0:00

We're going city at the legendary Blue

0:02

Note. It's the people party. Live

0:04

from the Blue Note. Live from the Blue Note. Live

0:07

from the Blue Note. Live from the Blue Note.

0:09

Live from the Blue Note. Come on.

0:16

Peace and love, party people. It's Talib Kweli,

0:18

the MCEO, the BKMC. The

0:20

sun is finally going down here

0:23

at Napa Valley. Blue Note Jazz

0:25

Fest. There's been so many great performances.

0:28

A shout out to the staff

0:28

of the Blue Note and the people of the Blue Note.

0:30

Shout out to my man Alex for always holding us down. Shout

0:33

out to Dave Chappelle, Robert Glasper. We've

0:35

been having a great time.

0:36

And we've been having guests. We've been doing people's party

0:38

here. Now this next guest, I'm not going to do,

0:41

you know, I give the long intros. I'm

0:43

not going to do the traditional long intro

0:45

because this guest has been on this show

0:47

before. He's a good friend of mine.

0:50

He's one of the greatest working comedians

0:53

out here. An incredible actor.

0:55

An incredible human being. This

0:57

man, I'm proud to say, is my actual friend.

1:00

He's in my inner

1:01

circle. We met a long time ago, a while

1:04

and out. He has great relationships with

1:06

some of the goats in the game from Martin Lawrence

1:08

to Jamie Foxx. Online,

1:11

and we're going to talk about this a little bit because this man

1:14

has a lot of expertise when it comes to social media.

1:16

Online,

1:16

he has created new

1:19

avenues for comedians. During

1:21

the pandemic, he got busy with his man

1:23

Spice Adams, but even before that, he was

1:25

killing it online. His special mirror

1:28

to society is a brilliant piece of

1:30

work. You've seen him in some of your favorite

1:32

films. Some of my favorite

1:34

work he's done, particularly has been with Marlon Wayans. Shout

1:37

out to Marlon Wayans. Give it up for

1:39

a comedian's comedian,

1:41

a hip-hop connoisseur, a

1:43

dancer's dancer, an all-around

1:45

fantastic human being. Atheon Crockett

1:48

and the place to be. Make some noise. That's a hell of an

1:50

intro. Bars. Off

1:52

the cuff. Off the top of the head. Freestyle.

1:55

Off the dome. Off the dome. I

1:57

meant to say in the intro, the baddest nigga ever. B

2:00

and E. B and E, you

2:03

know what I'm saying? Because I pay attention to it.

2:06

How many people know Apehyan also got lyrics? My

2:08

man got bars. Yesterday

2:10

he was on stage with Robert Glassburn. They found out

2:12

last night. On stage with Robert

2:14

Glassburn, Doug Hodges, and Chris Daddyday. And Layla Hathaway.

2:18

And Layla Hathaway. Spitting

2:21

his little heart out. Straight from Fayetteville, North Carolina.

2:24

Fayettenam, 2-6 and? Fayettenam?

2:26

I never heard that one. Fayettenam

2:28

is from Fayettenam. Okay,

2:30

what's up, girl? I need a

2:32

ride home. Because of course, people from North

2:35

Carolina drove here. We're

2:37

at the Blue No Jazz Festival. You were good friends with Robert

2:39

Glassburn. Yeah. You

2:42

were on Robert Glassburn's Fuck Yo Feelings mixtape. Fuck

2:44

Yo Feelings, the intro. The intro.

2:48

And your bars were actually very tight on that intro. Thank

2:50

you, man. Let's see Robert

2:53

cut you off. Rob, for some reason, he always loves

2:55

for me to do the live shows. But he's scared to get me

2:57

on a real track. He's scared. He

3:00

was busting shots. I

3:02

feel like he was busting shots a little bit. I

3:04

was shooting shots at him. He

3:06

don't want to rap battle me no more. We have a viral

3:08

rap video, rap battle. But

3:11

he don't want it. Me and you got actual

3:13

songs. Rob is scared to get me on an actual

3:15

song. So my bars was tight. Thank

3:18

you for acknowledging that. But fuck

3:20

Robert Glassburn. And fuck his

3:23

feelings too. Fuck his feelings too. Thank

3:26

you for doing that record Black History. I used to have a group

3:28

that I worked with Strongarm Steady. Shout

3:31

out to Planet Asia, Chase Infinite, Cron

3:34

Don, Phil Da Agony, Mitchie Slick. Afion came

3:36

through and did a record called Black History. I stole it. You

3:40

did. You put me

3:42

on another song and then you sent me Black History. And

3:45

I was like, why? I got to get on this. And

3:48

I remixed it myself and put myself at the end. And

3:50

you kept it. So thank you. Yeah. So we

3:52

did a video for that. Go check out that video on YouTube. Now

3:55

on Black History you talk about your roots,

3:58

your trinity roots. Yeah. Yeah. How

4:01

did your family get from Trinidad to Fayetteville,

4:04

North Carolina? My, my

4:06

grandmother married a Marine, my

4:09

step grandfather, and

4:12

he got stationed in North Carolina. Camp

4:14

Lejeune, that's like a real big Marine base in North

4:16

Carolina. And that's how we ended up

4:18

there. So it was, it was pretty much

4:21

marriage and flight out. That's

4:23

how we got there. Yeah. Right up.

