How We Love

Tray Little

• Robin Lane

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Tray Little is on fire - from the wicked streets of Detroit to sexy-ass Miami, from a Kid from the Block to Rapper on tour to Community Activist to Real Estate Developer to influencing influencer, Tray is everywhere and his ambitions and humility are inspiring. Here is Tray.

@traylittle

SPEAKER_00

I am Robin Lane and welcome back to How We Love. Our guest today is Trey Little, and Trey Little is on fire. From the wicked streets of Detroit to a sexy ass Miami. From a kid from the block to rapper on tour, to community activist, to real estate developer, to influencing influencer. Trey is everywhere, and his ambitions and humility are inspiring. And here he is. Welcome, Trey. So let's learn a little bit about you. You are from originally from Detroit. Yes, I am. And you had pretty much of a tumultuous childhood, am I correct?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it was wild. It was wild, I can't lie. It was fun, but wild too.

SPEAKER_00

Tell us about the wild.

SPEAKER_01

The wild was I was I know you lost your dad very young. Yeah, I was four years old. I was four years old. And how did he die? So he was shot over 20 times.

SPEAKER_00

What? Yeah, yeah. Shot over 20 times? For what reason?

SPEAKER_01

It was just street stuff. You know, I was too young to really know what was going on, so I didn't ask questions. It's like the environment that we was in, it's like you either stay out the way, and if you win it, you either bound to be dead or go to jail. So I mean, it just happened to him.

SPEAKER_00

What was the environment like?

SPEAKER_01

The environment early on was fun. And it was like us riding bikes, you know, getting wet with the water holes. That was like our water park. And it was fun until I got a little older, then you started really seeing what was going on. The environment, I describe it as like it was a lot going on all in one place. So it can be cars driving by fast, loud gun shots going on. So it was like fun at times, but then it got real, you know.

SPEAKER_00

When you say it got real, can you expand on that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean it got real, meaning like it wasn't just fun and games. It was anything can happen at any second. You will have a whole block having fun, listening to music, dancing. Then out of nowhere, a car drive by, you hear shots ringing out, and next thing you know, somebody that you was just standing with is dead on the ground.

SPEAKER_00

How did you survive that?

SPEAKER_01

I survived it just by being smart. I call it street smart, and I adapted fast. I noticed the ones who didn't survive was the ones who had a lot of fear, the ones who thought too much and didn't know how to react quick, the ones who was too loud and too aggressive and wanted attention. So I stayed in the case.

SPEAKER_00

Can you give me an example? Can you give me an example of how your street smarts? Give me an example.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so one time we knock on the door. I'm like maybe 13 years old. We knock on this door, and I heard it was like, oh, the drug house, the weed house. And we was thinking we were kids, okay, we want to make some money, we want to go skating. So we knock on the door. Next thing you know, a guy came to the door with a gun. And my friend, he was all loud. He was like, Man, you ain't gonna do nothing with that gun or whatever. And I was like, hey man, have a good night, we got the wrong house. Yeah, and then I grabbed my friend, I said, Hey, come on, bro. I said, Have a good night, sir. We got the wrong house. You know, boom, and I left, and that kept us alive, you know.

SPEAKER_00

That is definitely Street Smart. So, how did you get out of that environment?

SPEAKER_01

So it was a combination of me being curious, and I'll say curious about it, had to be something bigger than the environment. The only way I had to see something bigger, we didn't have social media, we had music. So I would hear rappers like 50 Cent talking about being in Miami, being in LA, and I'm like, what is this stuff? And then I stayed curious.

SPEAKER_00

What age, what age did you start listening to them? I think I was like 12, 12 years old, but it was around my whole life.

SPEAKER_01

But 12 years old is when I really started listening for myself. And when did you start becoming a rapper? I started rapping at 12 years old and recording my first song at age 13.

SPEAKER_00

What was your first song?

