David Remnick: In these final days of the presidential campaign, Vice President Harris has been getting in front of voters as much as she possibly can. Not just on 60 Minutes and Fox News, she's talked to Howard Stern, she's been considering Joe Rogan's podcast, all shows that are heavily weighted toward male listeners. Given the polls showing shaky support among Black men, one guy she absolutely had to talk to was Lenard McKelvey, much better known as Charlamagne tha God.

Lenard McKelvey: Charlamagne tha God. You guys really are like the hip hop, early morning, and late-night talk show. I am blessed Black and highly favored. Happy to be here, man. Another day to serve our beautiful listeners. Absolutely.

Speaker 1: Absolutely.

Lenard McKelvey: Salute to everybody I saw in LA.

David Remnick: Charlamagne co-hosts the Breakfast Club, which is syndicated on iHeartRadio. He's interviewed political figures from Harris, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden to Lara Trump, who's the co-chair of the RNC. Breakfast Club recorded the interview with Kamala Harris as a live Town Hall conversation. I've got to admit it, I couldn't help expressing a little jealousy. I'm coming to you. My feelings are hurt. As I told you outside, Kamala Harris didn't want to talk to the New Yorker. We just did a huge profile of her by Evan Osnos. We've been trying like hell to cover her thoroughly and she's obviously got another strategy. She spoke to you and she spoke to Fox. She spoke to any number of people. What's in Kamala Harris's mind? What's her media strategy going down the stretch?

Lenard McKelvey: That's an interesting question because I don't know how much of this stuff is actually getting to her. Does she know that the New Yorker wanted to do?

David Remnick: Maybe not the New Yorker specifically, but I got to think, sure, she knows she's icing the New York Times, the Washington Post, that kind of thing.

Lenard McKelvey: I don't think she should be icing anybody. I think she should be talking to any and everyone.

David Remnick: I think she's making a mistake.

Lenard McKelvey: Yes, I think that when you're running for President of the United States of America, you have to reach as many people as possible. Especially somebody like her because the main thing that you hear about the Vice president nowadays, at least on my end, is that people still say they don't know her. Man, I believe that we live in this era where I do radio, right? I do the Breakfast Club every morning. You have to meet people where they are.

David Remnick: How do you find your audience?

Lenard McKelvey: By going everywhere. For us, it's radio in the morning, Breakfast Club. That's 8 million monthly listeners that we've built over 15 years but then we put out that radio show as a daily podcast. Then we also take that same content, put it out on YouTube. Then we take that same content and cut it up and put it out on social media. You really have to meet people where they are nowadays. You have to.

David Remnick: I hope my masters at Public Radio are listening to you because you're right. You've got it right.

Lenard McKelvey: You know what's interesting? The interview that we just did with the vice president, that was an audio Town Hall and I got to salute, Bob Pittman, who's the CEO of iHeartRadio. He was like, "We're an audio company." Me and Bob always talk about the power of radio so let's show people the power of radio. That interview was a live one-hour audio interview. It wasn't any television, it wasn't any social media, you had to come to various radio stations across the country to listen to that interview.

David Remnick: I want to get a sense of how you felt in the room with her?

Lenard McKelvey: One thing they've been saying, a lot of your press hits get criticized. Folks say you come off as very scripted. They say you like to stick to your talking points and some media says you have--

Kamala Harris: That would be called discipline.

Lenard McKelvey: Oh, okay.

Kamala Harris: But go on.

Lenard McKelvey: No, I was saying some people say you have an--

David Remnick: What was your feeling as you were having this conversation with Kamala Harris?

Lenard McKelvey: Always positive. I've had a relationship-

David Remnick: For a while.

Lenard McKelvey: -with the vice president since about 2018. I met her sister first, Maya. Salute to Maya. I love Maya. She's a great person. Maya used to work on Hillary Clinton's campaign. That's when I first met her and that's when you first started seeing Hillary on Breakfast Club. I didn't even know that her and Kamala were sisters till later. I don't know why it didn't dawn on me. I remember her walking in the studio with Kamala Harris when she was senator. I just was like, "Oh, that's--"

David Remnick: You didn't make the connection?

