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Episode 408 w/ Eric Adams (Mayor of New York City)

Published May 3, 2024, 7:30 AM

N.O.R.E. & DJ EFN are the Drink Champs in this episode the champs chop it up with the one and only, Mayor Eric Adams!

The mayor of the most iconic city in the world, New York City, Mayor Eric Adams joins us to share his journey! 

Mayor Adams, talks the pressure and responsibilities of being Mayor of New York City. 

Mayor Adams, also shares stories of building affordable housing, life in the city through the pandemic, and touches on topics related to Migrants, and much much more!

NY General, Mysonne joins us a special co-host! 

Lots of great stories that you don’t want to miss!

Make some noise for Mayor Eric Adams and Mysonne!!! πŸ’πŸ’πŸ’πŸ†πŸ†πŸ† πŸŽ‰πŸŽ‰πŸŽ‰

 

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He is drinks chants, motherfucking podcast man.

He's a legendary queens rapper. He ain't agreed as your boy in O R E. He's a Miami hip hop pioneer. What up it's dj E f N. Together they drink it up with some of the biggest players you know, me and the most.

Professional unprofessional podcast and your number one source for drunk drinks chans.

Mother Poscavery day is New Year's c that's it's time for drink champs. Drink up, motherfucker mother. But it good hobody for your boy in O R E.

What Up?

It's dj E f N and this is drink chaps Happy Hour, make some.

Today.

If you ask me in nineteen ninety six, when I started my career, would I'll be sitting here interviewing anybody, let alone interviewing a person who runs my city. Literally, Uh, who's the mayor of our city? Who looks like us, dresses like us, acts like us. It's like, he's what is it? We got to call him the food board mayas. You know what I'm saying. Dopacality called him the night life mayor. And it's crazy because I met him at night. Oh you know, legalized bud. From what I know from my city, I got arrested so many times.

I stopped.

I stopped smoking, but outside I was And now you go to the But this man is great. He's great for us. I wanted to salute him. We want to give him his flowers. We got mister Eric Adams, the motherfucker mayor of New York. The old time I saw your Reps club interview. We're not going to go that politically like that. We're gonna ask you.

Some question that was crazy.

I was like, holy mo, you you was trapped.

But let's talk about your music history.

Yeah yeah, but but go back for a moment. We need to really, like lad some groundwork.

Uh.

People see the interview say, you know you were set up. I could never be set up because I'm authentic and I'm good in any setting, you know, because I'm true.

I'm not new to this. I'm true to this, and you know.

We need to really connect where I am and the role that cats like you played. You know, Uh, this is fifty years of hip hop fifty years and you know, and you know, people say I'm the hip hop mayor, hip hop mayor. I grew up listening to hip hop and it inspired me throughout you know, it inspired me when I was going through some hard times, I was able to throw on hip hop. And I think brothers who were part of that that music genre should not allow themselves to be relegated to saying that you were just the music folks. Now, if you're do an analysis of where we are right now in the country, the first African American to be the leader of a party in Congress is how King Jeffries hip hop Jersey and no he's in Washington, d C.

Hip hop.

Tisia James, the most important attorney general in the country, grew up in hip hop. Jamoni Williams hip hop, Eric Adams hip hop, Adrian Adams, the leader of the Speaker hip hop. Four of the black mayors that's running the major cities in America Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, New York all hip hop.

And that's where the migrants are coming to.

Exactly exactly we're gon. We're gonna dig into that. But what I want to show is that we all grew up and the seas were planted in hip hop. So the fruits of our harvest right now, you know, I'm the am the most important mayor on the globe, on the glow, and so you guys should be celebrating. You know, this is who we made. This is all of this leadership you see right now. It is what you guys, what you guys made. I keep telling folks, when we celebrated the fifty years of hip hop, it was coming together of all of that power, finally getting together. But now the question is with all of this chocolate, what are we gonna do with it? We gotta do something with it. We gotta make some real changes because people have been playing us. Black folks have been played for years. We got to be willing to use this power correctly.

Now.

I lived in New York City my whole life, born and raised right, and you know, there has been mayors that come around as a couple of mayors. I believe David Dinkins visited my neighborhood. But like it was so dope to say, yo, you know, I'm at the mayor and like I better at nas party. Like I was like, you know, like me and the man that fucking nos party, Like like like how do you how do you balance that like by being like maya but still like you know, you know what I mean, like because that was joke that I speak to you and at my friend's party, So like how you balance that?

And nowas nas was doing some great things and it is it is a balance because I don't fit the mold, and I didn't go into fit the mod I went in to break the mall. And you know when you when you do an analysis, you know, I'm perfectly imperfect. Brother, you know, growing up perceulture maker queens. I know you left up for selftual maker Queens, running numbers, you know, buying a nickel bag, making a joints so mommy could put some food on the table.

You know.

I used to walk in the classroom. They used to have in the back of the chair, the dumb student. People used to mock me. I used to wake up every morning and pray, God, don't let me read, you know, because people would mimic me throughout the day and say, let's act like we eric reading.

And I didn't get it.

Wasn't until I stumbled into college that I learned that I was dyslexic. Wasn't that I was dumb. I was dyslexing. And you're dislected right. I'm a virgo too. You virgo right, you know what I'm saying. And so it's it's that when I'm in these settings, and it's so important because you know, my brother and I we got arrested at fifteen one on third precint I need cats that are in class right now and don't believe they can learn. Say wait a minute, my mail went through this. I need cats that are on Rikers right now. I've been on Rikers more than any man history of the city. I got baptized rebaptized on Rykers a couple of weeks ago with a group of inmates because I wanted them to know.

Listen, man, y'all need to know. I'm you.

I've been here with you, and we take in funnel like, look what you're doing and what you brothers are doing. You've taken your street skills, because that's that's education.

That's academics too.

People think academics is just because you're in college. No, academics is. I knew the economics by taking a nickel bag and making a choice. Man, that's economic A lot? What kind of nickel bags when you have.

Earlier? I was like, wait, you know what I mean, like.

A lot.

But I don't we might do them block They were joints. It was just a joint and so it was like you will be blown away what we learned.

And that is transferable, you know when you look at what fat Cat Nichols and those other cats were doing. Those those are great economists. But you can transfer it into the empowered that you want.

It's true.

It's like a lot of hustlers can make great managers in the music business. Definitely, you know what I mean, because of the gift of gas. But hold on, So this is what I want to ask you. Right, I go worldwide, right, and if a person is from New York and they asked me where am I from, I immediately say Queens. If a person is not from from New York and they asked me where I'm from, I automatically say New York.

Right.

So I want to play game with you. What do you think you're more Queens? Because I've read that you're born in Brooklyn, but then you was raised in Grays right, right, So what do you what do you claim more Queens or New York Brooklyn? Brooklyn? Okay, now we're gonna battle, right, so you're gonna name people, So you're gonna name people from Brooklyn that's famous in Congress whatever, whatever, what I'm gonna name people from Queen You go to name people from the Bronx.

Okay, all right, we're gonna play. This is myself. You got a best co host. You just go to New York. Shit. Now, I was I was throwing off. I thought he was big New York. I thought he was gonna bick with media, Miami with media.

So you're gonna run the time that Okay, how much time do you think we should have?

You want to tire yourself?

Yeah, I means be Jumanji this mother. So yeah, three minutes like a boxing fight, person, No, No, three minutes?

What I mean?

Okay, just a bron right, just Brooklyn, and I'm gonna do me some some ucking clubs. So you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm outside, I'm to drink, gonna drink.

Damn.

We're gonna have some fun today. Okay, there's whe's the chalkboard at Okay, So I'm.

Gonna start it off. When you start, I start the timer.

Okay, remember people from the Bronx, people from Brooklyn, Yes, people from Queens. I feel like I got it easy and anybody, you can.

Help me out. If I forget, you can help anybody. Gotta throw the ship out.

There's okay, yo, we got mister Lee Wright in Schools of New York Stree. We're gonna show you how the scooses of the New York City is. Right now, everybody give it.

To give it to the girl. Give me. I'm I'm not convince him write it. He don't speak right. You're ready? You ready, you guys, let me see if we need to see the board. Yeah, yeah, okay, this would be interesting. You a guest. We won't let you go first. Brooklyn.

Name somebody famous, jay Z jay Z. That's a good one. Mail Melly mail fifty. We're notard King Fad Joe.

Tony yea yea. Lets my folks from uh oh, come on, biggy than okay, cast one.

Marb duh, Mop yes, Mop, I got.

Cool her court Mega give me another word?

Come on, yeah, okay, the basket's pool remmy okay, uh.

Donald Trump, nobody want to claim.

Dude, I'm asked to say, Bill Clayton, isn't he from Brooklyn?

No?

No, no, yes, Big Daddy, Big Teddy k.

More babies made of his music k Flex, he said, Kenny Anderson.

Steph Steph, Steph Marberry.

Jaylo who Jaylo j Lo? They went Russell Simmons.

From Mike Tyson, Big Mike, Mike Tyson, Mike.

Cardi B. Run dmn C Cardi B, he said, Cardi B.

Then run d m C.

Come on, d J, d J show that. I take that.

That's ahead, ran master cast, Yeah, Nicki Minaj, what's my little Kim?

Thirty seconds on the clock from Peter Guns and she's saying.

Uh yes, right right and and master C.

It's from the Bronx. Molly ball. See we're going we're gonna perfect this game the first time.

Yes, the first time, you said, Molly wan Yeah, yeah, that's time.

Ye counted.

I think we're pretty close. I think it's pretty close. Count how many names? But why the calendar for all? Right?

Yeah? East one? Yeah, come and see I told you he ain't go.

This is the reason why I told you to get the boy. This is the reason why you one this. This young guys in my car, You'll took it uptown.

For no reason. So oh damn, you.

Ain't see me in a minute, James, Jesus, this is the time having early drinks. A number bounce around with with subjects and subjects let it flow. I remember I went to New Orleans. I had the number one records nineteen ninety eight especially in my life, went to New traveled around the world, went to New Orleans. Member juvenile and then because they you know, that's what people. You know, it wasn't checking in and none of that ship. So I went to see him for the risk, calls him four ratters came out. I said, holy shit. I made fun of New Orleans all day for years years. I was like, motherfucker. Look at the best food, but ships, motherfucker. And then recently Juvenile called me. I was like, do you see what's going on with your city?

I had no defense.

What do I do to defend myself against juvenile because because they're trying to tell me that the city is full with rhodents godamn countries.

No, no, but that's.

Different now, the rand the pizza slides.

I want to do.

You know when we were and the number one thing is when we came in. You're right, the rat complaints was through the roof. And you know what, nothing could traumatize your day more than than the rat.

Normal is not scared like this, and they don't move you what.

You are.

But but what we what we what we did? What we did, We zeroed in on it. We hired when New Orleans didn't do, we hired the rats are right, And what we found the number one reason that there's so many were so many rollers on the bags there you go, plastic bags, you know, and they the previous man came up with these mint plastic bags that were supposed to scare rats. Those rats are like, are you kidding me?

Little cats?

Right?

And so we we zeroed in on it, and now rats complaint across the city.

They have gone down.

And then what we call rat mitigation zones was like a high level.

They've also going have gone down.

