EXCLUSIVE: Brian's Full, Unedited Conversation With Rapper Master P

So, Percy, you're looking to dominate another area of New Orleans.

Where are we? The restaurant business is Big Poppa's. It's the world famous Big Poppa Burgers. We also have chicken and waffles and we just got there sold southern food that you can't find nowhere but at Big Poppa's. Everything big at Big Poppa's. Who is Big Poppa named after? So, Big Poppa's is another family restaurant after my grandfather, my uncle.

One of my uncles is a police officer and he serves and protects the city in the daytime and then we open up a family business. And what is the one line to describe this place? This place? Wow. That's it.

Wow. Because food is everything here. Right.

It got to taste good. When you look at our Big Poppa Burgers, our chicken sandwiches, we deliver with COVID-19. So, we do a lot of takeout orders now. Right. We can't wait to get back but I'm going to take you into the place where if you want one of the best burgers in Louisiana, come here.

Do I have to pay a cover or I just walk? We got you. I'm with you? You're with me.

Okay. We're going to take care of you. So, we got the best table in the house.

Shocker, Percy? Yeah. I got a basic menu here and what you hope people take away when they come to Big Poppa's? Just have amazing food. The burgers is special here. Everything have the deep fried onion rings or whatever you want on it.

Right. And when you talk about Big Poppa's, everything going to be big from the Flintstone french fries, the sweet potato fries, the chicken and waffles. I mean, it's big. Everything is big at Big Poppa's.

So, you got you got to have an appetite and most people take some of the food with them when they leave but this is this is the place when you want a great burger. And this premise, you want to grow this, right? You want to grow this?

Yes. I'm going to turn this into a franchise. So, my thing is now get into the New Orleans Airport, get into other places all over New Orleans and also inside of Rossi's to be able to put this franchise inside of Rossi's.

You know, I think is also what I'm getting from this. You're not looking to out price the community. You need a place that is not going to be too expensive that also reflects what people want, right? I mean, to people to be able to get affordable meal but a premium burger at the same time. So, that's what Big Poppa's is all about. Got it. So, talking about you in particular, give me an idea of what's on your business plate on a daily basis that you look at the ledgers pretty regularly.

Yeah. Well, I mean, when you look at all the product that we have, it's so important to be able to build those products and brands. I mean, even like with Big Poppa's, Big Poppa's is a brand to be able to get those brands inside of stores, the barbecue sauce, the hot sauce.

It's bigger than just a restaurant. And the most important thing too I think that that keeps me going to be able to do the philanthropy stuff that I'm able to do. So, that means my business have to be successful and I want to show you something. This book is called Never Go Broke and it's all about helping entertainers, athletes, business people that get this education. Talk about financial literacy.

For me, life go up and down, business go up and down. From my failures, I was able to learn something from it. So, I want to give people my success and my failures and say, I want you to read this book. So, this is your book? This is my book.

It's a great read. So, this is me as an athlete when I play for the Raptors. So, we want to be able to give them that information before they get this money and lose it. So, that's what's important to me more than just the business. I wanted to be thousands of masterpiece. I don't just want it to be me with this restaurant, me with my product in stores.

I want to motivate and inspire other African Americans and Latinos to say, you know what, I can build this stuff. So, you did mention, so right now, I'm looking at that shirt. That's apparel. You have shoes. You got restaurants. You have products.

You're still producing, right? So, when you get up in the morning, give me an idea. What's the first thing you do and when do you get the creative time? There's one to keep pace and there's one to create. So, I tell people all the time, it's all about the idea. So, I get up and come up with ideas. I write it down, put it on my mirror and just run with it and I have a great amazing team.

I have a team around me. So, it's not just about me. What I looked at with Bill Gates, it's not just Bill Gates. He's the person, but the main thing that makes the engine run is the other great people around. I got experts around me, people around that I believe in.

They believe in me and we bring this vision to life. So, I know a lot of people look at like it's a lot. It seemed like it's a lot, but it's what we love doing and just the passion that is put into these business.

So, it's not just one thing and I think that's the difference. I always say to myself, if Cal-Oz could have a thousand different brands, how come I can't do it? Because that means I could feed more families. I watched the guy that did Famous Amos, the cookies. That guy sold that company for a couple million dollars and they went and sold it to Nabisco for $2.6 billion. I realized that it's all about education, knowing when to sell your business, when to get off the train, and when to stay on. It's just about having good people. You mentioned failures. Do you want to share anything where you thought, man, I screwed that up, I'm going to learn from it? I feel a lot. I feel a lot, but that motivated me to get up to go get it. I'm like, you know what, I didn't make it this time, but I learned something from it. Every L is a lesson. As I feel, it just motivated me to say, get back up and go get it. Get back up and look at what you did and don't make those same mistakes.

