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Van Lathan on New Book, Death of His Father, Unlearning The Culture, 9th Wonder, Lizzo and more
May 2, 2022
Van Lathan on Sway In The Morning breaks down where the culture is as he promotes his new book Fat, Crazy, and Tired: Tales from the Trenches of Transformation. And he shared thoughts of conversations with his father who passed last year!
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Van Lathan on Unlearning The Culture, Club House Talk wth 9th Wonder, Lizzo, Being Black and More
https://youtu.be/aeHud-eGQug
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0:00
[Applause]
0:00
man that voice right to tracy
0:02
tracy when i said he was coming on and
0:05
i didn't have the book
0:08
tracy said it doesn't matter man
0:11
you can make conversation with this man
0:13
about any and everything it's not his
0:15
first time on the show heather b okay
0:17
he's been here before
0:19
i'm a big fan of his
0:21
i watch his podcast and i'll watch him
0:23
pontificate in such an eloquent way yes
0:26
very thoughtful multi-layered in his
0:28
comprehension
0:30
and his cognitive skills i'll get this
0:33
man right here
0:35
i give you an a-plus at what you do oh
0:37
man i appreciate that tremendously
0:39
authentic in it you don't pull punches
0:42
you ask interesting questions
0:44
the man called me one day and i was
0:46
really at peace that day i didn't want
0:48
to i'm at peace sometimes when i block
0:50
out industry and any type of cultural
0:52
conversation that's yeah just swimming
0:55
upstream you know headlines and all that
0:59
and the man called me and asked me a
1:00
really
1:01
interesting question about
1:05
about white rappers in here yeah i have
1:07
to know
1:09
are we able to hear it now i'm curious
1:14
the question was so
1:15
i this was during my my clubhouse phase
1:18
right wow i was just talking about
1:20
clubbing right this was during my
1:21
clubhouse phase so we had a whole room
1:24
where it was me royce the five nine
1:27
glasses malone mouse jones a bunch of
1:28
people shout out to mouse jones shout
1:30
out to mouse man that's amazing so we we
1:32
we're having this conversation about
1:35
uh bishop agante everybody's on there
1:36
we're having this conversation about do
1:38
the white people belong in hip-hop or
1:40
white people hip-hop and mouse
1:42
mouse is such a savage that mouse would
1:44
just be like no white people i don't
1:46
care yeah their mouth said that yeah
1:48
mouse would be and so we're having this
1:50
conversation wait what was his reason
1:55
no no white people i don't care whatever
1:57
they are if they're white it's ours get
1:58
out no i don't care i don't care what
2:00
you say i don't like and i'm and it's
2:01
funny because he's he still represents
2:04
that youthful incendiary energy
2:06
that i had when i was that age but now
2:08
i'm like let's find the answer before we
2:11
just throw the grenade and let
2:12
everything blow up right because he was
2:14
like
2:15
he might also just be like eminem sucks
2:17
uh little dinky sucks everybody sucks
2:19
like whoever is out there doing it they
2:20
suck whatever like they're white they
2:22
didn't belong so we're having this big
2:24
room and everybody's coming in back when
2:26
you can have like a real substantive
2:27
conversation on there and
2:29
ninth wonder comes into the room
2:32
and nice wonder comes into the room and
2:34
he blows everybody's mind
2:36
with the
2:37
uh
2:38
with the historical analysis of hip-hop
2:41
that he gives
2:42
in terms of who is involved in the
2:44
inception of hip-hop
2:46
like he starts talking about some kind
2:47
of um
2:49
some kind of uh drum machine 808.
