2 Chainz on the Decisions That Changed His Life

2 Chainz has never been afraid to bet on himself. He opens up to Keke about getting arrested in high school, the teachers who believed in him, and later buying himself out of his record deal with Ludacris and building on his success. He and Keke bond over raising boys as he shares what he loves about doing the Me & Halo podcast with his son. Plus, they get into young rappers, the faith behind his bestselling memoir The Voice in My Head Is God, and his new album Players Only Live Once. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Keke Palmer?

  Today, I'm sitting down with the one and only Two Chainz. You know him as a Grammy Award-winning rapper behind some of hip-hop's biggest records. Right now, he's on tour with Lil Wayne, getting ready for a new album this fall. And over the years, he's become so much more than that. An entrepreneur, investor, filmmaker, husband, father, and now a New York Times bestselling author. In his memoir, "The Voice in My Head is God," amen, he reflects on the people, beliefs, moments, and decisions that shaped the man he is today. We're talking about the decisions that make us, the ones that don't always make sense in the moment, but somehow end up becoming the reason our lives look the way they do. So, let's get into it with my boy.

• 0:43Keke Palmer?

  Baby, this is Keke Palmer, and baby, this is Teddy Boy. No, it's like, Two Chainz. Y'all know. If you know, you know.

• 1:22Keke Palmer?

  You look great.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 1:24Keke Palmer?

  It's so good to see you, man.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  It's good to see you, man.

• 1:26Keke Palmer?

  So good.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  What's up?

• 1:27Keke Palmer?

  What's up, Virgo? Virgo?

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Virgo's in the house.

• 1:31Keke Palmer?

  Man, Virgo all day. I feel like we both get very Virgo, too.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  I mean, it's that energy.

• 1:38Keke Palmer?

  Mm-hmm. How you been? How's that lake treating you?

• 1:41Speaker 01

  Uh, I can't complain, you know. God gotta get mad at me.

• 1:44Keke Palmer?

  Okay. You been here, you gonna be here for a while, or it's a quick in-and-out trip?

• 1:48Speaker 01

  I came here for you.

• 1:49Keke Palmer?

  Man, I'm so glad that you came to the show, man. It's a long overdue, man. We sat down in a minute.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  I agree. It's good to see you, though.

• 1:57Keke Palmer?

  It's good to see you, too. Well, I'ma get into these pre-show pull-up questions first. I already know that you a zodiac, your zodiac is a Virgo. But do you know your big three? Like, you know your sun, you know your sun, but do you know your moon and your rising?

• 2:08Speaker 01

  Uh-uh, that's that new stuff. I mean, it's not new, but that's the new conversation that I'm hearing nowadays. You know what I mean? People start talking about, you know, I'm this, but I'm really a this. But I'm really, so then, when they started doing that, I kinda got, I kinda got lost. Do you, what's your?

• 2:24Keke Palmer?

  I know mine. Mine is that, uh, I'm a Cancer, rising, and then I'm a Sagittarius moon.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Make it make, make it make sense.

• 2:30Keke Palmer?

  Exactly. It's pretty much, they be saying that the moon is like how people feel you, how you show up. And then the rising is kinda like, you know, that's like your internal, like, that's how you, that's how you feel about stuff. But then the sun sign, the Virgo, that's like who you grow to be. That's how you operate into the world and how you organ, you know, how you, you know, activate yourself.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  How do they get the mathematics? How do you get this equation? Like, is it based on your birthday?

• 2:53Keke Palmer?

  Oh, my gosh, I love how you're talking yourself system-driven and patterned. Um, you know what time you were born? And you know what city you were born in? That's how they do it. They do the mathematics of the time you were born, added that to what the moon and the sun and stars were doing at that actual time, in that actual city. And then that's how they say, according to what was happening in the stars, these are the kinds of things that you might naturally be like. Isn't that crazy? It's too much.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Just bored. People just out here bored. Just out here bored.

• 3:24Keke Palmer?

  Literally, literally. Okay, what is your love language? Do you know your love language? Are you into that kinda thing?

• 3:30Speaker 01

  I love love. That's, I don't.

• 3:32Keke Palmer?

  So, love languages, they say like, um.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  You just laughing at me? This [BLEEP] old. I don't mean.

• 3:38Keke Palmer?

  You're not old.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  What is, what's love?

• 3:40Keke Palmer?

  So, love language, what they say basically is, there's a, there's one on how you receive love, like, the things that you identify most as loving. So, you might really identify it as loving when somebody do stuff for you. That's like acts of service, or if somebody spend a lot of quality of time with you, or physical touch. Um, but then it's also like,

• 4:02Keke Palmer?

  what feels most loving to, or how do you show love? You might show love differently than how you receive love.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  That's facts. Uh, I guess my love language is,

• 4:12Speaker 01

  mm, time.

• 4:13Keke Palmer?

  You like spending time, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  You know, time, and obviously affection.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  And, uh, different experiences.

• 4:27Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  I wanna, cause when you become somebody that people admire or look up to, like, like us, then the money is everything, but it's not the only thing. And so, experience is kinda fills in the void of what.

• 4:47Keke Palmer?

  I love what you're saying with that, because sometimes when people have money, when you get money, you haven't had money, you assume that the money is gonna make the experience, but actually, it doesn't. It's like what you decide. It can make, you can add to it, but like, sometimes you might do something more unique, um, you know, when you don't have a ton of cash, cause you're being more creative.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 5:07Keke Palmer?

  You know?

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Absolutely. But also, when you got money, you can get the villa, you can get the jet skis, you can get the chef. But when you do that, that adds to the experience, though, you know what I mean? It flubs the experience. So, it's all about, I think that's, that's love for me. Like, even sharing the experience with anybody. I know a lot of times when I traveled around the world, I would see something, and I would want to bring somebody, like a friend or a partner, or someone like, man, I want somebody else to experience this, so, yeah.

• 5:35Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah. Sometimes it is, you know, like they say is, it ain't nothing if you ain't got nobody to share it with.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Facts.

• 5:42Keke Palmer?

  Um, this, I can't, I don't even know what you would say, cause it doesn't seem like something you'd have an answer to. But who would you?

• 5:49Speaker 01

  I've been, let me get this one right.

• 5:51Keke Palmer?

  Who would you wanna switch lives with, and why? I just can't imagine you wanna switch lives with anybody. That's why I felt like.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  I'm so cool, you know? Like, God really took his time with me. I think about the conveyor belt.

• 6:00Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  It's this conveyor belt, and he made me. And then it broke.

• 6:08Keke Palmer?

  Okay.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  And then, like, they fixed it, but they couldn't make no more me's. That's how I really see God. You know, he was just, he was kinda taking his time with me.

• 6:19Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  And then, like, broke, and then, you know, but he was finished. Or maybe he wasn't finished.

• 6:25Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  But it's just like, I'm, I'm very comfortable in my skin.

• 6:30Keke Palmer?

  I feel like somebody shoved him, when he had a little bit of crazy in his hand, they like, he was like, oh.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  He had a little bit.

• 6:35Keke Palmer?

  He overdid it, man.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  He put a little bit more sprinkle on you? I could see that, too. If you know, you know.

• 6:42Keke Palmer?

  Last one is, what is your secret talent?

• 6:47Keke Palmer?

  Is there something that you can do that we would be just like, whoa?

• 6:51Speaker 01

  I mean, it's not, whoa, I think I can cook. I can,

• 6:58Speaker 01

  I got a garden.

• 6:59Keke Palmer?

  What?

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think.

• 7:02Keke Palmer?

  Not a green thumb?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm thinking about my garden now, cause it's been raining in Atlanta, and that rainwater different from that.

• 7:08Keke Palmer?

  He said, I'm thinking about my garden right now.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, that rainwater different from that hose water.

• 7:13Keke Palmer?

  What you got growing over there?

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Right now, I just got some banana peppers, some bell peppers, some mint. Um, I have some Swiss chard. I have some.

• 7:25Keke Palmer?

  The fancy greens.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do have some fancy greens. I got kale, too.

• 7:29Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Kale, too.

• 7:30Keke Palmer?

  I love that. It takes a lot of patience. My dad has a garden. It takes a lot of patience to get out there and make something grow.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  But it's so cool to know that,

• 7:43Speaker 01

  that that's really all it takes. It's really, you know what I mean? It's really, once you, it's, it's not as hard as people think, but once you take a, a seed and plant it, and it grows, and fruits or vegetables or whatever comes from it, and for a long time, I hadn't been doing it this year, but for a long time, the first thing I would do would go to my garden, take something off of it, and eat something from my yard.

• 8:08Keke Palmer?

  What do you think the key would be to gardening? What are the, what are the, like, some of the maybe underrated kind of three things that you'd need to do to make sure that it grows?

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Um, it has to stay watered. Obviously, you have to have, uh, good soil, too. The guy that comes over my composite is like, he, he probably makes his own soil out of cow manure and a few other things, but.

• 8:32Keke Palmer?

  Sure, sure.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Things like that, um, you know, what you feed the plant and all that, but it's really not that hard. Like, it's interest, it's not interesting, but it's sad that so many people are, um, you know, don't have anything to eat, you know what I mean? That we out here.

• 8:47Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, I grew up in a food desert. We only had, like, liquor stores and, you know.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  But you can take one, anything. You can take one potato, make multiple potatoes, or one apple, make multiple apples. If you really, like, think about it like that.

