 There he is. What's going on, Bo? I'm good, man. How are you? Can't complain, fam. All right. Whoever's watching the video, how obvious is it that I got a busted lip? I had a damn adjustable dumbbell malfunction. Oh, that was terrifying. Bro. Oh, man. Like, I'm glad it was one of the little ones. I was going to say, yeah, no teeth. No teeth harmed in that house. No. Like, I was thinking about that too. If my mouth didn't happen to be closed in that moment, what would the outcome have been? What is a debate? We talk about sports debates and Jordan and LeBron gives me a headache. Was there a music debate that just literally gets you a migraine? I'm at the point now where all of them do, because it ain't fun to talk to nobody no more, man. Everybody takes this just a little bit too seriously. Like a Michael Jackson Prince one. Like, nah, it's going to wind up being a headache because the answers of people talk about two different things when it comes down to it. And in the end, the thing about the debate winds up being you debate with people's hearts. Like very few people are approaching a musical discussion like intellectually. That's not why they in it. That's not why they love whatever it happens to be. Like they're not going to go come up with a debate case and come back and then like sway you on what the reason is that any of this stuff is going on. Man, they love them people. And you know, love don't make sense. You know, people get out there and they get to like Michael Jackson Prince in particular. That's two sides. And I think that there is a logical argument in one direction and it is very clear. That don't matter. I ain't going to change nobody's mind. Oh, and anything involving Tupac, I do not do because when people argue with you about Tupac, it's not about music. It is about their relationship with Tupac. Right. Like you're not, it doesn't matter what you think of whether you think Tupac said enemies too much or whatever. That's not the point. You know, no, somebody wants to say that Tupac is the greatest. Cool. I'm going to leave it at that. You got it. Because I mean, my childhood was quite happy actually. And I find that's a disconnect I have between Tupac and his music. I can't relate to being that mad at the world. They were pretty, they were pretty good for me. Like I got to appreciate his perspective, but he ain't like speaking to me. You talk about, you know, family a little bit. My grandmother was a elementary school teacher. And we were talking about that switch from gangster or whatever. And then all of a sudden, you know, your verbiage changes. Slaying and stuff like that may come out because of the friends that you hang around. She was quick to correct all that. She was on some, you know, get outside and read type stuff. For you, with two professors, you know, in the household with your parents, what was that like growing up? I mean, it's what you wind up getting in that situation, at least for me, because the big thing is my siblings are much older than me. So I basically grew up like as an only child. So I got an uncommon level of exposure to like thoughts and people and ideas because I was running with them. Like, you know, I went to school, like 20 something miles away from where I live. So like my friends weren't in the neighborhood. We getting back home, like after dark, you know, most days from work. So like that is the most unique part is I got an exposure to things and people that most people would just not be in a position to even if they live twice as long. Right. But on the other end of it, like my parents are still just like, you know, people, you know, for lack of a better term. Like I don't think that living in the house with them doing that job was necessarily that much different than everybody else. Like I think that people get this like picture in their head of college professors. And it's almost a very like huckstable-ish sort of situation. And that ain't really how that that ain't never really been our get down. Right. Like when you think about like, I think that people imagine you go to the professor's house and it would be similar to the first, the very, very, very first episode of the Fresh Prince will shows up in Bel Air. And that's not I get down at all. Like that's not that's not that's not who my pops ever wanted to be. That's who my mother ever wanted to be. You know, so like it's I think that kind of setup is a little more regular than most people expect. How did you shift into sports journalism? Was it was that something that you knew that you wanted to do at an early age? And it's not what was the spark that turned you in that direction? No, it was not something I wanted to do. It is not something that I'd really pursued like for a while or really had given any thought to how it is that you get into it in the first place. I just started I started writing about music when I was in college and doing freelance and to pick up a little stuff here and there on different topics. And I made the acquaintance of Ralph Wiley through a mutual friend. And so the first thing that I ever wrote professionally about sports was actually for ESPN.com. And it was funny because Ralph had emailed me a link to a story about something. And I said, well, hey, man, I know some people that might