Jay Alexander of FUBU & Dr. Leeja Carter: Beauty, Empowerment, and Breaking Barriers

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's going on you guys. This is Bridgie Kelly and you are locked into We talked. Weekly yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. We talked weeklies after the talk with w P P m R PEP Philadelphia want O six point five film. We talked weeklies after the talk with your boy Charles Gergon Beautiful and beautiful lady. Y'all start your mic, not on it, get a check, chuck one more again tested. There you go, class, leave sport to touch your mic. One more to again mic test. I gotta turn you walk. That's what that's about, all right. So we are definitely in the house today. Uh we got a dynamic show, a couple of interviews. Uh, let me get I. Need some music. I need like my theme music, something playing, you know. I mean while I'm talking, it's my guy from seven. So I got seven. Shout out to seven. He did this. It's called Stranger Things. He produced this track. He's like, Yo, Chran's grudding anything you want. You know what I mean? I got a slettle beat you give you. So I gotta get my shout out. Shout out to my guy, shout out to seven of dimes in the building. Man from New York doing some great things, stranger things. Yeah, how the stranger things right? And so uh so you know, before we do anything, you know, I gotta ask you, how was your dad? Class, lady? I was your day? I was a day. Uh it wasn't bad. I Uh I had a lot of I did today. My youngest baby just turned twenty. Four, so her birthday is today. Uh she today is also National Women's Day and she is the one child that X just like the National Woman's Day. I'd be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, some things just be like don't don't have your cup overflowing with that like not too much balance. But shout out to my my buddy dad. Her daughter is having a baby, so I went to her baby shower, her second grandchild. Yeah I did that. I'm tired. I'm like, I did a lot of running around and uh. Yeah, so it was chill. But I think slow motion and then don't we spring forward tonight? Tonight? Yeah, so we're gonna lose an hour? Yeah, I can't afford to lose while I'm eating while. Just think it's not a. P mr. Right, but are they gonna get rid of that? The falling back and springing forward? I heard the. Talks about it, but. It hasn't been confirmed. If it's yes, and if it's and when. The thing I do like about springing forward is that I can get I can go run earlier. You know that, Like the sun comes up earlier than later in the morning. So now it doesn't comes up later. We had this discussion last time. It's everything is pushed back an hour. We forward an hour, right, so yeah, so it's stays lighter longer. Right, so the sun sets, the sun rises earlier. No, it doesn't. It rises later because it stays up later. It roses earlier when it gets dark earlier. I disagree, Okay. I disagree. The sun comes up at like you just added you added hour to your saying, like the sun all rise let's just say at six p six am. And now it's gonna be rising at seven, so it's gonna be later. No, it's going it's going. Na. I don't know. I don't know. Somebody. Somebody's going for somebody debunk me because right now unless I read it, it's it's. You don't need to read it. No, it's I know. That's what I'm saying. Like I get up when in the wintertime, my workouts are later because the sun doesn't come up earlier enough. During the summertime, my workouts are earlier because the sun rises earlier. So somebody got to debunk me on that one. You're just getting up earlier. But I'm telling you, if you if you woke up today at six and it was like, wake up tomorrow at six is going to be. It's gonna be. Yeah, it's for the sun. How was your day, lady? How is your dad? That's list let me that's funny. That's called media trainings. It's not even worse. Those look large. Just how would you do? I would ask why while we're here, what ladyes? That was? Like? My day was okay? Productive. I got some some production work done that I'm working on. So putting a dent in some of that stuff is always makes you feel good and get things off your plate. That's all. That's all I've been doing all day, staring at computer screens. That's how I said I had I had to get a new computer. I want one. Yeah, I had to get a new computer. For some reason. The files, all of the files are getting bigger, the computers are getting slower or working harder, to edit the timeline of huge files in my computer. It just wasn't it. Literally Look so the other day I was editing, I want to say something that was like only like ten minutes long? How long? Oh my gosh, man, it took almost an hour an hour to export, right, But it took even longer for me to scrub through only ten minutes of footage to try to make sure, you know, how you kind of go over your work, try to make sure like all the pieces are there, the little thirds over here, this, that and the other. But it took a long time for me to do that. I was sure. I was like, I have to get another computer. I just had to get another girl. So I got editing on a piece. That's right, I sure am. And guess what I got another PC? That's right? Well, program Adobe Premier works best on a PC, you know. But yeah, you know, it's just one of those things, man, you know, so hopefully my workflow. So this is the thing, I don't even mind. I hate editing, right, but I don't mind editing if someone doesn't slow down my workflow. Right, put everything together and I can go export boom, shrug through and keep it out and push it out what what if the computer is struggling with these files and it don't help that. I got like almost a terror byke just sitting on a computer. Right, but still you know it's still should be. I don't know. Well anyway, I gotta give to Ladys that I'm wrong. It's like scripture, like just because let me turn off this music. You said what I am wrong, totally wrong, totally wrong. Lady has died is one thousand percent right and I'm wrong. Thank you, lady, start for educating me. I have fact checked it. And she's right. It's not that's it. Sometimes sometimes it's just about it's fine one jumping. Sometimes sometimes just like she she'll find out. Wake up the market, she woke up the March. She's like, yes, don't. I'll take it just for a couple of days. So we talked we after talking w p P Philadelphia one six point five, when we talked weeks after the talk with your boy Charles and beautiful ladies beautiful. So we got a dynamic show to day as usual, we got two dynamic interviews. And why are the interviews my favorite segment of the show because I get the opportunity to talk to. The good folks, the folks that are doing the work. Out there in the community, out there in them streets. Right, and so we get a chance to talk to the goodle folks and see what they doing. She was going really going down, right, And then we got someone football. Remember football for us by us? You know llll cool j L L James Todd, Right. Uh, he was the one who kind of put them on the map. Right, It's like foot for us by us boom. You know. You know the story behind it is that he was just rapping and said for us by us and it just stuck from my understanding, right, it just stuck, and they just used it football for us by us. And so I think I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm sure they had that before, did that. But in any event, he made it hot. You know back then, you know the artists made They still make everything hot. You gotta love Black folk, you gotta love the culture. You know, we make everything hot. And so you know we had this gentleman. We'll get into that story and maybe I'll be talking about you know what I am wrong. Yeah, maybe it doesn't sound like may Angela. I am wrong? Maybe maybe not? And so yeah, so we got two dynamic interviews, and then we got some we got some stories. Yeah, yeah that now, yeah, let's go on good news and bad News by Classic A spark ready for me? All right, why don't you give it to me early? All right? Our first story is about Steven Sigmund. He killed his ex girl. From parents in two thousand and one because they opposed his relationship with their daughter. Investigator said he fatally beat them with a bat in their Greenville County home and later admitted that he planned to harm his girlfriend as well. He said, if I couldn't have her, I wasn't going to let anybody else have her, he told detectives. So South Carolina unable to obtain lethal injection drugs, they spent about fifty four thousand dollars constructing. A fire squad in twenty twenty two. So this is about him killing his ex girlfriend's parents, but it's also about the way he got the death penalty. Sigmund will be strapped into a chair and then a target is going to be placed on his chest and he's going to be shot by three anonymous executioners from fifteen feet away. A doctor will confirm his death. The ACLU has challenged the state's secrecy laws surrounding execution by South Carolina, and they main firm in its capital punishment policies. Nationally, only three people have died by firing squads since nineteen seventy six. So this, yes, I was about to ask this person, I've heard of this. Yeah, yep. And it looks like they're the injection drugs cost more. Than a couple yeah, than a couple of shells. Huh. Yeah, that's a couple of shots. But you know what, I don't think, like, if they give the inmate the choice, some may choose this way. That's what sounds like. He's even choosing that because you know, I think the other one's like. A slow death maybe. But did you ask your victims how they wanted to die? You know, they probably be like, let me the way, let me shoot, all right, y'all? This next story is very sad, and if small children are listening, please cover their ears. In December of twenty twenty four, a gay cup a Georgia couple gave Georgia couple William and Zachary Zulik. They were each sentenced to one hundred years in prison without parole for sexual for their sexual abouts of their two adopted sons. The couple adopted two special needs boys who are brothers from a Christian agency in twenty eighteen. The boys, who are now ten and twelve, were being raped and sexually abused by the adopted parents. Hold hold on, hold on. I know, I know. That's why I gave that warrant. Wow, you don't have to use the word again. We're gonna say greaped, all right, but uh. Wow, yeah, okay. So I'll just recap that. These boys were in a Christian agency and their brothers and they were adopted by a gay couple. Gay the couple were recording and distributing exploitation material of the boys. Evidence showed that they even bragged about the abuse to twisted friends. The couple was arrested in twenty twenty two after an alleged member of their ring was caught downloading child porn, and he told the investigators how these zuliks were making those type of movies with young boys who were living in their house. So a friend basically told on them. That's the only reason they were caught. They were also in the process of adopting another special needs child from the same Christian agency. Both men pleaded guilty to their charges such as aggravated child molestation and sexual exploitation, and both men were sentenced to one hundred years life sentenced without parole. When you mess with them kids, them basics, the special needs, so they totally wow. And the sad other part is that they would always put pictures up on their social media of like gay Pride t shirts of them looking as a happy family. So we do have these stories on our website and the picture that I just described. If you're listening, a little link to this. This next story I think might be a good news thing. All right, Okay, so Governor Josh Shapiro announced, Okay. You want to give them a run with. Governor Josh Shapiro announced that he will try to hire the fired federal workers who lost their jobs due to cuts from the Trump administration. At a job fair in Harrisburg. Shapiro said Pennsylvania will consider federal job experience when hiring anyone who was fired, and they will provide online resources to help workers see how their skills match the state positions. Shapiro mentioned areas like healthcare, civil engineering, accounting, and emergency response fields where federal workers could fill over six thousand open state jobs. He also criticized the Trump administration job cut, saying they have made the country less safe and less healthy. What do you guys think about that? That's that's amazing. Shout out to Shapiro, you know, Governor Shapiro. He's he's dope. He's he's going to be probably if mark my words, the next president. Oh okay, I think so. I think that he will. Be our next maybe. Okay, he gonna throw his hat. If the Democrats do what they should supposed to be doing, because they could always drop the ball man. We gotta get out the old way of thinking, stop doing the old playbook, strategize, get some new energy in here, and let them do the work. All right, y'all heard it from in twenty twenty five with Sea set. Now here's my view on this. I think this is a great thing. But why did it have to make Why did it have. To be. Like a series of events the why did the dominoes have to happen in order for them to open up these. Jobs from Trump? You follow me, like, why was it these same jobs available for people at the state level with the same skill set? You know what I'm saying, and because the people who are being fired at the federal work level, were