From Solo To Duet

One minute you are “fine” with being alone, and the next minute you realize you have built a whole lifestyle around not needing anyone. I’m K-Way, and I’m telling the real story of moving from a solo act to a duet after a marriage ends, a cross-country reset from Houston to San Diego, and a dating season that taught me boundaries the hard way. If you’ve ever tried online dating after divorce, felt exhausted by dating apps, or wondered why you keep repeating the same patterns, you’ll hear yourself in this one.

I get into the messy details: serial dating, the tier list of apps, spending money I should not have spent, and learning that “being a good man” without discernment can turn into self-sabotage. Then the energy shifts when I receive a rose on Hinge from the woman who becomes my fiancée. Our first date is simple, honest, and calm, and that calm becomes the signal I’ve been praying for. From there we talk patience, integrity, accountability, therapy, and what it really means to build a “we” instead of protecting a lone-wolf identity.

We also go bigger than romance. I share how grief and the holiday season can make commitment feel complicated, what traveling together reveals about partnership, and why reconnecting on trips matters when both people have demanding careers. And before I sign off, I air a cultural gripe that’s been sitting with me: why TV rarely lets Black families be ordinary anymore, and why I miss the comfort of Moesha-era sitcom life where joy did not need a tragedy to justify it.

If this resonates, subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next, share it with someone rebuilding their life, and leave a review to help more listeners find Heavy On The R&B. What R&B track tells your “I finally let my guard down” story?

Transcript

Cold Open And Resetting The Tone

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Please go back and do that one nice question. I want to move it.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

That's what I did today. Those were the words I said to me. It was last May, don't know the exact day. In my head, there was a frame. Over anything you like.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Yes, yes, yes, what is happening? Week 10. We are back on the heavy on the RB podcast. I am the host with the most, your creator, your proprietor, the all things end

Week 10 And Family Roots

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well to this show. I go by the name of K Way. Thank you for joining me on this week 10. I cannot believe this. I said I know I say that every week, but man, 10 weeks of doing something consistent, I think needs to be celebrated. So why not celebrate myself? So yeah, man, give me a round of applause for me. Gotta keep at it. Nah, man. Um, as you could tell, this week's episode is gonna be about something lovely. You know, I think last week was a little heavy, week before that was a little heavy. So, you know, why not um loosen it up? Those were the sounds of Case Happily Ever After. Fun fact Mr. and Mrs. Kway senior, my mom and dad, that is, they um they danced to that. That was their first song that they danced to. It was hot at that time. So my parents got married when I was 10, but they had been together all my life. It was just like, you know, it's one of them old black things. When Jack of there said we ain't getting no younger, we might as well do it. Like, that shit was real. That's just how it was. So shout out to my my parents. Um, rest in peace to my mom. And man, we just could gonna continue to to live on and honor you and your legacy. And I think you and Pop set a good example for me and my sister and my brother to uh to follow. It wasn't always perfect, you know. There was um there was a lot of um adjustments, but as they say, turbulence is the price you pay for flying high. So um, yeah, we dealt with that full full head on, man. But I wanted to get into today the um just the topic of being um or moving from a solo act to a duet. So if you've been following

From Solo Act To Duet

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along on a heavy on the RB podcast, you know, man, I moved here from Houston Um after being in a marriage and then you know being with that person almost 10 years. Moving here to San Diego, testing the waters, dating scene, not knowing nothing, eyes wide open, like learned a lot, grew a lot, and um asked God for a second chance at love, and this is what happened. So, man, moving from that solo act, it was a lot. It was because I got used to being alone, and I'm sure anybody that has been used to being alone in their space, they kind of you know are reluctant to share that with anybody. So for me, it was um it was just a period of adjustment and like having to unlearn some things because every relationship is different, every person that you are with is different. So what I had to learn was not bring the shit that held me bondage in my last relationship, my my last marriage, into this new one. And oh man, that was uh it was a journey, and I know uh my fiance is probably gonna hear this, and she's gonna agree. I wasn't always the most um easiest person to deal with. I guess I could say that, just keeping it politically correct. But I wasn't that bad. It was just, you know, I'm very, I'm very, no, I got it. I'll do it myself. No, I don't need no help. Like I'm very, I'm I'm that kind of person because I pretty much, if you listen to last week's episode, that's just kind of what it's been. So, you know, it wasn't no secret that um there was an adjustment period, but I think we fought for each other, and here we are. So this what happened. So I I was on a uh a binge of serial dating, just going out with people that I probably would never talk to. I went on a date with a uh a youth

