The God I Dont Believe in Anymore w/Kareem Manuel

speaker-0: Peace, y'all. What's up? Welcome to the third episode of Churched, Faith and Spirituality for Everyday People. excited to get into it today. I just want to start with naming some things that at a certain point in time, there comes a time and a moment when the image of God you were given no longer feels safe and no longer feels loving or it no longer feels true. And instead of walking away from spirituality, you begin to walk away from the fear. You begin to away from ⁓ past. And today we're talking about the God we stopped believing in and the life we started building. And I want to welcome our guest, Kareem Manuel. What's going on?

speaker-1: Hey, what's up? Everything. How you?

speaker-0: Grounded. Yeah.

speaker-1: That's a hit. Yeah.

speaker-0: All right. It's been a long time coming. talking about this for a while.

speaker-1: You I'm very proud of you. This is great. From the time you told me about the idea and all the conversations, all the conversations from then to where you are is good. I'm glad to support on Patreon. I'm glad to, you know, and I'm glad to now be here sharing my voice.

speaker-0: haha Yeah, y'all tried to get Kareem to be my co-host. Yeah. He was like, nah, this is for you to do. Yeah. But interesting enough, were at a place at that time where you were like, I don't really want to talk about.

speaker-1: And I'm only here for you

speaker-0: Okay, but I appreciate that. I want to start with some questions just to dive in. First, Tell me a little bit about your background.

speaker-1: Yeah. Okay. So my name is Kareem. I was born right ideas of God and who God was and why God was important were happening. Probably even in the womb. One of my earliest memories is of my father in the closet on Saturday morning crying out to God. ⁓ And I thought that was so cool. Like this being outside help us, ⁓ you know, and care about our lives. I became pretty devout. as a Christian around nine years old. remember having this conversation in my mind, I I'll wait till I'm older. And then the thought of like, how do you know you're gonna make it ⁓ be older? And if you don't, hell, is a powerful tool. And I like, you know. ⁓

speaker-0: Hell yeah. Right.

speaker-1: I dove in, I dove all the way in. And then at 21, I became a pastor. I got married, I did that for a decade. And at 30, once I moved to the South, something about the South, it really felt like it was like, baby, it's time to wake up. And was during Donald Trump's first election, ⁓ like for election.

speaker-0: running for office prior to 2016.

speaker-1: Yes, was shaking me up enough to allow myself to ask questions I hadn't asked. Yeah. Or I wouldn't have allowed myself to ask before then. I was a pastor in Chicago, Chi-town, baby, and shout out to the Legacy Disciple Making Church. Still going on to this day. we were different. We were a house church model. So three weeks out of the month, they were meeting my home. And we had like nine locations around the city. And then one Sunday, we would meet in a traditional church building. But I was always like...

speaker-0: Where were you a pastor at?

speaker-1: This is community and revolution. This needs to look different than it has. And I mean, I'm talking about as devout as devout as devout can be. I learned Hebrew and Greek. All of you. I went to school. I know that thing inside and out. yeah, and then the questions came.

speaker-0: So what kind of guy were you taught to believe in?

speaker-1: So many. went through so many iterations of God. I was taught that God is all powerful, all knowing, everywhere, all the time. And that God will fuck you up.

speaker-0: Get you together

speaker-1: know? Jealous. Super jealous. that's just God's way. I mean, I remember reading the Old Testament, like times like the ground would just open up and swallow 20,000 people. I'm like, hold up. Or just would send you to kill people. What? ⁓

speaker-0: Playing army. People falling dead.

speaker-1: Plagues and stuff. If you don't get this right, if you don't get this right, of there. Yeah, it was this duality of like God is this super loving, merciful, benevolent God who you can come to with your problems, you can come to. ⁓ And if you get it wrong, like punishment.

speaker-0: When you were younger, emotions did God produce for you?

speaker-1: Fear, fear and then joy. It made me so happy to feel like I could be pleasing the most powerful being. The idea that I was created for a purpose, that I an accident. Something thought about something the planet needed and decided to create ⁓ me and would commune with me somehow. It felt good to feel like I was like solving symbols and riddles and. Omens. Yeah, omens and reading the signs and it's like, God is talking and I can hear him. Yeah, so I had a lot of joy, felt like solving a mystery. I felt like being part of like the most exclusive club. ⁓ Yeah, sure. And then but the the program in that back, that fear.

speaker-0: And you believed both. It lives with you today.

speaker-1: It takes a lot of work. I have way less now after practicing and being grounded in it for the last, I know, I left at 31, 39. So yeah, almost a decade.

speaker-0: Yeah, think ⁓ of folks are ⁓ ⁓ I think that folks feel like they're going to reach a point. ⁓ have an understanding that for myself that I'll be unchurching or deprogramming myself for the rest of my life. And that being because I was born into the program, meaning if you all anything about how the development of kid's brain works. in those first few years.

speaker-1: And I know that has to be true because as a minister, the training, whether I was going through white seminary, black seminary, all the iterations of black hood, it was, we needed to do things to get them early. If you can get the child between the ages of zero and seven, you got them for life. And they will fight to the, even if, look at the Catholic church, how many people are like, I'm still Catholic, I know it's all type of stuff going on, but I-

speaker-0: Awesome. They're committed to it.

speaker-1: Like they are doing this to children.

