Transcript of Lil Jon Reveals Why He Leaked Usher’s “Yeah!” | Ep. 457 with Lil Jon

People think I'm an idiot. They just think all I do is scream.

Lil Jon, Grammy winner, the king of crunk, the producer behind Yeah, Goodies, and Turn Down for What. A billion streams on one song. And the musical director and performer of the Super Bowl halftime show in front of 300 million people.

Yeah is the biggest song in my entire career. The song almost didn't make the album, so I leaked the song and the song just ignited.

Can you hear in a song before everyone else hears it?

As soon as I said, turn down for what, I was like, oh, this is out of here. I turned 50 and I'm just like not liking where I'm at in life. And I felt when he left, I felt a part of me go.

But was that the hardest thing that you ever had to do?

The key to life what I've learned in my last 4 years. Number one,

it's an honor. Lil Jon.

Hey,

I grew up listening to you. We partied to all of your music. I mean, everyone's getting turned down or turned up. And then with your meditation—

Your dad is lame, bro. He does these lame dad things all the time. Dad jokes is terrible.

I got a book coming out. But let's talk about your book though. This book right here. This book.

Ah, did you say turned down? Getting everybody turned down. I'm sorry.

I know,

because I got— I gotta— no, I gotta fuck with you. Why?

Because I have a question later where I say you used to get people turned up and now you get them turned down with meditation. So I was thinking about the question later.

It's okay. It's It's okay. We're all friends.

I'm kind of lame though. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not funny.

No, you're good. You're good. I just gotta, I gotta, I gotta mess with you.

If I think back to when I was in my 20s, knowing that at one point Lil Jon was gonna call me lame, I think that's pretty damn cool.

I

think that's pretty damn cool.

But it's lame in a good way. Yeah. Like, yeah.

It's cool to be lame now.

It's actually cool to be lame.

Right? Yeah. So this book, by the way.

Yeah, no.

Yeah.

No, never mind.

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, that's so bad.

See, prime example right there.

Don't say that. Don't do this.

You're proving my point.

What?

Nothing. He's been waiting to do that probably.

I know, my whole life. 25 years. So Lil Jon, okay, this book, I cried, I laughed, I was entertained, but I have to know, on the COVID you're smiling, you're angry, you're happy. What are the emotions of you on this cover?

I think it's like, yeah!

Ah.

It's like, you getting classic Lil Jon in the body of Lil Jon now. Like, so I'm known for the, you know, ah expressions on a lot of my pictures and whatever. So we wanted to be classic Lil Jon, a nod to the old Lil Jon, but me, you know, me in a suit showing the maturity. of who I am now. So it's like showing that it's also, it's like it's 2 people in this one person and this is who I am right now. I would say happy.

I love that.

I wonder how many times before you get that.

Well, we actually, when we started the process, we plugged a picture of me in the AI.

Oh.

And AI, came up with a bunch of stuff and that kind of like, it was more like this, ah, like, you know, AI is weird sometimes. Yeah. But we liked the concept. And so I went in, did a photo shoot and did a bunch of different, you know, facial expressions, poses. And we thought this one actually kind of nodded back to what the AI came up with, but it made it even better. For me, when I do photo shoots though, I go in, I got a million poses, I nail it. But the AI gave us— that's why you should use AI anyway. Inspiration. You should use it as a starting point sometimes. You can use it as a starting point, a jump-off point, and then your human creativity expounds and goes and does the real deal. 'Cause that's basically what we did. But that was the starting point with what the AI did. But this is a better, version of what the concept was.

Are you against AI-created music now?

Some of it is cool. I think every— most people that are in music now are using AI to some extent, you know? And I think, I just think it's a great tool because you have access. The way I use it is like, I have access to the greatest musicians in the world. Say if I have a track, I have the beat, I have a melody, and I can't play the melody. I hum the melody into the AI and I'm like, I want this as a guitar. I'm like, da da da da da da da da da da da da da. And then it plays it as Spanish guitar style. Like, you know, and then sometimes you can take the AI to give you a starting point. Like, give me a bass line for this song. All right, it's cool, but it doesn't sound right. Take that bass line, go to my real bass guitar player and have him play it and expound on it and make it even better too. So like you just use it as a jumping point and ideas. It's just, it's a tool. It's a tool in the toolbox. That's how I look at it.