Serial Dating And App Realities

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uh pastor. She was also a uh worship leader at some white church up there in Orange County. I probably never would have uh I never would have even took that chance, but man, they say an idol mind is the devil's playground. Um, you know, that's that's scripture, and that that is true. So I was just in the cycle of just man existing. Um man, just trying to figure out what or where I want to I want to live, uh, where I want to go. Um do I want to stay in San Diego? What do I like? I had to learn myself again. So um yeah, just going through a cycle of that, man. Um I was on Hinge like maybe two, three, maybe even four times. And you know how I just said it an idle mind is the devil's playground. That's Proverbs 6 16, 27, I believe. So I'm sitting around and and my first thing on Hinge, you know, I'm going out with anybody. I I tried it all. Uh whoa, pause. Let me uh let me that's not what I meant. I tried all of the dating apps, uh, Bumble, Black, Facebook dating, Hinge. Um, yeah, I feel like there was another one, but um anyway, from prior conversations, you know, to me, Hinge is top tier. Hinges is your Del Frisco's, your Ruth Chris, uh Bumble, um, probably will be like a TJI Fridays or Applebee's, um, Facebook dating, black, plenty of fish. That's gonna be um McDonald's, Jack in the Box. You know, it's Target, you got Target, Walmart, Dollar General, five below. And you know, that's how it's tiered to me. So first time that I was on there, I'm eyes wide open, and I made the mistake of really just being, I guess, having too much integrity. I'm bringing flowers to every date that I'm going going on, and and a lot of them didn't deserve flowers. There was a lot of uh failed dates. You know, I've I've had women do cocaine in front of me, just bust out the blue pack, spit it open, split it open on the counter, and just and and snort that shit like it's it was it was just like like Sunday turkey and gravy, like just sniffing and like wow. I ain't where I'm from, we don't we don't do that, you know, like you know what Kendrick says, I don't smoke crack mother. I sell it like that's that's how I never seen nobody do that. So that was alarming. You guys know about the the girl um husband showing up. There was one time a um girl stole my wallet and went on a spree to uh Zara and Bath Body Works. That just that tells you the caliber of women I was dealing with. Um there was another one that got mad that I prayed over the food, and um she ended up being uh some relation to Neo. I can't remember if it was like his ex-sister-in-law or cousin or something like that. So, small world, you know, it's so cow living, you know. In Southern California, you're gonna you're gonna see stars and celebrities out and about, and we're all just you know, one degree of separation from knowing somebody in that ilk. So I got off. Got off, you know, called myself going on healing journey with the Barnes and Nobles and bought me a journal, bought me a uh a gratitude journal that was based in scripture, and I could write notes and things, and I'm going

