Jeff Pearlman on Only God Can Judge Me & Tupac’s Legacy | The Cool Check In

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[SPEAKER_00]: party people.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks to everyone for checking us out.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And here is the next episode.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I want to welcome Jeff Pearlman, author of the new book on two-poxia core, only God can judge me.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The mini-lies of two-poxia core.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is the cool check-in shout out to the Beastie Boys.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is our supplement to 50 for 50.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Jeff, thanks for joining.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a little tired and a little under the weather, but I'm here, damn it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, if anybody knows you're writing, there's a certain stamina you have for reporting.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not worried.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I guess the first thing I want to ask you about is, there are many legends about Tupac Shakur and you are

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[SPEAKER_00]: a researcher and a journalist.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so at some points, I imagine those two things came to a head with the two-pock super fans who may have been like, what do you mean two-pock wasn't a gangster or what do you mean that two-pock wasn't about that life, which very much comes to light in your book.

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[SPEAKER_00]: the idea of covering someone, you know, like Tupac, what was the reason why you wanted to cover Tupac like you did?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first of all, I want to say, I think I was a little naive, even though I knew the intensity of his fans.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I, you know, people always say, oh, Brett Farr fans, I'm telling you, or Walter Payton, I'm telling you, this is definitely a different level that I knew about, but didn't totally know about, so that's been interesting.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I just, you know, I've written this one I love in the book, and the first 10-Wall sports want to try something different, always fascinated by two-pock, I'm a big hip-hop fan.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I think they're something really interesting about mythological.

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[SPEAKER_01]: figures who the same stuff gets repeated about them over and over again, the same five people tell their stories over and over again.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, days and hip-hop kind of hip-hop media, if that's what you want to call it, you have a bunch of YouTube channels that seem very devoted to just.

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[SPEAKER_01]: regurgitate in the same crap over and over again, same conspiracy theories over and over again.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I just think sometimes somewhere in the middle of that, there's a really interesting book to be ridden if you're willing to put the time in.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And there was always a two-buck book out there that I wanted to read that I kept waiting to be ridden.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There was never ridden and finally I just thought, well, I'm a writer, I can try it, so here I am.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I say that well, wearing my, my two-pock shirt and my west side hat, and I very much know where you're coming from with that, but also you do write books about athletes and sports teams.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So I imagine there were some similarities with those fan bases, but are you saying that the two-pock fans were even crazier in some cases?

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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you covered Kobe, by the way.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I think young death adds a layer to things that are very, it just adds a layer to adds a mythology, whether it's two-bock or James Dean or Marilyn Monroe or whatever, like young death curcobin and adds a mythology, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: As I said throughout this, I kept thinking throughout this project.

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[SPEAKER_01]: If Chuck D had died at 25 years old, people would be talking about Chuck D the way they talk about two-bock and not two-bock.

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[SPEAKER_01]: All-time great artists are dying young definitely adds something to your mythology.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It becomes much more sacred when someone dies young.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And people take ownership of a life when it's incomplete.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And they attach themselves to it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And when someone comes in, especially if he has perceived as an outsider to the medium or an outsider to the person himself,

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost like a bunch of sales attacking.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you can't do this, you can't do this.

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[SPEAKER_01]: What does he know?

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[SPEAKER_01]: What does he know?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Culture, culture, cloud chaser, blah, blah, blah, he's a sports rider, he's a white guy, he's from New York, but all of these things come attacking.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And that is something I never went through before.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I will say, when I wrote my Walter Payden book, there was a lot of early criticism of the book before people got to read it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There was an excerpt at Sports Illustrated.

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[SPEAKER_01]: and it was not the kind that's excerpt about Walter Payton's life.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I got, you know, Mike Dicka threatened to spit on me a bunch of people, you know, don't go to Chicago.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And this was a little bit like that, but a thousand times more intense.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We, uh, some of the albums that we're covering, uh, young death like you like you explained we're we're doing Amy Winehouse's back to black and she kind of has the same thing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And we're also doing Lauren Hill who's she's she has one album and

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, she has the live album and you know, there's mixed responses about that over the years but she can live or die and live off of the misjudication of Lauren Hill because it was so great she never had to follow up with anything lesser than that and

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[SPEAKER_00]: you know, bets are that you miss education is so great.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Your next album probably not going to be as great, but she can, you know, without ever having done that second album, like that is her thing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That is what her fans stick through.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So the young death thing with two pockets is dead on for that.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So, uh,

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is a different process for you.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's not like you could go and talk to somebody's high school coach here necessarily because, as a musician or as a rapper, slash actor, different than some of the athletes that you covered was your process in researching.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Like how different was that?

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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it could be a high school coach.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It could be in two podcasts.

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[SPEAKER_01]: A high school drama teacher.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And it's basically the same.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's all, the sounds stupid, right, really.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But it's all the same muscles, like you're still reporting is reporting, and digging through your books, and digging through your books.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And instead of interviewing or teammates, you're interviewing old cast members, or you're interviewing people, producers, and studios.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The biggest difference, I think, and I can't tell if I just keep saying this or if it's really true, but I think it's true, is,

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[SPEAKER_01]: with athletes you have a schedule that tells you where they were for most of the year.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So my last book before two pop was Bo Jackson and Bo Jackson was a two-sport athlete.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So 80% of the year I could look at a schedule from 1991.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, Bo Jackson was in Chicago.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Then he was in New York.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Then he was in Cleveland.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have that with an artist unless he tours a lot.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And two-buck really didn't tour that much.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So I think the biggest difference was trying to figure out where he was and when he was where without having the luxury of sports schedules.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now the the first thing that that people will read in your book is is the Brenda's got a baby story.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And from a like kick in the door, grab your attention perspective.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Like that was brilliant.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I don't know if some of this is, you know, when you're doing media, I, like I saw you on area, Hawaii show.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And everyone gravitates towards the Brenda's got a baby story, because I think all of us, as we're over the years of your Tupac fan, you kind of did wonder, was that a real story or was he making it up?

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[SPEAKER_00]: And you go out and find Brenda's real baby who's a grown-up now,

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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even, you're own kind of marketing in a sense, like the way that you get people to bring you on to talk about it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Like that was an amazing get, like was, was that always the idea once you figured out that you had this, like, let's lead with this, because this is going to grab a ton of people's attention.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't really think that way.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of report it and then I have all this information.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I think, all right, how am I going to do this?

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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, somewhere along the line, I realized it's a really good way to open a book.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's probably the best way that we're open a book.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's the best open to a book that I think I'm out of red.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you think about it, it does a few things that are important for books.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Number one, I think the story grabs the reader.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So you want to grab a reader early on, you know, you.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have the attention span to what you used to.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We have the attention span of Nazis days, thanks to the phone.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So like you want to grab the reader.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Number two, it lets the reader in on the process, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Which is kind of nice.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Makes a book a little more immersive.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just here's a story.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a story.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the story within the story.

