Legendary Rapper & Entrepreneur, Drake, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, & Hip-Hop History

This is the way I look at it. I’m the man, I’m the band, but I’m also the brand. And so if I can find ways to have synergy with those three elements of myself, it equals money. And so at some point I’m gonna hit the wall as to how much I can maximize this as a recording artist. Hip hop is a big part of what people consider to be culture nowadays all over the world.

And the sooner you understand that dynamic, the sooner you can really start being the person who takes advantage of you.

Our guest today is one of the most respected voices in hip hop. Bernard Freeman, better known as Bun B, is one half of the legendary southern rap duo. U G K with U G K dropped an impressive and noteworthy run of albums. In addition, BUN has a very distinguished solo career releasing a number of award-winning albums with critical such as Trill two, trill Trio G, return to The Trill, a live album among others, as well as his most recent alb trill Static two.

He’s also worked and collaborated with other hip hop legends and icons like Jay-Z. Lil Wayne,  two chains, 50 cent Outcast, and many, many more. Bun is also a successful entrepreneur and businessman with his new project Trill Burger. I’m excited to talk about all that and more with one and only Bun B.

Welcome to the RUN GPG Podcast. Thank you for having me, Dave. Happy to be here. Yeah, yeah. Good to have you,  been excited to have you for,  a minute here. In fact, in honor of having you as guest today, we’ll be changing the name of the RUN GPG podcast to the Bun GPG podcast for this episode.

We’re gonna do that. I’m honor anyways, so much I do wanna talk to you about,  you know, you’ve had an interesting,  life and career, and of course all you’re doing with the new business. But to start with, I do wanna paint the picture a little bit, as we say,  get a, you know, a brief pre Bun B biography if we could, which will give us some context for discussion.

So to break the ice bun,  take us back to the beginning. Who is Bernard Freeman? A k a Bunbee. Where are you from? Where did you grow up? I was born in Houston, Texas,  to Esther Rodney Freeman, youngest of four boys lived in Houston until my parents divorced. Around, I would say fifth grade. We, my mother and I moved to Port Arthur, Texas where she had a very large,  family support system.

Mm-hmm. I stayed there up until I graduated in 91. I literally moved out graduation night, moved back to Houston,  moved in with my dad. That lasted about 30 days. And then I, you know, I made a deal with a good friend of mine’s mother to stay in his bedroom while he went off to college. And I used that opportunity to get a job in the record store with a guy that decided to sign us eventually,  as a group.

We dropped our F first project in February of 92, and by May of 92, we had signed a major label deal with Jive Records, who was a division of Arista Records at the time. And arrest, as they say, is, Nice. I always like to ask what, you know, your earliest influences in music might have been. Like what hip hop albums or groups were you listening to, or did you, did you grow up listening to?

So hip hop is celebrating its 50th year anniversary right now. And so am I, I turned 50 this year as well, but hip hop was not like the first art form of music-wise that I was introduced to. My parents come from rural Louisiana.  so there was a lot of blues music, but also,  miss genre red music called Zydeco,  which is more Creole Cajun based music.

 very. On like accordions,  you know, this kind of music that they played that you joints in and in dance halls and gatherings and whatnot in southwestern Louisiana, and it’s very specific to that region.  so that was some of the first musical influences in my life. And then as I got older, a lot of soul music and r and b music, like Maze, Isley Brothers, earth, wind and Fire and that kind of stuff.

But I remember, you know, hip hop, like hitting me like dead in the chest, right? Like hearing Grandma flash and the message and stuff like that. Rappers delight and onto Curtis Blow, run the mc, just watching hip hop grow and expand,  outside of New York, going out to LA with, you know, ice Cuban nwa, people like too short in the Bay Area.

Seeing it go out to Miami, you know, with Luke and the two live crew. And then having it happen right here in Houston with Rapa lab records. And the ghetto boys, you know? So,  the deeper I got into the culture, the more I found that the culture was expanding across the country and had actually made its way to Houston.

And for many years I was just a listener, but as hip hop found its way to my small town of Port Arthur, I was like, well, I didn’t know this was something that was accessible. I didn’t know. I thought you had to be from some of these other places to actually do this music. And so starting to see local people around me make that music made me very interested in wanting to give it a try.

And I was very bad at the beginning, but I really, really wanted it. So I worked hard at it. I gave it a lot of effort, a lot of practice, and a lot of energy. And eventually became pretty good in my town, became the best in my town. And then at that point, we started trying to consider whether or not we wanted to try to get out there and give it a shot, like in a very real way, like take it out of the bedrooms and out of the little neighborhood house parties.

Actually present it to the world and see if we could, you know, run with the big dogs. Yeah. And actually that, that story is, is quite common actually in, in a lot of different regions,  when it comes to the history of hip hop, which I find interesting.  so take us back to the early days of U G K, if you could, how did you meet your partner pimp C and how did that partnership form?

Well, we had a mutual friend,  Mitchell Queen Pimp C was actually, when I talk about hip hop fighting its way to my small town, pimp C was one of the first people actually like creating rap music at that time. And so he, he was creating it with a good friend of mine and they were actually the first version of U G K.

And so eventually I went from, as I said, you know, wanting to listen to it, to being a practitioner and, and ra. I started a group, and then me and my partner, Jalon, we actually joined that version of U G K. We all became a group and we, we took it very serious,  for a while. But then as guys started getting closer to graduation and Mitchell got a football scholarship, he was like, I think I’m gonna go play football.

You know, cuz this was very early, you know, we really didn’t, you know, think this was going to go far. Some of us didn’t,  think it was gonna go very far, but Pimp was always like, Nope, this is what I’m gonna do. And he kind of painted himself in the corner. It’s like, I’m, it’s either this or, or nothing for me, you know?

And so I, I felt like, you know, I don’t know if I’m gonna make a record if I’m good enough to make a record, but this guy’s good enough to make a record, so I’m gonna stick with him and eventually if he makes a record, I’m gonna be on it. And that’s, that’s pretty much what happened. You know, we, we didn’t get along at first cause we didn’t really know each other.

We both had drawn conclusions. About each other, you know, just based on seeing each other, the kind of people we both hung around, we didn’t have the same friends in high school. That one guy was the only friend we actually shared. And so once we got to know each other, we actually became really, really good friends and found ourselves on this, on this journey that would make us closer and in my mind, closer to anybody else in the world.

Yeah, it, it’s interesting, you know, in business we call it burning the boats, right? Like we burn the boats. Yes. I can’t go back.  so that’s interesting. And you and Pimp C didn’t get along at first because you didn’t know each other. Right? Right. But of course, it, you know, it became very successful, which I wanna ask you about in a second here, but,  the name button b I wanted to ask you what the history of that name is.

Where did it come from? Because that wasn’t your original stage name, was it? No, no. My original stage name was terrible.  cause I was into Marvel Comics and stuff like that. So my original sta stage name was Shadow Story. Which is a terrible, terrible rap name.  maybe if I wanted to be a wrestler it might have worked.

And so Bun Is Short for Bunny, which was my family nickname. And at the time a lot of rappers had like initials, so it was like Danny D and Bobby B and you know, jazzy J and things like that. So a good friend of mine, Sharon Thomas, was like, we should call you Bunny B. And he was like, no, let’s do Bun B, you know?

And so originally it was Bun B ice and then I realized that that was just real too long and that was a lie. And then we ended, ended up shortening it to Bun B and I still answered to it to this day. Well, yeah, I was surprised by your real name. Didn’t know it. I just, yeah, Bernard. Bernard. Yeah, exactly.  so as mentioned in your bio, you know, U G K did drop an impressive run of albums,  you know, what do you think was behind that success?

I think it was the fact that we didn’t compromise right throughout our journey. For example, when we were, you know, in our earliest stages of our career, we dropped an album right around the time, a little bit before, but still,  chronologically around the same time as the chronic. And a lot of music in that next two years that followed, started to bear a very strong semblance to Dr.

Dre’s production sound. People started putting in a lot of sin and, you know, a lot of the same types of patterning and overlaying of, of elements. And so Pimp who was the producer of the majority of music for U G K,  was adamant that while that was a great thing and we could learn a lot from what Dr.

Dre was doing, that we should not be trying to emulate that and we should stick to our guns and not try to do what everybody else is doing or try to follow copy or mimic the popular sound. And I think it was because of the fact that we never tried to be anyone else. We never tried to really do what anyone else was doing.

And instead of, you know, damaging the relationship with our core audience to try to get a new fan base, we thought, you know what, let’s like in tighter with the core, right? Let’s give them a more concentrated, fully focused version of what we. Something that speaks to them in a way that they know, oh, they’re talking to us.

Because people over there don’t even talk like that guys over there, they don’t even use that word. You know what I’m saying? Oh, this music is for us. You know what I’m saying? And at the same time we were doing that, we were actually part of laying the foundation for an actual musical identity for the city that culminated in this huge run of artists in between like 2003 and 2005 were guys like Big Mike and Little Flip, and Paul Wall and Slim Thug and Mike Jones were all making these gold and platinum albums while being like making music that was hyper localized.

Right? Talking about things that were very Houston centric.  but Pimp and I had always said that if you allowed us to talk about Houston, the way that Houstonians talk about Houston, right? And talk about this southern culture and the way that Southerners talk about southern culture. It actually wouldn’t turn people off.

