From Expulsion to Grammy Winner: The Teacher Who Saved His Life | 2 Chainz

 I got into a little trouble in my senior year, you know, we all make mistakes, and at that moment, when that happened, I thought my world was crashing down on me.
 That situation, when I look at it, I don't want to change not one thing, and I'm gonna tell you, bro, it made me stronger.
 You know, yo, what up, it's your flip, partner two change checking in.
 A multi platinum artist, a Grammy award-winning hitmaker, hip hop superstar, two change!
 I never forget this school, and I never forget, it was love either.
 Miss Love wrote to the school board urging, quote, don't throw this child's life away, give him a second chance.
 So many years from that, this is tough, that's admirable, I appreciate her.
 Can I put you on the spot and can we call her now?
 I didn't know this was gonna happen, let me see.
 Hey baby!
 Hey, that's sugar, how you doing?
 That was a powerful moment.
 I didn't know you guys made it do that.
 Two change, it's not success that connects us as human beings, it's struggle.
 That's cool.
 Notice I had nasty about your Grammy, or your pocketbook, or rolling with famous people.
 I feel that, I feel it.
 To anybody that's watching this, that's going through something right now that's in the middle of a storm.
 You have to.
 Before we start, allow me to thank my friends at Canva.
 This podcast is possible because they believed in us.
 Canva has a two-step plan, go build the world's most valuable company, and then do the most good it can.
 They give their product free of charge to schools and nonprofits,
 because they are on a mission to create equal opportunities that empower people all over the world.
 Welcome to the person who believed in me, I'm David Begno.
 Today I am joined by two chains, rapper, entrepreneur, author, and hip-hop icon.
 The world celebrates the wins.
 But behind the spotlight is a man in transition, learning to trust his intuition, leaning into faith,
 and redefining what success means in his next chapter.
 This conversation is about growth and stepping in to the legacy phase of one's life.
 Please welcome to the show, two chains.
 That was good.
 Thank you, man.
 Thank you.
 How does, well, before we do that, allow me to do this.
 We start the show the same way each time.
 I'm going to throw this chart away, give me a second chance.
 Oh, yeah, no, this is my high school, I'm a modern North Clayton High School in the south side,
 and Atlanta.
 Of Atlanta, college park, and give my second chance is I got into a little trouble in my senior year.
 And so my mouth teacher by the name of Miss Love, she wrote a letter on my behalf
 to the board to tell them to give me a second chance that we all make mistakes.
 So yeah, I never forget this school and I never forget Miss Love either.
 Miss Love, was that her nickname or her real name?
 No, that's a real last name.
 That's a real last name.
 That's a cool last name.
 It's a cool last name.
 So you were 15 years old, take me back to that, 15 years old.
 You had been, what happened?
 So I got into trouble two times in high school.
 So when I was 15, I got into some trouble away from school with my mom.
 And I'm not sure we should go into details, but I got into some trouble with my mom.
 And they, and essentially our house got busted by the police for whatever was going on at the house.
 So when I was 15, I ended up staying with a friend that I went to school with.
 And I was supposed to attend court for whatever happened at the house.
 I did not know that they came to school and I got in trouble then.
 I got to, I just was doing research.
 It was like drug possession, cocaine or something.
 Yeah, so that was when I was 15 to drug possession thing.
 Right.
 And then when I was 17, I started peeling like a little, I'm counting a little marijuana.
 Yep.
 You know, nicks, say $5, just something, just something to, I don't know, man.
 Well, I don't even know the reason, but I figured like I needed it.
 And I come from a community where this was wildly accepted.
 You know, before I go on, I don't want to sound like I'm bragging about this, this hustling or whatever.
 But I'm from a neighborhood where everybody was doing the same thing much like in California,
 which you might see with gangbanging or even in Hawaii, which you see with surfers.
 And you know, if I was from, I tell people, if I was from Denver, I would know how to ski.
 I feel like that's what I would do.
 But I'm from Atlanta and we just trapped.
 So my senior year, I got into trap meaning because a lot of people listen to this,
 may not understand what that means.
 That trap means hustling or pedaling hustling.
 You just, you just hustling.
 You just, you know, trapping whatever you can get.
 Selling, selling drugs is the, is the gotcha.
 And I'm, I'm hustling.
 I sell something to a kid who, he gets caught with it, tails on me.
 And then I get into trouble my senior year, but my senior year, I'm getting scholarship offers on playing basketball.
 I'm about to just try to chase my dream as being a, you know, a basketball player.
 And, you know, this, it just, it just was a curve.
 It just hit me.
 And I end up getting, I end up getting locked up at school and it was not a good look.
 And so the school being that this has happened twice, they was just trying to get me to go to a whole another school.
 But as a senior, if I went to a whole another school, I wanted to be able to play basketball that same year.
 I would have had to forfeit it.
 And who knows what, what would have happened.
 But essentially, I can say that.
 I do not want to change anything about my past because all of those things put me right here in front of you today.
 I feel that I was supposed to go to one cause I was supposed to go to University of Memphis.
 I ended up going to Alabama State University because they called and they said, you know, I heard you got into some trouble.
 We'll love to have you down here full ride scholarships.
 I still went to school for free because I already had the grades.
 But, but let me pause for a moment.
 So I want to make it clear to the audience, the person who believed in you who you selected was Miss Love.
 I think Miss Love is very important because at this point right here, in this young, I don't have the wisdom that I have now.
 Exactly.
 So when this happens at me at such a young age, I do think my life is over.
 I can talk now because I can look back and I can smile and be like, look, you know, whatever.
 But at that moment, when that happened, I thought my world was crashing down on me.
 So put me in that moment.
 You're 15 years old.
 You've been arrested.
 It's not pot.
 You know, in the South, they demonized pot.
 You know, I grew up in the South too.
 It was cocaine.
 It was some hard stuff.
 But what were you facing like, like walk me through that moment where Miss Love stepped in?
 I go to juvenile and I stayed there for close to two weeks, not a long time.
 But I don't know.
 During this time, I figure I'm suspended, but I don't know I'm suspended.
 But they're really trying to expel me, which is ultimately telling me not to come back to the school.
 Right.
 Now, the teachers that are anybody that I even, and this is from a higher place, right?
