[Music] take your arms your hands arm everybody put your hands in the arm hands arm hands arms hands come on we keep cling like now a song baby this is an an everybody sing along hands in the air swing up swing up I'm not dead yet I'm alive the purpose for me is high like the clouds in the sky it's the abstract not Q-tip but the things I want for my life that sometimes don't mat up with the reality I strive for more mons going by pmic still alive no gigs out inside honey yummy money is TI but I'm feeling sort of nice it's great cuz the demons Alum directed fans to take another take at this Collective ironically name arest development people need in that connection who knows if your flows are those flows that the rows of rap are expecting black white asian or Latin in this Rapture of course but we doing this way more than rapping we are projecting energies of perception perceptions determine actions and actions determine everything in the future that will happen so King s baby this is an Anthem everybody sing along hands in the a swing up swing up swing climing song baby this is an an everybody sing along hands in yeah swing up swing upwing take us back to the beginning you're from Milwaukee you had an Incredible family tell us how your parents shaped your early work and how you got started in in music yeah I'm from Milwaukee my both of my parents were civil rights activists very um integral and fighting for justice and um also entrepreneur my mom owns the largest still to this day the largest uh black newspaper in Wisconsin it's called the Milwaukee Community Journal uh 47 years my father owned the uh numerous businesses but one of them is Robbie's roasted corn which is um a very popular corn roasting Booth um at Summerfest it's so it's roasted corn and my my wife and I have taken that over so they've been involved in entrepreneurialship and civil rights since I was a kid so yeah that was my upbringing so for our audience tell us about when you first came to Atlanta how the culture was different and maybe what elements you brought with you from Milwaukee and what was kind of mixing in as you got here very um very radical between Justice for white people and black people there's a very real difference the disparities were very clear uh coming to Atlanta it was like being in Africa for me because there was so much more opportunity you saw so much more um people rising especially black people in Atlanta than i' had ever seen in my entire life um in Milwaukee and so what I brought with me was a mish mash of Music taste because Milwaukee is surrounded by Chicago which house music comes from it's surrounded by well we love DC which Go Go music comes from we love the West Coast which had this P Funk energy and we love the East Coast which had this James Brown you know the birthplace of hip-hop energy so I brought with me this sense that all of these music styles were important you know as I came down south and um and then of course I love the South which is the history of black music itself you know whether it be Blues whether it be gospel um so you know to be honest it's um very special to me you know just bringing all of that stuff together swing sh iy tag CH like a he in the wiing he to the beef I'm a chief in the streets I'm a beast only Beast releasing the technique that's attracting PL freak I ain't lonely you only be offended when I don't speak to youri In the Flesh I'm blessed with word play 50 stacks for the track 20 for the ver stay down to the p PVE it for Success got to get it in the worst way T it on my chest from the bank of Mississippi to a show in never City Bon go get a gring greedy no Twitter show no pity wig splitter man love calling up the fce searching my resence they ain't finding no evidence Comm sense intimidated by my dominance you hating only elevating confidence likeing baby is an an everybody sing along hands in the air Swing Swing s Swing Swing Swing my party people out there come on go right to left and left to right go right to left and left to right everybody go right to left left right go right left and left to right the history of the South meant the world to me and the reason is I grew up spending time in Tennessee with my grandmother and those were the most pivotal and life shaping moments in my life so hearing the soul the pain the blues the musicianship um from the south I always was moved by the south so I brought to you know when I moved to Atlanta I had a deep respect for what already existed and also a deep appreciation for a lot of these other you know ingredients so when we listen back to some of that earlier W of development uh music and by the way Grammy winter Best New Artist won a Grammy for Tennessee as well right so when we listen back to some of the stuff I wanted to ask you sometimes the needle has feels like it hasn't moved on a lot of the social issues and social justice things that you were writing about whether it was about you know unhoused people to incarceration to guns sometimes it feels like that needle hasn't moved so which song of those early years moved the needle most do you think and maybe which issue still needs the needle moved most that's a great question I mean to me I feel like music is never the actual Catalyst for change it is the thing that makes people