Mind Over Matter: Mindset Development
Venting about life while trying to navigate through it and sharing what I’ve learned with the world through enlightening conversation. This podcast was made and carefully curated in the essence of myself Deja Wallace. I will take you on my journey of self-discovery through a video journal-type podcast that guides you to self-discovery as I evolve with every episode. Mind Over Matter is the power to govern how you feel internally through mindset development. This podcast is essentially for dreamers, deep thinkers, optimists, and anyone who’s on the journey of self-discovery. RATE COMMENT SUBSCRIBE
Mind Over Matter: Mindset Development
Why Did New York Hip Hop Fall Off? ft.Jay Exodus & Gates
Buffalo’s hip-hop scene is shifting—and Jay Exodus, alongside Gates from Ground Control, is at the center of that change. In this episode, they share their journey of redefining Buffalo’s sound, building infrastructure where little exists, and pushing past the “scarcity mindset” often tied to small town cities .
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DEJA @deja.waja
How did you guys rise above what was going on around you?
Speaker 2:Focus. You got to be focused because some distraction is going to come down my dozen. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:But can you withstand? I think it's just about not necessarily focusing on the task at hand, but identifying that anything has a fix. There's a fix for this problem. If you want to fix it, don't think about the problem, even in front of you. If your mindset is I'm about to solve this problem, the problem don't even matter, it's halfway done gonna go far. Keep on growing and learning.
Speaker 1:Be the best version of you that you are. That you are Because it's mind over matter. You know, nothing else matters, it's mind over matter, you, you.
Speaker 3:You else matters, it's mind over matter.
Speaker 1:Welcome to mind over matter. Baby. I'm your host, deja wallace, and if this is your first time joining me, welcome. If this is not your first time joining me, welcome back. Like I really appreciate you came back to listen to another episode, big episode 108 panya head top. We got some big guests in the building with me straight from buffalo, new york. Okay, and that's not no little trip. All right, I'm excited to introduce you all to j Exodus and Gates.
Speaker 1:We have Jay Exodus. He's a Buffalo rapper, the biggest, yeah, the biggest. He's on the rise right now. So tap in If you don't know, now you know. And we're going to speak about a lot. We're going to speak about just the impact that the trajectory of where hip hop music is going specifically in Buffalo, how he is just pioneering just a whole new sound in Buffalo, essentially. So that's what we're going to get into in this episode. We're going to dive into ground control. We're going to dive into just support system. How has it even got to this point? Mindset all of that in today's episode. If this is something you're interested in, kick back, relax, grab a snack and let's get right into this episode. J Exodus welcome. How you feeling?
Speaker 2:I'm feeling good man.
Speaker 1:How you feeling, I'm feeling good how you feeling.
Speaker 2:Gates Just came from on the radar A couple minutes ago.
Speaker 1:So man On the radar, on the radar.
Speaker 3:How was that? I'm feeling like the biggest.
Speaker 1:Uh huh. That's not by accident.
Speaker 3:I usually go with my big Gates, like Bill Gates, but just cause we friends and family now. We friends and family. Now she could call me by my first name.
Speaker 1:Oh, you don't let the people, oh, okay.
Speaker 3:No, my mother named me Michael, but I go with my big gates like Bill Gates usually.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, we're going to go with Gates. I'm not going to let them know your government on this, all right.
Speaker 3:All right mom.
Speaker 1:Shout out mama. But yeah, let the people know A little bit about y'all.
Speaker 2:Man, we coming in hot From Buffalo, new York, and I mean Putting the city on the map. It's Ground Control. I mean Ground Control Music Group, ground Control the store, ground Control the. I mean the clothing brand. The clothing brand. Ground Control the world.
Speaker 1:You dig, okay, and I wanna get into. I'm big on meanings, you know what I mean. What is the significance behind your name? You kind of went over it, gates, but I want to hear your perspective. Why are you named J Exodus? What does that really mean?
Speaker 2:and take us into something new, take us into something else. The actual word Exodus means, like a mass exit from somewhere or something. You feel me so it's like. When I first started doing music, I always told myself that I would be that person. You feel me Like what I'm going to do is going to be different than when everybody else is doing, because it's like we always get caught up in these moments in music where it's like or at least now it feels like it is Everybody is doing the same thing. You know so I always saw myself as a person just to be an innovator. You know, somebody that's doing something different and then from there just creating a new wave and then having a. You know, you see certain artists. It's like you got people that create the wave and you got people that ride the wave.
Speaker 1:Let's get into grounding control. What does that mean? Like let away, let's get into grounding control.
Speaker 3:What does that mean? Like let's get into. Why do you even name it that? It kind of started random um, one of my homies man, he had a, he had a random like you know how instagram, when you first start like, they give you like a name. That's like it's nothing like, it's just like whatever like a, like a little starter name.
Speaker 3:Yeah and his was like ground control, zero, zero, five, six, whatever, whatever, and it's like way back like in the beginning. I don't even know if Instagram still do that. They make you pick a name now, right.
Speaker 1:No, you got to pick a name.
Speaker 3:Back then, like when you first, when it first, like way, way back, when he just had like a random Ground Control 00, and I know he didn't pick that and I was like Ground Control it kind of and I like, as I was growing it felt like I was on a launch pad.
Speaker 1:Like I was about to embark on something that was going to be much bigger, to meaning something more afterwards.
Speaker 3:The feeling was always there but, like I just got a definition later on, like words to say for the feeling, ground control basically is when you're in a spaceship you talk back to ground control. Like when you're way up there, like outer space, the people that you talk to on Earth is ground control. What happens is you see these big acts, the Waynes, the Chiefs, the whoever that did something big, they have somebody that was behind them and I always wanted to be ground control to a bunch of people. So we are a hub In Buffalo. People come, you know, rap, like kind of like on the radar, like any. I wanted to be that for my city where, like if they was somebody 10, 15, 20 years later they're going to say they came through ground control and that's kind of where that comes from, like before people go on to do this big, great thing, that they do they made a stop, you catch them right when they're about to blow up Before they pop off before they take off Ground control.