speaker-0: Because it's a system of, right, they eat babies. That's for real. It's what's happening and I think it's interesting that even in reading the and people studying or knowing that they that child sacrifice has always been a part of the understanding of the foundation. mean, in the beginning, he was finna give up his son.

speaker-1: I mean yeah, let's go. underpinning the founding. And then we think it was, God, it's good, because it was like, I ⁓ was just testing you.

speaker-0: Bye! Who else felt attacked? Like, you know what? Like, the ram in the bush didn't show up for everybody, did it? But the call to do it and that normalization within the things that we experience and how children have always been a part of.

speaker-1: I'm deciding right now, I'm gonna let you lead this conversation. I'm not gonna jump in. Once you ask a question, I will answer.

speaker-0: But I want to specifically ask about the place in which as a pastor, it gone to the seminary. comes a point where you're getting the information and you've got to make a choice. I feel like a lot of pastors right now or in general have been in seminary with as much information that we've been given. You make a choice to go back to your congregation and tell them what the truth is or continue to meet them where they are or continue to pacify them being inside of a specific understanding or the program. And for you, how did you describe God to the people that you were pastoring?

speaker-1: Yeah? So the beautiful thing I guess I would say is I left Chicago and came down to Atlanta to teach the Bible a Christian organization. So I went from being directly pastor to ⁓ they call it. And organization was called the Navigators and you had to raise your own support from your church community, which is ⁓ already But I felt free of that responsibility. It would have been much harder. It would have been so much harder if I felt because what they teach you as a pastor is like you're responsible for shepherding these souls. If they make it to heaven or hell, it's you. Yeah. That's insane. ⁓ So because I felt free of that part, I just had to deal with the shame that I felt and the loss of community, ⁓ was also scary and super frightening. But I didn't have to stand up every Sunday while I was negotiating it.

speaker-0: It really...

speaker-1: and try to make it make sense. I will say I talked to tons of pastors on the journey as it was happening and I got a few different. One, I'm an atheist. I've had pastors just tell me like, pull me, I don't believe any of But they need this every Sunday and it's a good living. You don't have to believe this, you're good at it. You can just keep doing it and getting your check. And I said, not me, a believer.

speaker-0: Yeah, would you? Yep. I believe

speaker-1: I believe. Now I don't believe. I got to deal with that. I remember the first time saying I'm not a Christian to someone here in Atlanta, owns a very amazing brand, Good Brother. And we were talking and we were sharing, it was like all the friction. He was like with me and I was like, yeah, I'm not a Christian anymore. He's like, whoa, whoa. If I can say that, I don't know. So I got the atheist thing.

speaker-0: I can't go that far.

speaker-1: How'd go? First time you said it.

speaker-0: I was afraid to say it.

speaker-1: Exactly. felt it coming up. I am I about to say this? ⁓ I about to? Yeah. But then it was like, it's real. My mind knows it. My body knows it already. But I don't want to say this out loud.

speaker-0: Let's try it. because that tongue, we still understand the principles, which is, come on, we still understand the principles, is, think is, again, speaking to that functionality of Christianity, it is, time, past, whatever generations of humanity have passed, we've all wrote about our interpretation of God, Spirit. And so,

speaker-1: You got you me hot life and death come on

speaker-0: inside of Christianity hold still those universal principles of humanity has come to understand God and they transcend ⁓ saying we are Christian but they still anchor us ⁓ what was given to us in tradition which would make me forever a church girl forever.

speaker-1: I say that all time, I'm a church boy without a church. everything's my church now. ⁓ I'm working with that.

speaker-0: everything. What other responses did you?

speaker-1: Atheism to the my favorite that I see over and over and I saw it when I was in the church But I felt like it was normal. It was just like every couple years. You just have an expanded view Every few years is like you just grow and mature and now you know better then we believe this but now I know that it encompasses this and there's some healthiness to that but ⁓ At some point it's just wrong At some point it's like I shouldn't have to keep

speaker-0: You Yeah.

speaker-1: having a fundamental shift every five years. Homosexuality ⁓ either wrong or is right. And for me to go from so far on the road to like, you're going to hell if you believe this, to like, actually God loves you anyway. And still try to hold on. ⁓ These are fine. I was wrong.

speaker-0: to everything else. Yeah. I was wrong and that's what it is.

speaker-1: And that's what it is. And if I can't take accountability.

speaker-0: then what am I leading and what am I instilling? I don't deserve to be up here.

speaker-1: So that was the main one. It's just like, well, yeah, you just know better now. And it's like, yes, I do know better now and I'm going to have to live with that truth. And then the last one, think, oh, this one, you probably heard this one a lot. Well, we can't answer everything. I'm not even gonna ask those questions because it just confuses me and I'm not gonna get an answer anyway. And it's like, I'm not gonna use my mind because I might not get the answer. Maybe I don't. But how dare I not explore to the depths of the God-given abilities that I've been given even wonder and see. I just feel like it's such a cop-out.

speaker-0: I feel you as something that I struggle with and like I still love to go to church for the feeling. Right, okay. The historical feeling ⁓ where I'm from and what has ⁓ me. But ⁓ still go in there with an expanded understanding who God is to myself and myself. But I'm challenged by folks that I know no better. and they go back and they say the things, because it's one thing to walk your congregation there. are you really committed to walking your congregation there or are you dancing that line between this is a good living, ⁓ in the church, but

speaker-1: I sustained capitalism. And we talked about this before, like deconstructing colonialism and colonization. It's like once I'm aware I was wrong, now I want to do something new. But my program on how I think thoughts is still the same. I haven't done the work to actually deconstruct how I even think.

