Vic Mensa: The Power of Perspective

Trevor, Eugene, and David Kibuuka sit down with musician Vic Mensa for a conversation that moves easily between humor and hard truth. Drawing on his own experiences, Vic brings a raw, personal lens to topics like identity, privacy, and the strange contradictions of modern culture. As the conversation unfolds, it becomes a candid look at the gap between how we’re seen and who we actually are—and how much that perspective can shift depending on where you’re standing.

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

• 0:04Trevor Noah?

  The worst thing about being robbed by somebody on a bicycle is is that it's a very whimsical way to be robbed. Do you know what I mean? Because like if you get robbed at gunpoint, it makes you feel like you were part of something meaningful.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  Something extreme.

• 0:21Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, so if someone pulls out a gun and they're like, "Give me your phone, give me your wallet." No, but even after it happens, let's say if people were watching you, there's a certain amount of bravado that you get to maintain.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  For surviving a gunshot.

• 0:32Trevor Noah?

  "Wow, man, I can't believe you got robbed. I saw what happened." "You were there and you had to put your hands up and the person..." Or even a knife, you know what I mean?

• 0:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 0:38Trevor Noah?

  When you get robbed by somebody on a bicycle, it is one of, because just think of a bicycle, and then the person grabs your phone. You said you want a FaceTime.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:48Trevor Noah?

  So now they're on a FaceTime with this person.

• 0:51Speaker 01

  I never thought about that.

• 0:52Trevor Noah?

  So one minute you as Vic are like, "Man, let me tell you what I'm doing out here." "Let me tell you what I'm doing out here."

• 1:04Trevor Noah?

  This is What Now with Trevor Noah.

• 1:11Trevor Noah?

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• 1:46Trevor Noah?

  This segment is brought to you by Google Pixel. You know what's really frustrating? Knowing the exact information you need is somewhere on your phone, but still ending up wasting your time digging through five different apps just to actually find it.

• 2:01Trevor Noah?

  Thankfully, Google Pixel 11 is designed with Gemini intelligence, so it can proactively find the information I need right when I need it. Like my flight info and travel days, or my calendar when Eugene texts me to hang out. Oh, sorry Eugene, I'm booked. Learn more about what Google Pixel 11 can do at googlestore.com. These AI features are available in select countries and languages for users 18 and over, and make sure to check responses. Yeah, booked forever, forever. This episode is brought to you by Verizon.

• 2:38Trevor Noah?

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• 3:23Trevor Noah?

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• 3:53Speaker 02

  Yo, you know what happened yesterday?

• 3:57Speaker 02

  So, I unintentionally bought a new iPhone.

• 3:59Trevor Noah?

  Wait, before you guys carry on, can I just say you guys look like you got the same style memo, and then I was excluded from this?

• 4:05Speaker 02

  When are you think I don't research?

• 4:07Trevor Noah?

  So you dressed like this for Vic?

• 4:12Speaker 01

  The South African version.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  I was like, if I find an orange, the guests will never know the difference.

• 4:18Trevor Noah?

  You know, we should have got, I don't, I don't know if you've, if this is because of you. I don't want to say it's because of you. And I haven't forgotten the iPhone thing, we're gonna come back to it. I have experienced an extreme citrus craving. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm, I'm not, I, yo, okay, he's my witness because he sees my fridge. My fridge always has watermelon in it, always, always, always. Now, I have copious amounts of citrus. And I wonder, I genuinely wonder if it's partly because of you.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  You'll never get sick.

• 4:50Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I just wonder if like you've sort of, you know.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  Subconsciously influenced.

• 4:53Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've, you've created like a.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  I need to get a royalty from the citrus companies.

• 4:59Trevor Noah?

  You probably could get sp- you could get sponsored by like Big Orange or some.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  And after you can go to avocados.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  That's the real money.

• 5:06Trevor Noah?

  Can you imagine Vic pulling an avocado off the tree?

• 5:09Speaker 02

  First of all, the tree would be.

• 5:11Trevor Noah?

  Pulling an avocado off the.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  The real bread, the avocado, man.

• 5:15Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no, he still has to use his hands.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Be mashed all over the place, smeared on my face.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  And then you know, once an avocado gets exposed, it turns brown and then you'll be there for long.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Nasty.

• 5:30Trevor Noah?

  Now, you can only, you can only, you can only talk about short topics.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 5:34Trevor Noah?

  It's like, you know, when.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  And you can't waste an avocado, they're like ten dollars a pop.

• 5:39Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, the guy's talking deep about Iran, he thinks it's turning brown in his hand.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Expensive avocados are an American problem.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Oh, you don't, you don't struggle with that?

• 5:47Trevor Noah?

  No, we don't, it's actually interesting. There are some things that cost a fortune in some countries and in other countries. A friend of mine who grew up in Zimbabwe, like born and raised, their whole family, she was telling me the other day. Her grandmother still refers to avocados as poverty food. So when they're in London as a family and they go to a fancy restaurant. And then they come with like an avocado with blah blah. And then the mom literally is just like, wow, the grandmother, she's like, why are we eating poverty food? And then they try and explain to her, they're like, no, avocados in London cost a fortune. In New York, they cost a fortune. So.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  I unintentionally bought an iPhone because I I got in there. And then usually, like when you go to a store, there'll be a price underneath the item that you wanna buy. So what they do at the iStore here is the price is on the phone. So remember you used to go on the iPhone and there'll be selfies of people that have taken pictures of themselves.

• 6:42Trevor Noah?

  Okay, wait, wait.

• 6:43Speaker 02

  Mind you, when you touch it.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  This was me.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  This was you?

• 6:46Speaker 01

  As a child, yeah, I used to just hang out in the Apple Store and just like take selfies.

• 6:50Trevor Noah?

  No, you were you're one of those people?

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Rapping in the in the.

• 6:53Trevor Noah?

  So now the phones, wait, wait, wait, wait.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got so many photos of myself, me and all my friends, hanging out in the Apple Store. Making faces, like throwing up gang signs.

• 7:02Trevor Noah?

  Did you record stuff as well?

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:04Trevor Noah?

  I used to, no, no, no, I used to see kids, no joke, I used to see kids in the Apple Store on the iMac making an album.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I recorded raps on there, all type of shit.

• 7:15Trevor Noah?

  No one threw you out, right?

• 7:16Speaker 01

  They did throw us out.

• 7:17Trevor Noah?

  Oh, okay.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  And then we came back.

• 7:20Trevor Noah?

  Do you know where those albums are? Do you know where the music is?

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Facebook, like all buried secrets.

• 7:27Trevor Noah?

  I feel like they shouldn't throw you out. I feel like that should be part of like the Apple Stores. How can I explain it? If you create like a subculture. Within an Apple Store that people come in to try and create things so that they can blow up. I argue that's one of the greatest marketing campaigns that's that's.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  It's tight.

• 7:46Trevor Noah?

  You know what I mean? There's this like a cool vibe to you could that that guy in the corner could be the next big thing. That girl over there singing into the little iPhone microphone, she could be the next big thing. And then Apple just has this as like a, yeah, you never know.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, but once it becomes a thing, people spend too much time there.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, racism too.

• 8:03Speaker 02

  So now.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  A bunch of little black kids, like you can't take chances with the talent they may have.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  The present threat.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Outweighs the potential for talent.

• 8:17Trevor Noah?

  Well, I like that line, though, the present threat. What did you say?

• 8:20Speaker 02

  Human potential.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  And I said outweighs the potential for talent in the mind of society for sure.

• 8:26Trevor Noah?

  Oh, man, that's actually.

• 8:28Speaker 02

  Deep as fuck.

• 8:29Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that's that's actually deep on so many levels. Because how much risk should a society be willing to take take for the potential of? The great talent. Do you know what I mean? Like if you, it's easy for us to say it from like an institutional point of view. But like, let's say you saw something in your kid that was scary, but could go on to become the greatest thing ever. Do you hinder that?

• 8:56Speaker 01

  I see it in my kid now. He just smacked somebody in the face yesterday.

• 8:59Trevor Noah?

  You're like UFC.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  I'm like, yeah, this guy's a fighter. He could be a champion.

• 9:06Trevor Noah?

  But?

• 9:06Speaker 01

  But he just smacked his mom in the face too, so.

• 9:10Trevor Noah?

  How do you, how do you deal with that? Because on our side of the world, that's not a story that could be told in that way.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  In what way?

• 9:18Trevor Noah?

  The way you just told the story seems like that is the conclusion of it. Right? My kid, or I'm assuming what happened afterwards?

• 9:24Speaker 01

  So he is a tourist, which I'm learning is really the bull. Like they're very stubborn.

• 9:31Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  My father's a tourist, but he's patient and maybe a different kind of tourist. My son is like me, but a tourist. And so he's like coming to blows with things. You know what I'm saying? And now he's in daycare. So those things are people and he sees other kids that have toys. He doesn't have any siblings, doesn't really, no sharing.

• 9:55Trevor Noah?

  How old is he?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  He's about to be two.

• 9:56Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  He's about to be two next week.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  Two, three year old.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. And he sees kids with toys. He wants their toy. He tries to take it. The kid doesn't want him to take it. He hits. My girlfriend comes to try to correct him. Mensa, his name is Mensa Musa. He said, Mensa, you need to apologize to this kid. Hits her too.

• 10:18Speaker 02

  So does he have the full name Mensa Musa?

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Mensa Musa.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  Or just Mensa only?

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Mensa Musa Mensa. A triple M. That's in my Ghanaian cousins, they call him three-ple M.

• 10:29Trevor Noah?

  Three-ple M.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  And they've recently.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  That used to be a scare.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  They've recently started to call him, uh, my nigga.

• 10:36Trevor Noah?

  Who calls him this? At daycare.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Nah, my Ghanaian cousins, I don't know what happened. It's like so once he hit two. And now I post pictures of him and they respond in my story like my little nigga is getting so big. And me and my girl are like, what?

• 10:58Trevor Noah?

  It has a different vibe in Africa, though.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:02Trevor Noah?

  It's just like, you know.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  It's funny because they just don't know how to use it right.

• 11:05Trevor Noah?

  No, that's what I was about to say.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  Two days in South Africa.

• 11:10Trevor Noah?

  No, but in South Africa.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Africans too. I mean, South Africans too. I mean, it don't sound right when y'all say it.

• 11:16Trevor Noah?

  No, it's true. We will even say, we will say "abo my nigga",

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:21Trevor Noah?

  which refers often to like African Americans in hip hop.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  What does "abo my nigga" mean?

• 11:27Trevor Noah?

  It means like the plural of like, it's like.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  All of my niggas.

• 11:30Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  Those niggas.

• 11:32Trevor Noah?

  The my niggas.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  The my niggas?

• 11:35Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  "Abo" means "the".

• 11:37Trevor Noah?

  "Abo" is like, yeah, it's the collective.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  The collective of my niggas.

• 11:41Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, so it's like saying.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Guys from over there.

• 11:44Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but it can also be the guys in South Africa as well. No, no, no, no, no, it's not, it's not, because it can be guys in South Africa as well.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  100%.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  No, it's crazy about this.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  How does "abo my nigga" coincide with "ubuntu"? Does "ubuntu"?

• 11:56Speaker 03

  Pause for one second. Am I on camera? Are you listening to what I'm saying?

• 12:01Speaker 03

  Pause for one second. This kind of talk that you guys are having, it skips the general white market and goes to that white, other white market, do you know what I mean?

• 12:11Trevor Noah?

  Which white market?

• 12:12Speaker 03

  White markets.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  That's "abo my nigga".

• 12:17Speaker 01

  So it's not racist?

• 12:18Trevor Noah?

  It's not racist at all.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Because that is your nigga.

• 12:21Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no, no. So let me explain. No, no, let me explain, let me explain. So, let me explain. So what, so what happens sometimes that I think, that I think is beautiful is, as a, it's funny, sort of like the avocado thing we're talking about. So as words move around from place to place, as ideas move around from place to place, they take on a different meaning that can be similar but not the same, right? So, the N-word is a great example of that. Because it was never used in Africa, it doesn't have the same weight, even though people understand it through a historical context and through a current context, right? But because there's also a cultural difference in South Africa.

• 12:59Trevor Noah?

  Many of us grew up influenced by hip hop culture.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 13:02Trevor Noah?

  Right? And one of the things, before you could even like speak English, I remember my cousin would be like rapper, rapping along to Tupac. And then one of the things you'd say, he'd be like, ah, I wanna me, I wanna be jelly me, I wanna be jelly, I, yo, yo, my, my man, yo, yo, my man. Yo, yo, my nigga. Then you, you just say that. That's what you just knew you have to say to be in hip hop.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Those two words were used interchangeably.

• 13:22Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  My man.

• 13:23Trevor Noah?

  And.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  My nigga.

• 13:25Trevor Noah?

  Then what happened was.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  That's accurate.

• 13:27Trevor Noah?

  Over time, if you was, if you were somebody who was in hip hop, you were then referred to by people who weren't in hip hop as abo my nigga. So they would say it for.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  No, first it was, I'm a nigga.

• 13:40Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that's true. I'm a nigga. That's true, which is plural.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  The rappers.

• 13:44Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, the rappers.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Wearing durags.

• 13:46Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  Oversized fubu shirts.

• 13:48Trevor Noah?

  And then, and there's, there's no, and there's no, it's not.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  There's a thin line between.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  Yes, but it's also, but it's also, it's also how you say it. If you say, I'm a nigga.

• 13:57Trevor Noah?

  Uh-uh. Yeah.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  I'm a nigga.

• 13:59Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now it's, that's the one.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  So it's got an, it's got a double E.

• 14:02Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that's the one that's dope. Yeah, that's the one that's dope. That's like, ah, man.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  It makes me think about, um, how I learned that race is a false concept and that it's fictitious. I mean, growing up in America, obviously I grew up as a black man, black boy before that, at some point was considered biracial, but that kind of fades. And, um, when I went to South Africa though, and, um, meeting colored people with the OU.

• 14:28Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  And this is a completely different societal distinction. And I realized that people are considering me to be colored.

• 14:38Trevor Noah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  And that I'm not black. And I'm like, no, I'm black. They're like, uh, you're absolutely not black, you know? Uh, and it's such a different, uh, distinction of what is black versus what is not black in South Africa. Then when I go to Ghana. They call me Obroni. Obroni means white man. It means foreigner, but it also has a slightly, uh, like praised connotation in a colonial sense.

• 15:04Trevor Noah?

  Shongamla.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? And so it's like a foreigner, but it's a bit uplifted.

• 15:09Trevor Noah?

  It's an exalted foreigner.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Exalted foreigner.

• 15:11Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  And, uh, and they'll call me a white man. So I'm, I'm in this house where I'm staying and the, the man who works in the home sees that I'm about to go outside. Uh, it's like nine P M. I'm trying to go find some food. Ghana's very safe. You know what I'm saying? So I'm gonna go find some food. I'm like, you know, putting on my shit. And he's like, where are you going? And I say, man, I'm about to go get some food. He said, ah, ah, ah, Ghanaians, they do not like when white people go out at night. And I'm like, man, white people go out at night?

• 15:46Speaker 01

  I'm like, you don't get the fuck out of my way. Like, I'm from Chicago. I'm from a very dangerous place. Like, I'm going outside. But I thought that was so funny to me that I was so not a black person.

• 15:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  In a Ghanaian context, like that I was enough of a white person that I should be fearful for going outside alone at night.

• 16:05Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  And I'm, yeah, I went, of course. Well, I didn't find shit. They don't have nothing going on at nine P M in Ghana. It's not even like that.

• 16:12Trevor Noah?

  But can I ask you a que- you know, it's funny you say that thing. Do you ever wonder whether or not the bona fides you have where you're from hold up in another place? Cause you see what you just said. You're like, I'm from Chicago. I don't, you know?

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:24Trevor Noah?

  I sometimes think about that. I go.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Here, there's my shetis.

• 16:26Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but the.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  No, for real.

• 16:29Trevor Noah?

  Chicago again?

• 16:29Speaker 01

  I went to, uh, I went to Jamaica, man. One time I got to Jamaica, you know what I'm saying? And my flight was, uh, kind of disrupted. I had the wrong passport. My manager gave me his passport. I'm sitting in the airport for like 16 hours. I'm frustrated. I tried to sneak in the shit, all type of shit. When I eventually made it there, I got a chip on my shoulder. So I'm like, this was a three day long trip and I spent the first day.

• 16:53Trevor Noah?

  16 hours, yeah.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  I spent the first fucking day in a, in a fucking Montego Bay airport. And so I get there, you know, when you're in Jamaica, many places that, uh, local guys will just try to accompany you.

• 17:05Trevor Noah?

  Yep.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  To get tips, you know what I'm saying? And so the local guy, he jumps in the car. He's like, oh, I'm gonna tell you where you're going. You're going this way, you know? And I'm like, okay. Uh, and, and we get there and eventually. He wants his tip.

• 17:18Trevor Noah?

  Yep.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  You know, and, and once again, my Chicago thing is, clicks on and as I feel like he's kinda trying to strong arm me into this tip.

• 17:28Trevor Noah?

  Uh huh, uh huh.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  I'm like, what the fuck is you talking about? I'm from Chicago, you not finna, you know what I'm saying? Strong arm me out of shit. And, and later that day though, I went to the hotel pool and I'm, I'm like, man, you know what? Let me inspect the validity of this, I'm from Chicago claim in Jamaica.

• 17:48Trevor Noah?

  When did you tip him?

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Uh, no, I didn't tip him that time, but I looked up the murder rate.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  I looked up the murder rate of Chi- of, uh, Jamaica. I was like, I'm tipping everybody. I mean, the tip would have been like 25 cents. I was like, these niggas will kill me. They should be telling me, I'm from Jamaica, you better give me what I'm asking for.

• 18:14Trevor Noah?

  So you were like, Jamaican murder rate?

• 18:16Speaker 01

  We'll kill you 10 times faster than you'll kill us.

• 18:18Trevor Noah?

  So you googled Jamaican murder rate and, and exchange, and exchange rate? You were like, this is not worth it.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  I did the computation and I realized I'm 10 times more likely to get killed by them than they are by me.

• 18:29Trevor Noah?

  Oh man.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  And the tip is like 10 cents in total.