Speaker 1:J-Exodus. Do you feel like there's a responsibility to basically put Buffalo on the map when it comes to hip-hop music and basically shape people's perspective of what they think of Buffalo and hip-hop music?
Speaker 2:I think it's my job to like just expand it Right, because right now, like we got Griselda Shout out to those guys and everybody that kind of came under that umbrella and it's like they do a certain thing. They do a certain thing well, but it's like because they're the only ones that's really fully popped off from Buffalo.
Speaker 3:In the rap space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in the rap space specifically I'm talking about, a lot of people feel like that's all it is. Like that is the Buffalo sound, you know, when it's like it's that, but it's a lot more Like, it's so much more. So it's like I'm the guy that kind of has to break the mold as far as like being versatile and like doing a different thing until it works. But I do that other thing too, though, you feel me, because it's like I'm from that too, though that sound is Buffalo too, you feel me. So it's like I do the boom bap thing too and I do that wheel also. But again, like like I gotta be the guy to you know what I mean to do something else also and make that. I'm Exodus.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah. And specifically, what are you doing like creatively, like what specific thing that sets you apart from other people you see out there doing what you're doing?
Speaker 2:Brother the hook killer, I'll say this yeah, I really am the hook guy. You can't really like. You can't box me in as a boom bap rapper. I say that all the time. You feel me Like, even though I do the boom bap shit. You can't box me in as a boom bap rapper.
Speaker 1:Wait, what does that even mean? Boom bap is like.
Speaker 3:That 90s New York. Like Nas, you know the original rap sound Okay.
Speaker 2:Like that golden era New York 90s mid-90s sound. Like.
Speaker 3:Dave.
Speaker 1:East.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he kind of sort of more so does boom bap but he dabble. I'm trying to think Like, really like if I had to put a name to it, you know the early Nas's and the biggies of it and like that real era Big L L.
Speaker 3:I don't know how deep you get, but like them original like the foundation and I ain't gonna say original right, cause you still had KRS-One and Rakim and all them before that. But the like true sound of it right now is probably like most defined by like what Nas and them was doing like Nas really okay now, and them was doing Like now it's really super.
Speaker 1:Okay, now I know what that means Boom back.
Speaker 2:For sure, but yeah, like I'm just very versatile at the end of the day, so I'm doing different things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I seen the clip of your. Was it your release of a song or release party album release?
Speaker 2:It was live yeah. And you were outside, it was like a whole vibe. I'm like, yeah, yeah, that shit was crazy.
Speaker 1:This man is different. You had a whole band behind you.
Speaker 2:You could have pulled up, you got to pull up for the next one. Yo, that looked like a vibe, it was live for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, live music is a big part of songs. We just have, like our homies, different friends and stuff like that pull up with a guitar or saxophone or something like it'd be a full-blown rap song. Like yo play your guitar on this, play your play your sax on this, like, like, give us that feel because, like that's truly, you know, I want the music to sound like music, so like I'm a producer oh, was we gonna ask that later? Am I jumping again?
Speaker 1:no, no, no, you told, isn't? It's a conversation you could keep going. You a producer, what else?
Speaker 3:so Jay, he, you know he been rapping for a while and I I always tell people like worst thing you could do, man, when you got a homie, that's like trying to do something, a lot of people think support is okay. I got a homie, that rap, i'ma start rapping. And I'm like now you got a group full of 10 rappers and no, nobody else. You have 10 rappers and no cameraman, no producer, no videographer, no engineer, no, nobody. Y'all just 10 rappers rubbing nickels together, if that.
Speaker 3:So I was like finding me, feeling me and with that, over time I said all right, let me get my production back and try like do something else to add to this pot of the overall collective of what we need to make this thing work. And as as that time passed, it just came from just being so close to it, being so hands-on with the creation process and stuff like that and not wanting to like I'm not about to go be a rapper. So not saying that like rappers that is next to each other's in competition, but like it's almost like if you got him trying to be a star as a rapper and then I add myself into that mix without either of us having like solid, longstanding foundation. Inside of that I'm not adding nothing. I'm almost dragging him down at that point.
Speaker 1:I love that mindset yeah.
Speaker 3:So now let me figure out a way to boost what he got going up and fill a need. Find a need, fill a need. That's all that was out. A way to boost what he got going up and fill a need, find a need for the need. That's all that was. But as far as the music side, like I was just so close to the creation process that like I knew what does that support mean to you?
Speaker 1:because I feel like a lot of the times, you know, it's in just culture, black culture, like even hip-hop culture, to just go neck and neck and like you know what he was explaining like artists against artists against artist. Yeah, how did that?
Speaker 2:support you. It's huge. It's huge, you feel me and it's something not to take for granted, because a lot of people don't have that. Most people don't have that, you feel me. It's like, like you said, you hear these stories, right, you hear these crazy success stories about people from the past and shit that had these relationships or had, like certain things going on, and, yeah, that's what y'all witnessing in real time.
Speaker 3:I don't know if it's a testosterone thing, like a man thing, it don't really matter what you do. So like. First I was a barber, right, and I've seen a million barbers come and go. I got a barber shop in Buffalo. Competition going into the space. If you have men doing a thing that can be graded, rated or it will be viewed by other people, competition at some point in time is going into every space. Why is music a contest? I think rap started originally. You know, even back to like the battle rap era of like. It was always like kind of sort of just a. I think it's a man thing, I think it's truly a man thing. And don't get me twisted, we butt heads sometimes but like, is we in competition ever? Really no, we in collaboration almost every day of life, in almost every way.
