Picture two young boys growing up together in the early 90s, dreaming of a future where they can escape the struggles they face daily. This is where my conversation with childhood friend, Dios Moreno begins. Fast forward to 25+ years later, we sit down to have an uninterrupted conversation, sharing our stories of resilience and hope, and how we transformed our humble beginnings into a motivation for success.
From the power of healing and breaking cycles of childhood trauma to the profound effects of music on personal development and therapy, we delve deep into our shared past. We touch on how we've been able to channel our personal experiences into our work - mine as a podcast host and Dios Moreno as an artist, inspired by the likes of Eminem, Jay Z, and 2Pac. This episode is a testament to the power of acceptance, transparency, and dedication to personal growth.
We also discuss the journey of building careers, focusing on our struggles and the rewarding outcomes. I share my vision of creating this podcast to help others explore different career paths and how setting up a studio has shaped my journey. Lastly, we pay homage to the inspirational artists who’ve shaped us and the role of personal development in our lives. So tune in, listen to our stories, and join us as we celebrate our past, present, and future.
Doing Good and Doing Well: Inspiring Helping Professionals to Become Leaders in Their Organizations https://a.co/d/4Ov5WG4
https://sparknstride.com/
http://instagram.com/spark.n.stride?igshid=zddkntzintm=
https://www.youtube.com/@spark.n.stride
Picture two young boys growing up together in the early 90s, dreaming of a future where they can escape the struggles they face daily. This is where my conversation with childhood friend, Dios Moreno begins. Fast forward to 25+ years later, we sit down to have an uninterrupted conversation, sharing our stories of resilience and hope, and how we transformed our humble beginnings into a motivation for success.
From the power of healing and breaking cycles of childhood trauma to the profound effects of music on personal development and therapy, we delve deep into our shared past. We touch on how we've been able to channel our personal experiences into our work - mine as a podcast host and Dios Moreno as an artist, inspired by the likes of Eminem, Jay Z, and 2Pac. This episode is a testament to the power of acceptance, transparency, and dedication to personal growth.
We also discuss the journey of building careers, focusing on our struggles and the rewarding outcomes. I share my vision of creating this podcast to help others explore different career paths and how setting up a studio has shaped my journey. Lastly, we pay homage to the inspirational artists who’ve shaped us and the role of personal development in our lives. So tune in, listen to our stories, and join us as we celebrate our past, present, and future.
Doing Good and Doing Well: Inspiring Helping Professionals to Become Leaders in Their Organizations https://a.co/d/4Ov5WG4
https://sparknstride.com/
http://instagram.com/spark.n.stride?igshid=zddkntzintm=
https://www.youtube.com/@spark.n.stride
Hey, listen, this is an extremely, extremely exclusive spark and stride. So I want to introduce D'Yos Moreno childhood friend, family brother, cousin the first rap artist on spark and stride, and we're just gonna stay tuned like lock in with us, because what's gonna happen here? I don't even know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2:We just gonna zip up there, kick it a little bit.
Speaker 1:Listen, I cannot believe that I was able. The heavens, the universe, the energy worked to get you here today.
Speaker 2:I'm super happy. That ain't about nothing, man. We ain't see each other in a long time. Man, we both found the time to come chop it up, man. Thanks for having me, brother, on this dope thing you got going on man, oh man.
Speaker 1:thank you, brother.
Speaker 2:This is yours too. You know that right.
Speaker 1:This is yours too, cheers Moreno.
Speaker 2:Cheers. What's up, my brother, how you man.
Speaker 1:Brother, I'm extremely blessed. Yes, sir. And I'm finding the time to allow myself reflection, to see how blessed I am. We kind of had.
Speaker 3:You know, we were talking off mic we were like man, let's save it, let's save it, let's save it.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. It's hard to save it, though I don't know if they could have heard the conversation upstairs, yeah.
Speaker 1:Man like I just want to let you know how much I love you man.
Speaker 2:I love you too, bro man.
Speaker 1:You know we go back to some extremely humble beginnings. Yeah Right, and I think you know, again, we were talking upstairs and we were kind of like you know there was some emotional things going on. You know what I mean. But yeah, man, I'm just really happy to see you man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man likewise, man likewise, for sure, man, thanks for having me, man.
Speaker 1:Hey, 100% my man, you know you know from where we came from, man.
Speaker 2:This is beautiful. Y'all don't know what this guy right here has been through, man. I'm not sure if he explained to everybody, but you know from coming from where you, from man, to where you at right now in life. Mentally, you know, mentally you got to give yourself a pat on the back, man, because you know people. We know people that started at the same place with us. We know people that started a little, that had a little head start of us. You know still, you just still kept your stride right and you know what I mean you still made it.
Speaker 2:Still made it to where you supposed to be, in a good space, a good mental space, a good financial space, and that's just a blessing man.
Speaker 1:You know I thank you, moreno. Like I, just reflecting on what you just said, it's been something I think for like the last, definitely the last six months, it's been a constant reflection. I think I'm trying to do my best to slow myself down, to realize the journey, what the journey has been thus far. Right, because I think we can just get caught up and I've mentioned it on the podcast a bunch of times, you know you just get so caught up in the we're moving so fast right.
Speaker 1:And I want to share something with you. Right, so you and I go back to, like the early 90s. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I want to say like 93, 94, that's how far back we go, right, a little boy. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And in that time and that space where every time we saw each other, we were both running and gunning. Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:So it was the first time in probably over 20 years that we're actually able to sit down Right. There's always been other people around, there's always been studio session. It's been a big chaotic right yeah, parties or traveling. Being this person, so I've only pulled up on you for like 20, 30 minutes, maybe three hours or something like that, but this is the actual first time that we're and this is this is, for me, is extremely special. I just want you to know that.
Speaker 2:Appreciate it, man. I like watching me too. Man Show for show. Man, I'm glad to be here, man. Man, I took this long old ride out here. Yeah, you know what I'm saying my God sit there. My God sit there, whip for me. Yo yo, yo, yo, yo yo man, I'm sitting in the car for you, bros, it ain't even man.
Speaker 1:You don't know how much that means to me, my brother. Listen, man, you know. You know I've been, I'm your biggest fan, bro. Yeah, man from the jump, man From the jump.
Speaker 2:From when you took me out there to see in Tampa.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:To see this dude, Tom G.
Speaker 1:Yeah, shout out to Tom G. You're like yo, man.
Speaker 2:I know this guy yeah the A13.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, he's doing his thing out there, man. Yeah, oh man, tom G's, he's that guy out there, man, he's that guy out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tom G, we need you on Spark and Stride man. Yeah, Tom G, man, come on, man, pull up man.
Speaker 1:I want to ask you something, but first hear this.
Speaker 2:Two thousand, and what? Two thousand and three, two thousand and twenty three, yeah, that's 23 years yeah. That's 23 years, jeez Jeez.
Speaker 1:Told you I'm your biggest fan. Told you, I'm your biggest fan and I've damn.
Speaker 2:You and I've been doing it before that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I've been writing before them. Don't sleep, I got, I got some. I got some some sleep. Yeah, I got some other stuff for you later, cause we, just Just so you know, I've been nice, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:I fell back cause I wanted, but anyway.
Speaker 1:You talk your shit, baby. Yeah, man Get to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah so.
Speaker 1:Uh, marino, what was um? What does that bring you back to when you hear that?
Speaker 2:That, that record. I remember writing that. So I remember hearing that record from Siegel, but I remember writing that freestyle and um, on the East five, seven, four, georgia. I remember writing that record with me my man ice and my other man, I and uh in the living room. I remember, man, my pops had the. I had a gray stereo. Pretty sure everybody in the hell had it. With the with the five disc change in it that always get jammed when you press it.
Speaker 1:Oh, oh, one of those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man I remember that, man, I remember. That's why, when you first played there, I said I remember writing that cause I was like I was like yo, I'm about to buy you. Yeah, hell, yeah, man, that's crazy. But hearing it, hearing it now, 23 years later, is I still got. I had bars then. That's now, that's fire. Yeah, and am I saying that just cause it's me, or maybe I am.
