CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD - Cheese Toast & Tea - Eating While Broke

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
I'm your host, Colleen Witt, and today we have very
special guests Charlemagne the God in the building.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Y'all, Queen Wit, what's happening?

Speaker 3 (00:33):
What's going on? How do you feel?

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Charlemagne the God also known as hip Hop's Howard Starn really,
best selling author of books Black Privilege, Shook One, and
most recently, Get Honest or Die Lion Why small Talk Sucks.
In addition to all these accolades, you have invested close
to thirty years in the radio broadcasting industry. You're the
founder of the Black Effect podcast network.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Where you can listen to Eating whild Broke, where.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
You can which you yourself is literally the only reason
why we're able to do this interview. In addition to
all that, you are the creative of Black Privileged Publishing.
I read this quote. I was hanging out at my
dad's apartment. He had this quote on the wall and
I took it. And the whole irony in this quote
is that he actually took it from me. But I
read this quote and I thought of you. Excellence is

(01:17):
never an accident. It is always a result of high
intention sincere effort, intelligent direction, skillful execution, and the vision
to see obstacles as opportunities. Now I thought of you
because just reading all your books, I was like, personally
and professionally, it seems like that has been your journey. Absolutely, absolutely,

(01:38):
So I gotta ask, what is the broke dish that
you would have had us eating in my studio?

Speaker 3 (01:44):
If I really don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
I was racking my brain when they kept telling me,
and I watched the show and I'm like, they kept
you know, you got to have a broke dish, and
I'm like, I didn't really have a broke dish coming up.
And the reason I say that is because even though
we were poor, I didn't realize we were poor until
I got older, because you know, I grew up in
Monks Corner, South Carolina, and you know, when you grow
up in a ruined area like that, everybody is pretty

(02:11):
much doing the same. Like, you know, you might have
a couple of individuals who got a house that's better
than yours, but for the most part, people were growing
up in double wide trailers and we're growing up in
you know, like small subvern homes like my grandma used
to have. But the one thing that we always had
was food in funny food, funny and family, literally you know.

(02:33):
So it's like the things that people would call broke
meals or the things that I still love now. Like
I love grits and eggs. You give me some scrambled
eggs with some grits and butter, I'm good. Like my
grandma used to make this. She used to make cheese toast.
So she would just take the toast. My mouth started
water and thinking about it. She would just take the
toast and like you know, put the butter on the

(02:54):
center and then put a slice of cheese and literally
warm that up. And I would drink that with a
cup of tea. And now that I think about it,
I'm like, oh, that was like the meals that they
were giving us because that's what they could afford to
give us, like even you know, but it was amazing
that it still tasted good. Like it don't make me
feel like something. It's something that I still enjoy now. Yeah,

(03:16):
you know, so to me, that's not It might be
a broke dish, but I still love it.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
I love hearing guests say that they were broke but
they didn't realize they were broke. But in those types
of cities, what I did notice is that, yeah, everyone
looked the same. But what differentiated kids from knowing whether
they were broke was at least I don't know, we're
close in age, but it was the like kicks, like
were you going to school with the cool kicks or something?
So or nah?

Speaker 3 (03:40):
I had none of those. My dad.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
I remember, I wanted they used to be these boots
called high tech boots, and my dad they saw the
bootleg version that pay less, and I wanted them so
bad that I'm like, y'all get the bootleg version that pay.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Less, and they didn't. The kids didn't noticing me.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Well, no, I woke up one morning and my dad
had the high tech sitting by my bed.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
So I was like, oh, shoot, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
So I actually had the real you know, all black
high texts, you know, So I didn't have like the
Jordans and all of that stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
I don't. I don't even what kind of sneakers did
I have back then.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
I'm saying in that environment, that wasn't the thing that
differentiated a poor kid from it because in those environments,
everyone's technically in the same economic structure. But I remember
growing up in upstate New York where even though we
were all kind of in the same category, there were
some kids that would go to school wearing Jordan's or Nikes,
and then they would look at the kids and say,

(04:32):
we're payless and be like, okay, you're poor. And that's
how as a child you knew you were poor.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
But the people who had the Jordans and stuff when
I was growing up with the drug dealers for the
most part, you know, I mean, either the drug dealers
are like the football players because you know, people in
their minds like all these people are going places, so
you know, let me throw them some shoes or something
like that. But for the most part, the drug dealers
had to fly kicks that I remember, you know, growing up,

(04:56):
I don't even remember what I didn't. I'm trying to
sit in and try, like what did I wear back then?
Sneak awise, I had some converse because you know, Snoop
Dogg came out in like ninety two ninety three, so
we had the converse all stars.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
You know, That's all I can really think of.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
So take me back to the cheese toast, which, by
the way, I did have On the show, someone had
did it with sugared.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Mine was strat cheese toast to butter with a slice
of cheese, cup of tea. That's what my grandmother would
give us.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
And I can even still right now think about that,
that feeling of having that, like it was just an
amazing meal. I can't remember that. That wasn't even breakfast.
That might have just been like, yo, you just got
home from school. You might get some cheese toast with
a cup of tea, you know, definitely, like I said,
gritch and eggs for breakfast.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
And you keep referencing your grandma's house. Is there a
reason because did you stay with her?

Speaker 3 (05:48):
No?

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Well, when I was young, my mother, my mother was
a school teacher, you know, and my grandmother was a
lunch lady. Right, so you know, I grew up in
the air when you was in fifth grade, you know,
you get get I could get dropped off a my
grandma house and wait there till the adults come. And
you know, I would never dare do that with my
kids now, but you know, just back then, life was different.

(06:10):
So I would literally wait till my mom came home
from school. So I spent so much time you know,
at my grandmother's house. Like, so, yeah, I spent a
lot of time over there.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Okay, and then take me through to at least fast
forward to like your first walk of I want to
get into entertainment or in that direction.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
My grandmother's house, sitting outside while they were waiting waiting
for my mom and my grandma to get home, and like,
when I was young, it used to seem like it
was this huge field between my grandmother's house and my
cousin Gloria's house. But the field really isn't that big now,
But when I was younger, I used to feel like
it was really big, and I.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
Would just be out there acting like I was performing.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Like I literally would be facing the field, acting like
that field was full of full of people, and I
would be either be acting like I was, you know
at a certain doing rock and roll. At certain points,
I was just giving like speeches, and then like you know,
as I started to getting hip hop, I started to
act like I was rapping to a crowd. So that
was my first Uh, I guess that's when the bug

(07:13):
kind of hit me. Like, y'all want to entertain in
some way, shape or form.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Did you see or hear it somewhere and then it
like touched you. Was it like maybe per Like I
remember when I was a kid, I would see Michael
Jackson performing. People pass out and I'd be like, oh
my god, like that's incredible. Was there something like that
that touched you to get you out into that field?