• 9:01Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Like, okra, I mean, like, during the fall.

• 9:04Keke Palmer?

  I love okra.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  Me too. See, that's how I know you're a Virgo, cause when I say okra, people look at me like I'm crazy, but my okra be busting.

• 9:10Keke Palmer?

  I love okra.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Man, I go get mine, saute it on, on top with my little olive oil, and I hit it with a, I mean.

• 9:18Keke Palmer?

  Come on, hit it.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  On the way out, I just hit it. This, it's light, though. I hit it with some, um, like, a teriyaki type of sauce on the way out, though, when I'm finna put them on a plate. Yeah, I do the saute, but then I got them cut, I got the okra in there with the banana peppers, and a couple of other greens out my yard. So, I got this little healthy dish I'll do.

• 9:37Keke Palmer?

  So, you could cook down, like, now, when you, I heard you mention all the vegetables. Are you vegetable four? Are you big on fish? What are your kind, like, kind of, if you made a plate or something, what would it be? What's the flavors? What is it gonna be like?

• 9:48Speaker 01

  My next thing is, I'm getting, um, a lake built in my yard. It's probably gonna cost me about, about thirty, forty thousand. But I'm gonna get a lake, and then my plan is to obviously stock the lake. And then one day, only have a meal that's from my yard. That's my, that's my dream. So, the fish, I don't eat beef or pork anyway, so I'm not missing anything.

• 10:09Keke Palmer?

  I don't either.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, my, my dream is to, you know, stock the fish, I mean, stock the lake, go fishing one day, do the whole, you know, do the whole thing.

• 10:20Keke Palmer?

  It takes it back in a day. You know what I mean? Getting into that agriculture.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  I mean, I got, I got, I got a hundred acres, and that's my way of popping my [BLEEP].

• 10:31Keke Palmer?

  A hundred acres. Okay, we're gonna get into all of this. We're gonna just go at the top, um, because everybody knows you as Two Chainz, right? You know, we all know you, love you, but I don't know that everybody knows.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Everybody know I love me? Is that what you just said?

• 10:43Keke Palmer?

  No, everybody love you.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Okay, I was, I do love me, too, though, but everybody.

• 10:47Keke Palmer?

  No, everybody love you, you know?

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 10:50Keke Palmer?

  Um, but I don't know that everybody knows Tahid.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:53Keke Palmer?

  You know, that's your first name, and I feel like that. Tahid, Tahid, maybe. Did I say it right?

• 10:57Speaker 01

  That's close, yeah.

• 10:58Keke Palmer?

  I ain't do it with the accent. I said it wrong.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  It's there, though.

• 11:02Keke Palmer?

  But you've been introducing us to that person, I think, for the last, you know, what, some odd years. We starting to really get to know you, um, in your world. So, who is Tahid?

• 11:14Speaker 01

  I'm a Virgo. I enjoy long walks in the.

• 11:18Keke Palmer?

  Come on, head profile.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  I enjoy long while I enjoy, I enjoy sports. Uh, I enjoy family. I enjoy entertaining.

• 11:33Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  I enjoy being on stage. I enjoy dressing. I enjoy having a bunch of fragrances that I can't choose from on a day to day basis. I enjoy having

• 11:46Speaker 01

  vehicles that I can't decide on which one I'm gonna drive on a day to day basis.

• 11:51Keke Palmer?

  I heard you contacted the CEO of Porsche to get you Porsche.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was back in the days, but it worked out for me.

• 11:56Keke Palmer?

  That's crazy, cuz what is the deal with Porsche or Porsche? How you do it? Is it like, it's very private? So the process of getting one, is it very like?

• 12:04Speaker 01

  No, so this was like, uh, this was, uh, let me, let me rewind this. This is a few years ago. It's about, it was about twenty ten.

• 12:10Keke Palmer?

  Okay.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  And they were introducing a four door Porsche, which you see them all, you see them everywhere. So this is before the four door Porsche came out. They were like, we're about to bring out a four door Porsche. It was like this. And so I had already, I was on like my

• 12:26Speaker 01

  third or fourth, you know, type of car. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, um, so I went down, they told me, they got this four door Porsche. They gave me the book and they said that, uh, I was a little concerned cuz I'm six five and I'm like, you know, I couldn't actually get in. They like, no, they did the Porsche and they, however they explained, he said that they, that a six five person could actually sit in the backseat of this Porsche. So when I heard that, I'm like, I've never been in the backseat. I know I can, I know I can drive it. So, man, I done called, I done ordered this, I done put this Porsche on my American Express. Yeah, and, and I'm like, I don't, so I don't, I done bought this car.

• 13:04Keke Palmer?

  It's been a black, black car. Took all that power.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I bought this car. But you know, American Express, they want their money in like, they want their money like thirty day. But I, I, I needed a little time to get it. And then, but my car never, never came.

• 13:21Keke Palmer?

  Wait a minute.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  My car never came out. I bought this car. I keep asking about this car. They told me it's on a ship from Germany to over here. So some lady gives me a number or, uh, no, email and said, you can try to call, I mean, email this person. He probably won't respond. I, I emailed this person. This man, this man respond. And he like, I'm sorry that you haven't received your car yet. Like, and he gave me like a, a Cayenne truck. The, no, it was like, he sent me somewhere like, I didn't even know. It was crazy. He sent me to, it was like a place. I get there, they got this truck. They like, they just gave it to me. I leave with a Porsche truck.

• 13:59Keke Palmer?

  That's fabulous.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I had this Porsche truck for like two months. I think it's mine. I'm doing everything. It's my car. They called one night at night, well, your, your car here. Some, rest in peace my pop. He with me. He on some swindle, he on the same thing I'm on. I like my car. They're like, babe, I'm like, pop, I need you to take me up here to get the Porsche. We gonna leave this cuz we don't know. I got this Porsche from the guy I've been emailing, not from this lot. And so I don't wanna confuse you. I'm gonna keep this Porsche.

• 14:28Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  We go up here and get this car. We go up and get the car. They like, what a, what a truck at? I played crazy. I'm like, damn, oh. Y'all want me to bring the truck up here? Cuz I'm thinking I need to take it back to where I got it from.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  I'm like, well, we need that truck, boy. You know what I mean? And anyway, I end up getting the car, giving them their truck, getting some free luggage or something like that. But that's when I started learning what just, not even started, but just how important communication and business was because it was business and it was about like just taking a chance, reaching out and I end up getting a little favoritism out of doing it.

• 15:05Keke Palmer?

  Come on, it's the follow through of it all for me.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:07Keke Palmer?

  She should have known. She said, mentioned that to a Virgo. I'mma email you again and gave me the email.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm, I'm had to email the person that gave me this car. I don't know if I should just drop it. I'm like, well, stop the cap. Bring that car. Bring that truck up here. So, yeah.

• 15:21Keke Palmer?

  So, I mean, let's look at your life today. I mean, you, you touring with Lil Wayne. You got new music coming out. I can't wait for that. You wrote a memoir called The Voice in My Head is God. Incredible title. I'm actually low key jealous cuz it's like very, very, it's very that.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:35Keke Palmer?

  Um, you raising a family. You doing your podcast. I love the podcast with you and Halo. You know, I got me a son.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:43Keke Palmer?

  Can I just live for you and your son?

• 15:45Speaker 01

  They just lit you up too. It's so cool, right?

• 15:48Keke Palmer?

  It's so cool.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Little piece of you.

• 15:51Keke Palmer?

  And it's just your little home and your little road dog. You get to see and support this person on who they're becoming. You know what I'm saying? And they give you so much. You know what I'm saying?

• 15:59Speaker 01

  It's, it's, Halo was, uh, not was, but is, like, someone that I just used to brag about all the time. Probably used to make it awkward cuz I just knew he was ahead of his time. Halo,

• 16:14Speaker 01

  basically, he basically potty trained himself, bro. He never, he has never, this is something that I think is might look at like it's small. Halo has never peed in the bed, wore a pull up. He went from a diaper to some Paw Patrol drawers.

• 16:31Keke Palmer?

  They love that Paw Patrol.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  That he, I tell him, don't pee on Paw Patrol. He, boy, I ain't gonna pee on Paw Patrol. That was all I had to tell, dog. Don't, I ain't gonna, what? I'm like, bro, you can't mess that up. He like, and he, he just, he's been talking since he was like, talk, saying full sentences since he was like eighteen months, like, he used to walk around the house and be like, two chains with the ponytail, just be messing with me. I just be like, boy, get out my face, boy. And then I said, man, I gotta do something so I can like highlight how intelligent he is and then highlight our relationship, like as a, in this space, like black father with, with, with his family period. You know what I'm saying? And, uh, we've been doing it for about five years.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  We going on a, we going on our fiftieth episode. So I can't say that it's been overly consistent, but every time, we've, we're starting to do them every week now. But of course, he's a, a child. He's ten years old at the same time.

• 17:30Keke Palmer?

