The Shop (2018–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - The Shop - full transcript
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The following
is a presentation of HBO SPORTS.
Jon, let me ask you a question. Have
you ever been in a black barbershop ?
- Me ?
- Yes.
Only to collect rent.
THE SHOP
Season 1
Episode 1
Here's what I notice about the magazines
are not central to the black barbershop.
The white barbershop,
it's all about the magazines.
The conversation
is central to the black barbershop.
We have no conversation.
Everything happens
in the black barbershop.
The critics of the movies.
Did you see that movie ?
Last Sunday's football games.
If you walk into the barbershop
and everybody's like,
yo, that movie is the shit,
you go see it.
- In the barbershop, you can't lie.
- You can't lie.
Somebody's going to call
your ass out.
You can't walk in the barbershop like,
yo, these clothes are,
a nigger will be like, yo, them are your
cousin's clothes. Shut the fuck up.
There's going to be one guy
in the barbershop
that's not even going to get
a fucking haircut.
- He's just in there chilling.
- He's only in there to roast your ass.
And make an argument.
He's not getting a fucking haircut.
Goddamn, nigger, you've been here since
8 AM, it's 6 o'clock in the afternoon.
You still ain't got your haircut.
He's only there to start shit.
And he's sitting on the couch
and he's like, he like, you next ?
No, I'm good.
So, your shoe is busted as fuck.
You're like, damn, nigger.
Like get a haircut
or get the fuck out of here.
The comfort that you can feel
in the barbershop,
is that comfort amplified
because you spend so much time in
spaces that don't feel that way to you ?
That's a great question.
LeBron,
you can speak to that because you,
the first time you were around all white
people was when you came to high school.
Yeah. I went to an all-white high
school, Catholic high school.
So, like when I first went to,
to the ninth grade in high school,
I was on some like,
I'm not fucking with white people.
Like because I was so institutionalized
growing up in the hood,
it's like they don't fuck with us.
They, they don't want us to succeed.
The hierarchy, and then we're here.
Like, as a matter of fact,
we're underneath this chair.
So I'm like, I'm going to this school
to play ball and that's it.
I don't want nothing to do
with white people.
Don't believe that they want anything
to do with... You don't want no friends.
It's me and my boys. We're going to high
school together and we're here to hoop.
So that was like my initial thoughts and
my initial shock to white America
when I was fourteen years old
for the first time in my life.
- So...
- And that's Catholic school.
- Which is even whiter America.
- Yeah.
There are,
there are levels of white America.
- It took me a little while.
- Right.
To kind of adjust to it.
It's hard to balance
because I'm a kid that plays this game
at such a high level.
You're in your mind like, are they happy
that I'm here because of who I am ?
Or of, because of my conversation
I can have with them.
Sport and basketball,
it's the most unifying thing.
By the end of the year,
all of us were best friends.
Our black friends in the hood
was coming.
His white friends was, and we were
just all having a fucking great time.
And like I told you before,
the first time I ever found out about
a pantry is when I went to high school.
- Bread, cereal, chips.
- Right.
Donuts, whatever, yeah.
Donuts, all that shit
is on the top of the refrigerator.
When I got to high school
is the first time I knew about a pantry.
The first time you opened a pantry,
it's like the briefcase in Pulp Fiction.
- Like a light comes out, you know ?
- My God, I've never seen this before.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All the snacks in the world
are right here in front of me.
Yeah, dear God.
LeBron brought it up earlier, it's like,
am I here cause I can play basketball ?
And would these kids accept me if not ?
And does that ever go away ?
Because that's stress.
Like if you feel like
even in your success,
you can never escape
that level of scrutiny...
I could see that
making you crazy and angry.
Absolutely.
Because I think the difference
between us as African Americans
and us growing up in the hood is that,
there's not many people that make it.
When you're finally in the position
where you're like, I can do this shit ?
You want to bring
the whole community with you.
We are entertainers.
And there is something to being
an entertainer
that coming out of communities
that are not majority communities
that are not represented, that is
a little bit of please let me stay.
That's something
they have to unlearn,
just like we have to unlearn
the fact of, please let me stay.
It should not be please let me stay.
It should be that you need me.
When an entertainer
begins to move to that,
look at how angry it makes them.
Shut up and dribble.
Formation ?
No, you go back to entertaining us...
With no sense
of how your community really feels
about its place in our country.
They don't want to hear that.
That's what I was saying,
it's not their country,
and you know that from the numbers.
So, if it's really shut up and dribble,
then the shoes don't sell,
then the jerseys don't sell.
- And the games don't keep running.
- But isn't that Trump ?
- What Trump's saying to them is no.
- That's the issue.
- It's our country. It's got to be.
- Well I think...
Yeah, but what it's like, it's that
last swing before you get knocked out.
And if it connects,
then you might be okay.
But most of the time it don't. And you
are on the ground with the noodle arms.
So, the noodle arms are coming.
To be great you have to give up
a lot of shit.
You have to sacrifice shit.
Time with family.
- Privacy.
- Privacy.
- Is the biggest one for me.
- Kids, time with your kids.
Certain foods, things. But from the
female perspective, a female athlete,
are certain things that you
had to sacrifice
that you look back and go...
I wish I didn't have to sacrifice
those things ?
I think it really stared
when I became a mom.
My image of my mom,
she was there every day.
She dropped me off. She cooked me
dinner. She did all these things.
So my image of what a mother
was supposed to be and act
was a lot different than
what I'm able to give my daughter.
Like I'm not able to be there
every second and fix every meal
and help her with every homework.
And for me it was hard for me
because I struggled, you know,
to balance the work and mom
because you have these expectations
that you're supposed to be at home
for your kid
and take care and drop them off.
But then I'm trying to work
and make a better life for her as well.
You know,
you talk about sacrifices,
when got pregnant with my daughter,
people shouldn't be looking at me crazy.
- You gave up a year of your career.
- I gave a year up of my career.
For us as athletes,
it is the longest shortest thing
that we can do in our life
to get the maximum out of it.
If you lose the joy of the craft
that you're in,
then you're going to cheat the game
and you're going to cheat yourself.