2:52
the lin drum he says you know just let
2:54
you know like a white dude invented that
2:56
drum machine drum
2:58
and everybody's like
2:59
what
3:01
you know what i mean and he's looking at
3:02
it from a different way and i talk on
3:04
the phone and i wonder what knife wonder
3:05
takes you all the way back to hip-hop to
3:08
like
3:08
the earliest days of in the bronx and
3:12
how lbj had like a
3:15
say in or how government policies
3:18
influenced the creation of hip-hop how
3:20
they smush people together and the
3:21
culture sprang out of it so we're having
3:24
this conversation and i'm like man i got
3:25
to get more ammo on this i got i got to
3:26
call sway
3:28
got it okay i gotta call sway and i
3:30
asked way we're not gonna talk about
3:31
what we talked about i asked way about a
3:33
couple of specific rappers and i didn't
3:35
realize this about suede
3:37
sway is a hip-hop militant
3:39
sway understands the culture but he is
3:42
very protective of the culture and when
3:44
you talk to somebody like that
3:47
those are the conversations that you
3:48
have when you're talking about where you
3:50
want things to go
3:51
and how you need things to be
3:54
sway has a very very
3:56
concrete
3:57
set of rules and it has nothing to do
3:59
with race that you have to do to become
4:02
and be thought of as hip-hop and i left
4:04
the conversation smarter so if i leave
4:06
one conversation with you smarter every
4:09
time i want to get smarter i'ma call you
4:10
again
4:11
you know what i mean and so like that's
4:12
that's what happened with night wonder
4:13
and then i was trying to get them to do
4:15
a show about it i was saying that all
4:16
right you remember you did it
4:19
i called them up i was like bro people
4:20
don't know this stuff that y'all be
4:22
talking about right between i was like
4:23
we need to do a show you and ninth
4:26
wonder taking people through what
4:28
hip-hop really is is because the further
4:30
we get removed from what it is that
4:31
you're talking about i think that could
4:33
be explained as to why a lot of the
4:35
culture seems a little aimless right now
4:38
sometimes because i don't think people
4:39
are into the foundation
4:41
the foundation of it and and um
4:44
nathan and i actually
4:45
started a conversation because of van
4:48
wow about doing this so that's still up
4:50
in the air you know i just had yeah yeah
4:52
i just had ninth ninth came on the show
4:54
last month when we uh did the show and
4:56
when we broadcasted out of l.a we had
4:58
young guru we had guru and knife wonder
5:00
playing beats for our cipher so it's
5:02
still up in the air and i was
5:05
um i was very stimulated by the
5:07
conversation because it was so out the
5:09
blue and guys like ninth and me don't
5:12
get to have these conversations because
5:14
people don't want to dig that deep once
5:16
you go beyond
5:17
the yards of what they know then i've
5:19
seen is we tend to lose i find that
5:22
people tend to i tend to lose lose their
5:24
attention
5:25
once i go that deep where van was like
5:27
oh [ __ ] word really yeah and i didn't
5:30
even spill
5:32
not really
5:33
but but viewers but you changed my
5:35
perception on it because
5:37
sometimes i think if you nice that's
5:39
hip-hop
5:40
i think if you're
5:43
i don't think people understand like i'm
5:45
from louisiana right
5:47
and a lot of people think
5:49
that their soup is gumbo
5:51
it's not
5:52
you know what i mean a lot of people
5:54
think that they're super gumbo you make
5:55
you make a little uh you half-ass a roux
5:59
you drop some
6:00
some wal-mart ball shrimp in there and a
6:02
couple of franks and you go like try my
6:04
gumbo and we look at you and you like we
6:06
go you know what you're not one of us
6:13
yeah god bless you you're not one of us
6:15
um
6:16
because if you make
6:18
a gumbo can be many different things but
6:20
you know it when you have it right and
6:22
there are rules and guidelines and
6:25
you know we just out here in the
6:26
wilderness in a lot of ways wow like we
6:28
do we out here in the wilderness in a
6:29
lot of ways and having that conversation
6:31
i'm not saying mouse's perspective
6:33
you know mouse is a he's a flamethrower
6:35
i'm not saying this perspective isn't
6:36
valid i'm not saying that uh glasses who
6:39
is like a another flamethrower i'm not
6:41
saying that any of these perspectives
6:42
are invalid i'm just saying that like
6:44
there's more information yeah context
6:47
right yeah the term hater
6:49
destroyed all of that
6:52
absolutely in my opinion people you have
6:54
to be really secure who you are as a a
6:57
person an emcee artist man whatever to
7:00
be able to state these facts and say
7:03
