Pod Insights The Moneywise Guys 1/12/26 Markets, Music, and a Mission with Jovon Dangerfield of TYM4Change About this episode The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Monday, January 12th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Radio Show & Podcast" call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management LinkedIn: Moneywise_Wealth_Management Guest: Jovon Dangerfield, Musician, Activist & Executive Director for TYM4Change website: https://tym4change.org/ The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you, consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a decision. Jovon Dangerfield and their company are not affiliated with nor endorsed by LPL Financial or Moneywise Wealth Management].
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Call or text in at 661-396-1000.
0:24 Speaker 01 Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and MoneyWise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated. Now, let's start the Money Wise Show.
0:35 Speaker 02 And welcome to the Money Wise Show. We are live from the basement of the historic Woolworths Building in downtown Bakersfield. For the next hour, we're on KGO Money Talk, 1230 a.m., 101.1 FM, and always streaming at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can call or text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. We're your hosts. I'm Sharad Waite and?
1:00 Speaker 03 Sammy Abiyawi.
1:01 Speaker 02 Sammy, this is exciting.
1:03 Speaker 03 Very exciting.
1:04 Speaker 02 No more second story of the historic Woolworths Building.
1:08 Speaker 03 No more Zoom meetings to do our radio show.
1:12 Speaker 02 That's right.
1:12 Speaker 03 We're actually in the basement, in the radio room, recording and streaming and live right now. It's very, very exciting.
1:20 Speaker 02 It sounds so good in here.
1:21 Speaker 03 It does. It sounds, I mean, really nice.
1:24 Speaker 02 It's like this room took like years and years to build, which it did.
1:31 Speaker 03 It did.
1:31 Speaker 02 It was four years.
1:32 Speaker 03 A lot of love went into it.
1:34 Speaker 02 So much. I mean, this is, this was, you know, the Woolworths Building has so many wonderful things about it. Obviously, the lunch counter, the Last Luncheonette. Our Money Wise office is up on the second floor. We love them. They're fantastic. But the basement of the Woolworths has got some really cool things coming up. One of them, which is we've been anticipating now for, for, like we said, four years, is our studio, our Money Wise recording studio that we broadcast our shows out of, not just for KGO, but also for our own podcast and our own, and our own programming.
2:13 Speaker 03 Our own programming, our own. Guests which range from private sector to nonprofit. This is a community space and now we get to use it.
2:24 Speaker 02 It's and it's just so quiet in here.
2:28 Speaker 03 A little bit eerie, not anymore now.
2:31 Speaker 02 Yeah, headphones sound great. Mike sound great. Stevie, wonderful job to Steven Nicholas.
2:38 Speaker 00 Big shout out to John Knack and Kyle Appleton.
2:41 Speaker 02 Oh, John Knack, Kyle Appleton, such a team effort. Emily, obviously was involved in all this. Yeah, so many people. Chris Kavanaugh, who who did the the sound treatments, the acoustic treatments in here and the paint and and and and design of it. So real team effort. Well, we have guests. We have a guest coming up later today or late here soon. And Jovon Dangerfield will be joining us, but this will be also a place we'll be able to greet and actually be in person with our guests. It's we've been doing, like you said, Sammy, we've been doing this over over our our laptops from our offices upstairs while Steven was connecting to AGM over, you know, down farther
3:25 Speaker 02 away at their offices. And so this is just a huge deal for us. So congratulations for those people who are listening live. Welcome to the first official show out of the basement of the Woolworths. Good to be here.
3:39 Speaker 03 Yes, great to be here.
3:41 Speaker 02 We've got a couple listener comments and questions, which we highly encourage all of you to bring them our way.
3:46 Speaker 03 The first one says there, this is Pittsburgh is going to win tonight. So thank you very much. Great job.
3:51 Speaker 02 That's your team, right?
3:52 Speaker 03 That's right.
3:53 Speaker 02 Steven, you got a you got a take on it?
3:55 Speaker 00 I got a hot dog bet.
3:58 Speaker 02 For the Texans or the Steelers?
3:59 Speaker 00 I'm going Houston.
4:00 Speaker 02 Okay.
4:01 Speaker 03 He doesn't like the Steelers.
4:02 Speaker 02 You're just gonna go against what you want.
4:03 Speaker 00 I just don't like Aaron Rodgers. Okay, has nothing to do with the Steelers. And I like free hot dogs. So, hey, free lunch upstairs, I'll take it.
4:11 Speaker 03 It's all for or nothing now, Steven. Don't forget that you owe me a hot dog already.
4:15 Speaker 00 I do have to throw out a big shout out. That that lunch we just had.
4:19 Speaker 02 Oh, my God.
4:20 Speaker 00 I'm not a big soup guy, but when Sammy says come upstairs and have some soup, you're gonna try some soup.
4:25 Speaker 02 Albonde guys at the lunch counter.
4:27 Speaker 03 Yes.
4:28 Speaker 02 Richard Yoshimura, the chef at the Woolworths Luncheonette is insane. I mean, that guy is just, his soups are-
4:37 Speaker 03 I have not, I have yet to taste a bad soup from him since we opened, seriously.
4:41 Speaker 02 And there's probably been over a dozen-
4:44 Speaker 03 Yes.
4:44 Speaker 02 -soups-
4:45 Speaker 03 Yeah.
4:45 Speaker 02 -that he's made.
4:46 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
4:47 Speaker 02 And they last, each soup would last for maybe a day or two, depending on the demand.
4:51 Speaker 03 Today, today he's running out. The albóndigas is running out.
4:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:54 Speaker 03 Seriously. He saw me in the counter and was like, "Oh, that's why my soup is going down. You're here."
4:58 Speaker 02 Yeah, you're out there spreading the word.
5:00 Speaker 03 Dude, I just had one bowl. I'll come back for a second one later, but not now. Chill, chill.
5:06 Speaker 02 Yeah, I gotta try it. I gotta try it. I'll try it later.
5:08 Speaker 03 All right. I'll, I'll ask the question, Sherri, if you don't mind.
5:11 Speaker 02 Let's go.