Cause that was the idea in New Yorkers, that if you guys act too south, Southern New Yorkers won’t know what you’re talking about. You know, Californians won’t know what you’re talking about. And we didn’t believe that, we believed that that would actually make them want to know. You know? And then people would start making phone calls and, and digging, trying to figure out, is that really what life is like in Houston?

That seems pretty cool. And that’s exactly what happened. That’s exactly what happened. And we were saying this in 1995 to our record company, and it did. They didn’t realize it until 10 years later when other artists were doing it and selling millions of records. Then it was like, okay, well maybe we should have listened to you guys.

Yeah. It’s interesting, you know, when you, when you talk about what characterize. Southern hiphop. You know, we’ve had exhibit on the show, talked about what characterized West Coast hip hop at the time, you know, when he was coming up, Pharaoh, Moch and Queens and all the great, you know, MCs that came out of,  Queens, et cetera.

And what characterizes southern hip hop,  which you’re a big. Part of that. Well, the main part of that, pioneering that sound is just being everything that the West coast hip hop wasn’t, or talking about life,  in the South. I’ve heard you,  talk about,  riding dirty as a, a love letter to Houston, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So at the time, the DJ screw tapes were very popular in the city of Houston and the lifestyle that was associated with it, the kind of cars,  that people were driving from that side of town and other people on, you know, few people on the other sides of town were driving at the time had really just, it painted like a really, really nice picture of this southern cultural lifestyle, right?

And so we wanted to make an album that was basically like, here’s 24. In Houston, on the south side of town, here’s, here’s what’s happening, here’s what you might see, here’s what you might hear. Here’s where you wanna be, here’s where you might wanna avoid it. Was that kind of a thing, you know, because that was, we got from, that’s what we got from our hip hop.

You know, LA warned you about the gang banging. Make sure you don’t go over here, don’t do this. Watch the police. The East Coast was the same thing. Like, you know, stay in the city. Be careful if you go, like, be careful if you go out to the Brooklyn or Queens and stay away from the Bronx. By all means possible.

You know? So hip hop actually became like an almanac for people. It was an audio almanac telling people where to go eat, where to go party, you know where to stay, what side of town has this type of tourist attraction. We, it was all of that kind of stuff. We were giving people information and that’s what we had always.

From from artists. We grew up listening to BDP and Public Enemy and artists that not only entertained you, but also educated you. You know what I’m saying? It made you aware of the world you lived in. And so for us, myself and pimp C it was always a priority to make sure that our music, while it was entertaining, cuz music at the very least has to be entertaining.

But music done is its best, can educate people, it can inform people, it can actually activate people. You know,  you can tell people what, you know, what’s happening in the world and what they could do to be a part of either being against that or, you know, amplifying those voices. And so that’s what we wanted to do with our music.

And I feel like we got to a point with riding dirty where we knew the perfect balance of how to do that right? Give people as much entertainment as they wanted to listen to the music and dance or whatever it was they preferred to do while enjoying the music, but then also taking something away with it when the, when the album was done playing.

You know, you feel like not only did you learn, learn a lot about that environment and that lifestyle, but also what it’s like to navigate that. Yeah. And Almanac, I’ve never heard it put that way before, but I, I like that Almanac. I think that’s true.  now speaking of, you know, your best known albums and songs, you know, one of your biggest and most popular songs was International Players Anthem,  which was, it actually has an interesting story, right?

The genesis of that hit,  began when Pimp C was in jail. Is that correct? What’s the story behind that song? Yeah, so,  when Pimp C was in jail, one of the things that he was able to do was working in the library and working in the library, allowed him access to audio. That was one of the few places where you allowed, you were allowed to actually,  listen to music.

You actually had access to CD players and whatnot. And so he would listen to a lot of the, the, the new music that was coming out. But one of the albums that he had heard was an album by Project Pat, and one of the songs on that album was called I Choose You. And so when he came out of jail, obviously this would’ve been like a year and a half, almost two years after that album had come out.

We were working on our first album after his release and one of the people we worked with was Three six Mafia and they’re Juicy J and DJ Paul are, you know, we’ve been friends with these guys over 20 years, you know, really good friends outside of music, more so than music. Cause we don’t really collaborate on a lot of stuff.

But we are, you know, we talk all the time still to this.  and so when we were talking to them, with them, we were in LA at the studio and,  I believe we were at Paul’s house.  and, you know, he was like, well, what are y’all thinking about doing? And Penn was like, you know, I wanted to take, you know that song y’all did with Pat that I choose You?

Man, that was a big record. I don’t think that record got enough play, man. I think y’all need to, y’all need to drop that record again. You know? He’s like, what do you mean? He’s like, that’s a, that’s a hit record. Y’all just, you didn’t expose it to the people, right? I think you should maybe re-release it.

And they were like, no, no. We not gonna re-release it, pat, it’s on another album. We’re we’re on the different stuff. And he was like, ma’am, ta that’s a hit record if you, you know, if you don’t believe me, give it to me. And they were like, what do you mean? Like, give us that track. Let us rap over it. I’ll show you that that’s a hit record.

And they’re like, pimp, we got all kinds of beats. Why would you want a beat we made two years ago? He said, I’m telling you, that’s a hit record. Record. You know what I’m saying? They were like, okay, cool. And so we had recorded the record. It was a, it was a U g K record at the time. It’s fully, fully recorded.

And,  It was All Star Weekend coming up in Los Angeles. And so back in, in those days, peop art record labels used to put out a sampler, which was basically snippets of different songs from an album to give you an idea of what the album would sound like and encourage people to go and buy the album.

They don’t do this at all anymore. And so the sampler went out during All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles and so separately because they weren’t even really recording at the time together. Big Boy and Andre 3000, both separately got a copy of the Sampler and they both really liked the song International Players Anthem.

They really liked their record and so separately, they both reached out to us and asked us could they be a part of that song. Andre was like, I really like the record, but I wanna rap without the drums. I just wanna rap to the music. No drums. We were like, cool. And then Big Boy was like, I don’t wanna rap to the music.

I wanna rap to just the drums. And we were like, cool. So they both send in their versions separately. The crazy thing is that we were signed to the same label, so we didn’t have to go to someone to clear their performance. Their appearance on our album were all in house. So the label, of course, was like, of course you guys can have it.

And so we put the song together. Now at the same time, we’d recorded a version of this song. The original version of this song, even though we hadn’t played it, was with Three Six Mafia. Well, during all of this, three, six Mafia wins the Oscar for,   best song in a movie with hard out here for a pimp.

Taking that, because typically when people win Oscars, the price goes up, right?  actors typically earn more money. Directors, everyone involved in a film, when they win an Oscar, their price goes up. They went back to their record company to try to renegotiate, but the record company was like, well, it’s not your record.

It’s actually Terrence Howard’s record in the movie. You’re not in the movie. So I don’t see why we should have. So they went back and forth, and so they ended up the record company and them got to the point where they were like, okay, you guys are being,  unreasonable, so we’re just gonna shelf you, which means basically we’re not gonna allow you to release music right now.

Contractually, we’re not gonna allow you to release music. We’re not gonna put out any albums if you, even if you bring ’em to us right now. But they were also a production company and they didn’t have a production deal, so they couldn’t rap on our song, but they could still produce the song. And so meanwhile we go back to the Outkast version of this record, since we can’t even have the three six Mafia version of the record anymore.

Thankfully we have this Outkast version of the record.  but even, even with him doing the record, Andre at the time was not even really recording. Much less doing any videos. And he told me, he says, I’ll do this song,  but I’m not gonna do a video. Like he was very adamant, we’re not doing the video. And so we had this record and everybody’s trying to figure out, this is a huge record.

We’ve gotta try to figure out how to get a video out of this. And so I was like, well, I knew that their number one collaborator, and particularly Andre’s,  number one collaborator and, and the, and the creation of a lot of the Outkast videos was Brian Barber. And so I reached out to Brian Barber, I said, look, we wanna hire you as the director of this video.

I want you to go to Andre and give him complete creative control over the treatment, right? So that he knows whatever his vision is, that you can execute it because that’s what you’ve done for him. I said, this is the best chance we got at getting this video done. He went to him, Andre accepted, came up with your idea of the wedding.

 and us trying to, you know, convince him not to get married and whatnot, but if he is, just keep it real, that whole thing.  and we ended up shooting it during the b e t Hip Hop Awards in Los Angeles. And because so many people were in town, that’s how we get so many cameos in the video. That’s why David Banners in the video some Lucas Haas is a groomsman.

Like it’s a very, very interesting group of people in this video. Tpan is in the choir. My wife was actually like a choir director. It was really, really early fun time. We shot in an actual church in,  Los Angeles. The pastor actually is doing the c the, the pastor of the church is doing the ceremony. It was really, really fun and we did that whole video in.

Well, first of all, it’s a, a bunch of takeaways from that. If you’re listening True Entrepreneur, you found a way to get it done right. You found a way, a way to get it done. Yes. And, and,  the incredible history there,  behind one of the biggest hits ever. Right. And, you know, it was nominated for a Grammy and I, I believe you’ve had a couple Grammy nominations, if I’m not mistaken, right?

Yes. We’ve had two, one for Big Penman with Jay-Z. Yep, yep. And one for international players. Anthem with Outkast right now.  we just had the Grammys last weekend. Yes. Right. I’m not sure if you watched or watched the, you know, the 50 year anniversary tribute.  did you pay, did you watch that? Oh, yeah.

