Legend LL Cool J Breaks Down Success, Open-Mindedness, and Hip Hop – GaryVee Audio Experience

but i was in it early like in terms of just being comfortable with it you know i didn't even fear it you didn't think it was going to [ __ ] your money up no i didn't but you know at one point the record companies did gas me up you know they did gassed me up and i was down here in front of congress like yo i'm not sure i'm sir [ __ ] that like like because i was gassed up and you know understanding that that they were just trying to hold on to some [ __ ] that was gonna go away anyway the garyvee audio experience

all right everybody uh as many of you know listening to this podcast i've been thinking about doing more interviews and when i was thinking it through and thinking about who do i want to get on who have i not been able to really chop with because you know two planes in the night everyone's moving fast this man came first to mind i hit him on dm he said let's chop it up and a couple weeks later we are here recording on a saturday the legend that is really the only thing that comes to mind when i get to say truly you know i think these days you know kid has one good game in high school and they call him the goat and i laugh but i you know those hyperboles get thrown around but you know being 45 growing up in jersey for me ll cool j is on a different status it's exciting to kind of grow up in life when you're in the same general age and reach of age because you get to watch the whole manifesto thank you so much for doing the podcast how are you how's your family first of all before we get into a bunch of different [ __ ] my family's well um you know um healthy thankfully um i'm having a weird thanksgiving had to call some close friends and tell them um not this not this year we had to break with tradition which wasn't fun but i think it was the right thing to do um and um you know we're good you know what i mean how's yours everybody good on your end everybody's good let's go everyone's good let's go right into it because we don't have a lot of time and i want to get into a bunch of stuff so i was born in the soviet union and when i moved to america we moved to rigo park queens you know those are old stomping grounds for you what did what when you think about your childhood forget about parenting dynamics family dynamics which are obviously number one two and three for most people but i spend a lot of time thinking about environment when i go there when i say like things that weren't you know obviously your parents your grandparents those are life situations but the person you're neighbors with the first kid that you connect with in second grade when i think about when you think about your childhood the neighborhood the activities of the neighborhood or the serendipity of classmates or teachers what comes to mind outside of immediate family of things that shaped you well what i think about my neighborhood in the way i grew up um it's a combination of a few things um it is it's this is a really complicated answer i'm going to give you the real you can tell i want to go like different stuff that i think might bring people value because there's so much on on wax and video of you and we'll go into that stuff but i like thinking about random [ __ ] and i was thinking about this morning i was like i'm just curious like i think about robbie turnik eric godfrey i think about like you know jersey culture was like very like you know just out the outside it was at the 80s right like it wasn't video games yet it wasn't you know computers and things that nature i always think about how that shaped me the randomness of my neighborhood friends i love those stories yeah my neighborhood was um was really built around there was only one dad on the whole my whole block um well there was two it was only really two fathers in households um which was uh and my grandfather um which was um that was one dynamic um the other dynamic was uh a lot of guys coming home from jail and [ __ ] right like so to come home from jail thing the fathers come from jail no not fathers but kids like 18 to maybe my age or a few years older coming home from jail was a lot of people or like that was a big one growing up people will always come witch which incredibly enough made me want to be physically fit because you see guys coming home jacked jack benches in the yard you know so there was that right then there was the um the hustlers you know there was the idea of now mind you i grew up in a book i mean a house full of books right and my grandfather came over from barbados and um you know he was a member of a masonic lodge he was a really kind of evolved guy um but um you know then you go outside and it's kind of like yeah like a thoughtful very thoughtful very um you know uh kind of knew how to give you and he it's like giving a cow enough pasture you give somebody so much freedom that they can't hurt themselves it's like if you have enough land you can let your dog run wild right cow just go crazy because it's if it's safe there's nothing so he would give me a lot of intellectual and psychological freedom he didn't put a lot of you know they didn't like handcuff me mentally you know what i mean which so that made me curious and it made me want to search you know i've always had a searching personality because curiosity can be passive it could turn into wonder or you could turn in it could become searching did you fear to let him down no i didn't i you know it's funny um you know my grandfather when i was a kid he used to call me a genius all the time he said you're a genius he's a genius this kid's a genius all the time huh i don't know if i ever really believed it but you definitely want to live up to those standards right it's a lot better than being heard you're a [ __ ] loser 100 percent you know and we both know people that grew up in those environments and everybody listening right now people know and i think a lot about you know parenting of how like tearing down buildings or building up buildings and then the question is where's the line of delusion and uh and do parents or grandparents create ramifications when you don't do genius [ __ ] well see i think with that part

of it the key is that that you can you can have great aspirations great visions great dreams great goals but you also have to think um strategically but then about tactically what you're gonna do to get there and um a lot of times the reason why people have that that big chasm that they can't get across is because they're not thinking about how they're gonna now look you know there's an old saying um plans get um get shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods right but a lot of times people don't have that they don't um they don't take that step they don't take you know the steps necessary to get to the greatness high level of success which has a lot of pain a lot of frustration there's fear there's hecticness there's nervousness there's anxiety you know what i mean a lot of times people they don't deal with that right yes i mean people want all the accolades they don't want the [ __ ] that comes along with it which is why they don't get there because they don't have the stomach for it 100 and so like so my grandmother and grandfather used to always tell me if a task has once begun never leave it till it's done be thou labor greater small do it well or not at all so what that did was it gave me the spirit of completion and intestinal fortitude and stick-to-itiveness you know what i mean like sticking to [ __ ] how old were you when you thought you had a shot to do something different eight great answer why do you remember i just was walking around i was just i remember just walking in front of my house and saying you know just i'm eight years old and i could do anything and i believed it who'd you look up to at that point outside of your family your great let's see whether grandfather or something like something out there like uh was music already on the radar oh you're yeah i know this right your grandfather had some music jazz or something right music yeah he was a jazz musician and um he played a lot of jazz records you know even more than he was always around but did you look up was it was sports on a pedestal acting anybody in culture yeah you know bruce lee that's a good one amen that makes sense let me get your age group that makes a lot of sense he was huge he was the man and it was like you know quite frankly he was the only guy he wasn't white so i could kind of relate to him like i'm like right he's not black but he ain't white so at least something he's a little tan i can kind of go with this i can make this work you know what i mean a lot of people don't realize how big those kung fu and movies were because there wasn't that much there wasn't cable and those movies would pl i even remember early 80s how old are you i'm 52. so i'm 45 so seven years old yeah so if yes so you were 14 13 14 15 if i'm thinking about the era when i when it hit my radar but i'm sure it was playing before then yeah like they would play on like saturday at 11 a. m

