- Guys, what's up, I'm here with the man,
the don, the goat, the Russian rumbler.
(laughter)
- The Russian rumbler?
You've got your perspective.
I just wanna be happy,
don't you wanna be happy?
(light music)
(electronic music)
- What's your favorite question
to open up a conversation with?
- I like, for me, cause it's my natural state
cause I'm optimistic and positive,
I love to compliment people if it's authentic.
Like if I genuinely think your purple hair is rad,
then I'll be like your hair is fucking amazing,
I would never do it if I knew who you were
and I wanted to get to be your friend,
I wouldn't say it.
I genuinely believe that intent rules the world.
That if you're doing it for the right reason, you win.
I'd rather say something about your jacket
or your sneakers, or just say hello.
But what my favorite thing is, is if there's something
that I wanna compliment something on,
because it just starts the vibe so nice.
It's also a really, compliments are a very interesting
indicator to the other person,
I'm always fascinated how people respond to them.
- Guys, what's up, I'm here with the man,
the don, the goat, the Russian rumbler.
- The Russian rumbler is the best of all those.
- Alright first and foremost you've got a new
shoe at the shop.
- Yes.
- The original hype beast themself, I mean, hold on.
- And I love that you're wearing it,
right off your foot, beautiful.
- This is, I mean...
- Dark clouds, we put out a shoe with K-Swiss.
It was our third one with them
called Clouds and Dirt, which is basically
my thesis in life which is macro micro.
The have ambitions, but you have to put in work
to do that, right, like everything matters,
nothing matters, just I'm a very...
I'm a contradiction, and within that contradiction
and a lot of people hit me up there like
You're a stoic, I'm like what is that?
I google them like Oh maybe I am.
I was like, what I know I am is happy,
and I'm happy because I keep things in perspective.
Keeping things in perspective,
I just tweeted something that said:
There's a very fine line between
perseverance and delusion.
It's this question people always ask me
when should I give up Gary?
I've been doing this rapping thing,
I've been doing this vlog,
I've been doing this restaurant,
it's not going well two and a half years in.
I can never answer it cause you need to know
the nuances and the details. - Sure.
- But there is an incredible inflection point
in everybody's life.
Speaking about your early childhood, like acting.
The amount of people that literally
were like one more audition.
This isn't working for me,
one more audition and that's the one.
Or one more song, one more album, one more startup,
one more day at their job, there's a million ...
One more try to ask this boy out.
There's all these things of like, when is it too much?
You just waste your life and go into depression,
or when was it perfect.
Contradictions, I'm fascinated by them,
but I'm always on the optimistic side of them
mainly because when it doesn't work out
my big thing is well, you now know it doesn't work.
You now know you aren't a rapper,
and good news you're 31,
you have your whole life in front of you.
What's amazing is when you're 43 like I am
and truly ... you know grew up in Jersey
and went to Mount Ida College
which is super minority and hip hop nation at its finest.
Hip hop was so new, you know these 12 year olds,
these 19 year olds think of it
the way I thought about rock and roll.
You know, not that I was so all the way into it,
but if you're 43 like I remember
wearing Adidas with no laces was something I lived through
we had a lot of diversity in Addison New Jersey
so when we were young and when Yo MTV Raps came.
Then you go all the way to something that
there's a 25th anniversary of Wu Tang,
which already to me was like,
I was already in it at that point.
That was like the first, that's not Sugar Hill Gang
that's like, there was already mature hip hop
that that album is 25 years old?
That's probably how the generation above me
felt about the Rolling Stones being old.
To me the fact that Wu Tang sits on a pedestal
like The Beatles and Rolling Stones,
that's just weird.
I'm a Russian immigrant,
I was born in the former Soviet Union.
I grew up in Queens in a studio apartment
the size of the office I'm in right now,
which is in a fancy building
looking at Madison Square Garden.
My association with the game
and what the game can do for you, entrepreneurship,
the reason I associate so much with this whole genre
is there's so much entrepreneurship in it.
I love rappers and athletes
because what they're doing when they're 13,
and they love the game.
What people don't understand about a hip hop artist
is that he and she, especially the ones I grew up with
they were slinging tapes from the back of their car
in the hood,
or took the train into
time square to like trick the masses,
here take my tape.
That's me, that's baseball cards, that's bubblegum,
I knew right away that they were me and I was them,
meaning they were just using hip hop to teach philosophy
and I knew in the same way that
you're watching me do it right now
as a 43 year old white dude,
I knew that the kids that they were gonna get to,
were gonna get tricked into getting more thoughtful.
The ... man I'm really goosed, I'm really... the end.
I knew what RZA and fucking Meth and Ghostface
and all those fuckers were doing,
I'm like these motherfuckers are gonna
trick kids in the hood to be successful in life,
under the guise of hip hop
because I understood it from the second I heard it.
Forever, knew it from the get.
- And cut.
That's amazing, that's all we needed.
Dude, thank you so much, that was incredible.
(laughter)
- Documentaries are the only thing I like,
it's the only thing I consume. - Yeah, yeah.
- I laugh now that gotten in a place ... like my whole life,
now that I'm in a place where
maybe I can be in some of them I always laugh,
cause I'm like man I'm always gonna deliver
for documentary film makers because I'm so deep in it,
that like when I'm on I'm like
I know what I've gotta give em.
You know?
("Right Now" by Via CJ)
That was crazy right? - [Man] Oh yeah.
- I slayed that Wu Tang video.
- [Man] Oh dude it was ridiculous.
- I knew so much more about stuff
then I think people realize.
Yeah so fascia, google it,
that's why I'm scratching my back a lot,
it's called fascia.
Do you know what fascia is?
Does anybody here now what that term means?
You know how they don't teach you
anything in school that actually matters?
But like it woulda made real sense
like teach people how to do taxes?
That's kinda how ... that's how I feel about fascia.
It will literally change your life
if you've got the same issues I've had.
My entire back and life and mobility,
and quality of life have exploded
now that I'm breaking down my fascia.
America, the world, you need to
break down your fucking fascia if you have it.
- [Man] One out front.
That's what makes you feel ... - But everyone's driven
by different things like
the thought that I would care,
like I don't even know the things that people care about.
If you told me what country clubs are better than what,
I'd start laughing right now, I know nothing.
In a world where there's a lot of them around here?
I even think I can ... what's that?
Bonnie Briars Ajs right?
Okay, that's one let me keep going here.
My buddy is in one in Larchmont it's a golf club.
I don't know them, you know what else I like?
I like that I don't know certain things
like I really don't know which Soho house
or core club, I don't even know, I'm so in my own head.
If I roll into something people just get crazy.
It's really funny.
("Right Now" by Via CJ)