That's what I did. I tell people all the time, I never was trying to be the best rapper in the world. No, I wanted to be the best businessman. I want people to remember me for getting into the music business as a retail person. I studied the music business the business of it as a retail to the customer. When you look at putting stuff directly to customers like this restaurant, you want to give customers more for their money. That's what Big Poppers is all about. When you look at the brands that we built, when I did my music, I put more music in those records. Back then, most people was putting like seven, eight songs, 12 at the most.

I'm putting 21. I'm giving people more for their money. I learned that from growing up in poverty saying, what's the most thing that people want? People want a deal, they want a discount. I'm able to do that with my business. That's how I'm able to sell my water, sell my product at a cheaper price and still make money off it because I don't have to take it all from the customer. I created the shoes because I wanted to give people some value. This is Italian leather, high fashion at an affordable cost. The same thing with my products. When you look at LA great, it's affordable, even though it's premium product. When you go in these grocery stores, when a family walked through there, a mother, she might have three, four kids or five kids, whatever.

She'd be like, you know what? I got value out of this at the same time. That's what it's about with me. I feel like we do right, everything else is going to come. You got a customer's mindset.

Yes. I got a customer's mindset. I get up with a customer mindset and I tell people all the time, you have to understand marketing and promotion to do what I do. That's the main part of my business. I know how to market my product and my brand to my customer.

What's interesting is, do I understand it? When you had your CDs, you would go and sell it like a drug dealer would sell it. You go right to the people that would be interested in it. You know exactly how to get it to them. When you go into town, you know exactly what neighborhood to go into.

That's where you would go directly. That's why I say the grocery store is the new trap house, legit. It's the new trap house? The new trap house, the grocery store. Legit product that we sell it.

Got it. Can we talk about you and how it all started? You mentioned growing up in the projects. What was that like? It was tough, but it built me as a person. It made me strive and want more out of life and appreciate things, the little things.

I don't care about all the fancy stuff. I realize I come from nothing. You could go back to that, but it drives me to know that I had a tough time in my life. Now, I don't want that. It's like having bad food. You don't want that taste no more.

I do want to be able to help the next generation, help these kids that they don't have to go through what I went through. We're dealing with a lot of... Uh-oh. It'll put the music on. It's not even his music. It's your music.

That's how we do it at Big Pop. Okay. All right. All right. I don't care.

People having a good time. You don't want people to have to go through it, but they are. Oh, yeah. No, people go and go through it, but if they see that I made it out, they can make it.

Hopefully, they see that opportunity is there. That's what it's about, going create your own opportunity and not being jealous or mad or envious of somebody else. That is indelible, and that is you watch two guys arguing over beer.

You're five years old. You're looking out the window, and you see one guy kill another guy. To me, I would think about that every day. Do you, and how did that imprint you? Now, growing up in the ghetto, it's not like we had counselors or anything like that. You have to deal with it, and you just... Nobody's counseling saying, you saw something traumatic.

Let's go see Percy. Well, what I did learn from my relatives, what don't kill you make you stronger, and that's what it did for me. It let me know that I didn't want to live like that, that I need to make some changes to my life, and I need to do some things that I can better myself with, and if I'm going to break this negative stereotypical curse that we have in poverty that's passed down from generation to generation, I need to do something about it. And there was a lot of good going on in your house.

Oh, no. It's a religious house. Everyone put religion first.

Number two is values. Also, I imagine patriotism. Your dad serves in the military, so there's a lot of pride in that, and there wasn't a lot of, I feel bad for me in your house. We never feel sorry for yourself, and you just got to know where you're at and figure out how to get better and what you're going to do about it. So only you can change you.

Nobody else can change you. I had to make sacrifices. I had to educate myself.

I had to go to school, get up in the morning, go to practice. I had to prepare myself for, I want to be a better person. I want to make it out of this place. And so I think that's what drove me, that passion to get out, not to forget where I came from. That's why I keep coming back. But as a kid, I knew that this wasn't the place for me. Some people say, oh, this is it for me. I'm going to die here, all this stuff. And that's what happens. I'm saying, no, it's something bigger for me.

I need the good out there and go see it. And your grandfather in particular, your grandmother would say, you got to have a dream. So you have your dream.

And that's where no limits come from. Why can't you achieve that dream? And one of the things that happened is you worked an extra job, got some extra money, and made sure you went to private school. In retrospect, what about the discipline of that private school and those uniforms worked for you? It worked for me because, you know, back then the priest had paddles. So you did something wrong.