when i'm eight nine from age around eight nine ten all the way up to maybe 15 that was all martial arts during that era that was all like you know from the early 70s on up to like you know that was all i was a little babe like a baby boy and that was all that martial art it was like martial arts craze it was like you know everybody was kung fu fighting yeah okay it was songs out it was it really but the thing about it is getting into martial arts like my grandfather put me in martial arts i took sado karate and i um years later i took some etuan and i took a little wing chun you know were you good at a little bit yeah growing up my grandfather got me into it because they wanted me to they wanted it for discipline but the real reason is because i wanted to play football and my grandmother thought football was too dangerous so i could have a physical outlet but not be getting my brains like shook is that why you needed to act play a football player in a movie you needed to get that off without a doubt get out of down 100 i hadn't lived yet i had to live that out i had to i got to play in dallas stadium i know what it feels like i had i got to be out there did you grow up a football fan oh 100 i grew up you know i grew up a dallas cowboys fan yeah because they were always on tv too i grew up a dallas cowboys fan and um you know but then obviously as i got as i matured i became a giants fan you know what i'm saying once i got like it at that point where i could kind of make my own decisions because my grandfather kind of guided me to the cowboys he was real funny too because this is a guy who came from the bronx he's in queens but he likes the yankees so i'm watching the yankees and everybody in my neighborhood is like match fans and [ __ ] but then you know what i mean but then like and they're like jets and they're jets fans and i'm liking the giants it was crazy the jets and giants neither team made the playoffs in the 70s so there's a lot of new york you know people that kind of like gravitated towards the cowboys the steelers the raiders during that era yep which i never understand because i love rooting for bad teams because i love loyalty i love neighborhood i love eating [ __ ] but a lot of people don't want their sports frustrating them which i understand like if sports is an outlet for your life who the [ __ ] needs more headaches you know you're trying to escape your headaches you're absolutely right gary and i understand the lord loyalty i really do but it's just hard to be loyal to like that's so let's talk about music when does that even hit your radar as i'm gonna do music um when i was

i started writing when i was around 11 or around 12 11 12. so at about 10 11 there's all the martial arts stuff we talked about and then there's the music right and hip hop is flooding the flooding um the street do you remember the first time you understood there was a different thing what was it did they call did the first time you heard it did was it hip-hop did they use the term rap did they what was the term in that very interesting question initially i mean it was hip-hop but we didn't really call it that like it was more i don't remember it was more about rap music and rhyming you know what i'm saying like i remember beatboxing that's a human beatboxing but it was like rap you know what i'm saying yeah rapping and then rhyming as well as we got more sophisticated because you know the guys you know like guys that i got with we all thought about like the couplets the content the cadence the you know all of that and that's when it came more about rhyming what was the first hip-hop song that hit you hard well it wasn't even well it was um it was some of the cold crush brother routines you know it wasn't even on wax the tapes i was actually because i used to go between queens and north babylon you know what i'm saying every year like i lived in queens i lived in north babylon long island queen's north babylon queens northbound because you were going between what my mother and my grandmothers understood and so um you know so i would you know but there was a lot of foster kids in the house next door to me in long island going back and forth or you would spend the summer or how did you do it no i would literally all of the above i would go to school back and forth and summers be back and forth during the summer and like hard or hard like literally every other year like you know and was that hard and was that was hard for you or do you think you or at the time hard and now you're like oh that's why i can adjust the [ __ ] was it kind of just it's all you knew and it just that's what it is and didn't really think twice no it was did you enjoy it did you like coming back and like you know kind of interesting believe in that company it was just up to his life no todd's a pain in the ass so he's gonna go to long island this year up okay he's good oh he's really painted ass now let's set him back to queens oh any any time that you would move into like dangerous zone they thought a reset resets interesting it would hit me with the reset do you think now that enable like what if i said you what did you gain out of that maybe there's nothing maybe there's a ton i just yeah i believe in i think adversity well it it gave me exposure right because the first time i walked in a classroom in long island you know you got to remember i'm going from a school that's i would say 99. 99 black you know other than you know like and other than my friend richie who's jewish who was like my who would like who's like eight nine years old who's my jewish friend everybody's black right i got one jewish friend and everybody's black and rich when she has been part of my school where she doesn't go to my school richie's my family friend

