SACRIFICE

What's happening?

What's going on? Ty, we back again for another episode of fuck you, Money.

The year's almost in.

Yes, sir. If you ain't here with us right now, make sure you share the link. Let people know we talking sacrifices. Tonight on fuck you, Money. It's yo and Ty. Talk to me. Ty, how you been, man? I know we were supposed to do last week, but it was the American Music Awards, correct?

Yeah, yeah, it was American Music Award shits.

Now, you was there live.

I think that shit was live shit.

I was there live.

You were there live. Tell me about your experience.

I mean, it was just regular shit to me. Like regular award show shit, you know, seeing the. I guess you would say the people getting their flowers, to say the least. You know, got a chance to see Missy Elliott perform. So that was the first. Never seen Missy Elliott perform before. Had no clue she was performing. Even though it wasn't her song. She was like, featured on some song with this Latin artist name, I think Anita. So, you know, that was cool. But for the most part, man, I had just. Damn. Double scheduled some shit and was like, man, let me get the fuck up out of here. Cause I can't, you know, it's white folk shit, man. That's what that shit was. It was white as hell.

It was white as hell. Oh, well, I know they were supposed to honor Michael Jackson and I thought that was, you know, gonna be something at least acknowledging some. Some legendary black art. But they end up pulling it last minute, right?

Yep. Yeah. I mean, you know, motherfucker dead. And they still trying to, you know, send you to court and penalize you. On Disney. Think that it would be a good look for them to pay tribute to a allegedly child molester or some shit like that. And then Chris Brown and his past, you know, it's a very family friendly network. So I guess that that's the way they justified it. But, you know, the justification is one thing, but the approach or how people. How they went about doing it as another, you know, and that's what's always gonna be an interesting component, you know, and we don't. I found out about it after the fact. I didn't know that that was something that was going on. That, you know, I remember them saying that Chris Brown was gonna be a performer at American Music Award for the first time in a while. I didn't know about the tribute and all of those different things. And I actually didn't even catch that he wasn' because I didn't stay the whole time So I don't know if he performed or not, because I had left midway through.

I still think that's pretty wild considering that the show had had them rehearsing. I think it was him and Ciara supposed to do a tribute for Michael Jackson. And obviously it's a sensitive subject, but when you bring people in and create a situation where we're supposed to pay tribute and honor a black artist that probably did things that no artist will ever achieve again, you know, I feel like that's what that space is for. I think war shows us a space of honoring. And I think it's really disheartening to know that things like that can still happen today and watching artists still get penalized for. I mean, even, like you said, beyond the grave, it's not even just about people who are alive and still kind of dealing with things they've done in the past. It's almost like you'll never escape from how they want to frame you.

Yeah, I mean, you know, that's the American way, though, for black people. You know, you can be found not guilty, or you can be accused, falsely accused, or you can be found guilty and actually go and go into rehabilitation and get rehab and become a completely new person, and you're still going to be pitched and poised and positioned as the person you used to be. That's. That's the way of the world in the United States of America for black people. I can't really say that's the same for, you know, white people or Jewish or, you know, anyone else that has the kind of, like, different type of economical and family structure set up versus.

Us, you know, now I hear that, and I'm not gonna say recently, but just this year, I feel like in music, hip hop especially, we've lost a lot of people. There's been tons of loss. And just recently, a manager, entrepreneur, a father, Hovain passed away yesterday, and I know the news broke and a lot of outpour just applauding his contributions to hip hop. And I just wanted to ask if you. Did you know him at all or if you had any interactions with Cobain at all?

No, I never had any interactions with him. Like I said, I knew about him throughout the years, and I always heard his name pop up. I always heard great things. And I was familiar with him, more so of the early help that he helped orchestrated by helping LaRussell. I know he worked with the homie Cash, chasing Cash for multiple years, things of that nature, you know what I'm saying? But that was my thought Process on it. Another fallen soul was our homie T. Ridge, you know what I'm saying, From Atlanta. Did a lot of promo, a lot of promotional stuff in the streets, and was a songwriter and really close friend to a lot of the homies who got murdered. He got hit by a car, actually, on Christmas night.

So there's been a lot of, like, un.

You know, expected deaths of just young black men who's in the community trying to do positive things for people that look like them. So prayers to both of their families.