And then ultimately you're going
to cheat your loved ones.
And that's why I'm still doing
what I'm doing
because I want to continue to inspire
not only the people in my household,
but everybody
that I can while I can.
Like this motherfucker is the greatest
I've ever seen do what he's doing.
To be able to age and continue
to reinvent himself year after year,
decade after decade,
and still be relevant
and still be able to have people
follow him, that shit is hard as hell.
Is it shit that come along in the game
that reinvigorates you ?
I never was cool
with being second.
I don't know what second place
felt like.
And you can call it cocky
or whatever the fuck you want,
but I just don't like being
in second place.
And sometimes I feel like
I have to reinvent myself
because I done fell back
to second place.
And it's not because it is what it is.
It is what it ain't.
It's like you're not that young rapper
no more.
You're not that young fly MC.
But I still
can put a move on you motherfuckers
real quick, the sh-bop, bop, bop.
What I appreciate about Snoop is,
he doesn't follow the wind.
And that's when you know you have
an artist and not just a performer,
is, if you follow,
and you see guys do that all the time.
Like what's in now, disco ?
I'm going to put on a shiny suit
and I'm gonna go out there and do that.
- He is about his career always.
- He's himself.
- It's not easy to age gracefully.
- I left.
You left.
Because at a certain point,
you cannot perform to the same level
that you perform.
- I evolved it in the best...
- How did you know ?
I began to make decisions
based on laziness.
They'd pitch me an idea
and they'd say, you know,
we'll go down at noon,
you put on your suit,
we'll go out and we'll do a bit.
And I'll go...
What if we did that at rehearsal
and I didn't wear a suit,
I just wore
the shit I'm wearing right now.
And at that point I was like, oh !
I'm lazy about this.
When I got the show that I got
I was thirty five years old.
Like I'd been through it.
I'd done shows that had gotten
canceled.
I'd written for other people.
I'd done, you know, lived out
of my car doing standup shows.
Like I had been through it.
And I gave everything that I could
to this last chance.
And it worked.
But after evolving and
after 16 or 17 years, I realized,
it was time for someone else
to have that chance.
- Most people don't do that, Jon.
- I was satisfied.
So you want LeBron to retire ?
No, but he also said,
he started to cheat the game.
That's exactly right.
If I don't want to practice,
I don't want to wake up and work out...
I'm not giving
what I can to this game,
then there's somebody else
that needs to be in this position.
- And that's why he said he gave it up.
- LeBron let me ask you this.
After fifteen years,
eight trips to the Finals,
do you still feel
you want to get up and work ?
It's not burning like that ten years
ago, here, but right here it is.
I know exactly what the fuck
I need to do. I know how to do it.
And I know how I'm going to get
the best out of myself.
- I don't need you to push me.
- Right.
Once it gets to a point
where you still need people
to push you at a certain age, then
you don't need to be doing it no more.
And what helps is
my fucking kids playing.
That's interesting.
Watching my boys play ball,
like last year was the first like,
I really had some time to go watch them
play in the summer.
Like really sat down,
went to like four or five tournaments.
And I'm sitting there,
and I'm watching the game
and I feel my motherfucking hands
just start sweating.
I feel like my chest start sweating.
And I'm like, man, these is thirteen,
or ten year olds out here hooping.
Why are you feeling like this ?
Then it went
from like just sitting there.
And then it went from like to this.
Like let's go !
And then it went from me sitting
on the bench
to me getting in an argument.
I got in an argument...
You turned
into the crazy AAU dad ?
Yo, you turned
into the crazy AAU dad.
First of all, I didn't get
into an argument with a AAU dad.
- I got in an argument with a AAU mom.
- What ?
- A mother ?
- A mother.
Lord, have mercy,
you did do something.
I did it. And, you want to know
who the first person I apologized to ?
It was my mom
that was sitting here.
And the reason
I apologized to my mom,
because I used to get
on my mom so much.
For doing the same shit.
When I was a kid, and she used
to go crazy at my AAU games,
I used to be like, mom, chill out,
mom. I don't want this.
And I went crazy about my kids.
And I was like...
- You felt her pain.
- Damn, mom, I'm sorry.
Yep, you did the same thing.
The cycle.
I'm sorry. But that shit like,
it like gave me like,
it gave me some motherfucking,
I was like I'm ready to hoop again.
What do you say to your kid though ?
Like living up to you being their dad.
So you're their dad
and they're coming up
and they're playing the same sport
that you played
better than anyone else in the world
has ever played it,
how do you give them a peace of mind
that they don't have to be you ?
How can their excellence
be their own ?
I still regret giving my 14 year old
my name because of that.
Right.
Like when I was younger,
I didn't have a dad.
So, my whole thing was like,
whenever I have a kid,
not only is he going to be a junior,
I'm going to do everything
that this man didn't do.
I don't even know what the situations
that was going on with him,
but I knew
I would be there for my son.
I'm going to lay it down, I'm going
to be the best father I can be.
With the time that I can give,
but I'm going to give even more time
than I can give.
And now I sit back and I'm like...
Fuck, I've actually kind of set him up.
And I should have known that him
just being around the game,
he was going
to want to play the game.
They're going to experience
things that I didn't experience.
The only thing I could do is give them
the blueprint
and it's up to them
to take their own course.
I hear my daughter
sometimes say I can't.
Yes, you can.
You absolutely can.
I don't want to hear
that you can't stuff.
Try it, fail,
and then try that shit again.
And continue to do it
over and over.
- Don't ever say you can't do something.
- Yes.
Because then you shelter your mind
to where something could happen
at three years old,
if you say you can't do something,
then they carry it all the way
to twenty five years old.
To hear you say that to your daughter,
there's so many people
that say that to their sons,
and they don't say that
to their daughters. They do it for them.
And I was brought up in a household
where I had the same curfew
as my brothers.
I was told I can do the same thing.
I didn't have rules that were different.
And I think that that's...
That means a lot to me because
I'm bringing up my daughter that way.
Can LeBron
to ever come out and say,
I'm the best basketball player
on the planet ?