Bad Dates And Hard Lessons

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to Sunset Cliffs and I'm listening to Guapole and uh Most Deaf, Umi says, and you know, I'm I'm on some real spiritual journey healing type stuff. I'm going on I'm going to church uh Sundays and Wednesdays Bible study. I'm drinking green juice. I got a uh seven-step skin routine, and you know, I'm I'm getting myself together. I'm going to farmers markets. I bought a plant. I'm a fucking plant dad and got a snake plant, easiest plant to take care of. You water it like every two weeks, and you know, I'm I'm buying jazz vinyls and I'm I'm I'm making reels and me making salmon and you know all the shit single niggas do to act like they ain't bothered. But inside, I'm lonely as far. I'm basically screaming for attention. Like, please, somebody man, notice me. I'm a good man, he's a good man, Savannah. That was me. So it got old. Get back on hinge, and um, I think this time what I noticed was everybody that I left off of there was still on there looking for the same thing. But there was one lady, she um, I guess I don't know if she ignored me last time or never accepted the match, but she was still on there. We ended up matching. That was the closest thing that I got to a relationship. It lasted maybe a month, a month and a half, um, maybe even two. I want to say like November is when shit got serious. Fine, like finally going out, meeting each other. I'm driving up to Long Beach or whatever, and uh she came down here a few times, but shit started to happen, like started to get stood up a few times, and and it wasn't it wasn't dawning on me, like, oh, she got other niggas. Like, why else, you know, would she stand you up and and then say, Oh, I forgot all about it, like and like nah that dude canceled on you, and I'm the backup plan. So, um, once I I kind of put my foot down, I was like, Yeah, this ain't gonna work. Like, I I you know, you you're a very, you know, bright and and intelligent and beautiful lady, but I'm I'm looking for something more. I'm dating to Mary. I flat out said that, and that must have like triggered her to get it together. And you know, we kind of took the next step, I guess. We started getting on a consistent schedule of seeing each other, um, going places and New Year's Eve roll around, and you know, I go to RB only. Um, it was still awkward. Like, I kind of felt like this was just for the moment. I never really looked at her like long term after getting to know her, after talking to her, and just seeing like we don't really like have any commonalities. Like we just own, we just own like two different, like I want to build together. You want me to to build everything and you just keep what you keep, you know what I'm saying? And don't don't build with me. And I I don't want to go through that again. I think love is um it's a two-person journey. And is to me, it's a two-person journey on a one-way street, and you only need to be going up no matter how you get there. If you gotta crawl, you gotta faint, you gotta cry, like whatever you gotta do to keep climbing, man, you gotta keep going. And I feel like with with her, it would have been um a two-way street. I'm coming and she going, or I'm going and she coming. Pause. So um after that New Year's Eve, man, uh, I woke up the next the next morning and I felt so empty. And it was the it was January 1st, it was a Sunday. This was like 2023. And I got up, got my shit. I passed. I mean, I had already like I was I slept in my clothes, like nothing happened, or whatever. Um, because I'm like Larry June, man. Like, I don't really, you know, get a good wood to everybody. I'm I'm I'm exclusive, you know what I'm saying? You if you get the golden pecker, you've been blessed. That's all I'm saying. I'm just let me stop. Um so, anyways, yeah, I just felt empty and I I told this story before. I got in my car, I didn't even say bye, man. Like, I just I just you know bag was already packed. I I took man at least about a little under a pound of weed up there. I left it. I said you can have this. This is my parting gift. Um from the dispensary, of course. I'm not doing nothing illegal on these uh George Bush Airways. But anyways, so yeah, man, I'm I'm driving back from Long Beach and I did I deleted the app again. I got home, I made myself uh my famous meal that I make on New Year's Eve. Um, you know, they say you gotta eat black eyes peas, that's the first thing you need to do. So made my black eyes, um, collard greens. Cause I left early. I left about six in the six, maybe like 5 57 a.m. and got in the car. And I was I was back home by shoo. I was back home by like 7 15. I was walking through the door, 7 15, 7 20. It only took me like an hour and 20. If that I'm doing 90, nobody's on the road. This is New Year's Day, January. This January 1st, New Year's Day 2023.

Healing Routines And Quiet Loneliness

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Nobody's on the road. Everybody probably still hung over. Nobody was on the five south. Like, it took me no time to get home. So got home, I cooked, deleted the ad man, and I said, All right, I just I just gotta I gotta get it together. This is a new year, my money is running out. Um, you know, I'm I'm looking for a new position because they acting funny at the job. I just had too much stuff to worry about and not take it serious because it was gonna be too it was gonna come to a point where I'm I dinner might be homeless, chasing all these girls, spending money on dates. It ain't is dating ain't supposed to be this hard and this expensive, but maybe you know, maybe it is because because of the location. So, boom, deleted the app. I'm working on myself again. I'm back journeying, I'm back going seeing the sunset. I'm serious, I'm coaching. Um, on top of having my job, I picked up, you know, I started coaching the kids because I wanted something else to do to occupy my mind. That goes back to an idol mind as the devil's playground. So um, you know, I started coaching at the middle school and at the high school, and we doing well, you know. Then you get midway through the season, March roll around. Boy, it gets lonely again. We three months into the new year. I couldn't do without it. So um about March 8th, I got on, got on hinge again, and I saw the same people. Literally, it was about six or seven girls that I had on when I had gone on dates with, and they were on there, same prompts, same thing. So I'm I was like, you know what, let me get back off. I'm I'm I'm literally in the process of deleting my profile, and I get a um a rose sent to me. Um, this is like when you really like somebody or you're interested in getting to know them. And um, it was my fiance. She sent me a rose, virtual rose, that is, and we talked, and it was almost one of them things like, all right, this might be too good to be true. Because you get to the point where you just want a normal person. I just want to at that point, I just wanted a normal, normal woman, you know, had healthcare, go to the dentist twice a year, um, just just normal, you know, not know how to tie her shoes, you know, has

