 Leave Indiana and go to Brooklyn and all of a sudden Brooklyn jump off. What's up with that, man? I mean, people are not connecting those dots. I'm connecting the dots, like literally, literally. It's great, it's, you know, I never envisioned that it was something like this, you know, what happened from up here. Yeah, you did, you started coming. And look, we're gonna get into a music conversation too, but I felt a connection with Brooklyn before I ever stepped foot in a burn. And music and a number of variety of reasons played a role in that. So there were a number of factors why I decided to leave Indiana and family and that whole situation, the comfort of that situation to go to Brooklyn. But fam, there were 20 wins team at that particular point. You saw something none of us, you saw something none of us did, you knew. Yeah, but you know this too. And I forget who said this, but once the Nets get a star, once they get that dude, it's over. Yeah. Brooklyn's cultural relevance, you know, I know it's cold and dudes love the LA vibe and that type of thing, but Brooklyn's relevance with the culture means something I feel. Oh, it means something big time, especially when in a basketball since the Nets aren't doing well. Well, seriously, that's real stuff. So once they dropped Jersey, you know, and inherited Brooklyn as their namesake, that changed the entire culture of the franchise, you know, and now you add to the fact that Brooklyn, you know, not only just to the basketball culture is one of the mechas, but you add the fact that you have a team now that it can claim from on a professional level with the name, but also a team in a space that's buying for some attention because the cats up, you know, the cats in Manhattan are doing anything. The cats in Manhattan had been irrelevant for too long. So now the focus is on you and the band and it extends it to the basketball community, but in Brooklyn it goes beyond that. It's the New York community, it's the entire black cultural community, not just in the New York area, but nationally because we're all somehow connected to Brooklyn. You know what I'm saying? We're all especially black folks because of what Brooklyn means and what it represents. There's always some black cultural connectivity to Brooklyn. It's always there. You know, so whether you've been to the borough or not, you feel a sense of connectivity. So you bring all that to the fold. I understand, you know why I rather like you, you know, when the opportunity came left to go from Indiana to Brooklyn, but I'm just saying from a straight up basketball standpoint, when it happened in Brooklyn basketball wise, you get there and all of a sudden it's like flashlight. Yeah, yeah, that's all I'm saying. I like equating things that we see in the sports world, which we glamorize for sure. We're just like everyday life, everyday jobs, you know what I mean? For me to have a successful show, for me to have a successful broadcast, like it means something to me to, you know, to make moves or whatever it may be. It means something, you know. Kobe just an inspired basketball players. He inspires lawyers, inspires people in a number of different fields and I found myself inspired by a number of different people. You being such an amazingly successful journalist, let's go back, you know, your father was a journalist. Was this something that you knew was you were destined to do from an early age? No, not at all, man, not at all. My father was the first Black newspaper reporter in the city of Chicago. He was the first in the country. And I learned earlier, what I did learn earlier on, Michael was the separation between what reporting is and what journalism is. And even though, you know, the lies get blurred and they do marry, they are to certainly be married to each other, but reporting or being a reporter falls under the umbrella of being a journalist. And when I would watch my father or see my father or had a great understanding of what my father did and watch it from the outside because he covered the civil rights movement. And, you know, he covered all the riots in 1968 in Chicago and, you know, he was always on the road in marches dealing with Ralph Fabernathie and Dr. King and just, you know, every, you know, Byron Russert and, you know, we can go out and name all the leaders, you know, and his involvement and especially being one of the only Black reporters on there, his access and his ability to report of what was going on in the front lines, I saw that. But what I also saw was how reporters attack stories and in attacking stories a lot of times, you're attacking human beings. And that's the part that always bothered me. So watching my father as a reporter, I never wanted to be a reporter because in chasing news, you invaded the privacy of individuals and as a young individual, trying to really grasp on what reporting and being a newspaper reporter was, I never connected that because I always saw it as you not giving people space. Like my thing was like, if this person has a story to tell then they should be allowed to tell the story at least on their own terms. So them, you know, rushing people at the courthouse, you know, rolling up and staking out somebody outside their homes, you know, just the whole