Lil Jon, before the money and fame, what did broke Lil Jon understand that everyone else missed?

Just have fun in life. It's just about having fun no matter how much money you got or how much money you don't have. Just have fun, live life, enjoy your friends, enjoy your family. That's what I was doing, like, you know.

In Atlanta.

In ATL.

ATL.

ATL, shouty.

Wow. You helped create a global cultural movement, crunk. When did you realize you weren't just making music, that you were creating this movement?

I don't know, man. So I grew up in the '80s as a teenager. I was a teenager in the '80s and I listened to a lot of punk bands. So what I started to see in the clubs was the music that we were creating would make people mosh pit, slam, and get wild. And it reminded me of the punk clubs in the '80s that I would go to. So I realized as we were doing every, you know, each album that the music started to reach people and it And when I would connect with people like on the road or whatever, I would see that it was a release, also like punk music. So I guess that's when I kind of started to realize that like, this is coming out of Atlanta, but it's going globally. And then also like I would tour Germany and, you know, go around the world, go to different countries and Like, in the late 2000s, I did Germany a lot. And my music got to Germany because the soldiers would play the music and then it would get into the local clubs or whatever, whatever. So even when the bases were gone, the music was strong.

And they were— those German kids loved crunk music. And that's also when I kind of saw like, wow, this is transcending just— Southwest Atlanta. It's come a long way from Atlanta to all the way over here to Germany and making these kids go crazy and react. And, you know, crunk was just like music. It was a music that helped, that was a release. It was like I said, like punk music. Like when in the '80s as a teenager in punk, you listen to these songs that are written, they're about youth expression, and what the youth are going through and anti-establishment and so on and so forth. And it was a release of all of the stress that was in their lives. They would use that music to release. And that's what mosh pitting is. It's a release of all of that energy and whatever. So when I noticed that it left Atlanta and then went all the way over around the world, Germany or whatever, that's when I was like, wow, this It's pretty crazy.

Where did you get that creative juice? Is that from your parents or any members in the family?

I don't know. My uncle used to be a DJ. He had records all in the house and reel-to-reel recorders and turntables. And then also when I grew up in the '70s, I was born in '72, Damn, I shouldn't have said that. I'm old.

You look like 1991.

Thank you. Your parents would have house parties and you got to do that little dance, boy. They play music. I guess it was just music always around in the Black household. Then like I said, my uncle had the records and all of that. Then I ended up starting in the band at 8 or 9 years old. I started playing drums. So it started from— everything started from the drums. And then as I got older, I was in the bands in high school and middle school. And then I think I got— oh, I know I got turned on to DJing by a friend of mine who DJ'd all the parties in the neighborhood and around the city. His name was Dwayne Searcy. We call him Emperor Cersei now. He was the first one I saw DJ. I was just amazed at how he could control the party, the energy of the party with certain music, certain songs. Like, he can make everybody get crazy, or he can play a slow song and everybody want to slow dance. And that just really intrigued me at how that was possible with song selection. And so I got him to teach me how to DJ.

Yeah, that's how I started in music was from the DJing. Well, from the drums to the DJing, those 2 things together.

Something I read in this book, you got a lot of great stories in the book. We'll go through a few of those.

Okay.

This one with Ciara.

Okay.

Where you basically told her Cookies is shit, basically. What exactly did you tell her and what happened?

Well, Ciara and Sean Garrett, Sean Garrett always, also wrote Yeah. They were writing this song that became Goodies. I did the track and I gave it to them and they were writing and they came back. They were like, we got it, we got it. And I remember hearing it and it was Cookies. I know you want the cookies. And that's why in the song she says, you're looking for the goodies, they're in the jar. 'Cause it was cookies in the cookie jar. And I just remember like, that shit whack. Like, this is lame as— this is terrible. So I told him that. And then also, rest in peace, Shakir Stewart, who was like the A&R for them, for Ciara at the time. He told him the same thing we both told him. And then they went back in the studio and all they did was change Cookies to Goodies. One word. It's really insane that You change one thing, it goes from shit to sugar.

Yeah.

You know, like immediately it went from a dud to a monster hit song that's still getting played to this day.

She might not even have been this famous.

Who knows? Yeah. You know,

who knows?