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Nah, I just think that.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
You know, my dad used to play music a lot,
and you know, there was always albums lying around, so
you would just see those people and they used to
look they used to look cool, you know. I used
to I'm a big cartoon guy to this day. So
I used to like watch a lot of ThunderCats and.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
Oh my god, the ThunderCats.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Thundercast and it was there was a spin off with
the ThunderCats. I think it was the silver Fish or
something like that. Maybe I'm bugging, but I remember, or
maybe it was or maybe it was something with birds,
you know, the cats. The ThunderCats were cat, but then
it was it was a spin off show that was
either Birds of Fish. I don't remember which one it was,
but I remember like I would have this imagination that
I was. You know, it's gonna sound crazy, but I

(08:11):
was an animal like figure and I had a band
behind me that was all those animal humanoids and we
were like this group, And I don't know why I
would go out in the yard and perform as this
group all the time.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
So imagination at its best, that's what.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
That's all it was. So it's like, yeah, so then
what was.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
That big, next big milestone? After you know you're performing,
you kind of have this like love affair with performing.
What was that next big milestone or pivotal moment where
you said maybe I should actually push a button and
take it a step further.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Well, for radio, it started with me getting an internship.
That's why I think internships are so important. And I
got an internship when I was eighteen years old in Charleston,
South Carolina. And the reason I was able to get
that internship is because I always tell people, man, stop
acting like.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
You know, and just ask questions.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
So I've always been a question ask her right, Like,
if there's something that I'm interested in, something I don't
know nothing about, I just asked questions about it, a
lot of questions because you know, when you ask a
lot of questions, you know you'll get you'll get answers.
So I just simply asked my man. His name was
Willy Will because he used to work as Z ninety
three Jams in Charleston, South Carolina, and we used to

(09:21):
rap together. Well, let me, I need to take a step.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Back, right. Rap is what we all thought.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Was gonna get us out of the hood right when
you was young, because when you looked on television or
you looked in magazines, the people who looked like you,
who were successful Black people were usually in rap are
some form of entertainment, are in athletics. So I always
thought rap was gonna take me out of the hood. I
love to write, always been a writer, so I just
started turning those stories I was writing into into raps.
But I was never good in the booth, so I

(09:49):
would like, go in the booth. I couldn't like catch
the bead stuff like that, you know what I mean?
Like that, I just could never do it. But I
was always good at writing, good at helping people pick songs,
stuff like that. And Willie Will was a guy who
could rap. He could actually he sounded really good.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
You know, in the booth.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
And I just asked him how did he get in
the radio, and he was like, yeah, I got an internship.
And I was like, Yo, it's dadd easy. I could
just go down there and get an internship. And he
was like, yeah, like I gotta be in school or nothing,
because in my mind, you got to be seeing. He
was like, no, this is nineteen ninety eight, Charles the
South Carolina. So that's what I did. I drove down
there and I got an internship, and literally they gave
me then internship and that's how I got into the

(10:24):
radio game.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
So rap is what.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Made me feel like, Okay, this is gonna get me
out the hood. And then that ultimately led me to radio,
which was what changed my life. And you know, I
had a great mentor named doctor Robert Evans. You know,
I talk about him all the time. You know, in
my first book, I got a chapter called fuck your dreams,
you know, if they're not your dream right, because a
lot of times we see things working for other people

(10:47):
and we say, oh, we want to do that too,
but that's not what God has meant for you.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
So doctor Evans told me, he was like, Yo, you suck.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
As a rapper, but you are an amazing radio personality
and if you focus on radio, you could be one
of the best that ever did it.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
And he literally said that to me, and I took
his advice.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
So I don't like to jump around, but it's the
irony and you saying that that was the advice you got.
But then in Get Honest or Die Lying, you actually
talk about doing the opposite in regards to.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Your daughters astronaut kids.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
You still though, cherish that that moment of honesty.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
Well, astronaut kids.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
You know, in the new book is a chapter I
did with my man, Elliott Connie, who's a psychotherapist, and
you know, it's about the astronaut kid theory, like if
your child comes to you and your child says, hey,
I want to be an astronaut. You know, you don't say,
all that's impossible, you'll never be an astronaut, blah blah blah.
You tell them, okay, so how we're going to get
it done? You know, you pour into them, you encourage them.
And I also talk about, you know, in Black Privilege,

(11:50):
about how I had a family member when I was
just sitting around talking about all my dreams, talking about
everything I want to accomplish, they told me not to
set my goal. So because if I don't accomplish him,
I'm gonna be hurt, and I literally said to that person,
that is the stupidest shit I ever heard in my life, because.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
I really felt that way.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
And with astronaut kids, when a child comes to you
and they say they want to be something, you should
pour into them. I still do believe in the fucking
dreams mentality, but I believe that more so with adults
who I know are chasing things that they see working
for other people as opposed to tapping into what it

(12:30):
is that they truly should be doing, you know, themselves.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
I agree. So what you're saying is like over eighteen,
you definitely be honest. I remember I had an interview
with DC young flying he wanted to be like a
basketball player, and he said, you know, he transferred schools.
He was like the best basketball player in this like
little school. He was going to move to a different school.
He was like the worst basketball player. And the coach,
like catapultar to his dreams, was like, you'll never be
a basketball player, and he was like, well, thank god

(12:56):
for him saying that because it forced him to like
check out other lanes. And I do agree with that,
but I also heard the astronaut thing. I'm a new mom,
like I'm daughters too, so I'm like soaking up any
advice any parent will give me, you know. And I
was like, well, you know all these some people say
let your kid fall or whatever, but I did like
the beauty in the astronaut theory. Going back to your internship,

(13:19):
sorry to Derail. I like to see I like to
see the growth in you, and you see it. You
see it very You're very transparent about the growth of
who you were, who were trying to be, and then
who you've become and who you're actively becoming. But go ahead,
take back to so you get into radio yep, and
what's what's the environment, like, what what do you find

(13:40):
that you love the most about it? And what was
your internship duties at the time?

Speaker 2 (13:44):
Oh, internship duties. I did everything. I had to drive
the station vehicle. I had to put the posters up,
you know, I had to set up you know, the
DJ equipment if need be, set up the tables for
people to you know, put their stuff on, like literally
whatever I needed to do. Like you know, people would
like to call that do boys stuff, but it's like,
I mean, I guess, you know.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
So I used to actually take the station vehicle home.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
So even when it was other intern shifts, they would
come and be like.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
Well, where's the truck?

Speaker 1 (14:15):
Why are you taking it?

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Because when they would come and be like, where's the truck,
then they would have you know what, I think Charlamagne
had it last.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
They would call like, char I mean you got the truck? Yeah,
actually I do. What's up?

Speaker 2 (14:27):
Well we got somebody got a remote an hour, I'm
on the way, and I would take the truck and
I would just go to the remote with the intern.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
So I was there. I was crashing everybody's set.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
And then not just coming to the you know, all
the remotes, I would be sitting in the studio being
a fly on the wall.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
You know.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
Willie will used to let me sit in with him
a lot, and I would just sit there and just
like you know, soak it all up, you know, taking uh,
taking what was going on. And this is another reason
the astronaut kid theory is so powerful because I always
talk about my homegirl Testing Spencer, you know who's from Charleston,
South cam and her and Baby Jay had a show

(15:02):
on Z ninety three called The Breakfast Club when I
was growing up, and that was the huge morning show
in Charleston ninety three still is the big heritage station
down there, and Tesla calls the She called one day
when I was on a Sunday morning doing what we
call voice tracking. So voice tracking is basically you would
record your your breaks upload them, but you still had

(15:23):
to sit in the studio while the show was on
because I was new, you know, And she called and
she goes, yo, you know what. She was telling me
about a traffic accident that was somewhere on but she
was like, yo, you sound really good.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
And I said thank you.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
She's like, no, no, no, no, I'm not just saying that, like,
you sound really good, like a natural. And the confidence
that gave me, like the boost, the energy that gave me, like,
oh shit, Tessa Spencer from the Breakfast Club just told
me I sound good like So it solidified to me
that I was doing what I was supposed to be

(15:56):
doing because it already felt good. It felt amazing, like
I'm talking, but it felt like on that microphone, it
felt like the first time you had orgasm, Like literally,
like that first time you got.

Speaker 3 (16:07):
High, you know, and you're like, oh man, this is amazing.
It just felt incredible.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
And so when she told me that it just like
set something off of me, that it lit a spark
that hasn't hasn't gone.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
Out like this is definitely my purpose.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
I knew that because you got this tattoo I got
on my armor here is.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Oh my gosh, is that a Thundercat?

