Charlamagne tha God on becoming a media mogul, culture, ownership, Breakfast Club, Kevin Hart, Jay Z, Kaepernick, missteps, tuning out public opinion, advice from his dad that has guided his journey and the side of Lenard McKelvey the world doesn't see.

Ryan Clark (0:00)

Breakfast Club co-host Charlamagne tha God went from unemployed and living with his mom to becoming a media mogul. From radio to his podcast network, publishing company, Charlamagne has built a career on the front end of ownership, and his story is truly inspiring. There's something different about sitting down with someone for a second time. The conversation goes deeper. The guard comes down, and this one took us to places our first conversation didn't. The quote goes, to whom much is given, much is required. Charlamagne took us inside the responsibility of ownership, what led him to put cameras in the radio studio, and importance of paying people what they're worth. We also talked about balancing friendship and work, especially as his platform has expanded into political commentary. How do you stay connected to your community while navigating the responsibility of being a journalist? And of course, we had to ask the question that's been on our minds since sitting with Colin Kaepernick. What really happened between Colin and Jay-Z? Now, this was fun and it was a sort of Netflix collaboration. Whenever Charlamagne pivots, the conversation is going somewhere. So enjoy this sit down with the versatile and always evolving Charlamagne tha God. This is The Pivot.

Charlamagne, welcome back to the show.

Charlamagne tha God (1:37)

Happy to be here, man. What's up, Ryan? What's up, Fred? What's up, Channing?

Ryan Clark (1:41)

Well, normally, I introduced them, so now, Channing Crowder, Fred Taylor, Ryan Clark, Pivot fam, thank y'all for pivoting with us. First of all, congratulations on all the success.

Charlamagne tha God (1:50)

Same to y'all.

Ryan Clark (1:51)

Yeah, thank you, brother, and everything you're doing. You know, you brought a camera into a radio show.

That's before podcasting, that's before sort of this boom in media. How were you kind of, Charlamagne, ahead of the game at that point to make that decision?

Charlamagne tha God (2:09)

I was born in 1978, right? So when I was doing radio in South Carolina, the thing that was getting me noticed outside of South Carolina was the internet. And that was just with audio at the time. You know, I remember there was two hip hop websites. It was sohh.com and allhiphop.com. And all hip hop had the rumor section. And there was a guy named Illseed. I still to this day don't know who Illseed is, but he would say, yo, you got tips or rumors or whatever it is, send them in. So I would just send them my interviews. And I remember one time I sent him an interview I did with Bun B and Bun B had said when Pimp C was coming home. So that made, I guess at the time, national news. And then another time I made T-Pain sing live on the radio. This is when he first came out.

So he sang live on the radio without the auto-tune. Wasn't the best, you know?

And so I let him know in the moment it wasn't the best.

And that went out. And then it was another interview I did with, at the time, you remember the video of Vixen Buffy the Body? Yeah. Me and her was going back and forth. She ended up throwing a CD at me and stuff. So all of that stuff was going viral before viral was a thing. So to me, I was just like, I'm just going to constantly utilize the Internet at every stage of the Internet. We just didn't know how much the Internet was going to grow. So back then, we was just putting audio out. But then here comes YouTube. So when YouTube started coming, it just made sense. Like, why not have cameras in the studio? And all the radio personalities I knew at the time, whether it was Debbie Brown in LA, Kendra G, or even Angel Lee when she was on Shade 45, Envy when he was on Hip-Hop Nation, Angie Martinez, they were putting their interviews out on video. So I was just like, yo, that's just something we all should be doing. I felt like if you was a radio personality even back then, but this was before Breakfast Club. If you weren't putting your interviews on video, nobody was even really seeing or paying any attention. Plus you gotta think, I worked with Wendy Williams too. So Wendy wasn't necessarily doing the camera thing, but she had her show on VH1. And they were taking that radio show and putting it out on VH1. And then you still had the Howard Stern model. His show was coming out on, I think it was E or somebody like that. So I just always felt like why not tape your radio show and put it online? So when we formed the Breakfast Club, we didn't have no promotion in the marketing budget. Like I heart, we were the little engine that could, you know? I wanted to say the N word, but I'm trying not to say the N word no more. So we were the little N words that could. And so when that happened, I'm like, yo, just give us a cameraman every day. And so from day one of the Breakfast Club, we've just been recording every single episode, every single interview and putting it online.