Dave Chappelle turned Yeah, What, and Okay into a phenomenon.

Yeah.

Did you initially think he was making fun of you or making you immortal?

I just— I knew immediately what it was going to do for me. My good friend Cypher Sounds, who was DJing on— he was on Hot 97 at the time and he DJ'd at the show. So we play music for the audience to keep the audience engaged, entertained in between things. He hit me and was like, yo, Dave Chappelle is doing this sketch on you, bro. This shit is hilarious. I was just shocked. I'm like, me? In the sense of like, why me? Like little old me? Like Dave Chappelle is the biggest comedian on the planet right now. What? Like me? I'm nobody. You know what I mean? To me, that's how I'm thinking. And I see it and I'm like, oh, this is hilarious because that's me. Like people that know me know like I can be the wild, yeah. And then I'll be like, yeah, so how you doing today? You know, what are we eating this evening? Yeah, it was an exaggeration of who I really am. And so I thought it was amazing and I knew being on that show what it could do for me. Because so many people watch that show every week.

It was the number one show on television. And I knew that's just gonna help to blow me up more.

I remember when he calls, he's like Lil Jon calling Lil Jon. I remember that skit, that was a part of it?

No, that came later.

That was later, okay.

So that was—

Was he calling you or was he calling himself?

He called me.

He really called you? Okay.

So here's what happened. The show had been on for a while. I think he had done at least 2 sketches of me. I was in New York and I wanted to go and just say thank you to him for doing that because it was really helping me to be more noticed and helping me to get more exposure, whatever, whatever. So I went to the set and he was like, yo, just hang out. We might throw you in a sketch. And so we do one sketch, never makes it on. Then he has this idea for that sketch. And so he just sits off camera and I got the phone and we're just ad-libbing back and forth. And that's another great memory that I've actually been able to sit here and riff back and forth with one of the greatest comedians of our time. So we riffing back and forth and he takes that chops it up and goes back and records his parts and chops it all together. That only happened because I just went to say thank you. That's a blessing. To be able to, like I said, to sit there and to riff back and forth with him and ad-lib and it actually turned into a memorable sketch is awesome.

It'd be like me DJing with you right now.

Right. That'll be great. You will remember forever.

Lil Jon, What was the first check that made you think my life just changed?

I got a million-dollar publishing check. I remember I still have it framed in my house. My attorney and good friend Doug Davis, that was my first million dollars. And it was a publishing advance. And I was just like, wow, like I can create a lifestyle, you know, I could create a future for myself now. off of this music thing for real. Like, this is, it's for real. Like, I can actually make money, you know? And I think I was also thinking I might be kind of good at this. You know, if I'm able to come from just a shy little boy in Atlanta playing the drums to learning how to DJ around Atlanta to now making music that can actually make me money and I can support my family, that's, It's amazing.

So did you take that? Did you buy something? Did you invest something? What did you do with your first million besides frame it?

I don't remember. I don't do— I do not remember what I did with it. I just know I framed that check. That's nice. He actually framed it for me and sent it to me. So I have it.

That's awesome.

So you've produced hits for other artists. Can you hear in a song before everyone else hears it?

If it's a hit or not?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, like sometimes we know, sometimes we don't know. Like prime example, Turn Down for What. Soon as I said, turn down for what? I was like, oh, this is outta here. This is outta here. I hadn't even finished the song. I just, the first track of me saying, turn down for what? I was like, this is outta here. But then you have a song like Too Short's Blow the Whistle. I was like, ah, it's all right. And it's still going.

Where did you get that intuition? Is that because of making observation in a club or how, you know, the sound like changed emotions or behavior of people?

It's just a feeling. As producers, we get a feeling. We can just feel it. And maybe we are tapped into our intuition and we can But sometimes we know a lot of times, but sometimes we miss. And it's crazy with music, everything is about timing when something is dropped or put out. Sometimes the timing is perfect, everything lines up and the song can just— and sometimes it's released at the wrong time and things don't line up and a song that you thought was a smash it goes unnoticed or it doesn't do well. But that's the nature of the game. You got to keep, like as a basketball player, you got to keep taking the shots even if you miss. Steph Curry missed a lot of 3-pointers. Mm-hm. He missed a lot of 2-pointers, but he made a whole lot more. You know what I'm saying? So that's how it is. We just keep going. But yeah, I think it's a certain kind of intuition of feeling. We learn to tap into that because music is also, you're not robotic when you make music. When you make music, it's your spirit is coming out. Your spirit is getting on.