Amen to that. Does it. Does it refocus anything for you when you're watching or you're recognizing that we are losing young black men in our community? Does it affect you in any way that, you know, we're in fourth quarter right now, so obviously there's a lot of looking toward the future, but does it make you consider maybe doing something that you wouldn't have thought of before just because we're recognizing so much loss?

Yeah. I mean, for me, it makes me more aware of my surroundings. It makes me more aware of my health. It just makes me more aware of the. The life that I'm choosing to live. I'm just being a lot. I'm already paranoid. Like, I'm a paranoid nigga as it is. So, like, you know, I don't want to sacrifice myself by not being smart because of the actions that you normally unknowingly make that can end your life. And a lot of it is some things you can control. And a lot of things are just like us. Being more tentative to things that's obvious, trying to be not as careless. That doesn't mean that you are 100% safe, but you just become more aware. One of the things that has been a topic of the conversation this entire year within my circle and within just a circle of black men that's successful, is that no matter how successful we are as black men, our feet is always one foot in, one foot out of the hood, because our entire family is not out of the weeds. You know what I'm saying? So you can be extremely successful black man and find yourself in a situation where your life is at. Your life is threatened. You know, I mean, a black man. But white men don't have to. White men don't have to think about that when they go out to the club or when they go out to their bar misfas or whatever it is. They don't have to think about that because their life is kind of like systematically built differently. You know, there are elements that we as just black people, no matter how successful you are at this forecast, because we haven't been successful for 100 plus years. So we still got cousins and uncles and aunties that are still in uncomfortable living situations that we interface with, or we go out to hang out with, or just the level of ignorance that we do naturally gravitate to, that we feel more familiar with, that can cause us to our life to be cut short unexpectedly. So all of these different deaths and experiences, none of them have been like, natural. They've all been unexpectedly and young. And so for me, it's just teaching me to be more aware, move a certain way, be very, very cautious about the amount the people that you have in your life and just, you know, take it one day at a time as you're working towards your goals and what you're trying to achieve.

Now, I want to piggyback off of what you were saying about the life you chose. Now, I don't think you imagined yourself being at the American Music Awards when you decided to pursue this profession of yours, but did you. Did you recognize early on that I'm gonna sacrifice certain things today for. For where I want to be tomorrow? And what were some of those things that you were ready to sacrifice to get there?

Really, bro?

Going out, you know what I'm saying? Going out is one of them things that I sacrificed for a very long time because I had been outside so long in my previous years before I started to realize what I want to do and what I want to achieve. But going out, you know what I'm saying? I try my best to be in my house by 10 every night, no matter what part of the world I'm in local time, you know what I'm saying? But I sacrifice, like going out to clubs, and obviously, if anybody know me, I've sacrificed drinking and I smoke. I don't do none of that shit because I just feel like it doesn't help me personally get where I'm trying to go.

Now, obviously, the lifestyle aspect of the profession kind of calls for you to go out. It kind of calls for you to be in certain scenes, in certain circles where obviously it does get dangerous after a certain hour. Do you ever feel like you're missing out? Or did you ever feel like you were missing out? Or were you very confident that where I'm trying to go won't require me to be in spots like that or in spaces like that? Because I do feel like maybe certain people, and I want to say certain people, people that are new to the business and they're new to this pursuit. They might feel that I gotta go to the club, I gotta be at the studio, I gotta be on the scene, or else people won't know who I am, or I might miss a networking opportunity by not being there.

Well, I felt like when I didn't have a plan, that I felt more like I was missing out. Once I identified what my actual plan was for myself, the things that I was wanting to achieve, and. And I had some level of a roadmap of how I wanted to achieve those things or how I could go about achieving them, then I ain't really have the FOMO shit anymore, bro. Like, ain't nobody brokering no big deals in the club, you know what I'm saying? And nobody really, you know, that shit has. Unless you're the one throwing the party, unless you're the one that's operating the venue to create the vibes. It don't have the same effect on you. It don't have the same effect of the people. That's like joining the party to come and spend money. You know, there are benefits to it if you're entertaining a client, things of that nature. But for me, once I figured out what my strategy was gonna be for myself, I stopped feeling like I was getting left out.