SPEAKER_01

So it was a song called Keep Talking, right? I was in middle school and I was at a new school, and I was getting frustrated with the guys at the school because you know they was tough, they was bullies, and I knew I could fight, but I knew I was good with my words and my thoughts. So I went to the studio on my 13th birthday and recorded a song, and I was like verbally violating, we call it dissing. I was dissing everybody in the school. You were dissing, is that what you said? Dissing? Dissing, humiliating. Everything I knew about them, I put it in the song, everything negative.

SPEAKER_00

Give us an example of some of the lyrics.

SPEAKER_01

So it was like, I don't remember because it was all improv. I didn't write it down. Okay, it was all up the top. But I'll say something like this guy got beat up, but he acting tough. Oh, I heard this guy, you know, he he stilling, but he acting like he's rich, he broke, he poor. And it was like really airing out the truth that people were scared to live, you know, scared to share.

SPEAKER_00

Listen, let me ask you something. How did you know how to rent a studio? You were just a kid.

SPEAKER_01

So I started off in our local, it was like a house on a corner, and I just started recording music out of there. It was like a ghetto, you know, self-rigged studio. So I found someone who said they know how to get to a real studio. And at the time, my recording was only five dollars a song. So they said it's gonna be twenty dollars. I'm like, damn, that's expensive. I don't know how to get twenty dollars. So from my I waited for my birthday, then a guy who knew about the studio, he told my mama, and then my mama took me up there for my birthday.

SPEAKER_00

Tell us a little bit about your mama.

SPEAKER_01

So my mama is one of the most special people to me. So she gave birth to me when she was 15. 15, 15 years old, yeah. And she got six of us now, six kids, but she's strong, she's resilient. You know, she's real loving, but she's tough. Like, she don't when you see her, most people don't see emotion, they just see her reading the room and they get intimidated by it.

SPEAKER_00

What do you mean, reading the room?

SPEAKER_01

Reading, observing, scanning, like everywhere she goes, she don't show her soft side, she only shows that towards her few friends.

SPEAKER_00

She's always she's always taking in people and and sizing them up, and letting people reveal themselves before she even has to say anything.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So did she raise you by herself, or was your grandparents, or what?

SPEAKER_01

So she raised me and she she said she struggled with it. So my grandma stepped in and helped, and my great grandma and my granddad. So the good thing about my neighborhood is that everyone was all over there. So I got to see all of my relatives, cousins, grandparents. Our neighborhood was like the place to be at that time. So I really was raised by the neighborhood. I was raised by cousins, grandparents, and really the community.

SPEAKER_00

Really? That that's interesting. That's an unusual upbringing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_00

So that's one of the reasons that you've fallen in love with your neighborhood, huh?

SPEAKER_01

Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. But let's let's continue. Let's go back to the the what makes you different in the way you would tell a rap story from others. Because what I when I spoke to you, when I met you on the street, what you told me was your stories were clean. Could you explain that?

SPEAKER_01

So it get my stories, it get a little dark and vivid, and it confuse people. Like, hey, I thought you were this positive guy. But what I do is I tell my story. I tell my story about the darkness that I experienced, you know, the things I've been through. And then I, but it's always hidden lessons in it. So I talk about, let's say, you know, you got young guys shooting up cars, shooting up houses, shoot killing each other. But I talk about how they was raised by themselves, and violence is the only way they get attention. So I don't say it outright like that, but I throw it in there. You really gotta listen to the lyrics to understand what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00

So what you're saying is you don't glorify what they're doing.

SPEAKER_01

No, I don't glorify. And even if I talk about having guns, the truth behind it is license, law-abiding citizens, second amendment, and you really gotta pay attention instead of just hearing a song and be like, oh, turn this off, another rap song.

SPEAKER_00

So, but you had kind of two careers, right? One is as a rapper, and the other is what? A real estate person. I don't quite explain that to me because it's an unusual combination.