  He has a lot for kids. I mean, as a kid entertainer, it's best to break it up.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you know, he plays AAU, you know, he's on, he's out for, for some school, but school and all of that. So, but we have so many people that wanna be on the show, like, like LeBron just said he's gonna come, but there's so many people that wanna sit down with me and him, chop it up about life, fatherhood, sports or whatever. So I'm happy that God blessed me with someone like Halo because he's like really my best friend right now. Like I be, I be, I miss not hanging around. Before he came in, I told him, I'm like, I'm about to do this with Kiki Pump. Like, Kiki Pump, I'm like, you know, a killer to be, you know, he like, oh, yeah, I'd had to go back. And he's like, oh, yeah, I remember. I like, she know, oh, y'all, I knew he was gonna ask about him.

• 18:18Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  He was on the way to practice. So, yeah.

• 18:21Keke Palmer?

  Oh, man, you had to, I'm saying, hey, so me and your pop, we been, uh, family forever.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Forever.

• 18:25Keke Palmer?

  Forever.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Forever.

• 18:26Keke Palmer?

  Back when I lived in Atlanta.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, forever.

• 18:29Keke Palmer?

  I always appreciate the person you've been to me, man. You was always just straight up and cool. Was never no weirdness. You always just been a A one person.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  I was explaining to, they was trying to like explain, like she may ask you this. I'm like, this, it's like my, my sister for real. I mean, sometime that sister, you have to watch it. Sometime that sister mean it's some other stuff going on. But this, this is like,

• 18:50Keke Palmer?

  Yes, bro. No, that's why I say it's true. It's true cuz everybody ain't, ain't really straight up like that.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  But I, I, I really with you. I with you. When we see each other out, it's like, we just, we smile. I'm like, Virgo, you know what I mean? So I think it's the, it's just that genuine love, you know what I mean? When we see each other, it's always, it's always a vibe.

• 19:09Keke Palmer?

  Always, always. What, what do you think makes this, aside from obviously the incredible Halo, what would you say makes this chapter of your life different from the ones before?

• 19:26Keke Palmer?

  I think I just found our next family trip and it's Asheville, North Carolina. Yes. September is when the leaves start turning and I am building this entire trip around a porch. I need to find a home on Airbnb with a real porch because I can already picture mornings out there with coffee and evenings watching the mountains change color while my parents pretend they're not getting emotional about it.

• 19:49Keke Palmer?

  I'm putting the River Arts District on the list too because watching glass blowers work is like the kind of thing that my sister will talk about for years. My dad's already asking if Asheville has good barbecue, which yes, obviously, that's so locked in. We're also doing the Biltmore one afternoon. It's this gorgeous Gilded Age mansion right outside of the city that makes you feel like you've been transported to Versailles. I wanna watch my parents walk those gardens like kids again. So what I'm saying is find a place to stay on Airbnb in Asheville this fall. I'm building the whole trip around that porch so we can get that magical home away from home feel. And I'm not even sorry about it.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  I put out a book, I talked about intuition in the book.

• 20:36Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  It's like I got approached about doing a book and I didn't want to be like a cliche.

• 20:45Keke Palmer?

  I'm a rapper.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Stereotypical, yeah, you know what I'm saying, do an autobiography and then just tell like my dark side and like my struggles and what I've been through. And like try to get that trauma porn or like that pity party going. And I have had my share of that, but I wanted to like teach and like.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't know, my whole, my object, my objective for putting this literature together was to have something. To, that lives past me, you know, it's a part of like a legacy play. And so with me putting out the book recently and it being a New York Times bestseller.

• 21:23Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, congratulations on that.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Thank you. It's not like music where you can get bots to buy your stuff or bots to. This is, so this, this connection about this inner navigational tool that I'm using to. Every day on what I eat, dress, which direction I go, that is really overwhelming. When you, when you get a voice in your head. I don't know about a negative one, but when you get a voice in your, in your head that I think is as powerful as mine. It could be loud sometime, I mean, it's not disturbing, but my voice is like. If I don't do what it says, I get like, it bothers me, you know what I'm saying?

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Because when I do, do, do, do what this voice says, it, it leads me to like a high success rate.

• 22:11Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  And so I tried to articulate that in a book, which I think I did a good job, but I. I articulated it with telling some stories on how I either listened to the story in my head.

• 22:21Keke Palmer?

  Come on and better narrative.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:22Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  Or if I didn't. And it got great feedback. And so this is all just like layers to.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Me building out like the, the legacy play for me, you know, I, I still. Really enjoy doing music, I'm on tour Wayne, I love being on stage, I love when they got the, um, camera phone on me. You know what I'm saying? And I'm like, I'm tall, but it's like, I ain't like the goofy tall, you know what I'm saying? I'm like a player, I'm like. You know what I mean? And just sitting up there and just looking at them, you know what I mean? I, I'm loving it, 12,000, 18,000, 9,000. You know what I'm saying? Two Chainz, so I love that, I'm about to put out a project, like you said, it's called Players Only Live Once because.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 23:08Keke Palmer?

  Great title.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:11Keke Palmer?

  What do we mean by that? Players only live once.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, the title. Pretty much says it all, you know? I don't feel like everybody's a player, cause it's some. It is some weirdos and some other stuff, when I say player, it's like, I consider you a player, it's like. A vibe, it's a certain energy. And when that's gone, it's like, damn, it's like, you know when a player are gone. You know when a player ain't around no more, the experience, the hanging, all that stuff, cause there's so many people like that don't get, don't get it, don't get life. And so this project is a, a little bit more laid back, a little bit more storytelling. I, I always, I always enjoy samples. Um, a lot of features, man, I got so many people that came in to be a part of my project from.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Macy Gray, Leon Thomas.

• 24:00Keke Palmer?

  Someone must told me the grass was much greener. We love Macy Gray.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  We love that, man, my album is fire, my album, it's like, I describe it as like. A white party that serves red wine.

• 24:16Keke Palmer?

  Oh.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  And your objective is to try to get out without a stain.

• 24:20Keke Palmer?

  Come on, gamified album.

• 24:23Keke Palmer?

  Yes. But I love what you said too about, you, you have, this is what I've always loved about your music, I think people love about you. Is that you're so smart, you fly, but you funny too. And you find a way to keep that personality and that character in the music. Which I just love so much and everything that you do, where so it's, it's approachable and people can lean in, it's like, man, he crazy, you know what I'm saying?

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:45Keke Palmer?

  Even when we go back to titty boy days, you know?

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Titty boy, I mean, one of the things that, that's helped my career is the, the transparency aspect, is the. Whether it's family, whether it's. You know, not to say I won't stand on business, but it's hard to get me out of my body.

• 25:03Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  If my mom and my wife ain't around, or my kids, like.

• 25:06Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  I ain't trying to like, I don't have to impress a bunch of. And throw. I, li- listen, I've been outside, I've been around so long that I remember. This is fact, I remember when would. You up by stepping on their shoes, like go to, go to jail, it's, it's in jail, that done killed somebody. I remember, I'm taking their hats, taking their jackets, so I went through all these eras of. When I look back, how petty it was, but it, it was all like these survival, different, different survival tactics. So you mean to tell me, I'm gonna go through all these different survival tactics, then I'm gonna get some millions, get in the music industry. And then that up?

• 25:45Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  I can't see me doing it, so yeah, I'm gonna smile.

• 25:48Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Even when I'm going through stuff, because I do go through stuff, uh, uh, my, my smile is like my biggest defense mechanism, you'll never know what I'm going through, cause I kinda. I'm, I've been here long enough to know that, like, I don't have like a shoulder to lean, you know, like, so me trying to like.

• 26:03Keke Palmer?

  That's intelligence, that's adaptive intelligence, even if it is through performance or dialect, code switching, whatever it is, all that stuff, 1,000%.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:12Keke Palmer?

  It's the way you stay above it all, especially the more you go into institutions and you are challenged in a different way. Somebody not be, might not be stepping on your toe, but they might be disrespecting you.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:21Keke Palmer?

  You know?

• 26:22Speaker 01

  We don't do, so that's the thing, like, ain't no disrespect. And if it was, I probably could like, not throw my life away. Cause of, of the prior thing, but like, let my mama be, like my mama, my wife, or my kid, they never seen me like go for any of it. And then that's when I go do time, crash out, do stuff that. You know, my oldest daughter be like, oh, it's like, dad, it's not that serious, you know what I mean, or whatever, but yeah, that's when. Like my mama know I'm jumping, I'm going, I'm, I'm, she, she's never seen me like. Be less than like the man of the house, from an early age all the way up, so I can't see me. And my, my wife know what it is too, so basically, I think that's what it is for me, it's more or less like the audience.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  And stuff like that, like no one, I don't want any, I don't wanna deal with disrespect, but if you disrespect me, I can, I can get on that too.

• 27:12Keke Palmer?

  What is your relationship with your history in the music game and how you see the younger cats going up? This, not to knock nobody or to judge somebody, but I'm just curious, cause even for me, I, you know, I'm still in my 30s, whatever, but it's like, I've been doing it for 20 plus years and. So my relationship to, okay, well, how can I hand this off? Or how can I steward or support the next generation only in these ways? How do you, um, how, how are you doing that or how do you approach that when approached?