What were your thoughts? It’s a beautiful thing to see hip hop being celebrated in that way, and that’s in that room that for so many years has always been, This back and forth with hip hop and the Grammys in terms of re  recognition.  but I feel like, and you know, in 2023, and I’m a member of the, the Recording Academy as well.

I’m actually a national trustee, but it’s, I, it’s beautiful to be a representative of hip hop in the recording academy. It’s a great thing.  and I tried to send him the right message by example, but I think the Grammys sent a great message by closing with an eight minute long rap song, which features one of the greatest verses written in modern history.

Honestly.  that was unbelievable. And I do want to ask you about,  Jay-Z’s involvement in a, in a moment here, but you know, speaking of the Grammys, you know, you’ve worked with Beyonce who officially has the most Grammys ever. Yes. She broke, she broke the record,  on Sunday. So what are your thoughts on that and what comes to mind when I mentioned the name Beyonce, what was it like working with her?

I mean, class Act. First of all, let’s talk about Beyonce. I, I’ve met a lot of people. I’ve been around everybody. The only person at this point I haven’t been in the same room with is maybe Dr. Dre, right? I’ve never seen anyone with that level of commitment. In the day that we did the music video for a check check up on it, which was a song from the Pink Panther remake with Steve Barton and Beyonce,  I watched her in maybe a, I don’t know, eight to 10 hour period, do five full costume changes, hair, makeup, clothing, everything, execute high levels of choreography right over and over again.

Never complained, never looked like, you know, it was a bother or anything like that. I performed with Beyonce. Beyonce does not do a sound check. She does pull dress rehearsals. So they’re not doing songs. They literally ran through the entire two hour concert.  I’ve see, I’ve been on stage with her, watched her perform for two hours plus give every single bit of energy that she had, walk off the stage, collapse insec securities arms, like put on an oxygen mask.

I don’t know anyone that gives more of themself to their craft. It was amazing just to watch. And so when you see someone like that become the most storied,  Grammy winner of all time, it’s par for the corpse. The person that works the hardest, should get the most, should be the most accomplished and should go home with the most toys.

Mm-hmm. You know, and, and this isn’t an industry where everybody, for the most part, works hard in order for these songs to become number one, record somebody. Is leaving blood, sweat, and tears in that studio to make it happen. Sometimes several people, you know, and it’s not, it’s never one person, it’s always a concerted group effort to make these things work, but it all rests on her shoulders and she carries it with such class and such grace that it’s, it’s a, it’s just amazing to see someone who, I always like to say people like Beyonce could be at

She could very well be a full on diva if she wanted to, and she couldn’t be further from it. You talk about humble, approachable, personable, welcoming. When Beyonce talks to you and listens to you, you feel like the only person in the room with her. It’s an amazing talent that she has to make people feel seen and heard in that moment, and you don’t just feel like another person in a line of people in a meet and greeted or some kind of v i p scenario.

And she’s from Houston, you know, on top of all of that. She’s from Houston. She, she,  probably our, our greatest export. Hmm.  the synergy and, you know, you know, we have a phrase we use all the time, which is success leaps clues, right? Success leaps clues. So as you said, you know, she’s,   being recognized for all the hard work and, you know, speaking of Beyonce, you know, you were talking about Jay-Z there being featured at this year’s Grammys with a performance at the end, which was, I mean, I thought it was unbelievable.

 and also he’s the husband of Beyonce now, right. So you’ve worked with Jay-Z as you mentioned on Big Pimp, and I have to ask you about what comes to mind when I say the name Jay-Z transition.  watching people like the, the puppies and the Jay-Z’s and the 50 cents of the World, and also people like the Swiss Beats,  particularly with, with investment, right?

 Like you say, success leaves clues. I realized very early on that while hip hop can afford me a very comfortable lifestyle, it can very easily make me rich that I’m going to have to take whatever I learn and utilize that in order to become wealthy. And so you look at someone like Jay-Z who’s made a really nice,  amount of money from music, you know, most people could live, you know, several generations with the money that Jay-Z makes solely off of music.

But Jay-Z is not wealthy from music. He’s wealthy because he realized he’s a walking, talking ip, right? And he’s realized that almost every single facet of what he does and who he is can if done right and is necessary to be monetized. And so do you look at someone like Puffy who did very well in the music industry?

 as an artist, but became wealthy as a businessman transitioning into liquor and these other avenues. The same thing with someone like a 50 cent, right? And so what that tells me is that not only can hip hop as a culture, sell products, right? Cause you look at almost anything that’s being sold, that there’s a hip hop element and maybe 95% of what you see advertised to you in the way that it’s advertised to you.

 but that also, I could sell myself, right? And so I started looking at myself as like, this is the way I look at it. I’m the man, I’m the band, but I’m also the brand. And so if I can find ways to, to have synergy with those three elements of myself, it equals money, right? It equals money. And because I’m staying in a space that is authentic to me.

I, no, I would no longer be looked at as a sellout, which for many years, hip hop, you know, anyone that tried to monetize something culturally from hip hop was considered a sellout. Mc hammer took a big brunt of backlash for being the first person to, you know, use hip hop to sell soda and Kentucky Fried Chicken, and he had a cartoon and a cereal and all these different things.

 really understood this on a, on a broad way, very early, and now the same thing that they ridicule artists for 20 years ago. If you don’t have a sponsor, if you don’t have some type of other industry that you’re involved in, outside of just music, people feel like you’re almost wasting the platform. You know it.

Look, it, I understand that signing a record deal and getting in advance and getting it into the music industry is a big deal. I thought it was a big deal, but I woke up one day and realized that my ceiling. It’s other people’s floor, right? And so at some point I’m gonna hit the wall as to how much I can maximize this as a recording artist, right?

But it’s an ip. How can we license this? What we do? How can we license who I am, what I’ve created, the moment the following, you know? And those things sometimes take a while, but as industry starts to lend itself more to lifestyle and cultural branding, hip hop is a big part of what people consider to be culture nowadays all over the world.

And the sooner you understand that dynamic, the sooner you can really start being the person who takes advantage of you. It’s okay if you take advantage of you. It’s not cool if anybody else takes advantage of. So, you know, I, I learned a lot going into these meetings about things that I didn’t think would come into play into my life until literally decades later.

You know, the idea that I am a spokesman, I am also the product, I’m also the provider of the product, you know,  the creator. And so all of these things, there’s a fee for that. People get paid to do all of those different things. So yeah, in the early days, yeah, I did you, you know, you, you, you ordered a pop.

We did a popup. You got Bumbi for free. Right. And we took that on promo. We went to all these music festivals and I took my burger on tour, you know, and, and as an opening, a young artist would have to do, I had to pay for the privilege to be in those. Right. But once we won the national competition for Best Burger, now the burger is validated.

That’s now we, now we’ve won our Grammy, we’ve won our Oscar. And so now people pay us for the privilege to have the burger in their spaces. And that’s all I wanted to do. I, my thing was my mission in creating the momentum of what Trail Burgers is, cuz I didn’t create the burger. The burger was brought to me as is.

I thought it was an amazing product. And their thing was, we, we want you to amplify this product, get eyes on this product, get people into the room to try this product. And so for me, I was like, the best thing I’ve got is to, for me to be there, right? Make me a part of this burger, make it in, make us, make us inseparable.

You know, get people into the building and then when they try the burger, which I know is legitimate, now we’ve got ’em. But then the course of doing that, this actually turn this brand. From something that’s solely built on the culinary idea of the burger, but now it’s more culturally based. Now people actually have a dog in this race in the same way that they bought my music and wanted me to be successful.

And they get bragging rights. Oh, Bubis one of the best rappers out there, and he’s from here. You know? Now they could say, oh, bumpies got the, you know, trip Burger is the best burger in America and it’s from here, you know? And so I understand that dynamic, you know what I’m saying? So I know that, you know, if you go to Chicago and you go to Michael Jordan Steakhouse, you could go to Andy Steakhouse in Chicago, right?

But the idea of going to Michael Jordan Steakhouse is this underlying notion of what if we go and Michael Jordan’s actually. Right. And so I know there’s a lot of that where people think about Tri Burgers. Hey man, let’s go to the popup. He’s usually there. You never know. We might see him when he is there.

And then you come to the popup. I’m actually there. And

yeah. And I do wanna get into the specifics of Tri Burger in a minute here.  you are breaking down some very valuable entrepreneurial lessons.  and of course I saw you playing golf with,  Travis Scott,  eating trill burgers, which I thought was really cool. Yes, that was funny. Terrible swing he’s got though.

Terrible swing. Look, my mind has made way worse. If I could tell you, if you noticed, you didn’t see any of me. On there. I’m, I am, I wouldn’t even say I’m a novice, like I’m just, because I’m get, I get invited to so many of these things. Yeah. I’m like, you know what? You might as well start trying to play. So this was like my first time actually driving off of a tee at a golf range and putting on the green.

Yeah. You know, and they make great photos. Oh they do. And you know, like I, well I’m an avid golfer. I take golf really seriously. So when I saw that swing from Travis Scott, I was horrified. I actually had to show my wife. I said, listen, look at this. Can you believe it? And she’s looking at, cuz she, you know, I, I watched this stuff in slow motion.