Speaker 2 (16:29):
No, it's Wolverine. It's horrible though. My man, it's a
guy named t Willis. This when tattoos were illegal in
South Carolina.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
My man, t Willis did this.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
But it's Wolverine from the X Men, holding a microphone
in his hand.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
You need to get this. Oh yeah, I see, you
see it.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
And the reason I got Wolverine because Wolverine is still
my favorite X Men character. But the thing I loved
about Wolverine was his healing powers. Literally, he had the
ability to heal from any situation. And so I always
knew in my mind even back then. I think I
got this when I was seventeen, I knew that.

Speaker 3 (17:04):
Yo.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
Maybe I think I might have a little older, like
eighteen nineteen, but I knew in my mind that I
wanted to have that ability. I wanted to have the
ability to heal from anything. This is before I didn't
I didn't know nothing but no therapy. I wasn't on
no healing journey back then. I was out of my
mind back then, but I just knew in my mind
I wanted to be able to heal from any situation.
And I knew physically, and I used to say this

(17:25):
to myself. I knew that wasn't possible physically, so I
used to always say emotionally mentally, you know, I wanted
to be able to heal from anything. And he's holding
a mic because I thought rap was gonna be what
changed my life, but actually it was these type of
microphones that changed my life. And then now you see,
I'm I'm a huge mental advocate, huge mental health advocate,
helping people on their healing journey. So it's just like, man,

(17:48):
God don't waste nothing.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
He don't. But now, back at eighteen to ninety, you
also had the name Charlotte Mane or you had the
nickname then.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Yes, because I was.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
I graduated from night school and let me see, I
graduate from night school in nineteen ninety eight, so I
was either I was either about to be twenty or
still nineteen. But yeah, because I used to sell crack
and I used to always say my name was Charles, like,
because you know, I come from a small town, so
if I said my real name, people be like, oh,
that's Larry's son, that's Julie son.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
So I used to always say my name was Charles
or Charlie.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
And then we used to all smoke a lot of weeds,
so we all had a like like weed nickname. So
I was like Charlie Chronic. Somebody else was like Mikey Marijuana.
Somebody else was Nikabodism, somebody else was Bobby Buddha.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
I think it's interesting because throughout your whole story it
seems like you're you had the Charlemagne, which was almost
I hate to say it for lack of better terms,
but you had this like bad boy persona type oh yeah,
thing that you were you were leading with. But then
in the back of your mind, even with the god
or with the next it was like in the back
of your mind but like healing or moving in this

(18:58):
like purposeful direct but even lingering in the background.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Right yeah, but even with charlamagnecause Charlamagne is French for
Charles the Great, and Charlemagne was a Roman emperor who
went about spreading religion and education.

Speaker 3 (19:10):
And then you know in Haiti.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
There's a general Charlemagne, and he was just a revolutionary, right,
So I picked that name for those reasons because they
meant something. So I'm sitting in night school looking at
the history of book and I see Charles the Great,
and I'm like, Charles the Great, I'm like Charlemagne. I'm like,
I'm like, Charlemagne is French for Charles the Great. So

(19:33):
I'm like, oh, I just call myself Charlemagne Charlomagne the God.
So it really didn't make no sense. It's like it'd
be like Charles the Great, the God. But I was
seventeen in high all the time.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
I eighteen. I don't remember how.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
I can't remember how I was, Like, I know it
was nineteen ninety eight, so I was like nineteen probably,
but I was in night.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
School, Okay. And then, now, when do you officially after
the internships start getting into Paige, Like, how long?

Speaker 2 (19:58):
I I was an intern for a while because they
actually had canceled the internship programs, and then they brought
me back. And then when they brought me back, they
hired me in the promotions department, so basically to get
paid only I think it might have been six hours
an hour if that at the time.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
And so I was.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Getting paid a little bit of money, you know, to
being promotions. And then my man, Ron White, my guy,
Ron White still my guy this day. He was the
music director at the time, and he was like, yo,
you need to You said, you ever thought about being
on the radio, And I was like nah.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
He was like no, nah, because I hadn't you know
what I mean.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
I mean, yeah, I was just I was just happy
to be there and like you know, every now and
then I would jump on with Willie will you know,
but I never thought to myself, I can get my
own show or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
He was like, yo, you should, you should, you should
be on air.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
And so Ron White is the president that started, you know,
allowed me to voice track and put me on there,
you know. So that's why I got mad love for
you know, Ron to this day. Like you know, certain
people change the trajectory trajectory of your life, and you know,
you you should always honor those people, you know, for
for for even if you're not on the great terms

(21:19):
of them, even if you don't like the person no more,
you should always honor them in your story. Yeah, by
telling them that, you know, but tell telling that story
about them, because you can't erase that.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
The only reason why I wanted to know the how
long it is? Because we are definitely in the air
and you talk about it in the book where everyone is,
especially with the younger people, and I try to think
back if I was like that, even though I catch
myself still being like that is like the overnight success,
Like how long did it take? That's why I wanted
to stress, like thirty years in radio broadcasting? How long
did it take of you struggling before you got your

(21:49):
first big Like well, I don't want to say the
six dollar check, but that you know, Oh.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
I didn't get a huge check in radio. Tell Breakfast
Club wow, because.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Breakfast Club was just easily ten years, right, yet longer.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Cause it was that was Breakfast Club was the seventh
radio station I worked at. So I started in nineteen
ninety eight and then I got with Breakfast Club in
two thousand and ten.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
Year, So what's that?

Speaker 1 (22:15):
What's that terms twelve years?

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, So I worked at four radio stations in Charleston
and then I was with Wendy Winn. But I worked
with Wendy for like a year and a half for free.
You know, and then when I got put on salary,
I was making seventy thousand dollars a year. And then
I got my own morning show in Philadelphia, and I
still was making like seventy grand a year, seventy seventy
five grand a year, something like that. And then I
went back home. I had to go back home to

(22:41):
South Carolina. Like I fired four times.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
Yeah, and that was my next one. Why were you
getting fired so much?

Speaker 2 (22:45):
That was just a game, Like it wasn't even about
anything that I was necessarily doing. It's just like, that's
just the business of a radio. Like when I started
as the ninety three Jams. That's why I was an intern.
That's when I was in promotions. That's when I worked
in programming. I quit, you know, there to go work
at a station called Hotney eight nine. My man George Cook,
who is the operations manager at K one oh four
in Dallas. He's the first person to give me a

(23:07):
full time job on radio. Still a great mental mind
to this day. And even then I was making nineteen
grand a year. And then I, you know, went to Columbia.
After I got fired from hot ninety nine. They fired
George George who hired me, they fired him, bought in
a new guy, Corey Hill, who was the program director,
and then Corey fired me because he Corey wanted to
bring in his own people.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
Of course, that's just the way the game goes in radio.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Now, during this whole journey, what's your mental health looking like?
Are you starting to second guess whether this is your journey?
I really want to dig into that mental health state
when you're going through that roller coaster wave, because you
even ended up back at home with your parents at
some point.