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Well, honestly, it's hard enough because once they get the money or trying to get the money. It's like, it's hard for them to like listen, you know what I'm saying? And nobody wants to like preachy, preachy type of guidance, right? So it's cool to try to, you know, lead by example, but at the same time.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  I'm not sure where we are with deaf people so into there. Being a part of it, wanna be a part of, I'm not sure what's going on with the, um. Want you to know that I did something bad, you know what I'm saying? Like, I, oh man, who I was telling this to, uh. Oh no, somebody was asking me, it was, it was like, it was obviously back in the day, we was talking about hustling and how we. It was like supposed to be, it was kinda like a secret, you know what I mean? It's like selling drugs back in the days, you had to be one of the biggest like hustlers in the world, cause you couldn't like. You didn't have no billboard, you couldn't just go around. You couldn't go around.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Like you can now.

• 28:44Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? Like, Lord knows, if I had access, let me stop, but I think.

• 28:50Keke Palmer?

  We was at the movies.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  With the younger, with the younger guys, sometimes they don't see themselves getting to their 30s or their 40s, I'm in my 40s now, you know what I'm saying?

• 28:57Keke Palmer?

  Which is crazy.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  And, um.

• 28:59Keke Palmer?

  It's unfortunate.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they might not see it and then they might not have a kinda a father figure in their life. And then it is like. Man, you gotta kinda show that you ain't no punk for some reason these days, like you gotta show you. You're, you're fire, you gotta show that you got a tool, you gotta show that you got money, gotta show that you got certain things. So a lot of people blame social media, but I'm just. I'm not, I'm not sure why someone could. Go to prison, at least so many millions out, and, and I know it's like not anyone, nobody wa- you know, woke up this morning like, I'm going to prison today, you know what I'm saying?

• 29:36Keke Palmer?

  I mean, I think it gets to a point where it's like, we've been, we know there's systematic pressures, there's things that's, you know, that systemically hold you back, then before you know it, now you chose a side, now you guys arguing, now we there, now we, once you get in an institution.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  I ain't no punk, I got these hoe, I got these hoe and these. I can't, you know what I'm saying? So in, I might can god dang, if I don't do it. I might can pay a do it, then you pay a to do it, and go do it, and he tell on you. Man, I don't want no pause of what's going on with that, man.

• 30:03Keke Palmer?

  Nah, man, and, and it was so funny, my sister and I, we were talking about, you remember that old movie with Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy called Life?

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Life, yeah.

• 30:10Keke Palmer?

  You remember Life?

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:11Keke Palmer?

  We was talking about it and my sister's so into everything that's going on in Chicago, she be talking about drill, murder music, all this, she's always is, she's a professor, so she is always. Thinking about these things within the system and stuff. Make a long story short, she was talking to me about how she thinks about that movie. Now, from when we were younger, and she was like, it was sad when I was younger, but as I got older, I looked at it and said, man, maybe they felt safer in jail. Than being out in the world at that time. And then it made me just think about everything that's going on in today, like even though the, the time differences, like there was like years and years, that movie was in the 30s or something. I think it might be just as scary for young black men and, and, and worrisome and.

• 30:50Keke Palmer?

  Uh, hard to find the way, and if you find a way, it be in the right way, that, not saying I understand, but that I wonder if that's how it ends up being where. I'm just be up in jail, at least my is in here, at least my people is in here, at least I understand how it works in here.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  I got an, an example, so. When I was trapping or hustling, we had.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Uh, uh, we call them Jays, but, um, I guess you would say junkie or fi- or uh, user.

• 31:20Keke Palmer?

  Yes, yeah.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Trying to be.

• 31:21Keke Palmer?

  Someone that is, um, have an addiction.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. User, username was Black. Black could do everything. He was ripped up. He could do pushups, he could, our lights got cut off, he could cut them back on, he could just li- he could do everything. But one day, Black came to our studio, he said, y'all boys need anything. Cause man, it's cold, I, I think I'ma go to jail tonight. And we say, what you mean, Black? Black said, I'ma go somewhere and bust a window, I'ma wait till the police come, so I don't have to be cold and homeless. And we said, nah, Black, he said, I see y'all in about a week or two. And he, we didn't see him, but

• 32:01Speaker 01

  his whole thinking was, he gonna go somewhere where he can get a, a place to stay, a shower, and three meals a day. And, you know, he did something that was, uh, probably, uh, obviously a misdemeanor of a crime, but, uh, yeah, so some people do choose that because, I mean, I know for a fact that I heard someone say they wanted to, they were going into that direction to survive, so that could be like, I'm not sure what the young kids are going through, but, yeah, I'm sorry.

• 32:33Keke Palmer?

  I be just concerned for our folks, man, that bothers me.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 32:38Keke Palmer?

  It bothers me. Cause I really don't, you know, there really ain't no answer to it, you know what I'm saying? We be looking everywhere, we worried about so much that's going on everywhere else. What's going on in America?

• 32:47Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, it's, it's, it's, but it's been tough out here, it's just now.

• 32:51Keke Palmer?

  Young boy out there missing.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, yeah, no, it's been tough out here, that, it's, it's, it's now with all the, you know, social platforms that you starting to get like a magnifying glass on it, but honestly, Kiki, it's been tough like this in our neighborhoods and in the trenches, and that's why I wanted some of the young black men come out of that. It seem like it's, we celebrating that.

• 33:17Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  But like, you, people don't know what it's like to come outside a house, a, a door that your mom, your mama bought a property, you have nothing to do with it as a child. You have nothing to do with where you live or come up as a child. You come out a door and everybody next door around you, they do the same thing. And so, it, you could say,

• 33:38Speaker 01

  you your own individual, but how, if I come out this door and everybody on this block is doing the same thing?

• 33:45Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  It's like, it's a miracle.

• 33:48Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  When you make it out of that.

• 33:50Keke Palmer?

  And they're expecting everybody to be, I talk about this all the time, why should people be roses that grow from concrete? Why wouldn't you have some grass?

• 33:57Speaker 01

  I'm telling you.

• 33:58Keke Palmer?

  If you're expecting everybody to be LeBron James, uh, Two Chains, you know, all the people that you're looking, K- Keke Palmer, where I come, where I come from, if you're expecting everybody to work at these levels and to be doing all, it maybe, it's just not, it's not reasonable. It's not reasonable. And that's why you, and I hate it, I've always hated, um, when people have used me as an example of, you see, things can be good, no.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 34:25Keke Palmer?

  No. No, no, no, just because you can point to certain people that you assume are excessive, you don't know what I'm dealing with when I go at home and I close the lights.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:33Keke Palmer?

  You don't know what I've, what, what has cost me.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:36Keke Palmer?

  You know what I mean?

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 34:37Keke Palmer?

  So, um, yeah, I hate that.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  You can do a good job of not,

• 34:42Speaker 01

  cause I do feel like it's, it's some people that go around and, and then they want you to say, are you okay? What's wrong with you? And I have made it my business to not say [BLEEP] to you. I do my best not to be that person.

• 34:55Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Cause I, it's, it's only because I don't like it, you know what I'm saying? So I do my best to like, like, I go through some stuff, I try to keep my chin up, my chest out, and I just try to, you know, white might say something, well, you good, everything good? Like, today.

• 35:11Keke Palmer?

  Mm, mm.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Um, I found out that a, a friend of mine, in like, a DJ, bigger rank, had passed away.

• 35:19Keke Palmer?

  I'm sorry to hear that.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  I was so hurt, I was like, man, this is my, man, we talk, he was one of the people that helped me, um, early on with my mixtape, just an older guy that had a lot of wisdom, you know? And he had been dealing with, I think, kidneys, he was doing dialysis and stuff. But I got the text before I woke up, so I wanted to just, you know, send my condolences to him, I mean, to his family, and just rest in peace to his soul, cause he was a good, he was a good man, from, from my experience with him. And people are just, it's just, just happening, man, life is just, it's just life, and people are passing away so, so much.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  So often now, you know what I mean? And then I'm, I'm at the age, like I said, I'm in my forties, so I'm at the age where I got friends that got cancer. I got friends that got newborn babies, I got friends that got grandbabies. I got friends that.

• 36:13Keke Palmer?

  Kids going to college?

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Man, I got frie- I got, yeah, my kid going, my kid going to college, I got friend, man, I got, it's like, when you get around this age, I got a little bit of everything going on, so, um, I do know it's important, family's important also, a- and health, you know what I'm saying? Food, water, I mean, it may sound simple, but like, things are like, things like that could, you know, I think add value to life.

• 36:40Keke Palmer?

  Is there something that the younger you would look at you now and say, oh, man, that's crazy, I can't believe you on that? Or, you know, I'm surprised about this, or do you, do you feel that you look like who you thought you'd be at this age?

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was a smart, I was a smart trapper, I was a smart hustler, though.

• 36:56Keke Palmer?

  Period, I got.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  I was.

• 36:57Keke Palmer?

  Come on.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  I was a smart, I was a smart, even like, I got locked up in high school, and then when the teachers, because it's like, when I got locked up in high school, the teachers didn't know that I was hustling. But I got caught with drugs in high school, but the teachers wrote letters for me to get back in, like, six of them, I know, you know, never forget.

• 37:15Keke Palmer?

  Oh, my gosh, six teachers.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Six teachers. And I, I talked to one of them recently, I had to do like a show like this, and I had to like, they got on the phone.

• 37:23Keke Palmer?

  What was one of their names, Miss Love?

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:25Keke Palmer?

  Miss Love, come on out, girl. Nah, I'm lying.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Yo, eh, can't behave.

• 37:34Keke Palmer?