Right. But,  anyways, that was fun to see you guys eating trill burgers. Of course. That was fantastic brand association you’re talking about. Yes. And I do wanna talk. Yeah. And I do wanna talk about that in a second here. But before we leave,  just the career a little bit, I did want to ask you about this, cuz I find it kind of ironic.

You know, y you know, you and Jay-Z obviously were nominated for a Grammy,  for Big Pimp and, but Jay-Z was actually boycotting the Grammys that year, if I’m not mistaken, right? Yeah. What’s the story? So like, what’s the story behind there? Because he’s like the main, I mean, they showed him every, you know, 30 seconds at the Grammys this year, but the year he was nominated for arguably one of the biggest songs ever, he boycotted.

Yeah. So I think it was, it was the idea of how hip hop was being presented. Still,  hip hop was at that point a major factor in music.  hip hop was becoming, hip hop artists were becoming the new rock stars in music. And I don’t believe they felt that the record, which was literally Big Pimping, was the biggest record of the year, right.

And I don’t believe that they were going to give them a proper presentation of the record in the day. I’m not sure if a performance was ever even talked about. And so just, I think on the principle of how they were trying to play them that year, they just rejected it on, on general principle, you know, which unfortunately means I rejected as well.

And you always wanna show a unified front in, in these type of things culturally, you know, within the genre. You know, all of us wanna be on the same side. And we did, you know, we all wanted to make sure that hip hop was represented correctly in that space. And, you know, here we are, 23 liter years later.

And I’m not sure how much more the Grammys could have done to honor hip hop. The other day they did leave a couple of names out. They did leave Gangsta Boo out of the, in Memorium and Eric Carter actually for that 23 years, it’s been 23 years. Yeah. Big Pippen was 20, was 2000. It was the year 2000. Yeah.

And you can go in any club. I’ve been all around the world, literally all over the world doing Gumball 3000 and I have been to every club you could think of from, you know, Rhode Island to Russia to Romania, and it all hits the same. That record means the same thing in every single room I’ve seen it played in.

Which is a remarkable thing to have. I had a friend, a good friend of mine, Everlast call me and was like, you know, how’s it feel man, you got one of those records. Cuz obviously Everlast has jumped around. That record’s never gonna die. That record’s always gonna me generationally. Right. That’s 30 years away from the beginning of that wreck.

That record’s 30 years old. And college kids, every four, five to 10 years, they adopt that song. They get indoctrinated to college life with that song. And it’s, it’s amazing to see and to, to think that I actually have a record that potentially could mean the same thing generation after generation. That’s, that’s, that’s insane.

You know? Yeah. And you’ve, you’ve got more than one. Like that’s y you know, Bun B players, Anthem, I think is another one. Players Anthem exists on a totally different level as, as, as a wedding like reception song. So that’s a, that’s actually over the last five years has been like a huge addition for us revenue-wise.

We get booked for weddings. Like you wouldn’t. And I don’t even have to do a whole show. I can come in and literally do that one song and boom, it works. You know what’s interesting too is I saw an interview you did where you were, you were talking about a little known fact that, you know, Jay-Z took the first four bars of 99 problems from, from you from a song called,  touched.

Right? Yeah. This thing keeps coming up. It’s something that I really try to downplay and I don’t wanna, I’m sure he can’t be crazy about hearing this thing come up every now and then, but this is common practice in hiphop people. Mm-hmm. Take lyrics and plays on words. People do this all the time. I remember I made a play on Word on Slick.

Rick says on Lotty Doty, he makes a, and,  he says, I, I get up and a stretch up, I’m on and yawn and, and I actually did a play on that in a song. And we got a call from a publishing company like, Hey, you all slick Rick Some. For this type of thing. You know, some people, but some people I don’t, I don’t look at it that way.

Some people are like, yo, I love it. It’s a beautiful thing that you’ve done it. And I didn’t, I didn’t really think of it as anything when, when he did it, you know? But all of a sudden now in this information age and everybody wanting to bring up something that very few people know here, this thing comes up again.

Well, you know, that’s the special thing about hiphop is the collaboration. You know, there’s a lot of collaboration in hiphop among artists and respect, et cetera. Yes. And speaking of that, you know, was talking to our friend Apathy, our mutual friend, apathy about, you know, your history, and he calls you, this is what he calls you, the mayor of hiphop.

He calls you that because he mentions that you work with the biggest names,  in the industry, but you also work with the underground or lesser known rappers, which makes you admired or respected.  what are your thoughts on that, and have you thought about your place in hip hop history? Yeah, I mean, look, I, I remember coming in not knowing a lot and actually being mentored.

In this industry, people like too short, you know, you know, put me under his wing, gave me a lot of game. People like James Prince from Rapa, lot people like E 40. There were people that really sold into us, you know, really helped us navigate moving through this industry, not just as artists, but then finding that balance between personal and professional.

That became a real big thing for us as we got older and, you know, started to have families and whatnot, grow businesses and have much more responsibility.  so I was really, really blessed to have had those kind of mentors, you know, and so for me, I felt it only right to pay that forward and to try to be that for as many people as possible.

And it’s, it’s worked out, you know,  I’ve been able to, to walk some, some great artists.  through this game, getting them into the right position and then, you know, fly Pelican, fly as Tony Moett would say.  but it’s been beautiful to be there watching like the earliest days of like a little Wayne watching the earliest days of a Drake, you know, watching these guys evolve not just as artists, but again as, as people and you know,  and now these guys are some of the, the biggest names in music period.

I don’t know, I don’t know if you can give much bigger than Drake right now. You know, I’m pretty sure it’s like him and Bad Bunny, right? Kinda. But I think even Bad Bunny would defer to Drake at this point for a lot of Jim. Yeah. Yeah. And I was gonna ask you specifically about Drake. You know, Canada’s finest, you were on So Far Gone, which was one of his, you know, first releases.

Right. And the question I wanted to ask you was, at the time, did you see Drake becoming as big as he is now or has it surprised you how big the name Drake and the brand is?  honestly, no. I was in the middle of recording an, an album and I was getting calls and calls and calls,  cuz he was initially Jazz Prince’s artist and Jazz Prince brought him in Lil Wayne, and then they worked on this so far gone situation.

And so he kept calling me like, uncle Kade, you on this record with this kid, this kid’s good. I really need you to do this record. But I was really very deep in recording my alb so I was like, okay, I’ll get to it. Gimme a chance. And he kept calling and kept calling and literally like, like I’m, I’m literally finishing up like a full day of recording, right?

And I’m walking outta the studio and my phone rings and I see the name and I’m like, oh, here it is again. And I’ve known the kid for years, you know, I’ve known him since he was an adolescent, you know, you know, minor. And now he’s, he’s a grown man. And you know, the kids never asked me for anything before, you know?

So I said, you know what? He’s like, UNC, where you at? I’m like, I’m in the studio. I’m alright. I’m finna knock it out for you. I’ll knock it out. And then I listened to the song and I was like, wow, this is actually a pretty good song. It’s pretty good. And then I recorded it and then they went in to mix it.

They were supposed to drop it and ended up getting pushed back initially, I think a few days.  and so it released and his first show was in New York at a college in New York. And the video went out of like, basically it was a maybe 98% women. Right. Teenage girls and singing the songs word for word.

Right. I’m like, really? You know, and I’d never seen him either. That’s the other thing. I’d never seen him. And I was like, this is who this kid is. I’m like, this is different. And then he did his second show, and it was in Atlanta and it was at a college and it was 99% women and it was a bigger room, and they were singing the songs harder and louder.

I’m like, wait a minute, this is a thing. And so the next show was in Houston. And so I tell my wife and I say, Hey, you know this kid, I did the song when he’s coming to Houston. I knew we should go and see it. She was like, well, I don’t know. So I started showing her the video. She’s like, what is this? So she called her friends and then we all went to see the show.

Bigger venue than Atlanta, probably 99.9% women. Lot of hip hop artists are in there trying to see what this big sensation is about. And my wife and her friends are in like that space, that pit area between the barricade and the stage, you know? And these women were like looking up at this kid like, oh my God, this is like, and I’m looking at the reaction of every woman in the room, right?

Yet. And still outside of that, the reaction from the artist on the stage when he’s actually like really locked in on his rapping performances, right? And everybody’s looking like, does this kid really the best of both worlds? And here we are. You know, in 2023, and he’s the best of several worlds at this point because he is done hip hop, he’s done r and b traditionally.

He’s done Afro pop.  he’s done, you know, music of High Caribbean influence, Afrobeat, sorry, not Afro Pop, Afrobeat,  went through this dance phase.  I don’t know if there’s anything the kid can do. Yeah. Well you mentioned,  the word you used for Jay-Z was transition. I, I, I kind of look at Drake the same way you, like you said, he did the dance album.

He is done, you know, Afrobeat, he is done, you know, dance hall stuff. He’s done some pretty,  wide swath right. When you think about it. He’s done almost everything.  and I wanted to ask you,  about a name too that you, you know quite well. Lil Wayne.  what comes to mind when I say his name? I consistently refer to him as the greatest rapper alive, I believe that’s, On the high level of execution and the high level of output of music.

So to put out the amount of music that he’s released and to be operating at such a high level, consistently across the board of doing all of this music and still operate at possibly the highest tier of lyrical execution, I find it very hard to find other people who can really measure up to him. You know, as far as complete body of work, it’s just too many rhymes.