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[SPEAKER_01]: How I did it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think number three, importantly, and I use this a lot when I was reporting a book.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It shows that this guy is serious.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, all right, maybe this guy's a sports writer and maybe he's a white guy and maybe he's from upstate New York and maybe he's never in about two-pack, but it'll always shit.

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[SPEAKER_01]: He found the baby and the mom and reunited them from Brenda's got a baby.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that is not something an unsirious writer.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think we're due.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So it kind of accomplished a few things at the same time.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now initially, I had two openings to the book back to back.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I had that and then I had finding his grave in North Carolina.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But I wound up putting that at the end, which made me Yeah, John said you can't have both at the beginning.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, yeah, you're probably right.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So obviously, like we mentioned, because Pock passed away so young, there's a lot of legend and narrative that is just stuck with us throughout the years.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you're writing, you're reporting really humanized him in a way.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But it also humanized him in a way where

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[SPEAKER_00]: a little bit of a bummer because we have this idea of who he is.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so then when you write, you know, when you write things like, oh, yeah, you know, he had bad teeth and he had bad hair and the way that he grew up.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, a lot of that is sympathy, like we are sympathizing and empathizing to Park because he did not have a great childhood or a lot of the way that he grew up.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But like there's I imagine there's a fan base who just they don't want to read about that or they don't want to know about that they what they think that two pack was born The coolest dude of all time and he grew into this super artist like has there been feedback from those fans who just refused to acknowledge like it's got to be weird with celebrity.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it started early on before a couple of months before the book came out, I didn't interview on a podcast.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't even about two podcasts, but, and I made the statement, two book wasn't a great fighter, and he wasn't very good at shooting a gun.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I got death threats, and I'm not even exaggerating that, they really got death threats.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I got one guy wrote the, in particular, shout out Baltimore James on Instagram, literally wrote me, you were a fool for posting pictures of your wife and kids, because now I know who they are.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it was kind of crazy.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And the thing is, as a biographer, as a biographer, again, I don't want to sound all author-weighty, like it's not a weighty job, but as an author, you really have two options in this business.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I could have written the two-pock.

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[SPEAKER_01]: was just the greatest guy ever book.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I could have put in some revealing nuggets, but they'd be positive nuggets.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I could have had him in the studio and blah, blah, blah, blah.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I could have written that book and that people, that's an option people make.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They, the estate issued a book a couple years ago, they kind of took that route a little bit.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I got through maybe the first chapter.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but it wasn't actually she did, states are having to do a good job, but it wasn't a book.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like I'm not the casting stones on ours, like she did a good job, but it was what it was.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's in the state issued book.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Or you can decide, I'm a journalist, I'm a trained journalist.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's important to know about people.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I think two bucks is a historically significant cultural figure, and it's important to know his journey.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So at some point in your life, my wife always says, I couldn't do what you do, just because of the backlash sucks and it does suck.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But at some point in your life, you decide, like, I send up to be a journalist.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a, I'm not a myth maker, and I'm not trying to just make you feel good.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I want you to know who two bucks was.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I found this whole project as a saddest book I've ever worked on.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It was really depressing.

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[SPEAKER_01]: His life was very depressing.

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[SPEAKER_01]: His childhood was trauma all the way through, really, until he died.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It was trauma, but at the end of the day, even the darkest, darkest, nastiest, worst stuff, for me, I still actually have a sincere love for two-pocket and a profound appreciation for what he did.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And in a way, knowing all the barriers who went through, makes me respect that journey more.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But that's as me.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that is kind of what came out of it to me as well because, you know, you're only a few years younger than me, but so I'm living the two-poock experience in 1995 in 1996.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And when he passes, you know, just like everybody, you know, you hear the biggie stories is like, oh, podcast shot again, he's going to get through it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's kind of how we all

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[SPEAKER_00]: you're hearing, you know, more and more and more and then you have to just come to the reality of this that he's not going to last.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It is, but your humanizing of him did actually make him feel like a real person for once.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's the difference.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't mean to throw shade at the other book.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I bought it, I have it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's just not what I mean to everyone.

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[SPEAKER_01]: If you're podcast.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But it's not what I wanted, but what I wanted was what you gave me.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, as I'm reading this, I'm inside, I'm feeling things because

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[SPEAKER_00]: We never knew Tupac as the human that he was.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's what comes out of that book really well.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, because you're also more so a sports guy, as far as what your work has been going all the way back, I know from it's still straight in the SPN and such.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Were there any, is there anybody that you've covered in the past that kind of reminded you a little bit of who two podcasts and just in your books like I was just kind of thinking like some of those stories about young Kobe that I'm sure Kobe Bryant fans.

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[SPEAKER_00]: don't necessarily like about Kobe, not a tough guy, you know, maybe kind of to himself, not not a people person necessarily, but then Bo Jackson also, the legend of Bo Jackson, so many stories about Bo Jackson.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the ones that kind of came to mind as I was reading the two-pop book.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I should say it's interesting, never.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Not one time did I think, oh, this two-bark reminds you of Kobe or Bo.

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[SPEAKER_01]: What do you, what do you actually remind me of?

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of interesting.

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[SPEAKER_01]: When I met my wife, Katherine,

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[SPEAKER_01]: She ran a youth shelter at Covenant House in New York City.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And these were a homeless kids between the ages of 1821, I think.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of these kids, they came from very little.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They were a lot of them were very, very smart, very, very touted, but they also just had these really rough backgrounds.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And the one thing that they could not take, could not take was being disrespected, the idea of being disrespected, the idea of someone laughing at them or stepping on their shoe or shoving them aside, even if it's accidentally, they could not deal with the lack of respect.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And that is what I thought of a two-pack a lot.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, two-pock could not deal with the lack of respect.

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[SPEAKER_01]: He could not deal with perceived slights, you know?

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[SPEAKER_01]: His whole life was being disrespected, being laughed at, being made fun of being overlooked, a crappy athlete, not good with a women, et cetera, et cetera.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Poor thrift store clothes, a mom who's a crack addict, a sister who's raped, on and on, and on.

16:15.354 --> 16:17.958
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I think of a two-pock, I don't think of Kobe, I don't think of Bo Jackson.

16:18.459 --> 16:21.163
[SPEAKER_01]: I think of the 18-year-old Covenant House kid,

16:22.358 --> 16:29.787
[SPEAKER_01]: just coming out of truly awful situations, working as ass after better himself with a lot of obstacles in his way.