• 18:36Trevor Noah?

  I won't lie, I know it's an ignorant point of view to have, but I, I never understand it when I'm in Jamaica. So Jamaicans, Jamaicans will warn me. So when I was in Jamaica, um, it's funny, our flight was disrupted, so we were supposed to fly uh, out of Montego and then they were like, no, you gotta go to Kingston so you can get out, cause flights had changed. And then when we're in Kingston, someone was like, they're like, you don't wanna, you don't wanna go anywhere. They're like, don't. Yeah, cause I was like, I've never been to Kingston. I was like, I'm gonna go walk around and see that, and it's like, no. He's like, you can't, you can't do that.

• 19:10Speaker 02

  You can't do that, man.

• 19:11Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, he's like, you can't do that.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  I hate it when people do that.

• 19:12Trevor Noah?

  And I was like, what do you mean, I can't? Then he's like, it's not safe for you to walk around. And I was like, yo, I'm go- I was like, I'm from Joh- I did the same thing. I was like, I'm from Johannesburg. And then I, that's when I had the realization. I went, aha, that's the mistake you're making. You're from Johannesburg. So you assume your street smarts hold up in this place. You assume that your tactics hold up in this place. But now you're coming here with like avocado mentality. And then the people here are just gonna be like, nah.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  But that's the thing with being black, it's, it almost like it goes with anything. You can either blend in or stick out. So when you're in Europe and you're black, you're like, ah, I stick out. But when you're in anywhere where there's black people, in Africa, in America, you're like, yeah. Cause I make the mistake of speaking to African Americans like they know what I'm saying.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Like I understand you.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Like exactly, like they know what I'm saying. I'm like, so much, you might far away.

• 20:04Trevor Noah?

  Eugene will literally do that, by the way.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:07Trevor Noah?

  Eugene will switch, Eugene will switch into African languages all the time with African American.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Doesn't compute.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:13Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, Eugene, there was one day with, and then you said to a guy, you're like, eh, exa, etah, exa. And then I said, Eugene, he doesn't understand what you're saying.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  I get that, cause when I just saw a glimpse of you on the screen in the back room. I didn't know you were South African until you spoke.

• 20:28Trevor Noah?

  You didn't stop speaking.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  I can tell in time. I can always tell, I can always identify the Africans, it's just, I can, but like, sometimes in that first moment, that glimpse might not give me the whole picture. You know what I'm saying?

• 20:41Trevor Noah?

  Where would Eugene, where would you think Eugene's from? Does he look like he's from a part of Philly?

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Philadelphia.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  I'm from Philly, where?

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Till he did that.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Till he did that. He gets wrong with him.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  He stood up, I saw his butt.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  I feel like this guy's from South Africa. Biggest man on the planet.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  This guy just said-

• 21:04Speaker 01

  A gay man would be in heaven. Coming to South Africa. He lies to his fucking self. Don't let some niggas show up in South Africa.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  And never go home. No, but you're right, though, about going to places and not realizing that your, like, worldview from home-

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Doesn't apply. Like, I was in Montreal one time, and walking down the street, talking to my buddy on the phone, FaceTime, got a French girl with me, I'm stunting, I'm like, "Yeah, man, you know, niggas out here, I'm real international, you know, I'm doing my thing," you know what I'm saying? And a man rode by me on a bicycle, on a road bike. He's just pedaling, and I'm stunting, and the man just grabbed the phone and kept riding, fast as hell. I'm so stunned, you know what I'm saying? Because this is a very beautiful place. I'm thinking I can physically overpower anybody that tries to rob me in this place. But I wasn't ready for the crackhead on the bike.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  And so I chased him, can't catch him, you know what I mean? I was going this wild goose chase to try to find my phone. I'm doing, "Find my iPhone." I traced my shit to a park full of crackheads on bikes. So many crackheads on bikes, I can't distinguish-

• 22:28Speaker 02

  You're a crackhead.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  I don't know who's the one that's- My crackhead, literally. Exactly, I don't know which crackhead is my crackhead. See, this is when it gets racist.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  Oh, sorry, sorry.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  But, uh, so, one of them came out and he-

• 22:41Speaker 02

  We're fine, that's it.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  One of them came out, you know, and I'm like, "Man, this might be the one." So now I'm racist, you know? I'm like, "This might be the one." And so I'm like, "Man, you know what I'm saying, did you happen to, you know what I'm saying, do you got an iPhone?" You know? And he pulled out, like, a way older iPhone. He's like, "I didn't steal no iPhone, I got, this is a iPhone." He always said, "What kind of iPhone?" I said, "Iphone 13." He said, "This is iPhone 6, nigga, I'm crazy, apologize." You know?

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Where's your girl on all of this?

• 23:12Speaker 01

  She actually was riding with me. She was trying to find the phone.

• 23:15Trevor Noah?

  Oh wow.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  She was riding with me the whole time. This ain't my girl, you know, I have a girl, but this was a girl.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, iPhone thirteen, bro.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  iPhone six.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  iPhone six.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  And, you know, I wouldn't apologize to the nigga, whatever. I'm trying to find my phone in this bike, in this crackhead on bike park.

• 23:32Trevor Noah?

  Can I just say, just to interject there, I'm always intrigued by people who present as crazy, say they are crazy, but then request something that is quite logical.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  An apology.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  An apology.

• 23:43Trevor Noah?

  He's like, "I'm crazy, now apologize." I'm like, "If you were crazy, you wouldn't care about apologies."

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Also, who got for you?

• 23:51Speaker 01

  It was crazy, though. He was crazy. He was crazy.

• 23:53Trevor Noah?

  I don't know.

• 23:54Speaker 02

  Wait, so now, here you are in a park full of crackheads?

• 23:58Speaker 01

  And I didn't find a phone, I found some crack, you know, I tried to get the phone, motherfucker, like, I don't have your phone, but I have crack, you know, and they tried to give me some crack, and the police come, whatever, and all the crackheads dispersed in different directions. I didn't get my phone, but I did learn a valuable lesson, which was, don't be trying to stunt in someone else's environment, because you just don't know what challenges you may face. You know what I'm saying? It might not seem as dangerous as the streets of the south side of Chicago, but I didn't know that they rob niggas in different ways in Montreal.

• 24:36Trevor Noah?

  The worst thing about, the worst thing about being robbed by somebody on a bicycle is, is that it's a very, it's a very whimsical way to be robbed. Do you know what I mean? Because, like, if you get robbed at gunpoint, it makes you feel like you were part of something meaningful.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Something extreme.

• 24:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, so if someone pulls out a gun and they're like, "Give me your phone, give me your wallet." No, but even after it happens, if, let's say if people were watching you, there's a certain amount of bravado that you get to maintain.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  For surviving a gunshot.

• 25:05Trevor Noah?

  "Wow, man, I can't believe you got robbed. I saw what happened, and you were there and you had to put your hands up and the person, or even a knife, you know, you know what I mean?"

• 25:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:11Trevor Noah?

  When you get robbed by somebody on a bicycle. It is one of, because just think of a bicycle. And then the person grabs your phone. You said you wanna FaceTime.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:21Trevor Noah?

  So now they're on a FaceTime with this person.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  I never thought about that.

• 25:25Trevor Noah?

  So one minute, you as Vic are like, man, let me tell you what I'm doing out here. Let me tell you what I'm doing out here. Now they're riding away, but you're in the background chasing them. Nobody looks cool.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:36Trevor Noah?

  Chasing something that is way faster than them. So when you chase another human being.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  It also looks unrealistic.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  Very whimsical.

• 25:42Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, when you, when you chase another, another human being, you both are running. When someone's riding a bicycle and you're chasing the bicycle, you just look like a child left behind by something. Like all your swag.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  It was like a clown show for sure.

• 25:54Trevor Noah?

  It is.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  It's gone. All my swag with the girl was kinda.

• 25:57Trevor Noah?

  It's gone.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  But I love that she stuck with you, man.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  She did.

• 25:59Trevor Noah?

  No, that, that's actually really impressive. It almost feel like she was in on it now.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  I kinda do too, because she then sent me a phone, like a handful of years later, saying that she had found it. And I, I don't know, I didn't buy it though.

• 26:11Trevor Noah?

  She had found it?

• 26:12Speaker 01

  I feel like she just wanted to come to my house.

• 26:15Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, no, you got played.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  I got played?

• 26:17Trevor Noah?

  This is, this feels like a, this feels like a scam.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  She's the one who really.

• 26:20Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, no.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  Where did she find the phone?

• 26:22Trevor Noah?

  How do you find a phone randomly in another country?

• 26:25Speaker 02

  She's from there.

• 26:25Trevor Noah?

  She doesn't have his find my iPhone?

• 26:27Speaker 01

  She was coordinating with the crackhead the whole time.

• 26:31Trevor Noah?

  Oh man, you told this guy the wrong thing. You told, so let me ask you a question.

• 26:37Trevor Noah?

  Does Ghana feel like a version of home now? Cause you go, you go there quite a lot.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, Ghana does, man. You know, I mean, I started going to Ghana when I was 11. And so I've like.

• 26:46Trevor Noah?

  Who, who on, on your parents?

• 26:48Speaker 01

  My father's Ghanaian.

• 26:49Trevor Noah?

  So father's Ghanaian, yeah.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  So I've been going back to Ghana for more years of my life than not. And at this point of like, developed a lot of my own longstanding relationships beyond my family.

• 27:01Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? And so it definitely, it is home. It's, it's the place I've been most on the planet outside of Chicago and probably LA or something like that.

• 27:10Trevor Noah?

  Wow, that much?

• 27:11Speaker 01

  For sure. Definitely outside of America is the place I've been the most.

• 27:16Trevor Noah?

  What, what do you, what is the thing you find about Ghana?

• 27:22Trevor Noah?

  That brings you a piece of home that you can't achieve otherwise. I I I asked this question selfishly because I've I've started realizing. I was talking to Eugene about this the other day. We're walking around in in Johannesburg in South Africa. And I was saying to Eugene.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  Because you know, we thugged like that.

• 27:36Trevor Noah?

  You told this guy the worst thing.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  I know it is kind of it is thugged out of Johannesburg.

• 27:42Trevor Noah?

  So we we were walking and.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  We're walking in Hilbra.

• 27:44Trevor Noah?

  And I was I was saying to Eugene.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  We're not scared of anyone.

• 27:47Trevor Noah?

  I'm scared, I'm scared, we're scared, we're definitely scared.

• 27:51Trevor Noah?

  No, what I what I was saying was.

• 27:54Trevor Noah?

  You take for granted, I've always taken for granted. How much a place can keep pieces of you and create pieces of you. Do you do you know what I mean? So the reason I ask you about like that home side of things is because there's another vic in Ghana.

• 28:08Speaker 02

  The version, yeah.

• 28:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I want to know like what came out of you because of Ghana that maybe you wouldn't have experienced otherwise. Just being in the U S or being in Chicago.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  It's much more peaceful. And it's much slower paced. Like, America. We are confined by time, like we're obsessed with it. We schedule our days in thirty minute increments. Like, I've got this meeting, then I have this Zoom call, and then I have this lunch, then I have a breakfast. You know what I mean? I have so many. Scheduled events. Try that in Ghana. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's not gonna happen. Because people don't operate like that. People are not beholden to time in the same way.

• 28:51Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  And they could be six hours late for something, and that's just like regular. You know.

• 28:55Trevor Noah?

  It's not even late.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  So that's kind of on time, it's just something to expect. And as I'm spending time in Ghana. There's always a process of like. Low key decolonizing my mind as it pertains to time. To allow things to happen at their own pace more. And to stop being so rigidly connected to to my ideas of of time and schedule. And it becomes more of a. It becomes more of a peaceful experience.

• 29:25Trevor Noah?

  Do you think it made you more chilled as a person?

• 29:28Speaker 01

  I think when I'm there, but then I get too chill and then I try to come like eight hours late to some shit and I miss the whole thing, you know? I'm still trying to find the balance, you know, like how do I fit in this while still like accomplishing shit? It's always a little bit of a tug of war, but in general, I do admire the way that people in West Africa, people in the Caribbean are not so yeah, controlled by time, like not so in fear of time. I feel like Americans live in a constant fear of missing the moment, you know, but being in the moment is the way to not miss the moment.

• 30:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, even even the phrase wasting time, I find is one that is often used in America and in the West in a way that isn't used in, at least in my experience, in Africa or in the Caribbean. You you can't waste time because time is always happening. You don't have it. You never have it. So you're either doing with it what you please or you're not doing with it what you, but you cannot waste time, you know?

• 30:35Speaker 03

  Can I interject?

• 30:35Trevor Noah?

  It's actually, I was actually gonna-

• 30:36Speaker 03

  Is it possible for me to interject?

• 30:38Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I was actually gonna say this about you. I was gonna say you'd be proud to know, you know, because you inspire me to read books about things.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  Thought to waste time.

• 30:44Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, you do. There's a, there's a, there's a book that I read actually that was saying like, this thing is actually quite real, but it actually goes to um the environments that people came from. So people in Africa, especially in like West Africa, Central Africa, etc., the Caribbean, never suffered food scarcity due to weather or to time. So they never needed to develop a relationship with time.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 31:10Trevor Noah?

  Because time didn't define your ability to exist, right? But if you grew up in places like Sweden, England, etc., time was the difference between living and dying. If you missed the time of the crops, if you missed the time of planting, if you missed the time of a carriage that was gonna pick you up in the snow, it's death. So time is more important to Europeans-

• 31:31Speaker 01

  People in Africa and Caribbean could just go get that avocado.

• 31:33Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  At any time.

• 31:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. No, but I thought you would appreciate that, Dave. Sorry, yes.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  I do appreciate that. That is-

• 31:39Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  That is-

• 31:42Speaker 03

  Great.

• 31:45Speaker 03

  No, no, the thing, no, the thing that this reminds me of is yesterday.

• 31:51Trevor Noah?

  The whole thing.

• 31:52Speaker 03

  Sorry, I'm telling Vic. Yesterday, Trevor texted me and he was like, um, let's chat about what we're gonna do with, you know, this podcast and that whole thing of today, you know, that kind of thing, because we, yesterday. Then he said in his text, this is related to time, in his text, he said, I'll call you at two thirty.

• 32:15Trevor Noah?

  I feel like this guy is just using this opportunity to expose me, but let's carry on.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  He, no, this is all part of it.

• 32:22Trevor Noah?

  I'm sure, yes, carry on, David. It ends with me being condemned, but please, please continue.

• 32:27Speaker 03

  Just where we are, the main character over here said, I'll text you at two thirty. Then he didn't text at two thirty. Oh, he said, I'll phone you at two thirty. He didn't phone at two thirty. Then he phoned at seven thirty, to your point of Africans. No, really, he phoned at seven thirty, which I'm also African, so I didn't, when he said, I'll text at two thirty, I didn't have that like, oh, I'll phone at two thirty, I didn't have that, oh, you know, at all, because I'm African. But when we did get to seven thirty, when he called, if you hadn't called at all, I would have been fine with it. I'd have been like, well, he didn't call, we'll meet the next day, do you know what I mean?

• 33:04Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 33:04Speaker 03

  I'll call you at five to talk about tomorrow. I didn't call you, I'll just assume he's doing something, then we meet the next day. You know, you get where I am as a person? Cool. But then at seven thirty, because I've known this guy for many years, so at seven thirty, he called me, he did call. But he called, you know, when someone sort of like calls you, when, because they, when they know that you won't like really be able to pick up the phone.

• 33:32Trevor Noah?

  No, this is bullshit.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no. No, no, no, wait, wait. They hang up after two rings. No, no, no.

• 33:37Trevor Noah?

  Because he knows you'll be in the kitchen.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  No, I won't say anything. That's what happened, that's what happened.

• 33:41Trevor Noah?

  I won't say anything.

• 33:42Speaker 03

  I'll tell you how, because seven thirty, you know that thing, where, you know, we know it's like, because I called directly afterwards. You know, when it rings, one, two, three. And then it goes off, then you ring back directly afterwards. They should pick up.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  Shocked that you called back.

• 33:57Speaker 03

  No, he didn't pick up. He didn't pick up.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  Of course he was shocked.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  No, because he was trying, he was going, okay. I can't call him at, I can't call him at two A M. Because then obviously he's sleeping. Do you know that kind of thing?

• 34:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 34:09Speaker 03

  But I can't call him at four, because then he won't be like engaged in something, he'll pick up. So then this guy is going like, hmm, when is the time?

• 34:20Speaker 03

  When is the time when I know that it will be a, it will be.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  I called.

• 34:25Speaker 03

  It will be, I called, you didn't pick up.

• 34:27Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 34:27Speaker 03

  Most likely you're in the bathroom, most I come back, miss.

• 34:30Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Cause think of it, so I called you direct two seconds and then I called again and then.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  Wait, so he didn't pick up the first time?

• 34:37Speaker 03

  So this is what happens, cause I was in an Indian restaurant.

• 34:40Trevor Noah?

  I knew this would be me being snitched on.

• 34:42Speaker 03

  No, no, no, this is what happens. Ding ding, then I was doing a thing, then I was like, I'm just fine now. Ding ding, off, not even many rings, then I go, cause it comes back, then I go, call back, you know what I mean? No call, cause then I know this is, he was just trying to do that.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  Take a box.

• 35:00Speaker 03

  Yes, take a box. Then what happened is, I stopped, I left it, because maybe, you know what I mean?

• 35:06Speaker 02

  How long did you leave it for?

• 35:07Speaker 03

  For like, two minutes, you know what I mean? Then, yeah.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  Cause you're giving him space to call back.

• 35:12Speaker 03

  Yes, then I called again, so now I look like an idiot. Then I, then I called again, and then he didn't pick up. Then, you know, like, you know, on, cause it's a WhatsApp call, the WhatsApp also makes you feel more thirsty than you are.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  WhatsApp tells you if a motherfucker's been on the phone, all this nigga Trevor Noah was available two minutes ago.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  And then WhatsApp also.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  So you ain't picking up now?

• 35:32Speaker 03

  WhatsApp also does that thing where it says, would you like to record a voice message? I don't want to record a voice message, I'm not the one, he's calling me, and then.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  You didn't start this thing.

