Ooh, yes.
Yes, Milwaukee.
Welcome back.
Fire Show by
Ray nitty no pun intended on the fires, but fire show by Ray nitty and maybe Shannon You in the grapevine.
I'm your host Manon severe and Man every time this beat comes on.
I'm like, yeah, I just want to just like The freestyle man y'all are in the building and we got haze outside We're gonna talk about another minute, but you know, we got that purple haze
in the building.
I mean, I mean, outside the building.
Walk, you picture this for a second.
Before we even get into today's show, I got to get into today's show.
A kid on the north side, seventh grade, sitting with a notebook, no studio, no manager, no plan, just writing because something in him told him he needed to write.
He needed to get it out.
There's a lot of our kids like that.
They're riding on the bus.
I remember even my boys, man.
We would ride the bus.
We had a little, we may have a group.
We just recorded at a studio.
And the studio wasn't necessarily a studio.
It was a, my guy's closet.
Had a red light hanging from the ceiling.
He put up on the walls of the ceiling and also walls of the closet.
He put up the phone and we went in there and we started recording recording all kinds of music and stuff like that.
So I had a little brief music career is that I might I keep teasing my freestyles.
I might have to bring it out, baby.
Might have to bring it out on y'all.
But for real, imagine.
Imagine doing that.
You, you know, you playing sports, doing all kinds of things.
Then all of a sudden, you know, these words start coming out of your, out of your brain, out of your mind.
You start putting them down on paper, the beats.
And then from that point on fast forward, that same kid is standing on stage at Southwest, South by Southwest touring in Europe.
Shout out to my folks in Europe, opening for people like Anderson pock.
And then Hollywood, Hollywood comes calling.
He's on the movie set in Detroit, standing across from Matthew McConaughey, playing his son's best friend and white boy Rick.
This is a true story, true story.
White boy Rick pulled over, he got pulled over with $11 million, pulled in over $11 million.
White boy Rick, that's the movie.
Pull in $11 million in this opening weeks.
A song of his blew up so fast that the actress, Chloe Moretz tweeted out on her own millions and millions of followers.
No warning, no campaign, just organic.
He just moved her enough, just enough to share it on her page.
And that's not hypothetical Milwaukee.
That is not hypothetical.
That is the truth.
This is a real man from this city, from Milwaukee.
Milwaukee's own.
And he did it all before he turned 30.
His name is Ishdar.
Ishdar.
And at 2.15 today, he's sitting down with me for a full hour, a full hour from making beats.
writing Getting on to it getting to a studio Hitting the big screen now.
He's in the studio the truth radio the award-winning truth radio can't wait to he gets here Now why is he here today?
It's a good question It's a really good question.
I'm always I'm always asking myself why why are people sitting down with us?
I think for me is to
see the human side of somebody.
It's allowing us to understand how how they think what we can do differently in order for us to see some level of success.
This is this is our sneak peek.
Our thousand foot view or 3,000 or 30,000 or 50,000 foot view at what is like to reach the top.
And.
We have people right here in this city that one want they want to reach the top.
They have a desire.
They made a way.
They made a way to reach the top.
And they want to share it.
And this is a great angle.
This is a great place to share that that piece.
So he's here.
This is another guest booking.
Because I could talk to about 100 people.
And we can talk to them about making it out of Milwaukee.
But it's just different.
And here's proof.
Every label that came calling, every label that came calling, every deal that got dangled in front of him, every reason in the world to relocate permanently to LA.
If you've been to LA, LA, big city of dreams.
Yup.
He said no to the easy version.
And he kept Milwaukee as his home base, which is very unique because in a landscape of a globalized market in with within music, you can have a real pleasurable time making it out of Milwaukee and just staying that way, not coming back.
But.
For to have opportunities to leave Milwaukee continue your career and still dedicate time to Milwaukee is a testament for It's a testament of your love It's a testament that you had these pathways You know, maybe not as conventional
As you know, the average musician is not conventional.