 The teachers that's on ground level with me, they showed me a lot of love and appreciation
 because I was someone that was very adamant about my grades.
 I didn't make a scene until I went to college.
 And I like to tell people that I made a scene on purpose because I wanted to feel normal.
 I wanted to feel average.
 But I've never had never made a scene.
 So I always had A's, a couple of B's.
 And I was always in the like dressing and just being in fly.
 But being intelligent was like a part of something that I wanted to be growing up.
 I wanted to be a smart black man, intelligent black man.
 Where did that desire come from?
 Who did you see that you wanted to be?
 I feel like my mom and my dad, my mom, finished college, my dad, my whole dad's side are like doctors
 and architects and engineers.
 And I just feel like ultimately in my family, it was, it was shone upon.
 Right now we could say broken English, but in my household, my mom will correct that on the spot.
 My, I have about 30 nicknames right now, but on my, like my grandmother on my dad's side, she didn't believe in nicknames.
 They were just like this little, little strict community.
 My, my, my, my grand, my dad's dad was a Mason.
 In the fact that he built, he, he built, he worked with bricks.
 He built, helped build Tuskegee in different places in Detroit and all this.
 So they were really good with their hands, but they were very intelligent as far as my immediate family was the ones that I think installed education at.
 And me at a very early age.
 Let me take you back to Miss Love.
 Okay.
 So you're at juvenile.
 You think you might be suspended.
 The school's like, nope, we're going to expel you.
 Miss Love steps in.
 Tell me about that exact moment. Walk me through it.
 At this point, I don't know that she has done anything for me.
 I have to go to some meeting or some type of engagement with me, with me, my mom, and a few people from the board of education to see if they will allow me to go back into school and finish my scene.
 You're playing basketball.
 The basketball season has started.
 I haven't played a game because I haven't been in school.
 It's six letters that come through.
 It's six letters from six different teachers and people at the school.
 It was six.
 I never forget that.
 But the one letter that stood out to me was the one that Miss Love wrote.
 And me and her are still cool to this day.
 What did Miss Love say?
 Basically in the letter that I can remember because it was, you know, over 20 years ago.
 She basically said, get this child a second chance in a nutshell.
 That's how it ended.
 The first part was merely saying that we all make mistakes.
 She can attest that I'm someone that really cares about, get my work done.
 And you know, at this point, I wasn't someone that was skipping school.
 I was having perfect attendance and all of that.
 So it was just like, it was more like a good character letter.
 Let me give the audience a little sense of Miss Love's background.
 Miss Love was a college prep geometry teacher at North Clayton High School.
 I was taking college prep classes.
 I mean, how could I forget?
 Yeah, exactly.
 And she had this incredible impact on senior name.
 Now, I don't want to pronounce your birth name.
 How do you pronounce it?
 My name is Taheed Epps.
 Taheed Epps.
 When he faced expulsion under the school's zero tolerance drug policy, threatening his basketball eligibility and college prospects.
 Miss Love wrote to the school board urging, quote, don't throw this child's life away.
 Give him a second chance.
 He was one of the few teachers who understood his circumstances.
 She saw a high achieving student trying to survive rather than a lost cause.
 And chose compassion when others withdrew.
 Wow.
 That's tough even so many years from then.
 This is, this is tough.
 That's admirable.
 I appreciate her.
 So I'm going to have to give her a call later on today.
 I mean, I just want you to understand that's why this show exists.
 It's so people like you who are icons to many can come and tell us about somebody who believed in them before they were famous.
 Yeah, that's, that's, you know, I think the cliche thing would be to say my parents or my wife.
 Right. Right. Right.
 Because they're supposed, I feel like they should, they're supposed to believe me.
 Agreed. Agreed. Yeah.
 So the cliche thing would have been like, you know, my pops.
 He was tough for me.
 I'm a mom.
 She always believed in me and supported me or my wife.
 You know, she knew me when I was trying to sell CDs out my trunk.
 But essentially somebody from the outside looking in, it just hits differently, right?
 Yes.
 They only know you from the experiences that they share with you.
 And they formed their opinion based on, you know, that relationship.
 So, you know, just, just, when you read that it just took me back to me, feeling like,
 because I don't have a brother of sisters, you know, it was just being me and my mom for a long time.
 So, you know, used to feel alone sometimes, you know what I mean?
 Used, I used, my smile is like a defense mechanism when I was going through, through stuff.
 So somebody that God puts in your life like a Miss Love who can just say these things.
 So eloquently about like, you know, surviving over it being a more trendy thing.
 Like I wasn't doing what I was doing to like be cool at the time, so to speak.
 Like, you know, I'm from an era where it was like supposed to be like a secret.
 I wasn't like something I would talk about or brag about or something like that.
 Yeah, it wasn't cool at all.
 Have you ever thanked her and told her thank you for believing in me?
 I think I have many times.
 I have to do this, but I think I have.
 We still have a relationship, if she calls me, I answer.
 She has my phone number, so.
 Yeah.
 Can I put you on the spot and can we call her now?
 Just to see how she responds.
 Oh, we could try that.
 Because I'd love to celebrate her in real time.
 If she answers.
 That's right, man.
 It's love, she asks.
 Let me look her right.
 This is, I didn't know this was going to happen.
 Let me see.
 I think it's so damn cool that somebody like you would celebrate somebody like her.
 Let me see.
 It's love.
 Come on, baby.
 Hey, baby.
 What you doing?
 You won't believe this.
 Okay, so I have to tell you, I'm doing a podcast in California and they asked about somebody
 that I felt like believed in me before I became.
 And I told them about you.
 And so they dared me to call you because I told them I still have a rapport with you and I still love you.
 I thought about you last week and I think I touched you to see how you were doing.
 You need to text me.
 Well, I must have tasted wrong number, but that was my intention to take you to see how you were doing.
 Miss Love, my name is David Begno and I would love to ask you a question.
 How does it feel to hear two chains say that you are the person who believed in him at a time when it mattered so much when he was a child?
 I feel wonderful because he was one of my favorite people and I always knew this won't be successful because he had work ethics.
 And when I didn't feel good in the classroom, he took over and then controlled the classroom like he was a teacher.
 I knew he had leadership skills and abilities.
 And I put a lot into him because I just believed that he was going to be successful.