speaker-0: It's still the same. So I'm approaching it the same way. So I'm going to spirituality. This is a good place because, and especially we in Atlanta, spiritual community down, everybody. ⁓ performative, but it's still connected to the approach of the ways that we were programmed. it makes it tough for someone like me in general to be like, ⁓ yeah, let me come and be a part when I'm like, I have this understanding that we have succumbed to this way of being, but now spirituality ⁓ being co-opted, it's being ⁓ it's being ⁓ influenced culture, it's being all of those things. Because that's all we know. It's all we know.

speaker-1: And it takes so much work to try to know something new, something different.

speaker-0: and actually do the things that you believe.

speaker-1: But what if you don't? So that's the other real question. It's like, you don't even know you should be believing and that is safe to not know. That is okay. The fear is so strong. It's like, I'm not allowed to not know. I'm not allowed to have questions that I could.

speaker-0: Yeah. because that could kill me. And that's also connected back to our experience as black people. What I fear, what I don't know could kill me at any moment in time as I'm trying to navigate this very real reality of systemic oppression.

speaker-1: I tell my children all the time, I say, I could just go back. Right now, I could write a book about my journey through the wilderness. I could just come with this new expanded worldview that I have. And as long as I use the right terms.

speaker-0: In the right language. And it'll blow up.

speaker-1: I'm talking about I don't have to suffer at all. know this right now, but I don't want to perform. And there was times I was performing, I had no ideas. I wasn't connected to a belief. This is what you told me. ⁓

speaker-0: told me. And where did you first find the tension between that image of God and your lived experience? Like, did that?

speaker-1: I probably experienced it way more times before I recognized it. It's when you're being abused but you love your abuser, it's like that's just love. So I thought love was suffering.

speaker-0: Thanks.

speaker-1: love was suffering and being long suffering is an actual I can suffer for a long time can I can can keep on keep on I can just hold on I can tarry yeah I mean how long we wait

speaker-0: Long suffering. for the Holy Spirit waiting. I ain't got it yet. And then with somebody else who told you you ain't happy, it wasn't even you. It was somebody else.

speaker-1: So I guess, mother said, I don't have it. She got it. So I got to wait. got to wait. So I probably experienced it through the whole time. for me, when Mike Brown was killed in the street. and watching the church's response, white, black, everywhere in between, trying to rationalize how we could just witness a teenage boy get murdered by getting shot in the back by the authorities. And now I'm supposed to stand up and say, God has a plan for this.

speaker-0: and it's God's will.

speaker-1: And then it's happening over and over and over. Orlando Castile, like over and over. Eric Gardner, Sandra Bland. Come on. I just saw myself getting up and saying things like, well, the issue is sin, it's not racism. It's what? It's definitely racism. ⁓ It's clear as day. But I can't, I can't.

speaker-0: I'm still pissed about that Yeah

speaker-1: accept that because then something's wrong. And so this image that I had of God being perfect, but this completely imperfect creation, and I started asking myself like, whoa. Why is God talking in riddles? If God can talk say something about happening to my people for half a millennium. I'm supposed just keep singing this song. We just gonna keep wading in the water. Please help me, this ain't making any sense. ⁓

speaker-0: Yeah, why not be direct? Waiting in It was the blood. Is it my blood? Right, how much? Are we the sacrifice? You really start asking those questions. It makes you uncomfortable with for me, this is a spiritual system that was given to a lot of folks, a lot of black folks in slavery. Right. And so never give us nothing good.

speaker-1: How blood do I gotta spill?

speaker-0: They never gave us nothing at all. So why do I need to hold on to this? what is that relation to? I think one of the ways I woke up is as a singer, ⁓ an artist. Gospel was the breath of my lived experience when I was growing up. But at a certain point, it turned into Christian contemporary music.

speaker-1: For sure. my gosh. ⁓ when you hear them songs, when I listen to them songs now, and like, bruh, was, did you see, you saw Sinners, yes? You saw yes? That was CCM. When the white people showed up ⁓ and the they were talking, that was CCM music. ⁓ And it's like.

speaker-0: Yep. It was the music and the art for me that was like, whoa, wait, because my culture is being wiped away. Gospel music has become in my opinion. No one is going around saying this is gospel. It's CCM or it's R &B gospel or it's hip hop gospel. And don't get me wrong, you have a variety of whatever you please, but it was the alignment of actual musicians, right? I'm seeing the musicians who were gospel singers now wanting to be. And for me was acceptability among mega churches and white culture and. ⁓

speaker-1: Thanks for What would drive me to want to be accepted by the mega church? Money. I was a Christian hip hop artist. I'm connected to one of the biggest of all time.

speaker-0: Money.

speaker-1: It was also, it was like multiple things happening at once. One, we can make more money over here. Two, I experienced a lot of emotional abuse in the black church. I experienced a lot of mental and emotional gaslighting, trauma and manipulation from people who I believe did not know any better. That was what they understood. That was love to They were just repeating the, I was abused.

speaker-0: True. Thank you.