I think you should say that.
I think you should believe that.
And you should definitely let
the world know that.
Because think Bron over the last
four years became LeBron James.
And it wasn't nothing to do with winning
and it wasn't nothing to do with stats.
He found himself.
People didn't start to view him
as they view him now,
until he became that force,
that man to say I'm here.
I feel like for years,
he shied away from saying I'm here.
And when he started to say,
fuck y'all, I'm here.
That's when he became who he is,
and no one would have ever said
that until he did it himself.
Motherfuckers fucked with Mike
because Mike was like, I'm Mike.
With my hooping ring.
Fuck all y'all, I'm here.
And until he did that,
that's when he became
the figurehead that he is.
So many people shy away
from that
and that's why
they never reach their full potential.
When you're growing up in sports
or hip-hop, whatever the case may be,
all you hear is like,
I want to be the best.
Whoever's the best,
they do it their way,
whatever the case may be.
And then, when you do it your way,
and you win, it still ain't enough.
It still ain't enough.
And that's for us as African Americans
because I believe
if the greatest quarterback
in the world, he's a white quarterback,
if it's Brady, if it's Rodgers,
if it's Manning,
and we're doing the same shit,
the same exact shit,
The phone is on.
We're like, yo, get that fucking phone
out of my face.
I'm with my family.
If we're out with our family,
and we say that shit,
and somebody posts it,
and if Aaron Rodgers
or one of those guys say that shit,
and they post it,
somebody's going to be like, hey,
you guys should respect Aaron Rodgers.
They're going to say to us,
oh, you guys are fucking dickheads.
I had it happen the other day.
didn't want to take a picture.
Like, I'm like I'm really in a rush,
I've got to go.
I get on Twitter,
it's like, oh, yeah,
I'm a Giant season ticket holder
for thirty years.
I'm like, first of all,
you're twenty something.
And then and then it's like,
oh, he's an asshole,
he didn't want to take a picture.
It's like...
To me, I be feeling like,
I tell people this all the time,
I really feel like a zoo animal.
Like that's where life's gone for me.
You know, you used to take your kids
to the zoo and we used to be like,
you know, I want to see the lions
or let's go see the lions.
And you go out there,
and the lions are laid out.
You know what I mean ?
Why aren't they doing
lion stuff, know what I mean ?
Like I've got people who call out,
Odell ! Dance !
Like I'm a show punk,
a show monkey or something.
Like I'm a puppet,
you know what I mean ?
And it's like to me,
that doesn't feel good,
but it's like, damn,
that's what life became.
But, can you ever really detach
from that ?
I think the frustration comes for me
having to watching people
pretend Hamilton was good.
I had people from the upper west side
telling me what good rap is.
Hamilton was at best the best
community center performance
that I've ever seen.
It was a piece of shit. It was terrible.
We had to pretend,
and that was part of the wave of life.
- But that rapping, fuck you.
- I agree.
It was terrible.
It would be like Jews going,
Fiddler On The Roof was bullshit !
This is not,
it can't be happening.
The way black people,
the way we view hip-hop,
the bars aren't there,
the beats aren't there.
But all the white people fucked with it
and it was this big thing.
Hamilton, first of all, you shouldn't
look at it and compare it to,
you know, Ken,
Ken, to Kendrick Lamar.
Or to Snoop Dogg.
To Snoop Dogg
because it's not even black.
You should compare it to Cats.
- So the reason why it was...
- We don't even know what Cats is.
Exactly.
It's a play,
a Broadway play.
So Cats is a show where people
dressed in leotards on Broadway.
That's some shit in the '80s.
Y'all niggers was little kids
when it came out.
To me it just sounded like
when they sent people
to rap multiplication to me
when I was an,
an inner city youth...
Because they're like, that's the way
we're going to get through to him.
I normally wouldn't support bullshit
that don't like, but at this moment
for the team,
I'll take one for the team.
We move everything.
We move the way people dress.
We move the way people think.
We move the way people dance.
The music people listen to.
We move the way people play sports.
And the way they talk.
When I first went to London
for the first time,
me and Dre hit the stage.
There was like 75000 motherfuckers
in the audience
and they just was rocking,
right ?
I kept going back overseas
and every country I went to,
my shit was getting bigger and bigger.
And then the cool part was,
the way you say I raised y'all,
I raised a lot of people overseas
and taught them
how to speak fucking English
through my music.
Because we globally effect
the whole world,
black people are more respected outside
of America than they are in America.
- That's a good point.
- Yep, that's a fact.
- That's interesting.
- That's a fact.
It's more so of black not people
not knowing who they are.
The reason we struggle as black people
is because we don't know who we are.
Say that.
And so,
if you want to be quite frank about it,
white people know who we are.
That's why
they keep fucking kicking us.
Why don't we get out with each other
when we're in the same lane ?
- I know, why ?
- It would make more sense.
It makes much more sense.
And you actually can become
in control of our thing.
Because we're really creating it.
The reason
other cultures are so strong,
like a Jew
is going to look out for a Jew.
A Chinese man is going to look out
for a Chinese man.
- Yeah, no matter what.
- Well, let me... If I can just...
Jews look out for Jews, period.
Yep, if you don't do it, just somebody
in the family's going to look out.
You know why ?
Because they realize
that they've been through something
they never want it to happen again.
- Humankind is tribal in nature.
- 100%. They take care of each other.
We are born to join and be with groups
where we find identity.
It's why team fanship is so strong.
You know,
if we didn't have religion,
we'd find other ways
to go to war with each other.
Because we are tribal in nature,
and we fight over resources.
And when you start to believe
that your resources are finite
you begin to treat others
as foes and rivals and enemies.
What would unite us as people ?
If fucking aliens came.
And then we'd all be like,
humans are in trouble.
- We've got to jump on this shit.
- That was a good point.
Did you fear when you began
to talk about your experience,
did you fear the loss of that shine ?
That's like going
to an amusement park,
and you've never rode
that rollercoaster.
There's a fear of that, but there's
a joy of saying that I did that.
I want the satisfaction.
