 Yo, yo, yo, man, so, hey, man, HHF. HHF. Hey, man, y'all, if the champ didn't come, I don't know what's going on. I'm going to go on one more time. HHF. HHF. Man, hey, man, guys, man, so, hey, what's going on, James? Good, I'm good, man. Man, so, so, give me a spill on HHF, man, from your perspective, man. What do you do with HHF? I'm the president and national spokesperson for the hip opportunity, James C.B. Gray, and I'm honored to have this opportunity by Brother Ken Ivey, AKA Ken Pippa Ken, you know. So, I'm just, it's a pleasure, it's an honor, and I'm just happy to be here and do the work, you know. Wow. So, how long have you been with HHF? I've been with HHF from the beginning. Okay. In this capacity as president and national spokesperson for the last two and a half months. Wow, that's heavy, man. So, when you first got into it, what was the main thing that drew you to it? Oh, first of all, Brother Ken, you know, I had been doing business with him, you know, before this, working with the books and working with other deals and things like that. So, we had already had a business relationship, and he told me about the blueprint and everything, and I said, listen, whenever you're ready for me, let me know, and I'll be there. So, when he came and said, okay, it's time, I said, I was already locked in. I was already following and monitoring everything, so I knew how to get right in. I've been in the music industry for years, you know, as an A&R, as I get it, ran labels as a consultant, and then on the political side of things, you know, as a sitting politician right now, and a political consultant. So, it's like the best of both worlds for me and also being on the business side of things for a long time as well. So, it was right up my alley, you know. Wow. So, how many, you're on the East Coast, so how many members are up here on the East Coast? About 120, right now. Okay. That's big, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and you're international. I heard Dax in. Well, give me your name again, because I miss it up. I don't wanna miss your name. My name is Vado. Vado, man. V-A-D-L, yeah. Is this an African dialect? No, you know, actually Vado means the DJ is here. I'm a DJ, I'm a former DJ. Okay. So, when you say DJ Vado, meaning like the DJ's in the house. You know what I'm saying? It's an African thing, you know. It's actually from Togo, you know. That means the DJ's in the house. That means I'm here. Wow. Yeah. So how did you end up with HHL? I mean, you know, we started like, you know, from the earlier, I think we were like four, you know, say when we first, when we first linked up to Pepe K. And then like that was like two and a half years ago. And I actually met Ken through a friend of mine. He told me that Ken needed some assistance. Become a videographer, I'm a director. So, and I'm a graphic designer. Wow. I needed some assistance on the graphic part of the media part. So that's why I came in. Wow. So you, when you think of HHL, I mean, is that, is things going on in Africa and other countries with HHL? Yeah, you know, we actually have a chapter in Nigeria. Wow. We have a chapter in Cameroon. And then we have a chapter in 80, you know what I'm saying? And you know, that's, you know, that's just the beginning. Yes, just the beginning. You know, Africa is very, very big. And, you know, I'm a CEO of HHL Africa too. So. Man, stop it. He's smiling when he's saying that. Man, that's big, man. Like, I really, when I first talked to Ken about the whole HHL movement, man, it was just seeing people connect, brothers connecting like that. I had to respect it, man. So I'm so proud to even be affiliated with you guys, man. And that's why it's big, man, when you can come into something and see brothers connected. And you know how I am about it. I was like, man, brothers connected. All in, man, because we just, you don't see it a lot. You know what I mean? But to even the work that the HHF, the hip hop fraternity that shows the unity, man, it's just powerful to me. So man, big ups, man. Thank you. Not only just connecting, but showing everybody that you can be a boss and how to educate each other because some people are so stuck in their regular routines of what they do and they're comfortable in their life, not knowing there's elevation in everything and being able to reach back and help somebody else to come up. And that's what I like about it as well. And you talk about having it in Africa, but how many more chapters are you trying to even branch out from that chapter? You're trying to get a whole Africa, you know, the whole every country in Africa, you know, you might have a couple of chapters in a couple of countries, you know, just like we do here in the US, we got like 30 chapter already. So, you know, Africa is really big. So we can have as many as, you know, as we can as people can tap in and, you know, get to know the HHF, you know, follow