SPEAKER_01

So, what happened was I started taking off as a rapper, meaning like more visibility, more opportunities, getting paid to do it. And then I started documenting everything on social media and getting two million followers doing that. And a real estate project is more of a long lifelong investment. So there's not any income from that right now. It's more mostly I'm pouring in money trying to buy my childhood block, the same one that raised me. What what are you trying to why are you trying to buy it? To really bring the life back. When I when I grew up over there, it was a lot of people. Even though, you know, like I explained, it was a lot of violent stuff happening, it was still life, you know, it still gave me my story. So one of the things I wanted to do after going back, seeing that it was abandoned. I came back off of tour. I was with a pop and rock band traveling the country. Then I went back to my neighborhood. I'm like, damn, it ain't nothing over here no more. Everything is blown up, burnt down, abandoned.

SPEAKER_00

So I thought, Oh, so the neighborhood really deteriorated and changed to it. It used to be a sense of community that was gone.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. And then I didn't realize it how cheap the property was. My sister sent me a link. The house that I grew up in was on sale for a thousand dollars. But because I waited too late, I missed out because I didn't know how to buy real estate. So I spent like three years learning and went back and bought a piece of the block like right next to my childhood home.

SPEAKER_00

And during that time when you were doing that, you were working as a as a rapper? Is that what you were doing?

SPEAKER_01

I was yeah, I was rapping, making music, and I was doing content creation. So just posting online. I'm sorry, I missed I missed that. And you were what? I was I was making rap music and I was posting on TikTok and YouTube and generating money from that. I see, but you were also an opening act, weren't you, for a lot of famous uh artists? I was so early on, I'd say in high school, I started on the weekends just traveling, getting in a van with a bunch of young rock stars and hitting the road and opening up for bigger acts.

SPEAKER_00

And there was some of them.

SPEAKER_01

Some of them was one of them was switched foot. It was a lot of guys I didn't really know because I was new to the rock pop scene, fresh out the hood, and I'm on the road with you know, some famous white boys in skinny jeans and long hair. So I'm like, okay, I guess at least I'm out of the hood right now. Who happens? So one what did that what did that feel like? It felt weird at first, but I'm like, okay, if this is my only struggle right now, and they respected me. Like at first, it was a lot of respect and love. So I'm like, okay, I can adapt to weird because at least I get to stay alive. At least I don't have to you can adapt to weird. Yeah, and then I'm like, okay, as long as I all they had this, all they said was just don't come in here cussing and like being, you know, just being violent, don't bring that here, just bring the creative aspect of where you come from and you will fit in perfect. So it was a struggle at first because I came in pan sagging, you know, didn't trust nobody, real rough around the edges, and and didn't nobody know what to do with me. But our lead singer was like he helped me polish up a little bit just to blend in.

SPEAKER_00

What were they all were they white?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, they were all white.

SPEAKER_00

Was that the first time you were around white people?

SPEAKER_01

In a way, fully inside of the culture, yeah. But I went to a school in the suburbs after we moved out of Detroit, so that's how I got introduced to the band because we moved to the suburbs. So the school I went to, the school I went to was mostly white. And you had the kids moving from the inner city that was out there now. So, you know, we were few, but it was mostly white. So you had an awful lot of adjusting to do in your life.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly. I mean, you've moved from one kind of inner city experience. By the way, I don't know if I ever told you this. As you and I met on a street corner, I stopped you because you're so handsome and fabulous. And I worked, I I performed in Detroit in uh when in a plate called No Place to Be Somebody by a guy named Charles Gordon, who who won the Pulitzer Prize, and it was just at the start of the Detroit riots, and that was way before you were born. So I'm telling me that I did tell you that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I was impressed. I was impressed number one when she was in Detroit, number two. I'm impressed.

