A MUST watch! Tyler Perry's Master Class at NABJ in Detroit | #RolandMartinUnfiltered

do so do you all good so um glad to be here so melanie melanie burley still aka so melanie melanie tried i was at i got honored this year at the aka convention and melody was like uh she said yeah she said i'm wearing pink and green every single week i said i'm gonna show you how to wear pink and green melody and so i told her i had something for her and then she then cause when i hit it with a feather pocket square she know what to do uh and then of course did i hit it with the pink socks she really was sick so so melanie this is what happened when you talk smack to an alpha all right so what so why are we doing uh this conversation with tyler perry so when we when the board met here in detroit in march we were um talking about speakers and coming to the convention and so as we're sitting in the board meeting i sent tyler a text and i said hey a convention is happening in detroit august 1st through 5th i want you to come and speak but i don't want you to come talk about medea i don't no no i said i don't want you to come and talk about movies uh like traditionally they do he recently had done his q a on twitter and the kind of questions he was getting on the press tour for acrimony i said what i want you to do is come to nabj to teach i said and he said really i could take him to church and the school and i said yes and the reason being is because even when i was a national student representative uh from 1989 to 1991 i always believe in the idea of entrepreneurship and for me one of the issues that i've always had is that too many of us have operated as workers and not owners and so as we as we were talking i said i want you to come teach entrepreneurship but also not just branding but knowing your audience and this year when i was at uh operation hope's global hope forum in atlanta t.i was on a panel and he was talking about monetizing our culture i was in essence and richelieu dennis the brother uh who purchased essence communications he talked about monetizing our culture and the reality is african-americans are the trend setters in america we are the taste makers but other folks have made billions off of our culture and what i've always appreciated about tyler perry is that black people made tyler perry rich tyler perry and this is important tyler perry did not seek the validation of white america to cross over he said no i'm going to cultivate my people and that's the reason he has been successful as he has been and so we want to have him come and teach this particular session because moving forward that's really where we have to be also sitting in front and let me be clear i want to warn you all right now don't freak out because he is here to learn he is here to learn about media learn about various ideas put your hands together for chance the rapper many of you may have read or you have heard the song uh he recently acquired the chicagois the site that's in chicago that's a media site and so same thing he's here to learn about media to listen to folks in this room to talk to folks uh he and i we're gonna get a chance to uh sit down and chat later because where we are now in 2043 america is going to be a nation that has majority people of color in 2043. and all of us have been sitting here worried about contraction in our business working about how jobs have been uh been losing all those different things along those lines and the reality is we have to be thinking in the same way frederick douglass did with the north star the same way the first black newspaper freedom journal in 1827 where they said we wish to plead our own cause too long have others spoken for us the same way ida b wells barnett the same way robert abbott did when he found the chicago defender same with c.a scott in the atlanta daily world the same with bob as sheila johnson with bet and alfred ligas and kathy hughes with tv one now with byron allen of course with his company entertainment studios buying the weather channel this is about black people owning media and not asking somebody else for a job so now so now you have the setup as to why we have this conversation with tyler perry we look forward to it and i can guarantee you when you come to miami next year you're going to see even more conversations like this and so i fully expect us uh to have class so the reality is this here i'm done class is in session [Applause] [Music] oh god bless you i know they want to surprise me and they did selling home god bless you everybody how you all doing you're doing all right okay good good i um sit down i want to take a moment to say thank you to the president and to the committee for having here roland thank you for calling asking me to be here um i got to say all right turn your phone off who followed that ring i i want you to know that i am uh an introvert so i don't do a lot of these but but when he told me that it was the national association of black journalists i said i had to be here for number one you know this country free press is under attack and i just can only imagine what black people who are in the free press are dealing with inside of this attack so i wanted to come here to encourage you to inspire you to say thank you you matter what you're doing is important and keep going keep going keep going now me being an introvert sometimes people think i'm weird they think i'm so private it's just that i'm a loner i've got nothing to hide i just like being alone i like spending time alone i want to be around a place where there are more trees than people i don't like a whole lot of noise even though that's hard when you have an almost four-year-old but i'm dealing with it i don't talk a lot unless i feel like i have something to say and today i feel like i have something to say so that's why i'm glad to be here um i want you to understand something you know i see chance the rapper here and and i'm really excited because i'm a huge fan but you know we start talking about a master class you have to talk about all the things that you have done and how you've done it and what you've done and you know i've been in this business for 25 years and the difficult thing for me is to go around saying what i what i've done listen i love these hip-hop artists man i love y'all you don't do this as much as the others do they're like you know i'll be getting to the money everybody man hey hey you know they could they can brag they can boast they just talk about yeah i got to talk about the maybach i got to top out the maybach i'm not about to cut a hole in a 400 000 car i just