 Welcome back to the Backwoods lounge. Yeah. Backwoods backstage. Backwoods backstage. But we lounges at one music fest. It's lit. And I feel like we got a real treat. Because we got a special guest that we didn't even know was going to be here today. But I did know he was in the city giving food reviews. Got the whole town shook. I know him and his wife going to go home and wonder, I don't know what to eat down there. Those people going to starve to death. I ought to do it. I ought to do it. But we have, at this point, we're a renowned food critic, food reviewer, and his lovely wife, none other than Ms. Keith. I mean, Mr. fucking Keith Lee. I'm sorry. I was thinking Keith and Ms. Ronnie Lee. That's what I mean. It's an honor to be here. I can't even put this in the words. I can't even put this in the words. Yes, you can. I can't. Because everybody's waiting. Again, this is one of the things I wanted to do. I don't have a bucket list. I don't really have many things I want to do for real. But talking to you, DC, and Chicoabin, the pandemic, she was pregnant. That's all I want to watch. All I want to watch. Really? No, no, I swear. I would not lie to you. Brother. When you ask to do this, I don't do interviews with nobody. I'm a very quiet, sitting with my family, sitting in the corner, eat food kind of person. But with you? Absolutely. And T-Pain just walked out the stage. Got to do that, mandatory. First of all, man, I got to salute you for the good things that you are doing out here for these people. You blessing people, left them right. And you're doing it organically. I appreciate it. And your opinion matters, man. I appreciate your honor. But that's so dope. Because we've seen, especially at the time when you really first started doing the food thing. And we had the pandemic. And people were trying to recover from that. And just by you stopping through and letting people know that you like it and supported you, you brought so many people back. And you've given back so much of your blessing. And that's why you're going to always be blessed, brother. Look, man, I believe in God. I'm just a vessel. And I've said that. And I'm going to continue to say it. I just eat food. I eat food. I pray I stay with my family. I don't do nothing else. Everything that happened past that is meant to happen. God just put me in a place where I'm supposed to be. Where I'm supposed to be there. And how I'm supposed to be there. That's why I'm sitting right here talking to you. That's why it's amazing. Because, like, how does it feel to be chosen by the people to be one of those ones that they love and support the way that they do, man? Surreal. Surreal, not even a word. When I tell you, every day I wake up, I be looking in the mirror like, I tell her all the time, we Craig and Day Day. How the hell everybody talking about, oh, that's Keith. That's Keith. I'm like, I'm really just eating food. If only you knew. Like, I don't be shooting content. I don't call my, I'm not a celebrity. I'm not a content creator. I'm not an influencer. I'm literally just a vessel of God. But I was going to say, what made you stumble into that? If you weren't creating content already prior to, like, doing the food content, what made you be like, you know what, I'm going to really just record this and let everybody know? So I've always had very severe social anxiety. Really? Terrible. So I've been a professional fighter since 2015 or 2016. And I've always just, so I always thought I was just going to be a professional fighter in my whole life. So I wrestled all through high school. I went straight out of high school, straight to being a professional fighter. I fought in Bellator for three years. And with fighting, I don't do nothing, but punch people in the face for a living. So I don't have to be friendly and talk and go out and mingle with people and socialize with people. I can literally just go to the gym, go home, and that's it. So that was my daily routine. And then I was doing fight interviews and I was so skittish. I was skittish, I was nervous. I wouldn't look at nobody. I was sweating. It ruined my whole day. So I vividly remember during the pandemic, I remember asking her like, what can I do about this social anxiety? Like, I don't want to go out nowhere. I don't want to talk to nobody. I don't want to go around nobody. I'm doing these interviews and I'm hating it. And I was like, but that's a super vital part of the game. Because it's one thing to just be fighting, but you really gotta make your name known, especially when it comes to social media nowadays. So I was like, I'm gonna just set up my phone. It's an app called TikTok that just came out. I'm like, I'm gonna just set up my phone and I'm gonna just record myself and act like it's a thousand people in front of me. And I'm gonna just talk to the camera as if I was sitting in a room full of people. And it just started taking off. First, it was literally just me cooking. Cause I used to cook nonstop. I used to cook like four or five meals a day. So I was just cooking. She