• 35:42Speaker 03

  Yes, I just started.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  And even the promise of I'll call you at two thirty, why?

• 35:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:47Trevor Noah?

  This is, this is a good place to explain.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  Why I got a new iPhone?

• 35:51Trevor Noah?

  No, this is, people have very different experiences in life.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:55Trevor Noah?

  And I think one of my gifts has always been being able to understand that everyone is consuming the same reality from their perspective.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:04Speaker 03

  Don't make it deep, don't make it deep.

• 36:06Trevor Noah?

  Let me explain why.

• 36:07Speaker 03

  He's gonna say I have ADHD or whatever he tells everybody to have.

• 36:10Trevor Noah?

  No, let me explain, so.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  What if he says AIDS?

• 36:13Trevor Noah?

  I love, I love, I love your experience. I'll tell you what hap- this is actually, this is actually great. It's, it's a very poignant thing to chat about, you know? I feel like Vic will even have great opinions on this. So, you are correct, I said to you, I'll call you at 2:30.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  Why did you say 2:30?

• 36:28Trevor Noah?

  Because that is when my previous engagement was gonna end. So I knew, so I knew my thing ends at 2.

• 36:33Speaker 02

  Oh, you wanted to catch momentum.

• 36:34Trevor Noah?

  So I was like, my thing ends at 2, I'll, I can make the call by 2:30, okay?

• 36:39Speaker 03

  Also, remember, this is unprompted.

• 36:41Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, I, I.

• 36:42Speaker 03

  I'm not asking for this.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  He saw a 12:20.

• 36:45Speaker 03

  He's just putting you in a wild goose chase.

• 36:46Trevor Noah?

  Yes, but wait, but wait. Yeah, yeah, but wait, wait, wait. I wa- do we need to tighten that?

• 36:50Speaker 02

  You're not on your side here.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Nah, I think it's okay.

• 36:52Trevor Noah?

  Alright, the, um, so.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  This guy used to record albums at the ice too.

• 36:55Trevor Noah?

  No, you never know, but I mean.

• 36:57Speaker 02

  He's cool with anything.

• 36:58Trevor Noah?

  You know, there's tricks to these things sometimes, like a little, you know? So, okay, so, so, so this is what I'm saying. The 2:30, you are completely correct, my friend, and let me first say, before saying anything else, I apologize.

• 37:08Speaker 03

  Ah, don't apologize, I don't accept.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  It doesn't mean it.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  I don't accept because you're trying, no.

• 37:12Trevor Noah?

  No, wait, first of all, let me say, I apologize for sending the 2:30.

• 37:16Speaker 02

  How about pickup? Don't apologize.

• 37:17Trevor Noah?

  No, now, now, let me, let me explain what happened.

• 37:20Speaker 03

  I don't, I don't accept.

• 37:20Trevor Noah?

  Let me explain what happened, so.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  I don't accept on your behalf.

• 37:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:23Trevor Noah?

  No, so how, no, so how I get around, I get around, I get around riding a bicycle. That's how I perform. Wait, this is how I get around.

• 37:31Speaker 02

  It's him!

• 37:34Speaker 01

  He should have looked harder.

• 37:38Trevor Noah?

  So I get around riding a bicycle, right? Okay, ride bicycles, ride bicycles, so. The thing that I planned didn't end at the time that I thought I'd planned what, then I get on a bicycle. So now, I cannot make this call. Riding the bicycle, riding the bicycle, get to the next thing, now I've missed the time. Should have said something, but didn't, fine. But I also know, no, but I also know, no, no, no, you, making AirPods on a bike is terrible because the wind goes into them, maybe this new CEO at Apple will fix this. There's so much wind that goes in, that the other person on the other side.

• 38:08Trevor Noah?

  That's all they're hearing. So, I was like, there's no point in making this call. I also knew that my friend, if he was plagued by the time, he would say like, yo, yo, yo, we need to chat.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  I wasn't plagued by the time.

• 38:17Trevor Noah?

  I knew, no, I knew this. So let me explain what happened now. When I made the call, seven thirty, I just finished something, I was done. Seven thirty, I made the call. I was like, alright, call. Now, this is a pet peeve that I have, that is actually affecting people's friendships, might I say? No. WhatsApp lies about how many rings are occurring. When you phone somebody on WhatsApp.

• 38:40Speaker 03

  This is now, this is.

• 38:42Trevor Noah?

  Wait, wait.

• 38:42Speaker 03

  This is a deep lie you're about to go with.

• 38:44Trevor Noah?

  Can I tell you something? Let me tell you something about my pet peeve, my friend. And remember, I'm the tech guy. Don't forget this. WhatsApp lies to you. Same one who couldn't call while he was riding a bicycle. Let me explain to you. WhatsApp will lie to you. Your phone will be ringing. You go dial, it'll start ringing on your end, but it's not ringing on the other end. Calling and ringing is two different things. No, no, no, no, no, no. It does that sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But still, it will ring on your, so what I'll do, like with Lawrence, for instance, I'll say, how, how long did that ring on your side? He'll be like, it rang once. I'm like, nah, I've been waiting for like ten rings on my side. We, we tracked this on purpose. WhatsApp will make it seem like it's ringing on the other side, but it's not ringing. You think you've been waiting for long, the other person hasn't waited. When I called you.

• 39:26Speaker 03

  This guy is, you know, who said, you know the last person who said this? The last person who said this was literally Albert Einstein. Do you remember he said the theory of relativity? Time is different on one your side, time is, this guy is trying to, no.

• 39:40Trevor Noah?

  So let me explain what happened. So what happens is. But it also depend on the ringtone. So on his side, no, so on his side, what happens is, you say it rang, and then it was done. I waited for long.

• 39:49Speaker 03

  Aye.

• 39:50Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I'm telling you, from my side, it rang, it rang, it rang, it rang, it rang. How long did you wait? It rang for a very long time. Then I was like, alright, this guy is clearly not next to his phone, and he's not on his phone. Done. Then I got onto a bicycle. So if you phoned me while I'm on a bicycle, I'm now not gonna answer that call. Why? I'm not pulling out my phone while I'm riding.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  He's on a bike.

• 40:12Trevor Noah?

  I'm on a bike, my friend.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  It was him.

• 40:14Trevor Noah?

  I'm on a bike now. I'm not gonna pull out my phone. So now you're calling me back while I'm on a bike. The calls come in. See, if he had AirPods, you would have said. At the end of the journey, at the end of the journey. Then I look at my phone, there are many things that have been missed. But I'm like, you know what? We'll get to them another time, another day. And I know that my friend isn't stressed by them.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 40:34Trevor Noah?

  And that's how we move on.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  I, I wasn't.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  Dave, do you have your phone with you?

• 40:37Trevor Noah?

  Either way, I apologize.

• 40:38Speaker 03

  Well, I was, yes.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  Do you have your phone with you?

• 40:40Speaker 03

  Yes, but, but I don't even wanna test that. The thing that, no.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  You're on speaker?

• 40:43Speaker 03

  No, no, no.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  Cause I wanna hear.

• 40:45Speaker 03

  I don't, I don't wanna say.

• 40:46Trevor Noah?

  I'm gonna do it right now.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  Cause I have a theory that it could be the ringtone. You could have those ringtones that go prum prum, prum prum.

• 40:52Trevor Noah?

  This is.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  And then he's like, boop, boop.

• 40:54Trevor Noah?

  Vic, can I ask you a question? How many friends do you have in your life that might actually be your enemies?

• 41:00Trevor Noah?

  People who are trying to bring you down.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  I got a handful of far more sinister frenemies than this.

• 41:05Trevor Noah?

  Okay, let's, let's see here, let's see. Speaker, it's ringing already.

• 41:09Speaker 02

  One?

• 41:11Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but we're on the same wifi.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  Ay, ay, ay, ay, now you're looking for. Wait, do it again. When I say ringtone lapo?

• 41:17Trevor Noah?

  Girl.

• 41:18Speaker 02

  On full volume, whena speaker lapo ne?

• 41:21Trevor Noah?

  Yes, but we're on the same wifi.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  My nigga.

• 41:24Trevor Noah?

  We're on the same wifi here.

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Doesn't matter.

• 41:26Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  A call is a call. Cause I wanna hear the ringing versus his ringing.

• 41:31Trevor Noah?

  I'm gonna try again, I'm gonna try again.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  Remember, I called you even just before.

• 41:36Trevor Noah?

  This is what technology does to us in society.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  You fished it off.

• 41:38Trevor Noah?

  That's why we. That's why we, in society, guys. Can I just say?

• 41:43Speaker 03

  No.

• 41:43Trevor Noah?

  Can I just say? Vic, let me, actually, you know Vic? You know Vic, this is a perfect segue. This is a perfect segue. You know Vic, this is a perfect segue for me to ask you. As somebody who.

• 41:53Speaker 03

  No.

• 41:54Trevor Noah?

  As somebody who uses.

• 41:55Speaker 02

  No, back in Philly, they should never fly, yo.

• 41:56Trevor Noah?

  As somebody who uses technology to connect with people.

• 42:02Trevor Noah?

  Do you ever fear its, its ability to disconnect you from people? And, and, and I, I mean this. You know, so you actually got me, uh, April 1st, you put out the video. I remember being very sad. Vic put out a video saying he was quitting Instagram.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  Oh, when he was playing with us.

• 42:19Trevor Noah?

  And he was quitting speaking publicly and it was, and it was slides.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:23Trevor Noah?

  Each slide I got more emotional.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 42:25Trevor Noah?

  I got more sad.

• 42:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:26Trevor Noah?

  He's talking about all the money he's lost for being outspoken.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 42:29Trevor Noah?

  He's talking about how, you know, it's not worth it anymore. He's just gonna go into a hole and not say anything and so, yo, I was deep and I was feeling it.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:37Trevor Noah?

  And then the last slide, he was like, April fools.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:40Trevor Noah?

  I didn't appreciate that. Cause I thought at some point we just get over April fools, but not Vic Mensa.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  That was fine every time.

• 42:47Trevor Noah?

  But, no, but you know, you know what it did? It, it honestly did bring up, I, I thought to myself, I was like, yeah, but like. You're putting out these videos at a pretty frequent rate now. The one thing you can't control is where the videos go, how the videos go, how people even pick out a piece from the video, splice it together, because you've curated something, you've put out a message. But then there's somebody out there who's gonna take the message and cut it and make it seem like Vic Mensa said this, or make it seem like Vic Mensa said that. How do you process it and does it affect what you do or do not say?

• 43:20Speaker 02

  Sorry, just for, this is a real thing, before you go into that, for those who don't know, last time my mom was watching, do you know what I'm saying? Just could you describe the videos?

• 43:29Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, okay, no, if you, actually, this is, no, this is a good, this is a good point. For those, for those who don't know, it's the, you've seen them.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:35Trevor Noah?

  If you, I think Dave is secretly telling us he hasn't seen them.

• 43:38Speaker 02

  I have seen them, I have.

• 43:39Trevor Noah?

  No, no, let me tell you what they are, Dave, Dave does this sometimes, he'll be like, pretend my mom, but it's really him. So Dave, Vic Mensa, you probably know him from his rap career, hip hop, etc., fashion, all of these things. But recently, Vic has blown up online for putting a series, for creating a series, where he speaks to issues happening in the world, and I think the biggest thing that's made-

• 44:03Speaker 02

  In his backyard.

• 44:03Trevor Noah?

  In his backyard, or a backyard, I'm not assuming it's his.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Is that your backyard?

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 44:08Trevor Noah?

  So, and what's made it really engaging is not just the content, it's like the style and the way that he does it. So he picks an orange off of a tree.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  First.

• 44:19Trevor Noah?

  And then he walks up to the camera and he starts discussing something while he's peeling the orange, and then he eats the orange, and-

• 44:26Speaker 02

  And sometimes he looks at the orange while he's peeling it.

• 44:28Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, and then, I don't know, I don't know-

• 44:30Speaker 02

  Very intentional, because-

• 44:30Trevor Noah?

  I don't know why or how this happens.

• 44:32Speaker 02

  But you, you go, sometimes you look.

• 44:35Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  Because that's what made me realize the real orange.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  Oh, you thought it might have been AI?

• 44:40Speaker 02

  But when, when your thumbs were in it and then you were like-

• 44:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 44:44Speaker 02

  Cause some oranges are hotter than other oranges.

• 44:45Trevor Noah?

  They are. This is true. This is true. You actually have to think about it.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:48Trevor Noah?

  But anyway, these, this, this is huge. Nominated for a Webby now. It's become, it's, it's, it's, it's become a piece of internet culture. In a way, you know, when you know you've achieved that is when people parody it. So I've seen people now go to a tree and pick another fruit to do a joke about something.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, the guy that brought the Jack Harlow controversy to light. He started it with the tree.

• 45:11Trevor Noah?

  Exactly.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  So you realize how this doesn't make sense because he pulled a bag of chips.

• 45:15Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Um.

• 45:16Speaker 03

  So. And just another question, just a quick one. What are like, just quickly, what are like the range of topics that you sort of would talk about?

• 45:24Speaker 01

  I'm talking about things that are happening in the world, geopolitical things, uh, my mental health, like experiences that are happening in my life. Uh, a lot of what's going on in America, African history and events and things like that. Just a lot of the same things I would talk about in conversation with y'all. You know what I'm saying? Um, the question maybe originally was, how do you deal with?

• 45:50Trevor Noah?

  Or, or has it affected you?

• 45:51Speaker 01

  Fragmentation of like.

• 45:52Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Of your words online. You know, I think part of, part of it for me is definitely doing my best to not be too attached to response, which can be difficult, but um, to try to stay driven by message. I mean, try to, try to stay driven by purpose. I think about the time I was on your show, like, must've been 10 years ago.

• 46:17Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, on the Daily Show.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  You know, when I came back from Palestine and I was on your show speaking about my experience in Palestine and in the West Bank and how it reminded me of uh, American racism and Jim Crow. And um, that was early in the common parlance of discussions about Palestine.

• 46:40Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  For um, for the American populace, you know what I'm saying? And yeah, at that time, I experienced a lot of blowback. Not particularly for being on your show, what I said on there, but generally for speaking my mind. You know what I mean? About, about what I felt.

• 46:58Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you don't know what you're talking about. Shut up. Who are you? It's, yeah, it's the usual.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  You know, and the like, people in my team and in my circle that I didn't know felt very differently.

• 47:08Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  About that.

• 47:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Um, and, and.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  For sure, throughout the years, there's been so much fallout and consequence and loss of money and loss of opportunities for for being outspoken, like for saying the things that I believe. But ultimately, I have tried the opposite. You know what I mean? I've tried to like muzzle myself and and be silent at times when I knew I had something to offer of value. And that was pretty soul crushing, too. You know, that that didn't like, that didn't lead me in the right direction either. And I feel like maybe I've started to feel that leaning into purpose and like being driven by my

• 47:52Speaker 01

  purpose serves me, you know, that it's better, it's better for me, it's better for the world. And if people fragmented, if people misunderstand it, if people misuse it, that's going to be a part of it. I'm sure there's been so many times when things that you've said.

• 48:06Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Have been manipulated.

• 48:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I mean, look at what WhatsApp did to me with my friend.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  WhatsApp is the culprit.

• 48:13Trevor Noah?

  Just that alone. I mean, look at it. We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break.

• 48:21Trevor Noah?

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• 49:04Trevor Noah?

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• 49:48Trevor Noah?

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• 50:32Trevor Noah?

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• 51:15Trevor Noah?

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• 52:00Trevor Noah?

  Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. Hello over there. Oh, and if Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was What Now with Trevor Noah. It's the best way to support the show.

• 52:30Trevor Noah?

  You know, one of the things I appreciate about what you do though specifically is,

• 52:36Trevor Noah?

  and I, I, I hope I can frame this correctly. I feel like some people create things online so that they can create more things online. And I, the reason it's hard to articulate is because people go like, but isn't everyone trying to make things to make things? No, I think of it like this. Okay, politicians, especially in America, I find,

• 53:00Trevor Noah?

  spend all their time or a lot of their time campaigning so that they can be reelected, so that they can campaign, so that they can be reelected, so that they can campaign, so that they can be reelected. Then I go, wait, wait, what was the point of getting into power if you never used that power for the people who voted you in?

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:17Trevor Noah?

  And they go, as soon as I'm in, fundraising, I've got to get more money and, and I've got to get this. And I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, but why? Well, so that I can get reelected. So that you can do something. You forget the initial purpose of why you came in. It would have been better for you to come in for a single term, do your damnedest to deliver and just leave. It would have been better for you and it would have been better for your constituents. I think there's also something that's happening online where.

• 53:47Trevor Noah?

  There used to be a world where people would create things and put them online because they wanted to create things. But then now, people create so that people can view them, so that they can create, so that they can view them, so that they can create, so they can, you know what I mean? So that's when people become parodies of themselves, they become caricatures of themselves. They, they, they do things to, to like make you feel a certain way, right?

• 54:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:10Trevor Noah?

  I don't say this to gas you up, honestly. I never feel like you're trying to spark outrage. I never feel like you are trying to make something go viral. I never feel like you are. Like, I don't, I don't feel riled up by your comments, both for you or against you. And what I mean by that is, I don't watch your videos and go, "Yeah, get them Vic!" And I don't watch your videos and go like, "I can't believe Vic said..." I just listen to you and I find myself going, "Damn, what an interesting way to phrase that." That's a, that's an interesting lens that he applied on this topic, or that's, that viewpoint, wow, I like the way he put that together with. But, but, but, like, is that, am I, am I reading that correctly?

• 54:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I, I appreciate that immensely coming from you, man. I'm, I'm just like, I'm a consummate fan of your comedy and, and really your perspective. Cause I feel like you're somebody that shows me that mediums are just that. They're, they're avenues with which to express what is contained by the human being.

• 55:07Trevor Noah?

  Oh, damn.

• 55:07Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? And that, like, comedy is a medium, for sure. And then, late night TV was its own medium.

• 55:13Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  You know, even this is its own medium. Um, I was watching, like, uh, your newest special, um, on, on Netflix. And I was just like, I was so glad to, to be watching you as a comedian.

• 55:29Trevor Noah?

  Ah, thank you, man.

