Between the new music and your upcoming album anniversary, you've got a lot to celebrate.

Well, this year is my 25th anniversary of Rule 3:36. So we're planning to do stuff around that. Def Jam and me, we're planning to do stuff around that. So it is a blessing to have three albums worthy of that milestone. I get to have them back to back. Last year we celebrated Veni Vitti Vici. This year we're celebrating Rule 3:36, and next year we're going to celebrate Pain Is Love. It's kind of cool to have that.

It is! What are some of your favorite memories about that era? You had an incredible run during that time.

Just good times when you look back at it. Everything was going so fast, everything was moving so fast. It wasn't something that I thought about in the moment. What's this going to look like 10 years from now? What's this going to look like 20 years from now? It was just young black men from marginalized communities creating the sound that was created in the Bronx and we were just pushing it forward. It was something that .... you don't look at, like what it was going to be and what it became. It was just something that we did and something that we felt like if we can get our foot in the door, we can make a little money feed our family. It wasn't this big picture, but it became that. I can only say thank God I was blessed to be in this position to do music and touch people in the way I've done.

With the tour and everything that you're working on, I feel like that'll all come full circle while you're on that stage.

I've been touring my whole career like a ball player or athlete. Those days have a shelf life. I don't know how long I'm going to be able to do what I do or how long I'm going to want to keep doing what I do. So I think about those things sometimes. Every tour has a special place in my heart for me. I don't know if this one may be the last one I do or the next one may be the last one I do of this magnitude. I think about those things and so as I go out on this tour, I really want to make this special for my fans and do something that they've never seen me do ever. Just take it to another level for them. I'm looking forward to this in a lot of ways.

That's dope man. I'm sure you're going to be back in Miami for ther tour. I feel like you're no stranger to this city. I believe the last time you were here was for DJ Khaled's golf tournament, right? Yeah. You came to Casadonna for the welcome party.

For sure. We was at the party.

You've been playing golf for awhile now. Talk about how you got into it.

I love golf. It's my new therapy. Music used to be. My therapy was very therapeutic. I'd go and get things out and things I was thinking daily or things I was feeling daily, I was able to go express that through songs. Now that I'm not recording as much, it's more of a woosah now. It's more of a relaxing moment that I get to have going out on the golf course. But also in my entrepreneurial stage of life, I get to go out there and think and do business and have that thought process live out. Looking out amongst the greenery of the golf course. It is just a different feeling plus the challenge of it all. You versus you, even though you're playing with other people, it's all about you. And how good are you at conquering this game. At the end of the day, golf is a game. It's just an amazing game. Studying people's character on the course is an amazing thing. You get to see how people are for four hours. You can see a lot of characteristics in a person. You see a lot of a person's emotions in that four hours. You see anger. You see sadness, you see happiness, you see all of these different emotions and how they deal with them. There's a lot of things to golf that people don't realize what's going on. It's the game within the game.

You say you're able to analyze people on the green. Who are some people you like to compete against?

Nowadays I like to play with people who are good. You play with better players, you get better. So a lot of my guys are really good golfers. I was just down here at the PGA show hanging out with my brother, JR Smith. Swish is a dog with the sticks and on the court. He's an athlete so he gets it. He picks it up quick. But I love playing with Swish, CC Sabathia. Big shout to my brother. He just made it to the Hall of Fame. Big shout. CC, first ballot. Very deserving.

Shout out to CC for sure. So you got the liquor, the tour and you're working on new music. What's next for you this year?

I don't know. I enjoy working, so I got a lot of things that I'm building and creating right now. I got ICONN that's in the Apple App store right now. And my ICONN network that I'm currently building and creating original content for and also acquiring content for. So those are some of the other things that I'm passionate about that I'm working on. Another project that I'm taking on right now is my painted house project. It's all about art. We've done a project already with the artist Nick Davis. Rest in peace. Nick. We love you man. Really, really talented artists. Me and Herb also built this and did this together during our Covid time. We did a project called Black is Beautiful NFT Project. It's amazing. You got to see Nick's art. So I'm looking to expand that this year and do something really special.

Val Santos