- 6 weeks ago
Rapper, activist, entrepreneur Michael Render, aka Killer Mike, who is most recently the host and executive producer of 'Trigger Warning' on Netflix, discusses growing up in Atlanta why he's a student of Mister Rogers and Tupac.
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00:00Hollywood is being rebuilt by artists not afraid to disrupt the status quo.
00:07Telling fresh stories and bringing to life characters who, until now, have been confined to the margins.
00:13This is Emerging Hollywood.
00:17Today I'm sitting with a rapper, an activist, a businessman, and the host of Trigger Warning on Netflix,
00:24and executive producer, my man Michael Rinder, professionally known as Killer Mike.
00:28What's up, bro? Killer Kill from the Ville. What's happening?
00:30Man, damn proud of you. You know that, though.
00:32Thank you, man. Same here for you.
00:33We've come a long way.
00:34We both came a long way.
00:35Yeah, you know what I'm saying? We met on my promo tour.
00:3817 years ago.
00:3917 years ago.
00:402002, Purple Ribbon All-Stars.
00:42Yep. All the reps in the record companies were so afraid of you.
00:46They thought you only liked, I think, MeTI, Triple Six Mafia at the time, maybe.
00:51You know what I mean?
00:52How did growing up in Atlanta inform your point of view on racial and economic injustices?
00:58I grew up in a totally black city, essentially. It was over 50% black.
01:02The leadership was black. The police chief was black. My teachers were black.
01:05Schools were named for black people.
01:07You know, I grew up in an economically integrated neighborhood at Collier Heights.
01:10So our schools were a little better. So people like me and TI learned how to use big words.
01:15Right.
01:16You know what I mean?
01:17Did you realize how special Atlanta was back then as far as, like, having all that black representation?
01:22I did. Okay.
01:23Because my family's from the deep south.
01:24All right.
01:25When you get shipped to the country in the summers, then you understand how lucky you are, how fortunate.
01:29But most of my friends didn't. They didn't have any idea.
01:32So I grew up really with us in power. I grew up in Wakanda.
01:35But growing up in Wakanda, I got a chance to see we do good and bad. We make good politicians and bad politicians.
01:41Our church is as corrupt as any other church. Our institutions are as good as any other institution.
01:47And that's not me down in Atlanta. It's just as much saying I learned to keep an eye on those in power.
01:52So I started participating in the political process a lot younger.
01:55So my grandmother was from Tuskegee. She participated in some of the marches with King and stuff.
02:00She just thought being a part of the political process was absolutely what you were supposed to do as a citizen.
02:06My grandfather was a black man, but from a philosophical standpoint was probably more like a libertarian.
02:11He wanted the government out of his life.
02:13And he thought the worst thing that ever happened to blacks was desegregation.
02:16I agree.
02:18Yeah, you do remind me of my grandfather.
02:20I kind of agree with that though, because when we talk about black empowerment and black entrepreneurship and independence,
02:24all we got to do is start moving the way black people moved before integration.
02:28The first episode of Trigger Warning, Living Black, that episode's idea came out of conversations with my grandfather.
02:36Even being born in the 70s and growing up in the 80s, my whole world still revolved around black people.
02:42We got our gas from a black gas station. We went to, you know, our vegetables came right off a black produce truck.
02:48So for my generation was probably the last generation of that and everything became more corporatized.
02:54So when you hear black people say white folks, a lot of times what they're saying is corporations.
02:58That's it.
02:59You know what I'm saying? It's not even that they're saying literally you white people on the other side of the camera.
03:03But Whole Foods is not owned by someone who looks like us.
03:05So in his mind, the worst thing that happened to us had been desegregation because our dollar desegregated out.
03:12And we start thinking, you know, white folks, water was colder.
03:15And we start moving out of a neighborhood. And then when you start moving our neighborhood, you took a tax base out that provided for working class kids like me to have a better education.
03:23Because I lived in a community of rich black people, too. Right.
03:26Who put that entrepreneur spirit in you?
03:29I grew up in the crack era. So that helped.
03:31All right.
03:32I don't think the crack era gets the proper accolades.
03:34A lot of entrepreneurs.
03:35A lot of entrepreneurs came out of it.
03:37But my mother, she was an artist and florist and she just she didn't like working for people.
03:42The people in my family who I saw do what they want to do whenever they wanted to do it all on the business.
03:49Once I got into rap and my heart kind of got broken the first go around, I just promised myself I'd never be totally dependent on my art again because it made me resent something I loved.
03:59You know what I mean?
04:00So I figured out getting in the business and out of that was born stuff like the swag shop.
04:04Swag shop.
04:05And render real estate holders and things of that nature.
04:07Why did your heart get broken the first time around in the rap game?
04:10It didn't work out.
04:11Right.
04:12And it didn't work out for reasons that I didn't have total control over.
04:15Got you.
04:16Like I didn't have control over going to Columbia Records.
04:18I didn't have control over why I didn't get to go to Def Jam or I didn't have control over any of that.
04:23But that was the first time in my life I had been out of control.
04:26You know, I was five little girls, older brothers.
04:28I was at that point two children's father.