microphone, camera, tape recorder thing just rushing on people and catching them like in whatever vulnerable moment they happen to be or whatever, you know, going through people's kids is all the stuff I, you know, you saw reporters and that's part of their job, that's what they do. Trying to get a quote, trying to get a story, I couldn't connect with that. But the craft of writing that story I always connected to. And watching my father craft that story. And my mother was, you know, she was educated and she was a phenomenal writer and watching my mother craft stories and reading Alex Haley early on and reading Nelson George thoroughly when I was in college. All those things gave me a greater understanding of journalism, you know, but it wasn't directly related to my father being a reporter because I never wanted to be a reporter. I never wanted to go about getting information in that way. So, you know, I appreciated and understood his craft of writing and telling the stories that he was reporting on. But that wasn't the thing that got me interested. That wasn't the quote unquote bug that led me to lean into being a journalist. You know, but it took me a long time to understand the difference between being a reporter and being a journalist. It's not like, it's not like this is something that was taught to me in school. This is not something that, you know, I sat down and, you know, had discussions with my father about trying to get into this and the other. I was trying to get a whole bunch of things, you know, and writing just, you know, as I got older, I started to really appreciate the craft of writing, you know, and the ability to tell stories, you know. And that comes from like, you know, reading, like I said, from Nelson George to Alex Haley to Gary Smith is supposed to illustrate it to Ralph Wiley, you know, reading some cast me like, oh, so it doesn't have to all be just this way. You know, and you're reading different ways that people are weaving tales and also listening to what's about it later but listening to music and looking at, you know, advertising and looking at television shows and watching movies and understanding all of that starts with writing, you know what I'm saying? It's not just, it's not acting doesn't start from somebody, you know, putting the camera on you, telling you to act. It starts with a script. Somebody has to write that, you know, advertise. I learned one of the greatest story people always ask what got me into this. In school, I was studying a double major in college, political science and mass communications. Once again, not knowing, I just love communications. You know, I want to be a radio DJ. I want, I want to, no, no, not necessarily, I want to be a DJ, but I want to be a radio program director. Because I thought I knew more music than most of the program directors I was hearing across the country. Like, y'all don't know music, I don't know music. So that was always my thing. And then in one class, I forgot what that class was, but Dr. Kent, who was over the communications department at Xavier University, I said to him, I want to get an advertising. He said, okay, so what he did, man, he literally walked up to my desk and put a paper clip on my desk. And he said, all right, tomorrow I want you, well, it was, you know, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So, you know, next class, I want you to give me, I want you to make me cry over this paper clip. I need you to write me something that makes me cry over this paper clip. I'm like, okay, all right, cool, whatever. I didn't understand what he was having to do. So I sat there and I, and I literally came back to this class and like, I got nothing. I like, I don't understand, I never understood what he was talking about. And he explained to me, because I'm like 19, 20 years old, you know, I don't know any better. And he's like, you say you wanted to get an advertising. He's like, your ass is probably sitting at home watching TV and saw a commercial and thought you could do that. That's not advertising. Advertising is me taking something like a paper clip and asking you to make me why I need this paper clip in my life. I have to be emotionally connected to this paper clip. You have to make me want to buy, spend money on this paper clip. That's what advertising is. And I was like, oh, okay. And, but no, but it came from writing. His whole thing, you have to write to make me do this. And that's when I really got an understanding of how what writing was and the role writing plays in everything that we do from a communication standpoint. That's fascinating to hear you say that, Scoop, because the similarities, you know, with me, I wanted to be a radio DJ myself, love music, so fascinated with hip hop. And it's like the one thing that I will, that really stuck with me. And I feel like everything that I experienced and everything that I tried to do, growing up influenced where I'm at right now. And music played a big role in that. That's the beauty of what we contribute to society from a cultural standpoint, you know, and I feel the same way about hip hop the way you do. And, you know, it's not just the words that are delivered by someone like Nas. It's the thought process from my standpoint to put those