Wiz Khalifa

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. Hi-er.

Guess what?

What?

At a restaurant near us, Poodle Doms.

Lil D's.

There is a drink on the menu called Lily Pad.

What?

I haven't got it yet.

What is in it? Meat. Is there an Indian liquor?

There's beer. that's Indian pale ale.

Sure, and then also, Kingfisher. Kingfisher. That's really the one. Yeah, that's the big boy.

That's what my dad likes.

But they're not, like. they didn't invent gin or anything. Do we know?

I don't think so.

Okay. Not that I know of.

Okay, because I would like it if Lily Pad had some Indian liquor in it. Some spices. So we really know it's a nod to you. Yeah. Oh boy, spices, no.

It doesn't have to be curry. It could be cardamom or chai.

Okay, you want a cardamom?

Yeah, I want it.

Oh, okay, I stand corrected. What a wild guess we had. Yeah. Yes, out of the blue, he walks in, what a vision. He's six foot four.

He is a vision.

And he's so cute.

He's very stunning, is that the word?

Yeah, he's stunning. Absolutely, great adjective. He's stunning, Wiz Khalifa. My God, this was so fun and interesting. He is a multi-platinum selling rapper and singer.

And you know, Wiz.

You know, Wiz.

You already know him.

He and Snoop were just on tour together for a year. What could be more fun than that? And he also has his own cannabis line called Khalifa Kush. Yeah. And even had a piece that said KK.

I hope you guys enjoy this.

We'll just say up front, I really embarrassed myself in this episode. It'll be fun to listen to, I think. It's big, big swings and misfires and you know we're here to laugh about it. We're still here. Just know we're in on it when you hear.

If you like. Ah, might as well.

We let Seth Rogen smoke.

You'll be maybe the second or third. Can you make that work for an asterisk?

For sure. Let me see.

No.

Come on in. No. You don't have any. Don't talk to me.

No, don't.

God, dad. Look at her face.

Okay.

Okay, I went to a facialist. There's nothing there.

That's why I feel so confident.

I went to a facialist and she did a peel. So it's starting to peel. She's very nervous.

And I'm so nervous. Nah, you're good. Don't be worried about it. You're fine. Don't even worry about it.

You look good. Do I call you Cameron or Wiz? What's your preference?

For now, Wiz. Let's go, Wiz.

Okay, so, most importantly, on the day you were born, how old do you think Monica was? Take a wild stab.

I don't even think Monica was born when I was born.

That's flattering.

It is flattering.

She was 15 days old. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Okay, so we're close. Very. I'm older. You beat me.

Yeah, you were a little late.

You were a little late. Just a little bit. I was getting high, that's why.

In the womb.

Well, actually, that's possible, because you did say mom smoked grass in the house.

Yeah, she didn't smoke when she was pregnant with me, though.

My mom did. Oh, for real? Oh, for sure.

Hell, yeah. My mom was in the military when she was pregnant with me, so throughout that period of life, she wasn't smoking pot at all.

She wasn't?

Nah, nope.

Because they would test, or she was just afraid? Because they couldn't have been testing, were they?

Yeah, they were testing back then. They were. They would do, like, randoms, and it just wasn't the thing to do to, like, sneak and get caught smoking pot in the military in the 90s and shit.

Because you could get dishonorably discharged, and then you're fucked. Oh, yeah, for sure.

There's no retirement. Yeah, no retirement, and no plan for family, and all of that stuff, so it was, like, really important for her to hold it down throughout that period of time, and then do whatever the hell she wanted to do afterwards.

Mom and dad were both in the military?

Yeah.

Because you were born in North Dakota, but you're immediately on the road, right? Yeah. You're in Japan, Germany, the UK.

Yeah, my parents met in the military. It was crazy. My mom is from Pittsburgh, and my dad is from New York, and they met in basic training in Colorado, and if you know anything about basic training, it's just a few months of people thrown into the mixture, and then after that, they go their separate ways. They probably only knew each other for, like, two months, and then they were about to get stationed to other areas.

Deployed.

Deployed, exactly, and my dad was going somewhere, and my mom was going to Guam, and they got married. After two months. Yeah, they didn't want to leave each other, man. They fell in love, bro. Okay.

And how quickly did you arrive after that?

