Danyel Smith

Author and top music journalist Danyel Smith discusses her newest book, Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop. Speaking to Quest' and Team Supreme, Danyel shares some fascinating bits from the book, memories from her time leading VIBE magazine, and anecdotes writing about Whitney Houston, Tupac Shakur, and Arrested Development.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quesch Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
How are you guys? Steve? I realized in the last
five episodes we you hardly said a word. What's are you? Okay? Yes,

(00:23):
there you go? All right? Uh fine, you're in the
purple room now, all right? My fault. So the after
effect of your studio Yeah, yeah, man, I just you know,
I feel like I give y'all a little a little
uh green light. Uh the core of to day, a
little YouTube makeup artists, uh vibe. I got you. We're
getting today, sir. Today we're getting how to do winged eyeliner?

(00:51):
And I like you. How's it going with you? Oh
it's going good. I'm on the eyelist somewhere hoping my
WiFi don't shoot on y'all. Nice on vacation. Good to
get Yeah, okay, Now I can introduce our our guest. Um.
Our guest today is um. Of course. She's an award

(01:11):
winning author, novelist, journalist, magazine editor from the Ya area
The Yea. I don't know. I don't even know if
people in the Bay Area call it the ya Area,
but I'm going on a limb and calling it the
North Kakaaki. No one calls it North. No one calls
it except for the roots when they're on stage. UM

(01:35):
I will I will say that I got to know
and subsequently feared this woman UH when she was the
first black editor in chief at the much loved Vibe magazine,
UH starting in NUR. I believe you replaced Alan Light

(01:55):
correct I did. In fact, yeah. I. If ever you
guys wondered why is a mirror obsessed with journalists more
than he's obsessed with his fellow peers in the music business,
I will honestly tell you it starts with this woman

(02:15):
because I only realized the power of the pin when
it came from our guest today. UM. She's released a
um an awesome book, and if you're a fan of
this show, and if you're a fan of just inside
speak of music genre that you don't love, but things

(02:36):
that you might not have known, UM, I highly recommend
you get uh Shine Bright, a very personal history of
Black women in pop where literally not only does she
reveal her awesomely kind of adventurous journey and life UH

(02:57):
with her family coming up from the Bay Area, Los
Angeles and of course UH living all over and and
navigating through music, but she even manages to uh breakdown
and share stories of of just intricate stories that of
artists that you love but you really don't know about,
like from the Dixie Cups of the Sarells to um

(03:19):
should I didn't even know Leon Team Price was related
to work and you know Cissy and Whitney Houston, and
you know, just drawing the parallels of how they you know,
those those four generations between Leon Team Price and Cecy
Houston and dar work at Whitney Houston, what they've done
and breaking barriers for just basically progressing forward. But not

(03:41):
to mention um you know Diana Ross name at Gladys Knight,
Donna Summer Merlin McCoo. Even, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome
to Quest of Supreme. Daniel Smith. Thank you. Ah, I'm
good because I'm over here with y'all, so it feels

(04:02):
it just feels really good and really special. Thank you,
Thank you, thank you. Um where are you just speaking
to us right now? From? Where are you from? My
home in southern California, specifically in Venice, California. Hey A nice, Okay,
I didn't know I'd see I didn't know if you
were uh in East Coast or West Coaster. I mean,
I'm I feel pretty equally both. Over the course of

(04:24):
my life at this point, I mean, I think I
did twenty three years um on the on the East
coast between most of it in in Manhattan, most of
it in Brooklyn, some of it in Manhattan, some of
it in Washington, d C. But I'm back home in
my in the in the great country of California. So
it's good to be here, good to have you. Okay.

