STOP Letting Your Past Hold You Back From An INCREDIBLE Future | LOGIC on Impact Theory

so when i was a kid on his come up like i'm [ __ ] broke life sucks like my family ain't [ __ ] blah blah blah people were like yeah yeah and then now my [ __ ] has changed it's like i i have to juggle millions of dollars in personal relationships can people just want the young hungry version of me from 10 years ago and da da da and i write this out because it's what i'm going through for me it was never about that it was always about explaining and expressing my emotions so that i could deal with it [Music] bobby hall aka logic joining us today welcome man what's up dude i am super excited to be interviewing you i read your book this bright future uh your memoir it was startling i had no idea what your history was like so i knew your music didn't know how much of your music was autobiographical and how much was sort of persona generated so reading the book was quite the eye-opening experience the real thing that i want to start with is identity and how we're created really by three things our genetics which you've certainly had an interesting uh road there in terms of public reaction uh the family that we grow up in which the book was revelatory in terms of what your childhood was like and then ultimately the the story that we tell ourselves about who we are and there you've got bobby hall you've also got your alter ego of logic and then you know you've got other sort of sub egos under that that you've wrapped from the perspective of as well and so i'm just curious in the light of the memoir how do you think about how you became the person that you are and what the alter ego was meant to do for you in your life um what a great question uh i really and i also really appreciate you actually reading it because you know you do some everything yes this is great oh yeah and then somebody telling them what half of what went on um uh okay so yes having you know parents addicted to drugs and alcohol and witnessing abuse and death and crazy stuff you would think i would go down that path i would wind up like uh like my parents had which is sad and unfortunate really right and i think i and i vote well i know it's got to be in the book because i i there's no way i would write it without putting it in there but i think god and common sense first and foremost and whatever god even is you know what i mean like i respect religion and people's religion and but i don't know but i'd like to think there's a something bigger not necessarily sky dad just like a white dude on a cloud but anyway um so i think it's i think yes just this just common sense of like oh let's not shoot up heroin hey let's not smoke crack in front of our children or you know let's not put a gun in this 11 year old kid's hand just literal little things like little things but little things like that that i look back on and i just was like this isn't right there was some weird voice in my head and it was like don't do this thing and i think that matched with my my wanting to escape and then trying to find okay how can i escape and the first real escape from that was obviously television entertainment things that i love anime um but the real escape while healing at the same time was music because you know it's not i've never just been a rapper that's like yeah [ __ ] and hoes and this and that you know like i'm just it's just not who i am um so for me i could take my music and write about my dad smoking crack or write about my mom's bipolar and borderline schizophrenia write about my abuse write about my anxiety and and that was a big one you know because like it's a little cooler nowadays to be like yeah man i've you know i got anxiety man like it's when i was coming up in hip-hop even just in these last five years it was not cool i would get made fun of for talking about my emotions and my feelings am i this am i that but i could you know give a damn for me it was always first and foremost uh something that i put in place to be able to express myself so that i wouldn't put a bullet in my head to keep to be frank with you you know what i mean um so i i yeah common sense sorry for the long-winded answer uh i think a bit of god common sense and then utilizing this uh alter ego to vocalize it and in doing so it was extremely therapeutic do you remember when you first started thinking about identity did you ever think about it was it conscious did it just happen because certainly in the book you talk a lot about you know there's this moment where you begin to realize like you said that this stuff is [ __ ] up and that you don't want to go down that path but i'm curious you know when so before i do an interview i always start just journaling about what i found interesting and what you know you start with an emotion right so reading your book gave me an extraordinarily strong emotion and i highly encourage people to read it i maybe your um [Music] the intimate fans will have known a lot of this stuff but it was really a surprise to me and uh so you step back and you try to put words to what it is that that feeling is and so i started thinking about you really are this fascinating collision of all the different ways that we make up our identity and was there a moment where you became aware of that like that you needed to take control of that narrative or did it just god and common sense and that's how we ended up here if you want to talk about real control of like a narrative of my life i i know you don't necessarily maybe you didn't mean it exactly like this but for me at 31 only now do i feel like i'm actually taking a control of the narrative of bobby hall or logic or or my public perception or whatever the hell that means i because i've actually decided to uh write about it completely unfiltered you know what i mean i mean there's even a a a section of the book where i discuss uh my joel moment eternal sunshine of a spotless mind where he killed a bird with an interaction that i had with a mentally uh challenged child and i was young as well and uh i didn't you know i used different words because back then we used different words and i think for me being able to get all of this out um is the first time in my life where i don't feel like i'm constantly fighting to prove my identity to anybody else because one there was it wasn't really there was no uh there was nobody on the other on the receiving end do you know what i mean so i'm sitting here and i'm writing this book and i'm like this is the truth this is my truth this is what i went through this is what it is in music and and my come up as a musician it was always you know hey guys like i'm a rapper no you're not what do you mean you're white oh well i'm not white my dad's black and my mind then it always goes into this thing about race and then it goes into having to prove my identity or blackness or lack thereof or this or that or whatever the case may be so it wasn't until that i hope i'm answering your question but uh it wasn't until this project you know this memoir that i felt uh this is my identity and there's nobody really there to to tell me that it's not there will be you know once it comes out it comes out yeah yeah but i mean the coolest part is is like it's just different i don't know how to explain it it's the first time in my life where i just don't feel like i have to and also it's like i'm 31 i know i'm young but i'm older i'm not a 22 year old kid trying to make it in rap and hip hop and gossip and this and all this other stuff it's just like hey man like if you like take it or leave it like you might not have to you don't have to like it but it's it's true and i hate that so much of it is that it is true everything i went through the state of the world race relations like it all sucks but rather than run uh i chose to talk about it and finally get everything off my chest especially about people in my life who had a lot to do with my identity and my upbringing who may not like how they are described um in this book but at the end of the day it's like i didn't do it from a place of malice anger i just was telling the truth and it was all very awesome and and i'm very glad that i did it i was going to ask was the book is the act of writing this stuff cathartic in some way um for sure so i actually had a partner a collaborator who helped me piece it together you know what i mean so it's like i'd be writing and working on this thing and going over it and it was kind of cool to have a person there um to bounce these things off