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This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
1:13
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:14
Let's get into it.
1:15
All right, guys.
1:16
Y'all are going to get a little bit spoiled by this one because we had our first interview ever last week.
1:21
And I've gotten a lot of great feedback on that.
1:23
So I really appreciate you guys letting us know how much you enjoyed that episode.
1:26
But here we are, two episodes in a row and look at it.
1:31
We're going to do another interview.
1:32
Now, this interview today is with Zuby.
1:35
So if you don't know who Zuby is,
1:37
you've probably been living under a rock for a little bit
1:38
because this guy has been everywhere.
1:40
He's been on the Joe Rogan experience.
1:42
He's been on the Rubin Report.
1:43
He's been on the Ben Shapiro Sunday Special.
1:45
Adam Corolla showed the Glenn Beck Show.
1:47
He's been all over the place.
1:48
But I'm going to go ahead and read his intro from his website.
1:51
So I'm going to kind of give you an idea of who he is and all the different things that he touches.
1:54
So here he is.
1:55
Zuby is a professional rapper, podcast host, author, public speaker,
1:59
creative entrepreneur, and social media influencer
2:02
with over 180,000 followers online.
2:04
He was born in England, raised in Saudi Arabia,
2:06
and is a graduate of Oxford University.
2:09
Zuby has sold over 25,000 albums independently,
2:12
performed in eight countries,
2:13
and his videos have been watched over 5 million times online.
2:17
Guys, we go everywhere in this podcast.
2:19
We really go all over the place.
2:22
And guys, this guy is such a deep intellectual thinker on so many topics.
2:26
We only had about an hour that we could spend together
2:29
just because he's in the United States right now.
2:30
He didn't have a whole lot of time to sit down and do this episode.
2:33
So he literally carved out time just for us,
2:36
just for you guys, just so that you can hear it.
2:38
So without further ado, let's get into it.
2:40
Zuby, welcome to Undaunted Life, a man's podcast, man.
2:43
How are you doing?
2:44
I'm very well. Thanks, man.
2:45
I appreciate it.
2:46
Well, man, you've been kind of hopping around the United States here
2:49
for the last couple of weeks.
2:50
You spent some time in California and some time in Texas,
2:52
and you're in Texas now.
2:54
So how have you been enjoying yourself in America?
2:56
I am. I'm recording this from my hotel room in Dallas right now.
2:59
So I hope the internet holds up well.
3:01
Yeah, it's been great so far, man.
3:03
I'd never been to California before.
3:05
I'd never been to Texas before.
3:06
So it's been a fantastic experience.
3:09
I mean, to come out to the various cities I've been to so far,
3:13
LA, San Francisco, Austin, and Dallas.
3:16
And have such a warm welcome, have people wanting to record podcasts with me,
3:23
feature on videos, do interviews, even people just being fans and followers.
3:29
I mean, it's kind of crazy being an independent artist from the UK,
3:32
who's totally independent and have the opportunity to go on
3:35
some of the biggest podcasts in the world or be in LA and have people
3:39
on the street recognize me and tell me they like what I do and stuff like that.
3:44
It's amazing. It shows that I'm on the pathway of having an impact
3:50
and influence on lots and lots of people all over the world,
3:54
which has always been my goal.
3:56
So to see it coming to fruition slowly, but surely, it's amazing.
4:02
It makes me feel very happy and proud of what I've achieved.
4:05
It motivates me to continue and yeah, I just feel blessed, man.
4:09
That's awesome. I mean, that's one thing that whenever I talk to people,
4:12
I have friends that are overseas and if they've never been to America,
4:15
especially not like Oklahoma or Texas, because I'm recording this in Oklahoma,
4:18
they don't understand what like actual hospitality is.
4:21
They just look at America like, oh my gosh, people are just being shot in the streets.
4:25
Everyone's eating cheeseburgers. It's like just this nonsense all over the place.
4:28
And so I like it whenever people come here and have a positive experience.
4:32
But we need to get into really the main reason why most people know you
4:36
or it came to know you in the first place.
4:37
And you're probably tired of talking about this, but we're going to talk about it.
4:40
We're going to talk about it from the top and we're going to get it out of the way
4:42
and get into some other different subjects.
4:44
But you're basically a world-renowned trans weight lifter
4:48
because on February 26 of this year, you posted a tweet that's got
4:52
you know, about 65,000 likes over 17,000 retweets.
4:55
The video through Twitter has been seen a couple of million times,
4:58
but we can be assured that the video has been seen way more times than that.
5:02
But this was the caption for any of the listeners that didn't see the video.
5:06
It's this.
5:06
I keep hearing about how biological men don't have any physical strength advantage
5:11
over women in 2019.
5:13
So watch me destroy the British women's deadlift record without trying.
5:17
P.S. identified as a woman was lifting the weight.
5:21
Don't be a bigot.
5:22
Now here's the thing, you probably would have been okay
5:25
had you not done the postscript, right?
5:27
But at the same time, at the same time, we may not be talking right now.
5:31
You may have not ended up on the Joe Rogan experience,
5:33
but it was that last little part identified as a woman was lifting this weight.
5:37
Don't be a bigot.
5:37
That is what made you go around the world in a very short period of time.
5:42
So if you would just flow a little bit on how all that came to be
5:45
and kind of how your life changed on February 26 of this year.
5:49
Oh, good grief.
5:50
Okay.
5:50
So yeah, so it was kind of what I said there.
5:54
You know, I'd continually seen articles and clips of people who are
6:02
biologically male, either identifying as female or, I guess in some cases,
6:08
actually being, you know, what people would call transgender women
6:12
who've done some of the hormone treatment and stuff like that.
6:16
And in various sports, I was seeing it in MMA, in athletics,
6:19
in weightlifting, a whole bunch of different sports.
6:21
I kept seeing these stories popping up of these people
6:25
beating women at their own game, essentially.
6:27
Outlifting them, outrunning them, outjumping them,
6:30
outfighting them, everything.
6:32
And I've always thought that it's ridiculous.
6:35
I mean, I've seen it over the last couple of years,
6:37
but it seems to have sort of accelerated and become something
6:40
that I started seeing more and more.
6:43
So prior to posting that tweet, I had just seen that somewhere in the US,
6:48
I can't remember what state, but there'd been a high school athletics competition
6:53
and the first and second place competitors in this event
7:00
were both boys, and this is in the girls race.
7:03
So I saw that and I was like, okay, the stuff is just getting silly.
7:08
And then out of curiosity, I just Googled to see what the British women's
7:13
deadlift record was.
7:15
Well, all the powerlifting records were in the 84 kilogram weight class,
7:19
which, if I competed, would be the weight class I was in.
7:22
And I saw that the women's deadlift record was around 215 kilos.
7:28
My max is 275, which is 100 pounds more than the record.
7:33
And I also saw the bench press record was somewhere around 105,
7:38
and my max is like 147.
7:41
So in both cases, I was like, oh, wow, I can completely obliterate these records.
7:45
Like it's not even close.
7:46
And so I already had a video, the video that went viral was already on my phone.
7:52
In fact, that video was already on the internet,
7:55
but it was just part of one of my training sessions that I posted to YouTube.
7:58
And in that video, the one that went viral, I was doing 230 kilos,
8:02
which was more than the record.
8:04
So I just posted that tweet a little bit tongue in cheek.
8:07
As I post a lot of stuff, I do a lot of tweets.
8:11
I put a lot of content out there.
8:13
I didn't sort of sit down and strategize that this would be the one
8:16
that would put me on the map internationally.
8:19
So I just tweeted it out there.
8:21
And very quickly, I realized that I had touched on some nerves.
8:26
The video got about 10,000 views in the first,
8:29
let's say the first 15 minutes or so.
8:31
And it just started getting retweeted all over the world,
8:35
started getting retweeted by some very, very prominent people,
8:38
people with millions and millions of followers in various different countries.
8:42
And it just took on its own life.
8:44
By the time I went to bed, it had 300,000 views.
8:47
I woke up in the morning.
8:48
It was over half a million.
8:49
And that thing just kept going and going.
8:51
And my follower count just kept going up and up and up.
8:54
And so as that one was going viral,
8:57
I decided to post a video of me breaking the bench press record as well.
9:00
I think that video got about half a million views as well.
9:02
So I did that.
9:03
I broke the record.
9:04
I did three reps.
9:05
Did you really have to do those last two reps?
9:10
I mean, come on.
9:11
You're just kind of showing off like your record.
9:13
You already broke the record with the first one.
9:15
Yeah, yeah.
9:16
I just wanted to sort of show the differential, I guess.
9:20
Because the whole thing is absurd.
9:21
Well, you kind of pointed this out and you've set it in some different interviews.
9:26
And the thing that I feel that is most important when talking about this issue
9:30
is the people that seem to be on the cutting edge or the forefront of this issue
9:34
are being very disingenuous.
9:35
And the reason is, is because they're typically these trans athletes, right?
9:40
The so-called trans athletes are competing in sports like track and field
9:44
or weightlifting or something like that.
9:46
But whenever you get into other areas of sport,
9:49
they don't seem to be saying things in the exact same manner.
