Music

There probably aren’t many conversations going around mentioning Charlamagne Tha God with New York Jets star quarterback Aaron Rodgers in the same sentence. One is a four-time NFL MVP and the other steers a nationally syndicated morning radio show.

While Rodgers is slinging touchdown passes and Charlamagne crowns another “Donkey of the Day” on The Breakfast Club, listen to both in conversation and it’s apparent there’s a certain pursuit of truth and search for depth in common — as evidenced by Charlamagne Tha God’s new book, Get Honest or Die Lying.

Like Rodgers, the Breakfast Club co-host is also a newly-minted ayahuasca enthusiast. The media mogul revealed to Billboard that he attended a spiritual retreat fueled by the popular plant-based psychedelic in February.

Charlamagne had three revelations on the retreat and one that played a major role in forming his third and latest book was, “Stop lying to yourself and stop volunteering those lies to others.”

The polarizing radio host explains in his own words: “I just wanna be the most honest version of myself at all times. No performance, no pandering, no saying what I think people want to hear. Truly thinking about a situation and expressing my true feelings for it.”

Some might say that Charlamagne Tha God has made a career out of doing just that, while going places with brutally honest criticism and harsh questioning of subjects that no other radio hosts would be willing to touch.

Charlamagne — born Lenard McKelvey — has obviously come a long way since being a broke 32-year-old living in his childhood bedroom in rural Moncks Corner, South Carolina. Just 14 years later, the award-winning radio host and mental health advocate has built a media empire that includes his Black Effect Podcast Network, a publishing company and much more.

Charlamagne is at peace in conversation on the other side of a Zoom video call with Billboard, conducted from the cavernous office space inside his New Jersey mansion a week, after his Get Honest or Die Trying book was released.

“When you can learn to accept every single thing that has happened to you — and this was for my greater good — that’s a powerful place to me,” he offers.

While he hasn’t put a number on his years left on radio, Charlamagne is confident he’ll be even more successful a decade down the road — when he plans to take a step back to amplify voices and talented creatives of the next generation through his companies, while playing a more behind-the-scenes role himself.

“I always say, ‘If I played in the NBA, I’d lead the league in assists,’” he says. “My idols are people like Clarence Avant.” (The late music executive he’s referring to had a Rolodex of valuable contacts thicker than a vintage yellow phone book.)

Check out the rest of our interview below, which finds Charlamagne touching on his new book, going deep on the Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud, as well as on his future plans and much more.

What was the inspiration for your third book? Did you have a moment of clarity like, ‘This is where I’m going with this’?

Charlamagne Tha God: I’m writing everyday. Just my thoughts journaling, or ideas for different things. I write my “Donkey of the Day” every day. I’m always writing something. This book is a bunch of my thoughts that I’ve been writing over the years.

When I started to look at all of things I was writing, a lot of the themes I was writing to was literally just us being truly ourselves. I don’t feel like any of us are. I feel like all of us lie, because of this [holds up iPhone]. We get online and we perform. Everybody’s performing. Public figures, entertainers, everybody feels like they have an audience. When I had that revelation, it hit me again — paying homage to 50 Cent and one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all-time, Get Rich or Die Tryin’. It was like Get Honest or Die Lying.

The Why Small Talk Sucks part is because I feel like we’re having too many small conversations. We make small things big. We put everything on the same scale and weigh everything the same. So much so, that when big issues come across our desk, we don’t even know how to discuss them — if we talk about them at all. 

Yeah, going off that first part, you’ve always said you don’t want to become a caricature of yourself.

One hundred percent, man. That’s been a huge challenge of mine since day one. Not being a caricature of yourself. You see it in other people, and you don’t want it to be you. I just challenge myself every day to show up as Lenard McKelvey. Understanding that Charlamagne Tha God isn’t another person, it’s just the fly nickname that I created. At one point, I thought Charlamagne Tha God was a whole other person. I was on some Bruce Banner, Incredible Hulk s–t. Now it’s like, nah, that’s just a fly nickname I came up with — because one day I knew I’d be selling books, TV shows, and that would just look good on a marquee. 