They had to go get the paddle. And it's like, you know what? That discipline built so much character in me that I know right now in this day and age, if a kid do something at a school, you can't touch him.

You can't say nothing to him. And I just think it built so much discipline in me for doing right and wrong. It showed me that nobody is above the law, the system, or nothing that somebody's watching. But you also have to police yourself. Was it integrated, the school?

Yeah, it was integrated. I've always been in a situation where it was all kind of people. So I've never dealt with prejudice or none of that stuff.

It was no black or white thing for me. It's just all good people. I want to be around good people.

And that's what I try to teach the next generation in the culture that I'm living in now, saying, you know what? We got to judge people by them being good or bad, even the police. Like, I got family members that are police officers. So it's good cops and it's bad cops. The bad cops should be treated like criminals for the stuff they do. The good cops, we should award them and appreciate them. And same thing with people. So if you do something wrong and you're a bad person, then that's what it should be.

That would be a great world. So you end up going over to high school and it becomes pretty clear you're an excellent athlete. And your goal is? My goal is to go to college and make it. To the NBA? Make it to the NBA.

And people are coming after you. Yes. So you had a goal. That goal was to go to college.

So first my goal was to go to college. I remember growing up in a project and Dale Brown came to visit my house. LSU. LSU, Dale Brown. And we laugh about this to this day because we're friends now.

And we do a lot of stuff in Baton Rouge to help people in the community. But my grandmother asked Dale Brown, do you go to church? And my grandmother said he took too long to answer. That's why I didn't go to LSU. Does he remember that? He remembers.

We laugh about it. And so I ended up going to Houston. Also, I was going to go to Louisville. And Denny Crump came to my house. And my grandmother, she just asked those type of questions. What church do you go to?

If you can't answer that question. John Thompson came down from Georgetown. Georgetown.

Yeah. And when I ended up going to Houston, you know, just my grandmother, she's on it. She's like, whatever coach you're going to play for, he better have some type of God that he believe in. And that's been what we've been passing down. And having good faith is so important because I think that's what molded us to be able to appreciate and stay humble. Even though I'm successful, I'm a humble man. And I feel like my most important job is to be a servant. And so that's why I come back and help the people in my community. It's pretty amazing that you have these best, greatest coaches ever in the history of college were in your kitchen.

Right? So you pick Houston. And your goal is to start as a freshman. But you blow out your knee and you end up back at home. Back in the practice.

Do you remember that mindset? Yeah, I mean, to be honest with you, I was driving back. I caught the Greyhound bus back home. And everybody, I feel like I had let everybody down. And that's what I'll tell you, I feel so many times because I had a whole project when University of Houston stuff, like every time I come home, somebody wanted a jersey or wanted something, I get it to them. And I just felt like, I feel I let my family down because I knew that I practiced so much.

I used to shoot in the dark in a project with no lights that said that's how I was able to shoot. So good. And so coming back home on that bus, I feel like feel like it was over. But my grandfather, he said, Son, you got to figure out something else. Like don't just sit here and give up.

You young, you know, you got a lot of things that you could do. Figure it out. And I figured it out. I ended up leaving New Orleans and going to California. And I seen this guy, Jones and Harris Music Store, they had a R&B and gospel record store.

And it was just people lined up around the country. What are they selling? And I went in there, looked at one of the brochures they had, and they had the distribution company. So that's what education is so important.

By me going to University of Houston, I look straight on the brochure and seeing the distribution company. And that's when I realized I'm gonna open up my own record store. And there was no limit records. And the rest was history. Right.

But you're leaving out a lot. One thing that happens is your grandfather means so much to you and your brothers and your sisters. He has high blood pressure one day. So someone's got to walk with him to the hospital.

And it's you. So you walk with him to the hospital. He stays overnight. And he feels better. They go, we're gonna let him go. We're gonna give him medication. They give him the wrong medication.

And he passes away. You have to walk back and tell the whole family what about the grief that you have without your grandfather? I really didn't know how to tell the people in the household because me and my grandfather walked to the VA hospital. And by the time I got back, the whole house just collapsed. They couldn't believe it. So the nurse ended up calling me back saying that she gave my grandfather the wrong medicine, gave him blood-thinning medicine that she was supposed to give to another patient. And I appreciate that she was able to tell us that because we never would have knew. So you have to sue for malpractice.

Yeah. So they ended up giving my grandmother about $280,000. And she gave everybody in the family, all the kids $10,000. And I start, I invest that money into my record store. You're married with a kid, Romeo. And you're sleeping in the back.

