The Truth They Never Taught Us About Black History, Identity & Leadership | Andrew Mohammad - Ep 21

Welcome to the Sense Only Podcast.

In this deeply moving and thought-provoking conversation, Alicia Mullings sits down with educator, motivational speaker, community leader and founder of the Young Leaders Academy, Andrew Mohammad.

From growing up without confidence to building leadership academies across the UK and relocating to The Gambia, Andrew shares the experiences, lessons and philosophies that have shaped decades of service to young people and communities.

Together they explore:

✅ Why identity matters

✅ The importance of knowing your history

✅ Leadership through service

✅ Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey's influence

✅ Financial literacy for young people

✅ Why confidence changes everything

✅ Raising the next generation

✅ The role of social media

✅ Community, culture and legacy

This is more than an interview.

It's a conversation about purpose, responsibility and building a future worth leaving behind.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There was a conspiracy to destroy black boys, I would say. The more we integrate, the more that we're losing ourselves. Yeah. And then we have another poem called Leaders Serve. Because the best leader is one who serves their community. Social media can be a life-saving mechanism, like how you're using it, or it could be the destruction to hell.

SPEAKER_05 0:21

Everybody needs to reach. 100%. It's Egypt. And I'm not talking Sharm al Sheikh and Herdika because we're just gonna be sitting there in the resort. No.

SPEAKER_04 0:32

That's right. No. I'm talking about we need to go to go and go and touch a pyramid.

SPEAKER_05 0:39

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

In of the tombs. That's right. Valley of the Kings. I believe in you, and I believe in your vision. And um, this could be a lifesaver for brothers and sisters in the future. Real talk.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

No pressure.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

You're born with pressure. It takes a diamond to cut a diamond. Where you're going, what I'm seeing, beloved, you'll be made into a diamond.

SPEAKER_05 1:14

Greetings and salutations. I'm Alicia Mullings, and this is the Sense Only Podcast. This podcast is for those who are tired of the noise, distraction, and disconnection in the world. It's for those who know that we need to be the change that we need to see in the world. Today, my guest is so special. My guest is so special. My guest has just flew in and come off the plane a couple of days ago and reached around here as a priority, and I feel honored. This guest once again, another person who is so glad that you're living and you're in life and you're alive at the same time as them. Another person who I see is doing the work. This person encompasses everything that this podcast is about. This person received the call and talk action. This person operates straight from his heart, straight from integrity, straight from mission, to care for our people, and the list goes on. I am so honored to have this person here. I was I respect this person on, and this is no gas. I respect this person on levels that I don't even think I can explain right now. I am honored, I'm so over the moon to introduce to you the wonderful, the amazing, the general again, the one that is Brother Andrew Mohammed.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Bless, bless, bless my sister. And um, please allow me the opportunity to bring myself back down to solid earth. When you speak like that about myself, my beautiful sister, I'm humbled to be in your presence. As I said, I've known you for many, many, many years. There's certain people who you don't have to speak to on a daily basis, but they're like your heart, you know, you cannot speak to for years, but as soon as you get that call or a text, yeah. And um, I'm gonna be honest with you, sister. This is coming from my heart. I feel absolutely like a flea beside you. Um I'm not mean this seriously, not it's not to make you laugh or anything like that. I'm just saying that as you as you were saying those words, I was thinking, sister, you're the one, you are the one. You've left a mark on my life. I don't know all about your life at all. But the little conversations that we've had in the past and the things that I just remember about yourself, I've still got you down as my designer. You know what I'm trying to say. I knew that you got style, you got integrity, and the more that I learn about you, sister, I'm I I just thank Almighty God Allah. I'm able to be in your presence in this time and in this place. So, again, once I've got that call, you're the only one I've seen since I've landed in the U. I've not even seen my children. Oh wow, you know, it's on that level. You you call that I have to just salute and we'll get on that train and bus and make my way across London to be here. So, once again, um thank you, sister Alicia. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 4:12

You're welcome. Thank you so much. You make me cry. No, it's it's real talk, sister.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

It's real talk. Oh goodness, please tell the people who you are and what you do. That is a good question. Uh to be honest with you, sister. I wear so many hats. I do wear so many hats. Um, just a brother born of um Caribbean parents. My parents were from Jamaica, born in the UK, went to school, very average life. I had a fantastic childhood. My mum and dad, you know, got a large family. Mum and dad looked after us very well. I've had a lovely childhood, and yet within that childhood, and I have to do like a post-mortem of myself, I lacked self-confidence. I was very happy, very, you know, bouncy, had lots of friends, and whatever you came. But deep down, I lacked confidence. I get to your point in terms of who am I, but I just have to bring myself down to solid earth after your introduction. I'm serious. So um, very average, didn't believe in myself, no confidence, left school with very minimal exams, success at all, and um from there, and hopefully we go into this a bit later on in our conversation. Um, I managed to turn it around massively, and I realized that the the only thing that limits us in our lives and in this universe is that aspect of believing in who we are, that self-success that emanates from self. Once I learnt that secret, yeah, I realized that I could go out and do anything. So, an answer to your question, Brother Andrew Mohammed, I run a company, a motivational company, which is taking me all over the UK, across Europe, across Africa, United States, and what have you kept. We do motivational workshops, we teach young children, we teach the parents, we teach the teaching establishment, teachers, mentors, and what have you okay. Outside of that, I was a part of uh establishing Young Leaders Academy, which um we got the idea from America in Milwaukee. There was a very successful Young Leaders Academy that was established there. We swept on the Alpha Winfrey show. Um, my colleague and mentor Ray Lewis flew out there, flew me out there, and we just kind of twigged it, the American style, to the UK style. So now we have academies in East London, North London, South London, Lewisham, West London, Coventry, uh, Milton Kings, and so and so it's like a whole network of young leaders' academy. We've been doing it for the last 20 plus years, so we we work with that at the same time. I've also built a resort in Africa. Um, 11 apartments we have. What um yeah, yeah, we're in which country? In West Gambia, in Gambia, okay. In Gambia. Okay. Which is where I live now. I fly backwards and forwards from there. We also established the UK National Black Parents Association. We have over about 1,500 to 2,000 members on that, and we give them online support as well as uh monthly live webinars and seminars where we invite special guests in to um help us grow together. How there's no there's no the universe didn't give us a a parenting book, right? And so we have to each one teach from philosophy into as well, you know, better practicing of parenting and whatever you case. So we bring in experts from different fields because as a community we need to grow together. We have to grow together. So, in a nutshell, that is what I like to do. I also run um a weekly, it's not a podcast, but it's an online show called The Hidden Truth. We do live events across um the UK. In fact, we've got one coming up this Sunday this next Saturday. Sorry, we also do live uh Zoom shows, and within a short space of time, we became the number one grassroots online event uh in Europe. Wow, not just in the UK. Yes, we we we attract anything between 600 to 1,000 per week on a zoom. So it's not even like a YouTube or anything like that. This is live attendees coming in. Um, and now we run it from West Africa, obviously, but um we get people coming in from obviously from across Europe, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands. We get people coming from the Caribbean, Jamaica, choosing, and even as far as Russia, China, obviously across Africa and the United States. So that's been going on. We've been doing that non-stop since COVID started. So we just wanted a way of trying to get people to wake up, come together, and let's let's unite on a positive level. Why did you have to ground yourself from that?

SPEAKER_05 8:54

This is incredible. This is what we need.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Yeah I put you in the stratus feeling you need to stay there. No, I need to be myself right now because beside you, I feel like a little chihuahua chihuahua, just a little chihuahua, just just barking, just barking. Oh my god. You're you're the one I'm not I'm not joking, sis. You know, I think like yourself, um, you know, from what I know of you, um, the Almighty has a mission for you. You're gonna be very, very important in in not just in the UK. I think that the path that you're leading towards, sister, is gonna be very consequential, not just for us in the UK, but I think you're gonna have a massive impact in America and in the Caribbean, and from there, it's gonna be around the world. You know, and I I think um the Almighty God is guiding you in ways that sometimes you think, why did you allow this to happen to me? But down the line you realise, oh my god, if it wasn't for me to learn that question or that experience, I couldn't even deal with this. You know what I mean? So it's it's I I feel like yourself says sometimes we don't deserve it, but there's a bigger hand guiding us, and that's how I feel. It's not because of what I've done and who I am, there's a almighty hand that's guiding me, forgiving me for my sins and my you know, whatever. Um, but it still just seems to guide me and protect me and allow me to do the work that I'm doing. Thank you. Real talk.