04:31You know what I'm saying?
04:32I was a man to a woman.
04:33And all of a sudden in my life the decisions of other people were affecting me in a way that was adverse.
04:38I never wanted to feel like that again.
04:40So I had to figure it out by myself.
04:42And the figuring out of that by myself was I pledge allegiance to the grind as a series.
04:47And then rap music.
04:48And then run the jewels.
04:50And here I go.
04:51Wow.
04:52You've always had messaging in your music.
04:54Yeah.
04:55But I feel like them six episodes of Trigger Warning got more of your messaging out than a decade of music.
05:01Yeah, I know, right?
05:02How does that make you feel?
05:04You never know what God got planned for you, man.
05:07Yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:08You know what I'm saying?
05:09When I look back at the Kronk era and how many people were literally catapulting up past me and just superstars, I didn't begrudge anyone.
05:18I didn't have envy toward anyone.
05:20But it was humbling because lyrically, I knew like I'm fucking up the world.
05:25You know what I mean?
05:26And I'm saying these things, but I knew that the world, that's not what they wanted at that time.
05:32Well, not as much of the world as I thought she wanted.
05:35And the world caught up because everybody graduated college and went and got jobs.
05:39And then that shit hit them in the face.
05:41And it's like, oh, oh.
05:43So God in the building might make some sense to me this morning.
05:46You know what I'm saying?
05:47So that's fine.
05:48You know, Bun told me when I dropped my first record, he said, you're probably 10 years ahead of your time.
05:52Wow.
05:53You know, he said, I got to be honest with you.
05:54So it's going to be hard, but just keep trying and keep doing it.
05:57I wonder if he saw that because of the climate of the South at the time or what?
06:00Maybe.
06:01One of the most flattering things, though, that ever happened in my life was when I walked in the Trap Museum.
06:05And the first two albums were up there with T.I.'s Trap Music and my album, Monster.
06:09Wow.
06:10T.I.'s Trap Music is the first official Trap album.
06:13And then it said, Killer Mike makes the first attempt at making a conscious Trap album.
06:17And that's really what Monster was.
06:18Wow.
06:19Yeah.
06:20Like I was really coming out of selling drugs, coming into music, trying to reconcile that.
06:24That's why you heard, Mom, I don't want to sell drugs no more.
06:27You're like, I didn't.
06:28I did not want to sell cocaine anymore.
06:30I had 18 ounces of cocaine above my kitchen cupboard when I made Monster.
06:34Damn.
06:35You know what I'm saying?
06:36I bought nine and got fronted nine.
06:38And that therein lies the difference.
06:40I didn't want to be trapping them.
06:41I was sick of that shit.
06:42What was Michael Render's mind state when he was selling dope?
06:45Because you were an educated brother.
06:46I can't believe I'm doing this stupid shit.
06:48Yeah.
06:49People think you sell drugs because you're lazy or you're nefarious in some way.
06:53No.
06:54You got common sense.
06:55You understand that I can spend $50 and I can make $100.
06:59And if you're smart, you save your money and you double and you double and you double again.
07:04That's good business.
07:06And for people who turn their nose up at it, you drink alcohol.
07:09Yeah.
07:10They did the same thing with alcohol.
07:11They're doing the same thing with marijuana now.
07:13Yeah.
07:14Except the people who bore the burden of going to jail for the last 50 years aren't reaping
07:18the benefits.
07:19Yeah.
07:20Us and people who speak Spanish that look like us.
07:21You know what I mean?
07:22So intellectually, if you had any sense in the 80s and 90s and you didn't think about
07:27selling drugs, you got to be one of the strongest minds I know because it was too easy not
07:31to do.
07:32So getting into entertainment with acting and the voice work and hosting Trigger Warning,
07:36was that a path you were ever seeking?
07:38Yeah.
07:39I mean, I like entertaining.
07:41You know, I've been a ham my whole life.
07:43So I love rapping, but I only rap because I was too chubby to break names.
07:47Otherwise, I would have been turbo on them hoes.
07:49For me, I always wanted to be on TV.
07:51I used to love watching Real People, The Carol Burnett Show, you know, Bob Newhart, Night Court.
07:57You know, so I wanted to be on television.
07:59I learned from TV.
08:00I watched a lot of PBS too.
08:01Mm-hmm.
08:02Like I watched a lot of Mr. Rogers.
08:03I watched a lot of Electric Company.
08:04So I knew that TV was a tool.
08:07Trigger Warning is as much a testament to public broadcasting television as any Michael
08:12Moore film that I stand out on as a kid, right?
08:14Mm-hmm.
08:15I loved Michael Moore.
08:16I loved documentaries.
08:17But the fact that PBS taught me that it's okay to put a message in what you're doing.
08:22Absolutely.
08:23And it's okay to be overtly positive in that message.
08:26I got that directly from public broadcasting.
08:28So, you know, when I watched the Mr. Rogers documentary, I cried like a baby because I'm like, you know,
08:33I'm like a student of him and Tupac.
08:35That's a hell of a combination.
08:36Yeah, it is.
08:37And it is.
08:38Yeah, it is.
08:39And it is.
08:52You
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