Sleeping in the back. Hoping to get, sell some CDs and records. You're not a musician. No. I'm just a businessman. Do you remember how nervous you might've felt?

You know what it is? What I love about New Orleans people, what people don't know, when I got to Richmond, California, it was an older white guy that owned a building that I rented. And I didn't know him. He didn't know me. And he heard of me. He heard my accent. He said, where are you from? I said, I'm from New Orleans. He said, I'm from New Orleans too. And we smiled and laughed. He said, what you trying to say?

I'm trying to open up a record store. He said, you got any money? I said, I got $500. He said, so what are you going to do to pay for this? I said, I don't know.

I'm going to figure out something. So he said, your name Percy Miller? I said, yeah. He said, oh, you're the kid that played basketball. So he was following me when I was playing basketball. And he said, I just thought you'd probably be in a problem. I said, yeah, I got hurt. Started explaining my thing. And he said, well, I tell you what, you're from New Orleans.

I'm from New Orleans. He said, if you can fix this place up, I give it to you rent free for a year. Wow. I said, yes, sir. I fixed the place up. We slept in the back of the place. We built it up. And the rest was history. Big green building, right?

Little green building. But a couple of things happen. When you go back, when you go back and you need money and you feel responsible, you're the oldest guy in the house.

So you start hanging out with your own crap, right? And you start dealing drugs reluctantly. And you came back and you got warned by your grandmother. And one time she hung up a black dress in the living room and says, that's what I'm going to wear to your funeral.

And when you, when you brought home a car, she smashed out the windows because she knows what money you used to bet that car. And you know what that made me change my life. Cause a lot of my friends was dying, getting in trouble.

And I didn't want that. I just was trying to do whatever to take care of my family. I realized that I didn't like being a hustler. So I'll talk to the people on the streets and tell them like, what are you doing here?

Why are you out here doing this? And I knew that life wasn't for me. So I just kept praying and I started doing the right thing.

And my grandmother really scared me when she, when she put that, that dress on her nightstand and said, she's going to wear that to my funeral body and get my act together. I just sit and cry, to be honest with you. I cried to myself and I realized this ain't the life I wanted. And that's when I started changing my life.

And, and I think it's a blessing to have people that care about you that also give you tough love. And I needed that to be honest with you. I needed that because I could ended up dead or in prison like a lot of the other teenagers.

Cause at that time, New Orleans was the murder capital of the world. And so that really, that broke me. That broke me cause I didn't, I didn't want to die. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't want to get into trouble.

You know, I was just trying to figure out how to survive and make some money for my family. And, and I'm glad, I'm glad that God has blessed me to be able to change and do the right thing. So you talk about one thing you are is resourceful. Yeah.

No one could say that. So you look at the record store and you're like, okay, it's, it's a moderate success. But then you start picking up the CDs, the rap CDs and they start selling. And then you say to yourself, I could do that.

Like not many people would have said, I can do that without any musical background. Now, you know what? And it's a blessing because I always realized that if somebody else could do something, why I can't do it.

Where's that come from? I guess that come from your grandfather, my grandfather, my grandmother, and just being obedient. My grandmother always told me that when you do the right thing, that you will be successful. God will bless you. And it's nothing that you can't do just because somebody might have more money than you or whatever.

Guess what? If you invest your time and you're passionate and you love something, you will be successful at it. And, and one thing my grandfather gave me, he said, look, son, you want to be successful with something that you love and do as bad as you want to breathe. That's, that's how you be successful. So you got to love what you're doing as bad as you want to breathe. Right. And that stuck to my head to our likes.

Bad as I want to breathe. So yeah, that's what it is. And I realized that that's the passion that I have to put into whatever I believe in, whatever vision I have or whatever dream I have. Record you for free. And then you start, are you good?

Now? I wasn't that good at first because I'm like, I'm in California in Richmond, California, and I still sound New Orleans. So they, for them, that's like, oh, he sound country. I mean, what was crazy, even when I started doing the opening shows for Tupac, Tupac Shakur, Tupac Shakur. And they used to introduce me as Mr. Peter Country singer. I'm like, I'm like, I had to tell this older white guy, I said, I'm not Mr. Peter Country, saying I'm master Peter rapper, you know? But I kept getting better and better and kept working at it.

And I went from selling old records to selling. So one guy was listening to my music. He was dancing to my music in the crowd. So I run out there and I get a guy t-shirt. I said, you like that? He said, yeah, I like that. I don't know if he was drunk or whatever, but he was bouncing to the music. And when I gave him the t-shirt, I start realizing, I start smiling. I told my brother, I'm going to turn that one fan in the millions. And that's what happened.

