The next chapter with primis so Rippa Pad is a production of I Heart Radio. Hey Everybody, it's Prim. Welcome to the next chapter, presented by Baron Davis and Slick Studios. Hope everybody is having a good start to twenty three. So this week's guest is former u c l A basketball player turned social media basketball guru, also known as the King of NBA Twitter, Josiah Johnson. Josiah was a forward for the U c l A Bruins from two thousand one to oh five, but more have come to know him through his King Josiah fifty four Twitter handle in his hilariously witty NBA content and means. Heading into this interview, I was really intent on just getting to know more about him on a personal level and also what it was like growing up in the Los Angeles area in the shadows of his five time MBA All Star father, Marcus Johnson, and how Josiah was able to not only create his own path alongside this familial tradition built on basketball, but separate from that. And I think what I came to realize after this conversation was Number One, there are no accidents when it comes to success, and Number two, the setbacks that we experienced early in life, even through our twenties and even later on in our thirties, are really kind of setting us up for what we were meant to do. Meaning the adversity that we endure early in our lives becomes a huge part of our eventual life purpose. So for Josiah, there were so many factors that came into this equation, art school during third grade, growing up in and around entertainment as a child, basketball, the Johnson's familial traditions surrounding humor, sports, media after college, comedy after college. All of that, plus all the doubts and obstacles he endured, has enabled Josie to become the king of NBA Twitter with this nearly three followers, And as they will hear in this interview, it didn't happen overnight. It took a lot of work, a lot of work and still does today requires a lot of work for him. I think you're really going to enjoy this behind the scenes conversation with someone many of you know via social media, but not necessarily on a personal level. But here is that opportunity. So, without further ado, here's Josiah Johnson, A K. A the King of NBA Twitter. I appreciate you coming over here because, um, you know, we're we for those who are listening, we are currently at Baron Davis Davis's slick studios, and you've come all over the place, and you've been all over the place, especially with the NBA Finals going on. You you were hosting a live show last night, you had your show this morning. You've got a phone call, which means we've got a heart out. I've got about an hour and thirteen minutes to ask you the most personal questions in the world. But I appreciate you coming over and well, thank you for having me. Big fan of Baron, big fan of yourselves. Me and b d Uh I was in junior high, he was in high school crossroads together, so they're rocking with b d for a long time. Came up in the same AYU program, so I love being at the studio. Actually sat here and did an interview with him not too long ago. So it's expect full circle and I'm on the other side speaking circles. I'm getting the sense that like, not only is Los Angeles, but you put Los Angeles California basketball and it gets real small, like it. It's a really small and super tight family. It seems like for the most part, I mean, everybody who's actually from General l A. Then you get like Inland Empire kind of other places Pasadena. They don't really rock with us as much, but anybody in this kind of core l A circle kind of came up together either playing at the Englewood Wire, Cranshaw Wire a U ball Back when I was coming up, we only had a few AU teams they use kind of a new thing at that point. So everybody crossed passing those circles playing against each other and with either friends or friend of mese or enemies or whatever. That's great. So what is what is your life like right now? Because, um, you've been in the media space it seems like for a very long time really over the past, like what fifteen years at least or so, Yeah, going on like seventeen now. Okay, graduated college thousand five from u C l A kind of new pretty early on there that basketball probably wasn't gonna be a long term future goal. So it just started working in production after I graduated, started over Fox Sports and started working NFL network couns around, did a bunch of different stuff. So to be kind of doing this stuff I'm doing now, I would have never imagined. I remember the NFL and they brought kind of the first social media person. Then we're all kind of looking like, you know, we didn't really know what the dude. The dude did but manage all the social accounts. I remember being in like a meeting in for the draft and I'm talking about Twitter and Rechid and being like it was Twitter like. And then now just to see the way that what's the Twitter like? You were doing promos for Twitter on the show, like tweets and whatever. I'm just glad and didn't really make sense to me. But now, you know, to know that I've carved out kind of a life and a business kind of doing that stuff is cool. Were you You've really blown up, to say the least on social media over the past souple of years. What your followers have have jumped all the way from two and fifty and almost two at least on Twitter run numbers up, so uh, you know, having worked at ESPN and kind of sitting in and around like the Adam Schufters, the Darren Ravel's, the Mark Steins of the world, they usually have like a couple of phones and they're always on there. So what happened? Like, what's going on while I'm talking to you? You do you get kind of nervous about like, you know, I'm not around my phone or is it easier because you're centered around the NBA stuff, so you know there's not a game. I think I'm trying to lower my screen time. I'm like, it gets to the point I'll tell someth about this story, but like my vision will start getting blurry from staring at the phone so much. And there's been numerous times where I've tweeted like I had to like, you know, take a second because the vision is blurry. I don't even see the words that I'm typing and kind of just gotta hope and pray that spelled things correctly, which, as you know on social that's kind of you know, but you know, if you don't spell things right, people are going to be in your mentions talking stuff and clowning and doing stuff like that. But yeah, I just, yeah, grind it out like it's a it's a it's a fun life. And like I said, who would have known I'd be here doing Twitter as a job, doing interviews with people like yourself talking about you know, me tweeting on the bird at but the game is again, it's just a fascinating it's just a fascinating aspect of I mean, I think you're probably like the first athlete that has assumed and and become big through this rule. I mean, we leave in a completely different space now. You and I didn't really grow up in an air of social media of thank god, I would be in a lot of trouble Twitter and yeah, I see all the people that get clapped up and packed up for stuff that they put out, you know, five ten years ago when they were thirteen fourteen. I can only imagine. You know, we lived at a different time where like Facebook was our social media and other platforms like that, but you have, like for me, Facebook was very when the first article was kind of this cool thing that at all the college campuses and you see the new campuses trickle in and like the new colleges and networking do that type of stuff. And then it kind of got cooked a little bit when you started getting like your aunt and your grandma that type of people. You had to shift it up and you can you could communicate the way you wanted to back then. So I'm thinking, well that we didn't have social media the way that we have it now back then, because I wouldn't be employed with some of the stuff. I've probably said, well, yeah, I mean yes, I agree with you. And things started to change once the Saw family members entered the picture on Facebook. But you know, watching you with your your pod um all the shows. New York Times has reached out to l A Times. It is that what is it like just kind of getting that type of attention for what you're doing right now? That's cool me anytime you get profiled by like, you know, places like the New York Times, New York Post, Athletic l A Times. So they're kind of a little bit late to the game. So I told me late to the game, you're good. But I told Ben boasted me. Ben who wrote the article, we had talked like a year ago and say want to do something, and I'm like, yo, you know that sounds great. He got busy that I'm like, Yo, how am I in all these New York papers? And I'm l A guy. You know, I'm one of these coasts obviously believed in l A my whole life, Like, how am I on all these New York publications and then finally my hometown paper comes around. But he wrote a great article, so super excited he actually sent me like once that article dropped, I think it was trending on Twitter for a couple of days, which was cool to see. But I gained like sixteen thousand followers and like a two day window, got the Genie buzz follow, got a Mark Cuban follow, got Samuel Jackson follow. So it was better late than never, And I appreciate kind of the results of what that interview did. Got some lebron James responses, got the goat. I mean, it doesn't really get any better than that. Once. Yeah, June Toe, it's like a holiday for me, so damn wow. Wow, it's almost a year. We were close to the year universe. I didn't even think about it, but just to see how much kind of the world has changed, Like people, I was doing a bunch of stuff even then. I'd already you know, done a ton of stuff in the writing producing space. But kind of get that lebron Co sign to kind of put everybody on notice is funny. Like a lot of former bosses and people that you know didn't used to answer the phone and respond to emails. Now all of a sudden, remember it I existed, and would reach out and tell me they want to do stuff. So I think it's cool for me. But just to have people like Lebron, people like Ava John Legend, who I'm a humongous fan of, to know that they feel the same way about my content as I do about the stuff that they do is pretty cool thing to see. That's a pretty sick response. That's a that's a pretty sick list of celebrities they are getting that response. I feel like in social media can can be so validating, but it can also and I think, you know, coming from the world of psychology, there's a lot of research still being done on on the positive and negative aspects of social media. You know, So they're kind of acting as like like a drug. And I know that in a previous interview you kind of talked about it is if it is kind of like a drug, So how do you how do you engage with it? And have you said any boundaries in terms of like how you experience social especially spot like Twitter super toxic. You know. I joke like you look at somebody like Lebron James right, he can post. He posted a message about Britney Grinder and how you know we need to put more efforts into getting their free You look at his mentioned and as you're a fraud, your rings are fake, like you know, screw you whatever. So it's just a weird world where I feel like, you know, it's to me, I don't. I don't. I've got desensitized to you see enough of it. And this is the thing I encourage a lot of people. They get into social because you start seeing that type of stuff and you take a person like people can tweet from an account and you get, you know, a million people telling you how much they love your stuff and how great you are. It's always gonna be that one person that tells you suck or they hate you, or the death threats of the cancer wishes, any of that type of stuff that'll linger with you. But for me, like whenever those type of things happen, I always make a point just kind of figure out who these people are, just in case they're serious about it and then they want to pull up and do something. As you can see, I'm like six seven, you know, a stile three hundred pounds, so not really afraid of any type of people. But for me, it's more kind of like a mental illness and a sickness on that side too, on both sides, right, because you get the cloud of nowadays kids kind of everything is predicating or how many likes, how many hearts or retweets or views. Things get to the point where they're they're deleting stuff and reposting it kind of chasing that fix. I have a different kind of experience with it, Like I go into social and I'm at a point now in my career where I'm comfortable with everything I do, but i know, like I've had to like decrease the volume betweets that I put up because i know, if I'm not putting my best foot forward, then you know, people are gonna gonna talk crazy to me or talk, you know, talk shit, or do whatever whatever it may be. So I try to avoid all that type of stuff. But you know, I'm very keen and perceptive of all of the stuff that goes on in that space in the world. And