welcome to larry king now our special guest russell simmons finally a man who needs no introduction business mogul best selling author philanthropist meditator and the godfather of hip hop from his seminal record label def jam to the fat farm fashion line to his newly launched using project a.d.d. fifty two russells made an imprint in the worlds of music fashion finance media t.v. and film cultural average year and all he does russell's latest book is such says through stillness meditation made simple but how did you discover the art of meditation it could be called an art cinema should. my first introduction of meditation came to yoga and i went to yoga over twenty years ago

with a buddy of mine bobby shriver took me and we went to just two of us and you know bob and i want to do right and fifty eight girls two guys fifty eight girls you know maybe it's a gay guy too i don't remember in particular that but i know it was all girls and we went twenty years ago you know and it was fun and i came out of class i remember thinking if i keep doing this i'm going to lose all my money because of my lines because bobby repeats them to me constantly aside from my memory what i meant was there was a moment presents when i came out it a moment of happiness where i didn't i wasn't so worried as i was always full of anxiety my nickname was rush that was my nickname in my company's names are rush my financial services companies name is russian you know her yeah rush communications is my so from that experience of coming out and for one moment have a little bit of stillness was so beautiful to me i was addicted from then on i

would go back every week and i kept thinking that the anxiety was the driving force in my life but that little freedom was useful from that anxiety but then i realised that it's the freedom from the anxiety or the quiet mind. from which all of whatever success i had came from and i started to delve deeper into it define it what is meditation all meditation it's for thousands of years always been a great tool and i always say with the meditative on a quiet mind's the happy mind the noisy mind of the sick sad mind this is fact there are throughout the ages when you know every prophet you know is always an every great religion and never mind religion just you know the neurologist tell you a quiet mind when the noises in the mind fluctuations in the murder but how do you attain it all to my book is the simple my daughter told me was a remedial at best she's eleven she goes to school for the gifted and i asked for my book report i was her this book has

a very simplified all my books i try to simplify something or demystify what seems to be you know kind of lofty stuff and meditation when you do you said you create a mantra and you say to yourself i'm not going to leave you have a clock you put it in for twenty minutes and he said i gave away a mass mantra among trees wrong so if you repeat yourself. quietly the mind will go crazy like a monkey will go crazy will tell you i'm not going to meditate i don't care what you do and you're going to say i'm going to sit so all you requires a little bit of patience so the mind can bounce around like a monkey in a cage and within a few minutes. everything will settle. a meditating the mind will say you're not and then and then you'll notice a little bounce around some more and it will settle and transcend the thoughts even more i hear you on the over toward the chicago public schools absolutely i want to talk about that we have a couple hundred thousand kids we've taught to meditate buddha david lynch

foundation i personally i go to my kids' house every morning and meditate them before i take in the school i think the research is crystal clear you know odds that a religion and other junk that meditation or quiet time to people like in a meditation on the quiet time for a person to sit and let their brain settle the noise settle it calms the nervous system increases the immune system and we get a much greater brain functionality. and they give kids a chance to learn it distresses them kids and stress to distress them give them a chance to learn and to relate to the world in a much easier way ellen degenerate does howard stern oprah jerry seinfeld or practice it yeah i said oprah her teacher i said ellen de generous her teacher i've been a big promoter of meditation because i believed in if i could get a guy someone like oprah and she can get the world how do you do it in

a book the very simple books already a bestseller is number eight on the new york times list and it and having done the big shelved it so that now i'm on larry king. who knows so the point i'm making is that this book will make anyone feel it's a very simple process to learn to meditate a very simple book and it's a simple process there are no downsides to it no i mean everybody wants a glare and when i was a kid i did a lot of drugs larry i took every drug they make when i try you know i try them all and i had fun with all of my thoughts but the purpose of the drugs was the quiet the mind to the dumb the noise. the purpose of meditation is done the noise you know if we want to be talk from what you know about religion right you say nevada for the buddhist christ consciousness or heaven on earth for the christians tukwila

for the muslims the yogis refer to some mahdi every great prophet has talked about be still and know so they've given this chill to us for you know thousands of years and it's forgotten ought what is a d.d. fifty two. ady d. all dept digital i founded that because i when i moved in i moved to l.a. so i can meditate with my kids every morning take them in school that's why i moved to l.a. when i come down the hill i need new inspiration and i had produced numerous movies and television shows over the years but never lived here i was focused on storytelling so all the digital it was my answer to the set of buying a t.v. network i took one of the you tube channels put my own money in it on top of you tube money and i started a process we make all these web series that we do poetry and comedy but i couldn't have all the digital without having all the music so that i brought in this guy steve rifkind who has this long term you know success story in music and he's