SPEAKER_05 10:19

That means a lot. Literally, as I say, I sit here feeling emotional because it's like if there's anyone in this world whose words penetrate hard in my soul, it's yours. Oh wow. So literally, as I said, what I said with you um before we turned on the camera that no album, as I said, when I had my fashion business with me, yeah, over 10 years ago. Yes, and you you was in one of your your um your seminars, and you made me stand up and tell everybody about myself and what I was doing, and that was when I'd just come back from one of my international fashion shows that I was in. Um and I say that to say that was a a key moment in you helping me to see myself. Yes, yes, yes. Because you know, as I because I'm such a go-getter and I stayed busy being doing all the things. Yes, yes. And I think very much at that time I was I was very much channeling just a regular person, nor mods or something, which is what I do, type of thing. And you made me stand up and be like, not only did you make me see myself, I was seen by yourself and other people, and I had to take a pause and be like, Yeah, I'm actually doing stuff, yes, differently, yes, and I've and I've kind of held on to that, and as I said, until this day now where when I can get into a bit more of a space of reflection and actually give myself a little bit of a pat on the back. Absolutely, yeah, which uh I have a lot of people in the world forcing me to do because I just think yes, they call it the power, the power of reflection.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

There is a power to reflect, yeah, and it's very important, especially for people that are on a mission, people that are fast moving, people have got ideas, people have got entrepreneur spirits. Sometimes where we lack or where we lack in the struggle is that we don't have time or we don't make time just to sit back and reflect. There's a power in that, and um, and that is why they call it the rat race. They try to make sure that we're just so busy running from A to B to C to D, and before we know it, our life's finished. Yeah, we haven't had time to say, hold on, let's let me step back, let me reflect. And that's one of the reasons why you know I did move back to the motherland where we're located in the Gambia is really proper rural area. Okay, it's not in the city centre, it's not where the hotels are or anything like that. It's you're just surrounded by nature, and all you can do all day is reflect. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, and that's what I've realized now. I thought, wow, being in London, moving fast, jumping from this to that to this. But I've had time now to live with you know, nature. I've got peacocks, I've got rabbits, I've got um, I've got ducks, I've got cats, I've got dogs, I've got soccer tortoises, you know, the big one. Wow. I mean, I'm surrounded by nature, my land. And um, I realize this is the secret they never taught us. You know, they've taken us away from nature, you know, and um there's a power in that there. So as much as you're on that mission of success, and you are on it there, believe you, sis. You are on that mission. Um, try to make time, for my humble opinion to you, that's all, to just sometimes reflect and see what you've done. Because you you're you're making waves.

SPEAKER_05 13:43

Okay, thank you. If I have the pound for the amount of people at the time we need to just sit down and reflect, yeah. There's a power in it. I hear you, and I and I hear you all. Everyone is, and I know it comes from a loving and caring place when you all speak to me. Yeah, I do hear you and I do see you. And I will take eat when my friend is at the moment, I'm like, yeah, well, I'll pause when I'm on the plate next week.

SPEAKER_04 14:12

I don't need to do better. I'll just pause on flights.

SPEAKER_05 14:17

Pause on the ground as well. Yes, yes, yes. First of all, I'd like to just say thank you. Thank you. Thank you to everything that you have done, you are doing, and I know you're gonna continue to do. And I don't, as much as I said what I said before in terms of I'm so glad that I'm alive the same time that you're alive to see your works, saying that, I definitely need to just say thank you for and give you your flowers because you've done such amazing works, and as you just said, you're consistent with it in your contribution, and I can definitely say from my heart, I feel safer in the world knowing there's people like you in the world on a safety thing, you know. Yes, yes, on different levels of safety. Yes, I'm a visit, but it's people like you who allow us to see ourselves and see the beauty in ourselves, and you unite us, you keep us connected, um, not only to ourselves, not only to each other as humans, but to to our culture, our culture, to our history, yes, to the works that we you inspire me. You're one of the inspirations for me to know that I need to do this my work as well.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Bell to you.

SPEAKER_05 15:31

You know, you continue to drop so many powerful seeds, and I know you drop it in so many lives where some people probably haven't even had the chance to even say it to you. So I'm saying from me to you, I'm saying it to you. You know, bow to you. Thank you. Um, you know, like I know that if my my son had lived, you're one of the what you're one of the men I would have sent him to me. I'm like, learn this man.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

We're taught in the Holy Quran that um never speak of the righteous as being dead. They are alive, but we perceive them not. So I never see your son as a past I see irrelevant now, he's in this conversation, um, is in your heart, he's in your vision, he's in your is in his grandparents' heart's vision, everything. He's alive there. Yeah, and he's walking with us as we speak, and a lot of this empire that you're building is gonna be dedicated to his contribution to the world. 100%. 100%.

SPEAKER_05 16:33

My baby boy stays with working for his mommy, he works with me, man. 100%. You know what? And I'm glad you said that, and you identified that because a part of me being so fearless is due to a contribution of my boy. Absolutely, Judah. You know, yes, that's it. My baby boy Judah. Oh my gosh. Um there's a new question that I want to actually start dropping in this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:59

Because obviously the mission is to help people take action and take responsibility for things. Yes. So I'm gonna ask you first, which I know it's probably gonna be easy for you to answer, but I mean I guess it lines up everybody else's comment as well. Yeah. What have you done recently that you're proud of?

SPEAKER_01 17:16

You know what? I've I've been thinking about that to be honest with you, and uh, I can answer it straight away, to be honest with you. Um, the most recent thing that I would say that I'm so proud of, and I'll go back slightly and then answer it as a conclusion, let the plane land, is that um growing up, I've always, and I didn't know how, didn't know why, I've always admired the so-called Wind Rush generation. How could these young men and women leave the sun? Leave the, you know, most of them came from the Caribbean or via the Caribbean, and also me being born in England just in snow, coldness. I grew up at the time there was National Front, Skinheads, mods, and what have you, okay? And to see our parents come to a land that they had no connections with, no, no one here, and decide to come and build a new reality for themselves. As a young child, I would just watch my mum, my dad, my aunt, and I was thinking, wow, what was that like? You know, that's like walking into the unknown and um and a harsh unknown, and to see what they achieved out of it. So, in answer to your question, one of one of my greatest achievements is to be able to follow their footsteps and moving to the Gambia, me and my beloved, we knew not one person in Gambia. We had no friends in Gambia, we had nothing in Gambia, but we went on there for a 10-day holiday, and as soon as I landed at the airport, I said, This is it. I've always looked every time I and one thing I promised myself, uh my creed is that I promised myself from years ago, go to a new country every year that you've never been to before. I love that. That is one of my policies. Love it. I don't care where it is, it could be Ireland, it could be Thailand, yeah, it could be Barbados, it could be St. Lucie, it could be so every year of my life I went to a new country, and in the back of my mind, the question was, could I live here?

SPEAKER_05 19:22

This is what you're my inspiration, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

It was could I live here? When I landed in the Gambia, before I left the airport, I said, This is it. I don't know what it was. You know, my parents were Jamaican, I loved Jamaica, traveling to Jamaica, I went to Jamaica so many times and da da da da da. But it didn't click to me, I could live here. You know what I'm saying? But when I got to Gambia, I saw Jamaica, but in the in Africa, I saw people calling me brother, sister from the airport. I had I had military, I had um airport police with rifles saying, Oh brother, can you just go? Huh? I've not seen that before in my life. By the time I got to the airport, I said, I said, me and my wife looked at each other and said, This is it. This is it. Within that first 10 days, we bought land. Just land.