Speaker 1:No man, but but um, so I remember it was 1999. It was fall of 90. No, I take that back. It was fall of 2000 because I had already joined the military. I had drove up from Charleston, south Carolina, to Brooklyn. It was Thanksgiving. You were sitting in the passenger seat of my Pontiac Grand Am.
Speaker 2:Yes, I got that picture right in my hand. I look, I got that picture in my hand, it was outside, it was nighttime, it was nighttime I dropped you off.
Speaker 1:I dropped you off on Utica Avenue somewhere close to like Boys and Girls High School. Yeah, I was giving you a ride. Yeah. And when we got in the car, you gave me the CD. Yeah, you were like yo, play this, I play it. I'm hearing you and I'm like yo. Who is this? You're like yo, that's me. And I was locked in ever since.
Speaker 2:Yeah man, I remember that date bro. I remember that date bro. That's crazy.
Speaker 1:Do you know how many fights I got into, like throughout my military career, going to different clubs and, you know, being in Korea, like anytime you dropped anything. Anytime I got my hands on something. I'm like yo, you got to play this Like. Like to the DJ, like no, like you're not leaving here until you.
Speaker 2:You have to you have to play this. You know what I mean. I appreciate that man. Appreciate that much, yeah, man.
Speaker 1:Now it's all good. Yeah, no, it's Manny for my childhood. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for my childhood, brother, man, I mean it's always been Machiva, since back then yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Even back then it was Machiva, but you know, oh shit.
Speaker 1:So that's what that brings you back to. Yeah, man, I remember that day man, I remember that day.
Speaker 2:I remember, I remember outside of oh 606 Jerome Street in the East Yup In the East man, when did you feel like you?
Speaker 1:you had this talent to write. Not just to write, but to to spit these bars and to be as you know as just as dynamic as you are. Like it's it's too, not that it's too natural, but I just want to know, like when did it click for you?
Speaker 2:Um it. It clicked for me when other people kept telling me you know, what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:I never really had that confidence in myself, went to to do it. I did it Like we me and my friends used to just write. And you know, back in the days when you, when you was rapping, you had to be outside rapping, so we would go rap with other people outside. And then you just notice the, the, the people that you went rapping, it just gets smaller and smaller. People just start dropping off. Okay, and I just kept doing it. So then I just kept meeting new people and always had to find a new group of people to rap with. And then, uh, you know everybody who I wanted to rap with and they just kept pushing me to do it. Man, and I give a lot of credit to everybody who heard it and just kept. You know, yo keep doing this and and pushing me to do it, and that's that's what it is, man, for.
Speaker 2:As far as the, the, what you heard right there, like that's like competition, like that's like bright adosius and you know, trying to spit some bars, and that's that type of rap. And now, now, remember that's 2000. You know, um, but that type of rap was the inspiration with. That was just trying to be better and being nicer to people, and that's you know when you first get into. It was a sport, almost you know. But um, the, the other type of rap was therapeutic. Like you know, you get into the the who to who. I am the type of music that, uh, that helped me no-transcript that I heard and didn't need nobody to say yo, that was nice, that I heard and I was like then it helped me instead of yo, that's nice.
Speaker 2:So you know it's music. Well, just to keep it on your question, for that question it was people. It's like competition. So, you know people be like yo you nice, you nice, you nice. But when I realized that I was nicest, when I realized that I'm helping myself get through trauma, through writing music you know what I?
Speaker 2:mean. And that's when I realized that I was nice. So shit, I'm healing myself. Wow, look at this, I write it down. I see a problem. I fix it. By the time I write the next rap, that problem, that other problem is gone already. And I had a lot of problems, so I had a lot of rap.
Speaker 1:You was rapping your ass off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was rapping, I was healing myself. Man, I'm a whole therapist because of hip hop. Well, so hold on, I'm just putting something in perspective real quick. That was 23 years ago, right? Hip hop is 50 right now right, yeah, man, I've been doing this a long time, man.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, man, it's amazing and it just shows, like, what you can do with consistency. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, even like with this idea for Spark and Stride, this idea for this podcast, this idea for this. You know, eventually, production company, media, company, it's just amazing where we're for consistency, right, and the topic of consistency came up and what I reflected on is, like my time in the military, right, my time in the military. You know, the reason why you can stay consistent in the military is for the lack of better term. You're on a contract. You're contracted to be consistent. That's why folks can go, you know, like, sometimes, like I just did, 24 years right. So folks like man, that was a long time, it was a long time and in hindsight it went quick. But then folks are like yo, how were you able to do it for so long? Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'm just like I think it was just being held being held accountable for your level of consistency, right, like you have to stay consistent. You signed for four years. You gotta do four years. There's no getting out of it. You gotta do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know you gotta give yourself some.
Speaker 1:you can't just say that I mean you can't, no, no, let's get into it, come on.
Speaker 2:But to say that without patting yourself on the back, because there's a lot of people that I know that went into the service, that dropped out. I've seen that. I know people that went into the military and didn't do what they have to do. You know that come from better, you know let me not get there with it, but I just know people that went to the military to just not do nothing with it. You know what I mean. They wind up just still being a for lack of better terms a fuck up.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying when they come out you know, I understand the military has a lot of trauma with it. But as I was telling you upstairs and I don't want to sound insensitive at all at all because I don't judge anyone but at a certain point in your life if you can't fix your trauma or at least take steps to fix whatever trauma you're going through as a grown man, then I don't feel no sympathy for whatever situation you are, because it's a way you should be from where you at, and if you ain't where you should be from where you was at now I could understand it taking a little bit longer, but if you're not healing and you're not learning the cycle you do it and the same shit keep happening.
Speaker 2:and the same shit can't happen.
Speaker 1:And you're going to let keeping the same shit happen.
Speaker 2:You're not going to try to break that cycle. See me, this is how I learned life and I'm probably going off the subject.
Speaker 1:We just going to take it so this is how I learned life right.
Speaker 2:I do something. Right. I do some dumb shit. I don't know what's dumb at first. I do it, shit stuff happens. That's messed up. Right. I say in my head, I say was that really messed up, or was that just weird? Let me do it again.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying. Let me see, let me do it again. I do it again. The same thing happened. I say, maybe it's a fluke, who knows, let me do it again. And when it happens again, I'm like, okay, that's where that's going to lead. I'm not doing that, no more. So this is why it takes me a longer time probably than a normal person to get where they're going. And it takes me I'm 41 years old it takes me to get successful and be where I'm at, because it was trial and error for me, man. And when I say trial and error I really mean trial error. Trial error, trial error, then next one. You know what I mean. So I do everything at least three times dumb before, so I could really know that that's the issue before I try to fix it. And this is why I think that any man, I think that any man, should recognize a cycle and try to heal theyself. Man, if you can't do it yourself, then get some professional help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man.
Speaker 2:You know, I just it bothers me in my soul to see adults still not healed from the childhood trauma. It bothers me to my soul because I've been through some stuff. Now we all don't take things the same way, granted cool. But at a certain age, by the time you're 35 years old, you should be healed from whatever childhood trauma you're going through and should, let's not say, fully healed, but you should be ever on a road to recovery or the road to recovery, but you should be able to be functional in society.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of cats are not man.
Speaker 2:I don't get it. Yeah, I don't get it. So that's you know wherever that went. But that's just something.