but i respect these guys because they have this vibrato they can say what's on their mind they can tell you yeah i did this and i'm proud of it for me it's a little bit a little bit different i'm grateful to god for everything he's done but being an introvert but being an introvert i'm uncomfortable with talking about what i've managed to do and truly it has been incredible it has been something that a lot of people have wanted to do but for some reason it fell on me to do it's been tough it's been a burden it's been hard but more than anything i don't regret it i'm going to keep going i'm going to keep climbing i'm going to keep believing for more from god so before i show you this video that i put together so i don't have to talk about myself i showed you video for a little bit but but before i do that i will tell you i've been on vacation and i started i just literally got off the plane on monday from a 24 000 mile trip around the world i was on a spiritual vacation because i started to feel a little bit of unappreciated and taken for granted and it's a horrible feeling so i just went to spend some time with god and i ended up in australia at the hillsong church conference and i ended in greece chasing tracing the steps of the apostle paul so if this thing this speech takes you to church i just need the believers to go with me if you will is that all right so so take a look at this and i'll show you what i've done benjamin crump good to see you my friend take a look at this and uh and we'll i'll be right back to you take a look guys uh it starts september 28th we open in chicago and are you in this particular place yes i am it's gonna be real interesting but i think we're gonna work it out 25 years in this business has been such a blessing it all started on the stage okay so shows get ready to start up again i'm going to go out at the end and say hi before i knew it these shows were selling out all over the country we were setting box office records everywhere people were coming droves one venue after the other after the other after the other caught on like wildfire and all we could do was keep working it was miraculous [Music] we couldn't add any more seats to these theaters so i had to find a way to reach more people that way would be taking it from the stage to the studio to film and television we were outgrowing these buildings faster than we could put sheetrock up we needed more space this is what happens when you dream when you believe when you have faith when you pray and when you work your ass off so i just finished saving house of pain i'm gonna go to bed get right up start the whole thing again tomorrow then all of a sudden i hit another level [Applause] my first guess is one of the most influential and prolific entertainers on the planet he's an actor a writer director producer i'm gonna say entertainment mogul written directed and produced by one man tyler perry you have built from nothing really a really substantial business went to all these different studios and networks and i'm told black people who go to church don't go to movies so we don't think your movie idea is going to work it was a wake-up call but it also as negative and horrible as it was it was also a great thing for me because those kinds of moments become few for me they become the thing i need to say i'll show you and no sooner than i had seen one vision through there was another vision that came through that i had to press for that i had to push for that i had to go to the next level and at the new studio i dedicated the sound stages to legends of color like ruby d cicely tyson and sir sidney poitier it was spectacular every moment i've appreciated every show i've celebrated every cast every laugh every tear it's all been worth it anything that comes easily may not be as appreciated as much as the things that you work hard for that you pray for father god in jesus name i thank you for this today just give this blessing these people thank you for this moment we will never guard our safety and take this for granted tyler perry has revealed that he's opening a new atlanta studio on the side of a closed fort mcpherson army base i've never seen this i've never seen a person of color that owned their studio they he owns okay it's not like he's leasing he owned he built it he hires folks all through atlanta makeup artists and wardrobe people that's a wrap on [Applause] and it's his and he keeps expanding it it just made me so happy i wanted to use my gift to not only make us laugh but to make us think i wanted to use film to not only entertain but to let us know we don't have to wait for somebody to green light our projects we can create our own intersections i wanted to use my television show to not only make us laugh but to show us that we don't just have to act in the sitcom we can own the show and the network i wanted to use giving and philanthropy to show us that we don't have to be at the end of the line waiting for a handout we can be at the front giving the hand up and and i wanted to own a studio to show us that we don't have to wait for somebody to give us 40 acres and a meal we can buy our own thank you for always reminding hollywood that i'm your boy and y'all got my back [Applause] thank you thank you that and that is from working with black folks i got to tell you well this started for me when i was uh very very young my father was a subcontractor and he the man had an incredible work ethic i talked a lot about it but he had an incredible work ethic and he would build these houses and he was so proud of these houses that he would build he was a subcontractor with other people working for him so he would come home on friday if he had just gotten paid maybe fifteen hundred eighteen hundred dollars he'd bring it to my mother she'd divide up the money for all the other workers that he needed to pay and he would get the rest and he sometimes he kept 800 and he was so excited about having this 800 dollars then he pack us in the car come on let me show you this house i bet we all go over and look at the house that he built it was a beautiful house and then about two three months later we see that the house was sold and he come in the house he's talking like yeah you know uh that house i built it sold mr charlie made 80 000 on that house and i would look at as a little boy look at the eight hundred dollars he made and look at the eighty thousand dollars that the white man made and i would say to myself well why won't you invest in yourself and start your own business i remember telling him and my mother that when i got a little bit older