 And matter of fact, he told me one day, he and I were talking, I was giving him a lecture about how to dress and do this and he just basically told me,
 I'm going to have my own business and I'm not going to work for anybody but myself and I'm going to be successful.
 And I said, you sure are.
 And I'll never forget that conversation.
 And I feel like he called me some stuff as well because in my generation, we were taught all the time that we were going to, you know, we had to work with people.
 You know, we never taught entrepreneurship.
 And he opened my eyes so there's a different way.
 And because of his success, I became a better teacher.
 How does it feel to hear that, man?
 I know.
 He taught me how to think different about career choices.
 I'd like to take you back, Miss Love, to that time when he was 15 years old, he had been arrested for cocaine possession.
 He had gone to Juvie and he was going to be expelled and you wrote a letter to the school board basically asking them to save this child.
 Do you remember that?
 Yes.
 Why did you do that? What was on your mind and your heart when you did that?
 I knew that the know what kind of teacher I was.
 I loved all my children and they were my own.
 And whatever it took to save him because I knew he had greater things to do than go to jail.
 And I wasn't the only teacher.
 It was a group of us.
 He impacted all of his teachers.
 He had an impact on all of his teachers.
 We truly believed in him because, like I said, he was teaching us to...
 Well, Miss Love, first of all, I can't believe your name is Miss Love.
 That's pretty amazing.
 And, you know, I just want to thank you for being an example of what good teachers can be and what it means to be a good teacher.
 I tried to impact teachers before I left the education that became a stretch of facilitator.
 And my goal was to teach them how to love.
 I can teach you how to teach, but I can't teach you how to love.
 So I said that again.
 I talked to the principal all the time.
 If they learn how to love their students, they'll have less discipline problems.
 Well, Miss Love, you are still teaching today, Miss Love.
 And we thank you for that.
 Miss Love, I love you.
 I'm going to finish up.
 I'm going to wrap up this part with him.
 And I'll give you a call when I get done with this.
 I appreciate you answering the phone.
 I love you, baby.
 I know you are.
 Thank you, Miss Love.
 I love you.
 Bye-bye.
 That was a powerful moment.
 I didn't know you were going to ask me to do that.
 Well, I didn't know I was going to ask it either.
 It just felt...
 How many of you asked me to do it?
 It was on my heart.
 Now, let me see if you line right quick.
 No, no, no, no, no, it was on my heart.
 It's like, you know, I know we're going to get to this part.
 But my book is all about what you just did.
 That's something told me that something just told...
 At the blue, it's just on a whim.
 Just that, like that inner monologue.
 And you like, I didn't even know I was going to tell you to do that.
 But it's just something told you to do it.
 So that's kind of like, you know, the book I have coming out called The Voice in my head is God.
 So it's like, it's just, everything is kind of inner twiner right now.
 It's just...
 In the book, in the book, you use the word intuition.
 Yeah.
 And I love that word.
 I also call it just sort of the gut instinct.
 And I saw.
 Yeah, is that right?
 What's just, is this happening?
 When did you first tap into your intuition?
 So I'm only child and not been a kid.
 I've had a couple of imaginary friends because I think I used to just be like,
 you know, I would just be rambling to myself some time.
 Yeah.
 And my mom used to be like, oh, crazy, crazy boy, you know.
 So this is early on.
 But I don't know anything about the intuition thing.
 I don't...
 You have to learn this stuff, right?
 You're not born.
 You're just...
 You don't born...
 Right.
 You're not born on what intuition is, bro.
 No.
 Then you have to put it with how you've been feeling once you learn it.
 Right.
 And it's just like this whole...
 You have to live long enough.
 Basically, you have to live long enough.
 You need life experiences.
 You have to live long enough to come up with these ideas that I'm expressing in my book.
 And the voice in my head is God.
 Basically came from a place that when I have listened to that voice in a clear space quietly,
 which I listen to every single day, it has led me in the right direction.
 So I go back to when the real idea and the title came from...
 I found some letters from...
 My purpose was incarcerated for a few years.
 Okay.
 So I found some letters from like 2003 around Thanksgiving.
 And all these letters that he used to write me from when I was a child had God is love,
 written on the back of the envelope.
 God is love, God is love.
 I just...
 I see it.
 I tear it open.
 I read the letter.
 God is love.
 I see it.
 I see it.
 God is love.
 And then recently, a few years ago, for some reason, I took the ears out.
 And I put an equal sign.
 And it said, like, God, in my mind, like, God in love are the same thing.
 You got to have love and something for it to be, you know, whole, so to speak.
 And so when I did this book, it's like when I listened to this voice,
 this voice is coming from like a place of love.
 It's coming from a place where it's saying, you should go...
 You should do that.
 You should go out on a whim.
 And then we also have a voice that tells us the effort voice that tells us to do something crazy.
 Right.
 But if you can distinguish between those two, it's just...
 It's just like I'm just trying to get a word or something.
 I didn't want to do an autobiographical book as a rapper because I feel like it's just cliché.
 All rappers talk about struggling, section eight projects, you know, stuff like that.
 So I want to find an eloquent way to talk about maybe some of my journeys
 but talk about how the voice in my head led me to either do the right thing when this happened or do the wrong thing.
 When was there a time when you didn't listen to the intuition?
 We all have.
 We all have.
 Give me an example.
 So in the book also, I talk about women being superheroes because I feel like women are naturally born with intuition.
 They just know.
 They just have this gut feeling and I'm raising around all these women.
 And so the night that this happened, I'm going to tie this together with Ms. Love and me,
 the night before I went to school and got in trouble for selling this stuff.
 Okay.
 Ms. Love wrote about, my mom saw me sacking up this stuff and she said, you're going to take all that to school.
 So in my book, I'm thinking you're going to take all of what school?
 So the cocaine thing and the weed thing are two different incidents.
 Okay.
 So she saw me sacking the weed up.
 Got to take it to school.
 To take it to school.
 Got to sell it at school.
 I'm sacking this weed up.
 Got it.
 And me and my mom are like best friends.
 So she knew I was already hustling.
 She knew it was not a surprise.
 Got you.
 My mom smoked.
 We smoked together now.
 We've been going on for years.
 Yep.
 Probably not your normal household is.