Speaker 1:I guess I had to say yeah so, you know, when you've mentioned trauma like three or four different times already, yeah, right, and I think I know for a fact that the connection that you and I have is because of our childhood trauma, yeah, you know what I mean. I think this podcast, having the ability to speak to people and for the first time in my life, I'm just being completely transparent for a long time, like in the military, like I kept so much stuff bottled in because I just wanted to fit in. I didn't want to stir up, no shit. You know, I didn't want all eyes on me, right. So I'm at a point in my life right now where I'm like no man, like I just want to be transparent. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like it's not my fault that my mom was addicted to heroin in the 80s. It's not my fault that my mom was addicted to crack. That's not my fault. That's that's what I came into. You know what I mean. Yeah, it's not my fault that I didn't get sent to school the entire kindergarten. Like I, just I was. No one took me to school. Yeah, you know, like my mom was getting high in the streets and I was, and I was by her at her hip, you know, just yeah, you know. But but again, that's what I'm saying, that's not my fault, you know what I mean. That's, that's something that I was, I was unfortunately subject to, and what breaks my heart a lot, man is like when my mother had my little sister, and I remember my little sister being born in no, I want to say November 8th, but in any case, at that time my little sister was a newborn baby and we were in and out of shelters, you know, think about it like walking down, you know, walking through Brooklyn with the, with the stroller, the carriage, the stroller, the carriage, the beefed out carriage, with the plastic over it to stay warm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. And then when I had my daughter, you know, I remember, I remember that winner, the first winner, with my daughter. My daughter was born, my daughter's born three days after me, so I'm born June 23rd, my daughter was born June 26th, ok, and I remember, like that November, you know, like we're getting ready for the holidays, we're putting up the Christmas tree, where, you know, we're catering, you know, christmas Eve dinner, you know, like $2,500. Like, you know what I mean, like, and I reflect back and do like I was super emotional man Like. At that time my wife is like man like why are you so emotional? Like is it just the holidays? Is it the coquito? Like what?
Speaker 2:is it?
Speaker 1:I'm just like no, like you just don't understand. Like you know, I'm looking at my daughter and I'm envisioning. I'm envisioning my little sister in a carriage and you know going up. You know the escalators broken at Broadway Junction and I'm going up the stairs. You know helping my mom with the mountain right.
Speaker 1:With the stroller and in and out of the shelters. And then the thing with that was that you didn't know where you were going to go. So you would go to the shelter and you would stay there like all day. The shelter was downtown, like downtown Brooklyn, Hoytonskimahone right, it was the shelter at the time. You go down there and then they would give you like a voucher and some tokens and they would send you wherever to the Bronx, to the South Bronx, to far Rockaway, Queens. You just didn't know where you were going to go and you would ultimately end up at like some rundown like Hotel where there's prostitutes there's, you know, like like the smell of crack, Like that's a distinct smell that I'll never forget. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. Yeah. But again, with, with, with a newborn baby, right. And then in the morning you get up. You know you, it's not like there's no luggage, brother, like we don't have luggage, it's what's on your back. Yeah, you know, you get. You get back up and then you go right back to the shelter and try to figure out where they're going to send you next. Yeah damn.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean it's rough so in terms of trauma, right Like it's these things that that have happened to us. They weren't our fault. Yeah, we were just, unfortunately, subject Like we were born into it. You know, we could have, we could have been born into like a million dollar family, but that's just how it worked out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what I mean, workout like that. So, man, that and I go back to people who heal from they trauma. Man, like you go through all of that stuff, right, and you and you and you come out on the other end waving your flag, right, you have some people who go through that stuff and use that as a crutch for their whole life on why they are not where they are, or why this or oh, my parent was here, or oh, this happened to me, oh, this happened to me, and I get it, I get it, I get it. And that excuse is great. Until you add a place with them, them excuses don't pay your bills and excuses you know, basically just don't pay your bills and you even have to get it right and fake like you got it good up here just to sustain yourself. But, like I said, I really I just bothers me and I still have family members and this is why it bothers me so much, because I just, I, just, I just don't get it, I don't get it, I don't, I don't get it, I don't get how you can't want to heal yourself. I think at that point is a choice man, because look at what you just said Like that's, it still stains your brain, right, it still bothers you. Yeah, we all still got trauma that we can't fully heal from, but we understand what to do to to live with it and still be functional. So I don't want, like I said, I don't want to be a sensitive to what I said. I had no idea people would that. I understand all of that Because I've been through it, you've been through it, I've seen you out of it. You know what I mean. We still live with it, but you have to be able to be functional man. You have to tighten up and get functional at a certain point in life. You can't hold on to these traumas because when you hold on to, to, to, to, to file thoughts, you're only creating a foul future and that's just. That's just from.
Speaker 2:That's another thing that I learned. This is a thing that I learned with writing music. To now I don't know how true this is. Let me tell you something. So I used to write music, right when I. When I wrote music, I would. It's the first time I did something. So one time I wrote a song and I said and I said you know, I'm in a drop top, I'm in a white drop top, you know what I mean and riding around doing this and when I wrote that ball it didn't feel right because I didn't have a drop top and I didn't like the lie and stuff like that. And it didn't feel right and I was like you know what? Let me just say that.
Speaker 2:And so literally, like, literally, like, three weeks later, bro, and without even thinking about it, and I got me a white drop top, bro, like, and it sounds like, you know, probably like meaningless to you. But what I'm saying is that happened, right, I got that, I talked about it and I got that right. And so I now here, go me again with my let's try something again, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So you know what I mean. Oh, I'm in so much pain and oh, mommy wasn't there, my age, this and all, and I was just getting all that trauma and not getting over it, not making myself the winner at the end of that story. So we could talk about our story and we just talk about that part and we don't talk about being the winner of that story or the hero at the end of that story. So once I started changing up how I write, I noticed that my life started changing and I don't know if it's because I don't know if that's the law of attraction or because I'm invoking so much emotion into these lyrics. But, bro, seriously, when I stop pain rapping and I just literally just started doing better, I don't know how to really explain it, maybe as we talk about it.
Speaker 1:It comes to me. But, I'm tracking exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like you're manifesting it. Yeah, bro, and it's crazy, man. It's like 50 said it. 50 said death is in the tongue. If you talk about death, enough death is going to come, but it's power in the tongue, man, so just try to always see your way out of it. It's for people that have trauma, like again, I don't want to sound insensitive, I don't want to be like, oh, he's a jerk and you know what I have.
Speaker 2:No, I'm just saying not a certain point in your life. You need to figure out a better way of thinking, because to keep thinking about the past, I got one person that I know. I don't want to say they all, whatever. Every time you get around them, they bringing up their childhood oh, and you didn't do this for me and you didn't do that for me, and I didn't do this and I didn't do that. And I'm like, wow, you're still on that. I understand because I get it. Shit was crazy, crazy. But what's the difference? Like you're going to keep going, looking for that feeling, because that's the only feeling you know is being familiar is pain. So even with myself, at a point it was like getting with my wife, right. She said, oh, I love you. I don't know what that is. I don't know what a family type of love is. I don't know how to not cheat on a girl because I'm so on my guard and thinking that all women is trash and they're gaming me up. I don't know how to not do that. I'm not thinking she's real.
Speaker 2:In order for my marriage to start to work within the last, you know, whatever the case may be, I had to really train my brain and fight hard not to think like that, not to think, oh, you can be loved. Why are you not good enough to be loved? Why can't someone really love you? You know what I'm saying? Why? And again, that comes from the childhood. Not feeling love. Everything that we going through sparks from the childhood, like look at what you just said, look how vivid you remembered you with your sister and the plastic on it. All of this little stuff, that little stuff right there, play a part in what we doing, man. And all I'm saying is you know, my big thing is even with my music now, if you listen to it, I'll play record for you right now.
Speaker 2:It's about healing. It's about building and coming together, man, and manifesting what you want. And I don't know magical manifesting thing, I'm talking real, like, I'm talking facts, I'm talking logical things. That I'm talking about and the new music that I have and the new music that I'm dropping now. It's about healing man. It's all about healing, bro. It's all about healing man, and that's hopefully somebody can hear my joining and you know, learn how to heal like I did, man. That's why, you know, like I said, I don't want to sound insensitive to people, but at a certain age man. You're 35, you were grown up. It's time to cut the bullshit. Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:So let me add on to that though. Right? So, if I do anything with this platform, this podcast, I just want to continue to echo the message that there is help out there, right? So if you are someone who's listening and you're going through something and you're 35 years old and you're, for some reason, you're still in the cycle, you're not breaking it or you can't figure it out, instead of trying to figure out how to break the cycle yourself, seek help, seek therapy. I see a therapist and it is extremely beneficial man, like you know. So, I think for the longest time you know, like, especially from the community and the neighborhoods and where we come from, it's, maybe it's not frowned upon, but it's just kind of like it's taboo, almost right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not. It's not, it's not normalized, it's not normalized, that's right. It's not. It's not in our face, like like smoking and drinking and killing and selling is not in our face. So how do we know to do that In other communities? That's a thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Their parents went to therapy to hear it. Oh, you can heal yourself. All you can do this. Just having someone talk to man you can't even. Sometimes, you know, and where we from is hard to find someone to talk to without being looked at funny or appearing weak. Yeah, or appearing weak or appearing weird. Yep.