Nah, that makes a lot of sense now. At what point did you feel like your roadmap was like, you always know you were headed in the right direction or were there, like, symbols or signs that you were like, oh, yeah, this is working. I don't think I have to divert from this path.

Yeah, there's always signs when you're on your path. You know, some of the signs is a combination of you speaking with God and your prayers and being very intentional about your prayers. Then the other signs are, like, accomplishing goals. You know, how fast you accomplish in those goals can be an indicator of, like, you're on the right path or things that, like knowing and being aware that stars aligned. And the only reason why you was able to achieve that goal is because stars aligned, right? So if you do go to a club and you happen to meet somebody who can help escalate or expedite your path, then you know that that's a sign, because that rarely happens in a club, you know? And so a lot of those different experiences for myself, was very, very telling from that. So when I achieved a goal, I treated that like, man, this is a sign. Because, shit, sometimes people don't even achieve these type of goals, you know, not this early or not at this age.

Man, I really feel that the conversation of sacrifice reminds me of, like, my first real car. I had a 1999 Mazda, and I had drove that car from the moment I really started working in media. It was like the whip I had when I got my first hundred dollars, and it was a whip I had when I got my first, like, $1,200. And I felt like over the years I was growing because, you know, kind of got started in 2014. So by 2019, I had my first opportunity to work with Red Bull. And I thought Red Bull was a great just indicator that you've kind of been acknowledged by at least a kind of corporation who works with young journalists. So they're working with people who are progressing. So they hit me up to do this thing called the Trap Roundtable. It was an interview with me, Zaytoven, DJ Tune, Shoddy Red, and Mike Will made it. So I show up. It's my first real speaking engagement, my first real check. It's the first time I can cover my rent for just talking for an hour. And I'm feeling real good about this. Do the talk. It's cool. And one of the young homies that was there had asked me for a ride home. Now, he had never seen my car before, but I'm like, yo, I'll give you a ride, no problem. He getting a car tie, and the first thing he says is, yo, when you gonna get a nicer whip? And in my mind, I'm like, just doing a Red Bull show was progress. Like, I wasn't even really worried about material things. I'm worried about just hitting certain strides and touching certain milestones, just from writing in my room to being acknowledged by man, like a company like Red Bull or being able to talk to a legend like Zaytoven, and being able to bring Mike Will out like that was what I was thinking about. But he was looking at my car. And sometimes I feel like the material things is what people look at, to see progress and not recognizing that, yo, having that car, I didn't have to pay a car note. And by not paying a car note, I was able to kind of pursue this dream I had. And it allowed me all these opportunities that maybe I would not have been afforded if I had to worry about, you know, paying $400 a month on a Lexus. And I kind of think that, you know, that's just something that I recognize very early on.

Well, I'm going to tell you, you struck. You struck a chord in some thinking when it comes to sacrificing Right. I am actively advising artists and my partners and my family members and my friends about this concept of increased income that is paired with increased debt, right? That is why a lot of black people don't meet the mark that we have the talent to meet because of the lack of resources, right? And the lack of resources don't always come from an external perspective. They're internal. Because when we get a raise, right, and let's just say that raise is $5,000 a year, we don't need to go and get a new something, you know what I'm saying? Like whatever that new thing is, that, that make us feel good temporarily, you know, if you got a job that's making 40, 50, $60,000 a year and you happen to land somebody that want to hire you as a consultant that's willing to pay you additional $15,000 a year because of your skill set in this specific arena, you know, that 15,000 need to be put into some level of a growth investment for you. Doesn't need to be upgrade on a new car. You don't need to upgrade anything. A lot of the times we upgrade things when things necessarily don't need to be upgraded.