The Almost Relationship Wake Up Call

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good hygiene. Like my standards are at an all-time fucking low right now because I done been through the ringer. Man, so I'm like, all right, she's normal, but she almost too normal, like she's too cool. Like, I don't know what's wrong. So we we agree to meet up. And this time I kept it simple, man. I'm I'm done. Like, I'm at this point, I don't have money to be wasting on rooftop dinners and dozen roses and parting gifts and things like that. I don't and shout out to my big sister, man. Like, shout out to my big sister Nadine. She said, You gotta stop treating everybody like they done one because you don't know these. Well, I ain't gonna say the word she used, but that's she said you don't know these hoes. That's what that's not my words, hers. I wouldn't call them that. So I took her advice, kept it simple. Sunset cliffs, um, is where we went for our first days. It's a place here in San Diego. You literally sit on a cliff, you're on the Pacific Ocean, great place to watch the sunset. Date started off great, had a battle, bottle of wine, we talked, we had our chairs, we get to know each other. Then that sun turned into fog. Next thing I know, we done talked so long, the fog done swallowed us up. And that's when I knew. I think I was like, God, I think uh you finally blessed me with what I was asking for. So, how can I not squander this? So, man, we started really dating after that, and and things are going great. Um, so great that we're going to you know day trips by ourselves, like, you know, staying overnight. We went to LA, we went to see Miss Sago. Uh man, we went to the fair, man, we went candle making. Um man, we just we just like really like like honestly and truly, my fiance is probably um the coolest person I've ever met. Her and my dad are just like unfazed, smooth, cool ass motherfuckers. Like that's just that's just how they are. Like, she don't really get too high, she don't get too low, she's very caring, she's selfless. And it it was new territory for me because you gotta you gotta think. Like, I ain't really like I was working on myself, but I think I was still trying to date out of spite. Like, I'm trying to look for the next best thing. I'm trying to one up my ex um uh ex-wife just in case like she's she's lurking or something on my page, or you know, want to see what I'm up to and shit like that. And that wasn't a way to do that, so um, you know, at first, um we didn't we don't really argue, we haven't had too many arguments. Um, you know, I mean we had maybe maybe one or two, and you know, they were decent sized arguments, but by the time we're over it, we forgot what we argued about. Uh and I think with me in the beginning, it was about unlearning the things that I did prior to her and knowing that like she's a different person. So this is going to be a different experience. I gotta figure out what I like, and I think the one thing that I've learned most being with her is patience, man. You gotta you can't rush the process. I always tell people, man, take the stairs, not the elevator. Because the same way you get it is the same way that you lose it. And I think there's beauty in the process. Going from goal to achievement is probably one of the most beautiful things that you can witness. Because when you look back and see everything that you accomplished, every hurdle that you had to get over, it's like that much more gratifying. And to do it with integrity is the best part, and I think that's how we arrived here just holding holding each other accountable, being honest, brutally honest at times, being there for each other, being selfless, understanding this is this is for the