That's why you listen to Aretha Franklin and you can feel it in your soul because that's her spirit. That's her energy. And so I think that's why we kind of know because we already are in tuned when we're making music. And Yeah, your spirit just lets you know, like, this is it.

The current environment and timing you mentioned, that probably has changed now when you drop music. It's not what it used to be. So you gotta— it has changed, right?

It's all about algorithms. Yeah. And TikToks. And it's amazing that, yeah, somebody makes the right TikTok with your song, how it can go from nothing to something. For example, I have a song with Pitbull called Damn, I Love Miami.

Mm-hmm.

It was released in 2020 on one of the last Bad Boys movie soundtrack. Somehow last year, this song started bubbling and bubbling in country line dance clubs, and people started to make TikToks of that dance. It started to get more and more and more popular till the song just started to explode on the internet. And then Pitt's team got behind the song and started pushing it to radio. And now we got a gold record.

That's crazy. From a TikTok dance?

From a song that was—

Yeah.

We originally recorded the song in 2016.

Oh, wow.

And it got on the soundtrack in 2020.

I remember that song.

And now it's 2026 and we got a gold song. And it's like at every show, you know, I'm on the tour with Pitbull right now, the I'm Back Tour. And at every show, that song is like going crazy and it's bringing a younger demographic to the shows as well because it's, of course, because of one line. Well, part of it, well, it's the dance, but one line is really locking people in and it's, when he says, I got 2 brunettes and a blonde one. So the white girls have taken this song, the college white girls, and they're the ones that like helped it to explode from the line dance community somewhere else. 'Cause when they took it, it was a million white girls, 2 brunettes and a blonde making that TikTok, you know? So—

Amazing. It's amazing how things work. Talk about timing and things that may not have happened is the story with Yeah and Freak-a-Leak.

Oh yeah.

And how obviously one of the biggest songs I imagine of your career, probably Usher's career, almost got sidelined.

Yeah, the biggest song of my career. Well, it's crazy because originally, to give some backstory to people out there, the track from Petey Pablo's song Freak-a-Leak, we recorded Yeah over that beat. The beat, what's crazier is that that beat was initially done in sessions for Mystikal. So Mystikal had the beat first. He passed on it. A friend of mine gave some beats to Sean Garrett, the writer of Yeah. And then the sessions for Mystikal were done for Jive Records. So Jive technically had, they was their beats because, not their beats, but they had kind of first right. to the beats. So Petey is signed to Jive Records. So Petey got the tracks. And, uh, shout out to this guy named C.O. He wrote on Freak-a-Leak too. So he wrote— actually, that's not even me saying, yeah, Lil Jon. That's C.O. on the song. Most people think it's me, but it's not, because they recorded the song. I didn't even— he demoed that for me to say.

Yeah.

Or just to— or to just be an example of what I would do. And they got Petey on it and he recorded it and they just mixed it. So here's what happened. Both of those guys have the tracks at the same time. We don't know anything about that Petey has the beat or records to the beat. So we go do Yeah. And what happens is it's Christmas, around Christmas time, L.A. Reid is in Miami. I'm giving you a simplified version. And he hears the instrumental playing on the radio and he calls me and Jermaine Dupri like, yo, what the fuck is going on? Why am I hearing the Usher song on the radio? I'm like, what are you talking about? Da, da, da, da. We make some calls, find out Petey Pablo puts out Freakily. So we have to go back in now And figure out what we're doing with Yeah. So I basically go in the studio and I say, all right, take all of the music off. I'm not gonna do a new beat. I don't think that Petey Pablo record's gonna blow up like that. This is freaking Usher. So I'm keeping the same drums, all of the same drums.

The drums are exactly the same. So I take all the music off and then my guy El Rock, keyboard player been playing with me forever. He plays the dun dun dun dun. We get to that and I'm like, ah, that's it. That's it. Like you talking about, I knew, I just knew right away. I said, that is it. So we do that and then I lay like doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. I lay that little part and we put the vocals over it. And what's actually crazy is that it's a better song on Ye's beat than it is on Freakadelic. So I think Ye would've done okay, but it's a monster.