You took a different route, but you decide this, but you decide to say the stay.
So he kept Milwaukee as his home base and it's not sentiment either.
The man's been showing up in person and showing up like so many of us.
He's been showing up, mentoring young men at the Valar Phillips juvenile justice center.
Center sitting with kids the systems already written off telling them what's actually possible from right here What's actually possible when you are in Milwaukee not from somewhere else not on virtual Telling people giving to setting the speech all that that's a man using his platform the right way and I want Milwaukee to directly hear it from him Directly what it costs
and what it means to give back.
That's why he's in the building today, not just to talk about hits and highlight reels, but to talk about what it actually looks like to make, to make it big, to stay rooted on purpose in a city that doesn't always get its flowers.
And we're not going to say flowers today.
We're going to say seeds.
We're gonna say seeds because we're gonna keep watering this young man young because I'm definitely turning late late late late 40s on Sunday late 40s on the late bus on the 40s so he's sitting down with us and We're gonna we're gonna find out we're gonna get some sentiments from him.
We're gonna understand what's going on in his life, but I'm gonna tell you tell you what else is going on in
our city in the world today.
And that haze, that haze you been seeing over the city, it ain't a mistake.
It's been taking, it's been taking the Midwest by storm.
It's not a fog.
It's not fog.
It's not fog.
You been smelling this wild, wildfire smoke.
Yeah.
Blowing in all the way from Canada and Minnesota.
And the whole state is under an air quality advisory right now, right now.
Look, we're going to take a, we're going to look at this video.
I'm going, we're going to play it once and we're going to play it again because I think y'all need to understand what's going on with this.
602 wildfires in Canada.
Just blanking, blanketing smoke across parts of the country, including right here in Southeast Wisconsin.
The image behind me shows you exactly what we're dealing with.
Well, the smoke is creating unhealthy air quality in very hazy skies.
Folks, Stephanie Kirk joins us live.
She knows all too well what it's like.
She's following this story from our live truck stuff.
What are you seeing in terms of that air quality and visibility?
Hey, good morning.
Yes, we're actually in the truck this morning because of just how hazy and smoky it is where we're at.
I'm going to flip the camera right away so you can see we're in Port Washington, kind of by Harrington State Park where we actually drove by the monitoring station for air quality, which our chief meteor just Rob Haswell mentioned to us too and really told us to head this way and really check it out.
because it's important to know for people that the air quality is really unhealthy to the point where it's hazardous, where we're at, you could see it.
You could also smell it in this truck, in the weather truck, which just kind of paints you a picture of how serious this is.
Obviously, we know that everyone's impacted by this unhealthy air quality because there's, you know, a number of reasons, but these actually, they're called tiny particles in the smoke
that can travel into your bloodstream.
This is all according to health officials.
Some groups will be hit harder than others.
Take a listen to what they had to say about how to stay safe if you do have to go outside.
Hey, Brian from Milwaukee, we're on the grapevine with my non-Sabir.
How you doing?
Pretty good.
I just want to address this.
If we look at any map, the jet stream, well, I guess the jet stream got turned off.
it from all of what I've ever seen with these news forecasts.
The jet stream comes from left to right.
Like if we're looking at the map of the United States and read it from left to right, just like you read a book.
The jet stream is supposed to be coming from the left to the right.
So if Canada is north of us, what in the world is making the air, the quote unquote smoke, go south?
Did the jet stream change?
See, that don't make any sense.
How in the world can the jet stream switch from east to west, or from west going to east, to north to going south?
It don't make no sense.
Who turned it off?
I'm trying to see who turned it off.
Yeah, who turned it off?
And also, heart is up that way up there near.
Heart is up in Alaska.
Yeah.
They can adjust the weather up there.
If they need to make it rain, they can make it rain.
Why are they not making it rain?
They've been making it rain since the Vietnam War.