5:11 Speaker 03 Do higher state taxes during slowdowns make unemployment worse? Or do they help fund programs?
5:19 Speaker 02 They, okay, this is, this is a question where the answer is both, for, for both of those parts, yes. The higher taxes obviously support programs, but higher taxes suppress economic growth. It's that there's a, a relationship certainly there where if there's, the government is trying, state and federal governments are trying to find that sweet spot between getting some revenues to come in to pay for their programs, but not taxing so much that it becomes a financial burden where it disincentivizes economic investment and activity.
6:00 Speaker 02 And so the, the states are, are particularly different than the federal budget because most states have to balance their budget.
6:10 Speaker 03 That's correct.
6:10 Speaker 02 A lot of people don't realize that. And they think, "Well, you know, this, like California, they're just running us into the ground financially." Very difficult for the state to run us into the, into the ground financially because they have to, unlike the federal government, they've got to balance their budget.
6:26 Speaker 03 That's correct.
6:26 Speaker 02 They do have tricks. There's some accounting tricks that are used to be able to help the state government fill in the gaps when it's needed. But for the most part, the, the state- Governments just trying to, they have to get that ballot, that budget balanced each year. And so then the arguments, which I like is are about are around, well, what do these budgets look like? How much of this budget, you know, do we need to cut based off of our revenues that we're anticipating in? State of California has done in the past, a really good job of shoring up its rainy day fund. I think a lot of that fund has been exhausted now because we've had, we've had some slowdown in the state.
7:09 Speaker 02 But there is certainly, I don't think you'll find any politician out there that thinks that's going to say, well, we're just going to tax like crazy and then, then we'll just, I mean, that, if you tax too high, now you're, now you're, you know, you're just, you're causing.
7:24 Speaker 03 Yeah, for me, a simple thing is I'm a business owner. Okay. So part of my expenses is taxes, right? Paying taxes on my revenues or my profits. If I'm paying too, too much, too many taxes or too much taxes, guess what? I am not going to have enough for my capital expenditures, including hiring, new employees, training up new employees, paying employees more. So you will see the slowdown if taxes or higher taxes take hold. At the state level, I do agree with you, Jared. They, they cannot run at a deficit, at least for a long period of time. So they have to balance. Sometimes unfortunately, what happens when the state do cut, they cut things like teachers
8:08 Speaker 03 or first responders, public workers, infrastructure projects with, you mentioned California, we're behind on, and we need to catch up, social services, a lot of the time. I don't know if you remember a couple of years back when we had IOUs, the state was not.
8:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, that's right.
8:29 Speaker 03 Right? Do you remember that?
8:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, I forgot about that.
8:32 Speaker 03 You have to do the work, but you're going to get paid in an IOU, which is basically a receipt until they balance their budget and get income to, so they can, they'll be able to pay you, pay you back.
8:44 Speaker 02 Right.
8:45 Speaker 03 So it's, it's a, it's a balancing act, especially at the state level. Because a lot of the time, when the federal, if the federals are taxing, right? The businesses are slowing down, but the state has to follow suit. They need to increase the taxes so they can keep the coffers and their rainy fund going.
9:04 Speaker 02 Yep.
9:05 Speaker 03 And that's what happens at the state level.
9:09 Speaker 02 When we had the Great Recession, the Great Recession started in 2008. And at that time, California was just flush with cash because they were benefiting from these home prices going up so much. All of a sudden, you had all of this wealth that was being accumulated through real estate. And then the Great Recession hit us. And it was our state, I think, really failed us. California really failed us in many ways because during that time from 2008 to 2012, California raised income taxes. They raised the sales tax. They increased vehicle fees and those registration fees. And then what happened?
9:51 Speaker 02 Well, we saw unemployment rate that peaked around 12%. We had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, 12%. We had a very slow job recovery, which lagged the national average by years. And if you compare that to Texas, for example, of course, it's not an apples to apples, but Texas has no income tax. And so, you know, they couldn't necessarily do, you know, increase their income tax during that time. And so what we saw with Texas after, during that Great Recession, their unemployment peaked at about 8%. And then they saw job growth return much earlier than most of the other large states in the country.
10:36 Speaker 02 And Texas accounted for a disproportionate share of the US job creation after 2009. So you see, that's, I think, one of the best examples of how a state can do it right and do it wrong. It's difficult when, you know, you're comparing it, I guess, to a state that doesn't have overall income tax. But I think that's also important for people to know. If you're leaving this state because of income taxes, that, there are other ways at state. States get their income.
11:05 Speaker 03 Texas has, well, their real estate tax, just a simple one, real estate taxes a lot higher than California. Isn't that correct?
11:13 Speaker 02 That's right. Yeah. Property insurance and other, other fees and charges there that keep things going.
11:19 Speaker 03 You mentioned 2008. Who was the governor back then?
11:22 Speaker 02 Uh, here? Was it?
11:24 Speaker 03 California.
11:24 Speaker 02 Was it Brown?
11:25 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
11:26 Speaker 02 Was it Schwarzenegger?
11:27 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
11:28 Speaker 02 Was that it?
11:29 Speaker 03 He was on his second term.
11:31 Speaker 02 He did all right. It seemed like.
11:33 Speaker 03 He was all right.
11:33 Speaker 02 I, I don't know what the, what his like, uh, polls were like. He was just, I think maybe it was hard. He was just trying to, trying to, you know, bring the Republicans and Democrats together.
11:44 Speaker 03 Yeah.
11:45 Speaker 02 You know, it's just.
11:46 Speaker 03 I mean, his first term, I thought he did, he did, he did, he accomplished that in his first term, in my opinion.
11:51 Speaker 02 Yeah, it seemed like he did decent, decent job. Um, so great. Yeah, that's a great question. Uh, another question, Sammy?
12:00 Speaker 03 Yeah, sure. Um.
12:05 Speaker 03 Oh, this one is nice. Love the show and was wondering when you'd be doing your oral segment with Hathaway. I don't want to miss that one.
12:13 Speaker 02 I was gonna ask Stevie.
12:14 Speaker 00 That would be the first Tuesday of the month.
12:17 Speaker 02 There you go.