Destiny, serendipity.

On the new beat. And then Petey Pablo's song turns out to be a hit too.

That blew up too, yeah.

Yeah, you know, blew his career up. He ended up doing Gettin' No Goodies with Ciara. So it's all, Kind of tied together. Together.

It all ties back to Lil Jon.

Yeah.

And the genius.

I mean, I don't, I don't look at myself as a genius. I just look at myself as one that just likes to make good music. I just try to do a good job and, and give people quality stuff. Like, I don't like to go in the studio and half-ass it. A lot of artists just go in and just whatever. And, but I want to give people the best work that I can give them so they can always come back to me and know that I'm going to give them something that's a hit. You know what I'm saying? So I always just try to do the best that I can be. If I can make it better, I'm going to make it better. I'm not going to just like be half-assed.

So, Jon, do you consider yourself as a perfectionist?

Definitely a perfectionist. 100%.

That's how you make great music.

Yeah, I guess so.

Could that also be at your detriment? I imagine most artists at your level that, like the genius artists, I'm using the word genius. I'm not, you're not calling yourself, but I'm calling you a genius among other genius artists.

Right.

I almost imagine that perfectionism could almost be also at their detriment.

For some people, yes, because they become obsessive. I know when to say that's enough on that beat. Like when we go in and make a track, you add You adding instruments, you adding this, you adding that, but I know when to say, I go off of my spiritual, my feeling again, and I'm like, this feels right, that's good. So I don't let it, I don't become obsessive, and I know how to walk away from something that if I don't feel it, I gotta walk away from it. Like, that's too much time on this. This maybe not it. Let's come back to this later. That's also what's interesting too. Sometimes you can create an idea, And then you can walk away from it, come back to it a couple months later, fresh, different perspective, and finish it the right way. You know, so I know how to walk away and take a break and take a pause or just let stuff go where some people are just, ah, trying to force it, force it, force it. No.

What kind of practice do you do at home to get that creative juice? Because you got to have a lot of inspiration to put together a song, right?

Yeah, I just Try to be not stressed.

Mm-hmm.

To be at peace, to be clear-minded, clear-headed. And it just, one thing a lot of people don't know how to do is to just, like when we go in the studio, we just kind of go with the flow and let, see what comes out, see what comes in, comes out. Just let everything flow, be in the moment. And that's how you can create properly. You can't be like this and like military. You got to just be chill. So you just open your mind and then the ideas will flow and the ideas will come to you.

There got to be a time where you're distracted and you want to finish this song and you're so frustrated to make it happen. What was that?

That's been a million songs. Sometimes you just say, you know what, let's go to the Let's go to strip club. Let's go to regular club. Let's go get something to eat. As entertainers, you sometimes, when you're trying to force it, you realize we gotta just take a break.

You gotta disconnect from it.

Yeah, let's just reset. Let's just reset.

You get inspiration from French fries?

I don't eat fries that much.

Tallow, what was it?

Beef tallow. Beef tallow.

Beef tallow.

Beef tallow fries are, One of my weaknesses.

You're on an amazing health kick. And one time I was listening to a meditation track on Spotify and somebody is like, hold on a second, is that Lil Jon? And I'm like, yeah, I'm meditating to Lil Jon.

Yeah,

yeah,

I do have a Yeah meditation too.

I've listened to all of your meditation.

Oh, okay.

How, how do you go from getting turned up twerking music that, you know, gets people to dance to now all of a sudden being in this meditative state?

Just maturing and growing and going through stuff in life. So I kind of found it, I would listen to rain sounds and binaural beats to sleep. And so that's one thing I would, it was funny one year, Me and my attorney, my friend Doug, would talk every year around my birthday. And I had just kind of looked at my Spotify. You know how it sends you that wrapped, your top things you listen to? And mine was all sleep music and binaural beats.

It wasn't Taylor Swift, right?

Yeah, it wasn't no regular music. It was just all of this stuff. And I told him that and I was like, I kind of want to get into doing some, you know, some of that type of stuff. And he was like, you know what? I want to introduce you to somebody. Now around that same time, I turned 50 and I'm just like not liking where I'm at in life and what's going on in my household. And so I decide I want to get a divorce. So I start going down that process. And so during that process, I'm like not in the best mindset. And then I don't like the way I'm feeling and thinking. And so I had a little copper— I had a copper pyramid on my deck and I would start it. I started to just give me some ginger tea every morning and go sit in that pyramid and meditate and just say affirmations. And it was because I didn't like the way I was thinking. And I know it all— every change starts when you change your mindset. So I would say positive things because I wanted to change how I was thinking.