9:52
So an example would be this.
9:53
So in the United States, obviously basketball is a big deal.
9:56
It's big all over the world.
9:56
But let's just take collegiate athletics, right?
9:59
So on most of these college campuses,
10:01
you have a lot of people that are LGBTQ plus activists and those types of things.
10:06
Then why aren't they advocating that they get rid of women's and men's basketball
10:10
and just have basketball?
10:11
If there is no biological difference, if there's no performance difference between them,
10:17
why don't we just have one division and the best players can play?
10:20
And that's kind of one of those things where I feel like it's a little bit disingenuous
10:24
when people are outraged at a video like the video that you posted.
10:28
Because they're not advocating for someone like Amanda Nunes to fight in 135 or 145-pound
10:34
men's division in the UFC because that would be something ridiculous.
10:38
But yeah, I mean, you kind of get what I'm saying?
10:39
Of course I do.
10:40
Well, that's because it's ideologically driven.
10:42
It's not driven by fairness and kindness and compassion as they're claiming to.
10:46
Or if it is, they're extremely deluded.
10:49
It's driven by this ideology, which is you must suspend objective reality and biological reality.
10:58
And you must just go along with what we're saying.
11:01
If we're saying this person is a woman or that person is saying they're a woman,
11:03
then you must accept them as a woman.
11:05
I mean, that's why part of why it went so viral because it was a checkmate, right?
11:10
Because anyone who is saying that can't criticize my video.
11:14
Okay, I'd said that I identified as a woman.
11:16
So if you then say that, hey, you're not a real woman, then by your own logic,
11:23
you are being transphobic and bigoted.
11:25
So there was nothing anybody could say.
11:28
There was literally out of the thousands, millions of responses that thing got.
11:33
There was not a single coherent argument as to why what I did was offensive or
11:43
wrong or anything.
11:44
It was like people were just trying to say stuff, but none of them had any coherent argument
11:49
and they couldn't because it was just a total checkmate, right?
11:53
Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right with the checkmate on that.
11:56
But also at the same time, you've probably heard this about people in the political left.
12:00
The reason why they try to shout people down and try to cancel people is because they don't
12:04
have new ideas and their quote unquote new ideas kind of suck.
12:07
And so it's kind of one of those things where if you can't
12:10
argue it logically and calmly, then it's probably not a good argument.
12:13
They don't really ascribe to that belief system.
12:15
No, they don't.
12:16
But I'm not someone who I've been dealing with this stuff for a long time,
12:24
not this thing specifically, but I know.
12:26
I mean, the reason I was even able to make that to it is because I'm so familiar with
12:29
their own arguments and logic.
12:32
So I can just totally use it against them.
12:34
I just turned it completely on its head because if you go through the thread,
12:43
there's a whole bunch of other tweets and comments in there,
12:46
which are, again, it's just me applying the same logic to anyone who's dissenting and saying,
12:52
well, if you call me transphobic, then that makes you transphobic.
12:56
Exactly.
12:57
I mean, firstly, I'm not transphobic.
13:00
The funny thing with this tweet is that there are a lot of the majority of
13:06
actually trans people who I'm aware of who responded to it or who DM'd me or whatever,
13:10
the vast majority was positive.
13:12
Most of them thought it was funny because the activists don't represent them in a lot of cases.
13:17
This goes with any group, any minority group, any sort of,
13:23
you've got people who claim to be activists who claim to represent a certain group,
13:27
but oftentimes they don't. There's nobody who speaks on behalf of all women.
13:31
There's nobody who speaks on behalf of all gay people or trans people.
13:34
I don't even know why those things are lumped together to begin with.
13:37
They're totally different.
13:38
But you've got these advocates and those advocates are not representative.
13:42
As far as I'm aware, trans people have actually met or noticed some degree.
13:46
Typically, they just want to get on with their life and maybe they feel they were
13:54
born in the wrong body and they want to be treated as the opposite gender to their biological sex
14:01
and why not. And oftentimes they've gone through some process to make them look and act like that
14:11
case anyway. I don't think most people are really whether or not people think it's positive or
14:16
negative or neutral or agree or disagree or whatever. I think most people are of the belief.
14:21
It's like, "Okay, well, if you're an adult, then if that's what you want to do,
14:24
okay, that doesn't change biological reality. That doesn't change objective reality."
14:30
But most people don't want to go out of their way and just be mean or cruel to people for
14:35
no reason, including myself. So, yeah, the activist arm of that thing,
14:44
I really do not think is representative. In fact, I would actually say they're doing
14:48
them a massive disservice because I think they're probably, because people will see that and then
14:54
people will assume, not everyone has the level of nuance that I do. A lot of people will see that
14:59
and just be like, "Oh my gosh, all of these people are crazy. Is this what they're trying to do?"
15:05
They'll go and they'll see the thing in Canada, that person going around trying to get their
15:09
testicles waxed in all these places. They'll see this stuff happening in sports and they'll just be
15:13
like, "What on earth is this?" And I think that's actually very hypocritically, I think that's so,
15:22
maybe ironically is a better word. I think that's actually doing a disservice to the people who just
15:26
kind of want to get on with their life and not be bothered and maybe be called "he" instead of "she"
15:32
or vice versa. Well, and Zubi, I mean, I don't know that there's anything more annoying than
15:36
someone being offended for someone else because that's a thing about offense is it's like that's
15:40
offensive towards a person, right? Whether you mean it to be offensive or not, it's the individual
15:44
person that's taking offense. But I really like your perspective on this and you shared a lot about
15:49
this on other podcasts. And like I said, you pretty much have to start there with Zubi, but there's
15:52
a whole lot more to Zubi and we're going to get into a lot of that now. But one of the interesting
15:56
things about this suite is it got you from where you were early this year to being on the biggest
16:03
show pretty much in all of podcasting or all of radio. And that was the Joe Rogan experience. And
16:07
so you did an interview with him a few weeks ago. That video on YouTube right now is about
16:12
three quarter of a million views. At this point, there is no telling how many listens or downloads
16:18
that talk has had. So the thing about that though is pretty much everyone that listens to this podcast
16:23
listens to the Joe Rogan experience. But there's always this little bit of like, okay, you don't
16:28
know who's coming up because he doesn't like post his schedule out there of who's coming on the show.
16:32
There's a little bit of mystique about the show. But I want you to kind of take our listeners
16:37
through the process of getting on the Joe Rogan experience. Like, did he call you? Did someone
16:42
else send you an email? Did you have to go through like a secret underground entrance to get to this
16:46
place? So you're not getting mobbed? Did you hang out with him beforehand? Did you work out with
16:50
him after? Just just take us through your Joe Rogan experience. Yeah, sure. So when the video,
16:56
so about two weeks after I posted the video, I woke up one morning and I had a bunch of people
17:02
saying, yo, yo, like Joe Rogan just shouted you out on his show. I noticed I'd had another spike in
17:06
followers, especially on Instagram. And I had a bunch of messages just from people saying, yo,
17:11
Joe Rogan just mentioned you on the show. He just mentioned you on the show. And I was like,
17:14
oh, whoa, what's up? So I checked it out. It was one of the episodes he'd recorded with his friend
17:18
Brian Callan. And I finally found the section where they talked about it. And so they actually
17:25
pulled up the video and read out the tweet. They spent, they spent about a minute and a half on it.