it's more sad too because a lot of those times, like people will create like burner accounts or troll accounts for the very reason of just just to talk shit and talk say reckless stuff that they would never say in real life. And one thing I prided myself on, like you see, anything come from my account is coming from me. Everybody like, oh you have a team, do you have this like nods? So you know, there might be times I'm sleeping, I missed something, like it just is what it is. I'll go and live in life like I'm not gonna catch everything. But there's also anything that comes from my account I'm tweeting, unless obviously get hacked or something like that. But anything that I'm saying, I'm putting my name on it. Where you deal in the world nowadays where a lot of these kids create accounts where they feel like tough saying whatever they want to that they were never saying in the real world in real life. So when we were coming up, it's a little bit different. If you had a problem with somebody, I could create like a fake phone accounting like you know, maybe we pray call your house with some feel like that, but you couldn't, you know, you had to like, you know, if I got a problem with you, I gotta say that to your face. Now, like I'm like a million later, like, oh, you know, I hope you die or something like that, like this is what you deal with now every day. But I see the way that other people deal with it, so I'm kind of been prepared for it. And when I was younger, I used to live my life in a lot more petty way and be reckless and say kind of the same stuff that a lot of these kids say to me. So I understand that I just pray for him, and I actually really just appreciate it that they even recognize me. You know, people can only hate on things that they see, right, I'd indifference is much more like of a sting to me than somebody hating. If they hate, and I know that they're jealous and they're bitter for whatever reason it may be that they haven't been able to attain the same level of success. I know they've been trying to do it, and you know, ultimately it's like, yo, what do you want me to do about it? Like, you know, I'm supposed to like quit these jobs and not you know, kind of do the things that I'm doing. And I'm gonna keep writing it down to do what I'm doing. So haters have their job. I have my job. So it's kind of this ecosystem where I appreciate them for help and elevate me and keep me on my toes all the time. You have a very grounded and almost laid back approach, and I know that's been maybe seemingly your personality how people have described you, maybe former coaches or peers, just like super laid back and and humor is something that has kind of been connected with your name. Is that is that valid or so? I mean, the whole family, even from my dad all the way up, brothers, sisters, like we all have great sense of humor. Like my dad's a big time prankster. He all American, you silly, all that type of stuff. But he was a theater arts major, so a lot of people don't know he was hosting TV shows and stuff on campus when he was in school. I always had a knack. He's a great writer, writing comedy and funny stuff and just make the light of any situation. Like I remember when we were little, he was playing with the Clippers, ended up breaking his neck. You know, doctors thought his career was done. He ended up researching it. Uh, we played for the Warriors for a little bit, end up getting cut. Then we moved to Italy, but we were in Italy and it was just you know, it was me and my mom, my older brother Chris, my dad, and my younger brother Josh was just born at that point. But you imagine like five black people going to Italy like in the late eighties or early nineties. Everywhere we went we just get stared at. So we'd have we'd have fun with it, Like we'd walk in and huddle up and then like waved everybody and we walked into the restaurant and stuff and just kind of have a good time. And when we had like the home movies and we would do like we would go all these like historical sites and we were doing like mix tapes and wraps and all types of cool stuff. So always just really funny. Comedy was always just a big part of my older brother Chris, probably one of the funny people I know, So I got a lot of my stick from him, you know, kind of just seeing him in locker room and stuff, and then just playing team settings, playing at the u c l A. You got a lot of you know, dynamic human beings and they're funny people. They're trying to climb you they're trying to you know, whatever it may be. They're uh. You know, from day to day you walk into the locker room, you don't know what you're gonna get. You gotta be able to hold your own got to be able to crack jokes, you know. Help the few attention helped the few of the time of you know, playing a long basketball season with each other. I mean, listen, I was maybe not in a basketball locker room, but which I recognize the culture of tennis and basketball is extremely different. But yeah, but like hanging out in the locker room and also being a member of the media, I don't I don't have that sense of humor, and sometimes that humor doesn't. So my point is is that it says a lot about your familial dynamics and how special it was and how you use humor in a healthy and positive way, because humor can be used and obviously a more toxic and negative way. It sounds like that was like your family setting. So it definitely started out when I first started, was a lot more toxic, a lot more petty. But now as I've gotten to like know these people, you get the Lebron James followers, Steph Curry or k D. And you understand these guys of human beings too, Like you know, you look at KD and everybody busted k D out because you had a bunch of burner accounts. But the reality is he just wanted to feel normal. Like he goes into any conversation that's Kevin Durant, that automatically becomes the focus of the conversation. Oh, Kevin Durant responding to me. He just responded from a burner. You don't know who it is. He just wants to engage you and have good conversation to kind of feel normal, which is a tough thing to do obviously, when you're making hundreds of millions of dollars playing basketball and a celebrity. So I try to find that balance, and I've been fortunate to live on both sides of that. Like when I first started doing this stuff in social media space, a lot of people didn't know who I was. You can look at the abbey, you can't really tell who it is. It's like a baby photo of me so deliberately. But as I've gotten older and kind of started to meet these people and really kind of just in the wake of like the mental health situation that's going on, and guys like Kevin loved the Marta Rose and making big pushes just to recognize that, you start to realize you all these dudes are human beings too, and no amount of money shields them from having feelings and being sensitive just like anybody else would. So certain level of respect that I have now and the comedy humors definitely shifted where they used to be the butt of the jokes and now I want them to be able to take pardners. So they're in the locker room, somebody shows them a tweet that I put up or something like that, they can, you know, laugh along with us as opposed to feeling like they're being attacked. It sounds like you're very comfortable with engaging with social media because it's truly authentic and it's it's a true representation representation of who you are, and I think life experience, age professional experience has probably led you to that point. It sounds like, well, I'm washing now, I'm like four year old man, so I approached social a lot differently. I look at a lot of these younger kids that this is all they've kind of known and they've grown up with and they seek that validation from social like I seek validation from you know, my kids and my wife and my family and just the things that are important to me, Like I can separate the social media world from the real world. Sometimes those two things conflate each other and you know, get mixed together. But just you know, not being too attached to it and also kind of looking at now like this is my career's my profession, this is my brand. So everything I do have to be super strategic with make sure I'm doing things that are appropriate and reflect me and my family in the best light. So against a lot of growing up and it's funny, like you know, people look at older people on social and I get from the young kids, now you're washed or this or that. It's like, yeah, I'm a lot of those things. But I'm also able to pay all my bills. I don't have any cares in the world. I'm able to flywer I want to fly, travel, I want to travel, eat at the place I want to eat at. And I don't have crippling student loan debt like a lot of them are gonna be dealing with. So they get those jokes off and it's like, yeah, I'm old, but you're gonna be here to at some point you have, you know, the next generation, the kids calling you wash or whatever it may be. So I kind of take pride in that to be able to get to this point. And also like, I'm still on the radar, so it's a good thing to see you are. You're on a lot of people's radar. I mentioned to one of my friends, he's a professional and talents coach, Mark Lusara, and he was like, so, who are you coming to l A to interviews that mentioned Baron Tavis. I said, um, Josiah uh do you know him? Doom Josiah Johnson, he goes the king of Twitter, and that was like the that was the response. So that kind of shows you you know where you are and people's radar. You mentioned being strategic, so there's two parts of this. But I feel like everybody wants to know your your strategy and your approach to this. And I know much of its influenced from your your trajectory and professional experience a Comedy Central and all this stuff, But can you explain to people what your process is because you're so quick, it's for me, it takes me like two days to figure out something good and then by then obviously it's gone. So what's your process. The first thing is I'm a grandpa, so I sl have cable. So a lot of people have cut chords and they watched streaming, but streaming like a minute behind. So I'll be watching the live game feed, which is like seven second delay of tape whatever or seven second delay from you know when they broadcasted when it gets to your home, but there'll be a minute two minutes behind. So I'll tweet about things that. Man, can you see the future. It's like not just literally have traditional cable, chief leg I'm not watching on the stream where you know there're several minutes behind. But growing up each listen to a lot of sugar free and sugar free you know. I said, if you stay ready, ain't got to get ready. So I try and stay ready with whatever is going on, being topical, just being plugged in, spending a lot of time you mentioned earlier with the screen time, like a lot of time. And this is something like my wife will get mad at me you're always on your phone. It's like, yeah, I'm always sir it or something. I don't know what I'm looking for. Until I see it. I don't wake up, like you know, you never know it's training from day to day, like in recent times, Quinn Snyder just quit as a jazz coach, or you know, whatever it may be. J Cole is playing in the Canadian League, whatever, whatever those things are. Elon must threatened to not buy Twitter, Like these are things that ad your scroll on the timeline. You don't know what you're looking for, but then you see those things like, oh, this is gonna be something great to talk about, things that I'm interested in, But I don't never really know what I'm looking for un till I find it. So that takes a lot of time, scrolling a lot of times going through and Twitter for my money. Twitter, you know, it has a lot of toxic components, but it's also great in terms of news gathering and like you know, we both work in production. You know, when I was young getting into the game, we were back in the old days. They used to do everything tape to tape, right, so you gotta go find your tape to cueue them up, like cut them and then you put your clips together. We had a more seamless digital infrastructure so we could do like thirty fifty times the amount of work that are our previous you know, people could do and in they're same game. That's kind of same thing with Twitter. Now you get so much information. Back in the day, we had to wait for local news. You had to wait for a newspaper. You weren't reading that paper cover to cover. Now you get all that information on Twitter within a matter of ten fifteen minutes. You can know about you know, it's crazy like that that you've all these school shooting literally you know I saw that come through like two or three minutes after you know it went through on the scanners. You're seeing those tweets in that information and kind of keeping up in real time is news. You get to see how a lot of mints information gets spread, but also just how news works, like if you're finding out