(04:45):
So the thing is, you're shinned Bright Book. It's almost
like Jeopardy where You're shine Bright Book, in my opinion,
is almost like an episode of course Love Supreme without
us asking the questions, you know. So it's almost like
if I were to go, well, no, literally she you know,

(05:09):
especially in the first chapter, Um, well you're breaking down
your journey. Um, it's almost like I feel like it's
a disservice to even recap that. So I kind of
want to take a different route with this episode than
I would normally do if you were a recording artist

(05:29):
and well, you know, one, I want to just ask
the obvious, why did you feel, uh, the need to
construct this book and tell these stories? Why did you
feel the need to sort of construct the story and
the manner that you did, and why was it so
long overdue? Well, let me answer the the second question. First,

(05:53):
why was this a long overdue? It's a combination of
on my part, um timing combination. Add to that a
lot of second guessing myself. Add to that, um, a
little bit of fear, and add to that I hadn't
quite figured out the best way to tell it. It

(06:17):
hadn't had to get to that place. I had to
get really strong, I think, um, a way that I
hadn't felt, probably, I don't know, in a half a
decade by the time I finished Shine Bright. So it's
it's all my fault. It's not my editor's fault. It's
not anybody I interviewed. Uh, it's not their fault. It's

(06:38):
it's it's my fault, just being uncharacteristically slow and missing
of deadlines. Which, oh now, let me tell you that
if my husband was here, he would say, um, it
took me eight I feel like I've been writing it
since I was eight years old, but I think technically
it took me six years. All right, you speaking of

(07:01):
your husband, beloved Elliott Wilson, Why in yeah, seventeen years.
Seventeen years, that's awesome and hip hop? That is it right?
And I don't know, I don't know, but yeah, so
it's um, it took me too long. I'm not gonna lie,
but you know, it's just at the timing was right.

(07:22):
It was the reason why I wanted to do it
is you know, long story short. When Whitney Houston died
in what she shouldn't have But when she did die
in you know, people approach me and said, could you
just try to buy up her really quickly and you know,
let's go have you on the drugs, let's go ahead
to be on the bad marriage. Yeah. I was just
like yes and a sentence and one sentence yes, what

(07:48):
like what like drugs? Bobby like, let's go, I'll p
ask can you get it done? And I was like,
I'll have it to you on the twelfth of never like,
I'm not doing that. So so I came back to
some folks with an idea about doing the history of
black women in pop I sold that and I was

(08:08):
never finishing mad and then I left that publisher and
I went back home so to speak to Chris Jackson
in One World. Chris Jackson published my I have two
novels from the early two thousands, more like Wrestling and
Bliss that Chris Jackson published, and so I wanted to
go back home with him one because he's a genius,
and too because I trust him deeply. And he just said,
you know, eventually, he said, you're gonna have to put

(08:29):
yourself in the book. I'm eternally grateful to him for
saying that. Um. And then I spoke to my sister,
who's so much a part of Shine Bright, and my
sister was like, are you asking me if you could
tell my story? She was basically like, B I T
C H. You should have been told it so and
so then we were off to the racist you know,
at the top of them, the introduction. You know, I

(08:54):
was sort of tongue in cheek when I said that
that that I loved and feared you, um, only because
I I realized, I mean for starters, you know, with
the source that went with vibe and at least the
first wave of of late eighties or early nineties journalism
being uh, sort of in a serious form and not

(09:16):
just like and there's not to take away from Cinthy
Horner or Black Pete or Steve Ivory or those guys. Um,
but you know, there really hasn't been black critical writing.
And although I've seen it with rock journalism, like I've
never seen a takedown article or anything of that level

(09:38):
from the black side of things. And you know, you
ran it very tight, like your version of Vibe magazine,
which I guess is ninety four. When did you leave Vibe?
I started as I started as music editor in ninety four.
I was there to six, went back to school for
a year to ninety seven, came back, got promoted to

(09:59):
Vib to be the first black and first woman editor
in chief of Vibe, and ninety seven I left the
ninety nine. Then I came came back in oh six
and was editor in chief a Vibe again oh six
or seven or eight? Two years? Two years. Every time
I would say that you know, your era was way different,
I noticed immediately, Uh, your error from say Alan Light's period. Uh,