The Rose That Changed Everything

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this for the sake of we, not me, not I, not her. This is a we thing. And when you decide to do life with somebody, um, and and you y'all come to that common ground, man, I think I think anything is possible. So so yeah, you know, I had a a real like loner mindset uh prior to to being with her. And then we're getting real serious. We good, I mean we So serious, we went to Portugal. That that August, mind you, we met in in March. That August, we went to Port, we went to Lisbon. And that was a trip for the ages. We had a great time. Lisbon's one of my favorite places. We went to another city in Portugal called Porto. It's about three and a half hour train ride from Lisbon. It was hot as fuck. It was hilly. Kind of look like Portland, Oregon. Like, go figure. Pun intending Porto, Portland, Oregon. Um, man, it was just it was uh it was a good time, it was a real good time. And they say if you can travel with somebody where all y'all got is each other, then you know you're good. And I'm my antennas were up, I'm making sure she's protected. I'm looking left, right behind me. Um I'm aware of my surroundings, I'm just like that in in general, like you know, that's just my innate uh nature. But when you travel with somebody and you're responsible for them, it's even more of it's it's even more of like a uh responsibility, I would say. So, you know, we do that, uh, we're journeying through this thing, and then here come holiday season. And you know, if you know anything about me from listening to prior episodes, I'm not big on holiday season because when when my mom died, the matriarch of the family, so did a lot of traditions, so did a lot of um a lot of connecting, you know. So I I really wasn't big on going to meet people and meet parents and things like that. And that was a struggle, you know. That was something that we had to we had to figure out together, but she was patient, and it's not that I didn't want to meet her folks, it's just I think I was looking at it from the wrong aspect. Like, damn, I don't this this is what I don't have. Because by that time I was comfortable, I had already spent the previous two, three Thanksgivings and Christmas by myself, you know. Um Yeah, it was it yeah, I was kind of used to it, so you know, getting over that hurdle, I think that was another um yeah, that was that was another thing. So just having having to get uh over my comfortable comfortableness with being isolated. Um you know, it's just yeah, I don't know, man. It was a very um it was a a very eye-opening experience, and I think for me, you know, why I tie it back here to heavy on the RB where I talk about the rhythms and the blues of life, because this is a point of view where I think people don't talk about from the male's perspective. When you lose everything, mind you, I moved here with nothing. You know, I had already had stuff shipped out here. I moved out here with my car, uh a casserole dish in my clothes, and I started

Patience Integrity And Building A We

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over with everything, you know. And it wasn't because I I hit uh beat or cheated on my ex. It was just two people there grew apart, and whatever she did, she did. I don't really have any ocular proof of that, and I'm not dwelling on that, but I think the male's um point of view is oftentimes kind of mistaken, it's not really talked about, like you can be a good dude, you can be um an upstanding man with integrity and honor your woman, and you can do everything right, and the shit may not work because honestly, we're all just on God's timing, we're all just on um borrowed timing. So yeah, man. Um so yeah, just moving from the the solo act into um a duet, and then really just changing the BPMs of my life. Like I remember being in Houston and everything was so stressful, you know, a lot of Rod Wave, a lot of a lot of uh suicide assistance music I was listening to. I was such in a dark place, right to moving out here, you know, to San Diego and everything is sunny, and even a cloudy day is better than you know a sunny day in most cities. And I'm listening to you know Victoria Monet and Lucky Day and Alex Isley and Moon Child, like the BPMs of my life shifted, and I just started feeling a little more upbeat. I was going outside, I wasn't looking over my shoulder. Yeah, at times at night it was lonely, you know what I'm saying? But I felt free for the first time in a while. I didn't have the bondage of you know being in the in a marriage or or a relationship or even situations where I was the only one present and kind of just doing life on my own because it got to that point, it got to that point in Houston. So um, yeah, I think just changing the BPMs of my life after just being in, you know, the um getting over the isolation phase that that really helped. Um, you know, it's really hard not to be in a good mood on the West Coast, even on certain days. Um, I'm very grateful that God opened up the door for me to move out here and not only move, stay and thrive, because there was a time where I thought I was gonna have to move back. You know, the job was looking funny, had to leave a company, I done went back to school now. Um hell, I uh well, it'd be next week. Next week, one year ago, is when I graduated from UCLA with my master's search. So um it's it's like I said, it the journey is is really good, and I think focusing on the beauty of the unplanned moments is what kept me going. Um, because there was man, I'm telling there were some days, it was some dark, dark days. There were some very, very dark days, and I'm sure I'll you know dive in more of those