 I'm sorry.
 But also legal in California where you live now.
 Yeah.
 I'm not sorry.
 And so my mom comes in and she says, you sure you're going to take all that weed to school.
 Now, it looks like a lot of weed, but there's only these little sacks of nicks.
 These little five dollar sacks.
 It just looks like a lot, but it's really not that much.
 It's probably not even a hundred dollars worth of weed, but they like they five dollars worth.
 Okay.
 So my mom, I think that something was telling her I could not register at the time.
 I'm too young to understand what intuition is.
 Right.
 My mom is a woman that's been through so much.
 So she has that voice and all that has already had, has had this voice forever.
 So during this incident, my mom is trying to, I feel like at the time when I reflect back, she's trying to tell me not to do what I'm about to do.
 Like, I can't say that she felt on Thursday night that I was going to get locked up that Friday, miss my SAT on Saturday, blow my scholarships for whatever future I was about to have.
 But she said to me when she called and came in the room, which is she never does.
 When I'm sacking up this stuff, wow, Ty, that's a lot.
 You sure you want to bring on that school?
 Mom, this ain't it.
 I tell the, I remember like it's yesterday.
 I said, uh, man, tomorrow Friday.
 They're going by all this stuff.
 She said, you sure?
 I said, yeah, man.
 That was the voice saying.
 I don't know.
 I don't know.
 I just hear.
 You know what I mean?
 But she heard.
 And so in the book, I have this superhero watch.
 These women are superheroes chapter where I talk about the women in my life that I've been around that has heard this voice.
 And I couldn't hear it.
 You say the voice in your head is not the same thing as coincidence, right?
 That's different.
 And you say it's like being connected.
 Why if I connected to a higher power?
 That's it.
 Starling.
 I mean, whatever it was.
 Yeah, Starling.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Do you listen to that voice daily?
 Is it a daily practice this morning?
 This morning.
 This morning.
 This morning.
 I mean, it's just my routine.
 What I'm aware is my voice is telling me all of that.
 I'm sure my voice tells me what I'm aware.
 What I'm going to be doing all day.
 What car to take?
 Should we ride with a driver?
 Should we drive our own car?
 It's really, it probably will ignore some, it probably will annoy most people.
 But I'm so tuned in that every single thing I'm doing is coming from my head.
 I need to take a moment just to thank Canva for backing this podcast.
 Their support is what makes these conversations possible.
 Canva is guided by a clear idea.
 Build something incredibly valuable and then use it to do real good in the world.
 That's why they provide their tools free of charge to schools and nonprofits,
 helping to create equal access and opportunity for people all over the world.
 What would you say to somebody listening to this who says,
 why would you listen to that voice?
 Like, how do you know that that voice is telling you the right thing?
 Because it's coming from a place of love.
 And God and love are the same thing.
 And so when I have listened to it, I have had a positive outcome.
 So I have data that when I have listened to this voice.
 When I go home from the studio, I can go home two or three different ways.
 Literally every night I go home from the studio, it might be a different way.
 And then I'm talking to myself because I'm saying,
 oh man, this is, you know, I'm talking back to my mother.
 This is stupid. Just go straight.
 And then some says, but what if you hit a deer?
 Or what if you run into a roadblock?
 You know, you're here, you know what I mean?
 And so I say, okay, I'll just make this right.
 And this is me, this is me five, six in the morning going back to my house,
 leaving my studio.
 This is how I'm talking and how old were you when you started listening to that voice?
 That's a great question, bro.
 So when you listen to this voice, you may ask other people's opinions,
 but you make your own decisions based off that gut feeling.
 So I feel like when did you start honoring it as I recognize it?
 And I'm going to act on it.
 I think when I became a musician, right?
 Because you don't know.
 And it's up, it's your opinions, they start from your peer group, your friends.
 So to speak right, your friends, they say, yeah, man, that's pretty good.
 And they're comparing that to what they hear out in the market.
 So for me, I think when I started making music and I would be like,
 what'd you think about that?
 But at the same time, I would know like this makes me feel good.
 This is it.
 So I think my music journey was a part of some of the things that helped me lock in
 and know that this voice was coming from a positive place.
 And it made me believe in myself during my developmental stage.
 The women in your life, the mother, the grandmother, the wife,
 are, you portray them as the superheroes, right?
 A lot of wisdom and restraint and foresight.
 Your mom warned you about the people you kept around you, right?
 Even the cars you drove at ASU.
 How often did her intuition prove right to you?
 Moms are always right.
 Moms are always right.
 I have kids now.
 And they think they are always right.
 It's just a cycle, right?
 They just think we don't know anything, parents don't.
 And that's how, when you're growing up, I grew up in a fast lane.
 So I would think that I knew more than my mom at times,
 when clearly she had been on this earth long enough to know,
 you know, the outcomes of certain situations.
 So, you know, with that being said, I still listen to her during this day.
 Now sometimes, I still try to brush it off because that's what kids do, right?
 It's like everything keeps changing, right?
 But a lot of the times with the parents, they are still thinking the same.
 They still believe in whatever they believed in initially.
 So my mom comes from that.
 So I might have some pushback with saying, mom,
 they don't do that.
 It's not like that anymore.
 But my mom is stuck on what she's stuck on
 and what she's stuck on has just been right the whole time.
 You call your mistakes your superpower.
 I mean, yeah, you can learn from them.
 Yeah, you got to, if you can fight,
 if you can make it through mistakes and then be a better person through them,
 on the other side, it has to have...
 Give me a mistake you made that ended up being something that made you a better man.
 Let's talk about me getting locked up in school.
 I got in trouble.
 I was not able to go to the school that I plan on going to.
 A school and a coaching staff called me and invited me to a school.
 So I now think my life is, you know, peaches and cream again.
 I get to that school.
 That coaching staff gets fired.
 A new coach comes in, brings in his own players on.
 And from that point on, I lose my real pure love for something that I have been doing since I was seven years old.
 I loved basketball.
 When I went here, because I couldn't go here,
 and then another person came in and replaced somebody I thought liked me.
 I just felt like, why me?
 I really thought all this stuff was just happening to me.
 Like, I wouldn't think about who else it could have affected.
 But when I go to this school, I meet the person that I went and now that I call my wife.