We're going to move to take all our trash off the streets, out of plastic bags, and we're going to containerize. Everybody's told us it was going to take five years. Said no, that's too long. We're going to do it in two and a half years. We're going to containerize all our garbage. It's going to be everything is going to go into containers. So you're gonna be able to call him back and tell him how we like me now.

Because you know what I'm saying.

I like to say, even though I don't live in New York City, now that's still my city. I can never like anywhere I go. As soon as I talk, they say, ah, you're from New York because this is so and we're moving.

Man, we're not.

We're not We're not surviving, We're thriving. You know a number occasions when we came into the city, no one wanted to be on the subway system. Uh, we were dealing with, you know, some real issues economically coming out of COVID. Remember when I came, Man, we were stealing COVID. You know, the just a slew of problems. All that has turned around. Now people are hating, don't want to show what it is because there's a feeling that, you know, black and brown mayors can't manage.

But we managed the hell out of the city.

There's independent reviewers who look at the city and determine, are we going to raise your bond rating based on your ability to manage it?

They raised my bond raided.

They say, this cat has taken one hundred and eighty thousand micros asylum seekers.

You know that, you know, we got to talk about, right, yeah, and folks because I see it here.

I was as I was moving, I'm seeing you know, some some indicators here and folks, you know, you know black folks.

Man.

They're like, you know what you're doing, man, you're giving away the whole city.

You know.

Mayas can't stop buses from coming in the city, right, Mayors can't say that you're in the city, So I can't give you three meals a day, a place to sleep. That's against law. It's against the law for me to even allow them to work. I can't even allow them to roak. And that's all they saying they want to do. They say, listen, we want to work, man, we don't want anything.

Free from you, because it doesn't that push them to criminality, like because just think about it, Like if you can't work, but you're getting get in the house. I have never seen that before, Like it's been since COVID. Like I remember driving by Elmhurst Hospital during COVID and I remember looking at like it was World War three because it was like every nationality that's the one thing about Queens. But you can't kind of be racist in living Queens because every nationality is this it's a Haitian person is your neighbors. And I remember driving by Elmhurst Hospital. I remember witnessing that. But do you think that the migrate great problem and the rat problem is probably the coinsigned?

No, No, that's that's a great question.

And the reason I'm saying that is because when I came into office, we should have encampments all over the place. We had ten cities people living in cardboard boxes. And when I went in bound January and February, I went into the streets as soon as I got into office, and I went into those encampments and I spoke to the people.

You saw a schizophrenic.

Bipolar People were stale food, human waste, drug paraphernalia.

So I told the team, yo, we're not living it like this.

And we were able to remove all those encampments off our streets and get people to care. You know, about seven thousand people we cycled into our system.

People is living on the subway system.

You know, you still see remnants of that, But there's a difference when you go google these other cities and you see San Francisco.

California, right right. I heard you said you went and visited the people exactly exactly or something like that.

Right, we went and saw what was happening in La We saw what was happening in many of the other cities, and I said, we can't because the visual, like you said, your visual is that people gonna believe your city these out of control.

So I want to just first of all, I just want you to state, you know, because I listened to the Reference Club interview and you were talking about why the migrants were here, you know, because I know I've been saying this for a lot a long time about you know, the different governors shipping them over here intentionally.

Because it's political.

So I want you to state that for this yow because it's a different audience. And I want you to, you know, to reiterate those things rights, right, and and and first of all, this is what's with Steve.

They focused on for the most part, for cities Chicago, Chicago, New York, Houston, Los Angeles.

What are those four cities? Those are four cities with.

Black mayors, all Democrats, all Democrats, And so what happened they came across the border.

It started with Governor Abbot.

Governor Abbot started busting them to these four cities, destabilized these cities. And then when you think about it, was a wicked plan that he did because what you did you targeted the four largest cities when you had these black mayors. So number one, stabilize those cities. It's going to be votes. But number two, you set the signal out to tell people to think that, hey, these black mans don't know how to govern. And so I'm only the second black mayor in New York City's history first right, right right, and my sister, Mayor Bass was the first African American women mayor in.

Los Angeles.

So when you do that, you enrolled, and then you turn your base against you because you know, if folks are hungry. They said, wait a minute, why are you giving everything to these migrants, when in fact you're not. But they send that court out. So now you got your base. Because this is what they did with David Thinkers. They want to deepest destabilize your base. Because when I won for mayor, there's something called this, they like to say, the New York Times leadership, Upper West Side, Brooklyn Heights, cobble Hill Park, Slow No mayor has ever won without winning.

Those areas, those parts of the city.

I did. I lost all of that.

You know, I won from straight folks from the community that said, listen, man, this guy is one of us, man, and this guy is.

One of the Let me cut you off for one second, because let me the difference is, like, you know, all of us come from you know, the inner cities, right, the hood, right, and all of us are probably on welfare.

If he was or he wasn't.

What is the difference between us being on welfare and then these migrants that's coming there and and you're actually giving them because I heard you you're doing like.

A yeah, that's a great question.

That's a great question. Yeah.

So so migrants in asylum seeks are not allowed to get.

I just aboutside. You know, my name is Victor, a little bit more than me.

So the food stamps wick a snap, all of those benefits migrasin the sound seekers are not eligible for. So the law requires me to feed them three meals a day. Requires what we were doing is buying the food from these large conglomerates and.

Told you they didn't want, right, and ten percent of.

The food they were not eating wasting, being discarded. So my first deputy mayor and her team, they came up with this card called a Muchafi card, black owned company, where you give them a card where they are given thirteen dollars a day to eat and they go to the local bodegas, the supermarkets.

Put the money back in there.

You put the money back into the into the community buying what you want. You can't buy anything other than food and baby supplies. So we saved six hundred thousand dollars a month, seven million dollars a year.

But people wanted to blow.

It up and say, hey, you're giving them a credit card.

They knew that wasn't what. That was all bullshit, you know what I'm saying.

So that's how the management skills, that the team, what we have been doing, and so what the governor did.

He wanted to destabilize our city.

But we managed it better than anyone can even thought we was gonna manage one hundred and eighty thousand people showing up at your doorstep, can't work, can't provide for themselves. Thirty thousand children had to put in our educational system doing it without a problem. That one child of family sleeping on which the governor governed. The governor of Texas, Governor Abvid you know.

That's a syent them there, right, would you say it's it's it's racially motivated versus partisan motivated.

Great question, Great. I think it's a combination. It's a combination. I think that he wanted to send his signal to the national government because they need to fix the problem.

Let me be clear on that they need to fix the problem.

But there was a hell of a lot of other cities he could.

Have sent them to.

While you're picking cities, they didn't even send them to Los Angeles, right, They didn't even send them to Los Angeles until Mayor Bass became mayor. They didn't even send them to Philadelphia until the sister became the mayor. The day she swore in, a plane landed with MICA's Asilum Seekerts. So he wanted to send a message, But the message you wanted to send was on the back of black and brown mayors.

That's heavy. And I've been saying that from the beginning. You know, I've been saying that this is politics, and they supposed to do that. You know, they want certain laws to be passed, they want to change immigration policies, and why not focus on you know, the other party but when you said the racial part, I didn't even I didn't even add that part, right, So for me, like I understand that you get so much scoutiny, like being a black man, being unapologetically hip hop, being you know, coming into our communities building with the hip hop community being outside as we say a lot, and I never want to add to that. I think for me, you know, when we voted and we've seen you come into office, that's what we.

Said to ourselves. One of us.

It's like you know that the has got the building that you know what I'm saying. So that was the mind state, And I think for me, I wanted to see a radical shift, right.

I wanted to see things changed.

I wanted you to take chances and say, okay, we need to change this now. Like unfortunately people say a lot about Trump, but Trump don't give a damn but what you going in there and he going his base said this is what we want. That's what your wealth man, this man to whatever it takes to get that and that and that's what people respect.

That's what.

So when I look at New York, right and I say, there is there has been nine billion dollars in the police and every other education housing is being cut. You know, I say to myself, that's not what I thought radical change.

Right, I thought.

When we said that we were going to give more resources to the communities, We're gonna give the kids better opportunities, We're gonna have programs. When we're taking away the after school programs and were taking away the early education programs, when we're taking away those things that are needed for our kids to flourish and stay out of prisons. Right, you know, what are we really saying? And so I think that's what it is for me. They say, when you want to know what someone is invested in, see where they spend them.

Without a doubt, without doubt.

This is so important because you have to you have to peel back the distortion and the radical change you were talking about.

That's what we're doing.

Okay, we have We have invested more build more affordable housing in one year than the history of the city. Our young people have been crying for years for summer youth employment. We had put in place one hundred thousand, seveer youth employment more than the history of the city. We put in place something cause some arise at all school long for our young people because there was a real loss after COVID. We put more people in those programs and the history of the city. So the radical change the money that we invested the mwbe's billions of dollars in black and brown own.

Business, they were only get two percent.

We came in and put in place my Chief Diversity Officer of Mike Gardner, and we're putting money back into black and brown business and entrepreneurs with our procurement approachases. So the radical changes are right there. Like even Forcetercare children, we knew our Forceycare children aged out at eighteen, and we knew that they were either homeless, in jail, victim of a crime, mental health issues. We're now allowing our force Tocare children to have life coaches into their twenty one paying that college tuition with the stiphing, and we have the highest number of Forcetercare children that enrolled in college because of what we're doing in the history of the city. There's a whole lot of radical changes coming about, but you're not going to read it if you. All they try to put out is that we saw Eric last night at the club.

But I don't think I don't think for me is reading it.

It's just me being in the community doing the work that I do on the ground. I know that the community centers are closed. I know that the after school programs are closed. I know that those things have been taken up. I literally see that. I know these kids are on the corners that want to be able to go to play basketball, to want to be able to go to the shop class. We want to be able to go to a music program after school, and those those programs have been closed. Because I'm in the schools every day and I'm talking to the teachers and they say, we don't have the budget for those things.

Those things betther day get in that.

Let me let me share this with you because this is why this is so crucial. With the former mayor. Did he put in place a lot of permanent programs using COVID stimulus dollars that sunset it twenty four, some subset it in twenty three, then subset it in twenty four. So what we had to do is he knew that I'm not gonna be here, and I know these dollars are going to sunset. We had to find money to keep those programs going.

We kept three k and pre k.

Although the dollars went away, we kept selling them summarizing. Although the dollars run away, we kept them Midnight on Basketball are going on. We put money back into those programs with a four billion dollar price sagg that came from the micros and the Signum secrets that money. I got to balance my buddy, my budget by the law.

But the money has been cut. The budget has literally been cut. You're telling me that you put more money into it, but the budget has been cut. This is the numbers are saying that the budgets are cut for school, for after school programs, the budget, the money is not there. So when we're having this conversation, I hear what you're saying, but it's not funneling into the hoods that we come from. When you're saying that we're gonna put more police on the grounds, but we're taking away resources that these kids actually need so they don't go to jail, then what are we saying and we investing in were investing in them to go to jail or were trying to stop them from going down? If we don't have the resources to stop from going to I heard you talking about the prisons that you took the programs out of prisons. I'm formally incarcerated. I know how a lot of those programs helped us. I know how to look a lot of those programs kept us out of trouble inside the prison. I know how a lot of those those programs prepared us to come home from prison.