16:31.268 --> 16:49.301
[SPEAKER_00]: the idea of young Tupak doing juice and then kind of like really enjoying the character of Bishop and maybe shaping his image as an artist kind of around that character or the idea of that character.

16:49.662 --> 16:52.467
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems like a lot of the people that you talk to,

16:52.447 --> 17:02.519
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if they were going to blame something that caused two-pock to go a specific way, that they wanted to blame that bishop character, like how much of that did you think was true?

17:03.521 --> 17:09.848
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's interesting because you go into a book and you hear certain narratives and you assume it's overblown, right?

17:09.868 --> 17:12.452
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he became bishop, you know, that little thing.

17:12.552 --> 17:15.315
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm over and over again, then he became bishop, then he became bishop.

17:16.190 --> 17:17.532
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think there's some truth to it.

17:17.732 --> 17:23.480
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I interviewed a friend of his from her in city, Ryan D. And to back me it, I think it was 16,000 for Jews.

17:24.481 --> 17:27.085
[SPEAKER_01]: And plus a little extra for doing his own stunts.

17:27.105 --> 17:28.547
[SPEAKER_01]: And he came back to Marin City.

17:29.548 --> 17:33.073
[SPEAKER_01]: And the first time he saw his friend, Ryan D. He has a wad of the money.

17:33.113 --> 17:34.815
[SPEAKER_01]: He literally got the money paid in cash.

17:35.176 --> 17:37.759
[SPEAKER_01]: And he carried it in his waistband with a gun.

17:38.140 --> 17:40.062
[SPEAKER_01]: And to buck his never got a carried a gun as a kid.

17:40.082 --> 17:41.404
[SPEAKER_01]: And he had his money in a gun.

17:41.384 --> 17:46.772
[SPEAKER_01]: And Ryan, he said to me, you know that movie experience really changed him, like something in Bishop did change him.

17:46.792 --> 17:49.536
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't think it's, I don't think it's without merit, right?

17:49.736 --> 17:51.759
[SPEAKER_01]: He, he liked that feeling, he liked them.

17:52.440 --> 18:02.794
[SPEAKER_01]: He used to study the guys, the, the drug dealers in Marin City, in Baltimore, and really had an aberration for the respect they received, and something he's playing in a way that character in a movie.

18:03.495 --> 18:10.986
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't think it's, I don't think it's, it's nothing, but I don't think it's as simple as he played Bishop.

18:10.966 --> 18:14.190
[SPEAKER_01]: way too simple of an aren't it so somewhere in between in the in the gray area.

18:15.331 --> 18:24.641
[SPEAKER_00]: Now when when Tupac passes, a lot of what comes out after he dies is, oh, he had these other ideas.

18:24.981 --> 18:32.670
[SPEAKER_00]: One nation, this album where he was going to bring East Coast artists, Death Row East, he had talked about that a little bit before he passed away.

18:33.190 --> 18:36.754
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think fans

18:36.734 --> 18:47.589
[SPEAKER_00]: the East Coast West Coast thing was show business and it was just a thing that he was going to use to launch him into bigger and better things.

18:48.230 --> 19:06.336
[SPEAKER_00]: How much of that do you think was actually part of the plan in your research, like this idea that he was going to use this time, and then he's going to launch these different products, which is actually about togetherness rather than differentiating the coasts like he did when he had passed away right before he passed away.

19:06.856 --> 19:08.378
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a good question.

19:08.678 --> 19:13.905
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually think it touches to something in two pockets that's kind of interesting that we all forget over and over again.

19:14.006 --> 19:15.167
[SPEAKER_01]: It's something we know, but we forget.

19:16.149 --> 19:17.791
[SPEAKER_01]: When two bucks died, he was 25 years old.

19:18.392 --> 19:18.892
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a kid.

19:19.052 --> 19:19.693
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a baby.

19:20.014 --> 19:20.815
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a baby.

19:20.855 --> 19:22.697
[SPEAKER_01]: He was 25 years old.

19:23.719 --> 19:26.923
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I think back to when I was 25 or my friend or 25,

19:28.051 --> 19:29.513
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to start this company.

19:29.573 --> 19:30.334
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to sit one day.

19:30.354 --> 19:32.398
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to sell donuts.

19:32.418 --> 19:34.901
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go door to door and I'm going to sell doing what I'm going to do.

19:34.921 --> 19:36.764
[SPEAKER_01]: One day, I'm going to be blah, blah, blah, blah.

19:36.784 --> 19:38.346
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that is what we do with that age.

19:38.487 --> 19:39.228
[SPEAKER_01]: Understandably.

19:39.268 --> 19:42.493
[SPEAKER_01]: You're just out of college or you're just out of whatever in your two pockets.

19:42.513 --> 19:43.434
[SPEAKER_01]: You have money in your pocket.

19:43.674 --> 19:44.315
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't go to college.

19:44.335 --> 19:47.060
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying it in my, and like your full of ideas.

19:47.140 --> 19:53.930
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, yeah, death row east was very appealing to two pockets, expanding his acting repertoire.

19:54.030 --> 19:56.674
[SPEAKER_01]: Very appealing to two pockets.

19:57.177 --> 20:07.087
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I think he was like deliberately pretending that he hated Nas and Jay-Z or Biggie and Puffy just at no?

20:07.147 --> 20:08.589
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't actually, I think he bought in on it.

20:08.649 --> 20:10.471
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he was easily swayed by his surroundings.

20:11.152 --> 20:19.200
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Shognite sold him a bag of broken, broken auto parts and convinced him it was gold, like I think he was all in on it.

20:19.220 --> 20:25.767
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think he was a wayward, often extremely high, literally high.

20:26.928 --> 20:52.530
[SPEAKER_01]: kid who had a lot of dreams and a lot of goals but today would be this and one day later would be this and then it would be this and you know what we need to do and he was always writing down ideas like he was a frantic no-taker of ideas so and I'm not saying some of them wouldn't have come to fruition I just think he was 25 years old and we need to remember that when we try to analyze you know what he would have been the one thing I think for sure is he would have gone hardcore into acting that doesn't mean he wouldn't have still performed music but I think he would have been a

20:52.780 --> 20:59.509
[SPEAKER_01]: at this age, if you still alive, I mean, it's a guess, but I think it would have been a pretty serious and successful and probably Academy Award winning, Escactor.

21:00.510 --> 21:16.392
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is interesting because the films that came out after he passed were kind of like these low budget things, which the one that I'm thinking of is like, he did a movie with Jim Ballouchy, I think, at the end, called the ring,

21:16.372 --> 21:24.139
[SPEAKER_00]: related, which when I grew, when I was younger, my college job was also working at Blockbuster Video.