 I have three beautiful kids.
 I have businesses, foundations, everything with people either went to school with or my significant other.
 So that situation, although I felt like I was in a very dark place under a very dark cloud.
 When I look at it, I'm so happy it went.
 I would not want to do like a butterfly.
 I can just change.
 I don't want to change not one thing.
 And I'm going to tell you, bro, you know, I was sad.
 My father was already incarcerated.
 All I had was my mom at the time when I was going through all this stuff.
 When I tell you, man, it made me stronger.
 That's when I'm saying a superhero.
 Like, I became strong to the point where I've had friends who kids have gone through some stuff.
 And I can tell him, man, he's going to be all right.
 I can tell you from experience.
 It's going to be all right.
 You know what I love to say with the car analogy?
 My favorite thing in the car is the rear-view mirror.
 You know why?
 Because the rear-view mirror shows you where you've come from.
 Okay.
 And that's what helps you keep driving forward.
 That's good.
 You get that?
 That's good.
 You get that? Let me give you another thing I think we'll resonate with you.
 We are not defined by our biggest mistakes.
 Yeah, no.
 We are not defined by our biggest mistakes.
 This stuff is much easier.
 Say it, then a person having to go through it.
 Sure.
 Like we can say this.
 That's a good point.
 You know, we watch things play out on.
 We watch things play out all kinds of ways.
 And we can be like, you know, man.
 Trust me, it's going to be all right.
 But no one wants to hear that when they're in the middle of the storm.
 I'm going to tell you.
 I'm here to tell you, bro.
 No one can see next week.
 No one can see.
 So it's just outside looking in kind of lens when you're like,
 Hey, man, I'm telling you it's going to be all right in there.
 But you know, the stuff that I'm practicing
 and the stuff that I've been going through,
 I have gained the ability to have faith
 and the trust in something that I can't even see.
 That's not even topical.
 Hey, eighth grade.
 What would you rate?
 What?
 Tell that kid something.
 The younger you who still lives with you,
 what would you tell him today?
 I should see this as a handsome kid.
 This is my eighth grade.
 This is my eighth grade picture.
 That is a pretty fly pick.
 This is eighth grade.
 I want to make no junior high indicator.
 This is my eighth grade pick.
 Yeah.
 This is actually the proof pick.
 Because I couldn't afford the picks at the time.
 So they give you these little proof picks
 to send home to your parents.
 And they see if you want to get the pick
 and then you have to pay for the package.
 Well, I just kept this pick
 and ended up making it an album cover.
 And thank you guys.
 But one thing that stood out for me
 is that in the eighth grade,
 at the tender age of the eighth grade,
 I was already very stylish, very chic.
 I had on these two little chains right here.
 I had these two chains on that I got from the flea market.
 Now, as you're Ms. Love on the phone,
 she said I spoke about being an entrepreneur
 because I did not rap in high school.
 I was not like a rapper.
 The music wasn't on my like,
 I was going to be a big rapper.
 I just knew I wasn't going to be like,
 a fireman or police, you know,
 she's from the area where it was just like this,
 what she said, being boxed in.
 So here earlier,
 you could just see the hustle in his eyes,
 the ambition in his eyes.
 If I had to tell this kid right here on this picture,
 I would just tell him keep going.
 This was a confident and still is a very confident black kid
 around many in a space where I didn't have like,
 like I say, the big bro or somebody to look out.
 And I was able to navigate.
 I was able to navigate a little muddy terrain
 like where I was,
 where I was in this life,
 it was dirty.
 It was dirty outside.
 But this kid,
 this kid is right here now.
 This kid is still has some more growing to do
 and some more learning to do.
 But this kid from the eighth grade
 is sitting right here with you now.
 Where did the name two chains come from?
 So my mom and my close friends
 and family members,
 they called me Titty Boy.
 Right?
 Titty Boy?
 Where'd that come from?
 I'm telling you now.
 And Titty Boy came from
 it's like a Southern back grow kind of term
 that means like an only,
 a sport brat,
 somebody that's close to the Titty,
 somebody that's always,
 so people used to say,
 I was like a Titty baby
 because I was always under my mom.
 Like my mom could be smoking a cigarette,
 playing cards,
 I'd be right handed,
 just in the way.
 Just, you know what I mean?
 And they were like,
 it's just Titty Boy.
 It was just Titty, you know what I mean?
 And so my friends heard it.
 They thought it was kind of like finding on your mom
 calling you Titty.
 And they used to call me like Titty,
 or Titty.
 It's just like this crazy thing.
 So when I started doing music,
 I did not have,
 like a name.
 I didn't have like,
 MC this.
 I didn't have like,
 little this.
 I didn't have a name at all.
 I was just like,
 I'll be just, you know,
 Titty Boy.
 The first couple of interviews I did,
 and I said the name,
 they looked at me crazy,
 just like you just looked at me crazy.
 So I said,
 I need to figure out something else
 because I have to explain to people
 that I didn't,
 I didn't get this name
 when in some weird contest
 or nothing like that.
 You know what I'm saying, right?
 This is just a real term of endearment
 in the family.
 And so two chains
 was something that literally,
 I felt like,
 feel from the grace of God.
 Like, I said,
 I showed you that picture
 I had on two chains then.
 I was not going by two chains.
 In the industry,
 I'm doing,
 I'm doing music, I'm doing features.
 And I think I say,
 something like Titty,
 two chains,
 in a song or in a verse.
 And I just said,
 I'm going to stick with that.
 And I made it have a little bit more substance,
 a little bit more meaning,
 meaning like,
 the first chain is,
 who I already am,
 and the second chain,
 is who I ultimately,
 like,
 want to be,
 you know what I'm saying,
 or something like that,
 I have ambitions on being.
 And two chains,
 it just, it was,
 it's more family-friendly.
 It took me further
 and it stuck.
 And I'm,
 I'm glad God gave me that.
 He gave,
 that came from the voice in my head too, actually.
 I want to go back to the book.
 You have said that
 if you were born somewhere else,
 you might have gotten good
 at surfing or snowboarding,
 but you grew up in basketball
 and the hustling.
 Right?
 I just said it.
 I know, no, no.
 So how much of success
 is environment
 versus choice?
 Nature versus nurture.
 Right.
 That's a good one.
