Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Go out to la.
[00:00:02] Comin from the city where no pity is. Shell. Shell. Somebody need to do a song for la. Straight up.
[00:00:13] Hello, my name is Elaine and I'll be your tour guide through South Central Los Angeles. Look, count my nose smoke up. I'm from California, where you from? So what? I'm from California. California. California. Cal. California. This is Los Angeles. Well, where?
[00:00:31] Word house. Yeah.
[00:00:34] The motherland.
[00:00:37] The motherland.
[00:00:41] South Africa.
[00:00:43] Ghana to be exact.
[00:00:46] Beautiful trip.
[00:00:49] Flight took off December. Well, we got to Ghana December 29th. Stayed until January 6th, the infamous January 6th.
[00:01:03] Had to fly into New York.
[00:01:06] Five hour flight there. Nine hour flight.
[00:01:12] Well, five hour flight to New York from New York to Ghana. Nine hours and some change on the way back. Eleven hours to New York, six hours and, and six hours and 19 minutes back to LAX.
[00:01:30] Nervous, didn't know what to expect.
[00:01:34] Semi. Almost thought that we had overpacked, but apparently we didn't.
[00:01:41] First thing that I noticed, humidity. Wow.
[00:01:47] I mean anything, any. I want to say anytime past four, maybe five o'clock out here in la where there's great weather, start to get a little chilly. Like right now, Currently right now it's windy like crazy.
[00:02:08] So it gets colder, I should say. You know, in LA cold is anything below 50 degrees, you know, and that's what it's been dropping to anywhere around there, give or take 55 or 45 maybe.
[00:02:24] So stepping off that plane and feeling that humidity, instantly it was like you was walking around in an oven that's on 350 degrees all day.
[00:02:41] And when it got a little late in the day, let's just say about, let's just say 8, 9 o'clock, mind you, we are nine hours ahead of the US or at least ahead of.
[00:02:53] Not the US nine hours ahead of Los Angeles. I apologize.
[00:02:59] So I feel that humidity, dog. It's just hot for no Damn reason.
[00:03:10] And eight, nine o'clock at night, it feels like 80 degrees.
[00:03:18] And you're going to sweat instantly if your glands don't work. I bet they will, I bet they will once you get there.
[00:03:29] And yeah, I'm going to give you the full breakdown of what you need to go in.
[00:03:37] I'm gonna tell you right now, I was emotional that whole entire trip. Like we did so much that trip. I'm not even sure. And I'm not going to even try to explain everything that we did and everything that I seen in one episode. I won't be able to do that. I promise you I won't.
[00:03:57] It was just too much. I just had to Break it down into certain things.
[00:04:02] But like I said in the beginning, I felt like my wife.
[00:04:08] And I think the statistics came out this week, or at least I seen them for this last week. I should say that women overpack.
[00:04:17] The reason why they overpacked her or something like that. And my wife is.
[00:04:23] She might be hall of Fame. My n. She might be hall of Fame. And overpacking for vacations.
[00:04:30] Just. Nigga, y'all know about the wheels at the bottom of your luggage. It's supposed to help you, you know, carry that pain. You know what I mean, Dog, I feel bad for those wheels.
[00:04:46] I feel bad for those tiny wheels at the bottom of that suitcase. Struggling, my nigga. I mean, they. I could. I could.
[00:04:54] I could understand that. That is a. That is a struggle I do not want to be a part of because she got all kind of. And then like, don't let it be a situation where we dare that. Don't get me wrong. We got enough luggage to pack for four. Four people in the family. That's a lot, you know? But when you are going to another country, you must overpack. I agree with that. Now, at first, I was against, like, just pack what you need. Nah, nah. Especially not going to Ghana. I'm going to tell you why. That humidity is the reason why you will always overpack.
[00:05:38] And I'm going to tell you right now, if y'all watch snowfall, y'all know Leon, when he took a trip to Africa and he came back on some different shit, niggas laughed about it, poke fun at it.
[00:05:54] I understand now. No, no, no, no, no. I'm telling you right now, I understand. Y'all can laugh at me all you want.
[00:06:02] That visit changed my life. And we did so much in that visit, so many different things. And the crazy part is, shout out to the natives told me that wasn't even scratching the surface. What we really wanted to present to you and show you. We just didn't have the time, and we also didn't have the crowd to do so.
[00:06:29] It was beautiful.
[00:06:31] And I made a statement and a couple of cats, that was a part of the trip. Agreed that the area that I stayed in, that me and Marcy stayed in. First of all, we stayed at a hotel called the Roots. Okay? And I can't. I should have got the. I should have got the name. I know the city. I know the city. I just don't know how to pronounce it, but it's Accro.
[00:07:04] That's the city that I was in in Ghana.
[00:07:07] The airport is not, wasn't too far, maybe about, maybe 10 minutes away from the airport, the NBC, you know what I'm saying? You had the French quarters. You had, you know, you, you had. Got it. You had to us, you know, in case you lose your passport and stuff like that.
[00:07:26] I'll get to what I noticed once I got off that plane, but I'm just going to tell you right now. I understood, Leon. And I'm going to tell you that you can't go out there. Don't go out there thinking you about to want to. Don't go out there on no cocky shit. Don't go out there on no flashy shit. Them niggas don't care.
[00:07:50] They don't care.
[00:07:52] And all you'll be doing is just showing your privilege.
[00:07:58] Niggas really work out there.
[00:08:01] The respect that I have and the point of view that I have on life now, it's crazy.
[00:08:11] You had kids.
[00:08:14] 4, 7, 8, 13, 15, 18, 13 out there going to work, going to the beach, casting a net out there to try to catch fish or whatever edible sea creature that they could eat.
