Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Renowned R&B singer/songwriter KEM talks about being nineteen, homeless, roaming the cold Detroit streets, and spiraling with drug use in his search for relief. Revealed in his memoir, Share My Life.

Transcript

Renowned R&B singer/songwriter KEM talks about being nineteen, homeless, roaming the cold Detroit streets, and spiraling with drug use in his search for relief. Revealed in his memoir, Share My Life. · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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Speaker 3: You, thank you, Thank you everybody for joining us today.
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Speaker 3: Welcome to the Money Making Conversation Masterclass. As he stated,
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Speaker 3: I'm your host, Rashawn McDonald. Our theme is there is
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Speaker 3: no perfect time to start following your dreams because people
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Speaker 3: living your dreams.
0:52
Speaker 1: My guess on the show.
0:53
Speaker 3: Today is the renowned R and B singer songwriter Kim.
0:57
Speaker 3: For all of his life, Kim has always been driven
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Speaker 3: by music and the emotions involved in bringing his music
1:02
Speaker 3: to life. He is now the author of the memoir
1:06
Speaker 3: share My Life. In his book Share My Life, Kim
1:09
Speaker 3: goes back to the very beginning before his music started
1:12
Speaker 3: him to introduce us to his grandmother, who worked as
1:14
Speaker 3: a sharecropper in the South and had thirteen children. His
1:18
Speaker 3: mom always had a beer in a hand, and he
1:19
Speaker 3: had a very intense relationship with his father. Confused and rejected,
1:23
Speaker 3: Kim eventually used drugs and alcohol for relief. He is
1:27
Speaker 3: on the show to discuss this incredible journey, his independent
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Speaker 3: music career, family, and his book, Share My Life. Please
1:33
Speaker 3: welcome to the Money Making Conversation Masterclass, Masterclass, the one
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Speaker 3: and only Kim.
1:38
Speaker 1: How you doing, my brother?
1:40
Speaker 4: I'm good man. How you doing this book?
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Speaker 3: Let's set the table here because it's a great book.
1:45
Speaker 3: I read it from cover to cover and my wife
1:47
Speaker 3: he knows when I was maybe just leave me.
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Speaker 1: Alone and reading this. This is this is this because
1:52
Speaker 1: you had me on the journey.
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Speaker 3: But when I look at who Kim is one platinum
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Speaker 3: selling album, Kim album to two goals selling albums Chemistry INTI,
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Speaker 3: three Grammy nomination, five number one hit singles. Why are
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Speaker 3: you writing this book? Share my life.
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Speaker 4: Thank you for having me today, brother, I appreciate it.
2:12
Speaker 4: I wrote this book because any healing and transformation that
2:17
Speaker 4: I have experienced in my life, which has been a
2:19
Speaker 4: great deal experience, because somebody shared their story with me
2:25
Speaker 4: along the way, and somebody was transparent with me. Someone
2:29
Speaker 4: was vulnerable with me. Someone was willing to admit their
2:33
Speaker 4: faults to me, and they're overcoming to me their triumph
2:38
Speaker 4: and the and the tragedy of their lives. They shared
2:40
Speaker 4: those experiences with me and it helped me to transform
2:44
Speaker 4: my life. And I'm hoping that my book does the
2:46
Speaker 4: same for someone else.
2:47
Speaker 3: Well, you know when you because we know one cam,
2:49
Speaker 3: you know you don't have a long relationship through music
2:52
Speaker 3: through Steve Harvey Morning Shore, a lot of events we
2:55
Speaker 3: did together over the years, and when the inspiration behind
2:58
Speaker 3: this book, I knew that version and I can remember
3:00
Speaker 3: when I first met you. I believe it was in
3:02
Speaker 3: Philadelphia at wdas the large outdoor festival, and I just
3:06
Speaker 3: saw this cool, little thin guy come down there with
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Speaker 3: the jacket on, set down, no socks on, sat down
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Speaker 3: that piano and just did his thing, a confident guy.
3:18
Speaker 3: And when I read the book, Kim that wasn't who
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Speaker 3: you were growing up. The confidence wasn't there, the style
3:26
Speaker 3: wasn't there, the grace wasn't there. Talk about that early
3:30
Speaker 3: years of Kim.
3:33
Speaker 4: You know. In the book, I talked about my struggles
3:36
Speaker 4: with depression. I talked about being homeless for a minute.
3:41
Speaker 4: I talked about my struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.
3:45
Speaker 4: And people who follow me, you know, just like you. You know,
3:48
Speaker 4: I've shared bits and pieces of the right story throughout
3:50
Speaker 4: the years. This is twenty years, twenty years being signed
3:54
Speaker 4: to the Motown label. It's been two decades since I
3:56
Speaker 4: had a real job, and those periods of my life
4:02
Speaker 4: were again you know, they were they were, They were
4:04
Speaker 4: hard years. There was a lot of darkness, but I
4:08
Speaker 4: learned some things that that that has helped me to
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Speaker 4: uh to uh to sustain. On July twenty third of
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Speaker 4: nineteen ninety, I had my my last drink, my last drug.
