up in the melee. I don't got social media on my phone. You know, I don't get into all this stuff that's going on in the industry. I'm out here trying to, you know, sit down with some of my mentors and go talk to this person and go hang out here and, you know, go see what this is like and do all those things. And for me, I feel like the minute, and it's just like anything else in life, the minute that you start wanting to be accepted is the minute you lose yourself. The second you start wanting to be a part of something that's not even yours. Like, this is not our industry. This is made from somebody else to make money, and they don't look like us. You know what I'm saying? And we out here dying about this shit every day and killing for it. And we don't even own it. You know what I'm saying?

• 49:13Speaker 03

  So it's like, it doesn't even make sense. I'd rather go over here and build where I know if social media was wiped out today and the streaming service was gone, I still have some feet to stand on because I'm creating a life for myself that's outside of this. You can't cancel me because I don't need this shit. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't need it. You're like, you can't come back to the block no more. Okay, nigga, I ain't got shit to sell over here, no way.

• 49:39Speaker 03

  You got it? You know what I'm saying? And I pride myself on that because I don't gotta answer to nobody. I don't gotta answer nobody's question. I ain't get, why you ain't keeping it real? Keeping it real with who? Keeping it real with me?

• 49:51Ryan Clark?

  Has your experience tainted the way you see relationships? Whether they be friendships, romantic relationships?

• 49:57Speaker 03

  All that. It is integrity-driven. It's healthy. Ain't no more trauma bonding. Ain't no more, you know what I'm saying? It's healthy. It's like, are you adding on to my piece or you taking away from it? Am I adding, am I making you a better person? Every time we hanging out, do you leave me feeling like you learned something? Or you just hanging out with your man? It was like, that was up, man. I caught up with Jeezy, we went and did this, we went. Am I showing you new experiences? Like, you know, I'm about that. And I feel like that's where the quantity, you know, gets thrown out the window and it's more about quality. I'd rather have less, because less is more, but it's real. You know what I'm saying?

• 50:39Speaker 03

  There's nothing like walking away from somebody and knowing that they have your best interests. It's not, nothing like having people that work for you that you know they're working when you're asleep because they believe in what you're doing. Yeah. And they got your back and they gonna call out stuff that you don't even see, or people, and be like, we not doing that. And I might be like, well, you know, that's my man. We're not doing that. And let me tell you why. And once you hear that thought process, you gotta go, man, okay, that's real. Same thing with friends. I told you, it took me to be in my 40s. I love my partners. We got a guys group called The Summit. It's about 40 of us, all different types of races and people and backgrounds and business. There's nothing we can't.

• 51:19Speaker 03

  We got relatives, lawyers, doctors, CEOs, you name it, all of us. And we communicate at least once or twice a day, check in. We take golf trips, we support each other, we pull up at each other's family function. They from all around the world. They'll come fly in, whatever they gotta do. And these guys hold me accountable, but just think about it though, like, and even if I'm not in town, they might hang out with another brother. You know what I'm saying? And all of us know each other and we all help each other do everything. But these are like my real friends. And I've heard people say, well, why you ain't hanging out with, you know, such and such and such and such? But I'm like, yeah, because you're looking at it because publicly they are somebody. That's cool. Right.

• 52:04Speaker 03

  But behind the scenes, these people keeping me together. They hold me accountable, they checking in, they making sure my kid is straight. They, hey, did you check the mail? We said, you know, little mama something for Christmas. And they doing those things that for me, this ain't transactional relationships. You know what I'm saying? And this ain't no relationship where I could just be Jeezy and be like, you know, like, I don't really, you know what I mean? I don't really kick it like that. But you know, you with Jay. You know what I'm saying? That's different. Yeah, it's different. You in my space.

• 52:37Speaker 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.

• 53:05Channing Crowder?

  We together. That circle, that circle you have, your homeboys and your babies, your relationship, your real love relationships. You have a lot more time to do that if you stop working.

• 53:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:16Channing Crowder?

  Is there a finish line you're chasing? Is it a financial number? You keep, you just got the residency going. Like you still working, why?