[00:08:42] Like they was out there. No shoes. Oh, let me tell you, they feet wear. They selling shoes on the street, whether they real or fake.
[00:08:53] But they 90. 90% of that population is walking around in sandals, are slides, slide sandals, you know what I'm saying? And if they not like I said, 90%, the other 10% walking around barefoot.
[00:09:10] The women out there, they balancing on their head. My. I seen a lady balance a goddamn propane tank my.
[00:09:22] On top of her head. Now again, that was a little bit too heavy. So she had one hand on it, but it's on top of her head. And that motherfucker is there. I've seen them. They have big ass cardboard of sunglasses or iPhone cases and it's about.
[00:09:44] It's easily like maybe 4ft, 4ft around.
[00:09:51] And it has nothing but glasses or iPhone cases or some type of jewelry. Handmade. They had handmade jewelry, handmade paintings, dresses.
[00:10:08] They sold all kind of shit fell off the back of the truck. Stuff hustling, man. No, no, no. I don't even want to call it the hustle, bro. It's more of a survival.
[00:10:27] Our dollar, our dollar goes extremely far out there.
[00:10:35] 14 for one or 15 if you breaking big bills.
[00:10:43] So if you, if, if you got, if you got $100 bills instead of $20 bills, you getting 15 on the dollar.
[00:11:00] Let me tell you how much I spent. That strip club I spent. Now, this is just my money. I had some, I had A replenished moment. I had a call of duty, come help me moment at the strip club. I'm not going. I might have. I might have to put. Put this behind the paywall. What actually happened at the strip club.
[00:11:24] Yeah. Or I'm. Or I'm saved that for another platform. But just know it got. It got a little crazy at the strip club. But Anyway, I spent $88 of my personal money. Okay.
[00:11:38] Now you might be saying, okay, all right. You really sticking to that broke. You know what I'm saying? No, no, no, no, no. You got to understand. I spent $88.
[00:11:52] I spent. I spent close to 300. $1300 in. In.
[00:12:00] In CDs and Ghana CDs.
[00:12:05] And then I got again, I got a live shout out to her, you know who her is, and congratulations, I'm proud of you. And she threw that live off the backboard. I had three. I had $3 left and I was getting.
[00:12:24] I had $3 left and I was getting a lap dance.
[00:12:30] I was scared to put the last three because the lap dance was so fire. I didn't want it to end. And I knew I'm spending when cash. The average strip club spinner would do one dollar at a time. One, two, three. No, I'm doing three at a time. So it make it look like I'm balling, right? So my three to your one. But it's my. It's my one. You know, because then I got so many techniques when it comes to throwing the money. You know, I. My threes is my ones, right? And then I got this splash brother thing that I do. And then I got the.
[00:13:14] No, I want you to have this one personally one. And then I. It's too much. I have to tell you. I like on a different type of episode.
[00:13:23] Anyhow, almost thirteen hundred dollars, right?
[00:13:28] But I. But I probably dropped all together maybe about 2500 in there. And that was just for me, even though with the assist, that's with somebody else. But 2500, almost 3K. And that was be. That was. That was because I didn't get paid from one of my jobs fast enough.
[00:13:51] So when that check came, I was already in the air to Ghana. And it was a paper check, so I had to go either take a picture of it or take it to the bank. Personally, I wanted to spend a G ball a thousand in US on them. You know what I mean? So that's where I was at. Like, mentally, I was like, I'm doing.
[00:14:13] If y'all know how much that is. I just told y'all it's 15. 14 to 15 on a dollar. So one a thousand in the US that's. That's 14,000. Close to 15,000 in Ghana. I was going to do that by myself. So let me tell you, I got the player of the night because of how. Because of my antics.
[00:14:37] But I didn't throw the most money.
[00:14:39] No, no, no. I think I probably. I probably came in, like. I probably came in second place. Second or third. I know who came in first. The person who helped.
[00:14:53] So we helped somebody through Cal State, Ghana. But anyway, let me get back to it.
[00:14:59] There's no point in you going out there on some, you know, I got this and I got that. Now go out there and. And. And be yourself. You know, I'm not telling you to dumb it down, but I am telling you not to go out there expecting to, you know, keep, you know, keeping up with the Joneses. Now, it's real gutter out there. Now. I was trying to. What I was trying to explain earlier is that a lot of cats agreed that the area that we stayed in was the east side of wherever we at.
[00:15:29] It felt very. But I felt at home, though. It's more gutter. It's like. All right, let me explain what Ghana, the area that I was in, because it was. There was another. We went four hours north to another city. And I'm sorry that there's a lot of information that's missing because I didn't write all this stuff down, but it was a lot of stuff that happened. But this part felt like the east side. And that part of Ghana, it feels like Beverly Hills and the east side have a baby and then a meteor hit.
[00:16:06] And then you get the aftermath of that.
[00:16:09] That's what it looks like. It's like. It's a lot of. And shout out to my guy. I don't want to use certain names because I haven't asked for authorization with. I have to ask authorization with certain people or just. Yeah, you know what it is. But they said it's not considered unfinished projects, but it's more like they pay cash for everything. So there's a lot of abandoned houses out there.
[00:16:39] But these houses, some of them are.
[00:16:42] Some of them are regular, like, small 12 bedrooms.
[00:16:48] I found out that the average rent out there is 300. That's the cheapest. You get like a small room, a toilet, small kitchen or something like that. And that's 300. 300 is $20 or something like that in. In U.S. u.S. Money. I could double check on that. But I want to say, I want to say yeah, 300.
[00:17:18] Yeah, basically. Basically it's $20, 20, $21 or something like that.