information, details, all that type of stuff that comes in. And this is with everything that goes on in life. So really just being being in tune and aware right like even we're doing this interview now, yeah, I'm a little like fidgety because like, damn, what am I missing right now? I could pick up that phone and I could say he's retiring or whatever. So I'm able to do a lot of stuff I do just by being aware and being cognizance. So when those things happen, I'm getting stuff up within a minute to two minutes of that news breaking. And when I have a lot of now is people tell me, like my memes will will break the news and they won't even see the official news story, but they'll see my meme hit the t L and like, oh, this person's got in it or this person just did this or whatever whatever, and they find out stuff like that. So I think it's cool for me to kind of now elevate and transform even the way that we gather news because a lot of people aren't seeking out that news, but they might see a funny meme that I put out and they'll learn the news do that. So a lot of stuff is based on what's going on in reality and kind of my own spending interpretation of how somebody involved with it may respond to it or whatever it may be. But you know, like I said, I'm blessed to be four years old, so I have just an arsenal in a library of amazing clips and moments like when we were growing up, you know, you saw a funny movie, funny TV show, like I used to show like The Simpsons, right, everybody had to watch the Symptons back in the day or in the living color because if you went to school that next day or Monday, didn't didn't you know know what the latest stuff was. You know, whatever Fire Marshall, Bill or you know whatever Damon Waynes was doing with Homie the Clown, that type of stuff. You didn't know it. You use phone or you were left out and you weren't really gonna you know, unless you recorded it. You know, back in those days, that was our TVO. You put the tape in and record, which everybody wasn't doing. You missed and you had to wait for a rerun to see it again. We're now we're all you know. The cool thing about social media, which a lot of people don't grasp, is it's social. Right. Everybody says social media, but they're not social with it, Like a lot of people are anti social media, right, So when things happen, be social like those people are talking about. So if for're watching the NBA Finals game or a Super Bowl or whatever, moments something crazy happens, that's what everybody's seeing. Now they're talking about. Everybody's giving their takes and opinions on. So there's a huge amount of people that have already seen it and are aware of it. So that's the kind of stuff that I focus on. It's I don't like to give too much away for freaks. I know there's people out there who are instructing the whole social teams. Oh listen to what he said and do it there, but you have to actually do it to do it. And there are just certain things you won't be able to avoid, like until you've been packed up, until you've been ratioed, so you've been quote unquote cancer or whatever that means. You know. It's like every day, you know, I say, somebody is the star of Twitter, right, and you don't want to be for a good reason or a bad way. You don't want to be the star for a bad reason. You tweet some some take, whether it's hey, I'll wait five minutes to grab my bread at olive garden or whatever it is. People are gonna respond to that, and a lot of these people are waiting to see which way the wind blow to determine how they're gonna respond. A lot of people don't necessarily feel a way about something until they see oh, everybody else is mad at this. I'm gonna be mad at it too. But if you just give it to him on the surface, like what do you feel about this? A lot of times like I don't know, but especially on Twitter social you can now read all the quote tweets and the comments and I'm gonna jump on this guy too, So everybody sees the stuff that I'm doing now. But it's been a benefit of a lot of trial and error, like a lot of times when I was putting up content that maybe wasn't the best and people will let you know about it. I'm thankful now we have the quote tweet feature where you can see all the quote tweets. Back on the old days, you can see that you would just see kind of filter in your timeline and you kind of just guy like a raw read on whether this was getting a positive reaction negative. But I go back and look at some of this stuff now from nineteen it's like, damn, I was really getting packed up. And it's funny from those same people that were packing me up now asked me for jobs or for advice or to come do their thing or this that or whatever. So I kind of always laugh I'd never take any of it personal. I think that's one thing to just having thick skin where you know, because back in my petty days will be like now, I remember you tweeted this ship at me four years ago. I'm not doing anything for you, like, but I just keep that on my back burner now when I deal with a lot of these people and just know, like you know, one thing good or bad shouldn't ruin a relationship with somebody like I do. I deal with NBA Twitter a lot. I'm a lebron fan. There's a lot of MJ fans, Kobe fans, whatever it may be. Back in the old days, you literally want to fight somebody, Like literally almost have fights in to Mecula as a result of people disagreeing about basketball. So I'm gonna fight somebody over a basketball take. We might have so much other stuff in common. Just doesn't make sense to me. So I try to take social for what it is. But I'll even now I pull people to the side, I'll see them getting into and I know about these people like, yo, you guys would be friends, if you know, if not for your you like the Warriors, this person likes the Lakers and you're basing everything off of that one little experience, Like you guys would have so much more in common and be friends, Like don't let you know one little thing you're gonna agree on kind of now create this whole thing. We gotta want to fight each other or beef with each other over you know what he said? Stuff wasn't the goat? Like? So what like ship? Yeah, I'm so interested about the path that you've taken to get to where you are now. The Josiah that is seemingly very humble and grounded. Maybe you've always been laid back, maybe you've always like engaged with humor, but you also seem to be very quick witted, Like to be to do what you do, you have to be very quick. You have to have an opinion, and you have to be able to make a lot of associations and connections. It's almost like what a comedian does. But before we I'm going to like try to piece all this stuff together. But I'm curious about your transition from basketball because that was a huge part of your childhood and your familial legacy and tradition all that other stuff. So, so going back to your where did basketball start? What's your first memory basketball? For me, I think I was probably three or four. First vivid memory my dad played in an All Star game in Dallas. I went to pick him up from the airport. And this is back in the old days. L a actually can mash right up to the gate, like you know back in the people don't remember those days, but you could literal roll up to the gate, like you know, issues need a ticket or any of that other stuff. But he had a he bought like a Nerf foop, So we picked him up. He's got this big gass nerf hoop. Set it up. Me and my older brother Chris, we would play games on our day and I remember we had this little nerf ball. It's like a phone ball, but like they would starting to be little holes and chunks. Would start to could use it so much and basically got the pointe we had to like rip it in half and throw it away. But we literally, you know, the ball would just had all types of holes and dens and dividend because we use it so much. That was kind of my first foray. And we would we would me and my older brother play games against each other. We'd have jerseys and we'd be different players based on kind of whoever with the top players at that point, and we would just be going back and forth and eventually expanded to obviously actual basketball games. Remember playing it like Barrington Park as a kid, my dad coaching me and different stuff, uh, Pan, Pacific Park all over. Just you know, inglewood Y was where at first really blossom. This was pre AU, so Inglewood's you know, plays like Baron Davis, Paul Pierce, everybody pretty much came through there, and those guys were older than me. How to tremend some amount of respect for him, but you started playing there kind of learning the ropes. And then from there I started playing AU with the team called the Fort Dy Stars. That was my first AU experience and we were like the best team in the region I think tenan under eleven under whatever it was. We had this kid andrews On It was like six four is like a twelve year old that literally he was like he was like our shack back then, just crazy, like I still look at him, like he's this giant, but we're like the same height now. But I was like, you know, this little short, pudgy kid is like a ten eleven year old. He was like you know, build ten or eleven, like four something maybe five ft someone something not nothing like I was like a five seven freshman in high school and are now six seven. So when did you when did you experience your growths between like freshman a sophomore year, I went from like five seven to like six one, and then sophomore to junior went like six one to like six six, So you were like a foot or so in two years. So I was at Cringshaws a freshman five seven, like one eighty. Remember my dad made me like trial for varsity, which was embarrassing. At that point. Everybody in the team was like six three or bigger, Like this five seven played because shoot could do all that type of stuff and even being a crossover. But Barren, I remember the coach there didn't want to give me a scholarship for high school. Yeah, Crossroads coach Roper's still respecting this day. But he's like, yeah, he's he's undersized. We can't take that risk right now. And then fast forward. You know, I'm giving him thirty pieces. It's like a six seven junior senior book. That's a shot. Yeah, that's all gravy. He's a good dude. I don't blame him. Uh so what so you your memories unlike other people who you know might have picked it up when there sounds like he picked it up very young. But you had the influence of your dad and kind of like watching him, you know, watching him go through it and play of course, you know, his his legay to see at U c l A and playing during the Wooden era and and all that jazz and spending many years over a decade in the m b A. So at what point did you realize that, hey, my dad's not just like a normal dad, or or maybe he's he's this really good basketball player. At what point did you start really? I mean as a kid, I think anywhere we went, Like I remember going to like U c l A basketball camps as a kid. My brother was playing on the team. They're begetting like preferential treatment all the other kids that like sit on the court. They let me sit in like the bleachers, like in a nice, like comfortable. But you know, everywhere I went, I was never Josiah. I was I was either Marcus Son or a little Chris was my older brother. Like I never had a name for for most of my life, which is funny now because people see my dad and be like, oh, you're just sized that, and it's not like you're not like the five time. Also, all those things you just listed, like all your your your kid just sized and so it's a funny thing to see that kind of flip and reversal. But it's really just kind of carving my own name. But I joke, if you grew up in Los Angeles and your last name is Johnson, you're playing basketball. Like every one of my brothers played at college. You know, I got scholarship to play at the college level. I got a younger sister now, Shiloh, who's gonna be a beach probably the best one of the crew. I should be in the w n b A in the next five to ten years. But just being around everywhere we went, just the amount of people that would come up with him, the love that he got, you know, like if those who watched the last Dance back in you got Michael Jordan with his his post and my dad's poster on his wall saying how much he loves my pops. My dad was with Adidas at that point. MJ wanted to go to Adidas because you know, he loved my dad, and he loved the Lakers and Kareem and like all those guys were Dida's guys at that point. But yes, to see the love that people have from even still to this day. A lot of people like you mentioned all the basketball accolats, but now everybody remembers them from white man can't jump and rob in the liquor store and that's kind of in his later life been been the thing that everybody recognized them for. But yeah, basketball was just it was a part of our life. It was tough to kind of trying to live up to the pressure of being as good as he is, and in each one of the brothers kind of had to deal with that in their own way. My older brother Chris, who at this point is probably the best one of the crew, played overseas, played professionally but can never really break into the league. But we all kind of had to deal with that different you know, I would say trauma of trying to live up to what the next it's Chris went to u c l A. I went to u c l A. Had another brother, Josh, who played at Western Oregon. My brother Moe played at Tuskegee. Younger brother Cyrus, who was at Sam Houston State who is now a cow State l A. But everywhere you go you're Marcus Johnson soon. So no matter what you do, that's how people look at you, and that's how people judge you for it. So it's definitely, you know, I would never like, you know, I look at like Michael Jordan's kids and I can only imagine you know, the stuff I done what they done with probably times a thousand, right, But ultimately it's a tough thing. But you become your old man. You deal with in your own ways, and ultimately it makes you tougher as you go on in life. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I think it's an interesting dynamic. You know, there's been a few athletes that I've talked to where their their mom and their dad kind of laid the ground for their path as as athletes. You know, I just recently Michael Jr. Of course, you know, his dad and his uncle's all Notre Dame, NFL, all this other stuff, and you know, um one name that comes to mind, Nolan Smith who is now over at Louisville, but he talked about his dad who played in the m B A win a championship. His dad passed when he was eight years old, but he he decided not to go to Louisville, which is where his dad went, because the shadow and the reminder of his father was so intense that he had to go someplace else. He decided to go to do And so that kind of tells me about like the intensity of having the opportunity to have somebody like that as your parents and your role model. But also, you know, you kind of mentioned you through the word traumatic, but the I don't know what the word would be. Intensity of sometimes living in the shadow of a parent like that and trying to create your own identity in space. And so I'm just curious, Like you mentioned, everybody had their own path, So what did first of all, like, what did that look like for you as a kid. It's greatly before that, Like, so Nolan's dad and my dad played on the Clippers together, so dad got some great story about Derek and Derek and his hey day and you know those times with Donald Sterling. Everybody who's seen the Lakers show winning time, the Clippers were more losing time. But I think, you know, it's just it's a it's a situation you just navigate. There's not really a playbook for it or or blueprint to how to deal with it, but you deal with in your own Way's like, there's definitely been points where it gets a little it's it's tough. You know, he went to u c l A, his jerseys hanging in the raptors, and now that to look back on it, probably what's the best decision to go there, because you're never really gonna be able to live up to that shadow. So no matter what you do, it's not gonna be good enough, especially at a place like u c l A, where he was on John Wooden's last national championship team. You've got fans that have been seen in ticket holders thirty four years. So you know, if you don't win national championship in u c l A, they don't care about conference championships or Sweet six teams or you know, there's some schools that don't hang banners or those type of things, Like you're not gonna see a Sweet six team banner anywhere in u c l A. That's just not how they get down right, It's championship or bust. So kind of living in that world, the most prestigious basketball school on the planet. No disrespect to Duke or Kentucky and these other spots. We gotta leven natties. They don't. So game is the game, Like you know, go argue with somebody else about it. But living in that world, being in l A. You know, Showtime Lakers just a superstar um that comes with l A. Like everything is a big deals, larger than life. So it's a lot more traumatic, a lot more stressed. As I look back on it, Me and my dad kind of joke about it now because he'll be like, we'll talk about the U C. L A days and you know you should have did this, you to play more. I thought, you know, I'm just like, look, man, I'm happy with the career that I was able to carve out. I kind of realized I was, Okay, I'm not gonna say I sucked, but I wasn't as good as some of the guys I was playing with. I played with like fifteen guys who went on to play in the NBA. But now I've gone pro and something else, so you know, I'm still competitive as ever, So all that stuff they did is awesome. Now you know they're looking at the stuff that I'm doing and it's like, okay, you know, so they got to go pro doing that. I'm went pro. You know, I'm the only guy from that team being my teammate Quinn Hawkey to create a TV show and do those type of things and being in double a CP image a Word Winner and stuff like that. So as much as they you know, they all the basketball calas, all, that's great, but life is more than basketball too, And that's so Dad kind of stressed us early on. He never really he wanted to follow that path, but he also understood the immense pressure that we were all under. But he also fostered other other elements of our brains too, like you don't need to just need to be a basketball player. So I was taking like, you know, film classes as like a third fourth grader with Jason Schwartzman and went to the school called You Yes Together and Us Campus, So doing other stuff creatively that was fulfilling as well. And that's where I kind of knew once basketball was over, the space that I wanted to get into was gonna be a lot more creative stuff. Didn't know what you know now, it's kind of gravitated towards social but writing TV, film, producing all that type of stuff. That's kind of the world I grew up in. So I'm going to school with kids who's you know, parents are actors and directors and all that type of stuff. Like my mom was so my dad's teammate with the Clippers, Norm Nixon. Norm's married to Debbie Allen. Debbie, you know the stuff she was doing. Even as the kid, just seeing like this this amazing black woman who was literally like you know, directing episodes of a Different World. And we'd go to the screen and my mom was an extra like for years on that show. So I would spend a ton of time. I went to school with Debbie Norm's kids, umping Vivian, So literally we get picked up from school carpool, we get drived out to the studio to go watch, you know, episodes of a Different World get tape. So you know, I have a different experience kind of with entertainment than a lot of people that I look back, I'm so blessed and fortunate to have where I got to walk around those sets and just be around and stuff was going on, Like you watch a Different World. On't know how familiar are with the show, but there's famous episode, the wedding episode, right where you know Duanne Wayne comes through and you know she's about to marry the Senator and he comes in and said, so, I'm literally on set for all that, for the rehearsals for all so I know what's gonna happen weeks before the episode airs, because literally, if you go watch that episode, my mom's in it, my dad's in it, a bunch of former U c l A players or in it, like Mike Warren is the Reverend in and he played at U c l A like the sixties, And it's just like these are were just normal things like just going and sitting on set all there a white man can't jump. Just being around reading lines with my dad and helping him, you know, practice and getting character. Seeing him walk around the house is Raymond. You know, he was a method actor, so he literally didn't shave, and like he was that character for a good six months around the crib and it's just like this is this is the stuff we do, or just reading scripts that he would get in for various stuff that that he was on. So I was immersed in that world very early on. So knew I wanted to do something in that space but just didn't know what it was going to be. Wow, that is so fascinating when unique. I feel like Los Angeles or New York City is our two cities where most children would not have that type of exposure to entertainment and media. So it makes a little bit more sense. Now I'm trying to see like the layers of what has led you to become King Josiah fifty four today because you've had all that exposure of creativity, entertainment, media. But going back to your college decision, So does that does that mean that what other universities or programs were you looking at? So I was was super smart. I was like a national honor society in high school. So I was thinking, like I believe would be the way I would go. So like Brown was recruiting me, I was looking at Boston University. They were recruiting me kind of heavy. Uh, Xavier in Ohio. So Skip Prosser who was CP three's coach at Wake Forward. He passed away a while ago, but he was recruiting when he was Xavier, and I was kind of looking at Austin Crozier was a guy who I was a fan of. He went to Crossroads. I think he played with Baron when he was there, went across Rows. End up going to Providence, so Acrossrow. Super small school, but you know people seeb D now the people that have come out there. But you know, it wasn't they didn't have a lot of the NBA pedigree at that point. But Austin went to Providence, worked on his game, ended up carving out a nice career for himself in the NBA. So it's like I can go to somewhere like Xavier that's in the cut Ohio. I don't know anybody there. Literally, you know, I'll just be away from everybody, just concentrate on basketball and be able to do something similar. But once U c l A came calling, you know, I spent my whole I went to elementary school there, spent it, sent a ton of my life there. I was a ball boy from my brother's teams when he was there, so it was a ball win. The championship team got to, you know, hang out with them in Seattle when they won the championship. Literally slept in my brother's hotel room the night they won the National Championship with like ten other random human beings just wasn't a lot of sleep going on. They were out partying all night, but like flying back with that team as they came back to l A and just being a part of all that stuff, like, Yo, this is this is what I've always dreamed of, so just what I want to do. It's probably a little too lofty in terms of doing it, but it was like yeah once they came Coach lab came with the scholarship offer, like I wasn't gonna say no. Yeah, because it's so deeply entrenched in your childhood who you are, your family, and so it was probably hard to untangle that. So does that mean if you were speaking to the seventeen year old Josiah and you had a conversation and you wanted to go to u C. L A, What what do you think you would? Life worked out pretty good now, so go ahead and do what you're gonna do, but you know, work a little harder. You wouldn't have made a different maybe, I mean, because I don't know. I mean, I'm very happy with where my life has ended up. I've got a great family, doing a lot of cool ships, So I wouldn't want to look back and change that and not be doing cool stuff like, yeah, I could have went to Brown and you know, been whatever, an investment bank or whatever. I'd have been doing working on Wall Street, miserable, who knows, you know, twenty hour days. I get to tweet for a living, Like you know, I wouldn't change that for anything. So I'm not the type like, yeah, there's probably some things I would have changed about that, but all in a say, it worked out very well. So at what point did you think about, um, life after basketball or did you Yeah, at what point did you start thinking about life after basketball? Like my sophomore year of college. So freshman year broke my foot, red shirt red shirt freshman year, didn't play that much, but going into my retrot sophomore year, I went to Pete Nell's big man camp out in Hawaii. It was like the last year they did in Hawaii. Rick Carlisle, who was the coach of the Pacers, was my coach there. I remember I was just killing. I had a much guy from like Michigan State, other other other some of the top big men in the country, and I was playing well. When do you say that, You're thinking I was going, you know, be able to carve out some good minutes for myself, I didn't really work out. So I think at that point kind of writing was on the wall, realized like, yeah I could, I could have went and played overseas, and kind of I saw the way that my brother had done that, and he's a lot more. I'm an introvert, so I don't like being in like, you know, places where I'm not I'm not just gonna be really like outgoing and trying to meet people and stuff like that. I'm just as comfortable, like chilling by myself being a hermit. But I saw the way he played in like Lebanon, in Qatar and Russia and all these spots, and it was cool, but it was also tough not seeing him for seven months out of the year and then you know, only communicating via email and he's you know, coming back with all these great stories of the stuff he did out there, and then you'd have to go right back out there. He'd always be around in the summertime we'd work out. Then he was off the kind of his next you know journey, and I'm just like, yeah, I don't really get down like that. I remember kind of living in Italy with my dad and I enjoyed that experience because the whole family was there. But it's like, I'm not gonna sit in there room by my solf. And I had a lot of friends that went and did that, and you know, it was just tough, Like, you know, they'd be alone on Christmas or holidays or whatever. They're stuck in some foreign country chilling in there. You know, it's a nice department or whatever, but nobody else is around with them, you know, barely any people that speak the language that you speak. It's's it was a tough route to go. So I knew that was probably wasn't gonna be the life that I wanted to do. So I just got into the entertainment industry super early on sports entertainment side, and kind of just carved out a lane doing that stuff. Yeah, so it sounds like you made your decision because you seeing what that lifestyle was like, and it wasn't necessarily that you didn't want to play basketball, but it was also like, I'm not really down for this life. And I think that's an important distinction to make because I think fans sometimes think about playing sports at the professional level as just playing sports, but they don't realize the lifestyle that comes with it and the things that come with the business side of it, whether it's traveling or the fame or the money or all these other things. And if you are not going to fit well with that lifestyle, it's not going to be enjoyable. It's going to be miserable. So it sounds like you made that decision on you. My brother tell me stories. He'd be in countries and they would just stop paying you, and you don't have to really just wait because if you go back home, you're not getting your check, so you have to hold down. It's now like but these are just things that would go on, and I'm like, yo, nah. Like my he was literally in Lebanon, I think, when they assassinated the former prime minister or made an assassination attempt, so he was like five minutes away, big bomb explosion, like all this crazy stuff, and he came back with all the video. He was super like, you know, he got everybody in my family like, you know, we're big in entertainment, so we get the cameras, will go shoot content, will do whatever. But he was filming all this stuff and the experiences. He came back and showed us all the footage and it was like remarkable stuff. It was also like, man, this is just you know, this is not something I'd rather be in l a like, you know, chilling out here. So basically got to see a lot of that and that kind of helped inform my decision. And also just got the opportunity to work with Fox Sports and NFL Network out of college. So I was like, all right, this is the land I'm a carve. It was a little tough kind of being a p A and you know, being the low person the total post, especially going you know from the glyptic glamor. You know, you're a college athlete. You know when you walk around campus with the sweatsuit in the backpack, there's just you know, in class whatever, you just you know, you're one of those four people that are a student athlete at the school. The small tight knit community. Everybody knows each other. You know, you're hanging out with future Olympians, future you know, NBA All Stars, Hall of Famers, whatever it may be. To not go to being like the low person in the total poll, go get some coffee, Like you know, you canna eat a bunch of ship for for years and years just from everybody above you, and then eventually, you know, get the car about your own lane. You're bringing back good and bad memories of my PA experience. You're right, though, it is it is. I don't know if this was for you, but it was for me, this pride swallowing experience, because you know, you go through life having dedicate yours of two sport and you're right, you know, even at the D one level and walking around U C. L A or Duke or whatever it is, the gear, there's something about just wearing that athletic gear. It gives you identity, purpose, status, prestige, especially in America, like sports is you know, so big, and then all of a sudden, you know, three months later I was I knew I was going to retire, but I didn't really know like I was retiring. I didn't say goodbye. You just kind of go through this thing of like, Okay, now I'm doing this and now I'm making eight dollars an hour, and I'm just this normal human being. You don't get like the press conference, We're like, yo, you know, it's been a great run. It's like I remember watching the draft. I graduated oh five and kind of just watching the NBA Draft. No I'm not gonna get drafted, But that was kind of like the finality of it, like all right, it's over, like figure it out, but yeah, you don't. You just kind of transition in that world. For me, it was super depressing after school ended. Like I remember after my senior year, you know, we lost in the tournament. I'd just start working until maybe like October ish, But it was just like a seven month of just like yeo, what am I gonna do with my life again? I went from you know, getting all this free stuff and showered with all this this love and adoration for being a US like basketball player, tore like, yo, now I'm just a regular average human being. Nothing wrong with that, right, but nothing from a mental standpoint, like you know, having to turn in the backpack, having to you know, hanging up, hanging up the sweatsuits. I can't walk around with these U c A Basketball sweat suits anymore. Just but that's that's just a part of the game, and I think that's part of the growth process when you do start working again. I think I was making like ten bucks an hour at Fox Sports and like seeing those checks coming about, like damn, I just did all this work this week and it's like this checks for like two bucks. But but also feeling like I'm actually doing something and being a productive member of society was a cool thing too. But all the places I was at too, stuff being at somewhere like an NFL network where like I played with Marcedes Lewis, who's who's obviously a big time football start playing with the Packards in the Jaguars and much other teams he played basketball with us, or guys like Maurice Jones Drew who are my friends in college, and now we all went from being like bro college students and them having like multimillion dollar contracts and I'm making ten dollars an hour. It's like, you know, I'm going to the club. Like buying that fifteen dollar drink really like leaves the date in my bank account and you know, the accounts on e a lot or it's like you know, overdrawn or whatever it may be. But those things also I wouldn't I wouldn't change them. I look back and just how special those moments are. But it's funny, like you know, when you when you started Spin or NFL network whatever, like those people that you start with, you know, you don't even realize that they're gonna going to do so much amazing stuff. So I'm so thankful. Like the people that I built relationships with and now it was a four year old, they're you know, running studios and coordinating producers and doing all this cool stuff. And we all just remember, like, you know, those old school days sitting in like uh, we used to have these like uh like NFL never when it first started, was like super jankie. We have these like bungalows or whatever. We would log our games in highlights and running shot sheets and doing all type of stuff. To go now and like everybody's weren't suits and buttoned up and balling. I think if I still get to wear measure the outfits everywhere I go. But just seeing all those people and remembering those days to now fast forhere we all are now, it's pretty cool. You know. I created this, this show because clearly my my personal experience and transition away from sport was so so intense, emotionally heavy, difficult, and you know, I just wanted to create space for other athletes to to really talk about this, because I think a lot of people just kind of think, oh, well, athletes you have all these amazing skills that are so transferable to the workspace, it would make sense that that transition would be so quick. But there's a lot of other stuff that goes along with this experience. And so I'm curious about what yours was because when I ended my career, I didn't realize this until ten years later because I just didn't have the the maturity to process it. But in actually realized that, you know, with sports, there's a familial sacrifice. There's a lot of time and energy, identity and like talking about it and like sometimes family centers so much around sport. And I think the thing that I really struggled with was because my mom moved to Florida when I was twelve to go to the tennis acapemy. My dad stayed back to continue working supporting the family, including my brother. And I think the thing that I really struggled with was like just ending after college and being like that's it was that enough for me? Was that enough for my family? Was that enough for my my parents? And I didn't have that conversation until ten you know, I even talk about now forty one years old with my with my parents about like the sacrifice and like do we go about the right way. So I'm curious about with you. Have you had those conversations with your parents or your dad or your family about what leaving basketball was and was it okay for you to leave at that time? Did you feel comfortable? Yeah, I mean, look, at the end of the day, one of the things I love my parents for is they led us to each carve our own lane and be our own person. So I'm sure my dad was a little bit hurt that, you know, I didn't go on to have this this great pro career. But also I got a college scholarship, which and any parent who has you know, their kids get the college cover and they don't have to pay that hundred two hundred grand whatever that number is. Like, left with minimal student loans, only student loans I had. I took a loan to go to like Cabo for my senior trip. That was like, but that was the bulk of my student loans. Like, so didn't didn't have any student loans left, like so I think, and then to see see the kids be a productive member of society. So I got a good job, rows up the rows up the ladder, and it was doing cool stuff like even you know, europ A at NFL Network or ESPN wherever, there's still a level of prostigious status that comes with it. All you're working at a network like, oh, you know, just side of the producer at NFL Network. No, not really production assistant there. You know, there's some producing involved in that, but you still kind of feel that same level of coolness in terms of just being up to do something and and go on and further your career and kind of carve your own path in your own lane. But it's definitely a tough thing, but I'm super appreciative of it, and I'm sure you kind of would probably agree that when you come from a team background or you play the sport, it makes you a lot more desirable to employer, especially as the college athlete, because you understand how to thrive in the team setting. You understand what your role may be and how to go about and operating that. And also you just used to you know, working in a team environment and being around a lot of people, right, So these are things that you can't really teach. So it's funny. I'm at NFL Network working with a lot of kids that went to Syracuse, went to Northwestern or we had these great broadcast journalism and departments, and I did this and I hoped it my college show whatever, and it's like we all get thrown in the fire and it's like you know, you know, it's all hands on deck, and it fel something crazy. May have been Ben Roethlisberg in a motorcycle accident or t O you know, goes to the hospital for whatever situation he's got, and it's like none of that ship matters anymore, Like that you're not you ain't open in the textbook now, chief, Like we all gotta go and you gotta figure out how to solve these puzzles, how to you know, do whatever you're supposed to do, how to man this ship to get where you need to get to. So it was cool for me and also inspiring. I was like a history major in college, so everybody was just like, what you're gonna do. Be a be a lawyer, You're gonna be a history teacher. Like I don't know, I just I was always just fascinated by history. But to now be able to do stuff on the entertainment side, we're again, I'm working with a munch of these people who have all these more more experience and more accolades, I guess coming into the job, but going ahead to head with them competing in a lot of times outperforming them, you know the situation. So it's like, yeah, once we all got there, none of that stuff really mattered. Like and that's kind of the same thing for life. This is something you know, we're here at Barn Studio, but I think about like a Baron at Crossroads, right, Baron came from you know, underprivileged situation, which he's been more than been open about, but he was competing just as well as as those kids Acrossroads who came from you know, millionaire families and all this other type of stuff, because he was just smart. And that's kind of the same thing I said. It's like I went to I went from Crossroads and Junior High School to literally Crenchhall High School, so completely different worlds. But those kids are Crenchhall were just as intelligent, just as capable as the kids are Crossroads. They didn't have a lot of the opportunities. So that's even something I do now in the world that I'm in, Like you know, I'm in social and you look at something always you know bothers me. I look at like social teams up posted like their their team photo, like here's our social team and it's like, damns, a lot of white people in this photo, like where but you guys are talking in a in a tone and in a manner that isn't like I would say, do you talk the same way in your job interviews you do on your account? If you do, that's fine, Like and I think it's something that surprised people when they meet me. It's like, damn, you're just the way you tweet, like yeah, this is just me, like you know what I'm saying. You said humbling all those things, definitely, but like to crack jokes, like to keep the mood light. So people meet me in real life, it's like, damn you really just you know, you talk like you tweet where a lot of people meet in real life like, oh, I man, this account, it's like, well, wait a minute, who are you getting all your info from and your content because you don't even act like this, You're not even interested in the content that you're putting out. Like for me, like everything I do is kind of consistent to who I am, but that's just kind of me and a part of the game. The things that as identify as I get into this world of how will my lasting impact of being, how I want to be able to contribute and help build and elevate this game. It's so interesting because as the one thing right before you came over, I was talking to b D and I was I was like, you know, he had mentioned that you guys have known each other since you're a little kids. I was like, what's what's a funny question? I can, like, you know, ask him, I like, give me some dirt. But but and I asked him, I was like, is is he? Is he how he is on social media in the sense of like is his personality very similar in his humor express through his means as it seems because there's a lot of times I'm sure you've experienced this being a media and entertainment what you see on camera is not necessarily the person that you're going to get, and there's always that like distinction. But for you, it does very much seem authentic, which kind of tells me that you have you transition from basketball into this space that seemed to really fit you and who you are. Yeah, I've always been kind of just a jokester, keep the mood like type of dude. Like I said, a lot more shine introverted in my younger years, kind of broke out of my shell in college, but even being around somebody like a Bearon. I remember the first time I met Baron fifty fourth Street school, and I remember because I was probably like nine or ten years old. Uh, they had this fence you had to hop, and I was terribleut hopping fences, so I literally like got hung up on the fence trying to hop over. But b D we all knew Baron even then, and he was just like this godlike figure like everybody in the basketball community new Baron. Remember Baron hopped the fence easy, like looks real sweet as he does it. But back then, like everything was like Carrie Kindles used to have one sock up one sock down. He played at Villanova, so BEDI had like the sweatpand but just like the cool looking swag about it. And I told him I was going across roads and he was just like, you know, like he was super excited and growing up in the same AU program as well. So uh, funny story. I don't think I've ever told him about this story, but Baron was probably a couple of years older than this, and this was the same year, like Paul Pierce old the story with him and Kevin and that teamed up. So pause on the older team bears on the on like a year or two younger team. We're on like the twelve and under team. But we're hanging out Baron's room feeling cool. Uh. Thad who runs the program like bangs on Baron's doors. We all go hide in the bathroom. We're not supposed to be hang out with Baron, like we're we're too young. But bed all just kind of like big brother ticke us in. So we're all we're all hunting in the bathroom, trying to hide like as uh you know, that's kind of searching the room, seeing what's going on. He run in the bathroom like he lives in there, kind of cusses us out, tell us we're all not playing the next game. Obviously that was in the case. But that's something about about Baron. But I don't even know what the what the question was. That's awesome, my love. I can I can literally like see you huddled up but in his his um the way you made the gesture of like a big hug. He kind of is seemingly like that. And I'm sure that was really important for you, you know as a child, Yeah, for sure, but just to be around that experience and then going to cross Roads, which is a predominantly white school, but you had, you know, a lot of black athletes there, you know. And I was the same grade as Damon Waynes Jr. So me and me and me and Damon were like good friends in junior high. Like I would tell people he was like, you know, I thought I was funny, like he was, you know, probably the most funny people. And he came but that was his whole family's thing, Like everybody in his family is funny as shit. So getting to have compete with those guys, even at a at an early level, but also learning a lot from him to just in terms of timing, humor and all types of stuff. And then I see him go on and carve out a success career like his dad is, like, you know, following the footsteps of your parents. I think it's kind of a theme of this this show. Yeah, but you know, just being immersed in those worlds and those cultures and learning doing the bar Mitz for seeing. And so for those who don't know l A private school like bar Mitzz or this year, right, parents are competing each other. There's not even for the kids. It's for the parents who compete against each other. So you know, four seasons like the nicest hotels, Like I didn't know a yeah, but this is like, you know, if you got to l A private schools like the bar Mits for seeing, like you know, kids at bar Mitz for the same day, It's like there's be contention towards because like who's going to which one? Oh, this person had you know this person show up and they did. There's you know, like just these cool last locations. But really I realized it was just for parents and that's kind of the l A Hollywood scene for them to stun on each other. So like some of the most extravagant party that I went to was like a thirteen year old seventh grader like hitting these bar Mitts, was sucking karaoke machines, DJ's dancers like all types of crazy ship But this is what l A is. So I've been super humbled and blessed to be around you know that friends who literally mansions in Beverly Hills and friends who lived in the heart of the hood. Then make a difference really just kind of how do you relate to these people and find common interests? So you didn't, So now you're exposed to all kinds of people and all sorts of experiences while living here in Los Angeles. So once you left basketball, what did you really what did you want to be? I really didn't. I know, I wanted to write and make TV shows. You know. The opportunity to work at Fox Sports kind of opened up. Like I said, I was there making about ten but it was cool because we're working on the Fox lot on Pico, so they filmed a bunch of TV shows movies there, so we would be in like the Fox Sports area, but like literally all the way across on the lot, they had like the uppity like famous people commissary where they would go either. So I would literally make a point to go walk there every day, like grab my lunch with just looking around and being mercy in this world and kind of really just appreciate and respect it. That's the thing to a lot of people who don't live out here think like, oh, you just roll the camera and go It's like now it's like twenty hour days and a lot of grind, like you know, working on shows like Legend, Chamber Heights or Colin in Black and White with Ava, like you know, it's like fourteen fifteen, eighteen hour days. Some sometimes it's just you know, rolls into the next day and you know, you look up and it's like two weeks down the road and you haven't really slept much in that time because you've just been going and running, and I remember, there'll be time the NFL. Now we've gotta work eight straight days in the heart of the season, and that's just what it was. Nobody complained, nobody, you know, But I go back and link at those things like you know, finnishing the shift at two thirty in the morning, going home, being right back at six thirty am, to you know, to grind for another twelve hours, and eventually you get kind of like you know, when you go from an athlete, like you practiced through four hours. Then you kind of go on with your life. You may have study, hall that other stuff, but going to those worlds was like, damn, I just work twenty straight hours and I got to be back in three more hours of work. Another twelve. You know, it felt like a doctor or something like that, just working these crazy making these crazy, crazy, crazy schedules. But then it just now I look back in life and you asked the question earlier, like how am I so fast? So quick with it? It's like go work highlights at NFL Network on Sunday and just the amount of pressure, and it's like you're either gonna sink or swim. You they're gonna succome to that pressure, just like being an athlete having to run out. You know. Imagine like writing a shot you for somebody like Rich Eyes and who's you know, the top of his game, award winning, you know, broadcaster, like you know, if there's something wrong on it, he's gonna let you know about it. So you know the same thing with Ava. Imagine writing the script for Ava. You know there's something that she's not rocking with that script, She's gonna let you know. So your goal is to make sure you put your best foot forward through the best that you can. And there's always gonna be notes, there's always gonna be criticism, whatever. But I think one of the reason that people like me, somebody like Ava likes working with me because she can give me criticism and know that I'm gonna take it the same way a coach would. I'm not gonna get mad about it or whatever. I'm gonna go and prove, listen to what she has to say and really allow her to help me elevate to the next level that I can get to. Same thing with the rich eyes and or all these you know, talents of people that I've been able to work with Dion Sanders, people that you know, you just look on the service. Dion was a Hall of Famer in his football career, but also as a broadcaster now as a coach, like equally doing those same things. So just being around these type of people, learning great work habits, learning great professionalism, how to just operate in team environments like it is something that you know, I'm super super appreciative and it's ultimately made me into who I am now. So when you look at the four year old version of me, it's having all these experiences. I see a lot of people coming in this game and that are young. They try to skip steps, like you know, there are certain things like you know log of our press compence, my first job at NFL Network, I'll shoot you not was I think I worked Mondays and Wednesdays, but just logging press conference. They had to do it by hand, got into nd got in by hand, like we didn't we weren't doing another computer back then, right on by hand. And I remember literally like you know, from eight to like four thirty PM. I remember every it was like Mike home room would be my last press conference, and he used to just talk like he would just start telling random stories about when he was a teacher and like all this other stupid ship and I have to log the whole thing just waiting for him to give that thirty second by it on Matt hassleback or whatever it was that I was gonna have to, you know, try to sell to my producer to get on the show. But I used to meticulously log everything like just I wouldn't know when we did games, like same point. You know, you have the paper log a game, there may be a four second cutaway of some obscure you know, d line coach or whatever that you know, it may not be in pouring to you then, but six months down the road that that SHOT's gonna be like, oh we need footage of this dude or whatever. So everybody would just be so complimentary or how would do my logs? I would color code and just be O C D with everything. Every shot I saw was getting it. So when they would come back six weeks later, a month later, you know, even a year later, pull out that log I need this shot from you know, do you get the shot of whatever in the third quarter when he was rubbing his knee? Oh yeah, right here man. And but that kind of work work ethic inhabits really helped elevating where I'm now. So when I'm watching stuff, you know, like, you know, you don't watch games the same way that the average consumer watching. Even now, in my head, I'm still breaking down games for highlights, for moments. Oh, I know this is what's gonna go take off on social It's funny. I had a guy, David Ubin from The Athletic was writing a profile and he's like, ye'all, I want to sit with you and watch a game and see how you tweet, and hey, when those things happen, because I feel pressure like, oh, I gotta like, you know, find finding a winner. And it's like it's games, so you just never know what's gonna happen. We're watching a maths game, Luca like funny thing happens, end up clipping off the little there's a funny like freeze frame of him, and that thing ends up going viral as he's sitting there in that moment. So it's like, I don't ever feel pressure to do these things even now. I like I was tweeting by like eight hundred thousand times a month. Now it's like two to three hundred, just to be strategic selective. We're all watching the finals, like you know I did for game to Draymond Green should have got a second tech. Oh he didn't get it. Right, here's the funny you know snoop court court photo that we can make a meme and not a funny snoop photo, but take this meme and make it transformative to represent Draymond's you know, you know, praying that he didn't get his second tech. Things like that. But that just finding the way that people communicating the culture. And it's like even getting into social media for me, it was was super random. Like I had a bunch of friends that we used to be in the group chat and used to send a bunch of memes to each other, and I could keep up with them, like like they would just be sending these funny gas memes and like eventionally they booted me out of the group chat because I literally couldn't keep up, and then now here we go. I'm like, you know, this was probably maybe like ten years ago. Yeah, this was like do you stay in touch with that? We're all we're all so close. Do they think it's funny that you're who you are now on social media? I always tell them, like one of my good friends, Jane Barnes, so I played in U s l A with he was he was kind of the architect of the chat and always, you know, I'm super thankful and appreciative of them for really kind of like they were so ahead of the curve and just and how they communicated, like everything was in meme form, funny photos whatever, and I'm just like, damn, I can't keep up with these dudes where they find these photos and all this other stuff. So really helped kind of turn me into who I am and when I do on the social side. So you know, Gene knows how much I love him to appreciate them, but I can't tell him that too. He doesn't even sometimes I don't even realize that man back then, But like, yeah, man, y'all booted me off the chat because I wasn't but I've deserved it, Like I'm not mad about it. Like I feel like this is like the Michael Jordan's story about how he didn't make varsity the first time around. He really just a bunch of funny dudes. All the means were always hidden and I would just sit and crack up and not try and like you weren't funny back but you're funny now. But you know now I'm still getting in and like I'll learned a time from those experiences. That's great. Well, it's so interesting me hear about your path about it makes sense, all the different layers, the joking and the humor within your family, um, the pranks, uh you going to that art school when you were in third or fourth grade, and then even the meticulous, detailed oriented nature of your first experience of getting into media and working at NFL network though, I mean, all those little things really really does it's paying off now. And then even just that like friend chat that helped pave the way of like really trying to be quick witted and means and have that type of humor and conversation. But I think the other chapter that's really important is your experience at Comedy Central. So talk a little bit about that, how you got there and what that experience was so Comedy Central, Uh, you know it was. It was good. I like the joke and said that they turned me into the monster I am today because they But I got a crash course into what Hollywood really is, and I look back and I appreciate everybody was a part of that project. So we were doing a website, me and my former team into you still like Quinn Hawkey and like Williams. After college, we kind of know what we wanted to do. Started doing a website called Jersey Chaser, so it was you look like the Bleacher Reports now and those type of things. It was kind of an off kilter version and that funny. A lot of stuff we were doing them was meme based, Like we would take photos just add funny captions or funny pictures like you know, I still like love putting like a picture of Mr Miyagi was like a quote bubble on people's photos but saying something like outlanders ship. So we would we would just grind and write articles and I really like, again, when you look at all the stuff that makes me who I am now. So I was working a full time gig at NFL Network and also doing the website on the side. So I'd literally be at work writing articles like discreetly but posting like ten of twelve articles a day, just grinding ten twelve Yeah, But then were they were like two word or less, like you know what I mean, which even then it was like it was just like who, what, when, where? While I have like answer all those things in the article, then you're good, like put it out. But funny stuff like somebody tweeted some funny stuff or whatever it may be, or photos whatever whatever was going on in the sports world, we're kind of off kilter, look at that. So we started doing a bunch of funny YouTube content. But like even those were memes that we didn't know we were doing. We were doing writer's rooms. We didn't know we were doing writers when we did, be sitting in the living room like all right, let's pitch funny lines for whatever we're gonna cut. So ended up doing that got the attention of some guys who were working in the entertainment animation industry. Got by the name of Brad Abelson and Mike Clemence. Brad is actually a director on like the New Minions movie coming out work for the Simpsons, but he was like super talented animator, and Mike Clemence was an exact He had a company with Tom Werner called Good Humor that that did a bunch of They had a show called Good Vibes on MTV and a bunch of other stuff. So get a random cold email from these guys like, Yo, we think you got ship's funny, would love to meet you. Turns out Mike lives in Westwood. We were all living in the house and Westwood at that point after U c l A. It was kind of like our version of our frat house who came up on like the shittiest house on the block, but it had a pool, like six of us living in there stating at thing for like seven years. Like started out was like the Basketball House all god, but as everybody went on with their life and then by the time it ended, it was a bunch of just like you know, random people from all across the world living in there. But so Mike, we ended up meeting at the w and Westwood. Uh ended up meeting with him. He's like, yeah, I'm working on this idea for Lebron thing you guys to be a great fit. Showed us that the stuff he was doing. I was just like, look, no knock like love Lebron, but our level of humor and our brand of humors a lot more risque and out of pocket than you know, I think he would be comfortable with. So he was like, all right, what do you guys got. So I literally was like, yo, well we used to sit on the end of the bench at U c l A during games and talk a bunch of ship and have a good time. You know. His eyes light up and then we kind of just started developing the project from there. But this was like two thousand nine. It was like, you know, so we're thinking like, oh, we're about to have a TV show. We're gonna be the ship several years later, Like we didn't pitch Comedy Central until so we worked on that thing development for like four years. A bunch of peaks and valleys like they would go dark on as we went't here from from several months at a time. It's kind of like a movie hook, like Peter Pan like coming back to see Wendy and every time older and older and older, and it's like, funk, I don't want to go any more adventures. Peter, I'm like eighty, Like what the hell? But it was It's kind of that type of situation. But eventually we go pitch Comedy Central. Uh you know, they sold the show in the room. They brought on Michael Starberry, who was uh Emmy nominated for his work with Avon when they see us. He was a show runner on Colin Black and White. Still one of my best friends of this day. So they bring on Starberry. He was he was super high at that time. He had sold another pilot to Comedy Central called Blackjack. So me and Starberry just click right away. He's from Milwaukee. My dad played for the Bucks, like he used to slank tickets outside of games in his youth. So it was just like natural, like we've been you know, we're rhyme with each other. So we got this great crew together. We go pitch Comedy Central and he literally sold shows. At that point. Me and Quinn hadn't literally like after the meetings, like you know, you just sold the TV show, right, We're just like what. Then sure enough we get a call day later. You know they want to buy it. So spent another two years in development doing all types of ship show. Fine League gets greenlit and we spend uh, you know, we get a great writer's room, bunch of talented people like Erica Badoo comes on to help do some of the music, Like, I mean, just just an amazing thing. Carl Jones who had worked on Boondocks and does a bunch of stuff that like the Jellies were tired, the creator, a bunch of other stuff. Uh, and just an amazing team. Jay Farroh. Tiffany Hattis is a Tiffany right before she kind of blew up, so we were able to still get her. She was kind of just on her ascension. But I had this great crew of people. Neil Brennan, who Neil and Dave Chappelle worked together created Chappelle Show. Knew one of the funniest people on the planet. Jamie Kennedy came in. Remember Jamie Kenny came in for his audition. He was like in Scrubs because he was like doing another another role somewhere else came in and Red We're like, Yeo'll give you whatever you want. Doug Let Big fan, but so just to be in that world. Man, it was such an amazing thing too, because that show, they were so excited about it. So they gave us a second season order fashion I think any show on Comedy Central history. We did our first able to read President Network came, all the exacts came, and for my things, I'm always just when my producer had on like, oh we're doing a table read, you can invite anybody, I'm like, yeah, we need to make this ship crack. So when they come, like we got we had like a hundred people in there. Normally you might get people at those things, but I remember, like Morris Chestnut was there just random human beings like ship Morris Chestnuts here. I gotta really put on my a game. This is like you know, Ricky for Boys in the Hood is one of my eros. But they loved loved it, and but then you know, you fast forward and you kind of see the other side of Hollywood show comes out. The numbers don't perform as well. They paired us up with South Park. I always thought for them it was like, yo, this is our best show, best leading. I wasn't even thinking my head back then, like yo, you're trying to tell South Park fans that this is the new south Park, but all South Park fark fans want to South Park, so kind of didn't really help us in terms of the promo getting it out there because all the South Park fans. And then something else too that that really bothers me, that all this touch on. You go look at IMDb, right, and anybody can vote on IMDb shows, but if you look buying Large, any black show that goes on IMDb will get like negative ratings for it even comes out because there's you know, just racial undertones of a bullshit that goes on there that other people like you know, Matt Cherry and other people a lot more talented than myself had pointed out. So I remember showing even Area and we had like a four star rating. It's like you haven't even seen the show and you're already you know, giving it one star, just shipping on it, and it's just like why, you know what I mean? You know, but it was stuff that bothered me. But I also used to say, like who gives a shit about somebody? Like what type of person who votes on IMDb for shows? Like that's not the demo for this project but show came out, numbers