and then find out the placement of it because you know when i'm writing and i'm going through all this i'm not really going from the beginning to the end it's kind of like oh here's a crazy moment in my life where my mom got stabbed here's a crazy moment where my sister was sexually assaulted in the bed next to me when i was a child here's like you know what i mean like the craziest stuff and then putting it together with all also like um you know i don't know just smoking weed for the first time like just trying to figure out how to do that and then and then um put it together and in doing so yes it was it was one it was one of the most beautiful things i've ever experienced um because you know my dad and all the abuse i'd gone through um there was for sure anger it's not like it was when i was young when you're all young and pissed off and just like whatever but there was still like man how could you do this like i look at my son my baby my little bobby and i could never leave him alone in a car for five hours while i go smoke crack i could never look him in the eyes and tell him that he's not my son because i'm smoking crack and he doesn't want to be around that like it's just the craziest stuff but it wasn't anger it was more like i mean it was first and foremost forgiveness being able to write this it was like i've forgiven my mom for the things that she said to me and my dad and all of these people in my life but living it through it in incredible detail again uh it gave me a piece i i've never felt before yeah it's that's actually really interesting to hear so there's a lot of different research around okay so how do we process through trauma and there are schools of thought that are like hey you need to write this out and you're finally able to go through the actual business of processing it other people are like no no now you're reliving it you're re-cementing it you might even be because the way that the brain works actually pretty fascinating the brain when it pulls forth a memory it takes it into working memory it will adjust it and then restore it back in long-term memory so you can actually change the shape of a memory over time which is pretty powerful uh wow but then you also have think oh dude it's it's purely insane and then when you look at things like the mechanism of sleep a big part of why we sleep is to strip a memory of its emotional resonance but people with ptsd their cortisol levels remain elevated while they sleep so as they relive this trauma it never removes the emotional impact and so that's where you get into things like mdma therapy and psychedelic therapy where you're able to like completely recontextualize that memory in a totally different neurological state it's pretty fascinating so so that you will then in turn feel differently emotionally yeah so like kind of taking that pain away yes one thing you one thing you talk about the book that i think is particularly relevant to mdma treatment is so the idea with um a lot of the things you talk about in the book or you know hey i would be at home and i would get these panic attacks if i went out which is weird because like my mom is part of the problem and but yet being away from her was all i knew so i'd get panicky but then when i was living in a house with people that made me feel safe i didn't have any of those problems and part of the hypothesis around mdma treatment is that you're calling forth a traumatic memory while you're awash in serotonin because basically serotonin which makes you feel good and safe and like everything's okay love connection all of that causes these massive spikes in serotonin so you relive this traumatic memory in this connected loving sort of whole neurochemical state and because of the way memory storage works you're now putting it back into long-term memory with this new sort of feeling of wholeness and safety and all of this which is absolutely fascinating and gets into my obsession with your story and this idea of we construct ourselves somewhat our environment constructs us our genetics construct us right we're not born blank slates we aren't just the product of our environment and there's this third element around storytelling and for those who don't know like you're it's uh you people need to read the [ __ ] book so first of all like you don't you don't do anything to make yourself sound cool so in the end you're able to as the reader look back on what you've accomplished and just be like god damn like even stripping all the bravado away from it it's amazing so one you've obviously got to come up as a rapper but you're a number one new york times best-selling author of a [ __ ] novel you've sold out madison square garden platinum selling artists i mean it's really it's really pretty extraordinary and to me the whole time you've been playing with the sense of who am i how do i present myself to the world how do i present myself to myself and now in the memoir in the way that you wrap everything up and present it it's it's really pretty breathtaking in terms of your ability to say it from a place of forgiveness uh well god damn i never thought of myself that way it was real it's just really weird i never thought like oh yeah platinum selenar's master square guard and you know blah blah i just i never thought about that and i also think a big part of that which i do discuss in the book is the fact that no matter what i do it's always never good enough in the eyes of not necessarily just hip-hop but entertainment in general you know what i mean it's not good enough you're gonna okay you got you know you got a couple of followers on twitter but you can't do a show and then you do a show okay yeah 50 people showed up but 500 people didn't then 500 people show up and then 5 000 people and then 25 000 people and then it's like okay yeah but you ain't got you ain't got no album you know it's okay but the album's not platinum okay and that that starts to ingrain into your head and it's not just the just music i mean it's life right it's like okay you have no high school diploma and then you get high school yeah but you didn't go to college and you go to college yeah but you don't have your masters and you get your master's and then before you know it you're [ __ ] like 80 years old and you didn't live your life you know what i mean and i think um i think i'm really lucky to have discovered that at a young age you know because 31 is young but i i my life is a lot just slower now because i've been able to look back while creating this book and realized that basically the goals i had as a young man and a musician and a creative person were [ __ ] so like even though they were real sorry i keep cussing anyway uh even even though okay [ __ ] yeah so look even though they were real uh and they make sense you know like okay i want to put out an album i want to sell a certain amount my first week or do this or do that it was just this hamster wheel that never stopped um and i think i i just feel like that's very unhealthy i never once patted myself on the back or said good job but that's also because i was constantly being berated online and this was like the revolution of the internet you know i came up in a place where like a year before if you didn't have a record deal and weren't britney spears and on mtv like there's no way you were making it and then it was me and a few you know amazing people mac miller j cole kendrick lamar utilizing the internet and going oh we don't need them all we have to do is say hey world here we are look at check us out by being on twitter and instagram and in youtube and doing things and utilizing it ourself but when you're doing that you're then opening your whole world up to the you know youtube comments and other people who are trying to say what they would do if they were you and it can just it's very berating you know it's like extremely difficult to hear thousands of people tell you that you suck while you're doing amazing and the analytics are there and the numbers are there to prove that every song every album every this is getting better and better and better and i think in a way it's kind of like a correlation to my life personally growing up you know i would i was like i don't really want to shoot this gun and then my friends are like oh you're a [ __ ] like you know what i mean and it's like no i i don't think i want to sell crack to my dad like my brothers did and people are like man like it's just a really it's a really crazy thing um but i'm happy that i'm here i hope i don't