Episode Transcript
Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. I don't know why I get my, my, my terms a day all mess up. Probably cause my sleep pattern's been a mess since all this started. But we're continuing the conversation for our episode two. We're in part three where David is able to talk a little bit more about , where he was when he found out what he was doing.
What did he feel when he found out about dad dying? I. Also just anything else to elaborate on that experience is quite a bit that happened that day. I know for me, I was trying to put the pieces together on what was going on in the messages that I was getting too. And it was just, I think, but be between the, both of us.
We were just on high energy with the situation and we, it was so bad that we even ended up like yelling at each other because it was just so much emotions like it, we couldn't believe. Not only that Dad died, which we were not prepared for, but the fact that we were not even included as part of that. And I think it's important for people to understand that our father raised us, right?
We weren't just, even though in our adulthood we made our choices for us to follow our own path and , do what we could in order to maintain some kind of relationship with our father in some kind of way or shape or form, but, At the foundation, our father raised us, so for us to not be included and for the people around him that he supposedly loved the best according to the narrative.
They knew that they had seen us be dropped off by their house when we were two and three years old, and so they, they had always known us. We didn't know them until we were much older and we moved together. But it's important for people to understand the backstory that they absolutely knew. Our father was raising us, and that was one of the reasons why, at least this is how my stepmother told me once, is what she loved about our father.
So you see a man who loves his children, who takes care of his children, and whatever human parent to child fallout that they have, you take it upon yourself to make such a decision and not even have the character to even make the sense for the person, our father, and say, Carlton, even though you're upset or whatever the situation was, we weren't there.
Your children need to know or something of that nature. So that's something that really hit. A lot of us I know it hit for me. But of course David, I want you to take some time too, like we all did, of course. And just elaborate on what that moment was like for you. And by the way, if you're just tuning in but you haven't heard the other episodes, definitely go back and listen to them.
We're trying to keep it short and sweet. It's a lot to go over. But it's important that you also take a look at the Justice for Carlton Facebook page. Also the GoFundMe page. You'll get a lot more information from there in addition to what we're elaborating on. And you'll also be able to see some of the text messages that we're trying to keep in line.
We're being very transparent. We're being very honest. There's no shame or guilt here because we refuse just to let these people have any more control over us. The sad thing is we lost our father, but on the other side of that, it allowed for us to have the freedom that we needed to have in order for us to speak up.
And that's what we're taking the time to do right now. Tell us what was your day like? What was going on for you when you found out?
Greetings, and I am the second born of the three siblings. And for me I wanna say to start off that the lack of communication that the narrative is put out right now is, Not even partly, probably a hundred percent done by the step siblings, done by the spouse.
I also want to say as well, with that being said, you're, you could be connected to your parents in a way that you feel something cold. You feel that this disconnection and you'll find yourself calling them and not know why. You'll find yourself calling them like, until you start thinking maybe, and I hate to be the bear of bad news.
I'd rather had be like a PA bearer than a bear of bad news. But I found out through a stepmother, you have to understand our fathers an entertainer and understands the Grammy of War winning Andre artist, she's the man. He's from a reggae fraternity. This is the man who's a legend. He's not just our father, he's.
The goat to many people, the greatest of all time. Some people get his voice misconstrued with other legends. Okay, so with that being said, he was loved and I would think if you love him, you love his children as well. And a woman who he was married to and took care of us that he was with for a while, I believe.
Kept in contact with one of his children, and that's me. But the love for , that she has for us three is still there to say the least. And it's more that can be set for what's going on right now.
I can say that a little bit. She contacted me and the strange thing about it is not being able to confirm that for her. Not being able to be confident and saying, yeah, I knew that. And, maybe surprising her by not telling her, assuming my sister Ruthie would've told me because hey, they're in the same state.
As you can tell, Ruthie's very vocal very eloquent as she talks. So I would assume that the news would go through Ruthie, through the vein from Ruthie, my sister, in the same state, in the same county as my father. Through this block that's been built between us as siblings and as us as a unit towards them.
She finds out she being our ex stepmother, I wanna call her from a radio station. Radio station was contacted by the band, we'll say, the band that he made songs and was a part of for a long time. It made hits with and got a Grammy with I believe it goes. The band was contacted by some powers on a legal side of our father's estate.