the vision and just spread the word out. And do you keep the vision exact, or should I say not the vision, but do you keep the program exactly the same in each country? Because, you know, how sometimes when people franchise things out or have different chapters, it's a little bit different because of the culture, because of who you're dealing with. So is it gonna change a little bit because of that? You know, our core value is a lot of peace and respect. You know what I'm saying? That means that, you know, that can go anywhere, international. You can be in Mexico, talk about love, peace and respect. I mean, Africa, talk about. So the message, that core message always gonna be the same. But now there gonna be some culture, flavor in there that you add to it. For example, Nigeria, that different culture, different flavor, all the country got different. But the main core is peace, love, and respect, you know. Yeah, okay. All right, let me get to it now. So, Ice, man, what's going on, man? You, when you hear about the hip hop fraternity, whether, I know, so Ken, he done broke it down to me. You know, your advice was valuable, like in building HHF, what did you say to Ken that was so influential? Well, the first actual hip hop fraternity would be Zulu Nation, out of New York City. Bambatta and Africa Islam, the guy that put me on, they created a union of rappers out of New York that called themselves the Zulu Nation, which was a spin-off from the Black Spades, which was a gang. And they said, you know, we have to create a unit because if we have all this violence going on, ain't no girls gonna come to the parties. So, they kinda turn into an anti-gang when they say you come in peace or leave in pieces. We gonna be serious. And then you hear groups like Tricall Quest. A lot of groups, you know, were a part of the Zulu Nation, the Jungle Brothers, of course, SoulSonic Force, but a lot of the Bronx rappers were part of the Zulus. And it's really just a shout out. It's not like they're exchanging money, they're the same, we're all on the same team. So, I was really intrigued with that where it was like a union of rappers that all say we under the same umbrella, we cool. And I saw that as power. So, I went to LA, but like you were saying as far as cultural, LA is a little bit too street for the term Zulu, that is culturally not gonna work in LA. LA got a gang culture. So, I studied Lucky Luciano, who created a thing called the Commission, which was a group of the five families, the mob families. And they made a decision to say, hey, look, we all gangsters, but before we fight, we are willing to sit down. The bosses of each family agreed to a sit down. And that way, we can stop a lot of these gang wars. And there were certain rules, like you can't take off a boss, you have to have permission and all these different rules. I was like, if they were able to do this and these are all gangsters and killers, I can do this with rap. So, I took part Zulu Nation, part commission, and I created this thing called the Rhyme Syndicate in Los Angeles, which had everybody from Cypress Hill to Dub C and all these different people. Anybody that wasn't in NWA or part of the NWA family, meaning Cube and all snooping on them were syndicate members, they were groups on top of groups. So, the rule is I'm not in charge of nothing. Like Kenny's not in charge of anything in the hip hop fraternity. All the groups of subdivisions all have their own bosses, but there's only one agreement. Before we fight, we talk, right? And we talk to the bosses. That's it. Now, Kenny said, well, I wanna do something hip hop fraternity. I said, well, this is basically the way you set it up. You don't try to be the boss, you don't try to control. You're the founder, but you, my brother from Nigeria, Kenny doesn't have any pull over him. He just says, this is what we wish. And he is up to him to bring it to his team. Also, hip hop fraternity doesn't make any money. At this moment, I said, you got, that's the best time to build a unit of people when there's no money. Cause when the money comes in, that's when the division comes in. That's real. That's when everybody, so right now this thing really just operates in a way to help each other. That's all it is. It's like a bunch of rap groups that are trying to share producers till somebody breaks. In the actual hip hop fraternity, I told them just a minute ago, what they need is a hit. That's real. They need to start. But here's the question. When that group hits, will they rep the hip hop fraternity? Exactly. Or will they branch off and say, fuck y'all. You see what I'm saying? That's the question. Will they be loyal? When I broke from syndicate, I was loyal and I got Everlast, the record deal. I got Donald D, the record deal. I got Divine Styler. Whether those groups were big or hit or what. Lord Finesse, I signed Lord Finesse. So all those groups, I was able to