SPEAKER_06 20:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

You know what I'm saying? And so to cut that long story short and answer your question, is that um outside of you know being a father and having my children, um, now the greatest achievement is that I've managed to follow my mum and dad's footsteps. I live, I actually live, and I have to pinch my I live in Africa. I love that. So when I come here, I'm a tourist now. You know what I mean? I I actually been teaching about Africa, Africa history, culture, da da da. But no, no, no, no, hold a minute. I now live here. I've got friends in Africa. I've got, you know, we've got a community in Africa from the UK, and I'm a part of it. And as I said, you know, um, that to me is recent, as I said, this is only the last few years, is my greatest achievement that I've actually established myself um in the motherland, and it's something that I never knew I would ever be able to do.

SPEAKER_05 21:08

I love that. Amazing. No, I love it. You know what? Because it's like I I know I have a a call into the motherland. Wow, and I've had it for a very long time, and and even prior to my calling to the motherland, I've had a call in to get off this island. Yes. I just knew I needed to get out of the UK. I was like, I don't know where I'm going. Same here. I need to get off this here island. That was madness. That was me. And then as I continued to travel, the the first country in the motherland I went to was Angola. Oh. Wow. Angola. Oh wow. If there's a place, it's not just much the place, if there's a people I fell in love with was Angola.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

I've never been there.

SPEAKER_05 21:53

Oh, you need to go.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Oh my god, I've never been there. Now you're sending it to me.

SPEAKER_05 21:57

Tell you about it, just share with the world in Angola. As I said, the first place the bubble I went to is Angola. The day I had to leave Angola and get on my plane, the wickedest piece of barley and I put down. You know when you barley so much, the little bubbles. Committed to the barley, that's how much I didn't want to leave Angola. Amazing. Literally. Um and that that I thought Angola changed my life because even just on another note, when I was as the plane was exiting the Africa period, I don't know, I don't know which part of the coast it came up into the Mediterranean. I felt it. I felt the energy shift from the Africa to the Mediterranean. That was powerful for me. Powerful. Literally. Powerful. You know, so then there's so then there's Angola. Then I've returned and I've I've been to Ghana twice. I've been to Ghana. And and and there's the second time I went to Ghana, I went with my pups. Yes. Yeah, me and my dad did a um that is beautiful. We because my dad's a busy person, he was just on ah, yeah, we need to create this business here. People, as I said to people, I'm the mild version of literally. So my dad was there, like, yeah, we need to do this, and then we we went as far as um we went uh just went past Kumasi and just further up, and there's there's actually like a British community up there, and they've got a waterfall and blah blah blah. So I said to say we was considering like moving and living there and bring another family and stuff, yes, anyway. That that just hasn't manifested yet, may manifest in the future, but hasn't manifested yet. And then the last place up until date that I've been to in Africa is Egypt. Once again, I'm like, if there's anywhere on planet earth that everybody needs to reach, 100% it's Egypt. And I'm not talking somehow shake and because we're just gonna sit in there in the resort, not I'm talking about to go and go and culture pyramids. That's right. In of the tombs, that's right, Valley of the Kings, that's right, etc. etc. I did the length of the Nile. Yeah, I did the whole country from Alexandria with Apple Symbol. Yes, and I said the true Nubian left that people don't know. Yeah, I did the whole length and I say because I did down the Nile, we did um a cruise down the Nile, yes, sleeping on the Nile, yes, yes, dreams that I could never even share with the world.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

But let's say there was different kinds of spiritual things happening in Egypt. You do know we're doing an Egypt trip in two months' time, three months time.

SPEAKER_05 24:50

I didn't know I wouldn't join two. But when you do next one, I'll I'll I'll return. I will return.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Just to back up what you're saying, that's all. Just to back up what you're saying. Egypt is next level 100.

SPEAKER_05 25:02

I'm thankful that my level of fast is in certain um tombs, or yeah, we went off the guided beaten track, right? Bossing corners, yeah, bossing corners, and you've seen some different things, yes, but the key thing that we were seeing was our faces that are untouched, that are round corners, they're not taking the tourists around there, yes, and we've seen some things, yes, and I'm not gonna do this episode on YouTube.

SPEAKER_04 25:36

Just go.

SPEAKER_05 25:38

Just go. You haven't been promise yourself that yes, just go, and yes, and it will, yeah, it will, it's it's gonna shift things, but you have to go with your eyes open because when you start seeing the mess that they're going on with, with it's certain things that like invalid the kings in itself, yes, you see the original tunes, and then you see the ones where and it's crazy because when you're with in the bus and they're like, Oh, which was your favourite tombs? All the people were calling out the ones that have blatantly had some cartoonists just coming and I'm sorry, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Weird, yeah, 100%. But what what was beautiful about that because I went to the first time I went to Egypt, which we know the proper name is Kemet, yeah. One of the first times I went was back in 1995. We'd done a tour. From the time I landed, I said, again, this is it. I've got to come. We we went every year after that, we'd done tours every year after that, as you said, going down from from Cairo, um, down the river now to Aswan and Luxor, and you know, um all the beautiful, beautiful temples in my UK. Yeah, and the reason why I'm saying that because I've I've done Egypt now. Um, at least I've been I've done at least 13-14 tours out there. Incredible. No, but but check check this one out now. Check this one out. We had a young sister that um attended our our after school. Yeah, yeah. This before we done the Westside Young Liz Calymore. We had a small after school in um Harlesdon High Street. Yeah. And um we had a young sister that was born in Jamaica. Uh her mum and dad or her mother brought her over. She lived in Harlesden, and they came to our after school club. She was there for a few years, she's in year six. Yeah, so that's about year um 10 years old. 10 years old. We duck that year we done a tour to Egypt, came it, and uh her and her mother said, you know, we want to go. Yeah, okay. She came with us and hear this now. They came with us, we took them down to the Valley of the Kings. We took them down to Ramesses the third temple. Okay, that's where the hieroglyphics are really deep set into the wall in there. And in that temple, we see the origin of what they call the Olympic Games. They were doing the Olympic Games in Egypt thousands of years before what they'd done in Greece. You saw all the templates doing martial arts, traveling, dude. It's literally, that's what you know when you got that term, it's written in stone. Yeah, so this that can't be played with. This is Ramesses. Yeah, before there was a place called Greece, yeah, they were doing the Olympic Games, yeah, yeah, in stone. Okay, this sister, the young sister, was so blown when we took her there. And I got literally pictures of her inside the Ramesses Second Temple, like just touching hieroglyphics. She was just amazed by the architecture, and she says, you know, she said, Brother Andrew, you know, I can't believe, you know, we try to teach our young people the world is bigger than Housden, it's bigger than Brett. When she came back, she said, when she's there, she said, in that temple to me, Brother Andrew, I can't believe what we were building. I want to be an architect. She came back, that was in year six.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

As I'm talking to you right now, she's in one of the top architecture companies in London.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

She she done a master's, she's done from that one trip. That's what it's so important that our young people are exposed to pre-slavery. Yes. Because if we say to most black people, what do you know about black history? They start with slavery. But she was exposed in real time to touch, as you said. You said you said we've got to touch the pyramids, we've got to touch the temple. She was touching them in year 10 from Jamaica. Yeah, year 10. Today, she's a living architect. And guess what? It gets even better than that. She designed my house that I'm living in. So you imagine full circle from year 10. Yeah, one of our years to years later, she's designing Brother Andrew's house in Africa. Incredible.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

You must be so proud. I love that. So proud. I love that. So proud.