 Your choice versus
 what the world throws at you.
 How much of success is dependent?
 You answered it.
 What's your thoughts on that?
 So my thought is,
 a lot of success is choice
 because the choice is,
 are you going to stop
 when the fifth door is closed
 and your face
 or will you keep going
 to the sixth,
 and seventh,
 and eighth, and ninth, and tenth?
 Right.
 I think the environment,
 life puts you in an environment
 where you have opportunity.
 But the choice is yours
 to decide how many times
 are you going to keep trying?
 That's my answer.
 Invest your choice
 on if you want to keep trying.
 Correct.
 And most people
 after door six begins
 to close their face
 and be like,
 all right, I'm done.
 I tried.
 But the guy who still tries
 51 times is the guy
 who ends up getting it.
 Right?
 That's deep.
 That's true.
 But you know what I find out a lot?
 So is success more environment
 or choice?
 In your opinion,
 your experience, is it?
 In my experience,
 it was choice
 because I think
 I was more resilient, right?
 But I can tell you now
 that it has a lot
 to do with environment
 because I'm putting my kids
 in the right environment
 to be successful.
 Fair.
 Fair.
 Right?
 Yes.
 Okay.
 I lived in, you know,
 some apartments,
 and we won on top of another.
 And, you know,
 you have to ask somebody
 to use their electricity sometimes.
 It gets that deep.
 You need the extension cord.
 Like, I come from that.
 I come from cold showers.
 I got a song.
 I'm playing my head
 to take a cold shower.
 Like, I've been trained to do this.
 My kids have never
 have to experience it.
 Never.
 So that's why I was told
 between that
 because I know I'm putting my son
 right now in the right environment
 to be successful
 and possibly become my NBA player
 because I just got him
 all in the right place.
 Sure.
 But I think two chains,
 it's the same thing just differently said
 because your son is in a bucket
 where he's exposed
 to a whole lot more.
 But he's still got to make that choice.
 Well, not,
 at this age,
 the parents are really the ones
 that should make the,
 I was a little loose.
 I could really do what I want to do.
 Yeah.
 The parents, my son is 10 years old.
 He needs to do what he needs to do.
 Oh, yeah.
 He needs to do what his parents
 tell him to do.
 Yeah, yeah.
 And at 10 years old,
 whether he has a choice or not,
 he can't take himself to practice.
 He can't do a lot of things, right?
 Whether he wants to go nuts.
 So it has to be the parent.
 The steps up,
 takes the time,
 no matter if they got a podcast,
 a show,
 a video shoot,
 or whatever,
 takes the time.
 Make sure that the kid
 is getting the homework done,
 keeping the right GPA
 and also bouncing that
 with a skill set
 that can ultimately maybe
 have him get up
 and do something
 that he can never call a job
 and get paid for.
 Do you see the hustle in him?
 Yes.
 At 10.
 Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
 That,
 it makes me think
 hustling could be,
 you know, a redditary
 when I just think about my bloodline.
 Absolutely, it can be.
 Uh-huh.
 Absolutely, it can be.
 It can be,
 and hustling doesn't always
 have to be associated with bad shit.
 No, no, no, no, no.
 I'm just too much.
 It's got that energy,
 it's the fire.
 It's the fire.
 My dad was a realtor
 and my mother was a nurse.
 And they would have been happy
 if I'd taught history.
 But I am one of the most
 competitive hustlers
 you will ever meet in your life.
 Okay.
 And I wasn't born
 with a famous last name.
 I didn't grow up
 with the wealth that you have.
 I didn't grow up
 with the name recognition
 that your kids are growing up with.
 But I'm sitting in front of you today
 because I hustled like a mofo.
 Yeah, I let it.
 Yeah.
 And I'm looking back,
 which street lessons
 still guide how you move
 in the music industry?
 What lessons from the street?
 You know, trust, you know,
 or the lack of trust,
 or trust issues.
 Intuition is big, though.
 You got an intuition
 that would be the lead answer
 for that question
 because you got to know
 when to leave,
 when to go,
 when not to go.
 So you could, you know,
 know when to hold them,
 know when to fold.
 You got to know,
 you got to know when to,
 you know, so eating
 and negotiating,
 know when to, you know.
 So my street lessons
 that I have has made me more,
 I think you should be paranoid
 in everything.
 But it just keeps me on my toes.
 It keeps me paranoid.
 Let me ask you this.
 What is one survival instinct
 people should unlearn
 once they level up?
 When you're from where I'm from,
 and you're successful in your eye,
 in your own eyes,
 you're doing,
 you're being successful
 off doing some illegal activity.
 Okay.
 You know.
 So early on,
 you don't really care
 about building credit
 or anything like that.
 You're just trying to acquire things
 and you're putting in somebody
 that you know,
 let you love,
 you'll put it in your mom's name,
 you put it in your,
 in your, in your lady's name.
 So you do this for a few years,
 you got four or five cars,
 a few properties,
 few businesses,
 zero credit,
 nothing in your name,
 but you're saying,
 so coming from the streets,
 I have to unlearn that I can,
 I can use my own name.
 Right.
 I can put this stuff in my LLC
 or whatever it is.
 So it's, that's something that I know
 that me and I'm sure a few hustlers,
 if they catch wind
 and what we're talking about,
 they can relate
 of how many things they,
 they put in a mom's name.
 Right.
 Because you know,
 mom, we always go to, you know.
 And I can truly say to you,
 before I got my record deal,
 I bought my mom her house purse.
 That's it.
 Anything having me, man,
 I can always go back to mom,
 you know what I mean?
 Before I even bought my house,
 that's what I mean.
 I bought my mom is on her second house.
 But before I got my deal,
 I had some money from whatever.
 I bought her house,
 I bought it.
 It was a foreclosed property.
 And that's another thing I had to unlearn.
 You don't have to use all your liquidity
 to do this stuff.
 Correct.
 I had to unlearn that from hustling, too.
 Oh, no, I ain't doing no li,
 I ain't doing no,
 man, I'm gonna pay that,
 I'm gonna pay that, you know.
 And I had to unlearn that early on up,
 the house and up man,
 the house,
 I literally signed my record deal
 because I used all the money I had
 to get the house that I just,
 I just put all the money that I had.
 I bought it cash.