sound like i'm all over the place right now it's it's just a weird thing i when i'm again i'm sorry to cut you off but when i make an album it's like this is what the album was this is what it was like to produce it this is what but to talk about my life it's a weird it's very overwhelming sorry no i think it's uh it's really important that you put the book out so obviously one of your biggest most acclaimed songs the 1 800 song about you know feeling suicidal and the number of people that i'm sure that that helped and that came up to you and said hey because of your music you know i hung on and i think after reading your book it's i think it's going to open the minds of however many people i don't know but the people for whom it will open a window into what you can become despite where you've started is going to be really extraordinary reading the book dude it's it's literally one it's well written and two it's a litany of just unrelenting punishment and dysfunction and uh yeah i mean it was really crazy to hear the kind of things you went through so for you to be able to open it open up to that to talk about it to come on to interview to not posture to really just lay it out and say but at the same time i had a goal i built a family of people that i collected along the way and there there's a moment in the book that i think is really really important and that's where you go from being a kid and not feeling like you controlled anything in your life feeling like you're sort of you know battered about by the ways of life and then it starts in a dark moment where you stand up to your mom but then from there it becomes you putting a team together realizing that this thing that you were doing online and in forums of like i think it was was it rap battles written where you were just like typing things out and yeah you were realizing you could build something yeah it's a i think the thing for me is i never realized that i was doing it i didn't realize that it was happening i didn't realize that i was building a family you know i never had a family i mean i did but i i didn't i didn't have even anything close to a traditional family so um while you know feeling like annie waiting for the sun to come out tomorrow like i was just started rapping and even while rapping i was still surrounded by negativity and violence and all these things but slowly little by little you meet one person you know who's not really about anything going on in my world and negativity and drugs and whatever the case may be and i was like wow this person gets me and i love where this person is and that's like a producer like my boy six and uh you know then you find someone else who also has a dream to be a giant movie director one day but they're just a guy with a canon camera in their hand and that that was you know gravity who was making all my videos on my come up for free and so on and so forth i meet lenny who's my my best friend and my brother who ended up giving me my my rap name and you kind of don't realize it and then you just wake up one day and you're surrounded by 20 people whether it's the people on your tour and your assistant and you're this and you're that and it's you know there's there was days when i'd kind of look in the mirror and i'd be like you know everyone is in my pocket though so like do these people really love me you know but it's like of course they do like we we it's a system that doesn't work without each other like i could i never looked at myself and was like oh i'm the star man like blah blah blah like no if i'm acting like a douche well this producer buddy of mine he's just gonna go make beats for someone else and this videographer will make videos for someone else so it was never that we never none of us ever had that mentality it was about all utilizing our own talents um because if i make it they make it and if we all make it then we we did it uh so it's it was it's just a very weird thing to have woken up one day not uh surrounded by a new group of people that are the complete opposite of every single person that i grew up with and that's no slight to those people that i grew up with and i make that very clear in this book but uh yeah yeah one of the lines that you said in the book that i thought is it captures that come up so well is you were talking about the people you were just saying that you had gathered around you and everybody had their role and you said you know we were all working so hard because none of us wanted to be the one that let everybody else down and i just thought man that that goes back to that that so you see all these movies you know a star is born whatever about these people that are on the come up and you realize and this is the same in in business where the the time that you will look back on the most fondly is when you're coming up and you think like oh my god we might actually make it but before it gets big that [ __ ] moment is so magical and i'm always telling the people on my team like you have to enjoy each phase for what it has to offer because every phase is fun like when lisa and i my wife were broke and clipping coupons and like tracking blockbuster rentals like who's 299 was this you know what i mean like that's going on somebody's list and you know those moments when you're in them it's you can get lost in it's hard you can get lost in like yo i'm worried about paying my bills but then when you start to get successful some part of your brain is like that was rad like she believed in me and we were together and like we fought this fight together and so i got to a point in my life where i could realize while it was happening i don't love xyz part of it but i want to focus on the parts that when i know i'm looking back on this i'm going to remember it so that i can actually live it and enjoy it and one seeing you talk about that kind of stuff in the book those transitional moments that become like these really beautiful things and now as you're putting the book out you're in that next transitional moment i mean you're i assume you're far too creative uh whether it's writing whether it's filmmaking whether it's music or whatever that you're gonna keep producing stuff how do you think about that now i love this question man this is good [ __ ] um that is exactly where i am okay so when i was in the basement like i'll never forget going to my best friend lenny who had only known for like maybe two years and not having a place to live and him letting me live with him right so he's letting me live with him in his basement and it's like mom's upstairs and he's just an amazing guy and it's like i should have a job i'm like 21 like i should be paying rent i should be this but i had this conversation with him where i was like look man like if you just give me one year dude i know this sounds crazy but if you give me one year and in that year he clothed me fed me he took care of me like he made sure i had soap to wash my ass like this dude like literally took care of me and almost a year to the day i signed a major label deal with def jam and uh he quit his job as a land surveyor for 12 years and we moved to la la land and it was like incredible but every day was terrifying because it's like hey man just give me a year and it's like for me those days we're going so quick and i hated it in the moment but i loved it at the same time and what i mean is like i hated that i don't know one of my songs didn't just blow up immediately i hated that it felt like forever i hated that it felt like it wouldn't happen that it felt like it could happen at any moment but it was actually happening very slowly it was a slow burn you know it's a marathon but every young person wants to sprint you know i mean speaking of la la land i mean wasn't that director like 19 or something when he made that movie like we all want that you know and um as i got older and as things were happening and i don't want to get too you know dive too deep but it's like every goal i would attain i was then on to the next one so because i was just on to the next goal uh while working on that thing so for example get a record deal boom i got a record deal so now the next goal is release an album okay so then i'm thinking i'm working on the album and i know that i'm going to release that album but then after that i have to do a successful tour so then i'm thinking about i'm thinking like three goals ahead and in all of it i am ignoring everything in front of me i'm ignoring the beautiful quality time that i'm spending with my friends in a