Some people never know that they happen, some people never know that they had a shot to know whatever it is their dream is because they were in the wrong mental spot. But if you believe in God, or you believe in some higher power, or something... because if you think about it, our brains are only meant to fathom what we see.
I think it's helped me evolve all around, as an artist and as a person. I think we need something, need something to believe in. We need something that makes us pay attention to these humbling experiences.
I'm not saying my teachers should have rapped my lessons or anything, but I feel if I had made more of a connection to them I would have gotten more out of school.
I feel like I'm at a point in my career where I'm looking for something else to sink my teeth into that's interesting to me, that I can do that I can feel like I'm turning another corner.
I feel think the next logical step is acting, which I think is cool but I never got the acting bug. I never looked at a movie and thought "I wanna act," but after seeing that play I thought, "I wanna write a movie, and I wanna write a play." I will write a movie and I will write a play.
"Tabernacle" was probably the easiest song I'd ever wrote because all I really had to do was rhyme the words since the whole story, front to back, was already in my head. All I needed to do was verbalize it, and if it didn't have to rhyme I could've just freestyled it because I already knew what I wanted to say.
The competitive nature definitely sticks out in my mind. Everybody out there is trying to win. Each individual is trying to put up more points. Each individual is trying to put each other on while playing in a team atmosphere.
I'd clash with my dad over other things, you know, like difference of opinion and me getting testosterone, you know what I'm saying? Me feeling like I'm a little tough, being a teenager. But my big brother would come in drunk and really, really try my dad and I didn't want to do that.
My big brother used to come home drunk and he'd clash with my dad and I just didn't want that.
I don't think I ever would have had a problem being vulnerable or introspective but the problem with drinking is it's very hard to zero in on one part. You're not dealing with anything in real time, you're constantly moving and constantly going. You're drinking to get away from things, things your dealing with. My wife might be calling me trying to argue and I don't wanna deal with it so I just go drink and by the time we talk again I'm so drunk I just don't care. I'll just deal with it however.
It's just an inspiring journey in itself to stop drinking this late in my career after abusing alcohol and to have this kind of success so late when usually people give you like this window of success time.
I still wanted to get into the NBA. I was still on the team, I was a starting point guard and I was on and off the team because of my grades. That was the thing, discipline, discipline, discipline, and then I was going home to a very strict dad. He ran the house like the military.
People also knew me for putting people up to hip-hop, so people knew I was heavy into hip-hop. But as for cyphers and stuff in high school, I would never get on it because I was too shy. That's pretty much what I was doing.
I was probably just graduating high school, maybe still in high school. When I was still in high school, maybe the last two years, I was rapping but I wasn't telling anybody. When I signed my deal people didn't know it was the same Ryan Montgomery from Oak Park High School, because I used to play basketball and I used to fight. Like I'd bring boxing gloves to school. So when they found out, it was, "You mean Ryan who be boxing?" or, "Ryan who be hopping up at the park?" So I was known as that guy.
Forbes did a story on , when I seen it in Forbes I was just like, "This looks good!" and it felt good so I just went ahead and posted it. As soon as I posted it, people started calling and congratulating me and then it really started sinking in that it was a real accomplishment.
My dad struggled with cocaine addiction, and we actually went to rehab with him too. I remember having extensive talks with him about how I was wired a certain way, how I wouldn't be able to drink and do drugs the same way my friends got to.