these jobs supposed to be at the state level more availability? You know what I mean? Like, how all of a sudden, now you have these six thousand open state jobs only. Because of what the Trump administration did. They were there just because when you cut the tree down and leave the room doesn't mean it doesn't. Mean yeah, but they were federal jobs well, state, yes, state, But federal jobs were cut and state jobs were already already open for those who qualified for a state job. My point exactly, My point is that those state jobs were always open. Why is it that now because of what Trump is doing, you're making these available, you know. What I'm saying. Saying, So it's like, is he making a ripple of fact that's making everybody say, Okay, let's let's look at our backyard. A little bit, a little bit more with a pencil beam. Let's let's look that's with the magnifying glass on on what we're doing. So I don't know, that's a that's how I feel. But that was your good news and your bad news from your girl, classy lady Sparkle. We we asked that. Uh. We don't ask for a lot, but we ask it for a little. Uh that set, but. We're asking for a little. If you guys know that this is independent radio and everything we bring to you is from our sweat and tears. Are hard days. You know, this is self funded, so we're asking for your help and helping fund this. So if you like, you could go to our cash app with a dollar sign. We talk weekly at cash app, and if you can't give to us monetarily, we ask that you do it in another way. You can always. Subscribe, follow, share, comment, and like all of our platforms that we talk weekly. I like that. All right. That was your good news and your bad news from your girl classic late spark You've run. A for clause for good news and bad news for class Ladd Sparkle. You know. See, this is why we do the news right. So a long time ago, let me explain to you what good news and bad news was right, transparent right, So legacy media, legacy news has this, sayne right, and it's not just legacy right, but it's been this constant scene in television, in media and news that if it bleeds, it leads, all right. Unfortunately, all the bleeding seems to come from a certain demographic, right, And so quickly I said, you know what, I get it. Bad news happens, But what about the good news? So that's how I created good news bad news. I like it because I wanted to hear some good news from our people, our folk, right, because all the bad news I was hearing was black man ran and robbed, some adio, stole car, shot up, the shot up the church, and the soular thousand drugs. That's voice welcome to the movie phone seventeen ninety a. Right, And so that's all I would hear. It's bad news, bad news, bad news, bad news from our demographic. I didn't hear bad news from no other demographic, right, And so I said, you know what we need to And I made sure that we do this intentional. We leave you with intention right, and say, this is my solution. We know bad news happened, but when you're doing your stories, my hand is over to you. I need some good, good news stories, not good back. Good. But today there was some good news. Six thousand state jobs. So that was some. There was some good news, all right, no doubt, no doubt, all right, y'all. So I don't want to try to go anywhere when we come back. Man, we got an interview, and you know why I like the interviews because I get a chance to talk to the good old fool. So I want you to go anywhere when we come back as your boy Charged. Gregor Beautiful Beautiful. We'll be right back after this show. Hello, let's talk. Okay, this is if we cannot be complete unless. You listen to or watch we talk. What's going on you guys? This is Bridge Kelly and you are locked into We talk weekly. Week He's after the talk with w ppm P Philadelphia one O six point five film We talked weekly after they Talk with your boy George Gregory. And beautiful beautiful lady. All right, then you already know what Tommy is right with Tim is to do some interviews. You're ready for me, I'm ready. Let us know who do we have to day? Who do we have to date? Today? We have doctor Lesjah Carter, an expert in exclusive health and wellness. She transitioned from a fifteen year academic to become CEO of the Coalition for Food and Health Equity CFHE in twenty twenty one. Her work featured in outlets like CNN and Woman's Health led to the creation of Yujama Cafe and well programs, which improved food access, health and support local businesses. She also enhanced the Hunger Project to improve food delivery across New Jersey. Y'all already know what to do. Let's give a warm we talk weekly. Welcome to doctor Lejah Carter. Let's get a enough round of applause. Let's get it around the round of the clause. How are you? How are you? I'm doing good. I'm doing fantastic. Spartan, Let's push our mic up to our just a little closer, because I want to make sure we hear her. There, we got that's perfect him And so you know, we always start with you know, how was your day? You know, that's how we get it because we want to know about you. Make sure you're doing well. How was your day? My day was good, my dad was good. I can't complain. Yeah, fantastic, fantastic. It's a lot of stuff that's. Happened in the world, exactly exactly. You know, when people ask me about my day, my day, there's so much that happens. So it's like it's good we're here we're present, We're doing the good work inside of so much happening, you know, all the time. So fantastic. Yeah, so let's start. Let's talk about you. You were here to talk about you and how it all begins. Let's start from the beginning. You know, because you're in a dynamic field, you know, a specific scope, which is great when we talk about health for wellness, right, that's not necessarily always talking about medicine, big farmer, right, and so actually classy like this is kind of your feel you know. So I'm sure you have thousands of questions, but I do want to know, like what got you into that sector? That's a big question. I mean. The first thing is is that you know, we we are in the field of medicine because food is medicine, sure, right, you know what we put in our body, it has one percent impact on our ability to get up, think, breathe, and be dynamic every day. And so we are in the in the in that area. But how did I get here? That's a big question. It's a long story. But to make a. Long time we talk weekly. Okay, that's true, So I'll say this. So I was I was a professor for fifteen years, and my work when I was a professor was around conditions that environmental psychological conditions that impact black women's. Environmental psychological Yeah, okay, I want to underscore that, and I want you to like explain that. Just extrapulate that concept real quick and then go into your story. I'm sorry, you know one. Yeah, So I was most interested in when we when we are wondering what might be both the challenges and what might help be helpful for a black woman and or a woman of color to engage in exercise and sport from a historical context, a cultural context, from a family context, and from where they actually live, right, what are those variables? And so it might be variables like there aren't safe spaces for you to exercise, right. There might not be you know, paved walkways and sidewalks. There might not be a park close by. There's recent research that talks about exercise and play deserts, right, that there just isn't access to green space and safe spaces to engage in exercise. And so my research during that time was looking at that in the context of black girls and black women, that when we're looking at disparities and play and sport amongst black women and black girls, what does that look like for you? Right? And then and then also looking at it from just our family makeup and what did your mom and your dad happen to tell you about exercise and putting yourself first and self care and how might that impact you? Then engaging in joyful movement and nutrition and emotional and psychological care practices. So I spent fifteen years looking at that all these different conditions, and during research around that fifteen years, committed to that being a black woman looking at black women in predominantly white spaces takes its own toll on you because you tend to be the only You tend to be the only voice, a black voice, a black woman's voice, amplifying the needs of black women and black girls. And around twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, I ended up getting a fool Bright Fellowship, which is a congratulation one of the preeminent types of fellowships that you can get to do research abroad. I did it in London, and when I was I was already starting to get really burnt out and sad being an academician, being a professor, being a researcher. I wasn't happy anymore. And when I went over to London, that was the first time that I just felt free, happy, I felt understood. I was at a university in London that understood me. Interesting. Yeah, I had the opportunity to do research on a large UK based project called This Girl Ken that was looking at exercise apartheid, exercise apartheidism, and exercise deserts in London. So you have this, you have a whole UK government that has committed itself to be being disruptive around kind of like structural racism, exercise apartheid, exercise deserts for girls of color, marginalized girls. And I'm like, wow, this does not exist in the US. Instead, in the US would exist is researchers just trying to do like exploring all these different conditions and you being told that you're crazy for doing the research and that it doesn't these these issues don't exist. So it was just my first time feeling like I belonged to, feeling free, feeling liberated, feeling happy. And I was like, I don't want to go back to this, you know. So I was already one foot out the door. And this was in London. This was in London. Now do you think, en, I want you to finish your story? Dog, go ahead, finish. So so I get I get back from doing my full bright. And when you do a full bright, you're you're doing a full bright overseas. But uh, the way my full bit was set up, I was doing my full bite overseas, but I still had my like research center and lab in Brooklyn as a professor. So I I was, You're still both You're you're a full bite over there, but you're you're still a professor over here. So when I got back, I'm back at my my my lab in Brooklyn at l I U Brooklyn, and I'm like, man, I missed the high that I had here I over in London. I I want to have that that sense, and I want to be able to be more disruptive in the work that I do. Now again, this was twenty nineteen, This was I finished my full But I think July twenty nineteen of the pandemic, right before the pandemic hits, because the pandemic started. Whispers of the Pandemic starts to come December twenty nineteen and March twenty twenty. To make a very long story short, is when one of my favorite cafes. The owner of this cafe, I go into the cafe. He's looking really depressed. He's like, hey, my cafe might have to close down because of the pandemic. I don't know what I'm going to do. And I say to him, I say, hey, I think I can help. I get a bunch of my students together and we start a grassroots program, a grassroots initiative to keep this one cafe open. I say, look, we're going to fundraise to help make some mules keep your cafe open. We front raised about thirty thousand dollars. Oh nice to do you know, basically medically tailored meals that we then delivered to folks who were food and secure in Jersey City. Again, to make a very long story short, we were I was able to procure close to a million dollars in about a month's time after that, once the county and stuff found out what we were doing, to scale up to serve thousands of people due to uh, what was happening with COVID. But during all this time, because again numbers a researcher, I had a lab, I had about thirteen student assistance, we were beginning to analyze who we were impacting. Right, So you have this professor who was one foot out the door of academia, wasn't happy, had been doing fifteen years of research around apartheitism, you know, exercise deserts, environmental con racism, and environmental conditions, COVID hits. We want to save this cafe, we save it, but then we'd be to do data analysis on while the food that we're delivering to these people is actually going into desert based locations that I had been researching for the past fifteen years. So in November twenty twenty, I decided to start a nonprofit, the Coalition for Food and Health Equity, that uses these data analytics and research to be more deeply disruptive around food, desertality, social apartheid, but using technology and research to be very targeted in how we're disruptive in the work that we do. And so started the nonprofit and we've been fortunate to be able to really build some steam and how we are strategic in the work around food security and health equity that we do. So I wouldn't say that we just like do food security. We're very targeted in how we place make the work that we do. And then also we use food to be an economic driver for redevelopment. So when you think about food and security, oftentimes we think, oh, let's just feed people because they're hungry. But food and security and hunger is just in a condition of poverty and economic you know, insecurity. So really, if economic insecurity didn't exist, then food insecurity