12:17 Speaker 00 He's already been, uh, for January, he'll be on next, uh, the first week of February.
12:22 Speaker 02 If, if you missed last week's interview, it was, I thought it was really good. I enjoyed it because we had him on just after the Venezuelan, uh, incursion or, you know, Maduro thing.
12:34 Speaker 03 Depo- is it deposition? No.
12:36 Speaker 00 Yeah, that, that show is actually playing on Thursday while we're out.
12:40 Speaker 03 Okay.
12:40 Speaker 02 Oh, good. Oh, well, tune in on Thursday and I think Chad Hathaway, local oil man, broke down really well, like what this might mean for Kern County, what it means for the United States and, and, and global oil and gas in general. Uh, with that, Sammy, uh, there was, again, you know, it seems like every day there's some, you know, headlines in terms of what's going on with our Federal Reserve. There's, there's a lot of things to talk about here. It, it comes on the heels of our consumer price index. So inflation numbers are coming out tomorrow. And why is inflation matter?
13:22 Speaker 02 Well, because that's what the Federal Reserve is really looking at to determine whether they're going to lower rates or not. Jerome Powell, our Fed Chair President right now, is under, what do you call it? Investigation? I guess he is.
13:39 Speaker 03 A grand jury investigation after the DOG filed something against the Federal Reserve or him personally regarding the expansion or the renovation going on in the actual historical building of the Federal Reserve.
13:55 Speaker 02 Yeah. This was, this was part of Jerome Powell's speech that he gave to Congress earlier last year. And now there is a criminal inquiry into the Federal Reserve's attempt to use, I'm guessing, misappropriation of funds to update and build, you know, Federal Reserve facilities. And this isn't, at least in my, in my, what I've been experiencing since President Trump has taken office is there's been a lot of pressure from the President to the Chair about
14:37 Speaker 02 lowering rates and doing it sooner and quicker. And it just-
14:42 Speaker 03 Even try, in my opinion, he tried to find ways how to fire him or get him fired or by exercising a lot of the pressure to reduce interest rates. One can argue, yes, we need interest rate reduction or we needed it last year to incentivize businesses and what have you. But in my opinion, as an ex-banker, the Federal Reserve is an independent organism. It is not public, but it's not private. It's somewhere in between. The independence of the Federal Reserve is what we've enjoyed since 1913 to give a lot of stability to the financial markets. And its independence is what Greenspan was able to manage through high inflation in
15:25 Speaker 03 the eighties, early nineties, then all the other feds that federal chairman that or chairwoman that came after Greenspan. The fact that we're exercising pressure on an individual to either leave office or or reduce rate is something I take offense to as an ex-banker, because that independence is very, very, very important for the market, in my opinion.
15:51 Speaker 02 Just, just look at other countries that had an independent central bank and then it changed. And then what happened to that country? You have Turkey when
16:02 Speaker 03 Erdogan.
16:03 Speaker 02 Yep, when Erdogan took that and took that over. Argentina, this is something that we're seeing right now. The bank became a financing arm of the government and started printing money to cover some of its fiscal deficits. You have Venezuela with Hugo Chavez doing that and then later Maduro doing that. Zimbabwe, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, this happened, happened in Hungary, it happened in partially for the Bank of Japan. And you see time after time that the government gets in there and now it becomes political where these decisions are made off of a political schedule and a political routine rather than
16:47 Speaker 02 a economic sort of cycle or economic focus, which doesn't always run in four years or however long your president is in, is in office.
16:57 Speaker 03 I agree with you. I think if we are choosing to be in a true capitalistic system, the Federal Reserve, in my opinion, needs to be independent.
17:07 Speaker 02 Yeah.
17:08 Speaker 03 And remain independent. Now, if we choose to be some type of a socialist country or somewhere in between, then that's a different story. Let's just call it what it is and be, and be that and have the government run the Federal Reserve. That's not the case. I mean, I'll be honest, I went to banking school and I met people from the, from, from that branch, from Federal Reserve, not just, there are multiple, several, by the way, there are multiple sectors or multiple governors, not just
17:38 Speaker 03 The Fed Chairman, and they all meet and make decisions collectively based on a voting system. So that system worked, in my opinion, Jared. Not, it's not without a flaw, but it worked and, and in my, in my opinion, maintained the, the markets. We don't go crazy.
17:57 Speaker 02 Yes, and don't, because you run the risk, you run the risk of overheating the economy, you run the risk of unintended consequences by manipulating your interest rate based off of political reasons versus based off of economic reasons. And you have to think longer term. You have to think beyond political in, in this case. And, you know, it'd be one story if, if the president was outlining his economic reasons based off of data that he knows and that is, that is out there as to why we need to lower rates now. That's
18:36 Speaker 02 different. But now it just, now it's just this personal attacks, it's misinformation, and it's, it's, it's unfortunate, I think. Jerome Powell, I was, I was not a big fan at the beginning for Jerome Powell, but I think he did a phenomenal job of navigating us through one of the biggest economic crisis, crises that we face as a country. And remember, Trump elevated him to Fed Chair in his first term in 2017. And he took over and replaced Janet Yellen. And then he was later reappointed as Chair in 2021 by President Biden. But
19:20 Speaker 02 I think that what, what President Trump is looking for is somebody that will just listen to him and do what he says.
19:26 Speaker 03 So we, we, we talked about the other candidate potentially, when the Fed Chairman exits, probably in what, May of this year?
19:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:35 Speaker 03 I believe. And you had, you had some opinion on the potential person that might be a... The next chairman.
19:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, there's, there's, there's a shortlist of three or four and two or three of those people are a little nutty, if you ask me.
19:52 Speaker 03 Is that the one that had the book that you studied, early nineties?
19:55 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:56 Speaker 03 You told me about?
19:56 Speaker 02 Dow, was it Dow 10,000?
19:58 Speaker 03 Yeah.
19:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, and he was off by like 15 years in his prediction, whatever. It's like the case study for what, what kind of stock prediction book to not write. Gosh, it's crazy. It's crazy. We're going to take our first break of the day. We come back. We're going to be joined by Jovon Dangerfield. Joe Danger is here with us. He's a local artist and activist. Got so much to talk to him about. Don't go anywhere. We're Money Wise.
