Bad Boys 4 Shuts Down Critics At The Box Office + Howard University Revokes Diddy's Honorary Degree + More

Published Jun 11, 2024, 10:35 AM

Join Tezlyn Figaro and Jade Harriel as they discuss this week's pop culture and political topics. Many topics are headlines you may have heard about in the national media however, they also discuss headlines that are not trending but are important topics to discuss.

* Bad Boys 4 shuts down critics at the box office 
* Howard University Revokes Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs honorary degree 
* Project 2025
* U.S. appeals court blocks grant program for Black women-owned businesses

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This is TESSLM figure Row your Girl with straight Shot No Chaser. Thank you again for joining do me a favor. If you're here, you have more than likely already subscribe to the show, but I do want you to double check and make sure that you actually are subscribed, that you click follow from our understanding, a lot of especially if you're on Apple, we lost a lot of our follows. There was some type of technical glitch, so I am gonna keep reminding you of that every week just to make sure that we're still able to capture you as someone that follows this show. So please make sure you do check at the top of the wherever you fall, wherever you get your podcasts, whether it's Apple, Spotify, or iHeart app, make sure you are subscribed. I'm Teeslin Figaro, and again thank you for joining me, and also bring a friend. I have asked them to come to the podcast as well, and I brought my friend with me today again, Jade Harel, who is here joining me helping me sort through these topics. Get as much news as you can use as we can possibly get in in the short time that we have for you.

We have Tuesday and Thursday, you know, trying.

Our best to give you a double dose of news every week. And so we are here today and we're gonna get straight to it.

So Jade is with me.

Now, we're gonna talk a little bit about pop culture. We don't talk a lot about pop culture, but I did want to kind of put this out here. I always still bring stuff back to politics. So even if it is, you know, pop culture topic, I still, you know, always like to show you the political side of it. And you guys, obviously remember when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars. I did an entire podcast on it, an episode on it. Make sure you go back and listen to it. I flipped the narrative where I said, black voters are getting the Chris Rock slapped out of them, and it was a very good episode. Please go back and watch, Go back and listen to it. Great thing about podcasts, All of those episodes are sitting there. You can go back, sort through it, check out what I had to say, and here, Jade, here we are now. You know, with the follow up, you know, people wanted to know with this effect Will Smith's career, it's over for him, you know, no way that he's going to be able to recover.

Well.

Bad Boys four came out this weekend and it is a huge victory.

It said it was fifty.

Six million in the US and one hundred and four globally. So it turns out his talent was able to steal get people just enjoy good entertainment.

You know.

I think they put aside whatever however they felt about Chris Rock or whatever they felt about that particular situation, and wanted to watch the continuation of a very popular movie series that has been out for a year over twenty years actually, and wanted to see Bad Boys four. So I have not seen it yet. My daughter went to see it. I want her to be my date, but she said she already had made plans, you know, to go see what her friends up there. Kind of bad about that, She said she wouldn't mind going to see it.

Again.

But I'm like Jada at that point, you know, I kind of wanted to see with me, but you know, here nor there. But she did see it. She said it was very funny and that she enjoyed it. And obviously I've seen nothing but you know, great reviews so far on it. So you know what, what's your.

Thoughts on it?

On him doorsement? Well, you know, and let me let me be clear. Bad Boys. The first Bad Boys came out in nineteen ninety five. Nineteen ninety five, so this has been a very long serie. You know, movie series has went a long time, and it's so amazing to see, you know, a whole different generation like Jada, who's sixteen, garanby seventeen be now involved in this was something that came out when I was in high school. So this is just very interesting. But you have use have you had a chance to see it yet?

I have not, but I definitely want to see it. This one's called Bad Boys, Ride or Die, and I watched all of the Bad Boys series and I actually I'm going to go see it just because Will Smith is in it, and I'm really excited that he is back acting. I was not mad at him for that slap. I didn't think that it would end his career, or that it should have ended his career, but it's really it's good to see them, to see him and Martin out there. The first one, like you said, Bad Boys, came out in nineteen ninety five, then in two thousand and three it was Bad Boys two, and then in twenty twenty Bad Boys for Life. So here we are, we're about to see a new one, twenty twenty four. I'm really excited about it. I'll probably go see it this week when I get some downtime, but I'm hearing really great things. And they made their budget back in opening weekend. Altogether, I think that it was one hundred million dollar production budget, and so cumulatively, you know, within the US and internationally they've made they've exceeded that. So that's pretty good.

Yeah, And that's always a plus. You always want to be able to if you can make your budget back the first weekend. After that, everything is gravy, so big, big shut out to them and again, and Martin Lawrence is such an icon, you know, and I know, you know, people have been talking about his health and you know, you can see there's something you know that has went on, you know, with his speech, but that's not.

For everybody to know.

Like, everybody don't have to break down to you everything that's going on, you know, in their life. It's clearly maybe he's on medication. So you say, like he had a stroke, you know, I don't know, but he has squashed those rumors by saying he's fine. You know, that doesn't mean nothing ever happened. But we just got to get out the mindset of thinking everybody got to break everything down to us. But certainly, you know, wish him well. And again, Martin Lawrence has done so much for the culture for the last third the years that he deserves all of that success and sold as will both of them, and they built a phenomenal empire with bad boys, and so certainly glad to see that. And I know that's a big sign of relief for him too, you know, because to lose it all behind a mistake, he made a mistake, you know, he apologized for it. It went on and on and on and on and on. I remember that in real time, you know, And I'm just glad to see you know that kind of we've moved on to the next phase. You showed everything doesn't last for ever, so shout out to them. So we'll switch and go to get a little bit of politics. This is still a little bit of pop culture when we talk about Diddy again. You know, I have a show at Revolt. Shout out again to Revolt for those shares that did he had have been given to the employees, so employees are now owners of Revolt. I was very proud to see that happen. I've been working with the CEO behind the scenes for six months, six seven months since this has been going on, and this has not been easy. It really has not been easy. And that's not taking away anything from what did he did, which was disgusting and casey and all of that. You know, I'm not even speaking to that. I'm just saying how a bunch of thousands of people were affected indirectly for something that had nothing to do with them, and they had to sort through that and figure it out. You know. It's like you come in one day and your founder is being accused of something terrible, and then how do you navigate through that? And then when the video comes out and shows yeah, it wasn't just an accusation, it was really real, how do you, you know, navigate through that?

So Revolt has just really did.

I watched it up close, you know, with the meetings they had with employees and you know, giving people, giving people the opportunity to talk to say how they feel, you know, to express themselves to A lot went on behind the scenes. A lot went on behind the scenes. So I again I'm glad to see that they were able to come to some type of closure. I guess on that chapter in moving Forward Revolt. Don't know what the future of Hoole for Revolt, but I certainly certainly do support them. But you know, there was another documentary that came out this weekend on Hulu. I watched the first one by TMZ and I watched this one, and pretty much the same information, you know, repeated over and over and just kind of documenting plus legacy prior to this and what was really lost because a lot has been lost, and so I just think there'll be more documentaries, more movies. This is far from over. We still don't know what the Feds have found or their charges. But what I do know about the FEZZ is they normally don't come to your house simultaneously.

They don't have something, right, Yeah, they have convictionary, ma'am. They do. Yeah, so I don't know. Now.

Andrew Gilliam, former running for governor, he went against the fees and actually won. That was very different. But yes, typically they win. Typically when they come, they ready. So we'll just continue to keep it eye on that. And you know, again, it's just an unfortunate thing all the way around. Unfortunate watching that what he did, knowing that this whole thing, you know, the whole time, somebody said the whole time, I thought it was sugar all along, you know, it was puffed.

So this is just unfortunate. It's just sickening, you know, watching this folk.

And it's interesting, Yeah, you just brought our ship Knight's name. We were, he said. He was even shocked at his own reaction behind this, you know, he said, he doesn't want to see anyone going down either way. It's just not a good look for the culture. It's it's just it's just it's just bad. But yeah, folks were looking at it not a particular way for decades and now we see this happening. But what I also see that it's very unfortunate, is that Howard University they're returning money that that huff or that did he gave to Howard University. Yes, they took away his honorary degree. I don't really you have a problem with that. But these children out here, these kids, they need that money. And I'm gonna tell you, Howard can use all the money it could get, all of around HBCUs can use all the money they can get.

And so I don't think they should have turned it back for sure. Let's kind of unpack that though a little bit, because I want to make sure because I don't know if the wording. You know, but he made a pledge to give some money in twenty twenty three that he has not given. So they're saying, okay, keep that. But the million that they said they're returning back, they said that was in twenty sixteen.

Well, let me held on. Let's read it says Howard is.

