It just hurt my soul to think about our history and then our current state and how there's
similarities.
No matter how much our freedom fighters fought. We're still in this situation.
Then I saw a documentary, '13th.'
Then '13th' just made me pissed.
Also “STREET LIVIN’” is a sentiment and the mood of what our graphic novel is
‘Masters of the Sun.’
So if you notice the video at the beginning, Zulu X, his head turns and then the video
comes on and at the end you'll see ‘Masters of the Sun.’
It kind of sets the tone for the graphic novel and the sentiment of music that we're creating
to go along with that.
The ones that stick out to you are "sell crack and rap."
People just gaze over books.
When really the solution is really books, bro.
It's really education.
Elon Musk is books.
Now he's building freakin' spaceships to go to Mars.
Why can't that be one of us?
Growing up you heard things like, "How do they get these weapons in our neighborhood?"
Then you see movies like ‘Kill The Messenger.’
Then you see Tom Cruise's new movie, ‘Made In America’ and you're like, "Damn."
Freeway Ricky Ross recently came over our studio and we showed him the book.
Here's a dude that was responsible for crack and knows firsthand where he got it from.
We should care more about our status than a fucking statue.
We should care about not being a statistic than worrying about bringing down a statue.
We want to have stature in society.
We don't want static in our lives in our communities.
We worried about the wrong state of being.
So fuck General Lee. Actually.
Why would anybody want to own a prison?
In order to keep your investment up, you've got to fill them.
There's certain laws put in place to continue to keep them in that prison.
Why is that a business?
One could say, "will.i.am, they criminals. What...?"
Yeah, yeah but what about folks that are in prison for selling weed
and now weed's legal?
What the fuck you talking about?
Are they going to reverse their sentence?
Probably not.
Why?
‘Cause it's not a good business move.
We see things over and over again.
Civilians being killed by police officers.
Then they go to trial and then a kid had no weapon and then the cop still gets off and
there's no consequences for the actions.
When the media portrays you of this being violent and then you get pulled over by a cop that's
not in that neighborhood, they automatically go to "Oh, he's going to be more aggressive"
"than the usual and I have to apply this extra force on this individual."
These people just want to work hard and provide for their family.
Me coming from the Philippines, I had that same mentality.
They're not being treated equally.
Also, if you really think about it, all of us are immigrants.
I've been a fan of Team Swoosh for years, collecting Jordans, collecting sneakers from
all over the world.
It was a personal thing for me as well to tie that all in.
Talking about the epidemic of people dying over hasty crimes and things that we overlook
sometimes.
It's a dog-eat-dog world.
In the video, we touched on the dreamers, DACA.
Me being of Mexican and Native American descent, it was only right for me to speak on that
and to actually give my perspective about dreamers and people holding on to dreams
and aspirations.
Especially my brother Ap being from the Philippines coming to the US and actually having that
personal connection to the American dream.
It was something that needed to be said.
Just to clarify for the people that may not know what Reaganomics is for the younger viewers.
It's a popular term used to refer to the economic policies of Ronald Reagan
in '81 to '89.
That was his presidency.
It's called for the widespread of tax cuts, decreased social spending, increased military
spending and de-regulation of domestic markets.
To simplify that, it was a time period that, represented a lot of struggle.
So I decided to say, "Fuck the system" after I beat cancer.
I went through my healing process and it led me to Standing Rock to stand up with my indigenous
people, non-indigenous people, to fight the economic imperialism like apl.
It sparked something in me to use my voice and my platform to help the underserved,
the voice of the voiceless.
That was a moment with other moments tied in that led me to feel that confidence to
say, "Fuck the system."