17:29
And Joe shouted me out on the show and he followed me on Twitter on the show and sort of announced
17:35
that he was following me on Twitter. So firstly, I was hype. I was like, yo, this is crazy. This is
17:41
nuts. Just sort of seeing that segment. It was very funny segment too. So I kind of took a video
17:48
clip for it and from it and was kind of reposting that on my own socials. And yeah, Joe actually
17:54
DM'd me on Twitter. So he just sent me a DM kind of saying he liked the video and thought it was
17:59
funny and was making a good point and stuff like that. So yeah, we had a little back and forth on
18:04
the DMs on Twitter. And then yeah, a few months later, so he's been following me since March now
18:11
or so. And so a few months later, I was trying to think of what order it came around. And I think
18:19
I was chatting with my friend Dave Rubin about possibly appearing on his show. And he invited me
18:26
onto doing his show, The Rubin Report. I think that's the one that came first. So I was like,
18:31
okay, I'm in the UK at this point. But I was like, okay, well, I'm going to be going to LA
18:35
to do that. So if I'm going to be going to LA, I'm aware that, you know, that's also where that's
18:40
around where Joe is. There's a whole bunch of other podcasts that are happening there. So if I'm going
18:43
to go to LA, let me, let me, let me make the most of it. So I just DM Joe and said, yo, I'm thinking
18:49
of coming to LA for the first time this year, you know, it would be an honor to feature on your
18:54
podcast if you're open to it. And he just said, like, heck, yeah, when are you here? And it was,
18:58
it was that simple from there. It was just locking down a date and sorting out the logistics. And
19:03
it happened from there. And then all the lots of the other podcasts I did, including Adam Corolla,
19:08
the Ben Shapiro show, I'm trying to actually remember them all like it dominoes just kind of
19:16
started falling. You know, once once it was like, okay, cool, I'm going to be in LA during these
19:19
dates, I just had a bunch of people reaching out to me, extending offers. Because I'm followed by
19:26
a lot of, you know, followed by a lot of prominent people on Twitter. And lots of the ones who even
19:32
don't follow me sort of, I'm on their radar. So, and I've got a very, very active following. So
19:39
people started, you know, adding people saying, Oh, you guys need to get Zuby on your show. You
19:42
guys need to get Zuby on your show. And a lot of stuff just happened organically. I reached
19:46
out to a couple people, lots of people reached out to me. And the sort of list of podcasts
19:51
scheduled just just kept on growing. And that's what's been happening even while I've been in the US,
19:57
you know, with all these different cities, lots of people are like, Oh, what's your plan for this
20:00
city? What's your plan for that city? And normally I'll just have one or two things planned. And then
20:03
once I get there, more things will arise. Here in Dallas, I've just recorded five interviews with
20:09
Blaze TV. I was on Glenn Beck's show yesterday. I did a Graham Allen's show, Sarah Gonzalez's
20:16
show. So lots of stuff is just, it's just kind of dominoes falling, you know, lots of people want
20:22
to talk to me. And she, you know, want me to share my perspective. Some of those are huge podcasts,
20:29
some of them are smaller ones. And I'm at that stage where it's just like, cool, you know, if it'll
20:33
help me get my message out there. And it's someone who's doing something interesting, then let's talk,
20:39
let's see, let's get the word out there. That's awesome. So whenever you arrived at the studio,
20:45
because I know sometimes he'll do episodes back to back with different people, where you just
20:50
basically chill them in the green room, they brought you out, you know, two, three minutes before
20:53
your interview. And then they said, all right, thanks a lot. And then sent you on your way right
20:57
after like once you got there. No, no, no. So I was there about an hour before Joe got there. So he
21:02
messaged me saying he was running a bit late. So I was there with one of my friends and just a
21:07
couple of the guys who work at the studio. So I was just chilling. We were just chilling waiting
21:11
for Joe checking out the stuff. It's a really cool facility. I can't, you know, say too much
21:17
about it because I know they like their privacy. But it was a really, really cool studio.
21:22
And so yeah, we waited for Joe, Joe came, we had a little chat. And then we just went in the studio,
21:30
you know, boom, set a record. I obviously met Jamie and everyone like that. And yeah,
21:35
we just recorded it. And then actually when I came out, Neil deGrasse Tyson was in the green
21:41
room and he'd been he'd been listening in on the conversation I was having with Joe live.
21:45
So he came out and, you know, he complimented me, said I'm a very intelligent young man who would
21:49
be hard to follow off with. That's a good compliment. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So and then I was with,
21:57
I was with Neil and Joe and the other guys there. And we were just chatting for about 20 minutes.
22:00
It wasn't like a rush thing. We were just hanging out having a talk. I gave, I gave Joe a copy of
22:07
my book on air. I gave Neil a copy of my book and signed it for him. You know, he said maybe we'll
22:13
connect when I'm in New York if our schedules line up. So it was just great. You know, it was really
22:18
relaxed. Joe is just, you know, he's like he is on the show. He's just a guy doing amazing stuff,
22:26
but he's still very much a normal guy, you know, and there's no, there's no front, there's no,
22:31
there's no fakeness, anything like that. And I think I'm the same, I believe I'm the same kind
22:35
of person. So, you know, we naturally just kind of clicked. And yeah, everything was cool. But it
22:40
was a, it was a little bit of a surreal experience, just as a watcher and listener to the show to kind
22:45
of be like, Oh, wow, I'm actually, I'm in this room right now. Right. Yeah, you know, that was,
22:50
that was a little bit surreal. But, um, but it was cool. You know, the whole time in LA was just,
22:55
was just a blur. I just did so much met so many great people did so much cool stuff in a relatively
23:00
short amount of time. Um, yeah, you know, like I said, this trip has really been, um, it's really
23:04
been a blessing, you know, I'm just trying to make the most of it and have fun in the process.
23:10
Yeah. I mean, it'll probably take a little while to decompress to really understand just the
23:13
totality of what you were able to do in such a short period of time. But I got to be honest,
23:17
for me, I was really, really excited whenever I figured out, I think it was that you tweeted it
23:22
or you put some on Instagram that you were going to be on that show. I was like, yes,
23:26
this is going to be freaking awesome. But it's interesting because I remember Neil deGrasse Tyson
23:30
came on after you. There was a video that came out on YouTube, like pretty much a day after his
23:35
interview with Neil and it was Neil deGrasse Tyson kept interrupting Joe Rogan and Joe would like
23:40
roll his eyes and kind of be like, dude, all right, like I was in the middle of saying something.
23:44
But while I was listening to your interview with Joe and this might just be something that I noticed,
23:49
I was a little disappointed in how many times he cut you off and how much time he spent talking.
23:56
And me, y'all talked for several hours. But one thing for me is I was just like, dude, I was like
24:01
getting visibly upset. I was like, dude, Joe, like shut up. I want to hear what we have to say
24:05
about this. I mean, did you feel like it didn't flow or am I out in left field when I think of that?
24:11
Man, I mean, people, I've heard a few people say that people have, you know, said different things.
24:16
Some people have said that it was, you know, I don't know. I think the, I think it took a little
24:23
while for it to kind of get, get going. I think the second, I feel like the second half of it
24:30
was more, a lot more interesting than the first half, just because it was very a little bit random
24:35
and meandering. But as someone who listens to the show, I know that's what that's what.
24:39
Yeah, that's how it goes. Yeah.
24:40
Yeah, yeah. So I don't know, you know, I hope people who heard about me for the first time
24:45
through that got managed to get a decent idea and impression of who I am and what I do.
24:49
I would have liked to have spent a little bit more time kind of talking on that. But obviously,
24:54
you know, with it being, you know, without just being Joe's show and not knowing how, you know,
25:01
with some, with some podcasts and interviews, I've got a pretty good interview. I'm sorry,
25:05
I've got a pretty good ability to kind of steer the conversation in the way that I,
25:09
the way that I specifically want it to go. But on that one, I was very much like, okay, you know,
25:14
this is just loose. Let me, I don't know the, I don't know the, the process. I don't want to,
25:18
you know, try to steer the conversation too hard if there are certain things that they want to
25:22
cover and whatnot. So yeah, you know, I was happy to just kind of be, be along for the ride if you,
25:28
if you get what I mean. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it was pretty clear that Joe liked you. I
25:32
mean, even later, he was kind of, he was giving you a little bit of crap for wearing a shirt and hat
25:36
on the show. But even on a later podcast, he's like, yeah, I probably would have given him more
25:40
crap for it. But I really liked the guy. And you could tell that he liked you and that he respected
25:44
you and those types of things. But at the end of the day, Joe Rogan's trying to run a show,
25:47
he's got sponsors. If he feels like he needs to steer something one way or the other, that's,
25:51
that's kind of his prerogative. Now, one thing, one thing on that podcast,
25:55
and I've noticed from a lot of your interviews, I know on the Ben Shapiro Sunday special,
25:58
this was kind of, you know, behind the paywall type of thing, I don't feel like you've gotten a
26:03
lot of runway to talk about your belief system as a Christian. And I know you spend about two,
26:08
two and a half minutes with Joe kind of talking very 30,000 foot view about his, his beliefs,
26:14
not really his beliefs, but your beliefs through his context as somebody that has kind of softened
26:18
his stance on people that have, have a faith of some kind over the years. But that's not really
26:23
something that I've seen with, with the Ruben report or even Adam Corolla show in your interviews,
26:28
where you get to have that runway to say, Hey, this is why I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ.
26:32
This is my story. This is kind of how it goes. But I mean, this is a mainly Christian audience
26:36
here on the Dante life of man's podcast. So I'm going to give you kind of some space. And you
26:40
don't have to go into a full on testimony. And there doesn't need to be tears and all that kind of
26:44
stuff. But at the same time, I'd like to get an idea for someone like you that is so intellectually
26:49
sound and so smart, like so for you, why are you a follower of Jesus Christ? And how did that come
26:54
about? Sure. Well, in terms of how it came about, I mean, I come from a Christian family, my parents
27:00
are Christian, all of my wider families, Christian, I was raised as Christian. I'm someone who is,
27:07
you know, I have my, I have my religious beliefs, I have my faith, I try to live my
27:12
life a certain way. I'm also someone who is, I'm also someone who is honest and reflective enough
27:20
to understand that the fact that I'm a Christian is partially due to a chance, you know, had I
27:26
grown up in, in Saudi Arabia and been raised by a Muslim family, there's a good chance I would
27:33
have been a Muslim had I been raised by parents who are very, very atheistic, then there's a good
27:39
chance, not 100%, but there's a good chance that, you know, I would have kind of taken that on
27:44
board. So I do, I do recognize that, you know, that for any person of faith of any, any religion,
27:50
there's a factor that is kind of like, okay, well, what family, what's your family background,
27:57
what's your parental background, how are you raised? So I understand that there's that,
28:00
there's that element. So for myself, that's, I think that's this, the story for a lot of people,
28:07
I think most people are kind of just raised a certain way. But then I also think it's fairly
28:12
normal and commonplace for people once they reach certainly teenage age or become young adults to
28:19
sort of, I think, I think that's the stage where people really either kind of confirm their own
28:26
religion, or in some cases, stray away from it, shall we say, you know, when people obviously
28:31
have external, more external influences and are more mature and able to think for themselves and
28:39
come up with their own ideas and question things and challenge things and everything like that. So,
28:45
you know, like, I think, and I think that's, I think that's a good thing. I don't think it's good to
28:50
follow anything or believe anything blindly. I don't think that really, you know, I don't think
28:58
an intellectual person can really, can really do that. You know, I think anyone who's a Christian
29:05
or a Muslim or a Jew or Hindu, any, any religion surely at some point, someone thinks, okay, well,
29:12
let me look at this a little bit more, especially when you're talking to people who have other
29:17
faiths or no faith or whatever the case may be. So I certainly went through that stage. I never
29:25
fell away from the religion at all. I've always been pretty, you know, I've always been sort of
29:32
solid in my faith and in my beliefs. I would say that in the last 10 years, I've probably,
29:39
maybe even in the last five years, I've started to appreciate religion in general and Christianity
29:47
specifically. I've come to actually appreciate their and understand their role in the world more.