wouldn't exist, and exercise apartheid wouldn't exist. And those black women and children that I was researching fifteen years ago that didn't have the park to play in, that park would exist if we actually really did more, if we did better social redevelopment. So yeah, wow, up, it was. The London comment that you made and you said about how when you got there like it just you know, it gave you nirvana? Was it the food? The air quality? I mean, there's foods that we get here in the US that are banned in other countries, and I'm talking junk food, like you can have cereal that they say, hey, this has all this red number, forty, yellow number whatever, and they're putting natural foods in. Their children cereal. So tell us about that? And tell us was that the quality of the people, the place the environment, all of those things. Yeah, it's a couple of things. I mean. The first was it was I was just walking down the street one day and the one thing about London is that when you get to spend time there, you see that. Of course, Philadelphia is a great example, like the cobblestone walkways and the way that the town is built. It is a replica of London, right, because we left the UK to start our own country. Right, So when you're walking around London, you're like, oh, that's where that's where we got this idea for Philadelphia and for New York. And you know, so there's this there's this like deeper temperance. When you really start to walk around, you're like, okay, so my Americanism is tied to this in this this deeper way. So that's there's this that piece of it. That's one. But two, what really got me when I was when I was in London was uh and it was it was such a shock to my system. Was I was sitting down and this is part of the the beauty of during the fool bright is because you learn you have conversations, you're supposed to challenge yourself to have conversations you wouldn't ordinarily have. So I would sit down with with folks and they would want they would talk about And this was during the first Trump administration, so which was fascinating. But as a black woman who whose research circulated around intersectionality, racism and feminism and stuff, I was always ready to talk about racism. It's like, yeah, like racism is the cause of everything. And in London they'd be like, no, racism isn't the issue. It's classism. That's I'm gonna get you. That's right, that part. And it wasn't that they were trying to dismiss my experience as being subjugated by race. They were just like, no, but no, listen, right, listen that the issue is around class and finance. And they're like, you know, you Americans, you really do keep tying it to race. But if we really think about it in this way, then then this is how you can restructure and really think about like the economic issue. Right. And so I think that my brain started like really doing some different types of gymnastics and I was like, yo. Like. They're right, things that make you go home. Yeah. So it was those it was those enlightening moments that got me like I g I, I gotta get myself out of the this institution because it's got me boxed in in a way that yeah, I can't make changes that I want as a professor, but also I can't even my brain isn't liberated, my spirit isn't liberated, right, and so and that's the first way that we can liberate anyway is ourselves. So I I needed to leave, like I needed to. I needed to get out. Yeah, since we're. Talking about interesting, I mean, you said a lot, and it's so layered, right, and it makes me think about the conversations that's happening now as it relates to this this this this discourse of wochism al right, and as you mentioned, as you mentioned health equity, right and targeting those those vulnerable populations too to pretty much give them access, right. I think of the challenge of those particular communities going through now with this idea of the push against wokism air quots, right, and so the the narrative now it appears that d e I means black, So that is a racism component or that's that's that's that's a situation now that's that's being discussed. That you say d I you're saying black right, so that as context, right? What do you think people in the UK would say about something like that as opposed to classism versus racism? If if that makes sense, if that question makes sense, Yeah. Well I'll say the first thing is that when I when I did my full Brito was it was doing the first Trump administration and I had I had such interesting experiences. The first was that during that time, the stereotype of Americans, or what I experienced as the stereotype towards myself as American, was that I was stupid what And I had many folks say to me. They would say, they'd say, I thought that you were dumb until you started speaking, because you were American. And the the reason why I say this is that it's really important that when it comes to international relations, that how we represent ourselves y as a country impacts how every single American is viewed. And so I would I literally I would sit down and I'd have different and they'd be like, you know, and after the meeting, they're coming to me to be like, you know, I really thought when they said, hey, there's an American comp there's an American coming to meet with us. Hey, I thought that I thought that you were stupid until you started talking. Then I realized that, right, she's not stupid. That's crazy. So that's the first thing. I think that I can't speak for, you know, a country, but I think that the idea of d like the representation that we have on the on the global scales that aside from DEI anything, it is, the IQ of Americans might not be as high because of the current representation of our administration, the perception of our administration. Right. So I think that's the first thing, and that just comes off of my of my experience in the first diminished That's one. But the second is I think that there's a lot of nuance to to this to the stereotype of DEI right now, right that it not only is it about de I meaning black, but I think also this idea of DEI means a handout, yeah, and so it can be yeah, it can be race based narrative, but it could also be well, if if you fall under the catchment of DEI, that means somehow that you've gotten some type of handout to where you are, and whether that's around disability, sexual orientation, race, anything, and it doesn't allow which this is what any stereotype does. Any stereotype does this. It doesn't allow us to live in the nuance of what that part of what it, what it means, what it represents, and the actions that it permits. Right, So, yeah, interesting, or or they felt that outside of the handout is now I'm being marginalized because of this DEI piece. It's kind of like this reverse kind of idea that I'm being marginalized because of what they're giving to you that I don't have per se, which is completely not the idea what DEI is. But that said, when when do you have something to say? Because all going through Donni's rabbit hole because I didn't anticipate this. This is so like I was actually going to speak towards. Just your comment that. A lot of people, celebrities within different sectors of healthcare and you know, politics, people are no longer wanting to be recognized for their skin color or for their gender. They're saying like the yeah, they're saying it was once that because of the oppression that we were like, hey, I'm the first black woman, I'm the first, this, I'm the first. They're like, I deserve this I've worked hard for this. You're not giving me anything because of the skin, of the color of my skin, and my gender. I earned this with all the other candidates, and I was the best out of that candidate, or I was amongst my peers. As why I'm able to get what I'm rewarding. So I am starting to see a lot of people who are not wanting to just be recognized because of them feeling as though it's like, you know, being ostracized from what they feel as though they belong. Does that make sense? And I'm starting to see a decline in that to say, hey, no, I don't want to be the first black woman. I want to be the woman who earned this or just because I earned it. You know. So the twelve year old doctor Carr, right, did she have this in mind when you were young and looking at your parents or when we talk about just you know, being it appearscifically engaged, or you know, as an activist or someone who's progressive. I mean, who was the little doctor Carter? You know, that's a great question. So the first thing is is that I actually thought I was going to be a forensic psychologist. So my master's degree is in psychology with the concentration and forensic psychology. Shout out to women in STIM because you said that, just I just want to park there real quick. I got a shout out STEM right, women in STEM. We know a good friend of ours is women's in forensics, right, she does forensic science, And so I just wanted to shout shout out to women. Go ahead, and to make a very long story short, I ended up getting my p HD in kinesiology from Temple University. A shout out to so you talk about STEM right, so forensics and STEM so. But so a couple of things here. The first is that you know, me and my sisters, we we we got to give so much to my father. Who thanks for saying that. Yeah. So my dad, you know, he was they were teaching whatever they were teaching to us in school, and then we had a second school with my dad after school, right, and so he he was the one that he had us reading physics books when we were like seven and stuff, like you know, he uh, he was the one that always told me that you have to be three times as good as any person and kind of getting to your point too. Of like for me, it's like I've always been the first in anything that I've always been the first of a lot of things in my life. But I've always my dad had taught me to always be the best of everyone. That's right, So not just the best black woman, the best black person, but be the best of every every damn body. And so here's an example. When I was around like eleven or twelve years old, I was in a Catholic grammar school and I remember going We would go to Mass every Sunday and the altar servers, the altar boys, were young white boys that would help the priest. And I said to my mom most like, why are there new girls? There weren't white girls, they weren't black, or they were just no girls. And my mom was like, we'll ask them. And so after I like that. So after church one day, I went up to the priest and I was like, hey, I I want to be an altar girl. I want to be And the priest was like, well, we've never had altar girls. And I was like, well, I want to be altar girl. So they changed the rules school, so I became the altar girl. Now granted I was the little black girl altar girl, but I was just like I just wanted an auto girl, like you know, and so so for me, I never I don't thinking of myself in terms of activism, activist or anything. I just be doing stuff, Like I just feel like I just be doing stuff. I'm like, yo, I just want to be an altar girl, or I'm just like, yeah, let's we need we need to help feed these people over here. So we're going to start this grassroots thing. We're going to get the money and we're going to do it. Someone actually said to me about a year or two a year ago, a friend of mine. He was like, you know, I think maybe he used the word activist or something. And I was like, I don't consider me starting coalition and stuff as activism and he was like, yes you are, and I'm like I did, Yeah, I did what needed to be done. I'm doing. You know what I mean. I know that people see me as that, and you know, people tell me, but in my mind, I'm just like, look, there's a problem, there needs to be a solution. It's you know. So so the twelve year old little girl twelve year old, I wanted to be a lawyer, but by high school I wanted to do forensic psychology and had become obsessed with the psychology of criminal behavior. And yeah, so, but I was also an athlete, so I made some changes once I got into my master's degree. But I always wanted to. I knew that I always wanted to be something of excellence. I'll put it that way. So yeah, interesting, interesting, So fast forward cf he created eu Jama Cafe and hu Jama Wellness program. Let's talk a little bit about that, you know, and what insided you to do that, you know, and what is it all about. Yeah, so, when when I found a coalition again, it was you know, a the Our largest program was called the Hunger Project, and I promise you we'll get to a point here. Our largest program was called the Hunger Project, medically tailored meals to delivered anywhere someone was in need. We would we would do about six to eight meals a week, procure them from local restaurants, We pay those restaurants, and then through a partnership that we still have with door Dash, we deliver them to anywhere. So if if somebody's address is a park bench, we delivered to that park bench. We delivered into senior housing. We deliver to persons in shelter. If somebody says, hey, I'm CouchSurfing, we'll follow them to every couch that they're surfing on. And and that's one of our programs that we still have and we've we've re we've retitled it Rapid Response. But I that's one of the things that we're known for is that wherever you need food, we're gonna get that food to you right now. One day we and we've delivered over well now close to about four hundred thousand meals and produce. Bo