Actually, those programs should be outside.

They should they should morph into programs that we have extend without the programs that were side.

So when we're taking away those.

Programs and you're saying that people are making money or trying to get rich off of the poverty and community, but we're putting more police. Aren't the police making money off of it? If we're putting more police into the train station, were putting more police in our communities. And a lot of these police are not even community based officers. They're not culturally confident to being our communities.

Well go back, go back for our mom, brother, because I think that it's so important. And what you what we should do. You should come in and see what we're doing with my dyc D, you know, because.

Shaping each other's That night, so me and me and me and the men were supposed to have a meeting months ago, probably last year, and it never happened. But you know, I know you're busy going through a lot of snuff.

Busy.

I'm busy on steroids. I'm always over for me because I'm busy on steroid's brother.

Who would have.

Thought when I got in office January twenty twenty two, I was gonna have one hundred thousand people showing up. Imagine having imagine having seventy people come to your house and all of a sudden, say you got to take care of me. You got to take care of my food, my clothing, my medical needs. Man, this was dropped into my lap. And with dropping that into my lap, it came with a four billion dollar price tag.

I get it.

But that's still our young kids are dying and going to jail the higher rate, especially young black So that's what I'm saying, as a black man, that's supposed to be a priority to me. I don't care what position, get life anywhere. This is why I do boycott black murder. This is why I focus on young black males because I understand that we are dropping out of schools at the highest rates, we're dying at the highest rates, and we're being incarcerated at the highest rates. So if we're not if we're not truly focusing on how do we redirect Because if we're saying that we're putting more money into prisons and we got more police officers on the community, and the police officers that come in the community h sometimes agitating because most of them don't come in and stop this.

They got it, got it. But it has to be, it has to be. It has to be multi fascting has to be multi faceted. I like to say, it has to be intervention and prevention.

That's the fact you're aware.

We put more money in our crisis management team with at Mitchell Man s o S. We put more money into that than anyone has had done before going on the ground and meeting these young people where it is and look at the numbers in Brownsville.

No one was able to turn around.

Eight is my brother. So you know, I work with eighteen on a daily basis. But what I'm trying to say, there's no functionable plan for prevention in our community. There's no like shut out, let me let me just I don't want to do you don't shout out to ross state. Barock In the Newark like he has a model for violence that he's a black.

Man and that's.

Ros Baraka.

His dad was Ros Barock also and Ros is my dude and still going through some issues in Newark.

Also all of these citizen but they are.

But I'm trying to say there's an intentional he has funded the community. Like we don't want to say everybody hates to say to defund the police, because that doesn't.

The verbiage doesn't sound right.

But we want to refund the community right because their community. There are community people who if you invest the dollars in the community, then you see the change. And I've been working in Newark with Rodd Jate Barock on those things, so I know what can happen. I just think that when we when you know, there's been a lot of instances, a few instances.

Where you.

Stand by police that I think there should be some level of that's not okay.

So I know I say it by public safety. That's that's the difference between saying it by police and standing by public safety.

You go when you go into our.

Communities when I'm when I do a bunch of town halls in our community, you know, when I speak in my communities, those communities that you're talking about, Harlem and what have you. They tell me their needs. I respond to the needs. It's not what I want to respond to. What are the needs you want in your community? And so when you say that's not a master plan, I think, first we should sit down and look at my plan. Look at what we're doing with forced to care children. Look at what we're doing the summer youth employment. Look at what we're doing. Thirty to forty percent of the inmates at Rykers Island or dyslexic. I have a dyslexic screening. We have to be prevention and not just intervention. And so I think that before we say okay, there's no plan, look at my plan, because you're not gonna learn my plan by hearing what people are saying.

You're gonna learn my plan.

And look at exactly what we're doing some of the simple ass we.

Drop the course of childcare for parents. That's what's we're preventing our mother from going back to work. We dropped it from fifty five dollars a week to less than five dollars of five dollars a week. We're leaning into maternal mobility. No one has focused as this. Black women are dying at a rate that's just proportionate through maternal mobidity. Funding those crises management team and so I don't think there's a full analysis of that. You know our full plan, so we you should sit down with the team and look at them.

I don't know your full plan, but I work with the crisis management people on a daily basis, and I know a lot of them still are underfunded. I know a lot of in a lot of resources they don't have. You know, in a lot of communities they're not even able to fund certain situations. When we look at Rykers Island, over twenty some people have died and whatever the reason is, you know, the police officer, the correction officers are care custody and control.

So that means that somebody failed at.

Something right, And I haven't heard I've never heard the man say, you know what, somebody in there may be responsible.

That's not that's not Let's dig into Rykers for more, because because I love how people talk about right, rykis what happened many years ago, we closed a lot of our psychiatric facilities.

We close all over. There was a big move the advocatests called the close them down.

What's the one that's after You get the creed more creed more than others.

And so what they did they did not give people the services they needed. Seventy of folks on rykis Island have mental health illness. Eighteen percent have severillent mental health illness because they come to the street, they don't get the care, and then they just cycle back into into into Reiki's Island. We're up there having focused group with our inmates and officers because remember eighty percent of the offices are black and brown. Over eighty five percent of the inmates are black and brown. Forty percent of them are women. So they what has happened historically. They just threw black and brown correction offices, black and brown inmates into the facilities and say, listen, you guys fight among each other.

I don't care.

I went up there and we did when my brother father listened, no more program, A real program, not just some zymbolic program where somebody's making fourteen million dollars a year. This brother's up there, and I'm up there with him, sitting down with those young men, talking with those those young men. No matter how busy my day is I'm on Rikers Island because I know I can't have these brothers come out and go back in.

Bill de Blaser didn't go on Rikers Island.

Bloomberg didn't go on Rikers Island. You know, look at where these mayors are.

I'm on the ground with these brothers talking to them, and they're seeing me saying, this mayor is willing to take his time out and go spend time to come and find out what do you brothers need here?

That system was broken for years, brother, and it broke. And that's what I'm trying to say.

And I think for me is that that's why I know you have the ability to do what I'm saying, because you on the ground. You're going there and having those conversations if you know what's going on the right becers.

There are documentaries about right.

I was on Records Islands for seven seven to eight months more I know a bunch of people. Records Island is not run. It's not run with kid custody and control. It's ran like it's ran like a ganghouse, you know what I'm saying. And a lot of the officers are responsible for the officers say that, I will say they're bringing drugs in bringing a lot of the times the officers are gang a gang members. So the reality, these are realities that we're dealing with. So when when when the answer seems to be that we put more officers and we pay more the budget to the police when a lot of them are the problem. You know, I've seen you stay an officer went to arrest somebody. So this is this is what a lot of things that I don't understand. Officers make arrest right. The officer has a responsibility. Officers trained, he's paid, right, he has a responsibility to de escalate if I if I, if I'm an officer and I and I come to arrest a citizen or even engage you to so.

I know they might be right, they might be drinking, they might have mental health.

My job is to try to de escalate the situation right before escalates. If a lady is angry at me and she does something in my hand, I'm not supposed to punch it in the faith right. So what I'm saying is you say, without a doubt you agree, but that exact situation happened, and you said that she wasn't supposed to engage the officer, and he punched.

The lady in the face.

Do you remember that circumstance.

I remember the circumstance. I spoke to the family and a circumstance.

Yeah, okay, there was like a circumstance I don't understand.

So what happened when there was a guy he had drugs on him, He was trying to run, and he was trying to he came out of a building.

He was trying to stash something.

I think you're trying to was the circumstance was God was wanted for murder, had a gun on him. They were arresting him for having a gun on him. The sister went in the middle of the melee as they taken the gun off of him.

That's not what happened, sister, maybe talking.

My different sister was standing there and the officer pushed her. The officer grabbed her and through we may be too much, I remember the same exact situation, all right. And then after he pushed her, she pushed him back and he punched her in the face with a closed fist. Now, regardless of what you're saying that those situations when you engage villions in that manner, then you can't expect them to have any level of respect for thorough.

And that's the point that you're raising, if I'm understanding you correctly, is that if somebody, first of all, there's no one in this room going to sit here and say they didn't have negative event and counsels with police. Let's be let's be clear that I'm not here to listen, I got arrested, I was kicked in my groin as a fifteen year old by a white cop that stood over me.

Kicking my brother and I in the going.

That's why you became right, right, right, So I'm not here to defend the horrific actions of policing.

That's not so.

I don't want all of a sudden walk away with folks saying, okay, you the postal child for what's great about policing. No, I'm not what you What you're saying is that we have to have the right people because you do need police. Don't let's not get out you know what I'm saying. If you if you're telling me you don't need police, that's not what these grandmothers are telling all. Here's what I'm saying to you and This is difficult for a lot of people to understand. I've been mayor two years in four months. Brother, this sis, this city has been fucked up for decades. Brother comes in two years, four months with all of this mess coming down on him, and they all, Okay, brother.

Why are you in the park to see you?

But what what I gotta I have?

When you look at the role of being mayor, sir, you know, being mayor.

Of the most important city on the globe, eight point three million people. Everything from rats to stick up cats, you know, to a broken correction of facility. You said you were in rykers.

It was. It was fucked up when you were there. So why would people.

Think that, Eric, you get in office, You inherited COVID, you heerded the financial mess, You inherited thousands of guns in your streets, inherited a broken riking system for generations. Now you're here for two years and four months. Eric, why don't we see this turnaround on the right?

Come on?

Come on?

Is it a broken political system? Is it bureaucracy? Is it money miss mismanagement? Is it corruption?

All of that? All of that.

So the first thing you have to do, anyone who has who takes over a business, the first thing you have to do is get in there and analyze what the hell do I have here? This stuff was a mess when we got here, So unlike other folks, I went in and brought my own team. I'm the first man in history that you see authentic on the ground black and brown folks running my administration. And we turned this city around in two years. In two years is we turned the city around?

They said.

Everybody said's gonna take five years. So I know we're not where we all we ought to be. Brother, I'm with that. We're not where we ought to be, but we're moving where we ought to be. When you do an analysis what I have been doing for black and brown people in the city, from procurement billions of dollars into my nonprofits, investing in our in our children, managing the financial crises that we had. No one thought we can do this with taking you took four billion dollars out of your budget, not four million, four billion dollars out of your budget, and still had.

To manage the manage this this this city.

And so I know the mess that I inherited, and I know we're not there where we ought to be.

But you know what I do know, I know my heart. I know my heart.

The city abandoned and betrayed my mother, raised the six children, robbed my sister of her childhood because Mom had to do those three goddamn jobs and sign you had to stay home and take us.

So I'm from what I saw growing up.

And so my fight against police brutality, it did not come because I saw when I was a cop. It came because I know what they did to us, my brother. Still, it's not okay over this. But I just and I hear you.

I just don't hear that stated when the situation's happened. Man, I just don't hear when they are direct situations. A young boy what's his name? When who was just killed two weeks ago, I haven't. I haven't heard that level of understanding that a mentally ill person who calls for somebody to come help him is killed in his home.

I just don't. I haven't heard that.

I heard you speak about when something happened to the police officer and you went to the proved funeral, and you said that you still had to stand by fan and you should. But I think that mother who lost her child should have the same enthusiasm. Should have you seen that. I'm sorry for what happened to your child. I'm sorry that your child lost his life because that went mental.