So if they got a problem with getting enough firefighters up there, just make it rain.
Also, I haven't seen any big recruitment drives of firefighters in the United States who have been fighting these wildfires.
Yeah, the fire
engineers.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Another thing, why does this keep happening every year?
Why aren't they prepared for this?
And who keeps setting the door on fire?
Well, we thought Canada was cold as hell, not 90 or 100 degrees.
Yeah.
Everything is switching around.
So it don't make no sense.
And none of this stuff, none of this stuff is random.
This is all somebody, somebody pulling, pulling the wool around.
Nice talked about this with Lauren Hill.
Yeah, that's right.
Let's get those masks.
Yep.
We're going to make it rain.
Hey, y'all.
We're going to make it rain.
Come on, government.
What's government?
Y'all want to play.
government make it rain, make it turn the rain on, turn the jet stream on.
I ain't laughing at you, Brian.
I'm saying this is, it is strange.
Like we haven't had haze like this in, in never, in never.
So I don't know what's going on.
You know, we got wildfires and then the wildfires could possibly strand people in Minnesota, Northern Minnesota.
So.
And it's a lot of woods from Minnesota to to mid Wisconsin.
It's a lot of woods.
But make it rain.
I mean, I've seen a lot of make it rains.
We're going to take a break.
We'll be back with Ishtar telling you we'll be back with Ishtar because he's in the
building.
If you'd
all like to move to the dance floor.
Let me all get it.
Welcome
back,
welcome back.
Welcome
back, welcome back.
Thank you for tuning in to The Great Vine.
I'm your host, Manon Sabir, and we're back after the extended break.
Yes, I know we had an extended break, but we had to lighten up our
Our next guest.
Our next guest is not a stranger to me.
I've seen him almost in diapers.
Literally.
Literally.
His name is Ishtar.
Ishtar is in the building.
And I'm excited.
I'm really excited.
Let me back up from this mic because I can start yelling in this mic, man.
You know, the treble can go super high in my voice.
So Milwaukee, you know, Ishtar's world class.
He's in the building.
He's here for an hour.
And before we get into any of that success, I want to go back to the moment nobody was watching yet.
Nobody was watching.
How you doing?
Man, I'm doing good, brother.
Man, thank you for having me, man.
You're a brother banana to me.
I'm
doing good, though, brother, man.
Thank you for having me.
Who we got in the building with you?
Man, so today I got my brothers with me, DJ Breezy.
Oh.
In the building, man.
The one and only.
My dog.
I also got my man, Liam Tatum.
Liam, what's up,
man?
The goat.
Man, put your headphones on.
Liam is like at the background.
Hey,
I'm just the manager.
Yeah, he, you know, his brain is moving,
huh?
Yeah, and all this stuff working.
We got a lot of stuff in the work, so, you know, I'm always
just... What's
next?
What's next?
What's next for
ish?
I like that, man.
I like that.
So, seventh grade, seventh grade, nobody's watching.
Notebook.
No fans, nothing but a feeling.
Football, was football still going on around seventh grade?
I know you played Pee Wee football.
So football probably had just ended, like sixth, seventh grade.
Yeah.
I know right before high school.
Yeah,
that's
right.
They got too big for me.
But
you
were fast though.
I was fast, running back
still, you know.
They couldn't they couldn't handle you that that speed though.
You had that speed.
There we go.
You know, still hold that record man.
Shout out to old timers man running back.
Our timers were racing.
That was racing.
Yeah.
Yes, sir.
So humble park man.
Good days.
Good time.
Yeah, man.
And all the brothers out there supporting everything.
Yes,
sir.
I
was coaching man.
Yeah.
What was actually happening in your life that made you need to write?
I feel like for me it was just being surrounded by music.
For us it was just kind of seeing it kind of gave us a feeling and I guess around that time we just wanted a way to express it.
Like I said, me and my brother, it was just really just kind of that.