  I couldn't wait to do that to you, dawg. Yo, I couldn't wait to do that to you, I was like, he gonna fall out.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Oh, I said, boy, y'all done flew up, then Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy. Boy, I owe you one, boy, I know my face look crazy, boy.

• 37:52Keke Palmer?

  You was like.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  I'm like.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  You ain't back then. That was crazy, yeah.

• 37:59Keke Palmer?

  But Miss Love and, and a whole gang of them.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, wrote letters, anyway, got me back in, but, but what I was trying to say, like, I don't even know what I was trying to say, that was the letter.

• 38:08Keke Palmer?

  Just that you were smart, and they didn't know, but you, they kinda probably was like, yo, you, you should, you should use it for this, or something like that.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  They were saying that.

• 38:17Keke Palmer?

  Why did I take it to Dangerous Minds?

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Uh, in a nutshell, give this, give this child a second chance, so to speak, that's kinda like what it was. Because I, I like to, I like to also share that, I, I only, I, I, the only time I made a C was intent, it was on purpose. I made a C, I went to college, I hadn't had a C before, you know, and I'm riding this A, B type of thing, and I just wanted to know what it felt like to be average. You know, like a normal, like, uh, so I, it was a class that I didn't.

• 38:53Keke Palmer?

  Yo, you are ridiculously funny talking to someone, I just wanted to know, what it's like to be average?

• 38:59Speaker 01

  It's Cs. You know, or, I've never liked DF, I don't even know, like, I ain't never been down there, but just, just like,

• 39:09Speaker 01

  but how I got to C was just not going to class.

• 39:12Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  It was just like, that's all it was.

• 39:14Keke Palmer?

  What were your favorite subjects in school? What were the things that you really liked? I know you played basketball.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, obviously, that was my thing, but as far as like learning, I think what I did not enjoy a lot of was, I, I remember not enjoying world history a lot, and it's crazy now.

• 39:31Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  Because I'll follow history channels or whatever pop up now, but I don't know, the way they used to teach some of that stuff, I guess at my school, I just, I wasn't, I, I just was not interested in a lot of that.

• 39:46Keke Palmer?

  I liked language arts, which I don't even know if that's a real thing. I realize a lot of the schools I went to, whoa, they were crazy.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:53Keke Palmer?

  Um, but I loved, always loved language, uh, that's still true to me today. Um, but I didn't like math, but now, because I didn't like the concept of showing my work, like, I could understand something, but I hated the idea that I had to show it the way that you wanted me to show it. But now I'm obsessed with, I attach that now to like, how I distill methods, like, when I wanna te- teach somebody something or share something with somebody. Now I understand like, sh- the structure of math differently, of like, like, showing your work is, is not even necessarily to, to prove anything other than that, it's a path of how to get somewhere.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 40:26Keke Palmer?

  Very on that Underground Railroad. So now, now I'm like, I need the proof.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 40:33Keke Palmer?

  You know what I mean?

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, math, I was probably a B student in math, but like, my, my daughter, she got to.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Free ca- whatever she got to, I told her, but I never got up there. So don't even come asking. I told her, I like, you know, I like to let them know I'm smart. Give me a, give me a, give me an equation. Man, that thing looked like a paragraph when she wrote that. I said, boy, I am not ready for this.

• 41:01Keke Palmer?

  What is she going to school for? Uh, medic- like a criminal?

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Criminal justice.

• 41:04Keke Palmer?

  Criminal ju- oof.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, criminal justice, but also I put a bug in her ear to, to keep in mind as she's going to college that how, um, fluent and how much is going on with AI.

• 41:21Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  And to, to definitely not go to school for nothing. You know what I'm saying? Don't go to school and then you realize that what you're going to school for or whatever you're doing. Now, I, I went to college, so I think it's a great experience. I still have some friends that I, uh, communicate with from time to time from college. Um, it's a, it's a great experience. I went to a black school too, so I went to,

• 41:44Keke Palmer?

  HBCU.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  To HBCU, yeah. So that was, so I encouraged.

• 41:47Keke Palmer?

  And she is going to an HBCU, isn't she?

• 41:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's going to Howard, so.

• 41:51Keke Palmer?

  That is awesome.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Y'all look out for my baby down there.

• 41:54Keke Palmer?

  My sister went to FAMU.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  We visited FAMU.

• 41:57Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, she loved it.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  FAMU, it was, it was, it was between those, kind of between those two. We went to FAMU.

• 42:01Keke Palmer?

  Same thing with my sister, FAMU and Howard. Um, so I want to go back to that moment you were talking about with, with the teachers and how they, you know, wanted to help you get out of trouble. At that time of your life, did you see a future for yourself in music? Did you know where you were gonna be going?

• 42:16Speaker 01

  No, I wasn't doing music at all at, um, in high school. I wasn't doing music at all in high school. It was crazy. I just was really good at selling weed and I was good at being on top of my, my studies. I just was like, man, cause it was me and my mom and just making sure like, back then, everything was just simpler. You know what I'm saying? No baby mamas or kids or anything. It was just yourself. So it was like, I've been very self-sufficient. I'm an only child, so I've been like very, very self-sufficient a very long time.

• 42:49Keke Palmer?

  You spent, what I was doing, getting ready for this, you spent a lot of time solo. From what I, from what I realized, you know, doing things on your own, kind of, you know, in that time of solitude and those moments, how much, you know, when you think about your character and how it was built in that, what are some of the main things that you take from it?

• 43:07Keke Palmer?

  Cause a lot of people don't know how to be alone. You know, it can be a tough thing.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  It's, it's discipline, but I, I'm alone really like, I'm alone a lot of times. But I also enjoy quiet time and, and enables me to think.

• 43:23Keke Palmer?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  I do get ramped up and want people around, you know, energy, man, women, both. But a lot of times I'm, I'm riding, give me the, if I do have a drive, I'm riding by myself. And if I'm driving, I'm driving by myself and I've been moving like that for a long time. Um, I don't know what it is. It's a, I, I, I, I think I'm a little bit, I have a little in- introvert going, thing going on.

• 43:53Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  But also I could be the life of the party, you know, so I don't know how they really explain.

• 43:58Keke Palmer?

  A lot of people will be thinking that about, like, when I talk to people, that they would, they're like, oh, what's somebody, something that people would be surprised? But I love being alone too. I love being time, time to myself, time to think. Um, because I feel like I'm absorbing everything all the time, everybody I'm around, with energy, you know, saying, what, you know, even if it don't have nothing to do with me, I'm constantly being, you know, I'm engaging with it energetically. So I like being alone too because it allows me opportunity just to, just, you know, only sit with myself.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I'm alone a lot though. I might, I'm just sitting here thinking, I might, I might need some help.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  I ain't tripping, but I, I don't know.

• 44:37Keke Palmer?

  Um, so you played college, uh, in Alabama State before your music and everything like that. Um, how much of that mindset really has enabled your success? And I ask because I've always felt like athletes and musicians have things in common. Like, I don't know if it's like the discipline or just the fact that people look to those spaces for culture and influence, but I'm curious of what you learned, you know, in your career playing basketball that you feel like also matches what, you know, what's allowed you to have success in music.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I started playing basketball at the age of seven, um, at the MLK Recreation Center in Atlanta. Yeah, and, and, uh, at AU. And it teaches you, obviously teamwork, but structured discipline. And I tell people now, cause my kid is in youth sports, that if you are playing sports, which I suggest every kid to try sports, if you get around the right coach, I think that it could be an extension of a father figure that could actually help you grow. And that's where a lot of kids, I feel like, need just another person outside of the father. They could be a mentor, um, teach them stuff.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Uh, I'm, I'm into, I, I think I'm into that, you know, like,

• 45:56Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  Obviously that helped me too because when my father, my father was around, I want to say my first seven years. My first seven years of my life, my father was around. And then the last seven years of his life, I picked him up from prison and he, and he.

• 46:12Keke Palmer?

  So in that in between, was he in prison that whole time?

• 46:16Speaker 01

  On and off and just doing his own, you know.

• 46:18Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was interesting, um, in your book, you talk about how your dad had a phrase where he said, "God is love," which I love. I have that, that tattooed.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Really?

• 46:28Keke Palmer?

  Mm-hmm. God is love. Mm-hmm. It's one of my favorites.

• 46:37Keke Palmer?

  Discover Pandora Talisman, a new collection designed to help you express every side of who you are. Because the most powerful statement you can make is being yourself. I'm a Virgo, capital V, which means I notice everything. I remember everything and I have opinions about everything. But I keep most of them in a very organized mental filing cabinet. That's the sign. Analytical on the inside, polished on the outside and deeply particular about what we put on our bodies. So when I tell you I found my zodiac symbol in the Pandora Talisman collection and immediately thought, finally, somebody captured what it feels like to be this. I mean that. It's not just a cute charm, it's the whole ethos.

• 47:21Keke Palmer?

  Pandora Talisman understood the assignment because the whole collection is built on that idea. Personalized pieces, meaningful symbols, designs that reflect what you stand for and how you choose to show up. I've been styling mine as a conversation starter. Someone asks about the piece and suddenly we're talking about identity, about what it means to carry something on our body that represents who you actually are. That's not just accessories, that's communication. I've been layering mine with gold pieces on days I feel bold or wearing it solo on a thin chain when I want something quiet that still says something loud. Pandora Talisman, a new language of self-expression because every version of you deserves to be seen.