• 53:22Speaker 03

  But, but, well, I love what I do. I want to continue to elevate the culture. What I've learned, and I'm glad you asked me that, is you make time for the things that you want to make time for. And that's, it's traveling. That's your self-growth. That's your family, that's your kids. That's, that's your purpose. But what I've learned in the last few years is how to plan that first. Then plan work around that. And not only plan work around that, work smarter to the sense of, I'm gonna work for these four months right here. The rest of my year, I'm gonna need that. Because these three months, I want to take my kids to Europe, or Africa, whatever.

• 54:05Speaker 03

  These three months, I want to go do some solo traveling so I can journal, right? Get my mind right and think of some more ideas of things that I want to do. So when you say that, this work is aligned with my purpose more so than the money. Because my purpose is to elevate the culture, and I have to do that with what I have right now because the music is the vessel. So when I see brothers like y'all sales pull up in bow ties and looking good and feeling good and with your girls, I'm doing my, I'm doing my job because you used to have an orange Chevy. I can't just leave you out here. I can't leave you by yourself. We like that, you feel what I'm saying? Like, I gotta continue to do what I do. But now, I'm doing it in a way that one thing I know, any of my mentors, any of the people I really like, really like,

• 54:48Speaker 03

  you know, the Tony Robbins, the Robbins Shermers, the TD Jakes, all these people that I talk to, they understand what their purpose is, but they also set their schedules. And the thing when I stopped hustling is when I was able to control my schedule. And I get to say, hey, we got these four, five, six months, that's it. The rest of the year, I'm going to be and work on being a better version of myself. And I'm pouring into my kids, and I'm pouring into my, my growth, into my, my self-healing, into, you know, into me. Because I want to come back better for my culture, but also, I'm not chasing money. Because when you hustle, and that makes you even selfish towards yourself.

• 55:31Speaker 03

  You're not taking care of you when you out here and you trying to get every dollar that's out there. And I remember like, I never remember like yesterday. I had one of my homies tell me like, back in the day, I was 14 years old. And something happened to somebody on the block and he looked at me, he said, yeah, all money ain't good money. And I remember that. And he was right, because when you're chasing and chasing and chasing money, it's like being on the treadmill, man. The first time you decide to do it for yourself and bet on you and do it in a way that it still makes sense at the end, now you out here running in the Alps, maybe in the Swiss. You ever ran in the Swiss Alps? That's what I'm trying to tell you. Fresh air, the water tastes better. Shoot, altitude will kill me. You free, you know what I'm saying? You're free, you're not, you're not stressed. And it's like, once you get on that hamster wheel, man,

• 56:15Speaker 03

  I don't care what nobody say. Get the bag, get the bag, get the bag. Sound good. But if you get that bag, your body is tired, your spirit is tired, your mental is tired, you ain't did nothing but got some paper as a tool. Right, yeah. You know what I'm saying? You would've came out better just taking care of yourself and come back on your expenses. Simplify your life.

• 56:40Ryan Clark?

  Also, too, he don't realize, he don't realize how much of a rich man's statement he just said.

• 56:44Speaker 03

  No.

• 56:45Ryan Clark?

  You ever run through the Swiss Alps? No, Jeezy. But what I'm saying is.

• 56:50Speaker 03

  But what I'm saying is, I haven't either.

• 56:52Ryan Clark?

  I run through Baton Rouge.

• 56:55Speaker 03

  But what I'm saying is, is you're free. The air is fresher up here. The water tastes better, the champagne is colder. It took you a minute to get there too, Jeezy, because you said earlier, it took a minute to get there. No, no, but what I'm saying is, get your money. Right. But take care of yourself, but it might not be the Swiss Alps. It might, it might be. Stolen mountain. It might be stolen mountain. But like, but get to the place where you're not draining and, and, and taking, because this is the thing. That discipline I was talking about was where, once you discipline yourself, simplify your life. When you go out and you're making these relationships, like you guys been talking about, and you're working on yourself.

• 57:40Speaker 03

  The, the one thing I do know, and, and you're right, that, that's a rich man's statement if you look at it that way. Because everybody don't got the finances. The one thing I can tell you, I ain't got no billions of dollars, but I can tell you it's getting close to every day by the fact that I fell back on a lot of things that I was chasing. Because at some point, when your spirit is right, and your soul is right, your energy is right, it comes to you. You don't gotta go out here and look for this shit. Right. Like, all the opportunities that happened, like, in the last few years, they came to me, they all things that I wanted. But I put myself in a space where I wasn't chasing, and you know if you chase something, what it's gonna do?

