The Breaks

Confucius and Fresh interview  J.M., the founder of  Austin’s Hubbledvision, and Chicago-based artist Blvck Svm about their musical collaboration and the Afrovision event at this year’s Afrotech.

You’ll learn Hip-Hop Facts about who wrote the treatment for Dr. Dre and Tupac’s “California Love” video, the debut of Will Smith’s “Summertime,” what Questlove called himself before he landed on Questlove, and more.

Fresh states the Unpopular Opinion that Texas rappers can get lazy.

Confucius talks about Mike Pence dropping out of the presidential race, Trump’s lawyer’s claim that he can’t go to jail because he has a secret service detail, the data breach at the Austin Meals on Wheels and more on Confucius Reads the News.

The full transcript of this episode of The Breaks is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.

Confucius I’m Confucius and you are now listening to the Breaks podcast. These are highlights from our Saturday night hip hop show on KUTX 98.9 in Austin, Texas. My co-host, Fresh and I are Native, Austinites, And we love talking hip hop Texans, hip hop, hip hop history and what’s going on right now. And just so you know, the opinions expressed in this podcast are our own and do not necessarily reflect the position of KUTX.

Speaker 2 We need to take a moment to embrace. From moment day. The face of the. Wake up, wake up. Write the image. Wake up, Wake up, wake up. This is the great race. I’m fresh.

Confucius I am Confucius. We have a great show lined up. We got some guests this week.

Fresh Have some guests? Yes, we do. We have JM, the founder of the Austin based. I don’t want to say promotion, but event company, Hubbledvision, and also he has an artist along with Blvck Svm that is originally from Florida, but has been recently based out of Chicago. So, JM, you founded Hubbledvision. I guess I have to ask why. Found why start and build Hubbledvision?

J.M. Well, first and foremost, I feel like I should give a little spiel because a lot of people ask me what the name means.

Fresh That works to.

Confucius But my question.

J.M. Yeah, for me, like growing up, you know, I was I was very will till this day. You know, I call myself an astrologist to this day, but I was very infatuated with space, the stars, the planets, the sky. And I followed the Hubble Space Telescope, like, for a young.

Fresh Age to do with the.

J.M. Telescope. Yeah. And so I’m not sure how familiar you all are with the Hubble Space Telescope, but it was supposed to be in space for only ten years. And in 2020 was its 30th anniversary. Mm hmm. And so in that time, I was already kind of curating and thinking about a creative community or collective with my friends. And it kind of like, you know, it was just one of those things where it dawned on me like, okay, this is this was supposed to be here for this long, but it surpassed it and it went further and it’s still alive and it’s still prospering. And so I took that as a analogy for kind of what we’re doing. You know, we’re a creative satellite, as I like to say. And with that being said, you know, the Hubbled comes from that, you know, being able to set out on a journey, but also not being afraid of where it may take you because it may take you left when you’re thinking about right. But that left could be the right way, you know, And obviously the vision is just having the vision to see it through.

Fresh Right? Yeah.

Confucius It makes sense. Blvck Svm, what is it like? You know, you’re from Chicago doing music. What is it like to work with HubbledVision?

Blvck Svm You know, I’ve I’ve been in contact with GM for a little while now. A few months, six months, something like that, maybe even longer. And when he reached out about this opportunity, I was really excited. I’ve only done one festival in the past, so we’ve been keeping in contact for the past few months, like pretty consistently about this. And I’m just I’m excited to work with them. I, I really, I see the vision that he has, I think, and just seeing how he’s been able to curate different events in the past, like going on his IG and just looking through everything and seeing how everything comes together. It’s cool to be a part of that this and it’s cool to hopefully help push that vision forward.

Fresh Have you seen oh, so this week Afrotech is here in Austin once again and you all threw a show on Friday. Afro vision. Mm hmm. How was it like? I have to ask, like, how was the event?

J.M. I mean, you know, for me, I’ll. I’ll. I’ll keep it short. You know, it’s like whenever we throw events, we really don’t have an expectation, Right? Or really a target audience. You know, I feel like we let our music and the people we bring around speak for itself. And so the outcome kind of speaks for itself. You mean.

Fresh I’ve been to I’ve been to a couple Hubbledvision events and I’ve enjoyed every one I’ve been to.

J.M. Them. And we appreciate, you know you know, it’s after.

Confucius I’ve tried the sauce is great.

J.M. You know but it’s it’s funny because I’m I grew up in Austin and so being able to curate events spaces that I used to you know look forward to going to like eight years ago ten years ago, you know, like we had a residency at Native Hostel. I remember there was a point where me and my coworkers would go to Native Hostel to, like, enjoy ourselves, you know what I mean? And so I feel like that’s kind of a good way to kind of see like the progress that I’ve done. But as well as the progress people around me have, you know, put into seeing things like this become possible. And it’s very possible.

Confucius And so my my question is for your music and for your brand, what do you want? Effort. How does Afrotech help build and expand both things?

Fresh That was a better question. Yeah.