be able to help you. If you want to write about this, just let me know. And then I think it was the next day I got an email from the editor of ESPN. I'm on a page two at ESPN.com who said, yeah, we were thinking about somebody doing something on this story. And Ralph says you'd be perfect for it. So I had never considered writing about sports until like the greatest sports writer ever somehow thought that I was good enough to do something on it. Then a couple of breaks in life went and I was like, all right, cool. I'll try to write this out. And I guess that was like 2005 when I made that call. And here we are. Wow. Give me a over this over this journey, man. Give me a highlight, a highlight for you along the way. So I remember like if there's a day that I remember and I was thinking to myself like, oh, okay. So some things are different here after I moved to Miami. I moved to Miami to do highly questionable in 2013. I've been in Durham, North Carolina prior to that. And, you know, you do around the horn, people get to know you, but it really takes years for people to really know who you are and recognize you. Like being on TV show for two years ain't going to be the thing that gets it because people only watch it but so often. But like, you know, things were starting to build kind of at that point. And so I moved to Miami and I'll never forget this. I'm walking in the tunnel with Dan. And I don't even remember where we were going, but I'm walking and I look up and I see Shaq and I don't think I'd ever been in a room with Shaq before. And I see him and I'm walking toward him. He's walking toward me and I just give him a head nod because I plan to give him a head nod to keep on going. Like you can't imagine how many people like trying to stop and talk to Shaq. And as you remember, he looked at me and he smiled and he stuck his hand out. I was like, are you doing more money? I'm like, oh snap, right? Like who knows, you know, Shaq knows who I am. That's kind of bananas, you know? And so I shake his hand and then I remember me and Dan turned to the left and we're walking and the heat dances were coming this way. We going this way, they coming this way. And one of them gave me kind of up down as we kept walking. And I was like, yo, this is the great light. I thought that my life was about to turn and turn into something that it did not turn into, right? I was like snap, man. Miami about to be, like Miami about to be what's up? Like I remember and that was the same year that Ray Allen made the three against San Antonio. Like I was there for that. Yeah. Like that was, that was like a really dope like month and a half. Like you get to town. I got to town during the Eastern Conference Finals with pages in the heat. And so I went to games five and seven at the arena. And then I went to all the home games in that seven game series against San Antonio. Like that's, that's a hell of a way to get acclimated to your new town. I was in Indiana at that particular time. And I was doing peer announcing, doing TV and radio and all that type of stuff there. And so we hated everything about, you know, Miami. And, and just everything about Miami, the LeBron, the whole, you know, people showing up in the second quarter. And then I went. And then I got it. But man, yeah, I like that. That's the thing. If the sus still outside, why would you be indoors? Why are you in Miami? Like, you know, they go get there when they get there. The people in the upper level really, really care that they're on time. They allow the cameras on the people who care the least because they're the ones that spending the most money on the tickets and they sitting down close. But you could attest to this. When a game is good, that place gets rocking. Yes. Like when it's rolling, it's just for all things in Miami, you just have to consider that beaches there all the time. Like think about how amp whoever you are, listen, that's how amp you always are about going to the beach. No matter what it is in Miami, it's what you want to do. It's got to beat the beach. This one. Maybe a basketball game does that. Maybe it doesn't, right? But I do find the people in these cold weather cities, they used to hate on Miami so much. It was just all jealousy. I mean, it's so wild because I didn't even love living in Miami like that, but I saw why them people was hating. And then you experience it and it just changes everything. So yeah, we were hating on a lot of stuff that we never experienced it. And once you could experience it, it's like, oh, wow. And that's one of the things that I love about with yes and traveling, obviously no travel right now this season. But you get to experience these different cities, these different subcultures within the cities. Black folks in LA are different than Black folks in Houston. And so you lived in Houston in stretch. Atlanta, I know you talked about a lot, North Carolina. I did Southern California for a couple of years too. So you're the perfect person to get into. It's just different from a fandom standpoint. Culturally, it's just like a different experience. Yeah, no. I mean, when you think about it, when you travel to Europe, one thing that can hit you is that it seems so wild that you can go to Europe and stay in Europe for a week and a half and you