these different things and you had to be
7:05
there
7:06
people got afraid to say certain things
7:08
because they didn't want to be called a
7:10
hater or be called old oh
7:12
all of these different things so it made
7:14
people
7:15
actually
7:16
destroy the history a little bit because
7:19
it's like nah go ahead with that old
7:20
head [ __ ] nobody want to hear that old
7:22
[ __ ] you're a hater such and such and
7:23
such but it's like it's not hate this is
7:25
what happened these are the rules these
7:27
are the guidelines to your point about
7:30
gumbo you know and and i'm just trying
7:32
to stand on that this person is not the
7:34
greatest or the top five they didn't
7:36
write how could you how could you call
7:38
yourself an emcee and you didn't write
7:41
the songs that we know and love
7:43
nah bruh i don't care how many plaques
7:45
by your name so but that would be
7:47
considered
7:48
because you saw that conversation came
7:51
up years ago when people was arguing
7:53
over writing and
7:54
non-writers and all of this and we're
7:56
like huh why is this not even an
7:58
argument and it only applies to hip-hop
8:00
by the way it only applies to hip-hop
8:02
so also let me ask you a question though
8:04
does it it only applies to hip-hop but
8:06
does it even apply because
8:09
i think if only because we talked about
8:11
that too it only applies to hip-hop but
8:12
then on top of that there are even rules
8:14
within hip-hop for that right
8:16
yeah it's like if you're because we know
8:18
that if you if you do most of your
8:20
damage on the production side of things
8:22
then we don't we don't hold you to the
8:24
same standard that we would hold like
8:26
yeah nas or kendrick to right you
8:29
wouldn't if you if we all know that like
8:31
hove wrote still dre
8:34
but drake contributes so much we don't
8:36
care if drake we don't care
8:44
right top three emcs though so this so
8:47
even that right there it's like
8:50
if you if you watch basketball
8:52
and you watch the color commentary on
8:54
the basketball game right mm-hmm that
8:56
color commentary is for entertainment
8:58
it's to help a novice follow the game
8:59
right
9:00
but if you leave there and you watch
9:03
detail
9:04
that the late great kobe bryant had on
9:06
espn plus that's awesome that is that is
9:08
to make a novice an expert and those are
9:11
two different things to do right
9:13
like making sure that a novice can watch
9:15
the game and and know what's going on
9:17
okay that's the elbow that's the nail
9:20
that's the left wing that's the right
9:21
wing but
9:22
that wasn't kobe what kobe was trying to
9:24
do kobe was trying to take you as a
9:26
novice and make you appreciate the game
9:28
more by giving you some expertise on it
9:30
my thing is who's doing that for the
9:32
culture you know what i'm saying and i
9:34
know that people are out there but and
9:36
the reason why i say that is like i
9:38
don't think that's a conversation that
9:39
people want to have do people really
9:40
want to know because rap hip-hop means
9:42
so much different things to so many
9:44
different people
9:45
that they want to consume it the way
9:47
they consume it and not really be
9:49
concerned with like where it comes from
9:52
but at a point
9:53
it's kind of if you don't know the
9:55
history and the foundation to something
9:56
it's kind of like saying you love jesus
9:58
and then not reading the bible yeah
10:01
like you you at some point you gotta
10:03
know the rules and you gotta know why it
10:05
is you're doing what you're doing you
10:06
know i feel like things went left when
10:08
we started labeling it a young man's
10:10
sport
10:11
i think that is where the ageism became
10:15
um
10:16
a center point in hip-hop and i also
10:19
think the word sport made it so
10:21
competitive where it's like i don't care
10:23
about what you did i'm trying to
10:24
actually wipe out annihilate your legacy
10:27
it always kind of been called a sport
10:29
like even in the in the 90s it's always
10:31
been kind of been referred to as that
10:33
but even to that term the young man
10:35
that's all hater like it all came around
10:37
the haters but there's no other genre
10:39
that calls it a young man's sport but
10:42
look at how look it was never a young
10:44
man's sport
10:46
look how old curtis blow was when he
10:48
came into the fold look at grandmaster
10:51
flash in the furious fight absolutely
10:53
how old jay-z was when he put out
10:55
reasonable doubt so that to man i wish i
10:58
could be
10:59
aged getting to what he did right now
11:01
[ __ ] out of here but that was labeled
11:04
that was the labels coming in absolutely
11:06
and they was basing who they signed
11:09
on on their age demographic
11:12