21:24.179 --> 21:29.444
[SPEAKER_00]: So I remember getting like two video cassettes of gang related and going like, what is this movie?

21:29.665 --> 21:31.006
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was always out.

21:31.166 --> 21:34.469
[SPEAKER_00]: We couldn't keep it in because it was right after pocket pass.

21:34.489 --> 21:40.195
[SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, I thought, you know, as far as his young career, I thought he was a pretty darn good actor.

21:40.215 --> 21:42.717
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's not like

21:42.697 --> 21:48.304
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, he was like being grabbed by these directors to do these special projects before he passed this.

21:48.344 --> 21:55.673
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of these were like really low budget, like, I'm, you know, kind of starter kit career acting kind of performances.

21:56.274 --> 21:56.394
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

21:56.414 --> 22:02.562
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he was, you know, I talked to Alan use who was supposed to

22:02.643 --> 22:12.721
[SPEAKER_01]: and two-block famously, was an asshole at the table read, was fired from the film, came back, and assaulted Alan Hughes with the help of many of his friends.

22:13.101 --> 22:22.778
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I interviewed Alan Hughes, he said, it's hard enough being a young black man in Hollywood in that period in particular, but also now.

22:23.129 --> 22:27.138
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, and then you get a reputation for beating up the director, right?

22:27.438 --> 22:29.843
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, how are you going to get James Cameron to work with you?

22:29.864 --> 22:30.064
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?

22:30.665 --> 22:32.890
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Steven Spielberg, why is he going to work with you?

22:33.231 --> 22:38.442
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have a reputation for him, disruptive, late, combative, and beating up the director?

22:39.043 --> 22:42.150
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I won't say this about two bucks.

22:42.535 --> 22:43.837
[SPEAKER_01]: juices and important movie.

22:44.018 --> 22:46.703
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it's a greatest movie, but it's he's great in it.

22:47.404 --> 22:50.129
[SPEAKER_01]: Project justice is a bad movie, but he's amazing in it.

22:50.851 --> 22:54.097
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, he's way better than Janet Jackson.

22:54.117 --> 22:55.499
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like he was a great actor.

22:55.539 --> 22:56.501
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a great actor.

22:56.521 --> 23:01.150
[SPEAKER_01]: Getting relate is not a great movie, but it's fun and he's really good in it and gridlocked with Timothy Roth.

23:01.511 --> 23:04.616
[SPEAKER_01]: Not a great movie, but he plays a heroin addict named Spoon and he's really good.

23:04.677 --> 23:05.438
[SPEAKER_01]: So like,

23:05.992 --> 23:08.937
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't beat up directors and expect to get cast in these movies.

23:08.957 --> 23:10.700
[SPEAKER_01]: He did read for Fire Scum from Boba Gump.

23:11.461 --> 23:18.694
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, so that is real, because Bill Simmons has told the story on his rewatchable podcast a few times.

23:19.355 --> 23:21.358
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just like, OK, is this real or not?

23:21.398 --> 23:22.640
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to ask Jeff about this.

23:22.680 --> 23:24.444
[SPEAKER_00]: So you answered it or I could even ask you.

23:24.984 --> 23:25.345
[SPEAKER_01]: It is real.

23:25.405 --> 23:26.808
[SPEAKER_01]: He did not get the role, but it is real.

23:26.848 --> 23:28.070
[SPEAKER_01]: He did read for it.

23:28.210 --> 23:28.270
[SPEAKER_00]: So.

23:28.250 --> 23:31.636
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, how amazing that had been if he was public up.

23:31.656 --> 23:33.680
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what, I think you could have pulled that off actually.

23:33.720 --> 23:37.367
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, there are sometimes when you hear about someone who could have been in a movie and you're like, I don't see it.

23:37.828 --> 23:39.351
[SPEAKER_01]: I think too bad could have been a good bubble gum.

23:39.371 --> 23:39.972
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a good actor.

23:41.254 --> 23:42.276
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, the.

23:42.543 --> 23:50.297
[SPEAKER_00]: the revolutionary mind of his with his parents being black panthers and such.

23:51.760 --> 23:55.567
[SPEAKER_00]: Today's political climate, you know, he talks about he would be a great actor.

23:55.607 --> 24:03.522
[SPEAKER_00]: The over 50 version of of Tupac with the upbringing that he had.

24:03.502 --> 24:27.028
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you think he could have done something in politics or in leadership or or something based on what, you know, I can't imagine he would have stayed silent about what we are dealing with in America today.

24:27.785 --> 24:33.214
[SPEAKER_01]: with lords of the underground, and lords of the underground to lead to rap where's a guy named Dupri Kelly.

24:33.775 --> 24:38.103
[SPEAKER_01]: One day they get in an argument, and Dupri Kelly goes back to his motel room.

24:38.123 --> 24:40.808
[SPEAKER_01]: This is in Orlando, Florida, and two black knocks on the door.

24:41.489 --> 24:45.776
[SPEAKER_01]: Dupri Kelly looks to the people, and he calls one of his group mates, and he's like, yeah, two bucks at the door.

24:45.796 --> 24:46.978
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, what do you think you want?

24:47.059 --> 24:47.640
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I don't know.

24:48.020 --> 24:50.164
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just letting you know if something goes down.

24:50.735 --> 24:52.821
[SPEAKER_01]: And he opens the door and two bucks I can't get to let me in.

24:53.383 --> 24:54.226
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, all right, come on in.

24:54.266 --> 24:55.389
[SPEAKER_01]: He's holding a couple of 40s.

24:56.131 --> 24:57.596
[SPEAKER_01]: So drinking their 40s sitting on the bed.

24:58.579 --> 25:01.588
[SPEAKER_01]: And two bucks says to do pre-kelly.

25:01.771 --> 25:06.355
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, I don't love the way you talk to me during our fight, but I love you stood up for your boys.

25:06.375 --> 25:07.136
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we need to do.

25:07.216 --> 25:08.417
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to stand up for each other.

25:08.918 --> 25:09.999
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to fight for each other.

25:10.039 --> 25:11.240
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to take up for each other.

25:12.021 --> 25:13.462
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, and we don't just need to do it here.

25:13.502 --> 25:14.483
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to do it all over.

25:15.104 --> 25:16.025
[SPEAKER_01]: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

25:16.045 --> 25:16.886
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what we need to do?

25:16.906 --> 25:18.467
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to start running for office.

25:18.968 --> 25:19.989
[SPEAKER_01]: Do we call this like, what do you mean?

25:20.009 --> 25:21.570
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, we need to be making the laws.

25:21.991 --> 25:23.412
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to step up a new jersey.