my mother was like absolutely not i have paid 116 dollars a month for this house for 30 years i am not mortgage this house was 16 000 i will not be mortgaging but got to understand where they came from they came from a jim crow south they came from a place where only white people did well i mean deep deep south in rural louisiana and here i come a generation after that seeing it differently so i took that lesson i took that example into my business i took it into what i was doing i took it into into building a brand the brand what was my brand my brand was tyler perry so like all i had was myself i take a lot of uh flak for tyler perry's name is on everything what the hell's wrong with him is he pulling arrogance why is his name on everything i was building a brand i've never seen walt disney apologize for having his name above what he was doing i've never seen coca-cola or ford or anybody else apologize for putting their name on something so i was building a brand so there i was in this moment building a brand i started doing these plays and there was a mama on the couch play on every corner back then i mean in the early early late 90s early 2000s there was these kind of plays everywhere and i had to do something to delineate what i was doing differently because most of them just had to be two pieces of plywood and a sofa on on the stage you own a venture some of you know what i'm talking about and and and they got their uh sound system from rental center so i wanted to take a moment to try and elevate what i was seeing so i started working on this brand i started doing these shows and people started coming now the first seven years nobody showed up but all of a sudden in 98 things started to change and roland told me not to talk about media but i can't talk about my deal without talking about this moment so then i then i then i get to medea this character ridiculous over the top big dude six foot six in a dress what's wrong with him i heard it all but inside of the tyler perry brand there was another brand being built that i wasn't even expecting a media brand i saw eddie murphy do the clumps i said i'm going to try my hand at a female character and see what happens and that's what i did so i started doing the show and people were laughing but i was talking about serious subjects i was talking about serious subject matter i was talking about things like child abuse sex abuse getting over things forgiveness and family and i realized that this ridiculous character and these jokes were the anesthesia to talk to our people about things that have been destroying us that nobody had else been able to do up until that point so i realized the power of what was happening and i had to focus let me tell you something if you're going to build something special you've got to focus you've got to hyper focus on what you're doing focus so my focus was about getting the studio built and holding the door open for somebody to come behind me so that was the focus inside of the focus i'm doing all of these shows and doing all of these things trying to get to the goal so i'm working trying to get to the goal stay with me i'm going to tell you something it's going to really bless you if you really catch this and i'm not talking to everybody in this room there are some eagles in this room who are doing some different things who are trying to go higher you are the reason that i'm here now god bless the rest of you i get it i get it i understand it but if you're illegal in this room and you are listening to what i'm saying i promise you if you take this advice it will take you to the next level just stay with me for just a second so there i am focusing on what's happening in my life focusing on the work medea hello how you doing silly but funny but messages that people were getting and i started getting this is before twitter facebook instagram before all of that stuff god i miss those days but this is when i would just get letters from people i got a letter from a woman who said you did in two hours what my family has been trying to do for 12 years my sister is leaving an abusive relationship she's because she saw dire of a mad black woman i got another letter that i never forgot sent chills up my spine even to talk about it since shield there was a woman who had gathered her children and bought into a hotel and she said i was going to commit suicide and i asked my kids what is what do they want to do anything they wanted to do that day we were going to do they said we want to see a tyler perry play they she went and found a bootleg and watched with them in the hotel was laughing so much she said after i wash it i felt like i had hope and i no longer wanted to kill myself so so i realized the power in what was happening i was talking to blue-collar people people like my mother and daddy and my and my uncle with his ass your kneecaps my mother my father had a yeah my father had a third grade education my mother was taking care of kids at a jewish community center these were regular good old folks who could not get in the range rover and go and get therapy for what was happening inside of their lives but for some reason god had blessed me with a way to make them laugh and give them a message to make them think and at the same time give them hope i was focused i was focused there i was doing my thing focused paying attention then all of a sudden started doing movies started raising my awareness a little bit and people shoot at the deer that they can see now you have to remember that this was a time when there was no wakanda forever there was no there was no issa ray there was no donald glover the upn and the wb had merged i remember all those black shows on upn they all disappeared at the time i came along house of pain was the only show on television with the black family and i was getting messages and the critics saying what what is this why would you put fat black people on television i said are there no black black people in the world and i started hearing all of this stuff in my and spike lee somebody who's an artist who i love this work he's a and a buffoon like what like what's going on i'm focused i see what's happening for the people my people the ones i grew up with the people i know and this stuff is happening what is going on but i kept my focus on where i was going so in this here i am listening to all the naysayers listen to all the haters listen to all the back and forth but at the same time kept going forward and i realized something when i was hearing these stories about what's best for black people i realized that this isn't