I feel like being around it so much and then eventually, you know,
let's try it.
Let's just
try
it.
You mentioned your brother.
Big Buddha man, shout out Buddha Dar
man.
How's he doing?
Buddha's doing good, staying out of trouble man.
He just graduated?
Just graduated, proud of my boy, got that paperwork so Buddha's doing good.
What was his major?
His major was Cybersecurity.
Okay, so yeah, you got that cyber security, you know, he's here to protect you.
There we go.
You know,
take he always protect his brother and his
sister.
You gotta hack some, you know,
bro.
My account's like
millions of it up.
There we go.
So the password's locked.
But so yeah, shut up, bro.
Definitely super proud of him, man.
He's always been like that, though.
Yes, you know, super techie, you know, just and witty, you know, kind of
thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, um,
You know, you had a lucky break with the tweet from was it Chloe?
Yes more it's what we're having there like, you know, how much of your career?
You know like yours is talent versus just being ready for the moment So
mine was I would say I'm gonna say 50 50 but now actually like you said, I'm gonna say 80 20 because
in
that time
Me I was just dropping music just
kind
of not really knowing what it could do And so that was still early on she tweeted it out from there kind of like instantly started I guess charting at that time
when I
hype them So for me it was just like I didn't even know kind of what was going on until you know, just kind of like the days the weeks went by and we just see the numbers and Like you say it was one of those things you just had to be ready.
It wasn't even time
Next week we were in South by Southwest performing.
It went right
after that.
Yeah, right after that.
It was fast.
Oh snap.
Yeah, so we was right in Texas.
The song is still kind of like still just on the brink of doing this thing.
And like I said before, I can know I'm gonna have to perform it.
Just be ready.
Like I said, ready.
Whoa.
I didn't know that.
So yeah, it was
instant.
Love it though.
So you, you know, I know your parents wanted college.
Yeah.
basically.
Yeah, you know.
They did.
When it comes, you was on the auto, you were smart.
Yeah.
I mean, to me, you're a kid, but you're not.
You're a dog, man.
Thank you.
What was the actual conversation?
And I kind of know it, but I don't.
But what was the actual conversation that you had with your moms and the people you know?
Well, that conversation, I always remember it.
So I actually was in college when I had that conversation.
So
left school, went to UWM.
I was probably in my first semester.
I was trying my best.
Like
I said, I
was going to class doing as much as I could, but I still wasn't passing the classes.
And really, just because I was taking time to do the music, going to do shows, going to studio sessions.
And so I think probably like the end of that first semester, I was like, you know, mums.
I don't want, you know, you or pops, you know, y'all wasting y'all, hard earned, you know, money, none of that.
I think I should try taking this one semester off just to see.
And so moms kind of agree with me, which was a blessing.
Shout out moms on pops.
They were, you know, definitely understanding that, you know, just kind of seeing like, let's just see what he could do.
Right.
And that was it.
Never look back.
You know,
it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't a big let down, but it was something where they were like Deep breath.
All right.
Yeah You know,
I feel like they saw it kind of they're like, you know, we were just gonna It's something like we're gonna we're just gonna, you know give a good way and go out on a good whim there and Like I said, shout out moms pops because they didn't you know, give me too much bite back anything.
Oh, man, but it was nerve-wracking
Hey y'all, when we come back, we're gonna talk about Ishtar and what his career is doing now and much more when we come back in
two.
about the grind over shadows these the spirits in my daddy house keep me in the funk won't end up lost nor crashing out the fruits of my labor gotta pay me i was handing out banana to your i eclipsed with my clip come equip cuz to what i thought i had ain't exist i was pissed only thing i made a thorough bread list of every corner that i turned in every moment that i missed here i am i know i was rolling for a minute my bad drop on but still testing physics i laugh
This right here.
We back with Ishtar.
Man, we back with Ishtar.
Now, I'm excited.
