The Rap Mogul Shares His Journey and Why Health Should be Our Number One Priority.
There are a lot of issues that affect our communities and each of them are vital to our existence and growth. From poverty to crime to education many issues in-avertedly impact our future. “One issue that is often ignored in our community is our health,” says Music Mogul, Charles “ Jus Bleezy” McRoberts. It’s a slight chilly afternoon in St. Louis but the temperature is expected to rise by mid-day and McRoberts affectionately known as Bleezy has already put in two hours at the gym. He plans to work out later at the city’s luscious and historic Forest Park. It is encompassed within an art and history museum and surrounded by perfectly green golf courses, tennis courts and bike and jogging pathways. McRoberts has just returned from celebrating Entertainer, Future’s birthday in both Mexico and Miami. The extravagant affair curated by Freebandz Branding Manager, Ebonie Ward took place at the late Gianni Versace’s mansion on South Beach and with an overflow of champagne and every exotic meal you could imagine Bleezy says he still managed to stay true to a diet that he takes seriously. “I don’t care what I have going on in my life and no matter what we each have going on we have to be diligent about our health and how we treat our body by what we put into our body,” he forcefully exclaims.
This year the shift in solar eclipse energy allowed us to pardon our past as we progress towards the path of renewal. In doing so, one thing that’s often left unstated is the health of our community. For generations, internal illnesses such as stress, diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease have plagued our people, and with all the knowledge available to us, we still choose to ignore our internal issues, which later have a devastating impact on our quality of life. “I’m no different, says Bleezy. I’m a part of the diabetes family. I got tested for diabetes ten years ago and discovered I’m a type-2 diabetic. My numbers were so high, but when I caught my case, my numbers dropped. Without realizing the level of stress involved in the game, I was killing myself slowly. This condition was taking years off my life until I decided to reclaim my time and do the right thing,” explains Bleezy.
Bleezy shares that years ago he was doing very well in life but he knew he was really living his purpose or following the direction of his inner desires or dreams. Having been raised in an environment where the life expectancy for a black male was twenty one and survivor of the fittest truly embodied every meaning of the phrase- Bleezy had become accustomed to stress at a very early age. With the streets as his home his mentality and movements were that of any mammal in the wild trying to stay alive and above the water. Drowning or succumbing to his environment was never an option but this came at the high price of everything stress breeds. “At one point his stress level was so high that no matter what he did diabetes haunted him--- but serendipity (the perfect mistake) would change the course of his life and health. Bleezy stopped by 7thandlotus.com to share his health story.
“With my diabetes—eating right and working out—my numbers were still high. When I came across an excruciating obstacle my levels dropped. My level was 300-500 or better, but it dropped to 100. A contributing factor was my stress level. When I got jammed up in a situation it was like a relief and I didn’t really know it. I was sent to prison and I worked out, my A1C levels were like seven and six while I was locked up for four years. Then I got out and I was working out and eating cool, but my A1Cs crept up to like nine. I’m like, “Ok, I’m cool.” So I’m out now for about a year, I’m at the point like, “I got this money, I’m doing this property, everything is blessed, my family’s blessed, everybody’s loved.” I’m feeling invincible again like, “Fu-- this diabetes shit, I’m finna go hard with this property stuff.
In doing my research, I got the diabetic trait from my grandmother—my mother’s mother, but I probably activated the trait from the shit I eat. You see, my shit was too high. Some people’s levels are too low and they can take sugar and bring it up, but my shit is the opposite of that so I had to open my shit up so my insulin could start flowing through. In order to do that, I had to work out—but by then, I’d stopped doing all that shit, and for seven months I was eating reckless. I was not eating my six meals a day; I was not on my nutritional diet like I should’ve been. I definitely wasn’t exercising. I was just eating pancakes, waffles, fried chicken, sweet potato pies, chips, sandwiches and this started affecting me.
About three months ago, I started feeling messed up. I went to the doctor and they did all tests and all my shit came back straight, but it was my sugar. They took my A1C and my shit was 15. The normal range is below 5.7 and 15 is like diabetic coma-threating range, and my daughter freaked out. My daughter’s mom sent me this picture that I took with my two daughters when I was in prison. She was saying, “I know how you get, you wanna just say forget it and go hard, but these are just two of the people who really need you out here. Because of my reality check, I’m back on track with the diabetes. I just want to tell the people with diabetes and other health issues, I know sometimes y’all be wanting to say forget it. I know it because of the people that are failing with it, and numbers don’t lie. There’s a very large number of people who are failing with diabetes—getting their legs amputated, losing their eyesight, nigga’s dicks ain’t working. Once the cells die—they’re dead—they don’t come back. Gangrene sets up and they have to get shit cut off and it leads to something else. But, you gotta go hard with this stuff. You can secure the bag, but if you die, then who’s gonna take care of the family?
If I’ve been shot seven times with an AK and a 9mm and that didn’t take me out, I don’t want some meat that I eat to take me out. I’m just telling people with diabetes, be cautious of the meat that you eat. If you think, one thing we all have in common is meat, and it doesn’t matter what type because it all consumes the same bullshit. It all consumes some type of steroid, growth hormones to make it the biggest it can be. You’re worse off with seafood—that’s mercury—too much of that shit in your body and you’re out of here anyway. For all of you who say, “Oh, I only eat turkey, fish, and chicken,” It’s just as bad.
When I was ten, I lived in Macon, Mississippi where I lived on a farm where I killed chickens, cut hogs throats, and knocked them in a head with an ax. Listen, a chicken and a turkey will eat anything. They will eat a dead human. They pluck off anything, so because you eat a chicken and a turkey, that’s no safer than a hog and a pig. Now a cow does not eat anything. A cow is not about to go and eat a carcass, he wants that fiber, but because his injected with so many steroids, we have to be cautious of everything because that’s where we get this shit from.
Animals have cancer. They inherit diseases like we do. They watch other animals get killed and go into a state of shock and may have a stroke right there. When they have that stroke and the shit goes through the meat, what do you think we’re gonna eat? Don’t think you’re safe by eating chicken, turkey, and seafood.
Now I’m at the point where my numbers are so nice, I’m at the point of reversing everything. I always make time to work out and maintain my diet, even when I’m working or vacationing with the #1 rapper in the country, Future Hendrix, I pay careful attention to my diet. In the pictures included with this article, I am holding a protein shake—which is very important while maintaining my diet. The effects caused by not practicing self-care were near fatal. I done been through that, and I don’t wanna go through that again. Hell, I don’t want that to take me out anyway. Diabetes is worse than bullets, it’s one of the leading causes of death, but at that time, it really didn’t matter. I’m not afraid to die. So I’ll take a life-threatening chance being selfish. I mean, I definitely want to live, but I’m not afraid to die—so when I go, don’t cry for me. I mean, we’re all gonna die anyway. I’ve been dead before, so death for me means that I’m just revisiting somewhere I’ve already been.
Your health is important. For those of you who say you’re gonna die anyway remember this—a poor quality of life is no way to live. You have to do it for you, but sometimes you have to remember those who you would leave behind if it kills you. My kids were my motivating factor. I know my kids need me, and yours need you. So you have to make time to practice self-care so that you can sustain a quality of health that mirrors your lavish lifestyle.
Written by: Jus Bleezy, Abesi Manyando and Seven L. Maxwell