because my aunt is a school teacher and her best friend and linda you know and so me and richie are cool so other than richie it's all about but then when i go to long island i walk in the classroom it's the exact opposite right or the inverse it's everybody's white and i'm like the one there's one black kid and i walk in and i'm the black kid you know and maybe there's another one and it was like i remember my eyes like you know jumping out of my head but what it did was it exposed me to different people right because you know you go to quit you go to long island at that time you had a lot of italians coming from brooklyn moving to long island you know what i'm saying so you you're meeting so i had like italian friend and then you kind of find out also just irish friends but then you find out about the racial dynamics that i didn't know existed when i was in queens you know what i mean so that was did it come at you hard in long island or did it come in medium or you would say subtle because people were cool you coming you know it's subtle you know two kids will be talking and you'll walk in on them and they'll be saying something they shouldn't saying and then no they'll be saying you catch them saying something they should be saying and they get quiet you know but it wasn't like atrocious nah it wasn't atrocious man because new york is like yeah i agree well new york is funny in the sense that you know in jersey for that matter too right in the sense that yes there's a lot of there's racism but it's so there's also jokes there's also a rivalry and a fun there's a it's different in new york you know what i mean like people i know exactly what you mean i'm 45 50 dude like things weren't as politically correct so there was exactly i remember like people would make racial jokes across the board i mean i caught a very weird time because i was russian when the ussr was the evil enemy so i got real heat because we were in the cold war kind of like kids after 9 11 right were from the middle east like russia shot down a plane in third grade shot down a commercial plane and literally my class just decided not to talk to me for the week wow like we were the enemy and so i don't talk about it a whole lot because it's like out of context now people don't understand but like 1982-8384 you know that go watch rocky like russia was like the enemy and people i mean people called me spy every day you know like every day they're like you're spying on us you know like and people think it's funny people fought a lot i think about fighting fighting has like is different now like i feel like it's extremes it's either no fighting going on in the suburbs or that exactly or extreme [ __ ] and every week day i'm on instagram seeing something that breaks my heart but like when i mean i was since i was in a lot of fights kids were always fighting there was a lot of

fights well i definitely grew up i grew up you know in the knuckle game heavy like you know that's all i did growing up like a lot of it was a lot of knuckle games you liked it no i didn't like it per se but you know when i was younger you know i was slim and i had that kind of face that you know you want to try i don't know pretty but you know like they just it's still pretty i wasn't like you know i didn't have that look so they seemed scary so they thought they could come up on you yeah so i used to have to put some uh put some of this on them you know i mean but uh you remember do you remember what let's call it from 6 to 16 the best feeling in the fight and the let's talk about stories that people don't know like i'll give you mine in second grade there was a kid named oded weinstock who came from israel and just decided that we were rivals we fought three times between second and sixth grade and it culminated after school with literally a hundred people watching because he caught me earlier in the day pushed me into the locker and like got on top of me and that was it they broke it up we went to detention but at lunch i just hear the whole lunchroom in sixth grade saying oh that beat up gary and i was like man i can't this can't be my reputation we just got to junior high and i walked up to him literally like [ __ ] 80s movie [ __ ] and was like let's fight at marco's house because that was the hill big shout out to marcos if you're watching please email me marcos's house where the ice cream truck was and literally there was hundreds of people we fought and he was actually winning and i would argue that i got lucky slash i just refused to go down like that he was on top of me kind of ready to like win the fight and i kept rocking and i got him off and as we were both on the ground i had the leverage and i kicked him so hard in the face his face exploded bleeding everywhere he kind of both stood up off the kick and he just started crying and ran away and for next 48 hours was the greatest moment of my life like you know but like earlier that morning was probably the because of that micro i'll call it a micro loss because some [ __ ] we didn't even get into it but he was definitely pushed me from behind on some sucka [ __ ] and then he sat on top of me and they broke it up and i didn't really have any offense so it's what about for you six to 16 best moment in a fight worst moment because i've never had yeah worst moment worst moment would probably be um let's give somebody have a good moment you're gonna call them out and be like oh this dude i had a fight with this dude mark and um you know mark's last name i don't know his last name you know what i love about the world now if you knew his last name and you shot him out it's like his nephew

i had a fight with mark and um but he liked the girl that i was friends with i liked it too but i was really a friend but i did like her the worst thing here was the worst thing about it me and him and this is the honest to god truth me and him were in high school i was a freshman we fought in the basement by ourselves like you listen i kicked his ass but got a mark on my face and everybody thought he went my ass explain to me how you guys fought solo in the basement of a house no the high school oh in high school i saw him that's some real [ __ ] i saw him and like you know he was talking something happened one thing and we like went down a back step and like we was just down somewhere in the high school where there was people and you know we got into a fight you know and i was kicking them in the stomach and like i got him like it was a good fight like i tightened him up real nice but how it however it worked out it was like i was punching him in his head i didn't catch him so how it worked out is you had a scratch

and then after we're sitting in the principal's office because security broke it up we did that in the principal's office i'm like yeah and then a dude walks in he's like yeah some other guy yo what's up he said i said yeah man i just had what was there he said you look at you you're the one with the marks on your face and walked away i'm like oh no so the whole name like it was crazy that was a that was the craziest one um what was the best one the best one had to be like this is kind of a long story and it's gonna sound a little crazy but i was um i was uh i was in red lobster with my friends right yep and we was eating and this guy kept staring at me so he stared at me for so long that finally i walked over his table and said yo you got to get out of the restaurant how old were you i must have i might have been a little older than a 16. i had to be a little older than 16. but it was ready wait you already were in your music well yeah i was already making music because remember i made my first song at 16. well that's what i think that's why i know so with the guy with mark i was 14 i was about 14 with mark this one i was a little older i want to say 18. so you already i mean because you hit fast and hard so you yeah remember there's no social media it's a little different i remember you know what i mean so you know so i said you gotta leave you know and he's driving me crazy so you know maybe i was a little foul for that so he left it i actually kicked him out of the restaurant and went back and finished my food so then we me and my friends we driving down we're driving down the block towards my house and a guy comes and he's like trying to pull us up get over it get over and he finally like you know we i pull over and he's like yo you know you try to rob my friend i'm like rob your friend do you know what i do rob your friend you think i try to rob we ended up getting in the fight i said what you want to fight so you know he thought he was going to take up for his man and he ended up catching the ass whipping all right let's man so that was a funny moment uh