Lenard McKelvey: No, I was like, "Oh, you with Kamala now?" She was like, "That's my sister." I'm like, "Duh, Maya Harris, Kamala Harris. We did that interview back in 2018 when she was a senator. Interviewed her again in 2020 when she was running for president, interviewed her on my late-night talk show, Tha God's Honest Truth, back in 2022. I got a very good rapport with her.

David Remnick: You're sympathetic to her politically?

Lenard McKelvey: Sympathetic, that's a great word. No, I'm not sympathetic to politicians at all.

David Remnick: Never?

Lenard McKelvey: No, I don't think that we have that luxury as American citizens. I'm sympathetic to her as a human and I really enjoy her as a human and as a person, I'm sympathetic to that. I don't think that you could be sympathetic as a politician because when she sits down in front of me, I still have questions. I still see things that I don't like in my elected officials. I still see things in the administration that I didn't like that I have to question.

David Remnick: What are the main things that you are concerned about that you don't like?

Lenard McKelvey: The main thing that I've been concerned about, how can I keep more money in my pocket and how can we stay safe. When I talk to my listeners every day on the Breakfast Club, that is their main concern. I remember back in February, people were upset at me because I was doing an interview with Fox News Digital, and Joseph, who works at Fox News, he asked me a simple question. This was February, he said, "Do I think the border is going to be an issue come November?"

I said, "Hell yes." Because for the first time in my community, I had people coming to me complaining about what was going on at the border, whether it was activists in Chicago saying how the migrants were getting more resources than the poor and disenfranchised in the city, whether it was a parking attendant I know in the city who I see all the time, who literally came to me in tears. A grown man came to me in tears talking to me about these gangs that were infiltrating his neighborhood and raising hell.

David Remnick: Does that mean that Donald Trump has that issue right in your view?

Lenard McKelvey: No, I can't say all the way because there's a lot of sauce that he puts on it. There's a lot of misinformation that he throws out about the migrant issue, but it is a concern meeting of the American people.

David Remnick: What you're saying is they're not eating cats and dogs.

Lenard McKelvey: They're not eating cats and dogs in Ohio.

David Remnick: It's a matter of resources.

Lenard McKelvey: Yes, and I don't know about Venezuelan gangs taking over apartment complexes. I don't know anything about that. Bottom line is there are American citizens who complain about this situation who are-- and then they come to me complaining about this situation. For anybody to dismiss them, I think is just sad. I said this in February. I literally said everything that I'm saying to you. I'm just repeating what people have told me. I remember MSNBC did an article, and it was like, "Charlamagne tha God is pushing MAGA messaging." I'm like, "Damn, why is it MAGA messaging just because American citizens are concerned?"

David Remnick: Is it a fair question to ask you? Are you for Harris or Trump?

Lenard McKelvey: I'm definitely voting for Kamala Harris.

David Remnick: Tell me why.

Lenard McKelvey: I'm voting for Kamala Harris because I love her opportunity economy plan. Like I just said, the issues that I care about is keeping more money in my pocket. I've seen her over the last four years in the White House push for certain things to be done. This isn't new. You could look at things like the American Rescue Plan. I know businesses in North Carolina that have received millions of dollars because of things like the American Rescue Plan.

I'm a big mental health advocate. I saw her contribute to, not out of her own pocket, but $285 million to increase the amount of mental health professionals in schools. I'm big on maternal health as well because I've watched my wife have a couple of very tough pregnancies. I've seen her at the front lines of those things. Also, she just cares. At the end of the day, it feels good, I think, to have an elected official that I know actually cares.

David Remnick: What do you make of Donald Trump?

Lenard McKelvey: I don't think he cares. I don't think Donald Trump cares about anything except for Donald Trump. It baffles my mind that American people can listen to a man say things like he wants to be a dictator for a day. Can listen to a man say things like, "Let's terminate the Constitution to overthrow the result of an election." To listen to a man say he wants to jail his political opponents, he wants to jail journalists. Us, we'll be in jail.