Speaker 3:But I think that that thing is still healthy because when you gear that towards like contributing mindset if your mindset is geared towards contributing even the natural male inclination or the natural testosterone in your body that is giving off that like comp competitive vibe, that competition spirit, will cause you to compete, to be more of an asset to the team. It will cause you to compete to be more useful, more resourceful, more better for what we is building. And and you always got to check, why am I doing what I'm doing? Like? Because I still got it like I, like you said, like I still got that like 100. I still got that feeling like that want to be. I ain't gonna say in competition what's the word like, it's just a thing we do and I think, if you're thinking right, it can serve you like, just you want to progress.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean in any way.
Speaker 3:You know progress but like, more so. Like when you ask, like, where does the spirit of competition come from? I think it's built into us, like it's coded in our dna. If you got a man, that's a man. He gonna have some what's the word? Like he gonna let him hang. I don't know. I don't know. Y'all don't use terms like that like he gotta have that to him.
Speaker 3:Like as a man like you gotta be able to not get it check yourself when it's like geared in the wrong way and directed at the wrong people with the wrong spirit in mind, but like, whatever you do.
Speaker 1:You got to gear it towards something positive instead of like it being something where you're tearing each other down. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Some people view that to be like the way to win. If you in a race, as opposed to running faster, some people think let me trip you up. Yeah, if you in a race, as opposed to running faster, some people think let me trip you up yeah.
Speaker 3:If you in a weightlifting competition, as opposed to let me lift my weight, some people would think let me make your weight heavier, I don't know how to describe it and if you always got your mind geared towards doing that they want to see you do good, but not better than them in a way.
Speaker 3:I think that happens when you have people that like you might be working for, when you have somebody that you're working for or like you're beneficial to them and they don't want you to outgrow the arrangement that you're in, and I struggle with that. Oftentimes, right, when I talk about ground control, it's people that might have came up under me, people that might have been my little men or whatever my up under me, people that might have, you know, been my little man or whatever my little homies I put on from around the way, and what happened is, at some point in time, they have to grow out of this role in order for them to be their full potential. They can't stay, and you have to know that, coming in, you know, um, and those people that can't do that, that you know, want to see you do good, but not better than them. They're living in a scarcity mindset, thinking that it's not enough for them when in actuality, it's more than enough for everybody to have more than enough.
Speaker 1:And this show. We always go back to mindset. How did you go from shifting your mindset into this abundance mindset, Like, how did you guys develop your mindset to get you where you are now?
Speaker 2:It's mind over matter Period Period. That's a bar right. It's mind over matter man, at the end of the day, I'm going through shit, he going through shit, you going through shit, everybody going through their own shit that they have to deal with in their personal life, you know, but it's like, are you gonna be the person to get up at seven o'clock in the morning or are you gonna be the person to sleep until 10 30? You feel me? It's like, at the end of the day, you gotta do what you gotta do, right, you gotta be self-motivated.
Speaker 3:You know this is gonna be a popular answer, but when you ask me where I got my mindset from, my mother was a g. My mother was a stone cold mama.
Speaker 1:Ebony shout out ebony shout out ebony any good ideas.
Speaker 3:I ever had any positive personality traits I have, I will attribute that to ebony. And that's like not the popular answer at all, especially for people trying to be like rap megastars and stuff like that. But shout out, mom, my mother was really, really, truly like that, like I ain't gonna lie, my mother, my mother, was a realer nigga than like every other nigga I know, and it's crazy because she still got her ways. She super got her ways. We'll be seeing that at sometime. But like, the morals and mentalities that she had was just just about as good as it could have got to even carry.
Speaker 3:Like when people tell me I'm solid or whatever I don't know they just seeing whatever my mother left me with, that's, that's really Ebony. Like y'all, y'all like I'm carrying it now, but that's Ebony, that's her, her whole teachings. And do this, don't do that. Be a man like this, don't. When they say a woman can't raise a man to be, I'm not hearing none of that. My mother was solid, realer nigga than most of y'all, um, if not all of y'all, uh, and that's. That's probably where I get mine from brother. You know, he maybe just woke up one day like this, but me I know where I got mine from, that's fire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you hear the word mind over matter, what's the first thing that comes to mind?
Speaker 2:Focus, focus. You got to be focused because them distractions going to come down my dozen. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:But can you withstand when I hear mind over matter? I think it's just about not necessarily focusing on the task at hand, but identifying that anything has a fix, like any problem. We can, we got we. There's a fix for this problem. If you want to fix it, don't think about the problem, even in front of you. If your mindset is I'm about to solve this problem, the problem problem don't even matter, it's halfway done. I think like that's the like first thing that come to mind when you tell it to me. I have so many things I got to like. You know I write little stuff here and there. A whole concept for an album. Don't tell me how it was hired. Tell me how you got it done. Like, because I know it can't be done because it's getting done somewhere right now by somebody. Tell me you not the one. Don't tell me how it can't be done. Tell me how you not the one.
Speaker 3:That's what mind over matter take me to the, to the mind frame of.
Speaker 1:I like that. How did buffalo shape who you, who you guys are? Right now? Gotta start. I want to start. Let me get this. This is my turn.
Speaker 3:I'm from Buffalo, buena Reis. It's a poor place. It is a terrible, horrible poor place and I love it to death. It made me who I am and it showed me so much of like the best and the worst of this thing. So we in New York State right, you got New York City which, like, population wise, is what? 10 plus million people.
Speaker 1:Something like that.
Speaker 3:Some old, outrageous, crazy figure. Some people say 10. I heard 20.
Speaker 1:Nah, they dragged it. It's more like 9, 10 mil.
Speaker 3:So, boom, we're the next biggest city like population wise in New York State and we is somewhere around that like 275, 278, somewhere in there, 100,000. You know how many Buffaloes you could fit in New York city? You know how many Buffaloes you could fit in Brooklyn alone.
