You're listening to Math and Magic production. I heart radio. The best thing that ever happened to me was I did not have any radio skills, Like nobody taught me the traditional way to do radio. So I would just be talking. I go back and listen. Now it's not the terrible I was yelling and I was screaming, and I'm answering the phones, and we just was kicking it like how we would kick it, you know, in the hood. And it became very popular in a very short amount of time. One day in there doing overnights, I said to myself, I love this. I've never felt passionate about anything before that. I just knew this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I'm Bob Pippin. Welcome to this episode of Math and Magic Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing, where we explore about the analytics of marketing and business and the magic, the creative, the stuff that gets consumers excited and builds the bonds with brands, businesses, in our case today, personalities. On this episode, we're going to explore how one person can have an impact on culture and society. Welcome Charlemagne, the god best known as the co host of the syndicated radio morning show The Breakfast Club. He's also on TV, he's in podcasting, he's on social and he's a best selling author. Charlemagne was born Leonard Larry McKelvey in Charleston, South Carolina. His mom was an English teacher and his dad was a businessman with a wide range of businesses. Charlemagne appears to have picked up much from both. He got into a reasonable amount of trouble as a young man and then decided he was gonna get it together. That led him through a number of jobs before he discovered his true calling radio, and it's been in a amazing rides since then. Charlemagne, welcome, How are you BP? I'm doing well? Okay, So before we jump into your life, your ideas and your lessons, let's do you in sixty seconds. Here you go. Do you prefer New York or l a New York Instagram or Twitter Instagram, Beach or mountains Beach? Cowboys or Panthers Cowboys All Day? Magic Johnson or Michael Jordan's. Oh I'm gonna say, Maggie Johnson, Cats are Dogs, Cats Prince or Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson, Drake or Kanye. Oh old Kanye and new Kanye. You know what I'm gonna say. I'm gonna say Kanye. Okay, it's about to get harder. Smartest person, you know. I know a lot of smart people. I'm smart enough to note that I'm not the smartest person I know. Okay, we'll leave it at that. Childhood hero Malcolm X. First job I worked at a factory called Industrial Acoustics Company. Favorite city, Charleston, South Carolina. Secret talent. I don't even think I have any talents. I don't know what my thinking on. Favorite TV show probably Martin. Favorite comic book character, Olvery, Favorite book, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruis. Favorite food jamaking, food like ox tails, stuff like that, Salfish Bay Slfish for breakfast. Yes, there you go. What did you want to be when you're growing up alive? Okay, here we go. Let's start with the obvious. How did you get the name Charlemagne the God? Grown up in monkst going to South Carolina. I was doing a lot of things I had no business doing. One of them was selling drugs. When I used to be on the block hustling, and I would always say my name was Charles or Charlie. I was reading in the history book one day in night school and I saw that Charlemagne was French for Charles the Great, and I literally just thought it sounded cool. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna start calling myself Charlomagne, and so that's what I did. I just started calling myself Charlomagne before the radio. Oh wait, before radio. This is like, where did the god come in? It's an offshoot of Islam called the Five Percent Teachings of Islam, and they teach that the black man is God and God is a Greek word derived from the Aramic. It's gumas the ball, which means whydom screenping beauty, And so I was just like, oh, that's dope, no. And plus, every wrapper back then was calling himself the god, whether it was Jay Z calling himself Jehovah to God. Everybody in Wu Tang was a god rock him allowed was the guy like all of him us to call himselves God. So I was just started calling myself Chalomage the God, which technically makes no sense because Charlomagne is child is the Great, so it would be like Charles the Great the God. Well, let's work really well for it definitely looks good on the Marquis right. You're wildly successful on the radio as the co host of the Breakfast Club with DJ MB and angela Ye. It's heard on stations all over the country, has heard on the I Heart radio app nationally, It's seen on Revolt TV. You do other podcasts, you're on TV. You have millions of Instagram followers, Twitter followers, and of course you have the Donkey of the Day feature that everyone looks forward to. You've written books, all best sellers, and you even wrote a special Marvel comic book. You've been called the Howard Stern of hip hop or Today's Johnny Carson er Jay Leno. Hard to imagine much more influence. Let's tag into how you out here from Monks Corner, South Carolina. Can you paint the picture of where you grew up in those times? I grew up in a small country town. When I was growing up, it was a dirt road cornfield surrounding everybody's house on that dirt road. My father used to always say, if you're driving down the highway and you see something dead on the side of the road, you get out and put your hand on it. If it's cold, you leave it there, it's warm, you bring it home for dinner. That's literally what kind of town it was. There was nothing. They're growing up, you know. I remember when Signic first came, no the town like, oh, it's gonna got a Signic now, Like