studio i'm ignoring the fact that i was damn near agoraphobic and scared of the world and scared to go outside out of fear of a million and one things that could happen to me or the people i love and here i am just a few years later traveling and eating in the eiffel tower and like but i'm not thinking about it so in present day um i finally have made this leap as an actor and a writer um and uh long story short i'm actually writing a film right now that i'm gonna i'm gonna star in and i'm gonna fund it i'm gonna do it myself and everyone's like you're crazy and i'm like [ __ ] you kevin smith [ __ ] i'm about to kill this so um but it is scary to do it and um recently um by now i think that all the episodes will be out for a show called mr corman on apple tv starring joseph gordon levitt and i don't know how i did but somehow me and him became friends and we've been friends for a few years and long story short i had an opportunity to audition for this crazy character that an entire episode is about and it is the first thing i'd ever done as an actor and he was the first one to actually believe in me that i could that i could do this and i'm on set and i'm freaking out and i'm talking to my buddy mike mike holland he's my producer at uh bobby boy productions shout out mike and mike is like my six my producer back in the day only now here i am then i was 30 on this show doing something i've only ever dreamed of doing and i found myself saying slow down because i'm talking to mike like dude we got to do a movie and i need more roles and blah blah blah and then i was like wait a second i'm on a [ __ ] movie set right now like i stopped myself and was like dude like i was going i was running these lines and committing them to memory when my wife was in labor like she just needed a distraction from the pain and i'm like talking about chili pepper songs it's like you know this dialogue and stuff like that and it was one of the most surreal moments because i realized what i had stripped from myself of being present and in the moment and enjoying the ride even though i was terrified because i was dirt broke in lenny's basement i could now in another form like you had said another form of creativity another a chapter of my life i could actually enjoy it that is really interesting so going on to coping mechanisms we'll call it so i'm curious to know i had a guy on the show that i interviewed that had been just sexually abused in in ways too horrific to even catalog wow and he now teaches people how to construct and alter ego and in the book you talk about batman you say bruce wayne's just bruce wayne but batman like gets to beat the joker's ass or whatever you said and you know in some ways logic had become that alter ego for you so that you could overcome some of this stuff and get out and and do uh the things you do i mean to to perform in front of that many people i imagine when you're you know two days ago you're agoraphobic is it's a pretty big bridge to cross so uh an utterly fascinating coping mechanism that i think has some scientific validity to it now as you go into acting as you're writing the book do you have a new coping mechanism or do you use similar things where it's like because i remember when i was really afraid to public speak i would do what i call pushing my no way no [ __ ] way i'm sorry to interrupt you you had a problem with public speaking i don't i mean i know i used to be crippled by anxiety crippled wow so yeah yeah we we all have our stories uh so do you use a coping mechanism now or have you just integrated this all so well that you're very attuned to calming yourself down oh no i'm a [ __ ] wreck like you know i i honestly i i haven't spoken too much about this but i just found out recently i have cervical dystonia do you know what this is i've only heard about it through you okay oh wow well yeah so it's a it's a neurological disorder which basically either can cause a person's uh head to turn in one direction and it's kind of stuck in that direction unless they use like a sensory tick and for me um i have a a tremor a head tremor and it goes into no motion and i cannot control it and it causes me a lot of pain so i know this i guess for me when it comes to these endeavors of acting and writing scripts and all this stuff um the alter ego is the character right so it's like i'm writing a character so it's never really me right you know maybe somebody could say talk about my performance or whether it was good or bad or this or that personally bobby hall's performance but when i'm creating it's always as that so even when i'm writing right i am pretending in my head that i am these characters you know if i'm writing from the perspective of a woman well i don't go okay well what would a woman say no i go what would a [ __ ] human being say you know a bad ass chick what would she say she's just a person and the thing that rips me from this the fear that i have is that i can't control my head from shaking and so for the last two years i haven't written anything i haven't really sat sat down i mean with the exception of this book um and sat at a table the way that i like to sit at a table normally without my head doing this which is shaking back and forth which causes me extreme emotional pain which also stems from the fact that when i was a young boy i would see the elderly shaking and it [ __ ] freaked me out it scared me so bad and then now i'm dealing with this thing um i think it's crazy that you know as we're having a conversation and you're talking to me i'm doing everything that i can to listen to you while also wondering are your viewers watching my head shake and wondering why are they do they think i'm nervous do they think i'm weird is it weird that i'm sitting on a couch at a certain angle and turning my head while trying to hold this and put my arm back here to look as normal as this is the [ __ ] in my head and i wish all i had to worry about was the creative aspect of it now here's the funny part there's always going to be some [ __ ] back in the basement i was broke with my mom you know and what i was going through i was on welfare and food stamps and you know my stepdad slitting his achilles heel open and bleeding profusely all over the the kitchen floor while my mom was hauled off by the by the cops or when she was in a psych ward and i was all alone with my sisters there's always something and so part of the reason that i bring this up is to say uh i don't know i mean i know it's a little odd but just to say like there's always going to be something in our lives there's always going to be something that isn't right but we can't let it stop us from doing what we love and um if anything no i don't think i i need a character for me in a sense to write that flows but the antagonist is for sure this physical ailment that i've been dealing with yeah that uh i know the way that things like that can drip on your mind where in fact that was when i used to get before i had real anxiety when i used to just get sort of average every day nervous i remember thinking the only thing i'm actually nervous about is that someone will hear that quaver in my voice ah yeah i was like if there was no external thing that people could pick up on i would never worry about it but it is only the fact that then people are going to you know like you said are they paying attention to my voice can they hear that i'm really freaked out right now um so i definitely get that and that really does then it takes some significant portion of your attention and your brain is on that uh instead of whatever it is you're trying to do as you think about that so obviously one of the mechanisms you have is just to talk about it and be honest about it which i think is really really smart um what's already taken so much off of of even just saying that in this particular interview you know that you have to move forward you've got a passion for acting you're not going to let it stop you so do you have a strategy for dealing with that um neurological disorders there's not really a lot of medical advancement because it's it so much of it is non-life-threatening right so because of that modern medicine and science and everything is more focused on like carrying cancer and all these things which makes sense um the only real thing that's and i've tried physical therapy and i will continue to try it uh but is botox injections which is hilarious because you know i'm not a kardashian that's a joke anyway so what i'm saying is like botox was actually