more so than they were on their talent
11:14
and so that became a part of it too but
11:17
van you
11:18
and i i want to kind of tie this into
11:20
fat crazy and tired tales from the
11:22
trenches of transformation first of all
11:24
that clip we played was an audio clip
11:26
from this book this book this book is
11:28
available now citizens get to get it get
11:31
the book fat crazy and tired tell us
11:33
from the changes of transformation
11:35
out now
11:37
yeah okay couple things i want to
11:39
actually come back to that clip sure but
11:41
i heard you talk about um
11:43
the the nature of this book and and what
11:46
motivated it and the fact that you had
11:48
to
11:49
unlearn
11:51
a whole lot of um things about our
11:53
culture this beautiful culture that's
11:56
not good for us right i'm paraphrasing
11:59
what you said what did you mean by that
12:01
and what are some of those things you
12:02
had to unlearn so when i said in my
12:04
culture i mean my specific culture south
12:06
louisiana so
12:08
like uh
12:10
it like it's like for me
12:13
the first
12:14
everything that you when you come into
12:15
this world everything is given to you
12:17
like
12:19
i don't mean like material stuff you
12:21
might come into this world and you might
12:22
not have resources you might not have
12:25
people you can turn to for money and
12:26
stuff like that but even that is given
12:28
to you your purview your vision of the
12:30
world someone says okay here you're
12:32
you got to struggle here you have
12:34
privilege here you have this and that so
12:35
for me growing up in louisiana there
12:38
were things about being black in south
12:40
louisiana that just people just said all
12:41
right this is the way it goes right
12:43
so the way we eat the way we deal with
12:46
our mental health the way we deal with
12:48
our physical health the way we relate to
12:50
one another right all of those things
12:52
they just happen for you they just
12:53
happen upon you people just give you
12:55
that type of situation right
12:57
your diet
12:59
so i come up
13:00
you know i go to uh
13:02
i go to my great grandfather passes away
13:05
and i hear my uncle's talking about one
13:08
of my aunts she made some jambalaya
13:10
and they're like which one are y'all
13:11
gonna go in there and eat some of that
13:12
dry ass jumbo life
13:14
and
13:15
i hear this as a kid
13:16
so i go back in there in the other room
13:19
and i see the rest of my uncles and i go
13:21
yo that's some dry ass jambalaya in
13:23
there and they all bust up laughing
13:25
right because i'm just repeating what i
13:27
heard right my dad pulls me to the side
13:28
my dad goes yo don't ever say that about
13:31
her that's like why she's like
13:33
you know that your auntie loves you
13:34
right i'm like yeah she goes every time
13:36
she sits by that pot and she makes
13:39
that food for you that's her telling you
13:40
that she loves you
13:42
so when you talk about her the food that
13:45
she made like that you're talking about
13:47
her love and you're talking about her
13:49
that way
13:50
so if you wouldn't want to hurt her then
13:51
don't say that about it i know everybody
13:53
thinks it's funny right there i
13:54
connected okay if someone feeds me that
13:56
means they love me so anytime food is in
13:58
front of me i need to eat it there it is
14:02
yeah so it's so it's so it's like it's
14:04
like oh come home
14:06
hey here you go like
14:08
when do you say no like
14:10
you you use it to so
14:12
right there in that moment like food is
14:13
love like somebody when my father passed
14:15
away last year
14:16
like
14:17
people started feeding us
14:20
like come to the house everything's
14:21
everywhere like when we want to get
14:23
together and love on each other it's a
14:24
fresh it's a fish fry yeah it's a cough
14:26
crawfish boil we feast because
14:29
there were times where we didn't have
14:30
any food so feeding someone or sharing
14:33
with them is one of the most selfless
14:35
things you can do in our culture down
14:36
there that's how we show that we're
14:38
secure
14:39
so when i needed security
14:41
i turned to food
14:43
so what you have to like what i had to
14:45
unlearn was that there's no emotional
14:47
connection to it of course there can be
14:49
but you need to be connected to a plane
14:51
of understanding that deals with your
14:53
health right and understand how much
14:55
love you need from that how much love
14:57
you need from the people in your life
14:58
how much how do you love yourself
15:00
mentally like how do you take a break
15:02
how do you move on from some hurt and
15:04
how do you not just turn to things so
15:06
yeah and that's a beautiful expression
15:08