speaker-1: I don't even think they think it was abuse, but as you get healthy and it was like, yeah, was I accepted it. So then when I'm going, this mental manipulation and emotional trickery that has to happen for me to survive here, I don't like. And the white church seems so much more academic and organized. And it was an institution. And I can trust in the institution. Wow, look how long it's been in existence. They have like history.

speaker-0: Institutional. Sustainable. It's sustainable. Which is something black communities don't know. Sustainability. No.

speaker-1: Now, why don't we know it? Because niggas keep showing up and ruining it and not giving us access to the resource every time we... So that's a whole nother thing, but I'm not aware of that at the time. I'm just trying to survive. And this white church the systems, they have an economy ⁓ it works extremely well, even if you're not that talented. ⁓ the economy of it works. So if you're telling me I can leave from this abusive place,

speaker-0: and blow shit up and This work. ⁓ my god. Okay.

speaker-1: This is a place where I have to shrink myself to fit in these spaces to make mother happy because I'm too, I think I'm somebody, I'm too high up on my horse. Cause I'm trying to exist in the greatness that I've found. Humble and sit down. I'm of that. I'm going to come over here. And the other benefit is, and I can make a pretty good living. As long as my song is in G.

speaker-0: Is it G,

speaker-1: B, A, F, four chords. know?

speaker-0: Yo, I was like, yo, the music is changing and now I'm in spaces, right? I'm a lot of these ⁓ church as an ⁓ evangelist as a ⁓ woman figure gets the right ⁓ to ⁓ up or have of notoriety in their space. Witnessing the desire to ⁓ with people who are, ⁓ we need to work with Hillsong. We need to work with, while also these institutions revealing that ⁓ are, while they work, they're still built and grounded in things that ⁓ the antithesis of what folks say, ⁓ or folks say you should be in church. So like, ⁓ the the pastor's gay. Which one? Which one?

speaker-1: Which one? And that's cool to be gay, but don't act like you're not gay and preach it. That's all.

speaker-0: The pastors are gay That's all I'm saying. That's the harm. That's the... And it's perpetual. And it's solely based on capitalism, but I think it's more just insidious, again, for the black community. the ways in which I believe, again, that, you know, our spiritual ownership is directly connected to our self-determination. So how can you be self-determined as a black community ⁓ I'm still telling you that... lean not to your own understand.

speaker-1: I think what you just hit was probably the biggest thing for me. It felt so frightening to think that I could determine for myself. I remember being, I felt trapped in a Kroger. was like, I got excommunicated from the church down here. They had my face, wife at the time, they had our face up on a billboard, told people to watch out for us, that I was wilding, just because I'm asking these questions. And guy catches me and he just starts. heparin' me with questions. And I felt an obligation to answer every one. That conversation changed my life because when I left I like, I didn't have to answer none of that. But it was my first experience and he was like, so you're just a god to yourself, huh? And it was like,

speaker-0: Yeah, because I still believe that that, you know, the spirit is living in me that is the same.

speaker-1: It separates me from Abraham or Peter or John. They're just me Trying to and they're saying this is what I see and understand

speaker-0: Stories of men though that were, of men that were built up for us to see these men a certain way. But what will continuously say on this podcast is go and search for yourself the other stories that exist about the people that you idolize within your current spiritual.

speaker-1: It was so sneaky and so wide like not wise but intelligent of the system in the program to tell me not to do that Everything that was not this collection of books this 66 books that they said was okay at the Council of Nicaea was demonic And so don't want to be around demons ⁓ how many other councils were there how'd y'all choose these ⁓ this whole other group that also says they believe in Jesus

speaker-0: Right. them up. What about the other councils?

speaker-1: says we missing five, six, 10 of them. What about these people that weren't born anywhere over here, wasn't colonized by European rule, and they have their own spiritual practices and understandings?

speaker-0: Yeah, but that looks similar to Islam and other. ⁓

speaker-1: I'm saying I had a homegirl go be a missionary in India for a little while and she's posting these idols need to be torn down and I was with her and I'm reading and I felt like God said to me you missing all the beauty. I love those are my people too. Yeah. I said wait a minute. I got to start over. I got to start over from scratch.

speaker-0: Yeah. And the scratch from scratch is ⁓ I found myself, where we've had conversations about it, but the beauty in the rebuilding, I think, is something that I really want to focus on in this conversation. That journey for you ⁓ of the grief, ⁓ let's there, the mourning and the grief of that.

speaker-1: Yeah, I was ashamed of myself. was like there were people I wouldn't marry because they were gay. Yeah. That I considered friends, ⁓ of my church. But, y'all gay. ⁓ No, can't do this. There was ⁓ ways was raising my children ⁓ that completely opposite to my actual feelings of love. I remember when I stopped whooping them. Yeah. Just going like... Why am I hitting this child? And it's like, because, bear the rod or spoil the child. And it's like, a black boy doesn't deserve to be spoiled sometimes. How much have we gone through? And as I, and then leaving, like not even leaving, being left.

speaker-0: I was told. absolutely all the time.

speaker-1: Being left, people saying, cannot be around you.

speaker-0: You cannot come. You're not invited.

speaker-1: Not invited. People I invested thousands of hours of love and support and friendship and fellowship with won't answer the phone.

speaker-0: They distance themselves.

speaker-1: completely. And I get it. It's like I'm getting divorced. I'm leaving the church. No married couple wants to be around somebody that's not, cause it's like that might get on me.