[00:17:26] But you can go, you know, and you can get citizenship by just building your house out there. A lot of people build their house and you can buy the, you can buy the land. You buy the land and then you build your house from the ground up. That's how they do it in Ghana. So there's a lot of houses that are, that isn't done yet, but they look phenomenal. Like we're talking about anywhere from again, small houses to like mansions, right? Because you got to figure 60k us is a, you're a millionaire in Ghana. So I think I made over.
[00:18:12] I think I've made over a hundred.
[00:18:17] I think I'm over 108 this year with one job. So let's just say I'm somewhere around 115, maybe 120,000 this year.
[00:18:28] See what that is?
[00:18:30] 120,000.
[00:18:35] Oh, man.
[00:18:37] Yeah. That's wild.
[00:18:41] That's a wild number. I ain't even going to share that one.
[00:18:47] You will be living like a fruit king now. There's a lot of shit that needs to be done in Ghana. A lot. Well, I would move to Ghana. Just, let's just get that out the way My wife would move to Ghana.
[00:19:04] Will we bring the kids? We would want to. And the next Ghana trip, we want to bring the kids so they can see it. But I'm going to tell you right now, Ghana is not iPad friendly.
[00:19:16] Ghana is not toys friendly. Ghana is not wi fi friendly. Ghana is not.
[00:19:29] They have water tanks. Their water system is not like the US And Ghana will really teach you a lesson about that.
[00:19:39] You know when in our hotel we had to flip a switch or click a button and wait 10 minutes for the water to warm up and then we could take a shower. Now, me and Marcy, I would say seven times. Nah, I would say half the time now because at home, you know, it's give or take, but we do take a lot of showers together.
[00:20:04] And you know how women is when it comes to that hot water. They want that shit like on some.
[00:20:11] They want. They shower water on demon time.
[00:20:15] And you do get a little demon time action, but it's not for long.
[00:20:23] The pressure of the water was pretty solid. But they tell you not to drink the water. You cannot drink faucet water.
[00:20:30] The water has to be in a bottle or a can out there. That's a fact.
[00:20:36] 99% of the population is going to want A bottle of water.
[00:20:45] Malaria is a thing.
[00:20:49] That's what we. That's. You know, we had to take malaria pills. We had to get the yellow. Yellow fever shot. There was a lot of stuff that we had to get done and prepared for. Their. Their wall socket is different, you know what I mean?
[00:21:08] Again, man, go out there with an open mind and come back with a heavy heart. I'm gonna say that it's changing my life. It made me realize it was the perspective. Some of the stuff we already knew. But Ghana's going to highlight it, you know. And I encouraged for people to go all over Africa. Shoot, gotta stop. I got. It's one of the safest places. Less than 2. Less than 2% of the people out there of the population has a gun. We seen. I seen two altercations out there since I was there.
[00:21:49] Just two. The nightlife is crazy. And the street that we stayed off of had a Figueroa vibe to it. Shout out to 12 cow. He recently was a viewership of our famous street Figueroa. And if, you know, you know, ladies in the night, strawberries, you know, and that's where they were. They were on our street. I had. I did take a picture of the. The name of the street, but I, I don't. As a matter of fact, I go look for it. Like, why be lazy about this? You know what I'm saying? Like, let's not be lazy about this. But let's see, the street we stayed off of, Oxford and GY it says G.Y. audio Street O D D O I street in Oxford. And yeah, it was a lot of.
[00:22:47] A lot of street walkers that came out. They came out somewhere like around maybe 5 or 6pm and yeah, me and. Me and Marcy, like I said, we got there on the 29th and we left on the 6th. You can calculate all those hours up, however many hours that is, calculate that up. I guarantee you we slept maybe 24 hours throughout that whole thing. I'm talking about flights included, you know what I mean? We took a trip, four hours to another city where we went to go see two castles. Those two castles used to be forts.
[00:23:25] You know, there were certain armies that used to use it in Ghana was in one of them. We had. I've been inside a slavery door. Not a dorm, but a. Basically a slave. A slavery, not a dorm. Excuse me, I apologize for saying that because it's far from a goddamn dorm. Slavery, dungeon. Both men and women.
[00:23:53] This is the history where they tell you about the black woman being fantasized and raped. And when they did fight back or refuse, then they will be punished by holding cannon balls. Holding cannon balls in both hands and having to hold them out and carry them until their arms got weak. And if they didn't hold them up, it was either go to a torture room. Not. Not necessarily a torture room, but basically a small little, you know, I'm putting. Putting her in a hole, you know what I mean? Or death.
[00:24:39] You know, these women were raped and killed and sent off.
[00:24:46] Same thing with our black men. There we've been. We stood in. We stood in multiple slave. Slave dungeons.
[00:24:54] You understand? They talked about how.
[00:24:57] They talked about how their army turned on each other. Was the highest sellers when it came to the slave trade.
[00:25:07] We're the ones who created it because we were bamboozled by the infiltrators.
[00:25:15] Hey, look, I give y'all a gun, Help us fight this war. You help them fight the war, Then they turn on you.
[00:25:24] You're killing your own people. You selling your own people.
[00:25:28] But again, we'll talk about that. On Drake's platform.
[00:25:34] Learned a lot of history. Looked outside by the shore and saw young men casting nets out there and bringing fish back. They built their boats by hand.
[00:25:46] They used bamboo sticks as the. To support the foundation of homes, not just cinder blocks.
[00:25:59] They using bamboo sticks on the foundation and the front line.
[00:26:08] Crazy. I seen people sleeping in abandoned buildings. I seen kids playing tag in abandoned mansions.