David Remnick: Yes, for him.

Lenard McKelvey: You see what I mean?

David Remnick: Yes.

Lenard McKelvey: He says these things out of his mouth. We watched him lead an attempted coup with his country. Why would you want that back in the White House?

David Remnick: Half the country does.

Lenard McKelvey: That says a lot about our country. That's more of an indictment of the country than everything else.

David Remnick: What does it say? I think this is the thing. Maybe the more troubling question is the half the country is willing to pull the lever for Donald Trump.

Lenard McKelvey: Every time I talk to people, they talk about the economy, but I'm like, "Man, since World War II, the economy has always done better under a Democrat president." That's just a fact. It's always been Democrats. There's been 11 recessions in this country. 10 of them have been Republicans. I don't know how they've hijacked that narrative. I think the other thing that you just got to chalk it up to is just good old-fashioned racism.

I think in the case of Vice President Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton in 2016, sexism. I just really do like, it's still America at the end of the day. There are people in this country who are still just holding on to old ideologies. They don't want to see America be a great American melting pot where all of these different people from all of these different walks of life can live. They like that racist, sexist, bigoted rhetoric that Trump spews.

David Remnick: Why is it so hard for her to say that?

Lenard McKelvey: I think because for whatever reason, you hear these elected officials, even when you say, is America a racist country? Okay, you can't say America is a racist country, but you can say that there's systemic racism in America. I think that is a fair thing to say. I watched her on Fox News the other night and I loved how she handled Bret Baier. When Bret Baier tried to push her. Bret Baier was like, "Are you saying the American people are stupid?"

I can't remember how he worded it, but she was like, "No, I would never say that because I don't want to disparage the American people, but my opponent has no problem doing that." I understand that approach, but I think that it is perfectly fine to acknowledge that those things exist because guess what? As a Black man, as a Black woman, you feel that. As a woman, you feel that sexism. As a Jewish person, you think you don't feel all the antisemitism that's happening right here in our country. As a gay person, you think you don't feel the homophobia. You can speak to what people are feeling because you see it.

David Remnick: There was an amazing moment in the interview where someone comes along and brings up the F-word, fascism.

Kamala Harris: It's two very different visions for our nation. One mind that is about taking us forward and progress and investing in the American people, investing in their ambitions, dealing with their challenges, and the other, Donald Trump is about taking us backward.

Lenard McKelvey: The other is about fascism. Why can't we just say it?

Kamala Harris: Yes, we can say that.

David Remnick: Tell me about what transpired there and how you felt about it.

Lenard McKelvey: It was the same thing that we just said, right? She was saying what she's about, and then she was saying what he's about, and I was just like, "Yo, just say it like, he's a fascist." You just had General Mark Milley who just said he's a fascist to the core, a danger to the country. For me, it's like, the American people will never understand the threat that Donald Trump is if people aren't spelling it out. They didn't treat him like he's a threat to democracy. They kept saying it. He's a threat to democracy.

Threat to democracy, but Merrick Garland should have locked Trump up after the coup. I was literally watching something yesterday, and there was a person talking, and the person was like, "If Donald Trump really let an attempted coup of this country, why they didn't arrest him? They did. They did charge him, but there's so many people who don't even know because he's not treated like that. We know, we live in a society that knows how to demonize people when they want to. You can look at and I'm just going to use this as an example.

Not saying that it's not warranted that it's happening, but look at somebody like Diddy, like, front page of every newspaper, all over the news, you hear about every charge. You see it, you see it, you see it over and over. They don't villainize and demonize Trump in that way. Even though you have never seen Trump in handcuffs. You saw one Trump mugshot. They don't treat it like the media has continuously treated Donald Trump and his whole candidacy like it's normal, which is mind-boggling to me.

David Remnick: Not to be defensive, but jumping up and down, what do we have to do? How many different ways can you say it?

