 podcast like this. We're gonna bring it to the table. Boss talk with your girlfriend favorite. Boss talk. We're gonna do it how you want. Boss talk. Yeah, everybody on it. Boss talk. Check it. Check it. Check it. Let's see you unique house. This is your boy E CEO and I'm here with the lovely official Mr. Jamaica. What's going on, baby? Man, check it, man. Hey, man, we got a, uh, we got a nice, uh, we got a nice looking guest in here today. She looks good, man. You know what I'm saying? We got, we got it going on today. I feel it real good, man. I feel like a king sitting over in this chair today, man. Check it, man. Jones Monroe is in the house. What's up, baby? Hello. How are you? Hey, man, so King say you got it right. You got it right. You got it right. You know what I'm saying? That long as you get it right, right? So, uh, Jones Monroe, man, you know, when I started researching you, I was looking for information I kept and they wouldn't give me nothing else. I got the black song, but let's, let's get into it. I like to go back and, uh, try to figure out like who is Jones Monroe? Jones Monroe is a soulful down south Southern girl who, you know, is a black gangster Marilyn Monroe at the end of the day. Like that's that's the best way everybody describes me when they hear my music, when they meet me and they hear my message. Let's talk about Jones Monroe before she was Jones Monroe. Back in the day. Back in the day. So my name is Christina. Okay. Check it, man. You know, so, um, my name is Christina Pogue and I am from East Texas. And how was it like growing up in Tarot, Texas? Let's stop right there. That's not East Texas. Tarot, Texas. Don't play. Don't play about that. You know, I don't play about that. I know, but that's just, that's just not. Don't play about that. You're not East Texas, baby. You live a little bit of you, you're in the, uh, outskirts of Dallas. You are, you're basically, uh, in the rural area. You know, you're not in East Texas. I'm from East Texas. You was so caught up in trying to, I am from the Caddo Lake. I am straight from right out of Marshall. Six miles before you get to the horse, the horse. No, no, no, no. It was wild hogs. Did you hand pick the quail? Yeah. Well, you know, we had to, we had to eat what we kill. Oh, okay. You know what I'm saying? So all I'm, all I'm saying is you're from, you're from a rural area outside of Dallas. You and Jamie Foxx. Me and Jamie Foxx. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can educate you on where you're from. I, you know, I know where you're from, you know, but, uh, don't, don't do that because we work too hard to, uh, get our work names established down in East Texas. I mean, we, we, we fish too much to play around with the country. We, we hunt it. We, we, we, we killed too many chickens. You know what I'm saying? The one thing we're not going to do is set up an act like y'all in the country when y'all in the city. We can't get K-104, 97, nine to beat. We can't even get any phone, our phone services out, everything. You're going to play me into, well, I'm going to get off my soapbox. No, I definitely, I definitely know that it is, uh, it's a, I love Terrell. When I first came, I met my wife in Terrell. Let me tell you something. That's how the store ended up there for 10 years. I put that store down there because I met my wife down there and I was in that area working because I'm, I worked for, I'm an engineer for a communications company and I met my wife down there and I felt like this is a good place and I often go down there and she don't know it, but I go look at where I met her at a lot of times. Well, I mean, just, it's just something that, that you do, uh, not to say it ain't been no ups and downs. It's been almost 20 years, but the good days are with the bad days. You know what I mean? So that's, that's the whole game and I got my children to check it man. Shout out to Chibori and Malachi. What's up with it? But, um, so let's get back to you, Jones. Yes, sir. Yes sir. Starting out, you know, uh, being young, being from Terrell, what gave you the inspiration to feel like you couldn't make it out of Terrell? Oh, my grandma. My grandma all day long. My, uh, my grandma fanny. Okay. Fanny Jones. Fanny Jones. Fanny Jones. You speak so soft. Scoot up to that mic. There you go. There you go. I like it. Oh yeah. I need to hear you see. Okay. Now, oh yeah man. Can we hear that? Oh, we can hear you sound good. Now you sound perfectly good. Yeah, I see cause when the podcast go, we, we, and I love to explain this part. No one's gonna see your face. All they're gonna do is hear your voice and I wanted to sound good to our, when you're riding in a car and you hear, man, John Monroe is in this thing. Come on, man. Yeah, you sound so good. There you go. Got it. Got it. I got it. All right. It sounds dope. Man, you should get, you should be on radio stage, right? She got that romance. You need to do the late night, you know, the late night part, you know, like, like Rudy V, like you're coming out later this week. Rudy V used to do the late night. You don't know that. So just, just John Monroe, just tell us a little bit about coming from Terrell. What inspired you? How did you, how did you figure out, figure it out? How did you know that? Cause I'm looking at, looking at your, researching you and looking at your bio. You, we find out you went to school in a song opera, right? Yeah. You know, that, that, that's dope. But what, what gave you that inspiration? You say your grandma, let's talk about it. Yeah, for sure. So my grandmother raised me. Okay. And he's Texas and Terrell and we, she like really instilled in me just the arts and music and knowledge and being a strong female and being a strong black woman. Wow. And so that was something that was really important to her cause she, you know, she grew up overcoming a lot and just, you know, being a black woman in America. And so she helped me through that and she started me off a piano, started me off in classical piano at six. Wow. And then I turned around and started singing classical voice. Wow. And, you know, she was just like always encouraging me to pursue my dreams and inspire others. Like we would wake up at four in the morning and go to the Catholic church John and Terrell and we would like do service acts and go and visit, you know, the friends of her graves or the graves of her friends and we would go and just do things like that. And so I, people always tell me I'm an old soul. Yeah, I just told you that before you started. For sure. I get that every time someone talks to me, but it really is true. And basically just that process of growing up in East Texas and being able to really travel the world and build, you know, things that I have built. You know, I am the CEO of a successful artist development company. Wait, that's dope. You know, based here in Dallas, Texas. Wow. So you're seeing a lot of the talent that comes through Dallas. For sure. And they're basically, and God, is he prospering you over there? Oh, yeah. You know what? You know, you're king. I'm queen. Well, you know, at the end of the day, the word of God says that, beloved, I wish above all things that I'm a prospering being good, healthy, even as I was so prospering. So, you know, that's a beautiful thing when you say, I have this successful business. That's saying God prospers me. For sure. And that's dope. Yeah, sure. My, my grandma and my mom, they always told me, you know, I stuck with it. Proverbs 18, 16. You get it. Your gifts, your gifts will make room for you. Room for you. Yes, I appreciate that. Man. But growing up in Terrell, I know that your mom, your grandmother instilled all of these things in you. But how difficult was it growing up in Terrell and trying to learn these traits? Because although she's teaching you these things, it wasn't just she just teaching you to get it like that. It's over time before, you know, you actually got it. So what was, what was the difficulties growing up there compared to, you know, other places? First off, I was a stubborn little girl. So when I first, you know, went down there, I like, I was like, I kicked, I kicked my uncle and I was like, ain't gonna be here. And so, like, I always, you know, I'm very, very strong-willed. And so just the challenge of that, but my, my grandma's strength, I think like rose up every single time that I wanted to, you know, do my own thing. And I felt her presence and she would tell me stories. Wow. Beautiful. And so the stories, I felt like really, really stuck with me. And that helped me like overcome like the situations and different things like that. Because- Give me an example of a story. Yeah. So like a big thing though, like I, I felt like I struggled with growing up in Terrell with still racism. Hey. And so- Because people don't realize you have the south side of the tracks and the north side of the tracks and, you know, they feel like, okay, the blacks are on the south side, the whites are on the north side. People don't know that. And even, you know- Oh, it gets deep. It gets deep. It's been years now that I, when I had moved to Terrell and I found all of that out, you would think that that was back in the day. Luckily you ended up on the south side. And it also is lucky, you know, if you went down a little further and turned on Roosevelt, you'd have married a pastor. Yeah, because that's what they all stay at. You know what I'm saying? They down there at that end road where you turn and they all was lined up when I used to be down