[00:26:17] You have to wear mosquito spray because they out there, the humidity is warm or hot all the time. The reason why I say you have to overpack is because 5 minutes or 5 to 10 minutes within walking in that city because the driving is number one, craziest driving I've ever seen of all time. And I've been to Jamaica.
[00:26:45] Jamaica and Ghana gotta be the top two.
[00:26:49] Not the worst, but different.
[00:26:54] There's one set of stop traffic lights that I seen out there. There were a few stop signs and they honked a horn. Not for a sign of disrespect nor road rage. They hunked their horns for communication.
[00:27:17] Yes. There's no rules. You could drive on the opposite side of the road.
[00:27:23] You can cut people off.
[00:27:26] Now, I was told that they do have a speed limit, but you can actually pay the cops off or nine times out of 10, you're not going to get caught.
[00:27:37] They are some of the best bus drivers I've ever seen in my life.
[00:27:42] They was driving buses. The potholes that they have puts Compton and Hawthorne to shame.
[00:27:50] And Inglewood. Add them to, they got some Crazy potholes in Inglewood.
[00:27:55] Their potholes are manholes or sinkholes.
[00:28:02] The black hole, my nigga.
[00:28:05] And I'm talking about, like, it's like some of the street is deteriorated or earthquake hit it, or it's just. Somebody just scooped. Just scoop is the. The roads are bad. Like, if you was to take a Tesla out there, it'd just be to show not to drive.
[00:28:28] You wouldn't be able to make it, bro. Go get you a OJ Bronco truck and get you the tires that you need.
[00:28:38] Because my guy. And they got. They got anything from cars from the 60s and. Well, not the 60s, more like the. I would say more like the 70s and the 80s, you know, all dating all the way back then to 2023 or 2024 range rovers. This shit is mixed. You'll have an abandoned anything right here.
[00:29:02] An abandoned house right here. Then a mansion with a high fence. And they have the electrical. Barbed wire.
[00:29:12] Yep.
[00:29:14] The ones that shock you or the ones that set you on fire. Whatever. Whatever. They got those. And they have. I said. I said Ghana got houses or. And I was talking about, you know, obviously the mansions that they have. But they got mansions that. And they got walls that. That mean, like, mind your business. But they mansions is big enough to. For you to be like, I see what y'all got going on over there.
[00:29:39] That's what is. That's. That's what it is. I.
[00:29:43] I was able. I was. I was able to have dinner at the Chief of Ghana house beautiful Mojitos with the mint.
[00:29:54] That shit was fire.
[00:29:56] We was at. We was next, and we was in the. In his courtyard next to his pool house that was being built. Wasn't finished yet. The bathroom was done. I got to use the bathroom in there. Never got to see the inside of his house. His house was.
[00:30:17] He had a pool house, bro, that was being built, I seen. And he had four different rooms that were the size of stores, like Foot Lockers with a bathroom attached to a man and woman. And he had a pool that went from like 4ft to 8 that was getting. Then that was being built into the ground.
[00:30:39] We had to take a bus there. He had security at the gate. He said, in that area, that's where all the embassies are at.
[00:30:48] But then that was in a certain part that would probably be like the Beverly Hills or the.
[00:30:54] What other expensive, you know, Bel Air, whatever. You know, probably like the Bel Air of Ghana, where I was at. Or, you know, just a Bel Air Ish area. Then we go back to the east side, bro. There's some great food. Spicy. Be careful with it. And you have to take malaria pills every day. And seven, several days after you come back, your stomach is going to do something to your stomach. Your bowel movement is going to be off, is going to be solid. I'm just giving you. I'm running it. I'm running into y'all. I can't tell. I'm not. This is an episode where I'm telling you how Ghana is. I can't tell you how Ghana is. I bought. There's only been one visit, even though we was there for X amount of days.
[00:31:41] I don't believe in people coming to LA and saying. And after one visit saying, oh, this is how LA Cats is. No, you'll never know. You'll never know that. Our history has changed so much since the time I was born. And there was different versions of LA prior to me being born. So you'll never know what a city is fully if you wasn't born and raised there. But what I can tell you is just my personal experience and what will probably happen when you visit because it's something tourists go through.
[00:32:17] But, no, you're going to get there. They have a KFC. They do not have a McDonald's. Or at least they didn't have a McDonald's where we were at. We didn't see a McDonald's. Not one time. We've seen about two Burger Kings. We've seen a Subway, but they definitely have kfc. And just like Jamaica. And we didn't get to get the. We didn't get to eat the KFC in Jamaica. And they said, that is phenomenal. They got phenomenal, phenomenal barbecue chicken in Jamaica. But we didn't. We didn't really leave a resort like that outside of the excursions in Jamaica.
[00:32:54] In Ghana, we lived at that goddamn kfc.
[00:32:59] We lived at it. You know what I'm saying? And they had the jollof rice. And, you know, between the Nigerians, Jamaicans, and there's other African places, and there's a, you know, Jamaica that say they have the best chalaf rice.
[00:33:22] And I've had two out of all of the other, you know, cities or countries that say, hey, we got the best.
[00:33:32] I've had the Nigerian, I've had the Ghana. And I can say as of right now, Ghana winning. I know that might be sound like Regency bias, but I've had both. And I've had Nigerians more. You know what I mean? So they got y'all on that one. But it's spicy and it tells you like, yo, try to stay away from that. It's different.
[00:33:55] And yeah, the time difference, you know, the fucking football games and basketball games coming on at 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning.
[00:34:04] And me and Marcy, we parted. We the true outsiders. I don't think we gotta be top five in outsiders because we really did it, you know what I'm saying?