something new this has been going on for many many years before we got to the planet from slavery from booker t washington and w.e.b dubois arguing over what is good for black people langston hughes and zora neal hurston langston hughes sophisticated from new york city with class zora nilherson wrote in southern tones in southern dialects she her characters had southern's swirl and twang to them which offended this highlight of new york city which reminded me of spike in myself spike father jazz musician mother an educator he's an artist me over here coming from the south telling stories using the people that i knew as my inspiration so what i realized was happening somebody was trying to tell me that one shade of black is better than another shade of black black people we've got to stop that ignorant ass [Music] gotta stop it we gotta stop it we gotta stop it there is no other shade of black that is better than another shade of black your story because you got educated is not import more important than my father's story who had a third grade education every story matters that's why i'm so excited about what's happening now because everybody gets a chance to tell their stories issa rae and donald glover and and wakanda and black panther and i'm just excited of where we are right now but don't forget there was a moment when that wasn't going on and there i was out there by myself but you're going to need this next thing remember what i'm about to tell you if you're going to do something incredible you're going to need this you're going to need an emotional tolerance an emotional tolerance which says that you will stand and be okay inside of the madness you will center yourself you will stay focused you won't respond to everything you will choose pick and choose what you will respond to because your focus will be in front of you you're going to need an emotional tolerance listen to me if you're going to make it to any level in this life that's one thing you're going to need another thing you're going to need is a high risk endurance high risk endurance my mother didn't have that because that would have mean if she had it she would have mortgaged her house she would have stepped out on faith but when you have a high risk endurance you step out and you do things that have never been done before but it's silly for you to expect to get something different if you're doing the same thing that you always done if you want a different result you've got to do something different you've got to believe different you've got to step out differently and you've got to have faith inside of your high-risk tolerance i don't know how to have a high risk tolerance to to to take risks and not have faith faith is tremendously important i'm telling you can have a seed and plant it but once you put the seed in the ground and water it what else can you do to make it grow god has to provide the sunlight god has to provide the nourishments up under the ground for this seed to grow so you've got to work hard do what you have to plant hard believe have faith have an emotional tolerance have a high risk endurance and keep going no matter what and once you get to where you're going i want to tell you this because this is something that we do as black people don't run from where you came from [Music] i don't i don't know what that is with us the first thing we do is we leave from where we came from not understanding that every other culture in this world understands the power of us they all advertise to us they go in our communities and mine for our money the first thing we do when we get our income is we leave the community and spend it outside we don't spend it on us do not leave us and where we came from i'm telling you some of your blessings and some of the gifts that you are trying to get is right there among your people i would not be here right now if it had not been for us learn the value of us because i assure you they already know the value of us we got to stop looking outside of ourselves for heroes and become heroes to each other there are questions that god asked and i love the questions of god which which takes me to this point i'm talking about right now you know god asked asked a lame man will thou be made whole he asked execute can these bones live he asked he asked um he asked abraham is there anything too hard for god but the thing that he asked moses is the one i want to bring to your attention said moses what is that that you have in your hand we as black people have so much in our hand but we don't use it we don't use it we are more powerful than this we are smarter than this we are more more astute than where we are right now the reason why you don't want to leave us in our community is because when i built all of these buildings that you saw in the video every one of them every one of them that was built they were all built in our neighborhood black neighborhoods where there were poor people even the studio when when the army base left that studio it it decimated the entire area because it was the lifeblood there me coming back in there 89 000 cars have come through the gates since i opened it so i'm bringing life back into it but why is that important in 2012 when barack obama was running for re-election he called me up he said i'm going to come down to the studio and do a fundraiser i was like oh my god don't you miss him oh my god you come to the studio so he comes to the studio secret service is set up everybody's there you've got the barricades along continental colony parkway i don't know if anybody knows in atlanta that's where greenbrier mall is that's the hood and the presidential motorcade is coming down the street and you've got little black boys little black girls waving flags talking about i see the president but this is why it was so important that i was in that neighborhood because they saw the black president go into the black man's studio and they realized what i didn't as a little boy all i saw was my father working for the white man so the realization that they could have anything they wanted was so important that's why we got to build and stay among our own people [Applause] i never forget it it's so powerful so moving let me tell you something i called everybody in this business in the show business that that's doing something i say hey come sit down let's talk i've learned something maya angelou said it when you learn teach come here let me talk to you about ownership i call them all 99 of them don't return my calls but it's okay because everybody doesn't have a high risk tolerance some people are comfortable where