At times, is that tough for you? Do higher-ups ever step in and tell you want to do?

I’ve never had higher-ups telling me what to do, ever. I don’t think people realize with The Breakfast Club, I’ve been doing it for 14 years and I’ve never had a higher-up tell me what I can and cannot say, ever. I respect iHeart so much, because when you look at some of the talent iHeart has had — iHeart was a company that had Rush Limbaugh. So if you had Rush Limbaugh, God bless the dead, how you gonna tell Charlamagne what to say?

But we all gotta deal with the consequences of our actions. I know I work for a corporate entity. So if I say something that somebody doesn’t like, there’s gonna be some consequences and repercussions. Thankfully, I haven’t had any truly serious ones. 

Take me back to when you’re 32, broke and living in your childhood bedroom with a daughter. What do you think changed everything for you? Was it a lifestyle change, or simply getting the call to come work in New York?

Nothing really changed, it was just the process. Even when I was back home living with my mom at 32, I believe [my daughter] was two and my now-wife was living with her parents. It’s so funny that you bring that up now, because my in-laws are here at my house in Jersey for the week. To think that 14 years ago we back living at home, and now 14 years later, God bless.

I don’t think anything really changed. I just think that was part of the process and the way things were supposed to go. And I had accepted it. When I was back home living in South Carolina, I was the type of person that could accept my circumstances. It’s like, “OK, this is where God want me to be right now. I’m gonna make the most of my situation.” I had a good plan. My good plan was like I’ma figure something out here and work at a radio station here and I’ll be fine. My good plan wasn’t God’s plan for me. 

I struggle with accepting that. I think back to the pandemic when I essentially lost my job after working my way up.

I never get bitter, because God has been too good to me, man. I’m 45, about to be 46 on June 29, and one thing God has consistently shown me is that everything is fine — because everything is fine. That’s another revelation. I had three revelations during my spiritual retreat. First night was, everything is fine because everything is fine. Second night is, stop lying to yourself and stop volunteering those lies to others. The third night was, every single thing that has happened in my life was for my greater good. Every single thing.

Was this like an Aaron Rodgers darkness retreat?

It actually was, 100 percent. If by darkness you mean ayahuasca, yes. Absolutely. 

Oh wow, I didn’t know that. When was this and how did you feel coming out of it?

It’s something I’m still processing to be honest with you. It was back in February. I’m just getting to the point where I’m comfortable talking about it now. It’s not necessarily something I’m gonna talk about [that much]. It’s more so something I probably will write about in the future. I’ll probably want to do the journey a little bit more. We call it, “keeping the gold to yourself.”

You mentioned your father a bit throughout the book — where is that relationship at today?

I love my dad. Me and my dad have always had a good relationship. It was just one of those things [where] I didn’t have the relationship I wanted to have, because I realized he was raising me out of fear and not love, and he was disciplining me for things that he never taught me.

Growing older, around 2018, after he read my second book, Shook One, he had some real revelations. My cousin had completed suicide. He used to do a lot of work with my father. Between reading with Shook One and my cousin completing suicide, my dad literally called me and was like, “Yo, I tried to kill myself 40-plus years ago. I been on 10 or 12 different medications for my mental health throughout my life, and I used to go see a psychiatrist two or three times a week.” They couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him, so they just started giving him a check. They call that a “crazy check” in South Carolina.

When he told me that, it allowed me to give him a lot of grace. He was a man just trying to figure things out, just like I’m a man still trying to figure things out. Growing up, as men, we don’t talk about our issues with our father as much as women do. When you hear daddy issues, you think women. There’s a lot of men out here dealing with daddy issues too. 