so we felt like a big city. You know. When we got a super Walmart d would open twenty four hours, we felt like we was in the big city. That's actually what we used to do for fun. There's nothing to do on the weekend, and it's after midnight, and you just tired of sitting around house, you literally just go walk around Walmart. So, from what I've read, your mom was a teacher, your dad was bigger than life personality with a huge presence in your town. What did you get from each of those? I learned a lot of what to do in my life from my mom. I learned a lot of what not to do in my life from my that. You know, my dad was a good father. I realized he was just doing the best he could because he was dealing with his own issues with mental health and you know, substance abuse. I remember going to visit my father in rehab so I just know that he was doing the best that he could. I really don't hold a lot of things against him, because I do think he's a great man, you know. I just think that it's a lot of things he didn't teach me, and he would discipline me for not knowing things that he should have taught me to begin with. I remember one time following him as he was driving and he ran the stop shine. So I ran the stop sign. He pulled over, so I pulled over. He got out the car, told me rod went down, He slapped in the face, told me to wake up. You don't see yourself right that stop sign. I'm like, I'm following you. You ran the stop sign. So it was that that kind of relationship. But you know, my mother, being an English teacher, she kept the book in my face. She always encouraged me to read, and she would always tell me to read things that don't pertain to me. So I would be the guy that would be reading like Judy Bloom and Beverly Clearly, and you know, I'd be reading about Bigfoot and uf Folds And it was just that one little piece of read things that don't pertain to you that helped me transcend a lot of my circumstances and made me realize that the dirt road I lived on I was much bigger than that. You had a lot of problems in school, you graduated from night school. You had some run ins with the law. You tried a number of jobs, first working at a clothing store, telemarketing agency, flower garden, your sister hired you had I guess fired you at Taco Bell for two weeks for not taking it seriously. Then you discovered radio. Before we get to that, though, why the bad times. I'm sure you had some explanations then, But looking back now, what do you think it was about? What lessons did you take from that? It was really just about wanting to fit in. When you're not getting what you need at home, you will get it from the street. And it's not like the love was real in the street. You know. It just made me feel good to be accepted. If my father wasn't dealing with the things he was dealing with, and he probably would have embraced me a little bit more and gave me that confidence I needed, and you know, that courage I needed and just empowered me. I probably would not have gone to the screetch the way that I did. What did you take away in terms of your life now from that experience? Nothing? There was nothing beneficial about being in that situation. You have a bunch of skills that you really don't need. I don't need to know how to sell drugs like I don't. I don't need to know how to carry a firearms. I was carrying it illegally back then. Anyway, Like, none of what I went through then serves me in my adult life other than to have those experiences. So when I'm talking to young men that grew up in these areas, I can relate to them in a different way, and they can look at me and they can say, oh, well, you know, he went through a lot of the same things that I went through. When I started to see a lot of my friends going to jail, and like guys around me actually getting prisons in this is and people around me actually getting killed, and cousins that I used to look up to they really were the cousins that were doing everything that I was doing previously, and they ended up broke under the tree, scrung out on drugs or alcohol or whatever it was. That was a wake up call for me at a very young age to say, I don't want to end up like that. So more important than why did radio click with you? I was really just looking for something positive to do. I started working a lot of odd jobs. I worked at the clothing store called Demo and the Mall. I worked at Taco Bell. I worked at this factory called Industrial Acoustics. I worked at a telemarketing place where I used to be the guy that would call your house and try to sell you twelve CDs for a penny. Did you ever do that? Yeah? I was one of the best because I knew music. That was a gift that I had. I knew music, so I knew what was good. My mother would tell me three things that don't pertain to me. I would always listen to things that don't pertain to me. So I knew everything from Johnny Cash to Fleetwood mag to the New jay Z Like I knew all of it. And so I would just know how to sell these things to these people. And I used to want to rap. And I was in this recording studio and I met a guy. His name was Willie will He was a radio personality at a local station at Chalton called three Jamps, and I just asked him, I said, you, how did you getting the radio And he was like, I went down there and I got an internship. And I'm like, it's that easy, Like I don't have to be in school or anything, and he was like, nah, and mind even n Charleston, South Carolina, so things are a lot different now. So that's what I did. I went down there the next day and I filled out the internship application and they hired me as an intern in the promotions department. And that's how I got my foot in the door. But I guess this is one of the ways that