Lenard McKelvey: You know why it doesn't penetrate? Because Americans are spoiled and we don't think it can happen here because it's never happened here. If you talk to older people who are closer to that, who can remember things like, "Oh my God, he's doing a rally at Madison Square Garden.

David Remnick: Madison Square Garden.

Lenard McKelvey: That's what happened in the '30s with the Nazis. If you can talk to people who understand that, they get it. This generation doesn't. If you have a sense of history and you've read things like The Fall of the Third Reich, things like that, you can see the patterns that lead to somebody like Trump becoming a dictator. I just don't think people think dictatorship is possible in America, but it is because our democracy is very fragile.

[theme music]

David Remnick: Charlamagne tha God is co-host of the morning radio program The Breakfast Club. We'll continue in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

[theme music]

David Remnick: This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick and I'll continue my conversation with Charlamagne tha God, radio host, political pundit, hip hop maven, and the author of several books. His latest is called Get Honest or Die Lying. As co-host of The Breakfast Club on morning radio, Charlamagne, has talked to presidential candidates in the last three election cycles, including quite recently, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Charlamagne, no party should ever count on or assume that any group in America is going to vote for it 100%. Right now, the Democratic Party is freaked out because the polls are showing that Black men and Hispanic men are polling, at least for Harris, at lot lower numbers than they had with Joe Biden and Barack Obama. What's your sense of what's happening?

Lenard McKelvey: I just think it's bullshit.

David Remnick: You do?

Lenard McKelvey: I think it's overstated. I think that it was ridiculous.

David Remnick: That's what Raphael Warnock thinks. He says it's a phantom statistic.

Lenard McKelvey: There's nothing in light of history that shows us that that statistic is true. Even when President Obama last week said Black men don't want to vote for the vice president because she's a woman, I'm like, 85% of Black men voted for Hillary Clinton. 85%.

David Remnick: What did you think of Obama's speech?

Lenard McKelvey: I thought that--

David Remnick: You seemed to piss a lot of people off.

Lenard McKelvey: Yes, I didn't like it because like I said, I just think that pointing the finger at Black men when we are the second-largest voting Black for the Democrats all the time is ridiculous. We're looking at polls, clearly. I feel like all of that is overstated. Now, I could be totally wrong. November might come and I might be surprised. Like, shoot, wow, okay. I was totally off. I just thought that what he said was ridiculous. I do like the second part of his speech, though.

David Remnick: What's that?

Lenard McKelvey: He said a lot of people say, "Hey, voting isn't going to make a difference." The president said "Do you know what? You're right. I'm paraphrasing here, but he said, we're not going to eliminate poverty. We're not going to rid the world of racism, but you can vote for people who care. That can make things a little bit better. Honestly, I love that messaging. I think there's a level of empathy to what voters are feeling and a level of honesty in that messaging that I think Democrats should run with more often.

Not just Democrats, politicians, period. If you go back to the conversation I had with the vice president, she said that she can do it all. I said to her, well, President Obama said this, and I think this is more accurate messaging. She said, "No, I think that we should at least try to do it all. That's fine, too. President Obama, to me, I'm a person that like to be more realistic.

David Remnick: You told her that she had to speak more in just a much more real way to Black voters. What was she doing wrong? Did she hear you?

Lenard McKelvey: Not just Black voters America. I feel like the language of politics is dead. One of my favorite movies ever is Bulworth. Senator Bulworth actually listened to the people, and when he listened to the people and started speaking the language of the people, everything changed for him. He became one of the most beloved politicians in the country.

Kamala Harris: You say that the Democratic Party don't care about the African American community.

Senator Bulworth: Isn't that obvious? You got half of your kids out of work and the other half are in jail. Do you see any Democrat doing anything about it? Certainly not me. What are you going to do? Vote Republican? Come on. Come on. You're not going to vote Republican? Let's call a spade a spade.

Lenard McKelvey: I feel like we are in a time right now where that type of truth to power is required. I say the language of politics is dead and I give Donald Trump credit for this. He killed it.

David Remnick: Stay with that for a second. What's his language like and why does it appeal to so many people?