all this is free. All this is free wo yes, and it's nutrition, nutritional foods, nutritional food and also produce boxes. Now, yeah, we have a great aggregator and local farmers primarily uh, primarily all farmers of color throughout New Jersey that we partner with. And but one thing that I was questioning with our Hunger Project program and a Rapid Response program is that we're getting food out to people and they're in this free subscription service. And the the important part about that is that you subscribed, you enroll in to this program. We're learning a lot about you, your nutritional needs, your allergens. If you are pre diabetic, we make sure that those meals don't have white rice in them where they should be something to do with something like keenwa or something like that. Right, But in any case, we're delivering to you weekly. And I begin asking myself about three years in or so two three years in, as we get to the end of the week with our clients, let's just say their meals run out or something, what is happening between let's say Friday till Monday, right, how are we standing in the gap there and what do we need to do? So I began asking myself, like how what can happen? So to make a very long story short, I wanted to create some type of tool that where somebody could go and get food, no questions asked, Go get the same type of meals that they're getting delivered to their home, and maybe some snacks or you know, juices, no questions there as completely de surveiled, but like it'd be on their block, right like or like kind of like feel like a cafe or like a bodega or something. So the Ujama Cafe was born after a lot of inter iterations and talking with people. Initially, the Ujama Cafe idea was intended to be an actual walk in cafe to be completely free. But then it kind of got pared down to being these uh like a mobile uh refrigerator vendor type of technology that we can place into places like Yeah. And so we have these refrigerators that are completely tech enabled that we place in community agencies. We have one in a pantry. Uh. We have two in schools in in New Jersey and and Newark Pride centers, all these different places where folks can go in. The food is procured from local businesses. We have things like healthy burritos and parfaits, salads, all these different things, and then you can go in, you can take what you want mm, no questions asked, and go about your day. Huh. Yeah. And due to the technology, there's sensors inside of the refrigerator and there's RFID tags on the items, and what that allows us to do is to see the the free transactions that happen with the products. Now, the reason why that's important is because we're able to curate per location that refrigerator. So for example, the refrigerator in Patterson, in in the food pantry and Patterson, we know that that refrigerator they really love parfayse m and sandwiches versus the refrigerator in our uh drop in homeless facility in Newark, they're more sandwiches, grab and goro sandwiches. Right, So we're not just throwing food at people. I'm saying just take it because it's free. Based off of what you take and how you like it and the frequency in which you like it. That's where the forensics background comes in. We really create a profile of personality around those sites, and then we restock based on their eating habits so that that way they're getting what they want, they're getting healthier food. That sounds like a question. The data measures the metrics, So you're doing the data to say, hey, these are the metrics for this location, except they're pulling out and what we can do exactly. I wanted to ask you mentioned the Trump administration. I think I have a two part question. One is RFK, who just got nominated in regards to his stance of vaccination, was you know there and then it wasn't like you know, I think he wanted to appease the people. What's your take on vaccinations? And also the tariffs? Now that the Trump administration has done the tariffs and a lot of those fruits and vegetables from Mexico and everything like that are. Not coming in. It's gonna make the US farmer now bulk their stuff up for us. Is that something good that we need to look forward to or or not? What are your thoughts? And I love my avocado, So I'm just saying. So on on the topic of vaccinations, m my stance is that we h people have to be on with with as much information as possible to make the decisions that they need, right like that, I that's what I think. Like if you if you if you're if you don't wanna d you know, take the a COVID vaccine, right you know? We we are fortunate to live in a democratic society where you can say, hey, I I don't want to. What's most important is that the American people have the information that they need in order to make that decision. Now, when it comes to children, that's that's a whole other baalkame, right like y you know, vaccina vaccinations for children is vaccinations for children. But w W we we have to create the conditions where people have the information that they need in order to make the right decisions in order for us to have a healthy American population, you know. So that that's so that's my thing on that. Now, So let's talk about tariffs and so so when it comes to the US agricultural system, and and I have very strong opinions about this, right, because we live in a global economy, a global agricultural system, and so there's there's many agricultural products that we don't produce that we require that we we import in from other countries, and and that just based on our climate. Yeah, like yeah, like we we just can't. We just can't produce that. And and so you know, with terroifts, that's going to increase the cost of food, which then will actually will create greater food insecurity because like if we think about like how much someone might get in their Snap benefits, then snap, the Snap benefit is not going to increase, right. If so someone only gets a hundred dollars in their Snap but the cost for eggs is going up, the cost for avocados going up, the cost for this is going up, then their Snap benefit is not going to last, right, It's going to actually shorten, and that's going to create greater food and security. Right. Wow. So so that's that's one issue, right M And But then the second is that we already have major issues here within the US when it comes around agricultural logistics and and things that our farmers really need, Like our farmers really need support and helping to to move their their their food and their product. Right, So creating greater challenges on that doesn't help our food system. It actually hinders it and will create greater expense onto the US consumer that the US consumer doesn't have the money to bear, right, So what we have to think about is how do we more efficiently put money into the agricultural system to help balance out an imbalanced agricultural system, not create more barriers and burden on it. Yeah, and I mean that causes other issues, like we talk about health equity. Now the good foods potentially that we would have got that doesn't come from us, we can't get anymore. Now we're worrying about our health issue, have to issue have the issue, no doubt interesting. And something else that I do want to add in here that I was talking to a friend of mine who's even more deeply in the agricultural system than I am. Because what we do is we procure from farmers, right, so we're a buyer from a farmer. That's what coalition does. So we're constantly For me, I'm always looking at how can I bring somebody more into our economic ecosystem. So this this small farmer has mushrooms. How can we purchase more mushrooms? Right? How can you know? And there's people who are aggregators that are really good at they're basically like the central marketplace. Right. So we're just talking with someone and we're just talking about like what more is happening, and we're talking about how uh. One thing that isn't talked about enough is how private corporations are are trying to purchase farmer land. Right. So when you see what's happening now in this in the the current system of you know, tariffs and all these other things, what might happen is that a farmer who's already overburdened, yeah, right, can't produce, it's already having logistical challenges waiting for his contract money to come in, might be close to bankruptcy. You have private corporation tours who are waiting for that land to go into bank mc to buy it at a lower amount. Right. So we'll we'll begin to see generational farm land being purchased right, which then takes people out of their that market to be a farm land owner. Right, it's going to get sold to like the Amazons of the world and stuff like that, and that creates a whole other issue around land preservation and climate resilience and things like that. Those are the things that we really should be thinking about as an American people, right, is how farmland is being purchased up and how it's not being preserved and all these. Other generational legacy too. Unfortunately, a lot of the small businesses in generational legacy has been taken based on that because the big MCOs are buying out the mom and pop stores that were once three and four generations long, and now they're faced with all those type of hardships that they can't do it. And then here comes the Walmart's targets and those big companies. Can you share a moment that reaffirm your decision to focus on black women health and community wellness. And leader guys. And even though the comment I made earlier was more so that when the DEI that was for that, But as a woman and as a black woman, I understand the oppression that I've even had in my own experience with different jobs and different places and events that I've attended. So I know that that representation of who I need to stand in trail blaze like you did with you know, as an alte ger. Yeah, so I know. So I just want to make sure that whoever's listening knows that you know how to decipher. The two on that comment. But it's definitely important that we stand and you know, and be very affirmed on what we feel as though as a black woman in our community, because as we all know, black women go. To the hospital and they're in pain. You have the you know, the hell in what's her name from the DNA that they took all of her herselves, and you know, you're you're saying you're in pain, and the medical people aren't believing us because of either. The high intensity of pain. Yeah, so tell us what affirmed that for you. This is a two point answer. I want to first address your comment about what about the but I want to just let me go there real quick. But I'm just saying I feel it. I feel it though. But research shows us that when a black woman is healthy, when a black woman is engaging in helpful behaviors, when a black woman is in that whole family. When a black woman says, hey, we're going to start eating apples once a day, a black woman says, hey, we're gonna we're going to try this family initiative five thousand steps a day, the whole family starts to treat. That includes dad, that includes the kids. Which is why, which is why part of my research I'll send you an article. Part of my research centered on mom. Because we know that if we get mom to say, hey, I'm gonna start doing self care, dad will start doing self care. The kids will start learning self care practices. Now, why that doesn't happen with dad, I don't know. You should get some of your black male friends to do that. Reason look like something hurt. But women do that too, though black women do that too. They self sacrifice. So that's why we have That's why the work is like, well, and then they teach their daughters to self sacrifice, they teach their sons to self sacrifice. So for whatever reason, when black women shift that, everybody starts to shift it too, right, Versus if dad shifts it for some reason, it doesn't create the family dynamic cultural shift. So that there you go for that one and I was told I got to answer for everything, but so can I share a moment that reaffirmed myself as a black woman, And like the decision I made with that with the other part, like the decision I made to like leave, I'm gonna say every day when I get up and I do not have to answer to anybody but myself. And you know, academ academia is not It wasn't a loving place for me. It wasn't a loving place for a black woman I had. I have multiple stories where people questioned me, People tried to dehumanize me. People did not see me as the magical, powerful woman I was. Actually let me give I popped the trunk. There was there was times where people, instead of people embracing me, embracing my work, they felt threatened by me. When I decided to leave academia for good. I remember one time I was in an interview with some government officials from the state and media. We were just doing a co interview, and the government officials from the state they were just so they were like, this is doctor Carter. She's a fool, right, she's a doctor. They were just so happy that there's this person that's leading this organization, and I just remember thinking, like, what, I've never had this reception from my colleagues in academia, right, but here are government officials that just are like, Wow, We're so glad that this person has decided to do community work and to just be committed to it, and so being seen and respected and understood in that way and not this isn't competition. We're