help. So the question is, as the hip hop fraternity starts to morph and gain power, how that power is shared amongst the units. Because any one of the units of the hip hop fraternity can hit. Something can happen. The Texas chapter can say, hey, we have this opportunity to build this, that doesn't affect everybody, but it still reps the name and the name moves up. You see? So it's a question of, it's still an experiment. Is will loyalty remain once the money does come? That's the big question. Cause I've interviewed a lot of people and that's the thing that most of these guys with the record label, the new young, the new people, the new guys are saying, you don't know nobody until they get money. Once they get the money, as you was just talking about, that's where the, that's where, hey, what's going to happen at this point? But here's something. The hip hop fraternity is not a record label. It's not even management organization. It's just a group of friends that have all trying to, and my whole thing was why compete? We all going in the same direction. And competitiveness in music is stupid. It's stupid. Cause you can go out and buy anybody's record and buy the other person's record at the same time. You don't not buy another record because another record is out. Ain't nobody running out of money. You just don't like these other motherfuckers. That's why you didn't buy it. So the theory of my record dropping on the same day as 50 cent, it doesn't mean I won't sell. If my record is just as good, it's going to sell. So the competitiveness is something that's really petty. It's stupid. It's not even necessary because everybody can eat in this business, but you got to have a hit record. So I think as the hip hop fraternity merges into other levels, I think the real next move is hip hop fraternity DJs. But Vado says to where now you start to control what people hear. You got a lot of artists, but now how many DJs can you place in the clubs to where you guys now have a little bit of power to where you actually can control what's being heard? Wow. Radio is harder, but the clubs you can pretty much get a hip hop. Controller infect them with some of the people from your clique. The man. The man himself, man. Mr. Key and I, right? I got it. I got it. I have a question. Feisty. No, because you said it's a brotherhood of friends who are helping each other. So there's a common goal, but so that mean there's no contracts? No. That anybody is starting to say that you have to do this or anything at all? Because each unit is self-contained. I don't know. There might be a chapter where you sign contracts, but we're not in control of anybody's unit. Okay. Like Vado said, peace, love and respect, that's what it's based on. It's organized, but it's organized in a way that it's like cells, different cells run different things, different ways. Now somebody could report back and say, hey, the Virginia chapter's out of pocket. They charge us, they doing this, they doing that. And who knows, Kenny might say, wait, man, they not really representing how we want to move, so they might be excommunicated. Terminated. But the object really is for all these cats that want to make it in business, in show business, to have an outlet. The thing is there's management, there's production, there's video, there's TV. There's a lot of chances you can get if you have a team, if you have people that you can access and they'll come and help you. The same way we were able to get you guys to come here, that's part of the power of hip hop fraternity. So it's a great thing. And I've always thought that rappers should have a union and have something where they connected better than just everybody being by themselves. It blew my mind when I heard about it because I was like, man, so you telling me nobody has, you've patented down so I can say this. Remember, we talked about that. I'm like, nobody has done nothing with that word hip hop fraternity. He's like, nah, that's our own. I'm like, man, that's big because you would have thought somebody, let me bring you in right. My guy, man, Ken Ivan, listen, man. Well, you know, everything has its embryo stages. Yeah, yeah. So not too many people can say that they're personal friends with Iced T. I know his wife, I know his kids, you know? I mean, he's just a good person, man, and the wisdom that he have. And you interview him today. You see how sharp he is, how he got a photographic memory. How he could rap about something he rapped about 30 years ago. So can you imagine being a fly on the wall with Iced T? So, you know, to me, he's not just my brother, he's a mentor, you know, and I'm his mentee. So a lot of times, you know, a lot of people don't know the reason why I quit pyramid. Honestly, it's because I saw Iced T at the players ball and I seen that he gave somebody, told somebody they could either take the grenade or the record deal and that just changed my