• 58:16Ryan Clark?

  Keep running.

• 58:16Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 58:18Ryan Clark?

  Can you tell us a little bit about Legend of the Snowman?

• 58:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 58:21Ryan Clark?

  Because, because like, the, the coolest thing about, and it wasn't a Guinness Book of World Records.

• 58:26Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 58:27Ryan Clark?

  Largest orchestra, but also too, it was you, but like, the way I saw people dress up and get excited.

• 58:35Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 58:35Ryan Clark?

  To go to a hip hop concert.

• 58:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 58:38Ryan Clark?

  And now you have this residency at Planet Hollywood. How did that all come about?

• 58:42Speaker 03

  So, we did, uh, shout out to Adam Blackstone, Derek Hides is in the Color of Noise Orchestra, and my team, of course. We took it on the road, the orchestra tour on the road for the 20 year anniversary. Of Thug Motivation. And we did 23 cities and then we ended it in Vegas for residency. We got a Guinness Book of World Records. We set a Guinness Book of World Records. 101-piece orchestra, the biggest orchestra with anything that has anything to do with hip-hop. Yeah. To me, again, setting your time, setting your attention, setting your goal. I wanted myself and culture to be aligned with the greats. So when you think about Frank Sinatra, you think about Adele. You need Snowman right there in the middle that with the culture with him. Because we gotta align ourselves with the greats, that's what we doing.

• 59:27Speaker 03

  Like when you see, you know, the brothers and sisters showing up suited and booted and, you know, dressed to the nines, enjoying themselves, you gotta think about it. Could you imagine if you, and I mean, I know you would know because we around. Could you imagine if you went and seen Tupac, All Eyes on Me in a black tie, affair with your partners in your girl? Could you imagine that? Right. You know what I'm saying? And that's what this is. We're bringing it to showing that culture can evolve. It can be where the greats are. You know what I'm saying? It can be on our terms. And it's like, y'all ain't gotta invite us in the rooms, we'll make our own. You know, we might not be in y'all rap pack, but we gonna create ones ourselves. You know what I'm saying? And we're gonna come and we're gonna show up, show out and celebrate. And I hope everybody know what this means.

• 1:00:10Speaker 03

  This ain't just another show, this is an experience, but it's us, it's for us. It's in a place that is the capital, the music capital of the world. And we're going there in full force and showing people that we can dress up too. We like orchestras, we like, we like, we like the vibe, we like to kick it. And then I'm bringing DJ Drama with me, so there you go. You know what I'm saying? Your affiliates. I'm bringing DJ Ace, DJ Ace with me, so you've been to a Jeezy, so you know what that is. And I'm creating this space where we can unapologetically be us and enjoy, you know, an experience. These records that we grew up on and the difference between this one and the last one.

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  The last one was the anniversary, 20 year anniversary of Thug Motivation. This is the legend of the Snowman. Yeah. This is all, this is the whole gamut of everything. This is the story. Whole catalog. Yes, whole catalog. And this is gonna be an experience. I'm gonna be so clean, all the way. No.

• 1:01:11Ryan Clark?

  I'm gonna get a tuxedo made to go. You already know that, Dre. I'm letting you know.

• 1:01:18Speaker 03

  I already know. I seen it in his eye. He like, yeah, cuz I ain't coming to play.

• 1:01:24Fred Taylor?

  Yo, I don't know if I told y'all. I told you briefly coming in, the opening night, Miami.

• 1:01:30Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 1:01:30Fred Taylor?

  We was right there on the first row, suited and booted. I was proud of the city. Everybody was decked out, dressed up all black. It was beautiful, man.

• 1:01:36Speaker 03

  Miami set the tone, though. I need to know that.

• 1:01:38Fred Taylor?

  That was beautiful, man.

• 1:01:39Speaker 03

  Miami set the tone.

• 1:01:40Fred Taylor?

  Couldn't believe they actually did it, but because of who you are, they showed up for you.