you could say the screets help me because being at the radio station at the time, some of these guys wanted weat. I knew to get wheat, so I would have to weed for them, and they would always want me around, like they would always request me, yo, I want Charlemagne to drive me to this remote or yo, Charlemagne when you had come to the studio. So I would just be in the studio being a fly on the wall, just sitting there watching everybody do their job. And then sometimes they would call me in and asked me my opinion on things, and I would just talk and the music director one day, his name was wrong White. Ron White was like, yo, you ever thought about being on the radio, And I was like no, but I am now like yeah, I'll show I'll try it. And so they made me voice track one Sunday morning from eleven am to two pm. And I did that for a few weeks, and then they immediately cut that out because there was Sunday morning in Charleston, South Carolina, and I was a bit too much for that Bible belt. So they started putting me on Saturdays seven pm to midnight, and I voiced tracked from seven to ten, and from ten to twelve I would go live. And I think the best thing that ever happened to me was I did not have any radio skills. Nobody taught me the traditional way to do radio. So I would just be talking. I go back at list now, it's not the terrible. I was yelling and I was screaming, and I'm answering the phones and we just was kicking it like how we would kick it, you know, in the hood. And it became very popular in a very short amount of time. One day in there doing overnights, I said to myself, I love this. I've never felt passionate about anything before that. I just knew this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. And then, you know, just like anything else in my life, once I fell in love with it, I just started studying it. The Howard Sterns and the Frankie Crockers and the Pete Greens, and then you know, you started getting into the new guys like the Tom join Us in the dug Banks. They were syndicated and all market, so I was already listening to them, and then you started learned about the Wendy Williams is and Andie Martinez and all these different people. And I remember saying to myself, if I really commit myself to this, I want to be like them. I want to just be in a local market saying time and temperature and introducing the next song, like I want to be one of those people. What did you take away from them you were listening to them, what did they sound like to you? Everybody I just named was authentic. They were really on the radio being themselves. They sounded like regular people having a conversation with you on the radio, talking about regular everyday topics. That everybody was talking about like when my mom would ride to work in the morning and she has been any three jams on and it was, oh, if the time join them arning show, like they was in there just talking about regular things that were going on in the world. And I just thought that was the coolest thing to have that kind of voice. When my mom woke up in the morning, before there was iPods and satellite radio and podcast and everything else, there was Tom joining in the morning and now when she was listening to And I always wanted to have that impact on people. I wanted to be that companion to people. So when you envisioned yourself being one of those people, have you turned into that or turned into something else? I've had identity crisis, is right, because, like I said, I didn't know how to do radio, so I was literally just in there being who I thought was myself. But at the time, you gotta think it's I'm like twenty years old. You know, I didn't know myself at twenty You do what I mean, So you grow and then at a certain point when you are having some success, you think, I gotta give people more of this, So then you become a characterature of yourself. I think at this point in my life. Right now, I am comfortable with just being me, and I think I've been giving people just me for the past three years. I'm not giving people what I think they wanted here and not giving people what I think they like about me, just genuinely being me. My name is Leonard McKelvey. I'm a father, I'm a husband. I started going to therapy a few years ago. I took listeners on that journey with me. I've talked about every portion of my life along the way, the good, the bad, and ugly. You know, some of it comes back to bite you. But I wouldn't trade it for the world because I think they really know me. So let's go to that journey. You go to Charleston, South Carolina, to Columbia, South Carolina. Then you made this big job to work with Wendy Williams in New York. How did you make that big job? People don't go from that size market to New York City. The company I worked for in Columbius, Ath Carolina, was called in the City Broadcasting in the City owned w b LS here in New York. So they started syndicating Wendy Williams on Hot one or three nine in Columbia, South Carolina, and I used to do nights with a guy named Big Sexy. His name is Bill Black. He worked for I Heard Now. Then I did nights with a young lady named Venom. Whendydom used to come into the market. Windy and her husband Kevin, and I remember the first time Wendy was broadcasting from the studio. I'm thinking to myself, Oh, this is my but tell me the I'm gonna introduce myself to her because it's somebody I've been studying for years. I used to do mixtapes at the time, and I used to do parody songs, and I wanted her to hear this one parody song because I thought she would really enjoy it. So going there and Wendy said to me verbe him, Yo, I'm trying to do my f and show get the f out of here and take that mixtape to my husband. I didn't get