words down on paper. And not only make them rhyme, but make them make sense. A lot of people can rhyme, but that doesn't mean they make sense, you know what I'm saying? But that's why, you know, we love cats like Nas, we love Chuck D, we love Ice Cube, we love Kendrick, you know what I'm saying? We love cats that put words together that not only rhyme, they not only find a cadence that you just spoke to, but they also make us think and they make more sense below the surface than just being on the surface. When did you know that you loved music? Like not, you know, early memories of music or whatnot, but when did you realize, oh snap, I love music? I have an answer for that, but I'll try to give your artist, but it happened when I was young. And you have to understand this, my mother was, my mother had like a cute glaucoma and she was legally considered blind as a kid. Most of my, I think maybe second grade, I think she was legally considered blind starting my second grade maybe, okay? So basically my childhood, I had to deal with my mother dealing with that, right? And I can't put a date on it, but I realized at one point, I love music when I, in my mind, speaking to myself, I was in my bedroom, you know what I remember, that happened, I can't remember what date or anything. When I was like, I'd rather be blind than deaf because I'd rather be able not to see basketball than hear music. And that's the only thing that kept me like, you know, watching my mother having to deal with a sight situation, you know what I'm saying? But I'm like, I'd rather deal with what she's dealing with than not be able, and it wasn't hearing people talking or anything, because it was sign language. My whole thing was like, I can't not hear music. That's the trump card for me. You know what I'm saying? Music then became, that's when I knew music had held a ridiculous place inside of me. When, you know, that binary decision had to be made on, if you had to either go blind or go deaf, which one would you choose? And I chose to go blind because I couldn't, I couldn't even fathom my life not hearing music. You know, one of the greatest contributors of society we've ever had is funk music. You know, because everybody from like, it's not just George Clinton. It's cameo, it's Prince. You know what I'm saying? It's Kendrick Lamar. The root of where funk is, and you know, come on, man. I can't hear Stanley Clarke play bass. I can't hear Bootsy play bass. I can't listen to Maggie Breen. You know, I can't listen to brothers. You know, all the stuff that came from the funk era and everything that George Clinton does and still does, it has impact to this day. You know, we talked about hip hop. Half of hip hop's whole origin comes from James Brown. And then after that is George Clinton. So all the music we're hearing in hip hop led itself because of what James Brown and George couldn't create it and shaped as funk music. So imagine not being able just to hear that. You know what I'm saying? Now, yes, you would have lost seeing Michael Jordan play basketball. But to me, I can't not hear James Brown. I can not hear Stevie Wonder. I can not not hear, you know what I'm saying? Miles Davis, I can not not hear George Clinton and Bootsy, Parliament Funkadelic and Cameo and the Fatback Band and Lakeside and Confun... You know, dude, don't get me started. And no doubt. And I say this without hesitation. Like, I would not be where I am right now if it wasn't for music that inspired me at a young age, got me through rough days. People talk about like the arrogance in hip hop or whatever, or rapping about being the best or whatever it may be. Fam, I had some days at the radio station where there weren't many black faces and just feeling like I was small. And just before I get ready to walk in, I put... Sounds right time. Yeah, sounds right time. And it just puts me in a mental space where I'm unconcerned with people's opinions and I'm locked into the task of him because I know I'm supposed to be here. You know what I mean? People may walk past me as if, who's he or he's not supposed to be here or who is this? But it just put me in a mind frame. And so it was therapy, it was motivation. It was a number of different things to where if I didn't have that extra oomph, you know what I mean? And for me, we talked about this, grown up in a single-plan household. My dad was not there and my grandfather was very instrument on my life. I had men in my life who were terrific. But that extra oomph, that extra something, you know what I mean? Music really pushed me through in so many different areas. And Mike, I can say this, it was also the genre of music. It wasn't just the music we just got through speaking of. It's specifically directed at hip hop and at arrogance. And my mother always told me, a black man without arrogance in this country. And that is, that's biblical truth. So you being a young man and hip hop being an art form that was feeding itself to your soul, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. As much as it did for you, I think, and tell me if I'm wrong, it also made you feel that you weren't alone. Because other, it wasn't your voice that you were hearing. It was somebody else's, you know, braggadocio. It was their arrogance that