life. That's my favorite story. That changed the whole trajectory of my life. So, you know, calling Iced T and, you know, him advising me and he talking about the rap center kid and telling me all these other rap stories and stuff that I've been hearing for the last 25 years, I just thought it would be fitting, you know, for us to bring brothers together. You know, I know Iced T can't be an active participant. You know, he has law and order. You know, like you say, you got to take care of his family, but I, you know, have several businesses everyone knows, you know, I make money in my sleep. So, you know, I can spend a little time with the children, you know, and basically the whole objective of the hip hop fraternity is to bring everyone together, create what I call a think tank in hip hop. So with a think tank, what happens is we all be able to compare each other's notes. You know, I know you heard the infamous story about Pete Diddy and Master P being on the plane and Master P said, how much it costs? He said 30,000, he asked Pete Diddy, how much he said 30,000. Both of them was paying $30,000 for the same flight. Well, that's the record business, you know what I'm saying? 15% of royalties, why the record labels get 85% of the royalties. So what that means is if you made a million dollars for the record company, you would get 150,000 and the record company would get 850,000. But if you got somebody like me or Iced T or like James or like Vado can say, hey man, listen. Like Iced, he said, you know, in one of our documentaries, he said, I'm here to let brothers know, don't go down there, there's trouble down there. So, you know, that's what the hip hop fraternity is. We like, we throw alarm clock in the gray yard. You know, we teach you how to, you know, we don't tiptoe past the medicine cabinet because we wanna wake up to sleeping pills, you know? So, you know, so that's the Iced Reportable. Let me say something. Let me say something. Just being able, you know, like I meet people, I say, I'm not an agent manager or record laborer, I'm a consultant. And just being able to consult with certain people or having that phone number that you can call to ask a question. If I wanna know something about going on in Africa, being able to call Vado and say, I know these people, that is so fucking valuable. You don't even understand how just having that connection, I'll give you a really quick example. I did the color soundtrack and that's called a favorite nation's deal. On a favorite nation's deal, everybody on that album gets the same exact check. Everybody. So I got my royalty for one of my payments was 25,000 but I'm friends with Big Daddy Kane. He's on that album. Me being able to tell Kane, I got 25 Gs. His label was telling him something different. See what I'm saying? So having this connection where you can cross reference information through other people, what a promoter is offering, who they are, don't fuck with this person. This person's shady, it's valuable as fuck. And you don't know how many times I'll just call people I know, whether it's like my friends like Damon John, Shark Tank. I'll be like, yo, what's really good with this? I don't fuck with them. This is what life is about, having those connections and that communication. And when you have a web like this, man, you can fact check anybody so quick, find out where they're coming from, what it is and cut the bullshit out so quick. I've had situations where people have run off on promoters, you know, run off from promoters. I won't say no rapper's name, but then I get a call from somebody else and they say, hey man, you know, they cancel the show. They took our 20,000 and 30,000. Do you know how to reach them? And I was able to go through somebody who was in their camp and got the money back. The promoter was never gonna get it back because they didn't have that connection. So these connections is valuable as fuck. If Kenny calls me up today and says, ice man, I need a favor such and such and such and such, if I can't handle a favor, I got somebody that owes me a favor that can handle that favor. So having the, there's nothing better than the network. And you got people that fuck with you and it's not always money. The favors are way more valuable than the money. Way more valuable. I learned that. Better relationships, way more better. And that's the hip hop attorney, ladies and gentlemen. Man. But one more nugget to the hip hop attorney. What? I love it. Say for example, we have our own social media, right? Thehiphopraternity.com. If Ice T give me a project, I can put that project on our social media and we can send out a mass text. We have the ability to sell, cause we collect digital real estate and I can send that message and that within itself is a benefit because now Ice T can sell 100,000 records if we have a million fans or a million members and then 100,000 will put them instantly on the