SPEAKER_00

It was it was it was very scary. I'll never forget that. So I know, and that was at the way at the beginning of it. So I can just imagine what it was like for you growing up there. So then when you moved to the suburbs, that was a big shift. Yeah, it was. So you must have in you must have experienced a couple of things at the same time, which was missing your friends, missing the life in the streets, and at the same time feeling safe. So it had to be very conflicting emotions. Am I right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that was I didn't even think about that until now. It was it was hard, but my mindset was always focused on survival over feelings. So it was surviving, adapting over feelings. So even though I was missing them, I was shutting a lot of those feelings down, which kind of made me numb in a way because it was like I miss my community, I miss my home, and I felt out of place. I felt out of place.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. You know, talent is is a very unusual thing. Um I understand it because I went to the high school of performing arts, so I've been around creative people since I've been 14 or 15. But if you don't, most people don't have they they they grow up, they want to be doctors, lawyers. Creativity is is unusual. I mean, at what age, how did you how did you know that you could you could rap? How did you know that?

SPEAKER_01

So when I was when I was young and frail, scrawny, scared of all the big scary people running around the street corners with guns and tattoos and shirts off, I was like, where do I fit in into this? And I was always creative, but the fear was if I'm too creative and don't adapt, then I won't make it. So I realized after my aunt played me this song, it was it was master P mystical, and it was just rapping fast, and I was impressed. So I started mimicking the lyrics. I think I was 12 years old, I was in my bedroom, 12 years old. I started mimicking the lyrics because we would listen to these same songs over and over, so I couldn't remember the rest of the song, so I just started making up my own words, and I was like, damn, I just did that. So I just kept going and I was in the room for like an hour just making up stuff, and then I was like, Mom, come listen to this. Papa telling my mama and granddad, and then I started rapping over it. My mom was like, Okay, I hear you. My granddad was like, Boy, I already knew you was gonna be a star. And I'm like, All right, I can do this. So you got a lot of positive reinforcement. My granddad said when my mama was pregnant with me, he knew I was gonna be a star. He he would tell me that when I was in the hood. I'm like, Yeah, whatever, Papa. And now I'm looking back, like, yeah, I'm like, how did you see that?

SPEAKER_00

How old was your grandfather?

SPEAKER_01

I can't I can't remember. Like I said, my mom is young, my mom was young.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I assume your grandfather was probably 30 or 35 years old.

SPEAKER_02

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00

So, okay, so you're let's go back to you're performing and you're opening for different acts, and you're around different kind of community, and then you decide you want to buy your block back. Yes. And how did that so if I remember you telling me when we met, you failed the real estate test, license test many, many times. Is that not true? Oh, yeah, I did, I did. It was so tell us that story.

SPEAKER_01

So the years I spent learning real estate, I just kept my ears open. And I met someone, this lady stumbled into a coffee shop in the hood, and I'm like, lady, what you doing in here? Like, you know, we on the east side of Detroit. And she's like, Oh, I got clients over here in real estate investments. And I found out she was one of the biggest commercial real estate brokers in Michigan, or yeah, Michigan. So she told me she wanted to open an office in Detroit, and then once she started explaining it to me, I was interested. So for two years I had to wait. How old were you then? This was like three years ago. Oh, it's recent. Okay. So, yeah, so she started explaining it. So for a couple years, I started learning as much about real estate as I can. She opened up the office, she introduced me to a lot of successful developers in Detroit, and then they started helping me put my ideas in action.

SPEAKER_00

She introduced you to developers and they took you seriously?

SPEAKER_01

They took me seriously because her word, it was like, okay, we don't know if we can take this guy serious. He don't have any resume with real estate. But you know, she she gave me her stamp and you know, her reference. So they took me serious. Well, what was it about? What do you think you impressed her like that? She said it was the way that I clearly communicated my vision, my ideas, and and I think that that one or two year gap, it was the patience as well, like the patience of me waiting for her to open the office, and I still stayed consistent, stayed in touch every now and then. And so you built a relationship with her. Yeah, I built the relationship, and then it was just over time just being serious, showing that I didn't I didn't pretend like I knew something that I didn't know. It was my hustle and my dedication, you know, and the street credit. Like I was like, I can take you all around this city and make sure you're good, you know. Did you? I did, yeah. What did you show her? So if we go to a neighborhood that let's say a multimillionaire investor wanted to buy property, I say, okay, here's what you gotta watch out for in this neighborhood. Here's the history behind it. The gangs aren't over there anymore. You know, here's the good thing about it. And then that's when the clients that she has started getting impressed, and then they wanted to work with me as well.