4:26

Now I want to thank you because Mike, I have Trini in my family.

4:28

Oh wow. And I'm like, I'm a big Marine as Trini. Shout out to

4:30

Abana. She hit me one day and she's like, do

4:34

you know Acyon Crockett? He's

4:36

performing tonight with all these Trinidadian

4:38

artists in Brooklyn. Oh,

4:40

King's theater. Oh yeah. And

4:42

he put my cousin on the guest list. I

4:45

didn't know my cousin was even a fan, but she's a fan of you

4:47

because you're Trini. Right. Right. Like

4:50

she's a fan of anybody Trini. And it was a big Trini event.

4:52

It was the role of Marshall Montano. Marshall

4:55

Montano is one of the biggest, technically

4:58

the biggest Soka artists. If you know anything about Soka

5:00

music in Trinidad, Tobago and

5:02

the Caribbean. And so he

5:04

celebrated his 40th year in the

5:06

industry and he

5:08

had a roast at King's theater in Brooklyn

5:12

with a bunch of us. Major hype was the, the, the

5:14

roast master. But yeah, I had to

5:16

go there and pull the jokes out the bag

5:18

and show them what I do. I

5:20

think I saw a little footage of that online. Yeah. I

5:23

posted it on my gram. It was very disrespectful,

5:26

but you know, it's a roast. So everybody, everybody's getting disrespectful

5:28

with everybody. Speaking of roasting and

5:31

speaking of being disrespectful, you

5:34

have a wonderful relationship with Spice Adams. Yeah.

5:37

Yeah. For people who don't know Spice Adams history

5:39

and how he even came to become an internet sensation.

5:42

Break that down. Spice Adams was a football

5:44

player. I believe he played for Chicago

5:46

bears. And when he retired,

5:50

like a lot of athletes, he didn't really know

5:52

where he was going to land, where his career was going

5:54

to go, what, what he was going to do. All he knows

5:56

how to do is tackle people. Right. What

5:58

do you do with that? He did some

6:01

video in a white

6:03

castle, I think he said, and

6:06

just put it online within 30 minutes.

6:09

It was already on ESPN and circulating

6:11

around the sports world. And

6:14

from there, he just knew that he had

6:16

something. Whatever it was, it was something.

6:18

And him and his wife, his wife is his biggest supporter

6:21

and she encourages the nonsense. So

6:24

she records some of his stuff. She's a

6:26

camera person, you know what I mean? So that's

6:28

how it started. And then I became a

6:30

fan of his videos. He has so many

6:32

different videos, the

6:35

guys that don't know that certain songs were sampled. You

6:37

know what I mean? Yeah, well, he's in the

6:39

car video. He's in the car and he's listening

6:41

to the original song. Right, right, right. Your

6:44

voice is about to drop, you know what I mean? Right, right.

6:46

Like that in quality, the DJ is wearing the back flawlessly.

6:49

But anyway, yeah, that's how he started.

6:51

And then he and I linked up during the pandemic. Yeah,

6:54

the pandemic, now you've been very active

6:56

online in your whole career, but the pandemic, you stepped it up

6:59

at US Spice Adams, particularly making fun

7:01

of the verses. Yeah. How did y'all start

7:03

to come up with that idea? That was when the

7:07

Teddy rally and baby face, the first

7:10

verses that had like a big

7:13

debacle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Teddy

7:15

was ahead of his time because the verses setup

7:18

that he had was what they

7:20

started doing after that. The live

7:23

in studio with all the lights and

7:25

the band and all that. But he tried to

7:27

start it off himself and

7:29

there was a whole lot of echoes and wifi problems.

7:31

Right. It just didn't have the bandwidth

7:34

to withhold it. So me and Spice, like the idiots

7:36

that we are, we was like, we

7:38

should spoof this. Right, right, right. And

7:40

we got online that night and

7:43

literally sat on live for

7:46

about an hour and a half, two hours, tens

7:48

of thousands of people was just like

7:51

dialing in and laughing, all

7:55

we saw were emojis, cry facing, the

7:57

whole time we were on. And that

7:59

started.