how do you think you would have done in this modern music world soundcloud instagram knowing your personality you know obviously you had tenacity because i would have done phenomenal i believe that phenomenal i'm just curious how you know because obviously i would have just you know if that was my thing i would have just been rapping on every instagram page and every soundcloud like every moment every time you turn on the camera you will see me doing something you know it's funny because i believe in volume and i talk a lot about putting out a lot of stuff and i know a lot about your career because you were so in my pocket you said you sent your your demo everywhere right def jam was like right like i sent it to sugar hill enjoy i sent it to tommyboy um the demo i sent to def jam productions because it wasn't a label yet and rocket obesity boys heard it he played it for rick and that's how i got my break and then def jam the label was formed after i know because i know that you and bc boys gave them that clout to get to the next level mm-hmm that's true and rick rubin's talent russell's vision i mean from a year yeah that was gonna happen anyway you just too happen to yeah so how does it feel i think you know it's funny i know that in it's it happened for me later it was different timing but i know when i'm 70 there'll be documentaries there'll be things that talk about social media's early days and i'm i know i'm going to get flavor from that you know because i've been you know and so you that's gonna happen for me later hip-hop you were very young you were early and you're still an extremely young man now but you know you're getting kennedy awards you're in hall of fame you're real og and it's like it's incredible to live and be a hall of famer in something that you were there early and and it's at the scale that it's at now right you know you think i think about the nba like you know it's not that old of a league and there's you know i think about bill russell thinking about like not sold out stadiums you know and that like no tv and now like what it is like how does it feel to be at such a pedestal as an og in something that is one of the most important things hip-hop's in the world well it feels i look i feel amazing because i um by the grace of god and hard work and i figured out how to keep doing what i love right so i didn't have to sit get off the train and watch it drive away or what you know watching also you also evolved yeah and that so that makes a big difference right it's not like you're not sitting on the couch and saying back in 84 this is you know you mean it's enjoyable but it's almost like you can't even smell that rose because you're still so active i'm so active and i've expanded my life to an extent that i'm still like so on

the grind and so heavy and so deep in what i'm doing um you know i'm look there's a thing called the lindy effect you know and the lindy effect is basically things that have been around will be around so it's like shakespeare like um you know eating with a knife and fork um wearing a pair of pants a baseball cap these things have been around for a long long time and that bodes well for the future so you know um you know when i was a little kid i always called it stretching the bubble gum and then putting another piece of bubble gum directly in the center before it pops you know um and so i just keep going after my dreams i feel good seeing what's going on um but i feel like i'm in a position where i could if i decide yo ll cool j is coming out with an album i know it's going to get a look i don't i can't tell you it's going to be a commercial success i can't tell you know i can't make those kinds of predictions i can't talk tough but i can tell you if i say yo if i drop an album tomorrow people are going to listen to it and i mean that's the best thing you could do for yourself have you ever been in your life in the last 15 years because again you've been doing incredible things in hollywood and acting and i'm sure a million other things we can get into i always wonder this at any point cause listen i love how you answer that you're aware that you're not in the white hot moment of i'm gonna put out an album and it's young boy nba numbers you know like you know you know i know where i'm at do you ever have you ever in the last 12 or 15 years i'm gonna just use that time frame said have you wanted that feeling again of being in the white hottest of the hot moment or you feel like you're fulfilled or you were fulfilled you went and put that attention elsewhere and now once in a while you're like yo let me grab one of these [ __ ] hot kids and do a collab with them just for one more take and by the way i talk about this a lot i talk to a lot of youngsters and i'm like yo you should do something you know you never they're like i always talk about ogs i'm like you should do something with diana ross stevie wonder and i'm like in the south side of atlanta in a studio and they don't even they're like what the [ __ ] are you talking about like you never know when one of the greats is just sitting in their mansion saying you know what [ __ ] it for six more months i just want to taste again what i tasted in 89 when i tasted in 74 62 i think about that [ __ ] well it's awesome right yeah go ahead okay great i've never asked the og i always tell the kids i'm like yo cool that you've got some heat right now but do something that's just gonna make your grandmother smile because i always think an og a legend is you know if you ask 30 of them one's ready to do it and they're just cool to have but i've never asked the legend on the other side have you in the last decade said man i might really want to go uncomfortably contemporary and i might want to do something with the baby or meg stallion to do that or does that just never cross your mind um you know what like the reality is i would definitely um consider working with a with a young act and with a new act i don't see any reason to remove myself from that i'm not like one of these og's that sits around mad about and for me and i'm sorry to interrupt for a lot of people listening like if i woke up and saw a young boy in ll did a track i'd loot my brain would break i think that that com those kind of combos like gaga and tony bennett made me smile yeah i think look man like you know there's acts you know like you