they are and that's okay but i do like my grandmother did who would always go through the family looking for the one are you the one yes i am are you the one are you the one and she knew that somewhere along the way somebody was coming to change the entire destiny of the family and for some reason it fell on me and for some reason it fell on some of the people in this room you are the one you're sitting at a job wondering why you're there you're sitting there worried you're sitting there knowing that this is not all there is for you you are who i'm talking to the ancestors have prayed for you to be able to get [Applause] they prayed for you they called your name for you to be able to do better than what you're doing right now that you have an obligation to not only do it for yourself but for all the ones who couldn't do it and all the ones who are coming during this time when i call them and i say okay fine they don't have the high-risk tolerance it's okay back a few months ago a few years ago oscar still white was trending his hashtag oscar's white and everybody's calling me tyler you got to do something you got to say something all these black people love you you got to do something about it i said guys you go ahead and do that because i respect everybody who's fighting for a seat at the table but while you're fighting for a seat at the table i'll be over here building my own because when you sit at somebody else's table they can tell you what to eat when to eat and how to eat it but when you sit at a table you built the bible says he will prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies so i need to talk to some table builders in this room some people who know that there is absolutely more than where you are right now my prayer for you my hope for you is that you get to everything that god has for you don't leave this planet without going for it don't leave this planet without taking some risk because you could be comfortable but being comfortable is not being in faith when you have faith things are going to get uncomfortable you've got to step out sometimes and once you get to where you do where you're going hold the door open for somebody else i keep looking behind me looking to my left looking to my right going are you the one are you the one let me show you what i've learned let me show you what i've learned that's so important and i want to close and i'll leave you with this and i hope you guys remember what i said tonight emotional tolerance high risk endurance that's right have those things tremendous faith i want to leave you with this about six or seven months ago um we're at the studio and we're cleaning out one of the houses and these houses were built in the 1800s there's about 40 or 50 of them uh president roosevelt stayed in one of them colin powell stayed in one of them one of them had asbestos so we sent the cleanup crew in there to clean it and then after they left our uh cleanup crew went and to clean and they moved a cabinet that was built in the 1800s and when they moved it they found a piece of paper they bought it to me it was a letter folded perfectly i opened it up it looked like it had been written yesterday the date on the letter was october 29th 1969. it was from a little boy was 13 years old he said i'm writing a letter to the future that's when i got tears in my eyes he said i know this sounds silly but i'm writing a letter to the future he described himself he described where the country was he said that nixon was the president who was impeached interesting he was describing all of these things but the thing that got me the most is i'm writing a letter to the future well looking at the date i had only been on the planet for six weeks i'm in new orleans little black boy this little white kid is in atlanta writing a letter to the future on an army base that was once a confederate army base established 20 years after the abolishment of slavery this kid is writing a letter to the future 48 years later i find the letter that he written and i realized i was the future he was talking about i came here today to be your future to be your letter to be just an example of hope listen to me i came from nothing no one gave me anything i worked and worked and prayed and worked and prayed some more and worked harder and prayed some more until things started to fall into place i want you to understand something my god in heaven i want you to understand this if i can't get you to get anything else i want you to hear this you can do it you can do it i don't know what your do it is but whatever that is do it do it there are people whose destiny and faith are tied into you i remember when when people couldn't get work idris elba gave him his first movie taraji p henson there was no empire at that time kerry washington there was no scandal viola davis there was no how to get away with murder sofia vergara there wasn't modern family all of these shows they were all coming through the camp because at some point they needed to work and i was tied into their destiny at some point now i'm not responsible for any of their careers what i'm telling you is that had i not done what i would what i was supposed to do there are so many people who wouldn't have gotten what they were supposed to get there are people tied into your destiny black people you're special i love you i'm excited don't stop keep going and thank you for this moment god bless you hey b.j we can do better than that let's give it up for tyler perry dude you're amazing have you guys been blessed all i got to say is the doors of the church are now open everybody say all right get the offering first he said get the offer first let's get the offer first obviously tyler thank you so much you guys have a seat first of all we are so proud of the pumas man hey i'm trying i'm trying to keep it with you let me hold something first of all i gotta tell you that we are extremely proud of you and i i can speak on behalf of the african-american race i think i have some authority just a little bit today uh but also on behalf of every black man every black boy in this world you have set the pace for us and you have opened so many doors and given us confidence more than you will ever know and i just want to say thank you from new orleans from tulsa oklahoma from new york from the bronx from los angeles compton wherever you've done it and i just want to say thank you let's give them another round of applause everybody all right so now now it's time to talk you know about atl shorty he represents the a so well pretty much owns atlanta that's what i like to say it