It's Where I Am with Zandra Polard

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a, k, U, n, b Studio's original program. You are listening to special programming brought to you by it's where I am.com, the content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. You

Dr. David Gennis 0:44
Dave, good morning Las Vegas. You are listening to it's where I am on 91.5 FM, K, U, N, V, I'm Dr David jennis, clinical and public relations director from great mind counseling and Wellness Center. It's my pleasure to be guest hosting in the month of August of 2025 on behalf of Zondra Pollard, who is off on a well deserved vacation. I have a special show this morning that I'm really excited about, and it's, you know, as a mental health radio show, it's important to me that I'm providing information that can be used in a practical way to help all individuals encompass and experience healthiness and happiness and to learn how to be safe and access resources throughout your respective communities, and so building off of the show that I did two weeks ago on self esteem is identity formation, and I have a great guest today that I'm very excited to introduce to all of you. Mr. Mikey watts, Hello, good morning, and thank you for taking time to be on it's where I am. Thank you for having me now. Mikey is the former host for after buzz TV, yes, sir. You are a musician, yes, sir and artist, yes, sir. Podcaster, yes, sir, and the muse of Maria menos from Access Hollywood,

Mykee Wattz 2:21
yeah, who worked for them for a long time. Yep. So that's

Dr. David Gennis 2:25
such an eclectic background. It is that you have as an artist, as a performer, and I imagine that throughout your career, you've had to be creative and at times, transform yourself to kind of fit into different roles, or, of course,

Mykee Wattz 2:46
you know, a lot of things also became, I'm a gay man, so that played a lot in my career, and I had to hide sometimes, and then eventually you come out and You become who I am.

Dr. David Gennis 3:00
So as a musician and as an artist, what genre of music did you sing?

Mykee Wattz 3:09
Well, I started out in classical music. My mom forced me to play the piano at a very young age, and I hated it. Looking back upon it, it probably was the most good, the greatest thing she could have done, and then I started into jazz, and then hip hop, and that's kind of where it ended up. I was signed to Arista at a very young age, at about 12 or 14, me and my brother a duo, and that didn't last too long now,

Dr. David Gennis 3:42
your time with Aristotle records, that is fascinates me, and that's kind of a part of your career that I have held on to, and that I recognize you as having the opportunity as a rapper, As a hip hop artist, to open for 50 Cent. Joe Santana, Jules, yeah. Little Wayne, yep, among countless others, yeah. And so can you speak a little bit about that at such a young age, having the opportunity to step in the limelight?

Mykee Wattz 4:16
Well, I think it was difficult, because I was struggling with identity. It was amazing time. We had a lot of fun it but, I mean, it introduced me to drugs, it introduced me to alcohol, until very adult life, when I was just a teenager. So it was fun. It was detrimental. It's not like anybody like abused me, but they introduced me to a lot of bad things. I had a great time, and me and my brother are still like twins, even though we're not. But it was a great time. It was troubling, but a great time.

Dr. David Gennis 4:58
So you were. Exposed to a lot of adult themes from a very early age. Oh, yeah. And as an artist, I can only imagine what it felt like for you to be able to open up for such huge acts and so young.

Mykee Wattz 5:18
I don't you know the opening thing. I think people take interest in that kind of was not anything to me. It was, you know, being in the studio and being near celebrities that you would watch on things like TRL, I'm showing my age, sorry, or MTV, and then having a personal face to face experience opening is nothing I can perform in front anybody. That was never bothered me. It was the face to face interaction and the things they would teach you and how they speak, and it kind of altered my childhood to how who I am now.

Dr. David Gennis 5:57
So I'm going to take a moment to provide some psycho education to our listeners on identity formation, and I think it's important to provide the definition, if you will, to what I'm referencing, so that we have context over this morning's conversation. So identity formation is the process of developing a sense of self, encompassing an individual's values, beliefs, roles and relationships, and this is a lifelong journey, but particularly significant during adolescence and young adulthood, as individuals explore and established identities in various social contexts. So in other words, this process involves both internal factors like personality and external influences such as family culture and social interactions. So this particular particular definition resonates for me when I think about you, because the formation of one's identity really starts in adolescence. Yes, and I think you have such a unique adolescent timeframe due to the opportunities that were presented to you at that

Mykee Wattz 7:20
age, I was afforded different opportunities than other children, and so I don't share this same things as my peers, I guess I could say, but We also do at the same time, share abuse. So these similarities. So

Dr. David Gennis 7:45
talk a little bit about what it was like for you having some internal strife regarding your identity at that time.