Not for myself,
but for everybody else.
I was raised off, you know,
Snoop and Pac and Jay and Biggie.
And now I get an opportunity
to be the inspiration
around where all these kids
are looking up to.
And for me to just sit back
and not say shit,
when a lot of my peers
didn't say shit...
It didn't feel right.
Athletes don't have a responsibility
to speak out for another.
You have a responsibility to speak up
for what you believe in.
Just because you're an athlete
and you have a certain platform,
that does not mean you have the
responsibility to speak up for anything.
But I feel like at some point in time,
it's like you have to be able
to stand up on your morals
simply because you are representing
people who look like you
and they're looking up to you
for a...
But what if
that ain't your moral though ?
What if don't believe the same thing
you believe as a black man ?
Don't have to believe in me, but we both
believe black kids shouldn't be shot.
We both don't believe that black people
should have free water.
I'm just saying, the real social issues
of people of color,
every athlete is effected by them
because we're the same people
that used to be in those neighborhoods,
dribbling, walking up and down the
street, that used to wear those clothes.
So when I was growing up, I was looking
for Michael Jordan to say something.
He never did.
But now kids can look up and be like,
well LeBron saying it.
I liken you to Ali.
- Like Ali was at the time the Greatest.
- Right.
But when he spoke out,
he went to jail, man.
Like even his greatness
couldn't insulate him from those rules
that they had set up.
And did you think to yourself like,
as good as I am,
it's not going to matter ?
Yeah, because it's not, at the end
of the day when I decided
I was going to start
speaking up and not giving a fuck
about the backlash or if it affects me,
my whole mindset well it's,
it's not about me.
I think Ali already knew,
he knew that it wasn't about him.
I'm going to get the backlash.
I'm going to go jail.
But what this is going to do
for the next group,
what this is going to do
for the next athlete,
what this is going to do
for the next minority
who wants to speak up,
whenever that happens,
Ali's whole mindset was like,
at some point somebody
is going to take what I did,
and I sensed that.
I sensed that on, you know,
losing this or losing that
or losing popularity.
My popularity went down.
But at the end of the day,
my truth to so many different kids
and so many different people
was broader than me personally.
What gave you the,
the confidence and the courage ?
I mean, certain things happen.
Things change in your life.
Me having my own kids,
and then seeing
the Trayvon Martin thing, it hit home.
And I don't even know,
if I didn't have any kids at the time,
who knows if I would have even
been able to speak up on it
because it probably
wouldn't have hit home for me.
It wouldn't have made me feel
the same way.
At the time, I think my oldest son
was nine and my youngest son was six.
I can't imagine if I sent my kid out,
and he didn't return home.
- Like that, exactly.
- Like that.
I couldn't imagine that.
Like that happened.
So that's why I started thinking,
and I was like okay.
If I can get 25000 people to show up
to a basketball game,
I can reach so many more platforms
when I talk.
Because if you look at
what Maya Angelou said,
she talks about how words stick
to things and words create situations.
Do you think the N word creates a type
of environment for young people ?
As leaders, should we not say it
or should we say it ?
I'm going to speak on it
from the rap perspective.
That shit was here before we got here
and it's going to be here
after we got here.
But the point is that we are becoming
more positive
and we're becoming more productive.
And that word doesn't affect us
from becoming productive.
And that's our lingo and that's the way
we communicate.
When I see an, what's up, my nigger ?
That's just how I get out.
I hate the fact that
it's my brainwashed situation,
but that's all the fuck know.
I'll say, I went to Africa
and I loved those niggers.
They were amazing.
Very important I, I think is,
don't have any buttons
that people could just press.
Because what I have seen
is people snap
and like just like drag white dudes
for saying it
and get expelled from school.
And like their lives ruined
because they had a button.
I'm saying it for any word.
Be, you know, cautious that
you're not just triggered so easily
that you disrupt your own life
and well-being.
I think any communication
between two human beings
should be full of respect.
Like and your intentions
should be checked.
Are there bigger fish to fry ?
Yeah, I'm much more concerned
with the wording of a contract
than that word being used.
I think about what happened to LeBron
and I think about the word, the N Word.
I always said the N word,
but it was on his house.
And he had to make a choice.
Do I just wipe it off
and just say it didn't happen ?
- How did you, LeBron...
- Or do I stand up ?
How did you explain that
to your kids ?
I mean, shit, the same way explain it
to everybody in the world.
We're still black in America.
And there's going to be a shit
that they always try to reset you
to a point where it was the beginning.
Now, at that point,
do you accept that
and reset the button and start
all the way from scratch ?
Or do you use that
and push forward ?
And I told them that now y'all
have to make your own choice if that,
if something like this happens to y'all.
Do you think they were old enough
yet to understand that and feel it ?
Because they're growing up as
kids who've got money, right ?
Yeah, but they understood it
because they've seen the passion
in my eyes and the way I was saying it.
So the way I talked to them
when they knew I was talking about it,
listen, this is the situation
that's going on in our house.
We wasn't there.
When somebody spray painted
the N word on our gate and this is...
But you know
what that word means.
Yeah, and this is what it means.
And this is what's the intention.
It wasn't like, hey, what's up,
nigger, we going to hoop ?
No, it was like, nigger,
get the fuck out of here.
No matter how big
you can become in America,
no matter how much influence you think
you've got or do have,
when you're African American,
it doesn't matter.
You're still black.
You're still black in America.
At a certain point,
the haircutting stops.
Do people just sit around ?
- People usually just sit around.
- I love that.
- Here's what I'm worried about.
- No filter.
This shit gets out,
and white people start coming
to your barbershops.
LeBron came into high school
as a freshman.
At the beginning of his freshman year,
he was about 5'11" or six foot.
And it gets cold in Ohio,
so he had a winter coat.
But dog,
by the time we get to March,
the nigger's 6'4", but his mom
hadn't bought him no new winter coat.
- And what he do then ?
- So it fits like this.
- Can he do this ?
- He can't.
- He can't do that ?
- He can't do that.
That's a fact.
And this nigger's like,
but he can hoop. So...
