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After reading Bow Wow‘s personal letter about his baby daughter with Joie Chavis, I was really inspired and decided to pick up the phone and talk to my good friend. I know his heart is in a good place and reading his pain and joy really moved me. I’ve decided to share a bit of our conversation with the GlobalGrind audience because Bow Wow is one special person.  I am sending my congratulations to Bow Wow and to Joie Chavis.

Me: Bow Wow. You’re making a lot of news.

Bow Wow: I’m trying not to…(laughs)

Me: People are so touched by your recent comments that I got people tweeting me telling me that they are following you now and they love the way you’ve stood up. What do you think about that?

BW: Wow! I’m so used to the media and everybody talking about the bad stuff or the stuff that is really not that important that shouldn’t be out there for fans to see rather than focus on the things that really matter. I just woke up and felt a certain way and felt like the world was on me…like it was a secret everybody was asking me and I just felt like ok, it’s either now or never. I wrote it from the heart so when everybody accepted it – you know when you retweeted it – I couldn’t believe it! I was like ‘Oh man this is crazy!’

Me: It’s because it’s heartfelt! They love heart cause everybody got it inside them whatever your struggle, they got that in them and when you came out and had courage like that, it made everybody feel good.

BW: Right. Even Tyrese, who’s a good friend of mine, called me and was like “man, you don’t even know what you just did.” He said “you just made my week because you’re the first young African-American, you know you’re the youngest one in the game right now with a kid, you have a chance to have every male your age and younger who has kids now…you can make them step up and become better men.”  So when he told me that, I was like “WOW.” I didn’t even think about that and I never had my father in my life…ever! So this just makes me want to step up and just go harder even more and give her everything my father never gave. 

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Me: Man I love that. That whole story just for me and the honesty…you know the experience that you said there was a moment where you thought the world was tough when you felt…Everything you feel like your happiness and your sadness, there ain’t nothing the media or people or even your closest friends could do to really make you happy.

That expression: expression or depression and the expression from you from the inside can free you up. I mean you’re hearing it from other people. Tell me how you feel about this. You spoke about your experience with thinking about suicide, what did it make you feel?

BW: The suicide thoughts just really came because I think earlier I was exposed to so much Uncle Russ to the point to where I kinda felt like it ruined my adulthood. When I was younger I wish I listened to everybody that was older telline me “don’t do that just yet you should wait” or “don’t go to the club yet you should really wait until your 21 or you got nothing to look forward to.” So that’s what happened, for me being around Jermaine and everybody so young I was around EVERYTHING. So by the time I got 18, I was really 26 (laughs) and I didn’t wanna go to the club no more. When I got 20, I was like “Ok now I’m ready to get married.” Now I feel like I’m 40! So the older I got, the I just noticed my friends…I was like “I can’t really hang with y’all” because they’d go to the club and I’ve done all that when I was 14. So it made me realize like “what am I here for? What am I living to do?” 
I just got so stressed out because I felt like I did everything too fast and it didn’t leave me with nothing to look forward to. Now that I have my daughter I don’t even have those thoughts no more. Because now it’s like I got something to live for, I got more movies to go get, more records to go make because I gotta go hard for her now. So now I do have a purpose. So it took for me to have a dark period and pray to God that it’s all gone and now it’s a whole other ballgame.  I’m just focused and it’s just me coming out being clean about my situation. It’s just a whole new outlook on life! It’s dope!

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Me: Lemme say something to you man.  At first you worked for celebrity and the toys. Even if you’re poor you learn this and even if you’re rich you learn the same thing, you here as a giver. You have a child now and it brought something out of you; the idea of giving and taking care of somebody else. All of the celebrity and all of the experiences you have are good but they teach you to look inside to be a better giver. 
Because now you realize you’re a celebrity, I’m gonna call on you n*igga …you ain’t gonna escape me because I love the shit out of you.  You’re a celebrity and it’s God’s gift to you and you can give it to others because people gonna follow you and be better fathers because of you. 
And on top of that you’re gonna find everytime you show up to help somebody’s charity or help somebody do some good work you’ll triple their effort. They could be working their ass off, but they don’t have the celebrity you have, so when you show up at their charity or show up to their mission to help other people, you become a catalyst and that’s what you can always look forward to. The whole thing to me is just inspiring and I like watching people involve. Some people never evolve!

BW: Right, yeah! And we’ve seen those! (laughs)

Me: I’ve seen motherf*ckers my age, man..they wanna know where to get a bag of dust.  And they got no teeth…I’ve seen a lot of sh*t. As I grew I learned I was lucky enough to find the path. Your child for you man is big – I mean the way people can smell it, they see that growth, they love to see people grow.
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BW: Yeah, you’re right cause I always keep it funky with you Uncle Russ, you know that. The whole thing that I was scared about was once everybody knows, what about the other people that I love, you know what I’m saying? Like how would they feel. I was so nervous about the people who’s around me before who I tried to keep it a secret too…I was like “man I wonder how they’re gonna react?” I wondered if they not going to want to be around me or be my friend no more or how’s it gonna be, but I guess honesty just takes you a long way. People really can respect the truth.

Me: I just wanted to thank you for that and I also want people to hear your voice because everything you said is pure inspiration. It’s true!

I wish you all the success in the world man.  You know can always call me for anything. I mean that from my heart, anything you need, if I got it and I’ll bet you when you come to my office and you sit down we’ll build and figure out ways to do some work together.

BW: Let’s do it!

Me: Love you n*gga

BW: Love you too, peace.