SPEAKER_05 29:40

You know what? Actually, since we're speaking about Egypt, because as I said, I got so much messages and things while I was there. And we're not specifically in the museum in Cairo. Yes, obviously, all the mummies are in there. Yes. Yes. There's so many things, but what my thing, obviously, they've disrupted the tombs to take the mummy out and put it in the museum. Yes. And for me, it just felt it felt so intrusive. Because if you think about the mission or the intention that they had when they were doing everything they were doing for their ceremonies in terms of how they laid their people to rest and everything that they believed in and were cultivating. Yes. And a bunch of people just come along thousands of years later, dig you up and put you in a glass box. It felt like you're kind of putting people in a level of purgatory because you're blocking. Absolutely. You're blocking what they were intending spiritually. Absolutely. Absolutely, dear. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

No, that just came too because that was something that occurred to me when I was there, and I haven't had a chance to even talk to somebody about it because and I was like, same thing when you go to the British Museum, you never go to know that literally our people that built the pyramids, built the temples, they refer to themselves as Nuabians or Nubians, which comes from the land of Nubia. Yeah, which was a very ancient, they called it the land of the gods, to be buried. Remember, we say rest in peace, but now you can go to the British Museum where there is no peace. No, man, you imagine. And you see their bodies for everyone to literally go at. The spiritual path, as you just said, has been cut asunder. Yeah. We must say that how many countries around the world are asking the British, and the British Museum is one of the most famous in the world. Yeah, we want our people returned. We want our artifacts returned. Right. And they said no. Point blank, no. We hold on to them. So that's what we're talking about. That's our ancestors. We refuse to be turned back.

SPEAKER_05 31:42

They're just justifying their theft.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

Blatant theft. But these are the things, um, Alicia, these are the things that um our mission, especially in our education of young people, that's one of the things why we have to set up an academy. And our academies are not schools, they are leadership academies. These are things that these kind of discussions we're having now, they're not gonna have they're not gonna be able to have these discussions in school. Teachers ain't gonna know what we're talking about. Teachers ain't even gone to Kemet and you know, gone the path that you've been blessed to go down the river now. So the teachers are not qualified to teach them something about their real history, their real identity, who their culture is. And if they're not gonna do it, and we can't blame them not for not doing it, we in our own community must do it.

SPEAKER_05 32:31

I'm gonna say something very controversial now, and you have every right to um correct me. No, I'm gonna I'm gonna be that person. Please. When I went one of the times we went to Ghana and we went to Kwame Kuma's museum, I got upset when I went there because the standards were not what we needed in terms of preservation. The car is still outside. The sun burning out the car, dusty. How many years ago did you go? That was 10 years, 10 years this year.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Tell you a little bit of good news, what you just said there. I was there just last year.

SPEAKER_05 33:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

The car's inside. Oh, good thanks, and looks immaculate now. Okay, good thanks. So I don't know, but I'm just trying to say that. That's one piece of good news you've got this. Because I yeah, I know I've been there.

SPEAKER_05 33:16

I need you to know that. Yes. Because also, and then and then going inside and the the deep smell of chemicals and things like that outside. Preservation of that. In terms of us, yeah, I get the gripe of our things being in the Louvre and British Museum and wherever the teeth's call out the teeth, yeah. It's if in tea people's teeth.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Level of preservation. God, I know what you're gonna say. Yes, yes, yes, I'm not you're gonna say. We're preserving the team at the same time.

SPEAKER_05 33:45

So as much as it's not under our care, and it's like the teeth are actually looking after it, there's not no crazy chemicals, yes, it's maintained beautifully, yes, and so I feel like as much as and their teeth, and they're so they're not returning. I'm like, can we it is a different conversation that maybe could happen type of thing?

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_05 34:07

More more in the lines up, and not specifically licensing then because they're looking after it, they're caretaking the stuff, but at the same time, you shouldn't own it because you're a teeth. The ownership needs to come back. I'm like, I hear what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

That's just me to feel controversial. No, no, it's and it's not controversial. You you've made a very good point, to be honest with you, right? And one thing I've learned going around the world that the European, and especially the British, one thing that they can do is preserve. Right. And preserve it on such a level that um it's honoured. I can't lie. I mean I'll be a fool to argue you on that level. I've seen it myself, and I've seen when I've gone to our own lands where you think in England you would not be allowed to do that, man. Right, you can't go over there. That's you should not be able to touch that. Right, you know what I'm trying to say. So I I do hear what you're saying on that score, and I believe that we are moving on that level now of preservation and learning how to preserve our history. One thing I would say, because I was at the um Kwame Museum last year, yeah, the Kruma Museum last year, it's gone on to another level. Oh glad. Oh my god to hear that. It is it was one of the best African museums I've ever been to. I'm glad. And I'm telling you, no chemical smells. The way I was so blown when I went there, I went, oh my, we can do it. This is it. There was television screens and this, that. I just said, wow. I needed more. No, I'm telling you now, I was so blown. I said, this is it. They preserved, they honored it, it was quality, but I could see that it was all new. Good. You know what I mean? Maybe it's been totally refurbished and what have you, okay? Yeah, but the respect for the history was 100% there. It set the standards to me. Um, when I went to the um Kutakinta Museum in Gambia, like what you just said there, I was amazed by the lack of respect. Yeah, sis. We one look back in 1977, I was a teenager. And back in 1977, it was my first opening and glimpse that hold a minute, I'm African. And you know how that started? There was a program called Roots. Oh, yeah, Alex Haley. Yep. That when that came out in the UK in 1977, black youth looked at each other and said, That's our history. Because who we know is Jamaica, Jamaica, Jamaica. You know what I'm saying? Oh, if it was Bayesian or whatever, we realized, oh my god, that's our ancestors, and I remember that was the opening. So, cut a long story short, decades later, we're now I'm actually at Kunta Kinte Island. I'm there, I'm at Jufore. This is the the village of Kunta Kinte. And when I went to the museum, I said, Oh my god, that wasn't a museum. There was blue tech on the wall, and I was blown. I was blown.

SPEAKER_05 37:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

I said, until we can honour our history, this is it. And that's why I said I can't argue with you when you just said that. This is it. Until we know how to honour our history, yeah, then we can't really too much normal. We can't order it back because when you're even though morally it's ours and it should be retoken, you teeth it, and next y'all said, Yeah, but we've got to create institutions. Where are you putting it? Exactly. I can look after it, preserve it, because if not, someone's gonna teeth this, teeth that, next week goes missing, it's in it, it's in a private collection, in in in the president's house, and da da da. So you're right on that score. We've got to learn how to preserve our history, but again, that's not by accident, that was done by design, right? You know what I'm saying, sis. We were never taught in the education to learn it's done purposely, how to honour who we are. Yeah, definitely. Honour how history, in fact, in most countries, black countries and in the Caribbean, one part of the curriculum that was always missing was history. History was not a part of the curriculum. So, how are you gonna honour that which you don't know nothing about? Indeed, it's true. You know what I'm trying to say. So there's a whole process that we've got to go through. And it's people like you. No, I'm gonna bring you to it. It's people like you that's doing because see, you see, you see you see Alicia, what you're doing, believe me, girl, where you're going with this podcast and the potential behind it is that you are if you keep your eye on that price and keep pushing and keep focused on your your, I use the word empire, not business, your empire that you're creating. One podcast could be worth a thousand speeches by people like me. That's the power where you're going with this. Wow, you're taking it to a new level. You know, you including technology on a new level now, whereby one podcast will be seen by millions one, right? And the influence that you and the seeds that you can plant in that one podcast, I'll have to be running all over the world doing different meetings and doing different things. This is why it's so important. This is why I'm actually here. Because I believe in you and I believe in your vision. And um, I think that um this could be a lifesaver for brothers and sisters in the future. Real talk. No pressure, you're boring with pressure, and and as the Honourable Minister Luis Falcon teaches us this, you know. You've got a million stories you could tell. Yeah, yeah, just on how you arrived at this point here and the pressure that you've already been under, and the stress and everything that you've had to endure. But we're taught by nature that how are diamonds created? Depressor, diamonds are created deep, deep, deep down, and it's intense pressure that produces something so unique, so precious, but what? So durable, so hard. It takes a diamond to cut a diamond. You understand it there, and um, where you're going, what I'm seeing, beloved, you know, um, you'll be made into a diamond. That's all. See, don't be cry again.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

I received that.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

I think you've been made into a diamond. If you study your life, you are being made into a diamond. Thank you. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_05 40:34

I'm gonna see if the ND for some while impun the shelf. I received that, thank you so much. Respect there. Tell us about your academy.