can go to like four or five countries without terrible inconvenience. And not just by like, you know, so you can, I went, last time I went, like I went to France, I went to the South of France, caught a flight to Amsterdam, stayed there, went there for a couple of days, then brought it back. But I had points at which I was thinking to myself, like, well, hey, man, I might be able to shoot up to Paris right fast, you know, for, you know, for a day or to play or whatever it is. And that flight from like Nice to Amsterdam, I think it was like an hour and a half or something like that. The flight from New York to Los Angeles is six hours. Like this is a continent, not just the country. So like when you go from place to place, we think about it as staying within the same culture, but in reality, no, you're really, like, you're going to different countries when you think about it, you know, in that way. Like when you go to the, like really, when you go to Europe and those countries are also close to each other and you look at like, I can take a two hour flight and go here or I can take a two hour flight and go here or I can take a two hour flight. Two hour flight is taking you out of the country in basically every country in Europe, not all of them, but basically everyone. Two hour flight, hour and a half flight, whatever, they are taking you out of the country. In the United States, it is just taking you to another part of the United States. So everywhere you go is going to be different, right? Like, you know, the way people make their money is going to be different. And that's then going to guide, like what the behavior is, like with Texas, you always got to remember, it's the culture of the range, like home on the range, right? Like that's the thing. Our proclivity for guns, for example, is about the fact that people got big old plots of land and folks come in and steal your cows. And only way that you can stop them from doing it is to smoke them. And so in Texas, they're ready to smoke you at every turn, namely for property. That's where it all begins, you know? And every one of these places has an origin story like that. You know, I noticed that with music and how the sounds can be so different. So LA, you know, that West Coast sound, very different than, you know, the East Coast sound, that sound in Atlanta, you know, different than the sound in, you know, the Midwest. And, you know, St. Louis people going, I was coming up, you know, going crazy about Nellie, like St. Louis was on the map. We got this Midwest voice in here, you know, Connie in Chicago, although Connie has got many different influences. So music is another area where it's very clear. New Orleans, for example, the bounce is just very different, very different vibe. Do you vibe with each one or are you more centered toward that, you know, that South sound? No, no, I'm all over the place by and large. All over the place. Like my, I would get the most nostalgic about like mid-90s East Coast, like more basement and airtight rap. Like that's where you're probably going to give me more than anything else. I really got more into the Southern stuff when I got into college because all the people from up north was talking bad about us and I developed a whole different level of pride than I'd had before. And you know, open up my listening ears a little bit just with things that I had not been rocking with. But no, I'm all, I mean, I think, especially now because the accessibility to music is so all over the place, right? Like it's hard for me to just like totally check out on an entire sub sound, like particularly in rap. Like I like rap too much to be able to be out here just being like, yo, this type of rap doesn't work. There ain't that many of them that I feel that way about. Yeah, they would try to push folks into the debate. We know the whole East Coast, West Coast thing. But yeah, it became very territorial. Like if this is good, I'm not supposed to like whatever it may be, but we can appreciate everything. Yeah, what's also funny about that is like now that all the time has passed since then, everybody always loved everything. Like all these cats back in the day that was swearing that they didn't listen to no R&B. They wouldn't do rappers doing that. And all of a sudden, they know all of you need a bank of jabs. Like what I've come to learn is that a whole lot of people who claim to be so rigid about so many things back in the day was just front. Let me ask this about career. And because one of the things I appreciate about you and your work is there are so many sports talk shows on right now. And it's the same kind of, you know, debate. And you can kind of predict the angle that certain analysts are going to take on a particular topic. You know, if we're talking about, you know, a Super Bowl, we're talking about the NBA finals and who's the best in the league or whatever. There's basic arguments that are going to be put, presented and you can damn near predicted. And I always appreciated that you would present a least predictable angle that made a ton of sense. And it was one of the reasons I gravitated, you know, towards your work because everything felt the same, same type of thing or saying something provocative to get a reaction. And your work was always made