And so to get back to when my attorney introduced me to this guy, he was in the meditation space. So we talked and we decided, let's do some meditation albums. And it was the perfect timing, like I said, because this is what I was doing every single day. And throughout the day I would say affirmations to myself and so on and so forth. So yeah, we went in the studio and we recorded, we started recording. And it was awesome too because my son, he engineered all of those sessions. So he got to see the change in his father and his father creating something that could help people, not just make them dance, but to now heal and help people to get over whatever.

You called him your lucky charm in the book. He was when he was around some of your music making.

Yeah, he was around Turn Down for What. He was around. He was on my song Be a Bia. He was in the studio when I did meditation albums. Like, so.

When I was a teenager, I was diagnosed with OCD. And what people don't understand about OCD is you live in fear. Everything is fearful, right? And so obviously she's been huge because she's like fearless, but all I am is just full of fear and it's very hard to— so I related to some of the things you said. Yeah. At the end of the book, um, that you had to deal with when you were talking about your son and, and what he was going through. But was that the hardest thing that you ever had to do was to write that ending? Because I think You wrote this book like a couple years ago, if I'm not mistaken.

It took 2 years. We were finishing it up in January. We had finished in January probably, or end of the year into January, like December probably. So yeah, we were— it wasn't hard because I feel like I understand that God chooses certain people to be vessels. And I look at myself as I'm already healing with the meditations like we were just talking about. That's something, it made me feel really good when people would send me DMs and say, hey, this helped me. I never meditated before. This helped me to learn to meditate. Or someone sent me, your meditation about grief helped me to deal with grief. So I already felt like I was using my talents for a higher purpose now. And so I look at it like if I share, I can maybe help someone that's having a hard time going through loss and be a guiding light or be some inspiration or whatever it may be to help someone else. So it really was just me, just, I wanted to capture exactly what I was going through and put it in the book. So people, so people could just really relate. Whoever needed it could relate, and just so I could just share.

So it wasn't hard, it was just me just really just being more vulnerable. The book in general, I've never been a person in my career that had shared my personal life much. So this is the first time anyone has been this into anything, and it's literally everything in my life. So I wanted to just continue to be vulnerable as well and just show people what it's really like to go through and what I'm going through and what I'm feeling and what I'm thinking. And if you can use it to help you, then so be it.

It's hard to be vulnerable. And do you think that's the meditation when you're enlightened that gives you a release, like it's okay?

100%. When you become more spiritually elevated, when you're vibrating at higher frequency, you understand it's okay to release, to give, to be open. It's okay to cry. We wanna laugh, but it's okay to cry too, to let the emotion out. We tend to bottle so much in when we need to let it out. So I probably cried more in the last 4 years than I cried my entire life because I've been more vulnerable in this period and just open to letting the emotions just flow. So definitely because I'm more enlightened and in a different place. And thank God I am because if it was 10 years ago and I was in my partying stages, I don't know how I would've been able to deal with this loss. But I think God was slowing me down. In the book, I say I thought God was slowing me down for my daughter, but now I realize also that he was slowing me down for her. And then he was giving me her to be ready to help me get through the loss of my son.

Mm-hmm.

'Cause she was there, that innocent, just child love to give me something to live for. And to just replenish my energy when I'm depleted and I'm depressed and I'm down. And you just look at your child and, or they wanna cuddle up with you when they go to sleep and that just warms you back up when you're going to a colder place.

Yeah, we just had Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. I'm not sure if you've heard of him, but we just had him on and we went to his Art of Living Institute and It's fascinating talking to somebody who they give you like the one-word answer and everything is like simple. It's like, I'm like, everything is complicated. Life is complicated. And he's like, really? Slow down. And simple was every answer. I'm like—

But that's how it's really profound if you think about that. When you, when we, we are trying to make everything bigger than it is and they just really break it. They strip all the layers away. and break it down because it is pretty simple. The key to life, what I've learned in my last 4 years, number one is acceptance. If you have acceptance, you have peace because if you accept, then you're not stressed, you're not worried, you're not bothered anything. And then you trust God. If you trust God, have faith in God, you're not going to worry either because you know everything is going to be okay. And if it's not the outcome that you wanted, you have to accept that that's the outcome that was supposed to happen. So I can be a guru too.