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Because of somebody else might say why you ain't get this new this or why you didn't get this new that? And the level of sacrifice and the life that we can get to at the pace that we can get to it. If we one just sacrifice materialistic things, you know what I'm saying? Like create a uniform for your clothing, create a eating habit for your budgeting for your food so you know what you're eating, you know that it's healthy and you know how much it costs every week. You know, a lot of the wasteful spending that we do, we at times don't know how to sacrifice because of our. The country that we are in. We're spoiled and we have a very entitled mentality on as Americans. And it shows. When we go to other countries, it's very loud. When we go to other countries, I have to check myself, because it's not necessarily about being a good person or a bad person. It's just the environment that we breathe every single day when we're here in the United States of America. But if we can just learn how to just sacrifice materialistic things before we even get to, you know, sacrificing drinking or smoking. Like if we could just sacrifice the materialistic things that really don't matter in terms of like wealth building, you know, being able to put, to put aside certain spending habits. I remember being in Onyx on a, on a Friday at like 4 o' clock in the evening. No, no, it was 5, 5:30 in the evening at this thing called a smokers club. And this had to be, this was before the Barclays stadium was built in New York. But I was in Atlanta at the strip club at Onyx. And the architect that was literally doing the architectural plans for the Barclays center told me, if you can afford a million dollar home, go get a $500,000 home and put that million dollar, that other 500,000 into a investment that can grow over time. If you can afford, you know, the E class, get a C class. Like he just was talking to me in 2000 and like this had to be like 2015, 2016, probably before then. Actually I can't remember the exact date year wise, but he was talking to me in a way. I still stayed full time in Atlanta. So it was before 2015. He was talking to me in a way that I never heard a black man speak when it came to materialistic things and spending. So, yo, when you in that car and that car is getting you from point A to point B, it has intrinsic value. It might not be that much blue book value wise, but it has a lot of intrinsic value for your life to get you. That's your dream chaser, you know, and a lot of people got dream chasers that they should not be upgrading because you might upgrade your dream chaser too fucking fast and that bitch turn into a nightmare.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone tell me not to upgrade too fast. You know, I think the perspective is when you do get a raise or you do get some extra money, treat yourself, buy you something nice, upgrade that car, upgrade that house, get more space. And it really took me understanding that you can have big dreams and something really small. You know, sometimes you might have to be in a, in a cramped space just so that you can get to that thing that you want later on, like four or five years down the line, you stay in that one spot. You know, we talk about this in the book too. Just about, hey, you don't always have to upgrade to that skyrise that you might be dreaming about too soon because if you just kind of stay down and keep that spot that might be a little smaller, not as Nice. But again, as time grows, you might have the opportunity to get that, that next thing when it, when it benefits you in the long term, you know, And I think sometimes it's hard to think about what will benefit you in the long term when you're constantly thinking about what you don't have. If I feel like I don't have this and I need that, then eventually you're going to kind of run into a wall like you said, or your dream will become a nightmare because you just, you're not able to manage.

Man. Need to upgrade. They got damn positive energy. Upgrade. Need to upgrade they their perspective when you get that raise. Upgrade your perspective. Put that money in the bank, put that money in a interest bearing account, put that money into a lawyer to get your trust set up. Instead of upgrading materialistically. Need to upgrade point of view, their perspective, they need to upgrade the good energy that they bring into the room. So every time you get a raise, don't go buy nothing, go sit and pray and get your spirit right, you know what I'm saying? That's what this shit really boils down to because you talk to people and you can tell they having bad days by how they respond to your positive energy towards them. You know what I'm saying? So a lot of this shit is the game ain't to the problem with us as black people that we don't plan to live long. That's why we be like, we gotta get this shit now. I need this big house now, I need this new car now. But shit, when, when you got uncles that's 70 and 60, 60, 70 and they still trying to figure out how to pay their bills because of poor planning when they was in their 20s and they 30s. Nah, fuck that. I'd rather die struggling and trying to put my plan together versus be alive at 80 and never had a plan.

Or not know how to execute a plan properly. That's going to allow you the space, the time and again the positive energy to not feel like your life is being weighed down by your poor decisions. Because I do think that's another thing too. You spend so much time chasing what you think you need that before you know it you never really got anything out of it. Maybe you had a good time, but was it really worth it? And I feel like I saw this interview with J. Prince and he was talking about how he hated school growing up, he hated waking up on someone else's time and he decided that he was going to create a life for him where he wouldn't have to like wake up and stop sleep, too sore. He wanted to enjoy sleep and then get to his life. And he said that his 20s and 30s, yeah, he had some sleepless nights, had nights where he had to be up three, four, five days. But now, today, what he was able to build for him, his. His legacy, he sleeps well at night. And I think that's such a powerful perspective to know that I want to be on my own time and what I'm willing to sacrifice so that I don't have to be on anyone else's clock. But again, and I think that's like the crux of what fuck you, money provides you. It provides you an opportunity where you don't have to be stuck following anyone else's rules 1,000%.