created for dystonia which i didn't realize to uh to aid in pain it also helps with migraines but what it does is it weakens the muscle so i'll have a young ass looking neck that's another bad joke but uh it's actually deep it's much you know deeper than the surface to weaken the muscle to stop it from contracting because you have these two muscles that are just doing this because they're fighting each other like here but if you slightly pull that then it it'll stop my fear um and it's so funny that we're even talking about this right now but my fear is actually being on screen so it's even when i look back on the mr corman shoot that i did nobody knew what was going on in in my head no pun intended but i was thinking about it constantly where all these other actors could just be normal nervous and you know be worried about forgetting their lines or flubbing you know whatever the case may be i wasn't thinking about any of that [ __ ] like you know this guy's in front of me and he's running a line and i know it because i am a sick bastard and go to sleep wake up shower go on a run and i'm constantly going over these lines because it's that important to me but really all i'm thinking about is what is the best position to look at this gentleman in front of me so that i don't shake or how can i do a um like this kind of neurological trick to trick my brain by touching the side of my face but then further still how can i do that and make it seem as though my character is just doing that naturally while having a conversation this is the [ __ ] that scares me man because i think about the fact that i want to star in this movie that i'm writing and i'm like purposefully not trying to to write like stairs ahead intensely like you know what i mean so that my head doesn't shake and it's crazy and i know it's it's kind of a first world problem at this point but i guess uh you know i think the reason we're talking about it right now is because yeah so many people have underlining things that they deal with personally that nobody else would know and it's torture man it scares me it scares me what if i've given this to my son what if it becomes extremely debilitating and i become a burden to my my wife and my family but at the same time yolo i have to focus on the present i have to look back on what i wish i could have been focusing on in the basement what i have right now is my health i am able to sit and have a conversation and most people don't really notice it and i will be damned if i allow it to stop me from writing or doing these things just because it's like someone's poking you 24 7. you got to live with it adaptation it's one of our you know mankind's greatest features i believe so that's where i'm at with it it's going to be really interesting to watch you i feel like one of the things there's a subset of artists that um and i while i i'll put myself in this basket though the way that i address it is more through business than artistry but um because i feel like i've learned everything the hard way in my life i feel the sense of like yo you can actually solve these problems and so i want to help other people learn easily what took me great pains to learn and so watching you watching the transition seeing how one seeing how good you got at rap which is really quite extraordinary watching you deal with all the criticism around race and all of that and now watching you transition into writing which of course everybody told you wouldn't be able to do it so it's like you know watching all these transitions and now you know obviously i wouldn't wish upon you that it's more difficult for you than the next person but as somebody who's already established themselves as somebody that is of tremendous use to other people because you're willing to talk about it because you you know have created all these strategies for dealing with things uh yeah it'll be interesting to watch how you continue to give to other people as you go through this just just one thing i do want to say which i think is really funny you kind of saying you know yeah all these people saying oh you know you you can't write you know you're not going to be able to write a write a fictional novel or your memoir won't do good or you can't you're not going to be an actor you're just the rapper guy or blah blah now at this phase of my life those things don't ex like i don't hear that i mean i acknowledge it i know i mean i'm a human being sometimes it hurts to hear it but i've gone through it my whole life being told what i can or can't do not only personally but then professionally you'll never be a rapper you'll never sell out the garden you'll never this you'll never that and knowing that every single thing that is you know i've been told that i couldn't do i actually achieved it and so as a man you know at 30 and stepping back and realizing my worth as a human being now stepping into this next round this next chapter of creativity i know i can i know i can and to and for me that's what this book is that's what this conversation is it's letting people know like dude you can do it because at the end of the day i just feel like we're all kids like everyone's like you know first graders with nuclear codes as adults it's weird you know but it's like how could you look a beautiful child in the face and be like you [ __ ] suck like you're never gonna admit like this that like nobody would do i mean maybe one percent of the world would do that's such a disgusting concept to think of and when i look at you know other people when they tell me their dreams and their ambitions and all this i see this child inside of them that is pure and excited and i root for that person um because the child in me has been stepped on and kicked but is still standing so moving into this next chapter i think the biggest thing even though it's hard even though my own voice goes you can't do it you're a fraud there everyone's gonna know i still say yes you can you know you can you can do this man how do you convince yourself to believe that like when you you yourself have a voice saying that and by the way because you're famous you have millions of people that'll happily tell you that as well how do you compartmentalize that or soothe that voice and believe enough that you can do it that you actually do the work um i've been alone and i've had i've had to be that voice but i i am also lucky to have amazing people around me i'm blessed enough to have uh you know i got a guy right here right next to me right now named tony and he loves my music and when i put my music out he's a big fan and he just goes dude this is great and if i'm in the middle of making a song i'm like what do you think he's honest oh what if he tried this instead or or maybe dude you know it's it's i'm surrounded by people who are loving and kind and can help me guide me aid me into ignoring that voice when i was younger it was about proving people wrong oh you say i can't i can't enter this chip on your [ __ ] shoulder i'm gonna show you that is no reason to create art that is no reason to follow your dreams out of spite i mean that's like a episode of curb your enthusiasm like who does that you know what i mean and i did that i did that my whole career my whole career and when i write and i work on scripts and i i only do it for me and possibly anyone i could help with an underlying theme uh in the words so yeah it's interesting the whole chip on your shoulder thing i may have a an unpopular view but your career is evidence that the the chip isn't all bad and when i think about star wars so i think in movie terms a lot but i don't think that'll be lost on you when i think about the reason that you know darth vader is able to do what he does is because there is real power in the dark side there is real energy there and from anger yeah from anger for sure and so the the whole the way that i look at it is this there's the light side there's the dark side and i mean that in the star wars sense and i try to spend at least 80 of my time in the light energy the beautiful things i want to create the people that i have around me that love me um but when i'm at my most fatigued when i am just spent and i don't have anything more i think about the people who want me to fail and then i've got a bit more energy and i just find that you have to be very careful how long you spend time there because as you well know it becomes very corrosive and that in and of itself can ruin your health stop you from having any ability to enjoy what you've accomplished