 You seem pretty emotionally intelligent, pretty sensitive to women's issues. Obviously, you wouldn't be able to have put your brand together if not. Do you think that in a dating marketplace that those men, I guess men like you, I don't know if we can use you specifically because you kind of have that balance, but men with that position, do you think they garner respect from black women in the dating marketplace? Like, let's just, men like a Derrick Jackson. Right, like a Derrick Jackson. And what kind of way is, how big he is, you know? I mean, it is what it is. OK, well, like a Derrick Jackson, let's not take it away. He's earned his name being involved in certain conversations. Yeah, I mean, I would look at a Derrick Jackson picture, like not knowing what comes out of his mouth and be like, he looks like a pretty masculine man. Yeah, OK. But then, like, you know, he starts to talk. So you mean, as far as his position on the does that position garner respect from black women? That sensitivity, you know that? Absolutely. OK. I think a garner's more respect than the man is fair. OK. Yeah, absolutely. Even though the man is fair, it calls him simp and he's a pandorer and this and that. But that's what pandering gets you. Like, there'll be no point of pandering if it didn't get you the love and respect of the people you're pandering to. So absolutely. Like, telling somebody what they want to hear is always going to put you in a good place. OK. Do you think that telling and I'm not pushing back on you because I love that brand. I think it's dope. You've worked really hard. But do you think that that pandering has helped black women in seeing the reality? Because, like you said, they get lost in the sauce. They don't believe. I do think it's helped. I absolutely, I've been a part of. They'll be like me saying I haven't helped. I think I've helped. I think I think Derek Jackson has helped. I think people who inspire women every day to pick up the pieces and move on have helped. The problem is not in telling them to do these things. The problem is in them overdosing on these things. Like I said, too much of everything is not good. You know what I mean? So Derek Jackson has absolutely helped. But Kevin Samuels has also helped, too. And I think the fact that people would try to discredit people like Kevin Samuels and say he hasn't helped is unfair. Because there's an audience they need to hear what he's saying the same way there's an audience they need to hear what Derek Jackson is saying. He's helping the people who need his help. No different from Kevin Samuels is helping the people that need his life. You know what I'm saying? Everyone doesn't need the same treatment. You understand? We all need the same treatment. So I think they're both very necessary. I agree. I agree. And I think that with our society, we are very fixated on absolutes. If something's good, then it's good. And if it's bad, then it's bad. And there's no balance between the two. And maybe we don't have the emotional intelligence to take what we need from those different pockets and use it like we did in school. So I 100% agree with that. For you, has your sexuality ever come into question when you didn't act stereotypically masculine or when a woman disagreed with you? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think. And even that's to both because there's kind of two questions there. For sure. Didn't fit and then the disagree. Didn't fit, yes. Disagree, also yes. And I actually had this conversation from less than 48 hours ago. And we were talking about how the black male masculinity is the most fragile thing in America, like literally the most fragile thing in America. Because if you don't fit into the mode of what, and typically the mode is street. The mode for black man is street, hood. Give you an example. If you're in the mall and a white man walks past you with a suit on, you don't think anything of it. If you're in the mall and a black man walks past you with a suit on, why does he have a suit on? Like what's wrong with a black man with a suit? You understand what I'm saying? So not being a street as a black man has already raised as an eyebrow. Like why are you not street? You're not black enough. So I definitely get, I live in Baltimore. And I definitely don't dress like the dudes in Baltimore. I don't talk street. I never try to be a street person. That's far from who I am. So absolutely, that's common for me. And as far as a black man being questioned, if he doesn't agree, I think look at any black man who's ever said anything that black women didn't agree with. If it wasn't to stay out of black women's conversation, if you want to be a black woman, just say that. Or he's secretly like man because why is he talking? Like you have to be gay. That's always the go-to. It's always the go-to. Like the black male masculinity is the most fragile thing in America. Black women will throw that card out so fast because they feel it's the most offensive thing they can call a straight black man is gay. Like there's nothing that can hit harder than that. So if I'm gay. Let's talk about that then. How does that make you feel? Because I'm sure that you've experienced that before. I think every black man probably has. How does that make you feel? For the black women listening. How does that make me personally feel? Or how did that make you feel? I'm so high on who I am that... Okay, let me give you... I actually have a perfect story for this, right? I walked into a strip club with one of my friends. One of my homeboys, right? He's fresh off of work. He works in DC corporate, corporate jobs. So he's like in tie, slacks, whatever. He's like in corporate worker tie. So we're going to a strip club. We're chilling. We're not being rowdy. It's a bunch of hood people in the strip club as well. We're not being rowdy. We chilling. We kicking and sharing drinks and just being calm. He tries to do what niggas do at strip clubs. He