25:23.572 --> 25:26.495
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to step up an Oakland, but a cube needs to step up an LA.

25:26.835 --> 25:28.437
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to step up.

25:28.568 --> 25:38.049
[SPEAKER_01]: and told me that story, and the guy who was telling me at Dupri Kelly is a Newark City Councilman, and he told me that twopox, Paptoc, was the first impetus he ever had for running for office.

25:38.170 --> 25:41.657
[SPEAKER_01]: So I always say, I don't know what twopox could be doing now.

25:41.698 --> 25:43.041
[SPEAKER_01]: It's impossible, impossible.

25:43.081 --> 25:45.967
[SPEAKER_01]: For I know he would join the monster.

25:46.007 --> 25:47.010
[SPEAKER_01]: I have no idea, right?

25:47.210 --> 25:47.691
[SPEAKER_01]: But,

25:49.139 --> 25:58.058
[SPEAKER_01]: When I see the ice rates going on out here and I see brown people being rounded up by mast agents, it is very, very, like, I don't hear snoop saying a thing.

25:58.799 --> 26:00.823
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't hear ice cube saying a thing.

26:00.924 --> 26:02.226
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't hear Dr. Dres saying a thing.

26:02.367 --> 26:03.329
[SPEAKER_01]: And not just isolate them.

26:03.349 --> 26:06.054
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't hear tellers Swift or Mandy Moore or Olivia Rodriguez.

26:06.074 --> 26:07.317
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to be with you.

26:07.938 --> 26:11.904
[SPEAKER_01]: Two Bakers raised by a mom who was all about the Black Panther ethos.

26:11.944 --> 26:13.847
[SPEAKER_01]: She represented herself in a famous trial.

26:14.268 --> 26:16.211
[SPEAKER_01]: She was all about finding back to fending herself.

26:16.231 --> 26:18.294
[SPEAKER_01]: Even when she was a crack addict, she always had that in her.

26:18.915 --> 26:27.548
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is impossible for me to think the two-pock, even at age 54, would just be like, all right, I'm going to sit in my mat and in Beverly Hills and watch this all unfold.

26:27.568 --> 26:28.469
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not going to say a thing.

26:28.509 --> 26:30.532
[SPEAKER_01]: It just doesn't seem like it would have been him.

26:30.793 --> 26:33.136
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think you would have been very outspoken in these periods.

26:33.156 --> 26:35.700
[SPEAKER_01]: And we definitely could use more people to be outspoken in this period.

26:37.047 --> 26:59.241
[SPEAKER_00]: So now that you've covered two-pock, I imagine you've gained a lot of new fans who may not be sports fans have people been like Jeff now you need to go do the definitive biography on Biggie Smalls or look at what's going on with puff daddy there's a you know so much so much stuff to cover about that like have people

26:59.221 --> 27:09.992
[SPEAKER_00]: talk to you about maybe covering some of some of the the hip hop stuff or even more pop pop music stories that that haven't been covered like like you did with two pop.

27:10.754 --> 27:11.938
[SPEAKER_01]: It's definitely come up.

27:11.958 --> 27:12.339
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

27:12.359 --> 27:13.703
[SPEAKER_01]: I am.

27:14.071 --> 27:15.352
[SPEAKER_01]: might be my only hip-hop book.

27:15.713 --> 27:18.495
[SPEAKER_01]: I really enjoyed the process, but it's just craziness.

27:18.996 --> 27:20.197
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I was worn early on.

27:20.237 --> 27:26.523
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, hip-hop is a crazy, crazy, crazy universe of exaggerators and people expecting to get paid.

27:26.823 --> 27:29.005
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, number of people asked me to get paid for information.

27:29.045 --> 27:29.545
[SPEAKER_01]: It was crazy.

27:29.565 --> 27:30.186
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't pay anyone.

27:30.727 --> 27:33.189
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's a wild, wacky world.

27:34.050 --> 27:36.092
[SPEAKER_01]: And I really enjoyed this book.

27:36.492 --> 27:39.355
[SPEAKER_01]: I enjoyed the reporting process of the book.

27:39.555 --> 27:40.576
[SPEAKER_01]: The writing was torturous.

27:41.276 --> 27:42.998
[SPEAKER_01]: The promotional

27:43.585 --> 27:50.495
[SPEAKER_01]: tough and a little bit threatening, you know, and like, so I, I don't know.

27:50.935 --> 27:54.280
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just as likely to do my next book about some politician or an athlete or whatever.

27:54.340 --> 27:56.403
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I, I just like writing about good topics.

27:56.423 --> 28:01.210
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had people say you should write about JZ, I've had people say you should write about Kanye, I've had people who say I should write about Ditty.

28:02.091 --> 28:04.114
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe, I don't know.

28:04.354 --> 28:05.095
[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't know.

28:05.175 --> 28:07.078
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think, I mean, I do think I have to be.

28:08.965 --> 28:20.138
[SPEAKER_01]: The whole like culture voter, right, thing, and the cloud's not cloud-shades, or culture-vulture thing, like, I don't want to be known as the white guy who's infringing too much on black culture.

28:20.158 --> 28:21.800
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, I don't, like, I don't.

28:21.980 --> 28:25.264
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want that label, and I don't even think it'd be appropriate to be honest.

28:25.284 --> 28:28.348
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, I think this book was a labor of love and something I really wanted to do.

28:28.588 --> 28:35.496
[SPEAKER_01]: I think someone, it was important so much how to box story accurately, but do I think I'm gonna make a career now writing about hip-hop, it seems pretty unlikely.

28:35.881 --> 28:51.342
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, it is an art form and a culture that is so dominating in 2025 and you know, if I think about some of the books that I've read about,

28:51.322 --> 29:01.734
[SPEAKER_00]: hip-hop, there's a book on the business of hip-hop that was really awesome, and there's been some good biographies as well.

29:02.254 --> 29:12.726
[SPEAKER_00]: The producer that Q-tip kind of found, I forget that on the top of my tongue, but that book was excellent.

29:12.746 --> 29:19.033
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I think it is a space that is missing

29:19.013 --> 29:23.800
[SPEAKER_00]: you you need to be the person doing it, but it is it is a there is a space for some of these stories.

29:23.920 --> 29:29.889
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we have a lot of legends like the legend of Tupac versus who the person really was.

29:30.289 --> 29:39.122
[SPEAKER_01]: But well, you know, I just want to say one thing that's kind of interesting is for the first time hip-hop is still set to a young medium that for the first time we have oldies, right?

29:39.162 --> 29:41.305
[SPEAKER_01]: Like for the first time hip-hop has oldies.

