Getting Back To The Source

And we're back with another episode of the FYM Show with Ty and Yo. That's my man Ty, I'm Yo, and we are, you know, season 4. We've been rocking and rolling, getting these episodes out. Got a brand new book out, The Culture Playbook Volume 2. You don't have that, go cop that. Ty, please tell the people— he got the book on him, but tell the people, what are we talking about today, Ty?

We are talking about cultural add-ons and how it confuses people.

Now, Ty, what is a cultural add-on?

A cultural add-on is when you are trying to follow the Spirit of the Holy Ghost and give your life to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and you're following the scripture, and it's things that are not in the scripture, like Easter. Jesus died and resurrected. And today we do Easter egg hunts to celebrate that. That throws me off. So I understand going to church, I understand Good Friday, because at least I can say, man, you know, Good Friday is like the good news, you know, you spreading the good news. You can kind of make sense of some of these things, but they try to say like the eggs is for like rebirth and things like that, but It's a cultural add-on that's confusing.

That is a cultural add-on.

Yeah, yeah, it's like, bro, what do a boy— they don't went down the rabbit, they don't got the rabbit bunny bunny, the bunny, they got the chocolate bunny. They just don't add it on culturally. And like, I have a very difficult time with cultural add-ons when it comes to the scripture. So I have— I love culture. I think that some things are just sacred and shouldn't be getting add-ons. It shouldn't be getting stepped on. You get a lot of these scriptures be stepped on and it'd be confusing the young ones that's trying to figure out how to follow the Lord, how to be obedient. So yeah, so today we're talking about cultural add-ons.

Now, do you feel like cultural add-ons are distractions? They take you further away from the source?

I think, I think cultural add-ons when it comes to spirituality it definitely can confuse you and it increases the likelihood you are to be manipulated. Well, I guess that's not a negative word. The way that manipulation can be used can be negatively— it can be negatively displayed. So in the terminology that I'm speaking about, in the perspective, it's like, yes, it can be negatively manipulated for you to go and think that the Bible says this, but in actuality the Bible actually don't even say that. I was watching this movie last night, which is a really great movie. It said How to Make a Killing. And, and, and the guy was telling— he, it was a priest that came to him because he was on death row and he was about to get executed. And he started making these quotes about what was in the Bible, and he was like, like they said in the Bible you know, you live a long life. And he said something random, and then he said, they said it in the Bible, right? And the priest was like, no, that's not in the Bible. And I— when I, when I saw that, I was like, man, like, there's so many things that we say that have just been like culturally add-on. Something that was recently, you know, I think LaRussell had gotten, got in a lot of trouble with these internet people about you know, the terminology heaven-sent.

Yes.

And, you know, and like what, what that really means from a, you know, and everybody like, that's not what heaven-sent mean, that's not what heaven-sent mean, you know. But to your, you know, to a person that's just like thinking about heaven being sent, you know, you know what I'm saying, like it can, it can be very, very confusing. But like you start going into scripture and figuring out like, where is this at in the Bible? Let me find scripture to support the, the terminology heaven-sent. You know, it gets— I think it confuses people that are trying to follow the Lord. And so yeah, that's one of the things, uh, like the white Santa Claus. Like, why the white Santa Claus? Christmas? Like, this is the— yeah, like, like, we don't know exactly what day Jesus was born. right? We know it was like, you know, during that time frame. We don't know the exact date. But where did the white man Santa Claus come from?

Like the reindeers and the factories in the North Pole, right? Cultural add-ons. I like, I like this cultural add-on as a concept because you can kind of look at holidays or even look at, to your point about a misquote, right? If I say something and I tell you it came from the Bible, let's say you don't do your research but let's say you repeat it to somebody else and you was like, hey, that's in the Bible. You don't know what book it came from, you don't know what chapter it is, but you pass it on. And man, I remember somebody told me once that anything that gets passed on through your bloodline becomes DNA.

Yeah, so it's not about rights.

So if you keep passing on cultural add-ons, it actually becomes a culture itself and not an add-on. It becomes a culture. So you just trying to get How do we get back to the source, Ty? How do we get—

well, you gotta read.

You know folks don't read.