speaker-0: It might get in my situation.

speaker-1: But it was hard. was like this. And that was the other scary thing. It was like the way I make money is in this house of religion. All of my friendships and connections are in this house of religion. The way I create and decide what comes out of me creatively is in this house. And if I'm leaving this house, where am I going? I have no idea who's going with me. No one. looks like. And how am I going to provide for these people that I love that are looking to me? And I do not have an answer because for the last 10 to 15 years, every decision I've made has been in here. And the more I continue to make decisions here, the more beholden I am to this system to just have my basic living needs met. That's dangerous. It's unfair. It's not wise. It's unsafe. And so, yeah, I was pissed and I was sad because I'm like, yeah. It's, I'm lonely as fuck.

speaker-0: People love to say church hurt. It's so much deeper than that.

speaker-1: The human is going, no longer have human friends. actually, I'm 31 years old at the time, now I'm 39, and I was like, I actually don't even know how to make friends outside of.

speaker-0: That are not in my immediate that have the same thought process and understanding and it's a for me was a discovery through the new places people that I found at same time Those feelings of some people still stayed around they they they distance themselves even your own my own family come on they distance themselves because my again my family's church still actively going in Michigan and So there's a distance, but then at the same time, there's a connection because it's like, but I know the genuineness of the experience and the person that you are. And it hurts even more a little bit. Like it's the people who gone and gone now, but you are in this relationship that's like, I'm here, I'm not here. But something magnificent that I have experienced also is as I've transformed and those people who still. We're like, but I love this person. I know them. They...

speaker-1: and that's why the church didn't want them to be around. can't hang around for now. I had a few like that. Most people came to me like Nicodemus in the night, especially some months later when their own shit was hitting the fan and it was like, Hey, Reem, need, I got some questions, man. I probably, Jay Paul is one person I could say by name who stood up and was like, Oh, not Kareem, that's my nigga.

speaker-0: I need to talk about it. Yeah.

speaker-1: And that was enough for him. It was like, I don't know what y'all talking about. Not allowed, can't he? Nah, that's my homie. But of that, it was a lot of space and a lot of distance. Sometimes I could see it hurt them because it's like, they don't know how to engage. If you don't believe this anymore, you...

speaker-0: Yeah, because a lot of people don't realize that you're not rejecting God, rejecting harm. I'm no longer allowed.

speaker-1: It took her years. She talks about that a lot. She was so hurt in the beginning because I wasn't just walking away from church. I was walking away from so many systems of living that were harmful to me and becoming more aware of the systems coming up. So she was like, I thought you were saying I was a bad mother because I introduced you and I thought that and I was like, it wasn't about that at all.

speaker-0: But happen, happen.

speaker-1: Now, how do I move forward? And I can't do it with the same mind.

speaker-0: When I was a child, I did childish things.

speaker-1: Cameraman, I had to.

speaker-0: Yeah. Woo. And that correlates to something that I think baffles my mind is was raised Baptist. Okay. Full gospel Baptist. ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ That's how I start. Shut up in my bone. Shut up!

speaker-1: For sure. Speaking of times and all that, all in. it.

speaker-0: for a tradition that utilizes feeling to name we're experiencing or not also using feeling outside of that context to make sense ⁓ of we're experiencing. So I can say I'm filled with the Holy Ghost. You feel that? The Spirit was in there today. But ⁓ I in my body. I'm... I'm stressed out, my legs have fluid in them. I'm not feeling or paying attention to the ways that that is also God speaking to me. So I know you had your own journey with ailments being overweight and how did that come?

speaker-1: Listen, my whole life I was a healthy young boy. I would go to the doctor, my whole family, and they was like, you guys are the bastion of health. At 17, my parents get divorced, or at least split up, and they get divorced maybe a year later. But for me, that wasn't even fathomable. There are ministers in the church. My household was like the Cosby show coming up. I'm talking about my...

speaker-0: you it.

speaker-1: Of course we had our problems, but there was so much love in my house. Now I'm a child, maybe I'm not seeing everything, but I saw more than a lot because I'm the oldest. I was so shocked when the split happened and the way it happened felt violent to my spirit. Yeah, was like I'm viewing the world, the glasses are just yanked. From there, I go on this journey, but I'm so spiritual. I'm so God's gonna make a miracle. I'm this rapper, I'm gonna make it. I ended up having to live with this guy named Brian Dye. I moved in at maybe 19 years old, white guy on the west side of Chicago, but like super cool dude, loved the Lord and would like disciple people. And I needed a place to stay, ended up staying there and he's who I ended up starting the church with at 21. From the age of 20 to 30, I'm ballooning. And I'm taking on way more stress than I need to. I'm trying to solve problems, I ain't got no business. I'm married, which is a whole nother level of stress and interaction. I'm eating trash. I'm a bachelor. And then I'm this young, like way too young to be married person trying to... And so I'm not eating well and I'm just getting big. I developed diabetes. I get to 250 pounds. I have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, chronic fatigue, chronic bronchitis. And that is not uncommon in the church. not a common in society, but especially in the church. We will shuck and

speaker-0: We feeding that shit out there to the service and the best of you. Come on now.