29:41.325 --> 29:42.186
[SPEAKER_01]: So like

29:42.166 --> 29:50.353
[SPEAKER_01]: big daddy came would be in order to act nowadays in order to come again in order to act nowadays ice cube kind of like we have all these and in sports

29:51.565 --> 29:54.929
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually enjoy writing about the oldies because you have a much more complete picture.

29:54.970 --> 29:56.952
[SPEAKER_01]: Like people would be like, you should write a show hayo towny book.

29:56.972 --> 29:58.835
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's way too early to write a show in a towny book.

30:00.257 --> 30:03.701
[SPEAKER_01]: But Bo Jackson, his career was over, read five, his career was over, et cetera, et cetera.

30:04.142 --> 30:13.354
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do think now that hip hop is getting older and older and artists like Jay-Z are starting to phase out of putting out new music,

30:13.334 --> 30:19.969
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think the time is coming to write fuller and more complete biographies of some of the important artists.

30:19.989 --> 30:22.415
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe you'll start seeing more books.

30:22.715 --> 30:25.622
[SPEAKER_01]: It just took time for people to be kind of older, you know?

30:25.906 --> 30:28.730
[SPEAKER_00]: by the way, the book that I was thinking of is the J. Dilib book.

30:29.271 --> 30:31.013
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's great, which was really good.

30:32.335 --> 30:43.051
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and, you know, that you have guys who were there at the beginning, the Beastie Boys' books actually really well done the way that they did it.

30:43.552 --> 30:43.992
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, L.O.

30:44.012 --> 30:54.107
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool J, who's not going to do the kind of book that I would love to read about him, because he is very much a promoter and a marketer for himself, because he is still super successful.

30:54.087 --> 30:59.862
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I just think it's fascinating, because in like you said, it's still new where

31:00.061 --> 31:04.927
[SPEAKER_00]: like the days of what's happening in the mid to late 70s that kicks off hip-hop.

31:04.947 --> 31:10.835
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I can read that story every single time by different folks and still love that story.

31:11.776 --> 31:21.809
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, the last thing before we end this, what my partner Mike and I like to do is we like to create top five lists on everything that we talk about.

31:22.390 --> 31:30.000
[SPEAKER_00]: And you mentioned being a hip-hop fan, do you have a top five hip-hop group

31:29.980 --> 31:30.521
[SPEAKER_00]: in your head.

31:30.761 --> 31:32.183
[SPEAKER_01]: I can give you one top my head.

31:33.565 --> 31:34.226
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this in order?

31:34.506 --> 31:34.987
[SPEAKER_01]: One to five.

31:35.368 --> 31:36.249
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, one to five.

31:37.110 --> 31:37.430
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.

31:37.511 --> 31:38.071
[SPEAKER_00]: Five to one.

31:38.131 --> 31:38.912
[SPEAKER_00]: However, if you want to do it.

31:39.573 --> 31:40.194
[SPEAKER_01]: I go on to five.

31:40.755 --> 31:42.698
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I just devoted my entire life damage.

31:42.718 --> 31:46.123
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to put two pack number one.

31:46.964 --> 31:54.214
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll put track call question number two.

31:54.254 --> 31:56.477
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll put

32:01.418 --> 32:06.547
[SPEAKER_01]: I hate these lists, uh, I mean, no, this is like number five.

32:06.587 --> 32:07.609
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess I'll put Kendrick Lamar.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, awesome.

32:09.332 --> 32:14.581
[SPEAKER_00]: I think our our lists are very similar by the way, which doesn't be the one reason to one on your list.

32:14.982 --> 32:20.431
[SPEAKER_00]: So my the the the the the person I think is the greatest rapper of all time is Rick him.

32:20.872 --> 32:21.553
[SPEAKER_00]: It struck him.

32:21.594 --> 32:25.300
[SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't mean that I he's my favorite like I'd probably say

32:25.280 --> 32:29.947
[SPEAKER_00]: LL cool J and and two bucks a core and trib call quests are all kind of right at the top for me.

32:30.108 --> 32:45.111
[SPEAKER_00]: I was also a giant jazzy fan, but kind of the opposite of Lauren Hill is that jazzy has so much content so many albums that, you know, not every single one of them is great, but yeah,

32:45.091 --> 32:58.955
[SPEAKER_00]: I have listened to some of it, but I haven't got through it because for this project that we're doing, I want to say, I'm listening to so much old music just for research that I kind of want to save the nausea.

32:59.055 --> 33:01.259
[SPEAKER_00]: I also am saving the new daily.

33:01.299 --> 33:03.843
[SPEAKER_00]: I will actually bought the daily album on vinyl.

33:03.863 --> 33:06.087
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll listen to it when it ships out.

33:06.067 --> 33:13.779
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, like, those things are, I'm just kind of holding them for like the right time because I just want to be able to appreciate them.

33:14.420 --> 33:17.304
[SPEAKER_00]: Nasus, gosh, Nasus has been so prolific over the years.

33:17.444 --> 33:19.127
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been, yeah, he's new album.

33:19.147 --> 33:20.449
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not gonna lie, maybe kind of sad.

33:20.990 --> 33:21.290
[SPEAKER_01]: Really?

33:22.272 --> 33:26.438
[SPEAKER_01]: He did a, he did a, he did a, he did a, he did a.

33:27.008 --> 33:27.809
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what he was doing.

33:28.050 --> 33:28.851
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

33:29.072 --> 33:41.153
[SPEAKER_01]: I was optimistic because I feel like a lot of us, we saw him at concert a couple of years going and he puts out continuously really good music, but this I can't tell from years just slipped a lot or why, but I thought it was a...

33:42.061 --> 33:46.608
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like judging other people because I know how it feels when I get a bad book of you, but I wouldn't say it was my favorite.

33:46.968 --> 33:47.229
[SPEAKER_01]: Not.

33:47.269 --> 33:51.074
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and in place you have high expectations for NOS because you're a NOS fan.

33:51.175 --> 33:54.560
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, and you appreciate, and you like his work.

33:54.600 --> 33:56.082
[SPEAKER_00]: So you kind of, and that's the thing.

33:56.182 --> 34:07.879
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, these guys have high bars these days and you just don't, you don't want them to be the 40 year old NBA player who's, you know, comes in for five minutes a game.

34:07.899 --> 34:09.081
[SPEAKER_00]: You want them to be

34:09.061 --> 34:21.248
[SPEAKER_01]: you know who they were when they were 26 or whatever that that's me are part if you think about it you said with the law in hell she can never do the law in hell again and I would say like thematic is one of the great offensive all time right but

34:21.683 --> 34:24.026
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say it's still his best album.

34:24.046 --> 34:27.329
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I would say, I mean, my best selling books and my first book I ever wrote, right?