[00:34:15] We barely got sleep. Every time we went to bed we had to be up in the morning at a certain time for the bus to take us out. Because we did, we did some things. Like I said, the castles, strip club dinners, you know, we were, you know, going to get fitted for, you know, our formal clothing, you know what I mean?
[00:34:38] We met a queen and the queen gave us our Ghana names. My name is the day you was born is your first name.
[00:34:53] So I was born on a Thursday and Marcy was born on a Thursday. So the male version is Yao Y a W.
[00:35:03] The female version is Yao Ya Yah Y a A. So her name is Yah Yeshua. And I think hers stands for courageous.
[00:35:19] Courageous. Something. I know it's courageous and it ends like something else. My name is Yao.
[00:35:26] I. I'm a dope. I'm a doku. I'm a doku.
[00:35:32] Yao Amadoku. And it means graceful warrior. Right? And we got those names from a queen in the city that we were in. Four hours away.
[00:35:45] We stayed out there and we went to a motel or a hotel. The water did not work.
[00:35:54] After we, me and Marcy had to take a whole bath together.
[00:35:59] A whole bath. Literally after one using of the toilet, which was a number one. It could have been a number two. I forgot.
[00:36:13] And we were tired after being gone for almost the. The trip took four. It. We. It was a four hour ride to the city that we went to and we visited two castles. And then afterwards, which was later on at night, we ended up staying at this hotel that had. That ended up with no water now and then the bed and I kid you not, King Germ, you can ask.
[00:36:44] The bed was as firm as a.
[00:36:51] It was at. It was like. It was like if your air mattress deflated and it was like barely to the ground and you got on top of it. No, no, no, I take that back. It was just firm. It felt like the arm of a couch. The whole bed, the whole mattress. That's how it felt. I swear to God it was that firm.
[00:37:15] Me and my wife couldn't even get down because we was the room. The room. It just Felt it was icky. It was, it was wild. You know what I'm saying? It was. And it was a lagoon over there and we thought these kids were swimming across and listening to music and playing soccer. But it was actually, it's actually connected. But it's like, you know, they have to, you have to walk a bit.
[00:37:40] The swimming pool that was a part of the hotel was, it was dirty when we got there. A band and a dancer was there. And I'm saying, I'm giving you the description not to. I'm not, I'm not on him. I'm looking at this experience and I'm saying, wow, we really seeing something that emotionally is, is, is, is putting you through it. Like you, for that moment, just for that moment you got a taste of what it, what, what it didn't feel like to, to be privileged.
[00:38:25] No resources.
[00:38:30] You see, like the toilet wasn't flushing. The water was barely coming on. And it was dirty. My wife thought because prior to that day we walked in a river, you know what I'm saying? And that's where the, the you. That's where the slaves went the last walk.
[00:38:56] You know, they, whether, you know, when they got shipped off, lot of them died adorned, you know what I'm saying? The transit. A lot of them made it and then eventually died once they went through that door of no return.
[00:39:16] That was that we walked barefoot all the way to the river.
[00:39:24] And by the time we came back, like I said, by the time we got, we got to the hotel, like I said, this is the hotel that we, that we stayed at that was at the joint four hours away.
[00:39:38] Lack of no resources. Again. Remember their water is through tanks.
[00:39:46] But there was a issue with the, with the water, with the water system. So we didn't have water that night that we was leaving in the morning. But for that night and this was a situation where we was in a bus ride and the place was like 30 minutes away. So we already tired cats is like sleep on a bus, stuff like that. Like ac kind of broken or whatever. And again the potholes is so ridiculous. At one point you just feel like the bus is climbing something. Like it's climbing a wall or something like that. Like it's not. Or doing bear crawls because it's so many potholes.
[00:40:29] My God, again, let's get back to the traffic thing. They hunked their horns just to let you know, hey, I'm right here or hey, I'm about to come. That's how they communicate. No road rage though they might Be cussing each other out or something like that. But it's not cats getting chased down or anything. Again, I saw two altercations while I was there. And those altercations wasn't crazy. It was one where, um, he looked like he was a panhandler and he was going into a business, a food business. But the security there stopped them, grabbed him, started kicking them. And he like, hey, why you kicking me? Why you kicking me? Or whatever. And they started arguing in their language. And dude got fed up and. And Marcy pointed it out. She said one thing that I noticed that the community got involved. Like, they seen the security guard, him, this dude up. They. This. The community. People with local businesses or people that were just passing by intervene, spreaded them apart. And the security guard went to go get two sticks. You know what I'm saying? They look like some, you know, Harry Potter, but, like, they look like they was about 24 inches. Pause.
[00:41:56] But I don't know if they were wood or if they were, you know, steel. But he grabbed both of them and he was. I can imagine. He. He was about. He's about to do some shit. He's about. He's about to.
[00:42:10] Yeah, yeah, he's about to. Freddie him.
[00:42:16] He was definitely about to do that.
[00:42:19] And the community intervened. And I. I'm assuming he. The security guard felt like he was stopping a person from going in there and distracting or bothering the workers. And the guy was like, I just wanted to go in there to see if I could buy something. You know, the average person makes probably less than.
[00:42:46] I mean, their rent is, like I said, about $20. And. And the average rent is $200. I mean, the average rent is 2.
[00:42:56] You can get something decent for 3, but they don't make a lot. I think they is. Is very low on the average. What the average person makes a year out there, somewhere around 13 or 4. Somewhere around there.
[00:43:14] I don't want to misquote it, but it's something extremely low.
[00:43:20] They don't get Amazon up there. You have to have someone who has the Amazon account in the States and ship it to there. They don't get mail like we get. They have to go pick their mail up at one of the local post offices and packages will get stolen. They do have DHL and they have another shipping company as well, but they don't have a traditional postman that drops their mail off.