there. I said, boy, this is the street right here where a lot of tithing going on, you know. But yeah, I knew that it was a lot of Reverend Daniels used to have a place right in front of a, is he still alive? I don't know. Reverend Daniel. I think he's alive, she said. Well, yeah, me and him would have a lot of conversations about God when he was around. You know, you know how I am. And I would tell him different things and we would have different, you know, I love to, I mean, we debated a little about different things that I felt, you know, we needed to talk about when I would see him, you know, and it was just a delight to be able to talk with him and spend time with him and not only him, the one that lived, I know where all of them live because God gave me a gift to deal with the leadership. You got to understand, he tells you who to deal with and talk to. Most of the time they come right here and sit there. We have Sunday little segments with pastors all the time because I'm a different type of dude, man. You know, I feel like you can worship God where you stand. So it brings a lot of different obstacles to people who say they go to church when I feel like you are the church. I feel like you should be dealing with God at all time because life is too short and death and all that is unexpected. And so we need to be dealing with that all the time. And so it's not a thing where it's a traditional thing. It's a spiritual thing. I don't know why I took y'all there, but let's get to it. So let's go back to the story. You said the biggest thing, biggest obstacle you had to face was racism. How did your grandmother, what was the story she told you to overcome this? Exactly. She always told me that when all is fells look beautiful, but not just on the outside, on the inside too. And so no matter what situation that I dealt with, whether it was something direct, like being called the inward or if it was, you know, not being able to hang out with certain people anymore because, you know, their parents didn't really approve of all of that or I felt uncomfortable over there. She was like, you know what? You are worth it. You are valuable. You are God created you. You are your queen. Do you realize, my mom always says, we come from good stock. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, what does that mean? That's dope, that's dope. We come from good stock. And so like, she really always just encouraged the confidence in me. She encouraged education. She encouraged things that would give me the foundation of being confident without breaking my will, you know? And letting me be artsy and letting me explore the arts and the creative side of things. And she just really encouraged my dreams and everything else. And because of that, like every single time I had to deal with a situation like that, I would know my self-worth. So I would kind of let it roll off, right? And when I was younger, that didn't happen all the time, right? But now- It would be a fight, right? But it's a process. It is a process. Evolution is real. And the crazy thing about racism, people don't understand. These are some people who are like this to you, were kids growing up with you and they didn't portray that because kids don't see no color. They're like, oh, we're just friends. But as you get older and certain things get instilled in them, then all of a sudden that starts to change. You can't hang with this person anymore. And much less date that person. It's a problem, you know what I mean? Well, I mean, you know, when you really look at what's going on in those inner cities, you know, I can remember when Jamie Foxx came home one time and he was like, you know, he felt disrespected because when he was coming to town, they had put a small picture of him on the newspaper and he put a big picture of a tractor and a white guy sitting on it. And after that, after he made a statement or two, the next time he came, they put billboards out by the highways and everything else to try to make up for it. So we know that these issues are there. These issues are still there to this day. These issues are things that we face in America and other countries as we well know because people who have stepped up and said things about it. So I understand where you come from when you say that you face challenges of racism because I'm from a smaller, even smaller town. And yeah, it was even, it was there. It was living. I mean, and the older you go back, the more aggressive it becomes. Now they had a little better nowadays, but at the end of the day, we've seen what happened with George Floyd. We've seen what happened with Sandra Bland and all the things that we see that caused us to have these different Trayvon Mortons and all the different things that we've seen happen. We know that these things are happening and they're alive and we're in fear of our children a lot of times when they go out and they drive and my son called me one night and his car quit when he was in Canton and I told him, what are you doing out there in three in the morning? And you got a flat tire and immediately I jump up out of the bed and start trying to get that way because I have a fear in my heart that if somebody see him out there that time of night in that area as a black man by himself that something bad could happen. And so this is the stuff that we live with that others can't even identify with. So it's different. It puts us in a bubble. You see what I'm saying? So I get it. Where are you coming from when you say what you say and how you deliver the message? For sure. Definitely love the way that I listen to your song. You know, I love how it's right in your face. I got a question. So how old were you when you started singing when you were in Terrell? Because you said you came to Terrell. So I know that you weren't born in Terrell. No, I was born in Dallas. Straight up Dallas. And then you went out there to live with her. Yeah. Okay. So why did you move from Dallas and how old were you? I was, I think four when I went to that's dope. That's dope. You from and you went straight on to Terrell. I went on. And why did you have to go out there and not stay in Dallas? Correct. No, I wanted to. My mom is was modeling at the time. Oh, yeah. Mama getting it in pre-instagram model. She was straight up the queen mama. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She yeah, I talked to her. Yeah, she don't but she but at the end of the day she was modeling and trying to take care of business as a career and traveling and doing all of that. And my grandmother at the time, it was like, I love her. And they all, you know, shout out to my brothers, but you know, I felt like I was the, the favorite grandchild. I was like that too. So I get it. Are you are you the only girl? I guess. That's the reason why. Yeah. That's the reason why. So when you going out there. Okay. So you were four. When did you discover your love for singing? Around like six. So nope. Yeah. So it was really my grandmother put me in, she always had this quote, I get my left arm if I could play the piano. So she, she put me in piano and I started learning that but I realized I really like to sing because music was always an escape. Yeah. You know, I got to be who I was really, you know, cause my grandmother was real structured and so I got to party. That's live. That's live. So if you call it a sport, that's one sport. You don't have to pay with anybody else. You can do it by yourself. For sure. Easy. So do you, um, like, like when you, when you got older, I'm a fast forward a little bit. I want to go to that part where, okay, it's time for John, John's Monroe to go. No, I have one question in between that. You do? Yes. What is it? So you started singing at age of six, but I know you didn't start singing opera right away. No, I didn't. So what age did you figure out? Well, my, my vocal can go to that stage cause to sing opera, you have to get up there. Yes, for sure. So around 12, I started training. That's dope. Good question. So why opera rather than regular, you know, R and B? Right. I love, I love love. I'm obsessed with culture. Yeah. And when my grandmother, I was, you know, encouraged me like to explore the world and like really just be that independent, you know, can I cuss on here? Yeah. Okay. That's don't go too long. You know what I'm saying? Don't look good. Don't become you because you're beautiful. And at the end of the day, if that's what it takes to get your point across, you do what you do. But at the end of the day, it's on you. So I was going to say that, that go ahead. Go ahead. It was just, it was just the S word. Oh, yeah, yeah. You're fine. I'm telling you that I'm knowing the hero in the face. It was just the S word. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. You want to say shit, right? Okay. We don't fast forward. Go ahead. Tell us what's going on. So, so, so, um, sorry guys. All right. So, um, fast and fast and fast and forward around 12. I started singing opera and, um, exploring culture, exploring the world. I love languages. I still study languages. And so I got to do that in the songs. And, you know, I always have loved all types of music. Yeah. Just country music, rap music, opera. Yeah. And, you know, because of that, and they realized that I love music like that. They, um, they put me in opera and had me try some sessions out and I loved all my instructors throughout the years. And so I think from 12, 13 and up until like 19, 20, I sing opera. Yeah. I had a friend who I'm back home in Jamaica. She sang opera and I didn't realize that when you sang opera, you have to know all these different languages because she, when she sang, she sang in all these different languages and I'm like, okay, I don't know what you're saying, but you sound so good. And her voice was so strong and she was at a time when I first heard her, she was probably about 10, but she could be in this room and make the wall shake. That's how strong her voice was. And I'm looking at this little girl, she's short. I'm looking at her like, where did that voice come from? Nobody else in her family has that voice like that. Boy, she had no. And well, she doesn't sing anymore because she, because her parent, because she was living in New York and that's where she would have gotten the most exposure. But New York is not always great to raise kids, you know, depends on the type of area you're in and stuff like that. So they had moved back to Jamaica. And so, you know, where the career was concerned, I don't think that has went out the window. But her voice, oh my God. And then she knew languages at 10. That's dope. And that just amazed me. Yeah. Well, I think, hey, man, you know, like she said, your gift will make room for you, you know. And the part that kind of confuses me is that talent, not taking her all the way. If she was, well, you know, what I love about today's society. I mean, the social media platforms are so in your face, they tell you if you're good enough a lot of times. But social media back then wasn't a thing. How far are we talking? Okay, she was 10. I was probably about 17. So that was some. So now she's probably in her 30s right now. Yeah. Yeah. What's her name? Ramona. Shout out to Ramona. Yeah. She be getting it in. Yeah. I let your boy see unique hustle. Let's go. Okay. So what I want to do is. Hey, Ramona. Hey, Ramona. Give us some. Give us a little bit of opera. I want to hear. All right. Let me see. Yeah. Shit. All right. Know what? I like it. I like that. I like it. I ain't never heard nothing like that. In this place, I don't know microphone. Can we do that one more time? I want to know what that was. And let me hear it. Come on. Did you hear it? Shamar, you need to hear this. This is something new, girl. Go ahead. Oh, I see. Give me another one. Yeah. Come on. Just a little bit. Is opera in different languages? Is not any in English? We have like Latin areas. There's some. I sing some classical pieces. Like, I sing, I used to sing this song. Center, please don't let this harvest pass. Let me hear what you got there. Let me see if I can remember that one. Listen, I think the center may let the harvest pass. I'm selling on. I'm sorry. Center, please don't let this harvest pass. Center, please don't let this harvest pass. That's good. That's good. I've got that. No, no, no. With that, that don't. Because you're so used to hearing all that. That doesn't sound like an opera. It's a Negro spirit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm classified. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they let it, they let it pass. You know. Yeah, that's more like, you know. Dang. So you just running around here, black singing opera. I'll sing a couple of y'all. No, no, no. It ain't many. Is there a lot of blacks that sing African-American? It's not many. No, not many. But that's dope, though. For sure. Because you step, you step on a different stage. Okay, so if there's not, because you, so you travel everywhere to sing opera. Yeah, it's classical music, opera. So when you started, oh, sorry. Sorry. No, when you went all these different places and you didn't see many people who look like you, did Terrell come back to the back of your mind in those situations? Definitely. All the time. All the time. And really up until this past year with the, like, I feel like the George Floyd movement did something different to every black person. Yeah, I read, I read that. I don't know. I don't know if it did something different to every, I think it's something that it's just like anything else. Some people took it different ways. They had to sit down and look at it because of COVID. And so they were stuck in the house and it was forced to look at this. And they didn't have, you know, people wasn't having a lot of room for tolerance at this time. But the way it was done was so outlandish, the way he just, just put it right in our face. This is what, this is what I represent. And, and it, it woke a lot of people up, woke a lot of countries up. But some people was just doing it for the, for the hype too. Everybody wasn't just doing it from a sincere place. Bandwagonist. I say that because I don't own jobs in different places. You've seen them start to, you know, oh, we carry and all that. But, you know, people can say a lot of things. Jesus says, these people honor me with their lives and speak with me like with them. I put their heart as far from me and I'm paraphrasing. But at the end of the day, um, I've never seen the change in the structure of our, uh, look at, look at, look at, when you look at different ways that people are structured in the corporate American world, where has that changed if everybody's standing up for like that? You see what I'm saying? It, when it comes to the money, I think a lot of time the change stops. Yeah, for sure. Our people are suffering and without people suffering like they are in certain situations and not only that being manipulated and there's the job placement is not, it hadn't changed. So I think, and I don't blame it on every other race. It's up to us to pull ourselves up as well. Um, we, we have a lot of people, a lot of, a lot of, when it comes to rap music, entrepreneurs, when it comes down to producing whatever music, we're talented people, but we need to step up and do what's right when it comes down. I don't apply people in these big higher up positions because a lot of unity need to be pulled together on, on their level, but a lot of times they're so caught up with their monetarily gain that they ex out their own people. So I just, I don't, I don't play with it. I see it and it's, it's very distasteful to me. For sure. You see what I'm saying? We got to do more to unify as a people. Yeah, I feel like, and that's why I wrote my record because I feel like we have overcome the fact that we're not slaves anymore, obviously. I feel like we've overcome the fact that we're not slaves. No, don't. And I feel like we have overcome, like, you know, being second class too, but we haven't overcome realizing that we're amazing, that we are Kings and Queens, that we can do anything and because of that confidence within ourselves, it can finish breaking the Jim Crow and the extra divine, the actual layers that they gave us. Yeah, I agree with that. And so once, once we get over that home, yeah, and once we have some more music to inspire that, because the music inspires culture. Yeah. All right. And fashion video and we were slowly doing it. Yeah. Matter of fact, my favorite thing that happened lately and I felt it yesterday and I said, Mama, you feel that? She said, yeah, that was weird. I said, yeah. And we're like, that was good. And they were like, yeah, that was weird. We're at a restaurant. I won't say wherever we're at a restaurant. It was like a market. Okay. And we're the only black people there. Okay. As usual, I do that a lot. Well, and we were about to get some food and we're waiting patiently in line. And then there were some people that weren't black right behind us. And they, they were over talking us to the person checking us out. And they were like ignoring the fact that we were in line and not giving it and just really privileged and entitled. Yeah. But I don't, I don't know if they actually realized they were doing that. Yeah. Because the, the beauty of the whole situation was amazing because of the awareness that's being brought. So for me, the George Floyd movement, that's what it brought was awareness and it awoke me as, as Jones Monroe. And so with, with the, the people checking us out, normally they would have catered to them. They would have like, but that didn't happen. They stopped. They say, you guys need to get in line. Exactly. And they got in line. And I think they realized at that point that they were out of line. Yeah. No, no pun intended. But then we go up to the line and then they take it one step further. They said, ma'am, ma'am, yeah. Is there anything else we can get you? And I said, no, but thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And it was the first time I've in my life I've ever experienced that. Wow. You know, there are certain things that we, you know, I get it because I know that, that it happens to us a lot, but it's also things that you remember we was in California and that brother pulled us out of line and he said, Hey, I want y'all to come up here and he was pulling everybody for some of the, but mostly people that look like us and he say, brother, we're not going to let y'all stand in line. I'm not playing this guy. I told me this, he'll, he'll brother in California. It was at, uh, uh, at a car rental. It was at Hertz and he said the line was from here out out the door on past my truck out there and, uh, he say, brother, we, we, hey, but before he pulled you out of line, one thing I don't remember if I told you, he was over there sitting down. He was like trying to call people trying to call and I'm looking at him like, I know he because it's not something of normal. Yeah. Calling us out of line to come jump everybody in line because he was