but nature gave us that tool for a reason i agree i i wholeheartedly agree i think in my situation the chip um became like a bag of lays like like you know what i mean like it was more so um it wasn't just this little thing like oh man like this person on the internet says like i can't make an album it was like it was like i was only doing it to prove that person wrong it was like i was only writing raps as intricate as i could and do it on purpose thinking about someone else rather than just from from my heart so i agree i think it is dope man i kind of like when people are like oh this guy's not gonna act because i'm like [ __ ] you man like i'm gonna show you you know and and i i agree with you i like that i just don't like when it takes over when would you go to the dark side like fully you know what i mean like i just it's just not for me um i found i wasn't happy anymore because i had let it engulfed me i mean i've literally accomplished every everything you could accomplish as a musician um except win a grammy um [Music] and i'd be lying if i said i didn't want it grammy because i would like one i also i think it's just been systematically embedded in me that i'll have some more worth or something if i do but at this point it's just something on a checklist that i'd like to accomplish however um i will never make music again to try to get a grammy or a number one album or you know even this even this book you know it's like pre-orders and there's a whole thing and it's like i'm you know i'm doing i'm doing the best i can but like with my last book it was like i was shoving it down people's throats like go pre-order go pre-order this just get it get like crazy like five times a day and tweets and this and now i'm just like hey guys go check this book out you know once or twice a week i'm like it would mean a lot to me but it's like okay if it's not a number one in its first week does that you know like not uh make me invalid or my story any less real or on no and anything that is honest and from the heart will grow and people will talk about it and it will you know word of mouth and it'll do its thing so i've i mean don't get me wrong man like i still want to be i want to be as successful as i could possibly be but i realize like all these numbers and all these things um they're not important the only thing that is important with this book is first and foremost expressing everything that i've gone through in my life so that i can heal and be and have a better understanding of my childhood and my upbringing and two hopefully there are people out there who will be able to relate and this could possibly help them even a little bit it's the only reason i made the book it's a pretty good reason to make the book when i think about all the things you've gone through when i think about the just avalanche of uh hate that somebody in your position has had to deal with there must have been a real temptation in fact here's what really surprises me how did you see the risk of becoming bitter like most people just aren't aware that they're becoming bitter it just seems so self-evident to be bitter given what they've been through it just sort of makes them bitter how did you question it how did you become aware enough of it to avoid that dude check this [ __ ] out on one of my albums i mean a few of my albums i've talked about this industry i've talked about how social media has changed the perception of music what's good what's not i'm not complaining about this i'm voicing frustration so that i can heal because any and everything that i've ever gone through i've written about it and i still continue to write about it in music and now in film and and and for me the hardest part was hearing people go oh you sound bitter when really it's like no no no no i'm just voicing how i feel about this so when i was a kid on his comeup like i'm [ __ ] broke life sucks like my family ain't [ __ ] blah blah blah people were like yeah yeah and then now my [ __ ] has changed it's like i have to juggle millions of dollars in personal relationships can people just want the young hungry version of me from 10 years ago and da da da and i write this out because it's what i'm going through and then people will be like man this isn't as good as the old [ __ ] or it's or you just you sound like you're complaining or you're this or you're that in that i could keep going even deeper like [ __ ] these people above and like even deeper but for me it was never about that it was always about um explaining and expressing my emotions so that i could deal with it so i think hip-hop in and of itself is extremely young it's just a young man's game dude like it is right and i'm 31 i'm i'm not 19 anymore and um i i just released a mixtape for fun and one of the comments was um he's not he doesn't sound hungry anymore and another comment was and i didn't even really look at any comments i just kind of peaked for one second and another one was um uh the way he raps you can tell music isn't his everything and i told this to my buddy joe joseph gordon-levitt and he listened to it and and i i had this conversation we were both talking about how we deal with press and what people say and all this [ __ ] and uh it was very cool that me and him could have a conversation because one i like idolize this dude now we're friends and it's weird but anyway law of attraction so um so i said that to him and we had a good conversation we hung up like two three days later he texted me this really beautiful text message he goes hey man i just listened to the project and he goes it's my favorite one because it's called the bobby tarantino series it's like another alter ego within an alter ego of logic and he was like you know what you said about the kid who's like you don't sound hungry anymore like you're on your come up he goes you're not he says you're not on your come comeup you're a grown man and he was like and i love this he was like i hate listening to people rappers mainly in their 30s and 40s trying to pretend to be like they're 19 and talking about hoes and i got the newest fendi clothes and i got this and it's like here you are talking about doing your best to be a good father staying faithful to your wife he's like you are not a kid on his come up you are a grown man and you are writing music and making you know content for people of your age and when he said that dude it just made me so happy because i could be bitter and i could try to be this young hip guy and like nah man i've accepted that a lot of the lingo has changed and if i say dope i probably sound old like you know what i mean like cool dope whatever um i think letting not being happy with the person i see in the mirror has allowed me to not let that bitterness grow i'll never be perfect man you know what i mean it's like when i was a twig when i was 100 pounds i was so self-conscious about my body and people on the internet would say you know very mean thing my own mother she's you know when she saw me with no shirt on when i was a teenager she was she was like auschwitz like what like who says that to somebody like that [ __ ] me up you know what i mean and then so i had this like thing in my head that was like i need to be the strong guy and then finally i put some man weight on him at 28 years old i would wake up at five in the morning and drop down like bruce wayne and do uh 200 push-ups in sets of 50 before i even started my day i was in the gym five days a week for two hours a day and do you know why for other people like that's what it was really about don't get me wrong i did want to be a little healthier i changed some things in my life but the and i know i'm going on here and i'm all over the place but it's this is me this is your guest um so so i was working out and i was doing it from a place of health you know cardio and lifting weights but then on the internet people are starting to notice that this like you know dude who looks like the stick bug from a bug's life is now kind of putting on weight and they're calling me bobby biceps and [ __ ] and that gets into my head and it's like brainwashing me that i have to be this strong manly man and blah blah blah and you know what it took me being physically the strongest i had ever been the biggest i'd ever been in my life to realize that all of that had nothing to do with strength and that i had been strong my whole life and i didn't need some outward physique to show me that or prove that to anybody else i believe the punch line to life is how you feel about