8:00

Now what people don't know about Afion Crockett is as

8:03

great as you are as an actor, as great

8:05

as you are as a comedian, you

8:07

are a dancer first. I am a dancer first. You

8:10

are from the dance community. Yeah. Shout

8:12

out to all my dancers. How many people have

8:14

seen Afion Crockett as a teenager on

8:16

Showtime at the Apollo? Make sure you

8:18

make a note of that. Go to your phones, go to your Googles,

8:22

go to your YouTube. I was on there. Afion

8:24

Crockett is doing acrobatic feats

8:26

of majesty. Me and

8:29

my boys, the twins, Johnny and

8:31

John A, we went to the Apollo. And

8:33

that was our first experience with performing

8:35

in New York at the legendary Apollo. How

8:37

old were you? Ah, man, 18-ish? Mm. Eighteen,

8:40

I think? But yeah,

8:43

it was our first time performing in New York at the legendary

8:45

Apollo. And most people, their first question

8:47

is, did you get booed or are you scared to get booed?

8:50

We were terrified, but we were confident enough to know

8:53

that what we had, they was going to dig

8:55

it. Right. And that

8:57

was a classic music, a classic song. Soho.

9:00

Soho. Hot music by Soho. Yeah. And

9:03

so when New York heard that, even though we weren't house dancers, we put

9:05

our B-Boy moves to the house

9:07

track, they stood up on their feet and they was rocking with us

9:09

the whole time. So New York was right on

9:12

that vibe right at that moment, too. Yeah.

9:15

You know what I'm saying? Nah, it was a great choice for us.

9:18

I'm glad we didn't pick no whack. No

9:20

whack. Right. Hip hop song or

9:22

something crazy, something watered down. And for people who don't

9:24

know, Afeont also started his career on

9:27

Soul Train. I didn't start my career on Soul Train. I

9:30

started, here's the story that most people don't know.

9:32

I'm the only comedian. How many

9:34

of y'all remember Deaf Comedy Jam? Right.

9:37

Remember at the end of every Deaf Comedy Jam episode,

9:39

they had the dancers come out and shout

9:42

out to like the mop tops and those. Mop tops,

9:44

Mercedes, Misfits. Yeah, Mercedes, Misfits. Yeah, yeah. My

9:46

man, Saviors, Rest of Peace, the Voodoo Ray. Yes,

9:48

indeed. Yes, indeed. Shout out to Ling,

9:51

Mark Quest. Ling, Henry, Stretch. Stretch.

9:54

But yeah, anyway. They went to dance for Mariah Carey

9:56

after that. Yeah, exactly. And Michael

9:58

Jackson. stretch choreograph

10:01

Remember the Time with Fatima. That's right. So that's

10:03

to give you a little history of the dance world that I

10:05

emulated and became a fan

10:07

of and then a practitioner of. All

10:10

these dancers would dance at the end of Def Comedy

10:12

Jam. So I'm watching it for the comedy, and then I'm

10:14

watching for the MCs who

10:16

were guests. So Def Comedy Jam was that one show

10:18

that had everything that I am, except

10:21

I wasn't doing comedy yet. But

10:24

I would watch it for the dancers at the end and

10:26

see who was getting nice and whose freestyle moves was

10:28

going to be crazy. But I'm the first comedian

10:31

that when I finally booked Def Comedy Jam

10:33

as a comedian, Bob Sumner, the

10:35

talent scout, he said, come out and dance

10:37

with the dancers at the end too. Right. So

10:39

I'm the only comedian to do both on

10:42

the show. So give it up for that. But

10:45

yeah, when I got to LA later on, I

10:48

just did Soul Train for fun. OK. Like I met

10:50

some guys. I was like, yo, you dance. Come down to Soul Train.

10:52

Who don't want to be on Soul Train if you're a dancer and you

10:54

grew up watching it? Now, of course, it wasn't the

10:56

Soul Train I grew up watching. It

10:58

wasn't the Dime Cornelia. You old enough

11:00

to have done it when it was Don Cornelius? No,

11:03

I'm not. I was a little baby when Dime was doing

11:05

it. I was a kid. So is Shmarmore? Who

11:07

was it? It was a Shmarmore era. It was. It was.

11:10

Shmarmore was trying to battle y'all. He was. He took his

11:12

shirt off and everything. He would be

11:14

grinding. He was doing the genuine,

11:17

mixed with the young MC. But

11:20

yeah, it was a Shmarmore era. And although he's

11:23

not musically adept, he was a very nice guy. Very

11:25

nice guy. Shout out to Shmarmore. Now,

11:28

you also, your dance, love for dance,

11:30

kind of overlaps. You're a martial arts? Yeah,

11:33

yeah. Practitioner. Practitioner, I do. Yeah.

11:36

I do it most of all to keep in shape, guys. Like, I'm not

11:38

a tough guy. I'm not out here fighting people.

