If you ask Charlamagne Tha God how things are going, there's a good chance he'll reply, "I'm blessed, black and highly favored."
The 40-year-old media personality — most commonly known as co-host of New York radio station Power 105.1's nationally syndicated morning show The Breakfast Club — has reason to be happy. After moving to New York to work on Wendy Williams' radio show in 2006, the South Carolina hip-hop fanatic translated his skills from the microphone to both the television screen and world of publishing.
In October, he released his second book, Shook One: Anxiety Playing Tricks on Me, the follow-up to his 2017 debut and New York Times Bestseller, Black Privilege. But while Charlamagne's story is one of triumph, he still suffers from anxiety, as do 40 million other Americans.
The new book, named after Queensbridge hip-hop duo Mobb Deep's 1993 track "Shook Ones," examines the intersection between Charlamagne's unrest and achievements. The radio host — born Lenard McKelvey — uses Shook One as a tell-all diary of his struggles with mental health. The format of the book reveals personal traumas, regrets and fears with paired "clinical correlations" written by psychiatrist Dr. Ish Major. With raw honesty, Charlamagne hopes to break the stigma around seeking treatment. As he puts it, "It never hurts to get help."
Below, Charlamagne speaks about his anxiety, blackness in America and his widely viewed sit-down with Kanye West.
What made you decide to write a book about anxiety?
I wish I had some deep philosophical reason for you. The truth of the matter is, I was keeping a journal of everything I was experiencing in therapy. I was unpacking trauma from things that happened to me when I was younger and issues with my father.
I started writing down my fear of failure, fear of God, parental paranoia and being black and paranoid in America. I was trying to tell the listeners what my therapist was telling me, but I didn't feel like I was translating her words correctly. I realized that therapy helps me explain what I’m feeling better. I'm not an expert, I'm just a person that has experiences I don't mind sharing.
I realized, “Wow, this is not even really about me.” There are other people out there dealing with these things. So, why not let me bring in an expert opinion of a black male therapist to break it down? I wanted it to read like a therapy session.
You often come back to your road to success and how hard the radio industry has been. You were fired four times and often worked for little to no pay. Shook One may be beneficial for people who are hopeless and feel they’ll never find a way out. Have you thought about the fact that this book is not only about anxiety but also about motivation?
I'm 40 now and I'm in this place of prosperity, so to speak. You think that all of that success is supposed to eliminate your problems. Whatever anxiety or insecurity you feel, whatever low self-esteem issues you may be having, you think that it's supposed to go away. But you know what The Notorious B.I.G. told us a long time ago, it's true that the more money you make, the more problems you have.
Especially if you're never dealt with the issues inside your head and your heart. That's going to make whatever problems you're having magnified. I'm an energy person. Albert Einstein said, “The law of energy is never lost or destroyed, it's merely transferred from one party to the next.” I feel and take in people's energy. Sometimes, I feel the pain of other people.
The majority of my problems stem from other people's issues, but when you're a leader or somebody that people look to for guidance or to be a shoulder to lean on, you got to be strong enough to hold all that weight. I truly feel like God put me in this position for a reason. I'm not complaining at all. I just want to have the strength to carry the load.
The book isn’t simply about anxiety as a radio host, author, or television personality. It’s strongly focused on blackness and anxiety in America and how those things are intertwined. Why was that so important to you?
That's just real life. I love my career and I'm very appreciative of everything that God has bestowed upon me, but I'm really not any of those things. Those are just labels and titles. At the end of the day, I'm a man who takes more pride in being a father and husband. When I'm sitting around, I'm thinking about how I can make my next professional career move, but more than anything, I'm thinking about the meaning of life and how fleeting it is. Is there anything after this? Why things are the way that they are, here in America?
I'm sitting around thinking about ways to dismantle systemic racism. I'm thinking about creating our own ecosystem where we can protect ourselves, each other and our kids. Those are real concerns, worries, fears of mine. I like to bring it to people who may not be paying attention. Like Doughboy said at the end of Boyz n the Hood, “Either they don’t know, don’t show or don’t give a damn about what’s going on in the hood.”
I like to bring it right to people's front door. For those white fans who may read my book or listen to my radio show, I'd like for them to hear these words come out of my mouth. Sometimes we have a lack of empathy for others because we don't know how they feel.
It seems a lot of white people may be able to relate to the overall themes of the book, but it may also serve as an enlightening way to hear an unfiltered first-hand perspective on experiences they've simply never had.
It's hard for me not to be nuanced when I'm writing from my experiences, because I'm a black man in America. If I was a white man in America, the book would seem a little bit more broad, because white people are the majority in America. When you're black in America, it's a different level of anxiety that goes along with that beautiful melanin of ours. A lot of times we're asking ourselves, “Are things happening because they're a matter of circumstances or because of the color of my skin?”
Shook One felt incredibly honest. Was there anything you wrote that you were nervous to put out there?
My only hesitation with this book, honestly, was the backlash I received from the first one, from a lot of my friends and family, because they ust weren't happy with the way that they were portrayed.
I knew that I was exposing more truth in this book and more vulnerability than anything. I've never been afraid to be transparent, but therapy makes you a little bit more vulnerable. I didn't have any concerns about putting it all out there.
