 My name is Lord Jamar. I'm known from a rap group called Brand Nubian who came into the game, into the rap game around 1989. We had a classic rap album called All for One, which earned five mics in a source, which was pretty special at the time. We've gone on to put other classic albums out. A lot of hit songs. I myself have gone on to be involved in film projects, TV projects. I was on Oz, Third Watch, I've done Sopranos, Law & Order. I am a producer. I produced for other artists such as Elton Skelter, OGC. I discovered the group Dead Prez. I put them out. Yeah, you know, I'm just all around hip-hop. You know what I mean? Duel. I'm an historian and an entrepreneur. I started music. Definitely came first. I started as a DJ. You know, I'd go from selling tapes to kids at school. Then it moved into doing house parties, DJing at house parties. Then we, you know, DJing at maybe the high school parties and stuff like that. And running up on mics and stuff. Then I started rhyming. So now I'm running up on mics and block parties and stuff like that. I used to be a street type of dude where I was like, you know, dealing in some illegal activities. And a lot of my friends were getting locked up at that time. And so I had to decide, do I want to pursue my goal, which is to make a record? Because that's all it really was at that time. Just make a record and hear your music on the radio. It wasn't even trying to be rich and all that often. You just want to make a record, hear your stuff on the radio and hopefully artists that you respect will like your music. That's what we was into it for. So it was like in order to do that, I'm gonna have to stop doing this. You know what I mean? But doing that, you know, who don't want to be flashy and all that and have jewels and all that type of stuff. So it's like, I had to put that to the side and just get a little regular job for a while. You know what I mean? Until it popped off. And that's what I did. But always having my goal in mind, I never took a job feeling like, oh, I'm gonna get stuck here for the rest of my life because I always had a plan. And that was just a stepping stone to my plan. I mean, as soon as I started DJing, I realized that I was nicer. I was just as good or maybe nicer than people that I'm hearing on records and stuff like that. You know what I mean? And then once I started rhyming, I evaluated the same thing. I'm hearing people with records and stuff. I'm like, I'm better than this dude. Like, he made a record. How did that happen? You know what I mean? So I don't know. At some point, I was like, I'm gonna make a record. You know what I mean? Like, if he could do it, I could do it. You know what I mean? And he was a whole different bunch of people. And the first one to approach me was my man, Darryl Seed, from the Crash Crew, resting piece. He's the first one that really approached me. It was like, yo, I want to make a record with you. You know, it might have been like 16, 17 at the time. You know, but they were going through their own things. They were kind of at the end of their career at the time. He wasn't really in a position to put me on and then like that. You know? But then I met Puba shortly after because we were from the same town, whatever. And then he approached me like, yeah, I think you dope. I want to work with you. Try to make a record with you, whatever. Yeah. So, so having those affirmations from people who already made records was inspirational, too. Because you could start second guessing yourself and self-doubting yourself. You know what I mean? But it's like when you get a reinforcement from people that you look up to, it's like that gives you that energy and that fuel. Like, keep going. Like, I know I'm not bugging. I know, you know what I mean? That I am supposed to be doing. I thought the rap shit was going to kind of just make me, somebody's going to see me and be like, oh, I want to put you in the film. You know what I mean? And then time went by that never really happened until I said it out loud. See, that's something that helps things happen in the universe when you say things out loud. You know what I mean? Because you could think things in your head. When you say it out loud, that's what makes it real. So as soon as I said it out loud, I said to my manager, like, you know, I want to be in some films or whatever. Like, get me on something, man. See, you know, all these rappers that I know can't act as good as me and they're in all these, you know what I mean? Movies and TV shows. I'm like, get me in something. You know what I mean? So he didn't know what to do, but he ended up sending us to like the premiere of The Sopranos. When it was first coming out, like, you know what I mean? Nobody knew what it was going to be in nothing. So we went there and it was all these people from Oz was at the premiere, you know what I mean? Turns out a lot of them were fans of brand new, you know what I mean? So we get cool with some of the people from Oz, you know what I mean? I get cool with my man Dean Winters and do their play O'Reilly. And we just kicking it, you know what I mean? For the next maybe year. So just, you know, like, go to a couple of parties here and there. We talk on the phone. He was mad cool. We invited us down to the set. And he was like, yo, you want to get in the scene right now? Y'all can get in the background and some extras or whatever. I said, nah, I'm thinking in my mind when I when I'm on this show, I'm gonna really be on this show. Like, because I love the show Oz before I even met these two. I was like, I kind of meditated myself onto that show. Like, seriously. Um, so yeah, then he hit me up. He was just like, yo, what you want to be on the show? I was like, oh yeah. It's me up again. Another time he's like, yo, the creator, you know, he wants to meet with you. I had already met two of them at some parties or something. He's like, yo, he wants to meet with you. Boom, bam, boom, goes down there. Now he's just talking to me like I'm on the show already. All we got to do is figure out what my character is and how I got in there. You know what I mean? I have to read nothing. That's what's history. Any other rapper that was on the only did two episodes was the most. You know, it was quite a few rappers on the LL group, J, Tret, all the time on, you know what I mean? But I did 12 episodes. As long as any rapper was on that show. The first step is just really believing in yourself, assessing yourself realistically. Because there's a lot of people that want to do that, do certain things that are not cut out for you. You know what I mean? You got to be real with yourself to once you assess yourself and you feel like I just someone want to do and other people have reinforced you nice, you know, make it happen. You just got to make yourself known. However, that may be like, you know what I mean? Making YouTube video like be creative. Like, you know what I mean? It's not really one way to do it. And in your, in your immediate radius, you know what I mean? Where you come from, if those people are not supporting you, that's a problem. You can't do it all on your own. So you are going to need the love and support of certain people around you like to make it to make that fire. You know what I mean? But the spark comes from you. You know what I mean? The spark comes from you. And you got to spark that to make other people get the spark and then cause inferno. I mean, so you just be creative with how you come with it. I mean, photoshop you up with a flyer or you can put out your own mixtape or you know, your own DVD and a lot of this stuff doesn't even have to be a lot of money. You don't have to press it up if you don't want to post it somewhere. Let people download it. You know what I mean? Like, just be creative and work within. You know what I mean? Your budget. When I first started DJing, I had mitchmatch turntables and all of that that didn't stop me from DJing. Like, I did what I had to do. Like, you know what I mean? Other dudes had to fly equipment. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah, I had to work with I but I'm better than you though. You got the better equipment. You see what I'm saying? Like, put in the in the long run. I ain't got mitchmatch turntables You know what I mean? Like, you probably even got no more turntables. What's that all? You know what I mean? It's all the power of the mind. You know what I mean? The power of the mind manifest. Hey yo, peace. This is Lord Jamal, brand new being in the house with my man crime. You checking out PS, we the best dot com. That's how we do it. One