It’s a lot. And you know, I was there in the earliest days and I was able to actually speak into it.  I was able to give advice on how to nurture that talent, you know, with cash. And,  you know, the idea to be quite honest, was to turn ’em into a machine. Yeah. Very interesting. I appreciate you,  giving us your thoughts on a couple of the biggest names in hip hop,  along with yourself, you know, and the history there.

I mean, it’s too immense, right? You know, you get Bun Beyond an interview you gotta ask and I do wanna ask. Yeah. And before we,  just move on to like, you know, your current projects, just staying on the, you know, the history,  when, when Pimp C was, you know, locked up, that’s kind of when your solo career began, if I’m not mistaken, right.

 where you started guesting and being featured on a lot of tracks and albums. But I, I love this. You, you, I, I’ve heard you say you didn’t want to abandon your partner right. At that time. You, you know, you wanted to stay loyal and make sure that there was, you know, something there for him when he got out.

And, and I love that. I think there’s so many important lessons in that. So why is loyalty so important to you? I mean, sometime that’s really all you’ve got. You know, we, we fought tooth and nail to get to where we were and there was no one else that could understand the things that I’ve been through, the challenges that I had overcome, the obstacles I had to fight to get to where I was more than him.

This was always a shared experience,  with him. And the only reason I became a solo artist, it was outta necessity. I never wanted to be a solo artist, but the only way to really keep the musical legacy alive was to contribute to it. That was where the solo career actually came from. But then also, like, he wasn’t just my friend and my brother, like I knew he was a husband, he was a father.

Sammy’s gotta be taken care of and I wanted there to be. You know, a life for him after prison. You know, people can very easily write you off. You know, people have very short attention spans. So every time I had an opportunity to rap on someone’s song, I’d be like, free Pi C. Every time I showed up in a video, whether I was on a song or not, I tried to wear a shirt.

Just, you know, trying to echoing echo thes sentiments. And I was lucky because other artists felt the same way that I did. So then they start to wear the shirts and say the phrase, you know, and it became this whole little mini phenomenon within the culture. But I don’t know how people could not be loyal to people.

I just don’t operate that way. And to, you know, my wife will probably sound, I’m loyal to a fault to people. You know what I’m saying? But I can’t allow bad people to make me a bad person or to make bad decisions. Right. I just gotta stay positive and stay focused on it. You know? Soon as I realize it’s not for me, speak to it.

Let it be known. Hey, I don’t stand for this. I’m not rocking like that. And if there aren’t gonna be changes to be made, then just wipe our hands at this and go ourselves ways. I’m good with that. I’ve had things built up to a level. I’ve had those things almost broken down to their last compound and had to build that back up, which is kind of what we’re talking about right now.

You know what I’m saying? So I know it’s possible and that works for me. Again, not to get back on that, but that’s why I know with Bergs, we’ve had some very tough times being a a, a young, new business, and we’ve had some losses, some very deep losses, you know? But you know, and my partners, you know, got a little frustrated like, man, this is, I don’t know, this is a lot.

I’m like, look, we got a good name, we got a good product. You know what I’m saying? So we can always build back up. And that’s all we have to worry about is making sure that the burger is good so that anytime we present it, people get the experience that we want them to have. And word of mouth will still have it.

Word of mouth is very underestimated when in modern times, right? Because everyone thinks of, well, you need social media and all that. Well, what is social media is it’s digital. Word of mouth. People go out of TikTok is basically all of everyone’s favorite thing. And you can put a lot of mo emotion and thought into how much you really like something and how persuasive people can be.

I mean, maybe, you know, if my wife learned 10 new dishes, she learned it from TikTok. If we went to 10 new restaurants, we learned, we learned about ’em from TikTok and we went to a new hotel or a new vacation destination, we learned it from that, you know? And so it’s just, you know, I go back to this original thing of loyalty.

You know, we’re a brand, you know, myself as an artist and trail burgers as a company, we’re a brand. And we know that in the same way that people invested in my career, people bought my music cuz they wanted to see me be successful in that space. People buy my burger because they want me to be successful in that space and it gives ’em something to brag about, as I said earlier, and I don’t take that lightly.

I understand that with every single burger that we put out to someone we like, Hey, our whole reputation lies on every burger we sell. You know what I’m saying? You give out a burger, we live and die by that burger. The wrong person eats that burger, tells the wrong tell, tells it the right way in a very persuasive way that we just spoke about, right?

The same way they could someone say, this burger’s amazing. You really should try it. People can also be very persuasive in telling them that this burger’s not good. It ain’t need to stay away. I think about that we are one bad review away from destroying this company, period. That’s the only way I can look at.

Because I have at least a 30 year growth plan for this brand. I see generational wealth for myself and my business partners and their children’s. This is supposed to be the first place where my grandkids can go and get a job, learn the family. This is my family’s mail room, right? Mm-hmm. This is the entry point for everyone, for, for everyone in my family that wants to be a part of the growth of this company.

There’s a point in, there’s an entry point for you. You know, and that’s what I want this company to be, and I know sacrifice comes with that. You know, a lot of blood, sweat, and tear equity comes with that, but I believe it’s worth it, and I wouldn’t put that kind of effort. Into this brand, if I didn’t think it was worth it, and I literally put my name on it, there’s no way to disassociate this burger from Bun B at this point.

So again, my personal reputation, not just my professional reputation, my personal reputation is on the line with this burger, but I’m so glad that I have a team that understands that and respects that.

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pimp C gets locked up. You start your solo career. And I believe one of your guest appearances was with 50 cent, if I’m not mistaken. Yes. What was it like working with 50 cent? What comes to mind when I mention his name? 50 cent today is the exact same individual I met over 20 years ago. Very, very cocky, but confident as well.

But if you wanna talk about where he came from to where he is and where he’s going, he is a good person to model transitioning after. You know, he really understood his brand from an early basis. Heavily divested in many different places. He was at the golf tournament as well. You know, another person that was like, whenever you’re ready to expand the brand and you start opening franchises, let me know.

 you know, he is happy to put his energy behind the brand as a partner, which is, you know, considerable thing to, to, to take in with someone like a 50 cent. I mean, you can put the product in TV shows, movies, he’s an incredible spokesman, all of that type of stuff. But there’s just just that lack of fear.

Of moving into spaces, right? Being disruptive as a businessman, you have to be ready and prepared to disrupt the market you’re entering in. You know, because that’s the way to be seen, but you can only profit and build from that if you have a good product. So just having a good, you know, marketing scheme or plan or spokesman, yeah, that’ll get people listening.

That’ll get people intrigued, but the minute the product doesn’t add up to the high, people are turning their way. And now, not only is your product no good, your sell, your spokesman has lost a little bit a favor with the base that he’s selling to. So for me, it’s important that it’s always been important, but even more so important with, with the burger, because of the opportunity for repeated cons, repetitive consumption.

For an alb I only have to convince you to buy the album one. Right Then once you buy it, I’ve got the money. That’s fine. But with the burger, I gotta consistently convince you that this burger’s worth buying and it’s at an elevated price point. So I have to take all of that into consideration. When I present this product to people.

There cannot be a flaw in the presentation. Cause I’m already asking people to spend more for something that they believe shouldn’t cost that much. Right. The idea of a cheeseburger costing $12, cuz that’s gonna be the price point, you know, for the burger is crazy. I could go get three burgers for that.

You sure can. But what is that burger though? You know, what is that? You know, do you really want to eat three quarter pounders Back to back to back? You know, when you say that, the phrase we always use, and I think it applies here, is cost is only a factor in the absence of value. Right? Cost is only a factor in the absence of value.

So if people understand, you know, the value of what it means to eat a trail burger, they’re not gonna question the cost. Doesn’t matter. Yes, right. If you know what you’re paying for and you know it’s worth it, the the cost isn’t a problem. And I’ve had people that come that would never typically spend that kind of money, but they gave it a shot because it was my product, and now they can go and tell other people who would probably never spend that on that product that it’s worth it.

And that kind of realtime word of mouth cosigned goes a long way. So, you know, I wanted to ask you about this as well, if you’re comfortable talking about it. We do get into, you know,  deep subjects and, and, and whatnot on the show from time to time. But, you know, the death of your partner, if you’re okay talking about this.

You, you, you mentioned it,  being the most life altering event that’s ever happened to you. Right. And obviously the death of a loved one,  is traumatic, but why was it so hard for you to process professionally?  I came in with him, I came in as a group member. I never wanted to be a so artist. We were always a group member and there was so much of my life experience that was tied into this group and that partnership with him that the idea of going forward fully without him consciously was a bit much to, to grasp.

Having to do it during his imprisonment was one thing. Cause it was always built on the idea that at some point he would rejoin and we would continue back on the path together. His passing away put, put a lot of finality into that. Right. At that point there was, there was no more coming back that it, everything about our legacy on that point was on me.

And so it repurposed everything for me. And, and that had really nothing to do with the music, but it was all about making sure that he was honored the right way. That our legacy was put in a proper historical and cultural perspective, and that should I choose to continue to do music, that it would be only to contribute and not to take away.

And in this age of licensing and sampling and all of these different revenue streams that are available for you to profit off of music, it was also up to me to make sure that during the course of that, that I didn’t allow his name, image, or music, which I don’t control that the family does, but just the idea of who he was as an artist to be bastardized.

And you know, people ask me all the time, if you ever thought about doing hologram and all of that, and I just don’t know if that’s the best way to honor I’m, I just can’t say that, you know? And maybe I’m too close, right? Maybe I’m too close. But, you know, I feel like, I feel like his memory. Can live forever if it’s protected properly.