Lenard McKelvey: He is speaking directly to a group of people who never got spoken to the working class, white person, the poor, white person who believes their country is being taken over by others, by people who don't look like them and they don't like it. He tapped right into them and he riled them up.

David Remnick: It's not the humor theory of Trump. Let's face it, more populist and even arguably fascist part of Trump that's talking real.

Lenard McKelvey: It's the humor, too, because humor is part of the communication. The fact that he really don't give a f. His form of communication is just very easily digestible. I think one of the most--

David Remnick: You want to see more of that from Democrats?

Lenard McKelvey: I just want to see more honesty from Democrats. I always say-

David Remnick: This is difference.

Lenard McKelvey: -Republicans are more sincere about their lies than Democrats are about their truth. Democrats just have a messaging problem. Now, I do believe that's changing, and I believe this new generation of Democrats is changing it. People like the vice president, people like Governor Josh Shapiro, people like Governor Gretchen Whitmer, people like Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. I feel like they are changing the narrative of Democrats for this generation. Governor Wes Moore. I feel like they're actually changing it, but I feel like I still want to see the vice president just continue to--

David Remnick: You didn't mention Tim Walz. I'm interested to know. What do you think of him?

Lenard McKelvey: Man, you want to get me in trouble? Not really. Nobody can get me in trouble.

David Remnick: I think you're beyond trouble.

Lenard McKelvey: Nas had a line. Nas has a line? Oh, no, it was Jay Z. Jay Z has a line where he says, you had a spark when you started, but now you're just garbage. I'm not saying he's garbage, I think that a lot of the policies that he introduced in Minnesota are very, very, very good. But I think that they hired-- I think he got the job because of vibes. I don't know if those vibes were ready for the big stage like people thought that they were because you remember when he first got and I was a Governor Josh Shapiro guy.

When he first got the nomination, I was like, "Ah, man, I feel Shapiro got it whatever, whatever, but I'm riding with the VP, so that's her pick. It was like a high. A sugar high for a week, and then it just--

David Remnick: Maybe two. Yes.

Lenard McKelvey: I predicted, I said the debate with him and J.D. Vance isn't going to go well because J.D. Vance, he's had more practice. He was on every Sunday morning news show and he was getting his reps in. He was getting challenged with the tough questions. He might have been saying a lot of the dumb stuff. I still think he's one of the worst VP picks ever. Tim Walz is still a better VP pick than J.D. Vance. The best thing J.D. Vance has done over the last few weeks is shut up. Somebody must have gotten his ear and told him to shut up, but the optics from Tim Walz, it's still an old white male. I think this country does not want to see old white males right now at the forefront.

David Remnick: Who would have been a better pick?

Lenard McKelvey: Oh, Governor Josh Shapiro, for me.

David Remnick: Why do you think he didn't get it?

Lenard McKelvey: I don't know. I think that Governor Josh Shapiro is a number one guy, which I think is strange. I've been hearing that, right? I've been hearing-

David Remnick: What does that mean?

Lenard McKelvey: -that he's the person that should be running for president.

David Remnick: Maybe she felt that.

Lenard McKelvey: Well, that's what they say. That's what I've heard. It's interesting when folks say that because if you're the vice president, and if something happens to the president, shouldn't the person that's second in command be somebody who looks presidential? That mind state don't make any sense to me when the media says that. When they were like, "Oh, she wanted somebody to play their position," because that's the same thing they said about her. When she first got the nomination. There was people who said, "Oh, she's got greater ambitions beyond vice president.

David Remnick: You don't think it was about the Middle East or.

Lenard McKelvey: I don't think so because I feel like there's nothing you could do to erase people seeing over 50,000 innocent men, women, and children killed. You can't. There's nothing you can do to change that. You can't take that back. People can't unsee what they've seen. All folks, I hear people want-- they want a ceasefire. They want it to stop immediately. They want America to stop funding Israel's military. That's not going to happen. I don't care who's president, sadly.