change things so the people ultimately have to do the work we all have to do the work the music can be the inspiration but it's not the actual change so I think the songs did what they needed to do in fact to be honest I feel like we were super blessed to have such a a record filled with issues and passion and artistic sort of um integrity and yet do as well as it did and at the same time I think culture does have to do a lot more actual action and and act activism to make things change you know what I'm saying so I think the music is just an inspiration it's why we keep doing it though you know we're now 32 years in so these songs are hitting new new ears you know to this very day not just the classics but even the new stuff that we're doing and and I see it like when I'm on stage I'm looking out in the audience and I'm seeing People's Light Bulbs going off and like wow I'm not hearing a lot of this kind of stuff everywhere else but look at what they're talking about and this is on the main stage and there's 20 other thousand people here with me and this is a unique experience right now so I know that the music is making a difference but yeah the needle definitely has to move a lot more so we talk a lot in our music I wish that hip hop could save us from cancerous cells the prison busting out the scene full of black mes I try to keep it legal jugle part time gs do a show throw a message in my flow for the kids on the low I'm a writer best friends with a pen when I die save me please forgive me for my sin nothing change many falling victim to the game bullets have no name leaving mothers in pain already B my brother I still shed tears I feel myself quicker with hard liquor and beers doesn't take away to hurt so we put in work keeping money on the mind I'm a grind expert the heart beat Strong you can see it through my shirt copyrighting every song so we won't get jerk that hard hit our neighborhood inside and out so I refrain from ever doing P No Doubt never never never Y and you always you every day we ride and every day we ride facts another fact hip hop saves lives baby hip hop saves hip hop hip hop hip hop saves lives saves lives baby hip hop hip hop hip hop saves lives saves lives baby hip hop hip hop hip hop saves lives come saes lives baby hip hop hip hop hip hop saves lives saves lives baby live and direct I could tell that from my heart I want to fast forward to to this year the past year and a half or so and let's just talk about the incredible time that arrested velman has had yeah let's talk about how it felt to be included in the CBS tribute to the 50 years of hipop and what what your most exciting encounter was there well I'll be honest with you I was skeptical to involved because CBS is huge and the Grammy salute it's a huge thing but to be honest I had been disappointed in a lot of the rap um sort of salutes to rap in recent years with TV they usually got it wrong they usually didn't have the right groups they usually went more mainstream and ignored a lot of the pivotal acts that really created the culture in a great way and I had a meeting with them and um on that Zoom meeting I started to gain a lot of confidence about what they were doing and I was like this is going to be amazing and it truly was this was I was so grateful that we were a part of the 50th Anniversary um of Hip Hop and the salute from the Grammys because they had great acts there really Monumental acts and some acts that aren't well known to the mainstream audience and yet we on that stage for that night on a mainstream platform like BBS they did an excellent job and it was a party and we all had a fantastic time fantastic so who are you most excited to see there for when I got to that to that event to be honest um I was excited about everybody you know like but don't get me wrong when when Will Smith walked in the room we all lit up because you know we tour a lot and so we see a lot of these people in different venues but I had never met will and and um taking a picture with him was a big deal um they're one of my hip-hop Heroes too you know DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince incredible so that was dope um but to see what he's done in all these other areas you know it's just it's a great it's a great thing so kind of continuing on with the year You released bullets in the chamber so I wanted to ask you about the music now the world has changed a lot since the beginning of the year even since that Grammy salute yes and the mo this moment right now America's in the midst of what I'm calling concurrent moments of joy and hope mixed mixed in with fear and anxiety about the future yeah and this isn't this isn't a political question per se about candidates or anything but it's about the mood of the country and I want to know what you want the role you want your music to play in this time of Hope yet division is motivation inspiration do not give up let's stay um you know fired up we literally have a song on the new album called still fired up and that's the that's that's what I want people to leave with you know we can't get too depressed about any of this we have to stay fired up and Vigilant about being active and making our voices hard so be still fired up that's it am every day people yeah you see I am every