discouraged. I said, well, where's your husband. She said, he's right over there, across the hall. So I went across the hall, scrug up a conversation with him, gave him the mixtapes. He enjoyed them. So from that point on, we had a relationship. That's when the Internet started happening. So I started having viral moments, and so when these things would make its way up to New York, she knew me. She started shouting out some of the things I was doing. I did this interview with a young video vixen at the time. Her name was Buffy the Body, and I just remember asking her like, Yo, you don't want to be Buffy the Brain. What happens when you get older and you know, everything starts to sag, like, you know, you don't want to be able to rely on your intellect. And she got really upset about that. But Wendy loved it, and Wendy was talking about it on the air. They invited me to come to a party in New York, and when I went to the party, Wendy asked me to come on her show. She literally like, Yo, come on my show tomorrow, and I was like word. So next day I was calling her husband all day and her husband was like, yes, go up there now. I went up there for like twenty five minutes, and that night at dinner, he was telling me like, Yo, you know, she's looking for a co host. She's tried out a bunch of comedians. You don't want a comedian. She really wants somebody from radio. She really just liked what you do. And he was like, look, we can't pay you, but we can give you a place to stay. I'm only making six dollars an hour in Columbia, South Carolina. I'm like, cool, Why not? I was out and I moved to New York, actually New Jersey, but I used to commute to New York everyday just to do Wendy Show from two to six and would fly back to South Carolina to do my show on Saturday. Kept your Saturday. I kept my Saturday show for about six seven months, and then my operations manage at the time said I couldn't have my cake and eat it too. So I used to do it also just to make some money because I didn't have any money. I had like if that, so I packed a little cotton suitcase. The way I would make money is by flying back in South Carolina and hosting parties on Saturday night, do my radio show, go host the Paul, and then flybacks Sunday afternoon. So you left Wendy, you went to Philly, then you went back to Monk's corner. And then in two thousand and ten it really came together for you because with Wendy, as you say, you weren't making the money. You joined dj MB and angela Ye, and you created the now legendary Breakfast Club on Power one oh five point one in New York and on like a hundred radio stations around the country as well as nationally on the Heart radio app. This is a story about perseverance, and you took a hell of a lot of chances. What lesson do you take from that journey? When I got hired at the Breakfast Club, I had just got fired for the fourth time from a hundred points three to beat in Philadelphia. The last thing of you I did was with a rapid named Beanie Siegel. He used to be signed to jay Z. He called into the show because he was from Philly and he had a lot of not so nice things to say about jay Z. That was on a Friday, that went superviral that weekend, so much though that jay Z even had to comment on it. And then that Monday, I got fired, so the blogs said jay Z got Charlottagne five. Publicity of Bathboblicity like that made everything even bigger. Yeah, it looked good online, but in real life, I'm back home living with my mom at thirty one years old and my one year old daughter, and I honestly thought in my mind that South Carolina was it for me. Like I was like, you know what, I'm back living at home. There was a new station opening up in the market called Box, and I remember being on air with my man d Nice and it just felt so small, like it just did not feel right. It wasn't an ego thing, it wasn't a pride thing. In my mind already accepted I'm gonna be living back in Charlton. We're gonna raise our family here. But it just did not feel right, Like God, the universe just kept telling me no. One day the summer of two thousand and ten, I drove up to New York. I happened to just randomly text g Spen He's been used to work for my Heart, and I said, Yo, I'm in the city, and he was like, Yo, come to the station right now. Can you make it here? I said yes, And when I get there, he goes, Yo, my program director, that Catolic Jack. At the time, He's like, he's been watching your online videos. All day because I ed to do these web videos with my man Little Duval, and so we just sat down and we had a conversation and kind of like Jack said to me, he was like, Yo, how long could you wait for a job like this? I said, what do you mean a job like this? I just supposed I wanted to hire you at Power. How long could you wait for a job like this? I said, for this job, I'll wait until his time to go, Like when you tell me to be here, I'll be here. A few months later, he was offering me a position on the morning show. Pretty amazing, It is pretty have any idea the ride that was ahead of you. When I used to work for Wendy, I remember saying to myself, if I do what I'm supposed to do it here on Wendy Show, one day I can host that morning show. When we first started doing the Breakfast Club, one thing you realized about I Heart. I Heart has some really good people, you know, like Dennis Clark. After two days we did two shows, like literally two demo shows on like a Saturday and Sunday. Then this Clark goes, this could be really something special, Like this could be something that could rival Elvis Durant, it could be Elvis duran morning show level. He said that after two and for people who don't love Dennis Clark, he is the extraordinary talent coach we have here at our