We were just talking about at the break.
I'm always like, I always tell people this all the time that every time we get great conversation, we get greater conversations at the break.
Because the mic is usually, it picks up about 50% of what we're actually thinking, but the other 50% comes out during the break.
So we're gonna talk about this song real quick, right?
And, you know, DJ?
Yeah, so you were saying you were saying that it was fire
Talk
to me about the super fire
I Elaborate to Isha lot as far as you know a lot of the music that he has both in the vault and publicly like
the
stuff that I hear public I'm super blown away
by
but the things that he has privately in his vault that he just records day to day
It's so amazing, and sometimes I think that he doesn't even realize how amazing it is.
He lives it, it's his life, he's speaking, but to
us,
we listen to it, it's like, wow, man.
I always encourage him.
I'm like, as many people as possible need to listen to this, definitely.
When we talk about talent coming out of Milwaukee, we talk about talent.
You could be anywhere in the world.
You know, to say, like, you could be anywhere in the world, but you chose to be here.
And you could be anywhere in the world, your world class, you are world class.
I've been knowing you've been world class, your family's world class to me.
But you chose to stay.
And it's not like what you chose to say, ah, but you chose to stay.
Like, I still got a career.
And what's the version of this city that outsiders never are shown?
They're not shown
a lot.
Let's start there.
I've been a few places.
I've been a few places and you know, people sleep on Milwaukee.
I feel like I'm just what our culture is here.
The
artists that we do have, the food that we have, just kind of everything here is, that's what keeps me alone is for one and then just to love, like the people here is kind of like, they say there's no place like home and that's, I felt that kind of leaving.
Like I said, going different places, it was cool, you know, it was cool.
But something always drew me right back here.
Like, you know, the heart here, I can, I can build here, my closest friends here.
You know, like saying, jobs is not done.
So I was just like, we're going to keep a seat here.
You know,
there you go.
I know he was there.
He had that speaker on the trigger.
Literally, so
I said the job isn't done explain that because you know, yeah explain why the job isn't done
You know, it's just it's more to do and I guess being in other cities kind of seeing their scenes their artists kind of just how they move I saw just kind of more opportunity It's just some things that could be done here like you know as far as just artists shows Just outlets just you know a lot more that I feel like
we could still do.
It's
been in New York.
I've been, I've just seen some really cool things, cool events.
Me and Breezy just having this conversation is, you know, we want to bring some of those things here.
Yeah.
Just kind of see what the city would do and know how they would react to.
You've been on the stage with people like Anderson Pop and, you know, other folks.
That's a very interesting way to put it, right?
The Midwest, people from the Milwaukee, people from the Midwest, we have this work ethic.
I always say this, we have this work ethic that people is undefined because it keeps going deeper.
Like every time we go someplace else, people are like, man, this dude from Milwaukee, all he do is work.
Like he don't stop.
Like you can go anywhere in the world, you can recognize a person from, you know, the Midwest because they don't need a resume.
They just want to be like, all right, put me on the job so I can go do this work.
Am I right?
There you go.
Man, you hit it on the nail.
And that's, um, like I said, being in kind of different cities, but like New York, that was one thing I love was that work ethic.
And, um, you know, that's kind of one thing I just like, yo, I'm gonna define that here every day.
Like, you know, job ain't done.
Yeah.
More jump shots, more jump shots.
Hey, that's right.
He said Kobe.
Kobe Milwaukee's hip hop scene.
Um, it doesn't really get a lot of like national shine, but.
What does this city need to do to get its full respect?
Um, I feel like one thing is uh, I feel like the city is doing it's doing a good job right now I feel like as far as just kind of like the national attention from the past few years definitely has increased so I feel like For one people just need to just keep doing what they're doing which I feel like it's being authentically themselves.
Yeah, you know, um
That's one thing now the other cities have true to them is they say true to them.
And so
I feel
like walkie keeps doing that.
