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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