of love and togetherness in our in my
15:10
culture and i had to learn how to do it
15:11
i also had to learn
15:13
how to not use anger to get over
15:15
uh some of the things that were going on
15:17
with me because my father
15:19
my father was a beautiful strong man
15:22
but
15:23
you go the wrong way you get the gun
15:27
just like you you you get the gun he had
15:29
no problems pulling the gun i haven't
15:31
seen him bust the gun you just like you
15:34
you got the gun
15:35
and i didn't want to as much as i love
15:37
him and revere him and still feel like
15:38
he's a man who i can't really meet his
15:40
measure of manhood in many ways i just
15:42
don't want to spend my whole life
15:43
busting my gun
15:45
you know what i mean and and
15:46
people are going to hear that [ __ ]
15:48
think oh man that's what we do we bust
15:49
our guns but
15:51
we're just trying to make ourselves safe
15:53
yeah so i want to i want to get my
15:55
safety through peace and not through
15:57
having to you know flex on anyone van
15:59
lathan is here heather i know you got to
16:00
go to urban view i do channel 126
16:02
actually it's soul food thursday
16:05
[Laughter]
16:14
you just missed the barbecue turkey we
16:16
had some barbecue turkey too
16:20
we hate it because we love you uh yeah
16:22
channel 126. y'all hit me up at the
16:24
happy hour what van lathan is joining us
16:26
man uh we're going to get a few more
16:28
minutes in that man
16:29
he got lost in times square somehow i'm
16:32
sorry i'm sorry new york i always get
16:34
lost um and here he is the other one of
16:36
the things you talked about when you
16:37
bring up your father is uh that i
16:40
thought was really interesting is that
16:41
you talk to him more
16:43
you have more conversation with him now
16:45
more dialogue with him now that he's
16:48
transitioned than you did when he was
16:49
alive yeah talk to him a lot more now
16:51
since he's been gone yeah uh when he was
16:53
alive there was so much in between the
16:55
conversation yeah you know what i mean
16:56
there was so much in the middle of it
16:58
there was like uh
16:59
calling up if i wanted to go to him and
17:01
i wanted to be vulnerable like your dad
17:03
i'm scared i don't know what to do for
17:04
example like
17:05
um
17:07
i lose my job at tmz yeah i lose my job
17:09
at tmz
17:11
i want to i want to call him up and be
17:12
like yo man i'm scared
17:15
they they making me seem like i'm kind
17:16
of some i'm scared
17:18
i don't want him to i don't want him to
17:20
know that i'm scared
17:21
i never saw him scared so how do i know
17:23
how he deals with somebody being scared
17:25
so i don't talk to him
17:26
now i'm coming out here and i'm on the
17:29
plane coming out here
17:31
and i'm like dad you're in this book
17:33
and you're in this book a lot man i just
17:35
hope that i honored you i hope that
17:37
you're somewhere feeling at peace
17:40
i hope that this worked and i feel
17:42
empowered to say it because
17:44
whatever there was between us it passed
17:46
away with him exactly and so now i feel
17:49
things that i would have suppressed and
17:51
like you know expressing them to him i
17:53
just express them all the time just like
17:56
i just give them to the wind nothing
17:57
comes back but i still feel like i'm
17:59
connected with him
18:01
yeah yeah because it sounds like your
18:02
relationship is pure because it's just
18:04
spirit to spirit just it's it's the
18:06
flesh that's holding on to the
18:08
ideologies to the conditionings to any
18:10
type of trauma to all of the learned
18:12
behavior
18:13
so it's like that portal of
18:14
communication is clear right right it's
18:17
free of judgment yeah yeah and so
18:19
and a lot of that was stuff that i
18:21
actually put on him
18:23
because of the way that i looked at him
18:25
but
18:26
it's just weird to be reaching out to
18:28
somebody
18:29
more when they can't
18:31
hear you
18:32
and i think that's something that
18:34
i hope that out of that from the book
18:36
that people get an idea of the fact that
18:38
like
18:39
it you have you have got to make the
18:42
effort to love the people who are in
18:45
your circle and who loved on you while
18:46
they're here
18:48
y'all hear this all the time and i know
18:50
that the pandemic probably drove at home
18:52
for for for a lot of people
18:55
getting that call
18:56
that
18:57
your father died
19:00
is just
19:01
is i don't even want to devastating and
19:04
all of that it's just peculiar
19:07
it's like it's it's peculiar
19:09
is the way i describe it's like
19:10
i need my dad tomorrow he's not there
19:13
and
19:14
in the way that he used to be
19:16
and he won't beat ever again
19:19
that part like what the [ __ ] happened