like, you know, ignoring it. Then he got out of his seat and came over there and said, Hey, y'all come on because he wanted us to understand that he wanted us to be first and that was the first time that ever happened to me and I was like, that's so lit. He followed me on Instagram still and I'm telling you man, I just, I never had that happened before. I just thought about that when you were saying what you were saying. That's dope. Like the whole line, it was alone and I'm telling you, it was a lot of people, but he made sure to acknowledge his people and you know, how many times does this happen on the other side? We know it happens. But for us to feel like I want to help my people, that was dope. That was literally the dopest moment on that vacation. I don't know what the hell we was doing. But that was dope. So, I mean, but that's one thing, but let's let me take it a little further. Our people need counseling too. We need it starts in the home with the family is having these discussions openly telling our children, our children, children, children, what happened and understanding what it caused in our in our people. Because there's a lot of stuff that we have to we have to acknowledge. Yeah, we did pass slavery, but there are some things that are underlining where our families have been split that it trickles down. We give up easy. We think it's okay not to be together when you have children. We feel like it's okay to just pretty much go our separate ways. And it's not. We got to start formulating our families back together and trying to figure out ways to educate our families to where, you know, hey, it's okay to be together and fight for what you what you believe in. You know what I mean? And finish what you started. Quit quit stopping. You know what I mean? What you it's easy to quit. That's the easiest thing I'm telling you, but it's hard as hell to keep working at something. I promise you. And not only that, just to know like what you're saying, to know that you're worth more because you have a lot of people out there who will say I'm a king or I'm a queen. I'm worth something, but really deep down inside, they don't believe themselves. They just say it all the time because it shows in their actions when yes, they might adorn themselves nice and they dress nice and they look beautiful and everything and people looking at them like, Oh, they're confident. There it is. But if you watch them closely and see how they might be jealous over X, Y, Z, if you're confident, you you're not going to be jealous over anybody else. So just stuff like that show little signs that you're really not believing yourself. Well, I think I think that I think the process goes deeper because I think that you have to know why you're a king and a queen. See, because the word of God tells you you're a king and a queen. The word of God says you're a chosen generation says you are saints. I say this a lot on these episodes. It says you you are a holy nation. It says you're fearful and wonderfully made. You see what I'm saying? So you got to know that how to tap into that. If you believe that because I'm a Christian, so I believe that if any man being Christ, he's a new creature. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things become new. So when things become new, now I can be this person that God says I am instead of who people made me out to be my entire life. So I get to start over again. Isn't that beautiful? But everything starts in the mind. Yeah, but but but that but that starts in the spirit that I start to the spirit. So it overtakes and overlaps. That's why the Bible tells you to strengthen, be ye strengthen in your inner man. You got to feed your inner man, your inner person, your inner self. You got to have you got to feed it the right food spiritually. If you don't, then you're going to end up doubting yourself like you were talking about earlier, not understanding your king and queen. But once I know that God says I'm a God, then I'm good. I don't care what nobody else say at that point. Am I right? You're just so right. You're so right. Can I get amen? Hey, hey, you know, this people like is this a Christian station? But really, I just like acknowledging who we are and pretty much telling the truth about what it says we are. Most people don't know that. They set up and they always wrote by the white man and all that, but they never even read it. They don't even know. It's not even said nothing about a white man either. This is something mean people have put these things in there. You talk about different languages. The language changing has happened way back. You know, the Greeks push Greek at a time period on everybody to where they would force that language after they was coming out of Hebrew. You know what I'm saying? Certain languages pretty much were pushed on people and they were made to speak these languages. Culturalist. Culturalistically. So, you know, we know that. So at the end of the day, that's a good thing. You know that we know our history and then we go back and find out the conosity of the scriptures. How did the scrolls come to be? And then not only that. If you want to check other things like Egyptian literature, do that too. I found it when you start doing stuff like that, you end up coming right on the God. Because you start finding out the truth. You see what I'm saying? So, you got to know your history. But most people, most African-Americans were raised in church. But when you go to church as a child, you go there and go to sleep. I'm not lying. A lot of us did fall asleep. You fell asleep because it was boring to you. You didn't understand certain things. Did you fall asleep? I remember snoring. See? See? But what I'm saying is that you do this because you were forced to your parents. So it became such a tradition that this is what you did. So some people, even as you leave your parents' house, you continued in this tradition. And you go and listen to this man say what he has to say. You hear it for that moment. You felt good. But when you left, the next day they ask you what he preached. Most people don't remember it. You didn't implement it in your life because you did not go research it for yourself. You did not make it your own. Just muscle memory. Exactly. So as you get older and you go through trials and tribulations, that's the reason why God put us through trials and tribulations for us to search for him. And I have been that person in the past where, you know, you read the Bible and you get certain parts, but a lot of times you're like, I don't get that part. I don't understand. So a lot of people tend to get discouraged and put it down because I don't understand what it's saying. You know what I mean? So that's why they always go and look for somebody else to tell them. But as I got older and as we study, I realized that the reason why you don't understand because you have too much clutter in your mind and in your heart, you're not letting go of fleshly stuff to be able to store spiritual things. For sure. But nobody don't really tell you that and break it down to you. That's why I meditate. That's dope. I love meditation. Meditation is real. I have to meditate. I meditate every day. And then I try to meditate all day, you know, live in that space. But yeah. Yeah, I like that. It helps. It helps. Because we live in such a fast-paced generation. Yeah. You know, and it's how do we get to the next? How do we get to the next instead of focusing on ourselves that when we meditate, we can clear out that clutter you're talking about, right? Exactly. That's lit. So with your new album with Black, are we going to start seeing a lot more like that? For sure. I have two more records that are like that. Well, all my music is, you know, Southern-inspired and has that basis. But I have the love records. I have my perception of love. I have the soul records of inspiration, of like where, you know, the thought-perroken conscious records of like where I come from that just make you feel good. I have the pretty records. You know, I have the forget-you records. We'll say that. No, you want to say something else. You know what? But you know, the absolute thing you have to have to have to realize, man, is that it's something that, OK, I put it like something inspired you. Any artist that's known, did any inspire you? Oh, for sure. Who was your biggest inspiration when it comes down to people who who we hear on the radio, who we see on the TV, or who we see on YouTube? It may not even be somebody you see on the internet. I'm asking. I'm trying to get there. Yeah. So Aretha Franklin is the inspiration for me. OK. Just how soul, basically anybody you can feel that I feel like taps into that meditation space when they're singing. Like Aretha, you know, you can tell that it's her voice, but it's not her voice. Like it's coming through her, you know? So any artist that like that and even rap artists, you know, like you just have certain real conscious people like Tupac and I love me some Tupac. Man, you know, I'm a padded LeBale fan. Oh, OK. Don't play. OK. You hear how she get down. OK. Ain't nothing like it. I love some paddies, too. There's nothing like it. Like nothing. You know what? In a sing-off, they would both be amazing. You know what else I like? You better know it. You better say it. You like some Ray Charles because Ray Charles is my... I love Ray Charles. You know who I like? I love her voice. Tony Braxton. I like Tony Braxton. I love how low she sits. You know, she sits low. Her voice is that