THE SHOP
Season 1
Episode 1
---
The following
is a presentation of HBO SPORTS.
Jon, let me ask you a question. Have
you ever been in a black barbershop ?
- Me ?
- Yes.
Only to collect rent.
THE SHOP
Season 1
Episode 1
Here's what I notice about the magazines
are not central to the black barbershop.
The white barbershop,
it's all about the magazines.
The conversation
is central to the black barbershop.
We have no conversation.
Everything happens
in the black barbershop.
The critics of the movies.
Did you see that movie ?
Last Sunday's football games.
If you walk into the barbershop
and everybody's like,
yo, that movie is the shit,
you go see it.
- In the barbershop, you can't lie.
- You can't lie.
Somebody's going to call
your ass out.
You can't walk in the barbershop like,
yo, these clothes are,
a nigger will be like, yo, them are your
cousin's clothes. Shut the fuck up.
There's going to be one guy
in the barbershop
that's not even going to get
a fucking haircut.
- He's just in there chilling.
- He's only in there to roast your ass.
And make an argument.
He's not getting a fucking haircut.
Goddamn, nigger, you've been here since
8 AM, it's 6 o'clock in the afternoon.
You still ain't got your haircut.
He's only there to start shit.
And he's sitting on the couch
and he's like, he like, you next ?
No, I'm good.
So, your shoe is busted as fuck.
You're like, damn, nigger.
Like get a haircut
or get the fuck out of here.
The comfort that you can feel
in the barbershop,
is that comfort amplified
because you spend so much time in
spaces that don't feel that way to you ?
That's a great question.
LeBron,
you can speak to that because you,
the first time you were around all white
people was when you came to high school.
Yeah. I went to an all-white high
school, Catholic high school.
So, like when I first went to,
to the ninth grade in high school,
I was on some like,
I'm not fucking with white people.
Like because I was so institutionalized
growing up in the hood,
it's like they don't fuck with us.
They, they don't want us to succeed.
The hierarchy, and then we're here.
Like, as a matter of fact,
we're underneath this chair.
So I'm like, I'm going to this school
to play ball and that's it.
I don't want nothing to do
with white people.
Don't believe that they want anything
to do with... You don't want no friends.
It's me and my boys. We're going to high
school together and we're here to hoop.
So that was like my initial thoughts and
my initial shock to white America
when I was fourteen years old
for the first time in my life.
- So...
- And that's Catholic school.
- Which is even whiter America.
- Yeah.
There are,
there are levels of white America.
- It took me a little while.
- Right.
To kind of adjust to it.
It's hard to balance
because I'm a kid that plays this game
at such a high level.
You're in your mind like, are they happy
that I'm here because of who I am ?
Or of, because of my conversation
I can have with them.
Sport and basketball,
it's the most unifying thing.
By the end of the year,
all of us were best friends.
Our black friends in the hood
was coming.
His white friends was, and we were
just all having a fucking great time.
And like I told you before,
the first time I ever found out about
a pantry is when I went to high school.
- Bread, cereal, chips.
- Right.
Donuts, whatever, yeah.
Donuts, all that shit
is on the top of the refrigerator.
When I got to high school
is the first time I knew about a pantry.
The first time you opened a pantry,
it's like the briefcase in Pulp Fiction.
- Like a light comes out, you know ?
- My God, I've never seen this before.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All the snacks in the world
are right here in front of me.
Yeah, dear God.
LeBron brought it up earlier, it's like,
am I here cause I can play basketball ?
And would these kids accept me if not ?
And does that ever go away ?
Because that's stress.
Like if you feel like
even in your success,
you can never escape
that level of scrutiny...
I could see that
making you crazy and angry.
Absolutely.
Because I think the difference
between us as African Americans
and us growing up in the hood is that,
there's not many people that make it.
When you're finally in the position
where you're like, I can do this shit ?
You want to bring
the whole community with you.
We are entertainers.
And there is something to being
an entertainer
that coming out of communities
that are not majority communities
that are not represented, that is
a little bit of please let me stay.
That's something
they have to unlearn,
just like we have to unlearn
the fact of, please let me stay.
It should not be please let me stay.
It should be that you need me.
When an entertainer
begins to move to that,
look at how angry it makes them.
Shut up and dribble.
Formation ?
No, you go back to entertaining us...
With no sense
of how your community really feels
about its place in our country.
They don't want to hear that.
That's what I was saying,
it's not their country,
and you know that from the numbers.
So, if it's really shut up and dribble,
then the shoes don't sell,
then the jerseys don't sell.
- And the games don't keep running.
- But isn't that Trump ?
- What Trump's saying to them is no.
- That's the issue.
- It's our country. It's got to be.
- Well I think...
Yeah, but what it's like, it's that
last swing before you get knocked out.
And if it connects,
then you might be okay.
But most of the time it don't. And you
are on the ground with the noodle arms.
So, the noodle arms are coming.
To be great you have to give up
a lot of shit.
You have to sacrifice shit.
Time with family.
- Privacy.
- Privacy.
- Is the biggest one for me.
- Kids, time with your kids.
Certain foods, things. But from the
female perspective, a female athlete,
are certain things that you
had to sacrifice
that you look back and go...
I wish I didn't have to sacrifice
those things ?
I think it really stared
when I became a mom.
My image of my mom,
she was there every day.
She dropped me off. She cooked me
dinner. She did all these things.
So my image of what a mother
was supposed to be and act
was a lot different than
what I'm able to give my daughter.
Like I'm not able to be there
every second and fix every meal
and help her with every homework.
And for me it was hard for me
because I struggled, you know,
to balance the work and mom
because you have these expectations
that you're supposed to be at home
for your kid
and take care and drop them off.
But then I'm trying to work
and make a better life for her as well.
You know,
you talk about sacrifices,
when got pregnant with my daughter,
people shouldn't be looking at me crazy.
- You gave up a year of your career.
- I gave a year up of my career.
For us as athletes,
it is the longest shortest thing
that we can do in our life
to get the maximum out of it.
If you lose the joy of the craft
that you're in,
then you're going to cheat the game
and you're going to cheat yourself.