We keep on producing, you know, it's it's only up.
Like it's literally only up.
Yep.
We got I know, chicken pea, big Frank, you know, you got all those folks.
There you go.
There we go.
There we go.
Free chicken, man.
Yeah.
Yeah, literally.
Let them go free.
Come on, man.
And literally, Frank, too, like those those guys, too, just, you know, really hug their sound.
Certified, too, that's another one.
But I love, like I
said, seeing that.
It's
just
like, they stayed them.
It seems like you have like, and I keep saying I know you, but it's almost like when I ask these questions, I'm like, I know the answers.
So I'm gonna try to ask it for the audience, too.
I'm sorry, y'all.
I just know this guy.
But it seems like when you say that, you're not holding back your sentiments of empathy and love for the people that are in the city.
So you're not holding back.
You know, people, a lot of people can ask these questions and be like, man, you know what?
Yeah, they doing good.
And then shut the door on them.
But you're like, nah, if the door is open, I'm going to open this door.
I'm going to keep it open for everybody
else.
And that's again, that was from me seeing other cities like Atlanta.
Like I said, Atlanta culture was there is one, you know, it's one, we all going up.
And so you got to hug that.
Yeah.
That's what I, you know, I seen we don't do too much of,
but we're going to, you
know, slowly, but surely change the culture.
There you go.
Change the culture.
And, uh, yeah, we got to just team up more.
Yeah.
You know, like
the black together.
Oh, man.
Let me tell you.
So what's a Milwaukee spotted restaurant, um, a block of studio that shaped you that most people wouldn't expect?
Man, let's see.
People, I'm gonna just say.
Clare Mohammed School.
Oh,
shout out to Clare since Clare Mohammed School.
Shout out to Clare Mohammed
School, you know.
That's the first to do it.
The first to kind of show me everything I need to know about the city.
And so that's one of the, you know, my favorite.
And I still ride past it, you know, all the time.
Right on.
Just get that same feeling.
Like, this, you know, this is a start.
You know, that's when we link.
Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, man, that's crazy, man.
You know, I'm happy that you said that because school played a huge part in shaping you.
Yes.
I was a major.
I know your parents been like, man, go get that education no matter what.
Mm-hmm.
And Mesmer, shout out from there.
Shout out to
Mesmer.
Oh, Mod right there, too.
There we go.
I got you.
It did this thing for me up in the studio.
So that was kind of my first taste of music, too.
You
said studio?
Yeah, so Masmer.
That was my first taste of like a real studio.
Oh, wow.
I didn't know they had a studio.
Yeah.
So,
um, Masmer, second floor to auditorium.
It wasn't even open to everyone.
Um, but somehow like wave discovered it.
Oh, shout out to Wave.
Shout out Wave.
Shout out Wave.
Shout out to my brother, man.
Um, but yeah, they were already there.
And, um, second floor, they were like, it's a studio.
Y'all can use it.
Don't be cussing.
Nothing like
that.
What's that
G-flat?
That was G-flash.
G-flash.
I
thought it was G-flat, man.
It's
all G-flat again,
man.
Who's G-flat?
So that's Greg Flattery.
That
was
a music instructor
at, uh,
yeah, at Mesmer.
I think he's at Carmen now, but, um, he opened the door for us.
And, uh, from there we ran.
Like, ooh.
Long summers in that Mesmer studio.
Hot summers just recordin'.
You know.
Yeah, I know about Bensperger
that no air conditioning.
No air.
Windows.
Got like NPS right now.
Hey, coming up, Ish talks about the young man.
He mentors kids in the system that's, you know, they, that the system has already written off.
And then we're going to get into, let them get into the hot seat of the rapid fire questions.
But, you know, we got a couple more questions for them when we come back in two.
I know one thing, I'm better with tweakers, this that water ain't got me in pieces, and the party is all about me.