know there's all kind of cool acts out there right and if it's organic and if we can find something that like we feel great about that we that we write together or somebody writes a chorus that we feel is in a track that really brings it out and makes it special why not like i don't need to like i'm not like not like allergic to the new [ __ ] i'm what's happening contemporary what's contemporary i'm not like at that's not a problem for me like i enjoy listening to new acts and young artists and you know like and listen to them bridge the gap you know what i'm saying like like a prime example like meek mill just dropped that record with a little dirk i'm playing that on my channel rock the bells because i think it's dope and it's got a lot of melody in it you know what i'm saying it's not even like meek is doing his normal spitting you know rapid fire spitting it's real melodic but i like the video i like the song i play i'm putting it in breaking bells you know a person you know so it's like for me whether it's you know um from from a billy eilish all the way to uh you know to a baby to a little baby like with the moment of truth like i pay attention i love the record he did about the protest i thought that [ __ ] was hot i liked the baby's performance when he was on the awards when you know he was performing with the knee on his neck like i pay attention to what's going on in the world and what our culture like i'm not a guy that's just like sitting up in the big house um you know saying disinterested or not you know let's talk about that on the culture let's talk about the technology side when did the internet when did you get excited or when did they hit your radar going way back to you know aol or myspace when did you first kind of not necessarily know about it but when maybe even napster given your career like like what's some early internet ll stories of like i thought it was [ __ ] i didn't like it i was mad at napster i got excited about napster my space was popping like i didn't take it serious until twitter like talk to me about your last 20 years on the tech culture game yeah well you know the first if for me it was um you know quincy jones gave me a book the road ahead by bill gates when that came out and i guess that was in the late 90s maybe but almost right before 2000 like in that window somewhere in there um and so that kind of peaked my interest um i thought limewire you know when limewire came out i was like i thought i was really curious about that and was like kind of trying to figure out searching for music um i actually adopted and kind of adapted to the internet pretty quickly um in terms of the idea of it i didn't necessarily dive in from like as a user but i was in it early like in terms of just being comfortable with it you know i didn't even fear it you didn't think it was gonna [ __ ] your money up no i didn't but you know at one point the record companies did gas me up you know they did gassed me up and i was down here in front of congress like yo i'm not sure like like because i was gassed up and you know understanding that that they were just trying to hold on to some [ __ ] that was going to go away anyway they was trying to hold on to a business model that was no longer viable you know what i'm saying um and i've got to go through it yeah i get it but but really quickly i was like all the way in and then you know i had on my space page you know what i'm saying i had a little myspace page i was into that um you know was there early for instagram didn't jump on it in terms of use but was right when instagram started i was there are you on tick tock right now um i do have a tick tock but i only watch it i don't really i haven't done anything it's entertaining right it's come on man it's unbelievable i know you

got a tick-tock i often come down and check yours out as well and um i go on tick-tock people dancing i saw a mother and a daughter um climbing up climbing a doorway door frame exercising to it's tricky by run dmc did you see that i did you know what i mean like so yeah i'm on tick tock um which i need to get more active on it i'm look i'm all about like i was on um for the five minutes it was out um what was the one periscope was i was on that one that for five minutes that was out um you know all of them um facebook i'm on you know talk to me about jumping around a little bit so you break at 16 talk to me in those first 24 months because there's a lot of people listening right now who are destined and are going to be big influencers because the way the world works now you know everyone's got at least 15 fans and a hell of a lot more now because the long tail of fame is just like the music industry was trying to hold on the fame game is everybody's in play everybody you know but it's funny but you know everybody's in play but then it's about your contribution period oh talent and the content is the punch line like the creative is the variable of success but everybody's got a shot in a different way now but i was curious i was just sitting here listening to you i'm like let me what do i want to be selfish who was the person that was real famous that you met let's say in the first two years of your fame building because you hit that record came out boom you know like you got some juice you were like one of those first 15 20 faces like that really mattered in when the mtv era you know kind of really got going you know yo mtv rap early days did it like that pocket you were in that was 50 names for sure who's the person you met maybe at the first award show or in studio that really like was like oh [ __ ] like a michael jackson no i mean it was diana ross and michael jackson it was them like i mean diana ross was the first person to put me on television is that right yeah diana ross had a tv special on abc and she gave me my first break to perform on tv take me that story how did you find out you were gonna do that show who called him you know it was you remember i think i i think i seen her somewhere or something like that and she was like oh i want you to do my show come on and perform and i was like okay and then she you know somehow she got with the uh the record company and um i ended up doing it and um so i have did you have management at that point i'm you know here's the funny thing about my career i've had a couple of managers here and there um but the reality is um like you know russell managed me for five minutes leo matters me for 10 minutes my dad managed me for 15 minutes this guy charles managed me for maybe 16 minutes but you know throughout that whole time i ended up

self-managing myself because in for that period growing up in hip-hop because there was nobody who had done it before all of the managers were either former rock managers or this type of manager or plus you had it in you yeah so i just kind of took the really like you have like it's how i think about myself early on people like how are you getting on who's doing your pr i'm like me yeah like i knowing you enough your entrepreneurial tendencies the way you move it just makes sense to me you were capable of managing yourself you probably secretly liked it because you liked the business side of it and there you are and then you know ultimately then i got with chris lighty um at violator um and claudine was my day to day but chris was my manager but we acted more like partners may he rest in peace we were more like it wasn't like i was calling like chris what should i do it was more like this is what i'm thinking what you thinking you know so yeah i've been you know i kind of been running my own show for you know my whole career you know what i mean being at halftime in your life because i think that's what people are very confused right like we've got a long way to go yeah yeah what what's at this exact second what's the thing that's been really running through your head in the last call it six months to a year that you're like i really want to do this i mean just this rock the bells platform man like building because this rock the bells platform um is something that you know one day the youngest kid right now will be somebody that will play on rock the bells like you know rock the bells radio and the rock the bells. com platform is not just a place for guys who started when i started and are my age now it is it will keep growing you know we will support the little waynes we you know one day you know the everybody that you named will be all playing on rock the bell so