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Speaker 4: And there's an adage I love that says when the
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Speaker 4: student is ready to teach, her appears and I uh,
4:24
Speaker 4: I came to a place where I where I stopped
4:28
Speaker 4: trying to consider the idea that I could solve my
4:31
Speaker 4: own problem with my with with with my present state
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Speaker 4: of mind right. You know, I gave up on I
4:37
Speaker 4: gave up on, you know, my ideas on how to
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Speaker 4: fix my life. And when I surrendered, And that's what
4:44
Speaker 4: that was, was a surrender. When I surrendered, you know,
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Speaker 4: I ended up running into some some some people, into
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Speaker 4: some organizations that have that have helped me build upon
4:55
Speaker 4: upon the there's so the foundation of my career and
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Speaker 4: my life today are built on the shoulders of people
5:01
Speaker 4: who have come into my life and shared their stories
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Speaker 4: with me. You know it.
5:04
Speaker 1: It's a really interesting book. I'm talking to Kim.
5:06
Speaker 3: His book, Share My Life, a memoir about his life,
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Speaker 3: his struggles as a youth, as a young man, and
5:11
Speaker 3: we all had struggles. I've had troubles and overcoming the arts,
5:15
Speaker 3: overcoming the overcoming yourself sometimes when you think about it,
5:19
Speaker 3: because a lot of the things that you did, you
5:21
Speaker 3: are you created the problem now when you look at
5:23
Speaker 3: yourself and this book, Kim, you know, I'll be honest
5:27
Speaker 3: with you. Know we've talked, but just to hear you
5:30
Speaker 3: talk this much, I didn't. I didn't know what to
5:32
Speaker 3: expecting this interview because you're a very low key guy.
5:35
Speaker 3: You talk about shyness in the book and now you're
5:38
Speaker 3: doing this book tour, this book tour talking about yourself?
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Speaker 3: Is is this is this a therapy in the sense
5:45
Speaker 3: having you talk about yourself, having you be able to
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Speaker 3: just just just communicate at this level.
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Speaker 4: Now, A lot of much of what has been written
5:57
Speaker 4: in the book, you know, I've already I've already processed,
6:00
Speaker 4: you know, right, process and uh, you know it is
6:06
Speaker 4: it is therapeutic in the sense that in the telling
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Speaker 4: of and the telling of my story and an effort
6:14
Speaker 4: to help other people, I'm also helping myself, right right,
6:18
Speaker 4: That's how I'm bearing witness. I'm giving testimony which also
6:22
Speaker 4: which also feeds me and you and you said something
6:25
Speaker 4: very interesting, you know that that I want to that
6:27
Speaker 4: I want to pick up on. You said, a lot
6:29
Speaker 4: of it is about overcoming overcoming of self, right, and
6:33
Speaker 4: all of life it is about overcoming self. It's all
6:39
Speaker 4: about overcoming you. Right.
6:42
Speaker 5: All these all these gurus on on Instagram.
6:45
Speaker 4: And Facebook and the creatures and were always talking about
6:48
Speaker 4: you can't let them do this to you, and you know,
6:50
Speaker 4: don't pay attention to your haters and they and they
6:53
Speaker 4: that look, my biggest problem has always been has been me. Right,
6:57
Speaker 4: I'm not it ain't other people. You know what I mean?
7:00
Speaker 4: And uh and you know you know that that that's
7:03
Speaker 4: best and and uh entrepreneurship and and success in life
7:08
Speaker 4: is an internal job and an external job. It's what
7:11
Speaker 4: it's what we tell ourselves and how we navigate our
7:13
Speaker 4: innerspace that dictates what happens externally, you know. So I
7:17
Speaker 4: share this, you know, in the book and the hopes
7:20
Speaker 4: that I can, you know that I can inspire and
7:22
Speaker 4: encourage somebody to uh, you know, to get to get
7:25
Speaker 4: to get through to the other side of whatever they
7:29
Speaker 4: may be dealing within their lives, you know.
7:31
Speaker 3: And you do it inspire because of the fact that,
7:33
Speaker 3: let's put this way, Kim, you're doing things that I
7:36
Speaker 3: never did. And you accomplished some things in the book
7:39
Speaker 3: that I didn't. I don't know if I could have
7:40
Speaker 3: overcome because of the fact that there was a support system
7:44
Speaker 3: in place. There were two people who played very important roles,
7:46
Speaker 3: and I want you to describe to them because they
7:48
Speaker 3: the name was Mom in the book and mother in
7:50
Speaker 3: the book. Can you explain to everybody who mother was
7:53
Speaker 3: and who mom was in your book?
7:56
Speaker 4: Well? Mom is mom is?
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Speaker 2: Uh is you know?