speaker-1: the vestibule. Wow, y'all was church. ⁓ how I grew up at the end of the day. It's like, yeah, we're going to have the fried chicken and the spaghetti. We're going have the fish fry. And we come from plantation life here, that was what we needed to survive. So I'm so grateful. And it's killing us. And I'm to the doctor. I'm taking five pills and two sprays every day. And I remember saying to the doctor, when am I going to be healed? He said, huh? ⁓

speaker-0: You're not here for healing. You're here for that. You're here to manage what you got.

speaker-1: Here f- You know how much money we make off you every month? Every month, my boy? No, we trying to just keep-

speaker-0: You're on time, don't miss your point.

speaker-1: For five years. And I'm like, you just keep giving me more drugs. so I said, I got to go. I'm researching. I remember saying out loud, God, I to know what you said to my people. I go on Google. ⁓ I in Black Healers. And Dr. Sebi comes up. And I go, Penelope, I'm like, I'm in such a challenge phase. I'm I don't know this man.

speaker-0: ⁓ yeah.

speaker-1: I don't know if anything he's saying is real. I'm going to try it. If it works, I'll do it. If it doesn't, I'll try something else. I'm no longer just believing stuff because somebody charismatic get up there and says it. Five days in to eating, like he said, I took a deep breath for the first time in years. I felt my lungs just. said, ⁓ this is for me. I was by myself in the kitchen. looked around and said, ⁓ this is for me. I don't need to talk to anybody. And I was, people were upset. I made this choice on my own. It don't take all that. I lost 100 pounds in three months. I got off all my meds. Now what do you tell a man who healed himself?

speaker-0: What you gonna tell him?

speaker-1: are sitting there arguing with say, can't argue with results. I was sick.

speaker-0: Is this not the fruit? Come on. You said a tree bear fruit. It's bearing. Look at me.

speaker-1: What are we talking about? I can breathe, can play with my children, I feel better than I ever felt. But you know, black people, lose way too fast and they're like, baby, you sick.

speaker-0: You see?

speaker-1: I said, I said, I'm not, I'm not the opposite. And then said, and then what was extra sad, said, none of you, of y'all had nothing to say. I caught it. You heard me, ⁓ You say it. None of you motherfuckers had shit to say when I was sick. ⁓ Y'all fine with the 250 pound version of me. ⁓

speaker-0: I said, I'm-

speaker-1: Y'all were fine to go to Corral with me all the time. You fine to have every meeting around food that ain't good for us all the time. But as soon as I say I'm not putting that in my body anymore, now there's something wrong. Now you just don't know how to approach me no more. Then get the fuck around me then. I'm not gonna die to be friends with you.

speaker-0: I'm wrong. not going to die. I'm not going to harm myself. I'm not going to kill my own self just to be in the same space. And mine was more mental health, right? So at 19 years old, I made the second attempt on my own life. my mom, they took me to the hospital because I tried to take some pills and it didn't take enough to poison myself, but they took me to the hospital and... My mom came and she was like, ⁓ what you mean now. And I said, you understand what I mean now? Like ⁓ is hard. I feel like I can't go on. And she said, I understand that. Whatever you decide to figure out, that's okay. But you gotta get up from here right now. Because I didn't know that I was on a 24 hour watch at the hospital ⁓ that they were about to commit me into.

speaker-1: Which is I work now, the way. I work in adolescent psychiatric.

speaker-0: Yeah, so I was finna go there and my mom was like where they're gonna take you it's not I don't think it's gonna help you know it does and so She ran out the hospital. ⁓ yeah, child mom. I'm beyond ⁓ She said yeah, ⁓ can figure it out, but I went to back to campus ⁓ I happened to Go to one of my my ⁓ counselors in It was about class, but he was like, I think you need to go and utilize Olin, our system on campus that supports students. And he was like, I think you should go and see a psychiatrist and a therapist. And I went to see a therapist around sexual assault and harm. And then I went to see a psychiatrist and I got some diagnosis that my family It's just like, don't do that. I got medication. family took my medication, it down the toilet and flushed it. I was just like, y'all want me to be insane. ⁓ you want me to continue to live in this ⁓ of mental duress where in the truth, the duress I was experiencing at the same time, I was pledging Delta Sigma Theta and through ⁓ process of being humiliated and torn down people who had no idea how to build me back up and understand themselves that Delta Sigma Theta is a spiritual institution D9 is a spiritual institution. Yeah, regardless of how you if you joined it for community that mug is set up ⁓ specifically a spiritual institution and Today that was impacting my mental health. I'm all other gods. No other gods, but This has, I was battling through that and like, I don't have a, it's demonic or not demonic, that depends on your demonology and understanding from whatever you decide to believe. But the concept, which I think is the friction that's happening in the black church at the point of D9 is the fact that people are just now realizing black people have never been monotheistic. We have never believed in this one cookie cutter type of And we're being stretched at the fact that D9 directly challenges that by being inside the black church. And it being able to be there. one God only is already being challenged. So the contention of that mixed with what I was experiencing mentally, I'm like, nah, I have to ⁓ this make sense to me. Mind you, I also was at an international university where I was going on study abroad. I was going and seeing different cultures and I was like, hey, that felt like God. That felt like God. That felt like God. And so am I not going to acknowledge what is feeling like God, but I'm supposed to pay attention to my feelings?