just all in this together trying to do our part. So maybe that's an example I but every day being able to get up, not having anybody trying to control my time, trying to control or rewrite how I see the world and how I think good things can be done, and and just being able to you know, really create my own lane and what I think good love work looks like, you know, and that that that might not be in somebody's textbook though, right, Because that's the other thing with Academia's like, what's the theory behind this? And I'm like there is none. Right, let me be like, there's there's no theory. We're just gonna go we go and just try to do something good today. And if there's one client that emails, a sensor says thank you. Look. Hypothesis proven that that's it, you know. So yeah, interesting, thank you? Yeah, so hm, well we see you, thank you, We recognize you. We want to amplify your work and you being amazing. I do have a question, all right, what would be uh first, what would be the what's the legacy that you want to leave? That's a good question. I think that uh my legacy or a legacy, or would just be you know, people look at what I do and they see God in it. You know, they look at me every day and they and and they yeah, they look at me and they say, hey, you know you know God, God has his hand on her. He has his hand on the work that's being done. And that that's it. Yeah, ain't you know what I mean? All right, Well, since you have an answer for everything, I want. Hold on. What's definitely what was on my birthday was on February ninth. Shout out to Saquon shout out too, because they we all have the same birthday. So if I was to ask you, what's the one thing that no one else knows about the carter, what would that be? I wouldn't. I wouldn't share that. Week you got did. We need to else? Come on clean, Come on, that's a good question. I don't I don't know, if you know, I got I got a lot of layers. So that's the time that might be, that might be something we had to come back to for me to think about what is it that I want to share. Don't have an answer for somebody. Somebody don't have an answer, And. That's an invite to come back on the show. But I do have a question before before we let you go. Okay, So for a man, what are the top three things the top three things that a man can do to stay healthy? And then the top three for a woman. Oh that's a great question. So I think the first, first and foremost is therapy. Yeah, definitely, you know, there's there's always all good things too with talking with someone and and having uh someone that is focused on your mental health and and and this is this is outside of your pastor and friends. This is an actual licensed mental health provider being able to help you really unpack and dig into you know, all those areas of emotional and psychological care. The second thing is movement. You know, movement is is great for everything and everything and everyone, and so I think that at and particularly for black people. So you know, we have to be more active and more you know, engaged in that physical movement. And I think the third one, I'm just going to do a wild card because I could say anything. I could say eating well, I say all these things, but I think that for black men, things like laughter and play and just like just like just like lacks the shoulders, not take ourselves so seriously. And I find myself saying this too, my friends that are man is like, you know, just laugh and just loosen up, and because the because the world has has them contained, you know, and I think laughter is such a decontaining tool, so like it. Yeah, I would say those those three things. I think for women again number one therapy number one one that that's important. I think Number two, I think those intersections of eating wealth and understanding the genetic factors to our health, right and and when we when we look at black women, we we have those higher risk around cancer and high blood pressure and things like that. And so really digging into those genetic factors and understanding your family history and and those things and then really talking to your doctor about them and being preventative. Right. And now I like that you said that because it's like the womb is where you house the generations, and if the womb has a lot of stress or other type of free radicals that are going on that are negative, that child is going to come out in that DNA with all of that. So I like that one. Yeah, And it's you know, like doing some genetic counseling and thing you know, like and I definitely understand that they're like thinking about those things could be very scary and very you know, but it also could be very freeing and very empowering to just to know and then to really wrap your hands around Okay, I'm beginning to eat this way or engage in this movement, or do these particular things as prevention, right, which will help and extend your life, will help you live stronger and longer. Right. And I think the third thing is rest. You know, they're just rest. What's that? And actually this gets to you, Hey, I have the answer to your question. You didn't stop for. I had to answer to your question. The third thing this is this is something people don't know about me. Oh my god. I don't want to share because it's such a good secret. It's such a juicy secret. So so people don't know that I sleep in well, like I sleep in well, I also like rest. I'm a good rest. And the perception that people have for me of me is that like I'm combat rolling out my bed at five in the morning. I'm just work with work. That's just not true. I promise it's like, it's not true. I'll be in my bed till about eight nine o'clock, you know what I mean. I'm on TikTok. I'm a very usually move move person. You know. I might like answer an email from my phone at not like I'm just like I'm not. I'm not. I don't really start until like maybe like ten or eleven. And that has allowed me to give more, give more, because I hold so much. I hold so much. And uh, it was a big me about four years three, four years ago where I really started to be a congregant of the NAP Ministry, like a true a true congregant. Yes, yes, yes, yes, because and notice I didn't say read it or I'm I am a member of the congregation. And and being a member, I mean like I I will just get a blanket, wrap myself up and go to sleep in the middle of the day and like emails and stuff and just be like and then. I'll kind of. That, Yeah, I know what you're saying. Yeah, so that third one of rest for for for women and really and really releasing themselves and giving themselves permission to rest radically and unapologetically in all the ways that that looks, and just leaving it to everybody else to get to get up in there, like remove whatever feelings other people have about a black woman. They can have them feelings, m but we can rest. And I'm arrested. So yeah, I like it. Al Hey, now let's get it around them for a pause, random for pause, not the leaser car. You know, one thing we always say on the show is once you come to show, you a friend to the show, so you're always welcome to come back. I wish that program was actually in Philadelphia. We could use a program like that. So we do have a oujama at the Penn Aberson Cancer Center. Okay, so it's tailored uh for the the cancer patients, and it's in the infusion center. We're actually restructuring it a little bit, like literally right now as I speak, and we're making it into a food pharmacy for the cancer patient. So that way, the food in that fridge is a little bit more medically tailored for the cancer patients. We have a very close relationship with the Aberson Cancer Center in Philly and in South Jersey. So one of our produce programs is a free produce uh for low income care inter patients through the Aberson Cancer Center as well. I love that. I love that. Uh. Yeah, we'll have to stay in touch. We definitely have to stay in touch. Interesting, how can I get in contact with you and find out all that goottle stuff? Yeah, so you can always visit our website www dot Coalition Equity dot org. You can always reach out to us on Instagram and Facebook at Coalition Equity. Yeah. And then you can always, you know, give me a shout at doctor Leja on Instagram if you just want to show show me some love, show us some love. Yeah. Oh, ain't got ladies and gentlemen. I don't want you guys. To go anywhere. That was doctor Lisia Corn run out the round the clause over Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, super tcited to have next up. We got a j Alexander Martin that's coming on. Told you foo, we're gonna talk a little bit about foodboo. But I'm your boy Charles Greg with the Beautiful. Classic Lady Spark and Beautiful Lady and Beautiful. Doctor. I didn't know how it was that. I want you guys to go anywhere, y'all. We'll be right back after this. We're going right to uh one of sparks favorite clips you got. We just want to get a little background as to who the fantastic noises and the noisemakers if you can let us know. Yes, absolutely so. Once again, I am fantastic Noise. I am the original noisemaker. So no one's gonna make as much noise as me. Okay. And right here we have the Noisemaker Band. This is only half of it. The other stuffs are upstairs, the My My, Kevin, Kevin, Lamar, Lannie and Dobbs who are the actual band members. These are the background singers and we can to make some noise. We can to bring that noise today. So that's that's what we would do. That's that's right. How did you guys get together? Man? So it started with I've been doing this on my own for almost three years now. And man, I guess each of these people here have different background stories. Most of us went to the same church together and we just kept going. This one her it is my one of my assistants said, one of like the my my biggest support of my biggest shuitar, hear's assistant. So we just been building and the same thing with upstairs with the band, just meeting through people, kept networking, kept seeing them. It was just like God or. Dang bab here we are awesome. Yeah, Well, could you guys do we talked weekly a favor? Can you give us a drop in a melody type way? Type way? Okay? So we talked weekly. Okay, so we're gonna do something like this. We talk week. We come in here with us, we talk. We we come in here. Them we talk. We we come in here them, we talk. We come in here, we talk. We come in here now we talk. We me coming. Ga. Okay, give beautify because you're already. Yoh, y'all talking like that. I know you don't like this. I said, go get beautified because you'll already gorgeous. Bars right, no doubt. We talked we after talking to on Pee Philadelphia, want O six point five film. We talked weeks after the talk with your boy Greg and Beautiful Plus and uh, you already know who do we have to date? Who do we have to date? Oh? We just had an amazing interview and now we have another one. Today we have Jay alex Xander Martin. He's founder of Fu Boo and CEO for US by US Network Studios and music group. It's a Navy veteran author and business coach. He has a lot of hats he wears. He built a billion dollar brand and is launching new projects in twenty twenty five, including the four US Buy us Network app and a film studio. Y'all already know what to do. Let's give a warm, wetok weekly Welcome to Jay Alexander Martin. Oh, man, ah man. I was excited about this. How are you, my friend? How are you? How's it going guys? How are you today? Sir? Oh I'm good, I'm good, good evening. This is an awesome interview. Thanks for joining us today. Oh, not a problem. I'm glad to be here. Okay, So earlier in today I don't know if you watched our show, but Charles had made a comment about for us by Us and how you all got your name, and LLL was included in that. So you tell us from your your mouth of the CEO. How did you how did you gain a founder of food boo? All right, so again everybody knows a guy named Damon John. We have to give him the credit for the name. I was coming home from a desert storm child in the military. I got out on a medical discharge. I got a bunch of money in my hand, and I wanted to get in fashion. I was working for Macy's and so a deal happened. Not to really get too much into it, and I wound up quitting. Damon was making a hat, had made a hat and then he kind of stopped selling it. He was selling it and he had a label on it, and he had it. It was a name called Foobu. So he had stopped. He made a couple of hats, stopped and made a couple of hats, stopped, And I saw it coming home because he was a child friend. I came home and saw it on his kitchen table and I said, Hey, what's this And he's like, oh, it's a hat. You know, I sold a couple and whatever. I was like, yeah, but what's foogoo me? He's like, foogoo means for us, by us. You know, we needed something that was for us. That was kind of. By us, and I was like, Yo, that's amazing, and I said, I'm going to ft I got some money, let me turn this into a clothing line. And nineteen ninety two, thirty something years later, six billion in sales. M m M six say that six billion. I was gonna say say that number again. Yeah, six six billion in sales. We a couple of years ago we pretty much talied. We became in a tally of all the years of what we've done and all the sales. And it came about to that m hm. And how did you redefine urban fashion and that culture? Like what? Like I know that you just gave that story, but like I said, h C had made a comment