• 55:29Speaker 01

  Because like, I'm just such a huge fan of you as a comedian. And that medium, you know what I'm saying? That, that way of looking at the world and dissecting it. Fucking Martin Luther King, realizing he fought for bland chicken.

• 55:47Speaker 01

  So good. And, uh, and the purpose of it, you know what I'm saying? Like, as I've been doing, the things I've been doing right now online, it's really, in a way, been my way of dissecting how I see the world, but also like working on writing jokes and like making fun of it and having

• 56:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  Having, um, genuine conversation, the way I would talk to a friend, you know, because the world is fucking on fire. It's crazy, but we black people, man, you know what I'm saying? We make everything fun. We ain't just like sitting around suffering about it.

• 56:25Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? I'm sure niggas even on the plantation. Yeah, that's, I guess that's what Joy and the Trenches was about.

• 56:31Trevor Noah?

  That's, that's, that's literally what it was about.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  You, you made a plantation joke, like the fucking overseer comes and you, you picking the cotton while he there. Soon as he leaves, you say, you motherfucking dirty ass.

• 56:40Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I think that's

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Wet hair, wet dog, smelling ass, white motherfucker.

• 56:44Trevor Noah?

  While these are not my words, let me just say Vic has just added his own.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  I would have been thinking about it.

• 56:48Trevor Noah?

  Paraphrased, uh, everything. You, Gino's looking at me like, who is my friend?

• 56:55Trevor Noah?

  Wet ass, dirty

• 56:56Speaker 01

  Dirty dog, smelling ass, the nigga.

• 56:59Speaker 02

  Something, I've realized that once, purpose is a selfish pursuit. It just, when people get to experience it from you, they think there's more to it than there actually is. So for example, the example that you made about politicians.

• 57:15Trevor Noah?

  Oh shit, wait, hold on, say that again.

• 57:17Speaker 02

  So purpose is a selfish pursuit.

• 57:19Trevor Noah?

  Okay, yeah, yeah, that's an interesting idea.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  They enjoy it, they start thinking, they make it that, they make the result of your, of your purpose.

• 57:26Trevor Noah?

  Like it was always for them?

• 57:27Speaker 02

  It was always for them. So when a politician is campaigning, just maybe they like being on the road. Just maybe they like the staff meetings and the late campaign and the photo shoots. But they were never about service delivery. They were never about making sure that you get the water, but we see it in South Africa.

• 57:42Trevor Noah?

  This is true.

• 57:43Speaker 02

  There's politicians that are good at rallies and they good at the campaign.

• 57:47Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, they love the life.

• 57:48Speaker 02

  Yes, but they never thought they'll have to actually sit down and understand what the budgets are.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  How do you guys feel about Julius Mylemmer?

• 57:55Trevor Noah?

  I mean, it's, that's like, how long is a piece of string? No, no, no, I'll tell you why. So the first thing I'll say is

• 58:03Speaker 01

  I see him from my American perspective, not knowing so much.

• 58:05Trevor Noah?

  Okay, I'd love to know, tell us how you see, how you see him and then we'll tell you, yeah.

• 58:14Speaker 01

  Just don't say it. You just don't know what you're doing with that weapon. It's a brilliant weapon.

• 58:21Speaker 03

  For, sorry, again, for, for, for context, before you answer the Julius Malema, uh, question. For those who don't know, Julius Malema is one of the, like, people that people point to, to say that he is promoting the white genocide.

• 58:36Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, Julius Malema, I would say is like our most controversial publicly and internationally known politician in South Africa. Yeah, he's, in fact, when Trump, when Trump came after South Africa, Julius Malema was like the thing he held up. It was like, here's the example I'm using.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  He had to kill the boar.

• 58:53Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  Kill the boar.

• 58:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, the farmer.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  Host, host. Like, so hot, what a good song. I mean, like, it was fi- yeah, I mean, that's how it felt to me. As a black American, I was like, I resonate with this, this shit, the beat, you know what I mean?

• 59:09Trevor Noah?

  It does have a vibe, yeah.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, killer, literally.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Julius Malema, yeah, I look at him not knowing so much.

• 59:17Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  And I love him. I mean, he seems like he's, he's the one that is, um, fighting back by any means necessary. That's the feeling, the sense that I get from him. When I was in South Africa, something that broke me was to realize that white people are maybe about 10% of the population.

• 59:41Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I think even less, yeah.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  In, in South Africa, maybe even less, and hold 90% of the wealth. Then I think about America, where black people are about 10%, 13%. And, once again, white people hold 90% of the wealth. And being there, being on the continent, you know what I mean, in this cradle of fucking civilization, and seeing that, that freedom was so partial, you know what I mean? And that the, uh, the ownership of, of the land and the wealth, um, was squarely not in the hands of the Africans was riveting. You know what I mean? The, the, the woman I was with at the time, she had to like, check me at a, at a point in time, she like,

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  You can't just get mad at every white person you see.

• 1:00:28Trevor Noah?

  Damn, that's funny.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  And I'm like, but why the fuck you niggas own everything, you know?

• 1:00:33Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  And I'm livid, you know what I mean? And then I see Julius Malema and he's like, kill the boar, the farmer, you know? And I'm like, that's my nigga, you know? My niga.

• 1:00:45Trevor Noah?

  My niga.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  I'm my niga.

• 1:00:47Trevor Noah?

  I'm my niga.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay, let's catch with, okay. So tell me how you guys do.

• 1:00:51Trevor Noah?

  So, and Eugene, I mean, you'll interject anyway. This, this is, this is how I see it. I think Julius Malema, in terms of his rhetoric, has one of the most progressive rhetorics that I've ever come across. And he, and he, he's inspired one of the more necessary conversations, not just in South Africa, but on the continent and in the world as a whole. And the argument, because there's people who won't know it, is if I distill it down, it is fundamentally this. Can you claim to give somebody their freedom if you do not give them the tools to actually exercise that freedom? Hmm. Right? And, and if I was to use an analogy here, oftentimes what I think he's speaking about in terms of restitution is he'll go,

• 1:01:36Trevor Noah?

  South Africa's racism, you don't have to go far back. You know, you, you don't have to go back like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. It's our parents, literally, like not, not figuratively. It is literally our parents who were the last, like, like, let's say, adult victims of apartheid. And then we were born in apartheid.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, where.

• 1:02:01Trevor Noah?

  And then we experienced democracy and freedom. And grew up outside of it. Yes, and so we grew up outside of it. Hmm. But when you, when you look at that, there are many things that the state stole from black people and all other people of colored people, you name it. The state stole these things from them, took that and gave it to the white population in South Africa. Hmm. And many of them, and this is something that I think is important to, to say, many of them unknowingly receiving it. Yeah. Which is, which is a part of the conversation people don't really have often. Many white people in South Africa were obscured from the reality of the situation. Yeah. So they were going, we get good roads, we get free schools, we get unemployment. Seems like the government's doing a good job. Opportunities.

• 1:02:46Trevor Noah?

  And then the government would just go, hey, just so you know, man, these black people are crazy out here, we're holding them back. And the only place they got their reality from was from the governments. And so in the same way, it's funny, I remember when I went to the African American History Museum. One of the things you see MLK talk about is he, in all of his writings, when he's trying to get journalists to come out and cover what's happening, he's saying in his writing, and I paraphrase this because I don't know if I'll say it accurate, but he says, because I truly believe when our white brothers and sisters see what is being done, see what is being done by the American government to black people, I believe that they will stand up with us.

• 1:03:28Trevor Noah?

  So I find it fascinating that even in America, MLK and then in South Africa, white people were being, were obscured from the truth. The truth was being obscured from them, right? So they receive these things. The government steals from black people to make white people live a life that is as good and as easy as possible. Democracy comes, but there is no restitution. There is no correcting of this. You know, the analogy I always use with people is I go, your house is robbed. The police come, they say, hey, we've solved the case. You were robbed and we caught the person who robbed you. And you go like, all right, so what do we do now? They're like, no, no, we're not going to do anything now. They're going to keep everything that they stole from your house,

• 1:04:12Trevor Noah?

  but we can all agree that this was terrible. And you're like, wait, wait, that's it? It's like, no, no, let's start from here now. We do agree this was terrible, so let's move forward from here. But we don't want to take it back from that person because, I mean, two wrongs don't make a right.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  This is why I love Julius Molema, brother.

• 1:04:30Trevor Noah?

  Right, but the issue is, and this is the issue I have with many politicians, rhetoric versus action. Maybe I'm an outlier in saying this, maybe I'm not. I think Julius Molema and many other politicians like him, not just in South Africa, but on the African continent, have fantastic rhetoric, but the actions that they participate in.

• 1:04:53Trevor Noah?

  Do not necessarily do what they need to do to liberate the people that they're trying to liberate.

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  I think mostly it's a timing thing. So there's a strange thing about South African history that if you tell it the way it is, you run the risk of being an apologist for the Africana apartheid system.

• 1:05:08Trevor Noah?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 1:05:08Speaker 02

  Because it starts in three parts. So the first part was the British who oppressed the black people, the Kwaishen indigenous people of the country and the Afri- and the, and the black people.

• 1:05:18Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:05:19Speaker 02

  And then when the British were like, okay, now you can have your own republic and they left, they left the whole system to the Africana. Then the Africana started, the Dutch, yes. So they were like, okay, now we're gonna run this thing our way. And then they took the system that the British had and gave it a name. So before it was just colonization and then they called it apartheid. But now they were like, okay, now we're gonna promote two races here. Colored people will be the second.

• 1:05:42Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:42Speaker 02

  And then we'll be the first one, which is the Africana. But even in the Africans, not all Africans benefited from apartheid. There was elitism as well. It went with surnames and rich people were prestigious and who was educated. Because when it was first formed, there was a first group that was sent to Holland to go study architecture, literature and art, to create the Bernier paintings that we see that were all in government buildings, to create the architecture of the parliament and the union buildings. And the rich people gave up land, which is now owned by the state, Pretoria, Harthapiesport Dam. Were all owned by the elite who were connected with Netherlands, who were with Dutchland.

• 1:06:20Speaker 02

  So Africans people did not just benefit. So what we see as historical suburbs and schools that are Model C, that we call Model C, which were the first to get integrated, was because they were not protected by privilege. Those were working class neighborhoods. Where they put a stadium here and a school here. So the integration happened there first. So it was harder to penetrate the big S mentioned suburbs that the elite people that owned the mines and the land and the farms were living in. And it would never happen in our country. So the second part about what I find, which is a weird social experiment, the Julius Malia and the EFF is. Revolution can never happen in a democratic society and that kind of rhetoric of revolution.

• 1:07:02Speaker 02

  Remember that these guys grew up in the ANC of Peter Mukaba, who was a firebrand, who was the next spoken up person after Nelson Mandela, and he just happened to be a young person when Nelson Mandela was released. And they grew up under him. So their rhetoric about what democracy, I mean, what revolution is, what freedom is, was mistimed. Because in the middle of democracy, you can't shout those words while you yourself are in a Range Rover and a Mercedes Benz and living in old historic suburbs and your children are enjoying private schools. So his voice got lost in there. The second part about that group was, he was not a lone wolf. There were two other guys who were involved in the building of the party that people liked as if it was a boy band.

• 1:07:42Speaker 02

  So there was the academic, which is Dr. Musa N'Golozi, and there was another person who loves finance, an academic, which is Floyd Shivambu. And those people left the party and he was left alone to become a dictator.

• 1:07:54Speaker 01

  Julius Malaema, yeah.

• 1:07:54Speaker 02

  Yes. But the funny part about that is there was an inquiry now in South Africa and there was a parliamentary panel of it, which he, everyone expected, to be the chair of it. He refused to be the chair of it and he recused himself from a lot of testimonies of corrupt policemen that involved him. So he's losing the fight over and over. And right now, two weeks ago, he was found guilty of discharging a firearm in a rally. And he was charged and he's gonna face time.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  Julius Malaema.

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was sentenced to five years.

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  Well, he said, the farmer.

• 1:08:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, then he go.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  That's my favorite part of the song.

• 1:08:27Trevor Noah?

  He's now serving time for.

• 1:08:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, so if he, if he was convicted and charged for, for helping a person who was being mistreated because of their race, I'd be like, okay. But for breaking the Firearms Control Act, discharging a machine gun.

• 1:08:43Speaker 01

  See, this is funny, this is funny. This brings me to one of my other realizations about South Africa. It's so different.

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  Uh, I was learning about the hip hop artists and they were like, man, in South Africa, being a hip hop artist and uh, being a gangster is actually like a demerit to your career because it makes you seem uh, less commercially viable. Because to hear about a well-known public figure going to jail for saying.

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  And discharging a firearm.

• 1:09:08Trevor Noah?

  That's so funny.

• 1:09:09Speaker 01

  This connects to things I like about artists.

• 1:09:12Trevor Noah?

  This is so funny.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  To things that seem very familiar to me. Like, man, South Africa showed me so much, bro. I was like, uh, first of all, I just think the entire idea of Afrikaners is hilarious. So you just a white nigga to put an extra A in your name? And now you think you're an African? You're fucking Dutch, like.

• 1:09:32Trevor Noah?

  And French.

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  Go and French and go to fuck home to those two very distinct places. I look at fucking Elon Musk's, uh, loose skin Sith Lord ass father who sits there and he says, America's becoming darker by the minute. Well, why would they want to do that? Do they want to go back to the jungle? Like, nigga, you got a place you could go back to. The Netherlands. That's right, they'll, they'll welcome you with fucking open arms.

• 1:09:59Trevor Noah?

  What's funny is they don't.

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  Oh, they really don't?

• 1:10:02Trevor Noah?

  No, that's the funny thing about the story that people forget. Is many of the original Dutch settlers who came to South Africa were outcasts. The Netherlands was like, we don't want these people. The same way the original people who settled in Australia were outcasts. They were like, we don't want these people.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  Go claim a new state and claim a.

• 1:10:19Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but, but to Eugene's point, I think, I think the key thing that we lose in a lot of these conversations. And that's funny enough, I think, why many of your videos have resonated with people. Is when you peel back metaphorically and literally the layers. Class is the one thing that emerges constantly and consistently.

• 1:10:40Speaker 02

  And it's not going anywhere, yeah.

• 1:10:41Trevor Noah?

  Do you get what I'm saying?

• 1:10:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:42Trevor Noah?

  So to your point, race being a fiction, it's like, yeah, it is, it is, you know, it's a subjective reality. So race doesn't exist, but it also does.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  But racism is, is very real.

• 1:10:53Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:53Speaker 01

  The specs of race are very real.

• 1:10:55Trevor Noah?

  Completely.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  And race is a subjective, amorphous.

• 1:10:58Trevor Noah?

  There you go. But class.

• 1:11:01Trevor Noah?

  There's a, there's a, um, an English writer who said it beautifully one day. And, and she said, she said, I cannot wait for the United States to finish its race war. So that it can realize that it was fighting about class all along.

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  The entire time, but race was the, was the justification.

• 1:11:18Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, no, it's brilliant.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  For the creation of the, of.

• 1:11:22Trevor Noah?

  Class will always look for things.

• 1:11:23Speaker 02

  But you've seen it in a, in a, in, in South Africa where there would be a, our uncles or our dads would be working in a factory with white people.

• 1:11:31Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:31Speaker 02

  And they would be great friends because of the class that they find themselves in.

• 1:11:34Trevor Noah?

  There's a solidarity in that class.

• 1:11:35Speaker 02

  And then one day, your uncle would go visit his white friend suburb. And you'd be like, you are poorer than me. They'd be like, but we work at the same place and we earn the same salary. So, uh, it's about classism. I've seen, in the same way where.

• 1:11:47Speaker 01

  And the class distinction in South Africa.

• 1:11:49Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  It's fucking so shocking.

• 1:11:52Speaker 02

  How white people in South Africa will treat a white beggar.

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I haven't seen it.

• 1:11:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I would, I would argue most of the time worse than that.

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  I was going to, uh, to Soweto and I was stopping by, uh, my friend's family home.

• 1:12:06Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  And her uncle was massively wealthy. I had never seen this level of wealth, except maybe in the homes of Jay-Z and Kanye. And I asked what he did, you know? And he made his fortune selling toilet paper to the prisons. Interestingly, the same private prison companies that own facilities in America, Geo Group, Core Civic. They own private prisons in South Africa. So they profit from the same confinement destruction of black bodies. And I saw him making his fortune supplying those prisons as a way of shucking and jiving, for sure. I go to Soweto, I'm going to get Shisanyama.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? I'm, I'm catching my vibe and this man jumps out once again, like to try to give me a parking spot. You know, help me for a tip. And he was singing this song. He said, my name is Jack, I live in a shack, I might be black, but I got a six pack. And, uh, yeah, he had, that was his song. I remember it vividly. Um, oh, he was so hungry, he had a six pack.

• 1:13:12Trevor Noah?

  Damn.

• 1:13:12Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? And I was like, he's really shucking and jiving. And it was crazy though, because I was like, damn. For a black man to to to make it,

• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  to put food in his body in in this society, I'm seeing shucking and jiving on a street level. And even the richest nigga is shucking and jiving though, like to achieve this momentous wealth. And that that shit kinda frustrated me, man.

• 1:13:42Trevor Noah?

  But I argue though, but I argue though. Those are two spikes from a multi-pronged world. Because South Africa is, I mean, far from perfect, don't get me wrong. But I will say, only thanks to traveling, I have come to appreciate how many more paths are starting to appear for black people.

• 1:14:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:07Trevor Noah?

  So there are there are black people who've, let's not even call it a fortune, because not every person has made a fortune. There are black people who are just like doing it, you know, a completely different way, like, you know, uh, I can think of like a woman who started out selling, you know, what we call amakwina, but let's say like a version of like a fried donut type thing. On the street corner, selling it out of a bucket, doing it. And then you go back there today and you're like, oh, wow, now she has like a like a store and an enterprise and she's running this thing. And then on the other side, you have accountants and you have lawyers, you still have a guy on the street begging and doing this. And I I I'm not saying it's perfect, but what I what I have appreciated about it is

• 1:14:47Trevor Noah?

  is that it's it's sort of, it's reminded me of the class story as opposed to the race story. And and what I mean by that is,

• 1:14:58Trevor Noah?

  even in South Africa, so you see what you said earlier in the conversation about Ghana, where they'll say, ah, white man, and they have a name for it. What do you say this?