Speaker 3 (23:44):
I did the first time.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
The first time I got fired from radio, which was
Hot ninety eight nine in Charleston, I was a little
I was a little fucked up mentally because I didn't
know that I could go do radio other places.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
So in my mind like that was my one shot.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Yeah, because I mean I didn't I'm from Monks Corner,
South Carolina. I know that area. I know I can
have success in Charleston. I never even thought about, you know,
doing radio other places. And it wasn't until I did
this demo tape. But it was actually because I used
to do my man, doctor Robert Evans and his son,
my guy DJ Bluss loved him to death. They had

(24:21):
a record label called Never So Deep, and so I
was doing an r for them, and they put out
a compilation album and it was like all of their
artists because they had a subsidiary deal with an MCA
back then.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
That's MCA was a big label back in the day.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
And so they had a compilation album and I narrated
the compilation album, but I put it together like a
radio show. And so we were just sending that out,
you know, around the country, and one of the program
directors in South Carolina named Mike Love, he was like yo.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
He'd sent me an email.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
He was like, yo, yo, do you do radio for real?
And I'm like yeah, and he was like, man, come
see me. And so I drove an hour and a
half the Columbia, South Carolina from Monk's Corner, met my guy,
Mike Glove. Salute to Mike Glove, and Mike started putting
me on in Columbia Thursday. I think I was on Friday,
Saturday and Sunday in Columbia. Maybe Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Speaker 3 (25:09):
I dont remember it.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
And that was your second after getting fired from the first.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
That was yeah, that was it. But that was the
third station I worked at third.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, and I loved working in Columbia because my wife
was going to the University of South Carolina, so that's
in Columbia. So now I had a reason to be
up there every weekend, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
So once again, that's God.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
You can't you cannot script that, like that is all God.
That's God putting all of those pieces together. Like I
want y'all to be with each other, you know here, right,
even if y'all go through ups and y'all go through downs,
I still want you all around each other. Because we
did break up for a year at one point during
that time. We've been together twenty six years. But long
story short, I ended up in Columbia that station.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
Big DM flipped formats, so I.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
Ended up going to work for the station that they bought,
which was Hot one o three nine, which was the
big hip hop station in that market. And from Hot
one o three point nine, that's when when Williams got
syndicated on Hot one of three point nine. So when
they would come to the market, her and her husband,
I would just show him love, you know what I mean,
like make sure they was good or whatever they needed
you know, take them to the clubs, stuff like that,
and that's how we forged a relationship, you know. And

(26:14):
and it wasn't just they forged relationship with other people
around the station at that time too, like you know,
my homegirl Venom, she had a good relationship with them
as well. So we all just had a had a relationship,
you know. And that's how all of those doctor ended
up connecting.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
Okay, how was it working with Wendy Williams.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Best best and worst time in my life? You know,
best and worst, best and worst time.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
In my life?

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Just because like Wendy come from it, she comes from
a different era, you know, Like there's been time I remember,
I remember sitting in the studio offering some input and
shut the fuck up and do it my way or
get the fuck out, you know what I mean, shut
the I don't want to hit shit from you, motherfucker.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
Like so it was like this was like before H.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
Well nowadays HR terrified.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
I think about that shit all the time, likes their
HR departments. Back then, it couldn't have been.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
Not the ship were really know, I think also when
you're young, I don't think anyone really knows how to
use HR. I mean, I could be wrong with today's
culture of cancel culture, like people are like more, but
I remember being like sexually her, like all types of
things because I did not know how HR worked. I
just knew I needed my job and I wasn't willing
to do anything to jeopardize.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
And that's you know, back then, it was like, you know,
I had I was. I had personal relationships with them, man,
professional relationship with them, and you saw how everything turned
out with you know, her and her husband. So it
was like all of that was a very tumultuous, tumultuous,
I don't know if I'm saying the word right, tumultualist, tumultuous, tumultuous,
A fucked up situation.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
It was. It was all fun. It was a very
fuck up situation.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Men, you like that too? Also, is like because the
lines were blurred, right, So that's why she was talking.
So what was the highlight of it?

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Just working with Wendy, Working with one of the greatest
media personalities of all time. You know, regardless of what
her you know, personal showcomings may have been, professionally, she's
one of the fucking best to ever do it, you know,
from TV to radio, like I mean the things that
I used to watch her do as far as like
you know, show prep, Like you know, Wendy was a

(28:17):
person who really lived. She lived, you know, the culture
that she spoke about. She wasn't one of those people
who got in front of the microphone and gossiped, because
you know, she was performing.

Speaker 3 (28:29):
That's really who she was.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
And so for me, it was just that's not I mean,
I don't want to do the gossip thing, but it
was just like be authentic, be who you are. Like
I would see I would be with her all day
and then come sit with her in that studio and
do the show and watch her detail our day. You
understand what I'm saying. So it's just like everything was
content for her.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
I was in the store and this happened, we were
driving and this, like it was all content.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
And so it's like for me, that's like that's how
that's always been my approach, you know, like your life,
your life is your best content. That's why I'm able
to write three books because I'm not performing. I'm literally
just showcasing and sharing all of these different things that
you know, I've experienced, all these different things that I've
learned and I'm not afraid to be transparent, Like I

(29:17):
gotta be afraid to be transparent. When I've heard Wendy
Williams talk about being on crack smoking, smoking sniff and
coke cooking, the coke smoking, the crack, throwing up on
the radiator because she was so high, and then the
fucking radiator cooking, the cooking, the throw up. Like, but
that's that's a surreal It's an amazing story. So if
I come from being next to that, why wouldn't I

(29:39):
be just as authentic? Plus we hip hop. Yeah, so
think about all the stories we've heard, the jay Z's
tell and the Big East Tell and the scarfaces and
the killing Mike, all of these people that we love.
So it's just like, I want to be that same
type of storyteller.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
So was it in that moment that you realize that
authenticity was the key to success in radio?

Speaker 3 (29:57):
Oh? Yeah, I knew that.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
But I knew that before Wendy because I was already
admiring people like Wendy.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
I was already admiring pe D Green. Pe D Green is.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
That's my all time favorite radio personality, right, So I
already knew authenticity was what separated you period, Like, it's
ironic that the name of this book is called Get
Honest or Die Lying, because that could have been the
name of my first book. Because literally, I've always my
daddy used to always tell me when you lying to people,

(30:27):
or he was used to say, specifically him.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
You lying.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
You think you're lining to me, but you're only lying
to yourself. And so I never ever wanted to be
that person that is, you know, lying to themselves, because
what happens is you end up volunteering those lives to
other people. And I think that's what's happening in this
era that we're in now in social media, like you know,
just everybody feel like they got to perform, So who's
really truly being themselves? Everybody's showing up with a mask.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
On yeah, social but you know what it's you talk
You mentioned Larussell, but I thought l Russell did a
really good job at kind of putting the case. And
I talked him about this. I'm like, yo, I can't
be that transparent. He's like, you got to, you know,
I don't know. He'd be showing like, okay, this was
the sales or this is me pressing up the shot.
He would show everything, just document everything, and I thought

(31:11):
that was like a crazy amount of transparency. I was like,
I could never ever do that.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
I love that dude.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
Man.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
L Russell was introduced to me by my late great
friend Hovain, and I never forget it because Hovain he
sent me a video of L. Russell rapping and L
Russell it was like the first one. It was the
one that went crazy viral. Well, he was rapping about
so many things and socially redeeming value. He was rapping
about being a young brother, trying to heal like it

(31:40):
was everything I was on and so Hovain sent it
to me and I didn't get a chance to listen
to it. I remember a couple of days later, Hovain
text me like, there's no way you listened to that,
because you know me. He was like, there's no way
you listened to that, and I was like, you know what,
let me let me listen to it. When he Hope
Set text me that I listened and I'm like, why

(32:01):
are you just telling me about him?

Speaker 3 (32:03):
He's like, I sent you this three.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
Days ago, crazy right, And so it was like immediately
I had to repost it because I wanted the world
to hear that and then you know, when you meet
l Russell, his energy is just just everything man. So
he's just one of them young brothers. He always got
my support just because he's a He's a solid, solid
human being who I think is delivering a message not
just of independence when it comes to business, but a

(32:26):
message of healing that I think a lot of brothers
need to heal.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, Integrity is like definitely like a word I use
a lot, and when I'm looking for entrepreneurs, celebrities or influencers,
I'm always looking for that level of integrity. And I
remember just being like, okay, like talented, definitely talented and
all that, but I was like, I want to know,
like if we're a fly on your wall, like what
am I seeing?