I don't care if it was Trump, Kamala, Obama, Bush. There's never a time where America is not going to be in support of Israel. There's never a time where America's not going to-- not fund Israel's military. I don't think it would have made that a difference, honestly, if Shapiro was the VP pick.

David Remnick: I want to go back to communication. Kamala Harris has not only gone on with you, she's gone on with Call Her Daddy and maybe even going on with Joe Rogan. What's your opinion on Joe Rogan as what he does and who he is?

Lenard McKelvey: I like Rogan a lot, and I think that people don't listen to Rogan, that's why they have a misconception of him. Just like if you don't listen to me consistently, you might have a misconception of me. If you see clips here or there, you talking about people who've been-- I've been doing radio for 26 years. Joe Rogan's been doing this podcast for like 12, 13 years. Yes, we've said some stupid things. Yes, we've said some things that we probably wish we could take back, but that don't mean those clips make up the whole totality of who we are.

David Remnick: What has he got that you admire?

Lenard McKelvey: I think that Rogan is honest. I think that he's objective and I think he's just curious. I think sometimes, man, they get upset with us as personalities because we're curious. I don't have a problem sitting across from somebody who I may totally disagree with. I feel like we have created a platform on the Breakfast Club where all voices can be heard. You have conversations with people, if you don't like some of the things they say, you push back. If you don't know about any of the things that they're saying and they're just talking, let them talk.

David Remnick: Tucker Carlson, too. How do you feel about him as an interviewer and as a media presence?

Lenard McKelvey: I think Tucker Carlson, honestly, might be working with the Russians. What do you think?

David Remnick: That was quite the trip.

Lenard McKelvey: I think that there's something deeper there with Tucker Carlson. There's something slightly disingenuous about Tucker Carlson. Rogan's not there. I would love to see her sit with Rogan. I thought her going on Fox News was great. I think her going on Call Her Daddy was great. Like I said, meet people where they are. It's crazy to me that people got upset about her going to see Alex Cooper on Call Her Daddy. When Alex Cooper Call Her Daddy is the number one most listened to podcast of women. If you're on there talking about women's reproductive rights and you want to talk about Roe v. Wade being overturned and you want to tell women what's really at stake in this upcoming election, why wouldn't you go to her platform?

David Remnick: Watch as I'm grumpy about her not talking to the New Yorker, I have to agree with you.

Lenard McKelvey: She should talk to the New Yorker, though.

David Remnick: Yes, or everybody.

Lenard McKelvey: Yes.

David Remnick: What is your ambition? What mark do you want to make?

Lenard McKelvey: Malcolm X said the person who controls the media controls the minds of the masses. I just know I'm here to be of service. That's how I feel every day of my life. All I want to do is wake up every day, be a great father, be a great husband, and be of service. I do feel like one of my missions here is to help people. Black people, especially Black men, just really have a heavy focus on their mental health. I don't think that we get the opportunity to be vulnerable and to show emotion like the way that a lot of other people do. I'm just trying to--

David Remnick: Why is that?

Lenard McKelvey: I think for us, it's a survival tactic. We put on these masks and we got to put on this armor because we're the foundations of our family and we're the protectors and we're the providers. A lot of times, where I come from, if you show any type of weakness, you show any type of vulnerability, you making yourself a real target, right? There's people that'll really take advantage of that. I was just literally texting with somebody--

David Remnick: That's as true in the middle-class and upper-middle class as well?

Lenard McKelvey: Everybody. Man, there's nothing you can do about what's going on in your mind. There's no amount of money that can make you mentally healthier. It just can't. I know people that deal with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and they're filthy rich. I know people who are some of the smartest individuals on the planet who come from money, who still ended up having to deal with schizophrenia. You don't know this brain of ours, man, you got to protect it at all costs. All of us need to be protecting our peace, but I'm just a huge mental health advocate and I feel like one of those things I'm here to do is keep more people.

David Remnick: Because you went through what?