Right? If we give it the care and concern that it deserves continuously, and we don’t do everything for money, you know, when it comes to him, his music and whatnot,  because the people can smell it. The people can smell it, right? You know, the base can smell it right? And the minute they feel like we did something just for money, it compromises my, my personal integrity and that carries over into everything else, you know?

So in order to, to do everything that I would need to do post U g K, we have to go into those things conscious of what U G K is and what it means to people. And if there’s anything, or any facet of what we’re doing that could compromise that, then we just can’t do it. Hmm. We just can’t do it. If this is done right, they should honor him in the same way that they continuously honor Elvis and other artists for decades and decades and decades, because people make sure, just to be frank, to not put  on people’s names.

That’s my number one concern, is just to make sure that whatever happens, that when it’s done, that there’s no  s**t on his neck. Yeah. Again, well said, and I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on that. It’s not easy to talk about, I’m sure, but,  I, I really do appreciate you talking about it. What was the story about,  Rizza calling you to help,  at that time based on what he experienced with losing?

Well, dirty, I had a lot of people calling me from, obviously the helicopter community, mutual friends of mine and, and pimps as well as close friends of mine.  but that was the one call, first of all, I, I’d never met him. We’d never spoken,  not even socially. I have no idea how he got my number to this day, and I talked to him recently during the tour.

And brought that up.  cause I had never talked to him again. I’d never seen him in person until maybe three months ago to thank him for that. But he really, he reached out and was like, he just wanted to talk about what I was going through and to give me some perspective right on, on how it had affected him.

Because he, he and o Dirty bastard were cousins, if I’m not mistaken.  so out of everyone else on, on in the Wutang clan, that was the individual he had, had the longest relationship with. And so there were a lot of parallels between his relationship with O Dirty and my relationship with him. See, and I’m not sure how he picked up on that, you know, but that was one of those calls that kind of broke through.

Right. It was kind of a, cuz I was still, you know, really, really grief-stricken at this time. This was in the first 48 hours and like answering the phone and like hearing his voice and realizing, wait, this is, this is Rizza. Like now I’m kind of like snapped out of this fog like, What’s going on? And then the conversation we had was really,  I’m really appreciative of it and I’m glad that I got a chance to look him in his eyes and tell him, you know, because again, no relationship.

No, I didn’t even say his number. Like I wasn’t even thinking in the moment right. In that way. And it eventually went outta the call log. I couldn’t even go back and see it. It was crazy. And I never, I still, to this day, I have no idea who gave him my phone number. And I wanna thank that person as well.

Mm-hmm. So if you’re listening. Thank you.  what a, Hey, tell me who you’re, yeah, yeah.  what a history.  okay. Moving, moving along then I, I appreciate, you know, breaking down some, you know, some career highlights and some, you know, major events in your life. I really appreciate that. Now talking specifically about Trill Berger, your current project, and we, we’ve been talking about it off and on here,  how did you get into, you know, the culinary, the food industry?

You said it was brought to you, but how specifically did this come about? Because I, I’ve heard you say this is not a hamburger, it’s a tri burger. Right? So what makes it a Tri Burger and how did you get into this? Cuz you’re, you’re talking passionately about it, which I really love. You know, it’s a, I guess at this point it’s still a startup,  having some success.

It’s getting some traction, right? Yes. But people know about Trill Burger. So maybe just give us a little bit of the story and tell us what makes this burger unique. Well, my entry into this, into the culinary space started little over 10 years ago. A good friend of mine, premium pe, and I started a food blog over our shared love of food.

It’s called You Gotta Eat this.com, shameless Plug. And,  it was basically, you know, we figured at the very least, you know, we could probably start getting tables easier at different restaurants.  but it did end up getting a life on its own. And over the years, he and I both had talked about wouldn’t it be great to open a place?

Like, wouldn’t it be great to, you know, take all of these things that we’ve learned and all of this knowledge and actually apply it.  but the idea of opening a restaurant as a, you know, small business owner with no experience, right?  it just, it felt like a lot of room to mess up and drop the ball.

And I’m not necessarily a chef as well, so I don’t get to throw myself in it. I don’t get to do all of this stuff without taking a fee. Somebody’s gotta cook it, somebody’s gotta pay for them to cook it, somebody’s gotta buy it, kind of a thing. The Smashburger trend was starting in la. And he was getting a lot of traction in LA and it was slowly moving out east, as most food trends do.

Mm-hmm. And so he was like, I really want to get in on this space. He’s worked with his chefs, they came up with a really good burger, but he was like, the trend is moving pretty fast. The be, if we don’t catch it by the time it gets to Texas, we’re gonna miss it. And so he had been talking with a mutual friend of mine, Nick Scofield, and Nick says, well, if you’re looking to do something in the food space in Texas, maybe we could talk to BUN and see if he’d be interested.

And so Nick coordinated a sit down. I tried the burger. I thought it was an amazing burger. Probably one of the best burgers I’d ever had.  they did a little bit more r and d refined the project, brought it back to me.  and I thought at that moment, not only was this the best hamburger I’d ever had, I felt like it was one of the best dining experiences I’d ever had.

You know? And you know how. Easily someone could be put off at how great a ham a hamburger could taste. And as we started putting this burger in front of more and more people, I realized this is not a hamburger. A hamburger by concept is an afterthought. It’s throwaway, right? It just, you know, you get a burger, you go on with your life, this burger stops.

People that are tracks hits ’em in the chests. You can’t really walk away from it because if you’ve had a trail burger and I, I literally went through this and I go through this at home, if you had a tri burger and you want a tri burger, there’s no substitute for a trail burger, right? If you want a trail, you can’t have it.

Which is not eating a burger today. You know, it’s, it’s that because it’s so different. And the reason I say a trail burger is not a hamburger is cuz typically you can get a hamburger to go five, six bucks. Our price point is elevated because the experience is elevated.  I don’t think this is, I think the feeling that you get from this burger is not something that you could normally get in a regular thrive through experience.

And for me personally, I feel as though the average person isn’t necessarily, the average person that likes a hamburger is not eating a hamburger because of the hamburger. They’re eating it because of the condiments. Cause if typically you’ll go somewhere, you’ll order a burger, and even before you eat it, you’ll put whatever ketchup or whatever you want on it.

You’re addicted to that. You’re not really addicted to the burger, you’re addicted to the ketchup, the mustard, the mayo. And that’s the best system of deliverance of those condiments right to you. And to be honest, just being very honest, the reason you have to be addicted to those condiments is because the average patty is

It’s a terrible product. The average hamburger patty is a terrible product. And it’s everything else about the burger that you have on it that’s compensating for that. Yeah, well for a tri burger, the Patty’s the Star, so no matter where you bite into it, you’re never going to get more of anything than the path because that’s where all the real flavor is.

Everything else compliments the flavor, but it doesn’t take away from the flavor. So yeah, we do have our tri sauce on there, but the tri sauce doesn’t, isn’t on there because the patty is . The tra tri sauce is on there cuz it makes the patty taste even better. So do the caramelized onions and the pickled slices and the potato bun.

This is like, it’s a scientific application of elements to create a specific dining experience. The closest thing I could say to it is that this isn’t, this burger gives umami, umami being the sixth sense. This umami is almost like, Right When the certain, when certain elements are put together, and I’m sure I’m paraphrasing this terribly right, but basically the concept is that when certain elements are put together in a certain way, that they create an experience that transcends the average dining experience.

And we believe that this burger does that. We wouldn’t necessarily refer to it as, as a burger that a new Bombi burger because obviously that’s a brand or whatever, but if there is such a thing as umami, then that’s what the  I feel when I eat a tri burger and that’s what I believe everybody else feels when they eat a trill burger.

It really, it, it sits different because for me, I realized I had a special product, but I realized that this was a very universally accepted product. So it would be very easy to convince people to put a cheeseburger in the room. Right. Mm-hmm. But I’m realizing that when the cheeseburger is in the room and people bite into it, it’s not like if you get a piece of shrimp on a stick, you know, it’s not like that quarter piece of a burger that you get in a boat on a trade passed around.

Food’s an afterthought in social settings, typically. Mm-hmm. Right? It’s a way of having conversation icebreakers, a reason for kind of coming together before you go to what’s really important. But the trail burger ends up in the room and it becomes a point of conversation because what someone would normally think is just an afterthought of a product and an appetizer actually has affected so much.

Like you, you bite into a trail burger and it’s like, what the, wait, what, what? The  is this? And it kinda stops you in your tracks, like, did anybody else eat the burger? I’m not tripping this. It’s good. And, and you start seeing it around the room. There’s no better experience for me. And being at a pop-up and, and handing someone a burger and watching them bite into it and realize, damn, this ain’t just a burger.

This is, this is a, a, a true burger. And the reality is, is that the people that created this burger, these are classically trained chefs, right cord on blue and put all this time and effort into getting,  this type of education and culinary art and put it all into a burger, right? This is the thing that, of everything that he cooks in my, you know, chef Mike and Chef Nando, these guys are amazing cooks, but with Chef Mike in particular, he believes that the best version of him is a chef is in this burger.

I’ve taken this burger all around the country, and if there’s something better than he cooks it, we’re, we’re selling that next. There is no one in my company or outside of my company who has eaten this burger and not felt a certain way about this burger. It is impossible. To bite into a trail burger and not have to talk about what just happened.