19:21
normalcy what's going on
19:25
so people like you you got to go home
19:27
and people are asking you how did he
19:29
live
19:30
so
19:30
it's it's important to me for me from
19:33
him for him now and for me because he's
19:35
alive um
19:36
he's he's on a different plane it's
19:38
important for me now to just like
19:40
like reach out to him and be brave
19:41
enough to do it in a way i couldn't when
19:43
he was alive
19:44
van lane is here you know when my father
19:47
passed
19:48
um condolences on that
19:50
thank you that was an old nine um but i
19:53
remember it like it was yesterday man i
19:55
swear i was walking around and i had a
19:57
arm i had a limb missing
20:00
i swear i didn't i couldn't feel my arm
20:03
yeah
20:03
like i don't know what that meant he was
20:06
gone i felt like a part of me
20:08
a part of me was gone i didn't get a
20:10
chance to you know live with him i
20:12
didn't get a chance to grow up with him
20:13
like that i saw him a few times in my
20:15
adult
20:16
life but i got a chance to spend the
20:18
last couple of weeks of his life with
20:19
him
20:20
and when he passed so when i was reading
20:22
those parts of your book
20:24
i could really identify with it and even
20:26
the way you talked about you made the
20:29
comparison to brett favre and when his
20:30
father passed and he played the next
20:32
game against the raiders and threw 399
20:35
yards it's like yo this dude and mr
20:38
grief was rose to the occasion it was
20:39
his best person that ain't how you
20:41
necessarily reacted to it
20:44
and um you said that you owe yourself
20:46
the bill the opportunity to either be
20:48
like brett favre to run out of those you
20:50
know the mortuary when they started
20:51
talking about caskets you know however
20:53
you decide decided to deal with grief um
20:55
you owed it to yourself i thought that
20:58
whole part was really well done well
21:00
thank you man yeah absolutely and so it
21:01
made me think like what what was there
21:04
any fear in writing this book yeah
21:06
uh there was fear from
21:10
yeah there was fear from
21:13
this fear and like being that vulnerable
21:15
obviously yeah you know what i mean this
21:17
feeling being that vulnerable there's
21:18
also fear and triggering my my siblings
21:21
you know
21:22
there's fear in
21:23
my sister ebony lather making her feel
21:26
uncomfortable because i don't want her
21:28
to have to
21:29
relive that
21:30
and it's also
21:32
any time
21:33
and especially
21:35
as a man anytime
21:37
you tell somebody you can't do something
21:39
that's fear y'all know that little dance
21:41
that people do
21:42
before they ask you for money
21:46
like you know you know a little hey man
21:48
how are you doing hey how are you the
21:49
trepidation yeah i'm i'm
21:51
you good man i'm good how are you doing
21:54
actually man you know things is whatever
21:56
whatever
21:57
now what i do
21:58
is i make you ask
22:00
you know what i mean
22:03
yeah you know it's just weird i had
22:04
gotten a wreck and it's like whatever
22:06
i'm like okay cool you straight yeah all
22:08
right like what what's going on with the
22:10
lakers man they got to really get
22:11
together
22:13
you're going to ask me
22:14
like
22:16
you're going to ask me yeah
22:18
like i'm not going to like you're going
22:19
to ask me we're here i know like you're
22:22
going to ask me i'm going to make you
22:23
ask me i'm not going to let you
22:25
yeah yeah man i haven't really been a
22:27
chance to have a chance to watch you
22:28
know the the light's been on and off oh
22:30
for real cool so if the light's been all
22:32
off then you've been outside a lot how's
22:34
the weather
22:36
just ask me yeah like i'm like ask me
22:39
and cool and that moment you get when
22:42
someone asks you for something because
22:44
normally normally if you ask me for it
22:46
i'll give it to you right but then
22:47
sometimes i can't because i can't like
22:48
enable everybody to keep asking me so
22:50
that moment you feel when you when
22:52
you're saying you can't give something
22:53
to someone
22:55
because it's that's people don't
22:56
understand that that's scary for you too
22:59
because what you want to be able to say
23:00
is even if you can come to me and i
23:02
can't be accessible to you right now
23:04
that you will still love me yeah so in
23:06
writing the book it's like sometimes i'm
23:08
like i'm giving this to y'all after
23:10
y'all see the way i feel about this are
23:12
y'all gonna still look at me in the same
23:13
way because i'm telling you right now
23:15
certain things i can't do
23:16
and for my family i'm telling them right
23:18
now there are certain things that i
23:19