J.M. That’s a good question. I’ll I’ll I’ll speak on the first. I think for me personally, I think I’ve got to a point where not only do I have a good amount of resources that I can use, whether that be for miscellaneous, you know, events, showcases, listening Parties even like music curation, music management. My hope is just to be able to make people appreciate Blvck Svm the way that I do. You know, because you ask any of my friends like this man is in my top five. Yeah. And now he’s in the city of Austin, you know, doing a performance at my event. Yeah. So for me, like, that already is enough. You know, and obviously, everything that I have here, I’m going to give graciously to you so that you can be able to exceed out in the South as well as you know, where I’m at or whoever you go.

Blvck Svm I appreciate that.

Fresh So with that being said, Blvck Svm, you are out of Chicago. How do you feel about being out in Austin now?

Blvck Svm So I’m originally from Florida, from South Florida. I grew up a little bit north of Miami. I moved to Chicago for school when I went to college in 2014. So I’ve been in Chicago for a minute for about ten years. This is my first time in Austin. I think we just got it. Yeah, we’ve been around, so I haven’t really experienced it fully yet, you know, but to pop around to a few spots with JM these next couple of days and I guess I just haven’t really gotten a good sense of it yet. But it’s cool to be here. I like I’m from the south, like the Southeast, so I really liked the warm weather and any anywhere that I go where the weather is is warm. That’s the mood for me.

Fresh So the tropical people.

Blvck Svm I’m already enjoying it. So, yeah.

Confucius I was thinking you got y’all got that cold, too. Yeah. It’s like, Wait a minute. Isn’t that what I signed up for? I literally, though, going forward, what’s next for, you know, for you, like, say I’m in for help. What’s what’s, what’s next after this? Because I know Afrotech’s this big thing. And but of course, the vision, of course surpasses that. So what’s next for you guys?

Blvck Svm Are we talking collaboratively or individually?

Confucius Both.

Fresh Oh, no, both.

Blvck Svm I think JM and I, we already we put a track together a little while ago, and I think there are just going to be a lot of opportunities to continue working together in both the song creation capacity and the performance capacity. Like, I’m always going to be down to pull up Austin, like wherever you’re at, whatever shows you’re putting on, like you already know, I’m a tap in. And because I’m a fan, like outside of being a collaborator. Like I’m a fan of ofJM’s work in the same way that he’s a fan of mine. So I think that that goes a long way for me. It’s it’s really easy to tap in with people whose work and whose work ethic I have genuine respect for. So that’s what I would say collaboratively and outside of that. It’s just, you know, putting out good music consistently. You’re going to get a project ready to drop in December and then just push 2024 just in momentum.

Fresh Yeah, yeah.

Blvck Svm Just, just using all of the momentum I’ve built up to continue drop and continue trying to be successful with with making music and promoting the music all the all the steps that go into, you know, getting stuff happen.

Confucius Like a mentality.

J.M. Yeah. Yeah. And I would say for myself, collaboratively, obviously, you know, I spend a lot of time listening to music. And so for me, any time I have the opportunity to bring someone like Black Sam out or even be able to know somebody like that, where it’s like, okay, not only are you doing what you’re doing, I’m actively working to round out everything so that everything makes sense. I’m just looking forward to the future. I think this weekend will be a very good testament to kind of the work that everyone in this room has done. And for me, you know, I just want to keep doing stuff like this, you know, because I think a lot of people need it, especially right now in the world. And I feel like it gives people more reason to create, you know, and not only create but be around creative people. Because I’m sure you meet someone every day that says that they’re not creative. It’s like, are you going to lie in front of God? Everybody on Earth is creative. If you’re not around creative people, if you’re not in the creative circle, then you know you’re not going to think you create a high standard. But last thing I’ll say about that is I’m actually about to move to New York in February, So thank you. And I’m definitely hoping that by the time I get there, you know, I’ll be able to set similar foundations to what I’ve done out here and be able to, you know, bring people like Black Sam and even y’all out there, you know, and, you know, maybe have like a little special club podcast for.

Fresh I’m.

Confucius From New York.

Fresh I’m not from New York. I am gonna stop, stop. Before I believe in that. You got to stop doing that.

Confucius That is just what you think your taste is in New York.

J.M. There you go. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Fresh I don’t see anything wrong with regard to other people. I’m from New York. They start to believe that their making.

J.M. Book.

Confucius Is landed, and we will find a way to get that in there.

J.M. But yeah, but that’s collaborative. And then individually, as cliche, it’s I just want to keep growing, you know, I want to keep learning how to balance my life, whether that be work in creative work and just do things better, do things more efficient, meet more people and, you know, keep putting together stuff like this where there’s a lot of different people come together for one purpose, and that’s to show art, you know, display our.

Fresh Guys, we’ve got before we get out of here, let everybody know where they can follow were let the both of you let everybody know where they can follow you on social air. Find and find your music.

Blvck Svm You can find my music on any platforms. Blvck Svm with v’s instead of A’s of A’s Instagrams the Handle’s Blvck Svm, I think Twitters FpgSvm Pretty pretty consistent. Yeah.

J.M. They all say the same for me on everything. jeanishorus and then you could find us a Hubbledivision like the Hubble Space Telescope. I hear a lot of people saying, Is the Hubble division, is it? I went to school. I’m not going to fail. I’m not going to miss an I just for the sake of the aesthetic, you know? But, you know, hopefully you’ll heard my reasoning behind the title and, you know, can kind of figure out the rest for yourselves. But Hubbledvision on literally everything.

Confucius Take care. Thank you all so much for coming.

J.M. Thank you.

Fresh Thanks for having me. This is a go.

Confucius Hip-Hop Facts time.

Fresh You.

Confucius Facts about the culture with that we check these facts. Yes.

Fresh Yes we have.

Confucius So they are.

Fresh Fine.

Confucius I granted I understand that some people you don’t know how well you know these what they’ve been checked.

Fresh You can look these up, you can Google these and find them.

Confucius I’ll go first.

Fresh All right, let’s go. Let’s go.

Confucius We don’t have any more Jermaine Jackson, this is this is.

Fresh We.

Confucius Know what Michael Jackson does. And I’m pretty sure he’s they are the ones who scrub the Internet of them.

Fresh I’m devilish, right?

Confucius I have California love the Dr. Dre and Tupac video, which was though had the mad, mad, Mad Max esthetic. Every time I think about that, I think about Snoop Dogg in the Divine was documentary When he was when he was describing video, he was like he said blank, never see Mad Max before, which is true about the bad. Back to that. Really a black people movie. Yeah, I’ve seen it, but there’s.

Fresh Not like I’ve seen the original you know, I’ve seen the original.

Confucius Mad Max Fury Road was good. Anyway, to sum up in the treatment, what the video for that was shot by Hype Williams, the seminal music video, Hip hop directors out of the billion shot.

Fresh I.

Confucius Barely gotten him. The treatment was written by Jada Pinkett, who at the last minute didn’t want anything to do with the video. She wrote the treatment for it and that was it didn’t just didn’t want to do it after that.

Fresh I figured it.

Confucius Out. Although she goes on a press run, you know, wrote a book. You mentioned that. But you it’s like, wait and see.

Fresh I’m I’m shocked. Shocked. She mentioned anything, any and everything that didn’t have to do with Rupert.

Confucius They may look different if you have if you an ex of somebody who either Jada Pinkett, Britney Spears, you go through it right now.

Fresh Boy, they say Justin Timberlake packed up and went to Mexico. Oh, yeah, but that’s not my fe. Oh, my first fake Martin Lawrence kid play. Salt and pepper and salt and peppers manager Herby at one point all worked at a Sears call center in New.

Confucius York every.

Fresh Yeah I think at different at one point in time all of them were there together. But at certain points it was like Martin was there to use kid play, and then it was like Herbie. And then it was like, I think Kid or play it with Herbie in play. At the beginning, the insult came. Some people came in in the end, like they left, and then it was just kid play and Herbie the like. At one point all of them were working at.

Confucius Who was the plug that was.

Fresh Out. From what I saw.

Confucius They were the people. She was. I was well, I mean, they hired up. You come up with a different one.

Fresh I thought it was Herbie was working first and then apparently he was in a group with Martin and they was going to do Martin was trying to do music, and he realized like, yo, I can’t rap.

Confucius So I’m not I mean, I’m not.

Fresh I’m good on it. But what I heard was Herbie was working there first, and then he got play at a job and the play was like, Oh, I know somebody else or I need a job. And he got killed up there. And then salt and pepper came in. Herbie, I think Herbie would want get near by your job. I don’t know what would Herbie was doing at Sears. He was getting out of home music. I shout out to Herbie, Maybe.

Confucius We live in a history you don’t know it Going from jaded of Will Smith Now summertime there. What I guess I would argue that Jesse Jackson Fresh Prince, big song. Oh, I think it’s making appearances on stage.

Fresh It might be slightly I.

Confucius Think so that would that would play a lot of places.

Fresh It was I’m not I’m not down I wouldn’t want.

Confucius To do whatever Will Smith performs It’s kind of his go to.

Fresh I mean who.

Confucius But summertime debut after an episode of Fresh Prince Williams’s new podcast, Class of 88, he was interviewing Jazzy Jeff and his son Jaden, and and asked him like was one of his big moments as a rapper. And he was said, Yeah, we were able to convince NBC to debut Summertime after Fresh Prince the short episode, and Will said he was inspired by Michael Jackson debut in Thriller on network television to the Wheels. Like, I was always one of my goals, too. And he said, We debuted the next thing No, next week it was number one.

Fresh That’s what’s up, man. We were making history, particularly drums.

Confucius Please.

Fresh Turtle, don’t do well. Of course, Spotify, outside of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Well, obviously, it is their biggest song with over 95 million streams.

Confucius Fresh Prince, The Fresh Prince theme song. I don’t know. I had the second verse.

Fresh Boy, and I think I think it was only played on like the first episode.

Confucius I’m like, Yes, it is. Either the first episode of it was only played one time. Yeah, I think I thought the way this going, what is happening? It’s like it’s a whole song.

Fresh Oh man.

Confucius Did you have to clean it up with boy man man?

Fresh Oh my second fact where we. Oh, the movie colors one of my favorite colors.

Confucius Colors, colors, colors. That easiest hook ever.

Fresh Leads me into my fact that you sung the hook of the.

Confucius Song.

Fresh But that was not originally the title song for the movie. Ice-T said.

Confucius The song was called Colors that.

Fresh Ice-T said he was brought. When he was brought in. He did a whole different song for the movie and he was like, Yo, when you are asked to do music for a movie, you can ask to see the movie. And he was like, So we went. He was like, me. Him and his producer went to the private screening for the movie Colors and I don’t like it move that way, really of color. You like the colors, man. I’ll rock with champagne. I mean.

Confucius You like champagne, but you like. Never mind.

Fresh Yes. No, I do not like Ethan. Oh, well, yes, I like Sean Penn as an actor. Yeah.

Confucius Talk about act of Go.

Fresh Debatable. But anyway, anyway, I think I would. Oh, he said when he was watching the movie. As he was watching the movie, he was like, Yeah, well, what’s the what’s the title song? And then like, the title song was a Rick James song. They call you, but it wasn’t cold blooded. But he was like, Is Rick James on that is still on the soundtrack, but he was just like. Yo, yo, yo, yo. No, we got. We got to do something else. He said he went to the director and was like, Yo, I’m going to do a title song for this. And that’s how he ended up coming up with color, because he was like, Yo, nothing in this movie is for real. He was like, None of this is none of this is believable. None of this stuff actually happens. He was like, we was watching the movie and the scene where they I guess they in the county jail and it’s like bloods on one side and Crips on one side and they are all banging and throwing up. They saw us and said he was like, You know that? And he’s like, That doesn’t really happen when you get like that. He’s like, by the time you reach that point, you already in the jumpsuit, like, nobody’s in their interest in like and they flannels and sneakers and they k like, nobody’s doing it. Nobody’s waving a flag.

Confucius I agree with that.

Fresh But like, so he was like, I would just come up with something better than what Rick James Then what they chose Rick James on. They chose to be like the title song for the movie. That’s how I ended up writing colors.

Confucius So that was not good. But I’m so.

Fresh I like colors, man. I like bad movies.

Confucius It’s not I wouldn’t say that you like bad. You just you had your blinders really come on And third movie to say that.

Fresh I was.

Confucius Like, you know, it’s like for me we talk about it to be like, you know, I like you, the child. And I watched it one time, I think when you just moved in to that apartment we lived in, and I was like, This movie sucks. There’s no plot to this.

Fresh I mean, look at this point, our into the for the comedy.

Confucius Oh God can you if you elaborate too deep you.

Fresh Know hilarious movie at this point because I’m now I’m just like yo none of this is believable.

Confucius A lot of it is none of this.

Fresh And then you learn the fun facts about the movie you like, Yo, this is wild.

Confucius My final fact, let’s go back to Hype Williams once again, one of the most important music video directors of all time, especially for hip hop. I actually noticed it when I saw the fact he directed Drunk in Love. That’s not the fact, though. Recorded by Beyonce and Jay-Z. I did not that I guess because that video came out at a time when videos weren’t shown as much that that the rise of video them being on TV. But I’d seen a video about it. No, it was him because I’m so used to hype Williams having these big extravagant videos and hype, Williams said. That was the purpose of the video, which is why that video only took 3 hours to shoot. If you look at the edit, it looked like one take.

Fresh Went to on.

Confucius A beach. They would run around on the beach.

Fresh So I make sure I had the right video and I haven’t been on the beach.

Confucius Yeah, I know. You’re like Beyonce.

Fresh Oh, here we go. Once again, start with that narrative. You and and there it is. But you weren’t in Joe.

Confucius But I’m just like, you have got to laugh.

Fresh Why don’t we not don’t like I mean, I can’t afford it. What are you talking about?

Confucius That you’re you’re you’re going to Atlanta. You got money pressure to reach out to you.

Fresh You not saying that.

Confucius Phrase got money. I will have to be as the word to label yo.

Fresh Uber.

Confucius Uber black.

Fresh Oh.

Confucius We had 3 hours.

Fresh 3 hours looks rather short for like a high grade video, like artists of Beyonce’s caliber and hype.

Confucius Williams big pivot to Glasgow. Two weeks Yeah well we could have obviously that want to go down that.

Fresh Having to go having to go from Barbados.

Confucius To Miami.

Fresh To Miami.

Confucius What I made of trips is I’m prepared all the way to the end of death. That’s my final fake.

Fresh Oh, right. Oh, my final fact. Questlove before his name was Questlove, he went through a plethora of names trying to figure out what to what to name himself. He said when they were starting, when him in black were starting out, he didn’t really he was going by his actual name, Amir Amir. And then he was like when they changed the name, when they changed the group’s name to the roots, he was like, Well, I got to come up with something catchy, you know? Tariq’s going by Black Dot. I need to I need to come up with some, like, equally as catchy. So he said one of the names he came up with was a brother question, and he was like, when they were doing interviews, people were just saying Brother, brother because he was writing it like brother with a question mark. And so they would they will.

Confucius Put the question mark in the teleprompter.

Fresh And they would say, I’m.

Confucius Ron Burgundy.

Fresh And he’s they were they would do interviews in L.A. They would just be the same brother like. And he was like, what? His brother question And it was like, oh, we just thought, like, you just say, like.

Confucius Like too complicated for no reason.

Fresh So he’s like, the next one was just like a question mark because he was like, Yo, you know, it was around the time Prince, you know, changed his name. He was just going by a symbol and he thought that was cool. So you’re.

Confucius Not Prince.

Fresh He just went with a question mark. And he was like, people was confused as now what to call him, because it was like.

Confucius Today, 100 million copies of Sell It In and Who You Are.