I. More so concerned with royalties and the band, I'm going to assume contacted radio stations to see if this was true because they did not hear about our father passing Carlton Coffee and all this information, by the way, on the Facebook page at Justice for Carlton Coffee on Facebook. And so we've posted a lot of the stuff and like my brother said, and one of the other programs earlier, ones.
Going over it again, it's very taxing. You gotta refresh your memory cause you want to give your truth, the truth of what happened, how we found out. I found out from my ex stepmother, and so what I could not do was confirm for her and what she did, being somebody of some notoriety.
Because of her occupation and because she's, she knows people in the reggae industry. She contacted radio stations in New York, actually in Florida and couldn't confirm it. Called me back and said, hold on, I'm gonna call somebody again. Hung up, call some radio station in New York and got the news.
Said, yeah, your father's been dead about two weeks now, which again is a false date. So when I'm finding this out, I'm still under the impression that he dies two weeks ago from the time that I found out. And before I get to actually finding out, I wanted to actually let everybody know that I panicked.
I panicked. And as his son, I haven't spoken to anybody on the side of who he was married to. In probably 20 some odd years, 17 some odd years. I'm probably exaggerating. So I still had contact with them. No one's ever reached out to me. I was okay with it until this part, this time right here. And so I took the initiative to reach out to them.
I actually remember the. The message, if I have, I can look it up, is a message that I have that I sent to them, and it is a very cryptic message because I didn't want to seem, too overbearing. But the message was there was a storm, so there was a storm that happened in for Ladale in Miami and I was just really feeling very spiritual.
I don't know what it was. And then I, something just felt like you just, cause I'm in the northern part of the United States. I'm no longer in Florida, you have to understand when I get news of Florida and weather, it hits differently for me. I picture I'm so used to it. I, but something about it.
So anyway, I happened to just send a message out to one of the step siblings and it was like something about that storm last week and a couple of other things that really touched me. Almost like he was here with me. Shame that has touched base with me yet. Been like, what, two weeks? That's cold, but we got it from here, ache.
That's the message that I sent. That's the message that I sent. I didn't get a response until maybe a day later or two, I wanna say, or the same day, a day later, or two. I don't wanna go into the date that the message is like a lot to look at , but the response that I did get back from one of the siblings was, It's narrative.
I have been gone for 10 years. I have never talked to my father. You have to understand all this information's at the Facebook page at justice for causing coffee. Clearly there is, there's messages that I've been reaching out. There's messages that we spoke, there's messages that I'm concerned, like what?
What's going on? So there are phases of my communication, clearly there, sending a memes, jokes. I've got a screenshot of, of my father and my sister and I on the phone. They said, I, lies. The that, that message ended with a middle finger emoji. By the way. It ended with a middle, and that was it for me.
That's all I needed to see. I'm a little fiery when it comes down to my Rachel with my father. I'm the fireball fiery one. I'm the one that the path where I feel like with my father's community love. It's tough love, but still love and I appreciate it nonetheless. That doesn't mean you create a block. You have to understand.
I understood family later on in life and how this situation I felt cold. No love. All these things are happening in real time in writing. There's nothing in writing. There's nothing in writing that says, his wishes were to not communicate to anybody. And I feel as though this situation we're being treated worse after than actually what his wishes entailed, if that makes sense.
If his bishops virtue Not involve his children, his direct descendants, what's, how it's being conveyed to us as is descendants. It's totally just off and off-putting. And again, if I have a woman man and I love her and she's got children, we're gonna love the children as well. That's all I'm saying.
And that's the truth. That's the truth. I don't see why my father would never do the right thing and communicate. We try to communicate with us. I've got messages where, oh man, the Facebook icon goes down. When I reached out to him, this is like around the time he's in the hospital, and I really was talking to my sister Ruthie and trying to.
Have her as an outlet because she's right there in, in the same state. So I'm not gonna jump the totem pole, the order, even though I can just reach out to 'em and I have voicemail. Answer machine, voicemail, answer machine voicemail, answer machine straight to voicemail. What do you do? What do you do?
Let's keep it real. I'm in New Jersey.
I just wanted to say I think that's what is the most alarming thing is that someone had access to his phone. This is what another reason why we're suspicious as well. Because someone had access to his phone for a while.