And I agree, but I don't see it. But I shouldn't have no, no, no, no, no no. I said you should call I said, I called the mother. Okay, I called the mother. I called the pastor and said, when you when she's ready to see me, I would like to come and see her.

But when you're the mayor of.

This, why would you not publicly state that? Because I did, I never heard it.

You never could hear anything good, I say, brother, because the people, the people who are writing my see people like that.

That's why it's called history.

My story is not being told, brother, you know because based on what they want to pay me on. Because this is the same game they did with thinkings. They want to create the image to rolle my base. I didn't get elected by them, and so they said, let's keep eroding his base and have his base turned against him.

Go back and look at they did with thinkings.

Brother. That's why I'm trying to tell you.

I'm so aware and if I wasn't seeing these things and I don't listen to half the things the news say. You know what I'm saying, I have like you know, I'm tuned in with the people when there inside your So I'm coming at you as a black man that wants to see you be successful. But I think in order for us, for me, because I'm in these communities trying to taking guns out of these kids' hands every day, I'm in the communities telling them that they need to change their ways. And when there's a posture taken that the police can do whatever they want in the communities, when they see what they believe that's what's being seen by the top cop in the city, and watching officers just do what they want, then it becomes this like, well, fuck, that's me against them because they become a gang. The police inside New York City have become a gang. There are certain pockets of police that have gang mentality and activities.

So if we understand that and my job is in my job.

Is because I'm trying to save these babies' lives and keep them on the streets and redirect them, then we have to be intentional like me, and you have to we have to sit down and show.

That we intend. That's what I said that roswel Rock is doing. He has the.

Police, he sits down and shows them this is how we're gonna do this. Police are not gonna respond to every situation. We got mental health officers that go. If the mental health officer had went, Win would still be alive, right if community based organizations had went when he called and an officer said, look, I'm not really trained to do that, that's not really my fullte Let me send out some mental health officers.

Let me call the community.

Based organizations to go over there and see what they can do, because I'm gonna take a pair of scissors out of a young boy's arms before I'm gonna.

Try to kill them.

But I don't disagree with you, but I think that that's why it's so important to dig into these cases. The case was not a mental health job. And I can't go into the details of these cases because now it's in a legal arena. But in the real urural of policing, you have to create that, and we have created that. We have created to have mental health professionals go when those jobs come over.

We created that because that's the combination that you need.

You don't need just sometimes the police can aggravate someone sees that uniform, They can aggravate it in a real way. But if I were to come to you've been You've been doing this for a while, and you gotta and you gotta. You have an authentic, good approach to what you're doing in Harlem. And I remember we were rapping about after somebody was shot in the community. But if I were to come to you and say that with all the work you have been doing, they're still shooting is in Harlem and it's your fault.

That makes no sense.

You out there, you're on the ground ground, committed your life to this world, and you're doing more than enough. So when we look at what is happening in cities, what's going on with Chicago. We see what my brother Johnson is going through in Chicago, what's happening in Los Angeles. When we look at these black mayors that inherited these systems that were destructive, and all of a sudden they say, listen, man, you guys have been there for two years. This is why you gotta fix it now. That's like me is going to you and say, brother, you've been doing this work for some years. While we not have any more homicide in Harlem, that's not what we should be doing it each other. We should be coming together and say, it's this person authentic about this work. There's never been a mayor in this city that's been more authentic about this work the way I am, and the results are there when you sit down and look, I have my team. The other day, say listen, we gotta put together a wins list because people don't know how we have changed this game. People gonna look back later and they're gonna say, we can't believe his brother did this. You know, but they have played us to the point that, you know what, we're gonna keep. There's a mission in the city. This cat never could be made again. He can't be reelected.

You know who.

We think He's coming in and gonna now take these billions of dollars that we've been eating off for years. Because I'm not fighting against the people who running against me, brother, I'm fighting against the people who have been eaten off of us for years. Poverty is profitable. People have been hustling us. If you don't give a young person this lex your screening, he ends up in Rykers Island and you got all these programs in Rikers Island, and then do analysis who are running these programs. They don't look like us, they don't they people have, people have played us.

Man was so.

Long, and I think that's what the issue is for me. You understand that poverty is violence. Yes, right, we understand that we don't give these kids every opportunity.

I remember, you.

Know, before I got incarcerated, the reason why I didn't go to jails because I had to have the school programs. I went and played basketball and we went on these trips. And these kids don't have that. They literally, they literally do not. I'm just I'm telling you they don't. I work in schools I have, I'm creating curriculums, I'm creating after schools with it are none of those things.

So I know what I have to.

I want you to come see what I'm dealing with. I'm dealing with this on a daily basis. Like there should be way more community centers, you know, like the brother At has in Brooklyn, those type of centers.

It should be completely sentenced to.

It's my analysis to that, and I want to I want to make a point in a minute also about you know what wet me a drake man.

You gotta come in.

This is black, this is a blacks and I respect and I know that's hard, is in the right place, but I it's just I need you to you to say this is what I said. My problem with the Democratic Party. You don't say it with your chest because they saying it with they chest. Governor ever is saying I'm gonna send all of these over there, and I don't give a fuck what y'all say. Trump says I'm gonna do this because that's when my base went. And I don't give a fuck with your saying. Y'all trying to let me let me, let me say what ain't gonna me.

I'm the most simplistic person here. I'm dyslexic to the fullest. I see cat, I see car like, I love oh ships like make it, make sense of it, that's right, right, So I look at things in the most simplistic form. I don't like buying because he doesn't wear a present than.

To Rolex, how do you president? And you gotta fucking dangerous? What doesn't make sense? You President?

I'm simplessed the thing about Trump, and I'm gonna say something right, He plays on that to us. He went to Chick fil A. Now, anybody that's gotten, if you've got a little bit of black and you you know, Chicken fil A, that's like got our heart, like even though that's why they close on a Sunday because they know that's where we want to go at the church.

He went to a fucking Chick fil A. And I'm looking. I'm sorry.

I look at Biden and I'm like, damn, I ain't see him at Bory Rogers.

The church's tried. He go to Charlie's in Harlem Man. He ain't go to the Juice one ross like he don't have a he don't have a hipp And you're right, but see, but see what you're saying.

Two things to to observation too, observation to observation that I think is important.

Number One, we're having the same we're having the same conversation that we had on the breakfast club.

But you're seeing we're compensating. That's right.

His mission wasn't you know what. I just want to come in and just be disruptive. I want to talk over you. I want to just listen. People know black folks know how to dislike each other. But let's show how we love each other.

You know what I'm saying, and so what what you're doing.

It's like, listen, I disagree, but I'm gonna hear you. Then I'm gonna hear you. That's what I'm saying, because nothing people like more. Then you know what, We're gonna always show that they can't get along, but showing how we get along. Then the brothers on the street are going to say, here's a brother that's on the street.

He's a man of the.

City of New York. They sitting in the same room and they learning from each other.

That's the key, because I don't know whatever, we need to listen.

This is the most beautifult thing about this.

You got some tequila.

Okay, I'm gonna be honest. Hold on, hold on, because to get serious, you.

Hear us say something good though this. I always judge people by what they drink. Steven A.

Smith came in here drinking Hennessy and Coke Colon.

I knew I was going to knew his love. He's the leaders. Money is success. He's still way sorry. I can't tell you.

What I'm saying is because because the mission and the goal is for us to win. That's you know what I'm saying. I'm not here, You're not my adversary. Not see a black man in position. I want to see him win, you know. And so when I'm when I'm looking, I'm not just looking from my lens, I'm looking at Okay, what are they seeing? What is the community seeing? How are they able to play us against each other? How they able to get your base to go against you or to start saying he's not doing this and this is a strategy they've always used against right, Right, So when I'm seeing it and I'm having a conversation with you, I'm giving you the perspective from somebody that's from the outside looking and saying, if you really which I really believe that you want to change, that you want to be, you know that have that radical change, then you have to be very intentional, right because a lot of people, you know the news and sound bites, they gonna sound bite you to death. So what you have to do is be intentional about saying and doing certain things and being able to say this is what it is like I've been It's crazy to me that every time I'm in close proximity to you, I hear the message that I want to hear. When we did the one hundred Black Men's meeting you're speaking, I was like, that's what I want to hear.

Why I can't get that no else? Right? And so I don't know.

Everybody sees all politicians, you say, say what they what you want to hear, but then it doesn't so.

That's what they say.

So I don't know if it's intentional, which I do know is intentional for most some some venues and avenues and narrators that they're trying to paint. But I also know that somehow Trump's message gets to everybody, right, the people that he don't like and the people he do like.

His fan base is always.

Going to say Trump said exactly what the fuck we wanted to hear.

So I think that.

We have to be intentional about that, you know, like that we have to be intentional about saying, Look, I understand who my base is, I understand what I'm trying to do, and I normally get a little pushback here and there from the other people.

That don't exactly agree.

But I have to be intentioned on saying, look, these communities, these black communities, we have to start funding these communities more. We have to make sure we got to go and talk to Raheem and James on the corner and see exactly what it is. We got resources, my little nigg right resources and because for me to take guns out their hands when there's no.

Resourced percent and and when I'm what I am saying, which is interested in is that when you're do an analysis, exactly what you're saying we should be doing is what we are doing.

We have shifted.

The the whole funding stream to those who are in need. And that's what you were talking about. That's what I was explaining on the Breakfast Club. You have these organizations that were going to rikers, providing services, getting paid, but no one was in them. And so what I what I said to them, show me Now we're bringing some new cats in.

That's gonna have folks like an a team mitche.

Yeah, we'll run out a bunch of programs. I worked with at I worked with and I've been I've been on Rightkers Island. We had a we had good programs that they stopped funding and it was just like, why would you stop funding? I worked with the bartenders with you know where we went into.

Giant and good style, and.

These were we was Bobby's murder was in there, and we was going to his house every day and and working with his mind, and he and he came home and instead.

You could you could first of all, you don't have to do time. You could do something with the time. There's no reason. What I'm saying is instead of having them sit down, we got a whole green economy that we're rolling out. I should be treating, no teaching those brothers right now how to do battery installation, how to install solar panel. If the cats get that real job skill, then they come home and they don't have to go back, go back to that life. You know what's deep when I sit down with my with you know, with those who I talk on the regular, that's involved, that's out there hustling and slinging. I said, how many you I DYSLEXI, how many have a learning disability? It's overwhelming. Brother, those brothers were no different than me. Laughed at bullied out. Throw now and say why am I sitting in here? You know I'm not learning? And that's what we have to go down to the foundation of this. And brother, I'm telling you when you do an analysis of what we have been doing, you're gonna walk away with.

Saying this is an authentic cat.

But I want to be able to do that analysis, and I want to be able to sit down and see that and be able to go outside and say that right because I want to because I want to be armed with the.

Facts to be able to say no that what you're saying is, well, you know what Kanye said when he was on here.

He said a while said, but this is this is something that was very very deep. He said, he went to visit a prison and he all he saw was the wrong made decisions of Riza. Like he said, he seen a person that could have been but he made one decision. He said, he met like the Nazis, the the Drakes, the Jacobles or whoever. He was, like, yo, he was meeting him. He was like, this was the same person with one bad decision. So what you're talking about, like almost, that's.