And then ultimately you're going
to cheat your loved ones.
And that's why I'm still doing
what I'm doing
because I want to continue to inspire
not only the people in my household,
but everybody
that I can while I can.
Like this motherfucker is the greatest
I've ever seen do what he's doing.
To be able to age and continue
to reinvent himself year after year,
decade after decade,
and still be relevant
and still be able to have people
follow him, that shit is hard as hell.
Is it shit that come along in the game
that reinvigorates you ?
I never was cool
with being second.
I don't know what second place
felt like.
And you can call it cocky
or whatever the fuck you want,
but I just don't like being
in second place.
And sometimes I feel like
I have to reinvent myself
because I done fell back
to second place.
And it's not because it is what it is.
It is what it ain't.
It's like you're not that young rapper
no more.
You're not that young fly MC.
But I still
can put a move on you motherfuckers
real quick, the sh-bop, bop, bop.
What I appreciate about Snoop is,
he doesn't follow the wind.
And that's when you know you have
an artist and not just a performer,
is, if you follow,
and you see guys do that all the time.
Like what's in now, disco ?
I'm going to put on a shiny suit
and I'm gonna go out there and do that.
- He is about his career always.
- He's himself.
- It's not easy to age gracefully.
- I left.
You left.
Because at a certain point,
you cannot perform to the same level
that you perform.
- I evolved it in the best...
- How did you know ?
I began to make decisions
based on laziness.
They'd pitch me an idea
and they'd say, you know,
we'll go down at noon,
you put on your suit,
we'll go out and we'll do a bit.
And I'll go...
What if we did that at rehearsal
and I didn't wear a suit,
I just wore
the shit I'm wearing right now.
And at that point I was like, oh !
I'm lazy about this.
When I got the show that I got
I was thirty five years old.
Like I'd been through it.
I'd done shows that had gotten
canceled.
I'd written for other people.
I'd done, you know, lived out
of my car doing standup shows.
Like I had been through it.
And I gave everything that I could
to this last chance.
And it worked.
But after evolving and
after 16 or 17 years, I realized,
it was time for someone else
to have that chance.
- Most people don't do that, Jon.
- I was satisfied.
So you want LeBron to retire ?
No, but he also said,
he started to cheat the game.
That's exactly right.
If I don't want to practice,
I don't want to wake up and work out...
I'm not giving
what I can to this game,
then there's somebody else
that needs to be in this position.
- And that's why he said he gave it up.
- LeBron let me ask you this.
After fifteen years,
eight trips to the Finals,
do you still feel
you want to get up and work ?
It's not burning like that ten years
ago, here, but right here it is.
I know exactly what the fuck
I need to do. I know how to do it.
And I know how I'm going to get
the best out of myself.
- I don't need you to push me.
- Right.
Once it gets to a point
where you still need people
to push you at a certain age, then
you don't need to be doing it no more.
And what helps is
my fucking kids playing.
That's interesting.
Watching my boys play ball,
like last year was the first like,
I really had some time to go watch them
play in the summer.
Like really sat down,
went to like four or five tournaments.
And I'm sitting there,
and I'm watching the game
and I feel my motherfucking hands
just start sweating.
I feel like my chest start sweating.
And I'm like, man, these is thirteen,
or ten year olds out here hooping.
Why are you feeling like this ?
Then it went
from like just sitting there.
And then it went from like to this.
Like let's go !
And then it went from me sitting
on the bench
to me getting in an argument.
I got in an argument...
You turned
into the crazy AAU dad ?
Yo, you turned
into the crazy AAU dad.
First of all, I didn't get
into an argument with a AAU dad.
- I got in an argument with a AAU mom.
- What ?
- A mother ?
- A mother.
Lord, have mercy,
you did do something.
I did it. And, you want to know
who the first person I apologized to ?
It was my mom
that was sitting here.
And the reason
I apologized to my mom,
because I used to get
on my mom so much.
For doing the same shit.
When I was a kid, and she used
to go crazy at my AAU games,
I used to be like, mom, chill out,
mom. I don't want this.
And I went crazy about my kids.
And I was like...
- You felt her pain.
- Damn, mom, I'm sorry.
Yep, you did the same thing.
The cycle.
I'm sorry. But that shit like,
it like gave me like,
it gave me some motherfucking,
I was like I'm ready to hoop again.
What do you say to your kid though ?
Like living up to you being their dad.
So you're their dad
and they're coming up
and they're playing the same sport
that you played
better than anyone else in the world
has ever played it,
how do you give them a peace of mind
that they don't have to be you ?
How can their excellence
be their own ?
I still regret giving my 14 year old
my name because of that.
Right.
Like when I was younger,
I didn't have a dad.
So, my whole thing was like,
whenever I have a kid,
not only is he going to be a junior,
I'm going to do everything
that this man didn't do.
I don't even know what the situations
that was going on with him,
but I knew
I would be there for my son.
I'm going to lay it down, I'm going
to be the best father I can be.
With the time that I can give,
but I'm going to give even more time
than I can give.
And now I sit back and I'm like...
Fuck, I've actually kind of set him up.
And I should have known that him
just being around the game,
he was going
to want to play the game.
They're going to experience
things that I didn't experience.
The only thing I could do is give them
the blueprint
and it's up to them
to take their own course.
I hear my daughter
sometimes say I can't.
Yes, you can.
You absolutely can.
I don't want to hear
that you can't stuff.
Try it, fail,
and then try that shit again.
And continue to do it
over and over.
- Don't ever say you can't do something.
- Yes.
Because then you shelter your mind
to where something could happen
at three years old,
if you say you can't do something,
then they carry it all the way
to twenty five years old.
To hear you say that to your daughter,
there's so many people
that say that to their sons,
and they don't say that
to their daughters. They do it for them.
And I was brought up in a household
where I had the same curfew
as my brothers.
I was told I can do the same thing.
I didn't have rules that were different.
And I think that that's...
That means a lot to me because
I'm bringing up my daughter that way.
Can LeBron
to ever come out and say,
I'm the best basketball player
on the planet ?