You’re gonna want informa. You bite into a trail burger. Okay? What kind of beef is this? What is the sauce? Who came up with this? What’s on the onions? It’s different. It really, really is. It’s a game changer, and this is not just my personal opinion, this is the opinion of literally everyone that’s had this true burger.

We came up with this concept in the summer in Houston, where temperatures get up to over a hundred degrees. We’ve done a popup where the heat index was over a hundred degrees and people were miserable in the weather and it was miserable in how long they had to wait to get the burger and then they bite into it and five hours in outside in a hundred degree.

Makes it all worthwhile. The crazy thing now is because there’s such a phenomenon around it that the way it was told to me that this burgers is an urban legend. Hmm. Because everybody wants it and very few people can get it. And it’s almost impossible to find someone who’s actually had it. I have a friend, a lifelong friend of mine, he’s a truck driver and he delivers mainly to construction sites.

So he has to keep the orange helmet in the truck whenever he is making deliveries. Well, his helmet’s got a sticker on, it’s got a true burger sticker on the helmet. He recently dropped off a load in Detroit. He says he gets on site and he gets out the truck and he starts, you know, letting the guys un unpack everything.

And they see the hat and it’s like, you had a trail burger? He’s like, yeah, I live in Houston. I, I know bud. I had your burger. Is it real? Is it really as good as they say? Cause they looks good, bro. Like, don’t lie to me, man. Is it, is it really good? And he’s like,  Good man. It’s real. It’s legit. You know? And that just makes people more adamant in getting that burger.

You’re not gonna find one person to say a bad thing about this burger. Even the people that we beat in our competition would tell you that it’s a pretty good burger. Right? I’m telling you,  if our listeners, viewers, subscribers weren’t hungry before, we’re starving right now. We’re actually starving right now.

Hearing you talk about it just makes, you know, makes your mouth water visually. I saw Travis Scott bite into it on your social, right? Like on Instagram. Yes. I saw him bite into it. And the look of it, it’s funny you’re talking about it like this because,  the look of that burger looks so good visually, and I’m on, you know, I, I’m in a different country looking at this burger.

I’m looking at Travis Scott. Bite into it. And the, his reaction too, right, was like, whoa. Yeah, right. But caught him off guard. Cause he’s had How many burgers has Travis Scott eating in his life? Oh, Probably wakes up the average person. How many burgers do does the average person eat in their life? Right.

Probably dozens, easily, maybe, depending on where you are and where you grew up. Hundreds. Hundreds. Yeah. You know of burgers. Yeah. Right. And again, a burger will not typically stop you in your tracks like that. These burgers stop conversations, they stopped traffic. And here’s the thing, and we saw this in the competition, people typically make a burger that looks good on a plate.

That’s how food is presented, right? It has to be neat. It has to be laid out a certain way and re-presented so that it’s the most attractive version of this burger. Well, for us, The messier, the burger it is, the better it is because this isn’t a burger that you want to take a picture of. This is a burger you want to take a bite of.

And that’s a conscious effort. The way we assemble the burger, the way we wrap the burger in the in, in the paper and hand it to you, it’s literally a tight full, a little less than half, right? So that everything in the burger, when we take pictures of this burger, there isn’t one picture of Trill burger of a trill burger where you can’t see every single element of the burger.

That’s that’s subconscious. Mm-hmm. Right? Yep. And you look at this burger and you see that the sauce dripping out in the cheese melting. I took a picture the other day of the burger being put on the bun, and the meat was still sizzling, like the meat was still sizzling. Who gets burgers like that? I put a bun, I put the top bun on that, and somebody ate that burger in 45 seconds.

Most people have never had a burger that fresh. Yeah. Yeah. Most people’s burgers has been sitting on their a lamp for at least 10, 15 minutes, doc. Yeah. That’s the beauty of true burgers is that it’s not cooked till you order it and, and you get it as soon as it’s written. Soon as it’s done, you get that f*****g thing in your hand.

It’s hot. If I’ve had a lot of people burn them, burn the roof of their mouth eating a trail burger, cuz it literally came right off of the grill. But you cannot beat the experience of eating a trail burger. It is fine dining. Yeah. Because too much effort was put into the combination of the ingredients to create that desired effect that we want from people.

I can talk about this, I can do a whole show just talking about this burger. I know. Well, you know, damn it bun it, it, it sounds like a, it sounds like a destination burger. Like, I want to get on a plane and come to Houston, wherever the next popup is. Uh. To try the burger. It sounds like a, you know, a Michelin three star burger.

 a destination burger. That’s what I’ll call it.  from henceforth, I’ll take it. Yeah. And, you know, you talked about the popups, but I, I believe you opened your first bricks and mortar location. So what are your,  plans for Trill Burger? You talked about a 30 year plan. Where do you see it going? Well, the first thing to do is proof of concept, right?

Mm-hmm. So we get this brick and mortar open. We start service to the public. We figure out what the kinks in it. Obviously for us it’s gonna be, we have a corner location, but there’s only one entry point for drive-through. So managing traffic at a four-way stop, four-way intersection is gonna be a mad house.

It’s also right off of a, an interstate exit. So if the car traffic is anywhere near what the foot traffic is, this thing will extend into the interstate. Not to mention the exit ramp on the opposite side of the interstate. Upcoming traffic, offset traffic. There’s, people are gonna be fighting to get into this place from at least five different ways.

And so we’ve gotta figure out how to manage that. That’s our number one problem. Yeah. But in a, in, in an interesting way, that almost makes it, like you said, you know, scarcity, right?  you know, the concept of people fighting to get into the place, you know, not having access, making it difficult,  creates a little bit of a buzz as opposed to a big parking lot.

I, I don’t know. Just in my opinion, noi, when you talk about, you know, branding and marketing might be a good thing, I don’t know.  well, I mean, look, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s gonna happen, right? Yeah. Based on the location and the access points, it’s nothing that can be avoided. Mm-hmm. And again, if the foot, if the car traffic is anywhere near the foot traffic, we’ve got 40, 50 cars, we’re going to disrupt traffic in the city.

Like there’s a. There’s like a,  quick loop kind of a thing. Oil change, get your engine checked out, you know,  get your registration sticker kind of a thing right next door. I don’t even know how people are supposed to get into that thing, like, because this traffic will completely block that entrance.

So the idea of people having to cross from the opposite side of the street to try to pull in, it’s, we’re gonna be a headache for this neighborhood. I’ve had talks with the chief of police and the mayor of Houston, and they wanna make sure that they, you know, whatever it is that we need to make this go smooth because that’s who’s gonna get to bear the brunt of it.

If it doesn’t work for people is gonna be city hall. And everybody knows I have a relationship with the mayor, so I can’t use that as a way to disregard things. I have to use that as a way to solve. Right. Smart. You know, take the head of this city who has access to everything. We would need infrastructurally to maintain the flow of traffic on the street that’s actively having construction.

How about that too, Dave? The street we’re on is, is is under construction. Has the mayor had Trill Burger? Yes. Okay. Then they know, they know what’s going on there. Yes. Whatever we need, whatever we need to do to make it happen. We got you right? Yeah, we did. Our biggest popup to date was at City Hall. Oh wow.

Okay. So we got, we were given TRO Burger Day. I did it as a, you know, as a giveback to the city. We did our popup at City Hall.  I did a free concert spontaneously, just went up and started rapping on the stage. I mean, we made it a whole day event because I wanted to do something that would allow as much of the city to be a part of it.

So we did it on a Sunday. We did it on the grounds of City Hall. Our city hall has a beautiful lawn and a reflection pool in front of it. I allowed other local vendors to come because we knew we couldn’t serve everybody. We knew that the influx of people would be too much for us to serve everybody in the time allotted.

So we had other food vendors who could handle the overflow. People did great business that day. It was a really good thing, man. We did, you know, and that’s what this is designed to do. This is not just about me. I have to make sure that as much as we get from the city, that we give back as much as possible.

We made charitable donations already. You know, we’ve allowed other brands to gain off of the energy that we have, the momentum that we have, basically the eyes that we have on this brand. We allow other up and coming companies to get some of that, because it’s a if, if, if I win and you win, you know, if everybody wins, the city wins.

And that’s how I look at it. I see a lot of great vendors with a lot of great product, and they just need people to see it and try it to fall in love with it. So if people come there for a trail burger and they’re happy to get this young,  teenage girl’s lemonade or this guy’s t-shirt or that guy’s,  barbecue or her sandwiches, like ev, everybody wins.

Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s Trill Burger.  a couple wrap up questions. You know, you know, based on what you just told me over the last several minutes,  you’re opening a bottle of champagne one year from now, celebrating something you’ve accomplished, what would that be? A second door? See, I’m not in a, and I, and I know we’re gonna have more doors than that, but I’m not in a rush to open as many as possible.

Dave, we’ve turned down at least 10 different million dollar opportunities to sell franchise rights to this. But what kind of businessman would I be to sell franchise rights to a business that’s never opened? One door smells like a scam. Right. Yeah. And also, we’re in a place now where we don’t need funding from anybody, because I’ve had friends in the industry that have literally had their brands taken from them because they took money and then cost increased because they’re expanding the brand a little bit too quick.

Only way to deal with that is to take more money, and now you end up with a lesser, you, you don’t have the controlling interest in your brand anymore, and now you’re, you’re, you’re giving walking papers. We’re trying to hold this thing as close to chess as possible because we know what it means to people.