11:40

But I love Bruce Lee. I just grew up watching

11:43

martial arts movies. Yeah. And

11:45

who didn't, right? Yeah. Saturday morning. Our

11:48

generation, of course. Kung Fu theater. And of course,

11:50

the Bay Area. I love Bruce Lee. Of course. Well,

11:52

this is where he came to. He came

11:54

to San Francisco when he left China. He got kicked out of

11:56

China. His mom was like,

11:58

nah, you're getting into a street fight. And

12:00

you got to go to the US so he came to San

12:03

Francisco, and he's buried in Seattle. Did

12:05

you know that? Fortune cookies were

12:08

invented in San Francisco. I did

12:10

not know that they're not from China I

12:13

I did not know that that's how Asian San Francisco is

12:15

Wow Shout

12:18

out to San Fran and fortune cookies. Oh,

12:20

yeah, the fortune cookies man There's a whole

12:22

Rick and Morty episode about fortune cookies. We could do a

12:24

deep dive on that later. Um, I Gotta

12:27

ask you about mirror to society, please because

12:30

I've seen you perform and I see clips

12:32

online, right? But I can't find

12:35

this special online Where we

12:37

we only license it for a year. So let

12:39

me break that break it down. I just peek I'm

12:41

right finance Smears the society

12:43

so that means I own it outright. All right Licensing

12:46

means I didn't go to a big network

12:49

and they didn't give me a deal They cut me

12:51

a little small check and they own

12:53

all of my IP Outright,

12:56

I didn't do that right. I financed it myself

12:58

and said I'm going to look for a licensing deal So

13:01

that when that licensing deal is up It

13:03

reverts back to me and I can go shopping around

13:05

in perpetuity. I shop around as much as I want so

13:09

it's not up now because I've been working on

13:11

other things that I can't mention now because we're in

13:13

a strike, but That's why

13:16

you haven't seen mirrors of society, but we're looking

13:18

for another situation for

13:20

it now, right? I'm glad you brought up the strike.

13:23

I'm actually a member of sag after mmm, because

13:26

when I was a little baby I was in the whiz

13:29

you said that before You

13:32

know that before and I didn't do the knowledge

13:34

on it You got it you you got to tell

13:36

me where's Lena Horne singing if you believe

13:38

in yourself babies hanging Yes,

13:41

I wanted a baby. Yeah, which baby

13:43

were you I wanted him babies You don't

13:45

you didn't find yourself when I haven't seen it in years,

13:47

but I was getting a check I was getting

13:49

a sag after check for years. So

13:52

I feel like when I go back to New York I'm gonna go

13:54

show my solidarity whose idea was

13:56

it to hang babies behind Lena Horne though

13:58

very already Say less.

14:02

Look. Say

14:04

less. Barry Gordy's the godfather.

14:08

Barry Gordy's like, we're gonna make a movie star out of Diana Ross and we're gonna hang babies.

14:10

We're gonna hang babies. Behind

14:12

her. Behind Lena Horne.

14:16

Yeah, let's hang them little babies. Now...

14:20

And watch them shit on themselves. If

14:22

you believe it. Put a jenny

14:25

in the baby mouth. That's how they used to talk back in the 70s. Right,

14:28

right. Now, shout

14:30

out to Breakfast Club. Shout

14:32

out. I watched Breakfast

14:35

Club with Apion recently. And it got

14:37

into this whole... It was you and Charlamagne

14:40

and Envy and Angelie wasn't there. And y'all got

14:43

into this whole like pause thing. Right, right.

14:46

Someone said something, question, well you got into this pause thing. And

14:48

you said, Where's

14:50

Angelie when you need her? And then she left

14:53

the show six months later. Why'd you make Angelie...

14:56

Why'd you make a legal show? I'm

14:58

a prophet, man. I just say

15:00

things from my spirit and they manifest. The power of life

15:03

and death is in the tongue. Right, but on that show, you

15:06

said something I think was very important. They talked about your

15:09

impressions and how you're good at doing

15:11

impressions. And they asked you, Who

15:14

do you compare yourself to? You said, I don't consider

15:16

myself an impressionist. I'm an actor. Just

15:20

like Denzel Washington embodies a character, I embody

15:22

a character. And that distinction

15:24

was very, very, very necessary

15:27

to make. But then you went on and you did this

15:29

thing where you explained the

15:31

science of how the Jay-Z

15:35

impersonation or impression can

15:38

morph quickly into the Maya Angelou. Yes,

15:40

it happens, man. So I'm walking around

15:43

the crib, just randomly

15:45

listening. A Jay-Z song came on and

15:48

I started rapping to it. To allow me

15:50

to reintroduce myself, my name is Ho. And

15:55

so I'm just randomly doing the verse. And

15:58

then I realized And

16:00

the last is Maya. Hehehehehe.