Exactly what we need and we need and we need.

What we need is like when I when I when when when when I ran.

My brother and I got her rest. You know, we had these fake goal changes.

We used to go down the canal street and sell these fake goal change to tourists and this was one of them. And and and and my counselor. I'll never forget, man. We had to go over to forty Projects to see this counselor and we walked in and after she did our first session, she told my brother, listen, I want you to come back next week.

And she says, Eric, you don't have to bother coming back.

In her mind, you know, you're just so fucked up, man, this is a waste of my time sitting.

Here talking to you.

And she was like, you know, don't even bother coming back.

And I remember walking down the block down Guy or brew A Boulevard.

It was cool.

Yeah, yeah, it was called New York Boulevard at the time. I was walking down the block and I was like, you know, like, what's what, what's that's all about? And so think Pedro, who was who arrested, who had to speak with me to get us out. He showed me that gold chain and he was like, I best I could get you to buy this gold chain.

I was like, man, what fuck.

You talking about? The shit to say?

And he pulled out this book called State of Black America, The Urban League.

I think used to put it out at the time.

It showed how many, how many by the time you get eighteen, how many people, how many black youth would be arrested? I was arrested. How many will have children? My young girlfriend already aborted a child. How many will be dropping out of school? So all that stuff that they said, they predicted that was gonna happen to us. I was like, right in there, so someone else defined my life, and I pissed me the hell off, man, you know. And that was like the turning point for me that I said, you know what I'm not. This is not the life I'm going to have someone predict for me. And so we need you and me. Is what the rest is for us, not only in New York right right, because what we're going through in New York, go look at Chicago, Go look at Los Angeles, Go look at San Francisco, you know, go go look at Miami. The record that was in the sixties, brother's going to work it out. We gotta nobody's gonna do this for us. We're catching hell across the globe black man universally, it's catching hell across the glow. When I'm on to count North Africa. Me and my brother's over there, same type of exploitation. No matter where we are, black men are catching hell across the globe.

We gotta do this.

We gotta sit down together and say, okay, here's Eric where I think you.

Can prove on his whatnot.

And then we got to push back on the street. When people are talking about madness on the street. You know they did it to Dinkers. And who do we get Julianne.

Oh no, we don't like Juliane. You know what I'm saying.

We gotta push back because people are heard, people are hurting on the street.

And when you're hurting on the street, you even look at those who.

Are giving you that life wrap and taking you to the next level, you beginning to even despise, despise them. There's never been a mayor like me, brother in the city. Never been a mayor like me. There's never been a mayor that will go when that barbershop closes on Fulton Street at one am in the morning to sit down with them and say, what's going on in the ground.

How do we have drug dealers?

A burger king right right right? That's that's the important story. Let me tell you about that that Burke was right right here.

We here we are.

I pick up the paper and I read the paper and they say that, you know what, drug dealers are hanging out in front of Burger King And we were Borrow in Manhattan, Row, Manhattan, right by Wall Street. I call up the commanding office over there and I said, what's going on over there?

You know?

And he says, Eric, these are not drug dealers.

These are homeless guys and they just, you know, they feeling is just a place they can go. Sunday after church service. I go down there and I meet them. I said, brother, that's how y'all do it? You know, I just want to know what's going on and how could I help you. We sat down inside the Burger King and had a conversation and these are intelligent brothers, man, that just they just went through some hard times and we then provided services, pathways with.

Them, things that they were able to get.

But they did.

Not know how to navigate this system.

And that's what I'm saying, that those can be isolated situations and not brother, those are you big that you know what I'm saying. I'm saying, but that has to be those type of resources have to be available in all communities, yes, right, because there are a lot of people just outside that don't know where to go. They don't definitely, and it's not really there's nothing that says, hey, you could go here to get a job, you can learn this, you can do this. There's nothing that we have in our communities that do a lot of these kids don't want to be outside without a job. They don't want to down the streets like hustling. Ain't even really making no money no more. Yes, they listen, but they don't want to Nobody on the streets is really dead.

They want to be they want to go home. So we have to be able to provide that.

And this is out with this out. We're doing it because you're right.

When when when I'm out sitting this side, because my best ideas come from clothes, beauty salons and barbershops. At the end of the night, when I'm working on with right, you know, I'm in. I go in the back after we sit down and we chat. What brothers were saying to me is what you say, I don't even know the starting point of trying to find a job. I don't even know, like how do I begin, you know, like, what is this thing about resume?

What is all that?

So what we did we created something called hiring halls. With Henry Garrito, the head of the d C thirty seventh, we said, why do why do why do folks have to come to us? Why aren't we going to them? We now go into the community, bring all the jobs out are available, and we have people come in and we walked them through the process and you see, you got like eight hundred right, it's even better than the job there because we're finding out everything that you need, like what's going on with exactly you know? And because you're right, we would The old model was if you don't come down.

And feel like this job application.

I was like asking people, like, you know, y're paying all these recruiters, why aren't they people coming in? So we had to go to folks. Man, you got to meet people where they are. You can't meet people where you are, you know, you got to meet people where they are. And so I went down to the job fair that was in HALLMN the other day and there was about a bunch of brothers standing outside talking and they were afraid to walk inside the building. I'm telling you black men are beat down so much. Brother, They were so afraid to walk inside the building. So when I was going back to my car, I caught them in in the corner of my eye and I told my crew, so hold on for one moment, and I went over to to talk to the brothers. I said, you know what's happening. They said, well, we you know, we we you know, we know they're doing jobs in there. But I don't think we could go in. I've had some problem in my life. I said, no, it's not. Man, come on, we walking here together. You're gonna walk in with me and folks gonna give you the services that that you want. I gotta be substantive, but I gotta be symbolic. People need to believe again. They no longer believe, you know, they need to believe this. This ball headed, air ring wearing dyslexic arrested, rejected.

He's now elected to be all mayor.

Man.

I mean that means the man God is good man.

That's the hardest job. I'mna be honest.

But but but if I do it right, it elevates us. It elevates us. If I do this right, it elevates us because nobody thought. Listen, God could have made me the mayor have some small town somewhere. He made me the mayor of the most important city on the globe.

Country.

You know, there's a country smaller than you.

Aut like you doing this show man, you know your life you're talking about not only not only are you mentally sound, but you you talk health, You take care of your body.

You you you're on the street, you're articulating issue.

You doing this show here, Listen, all of us are gonna stumble.

You can't be a black man and not stumbled in America.

You know.

But if we come together and and and and show how Because as you said, Democrat is trying to be so politically correct. They're trying to say everything right. You know that nobody believes in them anymore, and we need to just be authentic.

Take the partisan out of it.

I think that's a problem as well, because that's almost that's gay, that's a bloods and crips, you know what I'm saying mentality as well, Like we just all need to work for the parties of the politicians, to work for the people, all people, not whether it's blue or red or whatever.

I think it's hard.

I think what you're saying is more more theoretical than actual, because you got to get a base in order for everybody has to have their base of people to get fundamentally exactly fundamental. So what I'm saying is appeal to the people.

You know what I'm saying.

A long as you appeal to the people, I don't care what color you because I'm I don't care about the partisan ship.

No more like that shit is old for me. I'm not saying that.

Listen, if you talking about the issues, if you are ready to promise me and guarantee that you're going to do everything possible to address the issues and the needs of the communities that I come from directly, then that's the person for me. Other than that, then I don't see I don't see the need for that.

I'm gonna change the subject of lighten it up a little.

That first of all, brother, what the message of the success must get to the people. That's right, we have some good stuff and when people do when people my son said the other day, or we were talking about this, the biggest thing that my team here, I didn't know that people don't know how much we're doing and that's a coordinative effort of not getting that down.

And so we need to sit down with you and.

Others and figure out how do we know people the accessibility like our hiring halls. We need to get on the street because I'm out handing our pamphlets to people. I'm walking through Nicha, walking through the community. But if they're better, better methods like this that you say, Eric, here, look, this is a good method.

So we could get this down. We can walk the streets together.

That's to me and I wanted to have with you because because murder, for me is everything else is incentive used, publicized and marketing like murder to our community as who's marketing the positivity, who's showing the quote unquote real gangsters that's stopping the violence in the Community's showing the people that's putting us on the right path. Right, So if we do, if we don't put the same amount of money that they or not, because we know that they're gonna put way more money. But if we don't, we don't got billboards showing the leaders in our community that's doing this, and we ain't on the radio stations showing leaders that's doing positive.

But we ain't got the leaders in.

Our communities doing positive stuff at Summer Jam and all of those those places, then our kids gonna think the only way to win is to do negative doing some drill ship.

D's know. That's what it's about. We got to market more, light up the situation a little bit.

But this is like conversation.

And look, let me tell yourself that matth I enjoy so much to be able to and and and and just be among us us and have real conversations. You know what I'm saying, Bill Deblosio would not have flown in Miami and sit here and you.

Know, having a drink. It's just junking.

This is this is an oppertunity we need to capitalize on.

You know what I'm saying.

We be able to have real, authentic talk with each other. So this is this is what we're doing the barbershops.

Man, it's beautiful. So we and drink chance. We have a famous story. Yes, our director, his name is Rosta from the Caribbe. My friend Sunny D came to his room one night. He's a vegan. He came to his room one night. He caught it with a shrimp pizza.

Listen listen, you're not wrong. We heard you be fifth feet if street.

I forgive you my brother because I fish tree sandwich. He had some type of ship.

You know what I'm.

So when they said they caught the mail with a fish salence and said you gotta forgive them, depended on what.

Do we forgive Roster for having a strip?

You know, first of all, it's not what he does. It's not what he does but a day. It's what he does every day, every day. Let me tell you something.

I woke up. I don't know what year that was. DJ I woke up.

I couldn't see the alarm clock and uh, I thought it was sleeping my eyes. I kept blinking it. It wouldn't go away. Uh. I decide, you know, black man, man, you got a dragons to the doctor. I was having a pain in my stomach. I thought it was I had colon cancer because it wouldn't move. It wasn't like gas moving around. I said, let me get my ass to the doctor. I get to the doctor. He does a he checks my colon, checked my stomach. I came out of sedation. He says, Eric, you have an altar, he said, but your real issues, your diabetes. You're gonna lose your sight in the year damn. And he says, you're gonna lose My fingers and toes were tingling all the time. He said, you know that's permanent nerve damage. You're gonna lose some fingers and toes. And he says that you know, it's not much you could we could do. And I went, that's how it was. You Then it was about six seven years ago, well six seven years ago, and I decided, Man, I went home, you know, God is you know the ancestors speak to us. And they gave me these pamphlets said living with diabetes. I had advanced stage diabetes. Your A one C should be five point six eight is you know COMA level. I was thirteen, you know, and the doctor told me that.

I went on.

They gave me these pamphlets and said living with diabetes, and I changed one word, one word reversing diabetes instead of living with diabetes. I said, I typed in reversing diabetes Google. All this stuff came up, and that's how I got on this journey. Your plant based it came up to show you know, it's not our DNA, man, it's our dinner man, we don't. You don't inherit these diseases because your parents had it.

You inherit these diseases because the same ship a seat, you know, like everybody on the blockhead does, because you love.

