- Most black people look at themselves
through the eyes of white people.
So, we treat ourselves like the people
who we want to be like.
(dramatic hip hop music)
- [Cam] He's a rapper, producer, actor,
entrepreneur, and activist.
Is there anything that this man cannot do?
David Banner.
(smoke blowing) (drink pouring)
You're here.
How long have you been in Atlanta now?
- Oh man, I've been in and out of Atlanta
for about 24 years.
- 24? - Yeah.
A lot of people don't know
this is where my career jumped off.
HOT 97, Jerry Smokin' B,
Bone Crusher, T.I.,
like this is where my life changed.
- We usually make a toast,
but what we gonna do today is we gonna toast
to the cigars, bro. - Okay.
- You feel me?
So, let me pop mine off.
You got your lighter right there.
- I appreciate.
Thank you.
(gentle jazzy music)
- Not every day, everybody get to talk to
a person that they grew up listening to.
You feel me? - Right.
- And I had that opportunity today.
So what's your toast, my man?
- My toast goes to you, bro.
And just you persevered,
coming from the environment that you come from,
the pressure, what having a strong dad
that has vision for you, bro.
That's not easy. - Real talk.
- For you to have the ability to come back.
Better than ever, bro!
- Cheers to that brother. - You know what I'm saying?
- Boom! - This is for you.
- I appreciate that.
I receive that.
And I'm gonna get right on in to it, bro.
From where I seen your career start
is not where your career is now.
- Right. - And my first question
to you is, as an advocate for Black American culture,
for over years now, have you been seeing a difference?
- Yes, there is a difference.
But it's a very dangerous difference.
These children?
You can't fool them with religion.
You can't fool them with lies.
You can't fool them with hope and promise and all those.
These kids wanna see what you're talking about.
Let me see it, you feel me?
And what ends up happening is we have now an opportunity
to make significant systemic change,
but you have to be involved.
I think we have a five-year window,
where we're gonna have to make real systemic changes,
things that really matter.
Or we may not see this time of year again
for another 100, 200 years, bro.
- That long?
- Yeah, I really believe that.
Because this is a special,
it hadn't felt this way since the sixties, bro.
- I commend you for all the work that you've done
on the scenes and behind the scenes,
seeing people come together
for the Black Lives Matter Movement,
all the things that the people
have came and unified together.
You know, what's your thoughts on that?
- You may be surprised when I say this, bro,
but I'm sort of conflicted.
Because so-called being woke is popular now.
- When you say "woke" what does that mean?
- You know, the movement, being knowledgeable,
being down with the people,
that's sort of the cool thing to be now.
And what ends up happening is even Black people,
we don't run to the people
who've been talking that way all the time.
We don't run to the people
who have been making those sacrifices all the time.
We run to the so-called popular people
who've changed overnight.
And really haven't had the time to even
research that long!
I understand that people want stars because they're popular.
But I really even believe myself,
I believe I should only be the wrangler of people.
And then you bring them to those people
who have been doing this for years.
You know what I'm saying?
And I believe any person
that moves from movement to movement,
they're not settled in anything.
And they're not to be trusted.
- What pushed you towards being this activist?
- The crazy thing is people think
I got conscious two years ago.
I've been conscious since the 11th grade
but I'm from the hood.
- But you don't got the voice or you didn't have the voice.
- And I didn't have the money, I was hungry.
Man, a lot of them, most of these kids
don't wanna sell dope,
but you tell them to go to school
but I see my uncle who got a master's degree
and out here next to him- - He's not doing nothing.
- He's not doing nothing either.
I had prayed to God that if I didn't have to go
the dope route, sell drugs no more, do nothing like,
well, I have to find a local dope dude
to invest in me, that I made a promise to God
that I will praise his name.
- [Cam] Yeah!
- So "Like a Pimp" hit.
And I was one of the few dudes
that wasn't connected to nobody.
Think about it.
I was one of the only dudes, probably,
in recent history that didn't have no co-sign.
- Bro, you is the only dude
from when they say Mississippi, you are the staple.
You are that. - Appreciate it.
- [Cam] You know what I'm saying?
- But what ended up happening was,
I didn't know whether I was gonna have another song
after "Like a Pimp."
So I said, "I better thank God now!"
(air whooshing) (upbeat hip hop music)
People know this about me, man.
This has nothing to do with Cam, y'all.
This is all David Banner.
I believe that family is only extra excuse to over.
- What?
- Yeah, I believe family is how people treat you.
My family is people I got around.
Those are the people- - That don't share
your last name. - The people
that I got around me right now have done me better.
I got a friend and I was telling my mom
about him in college.
He was my roommate in college.
And literally, I had a vision that I was supposed,
I was a semester and a thesis away from my master's degree.
I had a 3.9987- - What?
- An accelerated master's program from the hood.
Right?
And I dropped out of school a semester
and a thesis away from a master's degree
at the University of Maryland.
- Why wouldn't you get it?
- Um, shit, I made $10 million. (laughs)
- Swag!
That's amazing- - Two years later,
I was making more than the president at the college,
you know what I'm saying?
But he, at the time we was broke,
and I told him that I needed to leave.
And he asked me, he's like,
"Do you think that vision was from God?"
And I was like, "Yeah."
He's said, "Well, you need to leave."
And my mom said, "You need to go find that boy.
You're not gonna find friends like that."
So like, after I went through that depression,
I went around America, went and found all
of my greatest friends and brought everybody back together.
And now I think they like each other better
(laughs) than they like me! - Hey, man, that's crazy.
- I think that's what we, people like us,
need to start doing.