running with me all def music so all def music steve comes up with the idea let's have a single a week let's get the internet to bubble up and to choose for us with us. cure a with a shot of all hot developing music artists on the internet so a.d.d. fifty two is going to use samsung partnership and their technology samsung the new technologies all the time a business career so you know they're like they're way ahead of the curve and so we're going to cure rate with samsung and partner with them and use their new radio station. they have a new radio station alternative music all kinds of music mostly hip hop and hip hop based you know i mean it's been my forte has been steve redskins portraits of mostly hip hop do you think you had an inborn talent for knowing something was

going to work you know and i here's what i learned i learned this that my financial service company i can't count but i just could see there was a hole in the market for under-served communities that they needed a virtual bag so i came up with an idea i mean now americans press and wal-mart and buy a dozen but when i did it they watch me for years i lost money for years it took five years for that company to turn profitable at the same experience with the urban clothing there was no such thing and so i lost money for five or six years. what i have that people don't have or they had this belief that it cannot fail and to quit and a lot of people who entrepreneurs have an idea if it works it works it doesn't they move on and never move on. i'm too stupid to move on. the global grind forever no one believed in runs how's they hated comedy jam. i've had my experience have not been lined with you know i've only even a goal exactly it's always been

a lot it was a what a brilliant idea you came up with yesterday now that idea is seven years old and i've lost a lot of money getting it there so that's what i've had is resilience persistence and faith let me just ask you about this macklemore situation what do you make of that controversy i just finished yoga laying on my back and i heard that macklemore song i said what because i've always been a fan of to tell the truth but i'm also a fan of social activists who are rappers public enemy was my by big example from def jam days and also every so often on rap a j seven cube i like cuban so i mean that there's a something that's meaningful. in terms of social employment valving many political and social influence because so and gay rights has been a big deal for me i've always been a big supporter of gay rights so when i heard that record i was thrilled and you know and i'm a big fan of macklemore but was the controversy that that it would be very good

because he's white. i just think that they like he's easy to digest but you know i mean chuck d. said it i can curse on your show yeah he said who gives a about a grammy when he said it who gives a. and i'm going to ring a bell in my ears and i remember that year i had will smith and el cool j. i was magic and will smith won in l a cool j. loss and will smith didn't go get his grammy much less with what l.l. cool j. did we kind of didn't care and i kind of don't care now about your welcome. hall of fame i don't care about i want to build something that you know snoop and i would talk and i was on his show i know you want to show moves the man i know is so you had him smoking joints together. he talked about it and now i've been negotiating and we think we want to build a hip hop hall of fame and do an award show that really speaks to hip hop from hip hop where is it seems very late but you know it seems like it. would look at once

his name said the other day they shouldn't be in a rock n roll hall of fame he's a nice guy too i don't you know i always say you know god bless you for your opinions but he had opinions that they shouldn't be in iraq war hall of fame speaking of social issues or you make of the n.f.l. trying to ban the n word well i'm not a bad beat them probably ban me five hundred yards look my father the professor of black history he was he passed away but if ever told me couldn't use that word he the turned over and said please. but how about when whites use it well i think if you don't have a slave directly in your background he's probably shouldn't use it so there was a slave in your history that you could point to my great with my kids great great grandfather is frederick douglass frederick probably wouldn't like it but they you know they don't use it to the kids and their mother was very strict but i'm just suggesting that when he's older i don't care and the language is less important to

me than intention i'm not a i'm not a language guy i'm you know lenny bruce used to say what do you care about a word i don't care i care about attention and and because people are offended you know like. i think maybe you know certain people she knew about and think you could have stopped hip hop kids or young people are even old people who've been you know when i was a kid i thought my father called me that so much when he was twelve he took me in a room he said that when i was two obviously your name is russell. for really goes always the church. and they've got a good name is russell. oh you know but anyway the point is i'm not worried about it i know people off i'm sensitive to them to some degree i know they're not going to change the world i'm more interested in and the forty billion animals that we abuse every year that a born into suffering is a great cause of global warming that cause cancer is the worst comic disaster in history the world they don't talk about that talk about that i'm interested in all

the of that the prison industrial complex and how it's destroyed the entire fabric of the black community i'm interested in real subject matter not language russell simmons is the guest the book success through stillness coming up we'll talk about the war on drugs eric holder's plan to reduce sentences for low level drug offenders and will tackle some problems rather than. technology innovation all the developments around. the future covered. well you like me you want your comedy news and some t.v. comedy news to be a bare fisted no holds barred fight to the dad. but the truth vampire whining into the next in the corporate elite billionaire freaks well they're going. to that's what you get with my new show projected tonight.