I loved so when I go back to my brother. And so it's not about being perfect. This is about saying, wait a minute, you know what, let me just monify some stuff. Let me make sure I eat at least, let me get a nice salad in at least, let me make sure I get that water.

At least.

I'm not gonna eat steak every night.

You know.

It's about let me modify my stuff based on what health issue I'm going through.

And that's that modification. I went plant based.

Three weeks later my vision came back, you know, six seven months later, all the nerve damage went away. I don't even when elsa. I don't even feel the ulsa anymore, no medicine, you know. So you know, if I feel like, you know what, I want a pizza with shrimps on it, you damn night, I'm gonna eat.

It all right, listen, but listen also a yeah a while too. You know he's a prescantarier, right, there.

With the glasses.

But I've also heard that one night they ate ham one pizza.

You told me.

You around and said he went back, he went back, and you apposted you to like, hey man, be holding down.

I'm just saying I'm doing it out there. That it's a lot of y'all you got. We have some flowers. We got some flowers.

Listen.

Our show was about giving people the flowers. I have never I am born and raised from New York City. I if you take me right now. You told me in Los Angeles, you told me in anywhere else and say that this is where you're gonna be born from, I'm going to refuse it. I mean anywhere, not just because I said little and you laughed, and I know how this ship goes.

Over there. My dad me, I'm born and raised from New York City.

Uh.

John Singleton was my friend before you know, passed away. And I sat down with John Singleton and I said, Yo, can you put me in snowfall? He looked at me and said you will never be in snowfall? And I said, damn, Like I thought we were friends. Like he's like your New York accents makes you limited to wherever you go, and I was like fuck, And I didn't know that at the time. He kept it real with me, and I was just like, fuck, it doesn't matter if I moved to Saudi Arabia, to Dubai to Monico. I keep flustering, rightbut because speaking, you know what, they're going to tell me. You're a New York person. And I will die being an New York person. And I will live my life, loving life knowing I'm a New York person. A jog and people see me and they look at me and they say, you're from New York because the way I job is from New York, the way I walk around in the barbershop, they know I'm from New York. The way I motherfucking tied my sneakers. They know I'm from New York. And I would be with miss what something on me?

As something? My haircut? Yeah, my haircut is from New York.

My dog.

Twenty five years Listen, listen. I was one of the ball community and I left the ball community. They don't like it. As me and looking at all these ball motherfucker they don't like it. They don't like it.

They're like, yo, wait a minute. And then and they didn't even realize I wasn't ball.

I just liked my head low. My wife made me grow my air.

She's over there.

It's very true.

But sir, but sir, you are not only mayor of the most important city.

You are mayor of the city.

When they defied any city in the world, they defied based upon New York. And we would be remorse to not give you. Miss Listen, I'm a dyslexic. Okay, Flowers, And yes, yes, yes, it's better than the Grammy because it's come for and you know we invited my my son is our brother. He and listen, Boycott murder is one of the greatest things I can ever see. So you know, we have never gave a guest host Flowers, but we want to give my song his.

And this whole thing is about us coming together, you know.

And if and you, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna let you be an honorary New Yorker tonight. Let me be an honorary Miamian every night.

I'm gonna let you be.

An honorary New Yorker this night, even though you should, we want your time. Come on, look look at my song being you know, you got some great man.

We wanted you to talk. But let me just tell you something.

I think the dialogue, what we've been speaking about is making our city greater. And being from the Bronx, being from Brooklyn, moving to Queens, me being you know, from Queens with a lot of relations to the Bronx, none of them. I feel like the Bronx is coming up now man and everything now jee daniss yo, I'm like, I can get a cheese.

Dat we got is real.

We gotta be careful that it doesn't come up and we lose the people who were there.

The gentrification, right, we talked aboutification, Yes, yes, we got You don't get gentification is good sometimes I do.

No, No, it's what Diversity is good. Displacement is not, you know. And so there, folks, the Bronx we got, we got it wrong in other boroughs. We got to get it right in the Bronx and other process. It's South to make a Queens shops, to make a Queens there's a lot of building going on there.

Yeah, I'm gonna be honest. I'm being honest indual for one second. I went to Brooklyn in the nineties and I'll go to soho house in Brooklyn, I get a little better.

I like the people that live there in Brooklyn before talking about people in Fort Green.

I can't relate to the people that was already in Williamsburg that I didn't know prior to that anyway, So is that a difference, because I mean, I don't know. Did that sound a little crazy?

No?

No, no, no, you know what I'm saying. Is I related to the people in Fort Green.

I related to the people in a farragant, but I didn't relate to the people that was across from there that they digied as well, right right, right?

So no, So here's the movement. This is what we're doing when we're building now.

Is that you if you are like we did a project Willi's point, you know, we're changing Willi's point. We're building twenty five hundred units of affordable housing, one hundred percent of affordable housing, union jobs, a new school of open space. You remember how Willis's point was, you know, for all those years. So as we're building now, we're said, listen, we got to make sure that people who are building can afford to stay in the city, you know, because we were imaging black and brown people from the city of New York. We're saying, listen, folks got to stay in the city so it could be you could develop without displacing.

I want to say one question. The young kids in Colombia, Columbia Columbia College right now, bring up they've actually been protesting against the war in Gaza, and I seem like one hundred and eight of them were arrested in right, Like, do we think that's okay that the kids are being arrested?

You know, I don't think where is where this whole issue we can't for people want to forget what happened October seventh was real and a lot of people I think with the big mistake that people are not doing is showing what really happened there. We're reading about it, that's one thing, but if you see the actual what happened there to innocent people. Those are people who had a that was a peace concert that was saying we want to fight to tear down the wall so the Palestinians and Israelis can give together. I mean, to go there and cut off someone's breasts and use it as a football to rape and to I mean, I mean, it was so inhumane when you look at a documentary they didn't even want to show people because of.

I want to just give a little pushback. There has never been any confirmed rapes. I know that the murders have happened, but there has not been any yet confirmed rape. So I'm just saying that right there, there's never been any footage or any documentation of that.

Even let me just finish.

Even if President stepped back and said, I haven't actually seen these things and I'm talking all right, So he said that, So for what I'm saying, we're at the stage now where almost forty thousand people have been so that's pretty much that's called collective punishment, right, and the majority of them are babies and women.

Right.

So if we having a conversation because I've heard you say that, I heard you somebody say, hey, you want to end the genesis of this that you said give back the hostages, and I thought that was I didn't think that was the statement to make, knowing that you have constituents who are Palestinians, right, you have constituents.

Disagree, but didn't look at the history view. Let's let's view a person from their totality. Two thousand and one nine eleven happens. They started rounding up young Muslims and Palestinians. I went to Palestinians, Muslims and others and say this is wrong what they doing to these young men. I went to thirty first Street and Third Avenue and had a press conference. I couldn't get one Muslim to.

Stand with me.

I was by myself women with being attacked for wearing he jobs in the city. I rounded up and say we need to stop these women from being attacked. I went to march with them to do so. I couldn't get Muslim leaders to march with me to do so. At the largest protest, when Donald Trump said the Muslim band at brooklyn Borough Hall with the Jiminese community to push you back against it, these Muslims leaders say, listen, y'all can say which I want. This guy has been with us since two thousand and one. I'm consistent across across the board. When people things happen to people, I'm going to speak out against it. It's not about anti Palestinian pro but I.

Just don't I think the Palestinian community doesn't believe that you you speak up or against to collective punishment and murder of baby and children in Palestine right now.

Because I disagree with you. I've heard you.

I heard you Vietmaly say what happened on October seventh was an issue. I heard you say for sending home to hostages, but I have yet to hear you say, hey, we need to stop this war.

These kids are being killed senselessly, these women are being killed.

I'm more than ones brother that no, no, no child should be dying because of the action as a man.

But let's be let's be consistent about this right now.

And Yemen, Muslims are killing babies against each other. And Yemen, and I've been calling for years we need to stop this wall Yemen and Lebanon, husband Lah is bombing and killing innocent people in Husbilan in Nigeria, a group of Muslim terrorists kidnapped over one hundred black girls, took them from their families, and I stood up at Borough Hall and said, listen, we shouldn't be doing this to these girls. So we can't all of a sudden find this energy to talk about one act. I'm saying globally, we should not be doing this. And so I haven't heard these groups who are now running on the streets. Now we're with them. When those Nigerian girls were kidnapped, they weren't.

Staying with me.

Well, a lot of them probably didn't know, like a lot of there's a lot of information, Like I didn't even know what's going on in Congo too recently, right as a black man. So when you start realizing what's going on in the Congo and you start realizing what happened in Haiti, all of these things, then you're focused on them. But I'm just saying right now, when we when we're looking at videos of babies just being blown up, playing games, playing hopscotch right like this, these are things that literally happen. This is not like something we think of. So I think just the humane part of us to say, hey, that needs to stop.

And Bro said that more than ones and stop. The fastest way to stop that Hamas is a terrorist. Or if you were in Israel when they did that, brother, they would have killed.

You, And I understand that.

But my thing is this, if they would have killed me, it doesn't that has nothing to do with those babies and a woman. So that's what I'm trying to say. Okay, So that's the issue that everybody's having. No one is denying what happened on.

October seventh was a horrific situation.

No one in the world is going to say anything else except for the people who probably did it.

But everyone else is saying.

At this point, almost forty thousand people, mainly women and children, are dying that if the humanity and our leaders can't say, Okay, we need to stop this. If you're trying to get Hamas and you need to figure out a strategy that you go in and get the people who did what they're supposed to do, but killing babies and women every day, it's just not It.

Would only perpetuate it for situation. And I don't I don't listen. I don't disagree with you.

But but first of all, I'm very delicate about using the term everybody, because there's no such thing as everybody. There is everybody, there's not a monolithic view on everything.

I agree with that, you know.

So you know, you had a group of people that was on the training of the day chanting Harmas is our hero, Harmas is our hero.

In New York City, New York City. That's a terrible thing. But you don't you don't see how that's being created. No, you don't see how the narrative is being created, right, because what happens is it's like anything else when you start seeing people or get something these people are it's meant is a mental illness.

At some point, I agree that was a mental illness, and I agree.

This is this is how what what was happening right now is this isuation is creating terrorists, people that didn't know anything. I'm watching. There's levels of anger that people are like damn on both sides. Basic we as as leadership, right, well, we have to be able to say is like this ship needs to stop.

And we don't disagree. Brother, everyone everyone right. And I've been I think everyone and listened. I've been in Palestine. I sat down with Palistine and leaders. I've been in Israel. I sat down with Israeli elitist And if we believe this battle that has been going on, I mean since the days of Solomon and Gomarra, you know, if we believe the mayor of the City of New York is going to resolve that. Yeah, So I'm saying no innocent child should die. But I'm also not in support of someone the the First of all, hostages who have been released talked about being raped. But if something like that happens on October seventh and people are on the street cheering and celebrating on October.

Eighth, that's in humane. It isn't human. That's in humane.

That's you can talk about your battle of free and Palestine and Gaza without looking at someone that's in the pain of devastation in the morning and celebrate that. That's that's not healthy. And that is what I denounced. I denounced innocent children dying.

And there's a.

Record from my entire life of talking about what's playing out across the globe.

Doesn't it doesn't come across that way. When somebody says the innocent kish and dying, you say free to hostages.

That wasn't That wasn't That was my I'm very consistent. There's one thing people people can say.

That's a video that I've seen online that God was like, stop the genesize stuff, and you walked up to him and said free to hostages and walked off.

Right they listen. I'm very consistent in my message.

I said on October seventh, destroy Hermas and free the hostages.

I said on October thirtieth, January February. I'm the same.

I'm the same. Now, one can say, Wellever, I don't agree with you. You have that right my post.

I don't. It's not that I don't. I don't talk about you, and I don't agree with that statement.

When someone is saying stop genisized, stop killing innocent baby this and your response to that is free to hostages, You're you're making it seem that is justified. As long as the hostages are there, we can kill as many people possible as long as you have hostage. That's not what I'm saying, but that's what it said. First, you say, first of all, make that.

If someone if someone, if someone takes a clip and they omit what they've been saying, No.

They didn't omit. It was a full clip. There wasn't there wasn't no sound.

First of all, the people are saying, we want you to say this specifically, but they're doing that to every day, doing it on both sides though. That's not and that's why I don't play that. Okay, So listen, First of all, this is I'm a big believer, and when I think this would answer it altogether, I was angry as hell when I couldn't get Muslim leaders to stand with me in two thousand and one when these young men were being rounded up. I was angry when I couldn't get them to stand with me. When women were being attacked for wearing the he job. I was angry over and over again. But I said to myself in my time of reflection, Eric, you don't have the right to judge people.

God judges.

Anyone that's in that street right now that think they're going to judge me, then they don't believe in the religion they say they believe in my anger?

Can I judge you? God judges, I don't judge you. I got to live my life.

And so if people saying whatever, do you just say this sentence the way you want, that's your problem.

That's not my problem. I'm judged by God.

I just say that you have constituents, brother Helstonians and Muslim I do.

And I think that the same way.

You've been very vocal, because I've heard you very vocal say what happened on October seventh. I've heard you seen you in situations denouncing those situations all the time, and I've never heard you be vocal about the else and that babies and kids who dying.

That's not true. I just haven't seen it right now.

Keep in mind, Palestinian, the loudest is not the majority. Palestinian leaders support me, Muslims leaders support me, Ayrabs support me. So just because the loudest is saying something that's not the majority and so booing to me, yelling at me, cursing at me, I just told you have to beginning of this program, I walked in the classroom and I was yelled boo, tease, Listen.

Is that all they got?

You know, you gotta come to me more than calling me names and booing me and calling me this and that. I'm gonna live my life based on the principles that I've always had. I believe I'm authentic and I'm going to live my life the way my mother wanted.

Me to live, and not everybody's gonna agree with that. You think everybody agree with you?

No, like you said, I'm fine with it, and I staying ten toes down to anything I said, low with it.

So why would I be like you?

You should?

But I'm always going to ask a question, especially right when something goes against my moral compass, and I feel like it's not okay, like as a human being, and certain things that I'm okay, I was, I wasn't okay what happened on October seventh. I don't condone any of that, right, but just watch constantly, watching babies and kids die every day. It's just not okay with me, and I think that everyone. It shouldn't be okay with everyone. And I'm gonna say that absolute. There's no there's no human being of good moral compass that should be okay watching babies and kids die every day.

And somebody say, I don't care, We're just gonna keep killing them. It's just nobody.

I don't agree with that. I don't think we should kill children and babies. I'm with you, I'm with you, But I also don't support those who are saying Hamas.

Is a hero. Oh you should. I get that.

And there's a whole body those same people who are sticking the mic in my face and saying we want you to say this the exact that way, are saying Hamas is the hero.

Those are not.

First of all, I don't even respect them. I don't respect them.

And what you'll find is that what I say in one setting in the boardroom is what I say sitting on the block.

I'm consistent in what I say.

You go over my you go over my life, and you're going to see someone did a whole story on me and they said, this guy's been saying the same belief You know, he has not waived off his beliefs.

So I don't.

I don't have a political comment that I'm gonna say if I'm around a bunch of white folks, or if I'm around a bunch of black folks, or around the Muslims of Christians.

I'm the same person. Brother.

You take speech after speech, comment after comment, and you're going to say what he said in his private room is what he said in public.

Because I gotta live in myself. I mean, I said, I'm lost. I'm like kem Pill.

When I see certain people, I gast certain people with certain files. People get to God five turn, people get done.

You know you told me to take it back when he told me we gotta shot out Underdog. I'm going to make sure everybody downloads under.

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We mentioned come ahead for this.

Listen, we go plake Kirk Thomas Lime, Well, we're still doing that. Kick Thomas Lin listen because you are the first political, fully political individual constituent that we ever had on here. So if we don't play Kreek Thomas, everybody's.

Gonna be like you took a light in a man. So we can't. We can't do that. But you don't have to drink. You're gonna have somebody you can sit drink a.

Drink, or you could pick somebody else around here.

Mike, so on, you're gonna drink with us too. I'm gonna drink with you.

You got your shots shot glasses, okay, so hold on, you want to start it off, so finally know in New York City mayor Jesus.

This, We're gonna give you two choices. If you pick one, nobody drinks. Nobody drinks at the table. But if you say both or neither, which would be the politically correct answer because you don't want to pick one of them, then we all take a shot.

Every single person. You have to fine, cool, We're gonna have to drink inside before see some point you should have your yeah. Yeah, I'm going to killa too.

Yes, all right, so we're just gonna go ahead and then you drink if we have to. Biden or Trump? Okay, okay, and.

Any stories you have with anybody we mentioned, please by all chance, but.

You know bid, they gotta start running the presidential I'm throwing it off.

I mean, if you want me to some what be a Democrat like play the party every president besides you had that.

You go with with the downgrade of it. I'm very simple. I'm sorry judging them for the wrong thing. I'm a very indicator. I'm just.

Where are you going, TUPAC or d m X. I'm a Tupac guy.

Okay, where does that come from? Like, what's the history of you're listening to? Pot?

I was part of an organization called the National Black United Front. Reverend Herbert Daughtry and others in Tupac's mom were affiliated with it, and his music is just real.

I respect that you got it. I got this one. I'm kind of scared. Jay Z or notas Jays. I gotta go with Jay jay D. I thought he would have been New York. I said both. You should have.

Said, Damn can I can I come down? This is this is going to fuck up the internet. So I'll be honest. You gotta answer this. No, it's no correct answer. Kendrick Lamar or Drake.

I'm gonna say both.

Politically correct. That is a political correct answer. Ja Cole or Kanye West Ja Cole. Okay, no, nobody drinks. He picked it. Podcast radio.

Podcasts, long version. You know able to really dig into a podcast?

Right?

God?

Damn Chris Rock or Dave Chappelle.

I gotta go with Dave Man.

I respect that.

Malcolm Mex and Martin Luther King gotta go both.

They both did.

He's trying to kill us. Okay, I want this one. Go go Michael Jackson or Prince.

Mm hmm. I'm gonna go with Michael. The only reason why.

He's when you think about it, Michael really started the whole video stuff.

You know that.

Michael.

I remember reading the first story and he was talking about he's gonna do his music and turn it into this visual and now look at it.

He made movies movie. It wasn't it wasn't.

All right, Tyson or Ali Ali?

Okay, you're trying to get in there, all of them drinks? What you past them down here? M O P or morb d MA D Okay, we gotta we gotta keep going a couple more. That's all right, Jesus, because I'm thinking.

Of Brooklyn or Queens, Brooklyn, Queens, New York City or Miami.

Yeah, I wanted. I wanted to say, everybody here from New York. That's right, Miami is New York Barrow.

I'm being honest, it's the five barrows in this long island, and New Jersey makes the sixth Borough and then the seventh Borough. Only people from New York because y'all be claiming us too from bro Come on, you know we be the coolest people on the planet.

Come on.

But by the way, right before we finished the quick time of Slope Brom New York.

For anybody that's not from New York. I apologize for the segment, but.

When they say if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, they're not lying.

I think everybody could agree with that.

New York is, Bobby one of the roughest, toughest, richest bous Wazi.

Cities in the world.

You can get robbed on one block and turn around and have an elegant fuck wall.

Mill with the cavia on the next.

And guess what you feel beautiful about it to get the right part, I'm not on that part, sir. I'm saying that didn't happen. But New York City is one of the is the greatest city on the planet. I'm sorry for people who are probably going to tune into this and that they wanted me to say one of the greatest cities, And no, I don't want to say that claim.

I want to say the truth. It is the greatest city on the planet. It is the biggest city on the planet. I've been to.

Tokyo, cool, I've been to all these other places.

Cool.

There's no place like New York City. I don't give a fuck.

Don't that.

From I don't care where you go Miamis.

Yes, it's very close. But just like there's a distinctive.

Experience when you come to Miami and it's pretty much horny people. Right, What's it's like if you love Miami kind of like a horny guy? Right, you was on the New York and love New York and not be horny. It's true, like you would just be on the you would just love it.

It's horny people love Miami. Just be honest description you want.

I told you my citizen, my citizens, I'm just like Resource Room Virgo very well New York City. I'm gonna be honest with you. It was a record label. My song is signed to the same way as I'm signed to. It was called Violated. It was on one sixty Barick Street. So Chris Lighty was alive Classic and we were talking about programs earlier and he was, yeah, I was back and forth a by the programs earlier. And I'm gonna tell you what programs were I would like to invest in. I would like to invest in whatever program that my song has or whatever program that Patpoos has, right, yeh, yep, Because I'm gonna tell you one thing. The program that we didn't realize that saved us, that helped save me and you was record labels. Was us hanging out in the record labels they replaced the parks We went and we understood that we were collecting sixty thousand dollars by hanging out on the record label.

And the thing was, we didn't.

Realize it was our savior was because a lot of these people were still under the.

What was it called the three sixty mentality.

But imagine like, that's what I love what Pat Post is doing, and that's what I love what we're doing with drink chaps. Our model is what yeah, and we don't own nobody who signs the drink chap.

If you signed chat, this is this is your We don't own. We don't.

We don't want to be a black and brown people coming to our that turn into our parents that we despised.

And will set you up and if you got to go afterwards, because we said, we.

Get you a one year deal, we get you all your publishing, we do everything, and we just tell you go ahead. So that's the programs that we were talking about earlier. This is the program that but me and you know that one sixty arrack when Chris Lighty would come meet with you and he would that because guess what and Q tip was there, Buster was guess you didn't come by yourself, You came six other indiviews. Guess what he did those six other not only you? Was this fight with six on the individual. It was went back to the bronx L was in. I remember the first time I freestyle for L L and off. He just walked into me and I'm like, this is L and I'm I'm rapping just like listen to him, and hey, you know what's crazy?

Like probably probably five or six years ago. He remembered a bar set from that run. Now, I never when he said that. He said, you said something about Chuck Steak. I'm cooking up steak. I'm cooking up beef for these Chuck Steak niggas, remember, And I was like, Dan, that was twenty plus years ago, and you really remember?

And that shit inspired me. Like I used to walk in that office.

I remember I had battles with Gilly and jay Z and and and Dame Dash was just walking by and it was.

Like, we need you to judge it.

Come in, you know what I'm saying Like that that was that was an energy, man, I think we need to have.

It so both of you brothers was both political and by the way, I shut the fuck up when y'all was talking, because you know, sometimes if you don't know the fucking talking about so good, some of the.

Best things to do is shut the fuck up. So I let you. But that's one of the programs that you know. I see Steve Stout.

Uh.

Let me say this very.

We didn't see out of eye. But who he is now and who I became to be is one of the people honor. He's in Africa saying, fellas, I'm opening a record label, I want us to own our own masters.

Let's Puerto Rican. I'm sorry, I know I'm fucking.

African proverb up with Spanish properb but it's the same proverb he's in Africa telling, because you know, what's the most popular music there is right now?

For a fucking beat. IM sorry, I'm coming out of me. I don't know if it's dirty red.

He's in Africa telling people I love that we need to own our own masters.

Our masters don't need to own us. What does that remind you of artists who are hot to them?

Right now?

And that's right, and they can see them in the offices and see them and be inspired.

And most that's what I think is the solution. No one of the things that's no, no, no, no. I felt that, And you know, we need to.

Really make that connection back to the continent because our brothers and sisters on the continent, they're really doing something. They're yeah, they're regaining control. You know, they're looking at their natural resources. They're not allowing themselves to be exploited. When I was in synagogue, this brother is taking over all that cocoa that is shipped to Switzerland and other places that make chocolate.

He says, No, we need to.

Do this right here. You know, all those natural resources. We need to make that break you getting.

You know, yes, man, I'm being honest.

Man, you want to say no, no, I'm just I'm feeling about I'm so hotted.

Man, because you know what, that's a hip hop bro. The person that you know, I'm forty six years old, hip hop is fifty. So that means that I was listening to hip hop and my stroller.

So I don't remember. I mean, did I say something smart stroller?

I mean I mean that I have a rhyme, I said, I said, I said, roller hip hop is older than me. I listened to it in my stroller. It didn't make sense, never until now.

But it's true. You being a hip hop.

Man the night like man when I when I'm schooling, You're going through it. It's like Friday and Saturday night.

He lit this more this doll. But Chris, let me.

Let me let me.

Because I know how hard it is for your job. Right.

So many people look at the person that runs the marathon at the end they say, all right, cool.

I like that.

Nobody understands the marathon at the beginning. And then, especially in New York marathon, you got to run through each borough.

Right.

I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm born and raised in New York. There's certain barrels I just won't go to. You have to go through them all.

How do you balance that and just, you know, be the same person in Brownsville that you're going to be on the Upper east Side.

Let me critique you just a little bit. Yes, there's no way you can be the same way in Brownsville that you can be in Howard Beach. Yes you can, brother, explain that you please like I used to shout without us. Come on, okay, you can be the same person in Brownsville and Howard Beach by the way, about twelve minutes away, maybe fifteen.

Well, first of all, the Howard Beach, the Pelham Park, all those communities parkway right, all those communities that we once knew, they're not anymore. Really, yeah, the little it Lees, the all these areas. When we grew up, they were certain areas. You couldn't go to Benston Hurts, you know, you couldn't go to Babridge. These areas have now become one, right right, you just okay back. And so if you come with the same things, and we all want the same things. I want to be able to raise our families, educate our children, live in a safe, safe community, and be gainfully employed.

That's the same across the board.

And as I sit in these different communities, they all want the same communities have been denied the same I have. When I go to a Howard Beach which I won when I ran, just as I want, I want our communities, I'm saying the same message. We have to make sure if we don't give the opportunities to all these children, then these then the children that they're raising, they're not going to have the opportunities. And that's what we have to make sure that we're doing it. And that's our message. My message is the same and it's consistent, and it is what I'm going to I'm going to stand by and I'm gonna give them all.

You know, we I know what we're doing. You know, we're down here now.

Telling one of the things we're doing.

While we're down here, we're going to be talking to the international community. People are looking at us internationally and saying that the way you are handling these crises that people need to duplicate.

Oh.

I want to give you a gift. This is for my friend.

He's from Queensbridge. From Queensbridge, his name is Jay rock Uh. He did time in prison, just like my son came home. He flipped and he's a construction worker now part of the union. He didn't ask me to do this at all. He might be embarrassed. He bought this personally. So this is the book that I bought from him personally, and I want to give it to you. It's called Life in Queensbridge.

But my brother love it. I can't even tell you how much time he did in prison locked up. I was eleven. But this, this is this is a message that he asked question, I.

Will ask you how to import his union labor and the unions to his administration in New York City.

That said, listen when you look at the fact.

First of all, I think I'm the first union member that has ever been the mayor of the City of New York.

What I did when I became mayor settled all the union.

Contract Ninety four percent of our union contracts are settled. And when you make a deal with the union leaders, you have to go and let the members vote. We're getting ninety eight percent ratification rates all these union back I have over three hundred thousand employees in the City of New York, and they're all saying that no one has given us what you have given us.

Finally given us the pay scale.

The human service workers, which are overwhelming women and women of color, they have been denied for years. On the campaign trails, I'm gonna make you hold when I become mayor, We're going to give you the salary you deserve.

We just gave them the salary increase they deserve.

These are the folks who are doing all those human services, you know, childcare, daycare.

So when you look at the union members and you see I was just in Florida for I was just in.

Hollywood, Florida, I think a month and a half ago with all of my construction. My trade were getting ready to make a deal to build the housing using union pension funds with the city.

And so.

When he talks to his membership, here tell you you got a blue collar mayor, a union member, and I'm always going to be a union member. I got a union pension, and I know how important it is. And we have stood up for our unions. Man, they'll tell you in a minute. I had all these major unions endorsement DC thirty seven, thirty two, VJ t WU. You go down on the list. You know they've been with me from the beginning. And so I hear him, you know, good union paying job.

God damn you. You went to John J. College.

Yes, I went to Louise, I went to John Jay.

Yeah, yeah, right, John, This is difference. What's going on.

I went to Martin Luther King, which is right down the block, and then went to John Interesting.

John J had more girls. But you know what, nobody had girls right next door tomorrow.

Us a little bit took it.

Took me for it took me fourteen years, man to get my degree, fourteen years, one class at a time. Just I'm never gonna beat you with brilliance. I'm gonna beat you with endurance. I'm gonna wear you down, man like.

Let me never say you be taking my ship. You know what I say, what I say, I say, I say.

I said everyone else might have had best, better product than me. They're not gonna stay outside as long as me. That's pretty much the same ship.

It is dyslexic, it is. You know what I'm saying. I'm gonna be honest, man.

I invited my song because my song really loves our community. Really, the guy that is something you know happens, he's there. So I didn't ask as agenda. I just asked him to be here. And I loved it that because he's genuine. So I didn't I didn't want to, but whatever, we all have the same goal. They want our city to be better.

I want to.

I want to.

I want to. I want to move back.

You're a smart man.

I want to move back, but I need something not from you, Not from you neither. You just need something maybe from you.

But you know, what do you say to these residents that come, They say, man, New York is too expensive. Then when I get there, I see, you know, certain bombs outside my my house. Then when I get there, I see there's rats outside my house. When I get there, that see everyone's smoking weed. By the way, Amsterdam is the one of the best places I've ever been in my life. And drugs is legal everywhere. It not just weed, right, This motherfucker's sluting heroin right there like happy as hell.

What's up? I'm sorry.

I know this is not politically but there's people in Amsterdam and there's no crime.

There's no crime, Like holy is that the next thing?

Let's make heroin I legal.

They tried importantly because I was giving out free needle because we.

Found this a needle injection site.

We found that if you create the environment and people are gonna use, create an environment where they could do it safely and they could get the counseling that they deserve.

Doctor Fassan, who's in.

Charge of the wireless You ever seen the wire YEA, yeah like that? Okay, I mean that's what it sounds like. You know, that's the story.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Wait what drug free zone?

That's what they're doing.

And back in Baltimore, you know, track legs.

Crack legs, Legs is the best whole crab. But you should come back. The city is back. No, I'm back, but I leave. I ain't gonna lie. I come.

I'll be like, I love it when my kids, my kids.

Don't want to leave.

They're smart, you know, kids don't want to leave.

My kids.

They love the hood. They want to go play basketball. I'm like, you know, we live on the beach. Yeah, it don't work too hard.

We got we got listen, man, we got to do another few stops and you know, but really, really good man, let's catch up when we get back.

We got a lot to do, you know what I'm saying.

But let me let me just say this the right way it. I thank you.

I know you get scrutinized. I know you get chastised, but you're the first. I was the first to do reggae doon. I was the first to work with Swiss to Beast. I was the first to work with Scott Stors. I was the first to work with Neptunes. I was the first to do reggae dong. They laughed at me. I made it to my destination, but when I popped in my GPS, that shit didn't come up.

I killed that. I was like, I like the way I killed that.

But when I popped in to the places I wanted to be, GPS navigation wasn't even invented. So when I told you when I complained about traffic and great eventures and I didn't leave van Wick, I knew this is what life is meaning. People want to people want to hurt you before you get to your destination. I heard you say that my greatness will not be recognized out of office, and guess what, I respect that. But I want to take a little bit before we get up out of here and tell you being a renegade is also the same thing.

But Barack Obama.

Didn't legalize marijuana throughout the whole fifty states because he didn't want to be the black person to legalize.

Right.

But I'm going to tell you something.

Trump will do the exact opposite to be the exact opposite. So I want to give you that little bit of advice. And I can't give you no political inviting at all. Listen to me, I told you I'm dyslexic, resource rooms, personal education, everything, put it all together, add all.

But the advice I can give you is fuck it. That's it. Listen and pull hold ho hold on hok because this is it's two works, right, fuck it.

I'm giving it to you because you can do it. And that's that's what he was saying intelligently. And I told you I'm simplestic, right. Eric Adams Brooklyn Queen's guy who I know knows NAS albums just as much as me, those biggie albums just as much as me. Just think about it one time, right the same way prompt says fuck it sometimes. That's my only advice.

And I and.

We said that January first, twenty twenty two, became elected. And trust me when I tell you, we're still saying it.

And I'm gonna be I'm gonna just move to New York just to vote for you again, and then I'm gonna get the fun about it. Guess who my quiet advice list of my quiet advice is.

Okay, okay, okay, we got a first I forgot.

We have a special guest.

Okay, it's part of our cork. You have to give us a certificate.

Okay, Commissioner count, so I've come on behalf of the mayor of mom Dade counter and the commissions of Mama Day count showed my appreciation drink Chaps. Okay, drink Champs has done wonderful things for our community, bring about a lot of conversation that we all need opportunities to laugh and learn.

Today hear this political speech.

No, it's been wonderful and so I'm presenting this certificate appreciation as commissioner on this day to you all for all your.

Want work things.

Drink Champs is a Drink Champs LLC production hosts and executive producers n O r E and dj e FN.

Listen to Drink.

Champs on Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Drink Champs hosted by yours truly, dj e f N and n O r E. Please make sure to follow us on all our socials That's at drink Champs across all platforms at the Real Noriagon ig at noriag on Twitter, mine is at Who's Crazy on ig at, dj e f N on Twitter, and most importantly, stay up to date with the latest releases, news and merch by going to drink champs dot com

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Drink Champs

Legendary Queens rapper-turned show host N.O.R.E. teams up with Miami hip-hop pioneer DJ EFN for a n… 
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