me go, I didn't see that coming in. Same way with, I'll take it a step further when Kyrie is going to the basket and you don't know if he's going to finish with his left right or he's going to do this Euro, whatever it may be. I can't predict what angle you're going to take but I know it's going to, I know it's going to make sense and it's going to make me think. Have you been, is that something that you, it just comes naturally? Is it something that you think about? Everybody's going left. Let me see what makes sense from the right. How does that, what's your thought process as you present something, whether it's on, you know, on a podcast or whether it's on television or ESPN? Well, I think that some of it got honed by the time I spent writing and I remember I had an editor who I won't name because I hate his guts. But he, one thing that I always do give him credit for is like I would try to, you know, pitch a column on say, I want to say that Kyle's athlete should get paid. His thing is that column has been written a million times. So how are you writing this column in a way that is not something that is just well-worn terrain? And that's something that really stuck with me, right? And so when I'm thinking about things, there's no real value in me saying something that everybody else is going to say. Now, I'm not going to be intentionally contrarian, right? Like I'm not looking for something that nobody else has said, but I'm generally looking for the little thing that's a big thing, you know, that when you kind of stop and look at it, you're like, oh yeah, that thing is right there. The little thing that's a big thing. That typically is going to be the one that like gets you there. But I think that the things that you see is like people being predictable or whatever. It's because the answer is easy. Like they're taking the first, you know, like the big things that they see in front of them and drawing a conclusion from there. Now you take a little time and play with a little bit and see what's further down there. And that's where you typically find the fun stuff is beneath it, you know? And so part of it also is when you do your work is framing the questions around which of the discussions happen, you know, on television. And one thing that the people I work with have always been good for was giving people the very basic, like who you got in the Super Bowl and then you kind of go take it wherever it is that you want to take it. But you got to be able to find the little thing that's a big thing. Because otherwise you're doing something that literally anybody else can do. Where are we as far as sports and politics right now? Are we in a good place? Are we in a temporary place? I know it's going to be a touchy thing for the networks. And we were thrust in a position over the summer where, you know, they had to intersect even though people that was pushed back on it before that. Where do you feel like we are right now with sports and politics? We're where we always are. And where we were this summer is actually kind of where we always are. It is a reactionary sort of equilibrium on how to handle this. Like, look, I think something that's important to note is the NBA had all the Black Lives Matter imagery and the names on the jerseys and stuff like that in the bubble. They're not doing that now. Part of it was it so dominated the presentation that it almost didn't accomplish the goals that anybody wanted it to accomplish. Like, you didn't want people thinking about it. Like, you want to use the platform to raise awareness, but people were there to watch basketball. And so you didn't want to be in a situation where these things were distracting from the basketball. Like, the NFL has done that this year. They've done a pretty good job of doing that imagery but not distracting from the football. But the problem is, if it's not distracting from the football, like, how much are people actually hearing it? Like, how much, you know, that is the dilemma that you wind up with. And I think that's kind of a dilemma that they're in all the time on all the stuff, you know? And so now I think that there was a moment this summer where the entire nation reacted, or last summer where the entire nation reacted. The rest of the nation has stopped reacting to it too. Sports is the only place where we ask people and we should ask more people this. We're like, yo, so, you know, you're still where we at. You know, we're still where we were in June. For some reason, sports are the only people we're asking this, hell, Target was doing all that stuff and everything else. And you see it coming into the corporate stuff a little bit more, but not as dominant as I think that we would have thought. Like, I expect this to be the biggest Black History Month ever. We'll see if it actually proves to be the case, though. If it's not, if we revert back, is it a missed opportunity? Is that something that you would expect? No, we'll be back. We'll be back. Look around, man, it's chaos. Like, something else is going to happen. One way or another, something else is going to happen and we're going to wind it right here, back in that same place. Bo, man, I appreciate your time, brother. Appreciate you. Thanks so much, man. No problem, man. How about me? I'll be around.