16:03

Hello, children. Hi.

16:05

Hi, Blue Notes. Welcome.

16:08

Welcome to you all. I

16:10

appreciate you all staying right here.

16:14

Even though I know you didn't come to see me, you came

16:16

to get some shade. Ha ha ha.

16:19

And then it goes right back. Ha ha

16:22

ha ha ha. Thank you, love. I appreciate

16:25

you. Now, um, I didn't realize it

16:27

was that scientific. It is, but

16:31

you being an artist, most impressionists

16:33

will tell you that we learn it from music.

16:36

Aries Spears used to play music,

16:39

and his mom was a singer. Jay Ferrell

16:41

is an MC as well. And

16:44

I'm not sure what his whole musical background is. I

16:46

used to play music at five by melody,

16:48

by ear. My mom would have these little, these

16:51

Casio keyboards. She would buy me. And

16:53

I would play the theme to

16:55

Axl F. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,

16:57

dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. I would just play

17:00

it by ear. I'd hear Michael Jackson or Stevie Wonder song

17:02

and play by ear. So now when I hear certain voices,

17:05

my ear can hear if it's right on tune or

17:07

right on pitch. Now, speaking

17:11

of your acting, let's

17:13

talk about Devin Fontaine. Ha

17:15

ha ha. OK. Because it's a character you made up now. How

17:17

many people are familiar with Kevin Samuels? Samuels.

17:20

Kevin Samuels. Right? Recipes.

17:22

Kevin Samuels. He was a very polarizing individual.

17:26

He said some things that depending on where

17:28

you were on that day, either you

17:31

agree with him or you didn't.

17:32

But he spoke his truth

17:34

in an era where apparently everyone

17:36

could have their own truth. I didn't know that.

17:39

But you did a character that, correct

17:42

me if I'm wrong, might have been loosely based

17:44

on some of the things he was doing. No, no. It was directly

17:47

based on him. OK. In the beginning. In

17:50

the beeninging. In the beeninging.

17:53

No, it was directly based on him because

17:56

when I first saw a video of him, somebody sent me

17:58

a clip in the DM. So

18:00

I had never heard of him before. I never saw him before But

18:03

what I noticed in that clip Was

18:05

how uninterested he was in

18:08

talking to the person that he brought on his

18:10

life You know

18:13

me he would ask them questions like what's your name?

18:16

Where you from and he'd be like taking

18:18

dirt out of his nails or something And

18:21

and I'm like, why is he doing this? He's

18:23

already bashing him like how

18:26

tall are you how much do you weigh? You

18:29

weigh 230 and you five six. Oh,

18:31

no boo. You can't get you a high-value

18:33

man So I went on IG live and

18:35

I said yo, so that spoof this guy and everybody is we're

18:37

in the pandemic So everybody was bored and it was like, yeah, let's

18:40

do it Again, like when

18:42

me and spice did versus I got on I painted

18:44

the beard on and the glasses I

18:46

got a black turtleneck and a blazer right

18:48

and Everyone from swizz beats

18:50

to Roxy from 106 Everybody

18:53

jumped on and it was like style another seven

18:56

to ten thousand people watching me just imitate

18:58

him But the more I started doing

19:01

his The impression I didn't really

19:03

have an impression of his voice It

19:05

became another character that I've done for

19:07

ten years named Fontaine Lebron Okay,

19:09

okay, who's extremely flamboyant and sassy,

19:12

but you know what I mean? No one knows what his sexual orientation

19:14

is right? So it

19:17

became Fontaine What I did

19:19

in Mirrors of Society is a whole story about Fontaine

19:22

being the you know, we all grew

19:24

up with cousins that might have been gay and

19:28

They didn't want to come out and but we still treat them with

19:30

the love, you know But we know that they you

19:33

know by the way, they hold a risk a

19:35

certain way or the way they turn my gait are

19:38

We

19:43

know we still got love for we have family members

19:45

who They live a life and they don't

19:48

want to come out right away, but we just embrace them until

19:50

they do

19:51

no doubt I want to take this moment to Say

19:54

recipes to your father. Oh, thank you, man.

19:56

You know, I still have my father I

19:58

don't know what debt that feels like that you

20:01

never know that, that thing. I really

20:03

do. Like it's one of the most surreal

20:05

transitions that I've ever felt. And even though I've been

20:07

around people that have lost parents and I've

20:10

consoled them and all of that,

20:12

that ain't something I would wish on anybody to feel

20:15

that. Right. And I got a lot

20:17

of love for you, bro. Likewise. I've

20:19

known ACM for a long time. He's been

20:21

very active on social media for a long time. He's been very

20:23

good at managing his brand and

20:26

bringing, getting new fans on social

20:28

media. Whereas me, it's

20:31

kind of the opposite. Losing fans every day.