• 1:15:04Speaker 01

  Obroni.

• 1:15:05Trevor Noah?

  Say again?

• 1:15:05Speaker 01

  Obroni.

• 1:15:06Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, Obroni.

• 1:15:07Speaker 02

  In Nigeria, it's Oyibo.

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  I mean, on my T-shirt, Obroni, man, I've been fighting over Obroni my whole fucking life.

• 1:15:12Trevor Noah?

  And then with us, we have Ngamla.

• 1:15:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:14Trevor Noah?

  Oh, or Lichua. But it's said as like a, it's like, oh, you have achieved, you have achieved so much that you are now in the echelon of the white man.

• 1:15:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:25Trevor Noah?

  That that is how well you've done. What I appreciate is like over time, not tomorrow, I think that slowly disappears, that slowly becomes, you know? And then we we get away from it. And then hopefully we go, oh, okay, now we're just dealing with like a class thing. Because without without that, we don't go anywhere.

• 1:15:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I also feel like, um.

• 1:15:48Speaker 02

  South Africa was just built on a lot of systemic corruption as well. Like, a lot of stuff was given to people and businesses were given to people that didn't deserve it. And as soon as someone gets caught, the whole value chain doesn't get caught. So, for example, in South Africa, when apartheid ended, a lot of buildings were given to people who were literally children. Who didn't know what they were doing. They were just given these buildings, these title deeds of these buildings. So as they grew up as adults, they end up inheriting these buildings, owning them. So when the state wants the building, they have to buy the building from them, right? So now you see it with people who are caught, like, for example, there's a system called the tendering system. Where we come and then we bid, whoever has the lowest price.

• 1:16:32Trevor Noah?

  They have it here in America as well.

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  You have it as well?

• 1:16:33Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, they have it in the US.

• 1:16:34Speaker 02

  So the toilet paper story, he's probably a tenderpreneur. He probably put on a bid and then someone tipped him and then he got the thing. But the thing is, what happened with that money is, the money buys houses, buys cars, but the dealerships are not owned. Luxury dealerships are not owned by black people. Luxury estate agents are not black people, so the money still circulates amongst the same people again.

• 1:16:54Trevor Noah?

  The story always ends with the people people wanted to end with.

• 1:16:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:16:58Trevor Noah?

  You know what it reminds me of Miami? I always found it interesting that, like, every documentary that would teach you about the drug trade in Miami.

• 1:17:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:06Trevor Noah?

  Will talk about the money that drug dealers were spending.

• 1:17:08Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:08Trevor Noah?

  You know, these Colombian drug lords and these.

• 1:17:11Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:11Trevor Noah?

  But they never talk about the fact that the money went somewhere.

• 1:17:14Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:17:15Trevor Noah?

  Corruption needs a cycle.

• 1:17:18Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:17:18Trevor Noah?

  You can't be corrupt alone. You know when people be like, Africa, Africa is so corrupt. Then I'm like, with who?

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  You ever seen that video of the so-called African politician who was like, corruption is not bad. It is only bad if I'm not a part of it.

• 1:17:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:32Speaker 01

  If I am a part of that corruption, I defend it.

• 1:17:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, but corruption, corruption with, corruption cannot be alone. So when people go, Africa is corrupt, I'm always like, yes, but with who?

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:17:43Trevor Noah?

  You look at the stories, there'll be corruption, there'll be an arms deal that's corrupt with a French company.

• 1:17:49Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:49Trevor Noah?

  Like a massive, we're not talking about like a mom and pop store.

• 1:17:52Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:53Trevor Noah?

  Talking about like a French arms contractor. It'll be with an American company, it'll be with like, then you're like, oh, okay. There are outside forces that are really powerful, that know they can come into Africa, do deals with certain people, but then leave the corruption story in Africa.

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  And but still be the puppet master. I mean, that's the whole long-term strategy is to be able to keep the system of corruption going without having to be the faceless.

• 1:18:21Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, for sure.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  You know, even like, one of the common conversations between Africans and Black Americans is the idea that Africans, you guys sold your own, you sold us into slavery. And this is a common point of contention. When I was studying Menace's book called How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney, he illustrates so clearly the way that the Europeans stifled every mode of legitimate trade so that African states, nations, empires were left with only the option to deal in the most corrupt trade, to deal in slaves.

• 1:19:02Speaker 01

  So, certain like Dahomey kings sent emissaries to Portugal to request that the trade in slaves end and that they change to legitimate trade in goods. And Portugal was like, fuck, no. We're cutting off all land routes. You can't trade with your neighbors. We have superior naval capabilities. We're cutting off the sea. You can't trade by sea. The only option we're going to leave you is that you trade in slaves. And and the system of slavery that was, which is the system of corruption, that was brought to the continent was so wide-reaching and it was so pervasive and all-encompassing that no unit, no single African state

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  really had the agency to fully reject the system of slavery. So you end up in this place where, I mean, all your options have been exhausted. You know what I mean? And you're forced into slavery. But then, it's so insidious because...

• 1:20:02Speaker 01

  It leaves the idea even amongst yourself and your progeny and your descendants that you were the source of the corruption that led to your current state of destitution. But really, it's just, it's still the puppet master. I mean, it's still the, the, the French national corporation that's trading arms with the rebel group that's fighting back against Burkina Faso's Ibrahim Troy. And I mean, it's still like a shadowy puppet master for sure that's funding all of this shit, but they want us to believe that Africa is so corrupt so that we think we're the source of our suffering.

• 1:20:38Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  You know what I mean?

• 1:20:39Trevor Noah?

  That's one of the reasons I appreciate Donald Trump.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  Jesus, protest.

• 1:20:44Trevor Noah?

  No, for real.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  I feel you, though.

• 1:20:45Trevor Noah?

  Can I tell you, one of the reasons I appreciate him is that he has not, maybe because I don't think he understands why it's necessary. He's not participated in the farce.

• 1:20:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:59Trevor Noah?

  That has kept people seeing the world a certain way.

• 1:21:02Speaker 02

  Explain.

• 1:21:03Trevor Noah?

  Okay, so let's look at Venezuela as an example.

• 1:21:05Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:21:07Trevor Noah?

  What did Trump originally say the whole Venezuela beef was about? He said, the way this man treats his people. You know, he's talking about Maduro.

• 1:21:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:15Trevor Noah?

  Nicolas Maduro doing these things to his people. How can he do this? Freedom, democracy, we got it, you know what I mean? The people of the, the people of the country.

• 1:21:25Trevor Noah?

  They ousted Maduro. Okay, they get Maduro, he's out. He's now in a prison in the United States. What does Trump say afterwards? People go like, so regime change or we? He's like, no, the people in there will happy. They're gonna let American companies in and we're very happy. And you go, yeah, but what about the people? Remember you said the people? There were people cheering, by the way, when helicopters were flying in and there was gunfire the night that Maduro was taken. There were people in the streets of Venezuela cheering because they, and they were saying, they were saying.

• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  Every time.

• 1:21:54Trevor Noah?

  They were cheering going, oh my, it's happening. He's being ousted, like they were excited for the change and the fact that they were gonna be freed from this dictator. And then Trump turns around and he's like, no, no, no, no, no. American companies can come in and do business again.

• 1:22:08Speaker 04

  And we're gonna own the oil.

• 1:22:10Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:22:10Speaker 04

  And we're gonna be taking care of the oil.

• 1:22:13Trevor Noah?

  And we're happy.

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  And we have the oil. I, I, I agree with you.

• 1:22:16Trevor Noah?

  Okay, but what about the democracy side? And he's like, eh, eh, eh, look, man. The point is, American companies can come in and make the money. Same thing with Iran. You go, why are you there? What are you actually doing there? And anytime he has a hint of optimism, look at what the optimism is about. You go, is it about the nuclear, uh, enrichment that they might have? He's like, eh, eh, eh, the point is, the straight will be open. And we're gonna be doing this together. It's business, baby. We, we, we're back. It's, it's business. And you're like, oh, you. That's why I say, I don't know if he does it. I think he does it unknowingly. He doesn't understand how valuable the farce was.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:22:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:57Trevor Noah?

  Does that make sense?

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  Because he's not aligned with, um, with the same.

• 1:23:03Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 1:23:03Speaker 01

  Decorum of the political machine.

• 1:23:05Trevor Noah?

  No, a class of people, yeah.

• 1:23:06Speaker 01

  He recognizes that, you know, he can manipulate these markets. And he can make a massive steal.

• 1:23:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  In this short period of time, it doesn't matter to him.

• 1:23:16Trevor Noah?

  Short period being the key.

• 1:23:17Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? It's, it doesn't matter to him to continue the false veneer. And he's like, this is about the oil. Which is actually brilliant, low key, because it breaks down all of the bipartisan lies and smoke and mirrors that they've been playing. Cause they've been war mongering, uh, you know, with Iran, like soft launching, you know what I'm saying? These missiles for fucking like decades.

• 1:23:41Trevor Noah?

  But he was the first one.

• 1:23:42Speaker 01

  Democrats and Republicans.

• 1:23:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:43Speaker 01

  But he's the first to just put it on Front Street to say, no, actually, we want the oil.

• 1:23:49Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:23:49Speaker 01

  This, this is, this is what this is about.

• 1:23:51Trevor Noah?

  Yep.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  I mean, this is about.

• 1:23:52Speaker 03

  Oh, sorry, yeah. Cause he's, he won Venezuela. Cause it's, he won Venezuela.

• 1:23:58Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I mean, he won. No, no, I I agree with what he won the the that was a that was a you cannot.

• 1:24:03Speaker 03

  Easy victory.

• 1:24:04Trevor Noah?

  It was a vic- it was a victory.

• 1:24:05Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:24:05Trevor Noah?

  It was a first round knockout.

• 1:24:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, first round knockout.

• 1:24:07Trevor Noah?

  It was that Mike Tyson fight where people hadn't even come into the arena yet.

• 1:24:10Speaker 03

  That's that's where you feel.

• 1:24:11Trevor Noah?

  That's what happened there.

• 1:24:12Speaker 01

  It's just like old recipe colonialism, but in the modern age, he's trying to use the old classic recipe.

• 1:24:19Trevor Noah?

  You could not win more in the like any age.

• 1:24:22Speaker 03

  And now in.

• 1:24:22Trevor Noah?

  The number of people who were killed is acceptable by American standards, right? Because it's almost like no Americans are don't even think there was one. And they've taken the leader out and they got someone who's amenable to what they want. So, yes, a win.

• 1:24:33Speaker 03

  And you're like, he's losing Venezuela. I mean, he's losing Iran, then Cuba for the series. Because it's got it's got to be tied. One Venezuela.

• 1:24:43Trevor Noah?

  One Venezuela, one.

• 1:24:44Speaker 03

  Iran, then the Cuban series. So then sometimes I think that that the world should help Cuba. So when it comes to the final, you know what I mean?

• 1:24:54Trevor Noah?

  But no one will.

• 1:24:55Speaker 03

  Sorry?

• 1:24:56Trevor Noah?

  No one will.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, because Cuba represents something that's so challenging and so dangerous to the supremacy of imperialism. And they represent the nigga they just couldn't kill. Like Cuba has defied American supremacy for so long and to be so close.

• 1:25:16Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  And Cuba has sent thousands of doctors to Africa and sent soldiers to Angola and sent fighters to accompany like a meal car cabral in Guinea. Like I met with OGs that had photographs of them with weapons in the jungle.

• 1:25:35Trevor Noah?

  Damn.

• 1:25:35Speaker 01

  That had stood side by side with Kwame and Kruma, you know what I mean? And rocked with Patrice Lumumba and they're ninety miles from Florida, you know what I mean? And so the world can't come to Cuba's defense because Cuba has defied the idea that the American way is better.

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  For too long, you know what I mean? They stand for something so significant and it's interesting though, because when I'm there. The official policy that was laid out by Lester Mallory in like nineteen sixty, an American diplomat, was to bring about, I'm paraphrasing, suffering, destruction and starvation to the people of Cuba to the point that they revolt against their own and overthrow the government. That was the official stated policy. And so much time has passed and so many people in Cuba have been born under these current conditions that many of them only blame their own government.

• 1:26:41Speaker 01

  Many of them don't even consider the American sanctions.

• 1:26:46Trevor Noah?

  As being part of the issue.

• 1:26:47Speaker 01

  Never mind the fact that fucking American sanctions, not just in Cuba, but around the world over the past fifty years have killed like, I don't know, like fifty million people. It's some astronomical number of people that have died from American sanctions. But once again, that shadowy puppet master effect of being able to circumvent and add in suffering, starvation and destruction through a third party, like, type of manipulation. It leaves the people feeling like it's their fault. It's very similar to the way that Africans will feel. Africans often will be like, well, what about the corruption that, you know what I mean? That we are corrupt.

• 1:27:27Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know exactly what you mean.

• 1:27:28Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? And I felt that when I was in Cuba. And it's not that the, that the government of Cuba or the government of Iran, that, that these are perfect entities, you know what I'm saying? But they're under the heel of, of imperialism. Like, how can one operate perfectly under the heel of imperialism?

• 1:27:46Trevor Noah?

  That's, that's probably the biggest paradox in all of this is there are no perfect messengers and then the story has been dictated by the victors, right? So I, I struggle with this all the time. I, I don't know how you process it. I go.

• 1:28:05Trevor Noah?

  You would be lying as a person if you said that Cuba hasn't shown many of the benefits of not adhering to like a strict capitalist system, you know? People educated just because you're gonna be educated, some of the best teachers, some of the best doctors, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it's important to state with almost nothing, like if you think of resources that the country has almost nothing, right? But then you'd also be lying if you didn't talk about the oppression of those same people by that government. You'd be like, yeah, but what about the people and what, you know what I mean? What I've noticed is interesting is that the West does a particularly good job of framing its oppression and bad deeds Of Cuba? As, no, no, of anyone, as an outlier.

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:49Trevor Noah?

  You know what I mean? So if you say to America or Americans, you go like, man, look at how many people in America starve or die because the system is designed to make them starve and die from sickness, etc. People be like, yeah, well, that's when the system doesn't work well. That's, that's, that's not what it's supposed to do. And you're like, oh, okay. And then you go like, man, look how many schools you've bombed or how many kids you've killed around the world. If we put that number on any other nation or any other group, I think as the world, we agree, we'd probably go after them, right? Like, we, we wouldn't, that would just not be a thing.

• 1:29:26Speaker 01

  We'd have to liberate them and bring them democracy.

• 1:29:28Trevor Noah?

  But then America goes, yes, we know, we know, we, we bombed this school. That is an unfortunate side effect of what, but we weren't, we were not trying to do it. And so we're actually the good guys. And it's, it, it always breaks my mind because it does two things. On the one hand, I go,

• 1:29:48Trevor Noah?

  it's all unraveling right now in the world. I, I think we, we live in a time that is unlike many other times in that there is no one central narrative that anyone controls anymore. And while I'm happy about it, it also terrifies me. Because.

• 1:30:06Trevor Noah?

  I don't believe that anyone was like, let's say, telling the truth about their country or a central power. But I also don't think the world can survive if everyone believes nothing and nobody's a good guy. And like, do you know what I mean? If every government's bad and everyone is bad and everyone is not doing the right thing, then what incentive do we have to be part of anything?

• 1:30:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, even outspoken. I think there's enough people who are supposed to have opinions and we have a platform that are having too much of a good time within that rottenness of the system. So if Nelson Mandela, for example, was having a shitty time, and he says, my people are also having a shitty time, we're all having a shitty time.

• 1:30:45Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:45Speaker 02

  So if the people with opinions are also like, I can also take a business flight to New York and I have an S class and, and, and, and, those voices get stifled. So I think that's what's happening around the world right now is there's an outlier once in a while, someone who's doing well and has an opinion and can influence those with opinions to also have more opinions. But there are those who don't have a platform, who are not having a good time, who can't say much and do much as well. So I think we have to give balance to that. There's enough information out there for people to make up their own minds. But I think when people are faced with the day-to-day struggles, it's very hard for them to turn on the news and feel sorry for people who are being bombed far away from where they are.

• 1:31:23Trevor Noah?

  What do you, what do you think changed? Because when I look back, especially at American musicians and actors even, this is literally how I grew up. I grew up watching, you know, the stories about race and class and all that, oftentimes through the lens of like American artists, you know, and then there were obviously the ones before my time. And when I think of like the Nina Simons and the Muhammad Ali's and when I, when I watch those interviews, I go, damn. Because I mean, Dave, like we were on the Daily Show, but have you ever watched those interviews and been like, man, late night was no, like late night now is like, so tell me, tell me about the time you, uh, you rode a horse and ate a banana. That was a crazy time. And then you go back and watch late night from like decades ago and it's like, so, um, Mr. Mr. Ali, you, you say that America is inherently racist. What do you mean by that?

• 1:32:08Trevor Noah?

  And you're like, damn, this is late night. Do you get what I'm saying?

• 1:32:12Speaker 02

  Because those influential people were also not having a good time. So when they got a chance to speak, they would actually raise up.

• 1:32:17Trevor Noah?

  No, but they were, they were, I would argue they were having as good a time. As you could be having now, maybe I'm wrong.

• 1:32:26Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:32:26Trevor Noah?

  But now, like, you, you are an outlier. Whereas back then, I don't know that you would be an outlier per se.

• 1:32:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  I think COINTELPRO has been very effective. You know, I mean, black people have had so many mass movements and elevations of consciousness, and they're always followed by, like, cataclysmic events of biochemical warfare, like, crack cocaine hits the streets not long after the Black Panther Party is in the footsteps of Malcolm X, like, shifting mental, uh, the consciousness of the people. But then you experience crack cocaine, you experience mass incarceration.

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  You get to a point where kids of my generation in Chicago that are

• 1:33:20Speaker 01

  in the working class, so many of them are like three generations of fatherless homes. I mean, everybody's been incarcerated. Millions of men incarcerated. And so many parents addicted to drugs, like, passing that down to their children. That becomes, once again, something that we often feel like, we feel ownership of the, of the ways we've been poisoned. And then we, then we put that into our art. We make that our focus. We make that our music. We, we lose sight of, uh, anything other than the suffering and the struggle that, that we experience. And ascending out of it is kind of seen, um, only from a material context.