29:55
I think as the world, because as the modern Western world deals with its own challenges and
30:02
strays away from certain ideas and values and faith and belief, I'm now firsthand starting to
30:09
really see some of the negative impacts of that. And the fact that people seem to be kind of,
30:15
you know, a lot of people are sort of navigating the world without a without a compass where we are
30:20
right now. And you see that manifest in all sorts of different ways, both on an individual level
30:26
and on a collective level. So that for me has kind of reaffirmed just how important
30:35
having faith and belief is in terms of why I believe what I believe in terms of belief in God.
30:43
You know, say if I weren't speaking to somebody who's who's an atheist or perhaps even agnostic
30:51
or who's just questioning, okay, why would a why would a smart Oxford educated person believe in
30:56
God when we have when we have science and all that right? Firstly, I'm not someone. Firstly,
31:00
I'm not somebody who thinks that religion and science are, you know, sort of opposed to each
31:06
other. I don't think it's like, Oh, well, they're science. So get rid of religion. I'm not someone
31:10
who I think that's a, I just think that's a very immature view of religion and its importance
31:20
and why people actually believe it's not just a matter of like, okay, well, they're science. So
31:25
science is the answer to everything and that science can answer all the questions. I think
31:31
religion and you know, religion or and or some kind of philosophy helps to, you know, at the end of
31:37
the day, we all want to understand, even if you believe just purely in science, you know, the most
31:42
atheistic science believe or still wants to know, okay, well, what's the, what's my purpose
31:47
in life? How should I behave? How should I treat other people? What is right? What is wrong? Why
31:53
am I on this giant spinning rock that's circling a giant fireball? You know, even if that's
32:02
all someone believes that those people are still naturally inclined to seek meaning and purpose
32:08
and answers for deeper philosophical existential questions. And I think that's always been,
32:14
I think that's what what humanity has has always done. So in terms, I mean, in terms of my belief
32:20
in God, I would say that the, the reason for that would just be on a, on a sort of rational level.
32:29
It would be the sort of infinite regression idea of, okay, say, I say, okay, if I'm talking to
32:38
someone who's who's just an atheist and we're talking about the origin of the world and the
32:44
universe and people and everything, everything that exists, everything that we can see,
32:47
there's always that infinite regression thing, which doesn't really make sense to me. So
32:55
in terms of exactly what God is, you know, of course, there's a there's a Christian representation
33:02
of God, which I is the way I understand and believe in. But I think even trying to define
33:10
exactly what God is, is something that's difficult. This is something that I know,
33:14
Jordan Peterson talks about a lot, you know, and he doesn't really like to say whether or not he
33:19
believes in God because he doesn't even think you can, the human brain can sort of fathom what
33:25
what God is, but in terms of there being some kind of force or I don't even know something,
33:35
something out there that sparks everything and is the reason for everything. That's sort of
33:40
in an abstract way, I guess that's what I consider God to to be. Some people would call it
33:49
infinite intelligence. Some people would call it the universe, even even atheists will sort of
33:54
oftentimes use some kind of term that, as far as I'm concerned, is almost like a just a different
34:02
abstraction of what a lot of people conceive God to be. Every religion has different ideas,
34:07
you know, you've got religions that have multiple gods or, you know, have just one God that covers
34:15
all. It's a it's a very complicated thing, especially if you're talking outside of the frame of just
34:20
a single religion, and you're talking about all the different things that various billions of people
34:25
all over the world believe the way I understand it. And the way I've always thought about it,
34:31
actually, since I was fairly young was sort of different abstractions of the same idea,
34:41
if that if that makes sense. So, you know, again, as human beings, we're all seeking meaning and
34:48
trying to understand what what is going on and how everything works. And, you know, there will
34:54
always be questions that that science cannot answer. But more importantly, in terms of providing a
35:01
structure and a guideline and giving people a compass, I really think that's where
35:09
the sort of, shall we say, practical value of religion really, really comes into play. And that's
35:15
something that I've feel is becoming more obviously important as time goes on and things continue
35:23
to change. When you brought up a lot of good things, there's will be, but one of the big things is
35:27
obviously being an Oxford educated person, even if, you know, you don't have Oxford on your resume,
35:32
you're obviously a smart person. This idea that Christianity is just all about faith,
35:36
that the thing about the word faith is people misunderstand the word faith. They think faith
35:40
is just blind, right? I just believe this because someone told me to, no, faith is trust. Like,
35:44
we have faith in gravity, right? So, we know that if we jump off of the ground that we're not going
35:49
to keep going, we have faith that we're going to return back to the ground at some point. For
35:52
other people, they return to the ground a lot faster than some people. But, you know, we're
35:56
going to get back to the ground at the same time. But the other thing about it is, and this is
35:59
something that Ravi Zachari points out a lot, I would love to see him on the Joe Rogan experience,
36:03
but every worldview has to be put through the structures of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny.
36:09
Origin. Where did we come from? Meaning, why are we here? Morality. How can we tell the difference
36:14
between good and bad and destiny? Where do we go when we die? And so, I think that the Christian
36:21
worldview, when you put it through those strictures, it gives you the best answers for those types of
36:26
things. But I really appreciate you kind of giving the listeners a little bit of an idea of kind
36:30
of where you come from, because I know you haven't been able to do that a lot on other podcasts. But
36:34
another subject matter that you don't really get to talk about a lot, seemingly, is a huge part
36:39
of who you are. And that's the fact that you're a rapper, that you've done rap, you've done rap,
36:43
and you've done hip hop for well over a decade. And you even posted this on Twitter, I think,
36:48
is yesterday or the day before that, you're just like, I'm starting to figure out that most people
36:52
know me from all the, like, the Twitter and all the other social stuff. They don't know that I'm
36:56
an actual rapper. And here's the funny thing about it for me. I sort of following you on Twitter,
37:01
just because I really liked some of the things that you were saying, and you kept being retweeted
37:05
by, you know, conservative people with a, with a blue checkmark. I didn't even put it together
37:10
that you were the guy that broke the deadlift record or that, you know, did the whole video.
37:15
It took me several weeks to figure out that y'all were the same person, which basically makes me
37:20
an idiot. But at the same time, a lot of your followers don't really know about that, but
37:24
you are an independent rapper. You've sold a lot of albums, you've got stuff out there on Spotify,
37:29
on, on Apple Music, and people can buy stuff off your, your website, but you released a new album
37:34
this year called Perseverance. But the thing about it, I kind of feel the need to ask everyone
37:39
that's an independent rapper is, would you ever sign with a label?