Speaker 1:At least 10.
Speaker 3:At least 10 Buffaloes, like the whole thing. That in mind, buffalo was built to house a million people. It is a dying city. Still. We still. Our population is still going down every, every year. Go look it up, look it up. Um, it was built to house a million people. It's a Rust Belt city, meaning like industrial, old 19, whatever, when it was building everything. But all them factory jobs, you know, got shipped overseas or shipped down south or wherever they got sent to. And now you have a city built for something that's not even really relevant in USA. No more, it's not really a thing here. No more. Detroit, pittsburgh all of them cities that kind of sort of like had them old heydays. That was real big. We wanted those. I think we really struggle with. Um, welfare you wouldn't believe how big of a part medicaid and and welfare stamps and all that is a part of people. I know people that wouldn't get a job because of the mess up. They medicare or medicaid or they stamps or they. You know they government assistance like you know they, they situate.
Speaker 3:That's buffalo. That is the spirit of what's happening in buffalo. That's why you know the, the bennies and theans in the West their story is so prevalent because all of us got crackhead, dope, fiend, uncle, auntie, somebody close to you. That is really being suffocated by that welfare mindset In Buffalo. That is a thing that is like I'm not going to work, I'm not doing to work, I'm not doing nothing, I'm about to chill, like down south. They different, you know, here, they different you can't. It's not gonna be enough to live right, you can get it, but it's not gonna be enough to live there.
Speaker 3:Everything's so cheap because it's so empty. Rent was so low for so long the cost of food was way cheaper, going out to eat and stuff, cause it's like it's more restaurants than people, it's more businesses than people, it's nobody to patronize these businesses, and that in turn builds a real negative mindset. It's a lot of failure happening in Buffalo. It's a lot of crime and, you know, crime based in destitution. Like I need this money, I'm taking this cause, I need it, I need it and I'm about to do the worst possible thing because it's the only things that feel like they're available to me because I'm thinking with that scarcity mindset.
Speaker 3:Shout out mindset.
Speaker 1:Might over matter. Yo, that was a whole history lesson.
Speaker 3:But yeah, yeah, that's Buffalo.
Speaker 1:If you ask me.
Speaker 2:What you think. Yeah, that's Buffalo. How did you guys, rise above what was going on around you and just consistently trying to rise above that really yo I'm gonna say this just having good friends right, it's like good kid, mad city, it's a lot of wild shit going on, but it's like shit going on, but it's like how you'll circle good people around you and just grow. It's tough. A lot of people don't get it at all.
Speaker 3:Mine. I said it but I don't know if y'all heard me. Every answer go back to my mother. Shout out mama. When I was young. She took us. I traveled a lot when I was a kid and my mother was dirt poor. Two crackhead grandparents, both of them dead and gone OD'd on drugs both of them and dead and gone.
Speaker 3:And I think that traveling when I was young and like not necessarily I didn't know how poor I was, like I'm from the projects, like I didn't know how poor I was because of, like all the different things my mother poured into us religiously and don't get me to say she was fucking the money up, she was like doing bad but it gave me something to see and something to aspire to. Even if it was her financial downfall a little later on, it was the best thing she could have did for us, because now I take care of whatever my mom called me and extort me all the time, but it is what it is. You know she earned it. Um, if I didn't get that experience, even though being still extremely poor, you got a 15 year old mother of you know she was 19, with three kids. I was 15, I'm the oldest um 19 with three kids.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she was tripping, but that's what happens when you got two of those for grandparents and you raised by the system, ward of the state, every type of government assistant. I'm trying to tell you the story. Yeah, if y'all listening, everything that could have failed her failed her and somehow, some way, this lady just like I don't know where she got it the, the wherewithal and the mental, just like. I'ma rise above those situations and try to give these kids something worth seeing and be somebody worth, you know, loving, and inside of that, at a young age, we travel a lot and that opened me wide up, like it. Just I said what you said what disney world and this and that and all the different stuff that we did. Granted, we're going home to projects, rats and you know, but still, uh, you know what dis and all that, but still you know what Disney looks like. I knew something else was there and I knew that I wanted it from a young, young age.
Speaker 3:So once again what helped me rise above Really? Just my mother, just showing me something young, so I knew it existed, like proof of concept.
Speaker 1:I. I had proof of concept when it came down to it. Okay, next segment we're going to get into is to explain the piece of art. So, floating J Exodus, you have a verse that goes wish my city worked together. Never the camaraderie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, never been camaraderie.
Speaker 1:Explain that verse and what was going on through your head when you made that.
Speaker 2:Man, like Brother was saying earlier, it's real scarcity mindset when you come from a small, poor city like Buffalo. So it's like you get a lot of that crap in the barrel mentality coming from people. So nobody really wants to help each other do anything for the most part, especially when it comes to music. So it's like you have artists on these different levels where it's like, okay, y'all should be collaborating, y'all should be collaborating, y'all should be collaborating, but you really don't see too much of that. So I was just speaking on that a little bit.
Speaker 3:If I can I want to speaking on that a little bit, if I can. Yeah, I want to touch on that. When I look at like you talked, about Atlanta and what they you know they whole thing, how they got it going.
Speaker 3:They the reason why like and I'm not dissing New York City, by no means they put the mecca.
Speaker 3:They started this whole thing, the reason why New York fell off and the reason why Atlanta kind of sort of now is like the home of the hip-hop sound and like they've been running rap for so long. They help each other, they put each other on. It's a new little nigga coming out of Atlanta every day. You'll have a little nigga down there turn and you never heard of him. But you get there and the city is loving him to death because, like not only New York City but New York State as a whole, our mentality is just different Crabs in a barrel, super crabs in a barrel.