34:27.389 --> 34:30.532
[SPEAKER_01]: By far, my best selling books and my first book is at the Met's book.

34:30.733 --> 34:33.015
[SPEAKER_01]: Met's book, a lot of you say that's my favorite book of all time.

34:33.035 --> 34:35.197
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, and I'm not comparing myself to artists.

34:35.257 --> 34:40.663
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just saying, like, sometimes your best work is your first work, but that doesn't mean you have to see you have to stop doing anything.

34:40.723 --> 34:43.186
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, I don't think it is taken away from romantic.

34:43.767 --> 34:45.548
[SPEAKER_01]: That nods and put out a shitload of music.

34:45.589 --> 34:46.950
[SPEAKER_01]: I think if anything, it's kind of cool.

34:46.970 --> 34:47.270
[SPEAKER_01]: They did us.

34:47.330 --> 34:48.872
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, Lord Neo, today.

34:48.852 --> 34:58.685
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, she seems kind of crazy and not that nice, but if Lauren Hill today decided I'm going to put out a new album and miss education to and it was okay, but not up to the level of number and I still give a professor trying.

34:59.106 --> 35:08.278
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and the one thing that we said when we were talking about miss education is the thing that I would be most intrigued in is listening to Lawrence.

35:08.714 --> 35:12.680
[SPEAKER_00]: Lessons because we know what Lauren was thinking when she was in early 20s.

35:12.760 --> 35:14.203
[SPEAKER_00]: She was thinking about her new baby.

35:14.223 --> 35:20.052
[SPEAKER_00]: She was thinking about this relationship with Wycliffe, which is really kind of like the threat of the entire album.

35:21.053 --> 35:23.357
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's happened in her life sense?

35:23.377 --> 35:25.761
[SPEAKER_00]: So she's dealt with the tax evasion stuff.

35:25.781 --> 35:31.009
[SPEAKER_00]: She's dealt with the breakup of this insanely successful group.

35:30.989 --> 35:35.454
[SPEAKER_00]: and she's had to, she's dealt with motherhood and, and all that.

35:35.474 --> 35:45.446
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would just love to hear about those things that she's dealt with whether or not the, you know, the miseducation is so untouchable, that bar is very high.

35:45.926 --> 35:52.955
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if I get a B plus or a B minus Lorna album, I think just hearing her life story since then would be really interesting.

35:53.555 --> 35:57.520
[SPEAKER_01]: I once heard Gene Simmons from

35:57.922 --> 36:04.891
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost impossible to make great music when you're over a certain age, because you're no longer hungry.

36:05.432 --> 36:10.259
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, you're no longer like thirsty, and you're no longer just craving it with everything you have.

36:10.859 --> 36:14.344
[SPEAKER_01]: When I do think the mis-education of Lauren Hill, it might be my favorite album of all time.

36:14.364 --> 36:17.989
[SPEAKER_01]: It's definitely album I've listened to most in my life of any album.

36:17.969 --> 36:22.656
[SPEAKER_01]: when I'm on a plane and it's turbulent, I always go to everything is everything and I just put that tongue on.

36:23.317 --> 36:23.497
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.

36:23.517 --> 36:24.078
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that tongue.

36:24.098 --> 36:25.721
[SPEAKER_01]: And um, but she was hungry.

36:25.841 --> 36:29.226
[SPEAKER_01]: Now she was a hungry, but she was a hungry artist.

36:29.246 --> 36:32.190
[SPEAKER_01]: When that album, you could hear the hunger in that album, in my opinion.

36:32.631 --> 36:36.316
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know if like 50-year-old Lauren Hill was hungry anymore, and maybe that would be the problem.

36:36.577 --> 36:41.344
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, it's an interesting, I think Gene Simmons who's kind of a grotesque human being, but I think he was on to something with that.

36:41.493 --> 36:54.844
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Marvin Hagler has a quote that I'm sure I'm not stating correctly, but it's you know something to the effect of, you know, it's kind of hard to wake up at five in the morning and train when you're sleeping in satin sheets.

36:55.162 --> 37:23.734
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, you know, that, you know, we talk about this and this is going to be a thread in this podcast is a lot of times the first album is the best album because the artist has everything up until that age of of things that they've done in their life to lean on and then the next album is like just the next two years of their life and a lot of it is success like how like going back to what you're you're saying.

37:23.714 --> 37:31.943
[SPEAKER_00]: the the hunger may not be there, but also the content just really isn't there because they lived their whole experience through this first album.

37:32.564 --> 37:33.385
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's interesting.

37:33.405 --> 37:34.306
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a big boxing guy.

37:34.406 --> 37:35.407
[SPEAKER_01]: And I looked this up real quick.

37:35.427 --> 37:39.852
[SPEAKER_01]: But like Marvin Haggos first fight took place in on May 18th 1973.

37:40.192 --> 37:41.894
[SPEAKER_01]: He knocked out a guy named Terry Ryan.

37:41.954 --> 37:48.962
[SPEAKER_01]: It took place in the Brockton High School Gymnasium where he's from Brockton, S. And his last fight was a pretty

37:48.942 --> 37:55.671
[SPEAKER_01]: the wieldering loss to Shigre Leonard where it like, yeah, it's debatable whether you want to loss, but he definitely wasn't, he wasn't, he didn't seem as hungry.

37:56.152 --> 38:02.221
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he didn't, like he wasn't chasing it and craving it and whatever, he kind of let Shigre Leonard, you know, on the ring.

38:02.541 --> 38:08.549
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just think there's a different string being 18-year-old hungry Marvin Hagler and 30-something-year-old millionaire Marvin Hagler.

38:08.570 --> 38:10.813
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the same music, it's the same, it's just kind of how it goes.

38:10.833 --> 38:12.635
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I mean, I'm 53.

38:12.735 --> 38:15.800
[SPEAKER_01]: I love writing as much as I've ever loved writing.

38:15.820 --> 38:18.223
[SPEAKER_01]: I love reporting as much of, I've ever loved reporting.

38:18.203 --> 38:32.220
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm not the kid at 22 in a Tennessee newsroom, bushing my ass every day to be the, you know, whatever, just bushing my ass and bushing my ass like you change as you get older, it's just a reality of it.

38:32.240 --> 38:35.044
[SPEAKER_00]: And your priorities change, family, of course.

38:35.064 --> 38:43.114
[SPEAKER_00]: Other hood, mayor, all those things are a big part of your life that weren't necessarily, and you know that the Marvin Hagler thing,

38:43.094 --> 38:55.533
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have, I also cover boxing lesser than, you know, I was doing a lot more back in the day, but I have another website called the fight game media.