very different. Very different. Tony Braxton. I love Jacob Banks. I love... Jacob Banks. I love Jacob Banks. Shout out to Jacob Banks. Would you ever want to work with somebody? Jacob Banks. For sure. Jacob Banks. I had a few issues with him. The way how she said, I love Jacob Banks. So, I mean, give me some R&B. I mean, I want to hear some R&B of the song that you picked when you say, I'm singing, I love the way. That's more like my style. For R&B records? Yeah. I love the sexy records. Let me hear it. You want to hear it? You want to hear my record? Yeah, I want to hear what you... Oh, this is your record. Oh, you want to hear my record? No, no, I want to hear it. No, if that's what you want to do. I want to hear something with an R&B field. You want me to sing it right now? Yes. Oh, okay. Let me sing. Which song? Is it something that I'm going to know? It's not something you're going to know. It's a sneak preview. Okay, let's go. Let's go. I'll take it. Hold on. I'm getting this in my head. This from now. Do you need us to find a beat? No, no, no. No, no, no. Let's go. She got her own beat going. All right. So, this song is called Two by Four. Here we go. And they said, I love somebody. Spiritually. Emotionally. Mentally. Physically. Other one. Use me with it. Pull back my head. Tell all my shame. Tell me you want me. It really ain't fair. How you don't care. I know you still really do want me. Oh, you got me high. And I don't want nobody else but you. Here by my side. Cause your check and move box is the most. Two out of four. Two out of four. All right. I don't want her to stop. I'm here listening to every word I'm hanging on. Every word I'm like, please don't stop. I'm like, yes, man. That was good. That's it right there, man. That was good. I felt it. That's it in here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was going, I didn't even look at her to be honest with you. I didn't even look at her. You know what I'm saying? She's a cute girl. I'm on the way in front of music. Don't try to do that. Yeah, yeah. It's like the radio to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but it was, I loved it. I loved it. I'm like, okay. Definitely got to get that song downloaded whenever. So I can use it on certain times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll play it at certain times. Just let it ride, huh? Already. Let me get them top three artists of all time. Top best top three artists of all time? No, you heard it. No, what is your top three artists of all time? Your top three artists of all time? They're all live. Any genre? You've kind of expressed it, but still, let's go with it. That might not be her top three, what she said before. They're all live. Any genre? Two-part. Okay, we know two-part. Okay. Outcast. Outcast. Okay. I love Outcast. Who is your favorite person in Outcast? Andre 3000. It's Andre. Of course he's right, too. I could have told you that. The eclecticness of all. Man, he's big boy. I could have been him. I'm a thug with mine. And then it's a retrofactor. I'm rocking. I'm rocking. Okay. So I have some more soul. Okay. Like, woke up this morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on. I forgot you weren't here. Somebody kissed me. You come back up this time of year. People selling Christmas trees. Ain't even Halloween. Reminds me there's nothing artificial about you and me. Said my soul cries for you. Don't know when you'll come back to me. Let me tell you what I'm gonna do. Yeah, that's John with my robe, nigga. You niggas are messed up. Yeah, I feel real good about it. That was the one that would hit me right there. I'm gonna walk up now. Yes, sir. This is it. A star is born. Don't even trip. So where did you get those vocals from? Who in your family sings like you? They're not like you. Nobody. Hell, I can answer that. Ain't nobody singing like that. My momma sang. You'd have heard about them already. In my grandma's singing. Oh, you'd have heard about them already. Yeah, they don't matter. They ain't you though. You the woman. You gotta manage it. I need to ask momma to sing for me. If the nigga ain't doing right, you know I'm here. You gotta manage it. You gotta manage it or not. I'm serious now. Yeah, sir. Okay, let him. Let him don't act right. You got my number. Yeah, sir. Yeah, I put your little carapace together, too. Yeah, he nigga better act right out here now. I got a microphone. These niggas is in trouble. I got a microphone now. You have a voice. Yeah, I got a microphone and you got a voice. That's all it takes, man. So why the switch from opera to this? Why not? Hold on, I'm just asking. Why didn't you go back to singing opera? Because I know I read when you stopped opera, you came to take care of your grandma because her health was the finishing. But after that, why didn't you go back into the opera? I started teaching voice. Yeah. And she opened up school. And I really, I believe so much that music is connected to the universe. It is. And there's no separation to it. And I didn't feel like I had a message to give out. And so right now, that I was real passionate about and strong about to where it would pull me away to put 100% into it, you know. And give everything the amount of care. Because I've always done music. That's what I do. But the biggest thing that caught me one day, I was sitting there and all these songs, literally I wrote in about 15 minutes. I literally just wrote them straight. So, yeah, that's the biggest thing that came. Hey, you know. No, but it says because, okay, we've never, I always wanted to go to an opera to watch. I don't know about that. I'm nervous about that. I know he's probably never wanted to go. I want to go to where you were singing while ago. Of course. I know that too. I know that too. But the white part of her is coming out. A granddad of white. So a granddad of white, you know. So she want to go. I'm going to go with her. I would love to go. Because the thing is that. I'm going to be in the back east popcorn. Okay. You know how you watch movies? No. That's where we see it on, right? You watch the movies. Yes, ma'am. And you see it. And you see when some people are watching it, everybody gets so emotional. Some people fall out crying. Just watching opera. And I'll be watching Soul Train. Because I know there's a lot of people. I know there's a lot of emotion that pours out into it. They sing from the toes. Right. As much as I don't understand one word they're saying, but you can feel everything within, you know, just the power in their voices. So it's like I would love to go and just experience that. I just never mention it to him because I know he would never want to. No, I don't go with you. But I'm not going to be just like up in Vegas. Let me tell you something. I'll go to sleep. He would go and he'd be like, no, this would be him. This is what you take me here for? Yeah. Yeah. If it ain't right. He would meddle. He would meddle. But I got to feel it. He might end up crying though. I would love to see that. To see if he got into it that much. I would love to see that. I'm a thug. I ain't going to cry. I'm definitely not going to cry. You know, I'm probably going to laugh. I'm going to tell you right now. It's not going to come out like you think. I mean, because you don't, don't get it twisted, but the songs that hit me was what you did there at the end. I ain't going to lie to you. I can't lie on my ear. I told you that already. I can't lie on what I hear and what I feel. I don't do that. I feel that. I got to be real else I'm not going to. And life is too short. I don't want to go out here trying to figure it out with you when a girl ain't going to tell my age. But I ain't got time to be playing with right now. I can't be playing with time. See, time is something you don't play with right now. Now, if you want to go to opera, we'll go over it. We're not going to stay all night. But y'all, because they were going long, don't they? I went to one recently during COVID. How long does it last? It was only about an hour and a half. I can do that. I can do that. Do they have it here now? Yes. At the Winsborough Opera House. Y'all should go. It would be a beautiful night. Get dressed up. Get dressed up. Get dressed up. You feel like a queen. That's all you want to do. That's all you want to do. You need to be the king for the night. I'm a king every night. But you know what I mean. But I'm not no king. That don't make you no king. No. No. What's the best seats to get in an opera house? In the back, because I'm going to be tripping. Get away from the front. Have you ever performed and you can hear some people in the crowd like this chit-chat and talking and... No. No. Normally people are so... Quiet. Quiet and crying. Yeah. I'm not going to cry. And he's not going to be quiet. And I'm damn sure not going to be quiet. See? You know what? Don't even take it. Yeah, take me down. They kicked me out of church when I was about four. That's why I didn't really get that. Yeah, they didn't let me get it really. I'm telling you the truth. I don't have to call you and we can go together. I'll go, but I'm going to sit in the back. We can sit in the front. Y'all sit in the front. We're going to sit in the front. I'm going to be in the back like, what? It sure is up there. But I'm going. I'm going to be back there. I never went to one. I never went to one. So we'll go. I want you to text me when the next one. Okay. For sure. The next good one. Okay. Is it on a Saturday? Yes, sir. What time? What time did you go to the last