Speaker 3:But when I think about that line that he said, I'm used to being that guy in almost everything else I do and, like me, we just started this music thing not too long ago, like pushing hard, like really trying music thing not too long ago. Like pushing hard, like really trying, and I it's kind of sort of like more of that thing I talk about with like, with my you know testosterone and my, my braggadociousness. This is like a side quest, we was gonna get rich anyway. We kind of sort of halfway there okay if I'm
Speaker 3:being honest, we halfway here already. Um, I love that. I just wanted to see if I could do it, because everybody else be acting like it's so hard and I like to think I'm smart this is my little narcissism in me like it ain't even that hard. Let me do it. Watch out and I'll step in this thing. What I learned, fast, right, getting back to the point these people is delusional. This nigga is just crazy. You'll have a nigga that ain't did nothing, ain't got nothing to show for all the years they've been working and they don't want to work with you because they feel like you don't have nothing, you ain't did nothing.
Speaker 3:And my man Shout Out, camouflage. He told me, bro, I know you in real life. Like you, really like that, but these dudes don't know you. So in this music space, you just got here and they got to wait and see. So right now for me, that's where my my testicles are on and my braggadocious kicking.
Speaker 3:Like you, right, I'm tripping you right, I'm used to getting my way because I ask very little from people and everybody that knows me knows gays gonna get it done. Whatever you need, whatever you asking for what it would pay to have him on your side in real life. That's how my life worked. So when I got into this music space and especially them little local jokers we're going to say when they get to playing with you, you know how fast I like my face to twist up and turn up like who is you to be talking to me like this? And what you'll learn is they just don't know you. Yet you can't project who you know yourself to be internally on their understanding of the work that you have shown. I ain't showing no work. So now allow me to introduce myself. Um, allow me to you know, show y'all exactly how I do.
Speaker 2:Okay, and it's crazy, I don't. I don't reached out to artists from atlanta on a few occasions and like niggas, be ready to work type shit. Like that, ready to work type shit. They be ready to work like that, like yup, let's do it. Bro, send me something. Other places like are not everywhere.
Speaker 3:It's a New York State thing to show.
Speaker 1:We is shot. It's the reason why we can't.
Speaker 3:It's tangent. Why can't we get one? Yeah, like, yeah, bro, like what's so budging? No more Future popped and Kona popped and Thug popped, and like you had a niggas that like, get that big, big, big move. We can't get one to save New York State, including the city, for sure.
Speaker 1:It's a reason for that you got artists like Dave East, but they still haven't like popped in the way that he would have popped if he was like from Atlanta. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:I think East is in a sweet spot of being like halfway underground but mainstream enough to be respected. Okay, when I really think about the people that had the potential to do, I think a problem too with that like going mainstream thing is, like East don't make that sound in music. That's true. He's doing the boom bap thing, which is you're never going to hear it on the radio.
Speaker 2:It's just not really the thing If you want to exist in that room.
Speaker 3:But the people that did do it from New York, I think about like a Capella Gray. He could have went really big, but like I don't know what's. Yeah, I don't know what's holding it. Yeah, I don't know what's happening there. Maybe it's a label situation, I don't know. But I like his music 2 and the boom bat back. He doesn't make like radio sound songs I feel like he does, though yeah, devastated, but like.
Speaker 1:I just feel like it's something in new york air, something's in the air.
Speaker 3:Really, the one person that I was thinking about was a boogie. A boogie was like the oh yeah, pop, pop had it. I had one with pop.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, pop was about to be it the worst possible pop was about to be it like for sure um you had pop, like he really was like taking it there he was about to be it like for sure, um, you had Pop, like he really was like taking it there.
Speaker 3:Nah, he was about to be it, but other than that I would say A Boogie was like the most closest, but like something in the war era. Yeah, and it's still something that's still like A Boogie.
Speaker 1:He's big, but like it's still something that's not like gonna big you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Like I, I think Atlanta loved him so much that everybody else loved him Versus. Like A Boogie A Boogie.
Speaker 1:Everybody from like this region loves him, yep, but when you go like to like somewhere down south, they like nah. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:They looking over him. I think, you know, and it sucks. I think New York has a bad name. I think that like people kind of sort of like project now, Like oh, y'all conceited, y'all cocky, y'all whatever.
Speaker 1:so now, it's like it's not possibly like now.
Speaker 3:I'm a cool guy. I'm just so happen to be from new york city and and also want love too. Nah, go get love from them. But y'all got so many people here that he can still survive. Yeah, he can. Can't thrive. Versus, like nobody in LA is like I hate all them, atlanta niggas, but you got a lot of places on earth. I travel a lot Still to this day. We travel a lot, and New York, our face is kind of and it's we, not even y'all, but y'all kind of did that for us. Y'all got our face, all you know.
Speaker 3:You go down south and they be like hating on us like oh, y'all from new york, y'all think y'all I'm like, yeah, I'm from buffalo first doors.
Speaker 1:Like we don't even yeah, it's different six, seven hours away driving. Yeah, um, I want to lean into this before we um, because I really want to get into this question. Okay, so we did talk about the negative side of things when it came to, like, lack of support amongst each other, right, but on this podcast podcast, I like shifting the mindset to think of like in more, like abundance mindset. So, ideally, what will be like the dream reality? If you can picture an ideal environment of what you wish your city looked like when it comes to supporting one another, what does that look like for you?
Speaker 2:it looks like having an actual like infrastructure. We don't have no music infrastructure right now. When you go to Atlanta, like everything is set up, all you need is a contact and a phone number. I mean so like I think it looks like having that, like having more people, like he was saying earlier, like everybody want to be the rapper. That's another thing that we kind of face just on a citywide level, like we don't have a lot of really good engineers or good producers or places that you can go and film and shoot stuff at. So I think it is going to take like people actually stepping into those other roles more is going to take like people actually stepping into those other roles more and yeah, I think the problem with you know.