Guru Jon.

You have a very good guru energy. Lil Jon, finish this sentence. Everything changed for me when I realized blank.

I guess, I don't know. I just, I guess I went back to maybe childhood or I'm trying to think when I'd stop worrying about the outcome.

Hmm.

When you, I'm a master manifester. So like in the book I'm talking about Super Bowl and I'm like, at one point, My partner's like, are you ready for tomorrow? I was like, oh, I already rocked that. I'm packing up stuff, getting ready, thinking about 3 days from now when we're leaving. Because I've already in my mind said, some people get on stage and like, oh, the people. What if I mess up? What if I do this? What if I— I'm thinking when I rock this crowd, these blessings are going to come from that. Yeah. So that's how I think. I'm thinking what I'm gonna reap from it. And I've already manifested it before I even hit the stage. So I've already, the fear can't even exist in that space because I've already manifested that I rocked it and that I'm getting these things from it. So I'm already in the future.

I like that, master manifester. I'm curious about the Super Bowl. So it's wild to think that DJs used to be behind the scenes and at some point the DJs became the scene.

No, actually, at the beginning of hip-hop, the DJ was the forefront. The MC was secondary.

Okay. So then it flipped.

Then

it flipped at some point.

To the— yeah, in the mid-'80s.

Okay.

The MC became in front and the DJ became in the back. And then—

It flipped. 2000s, when the DJ became the thing. Like the DJ was like the rock star. And you're at, you're going to the Super Bowl, you're at the Super Bowl with Usher. Like what was that feeling like knowing that going, like go back through your whole history, thinking all the stuff that had to come to this few minutes in time.

I just felt grateful and blessed to be there. Yeah, it's the biggest song in my entire career, billion streams. I think it's probably almost 20 million. I know it was whatever, diamond years, a long time ago. So it's gotta be 15 to 20 million records sold. And I was also musical director too. So I helped put the show together. So all of that, I was just grateful and— That's crazy. I just felt blessed to be there. And when he asked me to also perform and said that I could do, you know, when they showed me the section for Turn Down for What, like I put it in the show and he let it stay in the show. And then when they showed me, they walked me through what it was gonna look like, I was like, this for me? Like really? Like this is gonna be crazy. So I just, it just, I just, I just have so much gratitude, you know, I'm just so thankful. And it's just a culmination of a long career, you know, doing so many things. And then the history of the song, how the song almost was something different and how I even leaked the song.

The song almost, we didn't even get into that. The song didn't, almost didn't make the album. Or it wasn't gonna be the single. The single was gonna be Burn.

Hmm.

But we thought Yeah was a smash. And I remember Jermaine saying, do what you do. I was known for leaking songs to DJs and helping them blow up. So I leaked the song and the song just ignited. And that changed the single. So it was no longer Burn. And it was Yeah.

Burn wouldn't have carried it, I don't think.

Yeah, it would've been a hit, but it wouldn't have done what Yeah did. And it was the timing of it as well, which made it work.

Plus that was the club banger.

So it became the song of the summer.

Yeah.

You know, but with everything that happened and then being able to get that to the Super Bowl, the biggest stage an artist can do, like, I don't, it's what's bigger than doing the NFL halftime show for the Super Bowl? And what's crazy is I had done halftime shows for other teams before, basketball, football, but this is just like, of course, the biggest of the biggest stages. 300 million people around the world watching.

Only happens once a year for just a few minutes.

Yeah, and they gave me this shining spot in the show as well as doing Yeah and musical director. I just felt just so blessed, and I'm still grateful. for that opportunity because everybody doesn't get to do that. Everybody doesn't. I mean, I didn't just perform, I performed 2 times in the show and I was the musical director. So it's just great. I was able to bring my son, he was there to see it. He saw the rehearsals, he was there at the Super Bowl, so he saw the show live. So it's always great to be able to share those experiences big moments in your life with your family members, your kids. So yeah, I'm just grateful. I'm just really grateful. That's another thing. In this point in my life, I'm grateful to just wake up. I'm grateful to be able to have the strength to get out of bed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like you were saying, the guru was talking about simple things. The simplest things I'm grateful for. I'm grateful for 10 fingers and 10 toes and 2 eyes and 2 ears. Things we take for granted, someone would die to have. So I'm filled with gratitude every single day. And that's one of the things that I have so much gratitude for, to be able to have that experience.

