Come Thru Chats: Representative Monroe Nichols chats with King Spencer

and then co-founded an organization called impact Tulsa which is all about yo you co-founded that that's crazy work yeah fun they they're doing great work to this day I work with impact toosa you would now I understand I I recognize what your voice means and I recognize there are other people who need to hear about the future of the city and so I'm here on the shoulders of what you have built uh more so than anything and I'm thinking about nipy hustle his last album is one that you can listen to like all the way through not everybody has that not everybody has that come on man and actually I didn't know a whole lot about NY hustle until Jordan or LeBron oh man see I I can't I can't go against Jordan but I am like a I am if you could just give me one piece of advice that you've received in your life what's some important advice that you would say you've received I think the the best advice I ever got was hey yo come through come through yo yo what's going down it's your boy King Spence and I'm here with a very very special guest one of the most special guest I've ever had the opportunity to chat with representative Nicholls what's going on appreciate it now you said one of the biggest that you had to I don't believe that but I appreciate you gassing me up though it made that's facts that's facts yeah and we going to get into why you so special and why it means so much to me that you here um is it all right if I call you marro call me whatever yeah absolutely all right Maro so um I've been call out worse man I can only imagine so I mean let's go ahead and give people an understanding of who you are so your background is definitely in politics but the Highlight right now is that you're actually running and about to become the first black mayor of Tulsa man 13 months on the campaign Trail uh eight years in the legislature uh worked in this community before that the biggest thing is I got a 16-year-old uh and so I think about everything that I'm doing right now in the context of the kind of community I want him to inherit when he's an adult somewhere you want to come back to I hear people all the time say we don't have enough stuff in Tulsa we got this we got this that might be not the most positive things in the world I want to make sure it's the city you want to be in that's really reason why I'm doing it see that's sweet I uh I do know a little bit about your background first of all being that you played ball at Tu what was that like man when I got to TU one in 11 in fact that first year won one game my freshman year Dam and beat utap and like broke like a 17 game losing streak I think it was like us like prview had the longest losing streak they tore down goal post be you one win when I left though we had won conference we won the Liberty Bowl and so got to see the program changed from like not very good to Bow champions in just four years it was pretty cool time be to yeah that's crazy I love to I never went there but I love going to their basketball and football games I think that's pretty dope that you went there you know T basketball over the years I think there's three mhm maybe no yeah three coaches I think that have coached won national championships other schools MH so uh Bill self coach at Tu Nolan Richardson coach at Tu and tubby Smith to coach CU basketball and they've all won national champions of other schools they all came through here Bill s he coached at KU right yeah I didn't know that he coached here TOA he did that's crazy who was coaching when you went there uh football football oh Steve korp and he actually just passed away uh he had Parkinson's pass away just recently so obviously thinking about his family but Coach K came in my sof more Year to you wow turned everything around man that's that's dope right there I want to just ask you a couple of random questions but but let's do a little rapid fire before we even get into it I'mma ask you six questions and you just as fast as you can answer them give them to me all right it's like Family Feud yeah you know what I'm saying there's no wrong answers though I mean we'll leave that I can tell you I've been in politics long enough there's some wrong answers out there all right okay here we go Jordan or LeBron oh man see I I can't can't go against Jordan but I am like a I am a James fanatic my favorite basketball team is always whatever team LeBron plays on okay okay but Jordan's a goat though all right all right Mike or Prince oh me and Mama have this argument all the time okay I'm I'm gonna go Prince okay okay burger or pizza pizza Nike or Adidas Nike easy beans or Beamer Beamer Tu or Baylor Tu okay you know I that one as I'm from wo yeah a lot of my fans went to Baylor so what was it like like did you get a lot of scrutiny from the film because you chose to go to TU opposed to pursuing a career Baylor not really so when I actually was coming on the decision my mom worked at Baylor and I love my mom and she lives here now she works at TCC now but we love each other she's the greatest woman I know but went a college campus big enough and the world for two of us at the same time so love her though I get more flag now cuz I went to graduate school at you mhm I got cousins that graduated from UT Baylor Texas Tech all they all over the all these Texas schools so I get more FL for the U do I do to you is is it a connection you have with Oklahoma that made you stay at Oklahoma schools was it just what you know what I came so when I was going through that process Tulsa was the only place i' had never been so I researched it and I knew a little bit about Tulsa's history more so than a lot of people when I got here a lot of people didn't know about where where we had been through what had happened in Tulsa back in the day yeah and I was taken by it so I came here it was a place that intrigued me i' never been here before and then I started working in the mayor's office right after I graduated and and got the bug that's crazy because you know being you know being a black guy from Tulsa it's not it's not likely that you know we get exposed to the opportunities or just an interest in pursuing any role in politics where did that come from for you man it's crazy I remember I was 15 years old and my mom was on the Housing Authority board and we went to a like she had a conference