37:42
Um, I don't want to say I would not sign a typical record deal where they're kind of taking 92%
37:53
and giving me a and tying me up and trying to have creative and business control over everything I'm
37:57
doing. I mean, the, the honest answer is it depends. You know, if someone wanted to basically let me
38:05
continue doing what I'm doing and maintain my creative control and the business and the numbers
38:11
and everything like that checked out. And they just wanted to sort of put a little bit of rocket fuel
38:16
and marketing ability and network and programming and all that stuff to help the rocket ship go
38:22
up. Then, you know, I'd be silly to not be open to at least considering that. Um, but the truth is,
38:30
the more you know about the music business and the way traditional record deals work, the,
38:35
much easier, the easier it is to understand why a lot of artists choose to or want to
38:41
stay independent or even why a lot of people who do get signed, eventually later down the line,
38:45
do go independent or try to get out of their deals. And it's because they're typically not
38:50
structured very well in favor of the artist. This goes back to the probably the sixties or,
38:56
or the seventies, if not earlier, the record deals have always been structured to massively
39:01
favor the record label at the expense of the artist and a whole bunch of different ways you can
39:06
read entire books on the subject. So, um, yeah, so that's a long-winded answer. But the answer is,
39:13
it depends. If it's just the usual thing, then I'm not interested and never really have been,
39:18
which is why I've been independent for as long as I have. Um, but yeah, if it's, uh,
39:23
something non-traditional and something very forward thinking and that puts me at the center
39:28
and it's with people who genuinely want the best for me and want to help me reach new echelons,
39:33
then, you know, I'm open to the idea. So the cool thing about, you know, listening to your music
39:39
and also following you for the length of time that I have is that you can kind of pick up on
39:42
different nuances in your music, but there's one specific thing that I think you could give a lot
39:47
of insight to. So there's this difference seemingly, there's this dichotomy to use Jocko Willing's
39:52
favorite word between Christian rap and Christians that rap, right? So growing up in the church,
39:59
you would go to the Christian bookstore and there would be Christian rap, which is essentially
40:03
horrible rap. Like it was just some of the worst music that you could possibly imagine,
40:08
but it was Christian, right? They talked about Jesus and all those types of things,
40:11
but then you've got kind of like, you know, we'll call it like kind of the one one six-click group,
40:15
you know, that's Andy Minio and LaCray and those types of guys. Yeah, those are Christians that
40:19
rap. And so when you call them a Christian rapper, they kind of buck that a little bit,
40:24
which makes Christians nervous. They're like, Oh my gosh, we thought LaCray was our dude and
40:27
now he's not our dude anymore, because he said he didn't want to be called a Christian rapper.
40:31
So so for you, you're obviously a Christian that wraps. I don't think we could categorize
40:36
your music as Christian rap, but is the reason that that you are a Christian that wraps,
40:41
is that why you rap clean? I mean, what do you think about the dichotomy between quote unquote
40:46
Christian rap and Christians that rap? Sure. So I can't speak for everybody, but I'd imagine that
40:53
some of those artists would have a similar view to me. And there there's a lot of there's a lot
40:58
of factors to it. The first one is not wanting to box yourself in and ascribe yourself to a certain
41:08
label, right? If I say that I make Christian rap, or specifically that I'm a Christian rapper,
41:14
that has a couple of effects. The first one is that people who are not Christians will likely be
41:21
turned off to it. Okay, just like if someone explicitly called themselves a Muslim rapper,
41:29
I might be like, Oh, I'm not a Muslim. So that's not for me. So you don't even you don't even give
41:35
it a shot. You kind of just glance over it and go, Oh, no, that's not for me. Whereas if it's just
41:42
someone who's a rapper, and it's like, okay, I like a rapper, I like rap. I like this guy's music,
41:46
and then they happen to, you know, they happen to be a Muslim. And then it's like, Oh, okay,
41:51
you know, you've you've you've gotten past the first, the first hurdle. You see what I mean,
41:55
you haven't automatically we like to categorize things extremely quickly and think is that for
42:00
me or is that not for me? And yeah, if you're trying to primarily just target Christians,
42:05
then it might make sense almost from a marketing perspective, which sounds a little bit trite,
42:10
but that's what it is. It makes sense to sort of label yourself that way. And then you've
42:14
naturally filtered yourself towards that audience. Also from a creative perspective,
42:19
it lit it's limiting. Okay, if I again, if I said that I make Christian rap,
42:25
then I would feel that every single song I need to mention God, I need to mention Jesus, I need
42:29
to make sure it has a gospel type message. And I'm happy to do that for some songs here and there,
42:37
you know, I'd actually quite like to me I haven't yet made a song that's sort of like a, I guess
42:41
which you could call a gospel song. But it's something that I'm certainly open to the idea to,
42:47
but I wouldn't want that to be the only thing that I'm allowed to make. And if I stepped out
42:52
in that box, then as you were sort of alluding to earlier, then my audience who by this case would
43:00
be almost totally Christian, may, you know, criticize me or get angry or be frustrated because not
43:07
every single one of my songs is explicitly Christian or gospel. And just from a creative
43:15
perspective as an artist, you know, I'm I'm a multifaceted human being. Yes, I am a Christian,
43:20
but it's not it's not all that I am. You know, not all of my thoughts are Christian, I'm a man,
43:27
I'm immortal, right? You know, I'm I'm honest, I'm authentic, right? I think I think good thoughts
43:35
like everybody else. I think I think bad thoughts like everybody else. I have positive and negative
43:39
experiences as things that I see in the world that are positive and negative. Not everything is,
43:43
you know, not everything is happy, not everything in the world is Christian, not everything in the
43:47
world is is positive and whatever. So I like to have the freedom to wrap and talk about whatever I
43:55
want really without having to feel like I'm totally boxed into one thing and I'm totally at the mercy
44:01
of my own fan base or my own audience. So that plus the ability plus the way other people
44:10
would kind of view it. I've just never felt the need to if someone asked me, you know,
44:16
are you a man of faith or what do you believe? I'm happy to say I'm a Christian. I'll never
44:19
ever hide that. It's not something I hide. And I think anyone who listens to a good amount of my
44:23
music would probably, you know, I think there's enough hints in there or even enough obvious
44:29
statements that makes that clear. But I don't think it's necessary to I think it's counterproductive
44:37
to kind of, you know, force it. And I think you also end up in that situation where you're kind of
44:43
preaching to the choir, which even if you are trying to get the word out there, it's a little
44:51
bit self-defeating because you're switching off to people who aren't already of that faith or open
44:58
to or just open to it, you know, and I think, you know, even beyond the, beyond the religious
45:05
aspects, my overall message is one of positivity and inspiration. I'm not trying to, I'm not really
45:11
trying to evangelize. I'm not trying to convert people. That's not my, that's not my goal. If it
45:16
were, maybe my approach would be very different. But regardless of someone's faith or lack of faith
45:23
or religion or no religion or whatever, I'd like to think anybody from any of those walks of life
45:28
would be able to listen to some of my songs and get something positive out of it. Hopefully,
45:35
you know, certainly entertainment, but hopefully a deeper message that will help to uplift them or
45:41
make their life better in some way too. Yeah, absolutely. And there's a whole lot more we
45:45
could go into there. But, you know, we got limited time and we got a few other areas that I'd like
45:49
to touch on. But there is one thing that I want you to answer for me for me very quickly. And I
45:54
feel like you're the only one qualified to actually help me with this. I've heard you mention Jay-Z
45:59
a few times. Okay. And I grew up in a community that listened to a lot of hip hop and rap. And
46:04
I just got to tell you, I've never thought that Jay-Z was that good of a rapper. I thought he had
46:08
some big hits and, you know, rock aware and he owns part of the nets and like, dude, he's big
46:13
time. I get it. But it's just like, it never made sense to me that Jay-Z was this really,
46:19
really good rapper, like on a level of a NAS or an M&M or something like that. So, in a very quick
46:24
thing, tell me, convince me that Jay-Z is a good rapper. Really convince me. Okay. To start with,
46:29
do you know that Jay-Z does not write his lyrics down? Correct. I did know that. Okay.
46:34
Have you ever tried doing it? Have you ever tried going up with that? No, even if he did
46:42
it right. But that that's just that in itself is a level of the genius. But the thing with Jay-Z
46:48
is I think because he's had so many hits, I think people, a lot of my favorite Jay-Z songs are not
46:54
the massively well-known hits. So, okay. I'll explain it. So, in terms of technical ability,
47:02
I think he's simply one of the greatest rappers of all time. He can, whether he's
47:06
rapping fast, rapping slow, doing something deep, something for the club, something to party to,
47:10
telling a story, he can do all of it. M&M and NAS actually cannot. Jay-Z is more
47:16
of a versatile than both of them. M&M doesn't make songs for the club. M&M doesn't make songs
47:21
that you'll hear in a nightclub and people really party to. Jay-Z can do that. But then he can also
47:25
make a really, really deep song. He can also tell a story. He can also make a dope braggadocious.
47:32
He can rap about anything and everything. He's just extremely versatile. In terms of his technical
47:39
rapping ability, yeah, I think he's phenomenal. Just any flow vocab, just ability to ride the beat,
47:48
delivery, everything like that. I just think he's one of the greatest. And then in terms of
47:53
consistency with albums, again, even if you're comparing him to a NAS or an M&M, Jay-Z's catalog
47:57
is better than both of those artists, as far as I'm concerned. NAS and M&M both have some great albums.
48:02
But the hit versus miss ratio, as far as I'm concerned, and other people generally think this
48:10
too is Jay-Z's got a higher batting average, shall we say. For all of those reasons, hip-hop
48:20
taste or music taste is always going to be subjective. I know people who think M&M is terrible. I'm like,
48:25
what are you talking about? He's brilliant. There's always going to be the subjective
48:29
aspect of it. But objectively, if you're going to rate the music and the consistency and the
48:36
albums and then their rapping ability itself, I certainly think he's up there with the best.
48:42
All the stuff he's done outside of it in terms of business and hustle and being
48:47
independent-minded and entrepreneurial, all that stuff massively inspires me too. But even
48:53
aside from that, I just think he's undoubtedly one of the greatest of all time. So that's why
49:01
I'd always put Jay-Z in my top two. Okay, so a couple of things on that. Number one,
49:06
I really appreciate that you've only been in America for a couple of weeks and you used a baseball
49:10
reference. So thank you for referring to batting average. So good on you. And number two, I guess
49:14
we can continue this fight offline. So I don't think anybody else needs us to sit here and argue,
49:19
but I'm sure we can find some ways to do that. So shifting gears just a little bit. One thing
49:24
that you've talked about a lot and a lot of different types of context is this idea of intersectionality.