I like money, I'm good on them leashes, selling stamps, got grams and features, selling place to stake with one time.
Two trippin', I still got a red beam toad, easy for real, I'm a bowman.
I such high and fire, I cannot find, not a f***, not a one, this is Dress
Glock, I got a ball, I
mean, damn, I'm a nice guy, stupid f***, gotta know it was sad time.
I'm good, I know what this sex like, yeah.
I'm livin' my best life, teeth gold, I'm rollin' my pimp dice, 24 carats in real life, still here with Tew, this real life.
Yo, welcome back
to the
grapevine.
I'm your host, Manon Sabir.
And I was just tweeting, I was just hitting, Sean hitting up because I'm always about collaboration and
I know when we were talking at the break that I was explaining to who Sean Hinton was and Sean Hinton was on my show.
He's a good friend of mine.
He's actually playing the Pinky Ring in Vegas with Bruno Mars.
And I know it's interesting because if a Milwaukee artist doesn't know another Milwaukee artist, the great part about Milwaukee artists is the fact that when you introduce one to the next, they're like,
It's almost like the land of the lost, like man.
Where
you
been?
Literally, literally.
So being able to like connect you guys over a two sentence text is amazing for me.
And I really appreciate you coming in and me being able to actually help facilitate that.
This is a part of my
journey.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
And for real.
And our man, I plan on.
Thank
you.
We don't mess with
me.
We cooking.
We got White Boy Rick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So what was the audition process?
You played in White Boy Rick.
Yes, sir.
You know, the big box gross was a big box office hit.
What was the audition process
like?
Man, so that was...
With Matthew McConaughey, too, right?
Yeah, with Matthew McConaughey.
With Matthew.
Shout out, man.
That's Matthew McConaughey.
We
got to bring them out here to the show, man.
There we go, man.
Uncle, literally.
It's my uncle.
It's my uncle.
Hey,
you got to say it like this, though.
My
uncle.
My
uncle.
Got to long
face
it.
But, man, that process was smooth.
It shot it right here.
Came through just one of our emails, music emails.
Did the audition with my shooter at the time.
Really quick.
I probably prepped for it for like two hours before and then I just like I'm on let's try it Shot it and then I sent it away.
Yeah, so it was really really quick, but um You know, I guess I didn't think anything of it from there.
Whoo.
It was like,
let's see.
And so when you get on set you're in Where was it shot?
That was in Cleveland.
It was shot in Cleveland.
Yes, sir.
Okay
So you you get on set first day you're in the land of the loss
Yeah, you know first time in Cleveland.
Yeah, it was fun out there.
Um, but it was a It was a learning experience.
Let's say that.
Yeah, definitely landed a loss.
Um, you get adjusted pretty quickly there.
Um, and I remember like my first day on set
Again, I probably don't even remember my first down set.
I just remember going to my trailer I Get I got like my own personal trailer Get to get dressed in kind of just gather your thoughts before you go on set.
Yeah, and I'm from there I went to the makeup trailer, which was that's where Matthew was.
Yeah, and You know, like I said, it's I'm still like I said taking it all in
I think I was still kind of new to who Matthew even was at that time.
I played opposite
Samuel Jackson.
You know, literally.
No,
that's
great.
Literally.
And so I'm like,
damn.
And so that was, you know, from there, it was just lesson by lesson, day by day.
But still the best experience of my career.
What was one thing Matthew McConaughey told you your other uncle told you on set that stuck with
you?
One thing he taught me or kind of like showed us just just kind of like the art of being in it.
Yeah, I guess what being on set And that was just again about just being naturally him.
It was like, you know, this is kind of This is just me.
And so we
didn't
know if he was
You
know, in
character, if he was rehearsing his lines and that's kind of just one thing I learned from him was just and he was rehearsing lines, but we did think he was talking to us, you know, like we were having a conversation with him.
And this is just in between us shooting a scene, but to him, like I say, he's rehearsing.