• 1:34:05Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Because it's so, it's, it's so dire. The circumstances are so dire.

• 1:34:11Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:11Speaker 01

  That it's like, cool, get the S-class, get the first-class flight, that's it.

• 1:34:16Trevor Noah?

  Get out of the hood.

• 1:34:16Speaker 01

  Just, just get out the fucking hood. That's, that's the only goal, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:34:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. We lose, we lose the dream of, of there not being a hood in that way. And then we just want to get out of it.

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  Just want to get out of it. And then you even see, like, ways in which, um, the entertainment industry has, uh, controlled.

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  Opposition and platformed focused corrosive messaging.

• 1:34:46Trevor Noah?

  Yep.

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  And uplifted those things very intentionally. And and it just becomes pervasive. You know what I mean? Like, that's the dominant thread of of conversation. But it doesn't last. I think the pendulum swings.

• 1:35:00Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:01Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? I think we're coming back to a time when for sure, things are there. Even when I was on your show 10 years ago, talking about talking about Palestine. Like, that was a real fucking outlier.

• 1:35:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it was.

• 1:35:12Speaker 01

  It's not now.

• 1:35:13Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 1:35:14Speaker 01

  And that's one that's one issue that people often latch on to and, you know, call us single issue voters or whatever. But what happens in Palestine, the money that is funding this genocide in Gaza is very connected to our everyday lives because it affects the money that's not going into schools. It affects the money that's not going into healthcare. It affects the money that's not going into affordable housing. Like, it's all very connected. And things have changed in a way in the past 10 years. Have the material realities changed? No. You know what I'm saying? But I do think that people's consciousness has to, like, shift before the ability to shift the material realities.

• 1:35:52Trevor Noah?

  You know what?

• 1:35:52Speaker 03

  It's also.

• 1:35:53Trevor Noah?

  Yeah?

• 1:35:53Speaker 03

  A thing that I think people don't recognize a lot is that.

• 1:36:01Trevor Noah?

  Don't say racism is good, like you normally say in our group chats.

• 1:36:04Speaker 03

  Like I normally. Is is the.

• 1:36:08Speaker 01

  I'm a nigger. It just sounds like I'm a nigger, so.

• 1:36:14Trevor Noah?

  I don't even hear it like that.

• 1:36:16Speaker 03

  Is the is the fact that some of the things that people do are like, I don't know, maybe I won't say this clearly, but we see people. Then we go, people are good. It feels like people are good, you know, in the world.

• 1:36:31Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:32Speaker 03

  They're just generally good. Then when something bad happens, it almost seems so unfathomable that it's that you're like, no, either life just sort of like panned out like that or you are a conspiracy theorist.

• 1:36:47Trevor Noah?

  I remember talking to a friend about this when I first came to the US. Long before The Daily Show, long before, I was in I was in Los Angeles. And I was going around doing comedy clubs and nights. And I would meet these comedians. And I remember one night I was at what they call an urban night, you know? So it's a black comedy night. Now, where from? That's just the nights. You know what I mean?

• 1:37:07Speaker 03

  That night.

• 1:37:09Speaker 01

  I'm my niggas everywhere.

• 1:37:12Trevor Noah?

  So it's all, it's all an urban night.

• 1:37:15Speaker 02

  With your Ghanaian butler going.

• 1:37:18Trevor Noah?

  So we're like, yo.

• 1:37:20Trevor Noah?

  And, and, and we had this conversation.

• 1:37:24Trevor Noah?

  And he said something that, man, it really stuck with me. He said, um. He said, he said, he was talking about like conspiracy theories and not believing and, and you know. And then he said to me, he said, man, one of the things I wish, I just wish that African Americans didn't have as many conspiracy theories as they have. And this is a black man saying this, by the way. And then I said to him. If anything, I, I feel like black people should be full conspiracy theorists only, especially in America. Because the amount of times. The conspiracy theory.

• 1:37:57Speaker 02

  Has actually been true.

• 1:37:58Trevor Noah?

  Has been true for black people in America. I go, I don't understand why you are. I'm actually impressed that you're not fully a conspiracy theorist.

• 1:38:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, but even that term is to cover up what could be potentially the truth.

• 1:38:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I'm just saying.

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  It's always true.

• 1:38:12Speaker 02

  You know, it's like, oh.

• 1:38:12Speaker 01

  Very much always.

• 1:38:13Trevor Noah?

  I actually, you, you would love this. I actually, I actually met someone who worked at the CIA. And I asked him the question. I said, yo, um, it wasn't me, it was a friend of mine asked it while we were there. He said. How many conspiracy theories are true?

• 1:38:27Trevor Noah?

  And the guy laughed and he said, um, he said, obviously I can't say anything to you, but he said, but I will tell you this. Oftentimes at the agency, we would be grateful. This was a really interesting phrase. He said, we would be grateful. At how crazy conspiracy theorists were. Because half the time they were correct, but half the time their conspiracies were so crazy. That we never needed to like step in and.

• 1:38:53Speaker 02

  And balance.

• 1:38:54Trevor Noah?

  And it was this interesting concept to me where I went like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, so. Half the things you think. Crazy. Whatever you are, whoever you are in your world, half the things that you think are crazy are probably true. Yes. And then half the things that you think are true are probably crazy. The difficulty is we'll, we'll just never know.

• 1:39:15Speaker 01

  Yes, I felt about the, about the files, man. It was like, I used to, I used to look at some of my friends and some of the online discourse. It'd be like, really, guys? A secret cabal of blood drinking Democrats abusing children globally behind the scenes? Are you serious? And you see the goddamn files and you're like, oh.

• 1:39:40Trevor Noah?

  Deep.

• 1:39:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Okay.

• 1:39:42Trevor Noah?

  Deep.

• 1:39:43Speaker 01

  This was real.

• 1:39:45Trevor Noah?

  Deep.

• 1:39:45Speaker 01

  These blood drinking pedophiles like this, I, you couldn't have told me that. I, I was like, I draw the line at that, you know?

• 1:39:52Trevor Noah?

  And it's where you should draw the line, like men's, like if you, if you think of somebody telling you a story, to believe that is, ah, come on. It's crazy.

• 1:40:01Speaker 03

  And more and more people are starting to

• 1:40:05Speaker 03

  not question reality.

• 1:40:07Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but that's what I'm.

• 1:40:07Speaker 03

  I don't, I don't mean it in a bad way.

• 1:40:09Trevor Noah?

  No, but I, but I like what you're saying, cause I, sorry to cut you off, but Dave, but that's, that's what, that's what like worries me actually.

• 1:40:16Trevor Noah?

  I know, I, I hope I articulate this correctly.

• 1:40:21Trevor Noah?

  But I sometimes feel like it is, oh man, what's the word I would use? I sometimes feel like it is safer maybe or, or

• 1:40:35Trevor Noah?

  yeah, safe is the only word I could think of for a society to collectively believe in a lie that moves them in the same direction. Same direction being the key phrase.

• 1:40:42Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:40:43Trevor Noah?

  Than for everyone to just have their own reality.

• 1:40:48Trevor Noah?

  And I, I hold, it, it's a paradox in my brain and it's something I struggle with because I do not wish for any of us to quote unquote be living a lie or be living in a fake world. But then at the same time. If everyone believes their own thing and nobody believes anything, I genuinely believe that's when society just disappears as a constant.

• 1:41:08Speaker 03

  I mean, if you had a central religion as a central like, it ideas, if we take away religion being bad or good.

• 1:41:15Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:15Speaker 03

  But it just goes like, guys, let's believe that we should be nice to each other.

• 1:41:19Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:20Speaker 03

  Then you go, okay, as opposed to I should be nice to some people or not nice to, I'm saying to your.

• 1:41:25Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, no, I'm with you.

• 1:41:26Speaker 03

  Let's be nice to each other, otherwise you'll go to hell.

• 1:41:28Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:29Speaker 03

  You know, is like a lie, but um.

• 1:41:31Trevor Noah?

  It is?

• 1:41:34Speaker 03

  But but it could help.

• 1:41:36Trevor Noah?

  It it actually is a lie because it's accept, yeah, it's accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

• 1:41:39Speaker 03

  In a direction.

• 1:41:40Trevor Noah?

  That's the thing. It's not about being nice to other people.

• 1:41:42Speaker 03

  I don't want to go into this.

• 1:41:43Trevor Noah?

  But I just don't want Eugene to go, I don't want Eugene to go to hell for the wrong reasons.

• 1:41:46Speaker 03

  I don't want to go into this.

• 1:41:47Trevor Noah?

  You don't?

• 1:41:47Speaker 03

  Go nobly.

• 1:41:51Speaker 03

  This man just said, go nobly.

• 1:41:54Trevor Noah?

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• 1:42:39Trevor Noah?

  It's everything you already love about YouTube, just somehow even better. Yeah, one of my favorite YouTube Premium features is smart downloads. Because how many times have you gone somewhere and realized, ah, I forgot to download anything? And now you're on the way to the airport and you're like, download, download, download, download. You're on the plane, download, download, download, download. There's no wifi. I wish I downloaded. Now, all of those things that you were gonna watch are just on the internet. Smart downloads basically thinks ahead for you. It automatically downloads recommended videos based on what you like to watch. So even when you forget to prepare, YouTube Premium didn't. I love it. It's like packing for a trip and discovering somebody already remembered the thing you always leave at home. It's always the underwear.

• 1:43:22Trevor Noah?

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• 1:44:14Speaker 05

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• 1:44:24Trevor Noah?

  What do you think people get the most wrong about you then? Like, because I mean, the... Yeah, I'll throw it out there. I could be wrong about this. But when I see Vic Mansa, there's so many

• 1:44:37Trevor Noah?

  iterations of you that I've seen over time, as you would with any artist in the public eye. Well, there's so many different iterations of you. I wonder what people get wrong about you that you see out there where you're like, "No, that's not me," or "That's not how I am anymore," or "That's never been me."

• 1:44:51Speaker 01

  I think people used to think that I was very serious and always wanted to fight somebody.

• 1:44:55Trevor Noah?

  You did give off that vibe, actually. No, no, no, you did give off that vibe.

• 1:44:58Speaker 01

  He said I did give off that vibe.

• 1:44:59Trevor Noah?

  I was one of those. No, no, no, I believe that.

• 1:45:01Speaker 01

  You thought that I was very serious and I always wanted to fight?

• 1:45:03Trevor Noah?

  100%. I'm glad you said that, actually.

• 1:45:04Speaker 01

  Even when I came on your show?

• 1:45:05Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:06Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 1:45:06Trevor Noah?

  No, I knew you weren't gonna fight me, but I was like, in this, in the hallway.

• 1:45:10Speaker 02

  Who was gonna win?

• 1:45:11Trevor Noah?

  I prayed to God, nobody bumps this person. I prayed to God that...

• 1:45:15Speaker 02

  Who was gonna win?

• 1:45:16Trevor Noah?

  Who? If he fought me? No, Vic, come on, look at this guy. He's from Chicago.

• 1:45:20Speaker 01

  He's from Johannesburg.

• 1:45:21Trevor Noah?

  No, my friend, no, my friend. No.

• 1:45:26Speaker 01

  Not you, you're not gonna win. No fucking way.

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  I think that's probably the biggest thing people got wrong.

• 1:45:33Trevor Noah?

  You know, one thing, one thing I will say about Johannesburg maybe versus Chicago, I don't know if it's the same, you'll tell me.

• 1:45:38Speaker 01

  If we can go head to head, have our cities battle.

• 1:45:40Trevor Noah?

  One of the, one of the most, one of the most important things Johannesburg taught me, growing up with it was Hillbro, Alex, wherever, is knowing when and how to run.

• 1:45:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:45:50Trevor Noah?

  Like fleeing was never seen as a, you know, yeah.

• 1:45:54Speaker 02

  As a sign of cardliness.

• 1:45:55Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, people would be like, they would, maybe as a joke, but yo, the, like, running was actually a high level skill. If you knew when to run, you were just as good as knowing when to fight. So I don't know if it's the same in Chicago.

• 1:46:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, shit, I ran from the Poli, I feel like I'm a professional runner from the Poli.

• 1:46:09Trevor Noah?

  No, not the police.

• 1:46:10Speaker 01

  And violence.

• 1:46:11Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay, okay, I'm talking about like if someone stepped to you, could you run?

• 1:46:14Speaker 01

  One on one?

• 1:46:15Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:16Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:46:17Trevor Noah?

  Two, two on one?

• 1:46:20Speaker 01

  Possible.

• 1:46:21Trevor Noah?

  Three on one?

• 1:46:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:46:22Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:46:23Speaker 01

  I'm out.

• 1:46:23Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  One on one, if somebody stepped to me with no weapon, how could I run?

• 1:46:27Trevor Noah?

  Okay, alright. No, I can't.

• 1:46:29Speaker 01

  That would be a violation of my moral code.

• 1:46:31Trevor Noah?

  There you go, see me? So if you're saying when you-

• 1:46:34Speaker 02

  You're not a violation of my moral code, dying.

• 1:46:37Speaker 01

  But if you didn't have a weapon, you're not gonna die.

• 1:46:39Speaker 02

  How do I know?

• 1:46:40Speaker 01

  Doesn't matter, doesn't matter.

• 1:46:41Speaker 02

  I don't wanna be a surprise ghost.

• 1:46:43Trevor Noah?

  Okay, so you, so you were, so you were, you've never been, or you were not, or you've never been like ultra-serious wanting to fight all the time?

• 1:46:51Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, I've always been Gemini though, so maybe half the time I, I could have been like that.

• 1:46:55Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:46:56Speaker 01

  I've always been, everything funny to me, all jokes, but also serious and wanting to fight.

• 1:47:02Trevor Noah?

  Okay, no, but I like, that's balance.

• 1:47:04Speaker 02

  But people who believe in zodiac signs are very pragmatic. Cause they look at you and they go, what star sign are you? You're like, I'm a Scorpio, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes sense now. And you're like, why? Then they tell you what your star sign is.

• 1:47:15Speaker 01

  Gemini is really like that though. Gemini is like very polar, very polar, I mean Kanye is a Gemini.

• 1:47:21Speaker 02

  Scorpio? Who, and then what about those ones? Yeah.

• 1:47:24Speaker 01

  I don't know nothing about Scorpios, I know about me, nigga.

• 1:47:26Speaker 02

  How many star signs do you know, Gant? Taurus?

• 1:47:28Speaker 01

  Me?

• 1:47:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, but that Taurus is his son.

• 1:47:29Speaker 01

  Taurus is my son.

• 1:47:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:31Speaker 01

  So they say the Tauruses are stubborn.

• 1:47:33Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:47:33Speaker 01

  I just learned about them when I learned about my son.

• 1:47:35Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:47:36Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:47:36Speaker 02

  Gemini?

• 1:47:37Speaker 01

  Gemini is, is very polar.

• 1:47:39Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:47:40Speaker 01

  And, uh, and, and cancers, I know cancer.

• 1:47:43Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:47:43Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:47:44Speaker 02

  It's a deadly disease.

• 1:47:45Speaker 01

  I know a little bit about Aries, my girl's an Aries.

• 1:47:47Speaker 02

  Ah, you know a lot.

• 1:47:48Speaker 01

  Um, Aries are fire, fiery, you know?

• 1:47:50Trevor Noah?

  You know what I do like about star signs is- It comes with a lot of grace.

• 1:47:56Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying, pragmatic, yeah.

• 1:47:57Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, like, like.

• 1:47:58Speaker 02

  You hear someone, you're like, what star sign?

• 1:47:59Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but what I mean by it is like, star signs, they, they just, they come with a lot of grace. So someone will say, man, this person's stubborn. Oh, that explains it. I think, is that what you're saying?

• 1:48:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:48:10Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's, there's, they, they allow people.

• 1:48:13Speaker 02

  To be themselves.

• 1:48:14Trevor Noah?

  And to have, and to contain all of themselves.

• 1:48:16Speaker 02

  And they almost, they almost make you feel like the mistakes that, the flaws that people have.

• 1:48:20Speaker 01

  You blame it on, yeah, you blame it on their nature.

• 1:48:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, ah, it's the stars and then you're appointed to stay in the cold night.

• 1:48:25Speaker 01

  That is, that is like, being a Gemini is definitely a, like, mental, it's a mental illness at times. You know what I'm saying? Because you're so polar, you feel one thing with complete passion. And the next day, you think something entirely different. You know what I mean? One day I could be upset and wanna fight people all the time, and the next minute, everything's a joke to me. But I think like my process of coming into a, a livable experience is to learn not to be a slave to my nature. My nature as a Gemini is very dual. It's a duality. My nature is that way.

• 1:49:04Speaker 01

  But to have integrity is to intentionally choose to make decisions that I can rationalize from any side of my personality. And before I wasn't like that at all. Like, I was, I was a slave to my nature. You know what I'm saying? And like, my Gemini would be like, oh, I have to say exactly what I think to this person.

• 1:49:25Trevor Noah?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:49:26Speaker 01

  At the time that I think it, I have to tell him, I'mma slap him in his mouth. And he, he violated, so I am justified. You know what I'm saying? Like, this is the right thing to do, you know?

• 1:49:38Speaker 02

  It should be done.

• 1:49:39Speaker 01

  It should, not only it should be done, it will be done.

• 1:49:42Speaker 02

  Die.

• 1:49:42Speaker 01

  It has been done.

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  And like, you know, just, just growing, just growing is, is to come to realize that like, although my, my natural proclivity, my inclination as a Gemini is to be this way, that I'm not beholden to that. Like, I can have the discipline to not act out my fucking intrusive thoughts at all times as a Gemini, you know? Those are the best ones, but they also get you in a lot of goddamn trouble. They can get you in years of trouble.

• 1:50:14Trevor Noah?

  What are intrusive thoughts?

• 1:50:15Speaker 02

  Mine.

• 1:50:16Trevor Noah?

  No, I'm just saying, what are they?

• 1:50:18Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:50:18Speaker 01

  Mine is to flip this fucking desk.

• 1:50:22Trevor Noah?

  Wait, these are the thoughts you guys are having?