SPEAKER_04 40:43

Okay, yeah, yes, the young leaders academy.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Um, we started approximately 24, 25 years ago. It was the brainchild of um a brother that was and is so dear to me, Ray Lewis. Yeah, beautiful, beautiful brother. He was one of the there was and 25 years ago, there were five black prison governors in the UK. Five. He was one of them. Okay, and he looked, he said, he said, Brother Andrew, I'd be remembered I'm the governor, I run this prison. And he said, all I'm seeing in front of me are black youth.

SPEAKER_06 41:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

He said, walking through his prison was like walking through the Caribbean.

SPEAKER_06 41:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

Just black. Right. And he said, Am I a prison governor or am I a slave master? Wow, you know, am I just in charge of this plantation? Wow. So he said, What can I do to pitch my tent, not at the bottom of the hill, at the top of the hill? What can I do to get to the youth before they are at the bottom in society? And he's been wrangling that thought in his mind as a prison governor. And one day he said he was just watching the Oprah Winfrey show and he saw a young man on a show talking about his work in the inner city and now he's built academies that are now putting people, his students into university, the top colleges, and X, Y, and the fact that he's on the Oprah Winfrey show, he had to be successful. Right. And um, as I said earlier on, um Ray Lewis then flew out there. He asked me to come out there, and um we came back and he said, Andrew, I'd like you to help me build our first academy. And I was with him in East London, and um we built it, and it was just it was just phenomenal. Seeing young boys coming young men, we we started with just young boys, right? It was a boys-only academy, it was amazing. Honestly, I could bring back the times and I'll just think back in it. You know, we had a very strict discipline curriculum, right? You know what I mean? But what was so beautiful that the academy is really run by black men, yeah, because these young boys are going to schools where it's just women, yeah, and they feel like they've been mothered or be moaned at an XYZ, they had no men, black men, strong black men. And so we realized that the same madness that they may be doing in the schools, yeah, when they came to our academy, they were like gentle giants. They they wanted that love, yeah. They wanted someone to be disciplined with them. Don't just do whatever you want to do, brother. Come here, yeah, brother, do this. Yeah, they actually wanted it, yeah. And we had, you know, a lot of the youth that were in so-called gangs and XYZ, and um, in a short space of time, we turned them around and they became men of valor. Young men, and we we Ray Lewis had phenomenal, I don't know how we done it, political context and business context. So we were able to put them into top companies for their work experience. We were able to get them into scholarships into Eton, Rugby, okay, King Edwards. These are like these are the ones which is like 50,000 a year to go to. Yes. You know what I'm trying to say? We bought them in there. And we put we made sure we had a pastoral service that made sure that they didn't lose themselves inside there. They came back. So it was an amazing success. And then we I opened up, we opened one up in South London, and then that was a success. And then he said to me, Brother Andrew, I'd like to start one up in West London. I'd like you to do be the head of West London. So I went over to West London and we set up our one at Capital City Academy, which is in Harlesden, Wilsden sides. And um again, phenomenal. And then as I said, it started to grow mushrooms to different places. And then we said at that time it's right time now because it the black male was really what I see was the main. I don't want to use the word reason, but there was a conspiracy to destroy black boys, I would say. Yeah. More so.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Yeah. And the black woman couldn't find a good black man because they've been destroyed. You know what I'm trying to say?

SPEAKER_02 44:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

So we we got to a stage where we said, yes, it's time now to bring the sisters in now. You know what I'm trying to say. And I really gotta thank a lot of the mothers and the sisters because it may have looked malchauvinistic initially. Why only why is only black boys can go to your academy? But we were doing it, there was a mission. I can see the mission without even having to ask it. I get it. You get it. Makes sense. Yes. And so it's many, many, many years later that sisters then came in, and our doors are open to all brothers and sisters across our academies. But the thing is, when you allow the sisters in, they don't play. They take it and they run it. So the boys have to have a good 15-year head start. I'm not joking because our sisters don't play. When they see something and they want it, like yourself. Yeah. You know what I mean? The black woman don't play. Out of the most entrepreneur, and they've done studies, not me saying it, they've done studies, and I've got the newspaper cuttings that I save. The most entrepreneurial person on planet earth is the black woman. Not just black people, black women are more entrepreneurial. When you look at when you study our parents, it's the woman that's the foundation in our communities, in church, or whatever it may be. They're the ones that come out and they push the black man, say, come on, do this or do this or come here. And you know, I'm trying to be a bit more laid back. You know what I'm trying to say? But the black woman, and I saw it in my mother, um, especially had that entrepreneurial spirit, and that's what we found that once we allowed our sisters into the academy, they flipped it. Yeah, they flipped it on new levels, man. And that that still applies till today. So we yes, we as I say now, academy is based on four, our curriculum is based on four main points. Yeah, the first is um history. History, history, history, culture, history, identity. Yeah, number one. Okay, um, as I said, the honourable Marcus Garvey said, We are like trees. If you see a tree that has no roots, it's a dead tree. And that's us. Yeah, but you look at a lot of our youth, our sisters and our brothers today, a lot of the madness you see them getting onto, I promise you, they have lost their true identity as a people. Not and you can't blame them, no one's giving it to them. Yeah, their roots are not grounded. Yeah, yeah. And I know that I failed all my exams at school, but once my brother gave me as a Christmas present a Malcolm X book, the lights were just turned on. I could not stop reading. I wanted to read, read, read, read, read. And one of the things that Malcolm X said in that book, he said, and it goes back to what you said earlier on. He said, Egypt is our was our granddaughter. A daughter, not even a daughter, a granddaughter. We had civilization before Egypt. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, and you know what? I mean, I've read that in the book. I said, Malcolm, I said, Malcolm, you're a liar. Because I'm just new into this. This is my first Malcolm X book. I call him a liar. I said, these black people have to talk some stupidness, trying to massage their ego. Because I didn't know nothing. So I said, you know what? Somebody said to me, I'm gonna prove this man's lying. Because Egypt has nothing to do with Africa, Egypt's in the Middle East, showing you my ignorance. Right. See, we boast in being ignorant. I've got an Atlas, an encyclopedia, just to prove that black people are lying to each other. And I looked up Egypt. Sis, I could that was my wake-up call. Egypt wasn't near Africa, it was Bang Africa. Bang Africa, Northeast Africa. But you see, in all my life I was told that Africa, um, Egypt was Middle East. I've never heard anyone say that Egypt is African. I'm talking about the level of ignorance I've gone through all of my school period, yeah, not knowing. But I was boasting that we're lying. Is that was my wake-up call? I said, Oh my, if I've gone through the whole of my school, 11 years of schooling, and didn't even know that Egypt was in Africa, what else don't I know? Hence why they call me the investigator. That was my wake-up call to start investigating things for myself. Don't listen to what other people tell you. Investigate. So when I found out that Egypt, so that Malcolm X was about our civilization, it made me hungry to learn. I couldn't turn it off after that. I just wanted to learn. My friends were that raving, they thought I'd gone crazy. Yeah, I stayed in all night and had encyclopedias, dictionaries, books, and I was screaming with excitement, things I didn't know, and they must have thought I was mad. Because they were out raving. I'm in my I'm at home looking up things and that oh my god, I didn't know about that, I didn't know that. So I went back to college with that new mind. Alicia, I'm not trying to boast there. I challenged them to give me an exam that couldn't get a distinction. I challenged them because now I love learning. Yeah, the same boy who went to year 11, left school with zero exam success. I stayed on sixth form for an extra year, not because I wanted to, because my all my friends were in sixth form. Okay. So I'm playing table tennis all day and playing blackjack and dominoes, you know what I'm saying? That was my sixth form. Okay. So I left sixth form, failed all my exams. Okay, but that's when I found Malcolm X. The following years, sis, every study I've done, I've got distinctions. You love it. And that just showed me that I was not stupid, I was not non-academic. You understand? So I thought to myself, how many other young people are going through school, think failing exams, thinking about I'm just not academic, I'm just no good. That's the word. That's self-esteem. Remember, I told you earlier on that I went through school with zero self-esteem. I didn't know why. So in my academy, going back to your point here, my academy history is number one. Number two is financial literacy. Because we live in a world of finance. Since me and you and many others, we've been taught Henry VIII, this, that, that, that, oh, yeah, do this, do this. But when we leave school, the next day it's all about finance. Yeah. Yeah. No one prepared us. This is it. Uh how do you open a bank account? Right. How do you not get into debt? Shares. Accountancy. We live in a world of finance. No matter what we do, we need to know about finance. So we said, you know what? Don't let the children leave school like us and not know how to first how not to get into debt. You know what I'm trying to say? Yeah. So we in the academy, we we do a lot of financial literacy.