star wars. and the finish line of the marathon. we're back with russell simmons who said you've had an undue amount of power. that you should not have influence you believe that well i believe that celebrities have a lot of power and i believe that you know it's a lot of they have it i might as well take my god i think to use what i have you know for various different and social political and philanthropic endeavors causes

you know i think it's important to do if you have a voice and you can use it then you can head and you know make you happy to do it and i do it you compared the war on drugs to slavery spilling that all she says well look what i've what the rockefeller drug laws. we had all of rappers came out everybody came from you know every rap you can think of showed up a lot early clinton came she was then a senator you know reverend sharpton jackson all the people all the progressive students around to the world but really all of rappers one hundred thousand kids we were fighting to change the rockefeller drug laws at that time and we did make a change that time and then another change later but at that time ninety four point five percent of the people who were incarcerated under a rock n roll i mean about rockefeller hall. the rockefeller drug laws were people of color and the thing is that people of color use and sell drugs at the

same rate as whites so for various reasons it turned out that only people of color were incarcerated under that law so not only was it not affective you take these people out of the hood for being diseased you educate them in criminal behavior you dump them back in the community without chance for employment you do it so much so that jail culture becomes the culture of the community and that sad reality is is that this has do it the fabric of the black community of variation criminal and creative commit criminal community even turn in general hold on reduced sentences for low level nonviolent drug offenders if you agree with that we work very hard on that we got a letter together and was signed by every civil rights organization along to drug policy alliance and you know everybody could think of and everything that brad pitt's in the world and demi moore them you know shelly's thrown in you know this

all kind of celebrities right along with all the civil rights harry belafonte's side all these people side. i really honestly believe in my heart that we talk about celebrity justin bieber tweeted out in turn in general called. twenty six million people he had in the hope that the fact that when something goes pop when it goes commercial where you guys talk about something that's obviously unjust and wrong then politicians have to move to call many of the greats as les greats interviewed him once said the greatest failure systematically in america is prison honest prison is a failure why do we think in new ways new ways to treat things the it goes back larry a big part of it too corporate control of our government i don't want to sound like him spirity if there is i want to make it crystal clear i slept in the park i

occupied i think that if you can legally bribe a politician then that points to a very flawed democracy and our democracy is deeply flawed because of the fact that we can buy our politicians. that's our reality you didn't gave the book to the your kids yet and you meditate with them every morning at what age can a child start meditating well they used you can have a walking mantra younger and he say about eleven or so but my daughter yochi only has been that meditate and she's eight she's now eleven she sits quietly for twenty minutes every single morning when she opens her eyes like she's in heaven and we do it every day and i think it's very important for kids you remain close with your best friend you better i mean you're raising kids you know you're jointly raising kids she's the mother she's the one who is and she's an excellent mother and in of

she wasn't everybody should make friends with the bad ex-wife. is selfish not to i think it's something that each man should dedicate a part of their life to they should be great grow some tolerance some balls whatever it takes to make friends with their ex-wife and she remarry and just remarry yes you like her mate i like her mate i like the last two mates was was with you and the opposite oh i don't know i was twisted a little bit but i mean i mean i just haven't really i've been i've been dating you know i haven't had a serious relationship that i've had serious relationship i didn't get don't you have to question every every girl you meet because i question every girl at the nation question me i mean i mean that i lay with you because of what you have but i'm always with them because they're beautiful and if i mean they always yogis they always begin they always animal activists always certain things but they're also always beautiful and the first thing i see is for there's an instinct that says so you're affected by looks you're not your wife i've seen your wife you kidding me i

thought we were affected by looks a little bit and so you know that they like sometimes that power and a couple jokes and you like looks and a couple jokes too you know it's all a lot of it's a combination of a lot of things i don't worry to ever get if you can't be use are useless. here we get interrupted while meditating i was meditating or any earthquake i was meditating during the earthquake i don't really know what i don't tell me you didn't stop myself up there looked around like while i waited seemed like forever as he might long into meditation i was ten seconds it seemed like i swear it seem like eight minutes out of meditation like my house was shaking like crazy though he me and close to me how far you live from your right around the corner i meditate a lot as i meditate with demi take in the school every morning usa today recently listed you among the most twenty five influential people s.