Speaker 2:You know, because we got Weeper and I think we have weird thoughts Like that's why all my friends are kicking with me. Bro, you need something right now. I don't care, I'll hold you while you kick it with me, though Let me see where you're mine at. You know, I have another somebody I know. Still, they come to me and I try to give them and I try to help them and I try to help them build, and they still just on the same pattern, the same pattern, and it's like, at a certain it hurts, and this is why I get upset. This is why my anger, my no, my hurt turns to anger, because it's like like, why are you not getting it, bro? Why are you not? Because I'm watching where you're going and it's not good I'm watching it.
Speaker 2:You know, and that's that's why I say that. But, like you said, seek help, like want to change. You have to be able to see yourself. I don't know how can I don't even know the answer to how can you hold the mirror up to someone?
Speaker 2:I don't know the answer to that, you know, to make someone see what they're doing to, without judging them, without saying yo, look at this person and then look at you. You're not doing with it without seeming judgment. So how can you, how can you just hold a mirror up to someone and say yo, just, you know, how can you make them realize that it's not healthy?
Speaker 2:You know no 100 family members, bro, that I care for from the bottom of my soul, bro, do nothing for them, because they mind is to me, men's, who is just stuck in one way, you know, and it hurts man, and it hurts turns to anger, yeah.
Speaker 1:And and then from, I think also like the hurt, goes to anger, and then the anger, you know, combined with like frustration, and then and then most times we're kind of like we're off, that right, I'm not, I'm not on that, I'm not going to continue to. And so then it gets reciprocated back to you as if you're the wrong one, right, like you're not looking out for me. You're up, I'm down, like nah man, like there's a reason why you're down, you're not.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm, without saying it, like that, but it's like you have like, and then you can't even say that, you can't even say it's a reason why you're down, because they don't even look at it like that is. That was like you being, you being uppity or you not you. You know, yeah, just like that Is this is you just get that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got rich and sweet. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:You get that and it's like no I didn't I freaking healed and chilled Right Like what Like yo? That's the no. I just healed. No, I just healed and chilled.
Speaker 1:I got healed and chilled. Man Like come on now. Oh man, crazy. Yeah, man, hey, listen, how about? How about this one right here? Hang on a second. You got a file, file, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just want to talk to the producer, engineer, whatever, this was this that I'm in.
Speaker 1:I'm in a zone. Do you know?
Speaker 2:I'm in a zone right now, yeah that was me realizing that the game was payola. Hmm, you know when? You when you come, when you first come in the game, you think when you first start rapping, you think you're going to be nice and you just going to get a deal off a talent, and then when you realize that that is not, then you'd be like fuck. Now you just fuck, just you know. You know hit record is paid, not made. Hmm, period, hmm.
Speaker 1:Can I play it again, because that's just hard. Come on, come on.
Speaker 2:I'm going to have a break down Bro. Yeah, I got all that.
Speaker 2:Now, man, yeah, man, I always told myself I 20, 23 years longer than that I've been rapping. And I always told myself, I used to always say, lord and these are my prayers I know I shared with you I say I just want to be able to make music. And what this is? When I, as I got my family, when I was in the family, I was like I'm like man, well, this is when I, as I got my family, when I was making music. You know, before that I wasn't thinking like that. But when you have a family it changes you. Um, but when I, when I, when I got my family and say, lord, I just want to make music and take care of my family, if you can find a way for me to do that, then I will be happy and I will be blessed. And right now that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Man, man, I make music and I take care of my family, man, and that's what I asked for and that's what I got. You know, the, the, the super fame, and, and you know I got exactly what I asked for. I got exactly what I asked for. You know, that's dope.
Speaker 1:And whatever else I asked for. I know I'll get to it.
Speaker 2:But I got exactly what I asked for. I could. I could take care of my family and I can make music, and that's it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:Man, uh Moreno, like I really wish that I had your talent, man. Everybody see all right when I write, when I write for people right when I go to studio with people and I write for them, right?
Speaker 2:Um, my goal as a producer slash writer, right? My goal is to get that person to know that they can do make music. So my goal is not to write for them, I'll write for them. Yeah, my goal is to to let them learn how to get in touch with their feelings and put them feelings on paper. So my goal as a writer is to make you a, a, a better artist. You know what I mean. Not to just write a record for you is to go on in and help you.
Speaker 2:You know and get better and learn how to do this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, put that battery in your back, yeah.
Speaker 2:Learn how to tap. Learn how to tap in to what you naturally have. So anybody could. It's not that hard man, once you tap in yeah, then you have. You know what I mean. You just tap into, to what you, to what you love and what you know. Whenever I go in the studio with somebody, I I what's going on with you Before we even rap, before we it was good, how are you?
Speaker 2:You chilling what's going on in life, man, like you know what I mean, what's, what's, what's what's going on with you, and then we have a conversation and then we go from there. You know what I mean. Like we, we spark up a conversation and then we, we take something from a conversation and then we go from there and then we, then we lay something down, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:And then that's, that's a vibe. And then I, I start writing and then you know, next session is what you going through. Write that down, that's right, keep going. So we're to where. Now is a point. I don't even got to write no more. So it's not about I could. I could write for somebody and just keep collecting the back for them, but it's not my thing. My thing is to to. I genuinely want to see you be a better person. I generally want to build with somebody. You know what I'm saying. I'm, I'm getting money. I'm not really tripping on that part. I love. I like. My number one quote is music is its own reward. If you understand that, then you would understand who I am. I want to. My reward in music is hearing a good record or healing myself from it. I'm going to find a reward in that music, and it doesn't always necessarily have to be monetary.
Speaker 1:Back in the days when we were growing up, like what was your writing process?
Speaker 2:The action of it, the action I would get on. I would, before I had a call, we'll get on the train and just write. Because I would get on the train and just look at people, cause you know you, when you don't, when you're young, you really don't have too much experience, even though I've been through a lot as a kid. So I did have a lot to write, write about, different subjects to write about. But I would just look at somebody and I'd be like, damn, what do they think, what do they going through? And I and I would just pick up and pick up on energies and just write. Man, you know, just right, on the train I just pick up on different energies. But I always wrote about something. It was never about nothing, like it's just not a you know, I always try to keep some type of you know, I always try to keep some type of substance or some type of seriousness to it. It's not always just it's not, it's never was really just fun, fun for me.
Speaker 1:Like music.
Speaker 2:music for me was a form of therapy, so it never was really that fun? Because looking at yourself and looking at your faults is not fun, it's a serious process. It's a serious process when you got to really talk to yourself, and that's the most difficult conversation you can have is the one with yourself.
Speaker 1:I love, I love the, the one song you wrote where, like, you're talking to yourself and then the video is like oh what's the name of that? That's hard, that's hard.
Speaker 2:Give it a call. Man type in deals Moreno and conversations or something like that, Anything. You type in deals Moreno on YouTube or whatever. You're going to like it. If you into healing and you into building that type of stuff, you're going to like it.
Speaker 1:No man, like you know. It's funny because a lot of my friends from the military like that. We were like you know Afghanistan, Iraq, you know Korea. Every time I run into them and I speak to them about anything or they text me or whatever. They asked me like what's up with me? And then they asked what's up with you?
Speaker 2:It's wild.
Speaker 1:They're like yo, what's up with Moreno? I'm like, oh, he's good, like you know, like I haven't spoken to him, but like he's like yeah yeah, it's wild. Like it's like they always ask about you, as if you know they know you, you know, that's how much he was going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. Like I want to ask you something, man, and if, if you want to take it out in post or whatever, like I'm fine with it, but it's just for me to understand, kind of like, what you were going through at the time. So one of my vivid and early memories of view is at a time you were staying at your aunt's house, you were sleeping on the couch, you had your son.