SPEAKER_06 51:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

One of our directors, David, he's one of the best in the UK teaching young people about financial literacy. He's he's employed in private schools and that kind of thing, and he belongs to us. He's one of our directors. So we teach them, we do drag and den competitions with them, you know, put them into teams, how to create, you know, bringing, you know, um great black businessmen and women in our community to come and do lectures on them about business and whatever. So um, so that's number two is financial literacy. Number three is social skills, social skills in the sense of um who they are from within. How to conduct themselves in social environments, how to maintain respect for mum and dad, the power to say thank you and please. How to keep a door open for a sister. These are small things that cost nothing in life, but honestly, Alicia, could make you into a multi-millionaire. Yeah. Because that separate you from all your friends. So we teach them at social etiquette the soft skills and the hard skills. You know what I mean? You know, how to eat at a dinner reception. So we we teach them social, um, the social skills, soft skills, and then lastly, we then teach them about debating skills.

SPEAKER_02 53:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 53:00

Yeah, I know you sound, but um, no, I'll I'll call it um expression, which includes debating, for example, how to construct arguments, uh uh poetry, rap, how to ex because many a times you see, and I I'll talk it from a mouth perspective. Many a times you see a black man end up in a fight whether it's with a sister or with another brother, because he's lost the ability to articulate his arguments, articulate his expression. Yeah, and if you can't articulate, the next stage is let me fight. Yeah, so we teach them um how to study, how to debate, how to construct arguments. You know what I'm trying to say? So um they are the four cornerstones of our academy, but then outside of that, and that's the foundation, outside of that, we have um what's called fit to lead. So on those on those days in the curriculum, you know, it's it's it's like many of our youth today, they just sit in front of a computer, they have no idea about their bodies and how it works. So on the fit to lead program, to be a leader, you need to be fit enough to be a leader. So we may bring in, they may on that day do boxing, they may do karate, they may do um dance, it's a whole range ballet. Yeah, we get we take them out of their comfort zone, yeah, you know, so on those days, and then we have another program called Leaders Serve. Because the best leader is one who serves their community. So on those on the that part of the curriculum, we take them to old people's homes.

SPEAKER_00 54:29

Love it.

SPEAKER_01 54:30

You know, sit down with them, just have conversations, just have a talk to them, uh, play dominoes with them, do do their gardening for them. You know what I'm trying to say, fix up certain things in their in their rooms for them, you know, it's an old people's homes, black old people's homes. So they do leaders serve, and that's that is that's got bringing them back into the community. We may do days whereby um we have a whole lot of box lunches and we take them down to Waterloo or whatever to feed the homeless. You know what I'm trying to say? It's about that spirit of giving, not leadership. Ain't about oh, I'm at the front, I'm at the podium, and I'm telling everyone what to do. No, lead by example, exactly. You serve that community, yeah, and that will make you into the great leader that we're looking for.

SPEAKER_05 55:14

I love that. I love it. Because these are things that just sit so deep in my heart as well when I see I I I love all our people, but the generations that move me in different ways is definitely young people, young people, and I love old people. Yes, they're the two. You know, like yeah, if there's a relationship, and and it's a specific, this is specific to me, a relationship that makes brings me to tears. Yes, is when I see a grandchild with their grandparents and the bund, uh it brings me to tears because I had such a beautiful relationship with my my grandparents. See, I'm jealous of you now.

SPEAKER_01 55:54

No, I'm I'm being like, well, I'm just serious because I grew up not knowing any of my grandparents. Remember my parents, my parents came from Jamaica, yes, so literally I never saw my mum or my grandparents on my dad's side at all. Wow. They died or passed away before you know I had a chance to meet them. And on my mother's side, I was blessed to be able to, before she passed away, meet my one grand my grandmother. I meant my my granddad passed away on my mother's side, but I managed and I hugged her because I didn't have what you had. You know what I'm trying to say? So when I'm getting it, I wasn't even laughing. I'm serious. See, and I want you to go back to that, sis. You know what, beloved? It's something that I I know that it's hard for white people to appreciate in the UK what it feels like to grow up with no grandparents. Right. Because I remember being at school, and when it came to like dinner time, for example, I see my white friends could say, Oh, I'm just going down to my grandparents for for you know, you know, because they were allowed you to go out, but you know, so they or after school they would go to the oh, I'm going to my grand's, me and my other black friends. We could not say that. We had we never ever met our grandparents.

SPEAKER_05 57:03

Wow. Never knew them. See what you just said about the English people. That was actually my reality. See? Because my school was around the corner from Nan and Grandad's house. So I spent more time in Nan and Grandad's house than my mum's house.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

That's how it's meant to be.

SPEAKER_05 57:17

Literally, like it got to a point, I think there was a window of a few years. I literally had a bedroom at Nan and Granddad's house because it was just like, where am I even bothering to go home? See that nan and granddad's. Can you imagine?

SPEAKER_01 57:28

Literally, but can you imagine if you've never had that experience? Never that someone could never say what you've just said.

SPEAKER_05 57:34

Then and and it's and them people, you know, it's it's more my two grandmothers and my one granddad. I had my other granddad as well, but we didn't have that type of relationship. But I can definitely say major foundations in who I am as a as a human, as a person, and how I show up in this world is literally Goldie Mullings, Brian Mullings, and and Joyce Williams, my grandparents. I I am who I am because of them. Like, and my fondest memories of my childhood, I'm seeing one of them faces, like look at the fact that yeah, and the little things in terms of my my safety with men, especially why how people would see me, they could they could see me as a as a I don't know, a pick me is as a word that you use modern times.

SPEAKER_02 58:21

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_05 58:22

But I would say this is why I stand so hard for black men as well, specifically, because the people who dropped the foundation of me feeling safe in this world, I can definitely say was my maternal granddad, Mr. Brian Mullins, rest in peace. Deep rest in peace. To the point where, as I said to you, my son's name, his middle name was my granddad's name. That's how deep it was. Yes, and I shared here's and here's the thing, here's a sharing moment where it's it still runs deep in who how I show up today. I remember when I was about maybe about seven-ish, and I sat down at granddad's house and ramping. So I was running around the house in my 90. My grandad clucked me, Zelisha, go and put on your house coat. And as a little girl, I'm gonna listen to it because my granddad the way he was so firm is told me to go and put on my house coat. So I went and put on my house coat because granddad told me to, I didn't know why, because I feel so safe in this environment and I'm with my family, I'm just living my best life. It's only when I've become a woman I says that man, that moment right there is so deep, he dropped something so deep in me, in my identity, yes, in protecting yourself, how you show up, how you're around uh men as a female, and especially as a little girl. Yes, he knew. I'm saying you don't know that, but it was setting you up for your future for something to drop in my brain modesty, all those things, yes, yeah, that's just one of many things look at that of how important that relationship was, and then my and then my nan, there's a whole load of things with my nan as well, and the gems that my grandmother's have dropped in me, and even just the fact of that's that's how it's meant to be, you know, how much how much I love where we're from as well, you know. I I my first time I went to Jamaica was I was about three because my my nan made sure that we go in back, and granted, I know that's not for everyone because of finances and things like that, but fortunately, my nan and granddad did enough in the work that they were doing that they they could afford to take me as a baby. Yeah, um, but spiritually, my identity, my pride, my love for where we're from, who we are as a people, who I look in the mirror and who I see, everyone around me, and and and the list goes on.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:52