• 1:01:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, Miami set the tone. Miami is magical. And for me, like, you know, again, I'm not perfect. I just, I just understand what my purpose is. It matters to me. But also, it's like, I just can't give up on us, man. Because I don't think nobody's tapped in enough to want, to see us do better. I think that everybody wants to make money, and that's all good. But like, who's out here leading by example? Who's pressing the envelope? Who's, you know what I'm saying? And not to say that it's just me, but I'm one of the people on the front line for us, and it's like, we deserve that. You know what I mean? You guys have played in the league, and you good now. It's like, you deserve to be able to go out and kick it too. Like, why you gotta sit at the crib and not be able to experience, you know, like, art and culture and fun?

• 1:02:28Speaker 03

  And a date night and some time out? And it's like, it's for people like us, cuz we here. We made it. You know what I'm saying? And we want everybody else to continue to make it too, but we gotta lead by example, cuz you know, a lot of these kids, they don't see the future in what they doing. They just in the now. They're not, they're not even thinking about, you know, what it's like when you've done everything you needed to do, and now you just maintaining, taking care of your family and living. What's that gonna be like? How do you maintain that? And how do you sustain that? And it's like, you still got a life to live, but you don't have to bring, you know, all this trauma, all this bad energy and depression into this space where you done worked so hard for you to have some peace and have some fun, man, and live life.

• 1:03:12Speaker 03

  And not even be worried about what they doing over here. It ain't even your business. Ain't none of my spiritual business. I don't give a damn what these niggas do, cuz I'm like, I'm like, don't even tell me about it, man. I've got enough phone calls out in the street. I'm done. You know what I'm saying? This shit is over. You know what I'm saying? But... I feel like I just can't, I can't let us down, bro. Like, I don't think, I think when people get to a certain, you know, level, they just, they good. They good on us, they gone.

• 1:03:37Fred Taylor?

  We gonna pick a show and pull up in June.

• 1:03:39Speaker 03

  No, y'all done.

• 1:03:39Fred Taylor?

  So we'll definitely be there. Throughout this entire interview, the one thing, one of your songs that was stuck in my mind was "There For My Soul."

• 1:03:46Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 1:03:46Fred Taylor?

  Just to see the growth, the elevation, you know, the teachable moments that everybody's watching, hopefully they can learn from. I pull from that. But I do want to ask you one question we always ask all of our guests, which is your biggest pivot in life?

• 1:04:00Speaker 03

  My biggest pivot?

• 1:04:01Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, that's that one moment you can look back on and say, because this happened to me or for me, I am who I am today.

• 1:04:07Speaker 03

  I think the biggest pivot of my life was with Nat. And I don't know if I explained the whole story, but when I got locked up, Farrakhan and everybody. And Farrakhan was the first call I got when I got out, because they locked everybody up. So we all went in. And he called me, he said, "Brother Jeezy, I told you." And I said, "Damn, you was right." I looked at everything I lost, because I had brand partnerships, Adidas, Belvedere, just that and third, all these deals. And even the job at Atlantic Records, it was all gone.

• 1:04:42Speaker 03

  And I walked out of that jailhouse and I told myself, I will never again align my brand, my likeness, or my purpose with somebody else's vision without having ownership in it or me owning it. And that was my biggest pivot. From that point on, everything I did, I invested my money and my time and my energy. And I didn't take any of those situations that if something were to ever happen again, God forbid, or anything. You know how it is out here, you can, you know, people can, you know, accuse you of some shit that you had nothing to do with. But I'm not losing anything, again, based off of my surroundings, because I didn't do anything, but I'll take that. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:05:26Speaker 03

  I'm gonna take that, like, I'm not gonna complain, I'm gonna do better. And my biggest pivot was saying, you know what? Just bet on yourself, man. Right. Move at your own pace, move at your own time. Don't take nobody's money out here trying to figure it out because that makes you liable and then it also makes them feel like they can control how you moving or what you're doing or what your message is. So my biggest pivot was just starting to bet on myself and believe you me, like, you know, and I still do it to this day. But believe you me, you know, in the end, it all pays off. You know what I'm saying? Because you have your freedom, you have your creative control. You're building something that you're vested in. And you're not concerned about, you know, how another board member or people on the board are thinking at this and telling you you should do this.