Hey, listen, I just had a conversation. I just had a conversation with, um, my girlfriend's brother. He called, he was trying to get some wisdom, some advice, so I gave him a whole bunch of work to do. He was like, you're not gonna help me. I said, I am helping you, I'm giving you information, right? But one of the things I said to him that I never articulated before is reading has nothing to do with school. Reading has nothing to do with school. So when people be like, oh man, I ain't do that good in school, I didn't like reading— reading, I'm gonna repeat this, reading has nothing to do with school. And I'm gonna explain what I mean by that. I didn't have a father growing up, right? So if I want to learn what it looks like to be a good father, you know what I can do? I can read about it. If I didn't— if I grew up poor and I've never had money to manage How do I close that gap? I go and I read about it. I don't have a mentor because people are not responding to my emails, all these different things. So how do I get the information? I go and read it about— I read about it. There's a reason why they didn't allow slaves to learn how to read. It is a lifeline. It is a lifeline. So when we're talking about like, how do we get back to the source and not be— and, and be more aware of when something is a cultural add-on and when something is not a cultural add-on, you have to read. I'm specifically talking about reading the scripture today, but I'm talking about in general If you gotta avoid from your intellectual, uh, uh, I guess you would say your intellectual arsenal, go find a book and read about it because somebody has experienced it already. Somebody's experienced it already and wrote a book about it.

You're not wrong. Well, I feel like we were talking about Waymos earlier, right, which is the automatic— it does not require a driver to get you to where you're trying to go. I think when you don't read, but you sort of, let's say you just go to social media, right, and you just search on your Instagram or on your Twitter or your Facebook, and you get— or even if you just do a little Google search, right, and you get the little Wikipedia page that ain't reading. That's not quite the same amount of like information digestion as taking a book on a subject and actually getting to the source of it, right? Because you're gonna— you're kind of getting the micro version of the information, not the macro. And I think to get to the source— because I mean, we all like the idea. I like the idea of a Wayne Mowtai. I'm not gonna lie, it sounds cool. Jump in the car, ain't no one bothering you, ain't no one pestering you. And it gets you to where you're trying to go. But I didn't have a lot of car rides where I spoke to somebody and I feel like I got out the car with some wisdom, you know what I'm saying? Because I was conversing with somebody that had some experience in something and they explained to me where they— their background, you know what I'm saying? It made me feel close to some information that I wouldn't have gotten regardless in a Waymo, you know what I'm saying? Well, a car can't talk to me, it can't give me nothing. There's no exchange, right? So sometimes you want the shortcut, but I think you trying to get to the source, you got to find out where you can get the information from and digest it properly.

Well, the Waymo versus the Uber conversation is a very interesting conversation about diversification of how you receive information or how you go about going and doing something, right? So like you take it from a standpoint of like, you know, The Waymo is you getting things and figuring out things on your own time and resource because there's no distractions around you to take you away from it, right?

Okay.

There's also not nobody to give you additional information. But then when you get into Uber, you know, you have— you have the— Uber is the cultural atom, right?

Really? Okay, okay.

Like, from a conceptual thing, because when you get in that car, you're gonna hear somebody else's opinion that you don't know where they got that opinion from. True. You don't know where they're gonna get that information from, right? So comparison of it is almost like Waymo is the source, because when you're usually with the source is that you're finding your way through truth, right? You're getting revelations through truth. You're getting revelations through isolation, right? So when you're in the Waymo by yourself Ain't nobody interrupting your conversations. Ain't nobody, you know, ear hustling your calls and then gonna ask you what you do for a living. None of that stuff is happening. Once again, nothing is wrong with that, but we're just differentiating those two. When you get into the Uber, you got to be— you got to be more defensive, right, of your mind or what you're hearing.

You gotta be cognizant. You gotta be very cognizant. Yeah.

Right, so, so, so you have to kind of like have more of a blockers up. And I think that when you know that you can protect the source of where you're supposed to get information from, to like really, really, really live in a certain level of truth, right? And it's like, you know, that's how I see the two, because I haven't gotten into Waymo yet, but I look forward to getting into one, you know. Now I've had OGs that are like, man, I get in that thing, it got it right, it got the temperature I want, it got the type of music I'm playing, and I'm in my— I got privacy, you know. And they just talked about a lot of pros. Now, now the cons is they're gonna, you know, the reduce— the reduction of Uber drivers is 1000% can be the, the, um, the con. But those Uber drivers, they should invest into Google. Google on Waymo.