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  Just when he said intrusive thoughts, just in that moment, I was like.

• 1:50:27Trevor Noah?

  Damn.

• 1:50:28Speaker 02

  Don't you have intrusive thoughts? Like when you're driving, you're like, if I go like this, what would happen?

• 1:50:32Speaker 01

  Like in an airport, you have a motherfucking funny, you just gotta punch him in the fucking.

• 1:50:36Trevor Noah?

  You see, it's funny, that that idea, the first time that came into my head was because you said that. You said this to me more than like fifteen years ago.

• 1:50:42Speaker 02

  You never think of it?

• 1:50:43Trevor Noah?

  I've, I had never before you.

• 1:50:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:50:45Trevor Noah?

  Thought of possibly veering my vehicle into opposing traffic.

• 1:50:49Speaker 02

  Just to see what happens.

• 1:50:50Trevor Noah?

  Yes, but I'm saying.

• 1:50:50Speaker 01

  He is your intrusive thought.

• 1:50:52Trevor Noah?

  Actually, that's exactly what it is. This could be like Fight Club and you're not even real. Do you realize, you know, I just realized that right now.

• 1:50:59Speaker 02

  If I did this thing, what would happen?

• 1:51:00Trevor Noah?

  I just realized right now, you might not be real.

• 1:51:01Speaker 01

  But it's really the Philly version of him that's your intrusive thought.

• 1:51:05Speaker 02

  With the African ass.

• 1:51:07Speaker 01

  He's like, young bull, crash your shit, young bull. A lot of whack bar. Crash that fucking car, a lot of whack bar, young bull.

• 1:51:17Speaker 02

  Oh, man. You know, as we, when we started this conversation, I was wondering why I started gravitating towards your videos. And I understood what it was.

• 1:51:25Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:26Speaker 02

  A little bit now after speaking to you is. You almost cut a cross from our generation of thinking. Cause him and I go into these rabbit holes a lot. But obviously we say what we want to say in our way.

• 1:51:40Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:40Speaker 02

  We don't say it the way that you say it. But there's two things that you taught me. The one thing that you taught me a long time ago, and it's something that my daughter taught me the other day. Is was giving people grace, one, and understanding when to use your privilege. Cause I've, I've always struggled with that. And then I remember when we started doing television. Cause I started doing television way later than he did. And we did a show together. And there was this one director that was just a douchebag. And I just got angry and angry and angry because in my head, I saw what he was doing as a director is a racist move. And I was ready to quit the show. And I remember you called me to the side and then you said to me, yo, you must understand one thing. They already don't want us here.

• 1:52:23Speaker 02

  And I was like, they're the white people. You're like, no, them as a crew. They already think there's someone better who can do this job. It's not about race. If you walk away, you're proving him right. But if you stick around, you're only gonna get better. Then I was like, so it's not about race. He was like, maybe it might be on the side.

• 1:52:42Trevor Noah?

  I always said you never know.

• 1:52:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, on the side, the tinge of racism.

• 1:52:44Trevor Noah?

  Oh, it's always about race.

• 1:52:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, but basically, the the guy's sitting there going, I know someone who could have done this thing better.

• 1:52:51Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, should have even.

• 1:52:52Speaker 02

  Should have done it better. And then that never left my mind because I was always ready to act on my intrusive thoughts. If someone steps in front of me, they're gone. And then you gave me that and I was like, ah, it's using the privilege of knowing that you can do better and you can defeat them by just doing better. And there's another thing that my daughter and I were discussing the other day. It had to do with a place that we booked. And then when we booked the place, they said something can't be done. Until when, after booking the place, I showed up and they said, you can do anything. And then I said, don't you feel bad for the fact that now you can do anything after they said you can't do anything? And she said, Dad, I would feel bad if we turned it down from our offer. Then I was like, why?

• 1:53:37Speaker 02

  She was like, no, it's not just everyone who can do what they like. And if I can do what I like because of how you do what you like and still get paid from it, then I would be remiss if I didn't take advantage of the fact that we can do what we like.

• 1:53:52Speaker 03

  Hmm. You know the poignant thing about what you're saying, Eugene, there?

• 1:53:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:53:56Speaker 03

  Is that, um, Trev, he told you how to like improve the world?

• 1:54:02Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:54:03Speaker 03

  Cause you were like, look at this circumstance. There's a better way to handle this.

• 1:54:07Trevor Noah?

  Or just a different way, yeah.

• 1:54:08Speaker 03

  A different, yes, a more more effective way, you would say. And then you, cause like Trev is driving, and you're like, you know what? What if you just went on coming back?

• 1:54:22Speaker 03

  This is how we were exchanging, exchanging ideas. It's like.

• 1:54:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, and with your world, you are able to use everything that you've learned throughout life, throughout your art, throughout your career, to carry out these videos. You understand the privilege that you have.

• 1:54:37Trevor Noah?

  It is the culmination of Vic Mensa, I feel like. That's what I would call it.

• 1:54:40Speaker 02

  Like 10 years ago, this Vic wouldn't exist. But with the travel that you've had, the, the work that you've done, the people that you've met, it makes whatever you have to say very poignant, because you've lived it.

• 1:54:52Trevor Noah?

  And if I may add to that, I don't think you should ever take for granted how de-scronifying the message, like how important that is.

• 1:55:01Speaker 01

  What is de-scronifying?

• 1:55:03Trevor Noah?

  So oftentimes, the things you're talking about are delivered by scrawny people that nobody wants to listen to.

• 1:55:09Speaker 03

  In dashikis?

• 1:55:10Trevor Noah?

  No, no, you wish it's dashikis. I'm talking about like, when he's talking about like, anything, Iran, the petrodollar, um, like race, um, you know what I mean, the, the, the, the casual state, you, you name it. A lot of the time, the people who are talking about some of these topics are scrawny geeks that nobody wishes to like, you're like, no offence, but like, the messenger, you know, that's one of the reasons that Nelson Mandela was chosen, right? It's because the ANC, he wasn't the most like senior member in the ANC. He wasn't like the, the guy.

• 1:55:41Speaker 02

  He wasn't even the most outspoken one.

• 1:55:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. And then someone saw him speaking.

• 1:55:46Speaker 02

  Walter.

• 1:55:46Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it was, what was Walter? Walter Sissulu. And it was like, this guy, the thing that he's doing and the way he's doing it is the perfect vehicle for our message.

• 1:55:57Trevor Noah?

  Because people realize, I mean, it's the same reason Rosa Parks wasn't the first person who had an issue on the bus.

• 1:56:03Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:56:03Trevor Noah?

  But she was the first person where civil rights leaders who were running that movement at that time were like, she's the perfect person for us to take this forward. You, you, I don't think you should ever take for granted that everything about you, just like.

• 1:56:20Trevor Noah?

  One, it doesn't really exist.

• 1:56:22Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:56:23Trevor Noah?

  You know, there's no one else like you in, if we overlap everything, you know, whether it's punk, hip hop, the tattoos, the Chicago, the Ghanaian, like you name it, you name it. There's no one like you doing that. So when that vessel presents that video, that message and that story, someone can't be like, yeah, but of course you would say this, you coming from Connecticut. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, of course, it's easy for you to say, you know, because you, you, you're stuck.

• 1:56:53Speaker 03

  I feel like that's.

• 1:56:54Speaker 01

  I like what you said about privilege too, man. I mean, I think about privilege a lot, man, and that like,

• 1:57:02Speaker 01

  one has to be like cognizant and conscious of your privileges in order to even have an effective message. You know what I'm saying? In order to have an authentic message, because we all have different privileges. You know what I'm saying? We might be oppressed in ways, be it for our, our race. You know what I mean? We're all black men on this show right now, but we're also all men. So we also have a tremendous amount of privilege by being men. I mean, by being able bodied men, you know what I'm saying? Like, there's so many things that go into it. I, I think about that a lot, especially having, having a white mother and having certain comforts in life that have come along with that and with my father's occupation,

• 1:57:46Speaker 01

  him having the privilege to be the only one in his family to come to America. You know what I'm saying? Like, the rest of my family in Ghana, they live in, in, in pretty, in pretty abject poverty. You know what I mean? By, by an American standard, for sure.

• 1:57:59Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:00Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? It's by, it's far from the bottom of the barrel in, in their community. But like, by our standard, like, not having working restrooms and.

• 1:58:11Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:58:12Speaker 01

  Roofs caving in and, you know what I mean? Like, working jobs for fifty, sixty, seventy dollars a month. Like, that's an unfathomable fucking reality. You know what I'm saying? But my dad came to America. He had, he had the privilege to, to get an education here. And so I'm living as, as both the, the fucking result of, of a lot of privilege in the midst of a lot of oppression at the same time.

• 1:58:41Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:42Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? And, and I think a lot of time, no, I can see even members of my own family, just people close to me, that.

• 1:58:50Speaker 01

  Might have have trouble acknowledging their privileges because of the amount of trauma, pain and oppression that they feel, which is valid, but it's like, yo, without acknowledging our privileges, then the conversation is is is only half authen- it's only half real, you know, it's incomplete, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:59:10Trevor Noah?

  Incomplete, yeah.

• 1:59:11Speaker 01

  Without acknowledging our privileges, which is why I do like in this conversation, you're doing a lot for me by bringing a bringing a renewed lens to class. Because I do think that I get caught up in the hamster wheel of a fixation on race. You know, even when you were talking and you were like something about race and I was like, everything's about race, you know what I'm saying? Because in a way, like in America.

• 1:59:38Trevor Noah?

  But I argue it is.

• 1:59:39Speaker 01

  It also is, yes.

• 1:59:40Trevor Noah?

  We had an episode, just to interject there, we had an episode with Sam Morril, the comedian, right? It was on this podcast. We we made a joke about something and I think it was like Jingle Bells maybe or something, just a joke randomly. And then we we talked about one thing and then I said to Sam, I was like, oh, that that actually has racist roots, like fully, fully. And then we laughed and we talked about it. And then he said something else and I think we said Jingle Bells or whatever it was. And then I said, oh, that's also racist. And he's like, what? And I was like, no, I'm joking, I don't know. And then he said, he said, he's like, nah, knowing America, it probably is. We checked it up after the show. It was fully racist.

• 2:00:13Speaker 01

  It was.

• 2:00:14Trevor Noah?

  No, so so you you are right, is sort of even to what Dave was saying about conspiracies and all of that. Both things are true at the same time. It is always about race.

• 2:00:25Speaker 01

  But.

• 2:00:25Trevor Noah?

  But it might not be.

• 2:00:27Speaker 01

  And it just that the the class conversation is actually the bigger conversation.

• 2:00:32Trevor Noah?

  It's always about class.

• 2:00:33Speaker 01

  Where do you put the period on the sentence?

• 2:00:35Trevor Noah?

  It's always about class.

• 2:00:36Speaker 01

  Is is important. I feel like when you put the period on the sentence only after race, then oftentimes you're left without a full sentence and you're left without like a clear goal, you know what I'm saying? Because if you just fixate on the racial dimensions of things without realizing how they're a a front for the actual class struggle that exists. This is a lifetime pursuit. You'll just be frustrated about racism for the rest of your motherfucking life.

• 2:01:04Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you you basically you basically chase, because what you're doing now is you're chasing the shadow as opposed to the thing that's costing the shadow. And a shadow is real. But it is not the thing that is causing itself. Does that make sense?

• 2:01:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:19Trevor Noah?

  And so that's, that's the difficulty with, with, with this is like, we, we wanna be in a world. When I look at the, just like all the great minds. It's often been buried when people talk about their work, but MLK spent like a huge amount of his time speaking about class. People now will make, oh, equality for all racially, and it, that's more convenient. Because that has sort of been addressed, sort of. You know, so people can be like, well, MLK's dream has been achieved. And it's like, no, no, no, but if you go look at what he talked about class wise.

• 2:01:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:51Trevor Noah?

  You're like, damn, no, no, no, don't, this guy's rattling the cage. And I think that's why there are politicians today that are experiencing the success that they are. I actually think the death of the, of the old school politician is that they still think race is the number one cudgel, and it isn't. Trump didn't win because of race.

• 2:02:11Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 2:02:12Trevor Noah?

  People will say that he did. And there's definitely parts of his message that are intertwined in and around race.

• 2:02:18Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 2:02:18Trevor Noah?

  But I argue the man won because of class. He appealed to class in a way that few people fully understand. And that's why him and Mamdani could be in the same room. And that's why people could say, I voted for Mamdani, but I also voted for Trump. And people are like, what, how? Yeah, because both of them spoke to class.

• 2:02:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:02:35Trevor Noah?

  So the person who's listening goes, no, no, no, I heard what Trump said. He said that I've been left behind. I have been left behind.

• 2:02:43Speaker 02

  Even, even that phrase, truth to power, because people always think you can only speak truth to power as it comes from a person who's under and then speaking to someone who's above. But someone who's above can speak to someone who's under.

• 2:02:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:54Speaker 02

  And speak their truth to that power, because that person also has power as well.

• 2:02:58Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:58Speaker 01

  Martin Luther King really became in immense danger when he started talking about a poor people's movement.

• 2:03:04Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, that was.

• 2:03:05Speaker 01

  For sure, that's when they assassinate you. I mean, Chairman Fred Hampton, he became that immense danger when he made the Rainbow Coalition.

• 2:03:12Trevor Noah?

  Uh huh, when he, when he pulled in poor white people.

• 2:03:14Speaker 01

  Poor white.

• 2:03:15Trevor Noah?

  Oh, it was.

• 2:03:16Speaker 01

  Patriots with the Puerto Rican Young Lords with the Black Panther Party. When you shift to a focus on class that doesn't ignore race. Which is where I think a lot of the liberals lose me is that they wanna look at class as if race is not an interconnected, intrinsically

• 2:03:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:03:35Speaker 01

  important dimension of it. When you see people shift to a focus on class, it's when it become a real fucking threat to the power structure. And Martin Luther King was, I mean, he was, he was living dangerously.

• 2:03:49Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:50Speaker 01

  Like, he gets sanitized as being turned the other cheek, like, just a pacifist, but he really wasn't a pacifist. He just had a very brilliant mode of combat, in my mind, was that he understood that by

• 2:04:08Speaker 01

  using nonviolent techniques, that he could heighten the contradictions.

• 2:04:13Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 2:04:13Speaker 01

  With the cameras on, and he made sure the cameras is on, so that you saw them getting beaten down and hosed and bricked and hit with bats, and you saw them not responding with violence, so that you had absolutely no question about who was the perpetrator.

• 2:04:31Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you couldn't edit it and get a snapshot.

• 2:04:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, you just, it was crystal clear who was in the wrong, and Martin Luther King made sure of that. And I think a lot of my life, I felt like, oh, I must choose between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, and I'm more Malcolm X, cuz I'mma punch the white fuckin' back in the face, you know? But like, really though, Martin Luther King's, his methodology, it took so much strength. Like, it arguably takes more fucking strength to exercise restraint in the face of violence than to respond with violence. Not that that's the only strategy. You know, I think those things have to exist concurrently, but yeah, learning more about Martin Luther,

• 2:05:15Speaker 01

  that's why I love that you used him in your newest, uh, used some of those stories in your newest special because

• 2:05:22Speaker 01

  His legacy has been um.

• 2:05:24Trevor Noah?

  Oh, it's been flattened.

• 2:05:25Speaker 01

  Manipulated and flattened, like you said, into like some fucking Disney Channel shit.

• 2:05:29Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:29Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? And but really, he was he was super revolutionary.

• 2:05:33Trevor Noah?

  What's interesting as well is how much they moved towards each other. You know, Malcolm X is always framed as this like burn it all down person. MLK is always framed as like kumbaya, let's all hug all the time. And if you look at their writings and what they what they shared towards the end of their lives, they sort of gravitated towards the other. Malcolm X was going, hey, maybe we should speak more and maybe we should be a little softer.

• 2:05:57Speaker 01

  We should talk to white people.

• 2:05:58Trevor Noah?

  And MLK was like, nah, maybe maybe we should, you know, protest, maybe we should riot a little bit more. Maybe we should. It it is interesting how we find that that middle. And it makes me wonder with you, like.

• 2:06:11Trevor Noah?

  Let's talk, you know, you've got old Vic Mensa where or or rather.

• 2:06:15Speaker 02

  Alternate universe Vic Mensa.

• 2:06:16Trevor Noah?

  No, let's talk about the like the Vic Mensa.

• 2:06:18Speaker 02

  The Rick and Morty.

• 2:06:18Trevor Noah?

  People couldn't have like known because social media wasn't what it was, right? Who's this guy? Oh, he hip hop artist, but he's also wants to fight all the time. He's angry, whatever. Now we see you like in your videos, you're laughing, you're peeling that orange. By the way, how do you peel them so efficient? Like, what what type of oranges that I want to know?

• 2:06:37Speaker 01

  AI.

• 2:06:38Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, not no, no, no, I mean this, I mean this, can I see your hands? Can I just see your hands?

• 2:06:44Speaker 01

  His hands have peeled infinite oranges.

• 2:06:46Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, like, I genuinely want to know, like.

• 2:06:50Speaker 02

  How? How do you start the peeling? Because usually I bite.

• 2:06:53Trevor Noah?

  Do you do you peel?

• 2:06:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I bite the top first and then I take.

• 2:06:57Trevor Noah?

  Let me tell you something.

• 2:06:57Speaker 02

  Then I go in because my thumbs, I don't, I don't trust my.

• 2:07:00Trevor Noah?

  Yo, you make it seem like it's the easiest thing.

• 2:07:03Speaker 02

  Eh, my man, have you ever tried to start an orange?

• 2:07:05Trevor Noah?

  You start, but I'm like, you, I've never seen a video where you go in and you're like, yo, let's talk about the subjugation of people.

• 2:07:14Speaker 02

  You just peel two halves, yeah. So how do you first, how do you penetrate?

• 2:07:18Speaker 01

  I control, whoa.

• 2:07:23Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 2:07:25Trevor Noah?

  You're definitely not from Philly, Mr. Bill.

• 2:07:27Speaker 02

  If you're watching this on YouTube, you'll see my hands.

• 2:07:29Speaker 01

  Aki. Take it easy, Ark.

• 2:07:34Speaker 02

  I got you, I got you.