talked into the strip club. Kicking his worst game ever. And so she goes, oh, y'all not together? And he's like, yeah, we came here together. Like what you mean? She's like, nah, like I thought y'all were like together. Like, like yeah. Does she give you a reason? I'm getting to that. So he goes, man, hell no. So he goes, no, but out of curiosity, like why would you even, you know what I'm saying? So no bullshit. This is what she said. She said, well, you're in here. You dress like him saying, like you got a good job. And then you're not talking to me with a lot of slang and stuff. So he's like, that can't be it. So her follow up question was, do you got any kids? He was like, nah. She was like, oh, you got to be gay. And mind you, I'm not in the conversation, but I'm eavesdropping because I want to hear it. Like I want to hear what's going on. And she literally says, you got a good job. You don't got no kids out of marriage. And what's the last thing she said? Oh, like, yeah, you're dressed like in corporate, whatever attire. She like, something got to be wrong with you. Yo, and he got so upset. And I looked at him and I said, bro, you got to understand it's not even her fault. Like she's conditioned to feel like there's only one way a black man can be. A straight black man. Yeah, there's only one way a straight black man can be. And I was like, bro, you can't even, because I've heard it more than once. So at some point, something my sister said to me registered, like you don't get mad at somebody who's mentally challenged for showing that they're mentally challenged. Like they can't help themselves. And I was like, yo, you can't get mad at him, mad at her for thinking this because she's conditioned to think this, like she doesn't know any better. This is all she sees is what she's been taught. She was a blank canvas when she came to this world. This is the information that was fed into her. So it's not really her fault. Now, hopefully at some point in life, she'll leave her little neighborhood and she'll see more. And she'll realize that black men are not a monolith. You understand what I'm saying? But yeah, like black men get called, everything, gay and everything, she's just not being, you know, this mode of black men masculinity in America. You think that if that was two white men, she would have thought the same thing? Nobody bats an eye when white men walk in with corporate attire and talk like they have a college education. No one bats an eye at that. You're supposed to dress that way as a white man and speak properly. But as a black man, you're not. And to be clear, this idea of black male masculinity is pushed more by black women than it is by black men. If we're being honest, I have a lot of, like, again, I live in Baltimore. I got hood friends. I got friends that sell drugs. I got friends that scam. I got friends from all walks of life. And none of them push this idea of black male masculinity. It's typically women. So what is masculinity to you? I'll tell you what it's not. It's not how you talk. It's not how you dress. Masculinity is handling what you're supposed to handle as a man, first of all. Like, and then it goes back to basic instincts. High stress situations, how do you react? Are you a protector or you a provider? You understand what I'm saying? Like, it goes back to the double standards that I said life is about, with gender roles. I don't think masculinity is what kind of music you listen to. You understand what I'm saying? Like, if I want to drive down the chute with Taylor Swift blasting, I shouldn't be looked at like, yo, you gotta be gay. Why are you listening to Taylor Swift? I like that song. Classic red lifts, but I like it. That's my shade against heavy rotation. You understand what I'm saying? But masculinity in the black community, like it's so, we'll be having this conversation all day. So, I don't know. On your page, Pohetic Styles, you post a range of different things. I want you to talk a little bit more about the reaction you get when you post sexual content versus non-sexual content and why you think one might get more attention than the other. Start there. Even when I was a poet, like, not even when I was a poet. When I was a younger poet, when I was coming up, before I was on Instagram, and back when I would do open mics, I realized that sexual poems from like the other poets were like almost like an easy way to get a reaction. It was like a cheat code. I never had a sexual, I never did a sexual poem. Like, every time I performed, I never, till this day, I've never written a sexual poem because I felt like it's such an easy way to get a reaction out of people. Especially in this day and age, I feel like everything is hypersexualized. I just think everything is just sex, like literally everything. So I mean, naturally, if I post a meme that's centered around sex or in any way, shape or form, it garners a quicker response than the other ones or whatever else that I might post. But that's, again, that's just where we are. I don't think that's something any of us have control over at this point. I think there's been, with the whole women empowerment thing, that I feel like a lot of things get shoved under that umbrella that shouldn't necessarily be under that umbrella. That's where we are. I always say all the time, have you noticed that, and this might be a controversial thing to say, have you noticed that a lot of times women tend to be the ones on Instagram talking about sex more than men? Like, if I had a dollar for every time I heard a woman brag about her vagina or how wet it was, and how it was the... First of all, I've never met a woman who didn't think her vagina was the wettest thing ever. But I tend to see that more often than men. Like, I've never seen a poster of managers on Instagram bragging about the size of his penis or what his penis is like. We don't see that. Men don't get on Instagram talking about my dick is gold. Well, women