He's staying ready, staying in it.
And so from us, that was kind of eye opener for me and Buddha, like that Buddha was going to sit with me too.
And so.
We're just like,
you
know, keep doing what we doing, you know, like, and you know, you ain't got to do too
much.
Your
brother
went out there with
you.
Yeah.
So end up getting Buddha a role in there too.
So Buddha end up staying like the last four weeks with me shooting in the role in there too.
What?
You put a Yanis.
Put
it.
Put
a
Yanis.
Put
a Yanis on
him?
Yes.
But your brother's a start-off, you know.
There we go.
So
we
got, you know,
bro
winning, man.
I think he was just coming to visit.
He was like, you know, I love him.
Can I, can you audition?
Like, yeah, you can.
And you audition like the next day in my hotel.
Y'all got y'all sad cards.
Yeah.
Well, we ain't even get our sad
cards.
What?
Yeah, we ain't get our sad cards.
Man, you need more movies then.
I need more movies, Loki.
Yeah, I'm gonna, you know, that's on the way.
That's on the way.
Yeah,
we got it.
We got it.
We got to do that.
Yes, sir.
You might have to go out to Vegas for that
one.
That's it.
That, you know,
we here,
you
know, for that.
But that's, man, that's exciting.
So what do you say to a young man that's in the room who feels like
the system has decided who he's going to be.
You know, the system and the juvie system and the system.
What do you say to that young man?
To them, I got a lot of, let's say, brothers who've escaped in that system, just getting out of that system.
And I'm still very close with them.
I say, for one, keep going.
That system is...
Definitely, you know design for us to fail Especially here and so I would say don't let that deter you, you know, don't let that stop because I'm seeing Even after that people still, you know going on to do things and accomplish things that You know, in a sense, no system can detain you, you know, and so I would say just keep going bro.
I keep going Again free bus one, you know free chicken here in the system, but yeah, that's uh
That's, you know, kind of one of those things, especially here, because I hate it, but it's one you just got to kind of treat that as like a small fraction of, you know,
where you want to go.
Yeah, where you want to go.
That's your life.
Like, you think about life as a journey, has a whole lot of journeys.
And a lot of times we don't, we look at our young people, we look at our young people and we always think, man, you know, we write them off.
when in reality, I might just need some therapy.
There you go.
You know, especially here, I feel like it's getting worse here, especially with our youth.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
They're starting at, you know, 16, 15, and... Oh, go try that as a dog.
You know, being
tried as a dog, you know, and I learned that today.
And
I'm like, you know, that's
crazy because at 16, you know, we was going skating.
You know,
that's what I was doing.
So now it's like the city is saying it's like the kids.
You know, it's a complete 360, you
know,
not many outlets for him.
So I would definitely just try to try to urge finding that outlet, finding something to just take your mind away from this crazy madness.
It's
crazy everywhere.
And skating is a is a is a dope outlet.
We need another skate ring.
You know, if you guys are about to produce a skate ring out here in Milwaukee.
Please do it.
And then Ishtar will perform regularly.
There we go.
A residency at the skating rink, which is kind of cool.
I'm pretty sure Craig Berry from Mr. B's is working on something.
He was just
on
Jazz's show the other day, and I think he said something about that.
I'll have to double check, but I think he's working on something.
Oh,
wow.
Shout
out to Craig.
He's excellent businessman.
Man, there we go.
You know, I was just talking about...
Frequencies and this is the frequency.
We're setting up the frequency.
I know your mom's big on that Yes, yeah, I'm proud of you.
We're not done yet.
We're gonna take an extended break and then we're gonna talk about rapid fire questions But before we do that before we do that we're gonna talk about your dad and Pops.
Yeah,
man.
Oh gee, man.
Oh gee.
Yeah,
man
Hey y'all, we'll be back with Ishtar on the grapevine.
We're gonna pick some more grapes with them when we come back.