Travel Tests And Holiday Hurdles

SPEAKER_02 27:30

dark days, and we'll get into it further down the road. But for the sake of today's conversation, I just wanted to give the other side of being a solo act. And when you do decide to come together and be a duet and and do the little things like still going to therapy bi-weekly. Um, I got it tomorrow at noon. Um, and this is going on five and a half years, and it's it's more of like a precautionary measure. Um, about to start marital counseling. Like, I'm I'm just really big on like kind of like working on myself because I just I want to continue to grow. I I like to think of myself as like a um a lifelong learner. And I think I am mastering I'm mastering me in the art of dropping my guard. Like I knew when I had dropped my guard down with uh my fiance because we moved in together. I'm you know, coming from the Bible building Houston and being in the church or things like you they always tell you you don't want to shack up and things like that. But I just started to ask myself, like, I don't think God condemned me to hell for moving in with somebody that I'm um I know I'm gonna marry um and got plans to proposing to in the near future. So, you know, that was that was a big fear of mine, really kind of just messing it up, and also really just starting over, you know, moving to a new place where you gotta you gotta be mindful of your money out here, man. Because you can get caught up in the Joneses and and trying to keep uh keep up with the the Southern California lifestyle, and you find your ass home was on the Imperial Ave somewhere. I done seen it happen. So man, you gotta uh you gotta really be mindful of that as well. So um, but yeah, man, now that we're we're doing a wedding planning, things have been pretty smooth sailing. You know, we're in a place in our lives where we're able to take trips. We try to go somewhere every quarter, and I think every time we go somewhere, it makes our connection even stronger because she's a very busy woman, she's an attorney, um, amazing person, amazing partner, and we both have demanding jobs, you know. Me being in tech and her being on the law side, like we deal with people, unruly people, I might I add, all day, every day. So I just think being able to unplug from that and pour into each other, man. Like, man, we done been shoot uh uh St. Martin, Anguilla, um DR twice, Mexico, Aruba twice, um, Portugal. Been to a lot of places. We're very fortunate and very blessed to do that and reconnect. So that would be um a tidbit. I would I would suggest anybody that is looking to, you know, if you're dating to marry, man, reconnect. It ain't gotta be you know out of the country or whatever, but some it could it could be a staycation. There's a lot of places you can go within the United States, uh, wherever you can go to to just reconnect and where it's just y'all and and your phone don't work unless you got great sales service or a different uh plan, you know. So, yeah, man. Just wanted to talk about the transformation of going from a solo act to a duet, and it's it's been great. So, I don't know, man. Question for the audience uh what RB track perfectly describes the moment you knew you were ready to let your guard down. Um I'll read the answers on next week's episode. For me, it was our engagement wedding, uh, engagement video song. Uh Victoria Monet has a song called How Does It

Therapy Moving In And Dropping Guard

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Make You Feel? And it's it's dreamy, it's blissful, um, it's very dope. Uh, and I think that kind of describes us, man. Like, how do because it's the way that love makes you feel. Like, I love hip hop, and I'm always on hip hop channels because I I mean that's where I'm that's what I am. I am hip hop, that's what I grew up on. But the stage that I'm at in my life, like man, like I'm about to, I'm about to take a big step. I got health care, I go to the dentist twice a year, I got car insurance, I got bills, I have a woman that counts on me, and we do life together and we're dedicated to each other. So I wake up in love most days. I don't really have time to be worried about what the fuck future talking about and what drugs he got going on, or you know what what Drake then did to his body and ab surgery and and nose jobs and yeah, out of circumcision. I don't know what the fuck he got going on. So most of the time when I'm commenting, I'm commenting on the character of a man, not necessarily music, because honestly, it ain't too many niggas' music I care about. You know, if your name ain't Rhapsody or or Kendrick, um or or some old school type, you know, like I don't really I don't really care. Like I'm casual listeners of most of y'all, you know, unless it's like Nick Grant or somebody or occasionally Wale because he was the soundtrack of my college. Um but yeah man, I'm I'm heavy on the RB. That's why I named this podcast this because it had a different name. My pod, my anybody that knows me, like when I was really poding and I had a strong following, the pod used to be called accidentally on purpose. But for one, it was too long of a title, and then I started to figure out God don't do nothing for me on accident. He's already ordered my steps, and he knows how this story starts and begins and it ends and continues. So um, but yeah, man, I I wake up, I wake up in uh in love and in comfort and knowing that I got somebody I can do life with. So I don't really I don't really give a fuck. Like I mean, you know, I don't know. It's it's hard to explain without stepping on toes and hurting people's feelings. So maybe maybe I'll do that at a uh at another time. But yeah, man, before we get out of here, let's uh let's get into these gripes, man, because I noticed something watching TV with my lady. Um we noticed something. So yeah, let's hear Moesha. So um the the basis