was pregnant at the time. I was like, y'all eatin'. You cookin' four or five times a day. I was pregnant. So I literally would just cook for her. Anything she was craving, I would make it. And anything that she wanted, I would go get it. And that was just all my content. So I think I had gained like one million or like 1.2 million followers. And this was last year in November. At that point I had like 1.2, 1.3 million followers. And People vs. Food, which is a YouTube channel, they reached out to me and was like, Hey, we want you to come on and they do food reviews. So I asked her, I'm like, what would I post on my page that make people from their page actually come and follow me and not just come and watch? And she was like, post food reviews. You love eatin' food. You love, we critique it anyway. So I'm in a crib and I'm eatin' just my food. And I'm like, it's like a seven, it's like an eight. And she like, bro, just do that and just turn the camera on. So I literally started doin' it. I was like, I'mma post one food review every day until we get on People vs. Food. We did that in November. We got on People vs. Food in December. By December, we went from 1.2 to 3.8 million followers within that month. That's crazy. And it was insane. And it just like, when I say, we was doin' TikTok from 2020 to 2022, or yeah, we'll be in 2023. So yeah, 2022. So two years it took me to get to 1.2 within from November to now, I'm at 14.1. That's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah, bro. Hey man, you just recently had a birthday too, didn't you? I did, I did. I just had 27. Now I was gonna ask you this cause you had, you got this man here out here getting all these followers. Crazy. He was on the internet crying last week. Man, like a baby. And it was, and you, and then it was like, the internet was like, he's crying. And then you came back and was like, so? Look, I'm happy. Nobody's used to seeing people be happy for real. When I tell you, it's crazy. Since we've been doin' this, we've been able to raise over $40,000 for a restaurant owner who had cancer in less than 24 hours. We've been able to raise over $60,000 for a food truck. His name was Mr. Gary, and under 24 hours. Yes. We, I ate this chocolate bar and I told people it was good cause it was really good to me. The lady was a teacher for 20 years. She was able to retire 48 hours after the review was posted. Yeah. All of this amazing things that we've been blessed enough to do and all of these things, all these spaces we've been able to be in, and The Shade Room only posted me twice this year. And both times it was me crying and one, it was me crying at the BET Wars. Because again, last year, I was barely makin' ends meet. And I say barely. I mean, like, we was gettin' food stamps. I was makin', we're fightin', I was makin' maybe like $1,000 per fight, $2,000 per fight. And I was makin' maybe $500, $600 with TikTok. So I'm barely makin' it and we got kids. So to be here now at the BET Wars, talkin' to y'all and then bein' in spaces like this, of course I'm a cry. Yeah. I'm a real person. I'm not what people think I am. I'm literally exactly what you, what I portray is exactly who I am. I don't live under no mass. I don't live under no character. I'm a real nigga. I'm a real nigga. But it's not like you work past your social anxiety. Oh, when I tell you. Because you're keeping it real and it falls. When I tell you so again, I think everything happens the way it's supposed to. My sister, my wife, my mom-in-law, my kids, I go everywhere with them. That's the way I'm able to be up here talkin' to y'all. Those are my social batteries. They plug in my social. If it wasn't for them, I'm in and out. I don't go nowhere about myself. I'm gettin' better. Don't get me wrong, I'm gettin' a lot better. But me two years ago, he hella proud of me right now. I'm telling you, he's so proud of me. He's like, you sitting on stage talking in front of people? I used to be a hermit. I'm telling you, bro. Man, it's so crazy the spice that you picked to go and eat. Cause it's like, it's a few of them places where it's like, I know you went to this one burger spot with like an old black dude. I was like, I knew that food was hidden. But I wish he could just mail me some shit sometime. That's Mr. Gary you talkin' about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's crazy. When I tell you I don't shoot content, I mean it because I don't have no set up schedule. I don't have no people in my ear telling me where to go or what to do. I literally just follow what I feel like I'm supposed to be doing. And you go off referrals a lot too, right? So I either go off referrals or like emails, DMs. But a lot of times, like so yesterday for example, I literally was in a car and I wasn't going through no emails, no DMs or nothin'. I seen all the backlash, all the other restaurants was gettin' like the Atlanta Breakfast Club, Real Milk and Honey. It was gettin' crazy on Twitter. I'm talkin' about we was trending all last night. All off of like, these restaurants