I will say, I will say, Ty, now I did see a Waymo get caught up in like a traffic situation where they had, um, they had put up some cones, right? Because obviously the road was blocked off and the car wasn't cognizant of what to do, so it was just kind of stuck in a loop and the car just kept riding around in a circle and it could not like it just wasn't able to be programmed to know how to like work through that situation. I don't really know what that means metaphorically, but I've seen it happen. I don't really know how it works in this thing. Well, but you know what I'm saying?

Well, then we— now we're getting into like real life where, you know, it is still a machine.

It's still—

it's still a machine. You know, that's just what it boils down to. It is still a machine. And I, I think What I think the future of Waymo really will go— is going to go into is that it's going to go into this concept where there are buttons both in the passenger and the driver's side. Like, the driver's side, it's going to be like an airplane where there's going to be a co-pilot, and then when there's a malfunction, whoever's driving, whoever's in the car will have the option to kind of like press a button and like get it back on track and then go back on auto. That's why I think it would actually, that's where I think it's gonna go. You know what I'm saying? From that aspect of things, you're gonna be able to just troubleshoot yourself by the technology being simple. So if it's like, you know, and I think it's gonna be voice activated as well as the future progresses where you're talking about and it's like, hey Waymo, that's a cone. You know, pause, recalibrate, and, um, make a left up there to like— and, and then you'll be clear. And I think that's where the future of Waymo is going to actually go.

That's fire, I can't lie. That's kind of cool. Um, but in terms of like further cultural add-ons, do you feel like cultural add-ons can be beneficial?

I think cultural add-ons can be beneficial. I think it can help bring people to sources of things. It can make things cool. Um, I think it had a bunch of pros, but I just don't think people even acknowledge and understand the cons of it, you know. But the only reason I can say that because I'm reading more and I'm like, I'm starting to have more questions. I'm just like, hmm, this just doesn't make— this doesn't make sense. So how do I get to hear, like, what does this really mean? Like, I hear people say this all the time, but like, in actuality, this is not in scripture. Or even if I start talking about, like, I remember when I was first learning about music publishing and people would be like, yeah, so when you got music publishing, it's, it's 200%. And I'm just like, 100%? Like, yes, 100%. For the, the, the writer, and it's 100% for the producer. And so the writer, if you got a co-writer, it's 50%. I'm like, this sounds so confusing. We're not talking real numbers anymore. Anybody that knows that, that is mathematical, 0 to 100 are real numbers.

Yeah.

Everything after 100 is considered— is not a real number. Now you start going into percentiles. So 200 percentile means that, you know, you doubled your money. You know, you got 100 twice. That means that I started with a dollar, I got another dollar, so now I got $2. Yeah. So when a person says, yeah, this one song got a 200%, I'm like, this is the most confusing thing. No, it's 100%. 50% to the writer, 50% to the producer. They, they spread it out, or they, or they spin it out to be like 100%, 100%. Instead of doing the math within the 100, they simplify it but confuse it at the same time, which this is going to go over a bunch of people's head. But still, the fact of the matter is, if I got a dollar, I don't got $200. I don't have a— I don't have 200% of a dollar. I have 100% of a dollar. And if I get another 100%, that means that now I got another dollar. That, that, yes, it's duplicated. And so when we start thinking about a lot of these cultural add-ons, sometimes they're trying to simplify things to kind of like make it like dumber so people can understand it. But then sometimes it just confuses people in the music business, especially publishing. It's meant— I would like to not say it's meant to confuse people, but I think it's just meant to confuse people. Um, just like these Easter eggs and the white Santa Claus.

So what encouraged you to start reading the Bible? Were you reading it like cover to cover, starting from Genesis, or did you kind of pick a chapter read through it and then picked another chapter? Like, how did you end up sort of like getting into it in that way?