8:02
Speaker 4: My mom is? When I talk about Mom. I'm talking
8:04
Speaker 4: about my mother, the woman who gave birth to me
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Speaker 4: at seventeen years old and in Nashville, Tennessee. You know,
8:12
Speaker 4: she's pregnant by a high school teacher that was at
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Speaker 4: her school, you know, an encounter of shame. I was born,
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Speaker 4: you know, under the auspices or in the auspices of shame.
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Speaker 4: You know, her dad this is sixty seven, right, So
8:29
Speaker 4: her dad was a preacher, was a pillar in the
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Speaker 4: Pentecostal church. So I mean it was it was a scandal,
8:35
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. Right on top of that,
8:39
Speaker 4: they burned in Detroit down nineteen sixty seven.
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Speaker 1: So you coming in, you know, out of wedlock, the
8:49
Speaker 1: Trostal fire. Welcome to the world, Kim.
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Speaker 4: And the woman I referred to as mother is my
8:58
Speaker 4: is my mom's mother, and that that was that was
9:01
Speaker 4: everybody in the family called her her mother, you know,
9:03
Speaker 4: and other families the vernacular would be big mama. You know.
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Speaker 4: She was big Mama in our family, and too strong,
9:10
Speaker 4: strong willed, strong willed, powerful determined women, you know, and
9:18
Speaker 4: with all of their with all the tragedy and all
9:21
Speaker 4: of the triumph of their lives, you know, And I
9:25
Speaker 4: talk about silence, you know, and how silence is the
9:29
Speaker 4: silence in our in our family dynamic was was generational.
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Speaker 4: You know, we didn't talk about stuff. We didn't have
9:34
Speaker 4: the tools to communicate, we didn't have coping skills, especially
9:39
Speaker 4: you know in African American community. I'm sure in other
9:41
Speaker 4: communities as well. You know, there's the there's the uh,
9:45
Speaker 4: you know, this is grown folks business. You don't ask
9:47
Speaker 4: any questions. You go over in the corner and you
9:49
Speaker 4: sit down. The dysfunction that is displayed in the household
9:54
Speaker 4: is not it's not you don't get debriefed on it.
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Speaker 4: You know, it just happened, and you're left to find
10:02
Speaker 4: for yourself emotionally, spiritually, and and psychologically. And uh, there
10:08
Speaker 4: was a lot of that growing up. And we've done
10:10
Speaker 4: a lot of good work to get to the other
10:12
Speaker 4: side of that, you know, and I'm grateful for that,
10:14
Speaker 4: you know. But but those are the seeds that that
10:17
Speaker 4: informed my my my uh low self esteem, my childhood depression,
10:23
Speaker 4: my my ultimately my addiction, you know, being in and
10:26
Speaker 4: out of jail and hospitalized, you know, out in the streets, stealing, conniving,
10:31
Speaker 4: you know, uh, you know, those were the seeds, you know,
10:34
Speaker 4: and uh and I talked about that and I'm great
10:36
Speaker 4: and I'm and I'm cool, you know, I'm not. I
10:39
Speaker 4: don't I don't wish to shut the door on my past.
10:41
Speaker 4: It's a part of who I am, you know, it
10:43
Speaker 4: makes me who I am today. It informs the music,
10:46
Speaker 4: it informs the art, and you know, and it's and
10:50
Speaker 4: it's a witness, you know, it's a it's a testimony
10:52
Speaker 4: to to going through something, you know, and taking taking
10:56
Speaker 4: your limits. I like the lemon life, you know, and
11:03
Speaker 4: making some delicious lemonade.
11:05
Speaker 3: Well, you know, you know interesting first of all, and
11:08
Speaker 3: reading the book is a is a very honest book.
11:11
Speaker 3: And that is always when you start writing these memoirs,
11:14
Speaker 3: you start evaluating yourself, and you start because you're not
11:16
Speaker 3: just talking about yourself, You're talking about other people.
11:19
Speaker 1: Who have who have journeyed with you now.
11:22
Speaker 3: And because you talk about so many different people, so
11:24
Speaker 3: many different people who had emotional, very very close emotional words,
11:29
Speaker 3: did you reach back at the individual that you talked
11:32
Speaker 3: about in the book. How was that broker into in
11:34
Speaker 3: writing your memoir?
11:36
Speaker 4: Not all of them, you know, having had a conversation
11:39
Speaker 4: with everyone. Uh, that is that is uh uh depicted
11:44
Speaker 4: in the book. I you know, my mom was interviewed
11:47
Speaker 4: for the book, and early on in the writing, that's
11:50
Speaker 4: my my father was interviewed for the book. You know
11:53
Speaker 4: I did. I went on Rashaan. I went way around
11:56
Speaker 4: the block to protect, to protect, I went way around
12:04
Speaker 4: the block, to not detegrate, to not dishonor to not
12:10
Speaker 4: bring shame on the other characters of the book.