about l L quo jaking. Tell us how that got involved. Because Fubou is my generation and it's it was powerful movement. Well. L L's a childhood friend Damon uh and the guys used to go to go on tour and kind of draft travel around him like a roadie. I had a different experience with l L. I one of my childhood friend brother was his best friend. So l L was rapping, you know, prior to he was in a group with two other gentlemen. I was in a group with two other gentlemen and L used to kind of come over, and you know, we see him as an older guy, and hey, you know he was rapping and actually he was really good. I wasn't so good, but at potential, let's just say. And he would kind of say, you know, hey, say it like this, say it like that. You got to flow a little bit. So he'd help out here and there. Years later, of course I did. My graph career didn't go off, but my fashion career went off right. So we approached him and said, hey, listen, you know you're doing big things. Hey, could you just wear this in the ad? And he said yes, he said yes, But then when you try to track him down to actually do it, it was like, oh, man, do I really have to do this? But he chose to do it anyway, and from then on he was helping us from there on, and he gave us a promise. We gave him a promise, and he was, if you know, we'd be successful, become successful, we'll take care of him. And we did exactly that. Interesting, nice, fantastic. So they say that, you know, they say that black people don't help each other and all that, you know, especial in you know, bigger situations than others. But he actually came, you know and helped. And you know, he didn't need to help us, and he did. He had big, bigger office and biggerfish on the table, but he decided just to deal with people like myself from round the way, and you know, we both became successful. It was great. Yeah, I want to know how you guys, and this is a personal question to you, right, ah, the culture, the culture of fashion has changed so much, but that's fashion, right, Fashion change, It goes in and out. It's a little different now, right. I have to give you guys the flower Excuse me, I have to give you guys flowers because y'all was part of I call it the goal, the age of like just urban fashion. Y'all was part of that. You know, the Carl Ganas, the food Booze, everyone that was in that kind of genre, you know, the hip hop era. You know. I think when we talk hip hop, we don't talk the fashion as we should. I think that needs to be going up. To jump in real quick. And I'm not totally show where you're going with this, but I want to say this before it even starts, is that it's called the fashion business. And the problem with today is people just look at the fashion. They don't understand the business. Right, one hundred one hundred percent agree to that. That said, right, where do you think? And like I said, because because I want to get an opportunity to give you guys the flowers. Right when we talk about just fashion and legacy of fashion, legacy of hip hop culture. And again we we just recently, I guess last year fifty years of fashion, I mean fifty years of hip hop, right, and you guys are right there also in terms of you know that hip hop or fashion. You know what I'm saying. And so I do want to give you your flowers for that, you know, because I think you guys deserve it. And so when we talk about fashion, right, where do you how do you see fashion now as opposed to how it was then in the culture of hip hop? If you do you understand that question? Yeah? Yeah, I mean listen, the culture drives you. The culture moves you. The culture gives you the trends, The culture gives you the ideas. The culture. Moves even what it looks like, the colors, the style, and the everything, so without that you have nothing. I think what happening now more so is the culture has gotten has been taken. Over by social media. Social media is an instant gratification to instant I'm going to make some money or and it's not really people who are it's not one hundred percent of predominately with people that are really in the business or of the business. They may be about business because they're just trying to make money. But you know, I've gone to school for this stuff. I've studied it. I'm you know, I read about it. I have the magazines like from dn R WWD things like that, Like I am of the business, you know, I am the business. And what happens is again today it's like all about just grab you know, something from Ali Baba, put something on it and then sell it, you know, and it's not really about really understanding the business of it. Like it's almost like right now, I always say this and people look at me and go and laugh, but it's almost like, you know, they got the answer to the test, but they can't prove their work. Yeah, So the culture is what drives of the culture. But then I'll be looking at the culture they're just looking at Look. If I see somebody else do it, I'm gonna do it. You know, if somebody says hammers are selling, I'm gonna go do I'm gonna do that exact same thing. So you know, but then there are a subset of people that are actually still going to school, still learning the problems, going through the process, still working. But you know, it's limited, it's limited on how much recognition that they'll get. So you mentioned you mentioned places like Ali Baba, right, and that brings up for me, that brings up the conversation around sustainability and fast fashion, right, because that's one of the biggest in industry. I'm an image consulting wardrobe Styllars right, And so I've been in the industry just as long as like maybe about twenty years, and I see how fashion kind of goes in and out and and it changes and pivots and you know it, it does this thing. I haven't seen anything like it is today. Right in terms of in terms of how social media pushed the idea of what fashion is what some don't even have a clue but think they have a clue what fashion is. And that has a lot to do with social media. Right, But when we talk sustainability and we talk about fast fashion, I would love to know your thoughts on that. You know, is one better than the other? Is there is there room for places like you mentioned Ali Biba, But now we have the fashion overs in machines, right, skims and which I wouldn't put that in fast fashion, But we have these these offshoots of you know, new uh microwave, uh, you know, you know, stylish, stylish kind of like quick quick quick designs, right versus the master tellery. You know, what's your thoughts on all of that? You are directly in that that infrastructure, you know, so I think it would be good to hear your thoughts. You know. Well, my perspective is is this again, fashion is fashion, you know, uh, regardless of what it is, regardless of how you make it, or regardless of what comes out, it's still something that someone could wear, and it's still you know, how you interpret it as far as how you style it. You know, you can wear somebody could wear a sweater and it could look totally different from some somebody else's wear a sweater and they could be wearing the same sweater. So that's not a problem. Fashion is always going to, you know, either trickle up or trickle down. Most times, for me, I think it trickles up, and it comes from the street, it comes from us, when it comes from when it's we're talking about my type of fashion. Now, there's always that European you know, because I used to go overseas all the time and go over to Europe and Asia and Germany and Dubai and all these places and look and see what people wear and see what the fashion is to get it first and then interpret that, come back home and interpret that. So that's always going to happen too. So all these stores are doing is taking that, making it faster, making it faster, and putting it in the stores quicker before the actual. Bigger brands can do it. So that's the actual real meeting of it. But as time goes past, you know, you again, if you tell somebody one thing, after three hundred people hear it, it's not going to be the same thing. So again I go back to the fashion business, you know, and I go back to and I take it all the way back to the magic shows and when it was tons of us, tons of us, you know, with millions of dollar boots and we pretty much took over the you know, the fashion business. You know of that. And then I go back before that. You have your car Canis and Cross Colors that were selling more clothes. And they that than anybody at the time, you know, And. Then we can go beyond it before that where someone was knocking off you know, the guccis and creating as a tailor, creating other things. So that separated fashion. If we go back to that fashion from there was we saw that, you know what, we can actually create our own thing. We don't have to go off and knock off anybody else's stuff. We can create our own. And once we saw that, and I guess we got to look at the leader, you know, who really showed us that hip hop fashion could be something and why or a hip hop culture fashion could be something, and of course that would be called Kani through the birth of Cross Colors. And then of course there was tons and tons of other brands that came along with us. But again, you know, I never say that we do the best brand, best looking brand, or the best the hottest fashion per se, but we were the best marketing. And then again, marketing is going to win every time I. Want to delve into that as a business mogual And I know fashion is a business, but just for the business side of it, what strategies have helped you sustain the relevancy that you've had for these many years that you can share with us, well. I mean, one strategy that I always live by is, you know, it's the fact that I have more vision than goals. Another fact would be that I necessarily don't follow what everyone does. I pretty much tried to make my own route, so then I can never be wrong because no one else has done it. And like I said, the thing about marketing. Is you really have to really, really really pay attention to your customer. You have to understand the psychographic because you understand the demographics of all that of the your custom or your consumer, and then know where the market is going nowhere fashion is going, Know when you could push your trend, know when you're going to pull off a trend. No, never be too good at what you do. And I said that in fashion, because you can turn around and think that this is the greatest shirt ever made, and you can go in back back and forth in it and make twenty different colors, and then you. That stuff be left in the warehouse. So it's a lot. I mean, listen, I could be all day giving you these situations. You know. You know what's interesting is you mentioned colors, and you mentioned, you know, the shirts, and as we are kind of coming out of the winter era, right, a lot of us wore sweaters. And that's a transition to understanding the connection that you guys had with Koujie, you know, as you know, Biggie said it black and ugly as ever, however that you know, and so I would like to know what, you know, what inspired that collaboration and where are you guys with coogie right now? I still have like some sweaters that's twenty years old, you know, because of how dynamic and uh the materials that it was made out of, the dynamic color. I'm gonna tell you something funny, Yeah for sure. You know, back in the days, we used to go to Philly a lot, and uh, you know, you couldn't get a girl if you didn't have a coolie sweat. Yeah, and all the girls had on sko It's funny you couldn't get a girl. It wasn't happening to those things. That's what you had on. You had to have a coojia sweat off. You remember them days, lady. I'm sorry you're talking to me another another. I was actually married during them time, so I can't really say like I don't remember them times, but I was asking lady Stott. I remember those times, but I feel like I was, I was very young times. It was it was you know, it was a lot of up the older ones that was, you know, doing that stuff, wearing that stuff. I feel like I was in like elementary school or something. And we had them as kids. Everybody had cougie coogie, the coogie hats, the scullies and all that type of stuff. So so yeah, Martin, mister Martin, I just wanted to know, like, what is the what was what inspired that collaboration, and how what are you guys doing with that particular brand today. I still we're still we're still, we're still moving it. What we what we did over time is what people do today, and we were doing it so long. And it's funny because we don't necessarily, to me, I don't feel like we ever get the credit for it. Not that I'm asking for it per se, but we don't get the credit for being first to do a lot of things. Yeah, you know, we've done these collaborations. We bought companies, We've owned about five or six easy you know, other brands, We've consulted, other brands. We've done so much with with with when it comes to the fashion business as far as being a business, because again, you can have a brand and it could be doing well, and you know, it could all of a sudden, you know, just like the bell curve go. Up and go down. So you need, you know, some other brands that can help you. And then when you want to be in, when you're on the shelf, you know, you want other brands that be around, that can be around you to help push you up when you push down or you know, when it comes to you