Um, well, I got, I got recommended a chapter to start with, which was James. I started, I started reading the Bible every day, to be honest with you, to learn how to understand these humans. I was like, I don't understand these humans. I need some, I need some guidance spiritually because I'm supposed to serve You can't serve if you don't have understanding. So I need to really understand this if I'm supposed to be obedient and do a good job and bring people to the kingdom and all of those fancy great things. But I, I just started going by, you know, my spirit and suggestions. So right now I'm in Mark, and I do these challenges. I did this, uh, 31-day Proverbs challenge, and ever since then, when I read a new book create a challenge. So I do however many chapters it is, how many days the challenge is.

Fire. How do you like Proverbs?

Proverbs is fire, man. Proverbs, Proverbs teach you how to get wealthy the righteous way. Proverbs—

tell me more.

Well, I mean, Proverbs talks about He talks a lot about wisdom, talks a lot about, um, taking your wealth and not showing that you're wealthy. It talks about, uh, I mean, Proverbs talk about so much stuff, bro. I got so many notes on it. But I do believe that everybody that's trying to be successful can be successful by just reading Proverbs and Genesis.

You know, I'm still working my way through Genesis right now. This is really interesting, just the way that the stories kind of show you like Abraham's bloodline and just like the bloodline of people and the growth and the promise to God and how like God's promise comes through generationally. That wasn't just one person, but like his son's son's sons are gonna receive this promise today. That I gave you, this covenant that I gave you. And I think that that's so interesting, watching how God's promise stretches out so far. It doesn't just— oh, I don't just promise you something, you get it immediately. It's just like you watch it come over time. Also, just like delayed gratification, mad delayed gratification in Genesis. Like, folks are getting stuff in their 90s that they got promised in their 30s, you know what I'm saying? Like, um, but it's crazy because That's crazy about it.

The last point I'll say about Proverbs, one of the things, it was personifying wisdom. You'll see wisdom is referred to a lot as she, and I thought that was like cool that, that's super cool. Proverbs speak towards wisdom as if it's a woman, and I was like, man, this is pretty actually cool because I've got a lot of really great wisdom from women.

That is super fire. I was, uh, also thinking about Kendrick. You know, I got the Kendrick Lil post behind me. When he dropped Damn, remember, people thought it was going to be a second album because of all of like the biblical references in the album. The round, the drop, the drop was around Easter, and they were like, oh, Kendrick's gonna resurrect again and it come back with another album. But because he has so much scripture in the album, more people talking about the Bible within this context of this project than I've ever seen with a rap album. And that's kind of like how he kind of— he used the album as a cultural add-on to have people have conversations about Jesus and Christ. And I always thought that was really cool, um, with that album specifically.

Yeah. Kendrick always has some, you know, depth. He tries to have a lot of depth with it, depth with his music, for sure.

Because you, because you can use it as a vehicle to create conversations around other things, you know. And I do, I feel like maybe that's what a lot of cultural add-ons begin as, to your point about like, oh, let me showcase this in a different way, let me try to bring people to this subject matter through this, you know, vehicle. But sometimes people get stuck on the ride and they don't really ever make it to the destination.

Yeah, I think that— I think like we should like replace April 1st with, you know, April's Field Day, you know. And we should, uh, get rid of the eggs, you know, in Easter and try to find something like, you know, bread. Like, you know, maybe we should use bread instead of eggs, you know. So you get some Easter bread. Easter bread, Easter eggs. I'm just saying, like, I'm trying to get some Easter bread, man. You know, the Lord fed multiple, multiple people throughout the scripture with bread. He wasn't passing around eggs at all. I'm just trying to understand the egg thing, man. You know, it just don't like I was never a fan of the bunny.

I can't lie. I was— I wasn't really. I always enjoyed the fish.

Even if it was a fish instead of an Easter bunny, I'd be like, you know what, it was fish. It was a fisherman. Yeah, yeah. Jesus' first friends, then it was the fish that he fed people. Fish, you know what, I wouldn't question it. I'm like, you know what, fish, they made the cultural add-on. They don't— they don't make the fish a character. Now the fish—

I don't think there's a bunny in the Bible. I ain't came across no bunnies.

I haven't came across any bunnies yet, but if I do, I would, I would let, I would let you all know.

Let us all know.

Yeah, if we can replace that. And I think with Christmas, you know, I would 1,000% replace Santa Claus.

Hmm.

Yes, Santa Claus gotta go.

He gotta go.