Speaker 1:We're doing abundance mindset, not problems. Ideally, what's the dream world?
Speaker 3:Oh, ideally. So I'm going to say the opposite of what I was about to say. Ideally, I came from a city with more people, I think you know, it's small but it has the ability to be powerful.
Speaker 3:If everybody hones in on you know the few people that we do have if they just get really really great and it becomes like a hub of like really really great music, it wouldn't matter that we only got 275,000 people, right. So so, yeah. So if, if I want this thing to work in Buffalo, we have to be so much better than everywhere else because we have nobody behind us, we don't have enough people to like, support us, just as Buffalo. So in order for Buffalo to win in mass you know the musicians of Buffalo to win in mass, they would have to be extremely impossibly great at music, to the point where other cities kind of sort of follow and catch on to that. Like, oh them, Buffalo people different, they just like that. When it comes to music, them, they is like that.
Speaker 3:I think that is the abundance mindset. Other than that, I think it's just a sheer math thing. Like when you go online, you know you got Spotify. Right, you got Spotify. You see how many monthly listeners you got 40 million and 50 million. Imagine if everybody in Buffalo listened to you. You still only got 275,000. You're including old grandmas and people that's probably not going to listen to your rap music. You're including old grandmas and people that's probably not going to listen to your rap music. You're including, like suburban little you know, other races of non-rap listeners included in that number. We just don't have enough people. You can have everybody from Buffalo love you and still be dead broke and unknown on a global scale. That's all it is.
Speaker 3:I think that, like you got really great talents coming out. I kind of sort of like wanted to stop you when you said, like not a lot of good producer, we got people. They don't have nobody to listen to them. We don't have like it's just not enough people. Not, and it's okay, right, it just is what it is. Some it's people every. Jay cole is from fayetteville, carroll, wherever. I never heard of it Till he said it. Yeah, he was exceptional and it happened for him. That is the abundance mindset If you are great, you can get there.
Speaker 1:Period. I want to get into A segment that I'm trying out. Let's see how this goes Conspiracy theories. I'm a big conspiracy theorist. Do you guys believe in Conspiracy theories? Which'm?
Speaker 3:a big conspiracy theorist. Do you guys believe in conspiracy theories? Which one Just?
Speaker 1:any Like. Do you believe in? I believe.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say this I believe in things that can be proven to be real. With that being said, sometimes things that can be proven to be real are labeled as conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:Interesting. So yeah, that's my take on that. If you look it up, actually, like they coined that term the CIA coined that term in like the 1920s or some shit just to like keep people that was like finding out about shit that they wasn't supposed to find out about to like deter people from even like listening to any of that shit. You feel me, it's like when you get them situations where you like they gotta call somebody crazy so that don't nobody.
Speaker 1:You feel me, so that the truth don't get out, so it's kind of that type of thing. Okay, so it's not like you, you so it's like yes and no.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's my answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah I'm gonna ask you a conspiracy theorist question. Tell me if you believe in this. Do you believe that Tupac faked his death and fled to Cuba or Africa. He's still alive somewhere. Why would he do that? It's a conspiracy theory that people believe.
Speaker 2:Why is it people?
Speaker 1:just I think brothers, people believe that there's been sightings and pictures of him Around the world Saying that he's alive.
Speaker 2:I seen the photos. Do you believe that it's a nigga somewhere that look like me? It's a nigga somewhere In the Virgin Islands or some shit that look just like me. You feel me? You can take a picture Right now and be like it. Go quick In the Virgin Islands and I'm in Buffalo chilling. So I don't know about all that. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Do you believe the theory that there are alienated humans walking around the Earth that look like us?
Speaker 3:What like aliens that took on a human form?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I ain't going to lie right when they talk about outer space. I got a problem when you talk about moon landing and stuff like that. They ain't gonna lie right when they talk about outer space. I got a problem when you talk about, like, moon landing and stuff like that. They ain't been up there, or so they say. They say they ain't been up there like forever. I don't know. I don't know what to think about outer space. I got a whole different view of outer space, like I don't think it's what they say. It is right, outer space stars, all that. I don't think so. I don't think it's what they say. It is right. Outer space stars, all that. I don't think so. I don't think none of that is real.
Speaker 1:I think they're lying you mean to tell me there's no outer space? I don't think that they ever went like they got nothing from out there.
Speaker 3:I think that if you could make it with the technology we had in 19, whatever to get to outer space. But like now, they can't even get to like the moon. They like you know elon trying his best and he keep blowing stuff up it's like he hitting something and I'm like the science should be there, right?
Speaker 3:he ain't just reverting, we ain't just unlearning what we knew. I think they lied in the first place. They never went. They just needed to say that because it was the space race. Remember I talked about that good old testosterone. You had a bunch of men telling a bunch of other men from another country to specialize the russians. Usa was like we gonna beat y'all up to the moon. And it was like no, we will beat you to the moon. Um, and then they just said all right, we ain't making it, we about to lie about it. They went and they took some cameras and they got underwater and they jumped around real slow. They put it in slow motion and they said oh yeah, we went to the moon.
Speaker 2:See, we won they said they had some good VFX. Yeah, nah tripping.
Speaker 3:I'm like, nah, that ain't happening.
Speaker 1:Alright, I'm gonna give y'all the last one the last theory I have is that that rumors that the CIA monitored and influenced Wait.
Speaker 2:I didn't answer that last question.
Speaker 1:Oh, do you believe in that?
Speaker 2:The last, question Were you talking about like beings that's been here on Earth before?
Speaker 1:us. No, I'm talking about people that look like us but they're actually alien, like alienated people. There's people that believe that.
Speaker 2:There's people walking among us that are not actually human.