it's like i just like for me just giving people a true rendition uh up and og presenting the classic hip-hop space to the world in a way that is not bitter it's not corny we know what year it is we're not [ __ ] delusional i'm just saying this is some cool [ __ ] i want you to check it out it's like basically i'm taking you through my record collection and my photo album and my you know all the things i've been through in my life and showing giving you some game you know what i mean that's what rock the bells is like so um that's really the thing that i've been focusing on um and then you know doing so what about some random [ __ ] because like you're doing that i'm excited about that i'm glad people are hearing about that i'm talking like an astronaut owning a baseball team um winning an academy awards thing in your pocket like yeah random ass [ __ ] you know one of the things that i try to really get across to people is i know who's listening right now is you're 31 you [ __ ] idiot i say without with all love you think you're wrapped up people hello you know this people think they're done at 31. they're like that's [ __ ] funny that's why i'm glad that you like i love please everybody understand that reaction people think at 31 like because they have a kid they have a job they don't like they have a mortgage like i'm done like people are confused out here about age so you know just knowing how alive you are at 52 to me what i'm curious about is you know what's some real [ __ ] that you like think about like for example for me ironically you did the same thing i know i don't even think i know that i'm gonna make a big ass dent in film and television from making shows you know i don't think i'm gonna act though i'm not [ __ ] scared but you know like but i i just know it i genuinely think i'm gonna have the number one ott called netflix hulu amazon show going i can feel it it's been written i can taste that [ __ ] in my mouth yet that's not something i'm showing a whole lot yet well it'll be like and i'm being totally honest gary you know like you know see you know i when i talk about rock the bell see for most of the time when people talk about what they're doing they're either like a [ __ ] chill or they're just they're promo and or they're selling or like but you got to remember like this business that i'm talking about is the same thing that i did when i was nine and started writing when i was 12 and i'm really in this and so for me it's like the idea that i can build something that two three four hundred years from now will have the narrative of hip-hop be right will be right two three four five hundred years from now that's what i'm talking about i'm not talking about just making a bunch of money i do other things i can make money in a

lot of different ways you know and i say that with humility but it's true it's not only about making money it's about building something that means something like what i'm saying let's say on this topic because i want to enjoy this i want to educate some kids how underrated is mc life tell them oh my god educate well mclight mc light was so good the first time i heard on the radio um i just turned the [ __ ] off because i didn't it made you like [ __ ] you made me uncomfortable and i was like that's a girl and she shouldn't sound that good and i just had to turn it off you know that it was like i just you know it made me like uncomfortable because she's so good um i ended up writing like her rhyme on of self-destruction we did a song of self-destruction scott's tape with a razor blade taped to your collar you know um funky first restaurant press ready to party i wrote that for her like it was like she was she is like her voice her approach like people should definitely dig into m. c light's catalog let's keep playing this because i think it's gonna get people pumped about rock the bells and honestly i'm just now having fun like we were just like we're just hanging out give me the same we're doing 90 seconds with ll here we're going to play a little game what about heavy d and the boys heavy d unbelievable if the history lesson like funny story or why it's underrated or how it impacted play with me here the funniest [ __ ] about i have look i love having he rest in peace he was one of the smoothest and the best ever the thing would have is don't say a rhyme around heaven because you might hear some [ __ ] that sounds similar next week is that what is that true is what i need from you this is yo i remember going to heaven's house in mount vernon he's still in this house he like the way he flipped his basement when he after he came out with his salt with mr big stuff and all that his basement looked like james bond should live there it was like deep heavy he walked down the basement you're like what the it was like he took his basement oh my god but half was a really good thing but it was like my man half and my man flash gordon them too don't say nothing around them it might show up for the next one it ain't going to be what you said but it's going to be like yo prodigy one of my favorite you know mc's in in havoc mob unbelievable you know what i'm saying um what did they when you when they were the t-shirt that prodigies wearing in the quiet storm oh i think it's the quiet storm video with kim i want to say it's that one i gave him that t-shirt as a gift just because i was just loved them you know what i'm saying and i just i have a lot of respect for mob deep i think the way they writ they represented queens was unbelie the way they do represent queens