Yeah.

I mean, the essence of it, you know, you just want to, what you want to sacrifice very, very early on is, you know, the need to want to please others. When you feel what is inside of you, that can actually become a reality, but you just got to believe in it. And the sacrifice, sometimes the sacrificing of like hanging out with people too, because hanging out with the wrong people at the right time or hanging out with the right people at the wrong time can affect your journey as well. A lot of this shit be really, be energy based. You know, you can come home with a great idea because you was inspired by the people that you was hanging with, or you can come home feeling low, with no self esteem and no confidence in yourself because of the people that you was hanging out with, you know, or feeling less than because the people that you was hanging out with. People are not uplifting you. You don't feel supported. You feel like they're shitting on your ideas. It's a very, very interesting element when you start talking about what is sacrifice and what are you willing to sacrifice. You know, a lot of people still haven't figured out that the code, haven't cracked the code of being able to be by themselves consistently without feeling like they're lonely. You know what I mean?

Yeah. And this is kind of crazy. You say that after a pandemic where we were kind of forced. I mean, not everyone the same kind of way was forced to spend time with themselves, but it did create a circumstance where your interaction with people was completely lessened. And I'll never forget we had a shoot. We were shooting Jid's rap portrait. And you know, this is still pretty early in things opening up and we stopped to get pizza and I remember seeing somebody that I knew from pre Pandemic. First time seeing them, and I was just like, hey, how you been? They were like, they were good. Just getting used to, you know, readjusting. And they were with somebody who said to me that they never went inside during the pandemic. They was outside the whole time. And I remember just looking at them and I was. I think you missed the point. Like, I understand that there's a rush to get back to what your life was, but I. I thought the point of just having that time to yourself was kind of rediscover yourself and maybe reprioritize your goals and maybe just redirect your life in a place where you kind of got a chance to steer it versus still kind of chasing what was external. It was more about that internal time. And I told myself I didn't want to feel like that person at the end of whatever the pandemic was. I mean, we're still in a pandemic for real. But just feeling like I don't. I want to go inside. I wanted to rediscover things. I want to see what was going to change. And, you know, I think I'm still kind of working on that in a lot of ways. But, man, it's. It's kind of scary how not everyone went through a growth period when we were so suddenly forced to look in the mirror.

Yeah.

Now, Ty, for you, do you see, I mean, obviously your life has changed a lot over the last couple years, but have you. Have your sacrifices changed? Or do you feel like your sacrifices at the beginning of your journey have been consistent with the progress you've made?

Oh, yeah, man. Bro, I'm still sacrificing. Bro, I'm literally from the. Over the last past seven years, I've always. My comfort to build community has always been sacrificed. Like, my. Me being extra comfortable based on the work that I do have always been sacrificed to try to push the community forward. Because I feel like, you know, yeah, there's a lot of responsibility when you have, you know, you got the gun. You know what I'm saying?

When you got the gun, or you.

Got the juice or you got the contacts or you got the resources. It's a lot of responsibility. You can either be greedy and not spread it out, not invest into humans and not try to, like, identify and see what their experiences are, or, you know, you can just keep it all for yourself and just have people, you know, struggling and you just living your life in a very comfortable way. I just know me personally, that wasn't going to be my journey. So to this day, I still sacrifice a lot of my comfort, of my comfortability. And it's getting to the point where I don't have to do it as much. And every year my sacrifice, need to sacrifice is decreasing over time because other people that was benefiting from the sacrificing is sacrificing now. And so everybody is putting in bits and pieces of them not being comfortable. So the burden don't lie on one person, you know. And so my sacrifices are looking a little different now than what it looked like, you know, over the last past five to six years.

And I guess that lets you know that your community is not just paying attention to what's happening and the progress that's being made, but they're not afraid to chip in, not afraid to deal with sacrifices. And knowing that, you know, we're all sacrificing together because it takes the burden off the next man, it makes it a little bit easier for the community at large. And I really like that perspective. I think sometimes that sometimes we look at one person as the, the cause, the reason why things are happening, but it's never just one person. It's always about a unit. And how the unit works together is going to tell you how far a community can grow, I think 1,000%.