This is not just a burger company. It’s deeper than that. This is a continuation of the support people have given me through 30 years of music. You know, trusting me to not only give them a product that they’ll appreciate, but something that they can brag about to their contemporaries, right? To their cousin that lives in Atlanta, to their coworker that lives in Florida, to their college roommate that lives in New York, right?

Yeah. You got Jay-Z and all that. But we got bubi. Not only do we get music, we get the best  in America. Top that, you know, and I get that for people. And I wanna make sure that if I do present a product that they, that it’s something they can brag about, not just they, they love me and appreciate me, but because it’s actually that  Is that good?

I guarantee. Well, I, I, I’ve been looking forward to being the only Canadian to try it so far. So I’m gonna head there at some point and try it,  which would be fantastic. Okay. Here’s a, here’s, here’s a question that’s gonna make you think.  if you could have dinner with any three people in history, pastor present, who would they be and why?

Jesus Christ. Pimp Cka. Interesting. Okay. Or maybe had before one of the two. It’s the first time we’ve heard Lee Iacocca. Well, first time we’ve heard Pimp C too, but Jesus comes up quite a bit. You know, that dinner table? Dinner table. But first time we’ve had Coka. I like it. What a dinner table that would be, right?

Yeah. I, I read that book way before I even considered getting into business. Mm-hmm. And it’s like, all and, but there’s so many lessons in there that don’t nec they translate to life as well. Look to take the brand the way he, where he got it, and to get it to where he, he he took it. That’s how I feel with this company.

I feel like I got this company right at the perfect time. I was approached with this concept at the perfect time, and I had all the necessary skills to take this burger where I felt it could go. And we are achieving that. Over and over again. We have consciously put this burger in rooms where it should have been just an afterthought in the room, and it becomes the major talking point in the room.

We understand that this product, the cheeseburger, not the troll burger, but the idea of a cheeseburger, right? While it seems there’s a throwaway concept, the cheeseburger is the second most consumed product on the planet, so it’s very easy to present it, right? I’m not, I’m not saying, Hey guys, can I come by and cook a beef wellington, right?

So most people not only eat cheeseburgers, they make cheeseburgers, or they made a cheeseburger, and so they feel like a great steak. Maybe they can’t speak to whether or not your steak is better than the steak, you know, or your beer is better than all that type of stuff. But a cheeseburger, I, I feel like I got, I got enough experience to judge a cheeseburger.

I’ve eaten enough cheeseburgers to know what a good cheeseburger tastes like. You’ve never had a  burger like this. And as soon as they bite into it, It’s the balance of the textures, the balance of the flavors. And I’ll be very honest, there’s a slight little bit of underestimation that turns into a welcome surprise.

And that my friend is what makes the burger better than any other burger. Don’t you love that? I love it. I love the fact that, here’s the thing, people will show up to eat Bumpies Burger. J  just on, on the principle of Bumpies Got a burger. I love to support him. He’s always done. Good. I’ll go and try it, you know, and if it’s not good, hey man, you eat Bumpy Burger.

It was cool. You know, it’s a burger. You know, I’m happy to see him doing something new. I’m, you know, I’m trying to support him. Would I ate it again? Would I stand in line for two hours again? Probably not. But I can say I did it. No, that’s  You eat this burger, you’re going, you’re coming back. I’ve seen people stand in the first line, the second line, the third line, and that line gets longer and longer every time we present it.

And they’re never dissuaded. Because they know when they get that burger what it’s gonna taste like. And it’s hard to tell people. All you can do is show people when people say, man, you had this before, people in line. I see it. Oh yeah, I had it before. And you came back. How long was the first Wait?

Probably about two hours. How long you been here today?  at least an hour and a half. I can tell by the way it’s going. Cause they only got so many girls. Well, we probably won’t get it for another hour. And you think it’s worth it? I’m telling you it’s worth it. And if you don’t wanna stand here, trust me, somebody in the back will take your spot.

You know, it’s, and it’s amazing to have this product to present to people. I am blessed. Well, yeah, and I’m furious cuz I can’t have one. So I, I, I’m, I’m angry.  but I mean, I love you,  you know, breaking that down, explaining it, you know, as a true entrepreneur, you know. Fantastic, incredible breakdown.  final question,  again, thinking about your, you know, your place in hip hop music history, what will the legacy of Bernard Freeman, a k a Bun Be?

What will that be? What will you be remembered for? I just wanna be remembered as a good person, right? There could be so many different things that people can say about me that maybe won’t have the proper context for two generations, three generations. Hey, your grandfather was a legend in southern hip hop.

Hey, your grandfather had Grammy nominations. I don’t know if all of that stuff will still mean anything later, but just the idea that I was a good person. The idea of a good person versus a bad person as a concept yeah. Should still remain mm-hmm. 40, 50, a hundred years away from now. And if that’s what people can say about me, I lived a good life.

You know, if you break it down, take away all the accomplishments, the accolades, the money, all of this other stuff that I’ve accomplished, did I walk this world as a good person? Yeah. Because that’s, that’s really the only thing you can control. All of these other things, you don’t have so much control over it, but how you present yourself to the world and how you carry yourself in the world is all on you.

So I’ve had good times, I’ve had highs, I’ve had very extreme lows, right? But I try not to let that affect my character. And as an artist, I know that for me, an interaction with a fan is a dime a dozen. But for them it’s one in a million. You know, and I learned that from Jason watching Jason Bateman. I’ll tell this story before I go.

 Jason Bateman was in a movie called Extract directed by Mike Judge, and this was part of his comeback. Jason Bateman was a huge child actor and then left the scene and this was part of his resurgence. And Mike Judge is from Houston,  huge Houston hip hop fan. And I went to the premier of this movie at South by Southwest, and I asked a question after and he was looking at me weird the whole time, you know, when I asked the question.

And so I met with him after and he was like, you’re bumpy, right? I’m like, yeah. He was like, you asked a question and the thing, he was like, yeah. I said, I said, I wanna ask another question. I said, Jason was an hour and a half late to the movie, started super late because he arrived late. I said, what, what was that about?

He says, I’ll tell you. He. Says Jason was an asshole. Jason was a child star. He got very popular at a young age and was an asshole to a lot of people and basically talked himself out of cerebral opportunities and became persona non grata in in Hollywood. Arrested Development gave him a career resurgence, and with that resurgence came a new appreciation.

And so Jason Bateman literally will take every picture that he’s asked to take and will sign every autograph that he’s asked to sign because there’s a deeper appreciation of the opportunity being given to him. Again, that’s where I’m at with Tru Bergs. I’ve had success before. Now I wasn’t an asshole about it, right?

But in the same way I’ve been presented with another opportunity in this world to rebrand myself to people and show a different side of myself, and I’m taking full advantage of it. You know, my, my music career is, is solidified. There’s not much more I can really do to contribute to that, you know, at this point, it’s just about being appreciated for the body of work we’ve done.

Not that I’m still not making music. I still enjoy making music. I just did an album in December, triatic two, which we actually did in real time live streamed in 10 hours. So we let people watch the entire process, the music, the lyric writing, the recording, and we put it out 12 hours later. So we recorded an album and released it to the public in, in 24 hours.

That kind of thing makes me still excited about engaging in the music space. But this, it’s all about this burger right now. Yeah, I, I feel in the same way that I felt 30 years ago,  like hearing my first record being played back to me on a piece of vinyl that had been pressed up for us to make sure the levels were.

I have that same fire and passion about how far I can take this, this product to people. How many people I can put it in front of and who would appreciate it and want more of it. Yeah. It, it gives me new purpose. It gives me, you know, new passion. I wake up in the morning different, I want to know more about real estate.

I want to know more about food deals. I’ve just had a great call with Dr. Pepper today. Exciting things. People wanna be a part of this journey cuz we’re connecting with people in a real authentic way. And that’s not something you can really pay for authentically. Hey man, I’m just really excited about, you know, 30 years in a new path.

That’s why I say, you know, I’ve had, I’ve had a 30 year career in music that’s still going and I couldn’t see that far when I first started, right? I couldn’t see that far as a businessman, as a company, as a brand, as an intellectual property. But now with all that experience, I can see 30 years down the line with this burger, I can see putting this burger in strategic places, growing this slowly in where my brand resonates stronger and deeper and in, in middle small town America where my costs are lower as well.

Right. And I have less competition for a celebrity brand. Yeah. Everybody’s got celebrity restaurants in New York and la Nobody’s got something in Birmingham, you know? Yeah. That’s the kinda counter marketing that we’re looking at. We’re looking at con con cases, right? Make it so big in the small town that the big city’s like, why don’t we have now they’re gonna offer me concessions because my costs typically are gonna be higher in a major metropolitan city than it is in a, you know, in a smaller market.

So what do I do? I create a, I create energy where the big cities are now paying me, are at least giving me real estate and tax concessions to open up a door in their city or their state. Now we’re thinking different. Listen, bun,  you’re one of the most articulate guests we’ve ever had won an absolute honor to have you on the show today.

You’re a true legend. I thank you very much for spending time with us. I can’t thank you enough. No, man, Dave, I really enjoyed this conversation. Most of the conversations I have are the same. Yeah, I like the way this one went. I really enjoyed it. Thank you, brother. Appreciate your time so much, man. Thanks, Dave.