I'm the second child. Oh, you are? Yeah, yep, they had my brother first.

How much older is he?

He's three years older than me, but he passed away, so he was three years older than me.

He passed away, not in childhood?

No, not in childhood, in adulthood.

From what kind of stuff?

Cancer. Oh, this is bad. Yeah, yeah. Fuck. How old?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so he was like 32-ish or something?

Yeah, like 30.. 31, maybe.

What kind of cancer?

Lymphoma.

Oh, my God. Uh-huh. Does that freak you out about your own disposition that you could be susceptible?

No, not really. My brother was transgender, so throughout her life, she took a lot of hormones. That kind of mixed it up and made it way more difficult. I got you. I got you.

Well, my dad died of cancer, and I'm certainly like, fuck me, I don't like having that in my bloodline. Yeah. It doesn't make me too optimistic.

Some people, they live their life perfectly normal and still get that shit. Oh, totally.

There's like marathon runners who die of heart disease, and Keith Richards going hard. He's healthy as a horse, Keith Richards.

Exactly.

He's been slamming dope for 55 years.

Fucking, chilling, right? Yes. Maybe he should just slam dope. No, I don't know. Smoke weed and drink water.

Were you old enough to remember these pit stops in Japan, Germany, UK, and all that? You get to Pittsburgh at nine?

No, my first time going to Pittsburgh, I was about two years old.

But I mean, to live there for the duration.

Shit, when I was there at two, I lived there for like a year and a half.

Oh, you did, okay.

Yeah, I stayed with my auntie, my aunt Tickles.

How did Aunt Tickles get the nickname Aunt Tickles?

There was a doll at the time where she was a kid that she wanted. It was the Tickles doll. Instead of having a doll, she was born, and they named her Tickles.

Oh, that's pretty cute.

Yeah, it's kind of crazy, right?

Okay, so Aunt Tickles took you in.

That's really sweet. My auntie Tickles. It was me, my brother, my cousin Julian, little cousin Bebe, my little cousin Poppy. Wow. Michael used to be over there.

So enough to play a pickup game of basketball.

Totally. Black families, man. We all crammed into an apartment about this big right here.

Uh-huh, but so fun.

Yeah, hella fun, bro. Super duper fun. Yeah, I have fond memories from Pittsburgh. as a baby. Living in Europe, Germany, or England, we were in Upper Hayford.

What's Upper Hayward like?

It was super chill. from what I remember. I was literally like two, three years old, so I have pictures and videos and shit from like birthday parties, and then I remember what my dad's house looked like. It was really cool. Kind of not like this, not as player, but it was big.

Like a mini castle.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. It was cool, man.

They got divorced when you were three?

Yeah, yep.

Same age for me, and I live with mom. You live with mom?

I live with both, back and forth.

How long would the durations be?

Probably like two years.

Oh, you did two years with dad?

Yeah, yep.

And why was he living in such a great house in England? Yeah, yeah. How'd he find himself in a castle if he was in the army?

Man, I was too young to know, man. Oh, okay. Some things is made for you not to know what's going on.

Don't look a gift castle in the mouth.

Nah, for real, just good. Just feed the goldfish and keep it moving, bro.

How about Japan? How old were you when you were in Japan?

I was about 11 to 13 in Japan.

Oh, well, that's significant. Two years in Japan. And were you going to like a military school?

It was a school on base. It wasn't necessarily a military school, because military school is more structured as like disciplinary type of thing.

Yeah, I fucked that up. I just meant a school on a military base.

Yeah, yeah. I meant a school for all the military kids. Yeah, I went to school on base, 100%. Like everything was Americanized and shit, because it was such a big difference between off base and on base.

And the other kids, here's what I'd imagine. You're moving nonstop. You have to meet kids every year and a half or whatever. That's stressful. But maybe the other kids are also in that pattern, so they're a little more forgiving.

It's always difficult being a new kid all the time because you have to like re-acclimate yourself to everybody's customs, no matter where you are. You're picking up on different lingo. You go to different schools. You never really get to get used to having friends for any long amount of time. So it's definitely an issue as a child.

What effect do you think it had on you? Did it make you good at making friends or did it make you lonely?

It made me really good at making friends. It did? It's not enjoyable. It's not like I wanna be the freaking unknown person all the time. But it definitely toughens you up and makes you to the point where you can assert yourself and you can carry your own personality, your character, whoever you wanna be, wherever you wanna go.