need to shut down. These rules is crazy. So I'm like, okay, we're sitting in the car. I'm like, I wanna go to a place that has good customer service, good food, but don't nobody know about them. I was like that's literally what I want and I'll be set for this trip. Five minutes later, I got an email from a place called the Real Dining Experience. We pulled up, nobody was in there but us. The guy who was our waiter, the nicest man I've met since we've been in here. The food was amazing. The customer service was amazing. And I literally asked for it before we went there. So when I tell you everything happens by divine timing for me and everything happens the way it's supposed to. I'm just a line, bro. Bro, I don't know if you've seen it, but Twitter is going crazy right now that you're in Atlanta. They was like, you know how bad your customer service got to be for Jamaican restaurant to win best customer service. But when I tell you, bro, I got something to vault. Hey man. That's gonna light that lit up on fire. You're not sayin' nothin' that we haven't been sayin' as resident. I just tweeted the other week that 10 chicken wings cost $20 around there. They do. More than that. It's crazy. You can't sit nowhere, you can't order nowhere, you can't dine in, you can't take out, you can't even order food at a restaurant nine days. How do you do this? When we was at home though, it was good things. It was like coming to Atlanta and like the food is good. And they hiked us up and then when we got here I'm like, okay, somebody lying. Yeah, somebody not telling the truth. But again, that's one thing that's real big with me. Everybody you experience is gonna be different. Everybody taste buds is different. Everybody's gonna have a different experience. So if you wanna go to any of these restaurants I encourage you to go and make your own opinion. I never wanna believe or believe anybody's opinion is the end all be y'all. That's what I always tell you. I got a few spots I'ma send you behind. How long you here? Oh, we leave tomorrow. Leaving tomorrow. For the next trip, hit me and we're gonna get with the city, we'll put the list together. I told you I'm only coming back for UDC and Chico. I'm not coming back for nobody else. That works for us. That works for us. We got a lot of black owned restaurants in Atlanta and you know, sometimes black owned restaurants get the worst bid when it comes to customer service. I feel like he graded them on a real lenient scale. I just feel like the places that he might have went ain't the places that we would have went. Yeah. But that's the thing, I'm asking locals. I'm asking like they, I'm going to the comments. See, that's the thing about it. I don't know. I don't feel like you go out to live. I ain't making excuses. I'm just feeling like you might have to just come back and let us take you to the spots that we go. But you got to realize you are the 1,000 person that told me that today. So what? You're the 1,000 person that told me that today. Right. But the chances are the same, other 1,000 people who told you they're going to take you to the same place. But the issue, it could be like you say, oh, we got to go here because this is the best spot and then I go and it's going to be people in the comments. Like you should have went here. You supposed to come here. But what I'm saying, say for instance, you go to American Deli, but you don't go to the right one. So now you're going to think all of them are trash if we all go into the same two or three, even though it's 30 of them. That's why I don't tell people. If I do like a local chain restaurant that everybody know about, I never tell people a location I go to for that reason because everybody got their favorite location, a better location. Because even in Atlanta, if you go to the Waffle House tonight after you leave this, if you go to the wrong Waffle House, it's going to make the whole city look worse because we know the Waffle House there. And we go to, and they don't even cook the food before they clean the grill first. Right. That's what happened when you went to that one, it was the real milk and honey. They was cleaning the doors open. People were still eating. I give you a trick though. It was chemical being sprayed. It's crazy. If you do want to hit the Waffle House or you just, you might just stop. I really just want to go to mom and pop shots. Don't go to one if the cook not standing outside. Smoking a cigarette, that's right. Smoking or on the phone, just ride to another one. Trust me. It's got to be a little dirty. If your waitress is not taking a nap in her car in front of the Waffle House, don't eat at that one. Your Waffle House flow kind of got to be a little sticky. That's how you know it's going to be good. A little syrup. Yeah, a little bit. But I was going to say as a food critic, how you know a restaurant going to hit? Like we know that for the Waffle House. Like if it's somebody standing outside smoking at a flow sticky, this shit going to hit. How do you know a restaurant going to hit? It's so