I mean, just by believing that I could do it. You mean imaging, like that whole place doing the same thing. That was the only guy dancing to my music. They was waiting for Tupac. I was out there when the lights was on.

So when I came out, they was like, we came to see Tupac, who is this guy? Yeah. So that's what I'm talking about, failure. I use that failure to keep going, to keep grinding, to keep hustling, to keep getting better. And nobody going to outwork me.

They just not. I haven't found too many people that's going to outwork me. I might not be the best at first, but I tell people it's a marathon. It's not the 440 yard dash and nothing like the 880 dash. No, it's a marathon. So not a sprint, crawl, walk, tumble, whatever to get there, get there. And the clearer your dream, the more motivated you are.

The other thing that comes clear is you start making a difference and people start noticing you. And you get an offer of what, a million dollars from Jim Ivey? Yeah. And he offers you a million bucks. And you say?

No, thank you. Why? My grandfather also taught me never do a deal when you're desperate. When you're desperate? I was desperate because I needed the money. But when I looked at the contract, that's why I say education is so important. The contract said I was selling my life away for seven years and I couldn't use my name or nothing. And at that time, I think Michael Jordan had just did a million dollar deal. And the word was, oh, well, he sold his rights for everything. And I'm like, I don't want to do that.

So I told Mr. Ivey and I said, I'm gonna go get something to eat and I'll come back. He said, if you don't come back, you'll never get a deal in this town because I know everybody. Well, I guess he didn't know for all the records.

So they offered me a deal a year later and I ended up getting an 80-20 deal, which I was able to make Forbes fortune under 40. What year is this? 98? Yeah, probably around that time. I don't remember.

Well, that was huge. Yeah. You control your destiny and you're successful.

Yeah. That's pretty, that's pretty amazing. You said if you took that million dollar deal, I'd have been done. I'd have been done because think about it. I'd never be able to do what I'm doing now. And what I, what I love about believing in something, you just got to keep going when nobody else don't believe. And you just got to keep that faith.

And I also do business on energy. So I tell people the energy not right, then don't do it. It's not worth the money. It's not worth the headache. So how it started is how it's gonna finish.

If it's shaky, starting is gonna be shaky. But then it became instead of just master P, this is what I do. You want to get other acts. Oh yeah. And you, you expand No Limits.

Could you describe why you did it? So I wanted to make No Limit a university, not just a record company. So I want X. When they come here, they graduate, go on their own and be bosses. I say to be a boss, you have to create other bosses. So I went looking for talent. I ended up signing from Mere Eggs to Mystical to Snoop Dogg and my family and other artists that's all around from New Orleans to all around the world and start putting other people on. And I think, and I start thinking to myself, now I'm into the business as a real record company, even though we're independent. Right.

But we got one of the best deals in the country that I don't think nobody else would ever get that deal anymore. Wow. The other thing you said, a big moment for you was when you broke through. Yeah. You sent for your family. Yes. And then you, your brothers become rappers. Yeah. But one key moment that you always go back to, there was a turning point for you too, is your brother Kevin.

Yeah. So when he, when he gets killed, how did that affect you? It just hurt me.

It just ripped something out of my heart. And I wanted him to be able to experience this success with me. And he didn't get a chance to do that, but it also pushed me to be able to be here and help raise his son.

And, and, and, and just knowing that, you know, our love is never going to stop. So I ended up tattooing him on my own. And did you all do that? Yeah. Me, all of my brothers, me, Silk and C. So that's the way we keep him going. Your other brother got in trouble and he's still in jail trying to get out because you believe he's wrongly accused.

Yeah. I know he's wrongly accused, but I realized in life that, you know, we got to make a real change with your life. And that's what we teaching is like, the thing that's with my brother, other people around you and kids don't learn that till they get a certain age or they get caught up in trouble. You got to be able to cut the people off from around you because they don't want to see you successful. It's a lot of hate, a lot of self-hate growing up in poverty because those guys want what you have. And at the same time, you start hanging around those guys. They don't care about you because C is the big fish. You don't care about you because C is the big fish. So the system warning him, they didn't want none of these other, even though these other guys committed this crime, the system wanted to make a big story about it.

And that's why I even hold the media accountable for that. And that we realized sometime when you make music and your lyrics and stuff like that, they're going to bring that stuff up. So you got to, you got to know you either going this way or you're going that way.

It's nowhere in the middle. And that's what I've been blessed to just cut people off that don't know good. And it's hard for young people to understand that because there's a lot of people in prison for their friends. So, and I tell people all the time, you can't choose your family, but you could choose your friends. So you got to choose the right people to be around you. And I think he's a victim of that. Choosing the wrong people, trying to go back to that life.