one? It was 7 p.m. It can't be late. That's cool. Because it starts. Right on time. And then you don't want to get caught making noise because you can hear pin drops. So if you're walking in, you can hear the heels. So it is exactly... I haven't heard the phone, but I hear the... It is exactly what I see on TV then because that's exactly what everybody has to be totally silent. Yeah, well let's get back to the black. Hey. That's my big one. We trying to get this lady... Shout out to BC, man. Shout out to BC. Let's go black. So what's your relationship with BC? BC is amazing. He's managing me right now. Okay. Shout out to BC. Stay on and boy, I'm coming through. He's a great mentor, too. How long has he been managing you? Not long. I met him actually through another client because I work and represent a lot of different clients. So I actually took him a rap artist. And it was funny. He goes, do you do music? And at the time, I think I still wasn't even doing music. I was like... And I was like, I just work with music. I work with talent. I do things. I go to the Grammys. We work with artists. So he heard your voice at that time when he asked you that question? No. He must have heard you. This is how I knew it was brewing inside of me. After he just kept asking me, I sent him a picture of me that doesn't really look like me, but it's me and sent him like this record that I did. And I sent it over and I really was trying to play it. Did that picture? That is? That's not the picture. It's a black and white picture. Explain this picture. What is the album? What is the album? It is. My favorite line from my last record is, I came from Kings, rose up from Queens, been through so much talk. You know, I came from Eve. So like, the apple is just the signature of the woman and how strong we are. And my arms up in there, obviously, but it's all of the photos, all the arts very symbolic for the projects and all the songs. So you do vocal... You have a strong face. She's like, yeah, I'm a queen. Yeah. Her expressions, her expressions when she's singing and everything, and I'm just sitting here just watching your... You have expressions out of this world. I'm telling you. You're very expressive in your face when you are singing, I mean, everything. She performs. You get it. On a whole other level. So you said you had a rap artist that you introduced to him so that you also developed... He was a rap artist. You also... Shout out to Vex. Vex? Vex. Vex is dope. He is on a... Why have you took him over there? All platforms. I've been working on him since he was, I don't know, about four years. Really, though? I like it. I'm gonna look him up. Shout out to Vex, man. So you develop rappers, too? I develop all genres. I work with Screamo, to Pops, R&B, to Raps, Soul. I have a team of industry creatives that we work with. And how long you been in business doing this? I've been doing this for 12 years. I've had my personal business for five. And what's the biggest artist you've ever produced? I don't know. I've done things from like Aucapop with the Pentatonix, which is pretty cool. From start to finish, I have artists that have signed. I'm trying to think of my favorites are popping in my head. From country artists. I work with a guy named Shane Stevens in country. I love the interview here, more at CAC. That's who I work with. Country artists. We haven't had a country... You know, I have sang almost all dramas. Shout out to Kearsta, Kearsta Rodin. She's one of my black country artists. And she's really making some waves in country music right now. Wow. She just got back from Nashville. So I'll tell her to shout out to you. The closest thing to a country artist that we've ever had on here is T-Dash. T-Dash's on country on here. No, she's real country. No, no, no, no. T-Dash is on country. Oh, she's real country, even in her life. Just singing it. Just country. Oh, okay. Country. You know, I like that, man. You know what? Tara Cherry could learn from this woman. I'm going to have to show it to you. I like that. That's dope, man. I love the way that she comes across because it makes you... And it gives you a... I'm pretty sure it gives them more confidence when they say they learned from you. You see what I'm saying? It has to. Like when you go... Like, yeah, I know how to do things, but if I get approved from somebody who's been doing it long and they show me things that makes me feel like I'm doing better and I sound better, I see the improvement, it got to give you a sense of confidence. And not only that, but to hear her voice and know that her voice is not... She's not just in one genre of music but she can do this and this and this and not just trying to teach me because you have some people who are coaches and can't sing. Yeah. But you can do both. You're not fit to teach me and can't sing. You're not fit to cook for me and you ain't fat. Yeah. Yeah, you got to be fat. Yeah, it's a lot of stuff to go with a lot of things. I'm not fat enough for you. Yeah. You're like August Hills. That's my wife. She's from Jamaica. That's his favorite. She's from Jamaica. I've been eating in August Hills for like three weeks. I don't know why, but I can't stop. I haven't been on August Hills. Okay, but have you gotten American August Hills or Jamaican August Hills? I cook them. She cook them. Okay, how do you cook it? Southern area in East Texas. Yeah, yeah. You keep... I'm not gonna go there with you, but Southern rural area Dallas, I'll skirt some. Terrell wasn't the same back then. What have you got? Bucky now, Bucky's now and everything else. What are you shopping for? What are you shopping for? What are you shopping for? We're just on credit. That's it, man. That's it. That is country, but not as country as us. We only have... Terrell, big now. Yeah, we only have one store growing up and one post office. I'm a country boy. When was the last time you been down there? I just went down there. Where? Like a few weeks ago. I was down there yesterday. Like I beat you to it. And I was down there today too. I frequent Terrell. Yeah. Shout out. So what's up with you and Jamie Fox? It's a check it, man. Jamie Fox, I'm tapping in with you because, man... Have you ever met him? Let me finish my little tapping. We got Joan Monroe on the show. Her grandmother taught her how to play the piano or to send her to learn how to play the piano. Your grandmother showed you. So I mean, rock with her. They should do something together. Yeah. Because your voice is dope and he can sing a little bit and you sing a little bit when... A little bit. Yeah. He's like, no. Yeah, okay. Yeah, shout out Boss Talk. I changed my mind. You know what I mean? I like... You're not going to do my Jamie Foxx. No, she love Jamie. I love Jamie, man. I love you. Terrell, Texas, stop playing, man. Jamie, man, come on, man. That's the only thing I talk about. When I'm going out of town, I be like, yeah, I got a store in Terrell where Jamie Foxx is from. That's how we do it. People own it. If you say, oh, Terrell, Texas, they don't know it. But you say, oh, where Jamie Foxx is from. Oh. Yeah, he the man. But then even Dallas, if you say Jamie Foxx, and people are like, where is Dallas? He's going to always say Terrell. But people, I mean, he's even recognized for Dallas as well. He's just that big. Like, have you ever met him? I have met him briefly when he came down. I was there that day. He ain't see you. He didn't even get to talk to you. Listen, man, they name the street after him. That's when you're talking about it. So my aunt, my great aunt was the mayor of Terrell. Oh, so you got his closer? Yeah, so, you know. Did you get to talk to him? Just briefly. What did you say to him? Hi. That's it? You got on the stage and you fly. You know, that's what I call it. Like, even when we met Steve Madden, whoever we meet, it's like I get on the stage. It's like I got to be prepared because you never know what's going to happen. And I want to make sure I captivate in this moment. Yeah, just like performing. Yeah, so that's where I look at it. So if I meet somebody, it's already prepared in me. Like, I'm ready. I'm ready. Like, this is like, this is the moment I've been waiting for. Yeah. That's hard. Like, that's different. That's what's up. Yeah. I wouldn't have just said hi. I might have said hi and went into my opera. I don't know if I'm you, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I'm going to go into my opera. Like, yeah. But that was a better piece of day, though. That was an extra piece of day. But wasn't that day? Yes. That was the same. We was down in that day. Yeah, we were down there. We were down before. Shout out to my brother because my brother, he picked up on something. You know, we had guys that was, we've been going down there. You know, see, it's come a lot. And it was certain people like, man, I don't like Jamie Foxx. Jamie Foxx, man. I used to shoot. I used to play ball with him. I used to play the drum. We don't like that. He don't even come home. He don't do nothing. And this is just hood talk, right? But then when Jamie Foxx came. Hey, Jamie! Jamie! Jamie! That's Jamie right there. You remember me. And I'm like, buddy, nigga, shoulder and chain. But you know, they love Jamie. But you know, it's like that. That's so true. They don't want him to go. Like, they love him so much that they hate to see him go. Stay down here with us. Perform at the theater. Perform at the theater. Oh, I got more stories, but I'm not going to put them out there on certain people. But I heard some