I do feel like hip-hop’s a young man’s game, in a way. We’re always looking at the early to mid 20s as the tastemakers, so I’m like, “I gotta keep up with the trends.“

Name your favorite hip-hop podcast.

The Joe Budden Podcast. I like The New York Times‘ Popcast with Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli. 

Joe’s over 40. Jon’s over 40. My point is: Hip-hop is a young man’s sport, depending on what it is that you’re doing in hip-hop. There’s so many different things to do in hip-hop. Hip-hop podcasting is part of hip-hop now. Executives, A&Rs, producers. Quincy Jones, he’s not a hip-hop producer per se, but he didn’t make Thriller until he was 50 years old. To me, Jay-Z made his best body of work when he was well over 40 with 4:44. Same thing with Kendrick [Lamar], I look at Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. To me, that and 4:44 are gonna go down as the two most important hip-hop albums of our time. He made that well into his 30s. Age truly in hip-hop is just a number. 

What happens is, people really don’t grow up. If you’re not afraid to grow up, if you’re not afraid to evolve and talk about what’s going on in your life right now, yeah, hip-hop’s gonna be a young man’s sport. Because you’re just an old motherf–ker pretending to be young. Be the old motherf–ker and create new lanes for yourself. Somebody like Joe [Budden] is the old man who still loves all things hip-hop culture. You got the Gillie and Wallo’s. You got the Cam and Ma$e’s. All of these brothers are over 40. Questlove’s podcast, he’s over 40. These guys are OGs in the game. There’s nobody I like listening to than people who truly have experience. 

The most beautiful thing I think about is hip-hop is not one-dimensional in any way, shape or form. Hip-hop is not allowing anyone to put themselves in a box. I’m a New York Times Best Seller. I got three books out. All my books pay homage to hip-hop. Why can’t hip-hop grow up? Why can’t hip-hop evolve? Why can’t I be a mental health advocate? Why can’t I bring politicians on my hip-hop morning show? Hip-hop has never been just talking about the streets. Hip-hop has also talked about things of socially-redeeming value. 

What were your takeaways from the Drake-Kendrick Lamar battle? I’m assuming you think Kendrick won, and where Drake went wrong?

Kendrick hands-down [won]. Drake went wrong a lot of different places. Kendrick came with “Like That” and Drake started off strong with “Push Ups.” What I liked about “Push Ups” was he came at all the guys. Okay, Kendrick threw some direct shots and laid the flag down. Drake was like, “All right, let’s go. It’s time for war.” Kendrick waited, and Drake came with the AI record, which I thought was clever. I didn’t have a problem with it in any way.

[Then] here comes Kendrick with “Euphoria,” which — at first I was saying “Family Matters” is my favorite record out of the whole thing, and I still like it a lot, but that “Euphoria” is something different. The more I listen to “Euphoria,” I’m like, “He really broke him down psychologically. Kendrick hit him with a back-to-back with the timestamp record. Drake hit him with “Family Matters.” That’s when Kendrick came with “Meet the Grahams.”

That was like an hour later too. I thought that was brilliant. He really smothered “Family Matters.”

He gave “Family Matters” no time to breathe. I think that’s where Drake first went wrong. You gave us “Push Ups” where you went at everybody. Kendrick is not the kind of opponent you can fight and fight four or five other people. You gotta be very targeted. He wasn’t targeted with “Family Matters.” Kendrick came right back, “I’m on your head. This is about you.”

Then, where I think Drake lost is because when “Not Like Us” hit — bop — but if I’m Drake, I’m like, “Now you in my world.” Drake should’ve came with a bop. Where was the diss bop? You don’t come back with “The Heart Part 6” after “Not Like Us.” No! You gotta be singing or something. Give us a Drake record that’s a diss that we could listen to in the club, that’s playing all over the radio. How you let Kendrick beat you to a diss bop? How you let Kendrick beat you to a No. 1 record? Breaking all the streaming records — he beat you at your own game. That’s where Drake went wrong. All Drake had to do instead of “The Heart Part 6” was come out with a diss bop.