Mykee Wattz 7:54
Well, mine was difficult because, you know, as now, as an adult gay man, I knew I was interested in the same sex and but you have to be in this world of being perfect and being masculine and hiding things when I grew up you that was not Okay. So you're in this kind of music industry, and then you involve yourself in a hip hop world, you have to kind of fake the funk. Is what my dad called it. It's very difficult for a young kid who's developing and doesn't really understand how the world works or what's appropriate and what's not appropriate, and you know, it causes a lot of depression, a lot of strife,

Dr. David Gennis 8:44
so at that young age, you had to learn how to, as your dad would say, fake the funk. Yeah, and did that cause a lot of internal conversation for you? In regards to,

Mykee Wattz 9:00
always, you're always talking inside your head. It's it even lasts to this day, and I'm now 38, years old, I always have that internal conversation no matter what.

Dr. David Gennis 9:12
So how did these internal conversations in adolescence impact your self esteem

Mykee Wattz 9:20
when I was younger in my 20s, it, you know you want to be the man and you want to be powerful, and when you know that you're just this little kitty hiding inside the body of a lion, it, it really does impact you, because nobody wants to hear you cry or hear Your turmoil, and you're afraid to give it, to give that part of yourself to people, because you you're afraid of being judged. So as in terms of how I am now as a man, I don't care, but back then it, it really caused a lot of turmoil in my life. Yep. Mm.

Dr. David Gennis 10:00
Well, self esteem is such a intrinsic part of adults being successful and having the tools to navigate through life and through challenging situations, and it's really an overall sense of personal worth and values that influence beliefs, attitudes and feelings about ourselves, yes, and so here you are as an adolescent male in the hip hop culture, right? And you're trying to present externally as a persona, and then you have the Mikey that's kind of behind this bigger persona of Mikey watts, yeah. And so,

Mykee Wattz 10:50
you know, I was never Mikey. That was something I came up with to hide my actual name. I mean, I was always Mikey as a kid, you know, his cute name, I came up with that they I also I went by patron because I was running the streets, and that was my hood name. And eventually I came into terms with myself, and I ex patron. Patron is what they called me in the hood, and I decided I'm just going to be Mikey.

Dr. David Gennis 11:24
So as Mikey, you would engage with high level personalities.

Mykee Wattz 11:33
You could say that,

Dr. David Gennis 11:36
I guess, and and I, you know, during that age range, you or individuals, generally speaking, are learning how to emotionally regulate and engage in conversations about one's feelings.

Mykee Wattz 11:55
Well, I'm going to say at that age you you didn't learn to engage in feelings or conversation, you learned how to lie, you learned how to hide. It wasn't until I stepped away and I learned how to engage with other individuals where I could be honest and open at that age, it's all about hiding who you are, so no, I didn't. I learned how to be vibrant. That's what they taught me how to look people in the eye, because prior to that, I was very shy. I whispered like this, and it taught me to engage. It taught me how to use my voice and have inflection. But it it didn't teach me to be open and honest at all, and a lot of the industry is done open and honest. So,

Dr. David Gennis 12:49
so you shared with our listeners that it was not until you stepped away where you had more meaningful connections, where you engaged with others and started practicing maybe speaking about your feelings and maybe being more authentic.

Mykee Wattz 13:13
Yeah, you know, when I worked at with Maria menos at Access Hollywood, she called, she said, if I hang out with slaves, meaning those that are not in the industry don't have the same goals as us. And she called them slaves, I quote, unquote, that don't hang out with people that are not like you. So eventually, when I found myself and I, I, I'm a weirdo, and I like hanging out with weirdos when you're centric and we're honest, that's what made me feel like I have been doing the wrong thing the whole time, the whole time, you know, I, I kind of, what do you call it? I we just connect it was it kind of felt like a cult

Dr. David Gennis 14:08
because of the closeness that you felt as a result of being able to speak differently on a different level with these

Mykee Wattz 14:16
individuals. It's more over somebody telling you not to hang out with certain types of people and only hang out with us. It's, it's a cultish Hollywood is a very cultish environment. It's a very cultist environment. You're, you're not supposed to hang out with these people or these weirdos or this person likes that type of thing. You You have to remain right here with us, and this is your group. It's it's odd. And also your mind, you know, adapts to that. So you think this is normal. And when I got out of that, I look back at it like, what, uh. Cult is that that's crazy, and some people get stuck in it because they love the thought of being famous. And they're not really actually making you famous. They are making you slaves.