 You only build credit
 by not paying it off.
 That's how you build credit.
 That's how you build credit.
 So that lets you know
 this whole thing.
 It's just intertwined.
 Everything's intertwined.
 But being from,
 and I know somebody,
 look at me like,
 are you serious?
 But I'm that serious.
 Man, I'm so glad you brought those up.
 How did adversity refine your instincts?
 It just makes you paranoid.
 When you go through adversity
 in your instincts,
 you're constantly,
 you just,
 let's go back to the review mirror.
 You're constantly in your review mirror.
 And it's not particularly about
 where you're going and where you're coming from.
 It's about who could be following me.
 So,
 and I'm from a place
 where, you know,
 your friend,
 your friend,
 or take this cup,
 and then they'll tear this room up,
 helping you look for this cup.
 And a lot of people that are watching
 or even trying to judge me or how I move,
 they will not understand
 coming up in an environment like that.
 That's true.
 They'll break in this house.
 Then they'll come back and say,
 who the f**k broken this house?
 And let's go right now.
 And you won't have this whole equipment
 of being one of your friends out there.
 They'll start down.
 And the thing you'll know is,
 bro, under that mic,
 I had a,
 I know that's my mic.
 I just know that's my mic, bro.
 I just know they took my stuff,
 and so I'm kind of like,
 I've been surrounded around that, you know, forever.
 Let's talk about who follows you in a positive sense.
 Do you think today about the kids who look up to you?
 Does that matter to you?
 Yeah, I try to make myself super accessible.
 Like I said, my son is in the AAU circuit.
 I go to youth sporting events,
 and I know I have to sign autographs
 and take pictures and just be someone that they can look.
 So it's important for me to be someone that they can look
 at, touch, feel, and know that this is possible.
 This can be, like, I see kids about,
 yo, two chains, you know what I mean?
 I'm like, yo, what's up?
 What's up, man?
 What's up, man?
 Like, whatever.
 So, you know, I take away, you know,
 and it's important for artists to have mystique.
 It's important.
 But when I'm around kids,
 I'll try to unveil some of the mystique.
 I'll try to take the mystique away.
 I try to just be very relatable.
 I know you've given back a lot of me
 at the high school where you went.
 I think you rebuilt the gym, right?
 Yeah.
 Sponsored graduations.
 Who's keeping up with this stuff, bro?
 I don't know, but I think it's pretty cool.
 Yeah.
 I literally forget what I do for people.
 That's crazy.
 I literally forget what I do for people.
 Wow.
 I don't like, I treat my mind like it's gigabytes.
 It doesn't give you joy to give back.
 Yeah.
 I like it back.
 It makes me happy.
 Okay.
 Yeah.
 I like to help people from able to help people.
 I like to help people.
 Okay.
 What failure are you most grateful for?
 Failure.
 Which one are you most grateful for?
 I don't know.
 That's the first one you used to him.
 You know, a failure that I'm grateful for.
 I'm a reverse it so you can help me out.
 You help me out.
 What's your failure that you would be?
 Man, I'm supposed to be asking the questions.
 That's a good one.
 That's how it goes.
 This is what I do.
 I don't ask anybody to do anything that I want to do.
 What failure am I most grateful for?
 Because you've helped me out with my examples.
 What failure?
 It's grateful for.
 Let me think on this.
 That's a hard one.
 That's a hard one.
 You should be a question of everybody that comes on the show
 from here moving forward.
 What failure am I most grateful for?
 Failure.
 That's a grateful for.
 I'm not that mature yet.
 I can't be happy for that.
 No, you're helping me realize that it takes a lot of time
 to think about a question that profound.
 What failure am I most thankful for?
 I'm trying to think of my failures in life.
 But I think I stumped myself.
 I'm going to come back to it.
 In the book, you talk about identity and reinvention.
 We talked about the chains representing who you are and who you want to be.
 You talk about breaking the generational chains.
 You're family being generationally in the bootleg and the drug trade.
 What does it mean to you to have broke the cycle?
 Well, I know that my kids won't have to hustle in that kind of life.
 But my mom brought that to my attention.
 I didn't really realize it.
 I have it on video.
 She was just one day rambling off about her grandparents.
 So bootleg liquor.
 Back in the earlier days, people would go,
 and even I remember this from her mom, people would go to my grandma's house
 and get a dollar shot or whatever it was.
 You know what I'm saying?
 It was like bootleg house.
 Bootleg liquor house.
 You got to remember in Atlanta,
 you couldn't even buy liquor on Sundays.
 I don't know how long.
 No, you can.
 But you couldn't even buy liquor on Sundays.
 So these bootleg houses would be overcrowded on Sundays.
 You got football.
 You got all this stuff.
 This is what my mom explained.
 Her grandparents sold bootleg.
 Her mother and her parents did bootleg.
 And then she said she married a drug dealer.
 And then they had me.
 And then I did the same stuff,
 but it stopped with me.
 So I thought it was pretty profound when she said it like that.
 Because I'm praying that my kids won't have to see the light of the things
 that I used to have to do.
 It's really profound when you think about you being the one that broke that.
 Yeah.
 I don't even have those thoughts in my head anymore.
 I don't think about illegal anything anymore.
 I just don't.
 And it's something that first is something like this to be on my mind.
 So many years of my life about how you move.
 And you know how I'm trying not to get pulled over.
 Now when I get pulled over, I'm literally cursing out the police about my tent.
 I'm like, you could be doing anything.
 But I'm about to go to the gym.
 And normally I would be riding a tent and two.
 I would be like, you know, just so paranoid and scared
 because I would be doing something illegal or have something illegal in my car.
 I don't, I no longer think like that.
 I no longer move like that.
 So my mind is just like clear from, you know, now I'm fist bumping.
 I see the police.
 I feel, hey, what's up, man?
 I don't, it doesn't, it doesn't affect me anymore.
 How do you define resilience?
 I'll go back to what we've been talking about in this.
 The person that, that goes to door number five, the door number six, the door number seven.
 It just keeps going.
 It's resilient.
 You know what I find it as the person who bounces back.
 Yeah.
 Again.
 And if you fall down, you get back on you fall down now, you get up 10.
 Right.
 Right.
 I've been interviewing people for almost 25 years.