It started, I would say it's far back from October when he was in the hospital. The first time that I found out that he was in the hospital, but after October, November, December, January, I had no information that he was in the hospital because he was not being responsive. But we, I didn't think the worst.
I just figured the reason why he was not responsive was because he's probably still upset because when he went to the hospital in October, which was for a procedure, again, I will talk about that in the narrative. When we get to the narrative episode, it's important to understand like when we say gaslighting and manipulating, Lying, the type of characteristics that were behaviors, I should say, even that were being used against us, that have always been a pattern from day one to now.
And it's interesting cuz the end, the way that the end, the way that we got here to the end is the same way we began in terms of the behaviors and and the character. The character of, yeah,
nothing's changed. Nothing's changed. Nothing's changed. Exactly.
Exactly, and so that's one thing to pay attention to is the fact that the outcome ended up being the exact way that it was the whole entire time we were growing up.
And we're gonna go get into more of those specific details again in another episode. But one thing that is very clear to me is there's a pattern of. Of isolation of not letting us know. We all had, between you and I, between other family members, we were all reaching out to him and for whatever reason, we weren't getting a response back.
And the one time that we did that, I did get a call back it was him upset again, but not upset as if a per for a person that was preparing to get ready to die. Upset. I got the time. I'm mad with you. Bye. That was so that's why it's such a shock to us because I remember when David was trying to reach out to him and I'm, I would tell him at all at that time, you know what?
He just needs to cool it. Once dad gets, you know how he gets sometimes he'll call us back. I remember I have, you all can see at the Justice for Carlton page in one of the text messages too, where I'm saying, Hey, Dave has been trying to reach you too. And still no response. One thing I know about my dad, what you all should know about our dad is that even when he is vexed or frustrated, if he sees us trying to reach out to him, at some point he'll say something
I've got a better one. Even if we're on the phone with him and he has nothing to say, he'll just play music. Okay. But he will talk. He will. He will listen. The phone will be on. There's a connection.
The point that I'm making though with that is that. He in calling back and being responsive. If he saw that two of us were trying to contact him, if he didn't re, if he was mad at one of us, he'd reach out to the other one. Yep. He would at least do that. And when he reached out to the other one, he'd be asking about the other one. I didn't answer the call because I didn't like how this went, or whatever.
And
he, he would even he would, even if he hasn't talked to one in a long time, he will keep going on in every conversation about what happened. We're always on his mind. We're always some shapewear form. We're always on his mind. And I'll be damned if I'm thinking I'm going crazy thinking like, you know what, I'm talking to a ghost here.
When the icon, the Facebook icon goes down on his messenger and he's in the hospital, he's already leveling down in his health. What do you do when you're trying to reach out to a person who's, if that's the narrative that he was in the hospital, then how can you ever say, we have never tried? How can you say that?
We have never tried. This man has put us on songs with him. We've, I've produced songs on Christmas albums at 15 with this man. Okay. You can't, that's something you can't take away from somebody. You can't block that. We gotta do better. They gotta do better. I, when I say we've gotta do better, I'm speaking to them.
Cause we're doing our part by saying, Hey, we're the table. We just invited you. Now, while you may have watched over the table, we need a seat. There's Nothing in writing.
They have nothing in writing
The thing about it though is we already know they felt the entitlement that we were not included in anything. And I think the biggest question in all of this is, In some of the interactions with us.
So for example, with me I had a lot of nice niceties. Nice niceties versus kindness, right? So smiling and, acting as if they're being nice towards me, offering to do certain gestures and things like that. But it wasn't consistent, but one thing that's really important is that there was a lot of niceness but not kindness. And I had to look up the difference between the two. I think that's important to, to point out the difference between being nice versus being kind.
And I think that they thought that they were being nice with at least with me, talking to me, oh, how are you doing? Oh, how's everything with the kids? But when it came down to being benevolent, which is, like you said, it should matter, whatever their the circumstances are, when someone dies, you do the decent thing of saying something.
I find myself often now, Looking up the difference between things, what's the difference between justice and vengeance? Because I'm like, the lines are the lines could feel blurred because there is a lot of pain, there's a lot of hurt, there's a lot of anger. And the, this I realize now is the pattern that I recognized in these human beings that called us family at one point.