SPEAKER_00

And how long did it take you before you started raising some money?

SPEAKER_01

So I didn't really raise any money. The thing was I got one of the people to write a check to say, okay, use this to get to secure the first home and the the land next to it. And that's what I did.

SPEAKER_00

So you were what you were going to buy, what a building, the building that you grew up in, or I'm I'm a little confused. The building you grew up in, or you wanted to buy the block? I don't, I'm not. Can you go into some more detail on that?

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so I went when I went back to the neighborhood. Remember how I said TikTok was one of my main sources of income? I posted it. I posted a video and said, My childhood block is abandoned. I wish I could buy property over here so I can buy it back, but I don't know how. So I said I missed out on buying my childhood home. So a lot of the comments was like, if the houses are only a thousand dollars a piece, just buy the whole block. And I was like, buy the block, what does that mean? So then I started asking questions about it. And at that time, I was already getting involved with the real estate circle, like the big names in Detroit. So I brought it to them and they said, if you're serious, we can start you off slow. So these people making $10 million flips, and all I said is, I want to buy a thousand dollar house and some land. So it was easy for one of them to say, all right, I'll help you buy the house up the street that's available, you know, and then we'll start from there.

SPEAKER_00

But the neighborhood was deserted from what you told me, and it was completely run down, right?

SPEAKER_01

It was. That's why people thought I was crazy. But the interesting thing about that is I started showing them specific reasons why the neighborhood was coming back because I had spent time being over there, and I'm like, this. Is new. These people that just moved over here, I knew the people who used to live there, or it was a gang that lived over there. Now it's this person from you know Mexico or this person from France that invested over there. So I started showing them the signs that the neighborhood was coming back. Then a year later, I had a meeting with the mayor that you remember the lady I told you that brought me in, she set me up with the mayor, and he told us that it was a $20 million development plan going back into the neighborhood I was from. So we started seeing everything publicly on the government website that the mayor was doing. And then we started seeing the whole neighborhood start getting transformed.

SPEAKER_00

And so where would where were you in all this?

SPEAKER_01

I was still trying to work on my project because you know, even though a house is a thousand dollars, it's a hundred thousand to fix the house up. So that's where I've been struggling since then. Like, okay, how do I get grants? How do I get loans? And I was going through that process. I landed a TED talk from it, almost landed a TV show at A E, but it got cut. And then celebrity Mike Epps came out with the same type of idea that I was gonna do. He came out with a TV show called Buy Back the Block.

SPEAKER_00

So once I started you, hold on. You went by so fast. You came out with a TV show called Buy Back the Block.

SPEAKER_01

So after I started going viral on TikTok, I was getting maybe five to ten million views from talking about buying back my childhood block. So I was hoping that I can land some sort of capital to invest right back into it from that. And you know, the news started interviewing me, then I did a TED talk about it. So then AE Network approached me about my idea to renovate the neighborhood. They said they can give me a multi-million dollar contract for the TV show, and I was I was hopeful about it. But after that, they came back and said they got to cut the TV show. And I almost that must have been some disappointment. Oh, it was brutal. But at the same time, I had another program in Detroit, and I made it out of 20 people, I think it was 20, I made it to the top final two. And they said I didn't make number one, and someone else got it, but they didn't tell me why. And this comp this program was gonna help me redevelop apartments and all that. And they said they had another multi-million dollar budget. So opportunities was coming in so fast that I didn't really get mad too much about the TV show. Because I'm like, you know, I got TEDx that just invited me to do a TED talk. Like the news interviewing me, I made national or worldwide Fox. So everything was flowing in so fast, it just felt like uh I'm a little hurt about it, but I'm getting unlimited opportunities right now. And that's how it felt like it happened. So then what happened was with all the media success and all the attention, I started getting a lot of expectations to get it done in like a month, it felt like, you know. So I'm like, okay, I'm getting, you know, 10 TV interviews a week. It felt like I'm getting all these speaking opportunities, meeting with politicians, the mayor, but there was no money flowing in. So people started thinking I was getting money from it. You know, at the same time, I was enjoying my new life. Like I made it out of the hood, you know, I just got off the road with these rock stars. I'm getting a little money from social media, and I was going out having fun, enjoying my life. So people started feeling like, oh, this guy is abandoning a project and blowing it all at the club. And I'm like, I'm really just living and I'm still working on trying to secure the money to put this project back. I'm like, me going to the bar and spending $20 ain't $100,000, right? To fix up this house.