20:34

I lose fans all the time because, you know, I run

20:36

my social media like an anti-celebrity.

20:38

It's like a human experience and I really don't care

20:41

if you like it or not. But as my friend,

20:44

Afeon has called me often and

20:46

been like, yo, I want to sit down

20:48

and have an intervention with you because

20:51

of your social media engagement. So I'm

20:53

going to give you a chance to do that right now. So, and we

20:55

had this conversation the other night. Yeah. Yes.

21:00

And hopefully you guys feel

21:02

me. Just you guys right here. Talib

21:05

Kweli is one of the most prolific

21:08

MCs in our culture. Thank

21:11

you, brother. I appreciate that. This ain't,

21:13

even if he wasn't here, like this is, these are just facts.

21:16

This isn't gas. This isn't none of that. His,

21:19

how many albums you have total? I

21:23

didn't even realize it was that much. In my mind, I'm thinking 12

21:26

to 14. Right, right, right. Beautiful

21:28

struggle. I'm

21:30

losing count. I'm losing it. I don't even remember the names,

21:33

but

21:33

your albums are front

21:35

to back,

21:36

push play and just let it go. Thank you,

21:39

brother. You have collaboration albums

21:41

with Styles P and of

21:43

course you and Yassine, Blackstar one

21:45

and two. Give it up

21:47

for that.

21:49

You've been in the game. You have some of those dope collaborations,

21:52

Respiration being one of my favorite tracks,

21:55

right? Get by being

21:57

one of the most inspirational.

21:59

and feed and you know, stadium

22:02

type of tracks. Thank you, brother.

22:05

So when I see you

22:06

being the guy that you are, the

22:09

son of a scholar. Two scholars.

22:11

Two scholars, sorry, I stand corrected.

22:14

The son of two scholars going

22:16

back and forth with people

22:19

who just aren't on your level

22:21

in my opinion. Now, I'm, Not in opinion,

22:23

that's facts. Right, I say in my

22:25

opinion because I don't know these people, Oh,

22:28

I know, on just facts. Right, gotcha. But

22:30

anyway, my point is, you're going back

22:33

and forth with people that we don't

22:35

know, but we get familiar

22:37

with them because you now give them the platform,

22:39

your platform that I wish

22:42

you would not share with them because they

22:44

mean you no good. They're saying bad

22:47

things about you. Y'all are arguing over ideologies

22:50

and racism and politics and all

22:52

kinds of stuff. And so

22:55

I

22:56

reached out to you several times like, man,

22:58

would you stop doing that shit?

23:01

You're bigger than that. You're so much bigger

23:03

than that. And then

23:06

the other night when we were sitting down and talking about

23:08

it,

23:10

you said something that stopped me in my tracks.

23:13

He said, Aif, it's

23:15

fun for me. And

23:18

right then I was like,

23:20

Oh, I get it. Okay,

23:23

shit, all right. Some people

23:26

throw paint pellets at the side

23:28

of public buses.

23:30

Right. And that's fun for them. Right.

23:33

For you, it's bodying people

23:36

on,

23:37

it's bodying trolls. Fun is one

23:39

aspect of it. It's a very powerful, probably the most powerful

23:41

aspect of it, but yes. Yeah. And

23:44

break down the other reason how you were saying

23:46

the Twitter characters and writing,

23:49

it's writing for you. Yes, we're

23:51

in the Bay Area. How many people ever heard of Black Delicious?

23:55

Rest a piece of gift to Gab. One

23:57

of the things gift to Gab said to me before he passed away was,

24:00

you on Twitter

24:01

and

24:02

ever since you've been arguing the debate with

24:04

people on Twitter, I feel like your lyrical

24:06

output has gotten better.

24:08

And that's something that I personally

24:09

felt, but I'm biased.

24:12

So that's not something that I would advertise. Guess

24:14

what y'all, I'm better now because of Twitter. That sounds

24:16

crazy. But to hear another

24:18

MC say that to me, I understood

24:20

the mission. And by the way, you're welcome, by the way, because

24:23

you said you didn't know about these people and

24:26

now you know. No, I don't want to know about it. Well,

24:29

you should. To my point, I don't care about these people. I

24:31

care about you. Right. And

24:33

this one, I love him because what he's saying is he's concerned

24:35

about my well-being. He's just my friend.