49:29
And so for those that are listening that are maybe not familiar with that word, that's basically
49:34
who you are, basically equates to the amount of oppression that you have. So if you are a trans
49:42
black female, then you are higher on the intersectionality scale in terms of the amount of oppression
49:47
that you've felt. But the big thing about you that you've talked about is you've talked a lot
49:51
about the victim mentality and what happens to somebody when they accept the victim mentality
49:57
that you know what I am lesser than or you know what I do need reparations or you know what that
50:01
person is putting me down even though they are nameless and faceless to me. So talk to me a little
50:06
bit about where you got your viewpoint on the victim mentality, because for those of you that
50:10
don't know, you are a black male. And so you have all of the victim points and all the intersectionality
50:16
points. And you were trans for about five seconds there. And so also you've got that intersectionality
50:21
point that you can move on from, but you know, kind of walk us through why you don't ascribe to the
50:26
same belief system as a lot of people that you know, might look like you. Oh, wow. That's a that's
50:32
a heavy question. Because I am not a victim. I don't have a victim mentality because I'm not a victim.
50:42
I'm I'm undoubtedly, I'm undoubtedly privileged and blessed and have tons of advantages. We all do
50:51
anyone who's listening to this podcast, anyone who even has the ability to, you know, if you live in
50:57
the modern Western world in 2019, you are privileged, you're more privileged than the vast majority
51:01
people in the world period. It doesn't matter your skin color, your sexuality, your gender,
51:06
whatever, like we are all extremely privileged coming down to trying to work out who's more
51:12
privileged than another. I mean, who cares? You can't you can't measure it. What is what is
51:19
privilege even mean? Who's defining the terms? Why is it always gender, race, and sexuality? Why isn't
51:26
it height? Why isn't it IQ? Why isn't it socioeconomic status? I'd say those three things could have a,
51:33
you know, why isn't it how good looking people are? Those things are arguably considerably more
51:37
important than all of the aforementioned. So the thing with intersectionality is, so as far as I'm
51:44
aware from a social, from a sociology perspective, it's supposed to be, you know, I don't think it
51:52
has to do with victimhood directly. That's sort of how it's been co-opted. I believe that the
51:56
original idea was that, look, people's varying factors and traits change the way that they
52:04
experience the world. So sure, if you're black versus if you're white, you may have a different
52:12
life experience, shall we say, but then if you're a black woman, you'll have a different life
52:16
experience to a black male. If you're a black straight woman, you'll have a different life
52:20
experience to a black lesbian woman and so on and so forth. And lo and behold, if you take this
52:25
thing to its natural conclusion, what you end up with is that everybody is an individual and
52:31
everybody has a unique experience and life view and perspective. And so the conclusion of intersectionality
52:38
is actually what, simply what the starting point is for anybody who is sane and reasonable and
52:45
just understands basic life, right? Everybody is different. Everybody, no two people have the exact
52:50
same views or experiences or abilities or talents. Everyone has different advantages and disadvantages
52:56
and whatever. So we already, and everything is already structured in the modern society
53:03
to sort of recognize that. So that's why everybody is viewed equally under the law. One person can
53:09
commit a crime and get away with it and the other person does it and it's not considered a crime,
53:13
right? You treat everybody equally. That's what it's always been about. So by simply doing that,
53:19
you completely eliminate the need for any of this intersectional nonsense. All it does is it makes
53:26
things, it just makes things more complicated. It makes things worse. It doesn't add anything
53:33
positive. There are certain ideas and ideologies that I think are purely destructive. They add
53:38
something negative. They make people behave worse. They make people think in worse ways. They make
53:43
people treat each other worse, but they don't add anything positive. So as far as I'm concerned,
53:50
intersectionality, the cult of it, identity politics to the degree that people are pushing it and all
53:56
that kind of stuff, I'm like, look, as far as I'm concerned, these are just destructive forces,
54:00
right? They're forcing people to racialize things. They're forcing people to view things through
54:05
a lens that they normally would not and which people had previously already overcome. And so
54:10
as far as I'm concerned, it's like a shift backwards. People have made all this progress and it's like,
54:15
oh, okay, cool. We finally got to a stage where people aren't judging each other based on their
54:19
skin color or judging people totally differently based on if they're male or female or if they're
54:24
gay or straight or whatever. And then you're now, you've taken all those steps forward and now
54:30
the so-called progressives want to take a few steps backwards now and go back, oh, no, no, no,
54:36
you need to make sure you recognize people's race. You need to make sure you recognize people's
54:40
gender. You need to make sure you recognize people's sexuality. And as far as I'm concerned,
54:43
it's just backwards to me. I think it's hilarious that it's called progressivism,
54:46
because I think so many aspects of it are just totally backwards. So that is why I personally
54:52
deeply critical of it. In terms of victim mentality and mindset, waste of time. It's just nonsense.
54:59
Again, there's nothing positive that comes of that. If you live in the modern western world,
55:03
then I can almost guarantee that nobody is oppressing you and you're not going to be held back based
55:09
on any immutable characteristics provided that you work hard and you offer something to the world.
55:14
And it's that simple. And as soon as people recognize that they can act accordingly and stop
55:19
pointing fingers outwardly and look at how they can improve themselves, maximize their own
55:24
potential physically, mentally, spiritually, relationally, everything, and they can just
55:29
get on with life and stop complaining and start making things better.
55:32
Well, one thing about that as well, you brought up a lot of great things there,
55:36
but a lot of people try to fight the power, right? That's kind of the big things like we're
55:39
going to take the power back. We're going to speak truth to power, whatever the thing is.
55:43
It's always kind of this power dynamic. But one thing that I've seen and that, you know,
55:46
as confused me since I was a little kid, is one of the ways that I've seen the Black community
55:51
fight the power was to, as they would say, reclaim the inward, right? And so that is something that's
55:57
the world that you live in being in the hip-hop world that is about as common as the word "the."
56:02
And so when you listen to somebody that says that just with common vernacular and their
56:07
everyday language and their everyday conversations, but especially within their art as well,
56:11
is that something that, you know, what are your thoughts on that? Because, I mean, I've listened
56:16
to your music. I don't hear you use that word and that might be a word that you use, but you know,
56:20
why don't you use it? Do you think people should use it? Go.
56:22
Most Black people around the world don't use that word, right? It's not even a, it's not a Black
56:28
thing. It's probably a Black American thing specifically, which is somewhat filtered,
56:33
meant perhaps to Black people in the UK and a couple other countries as well. If you go to Africa,
56:36
nobody uses that word. And that's where almost all the Black people are, like nobody in Africa,
56:42
or even in the Caribbean, I think, would use that word, very few of them. And those who would,
56:46
it's because they've been influenced by American hip-hop and stuff. I don't use the word because,
56:51
again, it's just a force of destruction. It's the only, and it's, again, it doesn't add anything
56:57
positive. It's the only word where it's literally one of the only, I think it's the only word that I
57:03
can think of where its meaning is supposed to be based on the person who is saying it and who they're
57:08
saying it to, which is totally ridiculous. Having words that it's like, oh, it's okay if I say it
57:13
or it's terrible if someone else says it, it's just dumb. It's just stupid. It's a really dumb idea.
57:18
And, you know, I can't control the language that other people choose to use. All I can do is control
57:24
my own language. But again, why would there's so many other words that I can use to
57:34
describe a fellow black person or just a fellow person in general that why would I want to use
57:40
a term that's so steeped in a history of, you know, you'll have someone come in here and say,
57:46
oh, it depends on if you ended in an A or an E or I'm like, no, it's all stupid. And in British
57:50
accent, they sound exactly the same anyway. They sound exactly the same in an English accent.
57:57
So, yeah, I just I don't use it. I don't perpetuate it. You know, I don't want to add to that fire
58:04
because I think it's dumb. I really, really think it's stupid. And some people are going to say,
58:09
oh, I'm on some high horse here or whatever. And I'm just like, look, if you're going to keep on
58:13
using this word, you're you're keeping it alive. And you can then be shocked and surprised when
58:18
somebody who is not black, maybe a kid or I mean, I've been to Eastern Europe. I've been to Central
58:22
Europe, countries like Poland and Slovakia and Serbia and whatever. And I've had, I've had,
58:29
I've had, you know, young dudes over there, like, call me that word, not even realizing that it has
58:33
any negative connotation. And why would they? If you live in Serbia, where there's no black people,
58:38
and you're only influenced you, you only think you've heard is from what you've heard on movies
58:41
and TV and in music, how on earth would would that guy know that that word has any kind of
58:47
connotations or that he's not supposed to say it? And I wouldn't even be able to explain it to him.
58:52
If I'm, if I tell him that, oh, you know, that's not actually a word you should, you should say
58:56
to somebody, he'd be like, well, you know, why do the rappers use it all the time? And my honest
59:00
answer is, I don't know, man. I don't know either. Right. And you know, you can't blame him. It's
59:05
not coming from a place of hatred or malice or anything. He's actually trying to be endearing
59:09
what he says. Right. Yeah. Somebody I've experienced in real life, and most people don't really travel,
59:14
so they don't see this kind of stuff. And so that's when it really hits me that, you know,
59:19
this is just, this is just dumb. You're just perpetuating this. And then it's extremely
59:24
hypocritical to be using that word 100 times a day. And then when someone who's, you know,
59:30
who's the wrong person says it, all of a sudden you're extremely offended and everyone's got
59:36
different rules and some people be offended and some people aren't. And I'm just like, look,
59:39
the simple thing is just not to, not to use it. It's unnecessary. Again, it's just,
59:47
yeah, I think it's dumb in terms of why people use it. I know people say it's a term of endearment
59:52
or they want to, they want to capture it back or they want to have, I just think it's, I think it's
59:57
dumb. I think the honest thing is that people like to have something that they can say and they can
1:00:01
use and they've kind of got this power to use the term you were saying earlier to not allow other
1:00:06
people to use it. So it's like, okay, we've got this one thing that we can say it, we can pepper it
1:00:10
around, we can spray it around in the music and the comedy and just general everyday language. But
1:00:15
then we've got something to sort of use as a cudgel against other people if they dare say it,
1:00:21
even if they're just repeating the song that I wrote, it's dumb. It's my summary.
1:00:27
Yeah, hey, that's a good way to live your life and I really appreciate your perspective on that.
1:00:36
Well, one thing about you as well that if anybody knows you is that you're in really,
1:00:39
really good shape. I mean, you show it off on the cover of all your albums. So it's just be
1:00:43
really, you're walking around, you're walking around those tank tops, man, you're making us feel
1:00:46
small over here. But at the same time, like you actually take this seriously, you're not just a
1:00:50
Jim bro, you're not just throwing weights around, you're not you're not doing that kind of stuff.
1:00:54
You you actually have a regimen that you follow and so much so that you actually publish a book
1:00:58
called Strong Advice, Zuby's Guide to Fitness for Everybody. You can definitely pick that up
1:01:02
on Zuby's website. I'm going to put the link down on the show note so you guys can check that out.
1:01:06
But the thing that I was kind of astonished by is how similar your lifting approach and my
1:01:11
lifting approach is because a lot of times I feel like my lifting approach is too simple
1:01:15
because I do deadlift and I do pull ups and I do bench and I do front and back squat and then
1:01:20
I do a few other things here and there and then I pretty much do cardio and jujitsu and you're
1:01:25
very similar to that in that you don't do a lot of the okay, I'm going to confuse my muscles today
1:01:30
and I'm going to do this kind of push up and then I'm going to do this kind of weird crossfity type
1:01:34
thing. So how did you kind of come to your approach being very, very basic but very, very strong lifts?
1:01:40
Yeah so I mean I've been training since I was 15 or 16 so I've been lifting for over half my
1:01:48
life now which is kind of nuts. So I started out like most people just going to the gym and
1:01:53
messing around with the different machines and trying everything and sort of you know not knowing
1:01:58
what I was doing not having any structure and not having much guidance and over the course of
1:02:03
many, many years both in terms of my training approach and my nutrition approach I've really
1:02:08
learned this what matters and what doesn't matter and when it comes to training for example the
1:02:14
key thing to focus on is progressive overload. If you're trying to get stronger you're trying to
1:02:19
get bigger muscles it all comes down to trying to push yourself a little bit harder than what you
1:02:25
are, what you've previously done and what you're currently capable of and in terms of the exercise
1:02:30
selection there are certain exercises that get you a lot more bang for your buck than others.
1:02:36
You talked about the exercises that you prioritize and those are all compound movements
1:02:40
for someone who's listening that means that you are targeting incorporating different muscle groups
1:02:45
and also joins in each of those exercises so dead lifts, pull-ups, rows, squats, bench press,
1:02:53
overhead press all those exercises you're using multiple muscle groups rather than
1:02:58
something like bicep curl which is only training your biceps and perhaps tiny bit of your forearms
1:03:04
as well. I'm a big fan of the Pareto principle in general I like to think I like to try to streamline
1:03:12
everything I do in terms of the Pareto principle and just think okay what 20% of things will get
1:03:17
me 80% of the results and that's something that you can apply both to training and to diet as well
1:03:22
which I've learned over time so I try to spend 80% of my time training if I'm in a fully equipped gym
1:03:27
doing the big exercises those ones you mentioned so you can build an incredible physique just off
1:03:33
of a tiny handful of exercises there's a reason to do extra you know just in terms of variety and
1:03:41
not getting bored or if you have certain body parts that are lagging for example I'm not going to
1:03:46
tell someone not to do bicep curls if you know they've got small biceps and they really want to
1:03:50
work on that there's nothing wrong with doing them but if you're only going to if you have limited
1:03:54
time in the gym like most people do you've only got 45 minutes you've only got an hour it doesn't
1:03:58
make sense to spend all that time just doing these isolation exercises that's not what's going to
1:04:03
get you the best results so with me I'm my focus I'm a you know totally natural athlete I've never
1:04:10
used any performance enhancing drugs or anything like that and I don't I don't plan to and for
1:04:15
someone who is like that what makes most sense is to train every muscle group multiple times
1:04:21
per week and to incorporate various muscle groups in each exercise and each training session
1:04:27
so that is what I generally advocate and that's that's a great thing for a lot of our listeners
1:04:33
to kind of get into is that you think if you've been training for a long time that maybe there's
1:04:37
another holy grail on the other side of the heel on the hill that you know oh this is going to be
1:04:41
the new thing that I do and I'm going to find this workout regimen and that's going to fix everything
1:04:45
a lot of it's about just being dedicated and the reason why people deadlift is like why really
1:04:50
really strong people deadlift and do pull ups and do overhead press and do bench press is because
1:04:54
those are those are key ingredients to having a strong body and people that you know have trouble
1:04:59
like elderly people have trouble getting off the toilet at their elder ages just because they
1:05:03
don't have hip and quad strength right and so it's like if you have a squat regimen that you follow
1:05:08
throughout your entire life that's fine and I think a lot of people are concerned about getting
1:05:12
getting hurt and things like that but you've said this before it's just you know if you have too
1:05:16
much weight on the bar you're probably going to hurt yourself it's not the exercise that's hurting
1:05:20
you it's your bad form and it's you trying to do something that is way beyond you not barely
1:05:25
beyond you but way way way beyond you so if you haven't lifted in your entire life don't put 315
1:05:30
up on the squat rack and try to get under it like that's just not going to be a good day for you
1:05:34
but again your ability to be physically resilient is something we talk about a lot here on this
1:05:39
podcast that's your ability to bounce back physically well the thing about being in shape is if you
1:05:44
never have to get into shape that's good for you it's going to put you ahead of where most people are
1:05:49
because you know in joe even mentioned this on a recent podcast it's just like well trying to get
1:05:53
into shape in your fifties is going to be really really difficult but if you stay in shape for the
1:05:58
entirety of your life regardless of your age if you get injured or you have to take some time off
1:06:02
or whatever those types of things your body will bounce back and respond and that's the whole thing
1:06:06
about physical resilience so guys if you're not familiar with how to do a lot of these exercises
1:06:11
or if you don't have kind of an idea of how you should train I would highly highly recommend that
1:06:16
you pick up the book strong advice and again that will be in the show notes as well but as we close
1:06:20
up our interview here zuby i want to do kind of a lightning round with you here a little bit right
1:06:24
so um i follow you on twitter obviously you have some very very great tweets but some of your tweets
1:06:29
lack a little bit of context i can draw some some of my own conclusions from the context but i
1:06:35
want you to just like real quick for each of these i pulled five of your tweets just here in the last
1:06:40
week or two and i just want you to give me a little bit more context as to what you were thinking
1:06:44
when you tweeted so you're ready to go let's do it all right so september 23rd you tweeted this
1:06:49
disagreeing with somebody does not mean you hate them most toddlers can understand this but there
1:06:55
are millions of grown adults who don't seem to so give me some more context wow well we're certainly
1:07:01
living in a time where we're living in an age of disagreement especially online real world's not
1:07:06
as bad but you know it happens there too where people ascribe bad motives or hatred to anybody
1:07:14
who disagrees with them on anything or or they ascribe stupidity right they think oh well
1:07:18
if if i'm if i don't believe in god and you do that's just because you're stupid
1:07:23
or because you lack some piece of information um or if i believe x and if i'm a liberal and you're
1:07:29
conservative it's because you you um i hate poor people or you're racist or you're evil or
1:07:35
something like that and it's a really firstly it's just false and it's it's a really dumb base level
1:07:44
trying to you know it's just it's just a really unintelligent way to view the world to put it
1:07:49
simply and it and it's simply false so i was saying that because i literally do think most
1:07:54
children can understand that if they disagree with each other it's not because it's not because
1:07:59