owns this our world for those of us who have sort of found ourselves we think we found our purpose uh we've done all that we could possibly do but it's just not working out how do you know when to hold and when the fold i'm i'm not i'm not the person to ask about knowing when to fold because because i didn't i didn't know i just knew down inside of me that this thing let me tell you something if you wake up with it every morning and you go to bed with it at night and you can't shake it and no matter what you do you can go get a job you can go to travel the world it is still in you it's in your heart it's in your presence you you'll never be able to shake it so go go for it go for it and and at least for me if if if i wouldn't have i don't i don't know where my life would be man i'd be so miserable so i tell people go for it i'm not the person to ask about when to give up because i don't know i'm relentless i love that so when people do say that you know i've done everything i'm hitting a brick wall when do you know that that's your purpose or you need to try something else or do you just say just just keep going like you said because but my mother of course your grandmother raised you and was a big influence in your life she always said that god would never put the desire in your heart if it wasn't his will yeah what's your answer to that well that depends because there's some desires in the heart that ain't real but no i i like to tell you about this for me like during the plays in the early in the early days i mean man it was tough it was tough that they um i would go out and and 30 people would show up i had my rent payment car payment everything ended up homeless out on the street i was doing one performance a year i would go get a job and they would tell me i couldn't take time off to go do the play and i would have to quit because i would hear the voice of god say quit step out on faith but but it was a different time for me that i didn't have a child i don't know if i could do it if i had a family and a child that i was concerned about but in that time it was just me by myself so if i'm gonna sleep with my card and so be it because i i'm gonna see this thing through and i love to be able to go to god and say listen i did everything i could now where are you when you lay that out like that when you know you've done all you could then then what else can you do right so so make sure that you have exhausted every effort to get there before you say i'm done all right and don't let people let me tell you this talk about people talk about people don't let people stop you don't let naysayers stop you even the people that you love my mother told me listen listen my mother loved me more than anything on this earth and and my brothers and sisters will tell you i was her favorite child and she they will and and when the play didn't take off i was at home i was upset and i had i have rented a car a van to drive on her credit card lord have mercy and didn't make the money to pay for it at the play and it was 300 she cussed me out left and right about that 300 and she said stop doing these plays you're never going to make it go get you a job at the phone company making you about 300 a week and your life will be all right but that was her vision for me that was where she came from but i know that what god has had for me was way more than what the person that loved me the most had for me do you understand as far as the vision goes so years later when i was doing really well and taking care of her and she's got a new house she said baby i'm so glad you didn't listen to me [Laughter] right yeah so how do you be true to yourself when it comes to branding and sort of not being concerned about people who may call you a sellout at some point yeah focus number one complete and utter focus and realize the purpose of what you're doing if what you're doing is helping and uplifting and motivating and you see the purpose and you're clear about it then then you have to drown out the noise that's that emotional tolerance i was talking about you've got to drown out the noise to be able to go for what you're doing because if you start to get swayed by people's thoughts and opinions and what they think and what they say then you're going to end up in another direction it's like the wind it's a boat without a rudder or a sail if you're trying to get to a destination you can't get there unless you have the right sail and the rudder so when the wind blows you can stay on course other way otherwise they're going to blow you every way that that they want you to go so what about having people in your corner you didn't get here alone you get here with the help of so many people right how do you know how to sort of rid out the good versus the bad well you know it's not even good it's bad as much as it is just people that are there for a season some people come in your life i say this in my book some people come in your life for a season and you have to understand that i think we get in trouble when we try to take people to levels that they are not ready for they were only supposed to be with you for a moment to help you at this level of your career and now it's time to graduate to the next preach man no no really it's time to graduate to the next level but we feel so much loyalty and so much of a sense to them because they came along with me but if you drag them up to that altitude if i don't know if you know anything about altitude sickness but people who can't breathe at certain air will die so you can't pull people up to another level that they're not ready to go and and listen to me i've had to make some really hard choices with some really good people that i cared a great deal about but i knew that they couldn't take me where i needed to be and does that include family oh for sure for listen to me i i love my family but everybody had to go get a job i i am not the sole support you are not going to count on me for everything i'm not going to do everything for you and i refuse and i have family members i said listen if you don't go to work i'm cutting you off i'm not giving you anything because i am not welfare i'm not the government and if i got to work and get up every day and go do what i have to do then you have to do the same thing too right right and and yes and it's the same way with family man some family members you can't choose your family you can love them but you can love them from a distance too and there are a lot of my family members that i've had to learn to love from this they call me i'm like yeah i'm here you need something let me