20:22 Speaker 00 Have you been putting off your finances? Seize the day. Call the Money Wise office at 661-847-1000 or email [email protected] for more information.
20:47 Speaker 02 And welcome back to Money Wise. We're your hosts today. I'm Jared Waite here with Sammy Abiyawi.
20:52 Speaker 03 Hey, this is some really good music. Who's the singer again?
20:56 Speaker 02 What you're listening to there is Jovon Dangerfield.
20:58 Speaker 03 Right next to me.
20:59 Speaker 02 Also known as Joe Danger, also known as kingdom activist, local activist and artist and also executive director for Time for Change. Got, wears lots of hats. Not your first time to the show?
21:13 Speaker 04 No, sir. No, sir.
21:14 Speaker 02 But welcome back. Good having you, Jovon.
21:16 Speaker 04 Thank you. It's an honor to be here with you guys.
21:18 Speaker 02 So is this, you were just saying this song here is this, this isn't your new? Is this your new?
21:22 Speaker 04 It's going to be on the album, yes.
21:23 Speaker 02 On Inspire 2?
21:24 Speaker 04 It's not the new single, but it's going to be on the album, yes.
21:26 Speaker 02 And so let's talk about it. You've got a new album coming out?
21:29 Speaker 04 Yeah, Inspire 2, man. Um, my son died in November 4th and I was laying in bed and I was sad and I was reflecting and I found purpose in the pain and I started to write because I was getting so many messages from people that were like, people don't have gifts for Christmas. Are you going to help us? Are you going to put together some stuff? Are you going to find sponsors? Just so many different things that the community was reaching out for. My, my son's going to jail. My grandma's died. The economy's hurting me, you know, and, and reaching out, not just sometimes for help or for consulting. And then sometimes just to like vent, you know? And I was just like, man, I think it's time to do another album right now. I'm hurting. We're hurting. Let's, let's make something of it. Let's not just hurt for nothing. Let's not just lay out and die.
22:14 Speaker 04 Like, let's fight back. And that's the theme of Inspired 2 is what it's about.
22:17 Speaker 02 Wow, that's heavy, man. I'm sorry for your loss. I had no idea.
22:22 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah.
22:23 Speaker 02 Um, you, you're a leader. You're a local leader. You're, you're engaged in the community and have been for many years. So you mentioned a lot of people look up to you or come to you for, for help or for advice. What was that like getting, you know, having that, dealing with your own, your own grief and your own problems? And then, you know, having, you've always carried a little bit of weight, I'm sure, on your shoulders for, you know, the community.
22:49 Speaker 04 Sure.
22:50 Speaker 02 So what?
22:51 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, being, um, being given this as a mission, I believe, I believe that I was given this by the man above to do good for people without expectation, without wanting them to do what I think they need to do, without preaching them down the hall and around the corner, just doing it because it's good to do. And I hadn't seen a lot of that coming up. I seen people doing stuff with an aim, you know, there was always a catch. And my thing was like, dude, if I just love people, I feel like we can create the biggest movement ever of people that will pay it forward and love other people and get inspired, no pun intended. So while I was going through my pain, I, I was like, I'm a servant, man. You know, so it's not like I was driving the whole time and I can just decide when I want to get off the road and when I want to get back on.
23:36 Speaker 04 Like, when you serve, you serve for life. You serve no matter what happens until they put flowers on me. Then I serve.
23:44 Speaker 02 Yeah.
23:44 Speaker 04 And I'm serious about it. And this is what we do. So we don't play no games when it comes to serving others.
23:51 Speaker 02 So service and music and creating music. I think we talked about this last time you were on the show last year. My, me just being in awe of how much you can do that is artist. Cause I'm a fan.
24:09 Speaker 04 Thank you.
24:10 Speaker 02 But also just like the, the management and leadership is you, you have time for change.
24:18 Speaker 04 Sure.
24:18 Speaker 02 Maybe, maybe talk about time for change.
24:20 Speaker 04 Yeah. Traditional Youth Mobilizing for Change is a nonprofit, 16 to 24 years old. Internally, externally, we consult with school districts, high schools, local schools, colleges. I'm a consultant with the Samson Network, the Opial Response Network. I'm a consultant with the Fresno Unified. I'm a consultant with KCSOS. So Time For Change kind of comes under some of that stuff I do when I bring them along to provide the service arm of business. We have grown to provide services to others such as specialized presentations, specialized media, involved assemblies, and, and, and leadership groups that happen on campus where we use evidence-based curriculums to bring the youth forward. Mentorship programs, and then we have our internal group. We were able to get some really large grants from the Elevate Youth California to do this.
25:05 Speaker 04 And we started creating infrastructures and building up leaders. And I just happen to be, you know, CEO of it, but I want to see more CEOs come out of it.
25:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
25:13 Speaker 04 And that's kind of the whole mission behind what we're doing.
25:16 Speaker 02 Yeah.
25:16 Speaker 04 We use arts, culture. The mantra I use around the office is everything at my disposal that we can use for the mission, we're gonna do it. So that's why we bring the albums out and that's why we do the documentaries because a lot of nonprofits haven't really flexed their creative muscles like they could because everybody's trying to find out what everybody else is doing so that they can do it. But what if we were one of the first in our region to do it this way and show people that there are more than one way to skin a cat?
25:41 Speaker 02 It's beautiful. I mean, it's so cool using that creativity and that artistic talent that you have to lead especially youth down.
25:52 Speaker 04 Thank you so much.
25:53 Speaker 02 You know, down a positive path.
25:55 Speaker 04 Sure.
25:55 Speaker 02 And to show that there's, you know, there's, there's, show right ways, ways to live.