• 48:05Keke Palmer?

  Shop new styles in store or online at pandora.net. I cannot tell you how much makeup I have bought that looked right in the store and then betrayed me in natural light. The audacity. I'd get home, blend it out, step outside and suddenly I'm looking casket ready. Two shades off and not a single person said anything. Sephora fixed that for me. Okay, they have the best brands all in one place with a range of shades, coverage levels and finishes, so you're not just guessing and hoping for the best. Right now, I'm wearing my favorite Hourglass Vanish Airbrush Full Coverage Longwear Concealer for natural finish that's long-lasting. Okay, it is my perfect match. Can't you tell?

• 48:50Keke Palmer?

  Get a close-up look. Plus, their beauty advisors and shade matching tools take the guesswork out entirely, in store or online. So no more settling, no more close enough. Visit Sephora to find your match.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  When I was writing the book, I was like trying to get all my little artifacts together. And I found this, um, I found like a stack of letters from 2003 that he wrote. It was around Thanksgiving. So I'm just reading like what he was eating in prison and it was, you know, obviously football season and just who was playing the game that day. But on the outside of every envelope was "God is love, God is love, God is love." And you know, but I'm just ripping the, the envelope open, reading the letter. And the letters looked like I've never read them before, you know, like you just mature so much over time, you know what I mean? So I'm reading these letters, but then I look at it and to go back to math, I substituted the is for equal sign.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  And I said, duh. God equals love. Like if it ain't love, then it ain't God. And like.

• 50:07Keke Palmer?

  There's literal, literally a type of math that does that, that mixes language like that with the equations. It's called social something. I forget the name of it, but it's literally that vibe.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  For real?

• 50:16Keke Palmer?

  Yes, yes.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  But it was like this equation that I felt like was right in my face the whole time. And so when I talk about the voice in my head is God and people say, well, how you know this voice is God?

• 50:27Keke Palmer?

  Cause it's love.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Cause it's love.

• 50:29Keke Palmer?

  It ain't gonna tear me down.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  It's love.

• 50:32Keke Palmer?

  It's not the voice that's telling me I ain't, I ain't got it. I ain't gonna be, it's the one that I, that I know I can do it. Yes.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I got a, I got a story to go along with it. I say, okay,

• 50:44Speaker 01

  you got a, you got a boyfriend, you love him.

• 50:46Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  You love your boyfriend. But your girlfriend sees your boyfriend out with another girl, okay?

• 50:57Keke Palmer?

  Damn, it's already bad.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Okay. Now, if the voice tells you to go bless his windows on the car, that ain't God.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  That ain't God. Now, you should feel a certain way.

• 51:13Keke Palmer?

  Sorry, Jasmine Sullivan.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  You might be in your feelings, but God ain't gonna tell you to crash out.

• 51:22Keke Palmer?

  Right.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  Ain't gonna tell you to crash out. So I'm just, he gonna be like, he just ain't gonna tell you to crash.

• 51:28Keke Palmer?

  It's true, and you know, and you know, they go back to that OG, what would Jesus do? It's like, you know, you know, at the end of the day, what would be in alignment, what would be in alignment would be, what would be best for you? If the outcome in, in, and you having something terrible happen, I love that equal. I love that, I love that, and I love that story as a way to also, cause I think that's the thing too, is like, a lot of times people are trying to figure out how to differentiate.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 51:53Keke Palmer?

  Their thoughts.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  You need a connection to, like, even with, like, say like the Bible and all of that stuff, it's like, you needed ways on Shakespeare, all this stuff, you need like, I need layman terms, like, how can, how can, you know, at the, strip it all down, what does this mean, you know?

• 52:11Keke Palmer?

  Well, that's what I love what you were saying with even the design of your book, like, one of my favorite styles of literature is embedded narrative, which is the same thing as the, a lot of the parables in the Bible, where it's a bunch of different people's relationship with the same version of coherence, same relationship with God, with that love. So no matter who it is from any different direction, it points in all these different ways, the same, same meaning. And it's interesting, we were saying with your book, that it's this idea where you're using many different stories to point to the same truths. You know, it's a beautiful way.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  Embedded narrative.

• 52:43Keke Palmer?

  Embedded narrative, I love it so much, I love it so much. I always think this is cool because you had an interesting journey with music, where it's like you was signed with Little Chris, Disturbing the Peace in two thousand seven, and then you kind of bought yourself out the contract. What made you realize that you needed to switch directions and, and, and how to really pick the lane you felt was best for yourself in music?

• 53:08Speaker 01

  The voice in my head told me it was time to.

• 53:12Keke Palmer?

  And was it multiple moments, or was it one, uh, specific, uh, defining moment where you were like, oh?

• 53:18Speaker 01

  It was probably a couple of moments where you just be pump faking, you know, don't, you know, you know, you don't, you don't be ready, but you be acting like you ready, but for me around that time, I had already, one, I had been around other successful people who looked like me, dressed like me, talked like me, act like me, so why not me? And then, two, I look in my contact list on my phone and I, not that I'm counting anybody's bank account, but I'm, I, I know like ten, twelve people that look like me, dressed like me, whatever, and I know they having millions. So why not me? So, the voice just told me to make a way, like, I can, I, this just told me I could do it on my, I could do this.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  Cause I'm, I'm, I'm actually smart, but you have, I mean, with, with anything, you have to learn any and everything, you know what I'm saying? And I'm somebody that just bet on myself at the end of the day.

• 54:16Keke Palmer?

  If we're using the same logic from where we're talking about with, um, the plants and the, you know, it's the soil and it's, you know, the water and it's not, all these things, what are the, some of those three things would you say about success, and not even just in music, but I think essentially you're really an entrepreneur, you do many things. What would you say are those kind of same type of line things to ensure growth?

• 54:39Speaker 01

  You need, you need, you need, uh, soil, you need sun, and you need water, but I think for me, I treat my ideas and even projects, everything like a seed. And I like to plant seeds.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  Not literal, but figuratively, I like, I like to plant seeds and then see when they grow.

• 55:06Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 55:07Speaker 01

  With, with everything like, with, with every little thing, I plant these little seeds and just see when they cultivate, if they do, every, every seed, you know, cultivate, so, but, but I, I like to plant certain seeds here, there. You know, I think our relationship seeds was planted so long ago that we can get here, have a real organic, organic conversation with, not even realizing cameras are around, you know?

• 55:35Keke Palmer?

  And another thing I'm hearing with that is time. Sometimes we expect things to happen so quick.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  We want to, bro.

• 55:41Keke Palmer?

  You know what I mean, but it's, you gotta let it cook.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  So that was me, like, everybody's talking about my late start and all that, I was feeling like I had it earlier, but like, I'm so happy that it happened when it did, you know what I'm saying? So I can attest to just like being patient, learning patience.

• 56:02Keke Palmer?

  I feel that same way. I feel that exact same way. Okay, obviously, not long after that, everything really changed, it was, you know, twenty twelve, you had No Lie, Birthday Song, I'm Different, yeah. I mean, everything went off, twenty seventeen, you got that Grammy, at that moment, what was your thought? Was it like, you know, you know, did you feel like, uh, okay, so now y'all get it, or did you feel like vindicated, like, what were the feelings that you had seeing that, that moment of self-realization where the world is also seeing you how you see yourself?

• 56:36Speaker 01

  I had prayed for it. Everything I prayed for, I get.

• 56:40Keke Palmer?

  Amen. Same.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  So I literally had prayed for, I asked for a Grammy. So I, like, I ain't know how it was gonna come, but I had been praying, I prayed, the whole thing, the music, everything, everything, everything I got. So I'd already kind of prayed for it, so I ain't gonna sit here and be like, I knew it, but I wasn't like, and I was happy, I was happy, but I, he ain't let me, like, every, everything I kind of like, I just gotta, just gotta pray for it. I don't know how many of them I got left, so I don't try to like, just be using them up, you know what I'm saying? Like, he might be like, bro, this is, I was the last one.

• 57:22Keke Palmer?

  I mean, you've built businesses, you know, you're investing, companies, and, I mean, you've expanded so much beyond music, is there a, like, a, a, idea that you have of what you want your legacy to be? You know what I mean?

• 57:35Speaker 01

  When I laid down last night, I, when I laid down last night, I started thinking like, what I want my next five years to be, and then I just went, that put me to sleep, just thinking. I just laid a bit of thinking, I don't know where I left off at, but, yeah. I know, I know, I'm gonna be, cause I, I got a short film called Red Clay that really did good in the festival run.

• 57:57Keke Palmer?

  Congrats.

• 57:57Speaker 01

  And so, thank you, and so, um, I've been taking some meetings and having internal meetings about turning this short film into something larger than life, and so I could see myself on the other side of these lenses.

• 58:12Keke Palmer?

  For sure.

• 58:13Speaker 01

  Because that Virgo detail coming from, what I was trying, I, like, I really described my upbringing, like, as being, coming from like, the belly of the beast, or like the zoo. Like, people go to the zoo and then they leave, like, don't nobody know what happened, when y'all leave? Like, like, that was my apartment complex, it was like a zoo, people would come, buy their little drugs, leave, but then like, I live here. And so, just articulating.

• 58:42Keke Palmer?