38:56.154 --> 39:06.369
[SPEAKER_00]: And fight game comes from the story of the haggler and Leonard fight, because there's a book called Sorcery at Seasers, I think, is what it's called.

39:06.950 --> 39:12.038
[SPEAKER_00]: And going back to intros, like great intros that hook you, your brand has got a baby

39:12.018 --> 39:18.010
[SPEAKER_00]: The intro of that book is basically a guy saying, well, why did Sugar A beat Marvin?

39:18.531 --> 39:21.998
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Sugar A, let Marvin take the A side.

39:22.560 --> 39:24.243
[SPEAKER_00]: He asked for a bigger ring.

39:24.283 --> 39:31.157
[SPEAKER_00]: He asked for all of the things that gave him the advantage and he just gave Marvin the bigger share of the money.

39:31.137 --> 39:51.323
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, so why did Sugar A beat Marvin, well, he put the fight game on him, like that he just fight game to Marvin, like he gave Marvin every advantage, he saw the reason Sugar A comes back is because he sees a slippage in Marvin hagglers athleticism and goes, okay, that's what I can attack because he's just not as fast.

39:51.303 --> 40:20.348
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... and it as he was after the the john the beast mugabi fight and so sugar goes i got it like this this is how i can beat him and he wins the showmanship in the crowd and everything so i think boxing is is absolutely fascinating and not to put any pressure on you but i'm not sure there's been a great marvin haglier by a red some of it but i was buying it i love boxing but no way is buying it that's yeah my friend mark regor root and amazing mike tyson but i have it i haven't finished it but i i do have it

40:20.328 --> 40:40.834
[SPEAKER_01]: it's a great book and like it didn't sell that great and the truth of the matter is like boxing is hard sell now you know it's just is a hard sell and haggler feels a little too obscure to sell it by do one you know i am ordering the uh the Caesar's that book so yeah it's it's it's a little short

40:40.814 --> 40:57.580
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is really a great like understanding of the machinations behind the comeback and what Marvin was doing and what sugar was doing and it's a it's a quicker read, but yeah, I found that that story to open that book to be fast eight.

40:58.041 --> 40:59.043
[SPEAKER_01]: Who do they want that flight?

40:59.063 --> 40:59.984
[SPEAKER_01]: Who did you give that flight to?

41:01.146 --> 41:03.750
[SPEAKER_00]: I think every time I score it.

41:05.165 --> 41:16.406
[SPEAKER_00]: I have Leonard barely winning, but it's one of those, one of those barely winnings where you're like, I almost feel bad because of the way that you won and scoring it for him.

41:17.468 --> 41:26.245
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just the throwing five punches at the end of each round to steal them and and stuff like that, I am just more amazed at.

41:26.933 --> 41:33.725
[SPEAKER_00]: the idea that that fight actually happened after years of sugar ray with the carrot on the stick.

41:33.745 --> 41:42.782
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, having inviting Marvin to this event where Marvin's thinking he's going to finally give me this fight and instead he announces his retirement.

41:42.762 --> 41:45.486
[SPEAKER_00]: pulling the rule, you know, pulling the rug right from under me.

41:45.526 --> 41:51.094
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that all the mind games that Sugar Ray played with him over the years is fascinating as well.

41:51.114 --> 41:55.100
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the fight to me is just all of that behind the scene stuff.

41:55.460 --> 41:56.522
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the fight was the fight.

41:56.562 --> 42:06.116
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I remember when I was a kid, you know, gathering at the house to watch it and just going like, oh my gosh, Marvin's going to kill this guy.

42:06.136 --> 42:07.718
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I want to see Sugar Ray die?

42:07.758 --> 42:09.881
[SPEAKER_00]: And then at the end, he's the one raising his hand.

42:09.922 --> 42:10.963
[SPEAKER_00]: It was amazing.

42:11.011 --> 42:11.932
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I agree.

42:11.952 --> 42:21.260
[SPEAKER_01]: I have my dad didn't care about sports, but I won tickets on a radio station to see that fight on close circuit TV at Westchester Community College.

42:21.400 --> 42:25.284
[SPEAKER_01]: And I went with my dad, and all I wanted was she great-liner to win that fight.

42:25.304 --> 42:29.688
[SPEAKER_01]: Like all I wanted and like watching him dodge him and what he did the Bullo punches.

42:29.808 --> 42:30.028
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.

42:30.408 --> 42:31.249
[SPEAKER_01]: Asing him.

42:31.269 --> 42:33.311
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, now I'd be like, God, what an asshole, not like that.

42:33.331 --> 42:34.052
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

42:34.492 --> 42:35.393
[SPEAKER_01]: I just love the remote.

42:35.633 --> 42:36.414
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was really good.

42:36.594 --> 42:41.018
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Jeff, I've kept you longer than I told you I would.

42:40.998 --> 42:42.620
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't tell you we were going to talk in boxing.

42:42.740 --> 42:46.444
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, hey, like, you know, I could talk about this stuff all day long.

42:47.065 --> 42:57.737
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you know, if people who are listening to this don't know your works, where do you, where do you like to send people to to find more information about you and to keep tracks on what you're doing?

42:57.757 --> 43:00.781
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I'm, I'm definitely interested in what you're doing next.

43:00.841 --> 43:03.664
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be an automatic buy for me no matter what it is.

43:04.403 --> 43:07.768
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't told you it's going to be the autobi, it's going to be the biography of the Nella Ice.

43:08.369 --> 43:08.750
[UNKNOWN]: Wait.

43:08.850 --> 43:09.191
[UNKNOWN]: Wait.

43:09.211 --> 43:09.692
[SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead.

43:09.712 --> 43:10.212
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at me.

43:10.232 --> 43:26.158
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're writing it, I'm buying it, but I want to know the legend did, did, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should, should,

43:26.138 --> 43:27.700
[SPEAKER_01]: We really have to come big on TikTok.

43:27.720 --> 43:30.063
[SPEAKER_01]: So Jeff Pro and author on TikTok is kind of the mean.

43:30.584 --> 43:33.988
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why, but I'm like a 12-year girl, but I am on TikTok.

43:34.068 --> 43:43.361
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it shows that, I don't know who's doing your TikToks or if you're doing your TikToks, but that is a space for people, our age that is kind of scary.

43:43.381 --> 43:45.944
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, do I really want to delve into that or not?

43:46.084 --> 43:48.427
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, so shout out to you for doing it.

43:48.647 --> 43:49.148
[SPEAKER_01]: I do.

43:49.168 --> 43:49.869
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thanks for having me on.

43:49.949 --> 43:50.430
[SPEAKER_01]: I've enjoyed this.

43:50.610 --> 43:55.977
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, everyone, thanks to Jeff.