Truth be told, I still haven't put it all out. There are still lingering things that give me anxiety right now that I have not expressed. It's different correlations for things that have happened in my life, like me getting molested when I was eight by cousin's ex-wife. That can be correlated to something that happened later on in my life that I really haven't spoken about. I’m peeling back layers, constantly unpacking things. Hopefully in time, I'll get it all out.
You reference rappers like Scarface and Redman and how your crew molded your attitude around music that was violent and macho. Then you release a book talking about having suicidal thoughts, dealing with your dad issues and getting cheated on. When did the 180 happen?
Hip-hop has always been therapeutic. Every single thing you named, I can point to a song. I can point to “Suicidal Thoughts” by Biggie Smalls, Ghostface Killah’s “Wildflower,” where he talks about getting cheated on by his girl. I can point to tons of songs about guys not having their father around, Jay-Z and Beanie Sigel wrote “Daddy, Where Have You Been?”
We do the hardcore thing as a survival mechanism or to throw people off. We don't want people to take advantage of our insecurities. If we show any weaknesses, we'll be perceived as weak. So, hip-hop has always been vulnerable like that even through the hardcore macho stuff.
Tupac was considered the ultimate thug, but who was more vulnerable than him? Who was more emo than him? Sometimes we got a perception of what “emo” means. Emo to us is like, Drake. But, Tupac was just as emo.
Have you ever experienced “imposter syndrome”?
Hell, yeah! I'm sitting around thinking about how I grew up off Tom Joyner, Doug Banks, Sway, Big Boy and Angie Martinez. These are like super radio personalities to me. They were nationally syndicated; a lot of people know their names throughout the country. I look at The Breakfast Club and I can't believe we became one of them, even though I would always put it on the vision board.
On the flip side, you're sitting down eye to eye with people that you idolize, like at a dinner or private function together. We’re having real intimate conversations and I’m like, “Do you understand that you provided the soundtrack to my life?"
You never truly feel like you have arrived. Tyler Perry, as well as T.D. Jakes, both gave some really great advice —which that right there sounds crazy to say — “You've got to get to worthy. Even if you don't feel deserving of what you acquired, understand that God feels you are. So move accordingly.”
A really insightful part of Shook One discusses your relationship with South Carolina and the people you grew up with. You mentioned that people expect that you've changed, so they start treating you differently. Is it still difficult for you to remove toxic people from your life?
When you have to cut somebody off, it hurts, but your mental health is the most important thing. You got to be very cognizant of the energy you allow into your life and you really have to guard your space. If I'm not my best me, then that will affect my wife, my kids, my business, the millions of people who listen to me on a daily basis.
So, if I'm dealing with a whole lot of BS, I may get on the radio and spray that to the people without even realizing it. That toxic energy gets cut off quick. You can't look back.
At the end of your book, you mention the stress that revolved around your recent interview with Kanye West. I know that you were at odds with his endorsement of Donald Trump and a lot of your audience wanted him to be held accountable. Did you feel pressure to come up with the right questions? What was going through your head as you were sitting down to talk?
I’m always trying to be prepared with the right questions. But the truth is, I always tell people, don't lose that mentality of being a fan. At the end of the day, I am a fan of the culture. I probably have the same questions that 98 percent of the world has. Some of the best interviewers are Larry King, Howard Stern, Oprah Winfrey, if you listen to them, they ask the simplest questions.
Larry King always told me the most important question is, “Why?”
When you sit down with somebody like that, it's, “Why did you wear the MAGA hat? Why do you like Donald Trump?”
Did it offend you that after your long sit down with him that he immediately went on TMZ , where he made inflammatory comments about slavery?
Nah, that's Kanye. Even if you look at the first time I ever interviewed Kanye, which was 2013, when he came to The Breakfast Club, he went to Sway’s right after that. “You ain't got the answers Sway,” and me telling Kanye that his album was wack, all of that happened at the same exact time. I'm used to him having two different streams of energy.
It didn't bother me at all, to be honest with you. I actually enjoyed it because it made everything bigger. I still got my looks from it and my man Van Lathan got his looks. I wasn't mad at that at all.
For fans who may be dealing with anxiety and panic attacks, what advice do you give them to avoid freaking out?
One thing that works for me is knowing what the source of my anxiety is. I truly believe in rational and irrational anxiety. Rational anxiety is, if I'm getting on the radio everyday, talking to millions of people, I know I'm going to have some anxiety. I know I'm going to feel a way. I have to expect that. That's when I can tell myself, “I know what this moment is.”
The irrational anxiety is when you're sitting on the couch and the wind is blowing crazy outside and it's hitting the side of your house. Then you feel like your house is about to blow away like you're one of the three little pigs. That's just irrational. In moments like that, you have to breathe and say a little prayer.
What do you want people to take away from this book?
I want people to know that they’re not alone. We don't have to sit around thinking that we're the only people going through this stuff. Sometimes you have panic attacks. Anxiety kicks in and you feel like a weirdo, like everybody else in the room is strong and you’re weak. But nine times out of ten, there's mad other people in the room going through way worse anxiety than you. There's no need to feel alone. We all got each other.
Follow me on Twitter at @DerekUTG.