day people yeah yeah see I was resing at the park m in my own my own and says I kick up the trouble to radio take play a fox St loud enough supp can hear his out of nowhere woman I'm investigation maybe she was demon but nevertheless I was pleas I was my day was going great and my soul is at EAS until the gooper Brothers started buing out the 40 the WR disrespecting my black queen holding their crotches and be I've seen at first I ignore them cuz see I know they tight they got drunk they got guns and they want to fight see your couple having the time that's good to test his brother's manood so they came toest Beach cuz of my hair to the loud bright colors that I wear I was a Target cuz I'm a fashion Misfit in the AL I wear brother's diss it well I stay calm and pray them jokers leave me be but they squeeze parts of my dates Anatomy Lord you Brothers have to drill me I to this man to kill me am Everyday People so I want to talk about your career and you've had some dark times you've had some times where you thought maybe you didn't want to do this anymore you were a Pioneer in a lot of ways because I think you started releasing music independently uh around the you know and for people who don't know that time period you know the 90s was a very Rocky period for it was kind of like the dying of the old music industry a lot of labels kicked people off a lot of people went independent but you ultimately did go independent with your music and tell us about that transition and why you never gave up the never gave up part I think is because of passion at the end of the day definitely a lot of dark times a lot of frustration with how the industry was going how the culture was going and within hip-hop and even Black Culture um one of the lyrics I say in our first single Tennessee is Lord I've really been real stressed Down and Out losing ground although I am black and proud problems got me pessimistic brothers and sisters keep messing up why does it have to be so damn tough so that's just that's our first single right so I'm I'm expressing frustration with the culture even then and so it's only magnified since then so I think the frustration has been there the passion though for the art for the music for the message is still stronger so there's frustration but then there's this passion and the passion just beats it you know so we just keep going and that's that's that's sort of the the truth of why we just keep going yeah I wanted to ask you about miracles too because I think that song also describes yeah maybe coming back from one of those dark periods can you expound on that a little bit yeah yeah it's I I think it's more on what I was just saying like I really like the song we talk about I believe in miracles you know I believe in miracles and I do because I am one you know when arrest of development came out we're conscious group we're talking about conscious lyrics we're talking about uplifting people and it was the polar opposite of what was most popular at the time which was gangster hip hop some of which had a certain service of of sort of putting a a sort of a peeking glass into what's going on in gang culture in in the west coast but a lot of it became stereotypical and caricature is of uh sort of like black sploitation movies in a sense and um degrading women you know glorifying drug culture glorifying violence and against each other you know and so we were the polar opposite of that and um you know the truth is I think for us to be able to be celebrated as much as we were and even to some extent now like I told you our tour still do really well celebrated even to some extent now is a miracle and we're we're a living testimony that miracles happen so you just touched upon something too I mean you're an example of kind of what it's harder to be in the industry which is a performer who you know adheres to a kind of a strict moral and ethical code and has this made you an outsider in Hip Hop yeah it does I think at the end of the day arrest of development has always been sort of on our own little island you know now I'm 56 well I'll be 56 and so real soon and so um I've come to appreciate it you know we've we've run our own path right and we've been protected the whole way so I'm going to get spiritual now I believe that God has done that on purpose I think that God as I've gotten older I look back and I say Okay God purposely put us sort of in his hands and guided us on a certain path to where we can exist we may not Thrive as much as I might have wanted to at certain times we may not have the large audience that I've wanted to at certain times but we've been able to have great time I'm around great people my group members are amazing we love what we do we love being around each other these are things that I see a lot of my peers don't enjoy and I enjoy that so now it's a matter of measuring which one is more important you know could we've had bigger success or could I have had this sort of interesting route that we've had to take but have those things I just mentioned and I think I choose these things like it's probably what means the most to me for the ancestors the ERS to [Music] [Music] say say y say [Music] say say live and direct arrest the development come on all the chickens all the chicken bring on the chickens