26:01 Speaker 04 Yeah. I mean, with culture, it's crazy because. Cultural is some, culture is something that we either ignore or we embrace, right? Because like when you see hip hop, it's like, okay, a guy, he's out with some chicks. He's on a Cadillac or he's in front of the liquor store or he's killing 95 guys in a song. And that's all, that's all we're starting to see. More and more as we get away from the essence of things, we begin to blur what they were really for. So I'm like, let's bring it back and still be culturally relevant. Show the edge that we need, but without being degrading and without selling ourselves out. And if we're good enough at it and we get good enough at it, people will respect what we're doing. And then that's what I'm starting to see.
26:40 Speaker 02 Well, that's the key because when it comes, for me at least, when it comes down to music or art in general, it's got to be good.
26:48 Speaker 04 Gotta be.
26:49 Speaker 02 First, it doesn't matter what your message is, how good your message is or what's behind it. Like what's the talent, you know, what does this sound like? What is it, you know, it's gotta be moving, at least for me, I'm more of a musically driven than I am lyrically driven, but, but every once in a while I'll be listening to something and then I start listening to the lyrics and I'm like, what, what kind of, what, what is this message that they're pushing?
27:12 Speaker 04 Yeah, what is he talking about?
27:13 Speaker 02 Yeah, and then it can, and then it almost doesn't matter how good the, how good the music is, but it's sometimes the music is so good that, I mean, we see it out there in the music world, there's a lot of like dummies out there that are not like, not super up and up, but you know, people still listen to R. Kelly.
27:29 Speaker 04 Yeah, you're just kind of bopping to it. And, but you know, there's guys like Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole where you just know that they have something to say in this thing, you know, and that's a, that's a whole different level of, of meaning. And they are though, I'm working in the industry too, you know, I'm a partner with Universal Records out in LA and I do like promotions and creative direction too. And these guys are the guys that are going platinum. These are the guys, these other guys, they're coming and, but they're leaving, you know, it's like a revolving door, but then some of these guys, these guys are mainstays. These are artists that really can come out and go platinum with a message and they're the ones that are sticking around for the long haul.
28:04 Speaker 03 Stay relevant for, for some time to go, not just for a short period of time.
28:09 Speaker 04 Exactly.
28:10 Speaker 03 I'm interested in just hearing your story because this is the first time I get to meet you. How did you get going?
28:15 Speaker 04 I started out with the music. I started out with the music in two thousand eleven. My mom got me a Mac computer. I didn't know how to use it, but it had a program called GarageBand. I started trying to make beats on the GarageBand. I always knew how to rhyme because I grew up in that era. So I was always trying to rhyme. I started trying to rhyme over my beats. And then I independently started reaching out to different organizations that were community driven across the country to start tours. So that I could make money to invest in where I wanted to go next. So I started Kingdom Activist Incorporated, which was a nonprofit. I started reaching out to people and saying, hey, you're in Denver. Let me send you my music. Let me send you my videos. And they would be like, oh, this guy's in California. You know, this guy's dope. So then they would fly me out. Then I would perform for them and then I would gain followers, Instagram followers from that.
28:58 Speaker 04 And then they would be like a little buzz market. And then as they would like post and share my stuff, then more people in that city would find out about me. And I just started going from city to city, from Houston to Portland to Denver to Dallas. To, I mean, all over the place. Chicago. I've been to New York, Miami. I've been to Philly. I've been to Vegas. And just, I kept pushing it like that. Then COVID hit and I ended up feeling the need to do the same thing locally. Because I never wanted to do it locally. I never saw the need. But then when COVID happened, it cleared my vision and said, the city's growing. And there's a way that you can do this on a micro level that will still push macro if you do it right. So I started just going around the city using my other gifts and tying them back to my original thing, which was music.
29:41 Speaker 04 And then I come to find that I love business just as much as music. And I love leadership just as much as music. And I love making a deal. I love getting a deal done. I love negotiating. I love looking at the budgets. I love bringing out the best in my team. So, you know, I just kind of do the same thing, just differently. It's different expressions of the same gift, though.
30:01 Speaker 03 No, I'm just, you said so many things at the end, especially budget, deal making, business.
30:08 Speaker 04 Love that stuff.
30:09 Speaker 03 You know, being an artist. Emily, Sherid's wife, would always tell her, I'm not an artist. She's like, no, Sammy, you are. Because you do things and you're, you have an ear and stuff. But I love numbers. I love business. I love deal making. And she was like, no, no, you're an artist too, because she, she, she hears the music I listen to sometimes. But what's important for me, from what you said, is the kids that 16 to 20. And having exposure to 24, having exposure to somebody like you. Okay, I love music. I love art. I can rhyme, but also I can run a business.
30:43 Speaker 04 Right, because there's multiple ways to do it. And that's the problem with music is like, people think if they don't get signed and go blow up, that music doesn't exist for them. But we were able to prove through, like, I licensed that album through my school tours. Like, I'm able to add that as a fee on to speaking fees and merchandise fees to the whole entirety of the music. And we make the deal and the music is still useful in the deal to produce income that helps the business move forward. So it's just about, like, being creative about the deal, right? They may say this part of the deal doesn't work for us. And then we're like, okay, let's restructure it. That's creativity.
31:19 Speaker 03 That's right.
31:19 Speaker 04 A lot of people can't do that. You don't like one edge of the deal and somebody's like, I'm out. But when you really want that deal and you, and you believe there's something in it for you, get creative about it. So that's how we started adding in different elements to push the business forward and teach the youth how to build proposals, how to understand that it may get sent back four, five, six times. It's not a rejection. That just means that you gotta alter it. And then if you get rejected on the next deal, you'll know how to push. And that becomes very important when you're dealing with like Bakersfield City School District, KCSOS, even the people I deal with in LA and different parts of the country. You have to, you have to understand their modes in order to, to be attractive to them. So it's all a continual learning process. And it's not about trying to play the odds of Vegas to get famous.
32:01 Speaker 04 It's really about playing what you've been given properly and you can go forward.
32:06 Speaker 03 I like this guy.
32:07 Speaker 02 I told you, I knew you'd like him. I knew you'd like, but again, it comes down to very few artists have that left brain, right brain ability to go, you know, get in there in the studio and just, you know, and, and, and just create something, a really good product and then also know how to make that sustainable. How do you, like, how you gotta pay the bills. You know, you're not gonna go and do a, a, a, a presentation at a, at a school for, you gotta pay gas to get there. There's expenses just to get there. Like, how do you figure these things out?