[00:43:54] You have to go pick it up again. There's so much more. We met some kids and we knew something by name. Shout out to Jordan Shout out to Samuel. I gave them collectively maybe like 120 CDs. That's a lot for a kid. A whole lot for a kid, you know what I mean? Like. But yeah, I think I know. I gave, I gave Samuel 100 and I gave Jordan 20.
[00:44:28] So together.
[00:44:35] How much is that?
[00:44:36] I gave him $8 in US and US money.
[00:44:44] So, you know, they was happy about that. And one very emotional scene because it felt like a movie. So again, the whole trip, these batch of kids just knew us. They knew the whole group we was with. They felt so comfortable. And they going to, they going to look and don't take this the wrong way. This is literally how it is.
[00:45:11] People from Ghana will tell you this. They're going to hassle you, you know what I'm saying? They're going to be introduce themselves. They're going to give you a compliment. And these are just the kids. So imagine the grownups. Everybody's hustling out there just like Jamaica. When I went to Jamaica, it was like Jamaica. It was like that. But not as aggressive as Ghana, you know what I'm saying? Every five steps, Cats is trying to have you buy something. And they not gonna stop at no. They're not gonna stop at a couple of no's. They're going to stop at the stern no. They're going to stop at the convincing no. They not just gonna stop. I'm just gonna tell you that now. You're not just gonna say no, thank you. And you think that's it. I promise you that's not it. Unless you come across the, the cool mellow one. And you could, you know, and a lot of them are the women, the women are more cool than the men. The men are super aggressive and they will sit up there. And in certain situations, if you give them, if you crack that window open, if you crack, if you give them an opportunity, they damn near my almost force a purchase.
[00:46:21] They gonna, they gonna. What's your name? And then start making some in your name.
[00:46:27] And you gonna feel like, damn dog. Like, he just made this with my name. I'm the only one, I'm the only called dolomite, you know what I'm saying?
[00:46:38] So this just made me a dolomite wristband from, from scratch. You know what I'm saying? And it's like, damn, dog. Because when you in the conditions and when you sleeping in the conditions, in a much more elite level. But you, you know, you, you like in, you just in a good situation, in a solid building, in a, in a Crazy environment right now. Like, just people sleeping in open houses. The windows. No window, no doors.
[00:47:14] They all. A lot of them have phones, iPhones, and stuff like that. A lot of them have social media. I didn't see no iPads out there, though. I didn't see no toys out there like that. I seen kids playing with sticks. I seen kids running around and getting chased, or if they were doing that, they was out there trying to get that, and they was trying to eat. They'll go up to you and do that. That I'm hungry gesture to their mouth.
[00:47:40] Are they trying to sell you some gum?
[00:47:44] Are they trying to sell you a phone case, like. And they will grab your hand? We was in kfc. The little kid ran into me, ran up to me and hugged me. Marcy tried to pull him off, say, yo, yo, you need to shield. He looked at her. He had to be somewhere around four.
[00:48:02] No, I would say about five or six. Around five or six. Little kid was like, hey, chill. Just my brother. Like, they. His charisma was on a thousand.
[00:48:13] And I don't. I never got his name, but I called him Madman.
[00:48:18] You know, that was. My nickname for him was Madman. But Jordan is. That's a real kid. And Samuel. That's his real name. They're real kids, but that's his real name. That's his government name. Samuel and Jordan. And I remember I gave this the last night. This is our last night. We was picking up last second presents and stuff like that, and the kids found me, and I was like, hey, look. So we did a huddle, and I'm mad I didn't get a picture of that. We huddled, and I said, hey, y'all take care of each other, all right?
[00:48:55] I was like. And I was like, samuel. I look right at Samuel, and I know. I look at Jordan. I looked at Jordan, I said, jordan, I trust you. I said, take care of your brothers, all right? I said, protect your brothers. And he was like, yeah. They was looking at me, and they was listening. It was like a coach talking to his team.
[00:49:14] And that's when I gave. I said, here, y'all take this. Y'all go get something to eat. Y'all go chill. Y'all go home. They was like, okay. I gave them 20, right?
[00:49:26] Finished getting up some stuff. Me and Marc start walking back. Samuel and another kid pull up. And I was like, look, I was about to give it to this waiter at this chocolate place called. And it's out here, too, so check out Dublin's. Dublin's Chocolate. I think If I'm not mistake, Dublin's chocolate. It's like chocolate and pistachios together.
[00:49:52] They also got this sandwich. Now, it might be just a Ghana thing. I'll check and see out here. But in Ghana, they made this turkey club sandwich or Tuscan turkey club sandwich. They dice up their pickles and tomatoes.
[00:50:10] I think that's phenomenal. And I'm not a mayo guy, but it comes with mayo. That shit was fire. I gave it a 10 out of 10.
[00:50:18] And they got a good ass lasagna. Good ass lasagna.
[00:50:24] Orange juice is freshly squeezed.
[00:50:26] But I. Samuel, I told Samuel, I was like, yo, you know, we leave at 6:00 in the morning. And I was like, so just come back, you know. I was like, just come back. And so I brought up the Dublin chocolate place. Because this waitress we had, every time we went there, we had. She would introduce us. Well, she would be our greeter, you know, and she just remembered us and sweet girl.
[00:50:57] And I wanted to give her the last hundred, but then Marcy was like, she made an executive OG called. That's why I married this woman. She said. I was like, well, I should give. Don't you. I said, I got this hundred left, you know, Want me to give it to.