24:38

He loves me. My friends who challenged

24:40

me on this is because they love me. They don't want to

24:42

see none. I don't want to see

24:44

him at one of his shows. And we

24:47

always see headlines that we see little

24:49

things on social media. I don't want to see

24:51

that he got into a fight or some viral video

24:53

of somebody attacking or whatever. And

24:55

that's real. And that's real. We were there

24:57

when Chappelle got attacked. Right. That's

24:59

real. And because I'm

25:02

on the internet arguing with these people so much,

25:04

I know for a fact that that guy made

25:06

an anti-Dave Chappelle song and he

25:08

was trolling Dave Chappelle. He made a song saying,

25:11

I'm going to show up at Dave Chappelle's show and

25:13

do this. So it's not, but he's

25:15

the exception to the rule. Generally,

25:17

I'm not in danger from that stuff. If I was

25:19

in danger from that stuff, I have enough privilege in my life

25:22

to keep myself away from

25:23

danger. But I said, you're welcome because I do

25:25

believe that we should shame the devil. And I do

25:27

believe that all racists should

25:28

become famous. You and I have been famous

25:30

for some time. Fame is not all it's cracked up

25:32

to be. Facts. People

25:35

worship fame as if being famous makes you automatically

25:37

virtuous. I'm down for every racist

25:39

to be famous, every bigot to be famous,

25:41

every anti-gay person, every sexist,

25:44

every, every,

25:45

every classist, every ableist

25:47

person. Let's make them famous. So we

25:49

see

25:49

them coming because if we see them coming, we

25:51

could better protect ourselves. We're a community.

25:54

And we spend all this time online.

25:57

We on Uber, the DoorDash.

25:59

and that, but people say, well,

26:02

don't engage in online talk,

26:04

come back because that's not real. And

26:06

I believe it is real. And I

26:09

believe that we're in new

26:11

spaces, though, right? That's why we have to have this conversation. We've

26:13

never had social media before. Everybody's

26:16

experimenting with it. Everybody's learning on the job.

26:19

So I really appreciate having a friend like

26:21

Afion because what I

26:23

take from Afion is I'm not going to stop being me. And by

26:25

the way, the person who made all those records

26:28

is the same person arguing with them

26:30

trolls.

26:31

I can't separate. So if you want to hear more of those

26:33

records, you got to let me do me. You know

26:36

what I'm saying? I'm going to always let you do you. No

26:38

doubt. But to the point of what you said, we

26:40

should make them famous so that we see them coming. Right.

26:44

That's that's so if they're on

26:46

a video or if they're in public somewhere,

26:49

then we know that that's the racist person. Yeah. Afion

26:52

is I don't want to provoke

26:56

the the sneak attack or the anything. I

26:58

don't want to provoke any violence or any kind

27:00

of attack against you physically.

27:03

I'm trying to know that I mean, as your friend, I'm like,

27:06

we both going to be fighting. No doubt. And

27:09

my friend says that, you know, my man says that.

27:11

He says, look, the reason why I sometimes weigh in

27:13

is because when they come at you, I

27:16

might be standing next to you. So it's just from I was

27:18

standing next to you last night. Yeah. And

27:21

you were a zealous security guard trying to do whatever

27:23

he was going to do. That's right. And me and

27:25

finesse Mitchell, we didn't say nothing, but you felt

27:28

us. I did. But you see the camera

27:30

down. Right. But you see, I handled

27:32

it. I talked. I talked about the

27:34

edge. I love the way you handled it. Yeah. But

27:36

just know that if you're ever in a situation where somebody is giving you

27:38

that kind of energy. Yeah. We

27:41

got that energy. No doubt. You see

27:43

that same energy? Keep that. No

27:45

doubt. I am a martial artist. He is a martial artist. And

27:48

he's like water. He's not on

27:50

offense. He has this for defense only. You

27:52

know what I'm saying? Thank you for

27:55

that project. I don't know if I'm saying a name right.

27:57

Introverse is introverse. Introverse. Yeah.

28:00

Um, you're singing a little bit a

28:02

little bit little bit join with Ella J is dope. Thank

28:05

you. Um Martin Lawrence

28:08

You went from working with Martin to hosting the

28:10

Martin reunion. Yeah, talk about hosting

28:12

the Martin reunion dream come true I mean, how

28:14

many of y'all grew up watching Martin show and it's still

28:16

in syndication. So we see it every night on

28:18

TV Listen to go from

28:21

the sofa being a fan with my family Watching

28:24

that living room that famous living room of

28:26

Martin show and then to be sitting in

28:28

there Interviewing all of them. Yeah, and

28:30

T. Shands to Sheena. They're here this weekend To

28:33

see no Arnold look how beautiful the blue no

28:35

jet

28:36

you could be walking around and running to

28:38

the castle

28:38

Martin How about that period? But

28:40

yeah, it was a dream come true. I'm honored

28:43

Martin has been a mentor of mine since we

28:46

did that movie Welcome home, Roscoe Jenkins

28:48

and also Malcolm D lead a director

28:50

of Malcolm Lee here as well walking around as well

28:53

Say say what's up Tim when you see him? Absolutely.

