Charlamagne Tha God Pt.1

Published May 3, 2023, 11:07 AM

Charlamagne Tha God sits down with Questlove Supreme in New York City for a special two-parter. In Part 1, Charlamagne speaks openly about his vision, career, and plenty of humorous discussions with Team Supreme about everyday life.

Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. All right, let's do it, Let's do this again.

Supremo Supremo role called Supremo Supremo role called Supremo Sun Sun Supremo role called Supremo Supremo role.

We back together, Yeah, something out of a dream. Yeah, I so forgot. Yeah we once had a theme.

Supremo role calls Apreema so Supremo rod.

My name is Fante. Yeah, back with the squad. Yeah, my Carolina brother.

Yeah, God, Supremo Supremo role called Suprema Son Supremo role call.

My name is Sugar, back in the booth.

Yeah, my raps destroy you, God's honest truth, supprim.

Roll Suprema Suprema roll called.

I'm paid bill. Yeah, I'm getting random with y'all. Yeah, because it's been three years since I have done a roll.

Damn years.

Suprema roll Yeah, yeah, but a black effect agreement.

Suprema roll call, Suprema So Suppreva roll call.

My name is Charlah. Yeah, I'm not a scholar. Yeah, if I'm broke, Quest Love got a couple of dollars.

Sup Supremo, Supremo, Supremo roll Suprema son sup.

At the end to Yeah, you know, I learned a lot during the pandemic, so I learned where all the effects were.

Don't Fontine got a cheat cold with the Supreme role called that's not.

Fair, and we ain't said sh about it for years?

Yes, what kind of pressure is that?

I don't admit.

When Bill said three years, like I remember the Dawn Lewis episode was the day that we found out that this thing was real, like in real time it was either sexily Strong or Dawn Lewis, in which we were like having a normal conversation, but we were texting each other like.

Like literally like NBC told me to go immediately home and don't talk to anybody and stay locked.

Up in my rib.

Yeah, it's it's been an interesting it was going to be three months.

It's three years in New York since everybody left, came back to New York, came out of the house.

I went to get.

Right, and Bill became a new fante.

I think we actually needed roll call to remember each other's name.

Exact, not not to mention. I guess we well, you know, if you guys are still listening with us, that bad nerves when like the algorithms start falling off when I started rampling.

Charlotte presented us with the iPod. Remember we are the pop music podcast.

Of the year, so do not Yeah, I'm not. I'm not gonna downplay with self defocate all right, new way of thinking.

No, but we should.

We should also take the time to think via the squad that held us down for three years to make it happen like we were thinking in real time to keep the show alive, even though we weren't in the same room. So shout out to Layah for holding it down. Shout out to uh Britney, Benjamin Britney in the.

House, Jake.

Down. I know these people.

I used to work as a felon.

You know cousin Jake is her cousin.

Now she's running our lives. Yeah, shout out to cousin Jake Man and you know Brian Calhoun. Also shout out tip of they have to showing g as well and our friends at iHeart. Am I missing anyone important? Shout out to our animators everyone at Zoom.

Yes. I wish people saw how much goals into this though, because people think and just grab a mic and just kick it with their friend and have a successful podcast. This is a full production. Yeah, yeah, it's real.

Well, in case you wanted to know who that voice was, lazy jump.

This is this is probably the best way for us to jump back in the pool, because you know, it's been a minute. I can't think of a better guest just to sit around talksmack or whatever. Can I say it's talk smack without sounding like fifty plus.

Ship unless you try not to curse. I mean, I go through those stages while I'm like, you know what, I'm not gonna curse. I don't like the vibration of the words.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel that.

Yo.

I didn't realize that you're in the Radio Broadcast Hall of Fame.

Yeah that is two twenty during COVID. Yeah that is major, major ship. They snuck all the black people in and during COVID Sway, Angie Martin, the whole breakfast Club, Envy, Angelie Sway, Donnie Simpson. I believe. So it's just a mass, exodent mass. It was like five five black radio personality that all got in in one year.

Yeah, it's just like.

One every five years.

If that, if that they just got Donnie Simpson in that's crazy where they had in time joiners.

I think Tom Guardian, I think I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure he is though, and he.

Is still with us of course, yes, I just wanted to make sure well in case I didn't say his name, the legendary Charlomagne, the God is readings.

Hello everybody, thanks for having me.

So we actually, as with every QLs episode, was you know, kind of had the or dervs before we started rolling the tapes that we were talking about the AI effect, and I guess we were observing that, Yeah, in the beginning is going to be cute, but in about five years, five to ten minutes, do you think this will actually force us to actually carve out private lives and boundaries?

Again? No, Nah, private lives and boundaries are only for people who remember private lives and boundaries. You got to be born in like the nineteen hundreds. If you was born in nineteen hundreds, like me, nineteen hundred and seventy eight, then you understand private lives and boundaries. This era doesn't know anything about private lives and boundaries. I think about a week come from the era of even with like the artists, we liked it there was a super air of mysteriousness. You didn't know anything about them, you barely names. That's right, and even that was a performance, right, But it's like now it's like your favorite celebrity is waking up with you in the morning on Instagram Live, but they sign it with their bonding on so privatizing boundaries, Like there's no such thing for this generation when it comes to that. That's why you'll be in the airport. Quts loving never run up on you with their phone, you know what i mean, Like like you don't have any like you really like that, Like you just want to be have a phone in your face all the time, just to take a selfie with somebody.

Being as though what I've seen with Twitter, because in the beginning, Twitter was fun and all that stuff and hey I'm having a cheese sandwich or you know that sort of thing. But now where now every damn near every blue verified check is That's.

What I'm saying. We can't even handle fake tweets, So how are we going to handle deep fakes? And you know the artificial intelligence voices Like imagine somebody calls you Fonte and it's questlove loving Laia having a conversation about you, but it's not it's not tim.

So now you're coming here mad and I was talking about me? Does it make me morally wrong that I number one?

I actually like?

There's as of this taping, there's a second Drake song that just got released by the fake AI that I like, and then caught myself downloading Wa mine into a crime right now?

No?

No, no, no, Well we should cut a deal with AI where AI gets the n f t s, they get to make n f t s and we get to make everything else.

What happened right speaking the baby, let me.

Let me ask you just about a because I really just got my I Gotta Immersed tutoring session over the weekend and it kind of changed my life.

And what's the first thing you did? When you like? What was the first thing you do? Crazy?

Saying is out loud because I'm so, I'm yo, That's what I did, all right. I put my TV pitch in there and to fill the gaps of what I thought that I needed. And then I yes, and I realized that as the artist in your description, because then I said, well, let me just describe what my show is and let me see what your version is. But then let me tell you what the what my demographic is. I'm looking for black women over the.

Age of fifty five. What does that look like? What does that pitch look like?

And I got so overwhelmed, But again I realized, I feel like you, Charlamagne, maybe it is the end of the world, but I also feel like it's this weird moment, just like when the Internet came in the nineties, when we were in high school, when maybe encyclopedias came into the world, Like are we overreacting in a minute?

And it just has to settle down. I think this is a little bit different because even with all of those other platforms they needed us to go. This needs us too, not really like they're already having conversations about the AI could take a life of his sona and how much of us are we really using? Like if we can just go to chat GPT and give it an idea and then it gives me a whole pitch back, how much brain power am I actually using? I still believe that one needs.

I'm not even plugging my book, but I would still like to think that you need some sort of level of creativity.

The script describe tell me what to do.

But then again, we also live in a society where like the Instagram filter look is kind of the norm. So I see, using AI creativity will perfect everything and all that. But you know, I'm a guy that like like fucked up drum beats, and you know, I worship at the author of Dila, which is pretty much like anti right.

To Enter and Dila type beat did.

But even then, still there's still it's not nuanced.

And you know this is like year one, year two, so so you're saying it has to have flaws basically, like I.

Still feel like there is a level of human touch that is needed. Or maybe I'm just the last generation that wants a human touch like.

For it part.

Yeah, like your kids might not, Yeah, they may not care.

Well is there I won't know to ultimately use it creatively as just another tool that we have to make stuff, Okay, So I.

Won't yeh, No, you tell too, I told you tail Come on.

One time, I was like, all right, I'm having trouble writing a hook.

Come on, and damn if this motherfuckern spit back twenty ideas, of which four of them were actually perfect at it, and.

I I did it like I closed my computer, like no, I can't, No, I can't.

I'm crossing into the void. What did you say, though, did you say like roots type hook? I literally no, I was so explicit. I was like, I want to do better than roots type hoe.

I want to do a non.

Pretentious I was like a non pretentious political song that captures the mood of and I maybe just as an example. I was like, I gave like four specific situations, but my thing was like, I want to stress how tired we are of protesting, but not too heavy handed.

And I said, make it.

Twenty hooks has to be four lines each, and of the twenty of them, four were like shit, none of them. Were we going to be all right?

Yeah?

I mean, but it was it was something that made me like, yo, that that would be something I would think of. And that's when it got scary.

So I don't like it. I'm thinking about the presidential election next year. If y'all thought misinformation ran rampant in twenty sixteen twenty, like, we don't want that. That's what I'm thinking. What can we do about that? Plug it or whatever?

Like I.

Hate when people have these conversations and they're like the robots are going to take over. I'm like, well, just turn the turn them out, I mean the off. You can turn them off, But that don't mean that that's not going to still happen. Elon Musk and a thousand other people in the tech industry wrote a letter right saying that, yo, we need to pump the brakes on AI because they like oside with him. He just wanted to make him. I don't know. I don't trust him. I don't know. Yeah, I just know that they're more smarter and when it comes to tech than I am. When I hear them saying that we might need to pump the brakes, I'm like, but also, I just we know people. People are stupid. They are like in this room, everybody seems to have, you know, a certain level of intelligence to a certain point, right, I q our I q is majority of people are stupid. So if we live in the world that can't even handle fake tweets, how are we going to handle deep fakes and fake conversations?

Like I don't, I don't what is potentially can go. I'll say this much though, and this might be taboo. I don't know if it's too soon, but you know, no offense to my two brethren over here.

Of those four yeah, he's.

Talking of those four Kanye songs. Kanye AI singing is way better than real Kanye singing.

Really.

I was like, if you ever if you want, if you want to hell Mary, if you want a hell No, you got to hear it. If you want to hell Mary, pass back into the mainstream or forget. Like I'm not saying that you have to pull an Ignition remix, but I almost feel like the perfect song is the most disarming.

I mean naming facts.

History shown that the perfect song has been a very I know we were in a different mind state back then, but I will admit that there's like six Ai Kanye songs out there. And I listened to the third one. I was like, oh man, it's gonna make me like this guy getting I stopped what.

It's AI Kanye though, so AI Kanye. You know probably that wasn't Kanye Kanye.

I know there's going to be a moment in which someone is going to now that the possibilities are endless, like I would like to hear Prince again.

You know what about that you can get your roots album.

That you've been I will you know this is one of the moments in which ignorance is bliss. I don't want to read knowing none about you don't know he got kids, so I know, I just I don't want to talk.

About playing with the dead is spookye. I saw somebody having a conversation with Tupac and Biggie and they were talking like they were from the great like, so, how does it feeling to be dead? Like it was that yeah, and they were talking back to them. I'm like, like Biggie was like, I don't even realize I'm dead.

Like.

This is black Mirry, y'all. We are living like I don't know if we want this. And I know everybody they say, oh, you're old, you're just fighting to get tex like a man. No, in the past thirty years, we've seen, you know, because everybody's also like, oh, they can't clone you. They don't know what you're thinking. I'm like, we've given them thirty years of that on us. Yes, you're talking about Gucci man being cloned. We gave them enough information over the last thirty plus years that they can clone us, you know virtually.

Wait, that's what that's what you said on the internet.

State the clone. Yeah, because he's too improved. Yeah, that's right, that's right. How dare you improve yourself? He's because he's.

Living in sad that's right, that's right, living his life, right, that's right.

Oh damn okay, I didn't know that. All right.

I feel like a lot of people are going to lose their jobs.

Because what will teachers do? What will teachers do?

Well?

Yeah, research your assistant for anybody doing that's.

One of the top ones to go. Disistance paralegals, attorneys, financial advisors, like it's it's gonna be bad. Lawyers and the writers. Oh y'all sure, y'all want to go and to write a strike? Are you sure now the time about that? Not like this AI ship? I'm telling you that's how I look. All it takes is one hit AI show. Yeah, you know what's coming. You know we're talking about it.

Here is there an AI song on the charts right now?

The Drake and Weekend song have gotten over like two billion listens, which.

They pulled it though that you pulled it, yeah, but not.

We all heard it. Yeah.

It's you know, it's kind of like you know, when Beyonce had heard Falls like the best of her slips on stage digitally removed from the Internet, but people keep putting them out there.

You know, my grandmother said it's the end of day, so maybe they finally write. I don't know, it's not the end of the day, you know, my mother. They keep saying it.

It's just the beginning of some crazy bullshit.

You don't want it. I'm telling you what we think we want. We do not want it. And I just feel like it's mutually as shored destruction. It's like humans can't help themselves.

But what I do want to know, or you mentioned lawyers, and what I do want to know now if we remember way back in that trial over the the Chicago figure that's now behind bars, where his whole defense was like, well, that's not me, that's someone did a digit right now, what's going to stop someone else from you know, in case they get videotaped.

You know, I don't know if that will work with videotape, but it definitely work with fake tweets, fake tweets and old audio and stuff like that's not me, that's AI, that's chat GPT, you can talk. You can do that now, actually, all right, So we definitely feel gloomy question. Make me feel good about.

He said the indition, this was the best song ever. I told you that. That's what you said. I know what I heard. That's what I heard.

Because you might have to blame that on AI. You went from Kanye to Kelly. Kelly.

This is bad, I'll ask you, because I mean you're basically like leading the charge and out in the forefront.

Is this, and I say this in air quotes, is this what you imagined life would be like? Did you.

Have a vision of the future?

Is it for you?

Just like one day at a time, like, oh, this opportunity came, and that opportunity, Oh, I have a voice. I have a voice stronger than the host of the show that I'm on. And then like for you, where is your mind state? In two thousand and three.

I can go back farther than that, when I started off as an intern in nineteen ninety eight in Charleston, South Carolina ad Z ninety three jams, like I remember being in there doing overnights, you know, and in like nineteen ninety nine and just I was studying everybody, right, so I would study whoever was the big person at the time, like I'm you know, the big Tiggers, Angie Martinez, Wendy Williams, the Tom Joyner, you know, Doug Banks, And it just took me down these rabbit holes where I started learning about the p D greens of the world. At the time, I think, you know, Steve Harvey was just getting in the radio, and I just always said to myself, if I'm going to do this, I want to be one of them. Like I used to call those super jocks. I want to be a super jock, Like I don't want to just be you know, in a market, you know, doing time and temperature and announcing the next Drake song, Like I want to be one of one of those. So from that point on that that's what my intention was, Like I said, my intention in nineteen ninety eight, ninety nine to have my name mentioned amongst those individuals.

So it's this limiting to call you. I mean, you know, I've heard the whole like you're the Black Howard Stern.

In the New I used to get me in so much trouble.

You're the new You wait, why tell me it got me in trouble?

Because when I started seeing that, like that's that's that's like as much as you think you're not influenced by these things that are said about you, But if you start seeing that in magazines and you start seeing that online, you start seeing yourself. Oh I'm gonna give them more of that. But you don't stop to ask, well, what about me? Is the black house? All you run with is like all of the perverted, the frat boy humor. That wasn't no, that wasn't it. So you know, you run with that for a while. So that definitely got me in trouble. Well, we can actually at home, and but that's what I meant. I'm sorry.

Of course it's my mom.

Hi, moms, Jackie, Jackie. I'm actually live on the air right now doing.

Jackie said, it is twelve o'clock. I know where you are, Jackie and wife daughters.

Do you ever hear Nikrolls think about when your parents call? He's like, why is that that? Every time everyone's parents call, you're.

Just like fuck.

No matter what, it's always like fuck. It could be like, oh I don't want to talk to you, or like every time somebody I was like yeah, yeah, anyway.

Chances are we're going to keep this on the air. So I love when my mother.

Called because this show. She definitely listens to this show.

No, No, but for you where you are right now, which is basically, you are our go to pundit. You're now the place where mainstream media, whatever that means in twenty twenty three, you're there, go to tag team party like you get tagged in a lot of these things. Is is that pressure to be the sort of unofficial spokesperson of whatever generation we are or for people in general pressure?

No. I wouldn't call it pressure because I'm small enough to know that I'm not an expert at anything, and so if it is things that I feel like need an actual area of expertise, I'm gonna go get that person and bring that person into the room with me. I'm gonna go get you know, Angela Rai or a Tuessling figure O or a Roland Martin, whoever it may be. I'm gonna go get that person and say and say, hey, I want you to sit in on this conversation. Because I always look at the platform like it's not my platform, it's not Envy's platform, it's the people's platform. So if it's the people's platform, let's have these conversations with the people. So you know, I'll have my POV and I'll have the questions that I want to ask. But when you have the actual expert in there that can you know, actually apply that real academic pressure, it's no, it's no pressure on me at all.

All right, So maybe I have you here just so I can get coached on how to not be more brash. But you kind of have a you have a fearlessness, a very direct question thing which I'm still trying to like, I don't want to fit in the person.

That's because you're a smart question.

No, No, it's a general. It's a boomer. It's the it's the boomer. And I think it's the fear is like, it's funny watching you because I was just thinking, I said, I wonder what was Charlemagne's first moment in radio back in South Carolina when he realized that he may be a little controversial. What did his boss say to him that was like, Yo, do.

You remember the first time? He like poked, Yeah, yeah, when's the first time?

You tell me? Please tell me story?

I do.

Actually it was a it was a person who would call the radio station. They would call D ninety three all the time, and they would like do like these sexy phone voices and moaning would be talking like really really crazy to the guys. And then I found out that the person was actually a guy doing it. So it was a guy who would call into the station, pretend to be a woman, and he would it off by getting the guys off. And they didn't know. Nobody knew, but nobody knew, and I didn't even know if what I was, if the information I was receiving was true, that's right. But when the person, when that person called in, I was like, Yo, your name is really such and such and you are from such and such South Carolina, and you're really a guy. And I was right, and they just yeah. So I ended up getting put on I got put on liners, like you know, all before you know, you could have your own opinion, you could you know, talk well, at least in South Carolina, they weren't doing that. I was doing that at the time, but after that they put me on liners and all I could do was the time, temperature and whatever. The next Nellie, you got reprimanded for that. Absolutely. So that's why I'm curious about Sean Lain in that way, because I know I never even thought about that till you said it.

Yeah, because as a radio person, you either go one of two ways, like I was usually the controversial person in my radio mix or whatever, but you usually go that way, or you go you get quieted down because you been told so many times like what the fuck are you talking about? Don't do that, you're offending, did not get on the liners that whole thing. So with you, that must have been a moment where you was like, nah, well, because I.

Number one, I didn't even really know any better, right, So it's like when I always say the best thing that happened to me when I got on radios. I didn't have any experience, Like I didn't go to college, I didn't do college radio. I got I got, you know, blessed to be able to get an internship in Charleston, South Carolina in nineteen ninety eight, and you didn't need to be in college or have any college credits or anything like that. So I was literally coming into the radio station drunk. Nobody taught me how to, you know, do breaks and everything else. I literally learned on the job training. I did voice tracking, you know, on Sunday mornings. But I was scaring all the church folks. So they started putting me on Saturday night. So I would voice track from seven to ten and go live ten to twelve. And all I would do is you would scare the church folks. Oh Sundays, it's the Bible Belt Chelsea, South Carolina on a Sunday morning, like so you would go Roague even on Sunday mornings. I was just talking. I didn't know. I didn't know any better. Nobody said you can do this and you can't do that like that. Yeah, then somebody did. Yeah, And I wasn't with it because it wasn't fun. And I'm the type of person man if it's not fun, if it's not making me happy, like I don't want any parts of it. And so you know what happened was there was a new station that popped up in the market. It was Hot ninety eight nine in Charleston, South Carolina. My man, George Cooke was still a great mentor to me to this day. He's operations manager at K one to four in Dallas. He hired me to do nights seven to midnight. So I left the big station, right that would be like Power ninety nine in Philly. I left the heritage big station in Charleston, which was Z ninety three to go work for Hot ninety eight nine and Charleston, which was like a fifty thousand watch station with a with a with an OK signal for nineteen thousand dollars a year, but they gave me free rein seven to midnight.

Yes, so how that nuanced into like you came into our radar of course through Wendy, but how how did you make that move?

I worked at Hot ninety eight nine and Charleston. I think I got fired from there after like maybe a year, and then I was out of radio for a while, and then I started going to do radio in Columbia, South Carolina. And that's when the whole Windy connection thing happened because the stations in Columbia was called Inner City Broadcasting. NFC Broadcasting owned the Big DM in Columbia, South Carolina, and WBLS in New York worked at the Big DM when they was hip hop. Then they flipped four Match, but they ended up buying the other station in the market, Hot one O three nine. I used to do nights on Hot one O three nine, and Wendy was syndicated in the afternoons and at that time. I just I was using the internet by then, so like a lot of my content and interviews started ending up on the all hip hop dot coms and the SOHH dot com at the time, that's all we had. So people started hearing me. Nashally and even Vlad got a slew Vlad Lad had the Beef DVDs. So Lad would take some of my interviews and put them on Beef DVDs. So that's even how I got Vlad started Beef. Yeah, it was called. So that's how I even got on the radar of like Wendy them. And then they would come into the market, you know, her and her husband, and we would just show them love. You know, we take them around to the clubs, make sure they got whatever they needed from weed, the drinks and everything else. So then we had a rapport. And so like one day they invited me to come to New York, like come up for a party. So I came up for a party. She asked me to come on our show. I went on our show for like twenty five minutes. Next thing you know, that night, they was offering me the position to be her sidekick.

Sounds going to be on the show what.

That showed up?

Yeah, yeah, we Bill was one of my our first guests. Here's our first guest, our pilot guest, and then we stole Bill. You know, he's a big deal in.

The reduction.

Tony's and you know and stare dope, Now you're just one of us.

So like at that moment, did you feel like, Okay, this is a chess move because like moving to New York first, well, you know, moving to New York or San Francisco or any of those cities which require like you to survive in that city and whatnot, Like what was your was that part of your chest plan?

Like eventually?

Yeah, because I got fired from my ninety and nine, So that's one fire and I got fired from Hot one O three point.

When you get fired, what is that feeling like? Do you feel like it's doom and gloom?

Like the first time I get black balled and it's over the first time I did because I didn't know anything else other than my hometown. So I knew Monks Corner and Charleston, Like I didn't know you could even go do radio other places, Like I didn't even know that was a thing, right, Like I had no idea So at the first time I got fired, I really thought, Okay, this is this is over, this is a wrap. But then when I got hired in Columbia, I'm like, oh, I could do radio in Colombia. And then when I started having ratings and actually started, you know, garnering attention in Columbia, I'm like, oh, I can go other places and actually be good at this and the city will embrace me. So once I realized that, like I had I had, I had no fear whatsoever.

But the thing is is that when you get interviewed, you're surely asked like, okay, why did you leave.

Oh it's different at radio and radio they know, like they know, they know pretty much why you got fired, like they've already reached out to somebody, or you know, like they know like they For me, it was always strange because you would think I would get fired for something I actually like did on air. I've never been fired for anything I've actually did on it. I've never even been fined. But as he's seeing nothing, you know what I mean. It was literally just a regime change. So a new program director came in, and you know, I knew the guy at the time, It's kind of like he was another radio personality in the market, and I remember they asked me what I would I like to work with him, and I'm like, yeah, that'd be dope to have him on the air. But then they hired him as the PD. I'm like, yo, y'all, ain't say y'all hired him as the PD.

You know, you know?

So then he bought in Territorial, that's right, So he bought it as a whole new team, and it was the same thing high on three nine. They fired me because I had got with Wendy right, so I was flying back and focus. I wasn't getting paid for Windy my first like year and a half.

Check.

It was all an opportunity. They was like, like I said, and listen when I say not getting paid, I don't mean like I was only getting paid start aunt. I wasn't paid.

No, no, no, same all right, Bill, I don't know. Look, the situation has rectified, but I just want the history.

First of all, Bill, you're wearing those sneakers, which is more than our house payment, so eco friendly.

I'm wearing forty dollars plastic shoes.

Okay, hold on, before you turn into mister Krock, you were really fucking expensive sneakers too.

And then the pandemic happened. You you ramped expensive nursing home shows.

Those shoes, those are.

A good clean version.

But most people when they get those sneakers, it looks fucked up already, like it's supposed to look like.

See Matt White boys with dirty versions. But I didn't know if they were expensive.

Like twelve hundred.

No those are not, no, no, no, these are eco friendly. I got a couple of FLEs ha like they're made out of like rich case, recycled material or something.

I'm wearing plastic sneakers.

I have those two.

What the name of them? I'm sorry?

I did you always wear Crock squest so after the pandemic? Oh I thought it was after the Kanye toback.

No, no, no, everybody hate They still comfortable. They're mad comfortable.

I mean they were the most comfortable sneaker a month before he got kicked out the crib. I got those moon boots. Oh my god, I felt like I could fly, like like I was going to the store, like just jumping on springs spring.

But no, we got to look up the crocs. People's politics.

You know, some people just self sabotaged just because they can't help themselves.

But anyway, so anyway, nice sneakers, Bill, Yeah, thanks, Yeah, and you're rich anyway, so they don't look nice.

I just don't think they look because.

You're such a sneaker.

Of Let's move on.

I what the I wear?

All questions?

You know?

Those dude look like quests love you sneakers, like the old North Carolina tail Air Force ones. They matched nothing.

Else, like.

All right, never mind, let's talk about him.

Yeah, okay, go tar Hills right up? All right, So at what point are you? Like, how am I surviving in New York without Well that's why I used to fly back.

I used to fly back every weekend and do parties, right, So I would fly back to South Carolina, do a party, have a just have some money to eat, you know, maybe buy a plane ticket the next week. And it got to the point where nine in Columbia was like, you can't fly back and forth no more. You know, basically the operations managers like you can't have your cake and eat it too. So I was just in New York, which was probably the best thing for me, because now I had an opportunity to like really just focus on you know, city, and you know me doing that. After a year and a half, I started to make enough waves to where they put me on payroll, you know, at WBLS because people were requesting me to read ads and things of that nature. So they put me on payroll at WBLS and I worked there until November second, two thousand and eight. You remember the date, you know why, because President Obama became president elected next day. That's when you came to us in Philly. No, Philly came Philly was I got to Philly and two thousand and nine, Yeah, two thousand and nine. After I got fired from Wendy, I was out of radio for like seven to eight months. And it was cool because my daughter was born. My first daughter was born June of two thousand and eight, so my wife was going to work to pay the bills and everything else. I was home with my newborn for the first seven eight months of her life, you know. And then then I got hired at one hundred point three to beat in Philly.

Can you talk about that time too, because I was always curious, you know, you and Wendy both did that, Like when Wendy was down for a second.

She came to Philly, she did mornings, and then I'm not saying you were down. I'm just saying I was down. Okay. I was afraid to go get unemployment because I had too much pride. I was like, now this was on Wendy Show, and Wendy was on v H one. I'm like, I'm not about to going on unemployment line, you know. So, which cost us an eviction because my wife couldn't afford to pay, you know, all the bills in the apartment and everything at the time.

So we ended up being South Carolina during this time we moved back together. The interesting thing about a hundred point through to beat in Philly. I worked there for like eight months, nine months. Then I got fired from there, the four firing. So second, Okay, you're recapping this nicely, but what I need to know is when a firing happens, is there a lesson learned? Like I'm a person that now sees failure as not a four letter word, but as like here's the lesson I learned, Yes, But for you, what is the lesson learn when you get fired?

It was just all part of the journey, like when I literally look back on it right now. I used to always say to myself, this is just going to be another chapter in the book. I used to literally say that, and then chapter in it literally became a chapter in the New York Times best selling book, which was my first book, Black Privilege. Like literally, that's that's all I ever used to look at it as because every time I would, you know, get fired, it felt like I would fail up right. So I got fired from Hot ninety eight nine, I ended up in Columbia, South Carolina doing radio. I get fired from Hot Wine OD three point nine. I end up working with Wendy. I get fired from Wendy. I end up doing my own morning show in Philadelphia.

But for you, it's not a game of Russian Roulette where it's like, okay, that's that bull, Now let me make sure that.

I keep this job.

Well, I mean again, like, for you, is it about safety? Nothing is it about your dream and goal.

I never got fired for anything I did on the air, so it's like it's not nobody was ever reprimanding me for things that I did on the air. I was getting fired for political reasons, you know, like like even with Wendy November two, two thousand and eight, the economy was in shambles. They fired twenty five people. They fired the legendary Vaughn Harper. God blessed the dead, you know, great radio personalities like Champagne. The same day that I got fired. It just so happened. I worked with Wendy at the time, so my fire was highly publicized, which also let me realize, like, damn, I really, I guess been doing my thing in New York that if I get fired, it makes news, it makes new movies, you know.

And it's kind of crazy because you know when you came to Philadelphia, the moves that they made to make room.

It's so funny.

They kept you for eight months, but they moved everything around, Like me and Pooch had a morning show. Charlemagne's coming, y'all ain't got it no more. So we're gonna put like, yeah Middays and Pooching afternoon, right. So it's just funny how radio radio so fucking fickle. Kenderd g come Ken was with us, She was with us, she was a night show. Yeah, of course not Kendrick's doing her thing too. But it's just interesting the way lives are shuffled, and then all of that for eight months.

What is the ideal slot for radio? It used to be mornings and getting up at three in the morning.

I love it, love it. You gotta be wired a certain way, but I love you gotta do the bit at nine o'clock. I love it.

It's not for you.

Man, great you take naps.

If you really got to go out and do something, you do what you gotta do. But then you be up in the morning when nobody else is away. You just feel like you you ahead.

So how do you manage, like, you know, your social life, because I mean you have to go and do events and stuff like that.

So they are married with four kids. I don't have a social right now.

How many between you and Andrew? Like between like, how many jobs do you have right now?

Your network on? I mean as far as hosting, I do Breakfast Club in the morning and then we do Brilliant Idiots once a week me and Andrew shows. But everything else I do. I thank God that I have a team to run it. Like, you know, we just had to. We literally just had the Black Effect Podcast Festival this past weekend in Atlanta, sold out event. You know, first of it's kind where we literally had a festival full of podcasts, like you know, I know the roots y'all do the podcast stage we did.

Yeah, I'm steaming right now because I was like.

At the festival and I can't do that on my own. Like, that's a team that doesn't That's a team that makes me look good. That's Dollary Bishop, who's the president of my network. Yeah, thats too, that's simpl that's right.

So now in your current life, you make time, do you have boundaries like Okay, I'm carving out time to do this that like these eight hours I'm working and then yeah, I.

Feel like every honestly for me, I feel like everything is carved around my wife and my kids at this point, you know what I mean. Like to me, that's the that comes first before everything else. And like I said, you got to have a great team, like we gotta. I got a company at Audible SBAH Productions, Me and Kevin Hart. We got a team. Like you know, it's all you do is tell us what calls to be on and we know we and we tell them projects that we want to do, Like yo, I just you know, I just find this person. This person just reached out to me. Y'all should reach out to them, but like they handle all of that, throw please do fourteen, seven, four and eighteen months Jesus. Yeah, do you think the radio will ever make it come back to what as what we know it as? Yes, because the funny thing is the audience hasn't gone anywhere. So it's like the same amount of people who listen to radio in twenty twenty three is the same amount that used to listen to radio in the nineties, like they were ninety six ninety seven percent of the country still listens, you know, the radio. And for the first time ever, radio has more cume and viewer and listenership than cable television, like in the in the coveted eighteen to forty nine demograph. But these are these Breakfast Club numbers.

No, these this radio status period, Like for the first time ever, radio has more cume than cable television. Okay, so how do they measure that? Because I watch you guys via YouTube? So what numbers are the intendent the God's watching to determine what your value is?

I think for radio at least for us, like Breakfast Club has eight million monthly listeners and that's just on terrestrial radio, right, and then you factor in the iHeartRadio app. I don't know what that number is, but then we come out of the daily podcast every day and the podcast does between like fifteen and twenty million downloads a month. Right. So then you got the YouTube which is five minue subscribers on YouTube, and you know the billions of views and engagement that they get on that, And then you got social media. I don't think they've found a way to add it all up yet, but they know that individually in all of these different spaces, you're a greenlight.

You won't be getting fired anytime soon.

You never know.

But yeah, still make the point that those are like those are breakfast club numbers, which breakfast Club is its own anomaly because like you said, y'all are syndicated all across the country. Them to add YouTube and all the other things. But local radio do you think cause I mean, I know syndication ain't going nowhere, but do you think that for local radio if.

They invest back into the greatest asset, which is which radio has always had, which is the personality, Because if you think about it, all radio did was give up ground, you know, to everybody, because when that stupid ass PPM meter came out fifteen to twenty years ago, which was terrible. PPM was a rating system that literally Wendy Wims was number one one day and then the next day she was like number twenty five in the market, Like come to fuck up, Like, you know this is a you know this is a flawed system, right, But everybody got so scared of PPM that they turned radio into a jukebox. Like literally it was just music. They didn't even have imaging and sweepers, it was just music. So what happens over the last fifteen years podcasts. So now radio's greatest asset personality isn't on radio anymore. It's all on podcasts, So people gravitate towards that music. Why would I sit around and listen to you play the same Drake songs twenty times in a row when I can go to Apple title Spotify and pull up what I want to listen to. You know, news radio's not breaking news no more. They won't even let us. You got Twitter for that. Yeah, and live events every single festival from Lollapalooza the Coachella. So now the big radio shows don't even matter anymore so. But community. That's the one thing I said it was missing, Charlotte. But that's why you got to invest back into the personalities. That's why it starts there. You got to have these personalities in Philadelphia. You gotta have these personalities. People in Sacramento outcasts, people can't touch people, they can't go outside and whatnot like that.

Absolutely, so you're saying that, Yes, at one time, when I grew up with radio, it was like a community thing where you see a local da da da da, and it was feeling cool.

And then something happened in nineteen ninety six.

I guess from what I learned, especially like being an artist on a label, trying to figure out how real palol it was and all that stuff. But we realized, I think going to Hot ninety seven once that I learned. I came there on a Sunday, like I think DJ Premier show is like on a Sunday whatever, And in the next room, these people are like, yeah, we're learning, we're loading in the songs for the week, and I'm like, what are you talking about. It's like, oh, yeah, all this pre determined. We don't play music anymore, like all this all the playlists are predetermined the week in advance, Like you know, I can add I'm gonnad you got me uh nine times for it and literally.

Saw them play it two in the morning. Right.

But my whole point is like, will.

That system ever let up and they need to the DJ it needs to and they'll let the DJ be the tastemaker.

Well, we'll have to improve it, right, Like it's not gonna when it does come back, it ain't gonna be what it was, but hopefully it'll have some of those same elements.

Correct. I mean, radio will never lead in anything ever again, No, it just won't, but it can be. It can be the perfect compliment because there's not a greater amplifier than radio. I just feel like sometimes these programmers make their job more difficult than it needs to be because of what Quest's saying nowadays, just pay attention to what's happening on Spotify, Pay attention to what's happening on Title, like it's right there for you so you can still you know, uh, program your golden oldies or your A sides or whatever you whatever they call them. But throwing some of the new records just because you know what I mean, I would have a drop that says, you know, from your playlist to our radio, like just because, by the way, I would have that as a drop, just because, you know, because now if you're in your car and you of a certain age, or even if you are just now that's it. You're just somebody who always screams you're like, that is on my playlist?