twenty five years not thirty years twenty five but what do you make of that do you feel influenced think about it must have been honestly i mean there are so many influential people and to be in that list is kind of a you know it's a good ego builder but i wouldn't put myself in it at first if i was making a list i would be on it so wouldn't know i wouldn't think that being on that list but you know they they chose me and i think that's was it like to have to be able to buy anything you see this and the greatest gift anyone can get is a comfortable seat. this idea of needing nothing is the most beautiful thing in the world it's what they refer to by you know christ consciousness vonna somebody toque whatever the hell whatever legend whatever the prophet is they always got a rap and it's comfortable seething and what you really want in life is a comfortable seat and you know i know at chase what i really would like to only want a comfortable seat there's not

a lot i want to buy. i don't particularly like private plane but i ride my friends i'm not as rich as they say but my whole house i'm ex-wife jacuzzi you know i'm not so rich as they say but i don't really i don't really need anything a lot of stuff you know i. i run a lot of charity which i give more a lot of money you know i like raising money for the charity that's part of my work if i had enough to pay i'm all for it if you can never solve all the problems that have been building nobody can do it so you know it's an ongoing process be part of the world and give what you can you know what i love to do i love to be able to really make a difference with this book and given my phone book away but imagine that i could convince rahm emanuel first we have how does it does the kids we talk to meditate through david lynch but imagine i can really make everybody watch chicago i get rahm emanuel i get the chance like that all the educators and all the doctors in convince everybody teach all the principals teach the kids you know romney yeah i

know him and yeah and if i can get him and his chancellor to buy in to put in quiet time in the schools and then we can all watch and see a reduction in violence in those schools that be a phenomenal thing we can maybe move it into all schools we have some social media questions so nineteen tweets what changes have you noticed in your own behavior since you began meditating regularly. i don't you know i used to get a fly off the handle my name was rush i was anxiety filled of ninety a little bit i'm not he still but let's not. lorrington adieu via facebook wants to know how you made your first million dollars three i remember my first record quitting the first million. i know when that number was reached a million dollars but all i really wanted i remember i wanted to get thirty thousand dollars a year and i was a magic kurtis blow because i got thirty thousand of the i could live comfortably you know and then then one day i wanted three hundred thousand of years of ten

percent i had still had thirty thousand dollars a year that i could live and i thought. i used to want twenty thousand a year when i was a kid if i could make twenty thousand and what about if you had two hundred in the spin off twenty thousand. it's like there's no way i can tell you anything that changed every foundation in twenty grand a pop every time you've seen my account on tweets what's the biggest problems in the music industry that need to be solved people want three sixty deals with artists they want to sign them to all of their potential because they're building the music and they think that they're then entitle to everything else the industry itself has to understand the other three hundred fifty nine degrees not to own the rest of the words you have to if you want to make their fashion then you know be plugged into fashion if you want to make you know this new can be able make some sneakers form if you want to make money off their books and be a publishing house if not you have to figure out how to be more entrepreneurial as a person exploiting a music that has some quick questions for you as if you only knew your sense

remember the first girl you kissed yeah but everybody kissed her was a guilty pleasure my guilty pleasure. there on a holiday like between december twenty second and new year's eve i just smoke and drink and stuff that's more of a mug i don't eat animal products i don't overeat you don't know animal no dairy no egg no fish i don't smoke i don't drink i do anything you know i'm boring now you know i'm pretty much a monk you know i've been that way for years so during that little holiday period who inspires you the most that i mean and it changes by the second people always ask what happens to most of what you'd like the most what's your favorite record the one is on the radio that i want to change is my favorite and who inspires me the most the changes you know about one day it's the guy from cash money crew cash money records he keeps doing it but he did it without any he came from the most drugs or did it without any next dance puffy puffy god he's such

a great entrepreneur is doing so much j.c. you know it changes what makes you angry. i don't get angry too much no no no really i'm disappointed you know of course i don't like the abuse of the animals and i don't like the inequality are unlikely to be racist or homophobic on a second i hate racism or make me angry as people who don't like people just cross the color or or faith. i don't do a lot of you know as a chairman of the dow this makes me a prejudice of all kinds all kinds of i'm the chairman of the foundations that they're going to stand me and i get like a rabbi in the mom in a room and they walk away say well he's pretty nice and you expect this posed to be nice as did job and but then you know i see segregation as it really and it's still a sad reality in hollywood unfortunately really well i mean you didn't know if you could name a black agent that so many you know use and can you i mean you see the girl on

scandal so forth one since julia. since the resilience achieved great but deploy make it there's a lack of integration and i know when martin and jamie acetic and bernie and chris dodd all of comedians came out of def comedy jam no one came to ten fifteen years finally kevin not old def comedy jam but the point is he sells sixty thousand tickets to black people in ten minutes and he's like we've got to put him in a movie then five movies probably playing at a bat a basketball star the next one needle is the best for us thank you russell simmons thanks to my guest success through still this available everywhere meditation late simple little mound anywhere you want to go you get it and you'll find me on twitter at kings things will see and i just don't.

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