Melvin's Garden

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hella Black, Hello Queer, Hello Christian is a production of
iHeart podcast on the Outspoken Network, which seeks to amplify
LGBTQ voices in podcasting. Show me how good is going
to get today? God, dear Universe, you have permission to

(00:21):
amaze me today. I am a beautiful and blessed being
who deserves great things always. I love my life and
I am thankful for my life. I am safe and
I have everything I need. Something amazing is happening for
me today. Show me how good is going to get today. God,

(00:43):
dear Universe, you have permission to amaze me today. I
am a beautiful and blessed being who deserves great things always.
I love my life and I am thankful for my life.
I am safe and I have everything I need. Something
amazing is happening for me today. Show me how good

(01:05):
is going to get today. God, dear Universe, you have
permission to amaze me today. I am a beautiful and
blessed being who deserves great things always. I love my
life and I am thankful for my life. I am
safe and I have everything I need. Something amazing is
happening for me today. Show me how good is going

(01:28):
to get today. God, Dear Universe, you have permission to
amaze me today. I am a beautiful and blessed being
who deserves great things always. I love my life and
I am thankful for my life. I am safe and
I have everything I need. Something amazing is happening for
me today. You're listening to Hella Black, Hello Queer, Hello Christian.

(01:54):
I'm Joseph Freeze. This episode is about a sound, a mood,
a memory. Quiet Storm isn't just slow jams. It's how
so many of us learn to feel. It gave us
space to be tender, to want something real, and to

(02:15):
imagine a life where softness wasn't weakness. Today I'm joined
by Lauren Carter and Monty J. Wolf to storytellers and
culture shapers who understand how black music becomes archive, ritual,
and resistance. Let's get into it. Lauren Carter is a

(02:38):
media strategist and communications guru who brings a brilliant mix
of curiosity and clarity to every conversation. Monty J. Wolf
is a creative director, playwright, and founder of Brave Soul Collective,
which has been centering black LGBTQ stories for nearly two decades.

(03:00):
They're here to help us unpack the legacy and future
of Quiet Storm and how it still holds space for identity, longing,
and community. I do want to note that we have
a very special church announcement today. We have a very
special birthday celebration today because we are recording on May thirteenth,

(03:24):
twenty twenty five, and today is the seventy fifth birthday
of the one who many of us regard as the
eighth Wonder of the world, mister Stevie Wonder. So I
do want to take this time during our church announcements
just to wish mister Wonder a happy birthday. Thank you
for all the sunshine you have brought to our lives,

(03:47):
especially during these troubling times. I was very fortunate, very
blessed to get up to Philadelphia last October to see
Stevie live for my first time on the special tour
that he did around the election season. So once again,
happy birthday to you, mister Wonder. And then I do

(04:07):
just want to remind our congregants that if you have
a praise report, if you have something that you want
to celebrate, please be sure to send it to Joseph
Reese at iHeartMedia dot com. So that we can give
you a shout out on air during our church announcements.

(04:32):
I do think I do see some guests in the vestibule,
and I am going to instruct my ushers to let
them in so that they can introduce themselves. Hello, family, Hello, Hello, Hello. Okay,
these look like some of my friends. So Lauren you

(04:54):
can go first, and then Manta you can follow after.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
My name is Lauren? My pronown?

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Does she her? I am living in the d m
B area. I'm originally from South central la I am
a media strategist, I'm a storyteller, I'm a troublemaker, I'm
a table shaker. I'm here and I'm queer. And also
I'm a huge music head. I love music. I love

(05:21):
black music, and so when Joseph invited me, it was
a very easy yes. So thank you for inviting me here.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yes, and thank you for coming. And while we're introducing
Laura and I do need to give a shout out
to the Lounge of three. Yeah that you that that
used to be on U Street, which is where me
and Lauren met as part of like that Tuesday night
karaoke family. So shout out to y'all. And then I

(05:55):
think I see my DJ Wolf back then.

Speaker 4 (06:00):
Hello.

Speaker 5 (06:01):
Hello, I am Monte J Wolf, Honored and glad to
be here.

Speaker 4 (06:07):
Pronouns are he him his.

Speaker 5 (06:09):
I am an artist, all around artist and actor, writer, producer, director,
I sing, I do.

Speaker 4 (06:17):
A whole lot of shit.

Speaker 5 (06:18):
But I am also a self proclaimed soul child, as
somebody who grew up on soul music as religion.

Speaker 4 (06:25):
Soul music was religion.

Speaker 5 (06:27):
In my house growing up with my mother and my
father in the late seventies and early eighties. So I'm
just honored to be here. As I said, I am
a creative I have lived in Washington, DC since nineteen
ninety five. Matter of fact, August will be thirty years
that I've been in Washington, d C. I'm a graduate
Howard University's Theater Arts Department, and I also do freelance

(06:50):
writing for a WebMD as a person living with HIV,
and I am the founder and artistic and managing director
of Brave Soul Collective, which is an arts, education and
outreach organization dedicated to telling the stories of black LGBTQ people.

Speaker 4 (07:06):
Through the arts.

Speaker 5 (07:07):
Just glad to be here and honored to be able
to share some space with Joseph and with Lauren to
talk about music and whatever else comes up tonight.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Thank you so much for joining us Manti, and then
you were sharing it with me that someone within our
music head community had passed away that we needed to
remember and honor.

Speaker 5 (07:30):
Yes, in the spirit of you know, being in a
room full of other black queer people who are also
music lovers.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
I just want to lift up the name of j
Ross the Boss.

Speaker 5 (07:40):
That was his name online, but his name is Jaron Ross,
a very dear friend of mine out of la And
I'm sure for some people who on social media who
we all kind of travel in pacts online and follow
each other or whatnot. He was just a devout, devout
music lover, music efficient eye soul music, just authority and

(08:04):
just knew a whole lot of things about soul music
and R and B. He taught me a lot of things,
and ironically enough we never got a chance to meet
in person. We would always FaceTime or you know, do
things throughout the pandemic to keep in touch. His birthday
was in July, so I would always pick up the
phone and call and reach out to him in July
and in November when my birthday rolled around. He would
always reach out to me, but we always stay connected

(08:27):
through social media. But I learned last Monday that unfortunately
he passed away. So I just want to lift up
his name because I feel his spirit right here right now,
And anytime I think about soul music and about R
and B, and when I look at my albums and
other things that he sent me or other things that
he told me and taught me that I didn't know,
I'm just grateful to have people like that in my circle.
So as much as I'm going to miss him, I

(08:49):
just want to lift up his name and honor him.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Thank you so much for sharing that. Really do appreciate,
really do appreciate you lifting up. And I know that
sooner or lady, we are going to have to have
an episode about grief because it particularly for us as
just like black queer folks, particularly for us as black
queer men, even before the pandemic, because this can even

(09:17):
go back to my early days in DC. I'm thinking
about two thousand and eight. We have just been losing
so many, and we're losing so many so young, and
I just think it's a silent epidemic that we are
not having enough conversation about. So definitely, Jaron, thank you

(09:41):
for the love and the joy that you gave while
you were here, and now that you ascend into your
next journey, we pray that your trip be with ease
and that you may be able to find whatever peace
on that next realm that you weren't able to find here.
So thank you for all you did, sir. And then

(10:01):
as an icebreaker, the Queen's Tour has started. So it
kicked off over toward your neck of the woods in Cali,
because I know they did an Oakland date and they
did a Los Angeles date. So it's Shaka Khan, Gladys Knight,

(10:23):
Patty LaBelle, Stephandie Mills, and then there is going to
be a corresponding Uncle's Cookout tour and it's going to
be Babyface, Elderbarge, Casey Haley of Casey and Jojo and

(10:45):
Jodysy Fame and then Uncle Charlie last named Wilson. So
what were your initial thoughts when you all thought about
this tour? Are you excited for either one of these toys?
Is there a particular person that you're excited about? And then,
as a last little note of shade, if you could

(11:07):
remove anybody from the tour from either one of these toys.
Who would you remove?

Speaker 4 (11:13):
Okay?

Speaker 6 (11:14):
Okay, yeah, I just need to find the Oh I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
You're perfectly fine.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
M sure, absolutely, okay, Okay.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
I heard about the Is it called the Auntie's Tour?

Speaker 2 (11:50):
No, so it's called the Queueen's Tour, okay.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
And then the male counterpart is called like the.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
Okay, So I saw the aunt the I wanted to
call the Auntie's Tour so bad the Queen's Tour.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
You just go there, don't fight the field.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
And it looked great. I've seen Shaka perform. She opened
up for Prince when I went to go see her
with one of my church aunties actually, and it was cool,
you know. But also her tiny desk during the pandemic
was one of my favorites. I don't know if I
remove anybody from that lineup. It's who is it is,
Shaka Khan, Gladys Knight, Stephanie Mills, and there's a fourth

(12:31):
one having a bill. I don't think i'd remove anybody now.
I do remember a while ago, Stephanie Mills. People were saying, oh,
there should be an unsung because at the time, Unsung
was a thing about Stephanie Mills, and Stephanie Mills is like,
you don't need an unsung on me. I am not unsung.

(12:52):
I feel like she's a little Delulu because she actually
is when compared to the rest of the lineup here.
And it doesn't unsung doesn't mean you're not good. It
means you're not as celebrated. I like as you should be, right,
I do like the idea of our elders getting their
flowers while they can still smell them. Now, the Uncle's Tour.

(13:15):
Me and my girls are going to the Uncle's Tour
in Baltimore. And one thing to know about the three
of us is that we will we every time we
get together, we have at least one day where we
all dress up in the same color. Okay, So when
we were in Jamaica, Me, Max, and Elite, we all
dressed up in yellow. This time we do on leper print. Okay,

(13:38):
it's just gonna be an anti extravaganza. Okay, And actually
I am an auntie. My sister just had a baby.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
So oh congratulations, my first biologically Okay, this this leopard
print is sensing Mary Jane girls. In my mind.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
That is actually what we call our group chat. We
are the Mary Jane girls with the Zipia, so I'm
very excited about it. Now there's one person who I
would remove from that lineup, and it's Casey Haley. Now
before line a hold on, because I don't want to
see no Dad going Casey Hailey without Jojo. And really,

(14:16):
I'm a Jodasy girly Okay, I love Jodasy and they
were the one I asked my mom if I can
go see them when I was a kid. She said no,
this is around the time of what is it the
show or what is the show the part of the
after party whatever, the last album together, and my mother
said no. And I understand it now now that I'm

(14:36):
forty one, I get why she didn't want.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Me to go.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
We don't need to see Casey by himself now, unless
they're going to give us a milestone moment from the
Soul Food, you know, with Kevin Edmonds and whatnot, that
makes sense. I don't think Casey on his own need
to be a headliner. I'm a little concerned about that.

