So in that process of trying, how long did it take before you acquired one?

After that, in that process of trying, it was probably...

Three years, two and a half, three years that literally I graduated from Pepperdine in 91.

I graduated from Pepperdine in 91, 92, 93.

I think I got that.

Maybe it was two years because I got the record deal finally in December of 93.

And I worked on the album all in 94.

How did you come about landing that particular contract?

Take me to 2024 and when you learned of the diagnosis, because I read that you said that this was something that not only hits you, it hits your whole family, having to share the message.

Yeah, well, I think when I first heard the words, it's cancer, sitting across from a urologist, that was, you know, to this moment, when you hear those words, you never expect to hear them.

And then because I'm in ministry, I also know, okay, there's life and death and the power of the tongue.

And so immediately when he said it's cancer, my immediate response, well, this is not gonna kill me.

I didn't know what the quality of life was gonna be like afterwards, but I thought to myself, this is not gonna kill me.

And then how do I tell my wife? How do we navigate that, keep that information solidly between us for about six months before we told our oldest kids? The oldest kids basically said, we gotta let the rest of the kids know.

So how do you let an 11-year-old know? How do you call your mom? There's no playbook in when you get a cancer diagnosis, which is not a death sentence.

Yeah,

What's your conversations with God like at that second time right there? Like, right at that moment of truth, what are you talking to God about at that time right there?

Okay, so, great question.

I can tell you honestly, when it, when you beat cancer the first time, or when I, when I did that, it was literally like- Okay, God.

Thank you.

You know, I, I trust you.

I'm super, super grateful.

You helped bring me through it.

Comes to the light.

What's your conversations with God like at that second time right there? Like right at that moment of truth, what are you talking to God about at that time right there?

Okay, so, great question.

I can tell you honestly, when it, when you beat cancer the first time, when I, when I did that, it was literally like, "Okay, God, thank you.

You know, I, I trust you.

I'm super, super grateful.

You helped bring me through it." I had surgery, had my prostate removed, radical prostatectomy surgery, all of that.

Um, God restored me, restored intimacy between my, me and my wife, you know, all of that.

Comes to the light.

Yeah.

Like, I, I need to put fear in you in certain instances.

You know, when you wanna put your fingers in the socket or whatever.

No, don't.

Don't do that.

I need you to be afraid of what will happen, not only if you do that, but what I will do to you if you, if I catch you trying to do that.

Yeah.

Mm

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And so I think that, uh, it is important for us to be able to give- ... a healthy measure of what fear is, but also to equip people to understand.

And I say people, even our little people, we need them to understand that fear is not something, you know, to, to shy away from but to be able to faces and r- face it and recognize what it is.

Because, you know, I think the more you run from your fear or whatever-

Yeah

... your faith has to become your own.

Your walk has to become your own.

here.

I want to show you the book.

The book is called Shiloh and the Not-So-Scary Girl Above His Bed.

It came out on September the 1st.

It is the story of a little monster named Shiloh who is afraid that there's a girl who lives above his bed.

The idea is my wife created this A little guy, because when my son Skyler was three years old, he was afraid that there was something underneath his bed.

Dealing with childhood fears, you know, something's in the closet.

That's really, really

Oh, yeah.

Slick Rick Rubin.

And his song Children's Story, when I came into the business as Russell Simmons at Def Jam, I was Russell Simmons' rap singer.

So I was touching on a song that had already been a hit record.

So I knew that there was already the element of, "Okay, this is looked at as hip hop.

Do not touch." And now I'm about to touch it, and try and take it, and convert it into a, or translate it into a R&B type of song.

And so the fact that we did it, the fact that Slick Rick and I are friends to this day, we're both married couples and we do life together, which is awesome, 30-something years later.

[laughs] You know, we need you to inspire the- Like some corporate or rich person that hired you to do, like private shows?

you're in a

black family, you get somebody pregnant, you're going to marry him.

And that didn't happen.

And so I kind of became, I want to say, the weapon.

But if you are not going to marry and do the right thing, then you won't be in this child's life.

And so that was the journey of me not allowing him or him not being allowed to be in my life as a father.

And when I'm about maybe one or two years old, This is where Mr. Jordan, who's my adoptive dad, comes in and marries my mom.

We do.

... to hip hop, talk about that transition.

transition.Um, I think m- musically, I was brought up, like I said, doing music in the church.

Um, I always loved music.

I was a student of music, so I listened to music of the '80s.

I listened to the Cyndi Laupers and The Police, and I listened to Michael McDonald.

I listened to Lionel Ri- like, I listened to R&B and soul music, and Luther Vandross, and KGLH.

I, I listened to all types of music, but in church, some of that, those things started to, to spill over.

[laughs]

And yeah, I think she's And really nice, warm presence in what are some other more difficult parts of his life.

And I'm playing Detective Sergeant Mick Ross, who is tasked initially with investigating a fairly run-of-the-mill burglary case.

And as he digs deeper, starts to uncover and understand more and more about Alan Turing's life.

He's, to my understanding, not somebody that is based on one real person, but is kind of representative of the way Alan Turing was treated at the time by the British

How about you, Monty?

I moved to Norwich when I was 18.

I lived abroad, grew up abroad.

When I moved back, I wanted to continue.

Wow.

And so if you imagine that's not a that's not a good template for a healthy marriage, you know, and with that, it led to just being out on the road, being away from home, being in places of loneliness, not having a keeper, not having a secure place in our marriage of us being able to to depend on each other and be with each other.

And so that first five years was full of a lot of me falling and falling time and time again and allowing myself to be ensnared just from, you know, that that, you know, they say that you draw lines in the sand.

Sometimes you need to draw a line in the concrete because when a line is drawn in the sand, when the water rushes over it, you can kind of keep redrawing the line.

And that's what I did.

You know, as a man, I found myself in our first five years of marriage redrawing the line.

It was OK. Nothing's wrong with just a little innocent flirtation.

[laughs]

Like, how do you go to the point of, of getting your career going there, and then also getting a degree from Pepperdine? What was the mix for you to make it in the way that you did?

Yeah, well, literally as I was doing my college, uh, preparation and, and, and studying out at Pepperdine University, and that was from like '86 to like '91, uh, during that time period, I was roommates with Doug Christie, uh, who, you know, is now coaching, fantastic, uh, leader.

Uh, he's been a, a friend for many years, and so, um, that was as close as I could probably get to professional basketball, just literally either attending games, watching games, or being the college roommate of a, of a player who eventually would go to the NBA.

But, uh, from that standpoint, um, I really focused on the things I was really good at, and that happened to be music.

And so it's interesting, my, uh, relationship, uh, to basketball is because I have a stadium anthem, um, that plays in every basketball stadium, every football stadium prob- pretty much every night that, that a game-

Hmm

... standpoint, uh, I did some genomic testing, some A testing, if you will, uh, and found out that, uh, it kind of ran in my family.

And I had some things that I was predisposed to that, uh, I needed to maybe take some measures, more drastic measures towards, uh, going aggressively towards the cancer before the cancer would aggressively come towards me.