SPEAKER_00

I'm looking at so you I'm I'm not quite following you. You're saying that that the public perception of what you were doing had changed?

SPEAKER_01

It was more so the public perception had blew up so fast before I can actually get the business done on it. So it was like, okay, it's 20 million people watching me say I'm gonna fix the block up, but it's zero capital coming in to fix the block up.

SPEAKER_00

I see. Okay, so that people had 20 million people had an enormous expectation, but there was no no no fiscal rack. There's no money.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so even though I'm showing up getting, you know, people to contractors to give estimates on the house, I'm showing up doing big block cleanups. I had presidents of you know, fast food chains coming out on the block scared, looking around, like, am I safe? I'm like, listen, if somebody comes over here tripping, you see all these guys over here, we got your back. So it turned into this thing where people I couldn't believe was pulling up to my hood and helping me do cleanups. And it was people from the streets, presidents of food chains, politicians, TikTok celebrities showing up. And at the same time, I was like, okay, how do I turn this into capital? But I think the misconception was I was this young hotshot rock star with this unlimited budget that was putting his own money into it. So I think that's what slowed down the process of people, you know, wanting to contribute as much or like the loans coming in, even though I was going to have a. They said the least we can do is sponsor a block cleanup with free food and free t-shirts, and you know, we can come out there and show face. So that's that's really what I was getting. So even though I was pitching a business plan, I think people was a little skeptical that the neighborhood was really gonna make a comeback. And where is the neighborhood today, now? So it it made a lot of big upgrades. So if you look at the neighborhood now, you see playgrounds, you see new sidewalks, you see bus routes, you see more law enforcement. So it's a big budget that just got poured into the neighborhood.

SPEAKER_00

What about stores?

SPEAKER_01

What about food stores? Not as much, not as much yet.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so it's still hard for people who so for the people that live there, it's still hard to go out to a store and just buy food, right?

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. Mostly the food spots is gas station, liquor stores, one grocery store, you know, but it's mostly liquor stores and gas stations.

SPEAKER_00

And are you still involved in trying to revitalize it to the in to the buy the block project?

SPEAKER_01

I am, but the thing I'm doing now is I realize I got hours of footage of all of the work I was doing that I was too caught up in trying to do the work to post about it. So now I'm slowly rolling out all of the work I was doing behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_00

No, you got to run that by me again and a little slower because I don't really understand.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. So what I've been doing is I took some time to sit and really think about what I want to do with it and the practical side of moving forward. And I realized I captured hundreds of moments in all the work that I did behind the scenes that people didn't know about. So what I'm doing today is I'm slowly rolling out a lot of the footage of the work that I was doing for people to see. When you say footage, you mean visual? You're talking that what I'm I'm I'm talking me on me climbing up in the attic with hazmatic gear on ripping out the ceiling and ripping up the floors and cleaning up and bringing contractors over and meetings with the mayor. I'm like, I'm showing the public, okay, this is all the work I was doing, but I was so busy trying to make something happen that I wasn't really showing the work that I was doing. And now, what do you have? You have film on this or video on this? Videos, probably a thousand videos on all the work I was doing.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I see. And you're gonna use that for what do you what to fundraise or what?