Speaker 5 (14:55):
I am, like Lauren said, I heard about a couple
of months ago when they first announced. I'm really I'm
talking about the Queen Stour first. I heard about it
a couple months ago, and I'm glad that it's happening.
I think, like you said, all of them deserve their flowers.
With us losing so many artists, so many legendary black artists,

(15:17):
I'm just glad to see that they are all coming
together to I mean, I know a lot of them
are already friends and you know, have supported each other
throughout just decades of the industry and things changing in
a lot of different ways from you know, whether it
was the sixties and the seventies and the eighties, depending
on who's been around, you know, during a certain time.
But I'm just glad that it's happening. I don't know

(15:38):
if I'm gonna get a chance to see it. I've
seen everybody on that bill except for Stephanie Mills, and
ironically enough, like Lauren said, I don't think I would
remove anybody, but she's the one that I just I'm
just disappointed because I have always loved Stephanie Mills's music,
but she's just come out of her mouth and said
some things in the last five years that just really

(16:00):
rubbed me the wrong way. And as somebody who has
a son with special needs. It just struck me that
she would have a little bit more compassion and just
wherewithal and just be able to read the room a
little bit better than taking de bait to say, you know,
a little slick shit about little nas X during the
time when he you know, when he was out and

(16:20):
she got on the radio and had things to say
about masculinity and men and all these other kinds of things,
and I'm like, ma'am, But I also realized and I
accept that just like Shaka, she's a aries. They gonna
say whatever the fuck they think and what they feel,
whether it's problematic or not, because Shaka has said some
things that pissed me off before. But I love Shaka,
I rock with her, I love all of them. And

(16:40):
like I said, I've seen everybody on that bill already,
so I'm just glad that it's happening, even with Stephanie Mills.
Like I said, I mean, I I I.

Speaker 4 (16:49):
Love her, I'm always gonna love her music.

Speaker 5 (16:51):
But right now it's just one of them kind of
things where I'm just kind of like, Okay, I can
just kind of subtract her from the.

Speaker 4 (16:57):
Equation of you know, what I'm thinking about in terms
the Uncle's Tour.

Speaker 5 (17:01):
I'm quite interested in this lineup because I think I
think it's I mean, it's it's intergenerational if you really
think about it, because with Charlie Wilson being somebody from
the Gap band, who is you know, the eldest of
all of them, I'm just grateful that he is still
out there, that he is getting his flowers, and that
he is still performing. And you know, then El de Barge,

(17:21):
you know, growing up in the eighties with with with
the Barge and having all of that just in my
brain and in my head in my heart, I'm so
glad to see that he is, you know, that he's
out there and performing. And then you have Babyface and Casey,
who you know most both of them, well, no Babyface
emerged in the eighties, but Casey, like you said, Lauren,
you know the last one that kind of came along

(17:41):
in the nineties. So it with that one, it seems
like it's a little bit more of an interesting.

Speaker 4 (17:47):
Kind of stack of just talented black men.

Speaker 5 (17:50):
And like you said, Lauren, I agree, you know, I
kind of think because we came up on Jo Desy
and Boys to Men and all of them in the
nineties and all that other kind of stuff. It would
be nice to maybe see like him and Jojo, because
I know that Jo Deasy as a band don't perform
with all four of them anymore. But either way, I'm
glad both of these things are happening. I'm glad that
these black artists are getting there, they're just doing. I'm

(18:10):
glad that they're getting an opportunity to go out and
perform for these audiences that love and reveal them so much,
because that's just super important.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
So that's where I'll and I just say something about
Shaka right quick? Is that okay, okay?

Speaker 3 (18:23):
Yes, First of all, retirement Shaka is so great. She
be on TikTok doing full moon meditations and whatnot. And
then you realize, like Shaka's always been a spiritualist.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
She was given her name by a Baba Lawoh.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
So it's just really nice like seeing our community elders
like step into their spiritual bags, step into their meditation bag.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
I would purchase a meditation album by Shaka Khan.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
So I just I love her. She's actually one of
my favorite vocalists. So she's the one though I would
really want to see. I really, I just love her
so much. You know what, I really wish we could
I wish we had a I don't know if LaBelle
reunion is something we can actually do.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
I don't think all of them are to hear with.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Us, right because because Sarah's.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
The Chameleon is also Chameleon and was actually a friend
of mine. Had me do a top five of my
favorite albums, and Chameleon was one of the honorable mentions.
They were they are my top ten.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Get you somebody new was a feminist anthem?

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yes, I would love to go back to seventy five
seventy six and see a lineup with Lebel, Betty Davis
and Millie Jackson that like, that's something I would love

(19:46):
to see. But as far as like this current iteration,
I'm here for the Jerry Carl juice and the especially
Yours collection wigs and the sweet Potato Pie. As far
as the Queen's Shaka is the only one who doesn't
have to worry about being eliminated for me, because, as

(20:12):
Aunty has alluded to, Stephanie dum Been on her Hotel
Auntie shit a little bit too much for me in
these past couple of years, and particularly with kind of
like the slick shit she does said about men in
masculinity is ma'am, you owe your career to blackly men.
Absolutely cut it out and stop it. Love Gladys, But

(20:38):
with Gladys you see a little bit of the challenge
that Lauren you brought up around Casey, because with Gladys,
if you think about it, all of her iconic records
are with the Pips. We kind of recognize her as
this solo artist, but really kind of like her iconic

(21:01):
records are with the PEPs, and then y'all know me,
y'all know I love me some Patricia Louise Hope. I
saw her this past February at the MGM National Harbor

(21:22):
and I was just underwhelmed. I'm just gonna be honest.
I was underwhelmed. Her top isn't there anymore. And that's
understandable because we're talking about an eighty getting ready to
be eighty one year old woman who has been hollering
since she was sixteen. But like, I just remember Patty

(21:47):
who would kick off her shoes, get on the floor
and then there would be like that final kind of
like over the Rainbow Uncle where people would just rush
the stage and like beleague her with like bouquet and
bouquets of flowers, And I saw her at MGM National Harbor.
She closed the show with Lady Marma Lide and even

(22:11):
as she was closing the show, people were already walking out,
So it was just very anti climactic. And I really
feel like for the past couple of years, we've been
honoring her for her legacy and what she has given us,
and not necessarily because she's still giving us performances that

(22:33):
knock it out the park. So as far as the
Queen's tour, Shaka is kind of like the only one
that's safe for me if we're going to talk about
people getting eliminated. This Uncle's tour is really dicey. Yeah,

(22:54):
el And I've seen Elder Barge twice and he just
is a little bit too free form and a little
bit too jazz improvisation for me. Now, Casey, the point
that's already been brought up, Yes, you're kind of like

(23:14):
known as one of like those iconic R and B
male voices of the nineties, but you still need Casey,
you still need Joe to see to kind of like
make it make sense for you. Babyface is almost like
the sore thumb for me because Babyface don't have that

(23:36):
Jericho juice that the rest of them have. I almost
feel like Babyface is really at the place where he
could just kind of like tour as his own person,
and then Charlie, he gonna be good, But then he
gonna break out in the middle of yearning for your
love talk about how God delivered him from God, and
it's just gonna be too jarring for me, you know.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
I But Charlie Wilson, though, he's someone who has really
been able to transcend generations. What I mean by that
is he's on songs with Kanye, He's on song he's
singing hooks with Snoop Dogg like he had a whole
resurgence when I was an undergrad. You know, He's someone
who has not been afraid to change with the times right.

(24:18):
Babyface also did something that was wildly underrated a couple
of years ago with the Ladies' Night album. I Don't
I don't remember went up for.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
It for me, but he heard all the new little R.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
And B girlies on there and they sounded great.

Speaker 4 (24:32):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 5 (24:34):
He fell right in with with with all of them
in terms of bringing himself and his energy to the
to a new you know, to a new generation of listeners,
and to just you know, I guess this this iteration
of R.

Speaker 4 (24:48):
And B and soul and you know some of those things.
I really enjoyed that album.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
Yep. Yeah, I haven't revisited it much, but I remember
listening to it and enjoying it. So I feel like
the ice has been broken here, so I feel like
we can move into the main conversation. And the name
of this episode is Melvin's Garden. It is going to

(25:13):
be a celebration of the genre known as quiet Storm.
And while there's two inspirations for the title for this
week's episode, so of course, the iconic quiet Storm track,
the Secret Garden, produced by the late Quincy Jones, had
Barry White, had El de Barge, had the late James Ingram,

(25:34):
and then had I'll be sure. But then I wanted
to call it Melvin's Garden because I wanted to give
honor to the gentleman that is more or less recognized
as really crafting on the quiet storm format, and that's
a and that's brother Melvin Lindsey, and I just want
to read a bio around him that I saw on

(25:55):
the National Black Justice Coalition's website. For those who don't
know about MBJC, they are a civil rights organization dedicated
to the empowerment of black, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer,
and same gender loving people, including people living with HIV
and age so. Melvin was born on July the eighth,

(26:16):
nineteen fifty five lived until March twenty sixth, nineteen ninety two.
He was a popular radio personality in Washington, DC who
is credited with creating the quiet Storm music format that
was emulated around the country and lives on today. Melvin
Lindsay was raised in the Petworth area of northwest Washington

(26:38):
and attended West Elementary, Mark McFarlane and Deal Junior Highs
and Woodrow Wilson High School. As a disc jockey at
Howard University, he founded the quiet Storm format in nineteen
seventy six, which featured his deep, sultry voice and romantic,
smooth R and B. Music. General manager Kathy Hughes urged

(26:59):
Lindsay to use this Smokey Robinson tune a Quiet Storm
as the theme music for his new show. By late
nineteen seventy seven, it was the top rated weekend music
show in DC, and stations across the country began their
own Quiet Storm programs. Lindsey remained at WHUR for nine
years before rebranding the program as Melvin's Melodies and bringing

(27:21):
it to WKYSFM in nineteen eighty five for another five years.
During his radio career, Lindsay rent for making a few
thousand dollars a year to sign an a million dollar contract.
Later in his career, he hosted a program for Black
Entertainment Television, worked for Washington's WTTGTV and WFTYTV, Baltimore's WJZTV,

(27:45):
and was a weekend dg DJ at WPGCFM. Lindsey Lindsey
and missed being promiscuous during his lucrative days in radio.
It was the seventies and early eighties, single life and
running around and just doing whatever, he later told The
Washington Post. From the period of nineteen eighty five on,
I bought condoms every time I went to the grocery store.

(28:07):
They were in my cart, he said. Most of his
sexual accounters were with men. In nineteen ninety, he learned
he was HIV positive and struggled to keep it a secret.
As early as nineteen eighty two, another doctor had told
him his blood count was a regular and recommended he
have an HIV AIDS test. I was afraid, Lindsey confessed,
and never had it done. He recalled calling a friend

(28:30):
from a periphone and telling him he had AIDS. I
was crying. I was a mess. He confided in me
that he had HIV for two years. Like so many people,
he didn't feel comfortable opening up. He said, you and
I are going to make it. We are going to
be okay. I think what was beneficial to both of
us was that when something came up on my body,

(28:50):
I said, I got this spot, and he would say,
I've had that, don't worry. After his health began to
deteriorate and he grew tired of trying to cover ab lesions,
Lindsey told his family about his illness. He also stopped
broadcasting to spend more time undergoing treatment. Lindsey was eventually
diagnosed with diabetes and age took a terrible toll on

(29:12):
his physical appearance. In his final broadcast, just days before
his passing, Lindsay took phone calls from his hospital bed
from listeners of WHR, the radio station where he started
it all. On March twenty sixth, nineteen ninety two, Melvin
Lindsay died of a's complications at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington,
surrounded by family and close friends. He was thirty six.