Speaker 2:Your son was had to be had to be 2000. Was it?
Speaker 1:2000? Okay, so maybe I was already in the military. Yeah, okay, so you were up. You didn't have a place to stay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you were like couch surfing kind of with my kid, with your son. I think, I think at that time you were just passed Um rest in peace, tony. Yeah, rest in peace. I think my pops just passed. I had my son. His mom went in the military. Um, and she just you know she's making a better decision for her life, whatever she had to do. Um, how old are?
Speaker 1:you, I'm 41. No, no, when that was, what? When that was?
Speaker 2:happening. Wow, 18 years old, you got a kid. I was younger than that when I had him, so probably was probably was, probably was nine.
Speaker 1:I don't remember, but he wasn't a newborn. I don't remember him being a dude, he was a top. So yeah probably like a year or two.
Speaker 2:So part. So I probably was like like 18, 19 years old. Mmm, my pops just passed um, didn't have a place to stay. I was staying at I was just staying. I was staying upstairs on Jerome Street with family. I was sleeping on the couch. I was in the end. I was sleeping on the couch. I was mm-hmm. Um yeah, I didn't have a house for my own. I didn't feel like that was a home either.
Speaker 1:What, what? Why do you feel like that?
Speaker 2:It just wasn't my, the family wasn't. I mean they're, they're my family. Shout the piano. They're my family, but um you know it wasn't my family, it wasn't my father, yeah, my mother. It wasn't it wasn't mine, so it was you know someone else's family. You know, no matter how much you can, you can, it's only but so much someone can do. It's only but so much someone can do before they, before you. You still don't feel like it, you know you don't feel like it now.
Speaker 2:I never really knew what having a family was. I had an idea and and you know that I kind of got some of that idea, like I like a lot of the things I do with my kids. Now I learnt from Watching TT and in Rosie and I'm watching movies. You know, just spending regular, normal family time together, but uh.
Speaker 1:I think. I think for myself, for me, that was my thing too, yeah, when I was in the, in embedded in the family at that time, you know what I mean, like because I never had that either.
Speaker 2:So it's when you don't have, it's like, oh, this is what's going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the family is.
Speaker 2:Yeah so, but it never was really like I Don't want to, but just truthfully it just did. It just wasn't my family, right, you know. So I Left there and, like I was telling, you. I got, I got, I had an older chick. You know mommy issues. You know like.
Speaker 2:I feel, um, so my pops died, then my mom's died a year after, but I've always felt that my mom's died way earlier, when I was part like 13, 12, because, um, my parents had AIDS, you know, um I wasn't sure if you were gonna say that they had AIDS. They died of AIDS, um, but my mom's um Was on the AIDS medication, mm-hmm in all of that stuff, so she was like out of it from when I was young.
Speaker 2:She was already mind-going and you know it's understandable, I guess, you knowing that you have something that's terminal and you can't, you know you're gonna die, yeah, so, um, I had an F. No, you know, you're outside, you 19, you're 19 years old, right? And I look at my kids now, 17, 18 nights. I look at them now and I be like I don't know how you would survive out there. But then I look at me like damn, I really survived out there.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, you know I mean that young and a lot of people go through it and survive out there. So, um, I moved with a, with an older chick. She held me down. How long did that go for, until I got married to my?
Speaker 1:wife oh, wow, okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:I mean, I met my wife when I was probably like 15. Mm-hmm, and you know, I always wanted to be able to take care of my, my wife, whoever I have as my wife, and, uh, I Was tired of, you know, women taking care of me if that you know I'm gonna be vulnerable like that. Like you know you were finding girl. You know I figured I was a Pretty handsome young guy you know you running around and you know you got. You got females that's willing to take care of you. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And you got, you got, you got, you got, you know what?
Speaker 1:you got do the same, you gonna stay sound real thotish, right?
Speaker 2:I know young ass thought yeah, but uh, when, when I got to, I got to a point to where I wanted my own family and I wanted to be To take care of my family. So, my, what my with my wife? Now, you know, I feel good that I can take care of she don't have to take care of me, she don't have to give me money or put a place over my head. I can be the man and in the structure, how I envision a family to be, you know I mean. However, that vision came from? I don't know if it was from TV or from wherever, because I never had it, you know I mean.
Speaker 2:But just like you know, you know I'm saying you live in your, your perfect life up there man. How we envision it is, is I see it to be the right way. You know I'm saying so. I.
Speaker 1:I want to be like completely transparent right. Like. So you know, you see, like you've seen my growth from like young, young teenager. You know I left the house at 14.
Speaker 1:You know, and and and what that journey has been. But I still think that even till today, right, still battling with trauma still, you know it doesn't and then, Unfortunately, the trauma that we were born into is one thing and then also like for myself, joining the military and then Doing what I did in the military this you know, I just added on trauma, you know I mean. Got you right military trauma the military trauma right Like the PTSD, the anxiety you know, these things you know.
Speaker 1:So you said just now is like I see you live in this perfect life. I just want, I just want to be transparent, like I'm still working on it. You know you. You know what I mean. Like it's just, I'm still, I'm still working on it, but you're functional yes.
Speaker 2:When thank God I don't want to say I probably perfect wasn't the, but it's perfect for you. Yes, it's. You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's, it's, it's a glove, it's it fits like a glove for you. It's just like my life fits like a glove for me, but it's functional man. You know it's not. It's not all over the place. You got the, the basics. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I think also too, is that the, the self realization that we're reflected. We're able to reflect right, because if we're just going and we're just like we're like a crash dummy, we're just going right, but like we're at a point in life right now, we're like we're stopping or pausing and we're reflecting. We know that. Hey, listen, we know there's been trauma. Your, you deal with your trauma, you're you deal with your trauma through writing and and maybe there's other ways that you, that you yeah deal with it.
Speaker 1:Right, but I've known you as as a creator, as a, as a brilliant writer. You know Artist, right, like I don't, even I don't see you as a rapper, I see you as an artist. You know what I mean Like, yeah, that's because I know, I Know what you've done. You know what I mean like, but yeah, but we're, you know we're, we're coping and we're we're dealing. Right, where we're dealing and I think it's important for us to understand is that what we're able to do in terms of, like, how we cope and deal with our trauma, with however it is, it's you with writing, it's me with you know, meditating and speaking to the therapist or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:We're leading by example for our families, yeah, for our kids. You know cuz, you know my, my hope is that my daughter Never has to Feel or or go through anything that I've that I've been through. You know, my daughter's starting line is completely Different than my starting line. You know, it's wonderful, yes, great man, and I just, yeah, man, it's that's that's.
Speaker 2:That's dope in itself. That's that's so. That's so dope, man, that uh, that is not the same cycle. Yeah, you know that that we got kids. That's not growing up in the same cycle, man, because, like I said, you you meet people and you know people and I'm still no people and they and I'm just watching the same cycle, from parent to a son or daughter To their daughter and they kids, and it's going through the same second. It's like when do it break? You know when do it break, and there's only but so much you could do to help someone before you wind up getting pulled into their Bull crap. Yeah, you know, I'm gonna show you something a little later like off-camera like I have.
Speaker 1:I, when I came up with this idea for this entire like Sparking stride, and, and, and the concept and what I wanted to do, I've never been able to Put myself in a creative space. The last, the, the last 24 years of my life, my Most of my adult life was in the military and you're, you're held within these like navigational beacons. You could be creative, but it has to be within these navigational beacons. Now I'm at a point where I Just feel like I'm in a creative space. I feel like my real self has awakened, if that makes any sense no, it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2:So I want to show you something there is. I have no barriers right.
Speaker 1:You know I want to show you something that I'm, because when I first came up with this, I wrote down all these different people that I wanted to speak to in line with the concept of Wellness, mental health, resiliency and personal development. Your name is on this paper, you know, because you exemplify all of those attributes of getting through things Adversity, you know, coming out on the other side, right like breaking the cycle. You know, this is why this is so special for me, that that you're here. You know, and I know I said it before, but it just I really wholeheartedly feel this way. You know what I mean. I just want you to know that.