12:13
Speaker 3: And I noticed that, you know, because you know, I've
12:16
Speaker 3: been fortunate to being in this role of writing a
12:18
Speaker 3: memoir with a superstar talent like you, and and being
12:21
Speaker 3: able to because once it goes out there, you can't
12:24
Speaker 3: bring it back. And then all of a sudden, certain
12:26
Speaker 3: people you try to write it as comfortable as possible,
12:30
Speaker 3: but they still get offended by it because they feel
12:32
Speaker 3: you didn't tell it the way they it should have
12:34
Speaker 3: been told on you, You should have asked me. So
12:36
Speaker 3: it becomes it becomes something you write honestly, and then
12:39
Speaker 3: when it gets published, that's another journey that you have
12:42
Speaker 3: to deal with because the fact that your story has
12:45
Speaker 3: to be told and it will only be told one
12:47
Speaker 3: way through your through the lens of Kim. And with
12:50
Speaker 3: that being said, it had to start somewhere, and it
12:53
Speaker 3: started in the house. It started with your mom, started
12:56
Speaker 3: with your dad, started with the mother, which is your grandmother. That, okay,
12:59
Speaker 3: was an important before you move forward?
13:01
Speaker 1: Correct?
13:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that that is I mean,
13:05
Speaker 4: that's that's the found that that's where it all starts,
13:08
Speaker 4: you know. And and I you know, so so so
13:12
Speaker 4: backing up, it's like, yes, you know, I'm seeing it.
13:15
Speaker 4: I told the truth as I see it, you know,
13:18
Speaker 4: and I'm in there, and there is no way that
13:20
Speaker 4: I would have told the truth or I would have
13:23
Speaker 4: There was no way that I would have characterized that.
13:25
Speaker 4: No matter what I had said, I would not characterize it.
13:28
Speaker 4: I would not have characterized it the way that another
13:33
Speaker 4: kid that someone else would have. You know, everybody's going
13:36
Speaker 4: to be different. You know. I can make it especially
13:39
Speaker 4: as nice as possible and there and you know, people
13:41
Speaker 4: would still take issue with it. I expect that, and
13:44
Speaker 4: I anticipate that, and that that's you know, I think
13:47
Speaker 4: that that's just part for the course. But I but
13:51
Speaker 4: I did, you know, I you know, I treated everybody,
13:54
Speaker 4: you know respectfully. I told the truth, but I you know,
13:56
Speaker 4: I didn't. My My intent was not to h was
14:00
Speaker 4: not to shame or or or or or ditegrate any
14:04
Speaker 4: wid and you didn't, and you and you didn't.
14:06
Speaker 3: I want to be honest with you, you didn't because
14:07
Speaker 3: I know the level of honesty that these books have
14:10
Speaker 3: to be and UH and especially with.
14:12
Speaker 1: Two of the uh.
14:13
Speaker 3: The people you had to discuss were, you know, the
14:15
Speaker 3: mothers of your children. That was important that that story
14:18
Speaker 3: was told as accurately and as sensitive as possible. But
14:22
Speaker 3: one of the part about growing up with because your
14:25
Speaker 3: you're your father, you know, he is an engineer, graduated
14:28
Speaker 3: from HBCU Tennessee State, and your mom eventually got her
14:31
Speaker 3: degree at Wayne State. And when we come back from
14:33
Speaker 3: this break, I want to talk about chemistry that man.
14:38
Speaker 3: When you when you started talking about that man, that
14:40
Speaker 3: the book went to a whole different level because it
14:42
Speaker 3: became an entrepreneurial book, and it became it became a
14:46
Speaker 3: different That's the part of the book that your book
14:49
Speaker 3: is incredibly intense, incredibly well written, incredibly eye opening. But
14:54
Speaker 3: when you got to the entrepreneur section, that was a
14:57
Speaker 3: section that really told me why you you are great today.
15:00
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Speaker 6: money making conversations. Masterclass. As host of Money Making Conversations Masterclass,
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Speaker 6: Rushan McDonald.
15:39
Speaker 1: I wanna be honest with you.
15:40
Speaker 3: I gotta tell everybody let her know when I when
15:43
Speaker 3: I get to my truck and go to my player.
15:47
Speaker 1: The first four songs, I gotta just let everybody know.
15:50
Speaker 3: A Kim songs is And I say that to be
15:54
Speaker 3: honest to everybody when I bring them on the show.
15:57
Speaker 3: Is that that when somebody has as comes into your
16:01
Speaker 3: life musically. Because music plays such a powerful role in
16:04
Speaker 3: people's lives, a lot of people don't understand the value
16:06
Speaker 3: of music.
16:08
Speaker 1: Kim.
16:09
Speaker 3: When you started putting together chemistry, you became a perfectionist.
16:12
Speaker 3: It had to be right, it had to be and
16:15
Speaker 3: you and you were driving people crazy. Tell us about
16:18
Speaker 3: that journey as an independent music producers, seller and artists.
16:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm still driving people crazy. Well, I you know,
16:33
Speaker 4: and I just I didn't set out, you know, entrepreneur.
16:36
Speaker 4: You know, I think sometimes it gets, uh, we complicated,
16:43
Speaker 4: you know, we complicated, and you know, there's lots to learn.
16:47
Speaker 4: And you know, I watched Dark Tank and I hear
16:50
Speaker 4: people coming in there. Man, they're breaking down their business
16:52
Speaker 4: and like breaking down their numbers and you know, the
16:55
Speaker 4: cost of acquisition for one of their online I mean,
16:58
Speaker 4: they know all of that stuff.
16:59
Speaker 1: Dude.
16:59
Speaker 4: I didn't know any of that. I didn't know any
17:00
Speaker 4: of that stuff. All I knew was I needed. I
17:03
Speaker 4: wanted to make I wanted to put a CD out
17:05
Speaker 4: on my own, you know, And I learned. I just
17:09
Speaker 4: kept doing the next What was the next? Right, what's
17:11
Speaker 4: the most logical thing, the next right logical thing that
17:14
Speaker 4: you need to do? Do that right?
17:18
Speaker 5: Like, the first you need to do is record this, right,
17:20
Speaker 5: So go and find the studio, you know to record.
17:22
Speaker 4: Well, the first thing you need, you need some money, right,
17:24
Speaker 4: So I had, you know, I kept my I had
17:27
Speaker 4: been uh in credit recovery for a few years and
17:32
Speaker 4: ended up getting an American Express card.
17:35
Speaker 1: Come on, goal card, Now, let's go give you credit.
17:37
Speaker 1: It was a gold card.
17:38
Speaker 4: Now it was a goal it was a gold card.
17:40
Speaker 4: And then uh, and then attached to the gold card.
17:43
Speaker 4: It wasn't attached to the gold car. But then I
17:45
Speaker 4: had the Gold card for a couple of years, and
17:47
Speaker 4: and then I ended up getting a business line of credit,
17:50
Speaker 4: you know, seventeen thousand dollars from American Express. So they
17:53
Speaker 4: didn't know what I was going to do with the money.
17:55
Speaker 5: But what I did with the money was record, was
17:58
Speaker 5: record the Chemistry album, you know, and.
18:02
Speaker 1: And bet on yourself.
18:05
Speaker 4: You have to if you can. If you're not gonna
18:08
Speaker 4: bet on it, then don't bring your proposal to my door.
18:10
Speaker 4: How much you right, that's right? How much money you
18:13
Speaker 4: got it? Your skin is? You know, are you willing
18:19
Speaker 4: to put everything that you got, you know on the line.
18:21
Speaker 4: And I was, yeah, I figured, look, this will either
18:24
Speaker 4: work or if it don't work, I'll just have the
18:27
Speaker 4: largest credit card bill in America that I will spend
18:29
Speaker 4: the next thirty five years, you know, paying off. But
18:32
Speaker 4: if it works, you know, then then I'm onto something.
18:35
Speaker 4: So I was, you know, I was just I just
18:37
Speaker 4: kept doing the next right thing, you know, and uh,
18:39
Speaker 4: recording the record, finding a place to produce the record,
18:44
Speaker 4: you know, pivoting, you know, when I wasn't at the
18:46
Speaker 4: right studio because this dude didn't really you know, didn't
18:49
Speaker 4: provide me with what I needed. So I had to
18:51
Speaker 4: pivot to somebody else, you know, to help record the album.
18:55
Speaker 6: Uh.
18:55
Speaker 4: My My manager then was Toya Hankins, and you know,
18:58
Speaker 4: she was instrumental in the marketing and yep, yep, we
19:02
Speaker 4: were sending you know, I was sending people. I didn't
19:04
Speaker 4: know any you know, I do. I didn't have any
19:07
Speaker 4: any I did have some books, you know, how to
19:09
Speaker 4: manage your bands and all this business of music. You know.
19:13
Speaker 4: I knew how to copyright. So there was an education
19:16
Speaker 4: that was taking the place, but it was taking place
19:18
Speaker 4: in real time, you know. I was learning as I was,
19:22
Speaker 4: as I was going, And what's the next right thing?
19:24
Speaker 4: You know, So somebody's going to buy the CD. They're
19:26
Speaker 4: going to scan it, So you need to have a
19:28
Speaker 4: UPC code. Now you can record at this studio and
19:30
Speaker 4: they'll put THEIRS on there. They'll do that for you.
19:32
Speaker 4: It's like, nah, I want my own. So I went
19:34
Speaker 4: to the upc code council or whatever that is, and
19:37
Speaker 4: got my own barcode that will have today, you know,
19:40
Speaker 4: put it on the back of the records. Was selling them,
19:42
Speaker 4: you know, on consignment at the mom and pop record
19:44
Speaker 4: stores in Detroit. I had to make I had to use,
19:47
Speaker 4: you know, a word program to to make consignment sheets
19:52
Speaker 4: so that I could keep track of of you know,
19:55
Speaker 4: my sales and how much people owed me. And I
19:58
Speaker 4: mean it was a it was definitely it was it was.
20:01
Speaker 4: It was definitely definitely uh, you know, an entrepreneurial uh
20:07
Speaker 4: uh endeavor, you know, you know, Kim.
20:09
Speaker 3: The reason the reason I ordered the people to hear
20:11
Speaker 3: that because people don't see the end game. They only
20:14
Speaker 3: hear the denominations the awards. Well, you were hustling, man,
20:18
Speaker 3: you was, you was taking your album back in the
20:21
Speaker 3: day after when they were albums to different stores and
20:24
Speaker 3: could you sell this?
20:25
Speaker 1: So can you sell my CD?
20:27
Speaker 3: And then you had to humble yourself to be a
20:29
Speaker 3: salesman and convince people and talk people and talk yourself up.
20:33
Speaker 1: And a lot of people today are they they missed
20:36
Speaker 1: that step.
20:36
Speaker 3: They think that I can get on social media, I
20:39
Speaker 3: can get a bunch of followers and I can be
20:40
Speaker 3: a star, but then there is some groundwork to that.
20:43
Speaker 4: Correct, Yeah, there's there's definitely, well, you know, I don't know, man,
20:48
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, I see people on on online,
20:51
Speaker 4: you know, and the YouTube stars and ram you know,
20:54
Speaker 4: I mean they you know, I motivated, you know, I
20:58
Speaker 4: don't know how. I don't know how I would do
21:00
Speaker 4: it today. You know, Uh, you know their motivation is
21:03
Speaker 4: you know, they don't you know, I don't. I can't,
21:06
Speaker 4: I can't. I can't speak to that, but I can
21:08
Speaker 4: speak to is. Is is the discipline and and and
21:16
Speaker 4: building something that lasts forever. But dude, if you can
21:19
Speaker 4: stream and you don't have you don't have to do that,
21:20
Speaker 4: and you can stream a billion streams and become a
21:23
Speaker 4: millionaire and like sit at the house and never leave
21:24
Speaker 4: the house and never do shows, so the world. But
21:26
Speaker 4: I can't do that, right right, We.
21:29
Speaker 3: Gotta I gotta see Jim Okay, New York's e Valentine's Day.
21:33
Speaker 1: Okay, I gotta see Kim.
21:35
Speaker 4: But you know, so, I uh, you know, but I
21:39
Speaker 4: you know, I had to. I had to. I had to.
21:42
Speaker 4: We had to work, you know, we had to work
21:43
Speaker 4: and had to build a foundation that that has lasted
21:48
Speaker 4: for two decades, you know, and you know, and I'm I'm, I'm, I'm.
21:54
Speaker 4: I couldn't be happier and more grateful, you know, for
21:57
Speaker 4: the grind that it took to sit where I sit today, and.
22:00
Speaker 3: The grind is always about there unknown. And then as
22:03
Speaker 3: you're going through is music really the ultimate? What was
22:07
Speaker 3: that turning point? Because I read it was your ninth
22:10
Speaker 3: grade your music teacher was the first person that really
22:13
Speaker 3: set you in front of a piano or a keyboard,
22:16
Speaker 3: and you start playing around with that, and then you
22:18
Speaker 3: started spending hours more than you spend time in the book.
22:21
Speaker 3: You start spending time on a at these keys. When
22:24
Speaker 3: did when did that become like you know, your master,
22:28
Speaker 3: or like this is what I love because that's what
22:30
Speaker 3: we all learning, like whether it's dribbling a basketball or
22:33
Speaker 3: standing on stage as a comedian or a singer. When
22:35
Speaker 3: did you realize that this is a gift, This is
22:38
Speaker 3: my gift.
22:39
Speaker 4: I mean, I knew that I love I knew that
22:41
Speaker 4: I knew that I loved it before before our family
22:45
Speaker 4: moved left Nashville. You know, I loved the piano when
22:47
Speaker 4: I was a toddler. You know, I didn't either there
22:50
Speaker 4: was a check attached to it, or or it was
22:53
Speaker 4: a you know, a possible vocation until much later, you know,
22:57
Speaker 4: in in my life and you know, and actually and
23:01
Speaker 4: there's a you know, and there's a paradox there too,
23:02
Speaker 4: because I didn't get a deal with you know, when
23:04
Speaker 4: I got a deal, when I stopped, when I when
23:07
Speaker 4: I you know, I realized that that I didn't have
23:12
Speaker 4: to you know, I had always been chasing a record
23:14
Speaker 4: deal since I was a teenager. You know, when I
23:16
Speaker 4: came to the place in my thirties, I was like,
23:18
Speaker 4: you know what, maybe music is not my thing. I
23:21
Speaker 4: thought that I became open to the idea I could
23:24
Speaker 4: be successful doing something else, you know, it doesn't have
23:27
Speaker 4: to be music, and I let go of it. I
23:29
Speaker 4: didn't stop making music, but I let go of the
23:32
Speaker 4: idea that this was a passion of it or because
23:36
Speaker 4: of the doubt or the or the rejection.
23:38
Speaker 1: Is that why you let go on the idea?
23:39
Speaker 4: It was none of that. This is this was elevated thinking. Right.
23:44
Speaker 4: It wasn't that it was the rejection. It was like
23:46
Speaker 4: I was just open to the you know, it's a
23:48
Speaker 4: spiritual axiom, right, I had this, I gotta have it.
23:52
Speaker 4: I gotta have it. I gotta have it. I gotta
23:54
Speaker 4: have it, I gotta have it. And it's like, no,
23:55
Speaker 4: you know what, I don't have to have it. I
23:57
Speaker 4: can be successful doing something else. Let me go find
23:59
Speaker 4: out what that is. And it didn't mean that I
24:02
Speaker 4: was going to quit making music. It just meant that,
24:04
Speaker 4: you know, it didn't I didn't, you know, like, dude,
24:06
Speaker 4: there's more to me than just than just doing this.
24:09
Speaker 4: Let me go find out what those things are. And
24:11
Speaker 4: I went and looked at for those things and I
24:13
Speaker 4: failed miserably. However it was. It was the letting go, right,
24:20
Speaker 4: It was the letting go and being willing and all.
24:23
Speaker 4: I think business is one thing that I've I've that
24:26
Speaker 4: has really been crucial to me. And this last you know,
24:32
Speaker 4: probably eighteen month period is that businesses fail, man, and
24:36
Speaker 4: people fail because they don't pivot. They don't pivot soon enough,
24:39
Speaker 4: you know, they wait and they hold on, you know.
24:42
Speaker 4: And I say this for the people who, you know,
24:45
Speaker 4: for the for the aspiring singer whose mother tell them
24:49
Speaker 4: that they sound good singing in the living room and
24:51
Speaker 4: spend your whole life until you're sixty five years old
24:53
Speaker 4: trying to sing. You know when actually you make some
24:56
Speaker 4: pretty good cupcakes and that's what you should be doing, right,
24:58
Speaker 4: you know what I mean.
25:01
Speaker 1: Oh, that's funny.
25:02
Speaker 3: In your book, now you talk about trying to be
25:04
Speaker 3: a comedian. Now you didn't talk about.
25:06
Speaker 1: Trying to be That was a very good joke there,
25:08
Speaker 1: my brother, thank you.
25:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying. Look, I you know,
25:12
Speaker 4: so I feel I you know, I I've always known
25:16
Speaker 4: what it was, you know. But I'm always open to
25:18
Speaker 4: the idea that I don't have all the answers right right,
25:24
Speaker 4: I'm always open to the idea that I don't have
25:26
Speaker 4: all the answers. And even even today, dude, it's like, yeah,
25:29
Speaker 4: I make records. I'm sitting down here, you know, I
25:31
Speaker 4: just wrote this book. We got a live album that
25:33
Speaker 4: just came out. I'm out on the road with with
25:35
Speaker 4: Letacy and uh and Music Soul Child, And still ask
25:37
Speaker 4: myself every day, Lord, if to hey, yo, then point
25:40
Speaker 4: point me in the right direction. I want nothing that
25:42
Speaker 4: don't belong to me, you know, which is anti entrepreneur.
25:45
Speaker 4: You know that that whole self will you know? And
25:49
Speaker 4: police sof up by the bootstraps. There's a place for that,
25:52
Speaker 4: you know. But it comes with limitations. So I just
25:54
Speaker 4: I just I just remain I just remain open.
25:57
Speaker 3: But there was a shot that you potentially selling Merriky
26:00
Speaker 3: them right.
26:03
Speaker 1: I wasn't.
26:06
Speaker 4: I wasn't selling Mary Kay for the car. I was telling.
26:10
Speaker 5: I, I love it, I love it right right?
26:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know the emotional side of this.
26:19
Speaker 3: You know, you talk about the relationship, you talk about
26:21
Speaker 3: you know, your skin tone being bullied and and but
26:24
Speaker 3: the relationships ties really to the music. It ties to
26:28
Speaker 3: your therapist telling you that probably your music is therapeutic
26:32
Speaker 3: to you. When you started getting these answers along the way,
26:36
Speaker 3: you and your father too incredibly amazing children out of wedlock.
26:41
Speaker 3: Can you start dealing with that, the responsibility of fatherhood
26:44
Speaker 3: and your career and trying to maintain a responsibility and
26:48
Speaker 3: stay close to your children. When did you start lining
26:51
Speaker 3: everything up, Kim that it made sense to you that
26:55
Speaker 3: I'm doing it right?
26:58
Speaker 4: I have you know, I don't know that.
27:01
Speaker 1: I don't know that.
27:02
Speaker 4: You know, I'm always in the process of lining it up.
27:05
Speaker 4: You know, it's always I'm always in the processes process
27:08
Speaker 4: of lining it lining my life up and peeling back
27:12
Speaker 4: the layers of the onion to my life. You know,
27:14
Speaker 4: I don't think it's not a place where you arrive
27:16
Speaker 4: because I look back, you know where I thought I
27:19
Speaker 4: had it lined up pretty good, and like, you know,
27:21
Speaker 4: I'm looking back and like, dude, you were crazy.