(29:37):
Really wanted to lift him up and give him the
honor as ancestor that he may not have gotten during
his life. As I was reading this bio, his bio
sounds like so many of the black gay men during
that time who had to I almost want to say,
And even though there were a lot of structure roadblocks

(30:01):
that also caused to lead to a lot of these
brothers early demises, but I almost think that if so
many of our forefathers did not have to live with
this and isolation and shame, would we have lost as
so many as we have. And then, you know, with
Melvin Lindsey being a black queer man, and then it

(30:25):
got me to thinking about Luther, who we now know
was also a black queer man through the documentary that
just got released. And it's kind of like two of
like the pillars of this genre which really people use
to kind of like celebrate heteronormativity, but two of the
pillars of this genre were black gay men. And then

(30:46):
you know, I even want to honor Rashad Arlison, who
was another black queer writer, black queer music head who
we lost a couple of years ago. But when you
think of Melvin's story and Luther's story within the context
QUI Storm, I wonder if anything comes up for you all,
and then Laura, we can start with you and Matty
will close out with you.

Speaker 3 (31:09):
You know, it's funny that we say that quiet Storm
the format is such a has such a heteronormative like
expectation around it, right, But we don't get this genre
without queer black men. And it's a genre also that
caters so heavily to women.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
Right.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
There's a joke that says, you know, the reason why
you tell that a queer black man is queer is
because he actually likes women as people.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
You know, So that's that's not surprising, right.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
The other thing I think about are the queer singers
songwriters that were in the shadows. So I learned recently
that Carolyn Franklin, Aretha Franklin's sister, was a black lesbian,
and I'm not a lesbian. I'm actually a queer topic.
So I sent her my romantic life around women and

(32:04):
limit my serious relationships with men. And one thing that
I learned is that she wrote Ain't no Way, Ain't
no Way was originally about her breakup with her girlfriend
who would not love her openly in public.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
Right.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
They had to break up because the girl didn't want
to be out with Caroline.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
And when you listen to the song, the structure of
it everything, it just breaks of lesbian heartbreak Black lesbian
breakups or sapphic breakups are intense. The love is so
fraught with things, right, And it was originally Yes, the
pronouns were originally female pronouns. Of course she had to

(32:50):
change them because of Ritha would be singing it. So
I'm just also thinking about those kinds of folks as well,
thinking about the new school of of you know, slow
jams as it were said, and other people making staff
at R and B.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
I have a whole playlist devoted to it, So.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, that's I also just I had to, you know,
drop that in here too, because yeah, I'm like, oh, she.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
Even think about like a Phyllis Hyman, who was also known.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
As Philis Hymon, also bisexual icon. Probably one reason why
she struggled so much with mental health. One of the reasons. Unfortunately,
I was reading also that bisexual women are more likely
to struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts for lots of reasons,
so that would not be surprising either. So yeah, that's

(33:39):
I was so happy to see that this is who
we're talking about this because I'm like, where who can
I info dump on Carolyn Franklin with?

Speaker 1 (33:51):
And and then Manty, what comes up for you?

Speaker 5 (33:54):
Well, first of all, like I mentioned with Jeron, like
I said, I mean, and I consider myself to be
a you know, a pretty staunch soul music lover. And
again I'm fascinated by reading books about Luther, about Aretha,
about all these different people. But Lauren, I never knew
that like that, I mean, I knew that she wrote
the song, and I knew that, you know, she had

(34:16):
lesbian you know that, you know that that was a
part of her identity, but I didn't know that. But
like just you saying that it connected those dots, like
you said, if you listen to that, So like the
next time I listened to it, it's like you put
it through that lens and it's like wow, damn. And
I think that just kind of bleeds into where I
was getting ready to go with what I was going
to say, not just about I'll come back to Melvin

(34:36):
Lindsay in a minute, but particularly you know about Luther
and Joseph, what you said earlier about how sadly Yeah,
I mean, all of this stuff was within the frame
of heteronormativity and all this other kind of stuff, particularly
you know, in the black community.

Speaker 4 (34:51):
But one thing that I'm.

Speaker 5 (34:53):
So grateful for now and learning and seeing is that
we as black queer people, black gay men, black lesbians,
by sexual persons, even you know, transgender and non non
binary people, we have always been there.

Speaker 4 (35:06):
We have always been there, and I'm just.

Speaker 5 (35:08):
So grateful to see that, because you know, it's so
many of us that just didn't have that kind of
history to be able to connect the dots, to understand
that there's not something wrong with me, that I'm not
a freak.

Speaker 4 (35:18):
That I'm not this, I'm not that, that I'm not
just this weird. You know, we can be weird, you
know what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (35:24):
I pride myself on being fucking weird in a whole
lot of other ways, but not within the framing of
my sexual identity or whatnot. So when I think about Luther,
when I think about Whitney, when I think about Phyllis Hyman,
about all of them, and about how they had to
code switch, how they had to sweep a lot of
shit under the rug, and you know, and basically not

(35:45):
you know, and not be who they were for sake
of being able to achieve and attain whatever kind of
perception I'll say, perception of fame or you know, or notoriety.

Speaker 4 (35:56):
You know, it just makes me think, damn, you know,
at what cost?

Speaker 5 (35:59):
You know, we see that with a lot of them
in terms of how it affected them or what have you.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
But around the.

Speaker 5 (36:04):
Framing of Luther Vandros I did you know, I'm forgetting
his name, Craig, I'm forgetting his name that wrote it
wrote up Cragsy. Yeah, because I have this book in here,
you know that I've read years ago, and even that
was a deep dive into things about Luther or what
have you, and.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
The same kind of thing, like you said, if you
listen to the Lion's Share.

Speaker 5 (36:23):
Of Luther's music, even and I was I'm fifty years old,
so in Luther's heyday, I was, you know, I was
probably ten eleven or whatnot, and just really plugged in
and paying attention to like lyrics, because again, my mother
was listening to this music, my father was listening to it.
And again I wasn't in the video games and all
this other kind of stuff until a little bit later.

(36:44):
But I was, like, you sold, music was my thing.
So I was listening to a lot of stuff. And
even if I didn't understand the you know, even if
I didn't have the tangible experience of what they were
singing about, like, I could feel it.

Speaker 4 (36:59):
I could feel what they were talking about.

Speaker 5 (37:01):
And then as I became an adult and started to
live some of this shit and having heartbreaks when I
came to DC and you know, getting my feelings hurt
and you know, unrequited love and you know, just all
those kinds of things, a lot of those things started
to connect.

Speaker 4 (37:13):
But I think that it's just it's.

Speaker 5 (37:15):
Unfortunate and it's sad that a lot of them didn't
get to live full out in the ways that they
should have been been able to.

Speaker 4 (37:23):
And even with all of that, they still allow themselves
to be able to.

Speaker 5 (37:26):
You can't, like, you can't put a lid on that
type of genius and that type of passion and all
of those kinds of things. So it came out one
way or the other, and I'm grateful that it all
manifested through the forms of their music. But again, it
just makes me think at what cost in terms of
in terms of to them as the person, not the
artists or you know, the person that was this machine

(37:47):
for the label or for the fans or whatever, but
just them as human beings and not being able to
have those experiences and being able to honor those things
across the board.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
Not awesome. Thank you so much for that, Manti, And
then Lauren, even with what you shared around Carolyn, it
ain't no way that actually is gonna help me to
reclaim that song a little bit, because that song has
given me the ick for the past couple of years.
It's been a little cringey for me because it like
that line of like, I know it's a woman's duty

(38:20):
to have and love a man because that's the way
it was planned. That's just kind of always kind of
like rubbed me the wrong way. But to still kind
of like know that you know that was written by
a lesbian woman about her lesbian relationship, It's gonna help
me reclaim that a little bit for me, So thank
you so much.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
For and like that framing is also like she may
have been talking about it may have been what her
lover told her, like I kind of have to do
this thing that I'm supposed to do and I can't
be open with you. When you see it from the
lens of this torred lesbian breakup, which they're always that way,

(38:57):
it makes sense. You mean it may have been something
she was by this person, that this was the reason
why they can't be together for real.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
And then that even kind of like plays into what
Robin said Whitney shared with her at a certain point
around her relationship. I think there was an episode there
was a tie where like Whitney shared like those kind
of like clap of scriptures with her as to how
she wouldn't be able to really pursue an open relationship

(39:31):
with her. But Manty, you were going to say something.

Speaker 5 (39:34):
Yeah, just with regard to Melvin Lindsey, And ironically enough,
I did you know? I had done my own I mean,
I've always known who he was, but I went and
did a deep dive and read a well not a
deep dive, but read his bio and all that other
kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (39:49):
Shortly before we started.

Speaker 5 (39:50):
And the first thing that struck me, and you mentioned
it when you read his bio, is that you know
he was thirty six years old when he died, and that,
like you said, is this it's a sad and unfortunate
theme for a lot of black gay men around that time,
whether we're talking about the gatekeepers like Essex, hemp Ville
and Joseph Beem and Asado Saint Marlon Riggs. But now

(40:11):
to know that you know that again that it was
the same kind of thing with him where because of
HIV and AIDS and a lot of things around homophobia
and all these other kinds of things, and again particularly
putting this all within the lens of the black community,
because let's keep it real. I will say this to
the day I leave this earth. There are a lot
of problematic white people and there are a lot of problematic,

(40:35):
homophobic Black folks. And to me, they're the same side
of that. They're two different sides of the same fucking coin.
And I just, you know, like thinking about how so
many of us had to live within these you know,
within that framing with people that you know are supposed
to be the ones that you know, we could that
that should welcome us and love us, and all those

(40:56):
other kinds of things, and to think about the ways
that you know, so many black gay men and lesbians
and people had to find and it's a good thing
that they had to find these communities and these chosen
families of their own because because a lot of that,
because of a lot of that closed mindedness or whatnot.
But hearing that he passed at thirty six just hit

(41:16):
me like a ton of bricks. Because again, and Joseph,
you mentioned this shortly after you posted something I think
the next day after you came to my birthday party,
my fiftieth birthday party in November last year. The fact
that I made it to fifty years old, you know
what I'm saying, and been living with HIV for twenty years,
given that I tested positive three weeks after I turned thirty,
Hearing about all of these black gay men that didn't

(41:38):
make it that far, it really just makes me think,
and it makes me grateful because I can tell and
I see that you know, we are we're able to
live longer than you know. And there's a direct line
as we are in Mental Health Awareness Month and all
this other kind of stuff and may there's a direct.