I think you should say that.
I think you should believe that.
And you should definitely let
the world know that.
Because think Bron over the last
four years became LeBron James.
And it wasn't nothing to do with winning
and it wasn't nothing to do with stats.
He found himself.
People didn't start to view him
as they view him now,
until he became that force,
that man to say I'm here.
I feel like for years,
he shied away from saying I'm here.
And when he started to say,
fuck y'all, I'm here.
That's when he became who he is,
and no one would have ever said
that until he did it himself.
Motherfuckers fucked with Mike
because Mike was like, I'm Mike.
With my hooping ring.
Fuck all y'all, I'm here.
And until he did that,
that's when he became
the figurehead that he is.
So many people shy away
from that
and that's why
they never reach their full potential.
When you're growing up in sports
or hip-hop, whatever the case may be,
all you hear is like,
I want to be the best.
Whoever's the best,
they do it their way,
whatever the case may be.
And then, when you do it your way,
and you win, it still ain't enough.
It still ain't enough.
And that's for us as African Americans
because I believe
if the greatest quarterback
in the world, he's a white quarterback,
if it's Brady, if it's Rodgers,
if it's Manning,
and we're doing the same shit,
the same exact shit,
The phone is on.
We're like, yo, get that fucking phone
out of my face.
I'm with my family.
If we're out with our family,
and we say that shit,
and somebody posts it,
and if Aaron Rodgers
or one of those guys say that shit,
and they post it,
somebody's going to be like, hey,
you guys should respect Aaron Rodgers.
They're going to say to us,
oh, you guys are fucking dickheads.
I had it happen the other day.
didn't want to take a picture.
Like, I'm like I'm really in a rush,
I've got to go.
I get on Twitter,
it's like, oh, yeah,
I'm a Giant season ticket holder
for thirty years.
I'm like, first of all,
you're twenty something.
And then and then it's like,
oh, he's an asshole,
he didn't want to take a picture.
It's like...
To me, I be feeling like,
I tell people this all the time,
I really feel like a zoo animal.
Like that's where life's gone for me.
You know, you used to take your kids
to the zoo and we used to be like,
you know, I want to see the lions
or let's go see the lions.
And you go out there,
and the lions are laid out.
You know what I mean ?
Why aren't they doing
lion stuff, know what I mean ?
Like I've got people who call out,
Odell ! Dance !
Like I'm a show punk,
a show monkey or something.
Like I'm a puppet,
you know what I mean ?
And it's like to me,
that doesn't feel good,
but it's like, damn,
that's what life became.
But, can you ever really detach
from that ?
I think the frustration comes for me
having to watching people
pretend Hamilton was good.
I had people from the upper west side
telling me what good rap is.
Hamilton was at best the best
community center performance
that I've ever seen.
It was a piece of shit. It was terrible.
We had to pretend,
and that was part of the wave of life.
- But that rapping, fuck you.
- I agree.
It was terrible.
It would be like Jews going,
Fiddler On The Roof was bullshit !
This is not,
it can't be happening.
The way black people,
the way we view hip-hop,
the bars aren't there,
the beats aren't there.
But all the white people fucked with it
and it was this big thing.
Hamilton, first of all, you shouldn't
look at it and compare it to,
you know, Ken,
Ken, to Kendrick Lamar.
Or to Snoop Dogg.
To Snoop Dogg
because it's not even black.
You should compare it to Cats.
- So the reason why it was...
- We don't even know what Cats is.
Exactly.
It's a play,
a Broadway play.
So Cats is a show where people
dressed in leotards on Broadway.
That's some shit in the '80s.
Y'all niggers was little kids
when it came out.
To me it just sounded like
when they sent people
to rap multiplication to me
when I was an,
an inner city youth...
Because they're like, that's the way
we're going to get through to him.
I normally wouldn't support bullshit
that don't like, but at this moment
for the team,
I'll take one for the team.
We move everything.
We move the way people dress.
We move the way people think.
We move the way people dance.
The music people listen to.
We move the way people play sports.
And the way they talk.
When I first went to London
for the first time,
me and Dre hit the stage.
There was like 75000 motherfuckers
in the audience
and they just was rocking,
right ?
I kept going back overseas
and every country I went to,
my shit was getting bigger and bigger.
And then the cool part was,
the way you say I raised y'all,
I raised a lot of people overseas
and taught them
how to speak fucking English
through my music.
Because we globally effect
the whole world,
black people are more respected outside
of America than they are in America.
- That's a good point.
- Yep, that's a fact.
- That's interesting.
- That's a fact.
It's more so of black not people
not knowing who they are.
The reason we struggle as black people
is because we don't know who we are.
Say that.
And so,
if you want to be quite frank about it,
white people know who we are.
That's why
they keep fucking kicking us.
Why don't we get out with each other
when we're in the same lane ?
- I know, why ?
- It would make more sense.
It makes much more sense.
And you actually can become
in control of our thing.
Because we're really creating it.
The reason
other cultures are so strong,
like a Jew
is going to look out for a Jew.
A Chinese man is going to look out
for a Chinese man.
- Yeah, no matter what.
- Well, let me... If I can just...
Jews look out for Jews, period.
Yep, if you don't do it, just somebody
in the family's going to look out.
You know why ?
Because they realize
that they've been through something
they never want it to happen again.
- Humankind is tribal in nature.
- 100%. They take care of each other.
We are born to join and be with groups
where we find identity.
It's why team fanship is so strong.
You know,
if we didn't have religion,
we'd find other ways
to go to war with each other.
Because we are tribal in nature,
and we fight over resources.
And when you start to believe
that your resources are finite
you begin to treat others
as foes and rivals and enemies.
What would unite us as people ?
If fucking aliens came.
And then we'd all be like,
humans are in trouble.
- We've got to jump on this shit.
- That was a good point.
Did you fear when you began
to talk about your experience,
did you fear the loss of that shine ?
That's like going
to an amusement park,
and you've never rode
that rollercoaster.
There's a fear of that, but there's
a joy of saying that I did that.
I want the satisfaction.
Not for myself,
but for everybody else.