• 1:06:11Speaker 03

  And you know, you're not gonna do that. And they can't never take it away from you. It's yours. You know what I mean? So my biggest pivot was believing in myself and really leaning into being an entrepreneur. For real, for real. Like, my real estate portfolio is a very great one. And all that came from, I grew up in a trailer, just like I said, the size of this room. But I always told myself I was gonna buy dirt. You know what I'm saying? But that was believing in myself because if we ain't got nothing else, we gonna have somewhere to stay. Right. You know what I'm saying? But that was a pivot because this is something I own. You can't take this away from me. You know what I'm saying? Even when I heard the name of the show, I thought that was genius because, you know, I'm curious how many people just had to really understand what it truly means to pivot after COVID. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:06:56Speaker 03

  Because it was like, you had to do something. Everything stopped. Wasn't no shows, wasn't no games. You know what I'm saying? Like, everything stopped. So how are you pivoting? What are you gonna do different? So that you can sustain, maintain the life that you're living? Or to take care of you and yours? And for me, it was like, if I had food on my table for me and mine's and I did something that caused you to take it off my table, you're not just starving me. You're starving my Right. You know what I'm saying? My tribe, you know what I'm saying? And I felt like pivoting was the best thing I've ever done because to your point, I got my own time now. I ain't work for nobody. I ain't on nobody's clock, bro. That's what y'all say.

• 1:07:40Speaker 03

  I said, "With the fire truck, we bout, we got time, I ain't in the rush." I got tired of dates.

• 1:07:46Ryan Clark?

  You got tired of dates.

• 1:07:47Speaker 03

  But I got my own time, and I got my own schedule, and I got my own life, and I got my own interests, I got my own hobbies, and I got a great team, and to me, you know, pivoting got me that, and I didn't have that before. Like, I was stressed out, bro. You know, I'm trying to do 10, 11 things, and ain't none of it panning out, but I'm working for all the people. They don't care. You know what I'm saying? They want you there. Photo shoot, this, that, and the third. You gotta do this, you gotta speak here, you gotta do that. I mean, even writing my book, I had time. I was only because I had time. And that was another thing when COVID happened. It's like, I sat there and I was like, "What can I do to make this make sense? I'm gonna finish this book." That was pivoting for me. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:08:31Speaker 03

  Because you wasn't writing songs, you writing a book now. You know, and when COVID was over, the book was done. So I was like, "All right, cool, let's line it up." Boom, next thing you know, New York Times bestseller. You know, but if I ain't take the time and pivot,

• 1:08:44Speaker 03

  I'd have still been there.

• 1:08:45Ryan Clark?

  I felt like I walked a mile in your Air Forces today.

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, today, you did.

• 1:08:49Ryan Clark?

  You know what I mean? I felt like... But man, just coming from, I mean, a dude from New Orleans, man, I'm gonna tell you, bro. The first time, because I didn't see the video first, first time I heard Boom Boom Clap,

• 1:09:00Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:09:00Ryan Clark?

  and I recognized that voice, I was like, "Yeah, this is gonna be different." Man, so from, you know, from Boys in the Hood to that, man, to where you've progressed, like, you truly are what? From street hustling and corporate thugging to becoming a man of honor, integrity, someone who can show what loyalty is, and still take care of where you started while you grew your tribe. I think it's a blessing for us to be able to watch, man, for us to be able to witness. And the fact that you're still doing it for people like us, you know, who started there with you, it's such a blessing, man. Such an inspiration. So we appreciate you. Legend of the Snowman.com.

• 1:09:40Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:09:40Ryan Clark?

  Right, get your tickets.

• 1:09:41Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 1:09:42Ryan Clark?

  Vegas, Planet Hollywood.

• 1:09:44Speaker 03

  Let's get it.

• 1:09:44Ryan Clark?

  You don't want to miss it. And I'm telling you, if you going tonight, that I go. Don't worry. You will not be the cleanest there. It's gonna be me and Jeezy and everybody else. Appreciate you, dawg. Yeah, sir, man, no doubt. That was amazing, bro. That was amazing. Legend for real. Legend for real, dawg.

• 1:10:04Fred Taylor?

  First time I heard that, though.

• 1:10:34Speaker 06

  Every game day, you show up for your team. Now, it's your time.

• 1:10:39Speaker 07

  We go V.

• 1:10:42Speaker 06

  We go V. Ask your prescriber about Wegovy. Some maglutide injection, 2.4 milligrams a GLP-1. Call 1-8334-WEGOVIE or visit wegovie.com to view the medication guide and to learn more about Wegovy. Why wait?