Yeah. And that's where you left. The other thing, people look at rap lyrics. You were singing rapping about what you lived. So you were looking to motivate that life. You were singing about where you live.

I know that's been a debate in the past. Well, I think what's different with me, I think when people look at my music and my lyrics, they might say, Oh, this is tough. This is hard. But I've always give them a message in the end. This is what happened to that person when they live like this. This is what happens when you do this.

So I always send something positive, even though I'm looking out my window because music is entertainment. It's like, uh, El Pacino Scarface when you, when you watch, uh, the movie, right? Right. Yeah. This guy's living on the beach.

He's not living like that. That's a character he's playing. It's entertainment.

Yeah. And so being able to show the world that a lot of these kids seeing stuff from what they've been through, but it's still entertainment. Like this guy making music because he don't want to be on the streets.

This is a legit way for this guy to make some money without having to hustle and doing negative stuff. So for me, that's what it was. Like I realized as I grow up, I don't want that life, right?

Nobody want to die in a projects and live like that. No. So this music you got is the truth that you've been seen and been through, but you could see the evolving person, me as a man growing up, getting better and getting more responsible for what I'm saying and what I'm doing. So I think, I think you go through a process. It's like anybody we see guys from corporate America, they probably wasn't who they was till they got that job and figured out now I could make a life for my family.

And how do I keep growing? And I just think, cause I see a lot of guys in corporate America that has tattoos under them suits. Who were they? Yeah. Yeah. Who were they before?

Right. And I'll give you an example of Billy Joel is not happy with a lot of his old music. Bono came out and says, I'm embarrassed by my voice and my past albums, even though they sold a ton of albums, I'm not really happy with what I produced. It doesn't mean it means that's where you grow up. These guys are growing up just like me. But the only thing about hip hop, people try to stereotype hip hop and hold you to that.

And so I think that's where the change have to come in. I think it's the media because the media, the media now they just prey on headlines. They don't even get to hear the whole story no more. It's just the headline is what people sell. And are you helping to break that by doing these products and by doing things, breaking into business has nothing to do with music.

Yes. And so we can show people that, you know what, it's a lot of people with great minds that's growing up and mature and feeding their families and feeding other families and giving, creating other opportunities. And I think that's what it's about right now. Sentiment that seems to be changing a little bit.

Black Lives Matter is is a legitimate entity where people are now scrutinizing it. How do you see it? I see that that we are hurting as a country, but we also growing and we're growing together, stronger together.

Yeah, I know. So because think about it. It's whites and blacks that was marching Latinos and Asians marching in the streets for George Floyd. It wasn't just us because people want change. Now, it's a lot of negative people that want to steer out in the front and cause controversy. But it's a lot of love in a way that you clear that hate is with love. And I see people coming together.

I walked in march with people together. It wasn't just black people because not who's right or wrong. We just tired. I feel like America is tired and we want to save lives and change lives. We got to stop stereotyping, just showing the negative part. They're not showing that.

They're not showing like I had white friends of mine that stopped. How can I help the community? I want to come with you and help and give back.

That's love. We didn't get that 10, 20 years ago. So you see progress and you see other ways to go. I see progress.

I see we got a long way to go, but I see progress. When you look at Black Lives Matter now, does that represent the black community? So when I look at Black Lives Matter, I love the unity, but now we got to know what we're fighting for. And it's all about economic empowerment. We got to put money back into our community and our culture to control these communities. And it's all economic empowerment. It's like if we don't have no money, we don't control them. And so if we don't create no products and put products in these stores, so we're looking at going to Walmart, the targets, or all these major chain stores and say, let's add some diversity. So now we created Fortune 500 companies. And that's what we need to do.

So now that we got the unity and we have the buying power, we spent trillions of dollars, but we don't own that. So we have to change that. You're changing that? And I don't want it just to be me.

So I wanted to be thousands of Percy Miller's masterpiece that's doing this. Right. And do you think we're heading there? Yeah, I think we are, because now people are waking up.

They starting to realize we just don't have to be athletes and entertainers, that we can own companies, that we can create products that's owned by us. And that's how we take away the poverty, take away the crime that is happening in our communities, because people are hurting, they're starving. So people are desperate.

And that's what you're saying. People breaking into stuff because they desperate. People are trying to feed their families. They're ready to go to jail. They're ready to put their life on the line, just trying to survive.

Right. And do you think there's two Americans? Do you love this country? Are you patriotic? I'm definitely patriotic. I love this country.

I'm patriotic and I love this country because I don't feel there's no other place better than this. You just want to make it better? I just want to make it better. I want us to get better. I want us to get healthy as a country. And I want us to take care of us.