in DC and this is before like 9/11 where you could like walk into the United States capital and see everything and I remember sitting up in the gallery and I saw people down on the floor and they were like look like they were making really important decisions but it was so few of them and none of them look like me mhm and I was like man I think I want to be on that floor helping make decisions cuz I don't see nobody down there that looks like they represent me very well and that's where it started and my mom was uh growing mom's a probation officer before she went to work at Baylor my dad was a police officer my grandfather been in the Air Force they had all done these kind of Public Service type of jobs um and so that's what that's where I got it from I got it from you know thinking that's what you're supposed to do you're supposed to do some stuff that supposed to help other people you said mom's was in moms was a police off probation off mom probation officer yeah and what was interesting about her being a probation officer she would always talk about what her uh the guys are on her case load she'd always be like your pass is not potential so her deal was always like hey you know in life we all make mistakes things can happen but don't let those things Define you and like I carried that my whole life uh cuz look I've made a few mistakes in life yeah and my mom telling that to the dudes are on their case load became like something I always thought about growing up so yeah yeah so now the narrative is pursuing Marosa which is huge to me hear me me too how did that become like when did you decide that all right I'm going from here uh you know it's you know when you think about everything that happens to us on the daily basis um how police are policeing streets the condition of the streets themselves uh how kids are navigating this community how your trash has picked up all those things Mayors are where where it happens you know a lot of people vote for president and they vote for governor but they sit out the mayor's races when the mayor's race and the mayor has more impact on your life than anybody else M and so when you think about the greatest impact that we can make in our given field right um mayor to me is where you can make the greatest impact on your community and that's the reason why I decided to do it and I I I don't know a lot about politics but I do understand that you can't just wake up and be like you know what I'm going run from here or maybe I mean you you kind of could like it cost like a couple hundred bucks to file so you could I mean in theory I mean but what's your background you definitely have a deeper background in politics can you talk about it yeah so I've been in the state legislature for eight years now uh I chair the Oklahoma legislative Black Caucus so all the black legislators we have a we have a caucus that we work together on I chair that group um and have done that for the last two years and before I ever got elected though I worked in the mayor's office my first job out of college I was Chief of Staff to the president of U Tulsa my second job out of college went on to work at the chamber on the like the we're running the business retention expansion program and then co-founded an organization called impact Tulsa which is all about oh co founded that that's crazy work yeah it's fun and they're doing great work to this day wow really proud of it I work with impact TOA few of the it's a umbrella with a lot of yeah and I uh I'm a videographer I get to work with uh My Brother's Keeper oh yeah yeah yeah my little sister works for Cara yeah yeah like man your idea has been a blessing to a lot of to since 2014 Man 2014 when we started it yeah that's crazy yeah it's wild right so what can people who've never voted what are what are some things that they can do to get like get started I mean I think always it's important to research candidates like I want obviously I want everybody to vote for me but I want people need to see like hey who's going to best represent this community and the things that I care about I think that's always important so to educate yourself I think is number one important part of being a citizen is making sure you kind of know who's out there because you know a lot of people are dependent on folks making a good decision as to who's going to represent them but also say get involved you know get on get on doors make phone calls for a candidate because what happens is you're connecting with people in your community right and so you understand what's going on there but the big thing is voting election day is August the 27th and for for the mayor's race uh but in every election you know always get out there go and vote uh encourage other people to vote cuz always say man if you going to complain about something at least make sure you got some skin in the game you made your voice heard and you voted there you go yeah so what is does winning look like for you like how do you win uh you know from when I started you know you know there's there's a couple things that that we all know about being a black canon in particular you got to work two three times as hard just fact and that's true with anything in most cases um but it's establishing yourself as like the best candidate to be mayor you know you're not going to have the highest Name ID potentially you know you're not going to have as much money as other folks but it's going out there and being really clear about what you want to do for the city and trying to engage people on that and that's what I've done I mean I think there's very little debate at this point as to who's the best to do the job the only debate is is that who folks might be more comfortable with because they've known them longer yeah and I think that was always my goal is to not ask people for their vote unless I can tell them what I'm going to do for them how I'm going try to deliver for them and I think it's just like with everything I learned in sports and everything else you put in your best effort you prepare you work hard all that kind of stuff and that should translate into winning mhm don't always translate into winning though it should and so for me it's the same lessons as being an athlete the same lessons that you learn from your parents the same lessons that help you create something like this right yeah you got to grind every