Dr. David Gennis 15:15
Wow, that's that's very poignant and insightful, and a different way to think about that. Yeah, so when you stepped away and you started living your life more authentically, yes, what was it empowering at that time for you?

Mykee Wattz 15:39
Well, I got married. So that's another story. It was for the beginning, and then that fell off. So, you know, it was able to take my attention off of the old life. But it didn't last that long so,

Dr. David Gennis 16:00
so, because in this this morning show is about identity formation and really taking a look at the process of how we evolve over a period of time, and how we may view ourselves at one time frame in our life, right? And how that may transform over a period of time, as as we get older. And so I'm hearing though, what marriage provided for you was another opportunity, though it was an escape. So an escape from what

Mykee Wattz 16:39
I don't want. I don't like saying stuff like this in public, but I was doing a lot of drugs, and I was keeping up with the Joneses, and I just couldn't keep up. And I met someone who I fell in love with, and that was something that provided me an escape, to go to a different world, not necessarily the best world, but something that was different that I needed. I couldn't continue with that lifestyle. So it didn't kind of it didn't burn my life. It didn't cause me to be suicidal or something. It was just another bad path.

Dr. David Gennis 17:24
So as part of identity formation, there are different formations that's identified as being part of this concept, and one of these formations is career identity. And you know, this is really focusing on the paths that eventually led to choosing a specific career and aligning with certain values and ideas that have influenced where you ended up today? Yeah, do you want to talk a little bit about that in terms of your progression, if you will, from what you did early on in life and where you're at today?

Mykee Wattz 18:15
Sure, I'm totally recluse. I you know, I went from Hollywood to having tons of party friends, which are not your real friends, to, you know, marriage, and then that was my best friend for six years, and then being, you know, alone. Now I've been alone for, I don't know, five years. My life has changed. I'm kind of solemn, I'm calm, I don't do the things that I used to. It hurts. You know, what I said on Facebook the other day is, you know, I was an introvert, and I had to teach myself to be an extrovert and and that was because of work, and so I had to, if I chose who I really am, I would be an introvert. I'm, I'm, I would be quiet, but I can't seem to shut my mouth. So it, you know, it's a gift and a curse. At this point, it's a gift and a curse.

Dr. David Gennis 19:27
Well, you know, I have the privilege of calling myself your friend, and you and I have got into several debates, yeah, throughout the past year, bad debate. No, no, no, no. We just like to challenge each other our thinking, which is what you know, makes the world so unique and and meaningful. Listeners, usually I write, I just want to add that. Yeah, right, but, but I've been able you. Even over these past few years, as an observer, been able to watch and take part on a small level in your journey, and even watching you evolve on a human being level over the past three years. Yeah, can you speak a little bit about what the past three years have been like and sure, I

Mykee Wattz 20:24
had a heavy drinking problem, and I think that that came into play in my life a lot, and how I spoke to people and my emotions, and I was heavy on medication, and I wasn't in the right mind of how to treat people or how to even speak, and I went through a lot of health issues so because of alcohol abuse. So that's kind of where I've been on and kind of recover. And not to say that I'm an angel. I still drink here and there, but not like I how I used to. It was a real big factor in how I communicated with other individuals that loved me.

Dr. David Gennis 21:13
I think you know, what you just shared takes a lot of courage and is very brave to speak out loud and to acknowledge one's demons and and to take accountability for them. And though what has been rewarding for me as your friend to watch is just seeing the steps that you've taken to be healthy and to love yourself and to evolve and move forward in a positive way. So

Mykee Wattz 21:47
I have been trying to kind of go back track and apologize to people that I mistreated. And it's really hard journey because some people I have to accept. They won't accept my apology because of what I did, and that's a very difficult thing, because you're trying to do right, but you have to accept you did them wrong, so you have to go with it. But at least you said that you realized your mistake.

Dr. David Gennis 22:18
Yes, you know I heard you use the word acceptance, and I think that's so powerful. And I think if we can get to that place of acceptance, it allows us to really have some movement, and not being stuck, and being able to move forward. And I also like to add, though, forgiveness, none of us are perfect. And in fact, as a human being, we're perfectly imperfect, and that we all make mistakes,

Mykee Wattz 22:51
yeah, but you also have to learn, if, from my perspective, if you did somebody wrong, you know they don't have to accept

Dr. David Gennis 23:03
your apology. Yeah, no, they don't. They hear it,

Mykee Wattz 23:07
but they don't have to accept it, and you have to move forward and and that's okay being a healthy person is that you understood your your uh, issue, and the issues you do cause for somebody else, and then now it's time, you got to move on and better yourself. You can't be stuck in this rut. Is what I called her rut.