tend to, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I often see women bragging about their vagina. Like, that's a common trend. And I think women it's just become a more of a topic for women than even for men, sex. Why? You know, I'm gonna have to ask why. Why do you think, you know what I mean by that? Why do I think that? Why do you think that women are on social media talking about their what, quote unquote? To be fair, for the reason that men go on Instagram and talk about their money and their lifestyle, I feel like that's what they wanna lead with. Sure, I mean, I guess. Yeah, you know. You think what side do you think is more harmful? If, I guess we just did say it was equal comparison. Do you think that? I don't think it's harmful if you get the bizarre as you want. I think it's counterproductive when you do it and then complain about the results. Like, for instance, a man leading with his money and then getting back on that same social media and saying, damn, man, I mean, women only wanna date me for my money. Okay, that's what you're leading with. So it'd be the same as a woman who's on social media all the time bragging about her vagina and then getting back on that social media and saying, these niggas in my DMs just wanna fuck. Okay, you know what I mean? So I feel like it's only harmful when you complain about what comes with it. Now, if you're getting the results that you want, man, keep doing your thing, it's not awful. Who is it harming? Post whatever you want. Yeah, black people, I think that we need to learn consistency. And if we are, as a collective wanna say, we wanna be better and black lives matter. And all the negative stuff that they wanna get on Instagram and preach, then we have to hold women that go and talk about their WAP or men that are just flashing money and being negligent. They got three kids at the crib with three different baby mamas. We have to hold them accountable. For sure. So there's no picking and choosing when we want to find it cute and when we don't. Yeah. Now, let me ask you, because you wouldn't make sexual content. I wish I could see it, but you wouldn't make sexual poetry if you didn't feel like there was a place for sexuality within the feminine aura. No, it wasn't that. I just didn't make it because I wanted to challenge myself. Again, I knew if I wrote a sexual poem, it's gonna be an easy win. You know what I mean? I saw the worst poems, the worst poets get on stage and say the worst sexual poem and the only reason they got a reaction was because it was sexual. Like they just get on there and say how they love eating vagina. It's gonna get a reaction. It can be the shittiest poem ever, but it's gonna get a reaction from women. That's easy. I wanna challenge myself to be more creative than that. You know what I mean? That was the reason I never did it. It wasn't because I thought it was no place for it. I mean, I performed in front of adults, so there was definitely a place for it. I just didn't wanna do it for my personal reason. Okay, all right. Well, this is gonna be the last question. I'm gonna cut and tie it into the topic we were talking about, what kind of son or daughter do you plan to raise? So, if you were to have a daughter, what would you say to her if she was the type of woman who felt as though putting her wop on Instagram was cute? If you were to her daddy, you sat down, sat on the bed, what would you say to her? I would tell her how men think. I think as a father, the kind of father that I wanna be, I don't wanna be the father that makes decisions for my children. I wanna be the father that gives them all this information so that they know what comes with whatever decision they make, whichever route they go, and then they can make that decision for themselves. Like, this is what comes with that. Cause at the end of the day, when they leave your house, that's what they're going to do. They're gonna make decisions for themselves. So it's best that you give them all the information, all the shit that people don't like tell you, you know what I mean? Because there's a lot of shit that, information that I've realized that women didn't have growing up, and that's why they don't understand men like at all. You know what I mean? So, which goes back to men not even being in a household to even tell their daughters these things. Like, this is how men think. Like, you can do this, but this is what's gonna come with that. And I think that's important. Like, if you wanna show your booty off online and you know, that's cool, that's fine. If you wanna do that at a certain age, that's cool. But I'm gonna give you all this information so you know what comes with that. And then, when you become a younger adult, you make your own decisions. But I can't make your decisions for you. It's your life you got, but you gotta live it what comes with, whatever. And that would be the same for my son. Like, this is what comes with this. Men are gonna look at you like this or they're gonna look at you like that. Is black love a worthwhile pursuit? Absolutely, I'm Luke Lee. I don't care how hard to shake it, man. I love love, I love black women. I think this shit is absolute because if not, then what is? You understand? Like, your job that you wanted, your dream job, you applied to a lot of different companies. You didn't get one, you kept going, you kept applying, you kept sending your resume because you felt a job was worth it. Why don't you think your potential partner is worth it? I think it's absolutely worth it. I feel like love is the one thing that you gotta always get up and try again because all it takes is one. Your happy ending is one successful relationship away. Always. So I feel like it's absolutely worth it. I think it's the one thing nobody should ever give up on. Like, absolutely not. Like, no. And I also think people should stop trying to take five years to heal. Speed that process up because our time on Earth is limited.