day and in grinding every day you understand that over the last 13 months uh if I win that laded up to winning if I don't win that laded up to me showing people in this community that we actually don't have to settle for you know to for being complacent or settle for less uh that we've now reset the standard uh and we going we going to go Champion that no matter what we do next you you have a a career in politics and obviously you got a career in winning because you still you still you moving up the ladder I would say like this would be like the next step up for you right yeah the to be elected mayor of Tulsa and uh overall like what what would the end goal be like yeah you know honestly I think it's being mayor you know I you know I think about you go do something else and it's like you might be successful yeah but if you think about how close you can be to the action and you can see things in your community changing any other job you do you're further away from that yeah if you are in Congress like you in DC you don't really know what's going on in your community if you're Governor you still kind of arms link away from what's going on in neighborhoods if you're president like you ain't nowhere close to it um but as mayor you're right on top of it man and you get to every day you know work with everybody represent folks but also look um you know you're going to have a convers look I'm all KLA Harris all day long but whoever gets elected president we still got to do stuff here that's right we still got to do stuff here and for me that's the work that I care the most about it says a lot that you come in here cuz I feel like I I read some of like your policies and you I know in education you really want to focus on helping the underserved communities and I feel like you taking a step to come to come through Tulsa and just like speak speak with me says a lot to me and to my followers they just kind of say it's like yeah you really here for us I mean you got to you know I think that and I hope you know this right like you have an important voice for the community absolutely and you know people go don't everybody read the Tulsa World don't everybody you know get their news from here no nobody not everybody goes and engages in different ways yeah but what you do every day is you give people a place to come to a sense of community and that matters that matters a great deal and so me coming here is not to do you any favors it's the fact that now I understand I I recognize what your voice means and I recognize there are other people who need to hear about the future of the city and so I'm here on the shoulders of what you have built uh more so than anything so I appreciate the opportunity salute that's so tight well look let me ask you a few more questions and I'll let you get out of here let's go you are in a very valuable space to you know people like me I look at you and like like that's like impossible you know not impossible as in like where you stand and like your success in Poli politics like looking at me coming from the East side Meadows you probably familiar with what goes on out there I look at you like dang bro I didn't know that that was possible yeah what's some advice like if you could just give me one piece of advice that you've received in your life what's some important advice that you would say you've received I think the the best advice I ever got was to never put a ceiling on yourself and and that's no matter what you decide to do it's not just applicable to politics it's everything and I tell tell my 16-year-old that all the time I tell them all the time that like you know you drive the value of yourself like yeah you got some tools and Mom and Daddy here to help you navigate that or you know people coming in at your life but the end of the day you're going to be you're in a competition with yourself every day some days you're not going to want to get up to do whatever you got to do that's you putting a ceiling on yourself that's nobody else did that to you and that was always the thing that I that's what I latched on to that's tight don't put on yourself um you you aren't in politics so I know you always in a position where you got to please people who are not able to be pleased yeah making a lot of tough decisions what is a decision that you feel like you had to make that was really difficult that kind of crafted you into who you are today you know U I think the biggest the toughest decision that I made that um I learned a lot about I left College I graduated in four years but I wasn't done with football yet yeah and I had a conversation with Coach crack Thor and his question was do you want to come back for your red shirt senior year and I tour my ACL twice and you know I was it would been the best year I had cuz I've been healthy and everything I decided to leave and I left at the time it was hard MH but I left because I got some advice from somebody who is I unless if you want to hear the back story I tell you the backstory um but I ended up leaving because I knew that you get 85 scholarships and I come to TU I got my degree we won a bowl game I could stay another year but if I stay another year some other kid who's 16 17 18 years old ain't gonna have an opportunity to come here yeah and so I went and went worked and I think that that decision back then has been something I've thought about ever since like at some point you got to pass the Baton get make sure somebody else has an opportunity cuz you you can go do something else and you should go do something it's time to grow up and but it was tough at the time man like it was real tough at the time all my friends were there and we had an opportunity to be good again and I was going to be healthy but but I left and and that actually started my career if I would have left I probably never worked in the mayor's office if I would have left I'd probably would be sitting across from you right now it wild there's so many questions I could ask you just about your background and how you got started um but I know we limited on time I do I I wanted to know like who are some of the guys that you played against oh man so my last year Tu let me tell you like our first like four games we played against three dudes all went first round the NFL draft for real we played against Lawrence morron uhhuh who went play for the New England Patriots play against