different. Like right now we on tour. And we going to every city. Where you at, Nix? Can I tell them? You want me to drop it? Go ahead. No, I'm not. We'll drop one. We got five on the list. We got five on the list, so we'll tell you one. I'm not going to tell you what order we going to go in. But one of them is DC. Okay. Yeah, one of them is DC. Yeah, we got a lot in. And again, so the main thing that we doing right now and back in March, we got reached out to a bunch of TV production shows and like they like, we want you on Netflix, we want you on Hulu, we want you on all of this. But I'm very intentional. I'm very big on intent and I'm very big on my family has to be included or I'm not doing nothing. So a lot of these shows, they was cookie cutter. They was like, oh, we just want to fit you into this show that's already made. And I'm like, no, what are we going to do? We going to show you that what we do works. So we going to do it on our own with our own money, with our own funds. We driving, I'm driving a Sprinter van. We literally going to get on feet and we going to show you, we blessing up to have the power of the people. And we going to show you what's in them tables. It ain't nothing that you can say because now we got concrete evidence that it worked in Atlanta. It worked in New Orleans. It worked in Chicago, Detroit. We moving to all of the cities. So once we get to them tables, I'm putting it down on a piece of paper. Like, look, that's what we've been able to do. Now what you about to do? Yeah. You know what's dope though? Is that this, none of the social media or the fame or the money is changing your integrity as a person. But I'm letting you know as a black person from the black community, if you want to go out there and pursue some of them opportunities and get some of that money, we ain't going to be mad at you. We already know that your spirit is right. Fish on. And your core is right. You got a strong black woman behind you. Bro, get you some of that paper too. Absolutely. Oh, don't get me wrong. Life is good. You hear me? Yeah. So we only charge big corporations that have a marketing budget, but we charge them well. Real well. I don't charge no mom and pop shops. I don't charge them restaurants because I want an authentic experience. But when it comes to them corporations, my family got to eat. You let them know that, bro. And you stand on that. Absolutely. 10 toes. And keep doing your thing, bro. 10 toes. Again, this is an honor of mine to be, this is crazy. Bro. Yeah, it is crazy. You the talk of the town right now. I don't know if you notice. When I tell you Atlanta is different. It's unreal. Different. What you mean by different? I'm a Atlanta native, so I love it if you get me serious. When I say different, I mean like y'all are interested in the drama. Real interested. In drama? When I say a lot of restaurants or a lot of places that we went to, they'll be like, okay, cool. He don't like the food. So we still gonna go with Atlanta. It's like, I've been waiting for you to tear that motherfucker down. Tear it to the ground, burn it. And Twitter and fire. They're like, man, I've been waiting for it. Somebody was like, yeah, my baby mama went over there two days ago and they did the same thing to her. Tear it down. Yeah. So it's like, it's different the amount of reception that we got here. I will say the people here other than the restaurant owners but the people here have been amazing. Been absolutely amazing. That's the thing about Atlanta. That's the thing that makes this city great is we have so many different people from so many different places and the people who are from here love it so much that they try to make sure you have an authentic Atlanta experience. I can feel it too. Cause just going through the like streets like I'm driving, I'm in the Sprinter. We ain't got no tent. People are running up to the side of the car like, oh, that's key. That's key. You're running in the middle of the green lights. Yeah, it's crazy out here, but I love it. And to see our people. Yeah. We in Vegas. Yeah. We don't get many of us, bro. It's nice. It's a fish pond. You get a bunch of everything. You come here and you see all this melanin. Yeah, all this melanin. I say, okay, let me get me some property of me here because I'm real comfortable. I'll tell you that. Oh, yeah. It feels like a cookout. That's how we feel today. We just kicking it with our country cousins backstage and just vibing out. Like it's lit. That's how Atlanta is. Like you say, especially if you good people you got good character. You do good business. It ain't nothing. We look out and we love each other and it's like, it's inspiring to see other blacks doing things that they love to do and being super dope and successful in it, like yourself. I think it just shows the next generation like it's so much more you can do. And that's what I learned from growing up in Atlanta life. That's what I was getting ready to ask y'all now, man. It's like, all of this is coming so fast. You haven't even had time to, you know what I mean? Sitting, organizing, plotting, playing. Like what's next for you and your family, my boy? Whatever God want me to be at, I'm gonna be there. Wherever I'm supposed to be, I'm gonna be. And I truly believe that I can see us in a lot of spaces. I can see us in a fashion space. I can see us in a TV show space, movies. I really want to set up a food tour to where in every city that we go to, the places that we've been, you can set up like or you can buy tickets and you automatically get chauffeured to those places. All of those places get all of the funds. We don't take nothing off the top. They get everything. And we just set up a long, last and keep the effect. Man, you know what would be dope? I was just sitting here thinking, what if y'all did like a dinner party in all these different cities, right? Like you find a dope ass chef and have them sponsor a dinner party, like. That'd be fire. Let people buy tickets and come in and kick it. What we doing right now in every city, we trying to rent out an ice cream truck and just pass out ice cream. That's like when we was in California, we bought out this random vendors ice cream truck and we just walked around the neighborhood passing our ice cream. So then we post where we at. So if you want to come hang out with us, you can hang out with us. Hell yeah. I just want to drive. You know what ice cream truck I can get? We been trying to find one since we've been here. I just want to get an ice cream truck, completely buy it out and just pass it off for free. You been trying to find an ice cream truck? Ice cream truck. Well, let me take this Atlanta, uh. Somebody got one in a backyard. It's a real off-crescent roll. We got some ice cream trucks. But don't be surprised if they got like a window unit AC hanging out of like regular van. That's good. I'm from Detroit. No, but I love that as a creative, you always doing things that are like philanthropic and just giving back. That's really dope. Cause a lot of creatives just doing it, like you said to get on and thinking about themselves or even just family. I love how it don't affect them. Like you ain't get the money. It was like, I'm rich, bitch. I didn't even want to come here. I'm not even gonna lie to you. I didn't even want to come here. My family was like, they want to go to the one music fest. I'm like, I guess we have to one music fest. I've never been to a festival. When I tell you my social anxiety has always been there. So it's like I've never really like done a lot of crowded areas. But for my family, I'm going everywhere. I'm a soldier. I'm putting my things around. Whatever it was, man, God worked it out. Absolutely. You're gonna have to get over it. Cause the people love you and we following you. For sure. And just know we love your family like our family, bruh. And the way you stood up for your family the other week and say, you can say whatever you want to about me. Keep my family out of this man to man doubt. That's the biggest respect and keep doing your thing. Keep Lee, you stay on his ass and make sure he can come outside and keep bringing him home. The salute to the family that y'all got. I know they over there. Yeah, the whole family over there. Kids is out kicking it tonight at one music fest. Bruh, the next time you come down here, let us take y'all to one of our favorite restaurants and we'll have some dinner lunch or something like that. How about this? So my family, they are, I'm the secret shopper. So my family, they go order my food for me. They make sure that they don't know it's me. And when I get my food, I get my food like everybody else. And they come back into the car, I do my review and then I go in and maybe I'll talk to them but more like we just leave and then post a video and they'll be like, oh, he was already here kind of thing. How about we do that? How about you go over to the food and I set the table? Oh no, cause I'm calling all the restaurants. Don't tell them I'm here. From the time you leave, from the time you leave until you come back. I'm just gonna be like, yeah bitch, my cousin keep coming back. And they gonna be like, keep who? I'm like, don't worry about it, don't worry about it. Let my shit not be right. Let my shit not be right. Let my wing be, let one wing be too low. Let one. Cause you know they got a few places out here selling them little bit of wings. They're mini wings. Again, again, we got some stuff in the ball but their wings like this be, and they have drenched in buffalo sauce. I don't know what part of the chicken that came from. Me, I don't know what came from a chicken. Squirrel's shoulders. Little baby bird. Little baby bird. Amen. I appreciate y'all stopping through the Backwoods lounge and kicking in with us. We can't wait to see what y'all got coming up in the future. I can't wait to see this. I'm about to watch this back a thousand times. Like, there ain't no way I was talking to them. 85 self show, Keith Lee and family. We out of here. Backwoods backstage. Backwoods backstage. Hell yeah. Thank y'all. That was fire.