heart, unbelievably works with our talent. He's got a gift. Guys like Dennis have a gift. And the reason I say that is because we live in this world where people think if you're not part of a certain culture, you can't speak to that coachure. Then this Clark is a white man from I don't know where. He don't look like he's in the hip hop, but he just gets how to do good radio and he understands people. He was like, Okay, Envy, your this Angela, you're this Charlemagne, You're this. After two days and he has not been wrong since. I would listen to that man for the rest of my life. Let's give some advice here. What advice would you give to people who find themselves stuck in that struggle to the top. When you feel stuck, make sure that you're doing everything in your power to not be stuck. A lot of times we like to blame everything that's around us, you know, we like to blame other people. We like to blame certain circumstances, But are you truly doing everything that you need to be doing and not be in that position? Because God will not bless mediocrity, God will bless excellence. Excellence can be. If I clean these windows, I'm gonna make sure he's are the best looking windows in the whole building. You know, if if I'm watching the car, I'm gonna make sure that car is spotless. Like are you always doing your best? Putting your best foot forward? And if you can honestly say yeah, then truthfully it's just a matter of time. Just hold on a second, because we've got so much more to talk about. We'll be back after a quick break. Welcome back the Math and Magic. We're here with Charlemagne the Gods. Let's jump to you today. I'm wanna get your views on some things hip hop culture. When did you know it had taken over the main stream? Actually a long time ago, and I'm talking about in like the late nineties, when you saw all of these white kids at Woutang concerts and you saw all these white kids loving Death Row records, Dr Drean, Snoop Dogg. When you started seeing hip hop all over MTV, and you started to see other artists from other genres of music start to want to do hip hop. It's like rap became the language, and so that's when I knew that it had taken over. I think it took a while for mainstream America to accept that, you know, what hip hop is pop culture. This is a podcast for marketers and entrepreneurs. What do they get wrong about hip hop? What is it and what is it not? I think they getting wrong that they think hip hop is just still some novelty. They think it's niche, they think it's just the black thing. It's clearly embraced globally, but I think a lot of times people look at hip hop and they still think it's dangerous. They still think it's violent. They have rightful reasons to think that in some cases. But I mean, the hip hop that's been out for the past fifteen years does not reflect what was going on in the nineties, is not reflect what's going on in their early two thousands. Like now you've got Kendrick Lamar, dreg J Cole Wile, a big Sean Rahapsody, chance to rap it. These are some of the nicest people you can ever mean you're life like, And they're teaching the whole new generation the minute it's okay to beva rble. You know, it's okay to not be from the street. It's okay to not glorify the drug culture that I celebrate the game culture. You've reached the point talking about your journey. The people now want to know what you think, not necessarily interviewing other people. And many would say, you're a pundit or a philosopher. Are you reflecting the hip hop culture, or it's this just you, it's this your life, your thoughts. Well, that's the other misconception about hip hop. The other misconception about hip hop is that hip hop is not all those things. I grew up listening to Chuck D from Public Enemy, and I grew up listening to Wu Tang Clan and you know, Goody Mob and Outcasts. All of those people were philosophers. They were encouraging me to read certain books because they would wrap about these books in their music. You know, they did have high levels of spirituality because they did believe in a higher power. I started studying a lot of different things because these rappers would mention these things in the music, like they would always be talking about politics. They would always be talking about religion. They were the pundits that had microphones, and they were talking about things that were going on in society. So like, that's always been a hip hop thing. Hip Hop has always been broad and always been able to talk about all those different things. Like I said, my mother would always tell me to read things that didn't pertain to you. So I literally was just a sponge. I would be into everything. After all the dudes you paid and the struggle you endured to get here, how do you deal with all the success? It must be heady stuff, going from the life you were talking about Mark's Corner to not New York but the world. Now? How do you cope with that? I learned my lesson a long time ago. Man. The first time I ever got fired was from High ninety eight nine in Chalton, South Carolina. But I really held myself accountable because I know that I was not using the microphone the way that I shouldn't have used the microphone. Back then, I didn't understand the power that comes with that microphone, you know. Michael Mex said, the person who controls the media, control of the minds of the masses. I know, back then, I was not putting the right things in people's minds and people's heads. And so now when it comes to the success, it's not about me. It's about who could I empower the day? Who can I help to day. I like opening and sharing my platform with people more so than anything. I wrote two books, one called Black Privilege, another one called ship Win. You know. Black Privilege was just, you know, eight lessons that I learned in my life. So once again, even though I'm talking about myself, I'm sharing my life experiences to help somebody else. Ship Point was about a journal I was keeping while I was going to therapy that too, helped other people. You know, I was just telling my stories. So I think that's what helps me not to get big headed, uh, not to have an ego. Success to me isn't about what I'm accomplishing. Success to me is like what am I doing to help other people? That's when you truly start to feel successful. You're one of the few people who has to gravitage to talk to. The big stars disappear when you interview them. What are you trying to get from them? And how do you do it? I'm just always coming from the perspective of curiosity. I think that's what every radio personality, every media personality, should never lose. Don't lose that curiosity when you start to think that you're an expert and people are really coming to you because you're the authority on all things hip hop or the authority on all things politics. That's when you get corny, when you're to know it all. To me, it's like you really know nothing. I don't like people like that. I like people that when I'm watching them, I can tell they're learning and I'm learning with them in that moment. Let's talk about something new, podcasting. Why do you think it suddenly broke out and it's been around for a while and then just suddenly it took off. It's the same reason people love radio. I think one problem that radio I hope we can fix going into the new decade. We haven't done a great job of grooming personalities. It should be more than one Charlomagne. It should be more than one Bobby Bones. There should be more than one Elvis Duran. You know, I don't think that we've done a good job of letting people express their personalities. You know, I think radio got a little bit too to Vanilla. I think podcast allow you to be a personality because you're really taking these kids off the street the same way I was when back was off the street. Nobody told me how to do radio. I just started talking. And that's what these kids are doing with their podcast. They just talking, and they're telling their life experiences and they're talking about things from their p O V. And I think some people will just find it refreshing and they just find it entertaining, like when we talk about being those companions on those long car rides. Man, you know, if it's not the morning show and you're listening to the radio in the mid days, are in the afternoons, are at night, you don't really feel like you got a companion. You feel like somebody's talking at you. You turn on the podcasts, you feel like it's some people which you laugh and joke and having a conversation. Podcast is creating more friends for people to ride with. Let's talk about social Social influencers are all the rage with marketers. You have something none of them have. You have a huge, engaged and regular audience on the radio every day, plus the millions of followers on social too, so we you and the Breakfast Club put a post up socially, how does that fit with your radio show? Before? I feel like we had these steaks, but we were eating them with forks. But I feel like with social media now we've got the knives because we're cutting it up and that's how we're feeding the masses. And like, the conversation never stops, I mean literally never stop. I know, I know, I look at your posts, yes, which is not good for your mental health, by the way, because like nobody should be that connected all the time. And literally it can be interviews from years ago that people will start talking about now. It's like they're discovering all of this new stuff all of the time. So it's like the Breakfast Club. The conversation never stops. It's always a constant conversation about some type of content that I created. So you gotta feel good about that. But it's literally a conversation that never stops. And if you think you're these people's friends when you're on the radio for four hours a day, no, you're these people's friend twenty four hours a day, and they have questions and they demand answers. How dare you not reply? To me, you know that's how they view it. How dare you not reply to me? If I post something on your page and I found myself engaging with him, I actually think it's fun. You get to see the reaction. That's actually one of the things that's new to radio that we didn't have back in the day. To actually see how people react to your interviews, whether they're trending on social media, or people learn new information, or even when it's not a celebrity, as somebody from a business and you bring them on, like we had my guy on another Day's name is Kareem. He's in the social equity and the YouTube and if you might have got like seventy thousand views something like that, but he's like, yo, we're getting tens of thousands of emails, people hitting us up inquiring about our social equity. So to watch these companies like that get those booths, or the entrepreneur who's selling T shirts, whatever it is is, to watch these people be able to establish themselves just from an interview is very powerful. How do you help advertisers get returned on the investment in your show? What do you think the value of being in the radio is for an advertiser. I mean, I think it's everything, especially when you're dealing with the show that has the listenership that the breakfast Club does and has the social me the engagement that the breakfast Club does. Because our people trust us. That's one reason I won't just put my name on anything. You know, if I'm not actually using it, then I'm not gonna really talk about it. Sometimes I