Wedding Planning And Reconnecting On Trips

SPEAKER_02 33:50

of my gripe today is just what we're watching. I always ask people like, why do you put a filter on your pictures, but you don't put a filter on your mind? And what I noticed is we don't have shows where black people are just allowed to be completely ordinary, clear-cut, and just okay. Like just doing life, everything today, it just feels heavy. Trauma, drama, hyper-stylized crime, hyper sexualized, or just like a stupid niche satire. Where's the Moeshius? That's why I got her playing in the background. Like, what are the what are the shows about normal families? We had one, blackish is gone. They didn't mix this, yeah. It was kind of ass. I don't know, man. Um, I think the power of the mundane is it's it's uh underrated. I think Moesha, like she was trying to save the world. It was just her and her friends trying to get through school, man. And they lived in Lamert Park. And when you think about like the stakes of a classic episode and her writing in her diary and getting a part-time job at the den and stressing about SATs, like that's real shit that I went through. Working at uh at uh White Castle or Teleservices Direct or TJ Maxx or AJ Wright while studying and practicing, like it's real shit that I went I went through, man. Like, I don't know, man. Like, I think we we all need reminders of like what it was like to just be black and exist growing up without so much pressure. When you look at a show like All American, why are these fucking kids going through so much shit at this young age? They got grown problems. Even with the Bel Air reboot, why the fuck are you sniffing so much cocaine, dude? Like, where are you getting this from, man? And I don't know if it's that if that's just today's kids or am I naive,

The R And B Song That Fits Love

SPEAKER_02 35:55

but I didn't have access to shit like that. And and if I did, I didn't notice it. You know, like the worst thing we did was snuck out the house to chase girls or stay out too late, you know, or get in a fight, you know, be some niggas. I don't know, man. It really wasn't uh lord, I don't know, it really wasn't that crazy, you know. And when you think about Moesha, she had a dad, she lost her mom, she had a stepmom who worked at the school, she had uh a brother, well, two brothers after Ray J joined the show. It was just I don't know. I miss shows like that, and I think um UPN used to really like really raise us when you think about it. So when UPN and NWB merged, I think it was like 2006, I because I was a senior in high school, they essentially took an entire ecosystem of black sitcoms, right? And they threw them in the trash to clear space for shows like Dawson's Creek and Gossip Girls. And it's it's bullshit when you really think about it. I ain't really heard nobody talk about it, and I think that's why we don't have a lot of like uh black black shows nowadays. We think about this. We lost girlfriends, the Parkers, one-on-one, half and half, and all of us practically overnight. Like that era proved you could have multiple shows on the air without stepping on each other's toes. Yeah, I remember when living single and Martin used to come on, you know, near each other. It's like, and you had different perspectives because you would take a show like Girlfriends, where it's like these are two sisters growing up in San Francisco, expensive city, and each and one

Missing Ordinary Black Sitcom Life

SPEAKER_02 37:40

is privilege and the other one ain't, and they just trying to figure it out, even though they share the same father. Well, you take half and half, and we watch that. We watch Kyler grow up, you know, from from high school to going to college and and you know, living on the boardwalk. Even Ray J was on that show. Like, side note, Ray J's a much better actor than singer. We're gonna have to talk about that. All of us that was produced by Will Smith, like, man, you had like from bougie professional college students without needing to explain or justify their presence to a mainstream audience, like it was just like premium programming on all levels. We had a lot of parody. I don't know, man. It just seems like today's networks and streaming platforms they only green light black stories if they carry a heavy, traumatic aesthetic. Everything gotta be a masterclass on fucking struggle. And I wasn't raised like that. In my household, black history started with Mansa Musa, not slavery. So I really can't identify like with what's going on. Why can't we just have a regular multicam comfort food sitcom? Like, if a black family is on TV today, why does it have to be dark and and just like loomy undercurrents? Like, it's just crazy. We we just gotta bring back the simple joys of family eating breakfast together or arguing on who left the last swallow in the orange juice, you know, like just little stuff, man. Like, it ain't that hard, man. Dear Hollywood, I don't need every black show to be an exhausting commentary on the world. Sometimes I just want to watch Miles and Hakeem do stupid shit in the driveway for 22 minutes, plus commercials. UPN had a troll code on us because it wasn't trying to be important, it was just trying to be real. We traded authentic comfort food for prestige, television, and honesty. And god damn it, I'm still hungry. That was K-Way's grabs, man. In the meantime, in between time and good people, I appreciate y'all checking out this week's episode, man. And now y'all know a little bit more about me. And I'll tell you the story about how I actually proposed to her in St. Martin on a yacht another time. But until then, please put value on yourself, put value on each other, and we'll have a value society. Peace.