billboard charts and that will instantly bring the program directors in and now we got a record that's trending. So you know, that's what a lot of companies do. Like give you the best example of that. Look at Live Nation. Live Nation, when you do a Live Nation concert, they email all those people in their database and guess what? Those concerts sell out in 30 seconds. Well, we're gonna have that same ability because we're gonna keep building this net. It's gonna get wider. Right now we have 4,000 going on 5,000 members. You know, we have thousands of members that's active right now on the website, on the social media and we also have our own clothing line. You see the jacket? I know. So he becomes a billboard. You know, we got thousands of people. We sold a thousand jackets that's walking around with hip hop fraternity. You know, we have our own award show, hip hop fraternity awards. You know, where we don't, like Icy said, we're independent. We ain't got the call. I mean, we love the Grammys. Give them another, give them another. But we don't have to worry about the Grammys. We'll have to worry about the BETV or MTV because guess what? We got our own award show. And guess what? You know, we got a lot of celebrities just like BET that comes to our award show. We had like 10 celebrities come last year and that comes back from where Icy taught me many, many years ago, those relationships and be able to connect with people. Icy can't do the favor. He might not be able to make it at a certain date, but he might be able to call somebody in Atlanta. I remember one time, I did something at KOD it was my birthday party. Icy couldn't make it, but he called his daughter. They said, make sure you go to the Kenny Ives birthday party and support them. You know what I'm saying? So, that's the hip hop fraternity. And then guess what? We also gonna create a pension fund for people like Icy when they get a little, you know, a little older or people like myself will get a little older. It's gonna be money there. We're gonna hire a venture capital. I plan on going broke. I'll tell you about it. I'll tell you about it. I'll tell you about it. Hey, hey, hey, hey, Icy. I'm on pitch. Icy probably donates that to the pitch. I don't know. So, so, so, but anyway, you know, I mean, it's a lot of rappers, man, you know that not gonna make it. Everybody ain't gonna be iced tea. So we wanna have a cushion there for those buzzard sisters. You know what I'm saying? And they're like with the record labels, you know, Universal, Def Jam, Sony Music, Columbia Records, you know, we wanna be able to have leverage to the point where we got enough members that's in the hip hop community can say, hey, look here, Universal, chill. You know what I'm saying? Quick, giving these bad deals out. You know, otherwise we're gonna boycott you. You know, just how the Italians did. Same, same scenario. The key to this game though, really, I've figured it out is that, you know, social media is an illusion. You know, I got two million followers, but how many of those people are totally active that are really moving with me? And I always tell new artists, I say, all you need is a thousand fans. If you have a thousand die hard fans, and when I say die hard, I mean, if you say, hey man, I'm putting out a shirt for $30 and they all buy it. You basically have an income now. You do that three times a year. You know, you clock in a few dollars. But the trick is solidifying the hip hop fraternity where the people actually are active and what the attorney chooses to do, they move with them. You know, and that's not happening on social media. Social media's a bunch of looky losers, a bunch of bots. And, you know, if I put up something on my social media, you know, maybe 100 people, maybe 200 people, 300 people are active on there. But the rest of just numbers. And people have confused social media with actual followers. I heard somebody had 10 million followers and they put out a record and they couldn't sell 2,000 records. You know, so don't get confused with social media, but this is real in social media. This is people actively connecting, actually in a database, actually moving together. On one accord. On one accord. So it's way more powerful and stuff. And I always tell people, I'm like, you know, they say, oh, you got all these millions of people, I'm like, you got to, you understand Twitter, if you understand Twitter, Twitter is a chat room. It's a chat room. They talking right now. But if I tweet something right now and you're not on Twitter, you'll never see it. Cause it shoots by on your timeline and it's gone. So the theory that 2 million people are seeing it, no, only the people that are actively looking at the phone at that moment and happen to see it on the timeline, unless you have people that check your page daily. You know, that's why I did daily game. But it's an illusion. It's not really, it's not real. It's