Did you ever reinvent when you landed somewhere new? Were you like, this? next go around, I'm gonna try this.

I think I always just reinvent. just naturally. I think the biggest reinvention was me having a growth spurt.

What age did we get this tall?

Bro, I was like normal size and then, just overnight, I just stretched out and nobody in my family is this tall. Really? Yeah, it was crazy.

Like middle school?

What age?

Eighth grade going into ninth grade.

Same year. I've said this so many times. I have my basketball physical I had to take for eighth grade and I was 5'11", 160.. That's golden. Next year, ninth grade physical, 6'3", 149..

Nah, skinny boys, we on top, baby.

Well, that's rough, isn't it?

Well, now you're not skinny boy anymore.

Well, now I'm a medium-sized boy. Lean.

He's definitely lean. Lean and mean.

Oh, you were on the cover of Men's Health, by the way. Yeah. Yeah, so I got into your workout routine. We're hitting it early, right? Yeah.

Yeah, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts.

When did Muay Thai become part of the program?

It kind of just mixed in, naturally.

As a better workout, probably, as well?

Nah, I think it's more like a modern thing. Everybody's doing more active shit to go along with lifting weights. So the program that I was on, they kind of just have you messing around with it, but I was actually kicking the shit out of people. They were like, let's step you up. some.

You were supposed to have a match in April or something.

Uh-uh, nope.

You weren't? Uh-uh. There's lies about you out there, Wiz, on the internet.

I want to hear them.

Yes, can you believe this? I hope I'm not the first to tell you this, but there's some lies. You at least, I would imagine, had, because I'm 12 years older than you, so there wasn't one cool, tall, skinny guy in movies, TV, music. You already had Snoop.

Yeah, we had Snoop.

That had to be encouraging.

Snoop is super tight, but at that time, there's only one Snoop, so you can't be Snoop. I just think coming up, Scrawny is just tougher. I think even Snoop might've had it bad. He just made it look good for all of us, yo. He just broke the mold, man.

But I think, if you're tall, if you're a fucking stretch limo like us and you got at least one example of a guy who's killing it, I mean, that's helpful.

Shit, I don't know.

Now you're that for other tall, skinny dudes in high school. For sure, yeah. And so I'm wondering, when you got to Pittsburgh, were you nervous to commit, like, this is home now, now I can actually get comfortable here, or are you just always waiting to be moving somewhere else?

Nah, hell, nah. I got a big-ass family there, so that was always my connection to Pittsburgh. was my family, my cousins, my aunts, my nanny, was my grandma, my granddad, who just passed away recently. But they all were really, and still are, really instrumental in raising me and housing me.

And that's your mom's family?

Yeah, that's my mom's family. We used my nanny's address to make sure I could go to certain schools.

And nanny is Tickles' mom?

Yeah, yep.

What a pair, if they walk into the bowling alley.

Nanny's Tickles, and my mom's name is Peachy.

Oh, this is fantastic, I know, I love it.

It's like the cast of Golden Girls or something, those names.

That's my connection to Pittsburgh, it's always been home. My mom did a really good job of enforcing that and making sure that me and my brother grew up with our roots and knowing our peoples and having a really strong connection with them.

Is there anyone younger than you in the family?

Hell yeah.

Oh, you have other siblings, I mean.

My little sister is with my dad, she got a different mom. I don't consider her half anything.

Same, my little sister has a different dad, but we don't, in fact, when I was a kid and someone would say, that's your half-sister, I would wanna fight.

Yeah, that was like a diss back in the day, for sure.

That's right. I was like, she's not my half-sister. Yeah, yeah. Well, yes, she is. No, she's fucking not.

Yeah, people try to break that shit up,

like, you guys got different parents. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, nah, but I got my little sister and I got little cousins, too. Like, I was the baby for a minute, but I was just the baby of my generation. We started getting older and into our teens, that's when my little cousins were like eight, nine, and 10, so when I'm leaving my teens, they're getting into their teens, so them is all my little homies and shit.

When you're with your dad, was there the same amount of people around?