[00:51:16] To the waitress? And she was like, no, I'm not giving it to. And she didn't say it like that, but it was like, no, I'm not giving it. I'd rather give it to the kids than give it to them. And I was like, I felt that. And so as we're walking back to our hotel, the Roots, Samuel and another kid show up. And I was like, hey. I was like, come here. I was like, listen, y'all take care of y ourselves, y'all be all right. And I was like, I'll give you some more money. But it had to be in the morning before we leave. So we'll get up and we leave at 6. He was like, all right, I'll be here at 6. I said, all right. We were like, where you gonna stay at? He was like, oh, no, don't worry. He was like, I'll stay. Sleep out here, dog. That almost broke my heart.
[00:52:00] Samuel looked us dead in the eyes and said, I will sleep outside right here and wait for you until 6:00.
[00:52:12] Man, on that trip, I probably teared up. And maybe one time, even I want to say, I would just say teared up. I blinked and the tear came down. I don't know if that's technically crying, but okay, that one Kind of got me, though, when he was like. He was like, man, I'll just sleep out here and wait to see. And the crazy part is the street that we stay off on, there were people sleeping outside.
[00:52:39] Not saying that they were like, homeless.
[00:52:42] Not saying that all of them were homeless, but it was like their home is really exposed. You know what I mean? And then there are kids and adults sleeping on mats outside on the main street.
[00:52:55] It's a wild thing. It's a wild thing.
[00:53:01] And I just like. She was like, just give it to him now.
[00:53:04] And so I gave him the hunted. Gave him the hunted.
[00:53:10] And that was it.
[00:53:13] It's so much more, man. It was so much more. And I'm pretty sure once I finish this episode, I'm gonna be like, dang, I forgot to tell him about that. But I think, you know, happy. And with Drake's platform in the near future, I'm pretty sure we're gonna do an episode together about it. And then maybe that'll be some more revealing or, you know, some other stuff that I could to break down. But I can't. Like, again, I can't tell you how Ghana is, but I'm gonna tell you what I seen. I'm gonna tell you what I ate, I'm gonna tell you how I felt. I'm gonna tell you basically what I experienced. And if you go over there on some. You wanna stunt, I promise you, it's not even worth it. It's not worth it, bro.
[00:54:02] They not like that. They work hard over there. It's a lot of pride over there. Again, it's one of the safest places in Africa altogether. There's no other place in Africa like Ghana. All the chaos is around it. Never in Ghana. Less than 2% of people own guns, owns firearms in Ghana.
[00:54:24] While I was there again, both of the. Oh, I didn't tell you about the second incident that. That it was. And it was actually on us because we got on the bus, we was going out, and again, the kids used that. That. There's a lot of kids that was. Was rocking with us. They would follow us back to the hotel and stuff like that. So, you know, our bus door is open. They come up to the bus door, but they never come in because they're not supposed to. And they actually was, you know, they was.
[00:54:55] They was.
[00:54:59] They was basically respecting the rules. Like, yo, you can't cross the line. You can't go into this store. Do not never go inside of a tourist bus or anything like that.
[00:55:18] It was a situation where somebody Was like allowed the kid on the bus and the security guard didn't catch it till the last second and yanked him off the bus. Got a little aggressive with the kid and stuff like that. And it seems like that's what the kids get on a. On a normal basis when they do cross the line like that. Because it didn't look like the kid was surprised or anything like that. But it kind of disturbed the group and caused some friction between us as the guests and the security.
[00:55:55] Although there was, you know, we patched it up and it was one of those things where this is a part of their culture, this is discipline. They know not to do that. But in this situation, this was a communication thing where we didn't let them know ahead of time because it was a spur of the moment thing that we're letting this kid on the bus and it was probably going to give him some money or just talk to him for a little bit. Just go back, you know, go back and forth and stuff like that. That wasn't communicated. And that was the situation that happened. That was the second situation. Outside of that, I never felt threatened, Marcy, a little bit. Only because it's normal to feel threaten you in somebody else's country right now, you know what I mean?
[00:56:36] Like, come on, man, you know somebody else's country. So you got fireworks going off. The traffic is like you playing double Dutch with the traffic, you know, is people are hounding you for to buy any and everything. You don't know what area you in. Loud music everywhere. I get it. But I just felt at home. It felt like the east side. It felt like a bikers club, you know, a motorcycle club. And letting out after a lounge or a club. And we didn't see no gang banging or nothing. Like they were fascinated with us. We either got stared at or we got talked to, you know. And maybe some of them, maybe some people out there did look at us like, you know, they think, you know, like a classism thing maybe. But outside of that, it's like they was looking at it. And again, you gotta understand, we coming from America, they just see America. They don't really care if it's LA or New York or Chicago, Miami. It's more so like dang. But I mean, they know they stuff. I wore Biggie small shirt and hey, I wonder if I wore my Biggie shirt on biggie day.
[00:57:58] I'm a check. Cause that'd be crazy that I actually brought that shirt and ended up wearing it on his day. I have to double check that Shout out to Tahoe and yesterday.
[00:58:12] Shout out to what you call it, too. Not yesterday. Well, no, Lone, I think Loon had brought it up about Biggie's day. I was listening to the podcast I gotta see. Cause I definitely wore my sky is the limit Biggie shirt.
[00:58:34] I gotta tell. I'll show y'all the picture, but that'd be crazy if I actually wore it on his day without even knowing thinking that it's his day.
[00:58:44] Like, I didn't do it on purpose, but when I did walk out with the Biggie shirt, he was like, hey, Biggie Smalls, hey. And then he read the back of my shirt. Sky is the limit. You know what I mean? So Marcy was getting taught how to dance by one of the security guards. That was dope.