Speaker 4 (41:51):
Line between people being able.

Speaker 5 (41:54):
To have, you know, being able to be healthy mentally
and emotionally, and how that bleeds into all of these
other ways that that your life, you know, can continue
to extend. So I'm just I'm sad that he wasn't
able to be here longer with us, but I'm just
so grateful that he left us with such magic in
the time that he was here.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, And I mean I think about it as well,
because I'm a I got it. I'm too two months
away from turning forty years old, and I will talk
about it every chance I get. I don't care if
I sound like a broken record, But for me to
be a black queer man, for the sake of this conversation,

(42:32):
to live to see forty is a miracle. Because this world,
this nation, as we're seeing now in some really brazen ways,
is not set up to see black queer men live
to see forty. But that's a that's that'll that'll take

(42:54):
us down a whole other path. And I actually do
want to make sure that we get some celebration of
this wonderfully black genre in so before we kind of
get to like the main get down and to get
down what I do want to ask you all is
what was the radio station that played quiet Storm during

(43:16):
your childhood? And kind of like what are your particularly
from like growing up? Kind of like what are your
memories of like the quiet Storm format?

Speaker 3 (43:25):
All right, So I'm a South Central girl from Englewood,
and so mine was kJ eler Wer two at the time. KJLH,
which was at the time was Stevie Wonder's radio radio station,
and KCEE, which played all like R and b Oldies.
Those were the two. So we would I would usually

(43:47):
fall asleep to KJLH.

Speaker 5 (43:49):
Though, okay, And I thought about this when you when
you post us with this question, and honestly, I can't
give an honest answer about this because I don't I
don't remember the names of the state.

Speaker 4 (44:04):
There's one station.

Speaker 5 (44:06):
So I grew up in Racing, Wisconsin, which is about
an hour and a half.

Speaker 4 (44:10):
It's about half an hour.

Speaker 5 (44:11):
From Milwaukee north to south of Milwaukee and about an
hour outside of Chicago, like ann hour, Like Chicago's about
an hour away from where we you know, where I
grew up in Wisconsin, and the radio stations were either
you know, out of Milwaukee or the majority of them
were in Chicago. So I remember w g c I
as a radio station that played a lot of black music.

(44:34):
Whether or not that was the one that played a
quiet storm format back then, I just don't remember, because
when I was a kid, we lived in Chicago for
a number of years, but again that was when I
was a lot smaller. Honestly, what I remember outside of
with whatever radio station was playing, it is that my
mother and my father, even in the midst of me
kind of being toggled between the two of them and

(44:55):
being bounced back and forth, you know, being the product
of two divorced parents when they were together. I just
remember soul music being played all the time, and even
around my you know, my family, and you know those
blue lights in the basement, those house parties and all
that other kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
I remember that indefinitely.

Speaker 5 (45:11):
As I got older, like when I was between the
ages of eleven and twelve, and you know, my teen
years when I was just living with my mother, I
just sternly, you know, that's how my love of Anita
Baker and Shade came up, is because those were the
two artists that my mother listened to like it was religion.
Was Anita Baker and Shade, and again that's why I
have such a great appreciation for both of them now.

Speaker 4 (45:31):
But those radio.

Speaker 5 (45:33):
Stations, those black radio stations out of Chicago are the
ones that I would claim because that's where we got
a lot of that music from.

Speaker 1 (45:38):
Yeah, Okay, so I grew up in New York, was
born in Jamaica. Queens was really raised in Long Island.
So there were two stations, WBLS one oh seven point five,
which was really which is really kind of like the

(46:00):
one that's like really regarded as kind of like the
quiet storm station for like that New York tri state area.
But there was another radio station, WRKS ninety eight point
seven Kiss FM, and it started as a hip hop

(46:22):
station for my New York heads from the eighties and
the nineties. They know ninety eight point seven KISSFM as
the radio station where Wendy Williams got their start and
around the men nineties will say ninety three, ninety four,

(46:43):
ninety five, And I do think it was in response
to gangster rap. Kiss switched their format to where they
moved away from rap and they became a radio station
focused on classic soul and today's R and B. And

(47:07):
we like my grandmother, my mom. We were a Kiss household.
We didn't really listen to WBLS. We listened to Kiss.
And in the mornings, Isaac Hayes would have a morning show,
would have a morning radio show. There would be some

(47:30):
other disc jockeys that would take the midday five pm,
Ashford and Simpson would come on. They would have a
block that went from five to seven, and then from
seven to two Monday through Thursday was their quiet Storm format.
And they called their quiet Storm format Kissing after Dark.

(47:54):
So that's where I really remember. So that's kind of
like the quiet Storm of my childhood. And now you know,
born in New York, born in eighty five, my mother
was in her forties at that time. No, my mother
was thirty nine at that time, and then my dad
was forty one when they had me. So you have

(48:15):
late thirties, early forties black folks in New York in
the eighties. So I wasn't hearing hip hop in my household.
I was hearing the Old Jays. I was hearing Hal
Melvin and the Blue Notes. I was hearing Teddy Pendergrass,
I was hear Jerry Butler, I was hearing the Stylistics.
I was hearing the dramatics. I was hearing Gladys Knight

(48:37):
and the Pips, so all of that kind of like
comes into my frame around. We're gonna pause for a second,
but don't go too far more of this conversation. When
we come back, you're listening to Hella Black, Hella Queer.
Hello Christian. I'm Joseph Freese, and we're back with Lauren Wilson, Carter,

(48:58):
and Monty J. Wilson talking quiet Storm, memory and the
future of black emotional language in music the Quiet Storm.
So we have now come to the part that we
have all come here for. Now, we're gonna lay some
ground rules because I don't need the listeners getting in

(49:18):
their feelings. We are going to discuss are top five
favorite quiet storm storms. We are not here to hash
out the top five definitive quiet storm songs of all time.

(49:39):
We are here to celebrate the genre and talk about
are top five quiet storm songs of all time. And
then we've already kind of like laid the ground rules
that like, if somebody gets to your song before you
get to it, we'll just you know, you can just

(50:00):
skip that song for your list, because we'll all present
a song and we'll just all have some brief discussion
around it, because we definitely could be here all night,
but I definitely do not want to keep you all night.
So what we will do, We'll start with Lauren Matty,
you will go to you, and then I'll come in
and then the rotation will start again. So, Lauren, where

(50:22):
do you want to kick us off with? Tonight?

Speaker 3 (50:24):
So it was impossible for me to choose my favorite
of all time? So I chose five that I really
really love. Don't know that my favorite, but I love them.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
So the first one is can You Stand the Rain
by New Edition. It is a song that, like, it
didn't really hit me in my feels until i've lived
the lyrics. You know, I've been with my husband for
ten years. And yeah, it's a lovely song. It's not
a song about struggle love. It's a song about can
we get through these these the hard times. The second

(50:59):
one is Forever in Your Eyes.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
No, I'm gonna stop you right there. So that was
your one, and you right, that's how we're gonna do it.

Speaker 4 (51:10):
Oh okay, so you want to do one? Okay? Yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
If I wasn't coming about.

Speaker 5 (51:15):
That, okay, Well, like Lauren said, I mean this this
top five, that's that's unreasonable. But I picked time that
I'm like, okay, you know what these would be on
that at the top of that list.

Speaker 4 (51:28):
The first one for me is Send for Me.

Speaker 5 (51:30):
By Atlantic Star, because that is just the epitome of
like I said, when I came up in the late
late seventies early eighties, there's just something about the sound
of that music was again I don't know's there's just
something about about all of it that is it's soulful,
it was in the pocket, it was passionate, it was rich,

(51:51):
it had movements in the songs.

Speaker 4 (51:54):
But that that would be my my first one. Yes.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
And then there's always the debate around which one of
the female lead singers from Atlantic Star do you like
the best?

Speaker 4 (52:04):
I knew you was gonna do.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
That, cause there's the sin for me if your heart
isn't in it lead singer, and then there's the always
lead singer, and people can like who they like.

Speaker 4 (52:18):
I love both of them. I'm Sharon Sharon Bryan and
Barbara Weathers. I love both of them.

Speaker 5 (52:23):
I love them both honestly, and I think they both
brought two different things to the music in ways.

Speaker 4 (52:29):
You know.

Speaker 5 (52:29):
I think for me in the eighties, I was more
familiar with Barbara Weathers because that was when I really
got into it more. But then when I went back
and did some of the deep dive as I got older,
I'm like, oh, I remember these songs.

Speaker 4 (52:41):
But then I you know, I remember hearing Sharon Bryan's
voice on like.

Speaker 5 (52:44):
When Love Calls, and I'm like, oh, because I was like,
you know again, even as a kid, I'm like, that's
not the same chick singing.

Speaker 4 (52:49):
I'm like, I knew Barbara Weathers tone and all that.

Speaker 5 (52:51):
I'm like, that's not you know, So again I have
a deep love and appreciation for both of them.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
Yeah, and then of course can you stand the Rain?
That just preaches that that that like, that's just a
life song. So the first one that I am going
to enter into the chat is going to be your
number one in my book by Gladys Knight and the Pips. Okay, okay,

(53:21):
So Lauren, what's your next entry?

Speaker 2 (53:24):
And next one is Forever in Your Eyes by Men Condition.
It's just it's so good.

Speaker 3 (53:32):
Men don't sing about wanting to commit to the girl
for the rest of their life. You know what I'm
saying I don't do that no more.

Speaker 2 (53:37):
And it's just such a sweet song to me. Another
one that kind of hits me right in my feels.
It's it's just a it's just a lovely song.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
The vocals towards the end, the tag at the end
always kind of gets me, like, it's just it's a
really really lovely song.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
Yeah, men need to get back to begging, and then
man need to get back to doing music video. Oh yeah,
and men need to get back to hitting that shouldering
polls for that autum.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:05):
I mean, it's there's a correlation to men becoming more
and more insufferable and male R and B singers they
just stop begging.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
They stop like and it's not about.

Speaker 3 (54:20):
Like begging for like the intimacy us to share with
the woman, like begging for the entirety of the woman.
They just stop begging. The longing is gone.

Speaker 4 (54:29):
I think it's about vulnerability or the lack.

Speaker 5 (54:34):
Because there's a vulnerability that a lot of those male
singers had that it was just like that's what we.

Speaker 4 (54:39):
Grew up on. I mean, it wasn't. Yeah, sometimes it
might have come off jokingly as begging or.

Speaker 5 (54:44):
Whatever, but there was a way that a lot of
those black men were just bearing their soul about you know,
them being hurt or about a woman stepping out on them,
or about you know, feeling helpless or you know, just
feeling had over heels for someone or whatever at a
time when I'm sure it wasn't.

Speaker 4 (54:59):
That, that wasn't cool, that that wasn't hit.

Speaker 5 (55:01):
But again, it's if somebody you know, got your nose
open and you know what I'm saying, and that they
got you in your fields, you know it wasn't.

Speaker 4 (55:08):
They weren't afraid to do that. And at some point
later on there.

Speaker 5 (55:11):
So there's one artist that's out now that has been
out for about the last five or six years that
I feel like is about the only one that can
kind of tap into that book.

Speaker 4 (55:19):
I'll get to that later. So did you want me
to go with my next song?

Speaker 1 (55:23):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (55:24):
Okay, So my next one will be make Me a
Believer by Luther.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
God damn it, mother, Well you said that if somebody
I know, I know, I know what I said, I
know what I said.

Speaker 5 (55:38):
I mean, you know again, just just the way it
comes in. The Superman flies high up in the sky
because we believe he can't.

Speaker 4 (55:46):
So what we choose to believe will always. I mean,
it's just you know, just I'm a vivid again.

Speaker 5 (55:53):
This is why I fell in love with Shade as
a teenager because and I think that in shape and
informed a lot of the things that I do as
a writer, whether I'm writing songs, whether I'm writing spoken word,
or definitely even when I'm writing a piece or whatever.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
Because when Shade was, you.

Speaker 5 (56:07):
Know, when I would listen to her music, I could
see what was happening, you know what I'm saying, and
Luther with a lot of these songs like that one,
it was vivid. It was you know, it was like
it took me somewhere and it was like, you know,
I'm listening to what he's saying in the way he's
just finessing and using his voice as the brilliant instrument
that it is over all.

Speaker 4 (56:26):
Of his music, and it was just fucking genius. So yes,
that would be my.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
Second one, and I love it because this is what
I wanted to happen. I wanted it to be some
goddamn it, motherfucker, you took my song, so I will
then because I like that was literally the next one
I was going ready to do so I'm a skip
over that and I am going to give you all

(56:52):
love Me and Want You by Patty LaBelle Yes and
the control she exhibits in that song because really you
don't really hear her like go off until she's really
getting ready to go into the fade. And I mean

(57:13):
it's just a song where gamble and huff get her
into that pocket. It's like, Okay, you stay right here
and you just write it out and you just sing
it and you just stay right there.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
It's a slow burn.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
Those strings come in at the beginning all of it.

Speaker 4 (57:35):
Yeah, I agree, definitely absolutely.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
Yep, Blowing is your turn now.

Speaker 3 (57:41):
The next one I have is Love Ballad by LTD.
It's one of my favorite love songs of all time.
One thing I learned from our friends over at the
R and B Representers.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
Is that.

Speaker 3 (57:55):
The Jeffrey Osborne sang that song with an attitude because
the rest of the band kept him waiting for hours.
They came super late to the studio and he was
very upset. He did not want to sing the song
at all. He did it in one take, similar to
how Whitney Houston did I'm Your Baby to Night in
one take, because she wanted to go to the mall, yes,

(58:18):
and I didn't know that, but like he was singing
like the rent was due, and just the it's just
so wonderful, like they're not there. When you hold me close,
it's like, don't even worry about whatever. Our love is only.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
For us to understand. I just oh, it's just so good,
so good.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
And then kind of like to your point around the attitude,
that's kind of like why more or less the vamp
that is the majority of the song. It's just him
saying what we have is much more than they It
was more or less like I really don't feel like
singing this shit, but we're gonna, but we're gonna cut
this record.

Speaker 4 (58:57):
And still look Yeah.

Speaker 5 (59:00):
So for me, my next one would be Caught Up
in the Rapture by Anita Baker because just you know, again,
I in.

Speaker 4 (59:09):
Eighty six, I was twelve years old.

Speaker 5 (59:12):
And again I my mother played that album like it
was religion, and you know, I knew every song but
that one in particular. Just again, that's why that's listening
to Anita Baker in addition to a whole lot of
other artists before her, because again, my parents were playing

(59:32):
soul music from the time I was a baby in
nineteen seventy four all the way through, but by that time,
at twelve years old, like that's what That's how I knew.
I was like, Okay, this is how love is supposed
to feel when it's right. So because just you know,
the everything that she's singing in the song and just

(59:52):
the way that she just you know, just was able
to glide over all of it, it just speaks to
just yeah, being just being.

Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
You know, just love strut.

Speaker 5 (01:00:02):
It's just I'm helpless and I ain't trying to fight it,
and it's just a beautiful song.

Speaker 4 (01:00:08):
So yeah, that would be my next one.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
Okay, so if nothing else we got, Lucy, we gotta
need it. So can't nobody say shit about this episode
or about all this is going to be Whitney Houston's
cover of The Manhattan's Just the Lonely Talking Again from
the Yes Yes and I really not. Only is it
a great Quiet Storm track, which I wish got released

(01:00:34):
as a single, but Clive and his agenda, and because
that second album got so much flak for it being
the quote unquote crossover album where Whitney quote unquote wanted
to sound white, I really don't think. I don't think

(01:00:56):
that that song gets enough appreciation. And I also don't
think her cover of the Izi Brothers for the Love
of You from that album guess enough appreciation, And like,
particularly when you talk about her cover for the Love
of You, it kind of like makes me miss the
days of radio to what DJ's had the freedom to

(01:01:17):
play album cuts and they didn't just have to play
whatever the main single is.

Speaker 5 (01:01:24):
Yeah, I just really a really quick thing I have
to share about that album and about that Yeah, I
fell in love you Know again. I loved Whitney Houston
from you Know, the debut album Again. I was a
teenager at the time. Again, I was.

Speaker 4 (01:01:39):
Eleven.

Speaker 5 (01:01:40):
I was eleven years old when the first album came
out in eighty five. But when the Whitney album came out,
I remember I went to I have relatives in Ohio,
and there was some record story in Ohio and they
did these things called mystery tapes. And what they did
was they would sell the cassette, but they would take
the liner notes and all this stuff out of it,
and you just had to buy it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:57):
So I didn't know who it.

Speaker 5 (01:01:58):
Was, I guess, and I just but when I listened
to it, I'm like, oh, I know you know again
the second album, I knew it was Whitney Houston, but
that was how I kind of fell into that album.

Speaker 4 (01:02:08):
And like you said, the uptempo stuff was.

Speaker 5 (01:02:10):
Great, but where you Are for the Love of You
and that, like you said, that just a lonely talking again. Honestly,
even then, I didn't find out that it was a
cover until years later.

Speaker 4 (01:02:18):
As an adult, say, but it's a brilliant song.

Speaker 5 (01:02:21):
And yes, just just Whitney at her at peak, just
being vulnerable, you know, interpreting a song and just being
the fucking genius that she always was and will always
be through that music.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
So yeah, okay, So Lauren, this is your last goal,
all right.

Speaker 4 (01:02:39):
So this is number four?

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
Right, thank you for the hour is late. The hour is.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Late, all right?

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
So I actually was I was choosing between two earth
Win and Fire songs. I made it a game time decision.
Loves Holiday by earth Win and Fire, or as.

Speaker 4 (01:03:04):
We call as black Felks, would you mind? Where's your mind?
That's what?

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
Because the work, because Love's Holiday ain't sung nowhere in
that time.

Speaker 5 (01:03:17):
But because in the first words, you know, when you
hear your your mom or somebody else snapped their fingers
and get that groove going.

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
Now, what was the other one? You almost almost.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
Chose Cane High Love, but I felt like it was cliche,
so I was, I was.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
I didn't want to do that one.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
Now, I was hoping you was gonna come with be
Ever Wonderful, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
Be Ever Wonderful. It's very special to me, along with
Shining Star, because my dad uh sent some those to
me when I was a kid. I was someone who
I was a kid who was really smart and like
but didn't always fit in because I was a weirdo
and I was an art kid, and he would sing
those songs to remind me that like like that, I

(01:04:05):
had nothing to doubt about who I was.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
So they're very sentimental to me.

Speaker 4 (01:04:12):
Mm hmm. That's beautiful. And since we're on Earth Wind
and Fire, now, this was my last one. So this
was gonna be the fifth one for me, but we got.

Speaker 5 (01:04:21):
Because I didn't know learn if you were going to
say this, So I'll do my last, my fourth one last,
but Reasons by earth Wind and Fire, that would be.

Speaker 4 (01:04:29):
My next because.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
Reasons, baby, I never wanted to know that information.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
But Reasons come on.

Speaker 5 (01:04:40):
Yes, listen, but it's a beautiful song and just the
you know, the it's a you know again, if I'm
memory serves me correctly, it's like it's a concert version
or something. So you hear the the you know, you
hear the crowd and all that other stuff, and you
know in the version, you know that we hear on
the on the album and all that other.

Speaker 4 (01:04:57):
Kind of stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:04:58):
But it's just it's colorful and these ways that again
growing up in the late seventies and earth Wind and
Fire's music, the uptempo music too, just like we talked
about with Stevie and all this other kind of stuff
because it's his birthday. But the color, the love again,
that's what I you know again, as I got older
and harken back to those things that I listened to
as a little kid, not understanding what was going on.

(01:05:19):
When I went back and listened to that stuff, it
just has this richness and this color to it that
is just it's timeless. So yes, definitely reasons by Earth
Wind and Fire.

Speaker 1 (01:05:30):
Yep. Okay, so this is the last one that I
have on my list, but for the last round, considering
that MATI took make me a believer away from me.
I'm gonna sneak in a bonus, but the last official
one that I have this Must be Heaven by Brainstorm.

Speaker 4 (01:05:48):
Oh wow.

Speaker 5 (01:05:49):
Okay, yeah, and that's a that's a you know, that
one is kind of an unknown one for a lot
of people, because I didn't even know a whole lot
of brain about Brainstorm until probably you know again, I
had you know what, Joran speaking him up because one
time Rassan Patterson it posted something about loving is really
my game by Brainstorm and I went and did this

(01:06:11):
deep diving and I mentioned it to Jeran, and you know,
he told me something about it.

Speaker 4 (01:06:16):
I think Bealita Woods the right, and you know again,
he just knew that kind of shit.

Speaker 5 (01:06:22):
He was like, oh, yeah, that's Balida Woods and you
know she passed it such and such and data dah da.
And that's when I went and did a deeper dive
into them and all that kind of stuff, because I
just it was just one that just kind of slipped
past me.

Speaker 4 (01:06:31):
But I do know that song and it is amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
And then I was introduced to this Must Be Heaven
w h U all one night because I was at
the time, I was living in UTC, even though I
was still a Howard student, and like it was the
last shuttle leaving from campus headed back to Hyattsville from DC,
and you had an og unk that was just listening

(01:06:55):
to the Quiet Storm. And that's how I was first
introduced to it, because, like you, I new Brainstorm from
loving is really my game from the time from the
episode of Noah's Ark where they performed it in like
that drag bar. But yeah, okay, Laurie, your last one
for the now, it is your last one for the night.
I know him right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
My last one is Love is Stronger Than Pride. Yeah,
it's just.

Speaker 3 (01:07:25):
That song about you know, you know you've got to
break up with this person.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
You know he ain't I can hate you. I want
to hate you.

Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
Though I have tried, I still really really love you
for Love is Stronger than Pride. Herbie Hancock also has
a lovely jazz jazz cover of it as well, but
really and also Amber Mark has a lovely cover also.

Speaker 5 (01:07:51):
But yeah, a lot of covered.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
And they covered it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):
And turned it into kind of a little like soul
for how long.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
I kind of like it's cute.

Speaker 4 (01:08:02):
It's you.

Speaker 5 (01:08:03):
I didn't I didn't expect to like it as much
as I did, because I was like, but if you
have to understand that covers are about paying homage to
an artist they enjoy.

Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
It's not about getting.

Speaker 4 (01:08:12):
It right and doing it the same thing or replicating.
I agree agree, but.

Speaker 5 (01:08:17):
Yes, sitting here wasting my time would be like waiting
for the sun to rise.

Speaker 4 (01:08:20):
It's all clear, things come and go.

Speaker 5 (01:08:23):
Sitting here waiting for you would be like waiting for winter.

Speaker 4 (01:08:26):
It's going to be cold. There may even be snow again.
Do you like I'm saying?

Speaker 7 (01:08:32):
Like the lyrics the lyrics alone, I was just like,
you know, my God, this woman in.

Speaker 5 (01:08:37):
Her pen Jesus, just yeah, it's just just fucking brilliant. Okay,
So yes, my so my last one that was actually
my fourth, but since we got on our earth winding
fire kick Lauriate, my last one would be I try
by Angela Bo Jesus, yes, oh God, because what we're
not gonna do is city sit here and not call

(01:08:57):
call in one Miss Angela Bo.

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
Feel into this conversation. I mean, I tiggle back and
forth between her and Phyllis or whatnot.

Speaker 5 (01:09:05):
Again, we know Phyllis got a whole catalog of you know,
a whole bunch of stuff, but just.

Speaker 4 (01:09:09):
That particular song.

Speaker 5 (01:09:11):
And again, I think because again when I listened to
that as a kid as and when I was younger,
again it was like, Okay, this is you know, they
trying to figure some shit out.

Speaker 4 (01:09:20):
And again I was again.

Speaker 5 (01:09:21):
I sat in the middle of stuff with my parents,
watching them ping pong and be together, be a part.
And again a lot of this music I was listening
to when I'm watching stuff like Joseph I Told you
last week, like if your Heart Isn't in It by
Atlantic Star, that song. I listened to that song as
a teenager and I was watching it play out between
my parents. But back to I Try, it's the same

(01:09:42):
kind of thing where it was like it was it
was conflict in a song in a way that was
about love and it was about okay, like I'm you know,
I'm doing everything that I can to try to make
this work.

Speaker 4 (01:09:52):
And then when I got older and started.

Speaker 5 (01:09:53):
Living some shit and dealing with some you know, luckleheads
that just weren't deserving of my time, my energy, my anything,
I start to really kind of understand it a whole
lot more in terms of like trying to you know,
trying to bend in twist and contort for somebody. But
it's just kind of like, yeah, this ain't working, so
that would be my last one.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
And we love will Downing. But baby, the way Angie
and them background singers hit that, you know, da try yes,
and you could just get you could and then be
as like a church kid. You can just give like
that old baptist two times clap.

Speaker 4 (01:10:30):
Yes, So.

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
I would get in a bonus because I can. I
wasn't able to do make me be unbelievable, but I
am gonna do is forever for always.

Speaker 5 (01:10:42):
For love Boom, Yes, definitely, because how can you not
with Luthor and yeah that's yeah, just again.

Speaker 4 (01:10:52):
He had a way with just and that's why, like
when we talked earlier.

Speaker 5 (01:10:56):
About the things that he couldn't live out loud or not,
you know, cultin chose not to however you want to
look at it or what have you. Again, if you're
listening and if you're paying attention, that's with a lot
of artists. If you really just listen and you pay
attention to what they're singing, Baby, that writing is right
there on the.

Speaker 4 (01:11:12):
Wall if you can read the teeth leaves.

Speaker 5 (01:11:14):
And some people were just either just obtuse or just
you know, not really plugged in enough. But again, me
being a music nerd, this being you know, like oxygen
to me, that's definitely one, you know, listening to that
again as what I came to understand about what love
is supposed to feel like, how it's supposed to you know,
how like it is you put on a piece of clothing.

Speaker 4 (01:11:33):
This is how this is supposed to fit forever, for
all ways, for love.

Speaker 5 (01:11:37):
And you know, and then you got that damn Leila
Hathaway that just you know, just heard her you know,
her rendition of it is brilliant in and of itself.
But like you said, Lauren, it wasn't even about trying
to replicate what he did. But she just you know,
brought brought her her you know, her her legacy and
her father's legacy all to that to that song in
beautiful ways.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
Okay, so we've come to the end of our round.
Didn't nobody fight, ain't no tables get turned? Oh no,
So for you all, before we move into the benedicition,
I would say, what is the future that you all
see for Quiet Storm?

Speaker 3 (01:12:18):
You know, it's hard to say because music is so
different than it was when the format was first created. However,
that doesn't mean that there's no one making good music.
I remember Alex Eisley did a short thread on Twitter
a while ago where she was saying, like, when y'all
come on here and say no one's making good R
and B anymore, no one's making good music anymore, I'm like,

(01:12:39):
what am I doing this before?

Speaker 5 (01:12:40):
Then?

Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
That's actually not true. I think this format is going
to get a lot more gay. Like I said, there's
a lot more sapphic, R and B out there. There's
a lot of girls singing about girls. I have a
whole playlist of them.

Speaker 2 (01:12:53):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:12:54):
I hope I can turn on Quiet Storm and hear
say It by by Sid and Klaude one day. I
hope I can I can turn it on and here
Level by Berni Bernard Duran Bernard one day. You know,
I hope that that we break out of that heteronormative cycle,
that the the the.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
Uh that the genre, because it is I think it
is a subgenre.

Speaker 4 (01:13:17):
Is in agreed. I'm hopeful and optimistic. Like you said, Lauren,
I think agreed.

Speaker 5 (01:13:25):
In the two thousands, I mean, there were you know,
there were people like Jill Scott, Music's old Child and
blal and all these other people that you know again
that that di'angelo and all these people, Angie Stone and
up makes you rest in peace. You know, all these
people who you know again they knew that they got it,
you know what I'm saying. They've paid homage to those things.
And then you got people like Mary you know what

(01:13:46):
I'm saying, Mary J. Blige that has always you know,
been plugged into like old school R and B and
kept that stuff, you know what I'm saying, even whether
it was samples or you know what, have you keeping
those things going. So now, like you said, when people
say there's no you know, there's a lot of stuff
that they call R and B.

Speaker 4 (01:14:02):
But again, when I think about Alex.

Speaker 7 (01:14:04):
Heisley, Victoria Monnette, India, Sean Kenyon Dixon and the one
that I was talking about that I said in terms
of men and being vulnerable, Lucky Day.

Speaker 4 (01:14:15):
That man.

Speaker 5 (01:14:15):
From the first time I heard Lucky Day's first album,
I said to myself, I said, this nigga is like
he's plugged in in a way that black men like
they they stopped and there's something that as.

Speaker 4 (01:14:27):
In terms of being vulnerable.

Speaker 5 (01:14:29):
If you go back and listen to the very first album,
which I was going through some shit in twenty eighteen,
twenty nineteen, and it was like I listened to it
like religion for like months and it was just like
That's what gave me hope. And as he continues to
just evolve and grow because him, you know again, I
have to I have to speak out, you know, d Mile,
because you know that that man in terms of a producer.

Speaker 4 (01:14:51):
If there's anybody that's going to step into Babyface.

Speaker 5 (01:14:53):
As Es or or you know or or any of
the you know, like the legends like Quincy Jones and
all these other the kinds of people, he is that person.
Because again the stuff that he has produced for India,
Sean for Lucky Day for and especially for Victoria Money.
Victoria Monet has all of these songs on that Jaguar
and on the Jaguar Deluxe that Heart again one of
them features earth Wind and Fire. But it harkens back

(01:15:15):
to if you listen to Goodbye, if you listen to
Everybody Needs Someone, you know, from from this Last from
the the the Jaguar Deluxe and all of these kinds
of songs, it's just like you can tell that she's
plugged into those things, and I don't know how she
got there, but I'm grateful for it because again, it
gives me.

Speaker 4 (01:15:31):
Hope that this that that kind of music is not lost.

Speaker 3 (01:15:35):
So everybody else Hold is such a good song too.
It's actually, when you really listened to it, it's a
song about friendship. It's a song about wanting the love
of a friend. I just accepted that, like I was
open to like new friendships after really really terrible friendship breakups.
And someone mentioned to me, she said, you might want
to listen to this song.

Speaker 4 (01:15:57):
It's a beautiful song. No, yeah, and it's just.

Speaker 5 (01:16:01):
And and again that that change at the end when
you know it's it's just again, it's just again. It
harkens back to that earth wind in fire. Like like
I said, when I when I listen to that stuff,
it's like it's in the pocket in this way that
I'm like, that's the ship that I came up on,
because we know what that is because again, like that's
in our blood, that's in our DNA.

Speaker 4 (01:16:21):
So when we hear some of these youngins that are
singing these kinds of things.

Speaker 5 (01:16:24):
I'm like, Okay, you know what again, all of them
don't have it, but again I think I feel like
it's enough of them. And then there's these other people
who are in between, you know that are you know,
you have baby faces, and you have these other people
that continue to work with some of the younger artists
that I feel like are going to keep that that
are going to keep that alive. So I'm definitely hopeful
about the future of Quiet Storm and whatever it evolves into.

Speaker 1 (01:16:46):
So I'm hopeful as well. And I would say we
will always need a Quiet Storm because this this can
also be said about TV, but we'll keep a focused
on radio and music. I miss the days when radio

(01:17:06):
had shifts, and I miss the days when radio or
even the club knew how to slow down. Like it's
all turn up now, at least as far as what
you see from a mainstream perspective. And then one of
the artists that I want to lift up, who I

(01:17:28):
think is really holding up the banner as an artist
from the DMV and also as someone who currently hosts
the quiet Storm format for w h U R Raheem Devon.

Speaker 3 (01:17:41):
Raheem hasn't given us a bad album ever, by the way,
like he has not given us. He may have may
he may not have given us a No Skips album
every time, but he gives us a solid.

Speaker 1 (01:17:52):
Album and he's good in concert.

Speaker 2 (01:17:56):
He is good in concert.

Speaker 3 (01:17:57):
Yeah, I've seen him a couple of times.

Speaker 5 (01:18:00):
I know Rahiem, and Raheem knows his shit like he
knows soul music. He knows his stuff like we used to,
you know, years ago when I used to work at
Tower Records. He was working there for a brief time
with me, and we would just set up and talk
about music. And that was during the time, you know,
like I said, when there was a lot. This was
like ninety seven, ninety seven, ninety eight somewhere around then.

(01:18:24):
And I remember because it was around the time when
Fates Keep the Faith album had just come out, when
her second, the sophomore album had come out, And like
I said, we would just sit up and.

Speaker 4 (01:18:32):
Talk about music.

Speaker 5 (01:18:33):
And he knows his shit and it's evident because you know,
it's manifested and its shaped and informs his music. So
definitely definitely have to give Raheem his flowers and lift
him up, love him.

Speaker 1 (01:18:45):
Thanks for sticking with Hella Black Hella, Queer, Hella Christian.
I'm Joseph and I'm joined today by Lauren Carter and
Monte j. Wolf. We're exploring the power of the Quiet
Storm and why it still hits well. We are now

(01:19:21):
moving into the Benediction. The hour is late, so we
are going to try to move as fast as we can.
Just have rapid fire. Nine questions and it'll be the
rotation that we've been following for the evening. So Laura,
I'll pose a question. Lauren, you'll go first, Manti you
can follow, and then I'll wrap it up. So what

(01:19:42):
are you looking forward to?

Speaker 3 (01:19:45):
I am looking forward to Black Pride weekend like I
always do every May. That's what I am looking forward to.
Looking forward to seeing my friends and running these streets
with my queer black girls.

Speaker 5 (01:19:59):
I too, am look looking forward to, I will say,
this summer and just being able to get out and
do more because it's somebody who I'm a bit of
a homebody and I'm not out a whole lot. I'm
a scorpio. I keep to myself, but I think you know,
since cod and especially since COVID and all that other
kind of stuff, but I'm just looking forward to being out,
not all the time, because I just can't do a
whole lot of people all the damn time. My battery,

(01:20:21):
my social battery is low as fuck by nature. Anybody
knows me can tell you that unless I'm performing or working,
I don't really want to be bothered. But I'm definitely
looking forward to being out, like you said during Pride,
and you know, seeing Grace Jones and Janelle Money at
the Anthem, you know, a lot of these things, and
a lot of shows over the summer and things like that,
and just being able to travel and just being able

(01:20:41):
to live in ways that I hadn't been living before.

Speaker 1 (01:20:46):
I too, am looking forward to the summer. So Channey
Nicholas said at the top of the year that the
first half of the year was going to be pretty rough,
but around June some news that we have really been
hoping for is going to manifest. So I'm really hoping
for that to be true. I am not just as
far as the political climate, but just my personal life.

(01:21:08):
I'm just really looking to see the summer kick off
some things. To me, I am looking forward to turn
in forty. I'm really excited about that. What is one
thing you like about yourself?

Speaker 3 (01:21:23):
I'm not afraid to say the hard thing. Yeah, I'm
not afraid to have an uncomfortable conversation. Particularly that's how
the relationship's going to grow. I think that's the I'm
not afraid to, like, you know, call somebody out if
they're on that bullshit. I'm just not I'm not afraid
of a confrontation. Basically, I'm not confrontational, but I'm not

(01:21:44):
afraid of conflict.

Speaker 5 (01:21:49):
To kind of piggyback off of what Lauren said, I'm
not afraid of the dark again, just I think it's
my scorpio nature. One thing I've had to learn over
the years, from up until now, over these last thirty years,
is learning how to balance the light in the dark,
because I think I because of childhood and hope, just
a lot of things, parents and sexuality and body image.

(01:22:12):
I was just operating at a very low vibration when
I was in my teens and in my younger adult life,
and music was that thing that saved me, that anchored me.
But as I learned more about spirituality, more, as I
lean more into a lot of other things, I learned
how to balance all of that with all the light
that I have and how those things come out.

Speaker 4 (01:22:30):
But I understand that you can't have one without the other.

Speaker 5 (01:22:32):
So I'm just grateful that I'm able to acknowledge all
of it and that I can sit with people.

Speaker 4 (01:22:38):
In uncomfortable situations. I have a few.

Speaker 5 (01:22:40):
People who can do that for me, but I'm grateful that,
whether it's a stranger or somebody else in my circle,
I don't like to see anybody hurting. So if I
can help, or if I can sit with them, I
may not be able to fix it, but I like
being able to let people know, people who I care
about know that they're not alone.

Speaker 4 (01:22:54):
And I'm just very grateful for having that capacity, even
if it feels like a curse sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:23:02):
Yeah, I'm gonna more or less piggyback on what Lauren said.
I like how throughout my life I have been able
to be the one that will say what everybody else
in the room was thinking, but it's too scared to say. Okay, okay,
So where are you a year from today?

Speaker 3 (01:23:24):
You know, A year from today, I hope I am.
I hope I have a manuscript for a book. I
hope I have a few speaking engagements under my belt,
and I hope I want to sing. My two newest
niece and nephew.

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):
Toddling around because they were.

Speaker 3 (01:23:41):
My niece was born in March, and my nephew will
be born in July, a.

Speaker 4 (01:23:51):
Year from today. It's my hope that I will just
continue to still be here, creating.

Speaker 5 (01:23:57):
And getting deeper about being able to love and affirm myself,
and hopefully this time next year, I will be in
rehearsals getting ready to prepare for a twentieth anniversary celebration
for Rape Soul Collective, because twenty twenty six will be
twenty years since I started this organization with Eric Chambers
and Tim and West, and there's been all these other

(01:24:18):
people that have come along for the ride during the
the last nights going on nineteen years. So I'm just
you know, I'm looking forward to being able to do
something to commemorate that, because this was something that we
all started, that I started in an attempt to save
my life and give voice to other black gay men
and black care people. And to know that it still
exists and that it still matters to some people and

(01:24:39):
that we still are doing meaningful work means a lot
to me and lets me know that none of the
shit that I went through was in vain. So I
hope that next year I will be knee deep in rehearsals,
getting ready to plan some shit so we can celebrate
throughout the year.

Speaker 4 (01:24:52):
Next year.

Speaker 1 (01:24:54):
Yes, yes, a Man and Asha. A year from today.
I want my hotel booked for DC Black Pride. I
want my party passes purchase for DC Black Pride. I
want some speaking engagements booked for DC Black Pride. And
I also want some dates already lined up for DC

(01:25:15):
Black Pride Speaking. What are you thankful for?

Speaker 3 (01:25:23):
I'm thankful for life. I'm thankful for my community. I'm
thankful for my girlfriends. I'm thankful for my partners. I'm
thankful for stability. I just you know, I was. Yeah,
I'm really thankful that I have a little bit of stability,
more than I had this time last year.

Speaker 5 (01:25:44):
I'm thankful for a lot of things, but I think
what I'm most thankful for is chosen family and just
being able to understand the value of that. I'm grateful
to still have great relationships with my blood family as well.
But my chosen family has saved me in so many ways,
and I think led me back to myself in times
when I abandoned myself for sake of trying to love

(01:26:06):
somebody else. And I think last year, as I was
leading up to turning fifty, a lot of shit had
to come to the surface. And that's when I had
to get very clear about how I had abandoned myself
so many times and attempts to be there for everybody
else and constantly holding my arms out to everybody else.
But I've got the message, and it's just it's an
everyday thing to just keep working on loving me. But
I'm doing a whole lot better at that. So loving

(01:26:28):
on myself and affirming myself, and like I said that
by extension is because of those people in my circle
who gently and lovingly remind me of who I am
when I forget.

Speaker 4 (01:26:36):
So I'm grateful for that.

Speaker 1 (01:26:39):
I am thankful to see Tuesday, May the thirteenth, twenty
twenty five, because this year has been a doozy and
there have just been times where I have just had
that I have just truly wanted. Am I going to
see the other side of these next four years? And

(01:27:01):
it's kind of like you just learn, you take it
piece by piece, you take it minute by minute, you
take it day by day, and whatever happens past this
moment in this moment, I am thankful that I have
lived to see nine ten pm on Tuesday May the thirteenth,
twenty twenty five, and I'm thankful that I'm seeing it
with you too. What are you proud of?

Speaker 2 (01:27:30):
I'm proud of my sister.

Speaker 3 (01:27:31):
Like I said, my baby sister is a new mother,
and I'm just so proud of her. I'm proud of
her for doing something that she wanted to do. I'm
proud of all the things she's accomplished, and I'm proud
of just how she truly is one of the most
dynamic women I know, and I'm really really proud of her.

Speaker 4 (01:27:48):
Right now. I'm proud of black gay men.

Speaker 5 (01:27:55):
I just have to say that because again I see
how and again, yeah, I have people when my circle
who are in their seventies and eighties, and they call
me a baby because I say that. You know, again,
I just turned fifty, so I do reserve the right
to be able to call somebody in their twenties a
baby right now. But when I see some of these young, young,
younger gays, it's just like I feel like they're shedding
layers of shit that I wasn't able to shed at

(01:28:17):
that age, and I mean I was working on it,
but it took me a little bit longer. And what
I'm seeing is just this freedom and this lightness. Not
to say that the challenges and all of those things
are not still there, but the way that they are
moving through it and the determination and you know, insistence
on Okay, this is what it is, This is who
I am, and I'm gonna love on me.

Speaker 4 (01:28:36):
I'm just grateful for that in black gay men.

Speaker 5 (01:28:39):
And I'm just grateful for the black gay men in
my circle that love me and that I'm able to
let me love them because there's a lot of things,
you know, a lot of shit about being caddy and
being shady and being bitchy and all that other kind
of stuff. But I'm always interested in, Okay, so who
are you after you peel back?

Speaker 4 (01:28:55):
Who hurts you? And all that other shit.

Speaker 5 (01:28:57):
So, like I said, when we get to who you
really are and the difficult times and all those other
kinds of things, that's what I want to see. And
I've seen so many things that just inspired me in
that way from black gay men.

Speaker 4 (01:29:06):
It gives me hope in ways that I just hadn't had.

Speaker 5 (01:29:09):
So I'm grateful I'm very proud of Blackgay, of my brothers.

Speaker 1 (01:29:15):
I am proud of this show, and as I continuing
to make more recordings, I'm really proud of and I'm
really excited by the way I see this show taking
shape and really kind of like forming a theme and
even through tonight's episode, really seeing how the purpose and

(01:29:37):
intent that I came into this process with is becoming
tangible and real. As far as I really think that
I'm getting ready to offer something to the world, I'm
getting ready to offer conversations and perspectives to the world
that we're not seeing on the main stage and that
we really do need to see. So what is a

(01:29:57):
thorn for you? What is something that's getting your goal
right now?

Speaker 3 (01:30:02):
The thort for me is how I'm a pay because
goddamn student loans. I just don't. I hate the economics
system we live in where I'm making probably the most
I've made during my entire career, and yet everything is
expensive and everybody wants their money right now. And you know,

(01:30:23):
but on one hand, on one hand, I'm able to
do things I wasn't able to do before. I can
hop up to New York if I want to. On
the other hand, Sally May is never getting her money,
and I need her to understand.

Speaker 1 (01:30:34):
That, especially considering that before Reagan, there was a time
where education at the collegiate level.