Yeah, Santa Claus gotta go. We gotta figure out, you know, what to replace Santa Claus with. But Santa Claus got to go. Like, the kids got to know that the salvation is through Jesus Christ, not— you don't— being good means being obedient to the scripture, not being good to get gifts. The gifts is salvation. We got to get rid of something.

We gotta go.

Saint Nick gotta go. So we don't, we don't know, we don't know exactly what we should, what we should replace Santa Claus with. But Santa Claus, Santa Claus gotta go.

Yeah, I do think it's kind of interesting that we, we really get dressed up and go to church on Easter, but church is not necessarily like a Christmas event, right? So I feel like maybe we should incorporate at least going to the kingdom and getting communal with each other on Christmas at the very least, because You know what I'm saying? It's so rooted in the gifts. It's so rooted in the gifts. And you know what I'm saying, you commune with your family on Christmas. But I ain't never been to church on Christmas. I don't even think church is open on Christmas.

No, no, I, I don't recall people talking about church on— well, I do, I do know, I do know I have had multiple people that go to, uh, church on Christmas for sure. I think, but you know, when we start talking about the cultural add-on, like, you know, we can get rid of Thanksgiving You know, because you should be praising all year round. Get rid of the turkey and the, like, you know, the origin of it with the Native Americans. It's like, you got to get rid of the Thanksgiving, you know what I'm saying? Um, I'm cool with— I'm cool with Independence Day. Independence Day, you know, and the fireworks, it kind of makes sense, you know. It ain't really in the scripture, uh, from my reading about because, you know, that's just the whole freeing the slave, the independence, all that type of stuff with the fireworks and stuff like that. But at least fireworks celebration, and it all makes sense. But these eggs and this white Santa Claus— it don't even matter if the Santa Claus was Black, so we clear. So it's not even about a white or a Black thing, it's about Santa Claus. Like, why, why is that kids believe that Santa Claus brought them gifts because they good. It just— we just gotta get rid of that. We gotta get rid of it. Yeah, it doesn't sit well with me, to be honest with you. So yeah, so, um, definitely celebrate Christmas though. We want to celebrate Christmas. We want to celebrate Jesus' birthday. We just don't want to celebrate it with, uh, Santa Claus, you know. Santa Claus, it's almost like they're trying to make Santa Claus like he Jesus. We know Santa Claus ain't Jesus.

I mean, we know it, but it's pushed on you at such an early age that your relationship with the day is with this made-believe man with his reindeers and his gifts and his North Pole, you know what I'm saying? The elves. There's a whole culture around it that has nothing to do with Christ.

Yeah, you know, may they bless their hearts and all of those different aspects of things, but Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, allegedly, allegedly, allegedly, you know, I think that a lot of this stuff just really— cultural add-ons would not be as negatively impactful if people read intentionally, because then they can say, oh, they can tell the difference between an Uber and a Lyft. Gotta be able to tell the difference between an Uber and a Lyft. The only way you can do that is if you read.

You're not wrong, you're not wrong. So this FYM episode is about reading. Make sure you read, get to the source. Uh, leave us a comment about what's your favorite scripture. Scripture. If you got a favorite scripture, something that you read in the Bible, not nothing you didn't hear. Yes, that ain't in the book.

We don't want to hear other people rather than Revelation.

Yeah, yours. Give us your favorite in the comments.

King James, them ones.

Yeah, yeah, give us an actual quote you read in the book that means something to you. That, that woke, that spoke to your spirit. And make sure we, you know, share this episode to somebody that needs to be reminded that cultural add-ons is not getting to the source. And to get to the source, we have to read, y'all. Yeah. Anything else, Ty? Anything else you want to add?

Um, and now, man, today, you know, is we're in our second week of April. You know, the year has, the year has picked up, you know. Um, the— I, I look forward to spending more time in Miami. My, my first 3 months is be super busy with recruiting clients and scouting and this whole blend of balancing music and sports and media. But it's all blessings, and, and we're, and we're, we're experiencing, you know, a very high level of um, abundance and a very high level of resources. And we're, we're super, super blessed on the books that we're selling and, and how people are calling and talking about the things that they do. And, and yo, I think Volume 3, like, we got to figure out, like, the— like, I want to go and like really sit down somewhere for like a week or two and like start building it out. And then I'm gonna spend December writing again like I did for Volume 1. Uh, I feel like, I feel like, I feel like Volume 3 is like 200 pages. It's like, it's so much information that happened in that time frame that I want to try my best to try to remember it and, and get it out and really bring it to life. So super, super just thankful for the year. We're at the beginning of of the second quarter, and it's gonna be a very, very festival— festive— very festive, festive summer. Speaking of festivals, uh, are you gonna try to go see Hov perform at Roots Picnic?