we did a song on my goat album um cause called queen killer queens you know what i'm saying in the queens got the vets it was dope and um yo i just my the way he wrote um the way he would make things rhyme and then not rhyme the way he would play with language play with words queens get the money long time low cash you know what i mean like i mean he was just i remember when i was like this guy's clever i remember using that word clever but like but he had a way of sounding authentically tough that's not easy to come across you could sound angry on a record that's one thing you could sound angry you could sound aggressive but to be able to to talk to be calm and really sound authentically tough um the only two people to me that really sound like that are prodigy and rakim where the person is not they're not yelling but they sound aggressive and tough let's keep this rock the belt kind of like little fun game i'm enjoying this a little bit for my own self what about epmd these are things that i just think the youngsters don't know yeah and under all time classic talk we're talking all-time classic talk right now but i would argue underrated which is why i love this without a doubt epmd is a group that the kid they should the kids should check out um you know at first when they first came out people used to tease him and say they sounded like rock him sounded like eric but um you know the the beat selection that eric sermon would make um me and paris um would always get into conversations about money and real estate and [ __ ] and be sitting around telling my real estate we did a record together called rampage um it's a record called rampage the kids should check out epmd rampage um featuring ll cool j it's one of both of ours our best classics um it's um dope and they just like they came from long island epmd is from long island so um they you know in long island you know and rock him is from long island as well he's from wine dance which is right up down the block from north babylon like you could literally walk down his neighborhood from where i lived in north babylon so it's like it was a vibe epmd just was so official what about something that was like a hot minute that like just had a fever pitch to it i'd love to get your perspective you're in a different part of your career at this point what about foxy brown's moment well i launched foxy brown right like you know the i shot your record i put you know we put fox well chris and the trackmasters put foxy on the record and um when i heard it i didn't object i was like yeah let her stay let her stay they didn't do it they didn't ask they just said yo listen to this and i heard it and i said go ahead let it let her rock and she um she was fired that like it just was like fever pitch with her solid definitely dope voice um definitely like you know like tomboyish but feminine it was like she had a good she was magic you know she is you know very talented act um you know they yeah you know what i'm saying but there's a lot of talented acts out there now like you know you think about a kendrick and you think about you know the way he plays with rhythms when he with his voice even somebody made piece like nipsey you know so intelligent you know i'm saying so smart so brilliant i know you were close with him i saw different times you spoke with him i mean so that's like kind of like that mid-generation he was very special um what the baby's doing now is very he's very clever you know he just understands the world talk to me about talk to me not to cut off because i could talk about the baby for a hot minute but talk to me about i like what you said about mc light and i don't want to run out of time without asking you on that same kick what was the track the record that you heard that literally was the biggest quantum jump for you like from your you know one man's point of view like you heard it and you were like oh my god did anything stop you in your no yeah my uzi weighs a ton by public enemy um my uzi weighs to tell by public remember do you remember actually 100 i remember [ __ ] i'm you know i'm in the parking lot of white castle with the jeep with the seat leaned back with my man and that [ __ ] came on the [ __ ] one of the mixes of the radio or something and that's it he said you know um you know my uzi was a tongue hold it now get up get down that [ __ ] was like my uzi wizard i mean yo me and my man was like what the [ __ ] and here's the funny [ __ ] rick rubin had just asked me a few months later yo i got this group in public enemy of you know i'm thinking about putting out if i could buy a song from them um would you want to perform it and i was like i write my own [ __ ] and i still stand by that but i kind of should have took that [ __ ] record was so cold yo when i heard my uzi weighs a ton that [ __ ] was like shape-shifting i haven't felt that yet like that [ __ ] was like because the wave the bomb squad hank shockley and eric sadler the way him the chuck and all them the way they've worked with that in the way they played with technology because that was the first time that somebody really took advantage of technology well took it to another level molly did it in a different way with the sampling but they took it to a whole other level you know um molly kind of when he was doing some of those bismarck records those were moments too like make the music with your mouth and um rhyming with the bit like some well make the music with your mouth and the other wrecking um yes you're all into nobody beats the biz those were kind of like quantum they moved it the needle like maybe three three men you know three points up but [ __ ] public enemy was like a

hundred you know that [ __ ] was like it just it was out of control and i think that um look that's what you want to do with art right music that's what you want to do in your business like it's just like the dude who made the 10x book right about 10x that's what they did they 10xed the creative the sonics they tend to yes when you think about success you've been around a lot of success in your life now you know in a lot of different genres business hollywood music hip-hop new york la the world you know and then all the successful people that you know that nobody knows of whether a real estate or a lawyer or right for the kids that are listening and the kids i mean a 62 year old who might have gotten motivated and said you know what i do have 30 more years to do something i'm going to go do this thing what are the now that you know you've always been a wise kid because your grandpa passed it on you know you probably just you know had that in you what's like a wise thought around the common bonds of success like what do you what are the themes that you see well first thing really stand out for you when i set up that question well first the first thing i have to think is you know for that 62 year old dreams don't have deadlines they got to understand that you know [ __ ] a huge man colonel sanders started kentucky fried chicken when he was 65. cornelius vanderbilt started his railroad company at 80. right cindy frank sidney frank who started grey goose was in the 70s okay so you feel me and there's a million dollars like that feel you i'm [ __ ] convinced i feel like i'm gonna do a [ __ ] i'm going to drop a [ __ ] bomb in my 50s 60s 70s and 80s a new box how i feel that's how i feel you know i'm going to take the world and kick it in the ass and then give it a nice pat on the butt on the back like you did that kid in the in the basement school but you know what just like that fight you had there's gonna be a scar in your face well that you know that comes with the territory but what i would say the common themes of success are um the things that you do in the valley get you to the peak and the things that you do in the peak can either extend the peak or take you back to the valley right so you know um you know the peaks and valley part of it it's very important to understand that part of it the other thing i think is really important is being able to manage your moods mood management is very important because your mood a lot of times is going to dictate not only how you feel about what you're trying to do but how you feel about yourself do you feel that you stay in the middle because i cuz that's the goal that that's what i think people see my energy and they're confused i'm [ __ ] zen as [ __ ] out here yeah well enthusiasm is not is misunderstood like what are they called there's the stockdale paradox right you i'm sure you know about the stockdale paradox from google actually i don't know i don't know the cocktail paradox basically says