I agree, “The Heart Part 6” was not it and he sounded defensive. I didn’t like the way he went about it. 

There was a stream I did with Akademiks right after the timestamp record [“6:16 in L.A.”] and I said, “Whatever Drake does, he can’t sound defensive.” And he didn’t sound defensive on “Family Matters,” but he definitely did on “The Heart Part 6.”

Do you think this was the best battle we’ve seen? Could we ever see it again?

Definitely best battle we’ve ever seen. You’ll see it again, but it’ll be a whole different generation. Just like the last battle we saw like this was Jay-Z and Nas. That’s 20-plus years ago. You have the best of the best. I always say it’s a Fantastic Four. It’s Drake, Cole, Future and Kendrick. That’s the Fantastic Four of the last 15 years, when you factor in everything. Sales, impact, influence, and everything.

So to see those two clash at the top in their prime, it was fantastic. You could say what you want, both of them put out some amazing music. None of them slacked a little bit. “The Heart Part 6” was definitely the weakest record out of all of them, but even on that, Drake’s rappin’ his a– off. This is by far the best hip-hop battle I’ve ever witnessed.

The only thing is I wish they didn’t go so low. Both of them took it there. I wish they didn’t “Me Too” each other. He’s calling one a pedophile and the other’s calling one a wife-beater. It’s like, “Alright y’all, what’s up?”

What did you think of J. Cole stepping to the side after dropping “7 Minute Drill?”

I had no problem with it. When I heard J. Cole on that stage, Nyla Symone was working the Dreamville Festival, and she texted me asking if I was watching — and I wasn’t at the time. I tuned in for Cole’s set, and five minutes before he did that, I caught it. When he said it, at first, the hip-hop fan in me was like, “Ahh man.” The man in me was like, “That man said he couldn’t sleep. It messed with his spirit.” That’s all I needed to hear. I ain’t have to hear nothing else. You ain’t have to explain nothing after you tell me it didn’t sit right with your spirit. I get it. My mental and emotional well-being is more important than any rap beef.

Cole knew he was lying [on “7 Minute Drill”]. Cole ain’t mean none of what he said about Kendrick, because it’s not true. All Kendrick is is his catalog. Literally, that’s the only reason Kendrick Lamar is Kendrick Lamar is music. That’s why we love Kendrick Lamar. We don’t know him personally. He ain’t did no interviews or Instagram Lives or post no memes — just straight music. You’re lying, Cole, if you say his catalog is wack. What are you, crazy?!

What did you think of Drake as the torchbearer of rap these last 10 years or so, carrying the genre into the streaming era? I think he’s carried himself well as far as his catalog and putting people on and representing hip-hop. Kendrick called him a colonizer and haters have come out of the woodwork to bring him down.

I am an OG Drake hater. I was hating on Drake when it wasn’t a popular thing to do. I love his raps but I hate when he sings. The truth to the matter is Drake is going to be fine. Drake is one of the greatest musical artists we’ve ever had. You can call him the colonizer or talk about him ghostwriting, but you still can’t take away what he’s accomplished. Truthfully, sometimes I wonder about the ghostwriter thing –because what if some of our other favorites would’ve done that back in the day. How much longer would their runs have been? I remember talking to Scarface one time, and Face was like, “I’m always looking for the best song.” That’s it. “I’m always looking for the best record” — so if somebody got a great record that makes sense, why shouldn’t rap artists use those records? 

I love that last verse on “Not Like Us” though. To be honest, I don’t know if I agree or disagree with Kendrick on that. I really haven’t taken the time to think about it. I just like the bars. I like what he’s spitting. I think there’s something about that that bothers Drake because he’s been prolific for so long, in his mind he might be thinking, “I’m just giving all of these artists that I like a look. I’m helping them.” And in turn, they’re helping each other. It’s not a formula we haven’t seen. Jay-Z used to do that all the time. You go back and hear Jay-Z on the Juvenile “Ha” record, you’d hear Jay-Z rapping over Houston screw music, you’d hear Jay-Z jumping on the “Go Crazy” remix with Jeezy, Jay-Z’s jumping on the “Hustlin” remix with Rick Ross. Jay did it the best before Drake. I think Cardi B does a good job of it too. 