can't do i'm 42 i feel i can hope that i
23:22
have a lot more life to live and so
23:24
being that i do i have to make sure that
23:27
i don't get to a point to where i'm 66
23:29
with congestive heart failure because i
23:31
didn't really learn how to deal with the
23:32
stresses and the strains in my life
23:34
so
23:35
putting the book out there
23:36
um especially talking about a lot of
23:38
things in terms of culture like because
23:40
i don't just talk about these things
23:41
with me i'm saying okay i'm this way
23:43
because
23:44
i come from a people in south louisiana
23:46
and in black america that are fat crazy
23:48
and tired is how
23:49
america tries to keep black people yeah
23:52
you know what i mean fat crazy entirely
23:53
yes yes is how they need us to be so
23:56
that we can consume and so that we can
23:58
be a little bit off-kilter to think that
24:00
we need whatever it is that they've
24:01
given us wow and somewhere you mentioned
24:04
too that
24:05
it was harder being fat than it was
24:07
being black
24:09
in a way okay so peel that back a bit
24:11
more because
24:15
there's a strength
24:17
and blackness that people are afraid of
24:20
right there's a strength and blackness
24:22
that people
24:24
blackness is the biggest threat in the
24:26
world
24:27
it's been something that the world has
24:29
blackness has been harvested
24:31
but even the word black comes from the
24:33
harvest of african bodies right
24:35
but the closer they got to those bodies
24:37
the more the
24:39
holy spirit watch out watch out hold up
24:42
sound all the
24:44
alarms let's make sure that settles in
24:47
the skull okay
24:53
say that again yeah so the term black
24:55
comes from the harvest of of african
24:57
bodies like we we were africans we
25:00
became black
25:02
so that they knew who to harvest
25:04
you know what i mean so that they the
25:06
designation now we've
25:08
done what we do all the time right we
25:09
take the word and we use the word to
25:11
empower us right
25:12
like there's a great youtube called home
25:15
team history and it does nothing but
25:17
african history wow
25:19
home team history is the name of the
25:21
youtube that does nothing about african
25:22
history i never forget this brother goes
25:25
uh they always say that black people sow
25:26
black people to slavery he goes that's
25:27
impossible
25:29
because when when slavery came about
25:30
there were no black people there weren't
25:32
there was no pan-africanist movement
25:34
right the designation of black didn't
25:36
exist there was nothing that connected
25:37
us through the diaspora from the mali
25:40
empire all the way up to north africa
25:42
all the way you know you know there was
25:43
nothing so it was what what you had was
25:46
africans selling africans into slavery
25:48
but that's a wholly different thing and
25:50
it has nothing to do with any sort of
25:52
cultural uh
25:54
value judgment that you can play place
25:56
on people for putting people in that
25:57
situation and there's it's very
25:58
complicated and it's something that
25:59
white supremacy does to make us think
26:02
that we're responsible for our condition
26:03
here you know what i mean so when i say
26:06
the designation of black became
26:08
something that was used for our harvest
26:11
right
26:12
like
26:12
the closer they got to us
26:14
the more that they saw
26:17
things in us that
26:19
they
26:20
revered
26:22
and there was a fear in the fact that
26:24
this was a people that you couldn't kill
26:26
yeah there was a fear in the fact that
26:28
this was a people that you couldn't
26:29
totally conquer right that these people
26:31
were so biodiverse and so absolutely and
26:35
the original man and and so because of
26:37
that there's only so much you can [ __ ]
26:39
over them right mm-hmm they're going to
26:41
survive they're going to find a way
26:43
fat people don't get that grace
26:46
like like like and if fat people don't
26:48
even get that fear the fear in fat
26:50
people is that they're just going to
26:51
take up space
26:52
the fear like when you're talking about
26:54
fat people is just that they're going to
26:56
over consume
26:57
and don't get me wrong there's a fear
27:00
around blackness that they use as a
27:02
negative connotation too that we're
27:03
violent that we inherently this being
27:06
black in america is probably a
27:09
like a it's probably a scene as a
27:11
negative connotation from white
27:12
supremacy it certainly is but there's a
27:14
weird worship that goes on there too
27:15
that's perverted in its own way
27:17
but
27:19
there's just no winning being fat
27:21
this is like like you get on a bus it's
27:23
like yo how do i sit on this bus people
27:25
are looking at you like you don't have