List goes on.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:53

Comes from them. I have such a and I see the difference in me. I feel like I have more of a love for home than probably even my parents. Yes. Because I'm the grandbaby. Look at that, look at that, you know, yes, yeah. I was on my mission to go and get my unconditional stamp in my passport for Jamaica. Because I but I'm saying it, you know, I'm like, I don't want that link to be broken because after me, it can be broken. So as a side note, anybody who is second generation from whichever country you're from, make sure you've got your paperwork lined up in terms of your passport or citizenship. Because when your children come along, they if you don't do the paperwork from now, you no longer have an actual collection um connection. Just as a side note.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:35

Fantastic note. Yeah, fantastic note.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:37

Yeah, so I was like, yeah, I need it needs to be done. And I'll get I'll get somebody on this show who can 100% break all that down.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

100% but um, but it it it it just shows what you just said there, there. But can you imagine a whole nation, a whole community of people that have not got the memories that you've got because that was that was all me and my friends. I wasn't the only one, it was all of us, and and and I was more I was in a better position than most of them because at least I still had my mum and dad together. Yeah, I grew up and I didn't even think about it in school. There's only late, you know, it's only when you leave school, you had to do a post-model thing. Oh yeah, looking back at all my friends, they all grew up to be great men. I looked at realised single mothers. So not only did they not have grandparents, you don't compound it. It's one from not having a father in the house or vice versa, a mother in the house. But if you've got your grandparents, then at least you've got that second chance of being loved. Yeah. Whilst your parents are too busy working, you know what I'm trying to say. So that was the generation I grew up with. Um there was that you know, we we none of us had stories about grandparents, and 99% of us never had even a father in the house. Wow. You know what I'm trying to say? So you've got to think about the mental gymnastics you ought to grow up with, you know what I mean? When you've got white children, and now obviously you're one of the privileged ones that could literally leave school and go to your grandparents, and that's why when you say that's why I wasn't talking about sister, I'm jealous, I'm jealous, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:08

And I think the culture was different in different parts of the country as well, though, because uh I feel like somewhat as a nuance in the culture um in London to Birmingham, we held on to community and culture. Still till today. So that's why I'm saying I can, yeah, I'm not taking it for granted, but I see the difference of the fact that I can talk so beautifully and boldly about family, and it's not even just immediate family, yeah, like uh second cousins, da da da da I know these people. That's why I'm like it's a like a sad truth that I have to share, and um, I have to kind of um tell people about at work who remote English people don't understand it. I'm like at my age, I've been to over I've been to over 30 funerals, including my own child, and I'm like, it's and it's not even like it's just somebody I know. No, this is closed to me because our community is so huge, yeah. You know, you're loving a lot of people, but then you're gonna lose a lot of people, and especially nan and grandad's generation. These are not all just a relative, this is my family. When I was growing up, nan when I'm rolling with nan and grandad, whenever I'm out, grandad's gonna go and see his breath and his cousin, and I'm with him as the baby, so I'm gonna know all my granduncles, I'm gonna know all my grand aunts, I'm gonna know all my second cousins and and them, etc. You know? So I and these are just beautiful things, and it's it's a shame that it's lost now and it's been I was waiting for you to go through that because I was saying, sis, the sad thing is that's dying. Yeah, that's dying, yeah, and I see so much value in it now because it's dying. I when I moved to London many moons ago, and um and um I remember my you know when they say your buddy keeps a score, someday we'll come around and I will say I'm I'm here I'm on my own, and I'm like, my buddy's so used to four o'clock being around the dinner table with my family. Standard standard, that when that's not happening anymore, I was like, wow, and then when I talk to my London friends and it's actually not a norm for them, I was like, oh, that's something you lot do up there in the midlands, it's not so normal for us. Like I wanted to shout. I literally I didn't have to go and drive. I I went driving around trying to find Caribbean future, I ended up in Holston, trying to find dinner. I didn't my body was like, what is happening?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:32

Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, 100% your body, your body tells the stories, beloved. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot a lot of this now is gone, and I think that is one of the key reasons for the lot of dysfunctionality that's taking place in our community. That bond, that networking, that community, love is gone to such an extent now where you can't even for some areas, you can't even go to another area. I'm not talking for youth.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:58

You can't even, you're afraid to go. To that next corner because you're not a part of that corner. That's a shame that I'm never a part of that.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:06

And the thing is, majority, everyone's family as well. I had a lady talk to me the other day, and she said she had there were two young guys in rival gangs. I don't know what happened. I think somebody died, and I think they went to the funeral. Both at the same funeral. And it's like, now that's your cousin?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:23

That's your cousin. And it is true, I had a situation whereby one of my nephews, I should say, a cousin stroke nephew, was seen as a quote unquote growing up to be like a bit of a bad boy in the area. A friend of mine um said to me, Oh Angie, can you come down because um your nephew is um troubling my son or whatever it may be, okay? They're both young teenagers, you know what I'm saying? So I said, Of course, I'm coming straight down, you know what I'm saying? I said, bring them down to my mum's place, the Wolfman Square, bring them down there, and um we'll make sure this is sorted out. When they both came down, honestly, beloved, it was like they were they weren't blood cousins, but they were cousins because the mother that called this Andrew, can you come down? She near enough grew up in our house. Yeah, you know what I mean? She was like a sister in our family. She'd sit down and have dinner, da da da da da da da. She's had a son, and these two boys warring each other, not realizing that they were near enough cousins to each other. When they realized we put them together, yeah, the beef was blessed straight away. Yeah, same, same with the same. Nothing happened after that day. Yeah, and I'm thinking, how much is this happening? Yeah, we just need to bring our young together that they don't know about the the family history of our our our communities.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:41

That's what I was gonna say. That's the work that we need to continue to do, it's just bringing them together.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:46

100%. And and you see, the only time that we're to be honest with you though, the only time we we seem to be coming together as a community now is what you just said around funerals. And I keep saying, you know, when I meet my old friends back in there, we keep saying to each other, oh don't let don't let it be funeral that brings us back together again every time we only meet each other. What happens? Everyone goes in the different directions, yeah, live their different lives. Yeah, and we hear that so and souls passed away, we're back together again. Yeah, yeah. Funals is the new wave now, it's what brings us together. That's rough, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:17

Because it once upon time, it was funerals and weddings. Yes, but it's like obviously we know the state of the relationship scene right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:26

We're not getting married, we're not building that community that sticks us together. Yeah, I see myself, um, sister, as someone who's very optimistic about life. Love it. I I try to be positive, I try to have a positive attitude, I try to meet people, yeah, Wagwan. Jeez, you know, you do the thing because I'm and it's not acting. Yeah, that's how I feel. Yeah, but at the same time as my being someone who I've I consider myself as someone who's optimistic, at the same time, I can see a time bomb ticking. A time bomb is ticking. Do you want to expand on that? The time bomb, sis, we are heading somewhere in our community where it's going to be severe tears and torture in our own community. We are heading somewhere there. I, you know, because of my motivational company, Real Talk Real Action Limited, I've been, you know, I've I've stopped doing it for a few years now. I have certain people that are going to schools for me now, because also I'm in the Gambia. But before I left to go to the Gambia, and I'll teach in some of the um pupil referral units or schools, mainstream schools might be okay. And what I was realizing, the younger the children, the bigger the time bond that's ticking. Right. There's something that's happening that we're not passing on to our youth. Like back in the day, we had that Caribbean connection. At least you're gonna put your clothes on, or whatever it may be, that is now being dropped. Our diet, our West Indian diet has been dropped.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:58