28:55

So yeah, Martin became he just took

28:57

to me like a like a like an uncle like a big bro

29:00

and just took me under his wing and By

29:02

the time that came about I'm already friends

29:05

with all of them, right? So

29:07

when my name came up for hosting that they

29:09

all were like, yes, it's a fion because

29:12

I'm like, they know I love them Yeah, so my energy

29:14

is never gonna be the clickbait

29:16

kind of interview and trying to ask a Controversial

29:19

question so that people yeah man. I'm

29:22

not about that life at all I promote

29:24

love and positivity and anything

29:26

negative I would rather not talk about it or we could

29:28

talk about it behind this tree You know,

29:31

I just don't like we have we have enough publications

29:34

in and podcasts and all that promoting

29:36

negativity all the time I'm just

29:38

not about it Somebody who

29:40

you're very close to is

29:43

Jamie Fox. I'm not very close

29:45

to him. Let's all do sing Some

29:47

reproduce the project back in 2010 2011. Okay,

29:52

but we're not close but I'm Of

29:55

him because I went to his birthday party

29:57

once okay, and oh, yeah You

30:00

were there. That's when we were doing the show. Oh,

30:02

okay, okay. Yeah. So, yeah, so

30:04

I thought you were closer to Jamie Foxx than maybe

30:06

you were. No, we just had that creative chemistry.

30:09

So when he saw me on stage with

30:11

you and Rich

30:13

Nice was there, there was a few people. But

30:16

when he saw me on stage, that's when we were kind of

30:18

like working on the show. It was Richie Rich, Richie

30:20

Rich. Richie Rich, sorry, not Rich Nice. Yeah,

30:23

and he just started throwing me the layups.

30:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for the impressions to come

30:27

and with the raps and all that. This whole thing

30:30

with his health and his privacy and all these conspiracy

30:32

theories have been very weird to me. And

30:35

it's triggering to me a little bit because I feel like celebrities

30:37

should be able to define their own space

30:40

and their own boundaries. You have any thoughts about this? We're

30:42

in an era where everyone wants

30:45

your business to be public business. And

30:48

it's just not that. Like, my business is not going

30:50

to be your business. It's always

30:52

going to be my business. If you should happen

30:54

to catch something and you film it or whatever, that's

30:56

whatever. But I'll never give the

30:59

public my business. Even

31:01

when I write rhymes or tell jokes, I'm fabricating

31:03

a lot of it. So it's never fully

31:06

about me. It might be based on something

31:09

else or whatever. But yeah,

31:11

he should he should be able to recover in peace

31:13

and and not have every tabloid

31:15

saying his name for for ratings and

31:18

you know what I'm saying for hits and clicks and

31:20

likes. No doubt. Shout out to Jamie

31:22

Foxx. One of the most talented people in

31:24

the world, by the way, that we live on this planet.

31:27

While he's alive. A hundred percent. Absolutely.

31:30

I got one more question for a beyond Crockett. First of all, show your love

31:32

for a beyond Crockett for giving us his time,

31:35

his love, his energy. People's

31:39

party. I'll shout out the talent quality. I'll give it up for

31:41

the world's best podcast. I

31:43

live a very blessed life. I

31:45

don't have I don't have much to complain about. One

31:47

of the greatest blessings in life is I get to travel the world.

31:50

I'm Mr. International. I'm always in another country.

31:52

But one of the downsides of that is when somebody like

31:55

a beyond calls you and says, I'm working on a movie.

31:57

I need you to pull up in a movie. I can't pull up for the movie. And

32:00

so, Apia called me and asked me to be in this film

32:02

that he put together. And the

32:05

film is about hip-hop. And when I saw the trailer,

32:07

I was like, fuck. I wish

32:09

I was in this movie. So, tell us about your

32:12

new film that you've been working on, Hip-Hop

32:14

Movie. I can't. I can't. Because

32:16

of the strike. Oh, that's right. I can't

32:18

talk about it openly, even though, let me say this,

32:21

even though my film is not, it's another one

32:23

that I financed myself.

32:25

It is SAG Signatory. It's

32:27

not under the AMPTP

32:30

rule,

32:31

but I'm going to stand in solidarity with my brothers

32:33

and sisters in SAG, in the union and not

32:35

promote anything that I have. So, but

32:38

when y'all see it, just

32:40

know. Yeah, I saw a trailer

32:43

and it's a love

32:45

letter to hip-hop in the best comedic

32:48

way. I was just trying to paint a picture

32:50

like Norman Mailer. Nice.

32:53

Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Apia Crockett

32:56

on the World's Best Challenge. My love, my guy. You already

32:58

know. I love you.