Fresh Yet it was like nobody knew what to call him. So he was like, Well, I need something that’s cool and as catchy. So he was like, he was flirting with like this question, Love, question, question, love. And that’s how I ended up landing on Questlove.

Confucius So, yeah, I mean, I like Questlove the name I piggyback off your fact blacked out and Questlove in the Motown family video Boys, to me.

Fresh They all want the same house, right?

Confucius You said they could take your passport, boys. You made them talent. You that, but you couldn’t.

Fresh Call at home. And I do not know that well. Stick around for more after this quick break.

Confucius And now it is time for unpopular opinion with fresh himself.

Fresh Let’s talk about Texas, man.

Confucius Okay. The Rangers. No regulation Rangers.

Fresh I mean, shout out to them. They have won anything yet. But I got to be honest, I.

Confucius Don’t think we talked about what anything it was. It’s over. Is it? Yeah. They won.

Fresh Oh, I paid attention. Boy. No, clearly, I’m not. The only one is.

Confucius One of the team with 21 years over.

Fresh The only one is the lowest rated to watch the World Series. A lot of people never watched.

Confucius An MLB with man. They made it all the way.

Fresh But shout out to the old man. I got to the Rangers. There’s been a while me.

Confucius But they wanted.

Fresh Yes, but no, I’m not talking about the Rangers. I’m not. When I say let’s talk about cases, I’m not talking about the Rangers, I’m talking about Texas rap and Texas rappers for my unpopular opinion. Oh. I think it’s more so of a question. Do Texas rappers get lazy? And I ask that because Vlad and Young Jack. Yeah, the clip came across my Instagram, I think a few days ago, a week ago, somewhat. And it was the clip of Young Jack speaking about Texas and how, like, you know, Texas rap was. And most people say it is. And I think most people say this because there’s a sense of jealousy with Texas Rivers. And young Jack was speaking to how I you know, in Texas, a lot of the rappers that you see, you know, were poppin and had the money and the houses and the cars, all of that before they got those major deal, as we said on the show before. Slim Thug’s debut album already platinum was named that because in Texas he was already platinum. Like if you go back in oh interviews after he got signed, you know, excuse me, he was saying in a lot of interviews, yo I everything that a lot of these rappers had love already had. I already had Rolls-Royce. I had the big house. I had all the jewelry, all the diamonds because, you know, we were selling. I was I’ve been selling in Texas. I’ve been went platinum down in Texas alone. And young Jack’s whole thing was I think he felt like at the. Texas drivers got a bit too comfortable because of it. And so now I beg the question. Do Texas Rivers get comfortable? I just saw Mexico creeping on Halloween here, and I was at Anton’s and. I expected the crowd to be a bit larger than what it was, but it wasn’t one. It could just simply mean it was Halloween in and out and everybody’s on the street when it comes to Halloween. So they could have just been here. They could be like, Yeah, I’m going to six. I’m not really on to a show or whatever. I’m doing something free, going to a bar, bar and all of that, but. It got me thinking. About young Jack’s point that Texas artists or takes mainly Texas rappers. When you live in a state as big as Texas, where in Texas we are pretty much closed off and we don’t really care what the rest of the country is doing or being big somewhere. We don’t care about being big in New York, in Texas, like we don’t care about appealing to the East Coast or appealing to the West Coast or appealing to the Midwest. We feel like y’all from Texas. We ain’t Texas. I don’t really need anybody else.

Confucius And that mentality comes because the other coast ignored that.

Fresh And I think we’ve kind of held on to it. And it’s what has kept us rather kept us to ourselves and continue to feel like y’all don’t really need to be popping in Atlanta. Granite L.A. Rocks with us, but I think a lot of Texas artists look like you. I don’t really I don’t need to go over there. I don’t need to do a show over in Florida, Like I don’t need to go do a press run and be in Miami and be on the radio in Miami. I’m in Texas. I can go platinum here just simply in Texas. And I think that has made some artists a bit lazy. You don’t have to appeal, necessarily. Appeal. To anywhere else in the country. Like, I don’t if I’m a rapper in Texas and I’m successful, what I care about Detroit for, what I care about doing the show in Detroit or in Ohio, and going there and doing the press rolling when my album comes out, I’m a sell in Texas and I’m gonna make my money in Texas and I can tour throughout Texas and get my show money and maybe go to Louisiana. And be good and be fine, which is you see, a lot of people have been saying for the longest time, man, zero should be way bigger. Zero need to pop out zero. Man And when they go gazebos, I mean, y’all sleeping on zero? When people don’t know about zero, I think that’s because zero probably looks like, you know, I don’t need to go anywhere else. I can do what I do in Texas and be a Texas legend and be popular in Texas forever and maybe go over once again to Louisiana, maybe Alabama or Tennessee. But outside of that, I’m good in Texas. I don’t ever need to leave Texas. And I think a lot of Texas drivers have stuck with that mentality and it kind of made them lazy, especially. Ones who have broken out past Texas like a mac. So I think at a certain point. Think. I think things have slowed up a bit for Mac, so that’s due to certain reasons. I think fighting the RICO case kind of helps slow things up a bit, but I think at the end of day he kind of looks like I’m a favor. I live in Texas. I don’t really need like I don’t really need to be anywhere else Texas going stream music. So I’m good. And I think that kind of makes you lazy when you only think about just the area that you are coming out of. You are from like you. Don’t put much energy into pushing the music as hard as you can because you know your people are going to support it. Now, granted, that can backfire because it definitely backfired on the second album. He blames it on a tornado hitting Dallas. But I also was like, well, what about the resident state? Like, why didn’t Houston? But our people in Houston bought out more people in here and also San Antonio or El Paso or the rest of the state. Like what? Like you can’t just say just because people in Dallas didn’t buy that. Like you’ve got an entire state. But I think that’s like the one time that that I know of that is like backfire. But like yeah I think Texas rebels have are a bit lazy, man.

Confucius I disagree.

Fresh All right. Let’s talk about it.

Confucius Your argument, I think, holds the most weight when you talk about the the deejay screwed generation of rappers, which I am. McLuhan switched out on that because they would they started when the screws got around that group in Yamamoto unfortunately has been He’s an engineer too. He was ran that during that time that group of Houston rappers has the mentality of being self reliant on Houston and Texas as a whole because they were selling tapes out of their trunk. You know, Screw famously would sell it at his house, which house was driving around Texas handing out CDs. Anybody that came out of that camp, I can give you argument for. So, yeah, that includes the fat parts, the hulks, the zeros. Trey is one of them. That’s those are those slim thug in there. Palwal these people that came up seeing Lil Flip. How? Having a career. In Texas can be its own self-sustaining thing. Like you said, it’s Limberg said I was already planning before I put out the album. I had two cars and jewels and all that, but the generation after, I would argue, had a different mentality.

Fresh Would you say the same thing for Dallas?

Confucius We mean Well, Dallas to.

Fresh Dallas has the.

Confucius Same.

Fresh Idea.

Confucius So I thought it really they I mean, they did if you talk to them and I have they did travel to other places, but they mostly their base was here. They mostly focused on Texas. But I’m saying this next generation after, which includes we run our age a little bit younger, I feel like they started branching out because.

Fresh I.

Confucius And that you can include like Megan came from that Travis Travis yellow B.C. riff riffraff machine gun Kelly He’s right. He’s from Texas. Is he? He’s from Texas. Really? Cargo bangs, Machine gun. Kelly from Texas.

Fresh Where I know him to be from Cleveland. The band were like, wow. Boy Machine gun. KELLY Yeah.

Confucius He was born in Texas.

Fresh Oh, about to like that man Ribs, Cleveland Heart.

Confucius Yeah, No, they bought Texas.

Fresh He like for him to say solid Cleveland that bone.

Confucius In Mexico and Ken the man getting a man assigned to Roc Nation in Mexico. Didn’t he say Jay-Z helped him with like sequels one of his album of the day song?

Fresh Yeah.

Confucius So I think they that generation.

Fresh I think he’s managed by Roc Nation.

Confucius Yeah. So I think that generation branched out and realized, okay, because we can’t just drive, you know, city to city, sell to TV anymore. We have to do more. So I wouldn’t say they’re lazy. And Travis famously left Texas to get on like nobody Texas put him on.

Fresh I do famously remember him.

Confucius Getting into it because it was all.

Fresh Online. It was seen you around. And I also thought to myself, Slim, though, you and your thirties brothers kid at 18, why would you.

Confucius But that But see, that that exchange to me proves my point. Slim and slim thug’s mind. If you’re not in Texas, I mean, you must not exist, but it drives his body like, bro, I. I’m not. I’m not. I’m not. Because it’s limp. It’s in pimps. He said the same thing. They gauged success by who they saw walking around the mall buying stuff that was for them. Like, okay, you’re I see you at the car show, I see you at the mall. But then the generation after them who, you know, couldn’t afford it, which fans couldn’t afford, it was like we got to find something else because they say, this is not this is not this is not the culture that we are part of as much. So, yeah, I would give like I said, if the people that we grew up on, the people you name, yeah, I think they kind of got to a place like, Hey, I’m fine, I don’t really care. But the generation after, like, there’s no way. Megan thee stallion if you the to take that would be as big as she is.

Fresh I agree.

Confucius It same thing with Travis. That Travis state he does. No, they don’t have that Travis was that a lot of like gutted. We first came out there’s no way that it worked in Texas.

Fresh So yeah I.

Confucius Like I said I think yeah that that deejay screwed generation yet they didn’t care they didn’t care and beautification helped with eight super independent sales. So I’d like them to do it all and they don’t care. But in California they have to do you know if you if you listen envision him he you know, at one point in time he was like really close to Dr. Dre. He was on The Grinder, too. The other one, his second album had a Dre beat and put me a beat on it. And I’m doing I am cool. I don’t really care to do anything else with this. And like, bro, what? Like you’re the first Southern rapper with a deejay for me, a beat. I go, whatever.

Fresh And I, I remember premier talking about then I think that was more so premier. Wanting to work with Devin. Yeah, and like, being a fan of Devin and like, you know, I’m also from, like, I know Devin’s people, I know Devin and I know his people. Yeah. So, like, I want to work with Devin. Like we from the same, we from the same city, same area, same neighborhoods.

Confucius So, so that that’s what I’m saying. But David Devin wasn’t out here like you’re, I just got to make this album and try to, you know I may be able to give me a break. I’ll take them, but I’m not doing it. I’m a rapper. Let the butcher let that be. I’m not. But I, I think the generation that was fans of the DJ screw generation, they said we got we got to we got to grow this. We can’t like say the things that weren’t back in 97 don’t work now.

Fresh Don’t know, don’t work in 2017, in 2017.

Confucius And it doesn’t work. It’s good. It doesn’t you know, even I don’t want to hear it in slip working that they tried that whole year. You know we still sustain in Texas because you’ve been around 30 years. Nobody else made. You couldn’t start rapping tomorrow and start telling you that a guy that wouldn’t work. So that’s not a thing. But yes, that was going to popular opinion.

Fresh All righty. All righty. Look, I got confused. Lou turns into rebuttal. And now let’s get educated, man. Here is Confucius reads the news.

Confucius Yeah. That like we said earlier in the show, if you get your news from me, I need to talk to somebody. I should not be your only source for news. Granted, also, your source of news should not be Facebook. So I get it.

Fresh Please allow it to be Facebook.

Confucius This happened last Saturday so I don’t get a chance to really dive into it because I kept my news together for the show. Before the show, I’m not. I’m not reading the news live, guys like I’m I’m getting it together. Then I come on here and talk about it. My pants dropped out. Oh, no. I guess he got tired of doing rallies at gas stations in KBS is.

Fresh Your website if you want, like a drugstore dating.

Confucius Site. Well, there was that barbecue spot. Camilla Well, Bill Miller’s. What was that? Yeah, it was his. It sort of surprised nobody. Mike Pence is no longer running for president. I guess he thought that trying to go against Trump was the move like they all do. The minute that Trump said he didn’t like you no more, you can do your job trying to steal an election. You would like the momentum. It wouldn’t happen. Like I said, it doesn’t help that he has the emotions of a Terminator. So that that, you know, it just wouldn’t work out. But that’s one more down, many more to go. Oh, Larry had also dropped out.

Fresh I didn’t even know Larry Elder was Larry Elder was running.

Confucius I only knew because he was on the Breakfast Club and they did a horrible job interview with him. Larry Elder has been OC. I’m trying to get word to you that that’s nothing. It’s not a curse word he’s been. Shucking and jiving for a while. You got it. You got to come with it when you did when you when you did those type of people, because they they’re out there to use that. They are prepared for the whole, you know, what are you you’re not doing things for black people. They don’t care so little that Mike Pence is out. I’m pretty sure the next couple months it’ll be more people because nobody’s really holding on. Person is polling decent distances and he’s still like 50 points behind Trump. So it just it is what he has has.

Fresh While.

Confucius Moving on to Trump is well, his lawyer, Olina Hubbell, says he would not go to jail mainly because he had Secret Service. Which you know what? I make a lot of jokes about Trump and his people. Good Lord knows they deserve it. But that is kind of a good point. What happens if he does go to jail? How does Secret Service work?

Fresh You know, we’ve never seen it before.

Confucius We never see it.

Fresh I don’t know. Like, we don’t know how that works. Like.

Confucius Imagine being on the Odyssey Tribe Walk by the Secret Service. Like, I think this. Look, I glad to. I try to be as free.

Fresh Do you imagine working for Secret Service and having to show up every day to the prison?

Confucius Jail matters? Well, I got to be in here. I got to do nothing.

Fresh Man. You precio nowhere, Jones. Who do.

Confucius I know? I blending and I try to be afraid to jump so quickly. I get protection to man. Look, you know the guys in the crowd jump on me, Brett. I mean that.

Fresh They had servers work.

Confucius For extra help. He didn’t get beat up, but it looks. Yeah. Like, bro, we get high for him that.

Fresh President in his family they want to.

Confucius Do what you have to think about it you know you’re in bad shape when your lawyer her excuse for you being charged for his crimes. I mean he can go jail. He got you got Secret Service. How about he didn’t go to jail if he didn’t do it? How about that? How about that? Be in your defense.

Fresh That is not an admission of guilt.

Confucius Granted, she did say that. She said, quote, He’s protected by the Secret Service, period. So I always tell people when they’re panic, listen, he’s protected by Secret Service, number one. Number two, he did nothing wrong. That should be number one.

Fresh I would use it.

Confucius We should be number one. I mean, if he did do it, he’s got Secret Service. But I mean, he didn’t do it. That’s not had it. You know what? It’s because nobody wants to work with Trump. That’s why he gets these bottom shelf lawyers he found on TV during more.

Fresh In the personal injury lawyers.

Confucius Yeah. Man 187 occasion now for you a structured settlement that a breach at Meals on Wheels here in Austin somebody open up the wrong email all the data got leaked from dates of birth home address, the diagnostic code, phone numbers, Medicaid numbers in some instances, Social Security numbers, more. So they are changing security protocol now because once again, somebody over email, they should have asked I get it e sometimes look very sophisticated so sometimes you open up want you shouldn’t be why me that’s why you would have to meals on wheels like if I’m if I’m writing an email and I’m trying to hack into something it’s not going to be Meals on Wheels it right now it’s some debt I got. I need to clear out. I’m going right for that.

Fresh I mean, I’m guessing they well, some of them old folks that pension. See you citizens pensions like those that are living updated again, Social Security numbers, I guess. I’m guessing. I’m guessing. I mean, maybe they made insurance that bad. I don’t know, man. It’s hard.

Confucius So I guess maybe the will tell people, change your password because apparently folk around here don’t know how to not open e-mail. They shouldn’t.

Fresh I mean, most older people don’t.

Confucius Yeah. Variety. Came out with a news issue. And the lead story is crisis in Marvel. Yes. Marvel Studios, the studio that makes The Avengers all your favorite superheroes that are dark and gloomy. Apparently, there’s a lot going on over there. Granted, if you’re a fan of Marvel, like me and Fresh York, it’s got obvious. On one hand, the special effects team is decided to unionize, which has never happened for. They have issues with Jonathan Majors, who was supposed to be the new big bad for Marvel.

Fresh Thank God to be a white man.

Confucius He’s having some domestic issues that he has to go to court for.

Fresh I mean, things kind of turner type of things seem to be going in a positive direction for him. I guess I miss.

Confucius I’ve got to go. He’s the guy going to go for it? No, no, no, honey, get arrested, fool you. He’s got to go to court, too.

Fresh But I know he’s still got to go to court.

Confucius I’m just saying he was trying to like Slade. Honey, I wouldn’t have wanted posted for stuff there, but what are you doing?

Fresh Wanted posters?

Confucius Yeah. What I’m saying is that I don’t want to say that John Major did do it. I’m just saying he’s not looking good right now. You do it to me.

Fresh That’s fair.

Confucius That’s legitimate. And I’m always looking at that to apparently marvel at one point in time instead of just getting rid him altogether did bring in Dr. Doom.

Fresh Like I say, but we white man.

Confucius White comic books game Gaga. Apparently the movie The Marvels, which comes out next Friday, is underperforming ticket wise. It has one of the lowest presale tickets of any Marvel movie.

Fresh You know, I heard something about fans and their reaction to the marvels. They were upset that Brie Larson isn’t gay in the movie. And I was like. Well, she’s never really been gay before. Like, if you read the books, she’s had several relationships with men. She’s gotten she’s never been like. Well, according to the line, I was just baffled. It’s like, yo yo la protest because she’s not gay.

Confucius Well, according to the article, the problem with they they normally when they test screening films, they film it for executives, not the people involved. Mm hmm. But because they’re so worried about it, they filmed it for audiences who say, this isn’t what we thought it was. And also, it’s also that helped that the director in post-production started working at a hold on the movie, which moved the whole of the country, started working to hold of the movie.

Fresh Yo, that’s great. I’ll get back to this lady.

Confucius Apparently Mahershala Ali was about to get out of Blade because the script that was given to him, he was the fourth lead, which How do you make Blade the fourth lead of his own movie? It was supposed to be like female centered, and he was going to be like a fourth lead of it. And so Kevin Fogg, who runs Marvel, had come back in there and just get rid of everything. And he’s now hired the screenwriter for Logan. To him. I’m kind of emotional. He’s like, I’m out. It’s like, how do you lose an Oscar Award winner who called you to do the movie? So we’ll see what’s going on. Apparently, Marvel was bogged down by Disney’s demand for constant content. They want a movie to theaters or a TV show on Disney Plus. And Marvel could keep up with that demand. It stretched everybody to the end. Clearly, with the movies being put out would have really special effects that were being changed on the fly. Apparently, She-Hulk, the show and Moon Knight had special effects that were added like weeks after the fact they debuted. So, you know Kanye West. Yeah, man. So but but you know, the industry still has faith in Kevin Feige. They had a marvel. They have not rolled out the X-Men yet. Fantastic Four. And I think industry insiders feel like that might be their saving grace. There’s also talk to them, try to bring back the original Avengers, you know, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson. Which, if that’s the case, Seyfried would pay for the cleaner, pay for the job.

Fresh By the way.

Confucius It’s great to have Scarlett Johansson through your boyfriend and break the bank.

Fresh Disney got it.

Confucius And they do got it. So let’s see, man, you know, I’m going see Marvel’s next week.

Fresh I am going to probably see it after I come back from Atlanta.

Confucius I will leave. I was out in the news with this note in regards to Marvel comedian Roy Woods Jr who was on The Daily Show. He’s leaving now because he should have made the damn host. But they didn’t. He made a good point about Marvel movies now. He said, When I was growing up, if I saw a sequel to a movie, all I had to see to understand what was going on in the sequel was the movie before it. Now, would marvel after what, six shows and three other movies? I understand what the hell is going on in these movies, and that is Confucius reads the news.

Fresh Oh, right. I mean, it is a lot to Kibo. We’re now in the whole MCU and, you know, everybody else is kind of picked up in their own little universe. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. So it’s a lot If I’m not.

Confucius For Loki getting rid of all those multiverses. Cause I’ve got to go get this back to one. Yes, I’m going on the. This episode of The Breaks podcast is a production of KCTCS 99, The Austin Music Experience. You can listen to the Breaks radio show every Saturday night from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.. This podcast is produced by Confucius Jones, Fresh Knight and Elizabeth McQueen with editing help from Jack Anderson. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter. We are at the breaks cortex and you can find more episodes at Kate Sawgrass The Breaks. Our theme song is by Austin artist Deezy Brown.

This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.