27:24
Speaker 5: Right back then, right we like you know, with every
27:27
Speaker 5: you know, I'm not we are constantly evolving, constantly constantly learning.
27:32
Speaker 4: I'm not the guy. I'm not the same guy I
27:34
Speaker 4: was six months ago. You know what I'm saying. It's
27:36
Speaker 4: like constantly you know, reevaluating, constantly, you know, as Stephen
27:43
Speaker 4: Covey would say, you know, constantly sharpening the saw, you know,
27:46
Speaker 4: trying to get it. It's not a question of arriving.
27:49
Speaker 4: It's a question of continuing to to to make the
27:53
Speaker 4: best effort to do, to keep doing the next right thing,
27:57
Speaker 4: you know, and building upon that. You know. And I'm fair,
27:59
Speaker 4: I'm gonna you know, I'm in a pretty in a
28:01
Speaker 4: pretty good place, you know, right now. But I also
28:05
Speaker 4: know that there's that there's definitely more to learn and
28:07
Speaker 4: more to be discovered.
28:08
Speaker 3: Well, the amazing thing that I discovered with you and
28:11
Speaker 3: reading this book, because you know, you only know a
28:14
Speaker 3: person one side of a person, just like a person
28:16
Speaker 3: doesn't know other size than me until I tell them
28:19
Speaker 3: and reveal them like you were real, like you were
28:21
Speaker 3: revealing in this book. But you know the fact that
28:24
Speaker 3: you made a conscious effort. You know, your mom graduated
28:27
Speaker 3: from college Wayne State, your father graduated from Tennessee State,
28:31
Speaker 3: and then you made the conscious decision to go back
28:33
Speaker 3: to school because you dropped out.
28:35
Speaker 1: Why was that important? I went?
28:38
Speaker 4: I went back to get my high school plumba. Yeah. Yeah,
28:42
Speaker 4: I didn't go to you know, I was not you know,
28:45
Speaker 4: I was not college material. And that's and that's okay,
28:48
Speaker 4: we're getting ingrained, and you know, we ingrained our children
28:51
Speaker 4: at you know, college, college, college, and everybody ain't gonna
28:54
Speaker 4: thrive in college, you know what I'm saying. So, but
28:57
Speaker 4: I went back to get my high school diploma because
29:00
Speaker 4: it was always a point of it was always a
29:01
Speaker 4: point of shame, you know, for me. And I was trying.
29:06
Speaker 4: I was actually I actually was trying to take the
29:08
Speaker 4: g ED. I was trying to take the g ED
29:11
Speaker 4: to get my GED. But the test for the g
29:13
Speaker 4: ED was too hard. It was easier for me. I'm like, dude,
29:16
Speaker 4: I may as well. I'm like, I may as well
29:22
Speaker 4: go back to school, you know, what I'm saying.
29:29
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna tell you, I'm taking Kim. I
29:30
Speaker 1: gotta stop you. Man.
29:32
Speaker 3: You know this is a pretty intense book, man. You know,
29:35
Speaker 3: Kim is a pretty intense shairman. And we've been laughing, man,
29:39
Speaker 3: we've been joking around. That's the amazing side of this
29:44
Speaker 3: story and the amazing side of you.
29:46
Speaker 1: Man. You a good brother.
29:47
Speaker 3: Man, You are a You are a winner, you are
29:52
Speaker 3: you are a comedian.
29:53
Speaker 1: And that's a side of y'all.
29:55
Speaker 3: I'm so happy I'm getting to hear and see for
29:58
Speaker 3: the first time in my life because as a person
30:01
Speaker 3: who watch you perform, I'm in awe. And that's a
30:04
Speaker 3: shield because you know, when you like you're saying, Michael
30:07
Speaker 3: Jackson came out and prance and you know all those
30:10
Speaker 3: songs you talk about, that really turn your direction of
30:14
Speaker 3: who you are today. That's who you are to me
30:17
Speaker 3: when I watch you on stage as an artist, because
30:19
Speaker 3: of the fact that how you affect me from a
30:22
Speaker 3: stand from a personal standpoint.
30:24
Speaker 1: It's all good. It's all good because you motivate.
30:26
Speaker 3: Your your music is motivational, Your music is emotional, music
30:30
Speaker 3: is uplifting, all those things that that that.
30:33
Speaker 1: As an artist you want it to be.
30:35
Speaker 3: But to hear you, you know, at this layer of
30:38
Speaker 3: you I've never seen before, it's really refreshing in your thoughts.
30:41
Speaker 1: Is this is this Kim?
30:44
Speaker 4: Thank you? Yeah? This is Kim. This is Kim. Yeah yeah,
30:47
Speaker 4: thank you man, thank you for that. You know, hey,
30:49
Speaker 4: thank you or Sean's good talking to you and we
30:51
Speaker 4: talked soon.
30:52
Speaker 1: Appreciate you