 I ask legacy questions to people who are like 70 and above.
 So when I heard you in the book talking about legacy, when I read about that,
 I was like, oh, that's interesting.
 Why do you think you're so mindful of legacy at a young age?
 Because sometimes I think I've done more than some people that 70 years are already in a short period of time.
 It's fair.
 I'm on my third passport.
 This is why this, and I don't, I can't even tell you how many chapters of my personal life.
 Like when you talk about very young, when I'm doing basketball, and even this thing with Miss Love,
 me affecting teachers and not even knowing it just because I'm thinking outside the box
 at a very young age and doing stuff that they probably couldn't even believe I was doing.
 Because it's just that a resilience come from just being in these certain situations and overcoming them.
 You know, it's just, it's just a part, it's a part of my DNA.
 It's a part of my own, I don't think this is the thing, right?
 I don't think you have to be successful or rich to give advice.
 I'll listen to a homeless person if they have something.
 Decide, listen to somebody by lay in my car.
 So with that, with all of that, I feel like you don't have to be a certain age until you're wise.
 You don't have to be, you know what I mean?
 I feel like legacy or something in that you can, you can develop that.
 You know, from the time you touched the ground and started moving around, you know, you can just develop it.
 You just talk about the different phases for me, it was sports.
 It was the streets.
 It was, you know, hustling and then there's music and I'm in the cinema.
 I'm in the books now, you know what I mean?
 And so all of that, I feel like creates the word, creates was under the umbrella of legacy.
 Two chains, it's not success that connects us as human beings.
 It's struggle.
 That's cool.
 It's struggle.
 You can ask you about your Grammy or your pocket book or rolling with famous people.
 I'd ask you any about that.
 I just want to talk about the struggle in hopes that people can see themselves in you.
 By the way, let me go back to the question of what did you fail at that your most powerful?
 You found something just gave you something.
 I got something and I want to tell you.
 Years ago, I was up for the anchor job of CBS Mornings, which is the National Morning Show at CBS News.
 Well, I'm on CBS News now, but I was going to be the anchor of the Morning Show with Gail King.
 And at the time, it was a man named Anthony Mason.
 And I wanted the job and I did not get the job.
 And I considered myself to have failed in that moment.
 That's something happened in that I was the lead national correspondent and I covered disasters.
 I've been to more mass shootings and school shootings and tornadoes and earthquakes and volcano.
 You've been to a school.
 You've been out there covering it.
 I've knocked on more doors of mothers who've had their kids.
 Their kids have had their heads blown off than I can remember.
 Really?
 I've lost count.
 But let me tell you where I'm grateful.
 That door closed and I didn't get the job.
 My friend Tony got it.
 I was able to create a lane for myself where I now tell stories that highlight the best of humanity,
 that find that everyday heroes, the local heroes, the people doing extraordinary things.
 I created a company where I have this podcast called The Person Who Believed At Me.
 I'm not here talking to you today if I'm sitting up there anchoring the CBS.
 This can't shop after that.
 Bingo.
 That's what I'm telling you.
 I could have helped you.
 I could have helped you think it out a while back.
 But do you understand?
 But my point of bringing it up is I felt like a failure in the moment.
 But the reality is had that not failed, this wouldn't have happened.
 I said, that's why I got locked up in high school.
 I mean, that's not the room.
 But I'm just saying.
 You see what I'm saying?
 Yeah.
 I'm with you.
 I'm with you.
 I understand exactly what you're saying.
 See?
 I feel it.
 I feel it.
 I feel it.
 And that's what I'm saying at the end.
 I'll just go back to this whole thing is in a time.
 Let's go back to when you're when you don't get it.
 You can't see today.
 When you don't get that job back then, you can't see this far ahead.
 You just feel like I'm a failure.
 How does Tony get it?
 I've been here.
 You know, you have all these things and whether you share it with somebody
 or it's just an inner monologue that you have with yourself.
 This is how you feel at the time.
 And so to anybody that's watching this that's going through something right now
 that's in the middle of a storm, you have to.
 And this is so cliche, man.
 It's just what believe, you know, be resilient, be tough.
 But you just have to know that another day is coming.
 It's another day coming.
 And for somebody that when I have these kind of discussions and conversations
 with people in my community or my hood, I tell them two things that you have to do.
 It's easy, but it's not easy.
 I tell them kids.
 All you have to do is stay out the graveyard and stay out of jail.
 And anything could be possible.
 Now, it's easier said than done when you come from certain communities.
 But those are the two things that I try to share with people
 or to try to impact people around my community.
 The reason I use those two situations is because when you go through a troubling time
 or a dark time, you think it, you don't think clearly.
 And you think sometimes of things like safe answers.
 You don't get the job.
 You be like, you know what?
 I'll come back in here.
 I'll let you, you know, whatever, whatever.
 You can't think like that because those instances can put you in the graveyard
 or put you on a jail house.
 So it's about really, I mean, it's so easy to say.
 But I've been through some very, very trying times.
 And I've just kind of like rolled it out.
 And, you know, not crashed out about it, not when I read about it.
 And I'm able to live to see another day.
 The book is called The Voice in My Head is Guide.
 By me, this was fantastic.
 It was cool.
 So thank you for opening up.
 What up, what up is two chains?
 And the person that believed in me was my college prep geometry teacher.
 Miss Love.
 I love you, baby.
 Thank you for everything.
 True.
 I thought you might want to know.
 But this podcast is at the heart of a company I founded called Do Good Crew.
 I've spent 25 years telling stories.
 It used to be the bad news.
 And now I want to focus on the good news.
 The everyday heroes who are doing extraordinary things.
 You can join us.
 We do live events.
 But we also have a newsletter.
 It's free.
 You can sign up for it by going to www.TheDoGoodCrew.com.
 This show was created by me, David Beggnow.
 Our executive producers are Ellen Rockamora and Olivier Delphaus.
 Our associate producer is Griffin Hamilton.
 Our booker is Sully Block.
 Director of Photography is Foster Parks.
 Our theme music was created by Slippstream.
 Post production and edit done my long way of digital.
 This podcast was brought to you by our friends at Canva.
 If you're interested in more stories about people doing good in this world,
 go sign up for our free newsletter at www.TheDoGoodCrew.com.