Speaker 1:Like, they're like they call them reptilians or some, yeah, multi-dimensional, Like. Do you believe that? I believe in reptilians.
Speaker 2:no, you talking about, like I'm going to say, a big general.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like some thriller, like some thriller type. He looked at him and he was like cat eyes I used to. Da it was like cat eyes, I used to. I do believe there's other beings. Oh you do believe oh snap Of some sort.
Speaker 2:I mean, I ain't never seen them niggas before, I never talked to them. You feel me so. I ain't about to sit here and start bushing.
Speaker 3:What the heck Hold up. If you're a alien watching this man, drop us a comment. I mean, just be like yo. We here, we come in peace.
Speaker 1:Or we don't. This is the last conspiracy I got for y'all Drop the alien emoji man Two time. There's rumors that the CIA monitored and influenced hip hop music to control political messaging in black communities.
Speaker 2:Do you?
Speaker 1:believe that is true 100%. True, yeah, 100% true, so that's not a conspiracy to y'all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's one of the ones. Like I was just saying, it's not really a conspiracy. You can prove that to be true.
Speaker 3:I believe that I have been brainwashed enough by the agenda to be pushed through that music.
Speaker 3:It's certain mentalities that I still hold to this day. That I know is toxic, but I grew up my whole life hearing and enforcing them in myself and through my friends and pushing them on other people and other people pushing them on me, like I know it's wrong, but it's still enough of who I am that I can't even let it go you gotta go out like Professor Griffin, them niggas that was actually in the trenches around that time when that shit happened.
Speaker 2:Like man, they tell you all type of crazy ass stories like it's with crazy ass stories.
Speaker 1:It's not that crazy though.
Speaker 2:You want 100%, you want control. It's not, though, right We've been giving stories.
Speaker 3:You don't even need a cage if somebody think they're in prison in their mind.
Speaker 2:You don't even need bars.
Speaker 3:You don't even need a physical. Just tell me I can't make it out the ghetto. Tell me I need to kill everybody that look like me.
Speaker 2:Tell me I need to do all the things that y'all promoted in mass and you could see when the shit happened too like, and not only when the shit happened, but you could see like the players, like the head role players of I mean, that led that shit to to turn into what it is. No really okay, we got a couple conspiracy theories, though, because as black people, yo, we take everything that's like Weaponized against us and like Find a way to like Turn that shit back Into gold again.
Speaker 1:That's true. That's true. That's true Word. That's why they keep Trying to get so creative. And social media Is this new wave Of like trying to Manipulate the masses With messaging. But I digress, alright, we're gonna get to social media questions. Who's your dream collab?
Speaker 2:dream collab. It have to be like Marvin Gaye.
Speaker 1:Marvin Gaye, I didn't see that coming currency currency, you said.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's like, that's some shit that I I don't know if I should call it a dream collab, when I know it's gonna happen. It's certain shit that I'll just be seeing in my brain and it's like, oh, I see that it just hasn't happened yet. So this is just you speaking in existence, yeah, but like Marvin Gaye, it's like, yeah, that's a real one. You know what I mean, and I'm probably not going to get that one.
Speaker 1:You said Marvin Gaye. Yeah, wait, he's still alive. Rest in peace, oh no he not, he not my bad.
Speaker 3:For sure, dream collab. So I'm a producer. I would like to think that I would, you know, create a new artist that would go on and do something real, big and great. And my dream collab is the artist that I grew up with. My dream collab is like that artist that I don't even know yet and they go on to be like bigger than anything I could have ever imagined. Like if I had like something in my dreams as far as like people that exist like I love Larry June, like that's my guy that exist, like I love larry june, like that's my guy I like larry um, definitely would work with him. I ain't gonna lie. Like one of my favorite producers always was cardo. I would like to like collab with cardo. He's like top five dinner live production for me. Um, I dream, dream collab.
Speaker 1:I'm not really a glazer so, like it's tough, no, you answered it, though you still answered it, I feel like in my heart and mind, like we here jay-z or something like that, and maybe it's my scarcity mindset.
Speaker 3:I don't think I'm doing nothing that would like attract jay-z on this level. So, like, like I'm like even. Maybe my brain is still limiting me, maybe my mind ain't over the matter yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you never know Right, maybe my mind not over the matter. Yet One more person.
Speaker 2:I got to say Alchemist man, send me some beats, brother, I need those. Yeah, that's like one of my favorite producers of all time.
Speaker 1:Gotta get some Alchemist. You feel me, yeah, a collab.
Speaker 2:Take with J Exodus Alchemist. Collab tape. You feel me? I'm speaking into existence Right now.
Speaker 3:I ain't gonna lie, one of my favorite Like musical influences that I would love To like collab with. I was very influenced, like me and my mother. Keep going back to my mom.
Speaker 1:Shout out, mama.
Speaker 3:Jamie Foxx Was, like always, like a real big influence.
Speaker 1:For me he's good, so like maybe one day.
Speaker 3:If that could happen, that'd be raw yeah.
Speaker 1:He's good, so like maybe one day.
Speaker 3:If that could happen, that'd be raw. Yeah, that's something that I don't Like. My mind wasn't even Thinking about till right now, but like if that could happen.
Speaker 1:I'll take that. Nah, jamie, he's just different Everything he touches, just be Musically gifted.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's like Borderline genius.
Speaker 1:Mmhmm, I know, I know you guys been Doing the grind. Y'all been doing the thing for some time, so how do you measure the impact of your work?
Speaker 3:so in my city places I go. Now they know me now they know me and it's happening a lot faster than I anticipated, but I knew it was real when, like we went to like denver denver, colorado, and I was like this is what I knew.