  Wow.

• 58:43Speaker 01

  Like, I didn't even realize how many things are normalized, or just brushed off as like,

• 58:57Speaker 01

  y'all ain't never had to cut y'all water back on, y'all ain't never not had, borrow, borrow lights? Y'all ain't never, yeah, I normalized so many things in my upbringing that.

• 59:13Keke Palmer?

  You never seen a roach, you won't tell, roach bomb?

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, like, you never seen a roach in the clock, and then you can't tell what time it is, cause this, like, you know what I'm saying? Like, you don't know if it's like a, a seven or a one, this, like.

• 59:30Keke Palmer?

  In there.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  In there, I'm talking about in it, but.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  But yeah, it was funny, I did another podcast, they were talking about boric acid, I'm like, my mom used to put boric acid for roach, like,

• 59:45Speaker 01

  yeah, they was talking about women, I can only guess women use it for some kind of cleaning.

• 59:48Keke Palmer?

  It's new, it's, I've, I've seen it, I don't know enough, they just doing, they saying too much now.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, they say they cleaning, they, they cleaning they stuff out with some boric, I said, Lord, I said, my mom, that is a white powder. And we stayed in apartments, cause when you're in apartments, everybody got everything.

• 1:00:04Keke Palmer?

  Exactly, everybody sharing it, cause your ain't clean.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  And my momma put that boric acid down, I don't know if you should put it in your stuff, but that's what's going on. But anyway, I don't, I just don't, I don't normalize this stuff.

• 1:00:18Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  You know, normalize.

• 1:00:20Keke Palmer?

  Cause it's relative, so it's like.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  I was telling, I'm gonna tell you this too, like, I was telling, me and my wife, we laugh every day, that's why it's like, oh, just a wonderful relationship.

• 1:00:28Keke Palmer?

  Eight years.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  And I told her, I said, uh, back in the, like, in the day, right, like, so I didn't have, like, I used to have to take cold showers, so I used to have this little,

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  I used to have like little songs I would play in my head to like, be able to take a cold shower, get in and out, right? I done shared it with her, yeah, right? But she gonna throw it up my face, I said, that what they talking about, like, that's why men can't be vulnerable, cause she tell me, I say, I had to, I'm probably when I got out of the shower, when I called her back, she told me, damn, you must've did a one of them little, she done said my little tune I be doing, I say, man, that hurt, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  Well, that hurt, but I done told you, boy, I used to go with the, but you can't, you know what I'm saying, that was, that's why I did, me and these day. You know what I'm saying, we can't, we can't cry, we can't be vulnerable around y'all.

• 1:01:17Keke Palmer?

  Seen that right now, I just thought about you on a sitcom show, about you and your family, I would watch that.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Man, everybody would, but I.

• 1:01:25Keke Palmer?

  That would be too, I just saw you on the couch.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  But this is the thing.

• 1:01:29Keke Palmer?

  Like Ray Romano.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  Virgo, let me talk to you, let me talk to you, Virgo.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  I enjoy my side of privacy too though.

• 1:01:37Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  Like when you see my fa- when you see my, when you see my family. Yeah, I never thought about the scripted thing.

• 1:01:44Keke Palmer?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  But, but, but when you see my, my family, like, see, it, it really is, like, I, I say this all the time, y'all won't, y'all can't believe what's going on in my household. Y'all, y'all won't believe what's going on, from the, from the dogs, to the chicken, well, we got chickens and the dogs, they sleep in the same, them are the same house. We got eggs, all, like a Easter, man, you won't believe what the hell going on at my house, bro, we got

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  all kind of ATB riding and all of that, but I do have that little, like, privacy thing because it's like, I just wanna be family, I don't wanna sit back and be judged on what I say, how I say it, when I say it, where I say it. I don't wanna be messy, I think my fam- I do, I do, I do, do think my family is beautiful though, I mean, I think, I know they're like a beautiful family. But I think I'll just do these little, cause people have approached her, cause they know I ain't going for it. And, uh, but maybe, I don't know, I've never thought about the scripted thing.

• 1:02:45Keke Palmer?

  Scripted, where it's just like in the, in the essence of.

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  But you know they do the scripted ones where they like, they'll find like another Keisha and some more kids, or it needs to be them, it needs to be, it, it needs to be the.

• 1:02:57Keke Palmer?

  I mean, people would definitely want you, if you, you still play your father role, and then you can tell the writer stories of your family, and they kinda do it like in the Bernie Mac way. Where it's like, he was like, hey, y'all, what's up?

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  I'm listening to you, Kiki.

• 1:03:09Keke Palmer?

  Can we just pitch it?

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:11Keke Palmer?

  Yes, we gonna come back in this.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  Okay, for sure, you gonna be in the meeting?

• 1:03:15Keke Palmer?

  I'm gonna be there, two chains, okay. So, you know, I play a game with all my guests when we get ready to wrap it up, so I gotta play a game with you.

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  Lord, I like these shoes too, I see you keep putting your little, little leg up.

• 1:03:27Keke Palmer?

  Right, I be like.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  You need to see that red, girl. I ain't gonna lie, with, with, with, with, he was wearing a red bun, he was sitting up in that all daylight there when he putting them on, but you need to know. Don't play, you need to know with these, you need to know with these.

• 1:03:43Keke Palmer?

  Who made these though, cause these are fly. Balenci.

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  Pharrell, Pharrell, these are Adidas, jellyfish, um, these are, you know, he, Pharrell.

• 1:03:51Keke Palmer?

  I have a question about you Atlanteans, or do y'all call Atlantans, Atlanteans, what, what, what, what do y'all call, Georgians? Why y'all so fresh, like, what's going on over there?

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  This?

• 1:04:00Keke Palmer?

  Y'all style?

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  I'm just, this is just so cool, this is comfortable, this is, this is, what y'all call, Air One, y'all, Mocha, Mocha.

• 1:04:08Keke Palmer?

  Absolutely, I love this material, whatever this material is.

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  The tee shirt, the, the hat, this, I just went full cashmere today.

• 1:04:15Keke Palmer?

  Wow.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  It's just like, like.

• 1:04:17Keke Palmer?

  Baby, this Keke Palmer is very blessed to get this.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, cashmere, um, I'm going to get me a matcha, matcha, what y'all got out here in LA? Five hundred dollar smoothie.

• 1:04:27Keke Palmer?

  Air One, I would, yet again, I don't know who's all your tea.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  Well, I didn't say Air One.

• 1:04:32Keke Palmer?

  I need a two chains, shake, smoothie, two chains, smoothie, Air One, we would eat it up, real quick, what do you think would be in there?

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  My smoothie, ain't no real quick, I know what, I know what I do in my smoothie, I go to, I go, I go, I go, I go, I go, I go banana, I like the peanut, I like protein, I like protein.

• 1:04:47Keke Palmer?

  Come on, protein.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  I go peanut butter, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:04:50Keke Palmer?

  I hear the fiber.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't, no fiber, you can see.

• 1:04:53Keke Palmer?

  You got the bananas.

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, okay.

• 1:04:55Keke Palmer?

  You know, natural.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  Banana, it's a natural fiber?

• 1:04:59Keke Palmer?

  I think, am I right? If I'm wrong, don't tear me up in comments.

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, you see, that's why, that's why I can't do no show.

• 1:05:06Keke Palmer?

  Cause every.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  Trying to say something, man, them folk then look, they look it up, then they try to get on your ass, but you don't know what the hell you talking about either.

• 1:05:12Keke Palmer?

  Actually, everybody actually online, actually, actually on ass.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  But, go to bed, go, but you ain't pull a bed that lit at your mama house. So, but anyway, I say bananas, peanut butter, plant-based protein.

• 1:05:25Keke Palmer?

  Love it.

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  Um, what, what, what go with that?

• 1:05:31Keke Palmer?

  We need one or two more ingredients.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  One or two more?

• 1:05:33Keke Palmer?

  And we got it, we got it.

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  Do we do oats?

• 1:05:36Keke Palmer?

  We love oats, fiber yet again.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  Oh, you have, running to the, trying, trying to hurry up getting that damn dope. I went, hey, you gotta use the bathroom, when you get, when you get there all of a sudden.

• 1:05:47Keke Palmer?

  Honestly, it's good for you, a lot of, not enough people having bowel movements, that's why they up there.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:05:52Keke Palmer?

  Yes, people aren't going to the bathroom, it's a epidemic.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:05:56Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  I'm so sorry to hear that.

• 1:06:01Keke Palmer?

  Yo.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  I'm a whole dog.

• 1:06:03Keke Palmer?

  I'm here for this two chains, Air One drink, we're running to the rest, we're running to the grocery.

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  But that's what I like, uh, Air One.

• 1:06:10Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I want bananas, peanut butter, I want it to have that little, that little look on it. That little look on it, and, uh, yeah, that's, that's, that's about what I get.

• 1:06:25Keke Palmer?

  Not too, not, it's just like, not overly too much with the ingredients, something simple that tastes very good, I love peanut butter.

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  Has a purpose, like, mine would be, my purpose would be protein, you need protein, a little bit of energy, that's what I want.

• 1:06:38Keke Palmer?

  What I love about what you did there though, with the banana, if I'm correct, and the oats, I know I'm correct, you got the protein coupled with the fiber, and that's what you need, guys, we went too far on the protein, we left the fiber out, and that was the problem.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:50Keke Palmer?