speaker-1: crazy because when those things started, it was like survival. You're from a free space now because of all the work that's happened before where you can ask those questions. But when ⁓ creating these institutions, it's like we just need a place to commune and get information and the internet doesn't exist, social media doesn't exist. Like the church is how we ⁓ what's happening with this family, that family, place for us to just love each ⁓ But then as things do, as it grows and the power grows, and now you're in a place where you get to say, Is this actually how I'm understanding the world? How I'm experiencing the world? And the answer is no. And then, okay, so what am I going to do?

speaker-0: so I having that relationship with medication and all of that, that was still pushing me into something that I was like, holistically, ⁓ what I do so that I don't have to do this? And yoga ⁓ changed life. ⁓ As does. As it does. Changed my life. The ⁓ spiritual of yoga ⁓ changed life. diving into Hare Krishna, diving into chanting, diving into things that actually gave me even more understanding of what prayer was, even a more understanding of what.

speaker-1: But see, to me, that's when they say like no other gods. Like that's the thing. When we were tearing in the church, when they would say, we're gonna stay here until you get it. We got this mantra going, right? I'm blessed. Like Fray Hamill would have a blessed, blessed, blessed, We're gonna this until you feel it. Until you remember.

speaker-0: and the whole church go up.

speaker-1: And then the whole church goes up because we've amplified this energy together. I'm doing the same thing when I'm sitting in a circle and I'm, or I'm chanting whatever the mantra is until my body can relax enough into the truth that no matter what's going on, actually all is well. That's why I love yoga. The first yoga I ever did was nude yoga. that's me. And I remember just being... I had a beautiful teacher named Deanna Denise. I wanted to push myself. Anything that made me afraid, I wanted to do it. I was tired of being afraid. Anything that made me feel like, ⁓ I don't know if I can, but ⁓ don't want to stand here being naked in front of all these people, doing poses I don't even know how to do. And it was like, you know what? I'm afraid I'm going to go into it. ⁓ so I went and just connecting my breath.

speaker-0: you

speaker-1: with my body on purpose, radically changed how I showed up in the world every day.

speaker-0: a confidence, I'm in there. I'm inside of myself. I'm inside myself. ⁓ that being connected to my plant medicine journey. know what I'm saying? It's a real thing to be able to use the earth to expand the earth. ⁓

speaker-1: Here in my Why was I so afraid of the earth? I remember saying, smoke until I was 30. ⁓ was on tour with these Christian artists. We got to New Orleans and every city we would stop in, we would get off, we would explore the city, we would do all this cool stuff. Especially if we had like a day in between. We get to New Orleans and everybody's like, I'm not getting off

speaker-0: Wow, yeah.

speaker-1: I don't want no voodoo on me, blah, blah. And I remember thinking like, yo, do we serve God or not? Like, are we, there's God in us or not? Like how, why am I afraid that somebody else could be more connected to God or more connected to the devil than my connection to God? I'm gonna. Come on, man. What am I talking about? So I thought about that with the planet. It's like, why am I so afraid of the earth? I was born on this planet. This is the planet that my body exists on. Why am I afraid of these herbs and these. Come on, man.

speaker-0: than me. be more powerful.

speaker-1: And so yeah, so then we got into the mushrooms and we got into the roots and the ayahuasca and

speaker-0: And then, no, and I really am God in this shit. In my own personal experience, I have to be that. I am that, I'm of that. And collectively, when we get to the collective space, that is where I experience, ⁓ this on you, this your part. got me, but like, this is, when we talk about the collectiveness, like this is your part, and you know, working through that, and it connected me back to my creativity in a way. Like, plant medicine moved me back, because I'm, be honest, niggas was scared. I was scared to take the mushroom. said, I'm finna leave it. ⁓ my God, I told you about my shangri-trail. ⁓

speaker-1: Tronga is so fast, so strong. You ain't got no time to, you out. You're too close, you gone to another universe. That's you. That's what it did for me. It was like all these things that I'm witnessing, seeing, especially things that were scary. It's like, no, that's real. And it's already in you. Why are you afraid? It's like, I'm afraid of me. Y'all taught me to be afraid of my own self.

speaker-0: You But it's And it's real. I'm afraid of myself.

speaker-1: I will not. I'm not going to sit here and be frightened of my thoughts, feelings. I'm not even saying they're always right. I feel so confident now that I can have them and then analyze them. Is that how I want to feel? Do I even need to feel that right now?

speaker-0: No. Emotional intelligence. We don't even engage our emotions. How can we get to the point of using them as information towards, right?

speaker-1: That's, that, cause that's a whole nother, I'ma too. We don't even engage enough with them.

speaker-0: Yep. Okay, so I want I know that spirituality Art has been a big part of that for you. Yeah, and art as a spiritual practice When did music, it's always been a part of your, but when did make that switch to it being a part of your healing intentionally? Okay, okay. Yeah.

speaker-1: Probably my first ayahuasca ceremony. Greatest concert I ever been to. remember being so just about what was gonna happen. I'm already doing so many things that they tell me was the devil. Now I'm sitting here in this room about to drink some concoction and I drink it and about an hour later I'm starting to feel I'm going to a place. But it was African led and they're playing the djembe and they're singing these songs and I'm feeling ⁓ connection to my ancestors. I never felt a freedom to and they start singing this song. and the words, I didn't even know what they meant or what they were, but it was so celebratory. And then they get to the part and they go, I shake, I shake. And I stood up and I'm like, yes.