mess up because I'm using products and I might just shot it out. Next thing, you know, they reaching out to me and sending me product because they've gotten these spikes and sales are like these spikes and mentions on social media, people are starting to check them out. I just think radio, especially now at radio, with social media and then YouTube all works this one. I don't think we could ever put a price on it. We've built this multi platform company now because it's hard to tell where one ends the other begins. You've spent a lot of time on TV as well as radio. How do you contrast the audio experience of radio with the TV experience. Audio is more intimate. When you're sitting there having a conversation with somebody, you can get more comfortable. I think when they come on television. They know that this segment is only gonna be six seven minutes. When you think about the compelling interviews that you saw on TV back in the day, the compelling interviews, it was the Larry King's the Open Wind for You, the diansaur Is, the Barbara Walters. Why were they interviews so compelling because they actually took time, They actually sat down and had long form conversations with these people. It's the intimacy of it. You know. That's one reason I used to love or seen your Hall back in the day. You know, Senior Hall used to have these which seemed like long conversations with them. They would be, you know, fifteen twenty minutes, which is long on television, but that's all we had back then. There was no podcast. What's the longest interview you've done on the radio? Longest interview I've ever done on the radio was an hour in forty seven minutes, and that was with Dick Gregory. God blessed the rest in peace. I think that was actually his last interview. And I remember just I never had met Dick Gregory, always been a fan of Dick Gregory, and you know, we just sat there. I remember Angelie and envy being so restless, and Dick had like all of these papers that he was showing us. It was almost like he knew he wasn't gonna be around much longer, so he wanted all of this information to be out there. And it's it's literally like an hour forty seven minute of view. And I'm so happy that we did that. You've embraced a number of important social causes. Somebody creating awareness, some by providing insights, some outlets promotions, somebody raising money, somebody donating your own money. All had huge impact. How do you choose your issues and causes? I know what it feels like to not have I grew up in a single wide trailing Monks when the South canline. I didn't even realize how Poul we were. And it's so funny because my mom said the same thing. I didn't realize how poul we were, and she talks about that when she was growing up. I just feel like, when you have a lot, sometimes it's very easy just to say here, But I mean, I just try to do things that are of personal interest to me. Anything that has to do with mental health, the research of it, the treatment of it. I'm gonna be all into that. My mother went to an HBCU, historically Black college university, So I'm gonna always be big in the HBCUs. Anything that can empower people economically, I'm gonna give money to those type of foundations. So it's just things that I have personal interest in. Your book, Shook One, Can you talk a little bit about your journey my whole life, I've had like these really bad panic attacks, and you know, I never knew what those panic attacks were. You know, I just honestly thought that the environment I grew up in warranted me to have that shortness of breakfast like I'm having a heart attack, and those sweaty palms and things like that. So I never thought anything of it until two thousand and ten, when I was back living at home with my mom, driving me down and feeling like I was about to die, Like Yo, this is it. And so I went to the hospital. The doctor was like, YO, your heart is fine. You got an athletes heart. And he was like, yo, you have anxiety. You know, like anxiety, And he's like it sounds like you got a panic attack, Like a panic attack you scresched out about anything. I'm like, hell, yeah, I'm scressed about all kind of stuff. I'm living at home. My mom just got five for the four time. And so in my mind when he said that to me, Okay, all I gotta do get another job, like another job, all that to go out the window. Everything would be cool for or five years later, end up getting the breakfast club, had a lot of success, but still having those panic attacks, still falling into depression for whatever reason. And um, I studied successful people, and a lot of people that I know that's successful, we're talking to me about therapy, and it's like, Yo, maybe you should try therapy. And so I just stopped flirting with the idea around two thousand and seventeen and I just started going it's done one just for my life. It's literally like organizing a junkie closet. Like you know, you're going to closet and you might have clothes and sneakers and everything everywhere. So you just start like folding up the stuff that you want to keep and putting it in a nice place, and the things that you don't want you pack up, you ship off, and now you got room to bring in new things. That's just what therapy has done for me. It's just like, really help me to get a handle on my anxiety if you could. What advice would you have for your sixteen year old self? I would tell my sixteen year self don't change a thing. Really, I believe in the space time continuum. I've watched a lot of Back to the Future, and I know Avengers in game changed our thoughts on time travel, but I still feel like if you go back in time and you change anything you went through, you may not end up where you are. The only thing I