know, finances, you know, okay, so the budget, you have a budget, use another budget to push another you know brand or what vice versa or how it works. Uh so you know, it's it's really was a business move. You know, find the brands that people like, or find the brands that you may think that are falling and bring them back. I love that. I love that what collaborations of what are you guys doing now as it relates to the direction of football. Well, we've had a previously, we had a company that we've because we licensed our company out for years and just as of the contract was over and instead of us renewing, we decided to take it back in house and basically start back with the original you know, four guys and come go, come back and put something out. So hopefully, if all works out right, barring you know, anything going wrong, we should have some stuff out spring early spring or summers last summer. But I mean, sort of to answer your question, it's we how do I say this? You know, business is hard, you know, it's this is not for the faint of heart to be an entrepreneur. It's probably the hardest thing, you know, probably the one of the worst businesses, the worst things you can choose to do. You know, you better off just getting the jobs sometimes. But you know, when you're an entrepreneur, you're stuck in it, gonna keep going. So, like I said, business goes up, business goes down, and we're just here to try to figure it out. You know, we've been in business so long, we know it like the back of our hand. But again, the customer has changed, you know, So we've gone from but three three almost four generations of people that we've been around or that has touched awards something up from us. I mean, for God's sakes, we have scrubs. Now, you know. So you know, we've touched just about everything there is except furniture. But we're looking to get into hotels and that may be happening soon thanks to one of my partners, Carl Brown Keith parent of course he has the radio. Damon John of course is doing big business when it comes to Shark Tank, and of course myself I have a ton of things going on. Do you have like like comforter sets. Or yes we have, Yes, we have sheets and bedding. Yes we have sheets and betting as well. Awesome. Can you speak a little bit to your your marketing strategy. I know you guys have been doing this for a long time. You seem to have a lot of great ideas in it. I don't know if it's because you just have these ideas or is it a lot of it come from your experience. But are you heavily involved in your marketing strategy or do you have like a whole separate marketing team. No, no, we you know. So what happened for me is that you know, of course we've had in house. Everything for us is always in house. We never we have anybody outside of that. We'll have people come in give us proposals and things like that, but just it just theyble could get that feel of who we are because who it's who we are, you know, for us by us foobu is. Us. So we know we are the customer. So someone coming from somewhere else, they don't really know because they're not the customer. They just they just analyze them what they think they see in the marketplace. So for years we would you know, tackle that or go back and forth with people giving us things things, but we would always just figure out figured out our own. I think when marketing, we've picked or we've been able to get big moments, and big moments just happened to us. Like for instance, like with like a rapper roll, just the biggest rapper there at the time, we'll just pick up and wear it and do a commerci almost do a commercial for us. Now we didn't give it to him, he just did it on his own. So a lot of times I think the influence of what we've done and who we are for so long us as epic or iconic as it is. People just want to flowish to go to that. I don't I think it. I don't take it for granted. I appreciate all of that. Second is what I've done is I have took in taken you know, control of media and my own hands by creating the Forest BIS Network, Forest by Studios, Forest by Its Music group. And with that, now I've been able to market on my own. I've been able to you know, create a movie or create a series, or create a reality show and put it in put it on the people you know or the people that start in it, and advertise you know, sublittably. You know, so of course I put it in the right moments, you know, right scenes, things like that. But I've been able to do that, or it's net or do commercials cause to where now I don't have to go to the facebooks and all that other stuff. And then I've built a large following, you know, on Instagram and things like that, so I don't have to go to the blogs and pay them twenty thousand dollars to where they years ago I would have to pay the magazines. Now I've created my own ecosystem to where my people follow and I just farm it through them. At this point, you'll probably have your own magazine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes, that too. But magazine is sort of a thing in the past. But you know, but there's a way to do it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, the digital magazines. But I think what you're doing, uh is great, And I want to I want to fast forward and talk a little bit more about kind of like your radio, television, and film, that genre or ecosystem that you're in right now that you're building out. What is that like in What are some of the projects that you're working on that to amplify those things? Yeah? Well, okay, So I just came off a season of a show called h and again don't shoot Me, but again, you gotta come where they come, and you gotta do what they do, but you have to do it in your own way, with your own spend. You know. It's called The Side Chicks of La which was a show. And it's funny because you know, I'll tell someone it's a side chicul lay and they'll go crazy, oh my god. But I'll say did you watch it? And they'll were like no, but they'll already go like, watch it first just to see and when you see it, you're like, wait, it's not even what I thought it was. But it's still good. But it wasn't what I thought it was. So a lot of times, you know, you like I said, people love reality and you gotta do what to do. But it's not the typeest reality where every five minutes somebody's fighting. Of course, there's little cattiness. There was a little bit of fighting here and there. Because that's what people do, but it's not the the you know, as soon as it comes on, people are, you know, boxing and trying to kill each other. And then the ratchet stuff. So listen, well everyone has. A little ratchet and everybody got that on everybody, So I got to show that stuff. I have a movie coming out called The Biggest Boss. Uh, it's about. Rick Ross and Free Rate Ricky Ross, How Rick Ross got his name? Whole story, So that's our app should be developed and done. Hopefully I should have that out by the late March. Did you say Rick Ross or the Rick Ross? Yes, and it's about what now, it's. About Rick Ross and Free Rate rickor Ross. So just how Rick Ross actually got his name? Oh wow, nice because I know it was some controversy at. One point with those two. And he's also in the cannabis business. Yes, yes, yes, Oh that's gonna be awesome. I'm gonna tune into that. Yeah, so it'll be on the app, we'll launch that. I'm also doing the Hip Hop Business Awards in Memphis. The date is August thirteenth through the seventeenth, and we're basically showcasing highlighting how some folks icons in the business taken just taking the culture and moved into other spaces and actually has expanded hip hop throughout throughout. One notable person is a guy named uh Don Pooh who owns a rest a few rest more than a few restaurants now became a restaurant tour. So if you can understand how what I'm doing there. Yeah, fantastic. Shout out to shout out to Freeway. To Freeway told the story Philly Freeway. Yes, told the story about how he actually reached out to Freeway. You know, it was like, listen, you know this is I would love to do. You mind if I utilize the name, And he was like, yeah, it's all good. That's what you That's how you're supposed to do it. Though, you know, reach out like yo, I want to give you homagies all right, for me to you know, Rick Ross, you know, you know that type of thing, and so you know, shout out to Freeway, shout out to a lot of the things that all of the things that you're doing. Man, you know, it's just you know, it's a doggy dog world out here, right, And so for you guys to continue to be as successful as as you are and keep it going, I mean it's hard out here. Well. The key, the key to staying is is being vertical. That's the second part of being vertical is is woof, It's just being persistent and keep a lot of people you start today and you're in tomorrow, and a lot of people today are what they call solopreneurs, what I call solopreneur. You know, you're never. Going anywhere if you're going to only stay and be a solopreneur, because again you're the only employee either own and you can't work like that. Like people don't know how. To scale or know what it means to scale. You know, you have you think you have. You know, I'm doing business, You're not doing business like that's you know, right, My brand No, you don't have a brand. You just started. M yeah, understanding that that's things that you have to develop. It takes it takes a second. It takes years to develop brand because there's things that happen for you to be a brand. So you have done so much. What is it that what's the legacy that you want to leave? I don't stop. That word is an ending word, even though I think it's a life, a lifelong thing where you're just going and you I'll say legacy, but it's never stops. Like I I'm weird. I just don't stop. I just keep trying to move the needle and try to move the needle again. As I mentioned earlier about not having a goal, I'm more of a vision person. So the visions just keep going and going and going. The goal. You get to the goal, Oh I did it. Now you got to stop and create to create another goal. I never get to that goal because I'm always going. M h got you, got you? Uh? If you had fair enough, if you had someone who is looking at you right as a young man looking at you and and saying like wow, I would love to Following the footsteps of mister Martin and his successes and building businesses. And what would you tell that young man. I would tell him to go follow your father, don't follow me. We could talk about business and we could talk upt exchange ideas because my plan and what happened, how I did it is how I did it, and that's why I'm successful. So you have to follow what you do for you to be successful. My blessing has already been done and my blessings will continue you going. You have to follow your blessing. Right. So a lot of times when people go look to see be with someone else, is no be who you are. Yeah, nah, nah, I hear that. I'm gonna push back the little I'm push back just a little bit. And you know, coming from an era right where we had or we looked up to the old his right, We looked up to the O G's right, and we and we whether that O G was doing I mean, because if we're being honest, you know it was the crack era, right, and so oh yes, we looked up to them flipping birds and it's like, yo, I want to be like whether it was right or wrong? Right? But it was this this a younger, a younger generation looking up to an older generation where they saying you had something that's like, young buck, come with me, let me show you how to do this. Others was like, yo, I'm gonna put you in trouble. I want to care so I can stay out the way right and so so. So I bring that up to say that, you know, in terms of a l a small pushback is it may be a young man looking at you that's from you know, you know Harlem, or something that's from you know, uh, you know the Bronx that's like yo, everything they did I loved and mister Martin, I really like him, so I need to I want to talk to him. What would you tell him? What would you tell that guy? Again? I will go back to the same answer, but I'll twisted it because the answer the question was kind. Of moved up up a level. Listen, if someone if I'm sitting there talking to someone and they need some inspiration, fine, that's not a problem. I'll give you an inspiration. But if in an order for you to be successful, you have how I was successful. I was successful because I went my own way. I didn't have anybody in front of me. I didn't want anybody in front of me because if somebody's in front of me, I gotta wait for them to tell me what to do next. Right, I can't fail because I've no one has ever done it before, so I'm doing it right. So I just always push people to just. Go find their lane and keep moving right, as some of these young younger people say, get your tribe and build with your tribe and keep moving. Now. Again, like I said, I'm here, I'm an open book to tell you everything you know I can tell you. But I always say too, you know, if somebody comes to me and says, oh, man, I want to be an entrepreneur, what do you think, Well, entrepreneur wouldn't ask me that question, Okay. I also hear the Navy veteran in there, the discipline of you know, I guess when when you're when you're in the military, it's like. Self sufficiency. Yes, well yes, yes, selfish sufficiency. But we live by a rule of paying attention to detail. And I say this, you know when I speak to the military, if you every once