know but i can't have you in my life because you're toxic you're poisonous and there's nothing wrong with if he's like what wrong with you getting away from your family the hell with you i'm happy i'm happy i'm not going to do that i'm not going to do that so tell me this how do you handle criticism of course we have naysayers those who don't believe in you somebody's always got something to say how do you handle criticism look look for truth in what they say look for truth that's a problem with our president he can't he can't look for truth and criticism look for truth in what they say if somebody's criticizing you and you you see it it's and listen don't be afraid to ask yourself is that true like when people would say about nutella your shows are simple they're simple these plots are simple they're so i'm like yes i know they're simple you know why they're simple because when i was on tour i would ask who's the oldest person in the audience somebody in balcony i'm here with my grandmother she's 85 years old i say who's the youngest somebody said my daughter's here she's two i was speaking across generations i was speaking across class so what i had to do was keep a very simple message in a simple plot and a simple twist there were other people doing more complicated things and that's great i was building a brand and focusing on my people so i was writing in a way that they understood so when they say it's simple that's true right but do you want to know why it's simple do you understand so look for truth in it it's like eating a steak eat the meat leave the bone whatever's whatever's vitriolic and negative and and uh horrible leave it but if there's truth take it in store it away next time you do something think about it go back and look at it hmm maybe i need to pay attention to that eat the meat and leave the bone yeah all right yeah how do you handle failure i haven't had any i'm heading i'll tell you and listen that's not bragging i'm telling the truth the first show when it didn't take off i was devastated broke hungry homeless people would think that's a failure but it was a setup for the next thing and everything that i thought was there to to make me fail and destroy me was something that made me stronger and better so failure is a prism it's how you look at it so if you look at it as failure of something that broke you down or destroyed you or if you look at it something that became a stepping stone or a block to the next level then then you haven't had any either understand i understand i understand what about balance he's schooling the hell out of me isn't he hey i'm just listening hey you answer the questions what about balance when it comes to making money keeping your money and making your money work for you well first of all you have to respect what it is you have respect money for what it is and i've always reinvested in myself even when put people wouldn't be this is the high risk tolerance i was talking about if i made a bunch of money i would put it back into myself even when we started doing the plays if we didn't make money i tell the promoter keep it keep it just as long as i can pay my rent we'll go on and do the next show don't keep the money we'll do it until i started to make if you're going to make money your sole respect you're going to be in trouble so and and you you have to respect it and you have to put yourself around people who who know what you don't when i started to make a lot of money i knew that my sister couldn't keep doing my taxes i mean my sister who didn't have an accounting degree she just read questions and read a book and went to h r block and asked them questions i mean so as you elevate and as you grow you have to find yourself you have to find yourself that's what i mean going to the next level with people and i'm not afraid to say what i don't know i'll be in a board room with people sitting around talking to them having all kinds of conversation and if i don't know something excuse me you need to explain that to me and i don't care if they think i'm stupid but because i'm going to know what you mean after it's all done do you understand i understand yeah so so so another thing that's important about money because i look at some of these kids man they they're blinging and flossing and they ain't got no health insurance you you gotta you you have to know how much money is and what it's worth i i see people who've had tons of money and go broke because they don't know the worth and the value of it and they're doing all kinds of crazy things with it on instagram and making it rain and all this other stuff and but what they don't realize is the people that is in control of their money is watching them too and they're going well hell you out there spending money like that you won't notice if i put about 2 300 in my pocket so so it's whatever image you put out there about how you feel about money is what is going to happen all right two final questions uh you're so real how do you stay humble what keeps you humble that's for me it's god knowing that i could not have done this i look at that tape man i get so emotional because i'm like i could not have done this all i did was work really really hard and believe right so how can you be arrogant and cocky when you know that you didn't do it when you know when you know that god did it and the lord giveth he could take it away tomorrow how can you be arrogant inside of that you know so i'm humbled by it and i'm grateful for it i'm man i tell you i'm grateful and how has fatherhood impacted your brand yeah this kid man i i've never known love like this in my entire life and i mean this and and he looks so much like me that when i know you guys never seen a picture of me but that's on purpose but i but when i'm talking to him i'm healing myself as a little boy when i grab him i say i love you i'm telling the little boy that i was i love you we were we were just on vacation he and he would he said papa look and he'll run he'll dive in the pool somebody i'm something i'm still still scared to do but and he'll come up and he'll look for approval from me and i make sure i'm light up so that he knows that his father sees him to see him i was a kid who was never seen so to see him and to know that he's loved is so important so he he's incredible man he's been a miracle in my life i'm grateful for him every day all right now yeah let's give it a round of applause how old is almost four almost four so tell us this what projects are you working on because i'm ready for the tp plug of course i know you got a movie coming out of november you ready for what tyler perry the tp plug that's what i call the what the tp plug tyler perry the tp plug tp plug i don't know what that means explain that to me tyler perry i want you to plug i want you to tell us about your projects that you have coming up oh you want me to plug it i get it okay thank you let me tell you something see we had a good moment back behind the stage i knew he was going to find a way to get me tired what you want to call it i i uh right now uh there's nobody's food with tiffany harris just coming out and uh and whoopi's in it right look listen whoopi goldberg there's a special cameo in it that's a really really amazing prize tikka sumter or mario hartwick and it's a rated r movie very different from me because i let tiffany just go off it's extremely funny is it first rated r your first rated r movie no the acrimony was the rated r okay well so the second so it's the second one but but um but what i'm excited about is is that where i am in life right now i'm 48 to be 49 this year going into 50 and as i said holding the door open for somebody else that's what i'm excited about now i'm excited about all of these people coming up and if i could just get a few of them to get together like oprah and i came together if i can get a few of them to get together to to start to work as one unit like uh like they've done so much in hollywood it would change the game so my hope and purpose is that i'm able to do that all right and i'm glad to say that uh two of your closest friends oprah and gail they work for cbs news so we'd welcome you too if you want to do something with us cbs cbs yes we are in the house let's give tyler another round of applause if we can [Applause] and don't forget to uh use the hashtags tyler perry nabj and hashtag nabj 2018 tp plug i know not to say that again i think no no no no no thank you so much roland is stepping up what's up so there's so there's one last thing let's take a seat one last thing one last thing one last thing one last thing i want to say while he's here because it also speaks to what we're trying to do here in abj so in december tv one announced they were canceling my show news one now the last episode was december 21st we had four years of this daily show and as the ceo was talking to me about why they canceled the show i was already saying who i was going to call literally walking out of the meeting to launch my own show and so we go to january and i said i'm going to launch this digital show so then the state of the union trump is speaking and then maxine waters said i'm not going and i said you know what we're going to do a state of the union special we're going to live stream it and we're going to do it while he's speaking january 30. so i go to the makeup chair and i walk out of makeup and my phone rings and i go we are hour from doing this live stream now mind you i spent my own money got my own cameras my own lights i called a church in dc within 10 seconds the pastor said yes booked all the panels we did all of this literally in 10 days wow so phone rings and it's tyler i need y'all to understand i've met tyler we've taken pictures i've seen them but we had never actually had a conversation other than just hey man how you doing how's it going i actually have never even interviewed him about any of his movies and tyler says he said man i'm sitting here watching your clips on youtube and he said you are our working on something and i said well as a matter of fact i have an idea that i'm working on and he then began to encourage me about it and he said i'm working on this i'm working on that he said here's my number locked me in i've got your number and again i don't know how tall i got my number [Laughter] because we never exchanged numbers that was january 30th then i get asked to rejoin the board as vice president digital it was march 24th when i'm sitting in the board meeting when i text him but the point of all of this is that with all something he's doing he called to encourage me to continue to do what i do and that is why in a bj is here is because we've had founders and members when vernon jarrett would greet me at the convention he will hug me give me a kiss of my cheek and say my hero i was a student so i want all of you folks who are new members to understand why this convention matters because it is to encourage you it is to help you it is to teach you and i say nabj is literally your therapy session for the hell you got to deal with for 50 weeks and that 51st week you can't wait to go to the convention because when you are in this sea of blackness when you are in this sea of love it matters and so we going to do this here and here i saw him doing bishop jakes so if you are not a believer that's fine the prayer is going to still cover you [Laughter] [Music] but we're going to close this out and i want tyler to pray over this audience to close this out and tyler before you pray so we can uh make sure we do our homework don't forget the hashtag and also uh chance the rapper is in the house we're very proud of him as well before what he's done to our community so thank you very much take it away tyler okay father god it is with great reverence that we stop at this moment to say thank you father we take none of this for granted but we bless you for your anointing and your presence and your gifts god we thank you that you have blessed us we thank you for your kindness we thank you for your mercy god we thank you that we are standing where we are father i pray right now that the words that were spoken here today will become seeds of life to your people that they will grow up over their minds and take them into places that they've never been before i pray that the holy ghost will continue to comfort and lead us throughout these dark days god we know that you are always the spot of bright light for us no matter how dark it gets we thank you for this convention god we thank you for a moment to fellowship one to another you said where two or three are gathered you'd be in the midst so right now god we thank you that you're present here that you are hearing us that you every every request that is in this room god you are making a way for we thank you right now for this moment again god we'll never take it for granted and we marvel at who you are bless us keep us safe as we travel home we travel in your name thank you lord in jesus name we pray amen thank you so you

Channel: Roland S. Martin

Views: 57,815

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Id: 6tslY7qJcD0

Length: 61min 20sec (3680 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021