Dr. David Gennis 23:31
Well, and we certainly, you know there's this old expression that you sometimes have to fake it until you make it

Mykee Wattz 23:40
Lord, and that's why I said fake the fun, yeah, yeah.

Dr. David Gennis 23:43
And I was just gonna repeat that again. And in that though, I don't know if that's really the most healthiest way to go about

Mykee Wattz 23:52
No, it's not. It's not the healthiest, but it's an old school way. It's what our parents would say. Yeah, you know, yeah, different generation is a different generation. To me. I don't want to fake the funk anymore. I'm going to tell you like it is. But that also causes now in my new life, people to think I'm too aggressive because I say whatever's on my mind that is off putting to a lot of people. And as you I mean, you know better than anybody, and it's, it's off putting to a lot of people, and I have to learn to watch my mouth. But see now I come from a life where I didn't say anything, and then now I say something. You know, everyone's like, Why didn't you say anything? And now I say too much, and it's like, where do I you got to find a balance.

Dr. David Gennis 24:43
Yeah, and that's, that's key is, is finding balance. I believe in the delivery, you know, I appreciate you challenging me and questioning some of my viewpoints, because it allows me to you. Go internal and to have that conversation with myself so that I can make space in regards to assimilating new ideas that maybe I haven't thought about before.

Mykee Wattz 25:11
Does that make you uncomfortable? Though?

Dr. David Gennis 25:14
No, actually, I embrace that. I just for you know, I think in conversation that it's didactic, okay? And so it's back and forth, and it's important for me to feel heard and to have my opinion validated and acknowledged.

Mykee Wattz 25:32
You know what I noticed? You're not a yeller. You know? Sometimes if I need my point across, I might my tone of voice will go higher. You are not a big dealer,

Dr. David Gennis 25:44
no, because I don't think by one raising the pitch of their voice to make a point is effective, and I'm not sure it conveys what the the speaker wants to have received. So I just, you know, I think it's important that when individuals are attempting to be authentic and that it's out of care and concern for an individual, that the messaging is delivered in a way that maybe is, I don't know, a little softer. Perhaps

Mykee Wattz 26:23
you're better than I am. I yell.

Dr. David Gennis 26:26
Well, certainly they're gonna hear you now they're gonna listen to you. I don't know.

Mykee Wattz 26:31
I'm kind of Stern. I'm very aggressive, and that's kind of my issue. Now I've got to tone it down

Dr. David Gennis 26:38
well, and you know, as I provide psycho education on mental health and on this episode's topic of identity formation, I think you know, it's important to become informed, yeah, and to have education so that each one of us can make informed decisions over how we want to present ourselves to the world.

Mykee Wattz 27:07
Well, let me ask you a question. Do you think mental health education is prevalent in today's world? Because I feel like we lack in teaching people how to deal with emotions and development as you grow.

Dr. David Gennis 27:26
Yeah, absolutely. So I talk about feelings every day because of what I do. And you know, I love to love, and I live to love. And so talking about feelings is is very comfortable for me. I am very secure and being vulnerable in that space. That's

Mykee Wattz 27:43
you. But what about you know people that are not like us, that you know they take their anger out and frustration out, and instead of learning how to communicate or solve a problem without violence or vulgar vulgarness.

Dr. David Gennis 28:04
So I feel bad for my kids, because they had a dad who was a therapist, and so they had lots of exposure to dinner table conversations about emotional regulation, whereas I don't believe in today's society that at the dinner table, that is a common topic, that you

Mykee Wattz 28:28
don't think that prepares them for the real world? Oh, absolutely, I

Dr. David Gennis 28:31
think it does. It does. You know,

Mykee Wattz 28:35
life is not cotton candy, right? It's not. I mean, I wish it was, No, it's not for me. I don't know if it is for

Dr. David Gennis 28:45
you. That's, that's another whole show, but that

Mykee Wattz 28:49
prepares them for for real life situations. I mean, I don't, you don't want kids to see you hitting each other or but, you know, an adult conversation,

Dr. David Gennis 29:01
yeah, yeah. So identity formation, I want to thank Mikey watts for being on, it's where I am. Of course, really appreciate you making time to take part in this discussion. Love you and you're listening to it's where I am on 91.5 FM, U, N, V, take care. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai