Man of Standard
Read the entire interview, conducted by ThaRecipe.com,
at www.NapturalRoots.com
Well what can you tell us about yourself Zo your background, your history,
how you ended up doing this crazy radio thing?
Man, it’s a long story, but the short of it is I started my career as far as radio
goes about 2 and a half years ago. And it was one of those classic “who you
know” situations. For over 10 years now, I’ve been playing basketball with
a gentleman by the name of Marcus King, another gentleman by the name
of Niles Kirchner, and another gentleman by the name of [Greg Shelton].
Now Greg Shelton along with Marcus King were executive producers of a
television show called “Black Men Revealed.” Our relationship was purely
competitive with respect to Saturday morning basketball. {Laughs} We’ve
played ball for maybe 5 years and we didn’t really get into each other’s
personal lives or what we did outside of the camaraderie we shared on the
basketball court.
I guess this game has been a tradition going on for over 35 years. I came into
that environment and that group of men in 1999/2000. So for the first 5 years
we didn’t really talk about what we did personally. Then debates started to
break out on the court and of course I’m outspoken and articulate so I went
after the white men that were on the court historically. Marcus, Greg, and
Niles said “you know this guy has something. We don’t know what it is,
but he has something.” Greg Shelton asked me to be on the television show
called “Black Men Revealed.” I did episode 4 of the first season entitled
“Why he won’t go to church.” They had me on with a Reverend, a young
brother named Trey, and a Catholic brother.
What inspired you to pursue relationship counseling/services as a career
path? It sounds like it kind of found you, but did you always have that
inkling that you wanted to go that way?
It kind of found me. And it’s not really counseling because I am not a clinician,
it’s more like I’ve committed so many heinous relationship crimes; I always
tell people. People always ask me: What makes you qualified, why are you
giving out relationship advice. I say 1: the speaker is not important. It is the
info and 2: I think everybody could be a relationship guru if they kept better
account of themselves when relationships go bad. So what I have done, I
have allowed failure to be my professor. And I have chronicled the lessons
that failures have taught me, and when I see it in human behavior, I’m able
to say, ok I know what you are doing. Come here and let me point you in the
right direction. Look at these key things. Unfortunately, when I originally got
the radio show, I wanted to do more than just relationships. For years I was
an A&R person in the music industry. I was in AR at Loud Records, I was
in AR at Maverick records with Madonna. So I wanted to talk about music,
my culture (which is hip hop), and just being black in America. I wanted to
talk about a lot of things: politics, culture, etc. But the people that gave me
the show were like you have a special gift with regards to mediation, pulling
people back, diplomacy, and I have been studying everything under the sun
since I was 17. When I say everything under the sun, I mean everything from
theoretical physics to “judu Krishnamurti” to religion. God has blessed me
with the ability to retain a lot of that information and apply it to practical
life situations. So when they gave me the radio show, they said “dude, focus
on relationships so we can create a brand around you.” And that is how it
happened.
We had people call from all over the country, then there was another one “ Are You
How do you keep your topics fresh? Do you just kind of hit your friends up and say
Someone’s Soul Mate Or Their Cell Mate” and we talked about how a thought process is
you know what what’s been spinning in your brain right now or do you just drive
tantamount to being a prison and if you have a rigid and inflexible thought process you
down the road and think hmm or do you?
can easily become someone’s cell mate [cell mate yeah because then you know what
to expect everyday] exactly [it’s also good for lazy people too] hysterical (laughter).
Well relationship topics are finite anyway; it’s a finite amount of information to talk
about. But what I stress with my team is we have to be creative in how we reintroduce
What is the message that you are trying to promote through your radio show and why?
the familiar. For instance next week’s show is called “Interfacial Dating” basically,
Life is a relationship. Whether it is intimate or otherwise. And relationships require
is it true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Interfacial means dating somebody
management. Management is another word for coping. And it’s like if we could be more
that’s considered very handsome and or pretty and that person has maybe, somebody
objective, more self reflective, if we could be more accountable, our relationships in
that’s considered not so pretty, i.e., Janet Jackson and Jermaine Dupri. What do people
every walk of life whether it be work, family, children, or friends it would be better. A
think when you see somebody with a beautiful woman and he’s ugly? Automatically
philosopher that I like, Robert Anton Wilson, well I don’t know if he is a philosopher,
we think oh god he must have money (he’s rich) right so like interfacial dating we
but he writes pretty heavy books. He said if humanity replaced the words “I know what
try to be creative with. We have some like crazy cooties need love too (giggles) that
I’m talking about/I know” with “maybe” we would wake up and find out the world is
was a show basically talking about how there is a burgeoning underground internet
much saner. If we simply SAY that we don’t know. A lot of times our agenda takes first
communal type movement of people with HPV, Herpes, and all types of different
priority in any relationship we are in. Our personal agenda. And that is why I started
sexually transmitted diseases that they can’t get rid of, so they date each other; their
to liken relationships to corporations. A corporation is a fictitious person that has all
like online MySpace, you know match.com type communities (okay) and when I tell
the rights of a real person. But it’s not real. And in corporations, every corporation
you we diversify the angle we take we also diversify the audience. Like I said it’s a
is legally bound to protect the bottom line. Well the bottom line in corporations is
finite amount of information but it’s how you position it, it’s how you label it that will
tantamount to the personal agenda in intimate relationships. So we engage each other
spark more interest (right) are you dating a fat person is he or she worth the weight.
26  NAPTURAL ROOTS  VOLUME 3, ISSUE 2
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