didn't perform really at the level of Comedy Central one, and so you kind of saw the flip of that. I remember there was like an Emmy's party maybe like a week after the first episode came out, and prior to that, everybody, Oh, we love you guys, Yeah you nix South Park. Whatever numbers come out, it's like people wudn't even look at us. It's like, you know, imagine making a kind of with the same person that was like saying and then they kind of just see you and look away. And I'm so like keenan content and all that type of ship just from playing sports where I can just look around the room and this stuff that's going on that you know, the average human being is not even gonna see. And it's just like I could feel the energy was off, vibe was off. So first season runs, and then they come back next for a second season. We have the meeting and it's like, yeah, we're gonna put you guys. They moved to another slot. It was like Sunday into the eleven thirty. I'm like, all right, I go look at me. I'm like detective boy, what shows come on Sunday eleven thirty Ship Rick and Morty, Like you put us in the same slot as Rick and Morty, And that's the first thing I thought in my head. It's like, well, shot, I'm gonna watch Rick and Morty and I'm not watching our show, Like this is one of the most prolific animated shows of all time. So at that moment, I knew right into the wall show is getting canceled. And then after that experience, you know, you wanna talk about the next chapter. This is what kind of made me the person I am now and why I said they created a monster because after that phone stop bringing, nobody would give us the time of day, Like you know, I mean, we went from you kind of see both sides of it. Oh, you're gonna be the greatest thing ever kind of same thing is sports and basketball. Oh you're gonna be Nboh it didn't work out, Like I don't care about you anymore. I wanted whatever the next thing is. So I got to see that firsthand, and it was really bothers him. And it's funny. My wife has this video on her phone she shot at me. Probably the lowest point in my life, I was probably three eighty pounds, like super depressed. I just look over it and I'm like, yeo, this is there at the end of me, like you know, I'm gonna make sure that all the people remember who I am and I'm gonna be back someday. So we just watched it recently and I was literally like I was almost in tears, just like, damn, it actually really worked out. Like you know, I thought it was gonna be full of shipping, like you know, not lead to anything, but to be able to go to that moment now, And it's funny a lot of those same people who you know wouldn't give us the time of day or looks in the eye like oh I saw this, and I saw that, and I saw the lebron tweeting like you know what I mean. So for me, it's kind of like it was a full circle moment. But that's part of the grind and kind of who I am and why I'm so humble, because I was operating the fear that I could go back to the at that time when and I couldn't get a job, and literally I was gonna go drive uber just because I needed to do something. No knocked anybody who drives Uber, but it was just like I was so close to doing it was like, damn, I can have somebody I know picked them up and then see me driving the uber and how they're gonna respond and react to that, which I know a little shallow, but it was all so like, Yeah, I'm gonna keep grinding, I'm gonna figure it out, and I'm gonna try and get to where I know I belong. So still still working on it, but getting a lot closer. I'll say that that's so awesome. And in Your Wife, she played she swam at U c l A. And seems like you guys have really known each other for a really really long time. There's a loyalty and for her to you guys watching that video again, and it's so interesting because you know, this show is is focused on not just the transition from sport, but the multiple transitions and chapters that we all experience. And it sounds like while your transition from basketball was difficult, I'm so glad I asked about that chapter because I also had a feeling that that was that really seemed to be like one of the most, if not the most like pivotal moments in your life. In your professional trajectory that like really transform you, which means that you had to be in a really tough, bad place almost because that's those are the moments change us in from us, I mean after college and it is getting you go from you know, being this athlete that has all this gear whatever. I remember, you know, probably the lowest point of my professional career as a true story, Like trying to find a job was like on Craigslist, couldn't find anything. I didn't really want to ask my mom or dad for help, So I end up getting a job like basically going door to door trying to sell like printer paper. This is like two five, right after college. Literally barrow suit from my dad doesn't really fair, right, He's kind of got an odd shaped body, but we're around the same height. It's a nice suit, like nice tailor suit for him, not tailor for me. But so I'm walking around with this dude and we're in San Pedro literally like just going door to door spots. End up going some spots somebody recognizes me and I think actually helped get the sale there. Like you know, they kind of just took pity on us, and like all you know, we'll get your but just like I'm going door to door trying to sell printer paper like and then after that, I'm just like, yo, I can't do that. I gotta figure something out. So I started grinding and figured it out. Got on at at Fox Sports and NFL Network, and these were like part time games. I was at NFL Network like one or two days a week. They like the work I did, so they brought me off for more of like one of like the first fifty hires that the company's was like when I was back in its infancy. So to be able to do all those things now and you know, started in if I Network the p A, leaving as a production supervisor and then coming back and doing stuff they just did. Uh, like a broadcast boot camp recently where you know, I'm meeting like Richard Sherman and Kyle Vannoy, Gerald McCoy, all these legends guys that I used to like, you know, I work on shows, I build graphics form or whatever like with their you know, but I'm talking to my guys that worked there, and they're like, yeah, man, we told that everybody you were coming. They got like super extis like damn. Like it's like again one of the more full circle moments where I was literally at this place and it's a different office now they moved to Englewood so far, but I was here at the p A and now I'm coming back like literally speaking you know in this boot camp the guys giving them advice. But being a strange shooter, I think I like signed somewhere that I'm not allowed to curse, but you know, it's cursing up a storm, like it's like yeah, like we're gonna do not pay me, like it is what it is. But so just seeing all that type of stuff. But that's the kind of thing for me to why I'm so humble and I try to just be as helpful as I can to other people that are in this position because you know, you talk about social media's like a multibillion dollar industry, like it's there's such an amount of money and people that are trying to get to it. There's been such a huge shift, you know, working in TV and working in digital and seeing the shift now it's all the TV people are trying to come to digital and it's like, oh, well this would just be like TV, and it's like no, this is digitalus to wild West, like you need to go grab your viewership. You're not just gonna be able to throw a ton of money at it. A lot of times you throw a ton of money at stuff on the digital side, it has the adverse effect. It doesn't work, like you know, people see it as ad and they don't rock with it. If you look at the most influential people on social influence or whatever, a lot of these people have built themselves up from the ground up, like train themselves put out you know, I have the most almost I look at somebody like Mark Phil Loups in his crew RDC World and the level of content that they're doing and sketches and skits and just how funny they are, and it's like this, this is a future. Somebody like a drew Ski. Drewsky literally has created a whole lane for himself making videos while he's just going to do normal stuff like I'm at a dinner, Okay, let's make a quick sketch of like you know, I would be the jealous boyfriend here and that thing does millions of views, or hey, you know we're at this event now, I'm just gonna do a quick sketch or whatever. You know, but that's the type of stuff where those people will never be given the time of day if they walk into an exact office or whatever and said, hey, I got these funny sketches somebody to give a ship. But now they carve their own lane out and know those same people will come to them offer them jobs. So whatever it is on the social side, I just try to be a resource and be like, look like I'm more than happy to help people. Anybody needs advice, whatever, run stuff by me. Just try to be a resource. I've had so many great mentors that have helped me, and it's like that's the one thing I can give back. Like everybody sees this King Josie. Honestly, I hate when people do that because I'm just like, that's just just side. Well it's like, yeah, Lebron called himself King James. I just like Joside was the King of the Bible too. That's why I picked the social media handle. I thought it was a lot cooler, and I made this eleven whatever it was. I thought it was a lot cooler then. But I don't, you know, everybody kind of approaches me like that. You see, I'm as a regular guy, like shorts T shirt, like I'll wear this pretty much everywhere. This is like my uniform wherever I go. Hate suits, like I literally have one suit at this point. I've warned so much that it's not like, you know, I could switch ties, but but that's just kind of me. So but really just trying to be a resource for for people coming up in this game because there's so much money that can be made and even me now carving a career, like it's crazy. When I started writing the TV and started getting those TV checks, it was like, well, it's the most miny I've ever seen in my life. And now social is literally catching up to that. You know, I mean to do stuff I was already gonna do, Like I did a Super Bowl live tweet for Direct TV, and it's like, jokes on you guys, I was gonna tweet anyway, Like now you're paying me to do it, Like like I'm in heaven. I get to watch the super Bowl and make money doing it, to the point where I literally like Twitter like how to take it for me to go? I'm like now I'm I'm gonna stay here and just live street from the crib because it's more financially beneficial same thing Game two. The final Twitter has me. I'm like, yeah, we got the sweet in San Francisco for Game too. It's like, now I'm doing a live stream with Gilbert Arenas, now, like you know what I mean, like somebody who I looked up to. We grew up in the valley together. He's a year older than me, but I've always had a tremendous amount of respect for Now I get to where I'm literally sitting in Gilbert's basement doing a live stream with him and Kanyan Martin and kJ Martin. Like, these are opportunities that you get the car off the So people saw the memes, people saw that stuff. But now I'm going to do a bunch of stuff in the hosting space. Job that used to be reserved for guys who played in the NBA are all Stars or Hall of famers. Now, if you you have good nuance takes, you can build up your own following. That's currency that you can leverage now to create opportunities for yourself. Well, we're all rooting for you. I know I am, and you are a breath of fresh air on social media. I kind of have this love hate relationship with social media, but you are literally like the person that always makes me laugh and I really enjoy that. And speaking of hustling, I want to be mindful of your time. It is four fifteen, it is so I know you gotta go. So I want to say thank you so much for joining the show. Hi five. Thank you again for opening up and sharing your story. You gotta jump on a call. Big thank you to Josiah for opening up and not only sharing his story but answering some really personal and difficult questions about his journey, especially as it relates to his relationship with basketball and his father. I really hope you enjoyed today's conversation. For more episodes, you can just visit our show page on I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcasts, and to watch the full version of these interviews, you can head on over to YouTube just search for the next chapter with Prim's rippapat. Also, don't forget subscribe to us like us, give us star rating. We really appreciate you listening and also of course showing your support and feel free to follow me on Twitter and Instagram at prim Underscore s ripa Pat. The next chapter with Prim to Riffle Pat is a production of i heart Radio. For more podcast from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast