No Ceilings
Wallo267 is the clever elder that hip-hop has been clamoring for. Eight years after serving a 20-year jail sentence, the podcasting powerhouse is on the forefront of a wave that has positively modified the sport.
Interview: Joey Echevarria
Editor’s Notice: This story seems within the Fall 2025 challenge of XXL Journal, on newsstands now and obtainable on the market on the XXL web site.
Wallo267 is not afraid to be actual with rappers, and he’s not hesitant to point out his feelings both. In 2022, throughout an impactful episode of his podcast, Million Dollaz Price of Recreation, alongside cohost Gillie Da Child, the 46-year-old multimedia persona made a heartfelt plea to Lil Durk and a bunch of the rapper’s Solely The Members of the family. Wallo urged these younger males from the streets of Chicago to grab their alternatives and transfer away from a lifetime of crime. Although Wallo’s phrases could have fallen on deaf ears for Durk, who’s at the moment in jail dealing with trial for a murder-for-hire plot, Wallo stays steadfast in his mission to make use of his personal decades-long expertise in jail as a way for motivation and development.
Wallo267, whose actual identify is Wallace Peebles, entered the Pennsylvania prison justice system on the age of 11. All through his teenage years in North Philadelphia, he by no means spent a complete 12 months exterior of a penitentiary. In 1997, on the age of 17, he was convicted of armed theft and served 20 years in numerous state prisons. Regardless of the challenges of incarceration, these 20 years turned a invaluable crash course in self-discipline and self-control for him.
After his launch in 2017, Wallo started documenting his new life on his Instagram account, @Wallo267, a reference to his former jail inmate quantity, DG-2670. His mix of humor and real human perception made his journey towards redemption more and more common on social media. In 2019, he launched the podcast Million Dollaz Price of Recreation, partnering as soon as once more together with his cousin Gillie Da Child, with whom he had beforehand collaborated as a part of rap group Main Figgas. Their mixture of candid and unfiltered interviews with high-profile company, together with their assured and humorous road information, set a brand new commonplace within the evolving hip-hop panorama.
Wallo has efficiently remodeled from an ex-convict right into a mainstream media mogul, motivated by a want to encourage marginalized communities. One 12 months after having his 31-year parole fully lifted, Wallo is a masterclass in motivation. Whether or not by means of his 2024 New York Occasions best-selling ebook, Armed With Good Intentions, or his participating YouTube exhibits from Nanny’s Home Leisure, Wallo is at all times pushing ahead.
As one of the vital influential voices within the tradition, Wallo267 related by way of Zoom this previous August to debate the significance of sustaining self-discipline, how he makes use of comedy as a method to ship his message, the way forward for Million Dollaz Price of Recreation, the lasting influence he hopes to have in hip-hop and extra.
XXL: The Million Dollaz Price of Recreation podcast has had such an influence on the tradition. What do you think about among the present’s most vital moments?
Wallo267: I can’t say a second. I can simply say the knowledge that we’ve delivered to folks, whether or not it was the enterprise highlight, whether or not it’s simply listening to someone’s story, whether or not it’s simply humanizing the artist, every time it’s simply me talking the reality, it empowers. It’s so many various moments.
We’ve seen unbelievable issues, just like the well-known Lil Durk speech and what you stated to that room, and loads of different moments. Does it ever really feel like a endless uphill battle to ship your message?
To be completely sincere with you? No. And the rationale I say no is as a result of everyone’s alarm clock comes on at totally different instances in life, and I’ll at all times be actual thoughtful about mine. It took me a long time for me to get it proper, and simply since you’re telling someone what’s proper, that don’t imply they’re going to be receptive to it at that second.
They won’t be open, and their thoughts may not be there. Their coronary heart may not be there. So, everyone obtained a unique time. I’m by no means going to be judgmental of individuals simply because I obtained one thing to say, and I believe it’s vital that they need to cease and pay attention. And it’d even be helpful to them, however they won’t be at that place of life proper now. So, I’m understanding of that.
Each you and Gillie Da Child have many different enterprise ventures popping off. Have you ever ever mentioned an endgame for the present you guys do collectively, or do you each roll with it and develop accordingly?
I believe every part has an finish. When that finish is? We’re not able to put that collectively but, nevertheless it’s positively an finish for every part. You may’t do one thing perpetually. We speak about lots, however we’re going to proceed to deal with the folks one of the best ways we will till we determine to not.
Do the jokes and humorousness on Million Dollaz Price of Recreation ever get in the way in which of delivering your total messages of hope and motivation?
You bought to consider it. If you can also make ’em snigger, you can also make ’em pay attention. A few of our best academics have been comedians: Paul Mooney, Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx. When you may open someone up by means of laughter, after which you may slide the reality in there, it’s way more digestible and so they’re extra receptive to it. It performs hand-in-hand.
It’s one factor to have an viewers that understands the jokes and the nuances of the present, however do you ever really feel the necessity to entertain by way of sound bites because of “clip tradition,” as they are saying?
What I do is natural. So, I don’t have to fret about that. What I understand, loads of this clip tradition and all that stuff, it don’t final. I’ve been round for years, and I’ve seen folks come and go. It don’t final. If you’re simply true to who you’re and genuine, that proper there, that’s timeless. You’re going to be OK. All you bought to do is proceed to be you.
With so many individuals realizing {that a} transition from hip-hop to media persona is a sound choice for the longer term, how do you keep your place as one of the vital distinguished folks in your house?
I get up, do me, and every part play alright for me. I ain’t obtained to be someone else. Lots of people obtained to be all these totally different folks, and it’s exhausting. My mission assertion, “F what they suppose,” proper? That alone permits me to be me. So, I ain’t obtained to maintain switching up. Most individuals don’t even obtained that mindset. They obtained to maintain switching up and take a look at to determine what folks like, what they don’t like. In the event that they like me at the moment and so they don’t like me tomorrow, no matter division I is likely to be in, it don’t matter to me.
What’s it that retains you motivated to suppose that approach?
It’s not likely about motivation. It’s extra about self-discipline. Motivation is a momentary factor. You’re hype at the moment. Are you going to be hype perpetually? Are you disciplined sufficient to say, “What I’m doing at the moment, I’m going to do for a 12 months straight. I don’t care what occurred, why it occurred, the place it occurred, who it occurred with, I’m not deviating from what I’m doing.” That’s a unique recreation.
Now that you just’re eight years faraway from jail and it’s been one 12 months because you have been let off parole fully, what influence do you are feeling you’ve left on rappers and followers who come from marginalized backgrounds?
I believe I’m an instance of change, an instance of what you may be regardless of how exhausting the battle was to start with. You may actually make it occur out right here and do some nice issues when you actually consider in your self and also you don’t overthink it.
You bought to be round the correct folks. You bought to attach with the correct folks. You simply obtained to have your thoughts proper and know what you need. You don’t should know, totally. You may know simply 15 to twenty %, and simply keep devoted to that, and every part will come when you simply keep down.
Many think about you to be the OG that hip-hop wants within the trendy period. You’re form of just like the elder within the recreation to point out the correct path.
Thanks.
What do you discover rewarding about that and is there a draw back?
I’m simply glad to have the ability to lend some phrases or lend a serving to hand. So, I don’t actually take a look at it as a draw back. It’s not none. [Hip-hop is] the soundtrack of every part that we’ve ever performed coming from the hood. So, I’m glad to be in shut proximity to one thing that I really like a lot. That’s the triumph.
How would you describe your house in hip-hop because it pertains to the music, your relationship with rappers and the tradition basically?
what’s loopy? Again within the day, I used to rap, and I by no means actually obtained it off as a result of I went to jail. However just lately, I can say I went platinum. I’m on a platinum venture with BigXthaPlug. I’m on his [Take Care] album thrice. So, now it looks like I’m within the books. I would haven’t been in a position to rap no extra, however talking on folks’s albums, anyone from Hunxho to Toosii to Larry June to Conway the Machine to Smoke DZA, Coi Leray. That’s main.
It’s. However exterior of that, you’ve helped culminate a wholly trendy platform that’s 100% hip-hop in each angle and principle. When it’s all stated and performed, what would you like the tradition to say about Wallo267?
I simply need to have the ability to say that I used to be a contributor and I’m cool with that. [I want them to say] that I contributed a platform, me and Gillie, to the tradition otherwise. To have the ability to be part of that in some sort of approach, I’m glad.
As you proceed to develop as a mainstream media persona, do you ever attain a stage that’s greater than hip-hop for you, and what does that imply for the natural viewers you’ve developed?
It’s already past hip-hop. My true viewers, they like to go on the journey with me, and it’s my job to teach them about totally different concepts, totally different cultures, totally different outlooks as a result of that’s what life is about. Life is about development as a result of you may’t keep 10, 15, 20 [years old] perpetually. I simply take folks on a journey, and everyone that wish to go along with me, they may go.
Some folks would possibly really feel as if they don’t wish to go that route. In the event that they don’t, I respect them, and I thank them for being part of no matter it was that we had, nevertheless it’s about development and improvement always.
Do you ever see some extent through which your work reaches previous motivating individuals who have related experiences to yours?
I consider it’s already previous that. It’s simply part of my story that I used to be incarcerated. I might converse to that viewers, however I can even converse to an viewers that’s Ivy League educated. That’s the entire level. That’s the true factor that you just actually wish to witness. You wish to see someone that got here from the underside and go all the way in which as much as unimaginable locations.
You may’t go to unimaginable locations once you’re stagnated, and also you’re simply so involved about your viewers that you just neglect about development. Development supersedes viewers. There’s at all times new folks coming. There’s at all times an viewers for greatness, and that’s the one viewers you’re imagined to deal with.
The autumn 2025 challenge of XXL journal that includes Wallo267’s interview is accessible to buy right here. The difficulty additionally contains Joey Bada$$ and J.I.D’s cowl story interviews, conversations with Probability The Rapper, Rob49, Curren$y, Hit-Boy, KenTheMan, Bay Swag, Hanumankind, Babyfxce E, Ghostface Killah, Hurricane Knowledge, Conway The Machine, Pluto, TiaCorine, Isaiah Falls, comic Josh Joshson, Vice President of Music at SiriusXM and Pandora Joshua “J1” Raiford, a take a look at the change in album rollouts through the years highlighted by Clipse’s Let God Type Em Out album and extra.
See Pictures From Joey Bada$$ and J.I.D’s XXL Journal Fall 2025 Cowl Shoot