I think that's what we have to store there. And it's not about black or white, it's just the people that want to do good, do good. We don't need to worry about the people that don't want to do right. And we can't change the people that don't want to do right.

We can't. Like they're going to do what they want to do anyway. But we can enhance the people that do want to do right. The ones that want to do wrong, we can't do nothing for them.

Right. But the ones that has a vision and a purpose, we got to help bring some of these dreams to life. That's why I was saying putting other products, not just mines into these stores.

You know, I don't want to just see the ancient mom and uncle Ben's that was the bonkers. I want to see other successful brands that ideas come from people that come from nothing and get together with good people, whether they need financing, or even now, like you can do crowdfunding. Like if you're just a small company, now you can go online and do crowdfunding. And I told you, I said, I'm going to even show my people there because everybody thinks they need a lot of money.

I started my business with $10,000. Somebody could go online and get a crowdfunding if it's some great product. And some other people might see your vision.

That's great idea. I know she didn't bring up Democrat or Republican. That also doesn't matter to you.

No, it don't matter. You know, I just like good people. And you work with everybody. I work with everybody. Like if they're good, it's got to be good people. If I find out that you ain't right, then I don't want to mess with you. I'm cool. Lastly, you as a dad, you said that you want to break a stereotype that maybe people have of rappers that they only care about themselves. They want their own money. They're not good family men.

You broke that mold clearly. Tell me about your family. Well, I mean, I love my family to be able to be here and make the changes I needed in life to be able to cherish these moments.

Life is too short. So to be able to be here with my kids and love on them and, you know, we all go through stuff. So even my kids, we're not a perfect family. My kids are not perfect. So some days someone might go this way.

Some days, some might go that way. But in love and teaching them who God is, I feel like I did my part. And I feel like we're going to be all right, no matter what. We can get through anything as a family because the love that we have for each other. They didn't know what you know.

No. Are you worried that they're not going to know how hard it was to get what you have? How do you let them experience that without letting them experience that? Because I teach them hard work and I teach them who God is. So when you know God and you know doing the right thing and you know that nobody's going to give you anything that you have to work hard, only you could change your life. And so even though my kids got a better life, I still teach them hard work. You can't escape hard work and you can't cheat life. So if I don't give them hard work, then they're going to lose. But if I show them that nothing is easy and even though we have nice things, but you still got to work for what you want. And I'm here for you but you got to work for what you want because it's your dreams and your life. I don't want you to do what I do. I want you to do what you love to do.

And if whatever you love to do and you're passionate about it, I'm going to support you with it. But you need to get up in the morning. You need to educate yourself. You need to go to church. You need to do those things that's going to make you a good person and have integrity.

And then the rest is on you. I mean if you look at it, I played with Steph Curry's daddy in Charlotte. Steph Curry used to be a little kid. Del Curry. I played with Del Curry. But think about this. Steph Curry had a nice life, but he had a passion for basketball.

So it's about what you're passionate about. Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant. I played for Jellybean, Kobe's dad, in the minor leagues, in the CBA. Fort Wayne.

Fort Wayne. So think about it. And this man was a hard worker. So obviously Kobe Bryant did not have the struggles his dad did. You're saying they still did. He was successful.

Think about it. His dad made it to the NBA, but his dad taught him hard work. And that's what made, now you got the mamba mentality now. Because everybody look at Kobe Bryant now. Like this guy just go against all eyes.

And he had a good life. So you can't, I think people look for excuses. With me and my family there's no excuses.

It's either right or wrong. That's it. Does Romeo remember what struggling, the struggling Master P? Yeah. Because Romeo was with me. And he's out in his 30s.

Yeah. And so you imagine if I didn't change my life, he wouldn't be where he at. And he realized that he don't want to go through what I went through.

So he's his own man, which I love it. That he's not trying to do what I did or go through the things I went through. But he understand the difference between struggle, pain, success, failure, all that. And I think being a human, I think people get caught up by, oh, you're successful.

No. Successful people go through stuff too. So it don't matter.

It's how you handle it. And your other message to your kids is you got to tithe. Yeah. So what do you make? You have a kid in college makes $2 million on his name imaging like this. 10% goes back. 10% go back. And not only is that a good thing to do, it breeds more success.

Yeah. Before I learned to tithe, I was always feeling. And when I start tithing, everything that I did, even when I didn't realize how I was going to take care of some things, it just happened. And it's a blessing to be able to not only receive blessings, but tithe and give back. And that makes me feel even more happy. Like, oh, well, I was able to give back 10%.