Yeah, did you meet the New York family?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm really close with my New York family. Growing up, I would see them on and off. I seen them at like family reunions and we would get together to the point where I do have memories of my New York family when I was a kid, but the majority of it started happening when I was a teen, when my grandma on my dad's side passed. There was a funeral and we all met up in New York at my grandma's apartment, and that's when we all kind of rekindled everything, and then, from then, I was like 14, I started making music and I would come to New York to do my promo runs or things like that, and I would just stay in my grandma's old apartment and chill and kick it with my cousins and meet up with my aunties.

What part of New York did they live in?

Harlem.

You start writing and performing really young, like 11, 12, you start writing? Yeah, yeah. What drove you to that?

I was in about third grade and I first seen my uncle. He had wrote a rap and he rapped it to me, and it was so cool, the concept of him making a rap. Yeah. I always listened to rap and enjoyed it. He wrote a rap and I was like, wow, that's crazy.

Who of the people you were studying did you most feel like you clicked with, or that was something you could do a version of?

It was the majority of the fast rappers, yo. Like Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.

Oh, okay.

Busta Rhymes. Anybody who was just out there, those are my favorite. I liked Mystical. back then. No Limit was popular.

DMX?

DMX was one of my favorites too, for sure.

He's wild as hell.

Crazy. I remember when his first single dropped, like. I walked to the store and bought it. His first single was Get At Me, Dog. And that was before he was even popular.

Well, also, he's riding wheelies on four wheelers and riding with the Rough Riders. Like the whole package for me, I was like, sign me up for this.

Yeah, music videos were crazy. back then. As a kid, you sitting around watching music videos. That's like, what the fuck?

Eve was in them. Do you remember that?

Yeah, Eve was the shit. Swiss Beats, shout out to Swiss.

Did you see this doc that was on DMX that came out like a few months ago? Yeah. So good. So heartbreaking.

Yeah, he's an interesting guy and he's really passionate and soulful, man. When I met him and we chilled and we kicked it, some people are surprised when they meet people and they hear what music they listen to. But that shit really surprised me. He like Patti LaBelle and like disco and shit that you sing and vibe to. And he sings all the words like with his heart and soul.

What's funny is, I was listening to you talk about your mom, that you'd be around the house listening to Erykah Badu, and I was like, oh yeah, this is this age gap. Like me, and your mom probably have all the same favorite music, but yeah, fucking Badu. I would have loved to have talked to DMX, about all that 70s R&B, I'm sure.

Bruh, his playlist is crazy.

Yeah, I wouldn't have been surprised if you had said Metallica and Megadeth. And then also I'm not surprised now that you say Patti LaBelle.

It's like the complete opposite.

It is the opposite, but you knew it'd be something not. From what you expected.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, you're my age. Did you guys have The Box? Yeah. Oh my God. What's The Box?

It's a video channel. You call in and you request shit.

And it was just music videos. All music videos. You just have it on all day. Did you ever call, Monica? No, I was too scared to call, but I just watched music videos all day long.

And they played more underground. shit too that they didn't play on MTV or they would play it on The Box first.

Exactly.

And then it would cross over to mainstream shit.

I'm glad to know you liked The Box. Oh, hell yeah.

That feels kindred. The Box was the shit.

You guys should try and bring it back. I was up in Detroit.

I know.

I don't know what you guys were talking about. They probably had it.

Pittsburgh and Detroit are almost identical.

We're hella alike.

Pittsburgh and Detroit.

Almost identical. If there's any two cities, I think both of them post-industrial. Yeah.

For sure.

Heavy drinkers, blue collar, a lot of fights.

Sounds like Pittsburgh. And anytime I go to Detroit, I get so much love because they're like, bro, we're the same.

Yes, I'm sure. I'm sure. So you start early and then you meet a guy, E. Dan.

Yeah.

Does he own the studio?

Yeah, he owns the ID Lab. He built it.

And he took a shine to you. And he said you want to intern and then you can have some recording time.

Absolutely.

How did you endear yourself to him? How did he even come to find out who you were?

I was paying for studio time. I would go down there and record my mixtapes and get out of there.

Okay, great. We need to do this right now. Explain the difference between a mixtape to everyone and an album. Because you have so many mixtapes I've read about.

Mixtapes are projects used to prepare you for an album.

Like doing a stand-up set?

So they're not fully fleshed out?

You kind of just get the scraps of what could or would be on the album. Oh, got it. But it doesn't necessarily make the album.

Okay, but the music itself is new. You're not using old stuff per se.

No, it's fresh.

Okay, so you make some mixtapes there and then ultimately you get a recording contract really young.

Oh yeah, another thing about mixtapes. Oh, tell me. They're free.

Oh, they're free. Yes, explain that.

That's a huge difference.

Here's all I know about mixtapes. I'm in New York City and any dude who might think I know somebody because I'm on TV gives me a mixtape. And then I think, how am I going to proceed with this? I got to go buy a device to play this on. People used to give out mixtapes, right?

They usually give it out. You got the bootleggers who sell them when they're popular. But the culture of a mixtape, there's a documentary on this as well.

Okay, oh, there is. What's it called?

I think it's called Hulu. The History of the Mixtape, I don't know. History of the Mixtape. But mixtapes started, of course, in New York with DJs. They would take beats.

They do mashups, right?

Yeah, mashups, blends. But they were specific to each DJ and each DJ's style. So that's why you would get different mixtapes from different DJs, different sides of town. They were exclusive. So some people were like, hey, I want you to shout me out and say my name.

Right, like a little try. Like a soft launch.

Exactly, exactly. Soft launch. And then people started getting really popular. off of that, like 50 Cent blew up off of entering the mixtape scene and just doing free music and not really focusing on the label structure, but just being like, I'm gonna feed the streets.

Right, just be prolific. Don't wait, just make it.

Yeah, so 50 Cent, Lil Wayne, Diplomats. A lot of people really came in and changed the mixtape game. And then that's where it elevated, to where more me and Drake and Currency.

Did you guys revive it?

We just took it to the next level and made it where it was, like complete projects as a mixtape. Not like freestyling over instrumentals and shit like that.

Right, Grandmaster Flash, go ahead.

Hey-ho, we stopped the hey-ho and we kind of, shout out to the hey-ho, though, like, you know what I mean?

And put your hands up too.

Yeah, for sure. Put your hands up. For sure. If you're out there, put your hands up. We took it to the, because we came up in the internet era, the blog era.

Napster.

Well, it was after Napster, after LimeWire.

Oh. He's 15 days young. You're 15 days older. It's that 15 day gap. It's that 15 day.

Actually, we came up, when I started being popular, I was probably already 10 to 15 mixtapes deep.

Were you optimistic throughout that whole time? Or you were probably just delighted if 10 people hear you at that stage?

No, not really. No, okay.

So were you, did you stay optimistic or were you getting pessimistic?

The type of artist I am, every time I do something, I think it's the one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's how you're supposed to feel about your art. Later on, you grow to detach from that and be like, okay, this is just a piece. When you're young and you're fiery and you're connected to it, you're like, this, is it.

I was gonna say, do you think you can predict really well when something's gonna hit?

I believed in everything that I did. What I learned is when you're predicting some shit, you just don't know how long it's gonna take. But you can make that shit happen.

Okay, See You Again, this is your biggest song, at least for downloads on Spotify.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

And you wrote it for Fast 7.. I've always thought there couldn't be more pressure on a musician than to get hired for a blockbuster movie. and they're like, write us our fucking anthemic song, and it's gotta be a hit. I feel like the pressure of that would be insane. It's not like you're writing a whole album and you're like, yeah, three of these are gonna hit, and I don't know why, but I love all of them and we'll see.

Nah, thank you, thank you.

It's kinda nice that you got your biggest song out of that opportunity.

Yeah, for sure. I appreciate it. And I don't feel pressure at that point, because I prepared for all of that. The stuff that I was wrong about, it all led me up to that point. And the shit that didn't work and the shit that I learned in between, and the shit that I thought that I would never do and that I ended up realizing like, okay, this is important and this is how you finesse it and work it.

What shortcomings do you think you had overcome by that point? What were some of your bad habits, you recognized?

Being too stubborn as an artist.

With outside feedback?

Just playing a game that I wasn't willing to play.

What made you so allergic to that?

What happened to me before when I played that game? I didn't trust the people that I was playing the game with.

Okay, because you got burned, or that's your disposition?

I just didn't trust their taste in what was good or what wasn't. I felt like my taste was superior. And it still is, but there's also good taste along with that, and that's what I had to learn.

Did you have stepdads?

Maybe for a few months. I had one. Okay.

Did it go the way? most stepdads go?

They get beat up by your real dad. Ha, ha, ha.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Yo, I kept waiting for my dad to show up and beat up these fucking guys. I don't know where he was at. I'm like, when are we getting over to the house to beat some of these guys up? He never showed up.

Actually, that is, did your dad know that your stepdads were being so abusive?

Yeah, one that blows my mind, because my dad loved to fight, so I don't understand, but the second stepdad fought my brother and threw him in a file cabinet, file cabinet knocked my brother unconscious, and then we immediately moved into my dad's the next day. And I was, like, my dad catches wind of this, that this dude knocked David out. This guy's dead. Yeah. I don't know if it was out of respect for my mom, he didn't want to come in.

Are you the younger brother?

Yeah, five years younger.

I'm three years younger, so my stepdad hit my brother as well, and my dad never put his hands on me and my brother. So, my brother, he was chilling, he didn't really want to say anything about it, and I said, yeah, I said something about it. I was like, yo.

You tell him Mike, beat the shit out of you.

My dad spun a car around super duper fast, and he handled business. As a grownup. now, I understand how difficult that can be in a relationship and shit, so it was a lot on my mom and the guy that she was with, so he didn't want to continue being family. So it's all good.

I don't know if I'm just genetically this way, or it was the stepdads, but I cannot stand authority.

I think I'm just like that. anyway. My parents kind of raised me just like, do whatever the fuck I want to do. Okay. Authority, or people telling you what to do.

Yeah, you're gonna need to come with more than just the Gucci girls.

Yeah.

Where's the toys? Yeah, people have to earn it.

Yeah, so it definitely was a lot of that, trying to develop that trust and just learn who I can believe when it comes to certain shit.

How would you get in your own way? Did you ever get in your own way?

Yeah. I think for me, it was a lot of when you're young and you're first starting out, and you don't know a lot of the opportunities that you're blowing, because it's not that important to you at the time. You're hot, you're in the moment, so you're just doing shit. And you're just like, fuck it, whatever. And then, four years later, you're like, hey, we should go talk to this person.

You're like, I'm hot right now, and this is never gonna cool off. And I can be, however I wanna be.

Yeah, exactly. I definitely did some shit like that.

Have you ever made any apologies after the fact?

Yeah, I definitely apologize. In the music industry, it's kind of rough. sometimes. You'll have to side with other people over other people. And later on down the road, you'd be like, I don't even know why we had to come to that decision.

Well, out of your loyalty to a partner, you acquired their enemies.

Right, right, right, right, right, right.

That's young stuff, right?

Yeah, it's crazy.

I know, I always say, anyone that their test of friendship is that you have to hate someone they hate, you should be out.

You learn that shit, though, because when you're young, you think you're being cool by like-.

Loyal, number one.

Hating whoever that person hates. It just puts a little ugly little thing on it, shit that shouldn't be there.

Have you ever had a real job?

I haven't. You haven't? Nah, no. Wow, that's pretty-.

Nah, I never had a job.

Do you feel great about that?

Dairy queen? I do feel amazing about that. Wow. Not dairy queen, not nothing. Wow.

I'm jealous.

I sold weed in high school. I was like, I'm not doing this shit.

Well, that's another Snoop parallel.

Yeah.

Cameron Diaz says she bought weed off of Snoop in high school. Oh my God, that's amazing. Isn't that great?

I was the tall skinny weed man. That is a good job for a tall, skinny dude. Easy to find. In high school, yeah.

Were they trying to get you on the basketball team?

Yeah, they were.

But you weren't having that.

Nah, I was writing music, bro.

Yeah, you had to write some songs.

Hell yeah, I was doing my mixtapes, getting my studio time up.

When did you start making a living at it?

I graduated in 2006, and my mom stopped working in 2008.. God damn.

Your mom being able to stop working, what was that feeling?

Shit, that's another one of the things, like. I was just in the moment. Now, looking back, I'm like, that shit is pretty fucking cool. Yes. But I was just really in the moment, like.

That's such a special thing for a kid to be able to do for their parent.

Yeah, so you were only 20.. That's good. Yeah. That's all you wanna do.

Yeah, it was pretty cool. Still is pretty cool. Yeah.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

The Say Yeah period was kinda weird because the music industry was changing. I got caught up in the mix. The change of power, there was, a change of sound, production was changing, everything was real gray right there. The best thing that happened was I learned a lot about radio and promo and the importance of relationships with DJs and just how to start on the ground level and really get a good base, a good core. I learned that from that time over at Warner.

And that what included going to radio stations all the time?

Yeah, tons of radio stations, man, traveling all over and staying in shitty hotels and doing a lot of dinners and talking with program directors, and 300, 400 pages, it drops. And they're like, yeah, we gotta sit here and do these and just learning the importance of that and what that does for a record and what that does for your career.

So, 09, it's over from 09 till now.

Yeah, it was on a cracker after that.

Yeah, so you're only 22 in 09, and Black and Yellow comes out, starts at 100 and climbs to number one.

Okay, yeah. Is that not right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Here's two things. So, yeah, you're only 22,, but you've been at it for seven years. Aren't you delighted? it took you at least a minute that you already had an album out, that it just got to 25, and now you have this experience in 09, where it's like you get a number one song. It's not like your.

That's the thing. It's like, I wish. my first thing I did was that.

You don't think you picked anything up in that period? Like, I think, the people I've met, who first movie's an enormous hit and then they're off to the races, something gets tweaked. I think you need a little-.

It's not reality.

Yeah, well, that's what I learned. nine years, 10 years in, but it's like, if you're chilling on the bench for 10 years, you're still waiting to start every game.

But it's a little sweeter, don't you think, that it takes a minute? Because that's what I'm curious about. When it comes out and it's at 100 and you're watching it climb, there's got to be these periods where you're, like, my God, it's in the top 10.. Is it going to get two? Or are you thinking the whole time it's going to number one?

Even for that, my situation was real unique because when I put Black and Yellow out and when I signed with Atlantic, I was already doing shows independently that were bigger than what they could do for me. I was making more money than they could do for me, and they weren't used to seeing that from an artist in that era. So they were really trying to figure out how to bottle what I had already done. So Black and Yellow was just the byproduct of all the work that I had put in. I had done so much promo, I had done so much touring, I had made so much merch, I went to jail for weed, I did interviews saying that I- Oh, before already?

Makes me think of the Beatles, you know this whole story how they played at a strip club in Germany for these six hour sets, and they did that for years before they were the Beatles.

Yeah, when you put in that work and you're really in control of your work and your fan base and things like that, you're watching your business grow. Of course, I would have loved for my first project to go number one, or for me to be the biggest thing, because of my ego, like as a kid, I'm like, yeah, I want to be the biggest, greatest, but through time I just started to figure out what that actually was. Being the biggest, greatest version of myself is being on tour, always being in the studio, directing my own videos, having a direct connection with my fan base, showing my personality and being funny and not trying to be like everybody else, just really tapping into who I am and letting that be the best parts of my brand. That's when everything started to take off and move in a direction.

Well, what's cool about doing it that way is, I think, a lot of times people are young, they get a hit song and they actually have to go discover who they are publicly and go discover who they are on stage, and now, all of a sudden, they've got some crazy, huge tour book, but they've never done that, so you're turnkey, like you're ready for a hit because you know how to exploit it and go run with it.

Yeah, I'm definitely thankful for the time that I have in the shadows, because labels don't really do that. artist development. They don't make sure that your show is up to par. They don't make sure that you can perform in the studio with big producers or big artists. They just throw you in there and you have no practice or concept of what that is or how to even be yourself there.

You find your way to get your stuff in there, I imagine.

Right, and then that time, it just let me build that confidence and those techniques to where, when I was in those situations, I knew exactly what to do.

Yeah, I didn't realize you had already been arrested, but also, so, in 2010, you are about to do a tour, or you're on a tour, the Wake and Bake tour, and you get arrested leaving East Carolina University.

Yeah, yeah.

And charged with possession and trafficking. Why did they think you were trafficking? Just the amount of weed you have?

No, I didn't even have a lot of weed, bro. Oh, you didn't? I got more weed in a car than I did on that bus.

More weed on your purse? Yeah, for real.