um you're gonna be be completely optimistic but while confronting the brutal facts yes that's how i feel i'm practical what i call myself is i'm practically optimistic like i know exactly what's happening but i'm [ __ ] out here and i'm not delusional they're like gary you're too optimistic i'm like what the [ __ ] does that mean well like you can make it confused out here but we can make it easy for the youngsters as listen i'll make it even easier gary's just like playing a basketball game because you down by seven don't mean you ain't enjoying yourself and into the game and playing hard i watched reggie bro i watched reggie miller make me [ __ ] cry when he did that dude the game was over but it wasn't over and i don't understand how people don't understand how that is and i can't get people out of this i'm fighting out here like crazy ll people 18 22 30 34 confused as [ __ ] well the reason they're confused is because one they're doing they're comparing themselves to other people too much yes yes you can't you cannot you know you've got you know life is an odd thing but the you can't treat it like it's a tournament it's your life and the metrics for success are different you know in the bible there's that parable of the talents right so one guy got one talent one guy got a couple of talents one guy got you know uh four times do you think the world is abundant that like nobody else's winnings comes from you hundred percent yeah that's the one people it's not a zero-sum game see that's the other part right that's why i root for winners hundred percent well that's what i'm telling you yeah that's what i was telling you i can't so it's like yeah it did there is abundance but you got to see it that way right like you got to believe that it's out there for you but it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because when you believe it's out there for you go out there and get it 100 percent if you like i was in the hood i mean when like just growing up you know that was i would tell dudes like yo i'm going to be we're running them as adults i'm gonna get and they'd be like come on man ain't nothing out here for look where they at man look where we at [ __ ] that yeah the game's listen if you think it's over it is actually over it is real if you think it's over because your older brother or sister aren't winning and they told you or your parents or the neighborhood or your cousin or somebody on the internet if you think it's over i got some real news for you it actually is over and you know what to really make it simple the bottom line is you have to believe in yourself and believe in the beauty of your dreams and you have to take a deep breath and go for it have you seen people who had the unfortunate situation of not believing in themselves because their parents got hurt but you know what you know like that's a matter of getting out of your comfort zone right if you if your comfort zone

unfortunately if you're you know if the word is unlucky or whatever words you want to use if you if your comfort zone is i would say a place where your default setting is a place of failure then you have to be able to get out of that that comfort zone spending time with people that are cheering for you can make that happen i think i think that can be part of it but the other part of it is you have to be doing the work that makes that cheering realistic like you know what i mean like you could cheer for me like i could be stretching my legs standing next to usain bolt and you can be cheering for me all you want gary but the reality is he's going to smoke my ass when we get on that track you know what i mean so one it's about being realistic about what you're trying to accomplish and then two yes you want to be surrounded by people who aren't downers like you know i remember when my um you know when simone was um she was going through her um she was she had a bout with cancer in her leg and she had she needed to beat the cancer a lady came to our house right to visit and she was i just brought someone home from the hospital lady came to my house and she walks in my foyer she's crying and [ __ ] i said you gotta go get the [ __ ] out of here we gotta go she was like she was an older lady that's not helping all that boohoo [ __ ] you know that harbors other kinds of emotions you're full of [ __ ] go ahead like you know you got to deal with your [ __ ] you know what i mean yeah you're bringing that on yeah so i would tell people look just stay encouraged and believe in yourself damn and if you look michael jordan make every shot lebron didn't make every shot look how many championships lebron didn't win but he didn't stop trying and that's why he's phenomenal now that's why he's a man that we can respect and a guy that we can look at as an icon because he didn't give up and change the script yeah i you know we're using somebody who's iconic and you know what about just looking at life differently maybe you're not destined to be a tremendous accumulator of money but maybe you can be a tremendous human beings to others can i say something to that guy people got to understand is that what it really is about is knowing your value it's not about money only right like everybody has their place um you know you know madonna didn't make the same money that zuckerberg did she still made a contribution to the world through her art um you know you and i grew up around neighborhoods where the old man on the block was the wise one who helped a lot of kids not get into dumb [ __ ] who only made 27 000 a year but their contribution was they genuinely helped 2700 people have a better life and to you know and to me that's where people get [ __ ] up they look at the one percent of the one percent and then they're like confused out here like well because they get because like see the thing i think with people what people don't understand is that if you really know your value and if you always look to make a contribution you can't you know success is gonna come it's gonna come and however there comes you know look i always tease like a lot of my rich friends and when i say rich friends people hear me say that they're like well what's wrong but i'm like guys that are weight like 100 x times richer than me it's like dude a lazy boy what can you really do beyond your chair and your remote like you ain't doing [ __ ] the only difference is you got a plane but other than that you got the remote and you're doing this and you got your lazy boy and you're eating so let's it's not that complicated people shouldn't get caught up in only money money you're a valuable human being regardless of that what's the impact you're making make exactly what's the impact and what makes you what makes you happy like bro i swear to god i literally today because it's saturday what said man i can't wait to go garage sailing yeah i know that you're into that i love you know what i do you know what my pastime is books right i love that which is like so foreign to me because i don't i realize i don't have reading comprehension i love books good for you like i'm like you can really get down to read a [ __ ] book huh like i read like dude that's all i do i like i when i work out i play audio books and have music underneath it like damn like i'm like a book guy like every house i have every spot like there's books everywhere like i'm just always into books like books is like i like my idea of a unbelievable date is just to have a hoodie on loki and just be [ __ ] walking around in barnes and noble like just staring at books even though i got audio books and i got a kindle and i got all that [ __ ] but i'm just saying like i like books like i'm actually like i named myself hello cool j because i'm a [ __ ] nerd mm-hmm you know what i mean like books is the thing that turns me into like that's much like it that's it's incredible way to end this because i gotta run i apologize thank you so much al for your time love if you did not listen to that last minute and understand everything can be wrapped up in it if you understand yourself and you have self-awareness and you don't understand that there's a million ways to play it out here this man right here winning impacting happiness this man probably read more books in the last week than i've read in my life i don't know how many but i read a lot though i've read like eight books in my life but you know what i also do larry i'll take one book and read it over and over for two or three years yes it's like getting a black belt in the book get it everybody listen l everybody does it different here's the bottom line figure your [ __ ] out how you do it there's a million ways to slice it you and i slice it different we have commonalities we have differences just love yourself and then you can love everybody else l thank you so much bro peace faith in god love you man love you g peace youtube bocha what's up it's garyvee first of all thank you so much i hope you're doing super well during these times i also want to ask you please subscribe because my commitment and exploration of youtube is about to explode stories polls more content more engagement more surprise and delight this is the time to subscribe i hope you consider it and i hope i see you soon you