32:42 Speaker 04 A lot of people can't go with us because like, they don't, they don't know how to like not use profanity in the song. So now you just killed off six or seven business lanes and you're not famous. So why did you do that? Right? So it all goes into like how we create and what we create so that we can like synergize the brands and kind of push forward.
33:01 Speaker 02 Yes.
33:02 Speaker 03 I was, I have a 13 year old and I, I, I think he's smart.
33:08 Speaker 02 He's smart. He's definitely smart.
33:09 Speaker 03 But the other day I told him, hey, being smart is not enough.
33:13 Speaker 04 No.
33:14 Speaker 03 Hard work is what's gonna get you to that next level.
33:17 Speaker 04 Come on.
33:18 Speaker 03 Seriously. Like, any athlete would let, tell you that. Any successful business person, yes, they have talent, but then they put in the work.
33:27 Speaker 04 Right.
33:28 Speaker 03 And what I told him is like, hey, you, you gotta do something.
33:31 Speaker 04 Yeah.
33:31 Speaker 03 But if you're gonna be that one percenter, or even the one percenter of the one percenter, you've gotta work hard.
33:37 Speaker 04 Exactly. When the world is sleep, I'm up.
33:39 Speaker 03 So we picked the, a word for the year for 2026 and that's discipline.
33:43 Speaker 04 Come on. I love it, man. My motto is when everybody's looking left, I'm looking right. When everybody's asleep, I'm up. When everybody's trending on something, it's too late. I missed it. Whenever, you know, we, when we're doing something that people are like, what's that about? Now we got it. Because that and some patience and some good old hard fashioned work will move forward and then people will be trying to do what we're doing. And that's what's happening now.
34:06 Speaker 03 And that's, that's the ultimate. Um, like feel good, in my opinion. If somebody is mimicking you or trying to do what you're trying, what you've done, that's, hey, you've accomplished something, in my opinion.
34:18 Speaker 04 Me too, dude. Straight up, yeah. And, and, and here's the other thing, real quick. The thing that's crazy is, I thought I had to go to LA and chase LA around, but when I did this, and I started to do this, some, a booking agent from Sway in the Morning called me two weeks ago and asked if she can represent my press in Hollywood. From Bakersfield. So instead of me trying to go live with seventeen guys in a studio apartment in Inglewood, and a dog, I did this, and we understood the social digital realm enough to get our stuff out and make friends and network upwards. And now she's called me, and now she's my PR agent. And as soon as I get done with this press run, I got like twenty, I gotta go run in LA
35:00 Speaker 04 for the, for the art that I really created for my community. But now it's going wider without me knowing it, just because I was working hard.
35:07 Speaker 02 It's so good. It's so cool. So freaking cool. We're, again, we're joined by Jovon Dangerfield. He is executive director for Time for Change, but also artist, musician, advocate, and activist. Uh, Jovon, um, this, you, how many albums do you have? You have this, uh, Inspired Two is being released this week, on Thursday. At one fifteen on Thursday?
35:33 Speaker 04 No, one fifteen, which is, uh, January fifteenth.
35:35 Speaker 02 Oh, I was like, yeah, well, that's a very specific time.
35:37 Speaker 04 I know, I know. It's a science.
35:39 Speaker 02 Yeah. So this is off of, I've, I've listened to Inspire One, Inspire, the first album. Brilliant. Just came out last year.
35:47 Speaker 04 Yes, sir, January.
35:48 Speaker 02 How many albums do you have?
35:49 Speaker 04 Total, like, five, and then I had mixtapes that I was putting out, but I never promoted them right. I had to learn through failure. I would just put it on Instagram and post it and be like, alright, cool, I'm going to bed. And, uh, after doing that two or three times with mixtapes, I was like, oh, yeah, I gotta work this album just as hard as I created it. So now, you'll see me doing the press runs. You see me hitting everything. I've hit every news channel in the city somehow. I've hit every radio station. I've, I'm just hitting everywhere. On air ads, targeted ads, digital ads, um, everything you could think of to promote this album. Business standpoint.
36:20 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:20 Speaker 04 It's for you.
36:21 Speaker 02 And so what's the hope? What's the goal?
36:23 Speaker 04 Like, what? Number one goal is always to inspire others. Because if I do that, I believe in my heart that if I help people get encouraged, and if I help people get what they need, I'll never have another need as long as I live.
36:33 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:34 Speaker 04 And I've always believed that. And since I started helping people, I have never had a true need. I've had some wants, but we're on our way to those. But really, it's about the need. It's about uplifting my community. It's about giving the facelift they need. It's about telling that one rapper, you don't have to kill people in your rhymes, even though you're not a murderer anyway. You could be yourself. If you care about causes, you can rap about that. If you care about people, you can rap about that. You've just got to be willing to put in the time to learn how to do it in a way that doesn't sound corny. And so you can still reach that culture and that demographic that you want to reach. And that takes time, and it takes failure. And if you're not willing, then scoot over, because I am.
37:10 Speaker 02 Have you, have you gotten hate from other artists that have said, think you're too soft, or?
37:16 Speaker 04 I've gotten hate for artists because I get more attention regionally than all of them, because it's like, well, he just did this because of that, and he just did that because of that. And I'm like, well, yeah, read a book. It's called a niche.
37:30 Speaker 02 You're out there doing it.
37:31 Speaker 04 Yeah, niche is just as much a part of your business plan than anything else.
37:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
37:34 Speaker 04 But if you don't understand that, you're still trying to be somebody you're not, because you're not a gangster.
37:39 Speaker 02 Yeah.
37:39 Speaker 04 You know what I mean? But you want to be a gangster. And nobody wants to hear a gangster from Bakersfield talking about killing people when they could already have a million gangsters that are already famous.
37:47 Speaker 02 Right.
37:47 Speaker 04 But they're all going to jail.
37:49 Speaker 02 Right.
37:49 Speaker 04 So what's the business model for this?