SPEAKER_01

So, number one, I started a fundraiser before it it flopped, it failed. So it's really to show the community that I didn't leave them, I didn't turn my back on them. And number two, just to show people like, hey, this is still a thing, I'm still in it, it's still a part of my lifelong goal. Then number two, I'm I'm trying not to be as vocal about what I'm gonna do. I'm really just slowly working on the business plans and trying to make it more concrete in in real life versus hey, I'm about to do this, I'm about to do this. I can't. Now I'm just yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Before it was it was more you were more out there, visual, and now you're just really trying to create the bones to do it.

SPEAKER_01

It's like, hey, here's all the stuff I did. I'm showing everybody the stuff I did while I quietly work on the behind the scenes work of it.

SPEAKER_00

And how much more expensive has property become there?

SPEAKER_01

It's still about the same because you know the neighborhood I'm in, it's a slow investment. People scared to move there, they scared to go there, they scared to walk through there. So it's it's still as cheap as it was.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so I met you here in Miami. I stopped you as we said on the street. So what we what are you doing here in Miami?

SPEAKER_01

So my aunt got a restaurant she running out here. I came out here to kind of get away, start over. And I I'll go, I'll talk about that a little bit too, but start over, you know, kind of get out here, help her with this, and just clear my head and really figure out what's next for me to do in life and what's in the next chapter, you know, because in Detroit, it got to a point, and this is another big thing, it got to a point where the attention got so big where I couldn't even walk to the corner store without people pulling up in cars, pulling out their phone. Even a police one night blocked off traffic for me to drive ride through on my motorcycle. So it it was getting insane.

SPEAKER_00

So you were celebrating, in other words, you were a celebrity.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, but then you you you paired it with I'm trying to do real community work, and I can't even walk outside without people trying to get a video, uh harassing me to go internet famous, and it got to a point where I couldn't even think about anything else but avoiding public attention because of the conflict that was coming with it.

SPEAKER_00

Hmm. So is that why you came to Miami? It is. But even in Miami, you're visible because I stopped you in the street.

SPEAKER_01

Well, the good thing about Miami is some see it as a bad thing, but everybody focused on what they got going on. So you can be the biggest celebrity in the world and still come out here and people more focused on themselves, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, Miami is a highly narcissistic place. So so when you say you're here now and you're focusing on the next chapter, so what is the next chapter?

SPEAKER_01

The next chapter is it's still by the block, right? It is, it is. So, first, I spent a lot of time getting attention, you know, growing my career, but now it's about building systems that last that don't require my attention 24-7, right? You know, it's more so build real systems like emails, you know, keeping track of data, keeping track of everyone who wanted to help with black of block, keeping track of all the stuff that is gonna make this thing permanent versus oh, I'm known today and gone tomorrow. It's like, no, what's the actual systems to making this a permanent thing for the rest of your life?

SPEAKER_00

Well, one of the things you're gonna have to do is raise money.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Is that is that something you learned how to do?

SPEAKER_01

It is, it's something that I've been working on doing, but at the same time, I'm still learning more about it. Like the best way to raise money and not, like I said, not put a lot of.

SPEAKER_00

That's a separate skill onto itself.

SPEAKER_01

It is, it is.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And how are you learning that?

SPEAKER_01

First, is like I said, doing everything on my end, making sure the taxes are getting paid on the property, making sure I'm still in good standings with the city, you know, communicating with people back in Detroit to let them know I didn't leave. So first I'm handling all that to say, okay, like I know a couple people who work for the city of Detroit. So I'm connecting with these people to say, hey, I'm still involved. What's the updates on Detroit real estate? I'm scanning the market. And then the next thing when I get there is trying to fully lock in on fundraising. Because what I like to do now is when I put my focus on something, I like to give it my all and not just do it loosely, you know. So now I'm focused on the foundation, and then once I get to the fundraising side, I'm gonna try to go at it a better way. Because, like I said, I started fundraising before it flopped, so I'm gonna try to do it again.

SPEAKER_00

And how long are you gonna stay here? And when are you going back to Detroit?