Lil Jon, what advice would you give to any family who's struggling when it comes to grief?

That's been something that people have been asking me lately. How did I get through it? How am I dealing with it? And I say, We have to keep living for the ones that are no longer here. They don't want us to give up on life. And we have to have gratitude for being here. God gave us a life, Allah gave us a life. We were chosen to be here and we can't throw that away. You can't take that for granted. You grieve, but then you have to keep living for those loved ones that you lost. that you've lost. They would want you to keep living. They would want you to keep enjoying life. And you have to think about that. And that's how I think about it. And then you keep their name alive. Like my son, you know, on the tour, I have a montage video of him talking to open up the show. He had my tattoo on his arm, which was crazy to me. He surprised me that one day. 'Cause he asked me for my autograph one day. I was like, why you want my autograph? And then later on he came back and he had a tattoo of my autograph.

And that just was to show gratitude to me and then to say, this is where I come from, and to show how much respect he had for me too. So when he passed, I found his signature on something, some college paperwork he had, and I got his tattoo on me. Yeah. So he's always with me. So they always going to be with you forever. His spirit comes to me sometimes, and I felt when he left, I felt a part of me go, but I still feel like he's still attached to me too. So we have to be in comfort knowing that they are forever with us in memories, in And whatever we got from them, pictures, photos, recordings, we have them there. And their spirit is always gonna be with us. They didn't die, they just went to another place. And they can always still come and visit you. You will feel their presence. So keep living and understand that they're forever with you.

Energy can't be created nor destroyed.

Only transferred.

What's one thing that people completely misunderstand about Lil Jon?

People think I'm an idiot. Some people think I'm dumb. Not dumb, but they just think I'm like, they just think all I do is scream basically. Like I'm the, ah.

You only screamed like 3 times during this whole hour.

That's dope. Yeah, they just think I'm always loud, obnoxious, crazy, and unruly. And that's not the case. And some people, like I said, think maybe I'm not that smart. And when they talk to me and I'm talking like this, they're like, whoa, like, who is this guy? This is not Lil Jon. But yeah, I mean, you can't scream and be rowdy all the time. And I'm 54 years old too, so I'm mature.

That's why you have this picture with this suit on.

Right.

By the way, You gotta get this book. Thank you. I Only Shout So You Can Hear Me.

So let's talk about the title.

Okay.

The title basically means there's more to me than yeah, what, and okay. Because that's what we were, we were kind of on a conference call and talking about some things and I'm like, you know, people think I'm, that's all I am. You know, that's basically that the character, the persona, the rowdy, crazy, They think that's all it is to me, basically piggybacking off of what we just talking about. So the title means like, yeah, I only shout so you can hear me basically means I only, this is how I get your attention. But when you get to see the real me, you see there, there's more to me than just that.

Yeah.

It's like a typecasted actor who like does the same role.

The same role.

And they're always known for that role, but it's not even really them.

Right.

And then they're just like, they just give up on acting because they're like, I don't wanna do—

I don't wanna do that anymore.

Matthew McConaughey was just talking. He is like, I didn't wanna do rom-coms. I hated it.

Right.

But he just got— I got typecasted in this.

Yeah, same thing.

So I love this. I Only Shout So You Can Hear Me. It's out now. Lil Jon, it's been amazing.

Thank you.

Never— 25 years ago, I'm in the club. I never would have thought that I'd be sitting in front of you. And by the way, not only are you extremely brilliant, but you're also a very chill person. You're a visionary. You're a visionary.

Yeah, you have so much humility and the visionary.

You're super humble.

I don't think you give yourself credit of how you can create things, but it's like you're a scientist. You are.

You're a genius. But you know, all the best artists never think— I think all the best artists are very humble and they don't think so much of themselves. But we, the public, can judge and say that you are a genius.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you for joining us today.

Oh, thank you. Thank you.