not real. Like even if I follow Kenny Ivy on Instagram, I cannot tell you when I've actually went to his page. See what I'm saying? You don't go to their page. If something he posts comes by, but it's in a timeline, it's moving. And now if you're a normal person, these people are following 2,000 motherfuckers. That timeline is moving like stashed. So how effective is it? Yeah, yeah. And it's also a thing where they're not opening it up. They control the algorithm, right? So whoever they open it up to at a given moment or time is who can see it. You buy advertisements so that you can push a narrative too. But that opens it up to other people that may not even be following you. So these are people who don't really care, but they view it and you see views on them. If this is done correctly, this is an infant stage. If this is done correctly, it'll be more powerful for what we're doing than social media. Because what you'll do is you'll have a group of people that are into a certain thing in conversation together, not haters, all pushing the same thing. That's powerful. Man, I just wanna say one thing. No, no, no, seriously, we are all, don't get it twisted. We are all hip hop fraternity, even you. For sure. You know, you're hip hop fraternity. So I just wanna make sure that people, IC don't let you in this house, let you hip hop fraternity. Let me tell you something. I'm in IC house, man. I'm not an actor. Come out here. Listen. I didn't see him call. That's what I had never seen before. Don't get it twisted. If I had to preach, I'd preach up in here. And he won't make a closure in the market. Say it. Okay. Okay, James. James, what's going on, man? All right, so I'm about to launch the political action committee segment of the hip hop fraternity under that umbrella. And the reason I wanna do this is because collectively hip hop is not just black, it's not just white. Collectively hip hop is all demographics of people, all different genres. So if we, if everybody was to raise their hand and say, you know, who's hip hop fan? You'd have white, black, Jew, Asian. You see what I'm saying? So in that database, we have way more numbers collectively of hip hop, you know, participants and people who love hip hop music. So under that banner, the hip hop political action committee, we would have a strong number of voting demographic. We could take that number and go to Congress and fight for anything that we need in hip hop. You know, like Ken said, when it comes to the pension, healthcare, all these things are essential, but guess what? We don't have the number base right now to fight for and to actively be accounted for on that level. So launching the political action committee is going to be able to identify with that demographic who stands with us as hip hop community and hip hop fraternity affiliates. So that's a power base that we're able to have tangible, physical, and that can actively, you know, work for us. Cause guess what? Every other situation, LGBT, Jews, Asians, they all collectively get their numbers together, come to Congress, come to the White House, and those numbers speak for itself. And they leverage that voting demographic, you know, to themselves and for their resources. So I think we have the potential to do the same thing. And when I voted to Ken- The new emancipation, new emancipation. Oh yeah, that's another thing. You know, the new emancipation proclamation is literally the power of unlocking the mind in order to access resources. A lot of us are still stuck in the slave mentality, got the chains on the brain and not able to really function. We're not getting the right information too. So that's another thing that leaves us stagnated now. We fall into the whole crabs in the bowel syndrome as well. That's a very stagnated low level vibration that's, you know, has possessed a lot of our people. So we have to break out of that. I'm always encouraging people surround yourself with people who are doing things actively. This is why our hip hop fraternity is another relief source as well. You know what I'm saying? I have two mental programs. You know, I teach about leadership and how important it is to align yourself properly. So people who are stagnated, you know, and that low level of operation, we're not with that. Hip hop fraternity is very progressive. We're making numbers and we're networking and we're expanding on a daily basis. You want to be down with the winning team, get down with us. Man, there it is. Votto, man. Hey, man. Votto James, man. Ken and Ice, man. Ice T, man. Thank you for inviting us. Boss Talk 101 over at Ice T House. Ken, man. Stop playing, man. We winning, man. Hey, J.L. Hey, J.L. Man, it's been another great segment. Get the book, get the book, get the book, get the book. You know what we say? It's always a treat. We play. Hey, man, hey, man, it's been another great segment. Boss Talk 101, what a boss is told. And we have.