SPEAKER_01

So I I fly, I try to fly to Detroit a couple times a month. That's the goal. And then I don't know. The biggest thing is I have to have stability before I go back to Detroit because it got too chaotic to the point I couldn't even go sit down and get a hot dog if I was hungry. It really got that crazy.

SPEAKER_00

So are you are you saying that that it's still the case that you still if you went back to Detroit now, you you'd still be this kind of celebrity where people would be taking pictures of you?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah. I mean, if I look at my video views right now, I probably got 20 million views in Detroit alone.

SPEAKER_00

That can easily go to your head.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, exactly. And then Detroit is only 600,000 people population. So imagine 20 million times they see me all day. Somebody just text me and said they see me on the news on TV yesterday. And I haven't even I haven't even been there to do an interview. I'm like, damn. So it's still fluctuating around.

SPEAKER_00

So explain to me again. You want to stay here until you feel that it's that you can go back to Detroit with a business plan. Is that it?

SPEAKER_01

It is where would I live, right? You know, where would I live? Who would I want involved in my life? You know, what will my routine look like? The biggest thing Miami taught me was routine. So before I came here, I was in Kansas with my mom. So I was out there for five months and it was the country, no stimulation, no, like it was pure sticks, right? So military town. So that taught me more about discipline and structure. I don't want to be anywhere without a structure, a daily routine, a daily structure. So I'm trying to figure out how I can have structure where if I go to the gym, people gonna probably know I'm there, pull up in it. One time I had like 20 guys pop up to a uh, like I was at a what was it, a jump place where you like a basketball place. And it was like 20 guys that came in there, and that kind of made me paranoid. You know what I mean? Like with 20 guys doing showing up running in. So I gotta make sure I can have a system to protect myself, you know, and the people around me. I even had to hire security to walk around Detroit with me. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I mean, it got it got crazy, like, you know, and then it gets into where I had to defend myself a couple times, fights, and then, you know, almost getting sued, lawsuits. So it's like I gotta make sure my systems are in place. So if I'm being sued, I can still focus on by the block and then take care of itself. It's really that that crazy out there for me.

SPEAKER_00

It it almost sounds kind of overwhelming to me.

SPEAKER_01

It is, and then it's like, okay, if I have income flowing in, but it's too much chaos, the income doesn't stabilize. You say, okay, I got this X amount of dollars coming in, but then now you just knocked out a guy for grabbing you up because he seen you at a bar or at a restaurant, so now you got to try to pay to do this. So I'm trying to avoid that at all costs.

SPEAKER_00

Well, let me ask you something. So, why do you want why Detroit? Why do you have to go back to Detroit? You're a rapper. I mean, why can't you create recreate your business, you know, here?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, I can, and that, and that's the goal. That's the goal. Like, like I said, I'm trying to build a structure right now. And then once I build it, I'm almost there. Like I say, I'm almost there to where I feel like I built that stability and the systems and structure that I need to decide what I want to do, you know. So I'm still trying to figure that part out.

SPEAKER_00

So you're figuring it out. I am, I am. But you think that but what you're saying is that what you want is you want something that's very solid and very stable.

SPEAKER_01

No matter where I'm at. And the good thing is that Detroit is a two, like two, three hour flight away, you know, so I can always be there. But in order for me to do that, I have to make sure I got a system. Book, how often do I want to fly there? What's the budget? You know, it's stuff that I didn't have the space to think about when if I'm sitting in a coffee shop, somebody recording me or popping up saying, I've been trying to find you for 10 years. It's like I can't think about a flight budget when you know that kind of stuff happens.

SPEAKER_00

So if I understand correctly, you're here in Miami, so you can kind of get your head together.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I understand. Okay, my friends. Listen, I wish you all the luck in the world. You have so much talent, so much ambition. And who knows where you're gonna wind up. But one thing is you don't give up. That's pretty clear. Thank you. So thank you so much for being a guest on our show. And we will be we will be following you because I know you're always in the news.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, Trey. Thank you so much.