Ending a gift agreement with Combs from twenty sixteen and dissolving his name scholarship program. It will return one million dollars that he get to the school and canceling the agreement. I don't know when that million dollars was given, if it was given in twenty sixteen or when it was, But if it was, I just highly doubt they're returning all of that.

I want to feel.

I want to say that a lot of that has been spent and this might be a little bit of CAP. I would hope they're not lying, but I just can't see them just saying, you know what, here, go take your million dollars back.

I think.

I don't know, especially if it was twenty sixteen, that money done been ate up by now, and I know they're not gonna take it back from those students. I know they're not gonna say, hey, you don't have a scholarship no more. So I'm kind of j thinking that's a little bit of cap. Now they may be saying, hey, twenty twenty three, don't give us anything moving forward, But not really sure. If I'm believing and we gave you a million dollars back, I don't know.

Listen, I know that Puffy got this, he got this honorary degree back in twenty fourteen. A gift was made, like you said in twenty sixteen. I do believe that they're giving that money back.

You think, I think it's kind of cap.

I think it should be cap. I know the children need this school needs it. The admin, they definitely need it. But Howard they have been selling off a lot of their property. Because I live literally walking distance from Howard University, so a lot of old dorms, a lot of the different things that were part of campus are no longer a part of campus. They don't have a Black Bank on campus, but they do have a Chase Bank on campus, and they have you know, like they're looking for new partnerships and new agreements and things like that, and so they may see giving back a million dollars from Puffy, someone who has been maligned or who has maligned himself, that could honestly lead to more supporters and more money later on coming to them in different ways if they take this this political stance so strongly against Puff. So I hope it's cap But knowing Howard University and how they've been moving, definitely in my opinion an opinion of many of the neighbors around here, you know see them being very very friendly with many corporations and also to gentrification as well. Like a lot of the kids at Howard don't have dorms. You know, we saw them camping out on campus. What was that last school year or the school year before now because.

You're totally discouraged my doctors. She wanted to go to Howard. She saw that. You're like, oh no, that's okay, go.

Ahead, yees no. So I was just saying like, maybe maybe they are giving it back, and maybe they have a plan to replace that money and to get more millions. But all I do know is that they need all the millions that they can get.

Yeah.

The interesting perspective, I don't know sending it back is all of a sudden some company gonna say, oh, because you sent it back, we want to be against puff with you. I don't know if that's gonna make somebody spend more money, but I do hear your position of taking a political position of saying, you know, we are against this.

I can see that. I don't know if that.

Will encourage somebody to want to write a check, but it's certainly h you know, can make sure their brand is you know, consistent, you know, with.

Being on track. I guess for the things you know that they believe in. And again, guys, again, that's why I get your real PhD.

Because these honorary PhDs, we see they ain't worth the paper they written on because they could take it back at any time. Cann aboy, take it back your real bachelor's master's PhD, Juris doctor, and so once again showing that that's really not a degree if they can just take it back. And then we say, haven't heard an update. Halfway on Mayor Adams, he said he may revolt the key to the city, so we haven't heard an update on that.

As well, so we'll see.

Well, let's shift to I want to say something quickly about Project twenty twenty five. It's been trending this week and I do want to and I mentioned it on our last show. I do want to have a show that's dedicated to that Jay where we just kind of really go through that. That's a lot of information and I don't want to do just a fly over show on it, but I do want people to stay tapped in. Let's look into that, let's talk about it. I find the even the issues on police reformed very disturbing, but it was trending this week as trending on balla Alert, and Barolls had made some comments saying, you know, Trump didn't endorse this, what are y'all talking about? She must understand politics works this is about everybody that is under Trump, that supports Trump their agenda. So we'll have more conversation with that. I made a post balla alert, you know, I got was talking them in the inbox, and you know, I know a lot of folks were chiming in commentary, and I just wasn't interested in getting into a comment debate. You know, I really want a real debate on this. So you've seen me as Timberland several times on the record, like, do a versus do a political versus like that? If we can if we can have five million people log in to watch, you know, Gucci versus Jeezy, let's do a political one. Let's do it for the culture. That's for the culture. Let's have five over here, five over there, and let's have the reason why I keep saying versus because I wanted live, unedited, no commercial breaks, no producers, just raw a live format. So I'm down and don't put it out there. Several times I don't like the comment going back and forth. I said this, said that let's get it in, bring your best five and bring my best five. I think it's a hell of an idea and I think we'll do great numbers. I don't have the platform for it. It takes a platform, you know, like what they build a versus to bring in you know, all the things that we would need, you know, to make that happen.

But I'm down for it, and I think this is the right time. Will it probably happened? No, it's not. But I did put that out there. So shut out to ball Alert for sharing that.

Yeah, listen, because baller Alert shared that on Instagram, people all of a sudden, I just didn't know where it came from. People on Twitter, Black Twitter, they were talking about Project twenty five. Have y'all read Project twenty twenty five, Oh my gosh, and people were shocked by it. And these are sort of people who I saw, you know, who have been supporting Trump. I think I would say probably blindly supporting Trump, but they're actually starting to read about Project twenty twenty five and they really really see it as problematic. So, you know, I know that blogs they play their respective roles, but we definitely do need black media. We need folks in different parts of black society to really get this information out there to people, because a lot of folks are just shocked and they couldn't believe what they were reading, so they look forward to us doing or look forward to your commentary task, because you are a teacher, like teaching people exactly what you know how politics works, and how these different agendas work together, and these policies of coincide.

And it's today I'm saying.

You know, they put twenty one million dollars, twenty one million dollars in a pack to recruit and train leaders to take on this agenda. And that's the part that people are not missing. Where's our twenty one men that we can't get twenty one thousand to say here, go to one thousand will push the line, why don't y'all go train and recruit and get people in place. It's really sad, it really really is. You know, I was talking to some attorneys today. I said, even if this is not a Democrat or Republican thing, you guys should be investing in. And the importance of people knowing about vot voting for circuit judges. You know, we can all keep talking about Joe Biden, Trump, we can take that out of there. Just circuit judges alone. Your ass is gonna have to go stand before somebody about a ticket at some point, you know, if it's a ticket, a speeding ticket, a child support or whatever it is, whatever.

It is property like this.

These seats are critical and they have organized Conservatives organized on every single level. And even if you're a black conservative, you need to be aware of what is happening. And it's just sad unless I corect me if I'm wrong. But I've sent this after several big dogs that should know that. I've said, is there a pack, is somebody investing in this? Or are we just depending on ball Alert to share it just because or Charlemagne shared it today or several influences share that. Maybe they had some meeting about sharing today.

I don't know.

I wasn't in the meeting because I've been talking about it, but today there was seen to be an influx of conversation about it. But that's not enough, Jade. It's not enough to just have a poster to and one conversation about it and a bunch of misinformation in the comments and no real organizing strategy behind it.

Absolutely, and shout out to a video I saw by representative of Leanna Pressley, she did speak for on Project twenty twenty five in a congressional hearing and that clip is now going viral. So I look to see people learn more and taking interest in politics. But we really get to have to be clear and have all the information available before we decide to back a candidate or a particular party. That's all I'm saying.

And again, you don't have to like either party these the pro twenty five is talking about across the board for even non partisan thing. Again, judges, so need to pay very close attention to that. But we'll unpack it more. We'll get into it more, dedicated whole show to it. But what else you got, Jade?

Yeah, speaking of judges, there's a story that came out. It's been trending as well, but this is really really important. A US and Pills Corps blocked the grant program that was specifically for black women owned businesses and a lot of black women in business are talking about this and so this came out of Atlanta, and this is just one of those in case you missed it stories. The Fearless Fund, which is a venture capital fund supporting black women's own businesses, cannot resume making grants due to a divided US Appills Court ruling. So the Atlanta based Eleventh US Circuit Court of Appeals found that a discrimination lawsuit against the program was likely to succeed, reversing a previous decision, and the lawsuit, which was brought up by conservative activists Edward Blum's group, alleged that the Fearless Fund violated a nineteenth century federal law barring racial bias and private contracts tests.

And so the program.

Targeted by the lawsuit awards twenty thousand dollars in grants and resources to black women own small businesses to aid their growth.

That's great.

Yeah, it's really unfortunate that the Fearless Fund cannot continue to service Black women's own businesses. And we know that black women own businesses, you know, really need the money. They oftentimes struggled to get off the ground. See something here.

I said that's great, but I don't mean that. I meant that's terrible.

But yeah, in twenty twenty two, businesses owned by black women received less than one percent of the two hundred and eighty eight billion dollars deployed by the eventual capital deployed by adventure capital firms, according to the Fearless Mine. So they started the Fearless Mine because all this money, right was not you know, black women were missing out on this money. And so it's just really really unfortunate. And this is why judges, you know, supporters of appointed to the bench is really really important.

So and this is your people keep saying voting don't matter, none of this matters, and it don't matter. Yeah, it actually does, It actually does. It's not just about a president, it is everything under that. Everything is governed by politics, Everything is governed by something elected.

You are not going to escape the system. There's a system. We have a system in place day and you have to operate within that system. That's it, right, that's it.

So back in January, the Fearless going to argue that it had a constitutional right to express its belief in the economic significance of black women through charity. So we have all of these things happening at the same time. Right affirmative action is being attacked, diversity, equity and inclusion is being attacked, what they call critical race theory, like all of these things that you know, the programs that have been put in place historically to support black folks in particular are now under attacked. So I hope that this decision gets versed. It would be a shame if this sets a precedent for other courts to start to rule in the same way against monetary programs that benefit black business owners or just black people in general. Is any general And.

Again going back to Product twenty twenty five, it talks a lot about those diversity programs that everybody say we don't need and don't benefit us people that clearly have not read.

I do know that it benefits of other groups as well. I'm not slow. I get it.

I know a benefits white women, I know benefits of the minorities. But people who are doing that talking are people who are not in business, who actually are trying to get these grants to employ people that are just people talking on Twitter and so as somebody that actually runs a business and actually ran a business and got credit for it through a government program. I started my business on my own, my staff and firm, but later on we did get certified as a black owned business. And so it does encourage people to do business and putting three hundred people at work to work that I decided if they got hired, regardless of their background, regardless if they've been in jail or not, regardless if they had a feeling, and regardless if they had whatever, there was a lot of power to give to one woman, one black woman that was able to keep people off the streets and out of recidivism and going back to jail. And so those programs that people are in their mouth about it that they never ran, ain't signed no front or no check, but have only benefit themselves. Literally don't know what they're talking about. Literally don't know what they're talking about, because without those programs, they they worked with me, but they were still incentivized to keep a partnership because of saying, hey, we have partnered with you know, a black owned minority or minority on black owned and veteran owned business. So that does make a difference, and women owned business. All those things make a difference. So people don't know what they're talking about. Do I still get access to the capital like everybody else?

Know?

Do they still get privileged? Do that white woman get a better opportunity at those contracts than me?

Absolutely? Yes, two things can be true at the same time. But the little bit that we do have, we certainly can't just shit that away. And so when I hear people talking about that, they just literally don't know what they're talking about, so hardhead, make a soft ass, and I think people gonna really get an understanding if Trump get elected again. Again it's saying about Trump, this is about conservatives taking over on every level and what's going to happen with the Supreme Court and everything. And it's going to take a very long time. Fifty sixty years is what they're projecting for things to turn back around.

It really is.

So things are changing quickly. Test and you know, again with this case, I want to point out that the Eleventh Circuit panel, which was led by a Circuit judge Kevin Newsome, he concluded that the Fearless Funds program did not qualify for speech protections under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. So now you know, there are all these questions about what qualifies the speech, what doesn't qualify speech, and if I so called minority based programs have a future in America anymore, especially if we go back to the administration that Trump was leading, because they're very very clear in terms of what their agenda is. And one thing about Republicans they do they don't really make empty promises. If they say they're gonna do something they kind of do it.

That's exactly what they do.

Ye behind it and people behind it and everything else. So hey, all I can tell people to start buckling down, get you two or three different hustles, you know, start saving your money, to start consolidating or something. You know. I'm not saying on no scare tech. I'm just telling you what's real, you know, And a lot of times people just got to see it in real time, you know. Or we can just keep being entertained by shit on Instagram and keep laughing at comedy skits and think that it's a game.

So we'll just see.

But guys, thank you so much for listening. Make sure you tap in again on Thursday. We are covering these stories.

We got a few more things we want to get out to you this week.

We're trying to stay on top of everything as we possibly can and get as much as we possibly can in for our thirty minute show. I want to think Jade again. Shout out to Michelle Wiler. You've heard her on a few of these shows.

Again.

She is running for House representatives in Kansas City, So congratulations to her, and we'll have her on and interview her on why she's running and Jade to probably do the interview because you know what, me and Michelle do, we gonna play the whole time. I want to be able to have a professional interview without big playing all the way through. So we'll have Jay do that interview with Michelle and drop that for you, just on why she's running and why you know it's important to her and so we'll get that out to you guys here. So so again, guys, makes you subscribe to the podcast, invite a friend, and we will see you back on Thursday on Straight Shot No Chaser.

Peace.

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