you were hearing that validated the way you needed to feel. Yes. So it wasn't just you, you knew you had an entire community that was feeling the same way that you were feeling and feeling the way you needed to feel in order to get where you were going. And that validated, you're like, oh, I'm good. What are these last, what are we now, seven, eight months? What have they been like for you? Have your eyes been open in any way? Have things been reaffirmed in your eyes over the course of this, you know, last six, seven months? Man, for me, Michael, to be honest with you, man, it's been a struggle and not the type of struggle that I think many people would understand in that my eyes have not been open to anything. You know, most people are, like I said, most people are woke, I'm wide awake, then wide awake, you know, maybe too wide awake. I haven't slept, so you know, I ain't slept. So that's been different and it's been a struggle for me to accept, to be honest, it's been a struggle for me to accept being heard because it's exactly to the core of your question is why haven't you heard me before? And I've been, you know, I've been accused of being that person in this industry since I entered into this industry, you know, and I've kind of entered, and I'm one of the few individuals that entered into this industry independently on my own accord. I'm one of the few that have had that, you know, so I've been accused because of that and because I haven't had to, I use Stephen A's word, acquiesce, you know, a certain way as I've navigated my way through this business for the last 25 years, I haven't had to acquiesce to being something that I don't believe in or somebody that conforms in order to reach a certain place. So my viewpoint on this entire situation is rooted to who I am because as I've been accused of this, I also own it. Like the same stuff that we were talking about now, I was writing about and talking about in 1991. And I've been doing this periodically since 1991. So while all of a sudden, in the words of Kanye, why am I getting moved to the front of the store? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm talking about, with Kanye working at the Gap. Oh, Kanye all up in front of the, right, exactly. So why now are the words, why am I at the front of the store now? Why 30 years of doing this and that's, it's hard to deal with, you know what I'm saying? It's hard to deal with and it's hard to deal with accepting the fact that other black individuals come into the forefront acting like they've been here for 30 years, when they have it, you know what I'm saying? They're dealing with that. And we're in a situation now where for the first time in at least our generation, you know, I believe black folks have been listened to, but this is the first time we're being heard. One, you know, we can't remove ourselves from the history of this country and think that, you know, we're going to be heard forever. You know, we got heard in the 60s, we got heard for a short amount of time. You know, so now I'm in a stage like, how long is this going to last? Yeah. Right, right, right. How long is it going to last? Like a battle in Vogue right now. Right, so, right, we're in Vogue right now. This is sexy right now. This is cute right now. When is this going to snap back to another, to the regular white reality that we've been living all this time? You know, so when you ask a question, what has opened my eyes over the last seven months, what have my eyes, my eyes are not open to it. Nothing that it hasn't already been to is just now I'm more at the conflict as to why. And the conclusion I have is that there's always strengthening numbers when it comes to anything in this country. And for, you know, since the 60s, we haven't had the numbers. And what happens in this particular case is that it takes, as it always does with us as Black Americans, it takes tragic events on an unreturnable level for us to be heard. And once we're heard, we're only heard because the numbers are so vast. We don't become a friend's voice. So we have Black individuals who decided throughout their careers in this lane that we're in called sports media or whatever. When we occasionally decide to tell stories that are rooted in race, are rooted in injustice, our voices become fringe. But when something happens, a tragic event that affects our entire race and our entire numbers come behind that, and then you've got a part of white America that understands over a period of time, it's almost like water torture, the water breaks and they, oh, I finally get what they've been saying for the last 30, it hits me now. When you add that to the mix, now those numbers are strong enough for us to be heard. And that's why the change is happening now because now it's not just Scoop Jackson. It's not just Mike Grady. It's not just Stuart Scott. It's not just Jameil Hill. It's not just Stephen A. Smith. You know, it's not, you know, whoever. We can name all type of names of people in this industry, you know, who have let their voices to what injustices have occurred in sports, have occurred in America, have occurred in society, have occurred directly towards us, have occurred to this industry that we've said over the course of all of our careers, now