Speaker 2:You know it's a yourself as well, is it's a it's a perfect example of what you, what you, what you, what you're putting across, of your movement, where you always wanted to be, to where you are now, from where you want, from where you wanted to be to where you are. And where you are is where you always wanted to be. That's just, it's nothing. It's all the same where you always wanted to be, and that's just. It's nothing like that. And that's just a testament to even you.
Speaker 2:When you have stuff like that, it's the little things like right, like you thought about doing your podcast, you bought your equipment, you set your room up, you get and you get, and you get ish done. You know, it's like writing a song. You think about the song, you put the beat on, then you write it down, you lay it down, you hear it, you get it done. So it's just the same thing with life you see a goal, you write it down, you put it in your head. However, you do it, you see the way to do it, you get it done. You, at point A to point B, you're able to get things accomplished and do it functional.
Speaker 1:It's still hard, it's still a struggle, and that's the part that I want to that. Thank you for saying that, cause that's the part where I want to just be transparent about. You know what I mean, because I think sometimes people think like, oh, I'm just going to go to therapy, I'm going to just deal with this and I'll get married, I'll have kids and it'll be fine. No man, no, like this is a continuous journey.
Speaker 2:It's a lifestyle of work man. It's a constant work. It's constant work and it's constant work for people without trauma. Well, everybody has their own trauma, but it's constant work for people with less severe trauma. Let's just say that, with coming from the conditions where we came from, like you know, I look at my wife's life right and I say I see, you know, she didn't have the trauma that I grew up with.
Speaker 1:You know nothing like that.
Speaker 2:Nothing really traumatic happened to her her childhood, you know, and it's like wow, like shit that I see is normal. She like whoa, what? What happened?
Speaker 2:And I'm like, wow, that's, and it really had me look like them. You know, we've been through some. Like it's not normal, bro. It's not normal to be in a shelter which your parents, you know, or your mom running around, and for you to get through that and still choose the positive route when there's nothing but negative doors opened in front of you and which would be so easy to go through, but still to choose the positive route and make it to the other end is commendable, man. It's tough and it's still an everyday struggle because we still deal with mental health. Man, bro, at one point in my life, bro, in 2018, bro, I literally went crazy. Like I really went crazy, man. Like I'm not going to get too deep into it, but, bro, it was. I lost it for a second.
Speaker 2:I lost it you know what I'm saying I lost it doing one of my tests like let me see what happened.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. I lost it because I just didn't believe that I would have to do, I would have to give up so much for music. You know what I mean? So I'm going to break it down like this.
Speaker 2:So it was like I was at a point to where even you going to do music or you're going to be with your family or you're going to lose them. That's the point that I was at and I got into. It was messing with me because it was real and I seen it and I was like wow. So it was like all right, it would be selfish of me to have a family and Then abandoned my Responsibilities of having a family to do something selfish for myself, because when you have a family, you have to be the opposite of selfish. So it would and I know people might not agree with that. They'd be like, oh well, you got a chase, your dream and da, da, da, that's fine and dandy.
Speaker 2:And this is what I tell my kids before you get in a relationship, and I tell anybody listening before you get into a relationship, or or or anything that's gonna stop you from pursuing whatever you're doing Don't have no kids like, don't, don't have a family. Focus on your goals. When you get with someone, get with them and don't come as a beggar, because you know what beggars can be. Beggars can be choosers. So when you come in, when you come in a relationship, right, and you don't have and you're not healed, and you don't have this and you don't have, that, you don't. You don't have the top choice of what you're picking from. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 3:You did go, sam one hundred like, so like you you.
Speaker 2:You went, your perfect example. You went through your life and you handle what you had to handle. Now I can pick what I want. You know, I'm saying I don't have to pick a girl because I need a place to stay, or pick a girl because, uh, because I don't have a family. Or pick a girl because, uh, or even for you, females, pick a man because I don't have this, so I don't have that. No, because beggars can't be choosers. So you have to take something, but then take some bullshit that happened with it. You know what I mean. So it's better to come from, to pick from a place to where you you're not begging for nothing, you, you have everything, or internally already. Better is better to to heal yourself and have everything together. Before you do that and the reason I had just said I'm gonna leave the music, I'm gonna take a break and and focus solely on my family right is when I Excel because, like I said, I was going crazy bro.
Speaker 1:Hang on a second Kent in 2018. You had one of the hottest like records out.
Speaker 2:I was still writing and getting a lot of opportunities and moving around, and that was a time of like, like, bro, everybody's, everybody's coming at you like I'm dealing with people right and you and you can make. I made a couple decisions Like you're dealing with people right, and then you have other people that's trying to deal with you and everybody's pulling you every way and they like, nah, let's do this, now, let's do that, and everybody's pulling you everywhere because they think you somewhat hot or whatever the case may be. So you know, at that time, with that going on, and then I got my family to where I'm totally neglecting. You know, my thing was I had to get back to what I asked for Lord, can I make music and take care of my family?
Speaker 2:At that point I was making my money in the streets, right, and making music In a couple dollars on the music, but it was so toxic man, it was so toxic but, like I said, that that gets me to to give it something. So this is where we get to the advice from that and the learning lesson from that. Learning lesson from that is whatever career you choose, youngsters out here, whatever career you choose, or whatever you're doing with your life. Do it first before you get a family, because it's selfish to not be the man that your family need For you to be the man that you want to be because you started something. Finish that you know me my kids didn't ask for. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly for me to be innocent and all that exactly.
Speaker 2:So I have to be what. What I promised, mm-hmm, you know, that's, that's what it is. We go. It's a whole lot of psychological things that, um, that makes you even choose your partner, you know, like so.
Speaker 2:So for me choosing a partner was I I've never Set at a table with a family in a food together, and I will go to my wife's family and I see them sitting at a table everybody enjoying themselves eating, and then I'm like whoa what the hell yeah this is, this is, this is dope, this is what a family supposed to be, you know, and uh, that was like a real fact of why I married my wife and again, you know, it worked out good, but then is, I'm coming from a not-heeled place and I'm, you know, you know, it's just different. Everything everybody pick, pick different things, and everything stems from your childhood. What I think.
Speaker 1:No, it does, though man.
Speaker 2:What I think it does, you know, so Getting to. So why I stopped the music and when I went crazy I meant to help is so it's so important to to leave the distractions alone and Figure out what's right and do that. Man, I think I was right and was didn't do that.
Speaker 1:So, moreno, listen to this man. So what was interesting about what you're saying is because, because I haven't seen you in such a long time, because it's funny man, because, like, social media will tell you a different thing, because when I'm watching everything on social media, I'm seeing you perform and I'm seeing I'm like oh man, I had no, like, I had no clue that you're going through.
Speaker 1:Yeah this, this mental breakdown, breakdown basically, you know, I have no clue and I have to commend you For being so candid about this. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Because a lot of people they're not gonna. It was hard, man, it was tough, and I mean, when I'm just telling you just like Right, right, right it was, you know, the drugs, the women, the parties, the you know everything was just, was, just was the total opposite of what I supposed to be doing.
Speaker 1:Is there anything that stands out to you that was like, like, like the breaking point, that kind of like?
Speaker 2:When I took you over. You know my family man. You, when you come to the, to the realization that you're you're not doing right by your family, that you chose To be a man for the family like I'm, like yo come in my house and then I burn the house down. Right, right, it's yeah it's not.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to choose the other way. I didn't want to choose to to have everything and to lose everything. It wasn't. It was a no-brainer for me. Well, I'm gonna stick by my family and do what I have to do and gonna get rid of the toxic stuff.
Speaker 2:You know, and I can still make music and and take care of my family, which is what I asked for, mm-hmm, you know I'm saying so that that was, that was my breaking point, when I was about to lose it all, to gain it all, and I chose not to lose it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you, I think, I Think and I think a lot of people listening and watching and I think you made the right decision, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say, I would say that's the right decision, because any other decision will be selfish, you know any other decision will be selfish. This is again. It's why I say the learning lesson is this is I tell my kids Get your career together, get yourself together and then worry about someone else, come as a full person, come as a whole person and then Then, then you know, when you come together with someone and you build something greater.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm but come as a whole person. You know saying before you do that because it'll be selfish. Female, this demands a lot of time. Um, kids demand even more time. Mm-hmm, careers demand a lot of time. You know, the music business demands all of your time.