they hate each other but um you're constantly seeing especially online people who think that
1:08:03
everyone who disagrees with them is just um it's just evil or that it's because they hate them
1:08:08
and that's simply not the case so that's what i was trying to say well see i know i'm putting
1:08:12
you in a little bit of pinch with all these gigantic topics and you have to give me short
1:08:16
answers but you're doing a great job so far so let's get into the next one so september 29th
1:08:19
it's interesting how people put up beta warren and bernie signs and stickers publicly and where
1:08:25
they're merchandise with no fear or repercussion but most trump supporters wouldn't do the same for
1:08:29
fear of assault abuse or property damage says a lot about tolerance mm-hmm yeah well there's always
1:08:36
been this idea that people on the left wing of the political spectrum are more tolerant and kind
1:08:42
and compassionate than people on the you know right wing of it which is false in my personal
1:08:50
opinion and my you know i think there's a i think there's a lot of evidence to uh to back that up
1:08:56
although i don't know how these things are measured um i think in terms of being able to tolerate
1:09:01
other people's views in terms of what tolerance is actually supposed to mean right which is you
1:09:05
know being able to agree to disagree um i do generally find that more conservative people are
1:09:12
a lot more tolerant in that regard and that that was sort of making that point right i have i've
1:09:19
got a lot of followers who you know do do like trump and the amount of messages i was going you
1:09:24
know people were saying some of them had had their cars keyed some of them had uh you know had
1:09:28
thing had signs stolen or you know wrist being assaulted and stuff like that and you know you've
1:09:32
got lots of videos online of people getting assaulted for wearing trumpets and things like that so i
1:09:36
was just saying like it doesn't just make the point exactly september 30th unpopular opinion
1:09:43
women wield more societal power and influence than men do in the west mm-hmm they do um so a lot of
1:09:52
times people jump straight to thinking that power has everything to do with um who earns the most
1:09:57
money um and that's only one dynamic of it i mean why do men even once or earn money in the first
1:10:02
place it's normally to you know when it boils down to it it's normally something to do with
1:10:08
seeking or keeping the attention of a mate um i'm sure if you know you isolated men in a vacuum away
1:10:15
from women then um a lot of that competitive drive which leads men to pursue a lot of the things they
1:10:21
do would would um would disappear and also i think that men's behavior is largely dependent on women's
1:10:27
behavior and what women decide to permit i think you know women sort of hold the locks in society
1:10:33
and decide where to put those locks and you know men try to change their sets of keys to
1:10:38
to open those locks wherever they are so if so yeah it's uh that that's one that would take a lot
1:10:45
of time to to really go into but that's a surface level very very true another one from september
1:10:50
thirtieth it feels like california is run by man and the entertainment industry and texas is run
1:10:55
by god in the fast food industry you use from a first-time visitor to both states so try to answer
1:11:02
that one and give them a little bit more context without getting texans mad at you because you are
1:11:05
still in the great state of texas i am in the great state of texas yeah um well just dry driving around
1:11:11
both states i mean i spent most my time in california in two big cities l_a and san francisco um but yeah
1:11:18
certainly in l_a but also san francisco i just kind of i didn't feel much i didn't feel the presence
1:11:23
of god there much this i know this sounds weird this sounds kind of like a little bit a little bit
1:11:28
hokey and abstract but um i just didn't really see or feel like there was much presence of god i felt
1:11:34
like those cities are kind of a result of just okay when when when man and when he when humans just
1:11:42
kind of take over and want to run things and try to create their own rules and what and everything
1:11:47
like that then i just kind of felt i don't know it's uh it's really hard to explain because it's not
1:11:54
really like uh this is a very feeling thing it's not it's not a totally rational thing um in terms
1:11:59
of the entertainment industry that's obvious you know you've got hollywood you've got billboards
1:12:03
everywhere all advertising new tv shows and comedy specials and things like that that's just
1:12:07
everywhere whereas in texas everything's like advertising food um but also in tex driving around
1:12:13
texas being in texas i've seen a lot more um i've seen a bunch of pro-life billboards for example
1:12:18
i've seen advertising so i've seen a lot more actual physical churches i've seen you know just
1:12:23
people with stuff mentioning god or jesus on the back of their pickup trucks and stuff like that
1:12:28
so um yeah that's uh that was just an observation of kind of what it felt like well i can confirm
1:12:34
that feeling that you have i used to live in manhattan and not manhattan kansas manhattan new york
1:12:40
and i kind of felt the same way you would run into a christian in a city of millions and millions
1:12:44
of people it's like oh my gosh i found the other one right you know he's trying to have that mindset
1:12:48
but all right man last question of the day this was a tweet from october the first i judge people
1:12:53
based on how they feel about jordan peterson and kanye west yes oh gosh it's true um yeah well i
1:13:03
just think those two guys are are really really really different but they're people who i think
1:13:08
are um man how would i how would i even describe them i just think they're both sort of
1:13:13
legends and legends in their own in their own regard and in their own ways
1:13:18
and if someone dislikes both of them then i think it's because they have that energy i've
1:13:24
never come across anybody who i like who dislikes both of them so i don't and i like most people so
1:13:30
if someone if someone can't appreciate either of those people then um yeah i think they've got some
1:13:37
stuff that they need to sort out they need to go clean their rooms and according to the first
1:13:40
track here your new album you are the jordan peterson a wrap so that's kind of how that goes but man we
1:13:45
have we have gone on to a lot of different subject matters and we've gone all over the place i know
1:13:50
that the guys listening to this really really appreciate it but is there anything else that you
1:13:53
want to get off your chest anything else you want to let the listeners know no that's it man just uh
1:13:57
live well fulfill your potential and um let's all make the world a better place by starting with
1:14:02
ourselves if you want to check me out online you can follow me at zuby music zuby music on all
1:14:07
social media and guys i'm gonna have all of that stuff in the show notes for you so it's easy for
1:14:11
you to get to zuby again thanks so much for being on undaunted life a man's podcast you're welcome
1:14:16
so there you go guys i really hope that you enjoyed the podcast today uh you know those last two
1:14:21
interviews they were fun for me they were fun for the guys on the other end and so i've kind of
1:14:25
created a little bit of an internal list of some guys that i would like to get
1:14:29
on this podcast um the thing about it is i want the guys that i bring on this podcast to be
1:14:33
interesting to you okay i don't want to just bring somebody oh here's my buddy who lives around the
1:14:37
corner he's a good dude like i don't want to do interviews like that because i feel like some
1:14:41
podcast you know they'll get chocolate willink and then like the next 17 episodes are people that
1:14:45
aren't that interesting and that you don't know and i've never heard of so i got a few but you know
1:14:50
this is uh gonna be a podcast that we're gonna kind of feel where it goes so we're gonna maybe
1:14:54
have some interviews here and there we'll do Q&A just like we have been doing but guys if you know
1:14:58
of anyone that you think would be interesting to our audience right so think of yourself think of
1:15:02
someone that you would like to hear from or someone that you would like to have their message spread
1:15:07
out shoot me an email or send me a DM on instagram or something like that and we'll see what we can
1:15:12
do to get them on all right guys thanks so much for we get out of here though we are gonna do a
1:15:15
quick resilience boost as you know by now we are men's ministry and our mission is cultivating
1:15:19
manly resilience specifically we do that by providing content that for just spiritual mental and physical
1:15:24
toughness so for you today i'm going to give you all the resources that zuby and i talked about so
1:15:28
the big one is i just have his website so zubymusic.com zubymusic.com that is his website that's going to
1:15:33
be able to connect you to just about everything that he has his hands in but then i also have the
1:15:38
original twitter post where he broke the british women's deadlift record so you'll have that video
1:15:42
there i've got the uh main link to his twitter and his instagram page and i also included the
1:15:47
interview he did with joe rogan in the interview that he did with ben shapiro because they covered
1:15:51
some topics that we didn't in this one so i thought it'd be interesting for you guys to have that
1:15:55
guys thanks so much as always we really do appreciate you listening to the podcast if you would please
1:15:59
subscribe on itunes soundcloud spotify or google play and refer your friends to listen and share
1:16:03
this on social media guys if we deserve a five-star review that is how this podcast is going to continue
1:16:08
to grow so please leave us five stars in a few sentences letting us know why you like the content
1:16:13
i'm currently booking speaking engagements for the remainder of 2019 and the beginning of 2020
1:16:18
so if you want me to come speak on your podcast to your team to your mensivan at your council
1:16:21
whatever hit me up info at undaunted.life that's i-n-f-o at undaunted.life the website is www.undaunted.life
1:16:30
you can follow us on instagram and twitter at undauntedlife or facebook.com/undauntedlife
1:16:35
check out our free devotionals on the uversion bible app just search undaunted life under plans
1:16:39
and as always we want to thank the band augustburnsred for allowing us to use their entire music library
1:16:43
for our content the intro roucho track on this podcast is our song king of sorrow which is
1:16:48
off their latest record entitled phantom anthem the links are in the description i'm your host
1:16:52
kyle tomsen remember keep cultivating manly resilience keep forging spiritual mental and physical toughness
1:17:22
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