speaker-0: Yes.

speaker-1: And I'm like, I'm worried I'm gonna get in trouble. They're gonna tell me, you know, but they're like, no, it's a spirit. they're the and the voices and we're singing and nobody's having to direct the harmonies. They're just happening and we're the spaces. And I started to think about what music means to me. It's like when I'm sad, I can play a sad song to help ⁓ amplify the sadness I can be done with it. If I'm done being sad, I can play happy music to help change the environment so I can be happy. And I was just like, music is my religion. That's, for me, is music, for sure. It's what takes me to a higher realm to see. Sometimes you can say something in a song.

speaker-0: That's the religion for you.

speaker-1: No, we're just talking. I can say the same truth, but it's it's words. But when it's couched in a melody, when you weren't expecting it to come, you're just kind of dancing. And then all of a sudden, bow is right there. Like when Stevie Wonder says, did you know that true love asks for nothing?

speaker-0: And you're like, wow, don't. ⁓ ⁓

speaker-1: That was years ago and now I'm making the best music of my life.

speaker-0: So, and that's crazy, I was gonna ask you if you see creativity as prayer, but you just said.

speaker-1: 100%. Yeah. 100%. And I see everything as a song. Even my work now, I treat it like I'm writing a song. So everything that happens, I'm like, ⁓ this is the tension part of the song. This the release part of the song. This is the melody. But ⁓ it's prayer. And for me, it's a prayer that's working on me. And once I finally reach the truth of that prayer, that's the song.

speaker-0: That's good. That's good. And I feel that and I understand that inside of myself in some way. It's the music. Well, want to thank you, but I wanted to also talk about just one last thing before we go, which is your brand, ⁓ And inspired you to create that? ⁓ What the name connected to in? How does this brand reflect your journey of becoming?

speaker-1: I was in the basement of my home in 2015, maybe 16. When did Trump become president? actually 2016, okay. So 2015, I'm sitting there.

speaker-0: 2016. That's madness. We just say when Trump becomes president. That is crazy. The first one.

speaker-1: I'm sitting in my basement and I'm praying, I'm talking to God. And I'm like, our schools never have enough resources. Our people keep getting murdered in the streets and they're telling me to be okay with it. Our people are sick and dying from the same diseases over and over and over again. When are you gonna come and do something about this? Somebody needs to come and do something about this. And I'm saying it loud and I'm crying and I'm upset. And I just said it one last time. was like, somebody needs to come and fix this. And then was like, my spirit was like, yeah. Yeah. So what you gonna do? I said, we're the ones we're waiting for. We can do something about it right now. ⁓ and that was the next phrase. Nobody's coming to save you. No matter how sad you are, no matter how hard it feels, no matter how much you pray, how fervent and powerful your words are.

speaker-0: There ain't nobody coming to save me.

speaker-1: No one is coming to save you. You're waiting on yourself. And then I saw myself as everyone. I saw myself in everyone. It's like, ⁓ it's we, period. And so people kept asking me, well, who's we for? Because they wanted it to be like just African-American or just gay or just, and it's like, nah, it's all of us. So that's how it started. And then I started, I was a rapper. So I made a song. I made the shirt to go with the song. When I saw the shirt, I said, ⁓ this is what I do now.

speaker-0: Yeah, it was a simple and it's high. got pieces that I still want that people have that. Yeah, for sure.

speaker-1: I took a when I closed the store. I've been in this last year, I've been in ⁓ a recalibration mode. I'm very proud of myself. ⁓ Thank you. ⁓ I'm proud of this by the way, we'll see what I make next. It's like once the music comes out, we'll see, because I'm still a little designer. ⁓

speaker-0: proud of you too. So, ⁓ final thing, what is for you today? What is church for you today?

speaker-1: Spirituality to me is scientific in the sense of I have more questions than I have answers. when I have a hypothesis and I think I've proven it, I like to keep. That's it. And that can be a scary place to be, but I feel so much freedom to just go, does it have to have an answer? When you talked about trying to end your life, there was a time a couple of years ago where it was the first time that thought ever crossed my mind. And I was so frightened, like, where did that even come from? and then having to negotiate with myself, do I want to be here or not? Because it's a very valid to make.

speaker-0: The things that we're experiencing are very real and if you're not grounded in your body and in your belief, you're dissociating, you're into the

speaker-1: Right, and I don't want to be in two worlds. I want to be in this world. If I go into another world, I want to go as myself in that world. so spirituality to me just looks like having that conversation, being so confident that it's okay to not have an answer, that my answer can change. I tell my children all the time they ask me something, I say, well, this is the way I see it today. It could be completely different tomorrow. Because when I was a child, I thought like a child.

speaker-0: it could be different.

speaker-1: And so yeah, spirituality to me looks like loving, loving myself and loving as many people as I can.

speaker-0: You know, I reread the alchemist, and I'll end here. I reread the alchemist, and the alchemist spoke about the language that we all forgot. The we all know, but we forgot it. And that love. And so, ⁓ in that, I you.

speaker-1: I love you too.

speaker-0: absolutely. I'm glad you came. I'm glad you got ⁓ out, got that off. speak to y'all. Anything you want to say before you go?

speaker-1: ⁓ yeah, I love y'all. I don't feel the need to convince anybody of anything. If you feel challenged by this, you know, sit with it.