Yes. Or yes, absolutely. It's my birthday, so I gotta go. I guess I gots to go is— I, I, I, I got— I gots to go. I got to go, man. Yes, absolutely.

Are you going?

Are you trying to go?

Um, I, I was, uh, going, but you know, um, I, I, I feel like spiritually I have— I got other plans that I gotta, I gotta deal with, so I might have to be obedient to those, to that time, to that time frame.

So, but yeah, man, what about, what about, what about one of the New York shows?

Uh, okay, we'll see, man. Uh, I've seen Hov perform— the first time I've seen Hov perform was in Atlanta. Um, wait, what show? Birthday Bash came out. It was raining. H to the O-V. It was raining. Was that amphitheater? Oh, that's crazy.

I did not know that.

Yeah, that's the first time I seen her perform.

Okay, and then you saw him?

Then the second time I seen him perform I want to say it was the Magna Carter, the Magna, the Magna, um, that, that tour. Then, uh, 444, 444 Miami. Yeah, Miami. Yep. So I think I've seen Ho perform like 3, 3, 3 times. 3 times for sure.

I saw him in Atlanta for the 444 tour. Me and my best friend got tickets to win. That was, that was incredible. And I've been to the Roots Picnic one year, like 2018. 2018 I went to the Roots Picnic. That was cool. So I'm kind of overdue to go back to kind of see what they got going on over there on that side of things. But yeah, man, so if it happens, I want to see perform—

I think the only person I want to see perform that I haven't seen perform is Sade.

You haven't seen Sade?

Okay. Sade is probably the only one that I'm like, yo, I gotta go see that.

Hmm, when was her last tour? I'm about to look that up and see. So there's no— there's no one else?

Just Sade? Yeah, unless Obama gonna be performing something. Other than that, other than that, there's nobody— it's nobody else, you know, that, that, um, that I haven't already seen that I have like an interest in seeing. From a live performance perspective.

That's fair.

I wouldn't mind seeing her perform again. I wouldn't mind seeing, um, Silk Sonic perform again. And I'm always gonna try to go see— oh, I'm definitely gonna see that, uh, what I'm gonna say, I'm definitely— because I gotta follow my, my, my spirit on it. But I do want to go see Usher and Chris Brown.

Really?

I want to see Usher and Chris Brown stadium. They're going to do a stadium tour. Yeah, they should be announcing soon.

I was about to say, I don't think that might be an exclusive. You might just drop one on the kids to that one because I did not know that was a thing.

I've been seeing that on— I've been sitting on the, uh, internets. They got— are you sure? Have an album dropping and everything, man.

Ty, I, I don't know if you saw that on the internet. That might have been AI because I, I ain't seen that one on my algorithm. My algorithm ain't fed me that. So we gonna, we gonna fact-check that one because that's, that sounds incredible. Um, but please y'all, clip this out for Sade. Let her know Ty trying to see her perform.

Just saying, I'll pay top dollar for those. I'll pay top dollar.

We'll wrap the tour for you if you, if you need some help with it.

But I'll go away, I'll go to London, I'll go to, uh, um anywhere in the US. I'll go to— if they ain't, you know, as long as no war is happening, because I don't fly during wars, you know what I'm saying? It ain't that serious for me. The wars, they should not be doing wars because I don't think that's in the Lord. I don't think that's what the Lord will want.

But, amen.

Uh, but yeah, so yeah, Sade is, you know, we're calling that out. If Sade is performing 2026 or 2027 or 2028, Uh, please let us know so we can go and get us some tickets because we want to see something.

Hey man, well y'all, that was another episode of the FYM Show with Ty and Yo. Please tune in next time, get you that Culture Playbook Volume 2, and you know, stay tuned in, man. We got more episodes coming, we got more content coming, we got more everything coming.

All right, yeah, peace.

Boom.