Speaker 3 (32:49):
For real? But that's what integrity is.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
And that's that's another part of the book, right get
Honest to Die line. That's why I said, like, you know,
we tell we lie to ourselves and then we volunteer
these lies the other people. Integrity to me is doing
what's right when nobody's around. Who are you when the
camera's not on? Who are you when the microphone isn't on? Like,
because I really care more about God than anybody. That's

(33:14):
why you don't care about perception. You should focus on
your character, because perception is what everybody thinks about you,
and that varies from person to person.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
Character is who you actually are. So I care about
my character.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
I don't care if the world has a perception of
me because they don't know me, you know. And that's
why people will say things like, what's the biggest misconception
about you? Charlm There is no misconception because I don't
know what version of me you saw. I've been doing
this shit for twenty six years, you know what I mean.
I don't know what version of me you saw. So
whatever version of me you saw, whatever perception you have

(33:51):
of me based off what you saw, I can't trip
off that, you know.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
No, Now, after the Wendy Williams, you leave Wendy Williams.
How long was the gap between Wendy Williams and the
Breakfast Club?

Speaker 3 (34:04):
I left Wendy November two, two thousand and eight.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
You remember this well.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
I remember it for a particular reason. I remember it
because President Barack Obama became He became president elect on
November third, two thousand and eight, So and I got
fired November second two thousand and eight from Wendy, but
like twenty five people got fired, like it was a
massive layoff. People forget how fucked up the economy was
in two thousand and eight. So it wasn't just me

(34:29):
that got fired. You had great legendary radio personality like
Bond Harper got fired and Champagne like these are legendary
urban adult contemporary personality.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
Him when you got fired, did you actually look at
it as everyone's getting the rap? Because I know me,
I'll be like, I know everyone's going through it, but
what about Well.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
You know it was good for me because when I
got fired, it was news like it was in like
the New York Times and like I think it was
PIXE eleven or one of these local New York radio
stations came to interview me and Wendy about my firing.
I remember them saying fan favorite, and I was like,
oh shit, fan favorite. Because you got to think when
I first thoughted with Wendy, they hated me, like literally,

(35:07):
New York City did not fuck with me. Like they
even put up a survey that said they said, shar
Charlamage be sent back home. It was like eighty five
percent of people was like sending his ass back home.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
How did that make you feel when you saw those surveys?

Speaker 3 (35:22):
It didn't make me feel any way.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Like I promise you, man, I've never been that kind
of person. Like I just I understand things happen, and
I have such a belief in myself, and I have
such a belief in God, and I have such a
belief in what, you know, what God has me here
to do that I just feel like all of that
I knew even back then, even though it might have stung,

(35:46):
I just knew it was part of the process. Like
I knew I was not going to lose. I constantly
hear jay z voice in my head. I will not lose,
you know. I just I knew that I was not
going to lose. And so it's like, all right, I'll
get y'all. You might you may not like me now,
but I'll get y'all. And fast forward two and a
half years later, the news is reporting I'm a fan favorite,

(36:07):
and guess what me working at Wendy. I did what
I was supposed to do at Wendy so much that
I ended up getting my own radio show in Philadelphia.
And I loved it, right because I got fired November second,
two thousand and eight. My oldest daughter, who actually turned
sixteen today or the day we're taping this.

Speaker 3 (36:25):
She had been born June of that year.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
So from November two thousand and eight to like May
of two thousand and nine, I was home every day
with my daughter because my wife was the one going
to work every day. My wife was keeping the lights on.
I was too proud to go collect unemployment.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
I had no money.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
You didn't even collect collect.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
I didn't collectunemploym until I got fired from Philadelphia.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
From my fourth time.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
I love that's your wife, and you definitely had that
team environment like ones down. Well it's okay, we're going
to run it man.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
She held it down, you know.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
I mean we ultimately had we were facing the evictions
and all types of stuff like that, but she held
it down. And so it's like when I started off,
I started doing radio and Philly. I got the morning
radio show in Philly because of what I had done
on Wendy Show, and then from morning radio that morning
radio in Philly, even though I was only there for
eight nine months and got fired right for the same reason.
They bought in a new program director, guy named Boogie

(37:16):
d you know who fired me from one hundred point
three to beat in Philly. They need to be aware
of their fuck ups. These people need to be aware
of the mistakes they made in life. So he fired me,
and I was We went home for a year, me
and my wife and my oldest daughter and went home.

(37:36):
He went home to South Carolina for a year. That's
when I started collecting unemployment. I had never collected unemployment
from any of those four radio stations I got fired.
So I was getting like eleven hundred dollars a week
for like fifty two weeks the whole year. And the
last unemployment check I got was like November, like second
week in November, and that was the same week I

(37:57):
think I started breakfast club.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
Wow, yep wow.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
And then you come to breakfast club and this is
it sounds like you could correct me? Is this this
is the highest salary of your career because now you're
what you said in your book and now look at you.
I also, you know, I had to like just out
of share curiosity, and he made one hundred and twenty
five k. Then like and then to see I googled
it is probably wrong, but I was like Okay, so

(38:23):
then how much does he make now from the breakfast club?
I think I said like three million or something like that. Wow,
is a lie? Is it Google? A lie?

Speaker 3 (38:30):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
I won't from and I have no idea. I'm not
I'm not one of those guys.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
I don't know why googled it. I was just random.
I get curious all the most random stuff. Okay, so
you're at the breakfast club. Where does publishing take place,
like the book writing? Where does that like happen? Because
I know the first time I read Black Privilege had
to been Was it seven year? No?

Speaker 2 (38:56):
Yeah, it came out, it came out, it came out
twenty sixteen. No, it came out twenty seventeen. Came out
twenty seventeen, came out April of twenty seventeen.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
I read that book. It's so funny. Of the only
other books I've ever read by entertainers is mainly Jay
Z Russell Simmons, and I read your book and it
inspired me to read I think Kevin Hart's book, and
then I realized, no, not everyone's the same. I really
like your writing, Thank you. I really like it.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
I mean, I actually write, you know, my guy Chris Morrow,
who I always give credit to because you know, he
told me two things that absolutely changed my life. He
told me twelve years ago, you need to write a book,
and you need to start a podcast. And I always
wanted to write a book because I'm a writer, right,
I knew that was gonna come. But I was like
a podcast. I was like, why would I start a podcast?
Podcaster for people who can't get on radio?

Speaker 1 (39:44):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (39:45):
I remember saying that twelve yeah, twelve years ago even,
and he was like, he was like, now I'm telling
you man, it's gonna be the next wave.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
YadA, YadA, YadA.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
And I started listening to Combat Jack around that time,
God Bless the Dead, Reggie Osha, and so I listened.

Speaker 3 (39:59):
I was like, you know what, why not?

Speaker 2 (40:00):
Because in my mind, I'm like, already been fired, you know,
four times from radio. And the thing that kept me
afloating in people's minds after I got fired from Philadelphia
was I got to salute to Angelie Be going up
to her satellite radio show, doing guest spots on there,
and me and Little Duball used to do a YouTube
show called hood State of the Union. Me and Little

(40:21):
Duball was doing YouTube shows back in two thousands, and
it was first brand new exactly, and like people would
watch them on YouTube, but then the blogs would pick
them up like world Star and everybody else. And so
that's how I ended up even getting my first looks
in TV, like my first real looks in TV, because
Nick Cannon had a show called a Hayton that he

(40:43):
was the executive producer on, and my girl Tiffany Williams,
she put me in du ball on that show. So
I've always understood the power of the internet, right and
how to utilize the Internet to build a national.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
Audience.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
So that's why I started the podcast because I knew,
all right, let's just say I do get fired from
Breakfast Club, at least I have something else, you know,
going on. So me and my guy Andrew Schultz, who
now is the biggest comedian in the world, which I
would have.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
No idea, how impressed any I.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
Used to go back and listen to old brid Idiots episodes.
I used to say that I'm like yo, Andrew shot
to get that because there was a comedian named Russell
uh Russell Peters and he was like the biggest touring
comedian in the world. But people didn't even really realize it.
And I used to always say, Andrew, you're gonna be that,
You're gonna be the biggest touring comedian in the world, like,
and that's what he's doing now. But back then I

(41:35):
just thought he was smart, funny because we used to
do guy code together and we used to talk on
the phone. And I remember one time we all ended
up on a plane the LA for the MTV Awards
or something like that. We all rolled in the car together,
me and him and Melanie Iglesias and we like me
and Andrew has been cool since then.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
You know, when did you actually say Okay, yes, I'm
gonna do book publishing and then with that you ended
up doing your own you published it yourself.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
Well, no, I put out A Black Privilege with Simon
and Schustu. Black Privilege had tremendous success, you know, instant bestseller,
New York Times national bestseller. It was on New York
Times Bestsellers. This's for like twenty plus weeks. And so
they came to me and they wanted me to do
another book immediately. I had started therapy in twenty and sixteen,
so man in the middle of twenty seventeen late twenty eighteen,

(42:38):
I was in a total different mind state because I
was unlearning so many things that I had learned throughout
my life, and I was dealing with a lot of
the traumas that I had never ever, you know, dealt
with before.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
So I was really in a confused state.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
And so when twenty eighteen came around and they was
kept pressing me for this book, pressing me for this book,
I was like, look, man, I've been going to therapy.
I can share some of the journy of that. I
can share to some of the things that you know,
I go there and talk about. And that's what I did.
And then my book agent, Jan Miller, had the idea
to add my man, doctor ish major, who gave the
clinical correlations to the things that I was saying. Like,

(43:13):
if you go back and you listen to Shook one
or read Shook one, you'll you'll hear how raw that was,
you'll hear you know, the mind state that I was in,
you know, at that time. And then when it came
time to do my third book, because you know, Shiok
one was a success as well, another bestseller, I was like, yo,
I don't even want like a big advance, Like I'm

(43:36):
not looking for like a huge amount of money, because
you know, every time you put out a book, you know,
you have success, advances get bigger.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
I was like, Yo, just give me, you know, give
me what y'all gave.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
Me for the last one. But I really want to imprint.
I really want to be able to publish other people's.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
Oh that's how the Black Privileged Publishing.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
It literally was like that because you know, for me, man,
like I always say, if whatever your if whatever, your
build old thing only benefits you, it's not big enough.
So I was just like, yo, let me get an imprint.
And by the way, all I can say is no, right,
And it was like, hell, yeah, let's do what.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
It did with the Black Effect podcast network. Yeah did
you do the same thing?

Speaker 3 (44:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Black Effect was essentially the same thing, because a little
bit different, only because you know, with radio you have
contracts and so you know, five years five years is
like the max deal and I had did a couple of.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
Five year deals already. Yeah, I did a couple five years.
I was uh yeah. So when twenty twenty came, my
five years was up.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
So you know, we were in negotiations and you know
the beauty, and I give, I give a little jewel
because it'll never happen again, but I'll give a little jewel.
I come from the era of radio where all of
these new things that we were doing weren't in our contracts,

(44:55):
meaning like I had a radio contract, so the only
you know, entities, I couldn't have conversations with his other
radio stations.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
With the world changed, so.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
Now we're doing We've been doing Brand Idiots podcasts for
eight nine years at that time, right, and there's all
of these different platforms, the apples and the Spotify's and
all of these different people are looking for content, and
it's like, oh, Charlamagne's contract is up right, are coming up?
So you know, you had different people, you know, reaching

(45:28):
out to my agents whoever else. And I always had
this idea because I was looking at just the landscape
of podcasting and I'm like, man, you know, you got
Barstool over here, and you got Gimblet over here, and
you know, I was already a part owner of the
Loud Speaking Network with my man Chris Morrow and Combat Jack.
But I felt like there was no house for black

(45:50):
podcasts like you had all of these black podcasts that
were scattered all over the place, and they had audiences,
but they might not have been connecting that audience with
the ad revenue dollars. I was just like, yo, let's
I want to launch a podcast network. I want to
start my own you know, podcast network called The Black Effect.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
And it didn't make any sense, you know, to go
anywhere else. You know, even though I.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
Even though I had conversations, even though even though there
was other conversations had iHeart is the biggest audio publishing
you know, company in the world. So when I presented
my vision the iHeart of what I wanted to do.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
They were all in.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
And so I'm a fifty one percent majority owner of
The Black Effect.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
This isn't a this isn't a vanity label.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
This isn't something you know, Hey, let's just give him
something and put his name on it, which, by the way,
and I want to say this, a lot of those
other companies, that's what they were trying to do. So
a lot of those other companies, I never told him,
like what I wanted to name it and stuff like that.
I just, you know, my agent told them what the
idea was. And a lot of those other companies wanted
to do things like that, but they didn't want to
give me no real ownership.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
They didn't want to give me no real equity. So
I could have went other places and got like a
big ass check and had a vanity podcast network, but
I would have to run everything by them, and they
would have to have first rider refusal on what I
could bring in. Like I couldn't be like, yo, let's
bring in eating while broke.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
They'd be like, well, who is by the way, shout
out to you for that? I will. I want to
say such on a couple of things before we wrap. Secretly, No,
I'm secretly scared of the time because your team is
like assured me that I make over. One thing I
wanted to shout out to you is I did I
you know, I previously did come from the Nick can
I work with Nick Cannon for like ten plus years

(47:33):
as a partner and another company. And one of the
things that I'm not hopefully discratches, but one of the
things I noticed with being in the industry is male dominated.
One of the things I love about working with the
Black Effect Network is that not only is it women
of color that pretty much run it. I don't even
know if there's men over there.

Speaker 3 (47:53):
There probably is, but male producers like a king.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
You're right, my producer is a male. But I'm saying
like the the women are like really running it and
holding it down. And it's like you could pick up
the phone. I mean, if I say anything crazy, Dolly
will call me in three seconds, dn't even end, and
I immediately know I'm in trouble. But I love how
it is. But I also love like I always ask

(48:19):
people like the transparency, So how's he? How is he really?
You know? And you take good care of them, and
you don't see that a lot in the industry. I've
seen more of the opposite, where the men get the
checks and the women do the work and then the
women don't get paid and then it's just like eventually
they die off.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
Man, I don't Black Effect is successful because of Dolly Bishop,
And you know I knew that.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
It's like, man, God tells me things.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
It's like I always do because Dolly's, you know, a
family friend like Dolly's that's my homie before it's anything else,
and so I always do. Like rock Nation is like
a lot of my blueprint, And if you go to
rock Nation, it's the same thing, like, you know, Daz
is in charge, right, There's is the president a woman,
and there's a lot of other women in position of
power as well. And you know, I just always think
I always thought that was so dope because.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
Like, women get things done, I really do.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
I just did, especially black women, women of color, they
get things done. And so it's like I always knew
I'm gonna start this entity and I want Dolly to
run it, like I always knew that.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
Side note, so Dolly during the pandemic, I was doing
a lot of crazy stuff because my company had shut down,
and anyways, Dolly had called me and she said, hey,
I'm thinking about getting taken this job or whatever. I'm
not too sure. I didn't ask her what it was.
It was like, yo, girl, if you don't have to
punch a clock, get a check, they don't like watch

(49:39):
you every day. What are we even discussing, Like we're
in the middle of the end times, like take a check,
you know. And for whatever reason, did not think to
ask what the job was. You know, whil'n out niked
pissed off the world with the jew comments, nobody knew
what the heck was going on. I did not think
to ask, So then I don't ask. I'm just like
take the job. Like, what do we discuss Dolly? You

(50:01):
I've seen Dolly play every hat and she's she's very
skilled at you don't have to worry about her integrity.
She can get the job done whatever whatever reason she
questioned it. So anyways, I'm trying to do eating while broke.
On the side, I like pitch my friends, like you know,
all celebrity friends, like yo, I need you to take
one for the team. And on one of the texts,
I had said something about like Dolly and then one
of them was like Dolly, and I guess in Variety

(50:22):
they had just announced that she was like the president
of Black I had no idea, right, so I get
the text and I'm like, yo, Dolly, Yo, I need
to use her name more, and she's like, what are
you talking about? She I was like yo, and I
sent her like the Variety thing like is this the job?

Speaker 3 (50:36):
And like what?

Speaker 1 (50:40):
I was like okay, and she was like and don't
use my name everywhere and I was like, I'm definitely
using your name everywhere. And then true story. People always
ask how I ended up on the Black Effect. I
had been telling Dolly about eating while broke. So then
I get a call one day She's like, you're gonna
kill me. Why would I want to kill you? She's like, oh,
you be so mad at me. Oh in my head,

(51:03):
I'm like no. And I had told her like when
I do eating while broke, like you gotta like we
gotta put all our hats, all our names, and everyone's
contacts have to come together, which, by the way, Dolly
does not like to do. I didn't know that until now.
But anyway, she calls me, she's like, so I was
on the phone with iHeart, I s all you guys,
and I pitched eating while broke and I was like, okay, well,

(51:26):
what's the bad thing. She was like they loved it,
and like Charlottage wants to show. And I was like, okay,
what's the bad news. She's like, what's the podcast? I
don't care. We need distribution, girl, I take it, like
what do they need from me? And my in my
garage was like the eating while broke table Like, I mean,
my neighbors were driving past me like what is this
girl up to?

Speaker 2 (51:46):
You know?

Speaker 1 (51:47):
And I'd always tell people like God like somehow aligned
it because my plan for it was so like minute
and then you know, accidentally by the share like accident,
you guys end up in this call and everything happened.
I think it was beautiful. And every time I see you,
I always try to make sure you know, like you

(52:08):
know that I appreciate you took a chance on And
I remember Dolly coming out to La like, we've never
seen you in front of the camera, so we're gonna
we're gonna watch you do it. And then she saw
me and she was like, this is you. This is
I was like what. But uh, I hate talking about
politics because I have my own insecurities. But recently in LA,
I did interview a congressman and I just kind of

(52:30):
just was like very transparent about, uh, how much I
don't know about politics. It's not something I like to
argue about because I don't know enough facts. I don't
like to vote because I don't know enough facts. But
one of the things that I learned in that interview
is I was talking to my dad and he had
said something about like how he got all this money
for like against like you know, the imprison the jail

(52:54):
system or whatever. My dad had said something like, yeah,
but how did he spend how is he spending the money?
And I just didn't think to ask that question. And
I think, you know, after that interview, after like getting
that close in person with a congress person and seeing
like who they are and how they got to where
they're at, what I'm learning in politics and is that

(53:15):
government and politics they're they're not necessarily together.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
Well, it depends, I mean, you know, you have I
think people forget that there's local politics and there's national politics.
And I think most of the time, most of the time,
what's happening you know, locally may not be happening nationally.
There's a lot of things that I see happening, you know, locally,
places that I wish were.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
You know, happening nationally.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
Like you know, right now, you look at Maryland and
you look at you know what Wes Moore just did,
you know, by pardoning I think one hundred and seventy
five thousand people from mister meaning marijuana convictions. Now, I
think that's a great start. I think that, you know,
they could go further. I think that they should pardon.
If you know, if you're in prison right now in
a state where marijuana is legal and you're in there,

(54:00):
for a non violent drug offense. I think you should
be pardoned, and I think your record should be exponged.
But I think what what's is doing a great start.
But I wish that that was the model for nationally
because President Biden could do that, and for a person
like President Biden, you know, who was hands on with
the eighty six mandatory minimum centizen, who was hands on
with the eighty eight crack laws, who was hands on

(54:21):
with the ninety four crime bill, that would be a
good way to atone, you know, for some of those
for some of that legislation that you created that put
so many black and brown people away.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
You could with a wave, with a stroke of a pen.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
You don't need nobody else but you to say, if
you're a non violent drug offender in prison, you should
be pardoned, and I think your record should be expunged,
especially you know, marijuana.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Yeah, I agree, And then I remember when marijuana became illegal,
it was like anyone that had those those that record
couldn't even get into the weed business. My dad was
like very upset, like could you imagine, like you perfected
this career, You've spent ten years, and now you can't
even get the LIFs.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
That's right, that's right, I got a license.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Yeah, we got a dispensary opening in a New Jersey
called Hashtoria.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
It'll we open this ship. You know.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
It's myself, Ray Con the chef, Bakari Sellers and a
Jed and Josh Are are two partners who run Hashtoria.
So we got a dispensary open and know we got
a dispensary and consumption lone.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
For people that sorry to cut you off on that,
For people that don't know that much about politics and
are starting to think about voting, what are the questions
that you feel they should be asking, like politicians are
looking for in politicians.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
I tell everybody vote their interests. Like you know, it's
not hard what people are looking for. I don't care
if you're black, I don't care if you're white. I
don't care what your gender is. I don't care what
your sexuality is. Everybody wants money in safety. Life is about,
you know, doing something that's going to put you in
a financial position to create some up with mobility, and

(56:01):
we just all want to feel safe. So I think
that you should look, you know, to the elected officials
who are creating policies who are creating legislation that's putting
money in people pocket and that's making people safe.

Speaker 3 (56:11):
Like it's really not that hard. It's not that difficult.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
And when you find that person that is doing those things,
both of.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
Them, Okay, yeah, I think I like that advice. But
I also I think in the past year, I don't
trust as many people. I don't blame you, and I'm
more like, even if I were to date now, I'm like,
what's your resume looking like? But give me the X numbers?
Like I don't give it anymore. If you can't give
me an X number and they say this is then

(56:41):
I don't want to do it anymore.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
References.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
Yeah, I haven't started dating again yet, but yeah, my
husband got fired or he's getting fired anyways. But yeah,
I think like even with Kamala Harris, I heard like
she was a district attorney that like put a lot
of people away in her previous Like I'm looking at
all references, but do you think that matters or no?

Speaker 2 (57:05):
I mean that one was interesting because she was a
DA doing her job, you know, And I mean that's
what the laws were, you know at that time.

Speaker 3 (57:13):
You know.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
I mean, I've definitely seen her pivot, you know, on
her stance in regards to marijuana. But that's why I
think people like her, just like people like President Biden,
should be advocating heavily and not just advocating. They should
be doing pardon everybody in America on a federal level
who has a non violent drug offense, especially for marijuana.

Speaker 3 (57:38):
They have the power to do that.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
They have the power to do it. And why do
you think they're not doing it? Then?

Speaker 3 (57:43):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
I mean, nobody's pushing them politically, but that would be
an amazing thing for both of them to do because
both of them have those reputations. Both of them have
you know, those type of records. So it's like, yo,
do that say that, Hey, y'all, you're changing with the times.
You know, just you noticed legislation that y'all that that
was created hurt a lot of people back then. So

(58:05):
it's just like that is the way you atone, you know,
for things like that. So I've been saying, I think
that would be one of the most fantastic political strategies
that they could do right now, you know, like during
the especially during an election. Yet like all of this,
all of this right now is dream selling season. Everybody's pandering.
Everybody's saying, you know, and that's what's so crazy. Right,

(58:26):
You're in the White House, so you have power that
your you know, opponent, Donald Trump does not have, So
you can actually do things. He can only talk about
the things he wants to do. So, yes, it is
dream selling season. Yes, they are pandering to us for
our vote. And I mean those are the things that
I think that we should push for them to do,

(58:47):
because I can you imagine that headline. Imagine you opened
up your phone and you looked on you know, shade
Room or whatever whatever it is, you know, and or
just anything, and it said it said President Biden pardons
all non violent drug offenders effective immediately or whatever it is.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
Like whoa you know.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
That would that would get even and vote?

Speaker 3 (59:13):
Okay? It rile everybody up.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
All right, Well, what what more can you share with
us in regards to get honest or die line? We
haven't already covered.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
It's just a book that I want everybody to read
because I want to challenge everybody to be the most
honest version of themselves possible. We have to stop lying
on ourselves and we have to stop volunteering those lives
to other people.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
You know.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
The subtitle is why small talk sucks because I hate
micro conversations. I think we got to, you know, find
a way to start having big conversations. I think that
we have too much, you know, unnecessary small talk, and
I think that we put small talk and the big
talk on the same scale, so it feels like everything
weighs the same when they don't, right, they don't. And

(59:59):
we don't know how to even have, you know, big conversations.
We genuinely do not have. We don't even know how
to discuss big conversations. And that's why America can't ever
truly solve no problems. You ask me why, you know,
President Biden doesn't, you know, due to non violent pardon
the non violent drug offenders. Because nobody's really really having
that conversation on a big, big level like they should.

(01:00:20):
You know, they rather talk about transgenders and sports like
that ain't affecting nobody's life, like God blessed them, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
But it's definitely like that whome it's a media. In
your book, you even talked about like how they trade
the like this Trump did it like to distract.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
The people that's right, that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
And so it's just like your people like we just
don't know how to discuss what we should be talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
We make minors majors.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
Now, random question, do you think the algorithms play a
role in dumbing us down?

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
One hundred percent? That's why I hate algorithms. That's why
you have to disconnect. Like I tell people all the time,
don't be a don't be a surfer, be a wave,
because surfers have to ride waves the algorithm depending. We
all ride the wave of whatever algorithm is presented to
us instead of actually being our own waves. And you know,

(01:01:17):
figuring out, man, what is what is it I should
actually be thinking about in regards to this situation, or
should I even be thinking about this situation at all?
Think about things that come across your timeline every day
that you wasn't even thinking about, but now you can't
get it off your motherbucker mind just because it came
across your timeline. And guess what, it really don't even matter.
It's something so small and so trivial, but.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
You I saw it. I saw them.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
They were arguing a couple of weeks ago about are
you safer around a man or a bear, and I
mean and people having in depth conversations about this shit
on park and I'm like, where the fuck did this
even come from? Why is this a thing? It's like,
are you safeer around a man or a bear? How
about we have conversations about how.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
These conversations blow up Because everyone's so obsessed with viral
moments and getting the hashtag to get these these numbers up,
it's become the it's like a chicken in the egg situation.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
Yeah, I don't I don't be honest with you. I
don't know what it is. I don't know what makes
these things go viral.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
I just know that we have to at the end
of the chapter every chapter, I say lesson discussion because
we got to start focusing on macros instead of micros,
Like why are we having conversations about women?

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
What are you safe for around a man or a bear?

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
How about we just have conversations about how to make
women safe period? What the fuck bear has got to
do with it? It's it's just it's just silly to me.
So it's just like, yeah, I want to just get
us focused.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
On just the macs, real discussion.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
Get to the real facts and keeping it honest.

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
So please go get it, get honest, and die line
while small talk sucks, available everywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
Uh, check out some of your other books if you
really want to in depth conversation on Who's Charlemagne is?
This hour definitely isn't gonna cut it the way I
would like it. I love that. And one last thing,
I was thinking about this, and I told Jordan back then,
I was thinking about doing this. I'm actually thinking about
hugging a tree. I'm that desperate right now.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
Read I gotta I gotta chapter in my book. Read it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
I read it. I already read it, and it was like,
I was like, what five or six minutes? You know
the tree? He said, the New York trees are different
from the other trees. I'm still trying to find a tree.
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
Chapter is called tree hugged the block, get connected with nature,
and we don't have to do another show for you.
It might have to be called like, I don't wanna
call it dating while desperate, because you're not desperate yet.

Speaker 3 (01:03:35):
No, you said you're desperate. Just now you said you
were desperate.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
Desperate, desperate for peace. Peace.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
Oh damnault.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
Just be clear I'm single because well I'm still married,
and integrity wise, this sounds really silly.

Speaker 3 (01:03:52):
What about dating while marriage?

Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
Integrity wise? I should do that integrity wise, I just
can't do it while I'm legally like in my head,
I'm like married, and then even if you go on
a date, it's like, yeah, I'm married, but I'm separated
and I'm gonna go No.

Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
A lot of people go to this. I was.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
I just did Pastor Kean's conference last weekend. He has
a conference called The Crowd Conference, and him and Shannie
were on stage having this conversation. He felt the same way.
He felt the same exact way because he was separated.
But you know, he knew perception wise, dating somebody like
Shannie O'Neil, he didn't want people to look at her
away and.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
Say, oh, she's dating this married man.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
But he was going through a separation, and so I
don't if if I'm fucking this up, I'm sorry passed
the keon, But I thought I heard him.

Speaker 3 (01:04:34):
Say he couldn't live like that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
He still had to just he had to go connect
with he had to go connect with Shani.

Speaker 3 (01:04:40):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
Oh wait, he couldn't live like what he he connected
with her? Why No, No, I don't think they he obviously didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
Yeah, I just think that he didn't let the fact
of everybody's perception.

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
It's not even about the person. Maybe I'm getting that wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
No, it's not about the perception. I don't care because
my husband fully admits he's a he's a superhore. But
I'm it's not the perception at this point. Trust me,
he's done enough to blow up any type of secrecy.
But I'm saying that integrity wise. I know in my
mind I made a commitment, right, So I'm like, yo,
let me just.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
But you're going through a separation. If I'm not mistaking,
patter Keyon said he did want He wanted to wait
because he didn't want people to think that he was
that that that he was cheating on his wife and
Shaanie was messing up a happy home. If I'm getting
that wrong, I'm sorry, pater Keyon, but it sounds very
similar to me.

Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
So I think we should.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Do dating while I'm married with Colleen and have her
in here interviewing potential candidates.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
Oh that's hilarious, right to this person, they said, because.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
There's no better reference check than putting somebody out there publicly,
because not even like, oh no I know him, go
I dated him. Now that people will be hitting you up.
They can't hide hilarious dating while married. Dolly, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
No, no, let's but I will say the reason why
I want to hug the tree and stuff is because
I do feel. And I was telling Jordan, it's the
older I get, the more I am driven towards happiness
or I mean peace over happiness. I could care less
about a high when I know the low can come
around the corner. I just give me a flat line.
And I used to never be like that. So when

(01:06:17):
I saw the tree hugging, Dolly made me do grounded
because I ran away to her house. At one point
I short it and she was like, take off your shoes,
go in the yard and walk in the grass. And
I was like, okay, Dolly, I'm saying I did it,
but I'm like, maybe we could try a tree huggain.
I'm starting to get into like meditating. Well I haven't started.
I've been reading books about meditation. I'm that desperate to

(01:06:39):
do those things. Not day, I think I deserve a
nice break of being single. But we can play the
dating show.

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
If you want.

Speaker 3 (01:06:46):
I like it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
You're hilarious. Thank you so much for your time. I bagged, borrowed, stealed,
harassed your entire team to the point that Dolly called
me and said, if you want shar just call me
and asked me when you're ready. And I did it
and she delivered it, and I was literally like, oh,
she did it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:03):
I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
Thank you for I get to keep it. You get
to keep it, all right.

Speaker 4 (01:07:10):
Peace out, guys.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
For more eating while broke from iHeartRadio and The Black Effect,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.

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CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD - Cheese Toast & Tea

Episode Transcript

Host

Coline Witt

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