in a while, I say to them, you know, we have this thing where if we make a mistake, somebody dies. Yeah that's real. Yeah, military, yeah for sure. So and you know I can't. I have to. I have to do it right. Yeah. Yeah, that's d that's heavy. That's heavy because that's a that's a completely that's a different way of thinking right, and that's a special that's a special way of thinking right because some argue right making mistakes help you. Grow Yes, right, right, that is that is so right, But that that teaches you A, B and C. But it teaches you abc to get to that point. But when were on the battlefield, or I was in the navy, or I'm in a ship and I'm a watch and I fall asleep, I'm jeopardizing everyone. That Yeah, yes, that's heavy, that's heavy. Jeez man. You know one thing we always say on the show is once you come to the show, you're always welcome to come back. And I think, you know, I always of course you're I would love you to come back because I think you have this this wealth of knowledge, this legacy knowledge. You know what I'm saying, this legacy knowledge that is important for people to continue to hear, right, because as you say, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like you know, a butterfly, right, it starts out as something else, you know, it starts at something, then it comes out the shell, then it becomes one thing, and then you know, after that life cycle goes to something else, you know. And that's kind of like you. Know, how you and your businesses are. You know, if this this, I'm doing this, but I have to keep moving. If this is that life cycle has to move and I have to support that. And you know, you know you it's this tetris of you know, building, you know, And I think that's. I like the word tetris. I'm gonna use that one. Yeah, there you go, Please get you Rand for Applaus for that my brother. You know. It's but I think it's it's interesting because even in tutress, the blocks aren't perfect correct, they're not perfect, but you have to fit them in a way, and sometimes they don't go in perfectly, but you build until you can make it perfect right, and then you go to the next level. And so that's how I see you, you know. And so that's why I say, like I always like to get especially men, you know, when they when they're doing great things, because often the perception of how we're looked at isn't the perception of what it should be, right, It's created for us, you know, and so yeah us to get rounds right there, it's great for us, but we need to make sure that we control that narrative with some of the things that we're doing. So my brother, I just appreciate you for coming on and like I said, you know, anything that you're doing, let us know, especially like some of your movies, call us out, like we'll come up, show up show, I'll do a junket or something like that, you know, some of your grand openings and all of that the music stuff the radio, let us know, will come up with Philly and represent you know. That's kind of like. What we do is so listen when I come to Philly, I'm hit you up so I could be in the studio. Yeah yeah, yeah, Leslie. Leslie linked this up right, Yes, let's lee. Yeah yeah, yeah no. She'll make sure that that we're gonna bring you right in the studio man, and some of the things that you're working on. Will make sure that you know, why don't you look, don't come up as a guest, come up as a co host and do the full show with us. I'm with that too. There you go. There, we do two hour show eight to ten. We want you down here, so we want to schedule that. My brother really appreciate you. Man, How can they get in contact with you and all that goodtle stuff? Uh, you know everybody just does the Instagram, So let the letter J dot A L E x A N D E R M A r G I N J dot Alexander Martin or the instagram if that. You know, some people maybe not have it. I don't know. If not, you're still on if you're still working with a website, it's Jay Alexandermartin dot COMIP was that. You know what? Real quick? This is something different I want to do real quick. Because you've been in an industry so long, right, tell me a story that was like one of the stories that was like the craziest story from your time in the industry, like doing doing clothes and what was one of those standout stories that you was like, Yo, I will never forget this. I began to stay it, but I stopped and then say it. But I'm going to go backwards to the point of when I was working at Macy's. So I was working at Macy's that was doing the clothing at the same time, and I was very good at styling and I used to have like a line of people come to the section where I used to where I used to I didn't run it, but I was self complained, ranted, but I didn't, but they would have come to me to have them me style their ties. That's where I worked in the tie department, and it was ties from like three hundred dollars on down to nineteen ninety nine or whatever. Right, long story short, I used to work all the time. I wanted to be a buyer. That was my thought. So I was like, I'm going to work and work and work and work, and I'm they're going to see how hard I work, and somebody's gonna get me, you know, get me into the merchandising program. Long story short. As a manager there at the tire department can't call me in the office and said, hey, listen, I got to write you. Up because. We thought, you know, it's basically saying I was I tried to steal a tie. Now the tie was nineteen ninety nine half off and then half off of that, and then with my discount, so that tie, if I'd have bought it, it had been like nine yes. Right, long story short. So I'm telling them that like, why would I Why would I steal a tie that I could pay two ninety nine for. Well, I'm steal a tie, I'm steal on the three hundred joints and I'm not gonna wear it. But I would steal a three hundred all the time. And he was like, no, no, no. I was like, please don't write me up, because if you write me up, I already got the I the merchandise and manager kept saying, I'm gonna keep a eye on you. I'm gonna check on you. And I was really trying to work get more way up and getting the bias program. I quit and I said the next time I work, next time I come back into Macy's, stepped foot in Macy's, I'm gonna be selling to you now. Fast forward. The next time I stepped into Macy's, I was in Macy's window and we did a display. It was we were just getting in Macy's and instead of us doing the regular display, we were actually in the window, all four of us, and we were doing a live display, live mannequins, live mannequins. That was the next time I was black. I was in Macy's. Wow, were the same people there. Oh no, So this Macy's was in Long Island and the Macy's we were in feature was in Hero Square at thirty fourth Street. Wow, that's a great story, though, a great story. Yeah, we got in archives now. Shout shout out to J Alexander Man. Listen, it's an absolute pleasure of having you want to show on. Like I said once, you're want to show your friend to the show. So we're gonna have you back as what our co hosts. Next time you're in the Philadelphia area. How can I get in contact with you one more time? The letter J Alexander Martin at J dot Alexander Martin the letter J not JY the letter J. Alexander Martin and or Jlexander Martin dot com. Fantastic. Well there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Don't go nowhere when we come back. You got stories for us. We got a story. Lady has died of a story before we end out. But my brother, thanks for coming to the show man everybody, Yeah, absolutely absolutely, All right, y'all, don't go nowhere. We'll be right back after this show. Hold on, what's going on? You guys? This is Bridgie Kelly and you are locked into you talk weekly. Talk week these after they're talking w PPM P Philadelphia one O six point five. I fil we talked weeklies after talking with your boy George and beautiful beautiful lady give it to me, lady. Yes, I just wanted to update y'all quickly on some uh, you know, just some community Philadelphia based stuff, so real quick. If you guys missed the Philadelphia Restaurant Week, King of Pressure Restaurant Week is still happening right now March third to the fourteenth, so y'all can check that out with restaurants like bone Fish, Grill, Founders, Mark Founding, Farmers, City Works Eatery, and Poor House, Yeah, Sullivan's Steakhouse, Legal Seafood, The Capitol Grilled Melting Pot, Morton's Steakhouse, North Italia's, tons of them up there with all different price points and that Restaurant Week menu and price options that we love so much, especially if you and this is always a good time when you want to try out something new, This is a good week to go. And just wanted to tell you about some things coming to the city for starters. We have some concerts coming up March fourteenth, which is next week the Millennium Tour. So if you guys are don't have tickets and want to go to that, that is who's coming. The Millennium Tour is March fourteenth. The Millennium Tour is with Trey Songs On, Mario and Bow, Boozie, bad Ass, Rick Ross Applies, Ray J, Sammy, Bobby V, Pleasure, Pe Gangang Twins, and Nivia. Oh that's not gonna be bad. Yeah that's cute. So oh that's cute. So that's March fourteenth. April eleventh, we got the Ozley Brothers that's going to be in Ben's listen. They said this is a twenty one and over event. Y'all around saying them when no kids up in there, it. Should be sixty almost ninety. It's like respect. April seventeenth, Mary J. Blige and for my fans only tour, she'll be with Neo and Mario. That's gonna be April seventeenth. That's at the. Wells Fargo Center. And also on the April seventeenth. I don't know if y'all anybody who's like a Dance with the Stars fans, but they be doing tours and they're gonna be here. A lot and Ben Tellem if y'all want to check. That out, Elli is just like it's a lot, it's. A lot happening. Yeah, So we had the HBCU Festival. Definitely look into that. That's May seventeenth. That's just one day from eleven to five at the pavilion at the Man Center at Parkside Avenue for the second on park Side. So with the h HBCU Festival, Yeah, they're doing the HBCU Festival. They also do the HBCU Film Festival which is later this a year and that's in DC. But the festival is right here in Philly sponsored by TD. And at the HBCU Festival, they'll be interactive, college fair, a lot of performances, master classes, panels, black owned business market, we weldness zones, and just a bunch of family fun. But definitely they're gonna be out there repping all the HBCUs. So definitely check that out and just support, you know what I mean, just can continue support for the HBCUs. The Black Star Film Festival is going to be in July from running from that week in July thirty first to August third, So all you filmmakers here in the city and everywhere else everybody listening. Submissions are open now, but they close April first, So if you want to enter that last, but not least, the Roots Picnic, y'all. You know that's a Philly favorite. And the performers list has been released. So the headliners are going to be di'angelo, the Crabits, and Meek Mill Damn interesting. Yeah. Other performers Glo reala jeezy music soul child of course, the Roots, uh d J Rich Medina, Blackyard Band featuring See Loot Green and Blackstone featuring Jagged Jacket just gonna be there. People were excited about that. Yeah, and. Let's see Miguel Tims Lotto and a few others. And Dangel got connections here in Philly. Family, does I can see that? Yeah? Got America supposed to be there, supposed to be hitting his back doing press. We're supposed to be pressed for. Supposed now as American mad. What's what's the one Jay Z gives that is in America? Is that coming? That was a movie that. Was made in America? Was canceled last year. It doesn't it hasn't. Shown h. But I think that was a relationship that probably went. Love so yeah, I'll look more into it and keep y'all updated about that because it's usually that. And then also the Wild Festival. Yeah, that usually happens too. But coming up later in the year. I keep you guys supposed to there be more stuff happening, Uh, little babies coming post Malon's coming U Carrie, Katy Perry, and a few others later in the year. So but that was just some what's happening in Philly in the next few months. Y'all like that, and you gotta do some more what's happening in Philly. That's kind of like now, I like that. You can't do that again. Happened in Philly. We do that every every day. Good all right, y'all. So there you go. We talked weekly. What a dynamic show today, you. Know what I'm saying. Good show, very interesting show, Uh, dynamic guests. I like the all the guests that we had on. We're gonna have mister Martin here when he come into Philly, we better bring some clothes and. We're like when we're off air in the interviews, they always like, oh my gosh, that was some good questions y'all ask and be like, oh my goodness, this is so good, like y'all don't hear that on air, but they always give that same reactions. And the doctor was leaving, she said to me, she's this was really dope. They always come in nervous and then they're all relaxing, no. Doubt, because that's what we do here. We talk weekly. Man. But we out here like last year we talked, we we have to talk with w P me on a P phillad W one O six z point five of from we talked weekly, have to talk with your boy and beautiful, beautiful, and we out here like last All right, y'all