Actually in your mind? Is the Breakfast Club just a wolf in sheep's clothing?

In terms of do you consider it a radio show or is it just a platform that also happens.

To be live on the radio, that's a great question. I mean, we're definitely a radio show. But you know, remember they used to say, if you build it, they will come. Those days are over. You got to build it and you got to meet people where they are. So it's built, and now we meet people where they are. So we put it out as a daily podcast. We put it out on YouTube. You know, you see the clips on social media, and we're on BT and BAH one every morning now, so we're literally meeting people where they are. And that's what you have to do if you're in radio. Like if I was having a conversation with a radio personality in twenty twenty three and they didn't have a plan on how to take their content and put it on all of these platforms. I wouldn't hurt him.

Wait now, I feel like Britt and Jake are like, this is what we've been trying to tell a mere to do with questions.

Yes, it's true though they were just literally talking about that.

It's the truth.

This is why we made I didn't even know that we were YouTube until like, wait, don't show me a clip in my pajamas, Like, wait a minute, you do not.

Yeah, we're soft on a soft launch, but still, but it's hard when you don't have a team. As you say that, I'm like, you're right, but man for the one person band of it. And if radio isn't your main money maker and you still you're trying to get a job with chargamun you still go do all that.

It's a lot sometimes, Listen. I never had a team when I was doing mornings in Philly. I was getting paid seventy five thousand dollars a year. They didn't have no money for any for a producer, so it was the local boardop that was there who was my board up. Then eventually they hired my homegirl, Sasha Kti. Me and Sasha used to get up every morning and drive from Jersey to Philly. Not even South Jersey. I was living in like brother. She was in like Rawway. So we would be getting up at it like three o'clock in the morning. Jersey. Wait, are you allowed to be later? Traffic is the traffic that time of the morning.

What happened was so excuse we leave at three, I'd be at I'd be there about like five fifteen because on one point three B wasn't in Philly.

Morning. I ever couldn't period y because I'd be up at three, like so I don't think.

I was over what happens if you're over sleep and like I gotta be on the air in ten.

Minutes, like well yeah, and that I couldn't do that in Philly because I was the only I was literally the only person you got to be there before the mic with Breakfast Club, you know, you got it. It was envy and it was you for all those years. So it's like that was you could be late. You know, even now you can still be like because at least it's one person there, Okay, now Eddie, Eddi's over there, yeap Edi Eddie's with us at Breakfast Club and the Sash. Me and Sasha literally to drive every morning to Philadelphia and it would just be me, the one man.

Different times. Now you're asking for YouTube, Instagram, all the things.

Well, all I needed was a camera person, So give me the camera person and didn't give me the footage, and we would upload it the YouTube. We put it up on one hundred point three the Beach website. I would send it to the blogs personally myself. Even when we got with Brother, You're your own.

Absolutely, you would throw the party, be the DJ, be the hosts, and then you're the guy outside the club handing out.

Because I'm used to that. I was doing that when I was doing radio in South Carolina. I was sending my stuff though I would go on all oh LC, I could send this to l C. I was doing that like I was getting the emails and sending them myself. When we got with Breakfast Club, same thing. We didn't have no promotion in marketing budget. It was literally me and by Angela our our producer q our bought up and easy. After about a year they let me hire another producer. I went and got Sasha brought Sasha back from Philly, and but prior to that, I was like, we need a cameraman. We need a cameraman here interviewing, I mean recording every single interview, and that's literally all we did. And then we would take those interviews and shoot him out to all our connections that we had in the internet world. All the radio started following them and doing it.

Yeah, are you telling me that the mothership, the the top brand doesn't know that you are Lebron or Jordan and that you need a team to work that where you go there will be numbers, there will be ratings, the algorithms will be up and all that stuff.

I think in twenty ten they didn't know because in twenty ten they were still using the dot com. They weren't even putting content on YouTube yet. Like literally in twenty ten it was still power one oh five to one FM dot com and then like those numbers started to get so crazy, But we didn't get YouTube until twenty sixteen. I had been telling them, like yo, what, yes, I had been telling our heart, we need to be on YouTube. They only wanted to put clips on YouTube and bring people back to the dot com. It wasn't until the week of we had Hillary Clinton and Birdman in one week.

So that Birdman incident was Hillary Clinton.

Was that Monday that was the hot sauce in the bag, and then that Monday was Birdman And somebody took the clip and put it online and like in twenty four hours it had like seventy two million views. And then they was like, you know what, we should stop putting our videos on YouTube. I'm like, you think, what up? Y'all?

Okay, So that was part one of our conversation with Charlemagne and God, You've got to come back for part two when we get more into that Birdman interview and we speak with Charlottemagne by his relationship with family and hometown.

He's done some amazing things at his hometown that nobody else has also.

Don't forget Charlemagne and Questlove Supreme will be live at this year's Roots Picnic.

Come see us.

Mutch Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite Chills

Questlove Supreme

Questlove Supreme is a fun, irreverent and educational weekly podcast that digs deep into the storie 
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