Speaker 3:I was like my brother, my brother, denver, denver, colorado, and I was like this is what I knew. I was like my brother. He turned into a star in front of my eyes. Man, he might be turning into a star in front of my eyes. We was at shout out, benny the Butcher. We was on tour. Everybody Can't Go, benny and Bodie. Benny the Butcher, bodie James. And he was at, like this concert Cervantes, no was it Cervantes?
Speaker 2:Cervantes?
Speaker 3:yeah, in Denver With all the red stained glass, pins and shit. Random dude, just like screaming and hollering in the crowd. Like it's him. It's really really him. Look, baby, he's talking to his girl, it's him, and we're like we just walking around cooling. We're not used to having that thing happen yet.
Speaker 3:But I around cooling like we're not used to having that thing happen yet, but random. I ain't never been to denver a day in my life. It's me like random dude, like going higher, like, and that's when I realized like, oh, he's just a diehard big old fan and he meant it like, but we got like in that, you know, that was like probably like a year ago now, so, like now, like that's happening. We went on tour with currency we had a few more, though and I'm like, is this how people be feeling? Yeah, wow, but yeah, you know, I'm proud of my brother in that way.
Speaker 3:As far as for me, um, I know that the work that I'm doing is working when he has those moments, because that was the ultimate goal, right? Um, if I could get one, I could get another one. Jay-z said it. If they saying they made me, make another me, it's my goal to you know, do this again. We just got to make this happen. From now and after, like it's done, I'll probably immediately like detach from that whole side of things. You go, do you be all your creative thing, and I will go back to the bottom. Get of things. You go, do you'll be all your creative thing and, um, I will go back to the bottom, get back in the mud, get back in the trenches and do it again.
Speaker 2:We's out on the right. Wow, we are on the radar earlier and gabe like wait a minute, jx. Is he like yeah, bro, listen to your last project, that shit was fire. I'm like, oh, all right, so it'd be like it'd like it'd be them little moments. That's crazy, the shit that I see with him. Like he goes super hard on Instagram with like I'm sure you've seen the page now you went and checked out the page, yeah.
Speaker 2:He's going super hard on Instagram with like reels and shit every day, like every day, going hard with this shit and it's like, it's to the point he and the people face it so much, bro, like a local celebrity down there right now in his own right. You feel me Like we'd be out at places. They like the kid you, some random ass. We'd be somewhere. Some random ass kids is just running up on. It's like I saw you on Instagram. I saw you drop the ice cream on the Jordan Like swear to God, oh, and it's crazy. And it's just getting to see the fruits of the labor. It's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's beautiful. Is there anything you guys want to highlight before we head out of here?
Speaker 3:I shout out my mom a lot I'm going to shout out my mom too. We got a speckled past. We had different views of life for a long time, but one thing my father taught me he was another example of how big he is my name Gates, mike Gates, my father's Mike Gates too.
Speaker 3:If you ask anybody from Buffalo that's a little older than me. They're going to say money getting Mike Gates from six dudes, what? And that meant a lot to me as a child. I didn't know how much I emulated him and, granted, he gave half of his life to the prison system and made a whole gang of money and he would go and tear it down and build it all up and tear it down and build it up again. Um, but like in a, I'm gonna say, risque kind of way, but like a I don't know how good of a influence it was, but like witnessing it, having that, like influence over people and like people watching him. Be that it was something that I emulated as a child. I wanted to be like him. I want to get all the money and have all the girls and do all the. Remember I said the negative stuff that we like don't nobody play with them and this and that and all that stuff Right.
Speaker 3:So it made me enough of who I am, so shout out my dad too. That's what I wanted to touch on, big up, big up.
Speaker 2:Man, this nigga made me feel bad for not mentioning no family.
Speaker 1:I've been being sentimental here.
Speaker 2:I wasn't expecting none of this, but Nah, um, I do want to highlight these beautiful-ass shirts. That's been going crazy, man. If y'all haven't tapped in with the merch, y'all gotta tap in with the J-Walking Ground. Control merch. Right now it's J-Walking season, so we on the J-Walking tees. Right now. Let me show y'all real quick.
Speaker 1:Gotta make it focus up. Yeah, yeah, hold him in the back, yeah that's drip.
Speaker 2:That's drip. Stop playing with him. That shit hard. That shit hard. I didn't get mine Mike's over here, brother.
Speaker 1:We could turn it up and post it.
Speaker 2:If you need one of these, hit us up at Ground Control Worldwide. I mean, we're shipping to you, we'll get it up and post it. If you need one of these, hit us up at Ground Control Worldwide. I mean, we're shipping to you, we'll get it to you.
Speaker 1:You heard Tap in. That's hard, that's hard. I need to tap in myself. So yeah, that's it. That's it. Just tell them where to follow y'all, where to connect.
Speaker 2:Man, you can follow me at J-A-Y underscore E-X-O-D-U-S. Also that jaywalking right. It'll be in stores on Friday. That's on Friday, that's August 15th. The album will be in stores. So make sure y'all check that out and give me a purchase. Man. Purchase that I mean we trying to get out of this streaming shit. Get that joint to purchase on iTunes for me.
Speaker 3:I mean, I appreciate it for sure. The biggest no Ground Control Worldwide. On Instagram Ground Control Worldwide. On YouTube GroundControlWorldwidecom. Ground Control Worldwide.
Speaker 1:Period. So thank you for listening to the end of another episode. If you reached the end, shout out to you. You really made it to another end. I could tell you love yourself. I could just tell you glowing. I just could tell something big is just going to come. If you received anything from this today, thank you. Thank you for listening, thank you for your time, thank you to the guys for actually pulling up For sure, man, thank you for having us.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, thank you for having us.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, it's reached the end of another episode. Make sure, sure you follow us. Link will be in the description. And yeah, have a great rest of your day wherever you're listening to, and make sure you tell a friend. To tell a friend, mother, auntie, sister, dog. That is mind over matter, baby you.