27:26
the right to exist in the in the space
27:28
that you have right there's no like
27:30
airplanes airplanes places like that
27:32
like you go to the barbecue it's so
27:34
weird
27:35
skinny girl go to the barbecue pile the
27:37
plate up
27:38
yup where are you going to put all that
27:41
look she can really eat wow look at that
27:43
where you going that's like you like
27:45
that like
27:46
be a little bit overweight and try to
27:49
eat in public
27:50
people like you got to eat to live
27:52
people like
27:53
have your big ass self have some control
27:56
yeah it's seen as a negative right right
27:58
yeah so
27:59
so so for me when i was there i found it
28:01
to be one of the most graceless
28:03
conditions i talked about this before
28:04
like
28:06
look at lizzo like they are violently
28:08
against lizzo doing the same thing that
28:10
so many other female artists in her same
28:12
genre do yeah which is use what she sees
28:16
as her sexuality to express herself
28:19
they don't feel like she has the right
28:20
because they feel like lizzo takes too
28:22
much too much space to do that she she
28:25
seems it can't be easy to be her but she
28:27
seems happy and very expressive to me
28:29
but people don't want you to express
28:30
yourself if you're at a certain size so
28:32
um and then the fact that obesity runs
28:36
so rampant in our communities a lot of
28:38
times those two things are joined at the
28:39
hip
28:40
van latham man hey big round of applause
28:43
van i you know we we
28:44
well into uh the next show
28:47
uh so we're gonna have to pick this up
28:49
we gonna do it in l.a we'll do it come
28:50
back come hang out with us in l.a i will
28:52
and i just want to say
28:54
shout out to swain the morning
28:56
they uh you guys
28:59
fit me in i said i just popped up in new
29:01
york i'm handling a lot of the promotion
29:03
myself and this is like when you call in
29:05
the cultural favor and someone says yeah
29:07
and then of course when you do that they
29:08
show up late so i appreciate you guys
29:10
fat crazy and tired tales from the
29:12
chances of transformation in stores now
29:15
buy the book by the way if you want to
29:17
learn know about all the mess that
29:18
happened at tmz that's in there too for
29:20
all of you messy people so so so
29:23
by the book i appreciate the love you
29:25
didn't dance before you actually don't
29:26
go up right what happened you didn't do
29:28
any dance before you tried too
29:30
i would have cause you know what i'm
29:32
still gonna do i'm still gonna come up
29:34
here one day maybe when you i promise
29:36
you whenever bars in l.a i'm gonna get
29:38
busy oh so what in l.a i'm gonna give
29:40
you a couple weeks it's coming that's
29:42
the last week in may full week of may
29:44
you got time come on man yeah i got i
29:45
got kimmel that week
29:47
so
29:48
i'm gonna i'm gonna do i'm gonna do i'm
29:49
gonna do a light flashlight in the
29:50
morning i'm gonna like i'm gonna do i'm
29:52
gonna do i bro i'm gonna get my bars off
29:55
and then i'm gonna come over there
29:56
they're serious let me tell you i wrote
29:58
a wrap
29:59
okay the fact that i gained some weight
30:00
it's called cookies cakes and pies oh
30:02
cookies cakes and pies cookies cookies
30:04
cakes and pies
30:06
yeah but without the full alliteration
30:08
yeah cookies cakes and pies i'ma debut
30:10
that on sway in the morning
30:12
you heard it first citizens hold them to
30:14
it big hits coming van later
30:18
stay autumn
30:33
i treat you like my brother but when you
30:35
get into that valley is different yeah
30:37
um no hey listen
30:39
nothing but massive respect yes same
30:41
here
30:42
you you are so needed in this culture
30:44
for real you are so needed yeah in this
30:47
culture we appreciate you
30:49
um and we want to thank tiffany haddish
30:51
for being on the show today we'll be
30:52
back tomorrow ironically van jones will
30:55
be on the show tomorrow oh my gosh
30:57
a lot of bands pulling up your alter ego
31:00
tracy how can they reach you citizens
31:02
twitter instagram was good hit me up
31:04
over there it's tracy g i t s t r a c y
31:07
g make sure you hit up my sister heather
31:09
b at the happy hour whb i'm at real sway
31:12
across the board uh you check out that
31:14
um the casey's crew came by dj envy and
31:17
his lovely wife ghia yeah and check out
31:18
the interview on swayze universe she'll
31:20
be up today van how can i reach you
31:21
brother at van lathan on instagram
31:24
twitter anywhere you need me
31:26
v-a-n-l-a-t-h-a-n and on that note
31:28
citizens we have nothing
31:30
left to say
31:33
[Music]
31:42
[Music]
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