  Going back to the game, um, okay, so I learned today that, I mean, I've always known this about you, but you not afraid to take chances, I mean, whether it's, you know, buying yourself out of record deal, or emailing the CEO of Porsche, you, you know, you always know how to get it done. So I'm gonna throw out different situations to see if you think it's worth the risk, or if we just leaving it alone, okay, you ready?

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:07:14Keke Palmer?

  Investing in a friend's business, is it worth it or we leaving it alone?

• 1:07:20Keke Palmer?

  Quitting your job without another one lined up.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Let me explain.

• 1:07:23Keke Palmer?

  The family, the friend, I mean, investing in their business, let's get into it.

• 1:07:34Speaker 01

  It depends.

• 1:07:35Keke Palmer?

  Right.

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  It depends, I don't wanna say no, cause it depends. But everything that I've invested in, outside of private equity and all of that, if I just talk about, if I just talk about business-wise that I've invested in, a couple of the people that I've invested in, I just, or invested with, I just met them people.

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  But, they had characteristics that stood out to me, passion being one of them. Passion about the space that I was doing business in was two of them, so.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  If, when people think I'm just so successful, I wanna tell them that, one, I'm good at identifying, like, talent, or identifying,

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  I can seek success in people, you know, and then, I also can identify like a passion, like, each one of my business, businesses from Esco to restaurant, chain, or even Candyland, um, my adult entertainment club, my partners are, if they, you know, they are very passionate about, about that business, and then I come in with marketing, relationships, references, you know, ideas, and, and, and things like that, and it just makes a, a kinda great combination. Now, if a friend comes in, I need some money to do this right here, you need to be invested, and

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  you can't wanna start a restaurant because you like, know how to cook.

• 1:09:06Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  Like, I ain't with you, but I know how to cook good, we need a restaurant, like, that's not the way of thinking, like, my partner that I have the restaurant, she went to school, Vanderbilt actually, and got a degree in hospitality, so she like, okay, I, I'm.

• 1:09:23Keke Palmer?

  Cause hospitality is really the business of restaurants.

• 1:09:25Speaker 01

  Yes, it's not about like how good your chicken is, yeah, you know, so, anyway, next question.

• 1:09:30Keke Palmer?

  So, so, so real, um, okay, quitting your job without having another one lined up.

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  Without having another one, just, just quitting your job?

• 1:09:41Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  It depend, it depend on what that voice tell you, that voice might tell you something, and you have to trust it, cause he might have something that you don't see yet. And that job might be holding you down or preventing you from getting to the next one, so, sometimes if the voice really tells you, man, let this go, I got you, sometimes you gotta let go and let go.

• 1:09:58Keke Palmer?

  Amen, I, I, I feel you and I agree, um, telling someone you love them first.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  I don't think I have a problem saying that.

• 1:10:16Keke Palmer?

  Have you done it?

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  Have I done it?

• 1:10:18Keke Palmer?

  And this don't even have to be inclusive of your relationship, cause people don't need to know that, but just thinking about before you were married, was you the kinda person that would, or were you, nah?

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  But I could show it, I could show you that I love you though.

• 1:10:33Keke Palmer?

  It's a scary thing, you know what I mean?

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  I could show you, I could, I could, I could show you, I love you though.

• 1:10:39Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  Know what I'm saying?

• 1:10:40Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  Friends, family, men, women, I could show you.

• 1:10:45Keke Palmer?

  Well, that's an interesting thing, in general, even, even, uh, to family and friends, do, is that, as, you say I love you a lot in your family? My family, we say I love you after anything.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  Oh, no, my mom, all my kids, like, we said, I said, that, that damn they're saying, like, that's how we get off the phone, that's how we say bye.

• 1:11:02Keke Palmer?

  I got, my sister and I, we live together, when I'm in her room, just talking to her real quick, when I leave and shut the door, aight, I love you.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:08Keke Palmer?

  What would I need to do that for?

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:10Keke Palmer?

  I don't know why we like that, um, relocating for love, getting up and moving.

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  Moving somewhere for some, no, hell no, I ain't never did that. That's crazy.

• 1:11:20Keke Palmer?

  Why are virgins like that, why are we like that, we're so.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  Imagine, I'm about to move to your city, so we can be together.

• 1:11:29Keke Palmer?

  Never do that, now, you wanna do it for me?

• 1:11:33Keke Palmer?

  It's different, um, okay, walking away from a deal at the last minute.

• 1:11:39Speaker 01

  If that voice tell you the deal is not worth doing?

• 1:11:42Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  I don't care if it's the last minute or the first minute, get out of there.

• 1:11:46Keke Palmer?

  I had that happen to me this year.

• 1:11:47Speaker 01

  You was at, that, you was about to do the deal, interesting, and what made you, what made you pull it back?

• 1:11:54Keke Palmer?

  That voice.

• 1:11:55Speaker 01

  Said something to me.

• 1:11:56Keke Palmer?

  It said, I'm not gonna be happy, the money's not enough, and even if it was enough, it wouldn't be like, the enough would be an astronomical amount, because that's how much I would know it, and would make it know. So it was like, nothing about it, and I'm not moved by money, I'm moved by inspiration, and that's how I'm able to do my work to my best ability, is I'm feeling excited and good and and I just, as we started getting closer and closer to the day, and I made sure, in the back of my throat, every time we were talking about like the deal things, I was just like, I'm not gonna sign it, I'm not gonna sign it, I'm a vibe, and I'ma say I'm a vibe, and it got to that point, and I just pulled out.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  In the back of your throat?

• 1:12:32Keke Palmer?

  In the back of my throat, I knew.

• 1:12:34Speaker 01

  Maybe use another analogy, Kiki, this is, I don't know.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  What are you talking about? In the back of my throat? Kiki, I love you.

• 1:12:47Keke Palmer?

  Yo!

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  Why was this in the back of your throat the whole time?

• 1:12:50Keke Palmer?

  Because it could have been in the back of my mind.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  Anywhere else! You done just... Boy, anywhere else! Boy, you don't put this in the back of my throat. I'm like, I ain't hearing nothing else. You had to... I don't know what else you said after that. I said, "This girl, she a Virgo."

• 1:13:07Keke Palmer?

  Oh, my gosh. Okay, this is the last one. You are so funny, bro. Okay. The last one is, I gotta do a good one because it's the last one. Let me see.

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  You got my hat, it's cash, man, too.

• 1:13:22Keke Palmer?

  Oh, this is good. This is good because this is gonna tell us a lot. Okay? Giving someone a second chance.

• 1:13:32Keke Palmer?

  I'm really interested in that from you.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  Giving somebody a second chance?

• 1:13:35Keke Palmer?

  Giving somebody a second chance.

• 1:13:37Speaker 01

  To like, [BLEEP] me, disrespect me? Like, what they done did?

• 1:13:41Keke Palmer?

  They did something where they lost the first chance. Whatever was like a guarantee of losing the first chance with you, but they're showing contrition. And they just did.

• 1:13:51Speaker 01

  Contrition?

• 1:13:52Keke Palmer?

  They're showing contrition.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  I love your vocabulary. Your MacBook be putting the little definitions on the screen.

• 1:14:00Keke Palmer?

  I'm but also, as a Virgo, you know, if somebody say a word I don't understand...

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  Look it up and lock it in.

• 1:14:05Keke Palmer?

  Somebody told me the other day I was perspicacious.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  Perspicacious, don't play with me.

• 1:14:09Keke Palmer?

  I said, "Sure, [BLEEP] is." Looked it up. The word, Lily was like, you know, quick on your feet. You know what I mean? You be looking at things from a bigger point of view.

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  Perspicacious?

• 1:14:19Keke Palmer?

  Perspicacious. I said, "Yes!"

• 1:14:21Speaker 01

  You know, we been knew that [BLEEP] with that [BLEEP] right here in the pocket.

• 1:14:24Keke Palmer?

  Yes!

• 1:14:25Speaker 01

  Perspicacious.

• 1:14:26Keke Palmer?

  Literally.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  Very perspic... How you doing today?

• 1:14:29Keke Palmer?

  Perspicaciously.

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  Catr... What'd you say the word?

• 1:14:34Keke Palmer?

  They showed a lot of contrition, yes, they did.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  What's contrition?

• 1:14:37Keke Palmer?

  Contrition is, they showed a deep understanding for what went wrong and you believe. Like, they show contrition, like, they're really deeply sorry.

• 1:14:45Speaker 01

  All right, so how you doing today now?

• 1:14:47Keke Palmer?

  I'm perspicacious, you know.

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  Oh, that's so contritious.

• 1:14:53Keke Palmer?

  2 Chainz, I love you, man. You the bomb. Thank you so much for coming on the show. This is the best, honestly.

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:15:02Keke Palmer?

  Today, 2 Chainz reminded us that the biggest decisions in our lives don't happen by accident. They're shaped by the voice we choose to listen to. The voice built by our character, by our conviction, by our faith, by the values that keep showing up long before anyone else believes in us. Because success isn't just about what you build, it's about who you're becoming while you build it. Uh, yes. And maybe, maybe that's the real lesson. The decisions may shape your life, but it's your character that shapes every decision. Baby, this is Keke Palmer.