Is that their emotional intelligence is very much in a deficit. And I say that to say that we are a product of our father. Like we're not necessarily, all of us are, maybe I'm emotional, I'm sensitive I'll admit to that, but we have a sense of compassion, a sense of empathy for ourselves as well as for our father.
Even for other people, even if we might be upset about the situation. I think we have that and the fact that the, what's been reciprocated was the opposite of that. So I find myself looking at what's this word versus this word
nice, and kind, are similar but not identical. Words that describe a friendly person nice refers to behavior that is pleasing, agreeable, polite, while kind refers to having or showing benevolence or good acts. Being nice means treating people with dignity and respect, even though that's not what we got, while being kind implies that the other person is in distress or needs help.
Kindness is often expressed through actions that you take for other people while niceness typically involves more superficial words or simple gestures. So what David, would be met with, let's say we, this whole narrative about David not being around for all this time.
Literally a year or two ago, maybe, I think it was like two years now, we were all in a meeting together. For the spiritual community that we participated in, we're all in meeting together and there was niceties then oh, hey, how you doing? Things like that. But behind closed doors, it was malevolence, right?
It was talking badly about David or talking badly about me, towards my father. So the reason why I mentioned that is because in the end, when he was in such a critical state of his health, they were nice. They were nice in the sense of, oh, hi, how are you doing? Texting, things like that. But they weren't benevolent, right?
They didn't reach out to me to say, Hey, I don't even know if you even heard anything, but I haven't heard anything from you. So you probably don't even know this, but your dad's in the hospital. Simple. I would've known, oh, he is in a hospital. Like again, like that's what's happening now. Because he was in October for a different procedure.
But I didn't know his health was going worsening like that. Nobody told me
If his wishes were, did not have anything to do with us in the end. You show me the person who is in agreeance with that, and then can sit in a spiritual meeting with one of us on a regular basis after the fact, and not say anything on a spiritual or even on a spiritual level, just shows me a little malevolence.
It, I would say it's a, it's it is malevolent. It is malevolent. Yeah. Because you know that everybody knows that when somebody dies, there's a what do you call it?
Like a rite of passage, right? You're born, you have your birth. That's a rite of passage. Everybody comes together, they celebrate the birth of a baby. When you die, people also come together to celebrate and mourn a person. So we, he didn't get that. From us and we weren't able to give that to him.
And these are people that said that he asked for the people to be around him that he loved the most. Of course the, these are triggers for us because the questions have to be asked, which is, where is this information? Like, why don't you have this prepared for us to see it? Why don't you have prepared Exactly in terms of video or something that, or even including
us.
Listen, they're all adults. They're, they've been adults. That should be expected from them, that you have something in writing, documented something. They've been adults 10 times over here. The lack of maturity here the people have to understand the responses that we got back in the late timing of his know, of his passing had been very cold, very meticulous, very inconsiderate.
There's been reaching out going on. There's been reaching out to family members except for the direct descendants, except for the ones that live in the same state as him as them. I need the public to know that there is a lot to get from out of that right there. You show me somebody who is okay with not telling their children that they passed away, even though those were his wishes, which are not even writing.
So then you show me the person, even though it's not even in writing. Show me the person who's in agrees with that. I'm gonna show you evil. That's evil to me. Because you still have the right and the free will, you still have the free will to make that decision because it's not even in writing. Writing.
Yeah, and that's exactly why we're asking for everyone to jump in and just share this, share our story. Like what you're hearing. Not cuz it's a good thing and it's a great story cuz it's stand
on the right side of history. Stand on the right side of righteousness. Stand on the right side of common sense.
This can be in learning for somebody, who has in hospice.
This can be a learning situation for somebody who has a parent in hospice, whereas a parent or somebody in hospice who's older, elderly, whether it be celebrity, whether it be regular, doesn't really matter.
This is information that can help somebody as well.
That's what makes it very difficult because according to the law is that people don't have to tell family members when somebody dies. And that is such an immoral, for a country that, of course has a principle of religion to certain degree, I know it's separation of church and state, but the fact that there is a prominence of religion, religions in this country.