I was raised off, you know,
Snoop and Pac and Jay and Biggie.
And now I get an opportunity
to be the inspiration
around where all these kids
are looking up to.
And for me to just sit back
and not say shit,
when a lot of my peers
didn't say shit...
It didn't feel right.
Athletes don't have a responsibility
to speak out for another.
You have a responsibility to speak up
for what you believe in.
Just because you're an athlete
and you have a certain platform,
that does not mean you have the
responsibility to speak up for anything.
But I feel like at some point in time,
it's like you have to be able
to stand up on your morals
simply because you are representing
people who look like you
and they're looking up to you
for a...
But what if
that ain't your moral though ?
What if don't believe the same thing
you believe as a black man ?
Don't have to believe in me, but we both
believe black kids shouldn't be shot.
We both don't believe that black people
should have free water.
I'm just saying, the real social issues
of people of color,
every athlete is effected by them
because we're the same people
that used to be in those neighborhoods,
dribbling, walking up and down the
street, that used to wear those clothes.
So when I was growing up, I was looking
for Michael Jordan to say something.
He never did.
But now kids can look up and be like,
well LeBron saying it.
I liken you to Ali.
- Like Ali was at the time the Greatest.
- Right.
But when he spoke out,
he went to jail, man.
Like even his greatness
couldn't insulate him from those rules
that they had set up.
And did you think to yourself like,
as good as I am,
it's not going to matter ?
Yeah, because it's not, at the end
of the day when I decided
I was going to start
speaking up and not giving a fuck
about the backlash or if it affects me,
my whole mindset well it's,
it's not about me.
I think Ali already knew,
he knew that it wasn't about him.
I'm going to get the backlash.
I'm going to go jail.
But what this is going to do
for the next group,
what this is going to do
for the next athlete,
what this is going to do
for the next minority
who wants to speak up,
whenever that happens,
Ali's whole mindset was like,
at some point somebody
is going to take what I did,
and I sensed that.
I sensed that on, you know,
losing this or losing that
or losing popularity.
My popularity went down.
But at the end of the day,
my truth to so many different kids
and so many different people
was broader than me personally.
What gave you the,
the confidence and the courage ?
I mean, certain things happen.
Things change in your life.
Me having my own kids,
and then seeing
the Trayvon Martin thing, it hit home.
And I don't even know,
if I didn't have any kids at the time,
who knows if I would have even
been able to speak up on it
because it probably
wouldn't have hit home for me.
It wouldn't have made me feel
the same way.
At the time, I think my oldest son
was nine and my youngest son was six.
I can't imagine if I sent my kid out,
and he didn't return home.
- Like that, exactly.
- Like that.
I couldn't imagine that.
Like that happened.
So that's why I started thinking,
and I was like okay.
If I can get 25000 people to show up
to a basketball game,
I can reach so many more platforms
when I talk.
Because if you look at
what Maya Angelou said,
she talks about how words stick
to things and words create situations.
Do you think the N word creates a type
of environment for young people ?
As leaders, should we not say it
or should we say it ?
I'm going to speak on it
from the rap perspective.
That shit was here before we got here
and it's going to be here
after we got here.
But the point is that we are becoming
more positive
and we're becoming more productive.
And that word doesn't affect us
from becoming productive.
And that's our lingo and that's the way
we communicate.
When I see an, what's up, my nigger ?
That's just how I get out.
I hate the fact that
it's my brainwashed situation,
but that's all the fuck know.
I'll say, I went to Africa
and I loved those niggers.
They were amazing.
Very important I, I think is,
don't have any buttons
that people could just press.
Because what I have seen
is people snap
and like just like drag white dudes
for saying it
and get expelled from school.
And like their lives ruined
because they had a button.
I'm saying it for any word.
Be, you know, cautious that
you're not just triggered so easily
that you disrupt your own life
and well-being.
I think any communication
between two human beings
should be full of respect.
Like and your intentions
should be checked.
Are there bigger fish to fry ?
Yeah, I'm much more concerned
with the wording of a contract
than that word being used.
I think about what happened to LeBron
and I think about the word, the N Word.
I always said the N word,
but it was on his house.
And he had to make a choice.
Do I just wipe it off
and just say it didn't happen ?
- How did you, LeBron...
- Or do I stand up ?
How did you explain that
to your kids ?
I mean, shit, the same way explain it
to everybody in the world.
We're still black in America.
And there's going to be a shit
that they always try to reset you
to a point where it was the beginning.
Now, at that point,
do you accept that
and reset the button and start
all the way from scratch ?
Or do you use that
and push forward ?
And I told them that now y'all
have to make your own choice if that,
if something like this happens to y'all.
Do you think they were old enough
yet to understand that and feel it ?
Because they're growing up as
kids who've got money, right ?
Yeah, but they understood it
because they've seen the passion
in my eyes and the way I was saying it.
So the way I talked to them
when they knew I was talking about it,
listen, this is the situation
that's going on in our house.
We wasn't there.
When somebody spray painted
the N word on our gate and this is...
But you know
what that word means.
Yeah, and this is what it means.
And this is what's the intention.
It wasn't like, hey, what's up,
nigger, we going to hoop ?
No, it was like, nigger,
get the fuck out of here.
No matter how big
you can become in America,
no matter how much influence you think
you've got or do have,
when you're African American,
it doesn't matter.
You're still black.
You're still black in America.
At a certain point,
the haircutting stops.
Do people just sit around ?
- People usually just sit around.
- I love that.
- Here's what I'm worried about.
- No filter.
This shit gets out,
and white people start coming
to your barbershops.
LeBron came into high school
as a freshman.
At the beginning of his freshman year,
he was about 5'11" or six foot.
And it gets cold in Ohio,
so he had a winter coat.
But dog,
by the time we get to March,
the nigger's 6'4", but his mom
hadn't bought him no new winter coat.
- And what he do then ?
- So it fits like this.
- Can he do this ?
- He can't.
- He can't do that ?
- He can't do that.
That's a fact.
And this nigger's like,
but he can hoop. So...
THE SHOP
Season 1
Episode 1