(10:24):
I guess the treachesho was what one I believe. Yeah,
and not just say that, you know, because I'm friends
with Alan, Like, I'm not saying it was light in
the ass, but I definitely saw a noticeable difference between
both those istues and that said, I don't know in

(10:46):
my mind, and I think this is often of how
the world will see black women. As you know, we
always use these words like strong, you will use fierce
and all those sort of cloquially lisms to describe them.
Um and so I was a bit taken aback, you know,

(11:07):
at how vulnerable you got, especially in the first chapter
speaking of your imposter syndrome and you like, you know,
because it was kind of like whoa like you don't
see a human side, Well, I'm a Journalists often don't
insert themselves or that sort of thing. So I was
really just I was I was pleasantly surprised at how

(11:29):
you weaved your your life and music, like I love
those type of things. Whereas not that I'm just learning
a lesson of the artist, but I'm also learning the
effect that it had on you, because your writing career
also had an effect on artist as well. I learned
a lot from Alan Alan first, give me my first

(11:50):
um album review when he was editing the reviews section,
and Rolling Song, that's my first Rolling Song album. It
was in Vogue. Second, yeah you gave it two stars? Yeah,
I did, Come on, it was I was I was
a big homer at that time. And if I'm not

(12:11):
still just come on, man, you know they were gonna
call me to do and Vogue. Okay, so two stars
for real? That's really I don't know. He don't listen.
Don't listen to him. Don't. I'm gonna tell you something, Daniel.
You can't. You can't debate me on this when I
tell you, like in the order of Cat, like Fonte,

(12:31):
we'll study m C, study production whatever. I don't know,
like I study record reviews, I study journalists like I.
I study the people that determine whether or not an
alum's gonna have shelf life or not. I very much. No,
here's the thing, though I actually agreed with you. I
didn't realize that you were the one that wrote that.

(12:53):
And to be fair, did I give it two stars? Well,
I was gonna say it. To be fair, you don't
determine how many stars it gets. I don't they do.
And by the way, that's always the case. That was
the case that the source too, and that was the
case that Vibe. But we used to give our little
red light, green light, yellow light or whatever we used
to do write the music editor determines it but the music. Remember,

(13:16):
everybody doesn't know that, y'all. Y'all know that, right' Wait weight,
I'm a fan. Hold On, I'm listen to what y'all saying.
Hold On, I'm a fan. What you're saying is the
person who wrote that whole review doesn't have anything to
do with those stars. Now, how so how do they
come up with them starters? The music editor? Yes, so
it's not even based on what you wrote. It's just

(13:36):
based on what the music editor thinks. Now, it's kind
of based on what you wrote, and it's based on
whatever their chases also. But okay, so since you're kind
of doing this in the nineties and I will see
that you know post Carris one p. M. Dornish confrontation levels.
I mean, you worked at Vibe where and you worked

(13:57):
at Vibe during one of the most dangerous issues of
all time, which is the death Row issue. Wouldn't your
music other there's at least want to give you warning
if they're going to give it a lesson savory uh rating?
Knowing I could never answer that question except for on
a case by case basis. Honestly, it was, as you said,

(14:17):
it was a very wild time and when you say,
you know, I worked at Vibe during the most dangerous time,
during the death Row issue. I mean, I really honestly
have to look at the dates one because I blocked
so much of that trauma um out of remember everything.
I'm sorry because because what I think people tend to forget,

(14:40):
at least with me, is that, especially with regard to
death Row and Tupac, Tupac wasn't just celebrity m C
for me. He's actually a good friend of mine from Oakland,
and so I recused myself from a lot of the
coverage of Tupac almost until after he passed. It was
such a complex time at of a time, such a