That you see graveyards all over the place. That means someone's having a funeral, someone's having a prayer, someone's letting that person go through their rite of passage of death. So the fact that there's no laws that protect us to be able to say, especially when there already is a law on the books, that interstate law, which is basically the law that says that if there's no will, That the inheritance goes between the surviving spouse and the immediate descendants of the person that's dead.
The fact that there's a law in place for that and there's no requirement of the law for family members to be. Contacted except for in the situation where inheritance is spent and if it's spent and the family members that are supposed to be supposed to benefit from the interstate law does not receive the inheritance split in that way, then yes, that can turn into an inheritance theft.
But the fact that there's no requirement to just even notify people made this in this situation even more complicated, even more. Time consuming, even more exhaustive, which is exactly why we are promoting that GoFundMe page because we do need public support. Contrary to popular belief, and this is something that needs to be said for children of entertainers or celebrities.
My, our father was not a one hit wonder. There are. And I don't like that term really, but there are artists who might have their one big hit and it's really popular. Nobody hears a lot about them. They still have children, they still have a family, they still have brothers or sisters for the most part.
And the question of what's going on in the background of these family dynamics, no one really asks those questions. It's not until a situation like this that happens like a death where, or even sickness, cuz you see some of the same thing happening, like Jamie Fox case and. Know, depending on who the family member is that's speaking up, the information could be a bit confusing.
So that's, that makes the situation complicated. But for the fact that there are, whether there are many of us who have a parent who was in the music business or is in the music business is an entertainer or actor or what have you, some kind of artist that we don't all come out of it. Getting the proper dues as we deserve.
Right? There are a lot of artists you'll find that have to fight for their rights. And this happened through all of the artists during the 1940s and fifties and sixties and seventies before they put in place like real copyright laws. So we're a byproduct of when things don't work the way that they're supposed to or as they should, and that's what's put us in the position of us having to seek out support.
For us to make the situation right, and as everyone's been saying so far, episode two for Ari, and how he found out my episode and David's episode, what you'll, what you'll understand from us is that for a lot of the questions that are coming in about, why is it that the GoFundMe is just starting now?
We didn't learn until April the 19th, that our father had died on February the second. Why is it that why don't you go about getting your solution this way or that way? Those solutions are great that people are chiming in and giving their ideas. It's very helpful. It's also helpful for us to express to you all that we're in the position, that we're in for a story that yet has yet to been fully told in terms of those challenges that my father did face while he was alive and getting his dues.
But we're here now. And so I hope that whoever's listening will take from this the importance of participating, not just for families like ours who are in the entertainment business, but for families who are not, plumbers and doctors and. Laborers who have some kind of pension or something or just has something to be give towards their legacy cuz that's what this is about.
This is about our legacy. Our father, our, we are our father's legacy. We are part of our father's lineage and our step siblings can't carry that lineage. That has to be said that our step-siblings can't carry that legacy. They have their own fathers and their own mother's legacy to carry. We're doing what is spiritually, morally.
Just decently correct, and that is to make sure that we are doing what we can to make sure that our father gets the dues that he deserves. And so that is exactly why we just want you all to continue to support. Going forward with the GoFundMe and also checking out our Facebook page. We're also gonna have an Instagram page As we're getting through this, we're learning through it, so we're not, it's not gonna be cookie cutter crisp right now.
It's going to be us just being real people and expressing ourselves to you so that you can understand and hopefully see yourselves in our shoes and walk that mile with us. And hopefully help us get the justice that we're looking for. So thank you all for listening and look out for the next episode, intimidation.
If you got this far for whatever reason that she didn't get through episode one, please go back to listen to episode one. Make sure you also listen to episode two, part one, part two
and that's just of us giving our our experience of us learning how we got to finding out that our father died. And then episode three is about us talking about the intimidation. And that's what happened as part of this journey as we started finding out. Then we started to talk about the fact that our father died and tried to make sure that his legacy was holding true to who he was, which was an artist.
And an artist leads to their voice. They're not silenced for three months in a grave where people don't even get to hear them. Which again was another cruel, evil thing that was done. Tangent. I just went on. But take me back. Get me all back, y'all, to getting to our next episode. So please listen in, please share, and we hope to hear you all come back.
We hope that you'll come back and continue to keep listening to us. This is the coffee table.