Speaker 2 (01:30:46):
Oh yeah, it was free.

Speaker 3 (01:30:47):
And then black people started going to school and they said, well,
we need to make this cost prohibitive so that they
can't do that. And you know that's why. But it
used to be free. It used to be cheaper free.

Speaker 4 (01:31:01):
A thorn for me.

Speaker 5 (01:31:05):
Across the board is anybody that tries to tell me
how I should feel or how I shouldn't feel. That's
always a losing game. A thorn for me, whether it's
somebody unsolicited advice. You've seen it, Joseph. Not often, but
I've had to light some people up on social media
because I'm not on there that much on Facebook or whatever.
But anytime somebody offers up unsolicited advice, I didn't fucking

(01:31:28):
ask you, so don't. I got people for that, that
chosen family, of which I spoke earlier.

Speaker 4 (01:31:33):
I got people my boyfriend.

Speaker 5 (01:31:34):
I have people in my circle who I rock with,
if I my therapist, other people. I don't deal well
in other people telling me how I should feel or
how I shouldn't feel. And part of that is because,
like I said earlier, I'm able to be there for
other people even if I don't understand. I'm compassionate, and
it just irritates the fuck out of me when I'm
not when I don't get that back. But it's all

(01:31:54):
the more reason why I feel like I have to
be more insistent about it, you know, when somebody else
is in need of it. But yeah, somebody telling me
how I should feel or I need to calm down,
or I should do this, or you know, X, y
and z uh. Because if you don't like that, what
the fuck makes you think that I like being told
what to do or how I should feel. Give me
the same kind of consideration you would you would want yourself,

(01:32:15):
and all will be well with the world.

Speaker 1 (01:32:18):
Amen. I'm gonna hark it back to Lauren kind of
like the financial situation right now is a thorn for
me because this time last year, I had finalized my
contract with iHeart, and I was like coming into this
really sweet spot to wear between iHeart and my main job.
At the time, I was getting a full check every

(01:32:41):
year every week, so I was trying. I was finally
getting to a place where like I could pop up
to New York and get myself a hotel roomor I
could pop down to Atlanta for a music festival. And
then because of the political climate, I got laid off
from my main job in February. So now I'm to
just kind of like really depending on this one check

(01:33:03):
every other week. That kind of really sucks. And then
it's kind of like il Rest, which is supposed to
be deconstructed or dismantled, is expecting me to pay taxes
and my financial situation has changed. And then you have
the Department of Education, which once again is supposed to
be dismantled, but the one thing that they are sticking

(01:33:25):
around for is to how people around these student loans,
which were enacted in like a very nefarious way. And
it's kind of like, Okay, I've done the income driven repayment, please,
but you still have Wells Fargo sending me six notifications
a day talking about my credit has been negatively impacted
by my student loans. And it's like, bruh, one of y'all,

(01:33:48):
preferably all of y'all, but one of y'all gonna leave
me the fuck alone. So what is giving you joy?

Speaker 2 (01:33:58):
What's giving me joy?

Speaker 3 (01:34:00):
Is some of the wonderful film and TV we're seeing.

Speaker 2 (01:34:05):
From black artists right now. Sinners was great. I love Sinners.

Speaker 3 (01:34:10):
I can talk about it to the cows. Come home
from every single angle. However, Forever on Netflix is a
love It is a love letter to black la It
is Mara Brockkill produced. I think Regina King directed it
or directed some of the episodes. It's a little teen

(01:34:30):
love story based on a Judy Bloom novel, and I
grew up on Judy Bloom. But it's just so good
and it reminds.

Speaker 2 (01:34:37):
Me of like a back home.

Speaker 3 (01:34:39):
These are two.

Speaker 2 (01:34:39):
These are black private school kids. I was a black
private school.

Speaker 3 (01:34:42):
Kid, and it really is just giving me joy, Like
we're still creating amazing art right now at a time
when they don't want us to do that. You know,
the statue of the Black women in Times Square. I
love that statue. People are being weird and fat bobic
about it, but.

Speaker 2 (01:35:00):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:35:01):
Her whole stance is like talk around and find out.
I don't know any black woman right now who does
not have that attitude at the moment.

Speaker 2 (01:35:11):
Yeah, I just I love that black.

Speaker 3 (01:35:13):
People are still creating in spite of everything and not
just because of it.

Speaker 2 (01:35:20):
You know, our art is not just our pathology.

Speaker 5 (01:35:23):
Agreed, I would say to piggyback off of what Lauren said.
Just music, art, creativity, all of those things bring me joy.
Like you said, it's a lot of great television. And
Forever was one of the ones on my list. I
haven't started yet, but now I definitely will when I
have some time to slow the fuck down.

Speaker 4 (01:35:40):
But just music. Music.

Speaker 5 (01:35:42):
This morning, I woke up this morning, I was tired,
and I listened to Saravon.

Speaker 4 (01:35:46):
I have done.

Speaker 5 (01:35:48):
Saravon is just because she always say her voice is
a soothing agent. And the older Sarah, you know, I
love all of Saravon's catalog, but that older, more seasoned Saravon,
where that that voice had all of this bass and
you know, and this hef to it and she would, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:36:03):
It's just I listen to that kind of stuff so much.

Speaker 5 (01:36:07):
And again I understand myself as I've gotten older, I
understand my yearning for love.

Speaker 4 (01:36:12):
To be understood, to be seen, and to be heard
and to be felt.

Speaker 5 (01:36:16):
And just like it's always been the case with music,
that's been the through line and the thing that's let
me know that I'm not fucking crazy, and that there
is a reason that I'm here, even in the days
in times when I'm like this, shit don't make sense.

Speaker 4 (01:36:29):
So music, creativity, art gives me joy.

Speaker 1 (01:36:35):
So on that tip, it's not where I well really
was going to go, but music, yes, But particularly during
my morning prayer time, I listened to the song better
Days by Janet Jackson off for All for You album,
and then Salt So sau Lt they just put out

(01:36:56):
a new album and they have a song called s
OTH and it stands for Sound of the Healing, and
that's also something that I enjoyed during my mornings. But
on the other end of that, the side being able
to have my mornings to myself just to lay in
my bed and silence, in silence, like during like those

(01:37:19):
single digit hours of the morning, just be able to
have that time to like just be in silence and
be in quietness and just kind of like rub my
legs between my sheets and feeling my sheets up against
my skin. That's just really wonderful and joyful for me.
And then the last one, what gives you hope?

Speaker 3 (01:37:43):
That's such a hard question right now because everyone is
such a Debbie Downer I think what gives me hope
are people who refuse to shut the fuck up, Jasmine
Crockett being one of them in full frosty and another
one I'm gonna put ts medicine in that category. A
few other people too. Like the people who just refuse

(01:38:05):
to back down, they give me hope.

Speaker 4 (01:38:08):
Absolutely ironically enough, Lauren, I.

Speaker 5 (01:38:15):
Was just gonna say young people, because again, I'm uh
being turned, you know, turning fifty and just kind of
looking at things through a different lens.

Speaker 4 (01:38:23):
A lot of people that I come in contact with
now are younger than I am.

Speaker 5 (01:38:26):
And like you said, from a political standpoint, the young
people that I see, like you said, Maxwell Frost, Jasmine Crockett,
you know, some of the younger generation.

Speaker 4 (01:38:35):
But a lot of these kids, they just have come
up in like we said, you know, stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:38:39):
From from nine to eleven to these school shootings and
a lot of stuff that you know, we couldn't have
even fathomed or imagine come you know, imagine coming up
and you know, living in the in the eighties and
in the early nineties with the shit you know we
lived through like OJ and you know, and the la
riots and stuff like that, and this is just on
a whole other scale and another level. But young people

(01:39:00):
give me hope because, like you said, they're pushing back.
They are not taking any shit they don't have. I mean,
they may have fear, and they may have trepidation or whatever,
but they're not letting that stop them. And again that
gives me hope because again, when I look at past
iterations of myself in ways that I you know, I
might have stalled or stopped.

Speaker 4 (01:39:18):
Ultimately, I didn't let it stop me completely.

Speaker 5 (01:39:20):
But you know, again when you look back on things,
it's like there's always things that I would have done differently.

Speaker 4 (01:39:25):
But seeing fearless young people.

Speaker 5 (01:39:29):
And particularly in the arts, you know, like I said,
when I look at Destin Comrade and Duran Barnard and
Serpent with Feet, and again in this generation where there
are black gay men that are singing black gay songs
about you know, being in love with other black gay men.

Speaker 4 (01:39:44):
That shit didn't happen before.

Speaker 5 (01:39:46):
And other people will say, oh, we had Sylvester, we
had Resigned, And again I love all of them, but
again there's a way that they are just being transparent
with their love and with their music and with their
identities that just give me so much hope, and I'm
just so very grateful.

Speaker 1 (01:39:59):
For that, and they're being given a mainstream platform and
in ways that we did not see before, because I mean,
I think all of us can on on on this
record and can speak to remembering the times where someone's
sexuality could be used as blackmail against them in the industry.

Speaker 4 (01:40:21):
And back around to what you just told, what we
talked about about Luther earlier. You know what I'm saying.
I mean, it's like they didn't have those opportunities.

Speaker 5 (01:40:27):
So I think, you know, they crawled so these babies
could walk and get out there and fucking stomp and
saunter and let the motherfucking children have it.

Speaker 1 (01:40:40):
So what's given me hope is community and being in
community with others in person and particular, and for me particularly,
that does I don't get out as much as I
should have, as I would like to, because it's oppressed,
especially in this post COVID world where you're not at
where not as your body isn't as trained to do

(01:41:02):
it as you were before COVID. But getting up and
getting to church on Sunday morning and singing those songs
in unison with others and just being around other people
in that way gives me hope. Lauren Manti, thank you
both for your honesty, your history, your heart. This was

(01:41:26):
more than a conversation. This was community to follow their
work head to at L. W.

Speaker 4 (01:41:33):
Carter.

Speaker 1 (01:41:34):
So that's E L. L. E. W. Carter and Brave
Soul seventy four on socials. Trust me, they're saying things
that matter. Quiet Storm gave us more than slow jams.
It gave us language for grief, for desire for change.
It's been powerful to sit with Lauren and Manty and

(01:41:56):
talk about how we carry that legacy forward, not just
in music, but in how we hold each other. If
you felt something listening to this, say something, share it,
make a playlist, send that text you've been thinking about.
I'll catch you next time for another episode of Hella
Black Hella Queer Hello Christian Special thanks to our guest

(01:42:20):
Lauren Wilson Carter and Monte J. Wolfe. Hella Black Hella
Queer Hella Christian is a production of iHeartMedia on the
Outspoken Slate, which seeks to amplify LGBTQ voices in podcasting.
I am your host and executive creator producer Joseph Frees,
along with Gabrielle Collins, who also serves as executive producer.

(01:42:44):
Dylan you Are is a producer. Treval is our lead
producer and editor.

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