Then I must have made this about and be thankful for that because a lot of people don't have nothing. And so when you give back to the church, it's God's kingdom. I don't do this for me no more, to be honest with you. I realize when you're doing God's work, he'll keep blessing you. And so that's what I feel like I'm doing now. Like I told you, I'm a servant.

So it's not like Master P the superstar or none of that. No, I want to serve my people. And that's why I realize that's why God spared my life and changed my life.

And I'm humbled and blessed for it. Couple of things. You're already successful and you decided to go back to college. Yes. So why did you go to Merritt College while you're already in the real world with a kid and a family? That takes guts.

Yeah, because you know what? I wanted a degree. I wanted to... You wanted the certificate or did you want to learn more? I wanted to learn more.

The certificate don't mean nothing. Like I wanted to educate myself. I told you education is the real key to wealth. And it's the real key to success.

Because you can make money, but then if you don't know what's going on... Because look at a lot of people make a lot of money. They lose it. They kill themselves. They do all this stuff. But guess what? When you're educated, you can make the right decisions and charges. So you know like, oh, it might be tough today, but I know that I'm a real hustler. I know how to work and go do things.

I could lose this business. This is what New Orleans told me. The hurricane come, wash everything away, then what you're going to have? So you got to start back over. And so I don't mind starting over with having the right education.

Wow. And it seems like you're excited about every day. I mean, I get up with it, pumped, ready to go. It's like playing basketball, being in a business world because I'm in a room with a lot of guys that don't look like me.

I'm probably the only guy of color in that room. How do you feel about that? I feel good about it because that let me know that we are breaking down barriers now. Because at first in the food industry, it was nobody looked like me. Back in the days, Reginald Lewis did it in the 1970s, but that was one guy.

He did it in 1970. So that motivated me to let me know I could do it. And so we need to celebrate each other. So when I look in that room and say, I'm the only guy of color in there, I know now if I kick this door open, it's going to be 100, 200 more. If it's 1,000 guys, the same thing that we talk about the Fortune 500 companies. If we only make up a half of 1%, imagine now with younger kids doing what I'm doing, even at a younger age. So I've got 19-year-olds, 20-year-olds that go to like HBCUs. They're coming up with all type of apps and all these different things to build wealth, which we wasn't thinking about that at first. That's why education is so important. And I tell them, I tell the young people, I want you to super pass me. It's the great equalizer.

Yes. Be creative. The internet, the power, social media, and all this stuff has changes to where we have opportunities to create. We don't have to sit around and wait for a check.

We can create those checks. And I look at the young people. I look in their eyes and I tell the older people that surround these young kids, let them breathe, give them a chance to grow and do what they need to do. Don't hold them back because a lot of elderly people always wait, say, no, I did this in 30 and 40 years, but a 19 and 20-year-old could do this right now with education. But when you see Chicago, the area of Chicago and the killing numbers, especially in the weekends, and you see what's happening in New York with the grades coming up, you see in parts of New Orleans still, is there a sense of hopelessness there?

Do you have a strategy to get in there or do you have something that you would like to do that other people can help you with? So the thing is, it's not a sense of hopelessness. We can't give up on our people, but we do need to educate and help create change. If you're going to take away something negative, you got to replace it with something positive. We got to give these young kids something to do. And we got to stop sugarcoating the truth and let them understand that you can live longer if you do the right thing. So we have to create more programs. We have to deal with a lot of mental health issues. It's a lot of kids that grew up with parents that are addicted to drugs and you're passing that down from generation to generation. So we do need the right counseling.

We do need some of those things, but we also have to hold these teens accountable for what they're doing and show them. If you don't do the right thing, you're going to end up like these kids that left here earlier before you. And so if you do the right thing, then you could turn this around and you could live a great life. And so that's what this has been about with me, creating programs.

I created a program in Louisville with Christopher 2X. It's called Game Changer. And so we deal with a lot of kids that deal with drama that's been shot, innocent kids, and try to help them. It's all about healing, working with doctors and working with people to bring that change and that need that we need. And as we break for lunch, the goals are not done. You have a goal. You want to coach the Pelicans. Yeah.

What about it? Why not you? No, I definitely want to coach the Pelicans.

It's on my bucket list. I think they should be ready for me by now. They done brought a bunch of coaches.

They should have been brought me in. But I know that I'll make a difference. It's because I love this city.

I love this culture, and I love the people. And I know what I could do as a coach. So to be a good coach, you have to come from good coaching. So I had some of the greatest coaches in the world. And I know it's time for me to coach now. I'm at that level of life. And you got to get Zion to sign a long-term deal. If they would have brought me in this year, Zion would have signed a long-term deal. I'm as good as I am with a sign right now.