Lenard McKelvey: Oh man, a lot. A lot. From a kid, traumas that I'm still unpacking now. 8 years old, being molested and you don't realize how that makes you a people pleaser as you get older. In my case because the person that was doing it to me, when I made them stop doing it to me, they started calling me ugly and telling me I had a big nose. As a kid, I'm like, "Hey, I don't want her to call me ugly and say I got a big nose so I would allow her to do it." You don't realize how you get older, that makes you a people pleaser. You don't want to ever feel like you're letting anybody down, even if it's hurting you. Those are the type of things that I had to work out in therapy.

David Remnick: It's amazed me that you've been around for a while now, and you're on the air for long periods of time, and you're incredibly honest about yourself as well as the questions you ask of other people. You're putting a lot on the table day after day after day. What do you hold back? What's private when you're as exposed as all that?

Lenard McKelvey: Probably my family, like my wife-

David Remnick: That's a no-go zone?

Lenard McKelvey: -my daughters. It's not a no-go zone, it's just one of those things that you're working out in real-time. I'm always working out a lot of things in real-time but I got a 16-year-old, a 9-year-old, a 6-year-old, a 3-year-old, right? I question myself as a parent every day.

David Remnick: How so?

Lenard McKelvey: Sometimes you yell a little too loud. You might snap when you're not supposed to snap but see the difference between me and the way I was raised, I have no problem telling my kids I'm sorry. I apologize for yelling at you like that. I'm sorry for snapping at you like that. I talk to my kids like they're adults. I'm sorry, I had this on my mind or I saw this and it triggered me here because there's a lot of things that I see sometimes in my kids that I can look back to moments when I was a kid and how nobody corrected me in that situation or nobody was there for me. This is going to sound crazy, but when your cousins are bullying you. It was just like, I don't like to see that in my house. Y'all are family.

David Remnick: What was the household like when you were a kid?

Lenard McKelvey: My mother is a Jehovah Witness. She's a school teacher as well. She taught in the South Carolina school system for years. My dad was a construction worker, but he also had his own issues. He had his own mental health issues. He had his issues with substance abuse and so I watched my mom literally try to raise all of us because I got two brothers, two sisters, so she had to try to raise five kids but also dealing with my daddy's BS. I remember going to visit my dad in rehab when I was young, but they weren't telling me-

David Remnick: What it was.

Lenard McKelvey: -it was rehab. Just recently, my dad tells me stories about being in rehab in South Carolina with Marion Barry.

David Remnick: I remember that.

Lenard McKelvey: Yes. I was like, "Wow, really?" He said him and Marion Barry used to have conversations about politics and what was going on in the world. I was like, wow. The household was stable, but then there was chaos. Most of the chaos came from my pops. Then as I started to get older, being the middle child that my oldest sister was already out of the house and doing her own thing. Then I had three younger siblings.

I was the middle child who was figuring it out on his own. I think my dad always say my dad raised me out of fear and not love. He did love me, but he had a fear of me turning out the way he turned out. He didn't want me to make a lot of the mistakes that he made, and he didn't want me to make a lot of mistakes that he saw a lot of people around us make.

David Remnick: You've been through a lot. We don't have all the time to spell it all out, but you've been through a lot. When you look back at it, something had to enable you to get to where you are now. Something gave you the discipline, imagination, fortitude, or luck. What do you ascribe it to?

Lenard McKelvey: God and great adults around me because even though my dad-- I don't like the way he treated my mom, and I don't like the way our family ended up because they ended up getting a divorce, but he was always on me and always trying to educate me. He was always telling me the power of being educated. Same thing with my mom because she was an educator. They gave me a lot of books to read. I'm a kid that grew up off the BOOK IT! Program, man.

I had to read four books in a week to get a free pizza. I was reading everything from my mother's literature, from the Kingdom Hall, The Watchtowers and The Awakes. My dad gave me the autobiography of Malcolm X when I was young. I read so much Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary growing up. Also, hip hop because hip hop, they were such great storytellers. I was always attracted to the story day.

David Remnick: Who are your heroes in hip Hop? Who really informed you? Early stuff like Rakim, or is it just--

Lenard McKelvey: Rakim was great because that was the first hip hop song I ever heard. I got-

David Remnick: What's that?

Lenard McKelvey: -Paid in Full. It was 1988. I was 10 years old. I was in Wakefield, South Carolina. My cousin Tyler let me hear Paid in Full. That was very influential to me. I think as far as just who inspires me, it was definitely Wu-Tang Clan, Goodie Mob, Scarface, Outcasts, because those individuals were actually talking about things. They were talking about things that socially redeeming value. That's what I was always into Chuck D, anytime there was a message. If there was a message in the music, that's how you would get me to gravitate towards you.

David Remnick: How old are you now?

Lenard McKelvey: 46.

David Remnick: You're young-ish.

Lenard McKelvey: I am old to young people and young to old people.

David Remnick: Fair enough. I'm old to everybody.

[laughter]

David Remnick: It show in half half. What ambitions you got ahead? You've got, again, so much going on.

Lenard McKelvey: I'm not even joking when I say this. I'm really just here to be of service. That's literally what I want to do.

David Remnick: Does politics include service? Do you ever think about that?

Lenard McKelvey: I wonder where your influence is more. There's a part of me that wants to be in the political system just to see how hard it is to actually make change. You know what I mean?

David Remnick: Then run screaming.

Lenard McKelvey: Maybe because I think we'd give more elected officials more grace. You asked me something about sympathy earlier with elected officials. Maybe I would have that if I saw what they had to do on a daily basis and how hard it was for them to actually get things done, get things passed. Even now, when you look at whoever's going to be president, if you don't have the Supreme Court in your back pocket, you may not be able to get a lot of things done.

David Remnick: You'd have to wait a long time before that happen.

Lenard McKelvey: You know what I mean? Vice President Kamala Harris might become president, and the Supreme Court might veto everything that she does. There's a lot of uphill battles in politics. There's a part of me that wants to see what it's like to see if you could actually get things done.

David Remnick: In your job and in mine, it's not the work to admire. That's not the first priority, but is there anybody in politics that you have admired?

Lenard McKelvey: Oh, yes. I admire a lot of the people I just mentioned now because I know what they got to deal with. I admire Vice President Kamala Harris a lot because she is a woman. She is a woman of color who has accomplished so much, whether it's being attorney general, whether it's being a senator, whether it's being vice president. I just can imagine what she has to deal with on a daily basis. Just this week, the death threats that I've gotten just for interviewing-

David Remnick: What happened?

Lenard McKelvey: -the vice president.

David Remnick: What did you get?

Lenard McKelvey: Just exactly what I said. By the way, I got to salute the people around me, my security, they don't want to inform me of these things.

David Remnick: So you can sleep at night.

Lenard McKelvey: Yes, but I'm going to sleep at night regardless. It's just that they let me know some of the things that have been said, some of the calls that they've been receiving. Legitimate threats. Not just something that you'd be like, "Oh, okay, that's just somebody talking crazy on social media." That's just me having a conversation with her about the state of our society.

David Remnick: You imagine what she gets.

Lenard McKelvey: Imagine what she actually gets. On the flip side, President Trump, somebody shot at him. He can't sit here and act like that didn't happen. I'm not for political violence. I don't care who it's happening to. Somebody shot at him. There was another assassination attempt that they thwarted. It's just like, these are things that all of these people have to deal with and you really have to sit back and say these people either really love this country or they're really narcissists.

[laughter]

Lenard McKelvey: One of the two, right? It's got to be one of the two. Either they really love this country or they're really narcissistic because why would you want to do this?

David Remnick: I think you give them too much credit but okay.

Lenard McKelvey: What do you think?

David Remnick: They might be just homicidal maniacs, too.

Lenard McKelvey: Yes, man.

David Remnick: Yes. I am so glad you came by and I wish you all the luck in the world.

Lenard McKelvey: Thank you. I appreciate you. Thank you for having me.

David Remnick: Take care.

[theme music]

David Remnick: Charlamagne tha God. You can catch him co-hosting the Breakfast Club on iHeartRadio along with Jess Hilarious and DJ Envy.

 

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