• 2:07:36Trevor Noah?

  No, but for real, how do you like?

• 2:07:38Speaker 01

  I can try to edit.

• 2:07:39Trevor Noah?

  Those are the two questions, okay.

• 2:07:43Trevor Noah?

  Secondly, how many oranges are on this tree?

• 2:07:46Speaker 01

  Infinite. It blooms year round.

• 2:07:50Trevor Noah?

  These are the biggest things that have plagued me about this series.

• 2:07:53Speaker 02

  And I'm the psycho for, for biting.

• 2:07:56Trevor Noah?

  No, I don't think you, I don't think you're crazy at all. Sometimes, sometimes an orange needs to be bitten.

• 2:08:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, then to, just to open up the.

• 2:08:02Trevor Noah?

  No, no, he's right.

• 2:08:03Speaker 02

  The gateway.

• 2:08:03Trevor Noah?

  He's right. I wanna, I wanna see your orange peel.

• 2:08:05Speaker 03

  You know where it is, sorry, just a, a thing is, you know, when you have a, it used to happen with beer drinkers a lot, but when they have a bottle of beer.

• 2:08:13Trevor Noah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:08:14Speaker 03

  And then they can't open it.

• 2:08:16Speaker 02

  Then they go with the teeth.

• 2:08:17Speaker 03

  Yes, it's like, what do you, cause some people are like, no, I have to find a bottle opener.

• 2:08:22Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:08:22Speaker 03

  You know that, so if you can't.

• 2:08:24Speaker 01

  You could roll the motherfucker first, then it gets softer. Somebody told me that, cause they saw me struggling to open them. And they was like, yo, you need to roll it.

• 2:08:31Trevor Noah?

  Okay, so someone had, okay.

• 2:08:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, but the structural integrity of the orange goes away when you start drilling it.

• 2:08:36Trevor Noah?

  It does become, it does, yeah, but what I, this is all I was searching for.

• 2:08:39Speaker 01

  Rolled it.

• 2:08:40Trevor Noah?

  I wanted to know if we've met you as a masterful orange peel, like, peeler.

• 2:08:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:08:47Trevor Noah?

  Or if you have developed into this man. Now you've answered my question.

• 2:08:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, once I had the tree, then I started to learn more about oranges.

• 2:08:54Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 2:08:54Speaker 02

  What did you learn about oranges, actually?

• 2:08:56Speaker 01

  Well, just how to peel them, like how to roll it. I don't know the, the, the science of this tree. I don't know why this tree blooms year round.

• 2:09:04Trevor Noah?

  I, I genuinely, I'm so fascinated.

• 2:09:06Speaker 01

  But it does, though. It blooms in all seasons. I have no clue why. I wish I had a more witty answer for it.

• 2:09:11Trevor Noah?

  What made you do it the first time?

• 2:09:17Speaker 01

  I was talking about, you know, I was talking about South Africa, low key. It was like right around the time, I was talking about South Africa, near when the South African, um, the white, the white genocide.

• 2:09:27Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yes, yes, yes.

• 2:09:28Speaker 01

  Uh, was, was taking place. And, um, I had a friend come over to like, film something with me in my studio. And, um, and I just had that idea. It was, it was no like serendipitous moment, but it was right around the time when I was talking, talking about the, uh, white genocide.

• 2:09:45Speaker 03

  Didn't it have that feel of like?

• 2:09:48Trevor Noah?

  Or at least me, if you'd asked me how you got to it, I'd have been like, whatever was in that backyard was going down. So if you had like chickens there, he was going, I'd kill a chicken.

• 2:09:58Speaker 01

  If I had chickens and I was just like, you know, I am a voodoo man.

• 2:10:00Trevor Noah?

  A sheep.

• 2:10:01Speaker 01

  My grandfather was voodoo ceremony. So it would have been a different vibe. I'd have been real Azalea Banks. I pulled a goddamn chicken. I said, you know what about racism? It's like a, it's like a chicken's neck. You gotta rip it.

• 2:10:17Trevor Noah?

  I mean, you're, all of these things are, you're lucky the tree blooms all year round. Now you'd be like, Vic, we need a video. It's out of season, man. You gotta wait for the next. Just every, everything that came together. I, um, uh, where do we find you now on the journey? Like where, where you, where you going next? What are you, what are you up to? What are you, cause now, again, to go back to how people perceive someone, I think there are a lot of people who like see you as that guy now. And, and I've, I've just learned to accept this. You know, we, we've spoken about this. It's like, people meet you where they meet you.

• 2:10:49Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah.

• 2:10:50Trevor Noah?

  And they'll just like know you as they know you.

• 2:10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:52Trevor Noah?

  So you'll be the orange guy who says the news. And then my favorite thing will be like how people describe it when they see you. They'll be like, oh, man, the, the, the orange news guy. Oh, he's the, he's the, you know, you know, I've heard everything for myself. The, my favorite one was they said, he's that, he, he's that, what did they say? He's that British news nigga from South Africa.

• 2:11:11Speaker 01

  Whoever he may be.

• 2:11:14Trevor Noah?

  But when they said that, I was like, that's the greatest description.

• 2:11:17Speaker 01

  British news nigga.

• 2:11:18Trevor Noah?

  They said the British news nigga from South Africa. Then I went, you said British, but you said South Africa. So I.

• 2:11:24Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 2:11:25Trevor Noah?

  I'll take it. So like, yeah.

• 2:11:27Speaker 01

  I see it the same way, man. You know what I'm saying? Like having, um, done and continuing to do many things, I find that people, people might find me in an album cycle. And they'd be like, you know, this music, I love this. People might find me while I'm acting on a TV show.

• 2:11:44Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:44Speaker 01

  And be like, oh, I like that TV show. You know, people might find me while I'm doing this and be like, man, what's up with them oranges? Do they really grow on the tree?

• 2:11:53Trevor Noah?

  That was me. He just impersonated me. God damn it.

• 2:11:55Speaker 01

  No, that was the fucking, uh, that was the flight attendant on the way here.

• 2:12:00Trevor Noah?

  Was asking about the.

• 2:12:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was like, are they, he was like, are they, are you gonna run out?

• 2:12:08Trevor Noah?

  I'm not the only one.

• 2:12:09Speaker 01

  The flight attendant. You said what?

• 2:12:12Speaker 02

  That was Trevor's worry.

• 2:12:12Trevor Noah?

  It was my, was my biggest worry.

• 2:12:14Speaker 02

  In fact, doesn't want to buy oranges in case you run out.

• 2:12:16Trevor Noah?

  It does not, it does not seem like a sustainable, I was just like, man, I was worried about you.

• 2:12:18Speaker 02

  No, because we're from South Africa, that's why, because in South Africa, we only get oranges in winter.

• 2:12:23Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I was just like, it's an orange tree, it can't just have oranges all year round.

• 2:12:25Speaker 01

  This motherfucker just blooms year round.

• 2:12:27Trevor Noah?

  You, you have been gifted, my friend, you have been blessed.

• 2:12:29Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm working on developing it into a show, I'm working on like, um, also like some scripted TV stuff.

• 2:12:36Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 2:12:36Speaker 01

  And finishing my album right now, so a lot of different things coming.

• 2:12:41Trevor Noah?

  Is your, is your album an opportunity to depart from what you're speaking about? Or does the album give you an opportunity to incorporate what you're speaking about? How, how do you think about that as an artist?

• 2:12:52Speaker 01

  It's a bit of a departure, I mean, it's an album that I already had.

• 2:12:55Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:55Speaker 01

  You know what I mean, like, I was making this album and had so much of it before I started doing the Orange Tree thing. I honestly started doing that because I didn't have the funding to put the album out the way I wanted to put it out.

• 2:13:07Trevor Noah?

  Oh, damn.

• 2:13:08Speaker 01

  I didn't have the distribution, I didn't have a label, and so I was like, what can I do in the meantime, in between time?

• 2:13:13Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 2:13:14Speaker 01

  You know, to, to connect to people, you know what I mean, and to express myself, and, and, and I landed there. But in a lot of ways, it's like, it's about family, it's about me coming into fatherhood, um, there's a lot of African sounds manifested in my own way, so it's not like an overt, overtly political album.

• 2:13:36Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:36Speaker 01

  Like, it's got moments like that, but that's not the, that's not the heart of it, you know? The, the, it's called Mensa Musa Mensa, so it's, it's about my son.

• 2:13:43Trevor Noah?

  It's beautiful, man.

• 2:13:44Speaker 01

  Like, at, at its root, you know what I'm saying, but I also, uh, I did this short film that's like

• 2:13:51Speaker 01

  marrying the, uh, the Orange Tree shit to the narrative scripted thing I was talking about. And, uh, so that's coming out soon, we get off here, I want to show you guys, cause I make some.

• 2:14:00Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that'll be amazing.

• 2:14:01Speaker 01

  I talk about some things that I think will, will relate to you.

• 2:14:04Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 2:14:04Trevor Noah?

  Yo, man, this has been everything and more.

• 2:14:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I appreciate you guys, man, I appreciate you all for having me.

• 2:14:10Trevor Noah?

  Genuinely, can I tell you, I, I.

• 2:14:14Trevor Noah?

  Let's say if I if I separate like the human you side of it and the, you know, the things you're doing. He'll tell you, this is like how I am in the world about about the internet in particular. I just, I I spend an inordinate amount of time worrying that the internet, social media slash whatever we want to call it, gave birth to something that was beautiful in that it it it democratized a platform. It democratized, you know, opinions. It really diffused the power that was once contained by a few. But I think if we're not careful, it can also incentivize everyone to become a few. You know, so everyone's cooking channels look the same. Everyone's farms outrage the same. Everyone

• 2:14:58Trevor Noah?

  tries to find craziness the same, everyone. And genuinely, what I love about what you do is you haven't reduced yourself to a caricature. You you you just, you don't seem to be trying to pour fuel on any fire. Like one of my favorite moments was when you went back in to speak about Iran and how people had like misinterpreted. You're like, no, no, guys, let me try and articulate this for you even more clearly. And I was like, that there is the antithesis of what like the internet is is experiencing right now. You didn't double down. You cut back and you elaborated. And I was like, this is the most beautiful thing because it it it opens up space and conversation. So I I just want to say to you, as a as a human being living through this, I go like, man, thank you.

• 2:15:41Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:15:41Trevor Noah?

  Thank you for doing that, for real.

• 2:15:42Speaker 01

  Appreciate that a lot. Yeah, the Iran, I mean, uh, yeah, the Iran situation too is like. I felt like I learned more information, talking to people that I respected. Once I had already spoken and I tried to make a decision that I think is important for me just as a human being. To be like, I'm willing to adjust my perspective.

• 2:16:07Trevor Noah?

  See, this is what I'm talking about.

• 2:16:08Speaker 01

  New information comes in that gives me more context and I have more understanding, you know what I mean? Like, I have to be. I think so often it's easy to be rigid and be like, well, I already said what I said, and so it is what it is, you know? But that wouldn't be honest, you know what I mean? I think at the end of the day, I'm I'm trying to be I'm trying to be real, honest, authentic. And when I learn new information, I I want to be able to adjust.

• 2:16:36Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but even even those we hold in the highest esteem, I don't think.

• 2:16:42Trevor Noah?

  I don't think do that in in in the most honorable way. So I look at newspapers. The amount of times they print a retraction in the tiniest corner of the newspaper. I go. I'm not saying, you know, put it on the front page, but put it where the original story was, at least. Just instill in people the idea that you can make a mistake publicly and go like, oh, yeah, did I? Yeah, I actually didn't know at the time and I didn't think it, because it's not always malicious. That's the main thing is it's not always malicious. And what I found interesting was you didn't put it in the comments. You didn't put it below. I watched the video the other day of. It was like a super viral video where someone was talking about Justin Bieber performing at Coachella.

• 2:17:24Trevor Noah?

  And they were saying, do you know the real reason Justin Bieber played all of his music off of a laptop? Is because he sold his rights. So he sold all of his publishing and his rights and he can't perform them. So this was a genius movie, plays the YouTube video and then Justin Bieber is able to have his songs, but he can't perform these legally not allowed. To and then it was like, no, that that's not the thing. Coachella pays a license fee. Anyone can sing any song. That thing's covered. He was doing something artistic. And then when people corrected this viral video. They then in the comments just put a little, they left the video up, but then they said. I I should have included the fact that this doesn't actually apply to Justin because you can perform what you want. But still, it's an interesting thing to think about, isn't it? I was like, what are you doing?

• 2:18:06Trevor Noah?

  What are you doing? Like, you are so obsessed with the the view count.

• 2:18:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:18:12Trevor Noah?

  That you're willing to throw everything else. And what I found impressive was you made a video as prominent. You got an orange. You came out, you did the, it's not like you were like, all right, I I me clarifying this doesn't deserve this. It wasn't like now Vic Mance is in his bedroom like. Hey, guys, so I put out this video a while ago and I just want to say I'm sorry.

• 2:18:30Speaker 02

  Holding a prickly pen.

• 2:18:31Trevor Noah?

  Exactly. Same orange, same tree, same vibe. And he came out and he's like, yo. Here, let me say this. Let me elaborate. Let me tell you what I've learned. Let me. That to me, I genuinely mean, I went like, ah, it inspired me. I appreciate it. And I was like, that's what we we all need more of. In this amorphous place called the internet is seeing people change and evolve.

• 2:18:54Speaker 01

  Appreciate that.

• 2:18:55Trevor Noah?

  In front of us.

• 2:18:56Speaker 02

  That's incredible, man. And you shouldn't leave yourself out of it because a lot of people.

• 2:18:59Trevor Noah?

  I hate what you're about to do. Don't do this to me. Don't change your eyes when you talk to me like that. I see what you're doing. Change your eyes.

• 2:19:06Speaker 02

  What if I retract my upper lip?

• 2:19:09Speaker 03

  Now, carry on.

• 2:19:09Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah, so.

• 2:19:13Speaker 02

  A lot of people when confronted by their friend about calling them and the phone ringing.

• 2:19:18Trevor Noah?

  I knew it.

• 2:19:19Speaker 02

  At a certain time.

• 2:19:20Trevor Noah?

  His eyes gave him away.

• 2:19:22Speaker 02

  A lot of people would say, you know, that's how network works and that's how, cause wifi, we're in the same place. A lot of people will never actually take the phone and dial their friend and put on speaker and hear how many rings there are and have the same said friend on the side acknowledging.

• 2:19:36Trevor Noah?

  Can I tell you?

• 2:19:37Speaker 03

  This is a blatant lie that you.

• 2:19:39Trevor Noah?

  Can I tell you? You know what we're gonna do immediately?

• 2:19:42Speaker 03

  Power through as if he's lying.

• 2:19:47Speaker 01

  I will say, sometimes, sometimes I do that though. Sometimes I try to call the motherfucker at a time. And I'm like, man, I'll just call this nigga with two rings.

• 2:19:57Speaker 03

  That's why I was saying.

• 2:19:59Speaker 01

  We're gonna, we're gonna.

• 2:20:00Speaker 02

  No, no, my phone is, my phone's on silent.

• 2:20:03Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, we're gonna, whoa, whoa, whoa, I wanna set, yo, can you hear me?

• 2:20:07Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:20:07Trevor Noah?

  Yo, so we're, we're having a discussion here and I'm not gonna lead you in any direction. There's, we're having a discussion about that, the, the amount of rings people hear or see on WhatsApp versus how many the caller initiates. Wha- what is the discussion we've been having about this? I'm here with like Kibuka and Eugene.

• 2:20:28Speaker 06

  The amount of rings that people see versus, oh, is this, if, if, when I think you've called me and then you've given up straight away, but you might have gone ten. You might have gone ten deep, is that what you're saying?

• 2:20:40Trevor Noah?

  Yes, yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. Cause now Kibuka does not believe.

• 2:20:44Speaker 03

  No, I didn't say I don't believe.

• 2:20:45Trevor Noah?

  Wait, you said blatant lie. You, Kibuka doesn't believe that I called him and waited like a, like a shit long amount of time. He says he got like two rings on his side.

• 2:20:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't believe.

• 2:20:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, I don't believe that too.

• 2:20:57Speaker 06

  It can't be trusted, but also are you counting ones in, are you counting them in the calling phase?

• 2:21:03Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no. I was counting in the ringing phase.

• 2:21:06Speaker 06

  Okay, yeah, because he understands that differentiation as well.

• 2:21:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but Lars. Dave, Dave has no interest in this whatsoever. Okay, but no. Also.

• 2:21:14Trevor Noah?

  Dave is just here blatantly saying, "I'm a liar who did not want to call him."

• 2:21:18Speaker 02

  Lars, you know what made the matter worse? Yes, say no thing. Was then. My attorney over here. After the ringing and the hanging up, Dave called back immediately.

• 2:21:29Trevor Noah?

  Immediately.

• 2:21:30Speaker 02

  And the suspect did not answer the phone.

• 2:21:31Trevor Noah?

  Because I was on a bike riding back from Pickle.

• 2:21:33Speaker 02

  So quickly.

• 2:21:34Speaker 06

  Nah, that's funny.

• 2:21:38Trevor Noah?

  Who speaks on their phone while riding a bike? There's only one person on this call and I'm not that person.

• 2:21:44Speaker 06

  I would be suspicious about Trevor and anything phone related.

• 2:21:49Speaker 02

  There we go, thank you.

• 2:21:51Trevor Noah?

  I'm hanging up now.

• 2:21:54Trevor Noah?

  This has been great, man.

• 2:21:54Speaker 01

  Hey, appreciate you guys, man. What's up, man? Appreciate y'all, bro. Philly.

• 2:22:01Trevor Noah?

  You know how we do. Man, this is the worst thing you could have left us with.

• 2:22:04Speaker 01

  I'm a nigger.

• 2:22:05Trevor Noah?

  Philly U-Chine.

• 2:22:07Speaker 02

  I'm a nigger.

• 2:22:08Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm a niggas.

• 2:22:13Trevor Noah?

  Oh, man, this was dope. Thank you.

• 2:22:14Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 2:22:15Speaker 02

  Oh, man, this was so good.

• 2:22:19Trevor Noah?

  What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin and Jess Hackel. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music, mixing and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random other stuff by Ryan Harduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now.