Adrien Peterson everybody know who he is and D'Angelo Williams who played at Memphis like like I think that was three of our first four or five games we played against three dudes that were absolute dogs for real how did y play against them oh well so actually Minnesota came in they came to TU destroyed us I think he had like 250 yards in the first quarter oh you it was close it was close for a while like we we were right there with him nrian Peterson second half like the highlight from the TU game that year they still play on the jumbo trial when you know they do their little Insurance video kind of makes me mad every time I see it but dang that's dude's a beast though man yeah I Ain I mean I ain't never seen nothing like that dang that's tight though I ain't never seen nothing like that all right so last couple things right here yeah you know this is predominantly a music platform so I got to ask you about your your your preferences in music who your top three all time so oh man so all time all time is weird cuz all time versus what I live listen to every day is different so I mean I think you can't really talk about rap without talking about Tupac being an alltime right right uh so I'm gonna put him up there I say Lauren Hill's way up there for me H Lauren Hill's way up there for me uh we even talked last time old Kanye West yeah he may have some new stuff out but like sometimes I'm like ah man I gotta I got to go back to like College Dropout type stuff so he's way up there for me uh Marsha ambrosus who's that so she's a in the other half of flry oh did they separate so she's she's actually released her own music I don't know if they officially separated but she's released her own music but I always think about the albums that are out there that you can listen on through like I'm a big 50 Cent PL fan too okay yeah yeah um and I'm thinking about nipy hustle his last album is one that you can listen to like all the way through not everybody has that not everybody has that come on and actually I didn't know a whole lot about NY hustle until he was on The Breakfast Club yeah and he was talking I was like who's this dude yeah and then yeah yeah nip one of those ones man I got to shoot a music video with him now on my birthday absolutely yeah what was that like oh man that was the greatest day of my life you hear me cuz I was big that's the only reason I ever started going to California is just because the influence that he had on me just know the success he's achieved coming from you know from the bottom you know so going out there and being able to shoot that video was tight it's kind of so it's kind of uh I every once in a while somebody like you'll go to I was at a funeral mhm and somebody got in the car with me but like I had NY hustle on like right before they got in the car like when I got to the which you could ask yourself why was I listening to this particular song MH when I got to the funeral so there's a song on his last album that he has was him and Diddy and you know what the song is probably so you know the words in it but the person got a car for me yeah was uh not necessarily interested that language I was like oh my bad right hey it's a good song Beyond yeah yeah yeah I was like I was like oh man my my bad yeah but that's hip-hop for you unfortunately good yeah but um so just closing a few closing comments can you uh tell us some important days that if we want to you know support you yeah where where can we be on what days so election day is August 27th uh and you can find your polling place you can just Google where where's my polling place and there's a website that'll show you you put your your first name last actually last name birthday I think and it'll pop up where you're supposed to go vote if you don't know so August 27th is critically important the Saturday before you can vote early at the election board uh so you can just go show them your ID you can vote early that way but I think you know going and voting on the 27th is the biggest thing man talk to your friends about do your research Monro for.com you can find out everything about me um you know you can even reach out to us that way if if people want to know more information or talk to me whatever the case may be MH but I think people have to go vote like this I do think that the mayor's race is the most important election this year in Tulsa like even more so than the presidential race and everything else just the way the numbers work a vote is one for one here you know yeah you vote for president here which everybody should do by the way everybody should turn out and vote for vote for like I said I'm voting for KLA Harris but you know um but but the but a vote in this mayor's race is critically important uh and and I would just say make your voices heard it means as much in the mayor's race there so few people vote in it yeah and one more time can you tell them if they want to find out more about your plans where do they go they go to Monro for mayor.com uh we got plans and priorities on there a little bit about me ways you want to get involved you want a yard sign if you if you want to sign up to volunteer phone bank all that kind of stuff you can go to the website you get all that information and make sure you vote on August 27th there we go you got any closing comments you want to make I like I said before I think just just to you hats off to you for for platform you've created here uh and I know it's just going to continue to grow uh and maybe as we continue to draw more attention back to Tulsa and the culture here in Tulsa uh you continue to have that you know I think one day I'll be coming here and people be like who is that dude he has on there and why is he reaching down to let this little old dude on his show again cuz I mean I do think that that there's so much there's so much power in it I think there's so much power in it and I hope you lean in I hope you know that I hope you you feel uh the kind of Pride that that I feel sitting across the table from you and what you built here well I appreciate you once again sir that wraps it up man make sure y'all go check out more content more information about representative Nicholls in the building never seen a miror come through before and y'all never seen a mirror on y'all screen and y'all saw right here man I appreciate youon to talk to you yes sir we out see y'all