Speaker 1:Moreno, switching gears a little bit, you know. I mean um. I Want to hear about your vision for your podcast.
Speaker 2:Okay so. I like I like to hear about yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, the vision I had is just, um, showing, showing that there's more ways to skin and cat. Basically, it is uh, you can make more ways to make money. So my, my idea is to show people who's not privy to or not is not normal to see how to be a doctor, how you make, how doctors even make money, because I'm like you know you can ask someone how do a doctor make money? Mm-hmm, you know, I mean, they don't know the insurance is getting paid, how to get a practice, how do lawyers make money? Um, a business that I'm doing right now is a commercial tire repair service. Right Now, I didn't know that this business could be lucrative. I didn't know until I got in and I seen that it's a very lucrative business and if I would have known about this 10, 15 years ago, I would have been started it.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm you know I mean um Trucking business, you know that's the normal stuff. Uh, um, one of my buddies does Uh ambulance. He has an ambulance service and and he's making six figures. That these are all businesses that that people Like us don't chew, don't think to do Mm-hmm. You know I mean, um, I don't see nobody from the hood that that thing to do, that it's always you got a rap or you got to sell drugs or you got to do do something else. But it's I want to. I want to interview different careers, different career people and basically show how to do. How do you get to the bag from that? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:That's it. So if you're gonna be a lawyer, I'm gonna have lawyers up there. They're gonna tell me waiting with the school and and what they had to do, how hard it was and how they got to the bag, doctors the same thing, how long it took, how you get to the bag, how much money you can make. Um, the same thing with everything. You know, uh, somebody in tech Right how you could do it, and I want them to, and I want to have the people that look like me To understand that. You know there's a lot of rappers out there that's just Not gonna be able to see Um Financial success from music, but they still love to do music. You know me and, and so there's ways that you can still be able to do music every day and do what you love, but still take care your family, lovely, and still Look like a rapper or have the money right like a rapper.
Speaker 2:You know I'm saying so that's, that's.
Speaker 1:That's my idea for people, man, that's that's what I want to get anything that I can do to help you make that vision true.
Speaker 2:I want to be there every step of the way, for sure man, because I definitely want to partner up with you, man, you know everything you see here, everything you've seen online, like I literally taught myself YouTube University you know, university.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, like just Um, I'll show you, I'll show you off camera, like be footage of me putting the studio together and like messing around with the equipment and man, there were some nights that I'd be in here, like three in the morning, you know, just Almost crying bro like, like like like nervous breakdown kind of thing like just trying to figure it out. But but you know, thank the Lord, man, I gotta figure it out. You know I gotta figure it out, and, and, and, and whatever you need for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't you, you don't even have to ask. Yeah, I'm just know that I'm there for sure. So thanks, yeah, man, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:That's that that's gonna help me have the confidence to keep moving forward. Like I said, it's just an idea, but, um, I really, I really like to build man. I really like to build man. I really, I really want to get the information out there for people who willing to take the information.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm you know, because it's a a lot of people out there who just don't know and I was one of the people that just didn't know and it and it, it took me to get to this age To find out to where, if I don't know 10, 15 years ago, different things to do, I would have been doing it already, mm-hmm, you know so I think also, man is like um for us.
Speaker 1:You know like unfortunately we don't have many blueprints.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, you know I think if we grew up with a blueprint on how to be a lawyer, an attorney on how to be a doctor. You know, I, I actually it's funny man Like in my family we have like one of the first attorneys in my family he's, but it's my younger cousin, okay right who's went to law school, past the bar the first time, though, and is just embedded in the community, you know, in the Bronx, and Absolutely has a passion for helping Folks that need the help. Like these are folks that are being evicted. You see what's going on in the Bronx, you know it's, it's Incredible, you know, like if you look at, if you can get your hands on what the soft Bronx is supposed to look like in the next Five or ten years, you'd be floored.
Speaker 1:All of that waterfront property being being built up, a lot of people, a lot of poor people, are being, you know, relocated. You know and, and, and. If you're not savvy with the law, man, like you know your grandmother, you're on that. That apartment you grew up in when you were younger is not gonna be around. They'll get you. They'll get you, man.
Speaker 1:So they're rope, though, so but, but again in terms of like having the blueprint right. So one of the things that's been like Helped me or like keeps my spark going is that I've had so many friends reach out to me. They're like much, how are you doing this? Like I want to be a part of it. I have an idea and that lets me know, or that we in states for me like, hey, man, like you're on to something, you're, your path is clear, run, you know. So that's that's kind of like what, what I'm on, you know, I've always again going back to like having the opportunity to be creative.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that this was a bone that I had in my body, but this is, this is therapeutic for me, right, it's therapeutic for me. And, brother, like it's, it takes a lot to put yourself on camera on the internet when you don't know what you're doing. You know, like I don't know how I'm going to be received. You know, like I don't by by any means necessary. I have a vision and ultimately, I want to be able to give back to the next generation of podcaster, of editor, filmmaker, you know, producer, director, you know, and if it means that I have to put myself out there first, I don't care, like I'll do it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like it's a success man. The strangest secret, he said any man with the worthy ideals is a success. Any man who wakes up in the morning and have something to do in working towards it is a success. You know, they say. What was another quote If you have two sailors and you send them out, you send one with the destination and one with none. The one with no destination is surely to sink his ship and the other one with the destination will surely get where he got to go. So you, waking up every morning with a destination, you're going to get there. Your ship is not going to sink. You know what I mean, and this goes for everybody. Any man with a plan will win and you're a success already. You're doing better than what you was yesterday. You know what I mean. That's good man. Just keep going, man. Whatever you're doing, keep going.
Speaker 1:But listen, like I think, as you're speaking and you're sharing your idea for what it is you want to do with your podcast, my wheels are already turning. I'm already thinking about how do you acquire guest talent acquisition and these kinds of things, because here's the other part. What a lot of folks, what I'm coming to learn. I was at a conference, convention in Denver a podcast convention, right, podcasts movement is what it was called an amazing, amazing event or convention opportunity to network with other creators.
Speaker 1:And what you don't realize is that within podcasting, brother, there is so many other things going on. There's like, there's, there's opportunity for producers, directors, writers, there's all this stuff, technology, ai that I wasn't, I wasn't onto that right, but getting myself out of the box, I went. I went to Denver for this convention and I met so many other creators. Man, it was, you know, when you're doing something like this or you're going down this kind of journey, being able to surround yourself with other like-minded people in the space man. I came back from that fired up, like you know, just just saw that energy man.
Speaker 1:And then and then all the folks that you're, you're you're speaking to and you're networking with, and then they're showing you their content, you're showing them your content and they're like man, like that's awesome, like you know, keep going. It's beneficial, man, to surround yourself with like-minded people when you're trying to go down this thing. You know what? I mean, you know, yeah, man Nah super dope.
Speaker 2:Whenever I do get up and running, man, I'm coming to you for all that advice.
Speaker 1:I'm coming to you. I'm coming to you and we'll sit down, we'll, we'll get it done, we'll get it, we'll get it done. You know, in terms of music, and when you got like your spark, you started writing and putting music down, in terms of, like, healing yourself. You know what other artists or rappers did. You were, you inspired by growing up.
Speaker 2:Eminem Jay Poc. So, it's like far as and you know, big of course, but we have, we have a that's like-.
Speaker 1:Those were like kind of like A kiss.
Speaker 2:You know all of them for different reasons, but but they all have one thing in common they all tapped in to something real and they made me feel it. You know what I'm saying so pause.
Speaker 1:I could take that out Word not you but so you have, you have, you have.
Speaker 2:I say Eminem a lot, man, because you know, when I heard him talk about you know, just just just, you have to go to work the debt for the worthless check you know all that, and I was like oh man, he's, he's, he's being like he's, he's being so vulnerable man, and you know he's, he's talking stuff. It's not just the normal bang, bang, shoot them up stuff. And when you hear Jay Z's stories, like you must love me. You know what.