Another chapter you talk about hip-hop’s growth, but it’s coming at what cost as it evolves. I don’t know if we’ll get to a place where the positive voices are amplified.

I think it’s there. It’s a balance. You got the Kendrick Lamars and Rapsodys. Even the people we deem street — I love Kodak Black. If you actually listen to Kodak Black, he’s talking about things with socially redeeming value. Kodak Black ain’t just mumble rap talking about drugs and killing. Kodak is actually telling you what’s going on out here in society in a real way. I used to say him and Kendrick were Yin and Yang. They like the same version of an artist from two different styles. That’s why I loved when Kendrick used Kodak to narrate Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. I thought it was amazing.

I think that we’re there now. Only thing I’m saying is, I want us to constantly recognize our power. Recognize the influence we have. Constantly recognize the massive platform that we have. Malcolm X said it the best, “The person who controls the media controls the minds and the masses.” With that kind of power comes great responsibility. When you see me out here talking mental health advocacy or whatever it is, just know it’s coming from a good place. That’s how I learned. On my desk right here, The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health. I’m constantly on that type of time. 

Do you regret any of the clips that go viral from old Breakfast Club interviews? Are there any you say and you’re like, “Ahh s–t.”

Nope. That was the version of myself that I was in that moment. I feel like every version of myself served a purpose. I wouldn’t be here sitting here with you as this version of myself if I didn’t go through that. Plus, if I said I regret it –then what happens? Does that mean I gotta give all the money back?

I think you live and you learn. I like it. I want people to look at Breakfast Club over the last 14 years and when the documentary comes out, whenever that will be in the next couple years, I want people to see the documentary and be like, “Man, they all grew up. Oh my God! They grew up in real ways.” Because you know what that does? It inspires people. It lets them know growth is possible too. Remember when Jay-Z said, “Why would I go back when I’m doing better than before? If you want my old stuff, go buy my old albums.” If you want the old stuff, there’s plenty of the old content online to look up. Right now, I’m about to be 46 and I’m liking where I’m at in life. 

Do you find it surprising your voice has registered so strongly in the politics realm?

Do I find it surprising? I can’t say it’s surprising [to] me. I can just simply say that you never know what journey life is gonna take you on and why. For me, If you go and look at my whole history as a radio personality. I’m talking about from South Carolina to being on a nationally-syndicated morning show like The Breakfast Club, I’ve always spoke to politicians. Whether it was local politicians in South Carolina, politicians in Philadelphia, I always spoke to them. Even on The Breakfast Club, this isn’t new. We’ve been talking to politicians since 2014. Bakari Sellers was one of the first people to come on when he was running in South Carolina. Him coming on opened the lane for so many democrats to come on. We were coming out of the Obama years. 

We’ve grown to be such a prominent platform that a lot of people who were smart — the Bernie Sanderses, Hilary Clintons — they had people on their campaigns telling them to go on The Breakfast Club. Around that time, that’s when the Angela Ryes starting coming on. Another thing that happened is politics became pop culture, because of Obama. Politics became pop culture in such a real way with social media that the intersectionality was bound to happen.

What does the media mogul Charlamagne Tha God pivot into and look like in 10 years?

I’ve learned that my good plan isn’t always God’s plan for me. I do know in 10 years that I’m going to be even more successful than I am now. I’m going to be in more of a position to serve in large ways. I love when I see things like Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife and all the money she’s donating to these great causes. I love that level of philanthropy. In order to get to that level, you’ve really got to continue to grow your empire. I’m in a really good space to do that, and help other people tell stories that actually matter.