We need to create think tanks of people
who have had these opportunities,
and these failures, and these wins,
and try to be available for these kids.
One of the things that I can say that I like
is that the children often tell me that I'm smart,
but I'm not judgy.
- Yeah. So that's important.
- They don't mind coming to me and asking questions, man.
And so I'm just grateful
because my mom told me this and I never forget this.
She said, "You should just be grateful that you see."
Whether you able to teach other people,
that's their responsibility, Cam,
because I watch you try to put people on to certain things.
If they don't listen, that's that's they fault.
- That's they fault.
That's their fault. - But my mom said some people,
and y'all excuse me, because this is personal.
But I think about my grandmother.
My grandmother was one of the greatest tragedies,
I think, because she died thinking she was blessed.
And she was very oppressed.
You know what I'm saying?
So they actually got my grandmother going to the grave
smiling about these white folks
historically treating her like shit.
- But let's be clear
because racism is real.
But in order for us to make the next step with racism,
we've gotta do right by ourselves first.
- But, hold on.
But the thing about that, I hear that a lot.
That's easy to say for somebody
who has been illuminated and understand.
But we gotta understand if you read Frantz Fanon's
"Black Skin, White Masks," most Black people
look at themselves through the eyes of white people.
So we treat ourselves like the people
who we want to be like.
The way that we wear our hair,
that's the reason why it's so important,
the statement that you made.
You have to be unapologetically African.
And if you don't love yourself
and you don't like the way that you look,
how you think you're gonna treat other people?
Because if you don't like being Black
in the first place, you're not gonna shop with Black folks.
- Man, you've produced and worked with,
you know, the T.I.'s of the world,
Jill Scott's of the world.
- Oh, you did your homework! - Lil Wayne.
Come on, bro, come on! (laughing)
- Lil Wayne, Chris Brown.
I mean, shit, the list goes on.
- Yeah, over 80 major artists.
People don't even know. - You feel me?
Who's in the game right now, would you like to work with?
- That I would like to work with that's in the game?
21 Savage. - For real?
- I love 21 Savage. - 21, 21, 21.
- I think there's something about his voice.
Similar to Bootsy, Guru from Gang Starr.
He has that high register voice.
Wayne, that voice that cuts through the beat.
'Cause one thing I find with myself,
it's hard for people to hear my lyrics
because I have a bass-filled voice.
So it gets caught up in all of the 808s
in our music. - 808s in the beat.
And especially in Down South music
where we need the boom to match the bang and the highs.
- Up South. - Up South.
- We ain't down. - I saw it.
- And we ain't third coast,
we the first coast. (laughs)
- You dig what I'm saying?
You know what it is! Man!
(air whooshing) (upbeat hip hop music)
So listen.
So this brings us to our nightcap.
You know what I'm saying?
And I ask every guest that comes on the show
the same question.
And it's simple.
What's now, what's next for David Banner?
And what's something that you would like to do
that you haven't done yet?
- Okay. What's now?
DavidBanner.com, David Banner podcast
are Banner Vision businesses.
Like owning us, owning our neighborhoods.
What's next?
I really believe that we should own the things
that sustain life.
They'll easily let you run a funeral home.
- Own things that sustain life.
- [David] Right.
- So we always had the funeral homes.
- Yeah, they'll give you the funeral homes,
and you know, we'll sell alcohol and-
- Liquor stores. - Yeah.
What have I not done that I want to do
is have children. - What?
- Get married and have a family.
- Do we have any recipients?
Is there any options out there you're feeling?
- I practice a lot. (both laughing)
You know what I'm talking about!
I really believe that if you don't have someone
to pass that down to, your gene pool, that knowledge,
that infinite knowledge, that we fail.
So like, I really honestly-
- I don't want you to think like that.
Because a lot of times you're talking to a person who,
I'm a father, but I'm also a father to children
that I didn't father myself.
- Come on though, Superman,
what you have in you though, with your big ass!
Dog, come on, we need that, we need that in the gene pool!
Don't get it up!
We need Superman, dog!
- Bro, you don't get it! (David laughing)
Hey man, first off,
cheers to that. - Cheers, bro,
Thank you, man. - Listen.
- What I do want to say, bro,
and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, bro.
I started it this way and I'm wanna end it this way.
Very, very proud of you bro.
- Yeah.
- I look in your eyes sometimes
when you're on the football field
and I see that you a thinker.
Being from where we come from,
the environment that we come from,
people forget what you come from, bro.
And that's not easy.
And the reason why I'm giving the props to you
'cause people never give them to me.
Everybody always think of, okay,
And part of being illuminated or having the knowledge
is having to live with the weight of knowing better.
You know, one of the things I leave y'all with
is one of the harshest realities
that I learned through reading.
I have a library, a vast library.
One of the biggest things that I learned
is that most of the stuff that we learned in America
outside of math and sciences, is a lie.
- A big lie.
- That's a harsh reality.
That's what I was telling you about.
You know, my grandmother.
And I meant that.
She believed in things that I know now for a fact was a lie.
And no matter what knowledge I would have gave her,
if it wasn't wrapped up in the golden Bible
with white Jesus on the front of it,
she probably wouldn't have listened to it.
- David Banner, man, appreciate you
for blessing "Sip n Smoke," fellowship ATL
with your presence and your intellect, brother.
And as I always say and I always do,
you got one finger, you got one pinky,
you got one thumb, one love, we outta here, man.
(dramatic hip hop music)
(crew applauding)
- Wow!
(men chattering)
- Let's grab a picture, bro.
And grab a Polaroid.
(upbeat hip hop music)