And it helps me understand and I can tell these type of stories that, you know, it's important to invest into your community as a part of your sacrifice strategy. You know what I'm saying? You got to be very aware and willing and have a plan for what you're willing to sacrifice. If you're just blindly sacrificing without knowing what your intentions are and what your goals are around that sacrifice, then it's not really still a sacrifice. But you're not going to get what you're intending to get out of it because it's not purposeful, you're not being intentional with it. And it's a thing that you have to understand that it is supposed to mean something to you. And that is what the universe is going to sense that you're withholding. I am very. I like being comfortable. You know, I'm saying I like my space. I like a lot of those different things. So for me to sacrifice that over and over and over and over and over again for multiple people, the universe read that and started to, you know, bring in more opportunities for me to be comfortable through resources or through meet and greets or through, you know, just overall opportunities. So I just think that you got to know why you're sacrificing something, you got to know how, when, what, and you got to be willing to know that it can come back in multiple different ways. But you're never going to really be able to put your finger on how it's going to come back. You can always just control why you're doing the sacrifice and how important that sacrifice is to you, man.

I think that's an excellent message. And you know, was there any time in your journey where you knew like, okay, I have to step up and sacrifice more right now, like at this moment in time, because this is all very new for everybody. And that I think just as a leader and as a boss, I'm gonna take this right now. Was that like a particular time for you where you just knew, like, all right, man, like I gotta suck it up? Like I have to?

Yeah.

I mean, I think the only time that I personally felt like I had to suck it up was when I changed my eating habits completely. But, you know, I just never saw, you know, me having to suck it up in that regard pertaining to business or sacrifice. I just felt like that was a part of the journey. Like how you wake up and you brush your teeth or you wake up and you like, you know, take your phone or you wake up and you get ready for. Get ready to go to school or you would get ready to go to work. That's how I view sacrifices. So I never saw it as I was like sucking up something or being like, man, I need to get it together. I just saw it as a way of the world in order to get and achieve what you're trying to, what you want to achieve.

I was reading the Wuang book that RZA wrote. I think you got a copy in your crib. I remember seeing it in there. And there's a. There's a part of the book where RZA talks about fasting and how important it is to sometimes take these fasts because it kind of helps you recenter yourself. And I never really thought about it before. So I did my first fast last week. It was like a four day fast, nothing too extreme. But I wanted to start thinking more in that mentality about just what I'm putting in my body and how there is like a spiritual connection between what your discipline is like and what you're eating, who you're seeing, where you're going, what you're doing. Like all of that creates the kind of universe you're living in. You know, I don't think I was ever really pervy to that because I didn't see it a lot growing up. I didn't really see people talking about the things they were consuming in their discipline, but I did see that with you, that you, I think you were probably one of the first people that I saw that was very clear that like everything you were doing, everything you were consuming was a part of discipline. And I probably didn't look at it as sacrifice, but definitely discipline, yeah, 1,000%.

And like I said, yeah, I never see discipline and sacrifice is the same thing for me, you know what I'm saying? I think you got to be disciplined to wake up in the morning. You don't have to sacrifice your sleep. You just got to go to sleep to get your eight hours. You got to be disciplined enough to go to sleep. You see what I'm saying? But because those are things you need to function, I think that some people might say, oh, I can sacrifice my sleep to stay up and work harder for the things. And I can understand that concept. That concept, that's not something that I'm going to like participate in from my area because I feel like there's something else that I can sacrifice that's not going to affect me, my body healing on a day to day basis. You know what I mean?

That's something I didn't understand in my early 20s where I felt like sleep was the first thing I was ready to sacrifice if I wanted to take on more work. That was the first thing I was like, okay, I don't need to sleep tonight or I don't need to sleep for the next two days. And at first it was cool. I was young, I had young knees, I had a young mind. I didn't feel the fatigue. But the older I got trying to repeat those practices completely backfired. And I, and I had to acknowledge that, like, you might think you can still process things the way you where you could, but eventually you're going to kind of run into a wall, you know. And that's why I think you got to be very specific about what you're willing to sacrifice. Because it might be cutting certain corners that you won't be able to keep cutting consistently.

1000%.

Thanks for listening to Fuck you Money. Hope everybody tune in next week.