yourself when you're by yourself it's really all that matters how did you get to the point where you liked the person that you see in the mirror when i realized i wasn't a fraud you know i had so many people telling me what i was or what i wasn't or that i was trying to be this so that i was trying to be that and i was just always just trying to be myself you know sure i've tried to rap like kendrick lamar and j cole because i think that they rap really cool so maybe i'll try a cadence like them i wasn't trying to be them you know what i mean um but you could say the same thing for tribe call quest for you know nas and jay-z and kanye west like imitation is what they say that's a serious form of flattery or something you know what i mean like these are guys that i look up to and and for me it's funny that if you're in a not to go on another tangent but you can't be a fan of a contemporary artist like you it's just no it's in a way they're your enemy but they're your brother they're your competition but they're and it's like no dude if if kendrick lamar has a really cool beat i'm gonna be like six let's make a beat like that and i want to do it in a completely different way realizing that that's okay like all these all these imaginary blurred lines on what you can all these rules that are just made up you know it's like i'm that child inside drawing and painting and making uh the sky orange or whatever you know painting the sky orange and so with that looking in the mirror now older i've realized everyone's full of [ __ ] nobody knows what they're talking about i don't know [ __ ] why am i worried about this like my son is beautiful my wife is amazing my life is amazing i'm just a guy who writes words down and sometimes wraps them or sings them or acts them out in a scene and some people literally hate me for it and some people like me for it and some people have no [ __ ] a majority of the people on this planet have no [ __ ] idea who i am so what and it's just that kind of calming understanding of looking in the mirror and just being like oh [ __ ] there's a wrinkle that wasn't there a year ago or i don't look the same way i did 10 years ago but then it's funny because 10 years ago i would have looked at myself and been like wow he's he's got a nice weight you know you know he's he doesn't look like the stick bug taking away the words of people and the thoughts that have been implanted my in my head by people about myself is probably the most freeing thing i've been working on you know like i'm not perfect man i wake up and sometimes i don't think i'm good enough sometimes i don't think i'm creative enough sometimes i don't think my movie's gonna work or the writing isn't great or this or that or that it up but once again that's just that's that's the voice in your head that you have to tell to [ __ ] off and then maybe you take a little bit of that chip that it's giving you and use it as fuel what would you say to somebody who's on the come up now i have no doubt that we'll have some young artists watching this that they want to make it man they want to do what you did and they want to take advantage of you know the current disruption whatever that may be and you know ride that to sidestep the traditional gatekeepers and do something themselves how would you help them get the kind of because i mean you have so much lyrical prowess it's crazy and i know that one does not come upon that easily like that is a lot of work so how do you help them get in a frame of reference where they'll put in that work but that they can enjoy it or maybe that's not how you think about it i'm i'm curious what advice you'd get oh i do um everybody at once [ __ ] handed to them you know we could say oh this generation man these young kids man like no like we were those kids like everybody does if you could have it handed to you when you're you know 18 like you you would if somebody could just be like here's your masters and all the information you would have learned in college and a degree and blah blah blah you'd be like all right cool yeah i'll take it but it's like it's the experience man like you got to put in the work you have to earn it you have to make it your life um the first thing i'll say is before honestly really moving on to anything else in your life as far as uh any passion so if we're talking about music let's use that as an example but at the end of the day we're talking about creativity we're talking about life we're talking about dreams and goals right so um utterly commit yourself to this one thing before moving on so i've been doing music for 17 years and it's only now that i am moving on to film um and different things like that while still doing music because i love it because i'm an addict and what i would say is like make it your everything like don't be and i'm still a student i think i know a lot about hip-hop and music in general but it's like dude i'm still learning all the time when i was younger here's another piece of advice when i was younger people would say things like oh yeah you know uh when sugar hill gang did you know blah blah blah blah and i'd be like yeah yeah but i wouldn't know what the [ __ ] they're talking about i was scared because also when you're a kid and you don't know something you don't know the newest thing in pop culture you didn't see a movie and all your friends are talking about it and they're like oh you [ __ ] idiot you don't know about and it's like this thing that's kind of ingrained in us um no ask questions because it is better to ask a question and learn and learn something like only an [ __ ] is going to make you feel bad about asking a question and learning something that you didn't know and let's be honest if it's an [ __ ] who's trying to teach you the lesson well [ __ ] that guy like you don't even want to be around this person you want to be around someone you can ask and i did my best to surround myself by people like that everything like literally make it your everything i would wake up and think of raps and ideas i would wake up and record i mean there was a point in time when i was doing five songs a day minimum oh minimum five songs a day now they probably weren't that good you know what i mean but it's like i was doing it to learn cadence to learn style to learn you know even just the flow i mean it's it's such a a poetry i'm trying to think of like a rap i don't even know what's uh how does uh [ __ ] what you call it go um i have two so many songs i have to ask other people i'm sorry uh groin pain is four how does that start i live by oh here we go um i live by the beat i die by the beat since 1990 i live by the beat i die by the beat like mpc akai who i name william after because i get bills from these beats um so that right there right is is extremely intricate and and what i'm saying so i live by the bee i diabetes like 1990 ah ah liberty i dabber to be like npc aka who i named william after because i get bills from these beats [ __ ] the industry you know we keeping it real up in these streets came up in a room that's uh came up in the world that's office access artists promised death and taxes don't give a [ __ ] we'll be rhyming the fastest my anxiety make me spit it a mile a minute i'm stuck in a clinic like flynn montgomery take a step back tell me right now boy just what's your summary creeping through fireside like so that whole thing there's a million things in there i'm talking about the main character flynn montgomery who feels like he's stuck stuck in this um this mental loop and how that was actually me i live by the beat i die by the beat since 1990 i what that means immediately out the gate is i live by the beat like i live on this beat that i'm rapping on uh but also i live by the beat of my heart since 1990 which is the year that i was born i live by the beat i die by the beat like mpc akai i'm surrounded by npcs which are drum machines which make beats which i also named the uh one of the main protagonists the characters of my second album the incredible true story which is about two gentlemen who are looking for a planet called paradise in the year 2115 and it's this whole [ __ ] thing but one of the characters names is william kai and i named him kai after the akai mpc and also the play of words i live by the be i die by the beat like npc akai who i named william after because i get bills from these beats bill is short for william so then i'm talking about bills as far as money and this and this and whatever i'm not sitting here trying to suck my