would tell him is that it's gonna be a lot harder then you realize it's gonna be. But I promise you everything will be all right. Just don't get discouraged and stay. Of course, I don't think I would tell my sixteen yourself I'm gonna be successful, though, because I feel like my sixteen yourself will just sitting around and wait to be successful. So what advice do you have for those people who want to be the next year? That's where you fail. You failed by trying to be the next anything. You should truly just be yourself. And it's great to be inspired, Like I was inspired by a lot of radio personalities, but I would have failed tremendously trying to be any of them. The beauty of life is that we are all blessed to be our own individual, unique personality. That's why our DNA is different than everybody else. If you really tap into who you are and your experiences and what you've been through, you can deliver a story that people can relate to. But nobody else has been through. So I would never tell you don't want to be like me because you can't be like me because you haven't gone through what I've gone through. You're not from where I'm from, You're not me. Be yourself genuinely, be yourself, your true authentic self, and I think that you will be a okay and you'll be a personality that people want to listen to. You like a lot of guests on the show, are not a college graduate. By the way, I'm not either. Any regrets that you didn't go to college. No, it's difficult having that conversation with kids telling them you didn't go to college because once again, you're not me. Lebron James didn't go to college, but you're not Lebron James like you gotta you gotta find I was lucky enough and blessed enough to find my gifts in life early. And you know, being that we live in a society, were living in America where you can capitalize off your gifts, I was able to do that. Everybody's not gonna be that lucky. So are that blessed? I don't like the world be that blessed. So I would tell you go to school and till you figure it out. Can't hurt, right until you figure out what it is that you want to do. It doesn't hurt to go to college. I'm the exception, not the rule. So on the continuum of work life balance on one end and work life integration on the other, where do you fall? Honestly, if I'm being honest, I think I focus more on my personal nowadays than anything else because I feel like if I'm not the best me mentally, if I'm not the best me emotionally, spiritually, physically, I can't be the best professionally. So those who wrap up, we always do a shout out to two different kinds of people from math, magic, entrepreneurs, and marketers. Those that came at it from an analytical perspective, the math folks and those that came at marketing from the magic side, the showman. Who's the best of the math people you can think of or do you admire. I'm thinking about like different executives that I met on my radio journey, George Cooke, Cadillac, Jack Dennis Clark, g Spen, because it is a science to this thing that we do call radio. And I've seen them take these one plus ones and make them too. That's not easy as people think it is. So magician, who's the most creative? I like guys like jay Z. The reason I like guys like jay Z is because he's from a place where people like him are not supposed to come from. He didn't have any of the training that a lot of entrepreneurs and CEOs have. He just had a CEO's mind, and like he said, that marketing plan was him and he was an entrepreneur. He's the type of person that would be successful and whatever field he chose to be in, he just has something that you can't you can't buy. And jay Z has just been a person who's dictated culture for the past thirty years, and not just for himself, Like look at all the people that he's put on. Whether this to Rihanna's the j Cole's, the Kanye's, like all of these people who have influenced coaching in so many different ways stemmed from him and what he built. And so when I look at what I want to do as far as radio and media, I want people to look at me in that same way, because, like I said, it's not about me, It's about what are you doing to make this culture that you love move forward? And I genuinely love forward and I want to keep moving this culture of radio forward. Charlemagne, you have he trimmed mendous influence on culture and the lives of others. Thank you for doing it with so much thought and so much intention. Thanks for being Thank you, appreciate you. Here are a few things I've picked up in my conversation with Charlemagne. To God one, read and listen to things that don't pertain to you. This invaluable advice from Charlemagne's mom enabled him to see a world outside the one he grew up in and helped him connect with a wide audience later in his career, too. Never stopped creating. Even after Charlemagne got fired from several radio jobs and was living in his mom's house. It was a few videos he made with friends that ultimately got him his big break. Three come from the perspective of curiosity, not expertise. When Charlemagne interviews someone, the best conversations happened when they learn from each other in the moment. Thanks for listening. I'm Bob Pittman. That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to Math and Magic, a production of I Heart Radio. This show is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sue Schillinger for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which is no small feat Nikki Etre for pulling research, Bill Plax and Michael Azar for their recording help, our editor Ryan Murdoch, and of course Gayle Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel Mango and everyone who helped bring this show to your ears. Until next time,