That church that brought us together on a Sunday when even if you're a bad man, you're in Sunday school. You know what I'm trying to say? Or you gotta go shopping mum, you know what I'm trying to say? Yeah, the things that kept us together, so even the bad man had to go for certain rituals. Yeah, we didn't call it rituals, yeah, it was a part of our lives. Yeah, that is all going. But what we didn't know, it was teaching us principles about life. Yes, you know what I mean, yeah, and what's happening now, we're now getting into this such integrated society, you know. We brought into that integrational society, whereby yes, it's good to you know being able to have you know your different type of friends, but not at the expense of who you are, right? Your individual culture and what's the the the beauty and the symbolism that goes with it, yeah. You know what I'm trying to say? Yeah, and so what I find is that the more we integrate, the more that we're losing ourselves, yeah. And when you lose yourself, you lose your true being of how to relate to people that look like you, how to conduct yourself, and that's what I'm talking about. The ticking bomb. Yeah, I'm seeing youth now that speak to their parents. Like back in the day, if you if you're if you're rude at school, I'm gonna tell your parents you're you're fixing up. No, tell them. You got parents coming down now, rasping up or cussing up the school in front of their child who's in the wrong. Right. What is that teaching the child now? I could be as bad as I want, yeah, and no one can say nothing to me. Until I get to a certain stage whereby you know what in life, yeah, tell the police now to bring your parents down. They don't give a damn about your parents, they're busting you up. And so our children now, uh Alicia, something like this, this, this, this time bomb, they've lost, not losing. I would say they've a lot of them have lost their cultural identity, which was their which was our safety net in society. Not only that, there, not only that though, they've now been diagnosed with ADHD and a whole range of things that they use now as an excuse to say I can go mad because I'm this. Yeah, you know what I'm trying to say? Yeah, or I can go mad because I haven't had my medication. I can now swear and cuss up and blah blah blah. Right. And the next stage, I'm talking about this ticking bomb. When I was growing up, and maybe when you were really young, you never had it, social media. Social media can be a life-saving mechanism, like how you're using it, yeah, or it could be the destruction to hell. For young people, I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:33

You see things that you would never have seen before in your life with a touch of a button. Right. You can experience things that you've never experienced in your life, or you wouldn't have experienced until you reach a certain age. Yes. But now you can just touch one button. Right. You can get all of those influences. Yeah. So young people now seeing things that we had never seen until we were man and woman. Right. And was ready to deal with it. Yeah, they're seeing it day in and day out. Yeah, there's nothing new to tell them no more. Yeah, that's the ticking bomb. And they're getting desensitized about sensitized about. At the same time, all this has happened within the white community, are being radicalized against them. They are now being seen as a scapegoat to everything that's wrong in society. You could have your British passport, it doesn't matter. When you're walking down that street, they can't see your British passport. As far as they're concerned, you're an immigrant. You see what I'm saying now? So now we're living in a situation now whereby we have been scapegoat and we don't even see it. We're going around like everyone loves us. We'll and if we are an immigrant, I'm a good immigrant. It doesn't, it's not that bad. It just takes one person to do one thing wrong, and you're gonna be blamed. You're blaming the whole. You see what's happening in Belfast right now. Yeah, you see what happened last year. Yeah, many, but many of us have fallen asleep to what happened just last year in England. Yeah, so you know, there's I say I'm an optimistic person, but don't get it twisted. I can see things just around the corner and it's gonna hit harder. And if we're not prepared as a people, if we're not doing what you're saying on this podcast, to literally find ways of changing and improving and renewing who we are. If you're not on this podcast, if you're not one of these people that's tuning into this particular queen, then I'm telling you now, it's gonna hit us, and we are not prepared. The Asian community, don't get it twisted, they are preparing, and they are they've got their businesses, they've got their mosques, they've got all kinds of power bases. The Greek community, the Jewish community, they've got their power bases. Where's the power, namely one power base for black people that we can run to say this is our our spot? There's nothing, there's nothing, there's nothing, sis. And that's why we're gonna get hit harder than anyone else.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:59

I'm like, what's the what's there needs to be our resolution? But I'm like, what do we do? What can we do?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:04

No, the the the solution is there. The solution, to be honest with you, Queen. The solution is very simple. And I'll touch on some of the solutions. The solution is very simple. The question is will we be ready and willing to accept the solution? Are we willing and ready to act on the solutions? Because I have the people like Malcolm X, the Honourable Marcus Musayagarve, Bob Marley, Minister Far Khan. We've had people coming left, right, and centre, giving us all the solutions. The solutions are there.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:37

Yes, true, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:38

But what is it gonna take for us now to act? Since I've been in the UK, since I was in Africa, to be honest with you, I'm in the people's business. My business is people, and I think the same thing applies to you. I know you you've got history of fashion, you've done all these great things, but where your empire is now being built is understanding people, yeah. And you've got to study the people that you're trying to reach. Yeah, I spent daily studying people. What what's the trends? What's the conversations? It's not about what I want to be in the conversation, what are they talking about? I want to meet them where they are, and so I spent hours, Alicia, studying people, and um sis. I've been spending years studying young people because that's who I work with. And the young people today, their conversations and what they're into. I know that many mature people, 40 plus, will not believe what our young people are right now. They're gone into the stratosphere, and it's gonna take people like yourself, your podcasts, whatever, to bring them back in because where they're gone now, and I don't really want to go into depth into where they are now, is scary. Okay, and they take pride in it, right? So they don't know, they take pride in it. Right. As bad as our condition may be and it's heading towards, believe me, um, there, there is a force in nature, and it's mathematical. There's a force in nature that will produce a person or people who is the antidote or the medicine for the extreme condition that we're in. So don't get me wrong, we will be the winners, but it's it's now how long is it gonna take to produce the person or people that are gonna be the solution? You know, the be ready to act. It's happening in Africa, right? In different places, the young are getting more aware. We see what's happening in the um in um Burkina Faso. So I'm trying to say it started in the motherland. That's it. It will start here in the UK too. Yeah, and I see you as a part of that wave. That's that's that's the solution. Thank you. We will talk.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:49

Where can people find you? You know what? Because I'm like, no way. I'm seeing the questions that are coming in my brain. I'm like, that's gonna take us another four hours around here, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:00

No part two, three, four, five.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:02

We do we do we do we do part two, three, four, five. Don't worry about that, dude. We we we there's there's there's enough time to do different parts, but um, yes, you can always find me on um my particular website is the um the investigator.org.uk yeah, theinvestigator.org.uk. That's the 24 hours. You see all the events that we're doing, the different events that we're doing. Um, my academy, you can find us on um w yla um dot co.uk limited, um.co.uk, sorry, not limited. That's our um Westside Young Leaders Academy. From one you hit you hit that link, it will take you onto our other academies. Yeah, W-I-L-A. Just tap that in, you'll find us. On Facebook, it's Andrew Mohamed, but Mohammed is spelled M-U-H-A-D-M-A-D. On um Instagram is the investigator underscore 555, and on Twitter or X Investigator555.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:07

That's it, amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:08

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:09

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:12

As I said, I feel so honored. I'm honored. I'm the old baby. I'm the Chihuahua, and you're the one. I'm just the look at Chihuahua, you're the main attraction. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:23

You you need to be a friend of the podcast, man. I'm like, it's a midstand. Yeah, man. I love it. And yeah, another incredible episode. I feel so touched, and I feel so honored, as I've said many a times, but it's so genuine and um I'm so sincere. But definitely get in touch with me, the usual places in the comments, get in touch with Brother Andrew Mohammed. He will talk to you as well with all the things, get on his website, reach out, um, maybe like children, send them to the academy. Let's take action, as I say. You know, there's people out here who can help. People have set up things already. And if you're somebody who would like to set up something and take action, because you've seen so much inspiration here. I've actually created a course. I'm gonna be putting it out on this website, I haven't put it out yet, but I will be launching it in the within the next few episodes. That's me taking action, that's me taking action to help you take action. So we're all pulling together, we're doing the damn thing.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:30

So, as usual, stay blessed.