things. And, but when Jamie came to town, he shut all that down. That guy shut down quick. He was going to escalate, right? He come out to sunroof. Them niggas went crazy. Crazy. I said, wow, I loved it, man. So you was there that day. How old was you? I don't even remember. You was young. It wasn't that young. Yes, she was. How long ago was that? They named Bradshaw, which that was the name of the street to Jamie Foxx. And then they start fixing on the house. I hadn't been by there in a while. It's still there. But it's still there. And it's like somebody cuts the yard over there. You know, so I'm like. I think somebody actually lives in there. Yeah, but I'm like. No, it's just vacant. It's like a well preserved vacant house. Sometimes I see somebody go in there like. They clean it up. I think they. So the windows are always like clear. Okay. Like last time I drove through, I was just like, wow, that's a clean window. Jamie is dope though. I love the way that he took his family up there. He pulled his family. I think he lost his sister here recently. You know, but Jamie is who we are. He's our people. For sure. And he is from Turrell. And he keeps it real. I got a question. And his kids are real. And he's doing well with his children. I love the relationship that we can see in what he does. I really do. And a lot of fathers can learn from that. But I never be one. I've been wondering where the hell the mommas at. I never see the mothers. I'd be like, it's because they're not in the line. I'm like, they probably don't want to be seen. Don't want to be seen. You know what I mean? They're tired of it. I don't want to. Because some people don't want to be in the limelight like that. But then there's people like me. What's up? Yeah. Come see me now. Okay. But my question about the Jamie Foxx way. When you go down there, I know they gave that street his name. Yeah, they did. But doesn't it still have Bradshaw Street on there as well? It's like it's red. That's what I'm like. That's what I'm like. They gave you all the street. Okay. But they gave you a street. Why do you have two names on it? Why don't you take that name off and put it on? You know what? Your mama was the mayor. Ask her. Who's your auntie? Okay. So let's compare. Yeah, don't ask us. I need to do my research because I'm going to search other places in Dallas. You can start with the George Bush Turnpike. No, no. That name changed. I want to see did they actually take the old one off and put a new one on. That's true. Or is it only Terrell that did that? Well, I'm not going to read too far. They're making progress. You know what I'm saying? This is a big step for them. And so they was able to change the street down there to a brother's name. And I'm going to be happy about that. And if, Jamie, if you come home, boy, they may give you the damn 34. But you don't come home like that no more. You want 34? We'll give you 34 next time. Highway 34. Highway 34. Yeah. I'll go out there and put the sign up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jamie Foxx, man. So you've been from Terrell and you made it out to me. You made it out because a lot of people never do what you've done. You know, it's so great. And your voice is spectacular, right? Appreciate that. Love it, man. So when is the album dropping when we can get more than just black? I am dropping. Please tell us. I am dropping anticipation of next fall, the entire album. But I'm going to be releasing singles like every two to three months. That's really what you have to do. So when is the next single coming out? It is coming out in two months. But it's a surprise on the date because just like I dropped black on Juneteenth, like everything has like a special date tied to it. So how has June, how has black been going since you released it in Juneteenth? The coolest thing is being received so well. Like I, my mom had a, she had a joke. She said if it can pass the hood, it can pass anywhere. And I said, what? And she goes, we're going to the hood. And I said, where are we going? And we literally, we rolled up. Shout out to all my brothers. We rolled up. Okay. It's a kiss and poke. Kiss and poke. Shout out to the connection. They feel over the cash here. So I'm going to give them boys a shout out. You know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. And all the DJs show me love. All of the, all of my, you know, my, my, my friends show me love. Everybody received the record real well. Everybody's been receiving it well. It's been trending real nicely on, you know, all the platforms on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube. We dropped the music video in a few weeks, which is so dope. Who shot it? Yeah, who shot the music video? Ralph Canono. Ralph Canono. Never heard that name before. He is an amazing videographer. I can imagine how unique your video will be. Well, we don't know yet. See, don't do that. Yeah. I feel like that would be a spark. No, no. We ain't never seen it out there like that. Because of the person that I'm learning about right now. I'm going to be checking it out. You seem like that type that will just go. No. I love Quentin Tarantino. I love just like film directors. I love like artistic things. So as much as times I spent putting the record, I do spend putting into the visuals. How long did it take you to do this video from? Start to finish. Idea to production. Two weeks. That's it? Two weeks for my idea. That's cool. Because I meditate on everything and then like I, because I feel like everything really for everything is built out already. I can just be honest with you, I will be checking it out. Come on, check it out. Has it produced exactly what you thought about it being? Do you think you nailed it? I feel like I did. Because I had me showing on here and it was a different type song, and it was by leaving her man. And I say, hell, I believe you. Because her visuals were so... You see what I'm saying? I love her. Yeah, she left the house with her bag and she was fighting to get out. Yeah, I believed her. And you could describe everything. He told her to curl up the suitcase. She had on the pink outfit, dragging the suitcase, stuffing it in the car, leaving that cat. Yeah, don't hit me. It got to be real. It got to be real. You got to put it all. It's real. It shows black excellence. Leave it all on the stage. Right? Yes. Let's see it. We dropped it in a few weeks. What date? Let me see it. I'm going to have to get back with you guys. Yeah, come with me. But you know what? Go to my social media. You can find it. Yeah, tell us how we can find you on your social media since you said that. For sure. You can check me out online on any platform at Love Jones Monroe. That sounds good. You married? I am not married. You don't have a man? I do not have a man. Check it, man. She needs a man. You don't love Monroe. You know what I'm saying? Y'all intimidate. I heard about you intimidated, so I know y'all intimidated. Have you ever wanted to get intimidated? They won't come up to you. You be sitting there like, why won't nobody talk to me? You know, I've had that before. Yeah, yeah. Where are you from? People tell me sometimes that I've seen you unapproachable. No, these niggas are scared. This is the first time ever I'm going to bring this up. This is the first time ever I'm going to bring it up. This is the only part of what he says that I do agree with. I don't agree with anything else he says, okay? You don't have Kevin Samuel. You know exactly what I was going to say. No, because Kevin Samuel will say a lot of African American women do not smile enough. And that is usually what makes them seem unapproachable because even like, I remember in the past, I could be walking somewhere and a guy walked past me and said, you can smile or smile. And sometimes I do smile, but some people will turn around and curse that guy out or whatever, but smile more. That will also help to be free to be more approachable if you want to be approached. Well, you know, you can smile, but if they scared, they just scared. You can smile all day long. Look, you're smiling now and they ain't going to walk up. He got to get it together. Do you got a job? Are you a high value man? You know what I'm talking about? What is it to you? Have you ever heard of him? Kevin Samuel? I haven't, I haven't. He's my coach, I don't know. Don't go, don't go. I'm over there, don't do it. He watches him. I watch a lot of people. Now don't just say it like him. It's a lot of people I watch on the Internet. There's a lot of controversy about him. He had a lot of females calling it, mainly females who call to talk to him to prove him wrong about women. Oh. Yeah, it's one of those. I'm still going to check it out now just to see what I think about it. And they educated to it and they high value, thing. This thing is are you a high value woman or are you a high value man? A lot of them are low value. Yeah it's a lot of low value women out there. It's what he's saying. Well we just got to work on it. Come on Kings and Queens stuff. That's just a opinion man. Like most of the time people are so sensitive these days to what's happening with our social media waves. We've always had opinions. Now you can just see them a lot more than what you used to could. You know but I really think and as I was saying earlier your progress report on Instagram, YouTube and all that is real. I'm being real. Like people tell you basically you're good or you're not good enough from that perspective. And it's their opinion. It's their opinion but actually those opinions are quite the dollars. It didn't used to but it does now. That's where you can do. Your whole concert is right there in the midst of everybody at all time. So whether it be TikTok, whether it be Facebook, whether it be Instagram, wherever it is you should be performing. It should be something you should be talking to the people that you're connecting with. I think that's great when you connect with your people, your supporters and basically as you do that you will grow your brand. And also when you perform that's another whole section of your brand. So you got to do everything now. But the thing about society now is good opinions or good comments and bad ones still equate to dollars because the more they go at it is the more views and the more you know what I mean. That's right. The more interaction. Interaction. Have you ever heard this stuff or we just tripping over here? No, no, no for sure. This is what part of my company specializes in. There you go. Yeah, we specialize in brand development, social media, creative interaction, like all of the PR, I can go on. Yeah, so you've been in these meetings. I'm in every single meeting. Yeah, yeah, mastermind. I literally just came over here from a meeting. No Russian from dope. That's it. I've been in sessions this morning since eight or nine this morning. How much sleep do you get a day? A few hours. That's not an exaggeration. A few hours to at least six, you know, on a good night, six to seven. I do all nighters too. That's normal. It's normal for a creative, you know. Real hustle. You call it creative. I call it hustle. It's the same thing. You know, like you're just trying to get to it, you know what I mean? Sure. And nothing wrong with it. You know what I mean? You're young. You got to use your time wisely. That's what I figure. You know, I'm trying to, you know, be on the penthouse and be on the island. Any kids? I do not have any kids. I've been married to my career for a while. I love it. Yeah, high value. Do you want? I do want some candy. Yeah, well, you better hurry up. The time is ticking. You know, I think my mom will give me if I don't have, you know, at least two or three. I can imagine she's in your ears like, come on now. No, it will see a baby out. She'll be like, isn't she cute? Yeah. Do your mom try to set you up? All the time. Yeah, they be lame. Listen, I just... Yeah, say it. Be nigga lame. They be lame, but it's cool. You know, shout out to all my kings and queens. So if you could talk to the young, I have to say it. I was going to ask that question. The younger you, if you could talk to that younger you, say the 14, 15-year-old. No, I'm going back to 12-year-old when she just started doing the opera. I don't want them to start. I want them to start at 14 or 15. What would mean to them at 13? What would you say to the 13-year-old you in order to help them strive to work perfection? I would re-encourage her that she was beautiful, that she is a queen, that explained the queen-ness, though, and that she can do anything. Wow, great. That's it right there. I read something. I want to go into something. I read something to say that you went through depression at one time. How did you overcome it and how long were you in depression for in that pursuit? For Elise, I felt like I was really struggling for like two years. What caused it? I went through a hard situation career-wise, and then it was at the same time of my grandmother passing. It was just everything at once, just like life just like smacked me in the face. I just wanted really struggling through that time and just some other personal matters. One day I am going to write a book about it. Why not? I mean, you should. As you should. I don't even want to go there all the way mentally right now because I think I'll even cry so maybe a little bit. You know what I mean? We don't need that. We need to cry as already. We don't mess with makeup. Oh yeah, we've had people who want to go and mess with makeup, but we don't keep it moving. I went through that, and the biggest thing that helped me through it was music. I know a lot of people say that, but it really was something to hold on to. Every significant moment in my life, there's a song married to it. Anytime that I needed to feel comforted or peace, I would just listen to the song. When it came time to go, when I went through it and started doing music, then I wound up realizing that life was connected to songs. That's when I feel like all my music and my records really are impacting people. The song that you really like, I played while I was in the hood. I look around and I'll tell you, it was the strongest, toughest man. They started crying. Well, you notice I didn't cry. That's going to be one of my goals. But you know how some people always, when you're going through depressive states or going through trouble, whether they go start smoking weed or drinking or whatever, but at the end of the day, when you sober up, the problems are still there. So even with your music, you say you go listen to this, you feel a little bit better, but then you move on from that. You stop listening to it, that it comes back. The meditation then was the last key of sendering myself and regrounding who I was and realizing that those moments didn't define me. That happened to me. And then my change in perspective on all the moments, it changed because I started realizing that the beauty in that moment, there was so the dichotomy of life, right? And then I was like, wow, I wouldn't be this strong at all without this and I wouldn't be this courageous and be able to stand up in this meeting and represent this artist and deal with these people and go through this situation if I had not gone through that situation. Exactly. I totally believe that 100%. I always say, as long as he's known it, everything happens for a reason. So when we go through trials and tribulations, you don't always know that it's preparing you for something down in the future because you can't see that till later on on the line, we've laughed at it and be like, oh, that's why we went through XYZ because that helps us prepare for what we're going through right now. You know what I mean? So everything in our life that we go through is connected. Just know that no matter how big of a tribulation you're going through, you know that there's something really big waiting on you later on down the line. You have to turn all that negative into a positive because just like I was saying earlier, everything starts in the mind. So it's how you perceive something. You can say something that so-called could be disrespectful, but I can turn it in a way in my mind where I'm like, okay, you know, you let it roll off because it's how you perceive something. Well, you know, look like y'all had it going on there for a second. I feel like y'all was connected and it looked like you guys were moving on without me. Just like you're going to do at the opera. I'm going to be in the back and y'all going to be in the front. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, I'm going to let you guys have it, but I'm going to be there for you, you know. But you know, I mean, I could go on and on about your depression, you know, because I'm good with that, you know, for it's, you know, people go through things for a reason, like you just said. But, you know, it's mostly to help other people out of that situation once you make it through it. That's the most important thing about going through something because now you have the ability to tap into what someone else who's suffering may be going through and maybe even save a life. You see where I'm coming from? And that person that wasn't, it's not strong as you got may tap you into that person and be like, you know what, I went through something. The next thing you know, they're able to come through because you pull in them out the fire. You know what I mean? I ain't gonna go no more because I go hard. Yeah, man. No, I can keep going. I go all night long. Yeah. But that's, that's why I got kicked out of the church. That's why. Yeah, that's, that's why, you know, because I go hard like to reach it with his competition up in that thing. Thank you so much for coming on the show, John Monroe. Thank you guys. I was gonna say, you know, when you do come out with the next song, bring it come in here. I'm gonna show you some things we go. Yeah, we can, we can celebrate the movement. We gotta, you know, because singles, I like what you're doing because it's not you, you bring out different portions of the album and it's not done in a way to where people got anticipated is what she's doing. So what better way to display it than to come on Boss Talk 101? And yeah, we might even have some models to stand up behind you with a t-shirt on. You know what I'm talking about? And they just stand there proud. You know what I'm talking about? You know, yeah, that's black. We should have had them in here today. You're slipping hard, but we hear. Hey, man, thank you for coming on the show. We love you. We wish you much success and I promise you, yeah, I'm gonna be calling. I'm gonna get your number and I'm gonna be worried when you're trying to figure out what's up? What can we do to help the brand? What do you need from us? That's how we do it. That's why God keep on blessing us and we appreciate you. We love you. We expect to see you go all the way to the top, baby. Jamie Foxx, look out. She's going to be standing next door to you. I'll let your boy see you, Nick Hustle. And we out.