Speaker 2:I'm saying you know, you had Poc, you could. You could say dare mama, or you know, you know whatever other record, even when, even when he was going that big in them, man, just a passion on a bomb first hit him.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. Hit him up. The passion yeah, it's just the passion in the records, man.
Speaker 2:So those, those was my, my inspiration. And to know that I can put pain on records, those Eminem and I could say Jay Z, was a big part of me knowing that, oh, you could put pain on records.
Speaker 1:How did you learn how to get yourself in the pocket, Like when you're when you're flowing?
Speaker 2:Um, yo, bro, I used to, I used to do it so much, man, I used to do it so much. And then I think, naturally, when you listen to someone like Jay and you listen to someone like M, and you know in all of the lyrics, word for word, when you you got to be, you got to be a fan of music and learning lyrics and you know, we used to write our lyrics down. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:And once you learn the lyrics and you start spitting, and then you, when you first start spitting, you'll sound like them you know, like I was running around here rapping like I was Eminem and then sounding like I was this person and sounding like I was that person, until until you get you know what I mean, you find your own way. You find your own way Right. And I think I don't think I really was comfortable with who I am as a rapper, talking the way I am. It's like really to like recently, man, like now, now, like I could, I could really sit there and talk and just like really have a conversation, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Say what I want to say and get everything across so comfortably now, man.
Speaker 1:Bro, it is amazing to see people in that element where they're just, you know, in terms of like the 10,000 hours you know like right, that's so true, right, like it's so true. It's so inspiring to see someone kind of like just doing in a mode yeah, I love seeing that, yeah, yeah man Like. I love, just you know, watching that, watching that whole thing, I love your, I think it's your. You're on the chorus of Manos I'm legend, oh yeah. That's my guy.
Speaker 2:Bro, shout out to Mano man. Shout out to Mano man. Today's the 20th birthday right no, yesterday, yeah, today my son birthday.
Speaker 1:Yeah Birthday, no, totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah man, yes man, that's my guy. He's one of them guys I met. He's one of the dudes I met, man who always show love from the jump, from the jump right Jump bro. Yeah, just show love man you know what's what Dude man, that whole team over the 80, man.
Speaker 1:Hustle hard, right, yeah, yeah, hustle hard, it's my game.
Speaker 2:That's my DNA. It's my people's man.
Speaker 1:You know I've run into Mano. He's not going to remember this, but I've run into him four times. Four times. One time was at an IHOP in New Jersey on a Sunday morning, it's like you know, maybe like 10 in the morning. My homeboy lived in Fort Lee, you know I was partying at their house. We stayed over, we went to the IHOP. That was like. You know. We were at IHOP and Mano was having breakfast with his son and I didn't realize how tall he was. So when we were getting ready to pay, he was like in front of us and like I said hello to him. You know, it was like real on the humble, and I was like, hey, you know, moreno, right, he's like, yeah, that's my cousin, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:He was like oh, word, word. And then another time I saw him on like 34th Street. I was working at a oh dude, I was doing commercial real estate. I was doing commercial real estate and the office was on like 35th and Fifth Avenue. So I'm coming up 34th Street and I see Uncle Murder and Mano like on the corner right. And these are guys, bro, that like I idolize, right Like I'm just like you know Brooklyn like right Shout out to Murder.
Speaker 2:That's my guy. Trust another one of who show now that whole team over there Shout out to White Was, atm is a winning circle now. You know, shout out to them guys, man, I suppose my people should definitely show love.
Speaker 1:No, but it was super dope because, like you know, I'm in like a suit and tie bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but they don't know where you from.
Speaker 1:Yo, I look crazy. Like they're probably like, who is this dude Right? But like I'm. But here's the thing, though, I'm confident as a motherfucker bro, like you're not going to tell me I ain't confident. You know what I'm saying. Like, so you know. I approached them humbly and I was just like because here's the thing, man, when I went to Afghanistan in 2016, their music got me through that deployment. Okay.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying. Like I'm talking about like rocket attacks, motor attacks, sheesh Brother, like Moreno, like wow stuff. You know what I mean. Their music got me through a whole bunch of stuff. You know what I mean. The motivation right. Yeah. Like you know both of them. You know Brooklyn Knights, right. You know, shout out to those dudes, man, like I don't know them personally, but like they're, they're inspirational to me, like their music. You know what I mean the power of music.
Speaker 2:It's crazy, man. Yeah man, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a double-edged sword.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you notice or not, but like the way I view you right, I view you to me as like someone who's like so centered around their personal development. Yes, right, Like, especially as we we've navigated trauma, the wellness, the mental health, I think we've like really tapped in on, like what that means to us and how we've dealt with it. Yeah, but in terms of like your personal development, what brings you peace, man?
Speaker 2:Writing music brings me peace. Listening to books, believe it or not, that brings me peace. It helps me. It helps me stay peaceful. Okay, you know what I mean. Meditation Um, when did you?
Speaker 1:get into meditation.
Speaker 2:A couple years back, man, about 10 years already.
Speaker 1:Really, I'm still trying to learn it.
Speaker 2:man Like it's, I mean it's. I don't know if I even got it mastered down, but I know I, I sit down, man, and I just I'm not sure if I'm doing it correctly, but when I, when I, when I meditate, I just clear my mind, man, and I just breathe, man. I just just take a second to just not have nothing going on but but me just chilling, and that helps me throughout the day because I don't sweat the small stuff.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying. I could just something could happen. And I'm already. I'm already sensitive man. I already told myself that I'm gonna have a good day and you know, I'm gonna be cool and and relaxed, and I set my mood for the day. You know what I mean. So that's that's. That's what meditation is for me. Listen, have you?
Speaker 1:ever read Malcolm X's biography.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, um, I read it a long time ago, over 10 years ago. I read it over who. Who gave me that book to read? This lady named Adrian Russo gave me that book to read.
Speaker 1:Yeah, written by Alex Haley.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I read that yeah.
Speaker 1:So, um, some folks have been like asking me right, like they're like, hey, man, like your podcast. Your podcast is, you know, echoing these messages. You know wellness, mental health, resiliency, personal development, you know like what is? You know what stands out to me the most about personal development and I'm like I'll tell you where, when I reflect back on personal development, for some reason, man, I just gravitate back to, um, malcolm X's biography, just that whole story of like redemption and how he just changed his entire outlook on on humanity. Yeah, I'm like, man, brother, like that's, that's a great example. You know, that's.
Speaker 2:That's a great example. It's something to strive for man to see, to see the, the flaws in the fault thing itself and uh and correct it to be functional. Right. You know what I mean, and not only to be functional, to be, to be an inspiration. You know what I'm saying To be a leader, and you know that's that's that's a great thing to, to strive for man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man.
Speaker 2:And that's what I, that's what I strive for man, to, not to, to not only heal myself, but to help help other people. That's going through similar things, or if you, even if it's not similar things per se, like the exact same things, we all go through the same. It's like the Bible, man, uh, it's filled with love, betrayal, trust, faith. We all have to deal with those things in life. You know what I mean. Um, whether it's different, I strive to, to, to try to. Now that I learned, and I'm still learning, how to heal myself, I strive to help the other people to, to do the same thing.
Speaker 1:Damn man Listen well, said my brother. Uh uh, I know I said it already on the podcast. Um, I'm extremely grateful that you took time to come to spark and stride. Thank you for having me brother, Just sharing your story, reconnecting with me with with with no um, with no interference, right, it's just. It's just you and I, um. I'm going to cherish this this evening for a long, long, long time, so I just want you to know that.
Speaker 1:is there anything you want to plug? Any music, any any um social media handles you want to plug or anything?
Speaker 2:Follow me on social media. Deals underscore merino, underscore three one one I got music out, man, I was going YouTube type of deals, merino and you, you'll like what you find that's it.
Speaker 1:That's what's up, my brother. Thanks for having me Stay sparked. That's it Be duty, it's much.
Speaker 3:After this if you subscribe, we're going to share this music with you.