37:51 Speaker 02 Right. Yeah, especially if you're talking about killing in Bakersfield. And it's like, this town's not that big. Like, what part of town are you killing in?
37:58 Speaker 04 Right. And then the other part of the problem is people not understanding how big Bakersfield had become.
38:03 Speaker 02 Yes.
38:04 Speaker 04 They still treated it like it was the same Bakersfield from 20 years ago, when the census was reaching a million for the city and the outer, the outer areas.
38:11 Speaker 02 Yeah.
38:11 Speaker 04 So our motto was, let's get in front of the others. Let's not take the same pictures with the same people at the same galas. No shade to that, but that's not our mode. Our mode is to get to the places where the people that have moved here are, where the people that have been untouched are, so that we can build up faster than trying to run the same lap that everyone else was. And that- That works.
38:29 Speaker 02 Yes, yes. You know, Bakersfield is ninth largest town in California. You're right in between Anaheim and Oakland.
38:37 Speaker 04 Exactly.
38:38 Speaker 02 In terms of population. And you think about the artists and the movers and shakers that come out of Oakland and Anaheim. It's like, like we, what's your assessment of the, of the scene here in, in Bakersfield?
38:50 Speaker 04 The scene here is troubled by what I just said for one. Um, so I would call it more plagued by because they don't still understand yet the need to find alternative routes of marketing. You know, you, you need to find new ways to reach new people in a new digital space. And then you can't just settle for the digital space, right? You have to mimic what you did in the digital space offline, because offline has algorithms too. They're just metaphorical. But when you find the offline algorithm, your online algorithm should mimic it. And now you have multiple lanes and you're diversifying the output.
39:26 Speaker 02 Uh, just in, I just Googled your name, Jovon Dangerfield, Bakersfield. And it, the first three or four pages, I'm not kidding, are all, not all, but it's, it's you on channel 23. It's you on, on, on channel 17. It's you on the Money Wise Show. It's you on, it, doing your own, because you also have your own, uh, program.
39:48 Speaker 04 Yeah.
39:48 Speaker 02 Right?
39:48 Speaker 04 Yeah. Well, Kingdom Activist's outreach, support and services program. It kind of works in tandem with Time for Change because I'm a consultant individually. But then I brought it over because when I get in there to make those deals, I say, this project I can do. This project is too big for me to do, but I know who can.
40:05 Speaker 02 Yeah.
40:05 Speaker 04 Time for change.
40:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
40:07 Speaker 04 I got staff, I got specialists, I got people that can come in alongside. Let's contract with them on this. And I'll take the hit sometimes and take either less or not contract at all. And just give it to Time for Change to watch them grow. Because as we grow bilaterally, I grow. And as I grow, they grow. And we can do that type of thing to go together. It just got too big for me to do it alone. I can console with whoever, but beyond that, when it comes time to action plan and execute, then now I need people. And that's what Time for Change is ready to do.
40:37 Speaker 02 We got a listener that's It's asking about who you are, first of all, which we've clarified that, but how they might be able to help support, help the foundation. So maybe this is a good opportunity before we let you go.
40:49 Speaker 04 My god.
40:49 Speaker 02 How can people participate? How can people find you?
40:52 Speaker 04 Yeah, I would, if you want to help participate with the mission, I would go to Time for Change, which is T Y M for change.org.
41:00 Speaker 02 And it's the number four.
41:02 Speaker 04 Yes, the number four.
41:03 Speaker 02 Time for Change.
41:03 Speaker 04 Yes, T Y M for the number four, change.org. And you can go there and you can donate. We have some of the best around. We have great CPAs. We have great transparency. We have great records. Everything is solid. You know, we have some solid board members. So donating there will help our mission tremendously. We will help youth. We adopted Martin Luther King Park. We're finding needles and stuff there and getting policy change there. We just got our second big policy change with the city council. So you can donate there. Other ways to donate is you can go to kingdomactivist.com if you want to donate to the cultural stuff, the musical stuff, and then you can help out with that, too. But you can definitely go to donate on Time for Change if you want to help us with our mission and your money
41:46 Speaker 04 will go somewhere to help somebody.
41:49 Speaker 02 Yes, yes. And then in terms of your music, you can be found anywhere. Spotify, Apple Music.
41:56 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah, yeah. Just spell my name right. J O V O N.
41:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
41:59 Speaker 04 Dangerfield. And you know, Dangerfield, like Rodney.
42:01 Speaker 02 Like Rodney.
42:02 Speaker 04 He gets no respect. So go there and do that. And you can stream the music. The album comes out Thursday. And this is going to be the biggest album I've ever done already before it's got out. It's already made more capital. It's already got more listeners and I've already done more interviews and reached more people than I ever have.
42:16 Speaker 02 Good for you. I can't wait to hear it. I can't wait to hear it. I'm excited for the, for the release and you, I hope you get all the respect you deserve.
42:25 Speaker 04 Come on.
42:26 Speaker 02 My friend. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the Money Wise Show.
42:30 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
42:31 Speaker 02 Joe, Joe Von Dangerfield. Go check him out. Timeforchange.org. Great, great human being. Good stuff. Thanks, Joe Von.
42:38 Speaker 04 Thank you, guys.
42:39 Speaker 02 We'll be right back. We're Money Wise.
42:40 Speaker 00 Are you curious to learn more about how you can be money wise? Check out the Money Wise website at moneywiseguys.com to get more info about what we do and how we can help you.
43:02 Speaker 02 This is so good. Welcome back to Money Wise. That's Jovon Dangerfield you're listening to. Local artist, activist, community member, just wonderful human being. So good having Jovon on. Thank you, Jovon, again. Sammy.
43:18 Speaker 03 A couple of comments. One question, I don't know if you want to. First one is very important to me. Does the diner have soup?
43:27 Speaker 02 Give a plug for the soup, Sammy. Today's soup.
43:29 Speaker 03 Today's soup is albóndigas. Our chef, Richard Yoshimura, has not done a bad job with any of the soups since we opened October 7th. It's been amazing. All the soups are actually on our Instagram page on a daily basis, so you can actually see what we're serving that day before you come in. But still come in. Chili burgers, chili fries, I mean, all sort of stuff that you can now modify and create your own creation like I do. The sky's the limit, really.