that it's not just us, we're not fringe anymore. Now it's all of us, you know, because everybody seems to be in on this because now the numbers are great. But to me, that's not, I can't speak for you, but that's not my eyes waking up. That's what you need, like, okay, the reason it's happening now is because now numbers are in. And usually when it comes to things in this country, and we could direct this to like the Me Too movement, is the numbers give you a safe space where you didn't have that type of safety before. And my biggest problem with that is that everybody speaks to having uncomfortable conversations. When are they gonna translate that into living unsafe in order to get things done? Because in my mind, the way we have been treated as black individuals in our existence in this country has not changed at all. It's getting exposed a little bit more, but it hasn't changed. So while I've been out here since 1991, while you've been out here, and there's a whole lot of other brothers and sisters who've been out here doing this, you know, all this time, why am I supposed to like be open arms with you all now? But we did the unsafe travel. Is the thing, before like people throw their hands up and be like, ah, well, forget it then. I guess it's okay. Yeah, it's okay. You'll never understand. It's fine, right, it's fine. Don't, you know, don't act like you have a complete full understanding because that's impossible. The stories that, you know, your parents told you, the things that you've experienced, the stories that, you know, your parents' parents told you, you know, my experience with what my mom, you know, had to go through, the stories that my grandparents still tell me, you know, to this day, it's just different. Yeah. And that's okay that you can't be, you know, put yourself in our shoes or have a full understanding, but it's just the understanding that you don't. So Michael, it's the respect. It's the respect. I'm gonna ask you to put yourself in my shoes. I'm gonna ask you to respect the fact that I have shoes. And my shoes are just as good as yours. That's the problem we have. I don't mind you being white. I don't mind you being whatever. I don't care. All we're asking for is respect who we are. Not respect who you want us to be. Expect who we are. You just said, the stories your mother took, the stories your grandmother, Michael, those are our stories. Those are things you still carry with you. And they need to understand that all of that is in us. Yes, it's because of you all that we got to carry this. You know what I'm saying? But these aren't just stories. This is all inside of me. So all we're saying now, I'm not about to use the word asking, which is the one word to ask. All we're saying is respect that. That's all. Respect it for everything that it is. Don't minimize it. Don't diminish it. Don't reject it. Don't dismiss it. Respect it for what it is. And we'll be fine. Really, that's all it is. But here's the problem, man, is that in this country though, respect and getting that type of respect comes with them relinquishing power. And that is the most impossible thing that can happen in America. No doubt. No doubt. Pump the book again. Oh yeah, the game is not a game. The politics, protest and power of American sports. It was released last year in March, still available through Haymarket Books and Amazon and all of a sudden the other. But Haymarket is the publisher. And it was one of those books that I finished writing. I finished writing it in 2018. It wasn't published. We did some remixes in 2019. It didn't get published until 2020. And it's one of those unique situations where the stuff that I wrote about and was writing about and focused the book about in 2018 came to a front in 2020 with all the civil and social unrest that we had to deal with. Because it's looking at America through the lens of sports and the power that sports has in every different way of life, really. And I end this on you to appreciate this because I wrote the book and this is for real, for real. This is no be it. This is for real, for real. I wrote the book wanting it to be in structure and tone and deliverance as Nas's Illmatic album. Get out. And seriously, it was nine chapters, just like nine songs you say as an introduction. Nine songs, all diverse, none of them sounding the same, but sequenced beautifully. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. And when I submitted the book to the publisher, that was our conversation. I'm like, this is what, this is Nas's album Illmatic is what this, I want this book to be Nas's version of Illmatic. That's it. And they loved it. But then they were like, scoop, there still needs to be, there's a couple more stories you need to get into. So that's why it's like 13 chapters. And I had to add four more. But I really wanted it to be like Nas's album is tight. There's no jumping chapters, no jumping, it's like, you know what I'm saying? So you talked about Nas earlier and I just had this. I thought it was like kidding that, you know, you ask about the book and really the whole, and to use, but honestly it's worth, formation of the book is rooted in Nas's Illmatic. Man, I love it. I love it. And I appreciate you, man. And my brother, we have to do this again.