[00:59:04] It was a lot, that flight. Hey, you have no choice but to believe in God because you over the water for 9. 9 to with me. 9 to 11. 9 hours there. 11 hours back across that water. And there's a little.
[00:59:26] We had to hover or. I don't know if we was hovering or if we was going around in circles. Like, the oldest story that I need. Otis, holla at your boy, bro. It's. Come on, bro. Let's stop playing it. Let's stop playing around at this point.
[00:59:41] But we had to wait in the air for about 15 minutes to land because it was too much traffic coming into jfk. Also, Tahoe, if you listening to this tell yesterday. To listen to this episode yesterday and.
[00:59:59] And Dodge, too. It throw trauma in there. Went to jfk, and guess what? On the way back, we hungry. We went to go get a pizza. You know, y'all is big on pizza and watch our say, oh, the best pizza is not sold in. In the airport. You got to go to such and such on such and such street. I know y'all gonna say that because the pizza I got that was, like, cooked like 70, 79. Some of the cheese wasn't even melted. Then I was like, marcy wanted a mushroom olive and cheddar. I said cheddar, not cheddar. Just cheese pizza. Cheese pizza with mushrooms and olives. Y'all niggas don't put olives on pizza out here. That's what she said. And she sounded like a true New Yorker. She was like, this is what she say.
[01:00:47] This is home. She was like, this is hometown. Or, oh, no. She was like, yeah, this is. She was like, we local. We local. Meaning she's saying, we don't do olives on. On pizza. He. She was like, that must be a LA thing. I said, all right, whatever. Okay?
[01:01:07] You know what I mean? But I got her mushroom and cheese pizza. I got me pepperoni.
[01:01:15] I think a pepperoni and sausage pause. I think if I give it about a six or seven.
[01:01:23] But flying in, we saw that. We. Hey, we saw that. Oh, I'm gonna get to. Why y'all is crazy and nasty. Because on the way to our gate, all right, you know, we're, you know, on our way to our gate, nigga, one of the sewage pipes busts, and it was on the escalator that y'all have in the middle of the owl. Yeah, you have the moving escalators, so could walk faster.
[01:01:56] You stand on the right side, pass through on the left side. Ass nigga. Why a sewage pipe burst? And Marcy said, look, she was like. And I'm thinking that is water from, like, the.
[01:02:10] If y'all had a storm or something like that before we got there, right? Because we saw the snow. So I'm thinking, like, it might be, like, a lot of water. And it was too much and was coming through the ceiling. No, that was a sewage burst, nigga. Shit came out of there. Oh, my God. Nigga, this section right there, like, within the next on both sides, nigga, like, you can smell this shit 10 yards down.
[01:02:37] Shit just coming out of the ceiling and hitting the escalator. They had to block it off, you know what I'm saying? They had the lady cleaning the window. It was. It was. It was shitty water on the windows, on the escalator windows.
[01:02:55] And, you know, I was wearing my LA hat in there. Tahoe. I was wearing my LA hat and my. My west coast sandals. I had to wear my Dodger hat. I had to. I had to represent, bro. Going in, coming from Ghana, I had to represent for the city, bro. I had to do that. No disrespect yesterday. I need you on the pot, bro.
[01:03:15] So, yeah, this is my Ghana experience.
[01:03:18] I would definitely move there. But like I said, some questions would be the driving the water, you know, basically just getting. You know, you sacrifice them a lot moving to another country. As a LA native, I won't be going to any football, basketball, baseball games. All my teams will be coming on at a time where I should be sleep.
[01:03:51] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 o'clock in the morning.
[01:03:56] You know what I'm saying? So the WI FI is not the best.
[01:04:03] Not the best. The service is not the best, depending on where you at.
[01:04:08] So you giving up a lot of resources, a lot of shit.
[01:04:13] You Gaining a lot of peace, though. A lot, lot. But you're gonna look and you gonna see some shit. You gonna see some conditions and you gonna is. And if you, if you're a person that could look at that and not feel anything, hey, all right, for sure. God bless you, bro. God bless you. I get it, everybody, I get it. Tough guy. We get it. But my. You're gonna look at that and you're gonna instantly want to help.
[01:04:43] But the government has spoken like they don't want handouts. They don't want a charity event. They don't want you to just drop off some money, then bounce and want you to build something that they can continue to make money off of.
[01:05:01] So the mission is set, bro. The mission is set.
[01:05:07] And there's a lot of shit that I seen in the little kids, that I seen in adults, that I seen in a culture in general.
[01:05:17] It changed my whole thought process.
[01:05:22] That was a good one. But again, let's just check out Drake's platform. When I'm on it and we're talking about the whole gotta experience. I might bring up some things that I probably forgot to mention on this or go into detail about stuff that I did talk about.
[01:05:37] Again, the strip club was a phenomenal experience, but it doesn't hold the candle to the whole trip. But it was it definitely paywall worthy information. Maybe I could. Maybe Tahoe will let me tell this story on or, or at least I can send him a message and he could play it on the. On the hardest off show.
[01:06:02] I don't know. I'll probably send him this clip and see if he does.
[01:06:06] But I would only play it. I'll eat Drake's or Tahoe's platform or both. You know what I mean? I'll probably spice it up a little bit. Pataho's podcast platform that I've yet to be on. I'm taking that personal. You know how LA is. But again, this was my Ghana experience brought in. The new year in Ghana was phenomenal. It definitely changed the way you view life.
[01:06:36] I think it would. I personally do. I know how Leon felt on snowfall now. You know what I mean? So, yeah, shout out to Ghana, man. Shout out. I can't wait to go back.