44:00 Speaker 02 Yeah, you know, when we started the, when we were coming up with the menu for the luncheonette, it was definitely important that we stick to a lot of the traditional items and certainly a lot of the items that people were used to eating before. But we also knew, at least you and I, Sammy, knew that this is going to be a restaurant that's right downstairs from our office. We're going to get burned out on burgers, fries, and hot dogs, you know, every single day. And so, Richard, our chef, has come up with a nice rotating, not only soups, but sometimes there's some, there's some.
44:38 Speaker 03 Happy hour items too, those are just amazing.
44:43 Speaker 02 Chili, chili, bang, bang. There's a few like specials that come out, so.
44:48 Speaker 03 Check out our page on Instagram or social media in general, our website. We have the updated stuff there. And by the way, we're open between 11 and 8 p.m. We do not close at 3 like the rest of downtown. We are open until 8 p.m. Can come in for a beer, can come in for a glass of wine after you finish your work at your office. And get some specials, some happy hour specials with happy hour prices as well.
45:12 Speaker 02 Yeah. Back to headlines, some of the headlines, at least Sammy, there is, we were talking earlier in the show about the pressure that President Trump is putting on Jerome Powell and the potential consequences that could come up by getting involved in politicizing the central bank and central bank policy. There is another statement that President Trump made today, and I want to talk about this while you're on the show because of your banking background and your lending background. President Trump is proposing putting a 10% limit on credit, that credit cards can charge, it's that charge the consumer.
45:52 Speaker 02 He says that lenders will be, quote, "in violation of the law," unquote, if they don't cap interest rates at 10%.
46:00 Speaker 03 Well, we'll just close our doors then. I mean, if I'm a credit card company, I'll just close my door shut. No, look, I am not a person that takes advantage of other people. Okay? With that being said, let's define what a credit card is. A credit card is a high risk loan. Meaning there's no collateral, you're there, you cannot file a lien on anything that the customer or the client has. Basically, you're giving them cash to spend without any type of lien on any of their assets. That creates a high, high risk, the highest risk you can have.
46:32 Speaker 02 Right.
46:33 Speaker 03 Right? Why would I lend you 10% a credit card, unsecured credit card at 10%?
46:40 Speaker 02 Right. You get a hard money loan, you know?
46:42 Speaker 03 Correct. I mean, real estate loans, hard money, real estate loans are at 10, 12%.
46:46 Speaker 02 Right.
46:47 Speaker 03 Okay, just, just, just, your car loan today is about 7%, your mortgage is above 6%. And you're asking me to do a credit card debt with high risk at 10%? I'm not saying that's not the right thing. I'm just saying the rules of the credit card at that point need to change as well.
47:04 Speaker 02 Yes.
47:04 Speaker 03 In order for the banks or the lenders to mitigate the risk that they have.
47:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, but the consequence here's on the surface, it sounds great. Wow. Okay.
47:14 Speaker 03 Yes.
47:14 Speaker 02 No more than 10%. Yeah, of course, nobody likes credit cards gouging people. But if you dig a little deeper, you might recognize that it may be some unintended consequences that are far, could be far worse. Because what would happen is like you said, the banks were like, okay, we're done with this. You know, we're not, we're not.
47:31 Speaker 03 Now we're losing a lifeline.
47:33 Speaker 02 Yes.
47:33 Speaker 03 For a lot of people. A lot of people use this to sometimes survive until the life changes or until they find a job or until they find a better job. We are running at a deficit. We talked about deficit at the state level, at the federal level, or guess what? Our households, American households, run at a deficit with the credit cards.
47:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, right.
47:53 Speaker 03 That's what it is.
47:54 Speaker 02 Right.
47:54 Speaker 03 And you take that away, guess what? That lifeline is now going to go away.
47:57 Speaker 02 And that then just shifts households to higher cost, riskier credit, like payday lenders and pawn shops and even just like personal loans with high fees. Which is that, okay, now what is the White House going to like limit those? They're going to put a cap on what payday loans and what pawn shops and what people can lend each other?
48:18 Speaker 03 Do, do, do, do people get taken advantage of with credit cards? The answer is that yes. With that being said, it is a free market. You can still find ways how to, when we talk about this on the show all the time, please, the first thing you want to pay off is your credit card debt because you, we don't want you to be paying 30%.
48:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
48:36 Speaker 03 Interest rate.
48:37 Speaker 02 Right.
48:37 Speaker 03 But at the same time, at 10%, it's just not a, it's not going to be a good business model for lenders to follow and to do at 10%. It just doesn't make sense here.
48:48 Speaker 02 You know, also selfishly, we talk about the benefits of using a credit card. So if you use a credit card responsibly, what, what happens is those who are irresponsible subsidize all the benefits that we get because we don't pay any interest.
49:02 Speaker 03 That's correct.
49:03 Speaker 02 We don't pay those interests and those fees. All we do is reap the rewards and the benefits that are being subsidized by somebody who's carrying a balance on their credit card. So those would go away. You know, it's going to hurt the responsible credit card users likely. And now it's like, well, what?
49:18 Speaker 03 Is that person in the middle that uses it, but also pays it not over 10 years, but maybe a year and a half, two years, depending on whatever the situation is?
49:28 Speaker 02 Yes, yep, exactly. Well, we want to thank all of our listeners for tuning in today. Want to remind you, if you would like to listen to this show or any of our past programs, you can find us wherever you listen and stream your music, whether it's Spotify or Apple Music. It's all commercial free and again on all major podcast platforms. And of course, we will be back tomorrow. I'll be hosting tomorrow's show and we'll be down here in the basement of the historic Woolworths building. Sammy, thanks so much, man. Congratulations. We did it. Good job, Steve Z. Remember these three things. Be smart, be safe, and always be money wise.
50:09 Speaker 01 Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.
Previous 1/9/26 Big Bills, Job Numbers, and What's Changing for Your Wallet Next 1/14/26 Long-Term Thinking in a Short-Term World: Buffett, QE, and Mortgage Rates Page updated November 6, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