own dick i'm just saying i do what i do and i do it very well and that's one example of it and the only reason i do what i do so well is because i made it my life i have studied everyone who came before me and i didn't just study uh you know the nazis and the in the uh krs ones and the big daddy keynes and rock kim's and wu-tang clans and most deaths and i mean i could go on and on i studied poetry i studied the dictionary i studied this thesaurus i studied these books on anatomy that my mother had so i understood a carotid artery and what goes into the brain and neuro and and and uh uh um the uh just our entire system and literally where organs are in the body so it's like if i wanted to do some play on words about a hit uh or or how that would spread through your system like a disease or this or that how long would it take how this other i soaked up every piece of information that i could so that i could be better at what i wanted to do and if you are not prepared to wake up every day to in many ways you know kind of like [ __ ] your life up you know turn down dates and hanging out with friends and all these things then don't do it you know but i think if you uh as an artist creative whatever it is that you want to do but i'm talking to a musician right now let's say if you really want it just do it it's that simple just do it and make it your life um it's funny because me saying this now kind of wants to tell the kid version of me like dude go outside like you know what i mean like get a friend like what are you doing you know like you're scared of the world go walk around like you know do your thing um but the fact of the matter is is that's [ __ ] anybody who's a genius at what they do or amazing at what they do has sacrificed a large part of their social life emotional life mental health honestly to reach that level and if you want it and you do it right it can be worth it it can so it's just if you want that life or not let me ask was it worth it [ __ ] yeah man it was worth it it wouldn't have been if i killed myself which is something i think i would have done if i did not have that god or common sense just a few years ago to go stop i was in bed with my wife the other night i haven't told anybody this i didn't think i told you this tony crying i was crying i haven't cried well first of all i cry all the time mainly to film and my wife will tell you dude i'm crying to like oren ege getting her head cut off and kill bill just because the cinematography is so beautiful and lines up in incredible sync with like the score at the same like i'm a i'm a weirdo like i just love movies so it doesn't even have to be like i don't know something sad it's weird but anyway uh i was laying in bed and i was crying because i realized that my career is over and you could say well what do you mean i i i don't necessarily know that i would put it that way it makes more sense for me to say it that way in my head but this logic guy you know with all these platinum records and uh accomplishments and all this [ __ ] um i don't want to be that anymore and that doesn't mean that i won't make music and it won't go platinum it probably [ __ ] will i hope it does you know but i refuse to chase it i refuse to uh do so many push-ups in the morning i pull a pictorial muscle i refuse to go on tour and be completely utterly unhappy and depressed on stage i refuse to look at other rappers young rappers younger than me who may be more hot in the moment and be jealous and envious and made to feel as though i'm not good enough i refuse to do that and also um i look at the fact that i've made more money than i could have ever dreamed of making and uh more success than i could have ever had and i realized i'm i did it and i don't want to keep playing that game and when i saw that in my head i realized oh my god it was very emotional because i was like that's it it's over like it's over everything i spent every moment every minute that i spent telling that kid who was just listening to me like to do all those things i got there you know however many years later and it was worth it sorry i know that's where we were but it was worth it up into that moment and then i had to say goodbye and know that i might not be the most relevant and i might not have the number one hit smash across the world anymore or this or that but i don't want to because i want to be there for my son and my wife and i want to do different things now so i met i'm at this juncture in the road i'm at a i'm at this crawl you know this crossroads forked in the road and there's millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars in a box to the left and there's millions of dollars on a road to the right and that road that i can walk has the most beautiful view and i get to take my time walking down that road and that's the road i chose rather than this [ __ ] highway of like insane go go go go get the money get the money people in your head you know this this might not last you know you got to get it you got to get it now i'm just 31. like i'm young i got a whole life ahead of me and i'm gonna focus on the things that make me happy and that's all that matters and it's not numbers and it's not number ones and this and that those are bonuses for sure but to create music to create art based on trying to be the most popular and play that game i'm through and i had the craziest cry because i was like oh my god it's everything i ever wanted and i did it a couple years ago and i'm only really realizing this now okay all right [ __ ] yeah let's watch friends you know what i mean bobby that is uh an amazing place to end where can people follow you on this next phase of your journey all i care about if you want to follow me is follow me follow my work don't follow what i post remember my name bobby hall logic whatever you want to call me and i hope that um that you'll know my heart and soul is is in everything that i uh that i create and that um that i hope you'll follow me on this next chapter of my life as a creative man and uh and enjoy it or not but just follow me and the book is this bright future correct yeah this bright future september 7th which is probably today and uh yeah it's it's a story on my of my life and and i wrote it from my heart and i hope you enjoy it and um yeah where are you start starting to talk about the biopic it's gonna be crazy that is having read the book that is going to be crazy that'd be amazing dude i am super excited to watch you as you go into this next phase you're an extraordinary creative you work your ass off to get good at what you do and so seeing how young you are at this point in your career and that you've got so many creative years ahead of you be very interesting to see what you do now that you know it's about the art more than it is about the recognition so very very exciting time i just i'm going to interrupt you dude and i just want to say this is one of the best interviews i've ever done for real um i care that you took the time i care that you have incredible questions i love that your audience represents you um and i am extremely honored to be here thank you so much for being here it really was great guys the book is phenomenal hey hey hey i just wanted to say yes you have a nice smile well that's very kind i'm kidding you said i can interrupt you okay do your thing do your thing i'm sorry thank you all right the book is amazing guys you will love it i promise it's really a pretty crazy journey that will blow your mind and speaking of things that will blow your mind if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and until next time my friends be legendary take care peace go into haiti after the earthquake man a lot of courage man it took me trust me i'm that true emcee after the earthquake i landed in haiti my life started out in a small village i ate dirt from the floor homie no kidding i had no kitchen grandma said pray to christ this jesus baby barely had a bag of rice

Channel: Tom Bilyeu

Views: 162,958

Keywords: Tom Bilyeu, Impact Theory, ImpactTheory, TomBilyeu, Inside Quest, InsideQuest, Tom Bilyou, Theory Impact, motivation, inspiration, talk show, interview, motivational speech, Bobby Hall, Logic, This Bright Future, Interviews, rap, hip hop, anxiety, mental health, bobby hall memoir, logic bobby hall, best selling author, memoir, rapper, actor, family trauma, musician, artist, how to cope with anxiety, coping with anxiety

Id: 6vla8z1eLsQ

Length: 75min 3sec (4503 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 07 2021