It's because I'm black. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I've said that a million times. When people first said white privilege, I'm like, I don't know, I'm white trash. I didn't feel too privileged, but then I'm also an ex-drug addict and I used to fucking roll around with coke on me all the time. I used to get pulled over and I didn't get searched. I'm like, oh, I get it.

It's true, but it is what it is. I don't hold it against anybody.

You should be mad at me. I'm giving you permission.

It was actually a black cop who did it. Oh, really? Yeah, yep.

Were you in a tour bus?

Yeah, I was on a tour bus. I was on a college campus and they looked at my Twitter and I was talking about smoking. weed on there. Who cares?

But again, are they on the Twitter of the white-.

Exactly, no.

Musicians coming through town?

That's what I'm saying.

What I always think about is like Willie Nelson. That bus has gotta have a fucking kilo on it. I don't ever hear about him getting arrested.

Nah, it's very select. I'm not here to like fucking change the world. It is what it is.

But you've been arrested for weed several times. Yeah, hell yeah. So I think an explanation is warranted.

Plenty of times. So yeah, we had a tour bus. We were on campus. They had quote, unquote, been tipped off, and that was their reason for being able to search the bus.

That was their probable cause.

Yeah.

Are you stressed in that situation or you're fine?

Shit.

Be honest.

Honestly, I was kind of like just being a rockstar about it.

Okay, I can imagine clicking into that gear.

Get the cameras, like everybody filmed this shit.

Yeah, channel it.

I had all my fans outside. I'm like, yeah, y'all gonna start a riot out this bitch. Blah, blah, blah. You fucking with the wrong dude. All that fun stuff.

300,000 bail you had to post to get out of that.

It was 3 million.

What? What?

It was 300,000, but it was 10 of us.

Oh my God. We just did an episode about bail bonds.

Yeah, it was interesting.

So who comes up with that money, you or the label? Who gets a call? It's like-.

There was no label, bro. I told you I was independent at the time.

I'm sorry, I thought you were already on Atlantic.

No, I wasn't on Atlantic. I was independent at that time. But this is what I was telling you about how big my brand and my business was. They arrested us and they gave us $3 million. bail.

Oh, baby. We were smashing them.

We were killing them.

When you drop the bag of money, you just gotta be a little bit of pride in that. Yeah, I hope so. No, we're good. Go ahead and set the bail, whatever you want.

Yeah. I looked at my guys when we were in jail. I said, cause you know, they call your name when you're getting released. So they said, Cameron Tomas. I was like, I'm getting all y'all out.

Yes, that must feel so powerful.

Yeah, yeah.

Four years later, you got arrested in El Paso.

Yeah, I wasn't about nothing.

That was just possession as well, right? But you did a jail selfie, which I kind of like. It made me curious how you had your phone in jail.

Yeah, cause I just, you know, I'm slick.

Okay, so maybe they got one off you and you had another?

Nah. No.

Go ahead. Is this stressing you out?

No, it's a jail selfie, so it was legendary. Like, you know what I mean?

Yes, I ain't never seen a jail selfie.

It's a legendary jail selfie.

Yeah, it's iconic.

Yeah, hell, yeah.

How do you have your phone, though?

How did I have my phone?

How'd you have a phone in there?

It's big business, baby. Okay.

Okay.

We're not learning that secret.

Yeah, I'm dying to know. Maybe out there I'll find out what happened. Okay, things are taking off. 2012,. you have ONIFC.

For sure.

In what way? Does it give you access? Were there people you wanted to work with? Like, what were the things you desired before that song? that became very obtainable after that song?

It was more, just, that song opened me up to like, Oscar shit, cause I was nominated for an Oscar that year. So I got invited to some cool ass parties and some cool ass events that I wouldn't have been associated with, just with music.

How do you do at those events?

I'm cool.

You feel comfortable?

Yeah, I like those because nobody's security is with them. It's like everybody's guard is down. You're kind of forced to mingle. Like I said, I'm really good in those situations. Yeah, yeah.

Who's someone that you connected with?

I'm cool with everybody, but somebody who was super chill. What's the guy's name from Catfish?

The document, uh.

Nev? Nev.

Nev is cool as fuck, yo. Okay. That's my boy, man. There we go. I love that.

Oh, lovely. That's great for Nev. Yeah, I didn't expect that. How cool. I'm jealous of Nev right now, aren't you?

I know, me too, yeah.