(15:00):
time when I always say the Vibe called upon the
strongest part of me, and that it got it. It
got it, it got it, and it did wear me out,
which is why you know, your music editor for two
years at least talking about me a music editor for
two years, and then I get a fellowship and I
go to Northwestern for a year because I just wanted

(15:21):
out for a while, you know, I wanted out for
a while. And while I was gone, while I was
in Chicago or in Evanston, both Biggie and Tupac or
Murder while I was not even working at M I
ended up writing the obituary for Biggie for the for
the Village Voice. Um, but I wasn't even working at

(15:42):
that time. I was trying to I wasn't. And then
I came back in ninety seven. Everybody had died and
I put Kirk Franklin on the cover because he was
number one. Was Stunn with a Stomper remix, And I
felt like that was the second line. I felt like
we had been mourning for a while. We have thought
that hip hop was going to I We thought that
everything that the mainstream had said about it was going

(16:03):
to be true, that it was just a fat it
wasn't real. We was all gonna kill each other. Um.
And then you know, you began to feel it rising
from its ashes. You know, you gotta remember, like that's
when Miseducation came out. Really and Lauren Hill doesn't get
the credit she deserves for helping bring hip hop back
to life after the death of Tupuchs, R Core and

(16:24):
the notorious b I G. And then you add Kirk
Franklin in Salt. They don't also get the credit either
one of them for helping bring a hip hop back
to life. And that was actually my first cover as
editor in chief of Vibe was Kirk Franklin and the Family.
That's how I came back in. And believe me, my
publishers and the business people were like, this a soft cover.
It's never gonna sell. It's not gonna sell, it's not

(16:46):
gonna sell. And I wasn't really that person that was
always bragging about, like, I know what the streets has
fell in. I was not always that girl. I'm very
much a pop girl. Pop is in the title of
my Shine Bright, But it's like I didn't know what
the hell was going on, and I knew that there's
no way that a song was going to number one

(17:07):
R and B. I believe top ten pop from the
stormp remix. And it wasn't like having a major impact
on the culture. I also knew that because gospel never
gets the credit that it's due for its impact on
culture period, and it had there had never been a
gospel artist on the cover of Vibe, that that the
gospel fans, the church folks were gonna go out and

(17:29):
buy two and three issues and they and they did.
Aren't people more or less investing in the vibrant like
I'm gonna buy a new Vibe. That's that's not true.
There are issues of Vibe that did not sell. There

(17:51):
are issues. Um, there's there's a thing like this. You
have a you have a subscriber base, right, that's your
small money. But that's your loyalists. They keep they keep
up paying that year twelve nine nine year. But that's
getting the lights on. But the money money is that

(18:11):
the news stand back when the news stand mattered, Because
that's two fifty three dollars a pop. Whether you're buying
it at Bond, Safeway, Key Food, Barnes and Noble back
in the day, Walden Books or whatever, that's where the
money was. And that's an impulse buy. And that's what
I was judged on. That's what any editor in chief

(18:33):
really is judged on at the end of the day, period,
end the story. Even to imply anything different when the
kind of lesson the work that you put into figuring
out who you was gonna put on this cover and content, No,
you don't even know a science. And the thing about
me was not everybody took Billboard into consideration. I took
Billboard in the consideration because I had been R and
B editor a Billboard. Did you replace Nelson when he left?

(18:57):
Knows Jenny McAdams that I replaced me make adam soon, Yes,
Jennie's between us. So yeah. No, I I was a
person that always took Billboard into consideration because I worked
at Billboard, and because even before I worked at Billboard,
I studied Billboard like a maniac, which is why I
got the job at Billboard. But it's like, no, I

(19:18):
was the one that was like, if it's bubbling under,
it deserves this. If it's doing this on the chart,
if it's number eight with a bullet or blah blah chart,
then it deserves this. Now, people always wanted to argue
with me, and we had the best arguments in the
world that vibe. But I was one who always took
Billboard into consideration. Not everybody's like that, I think, By

(19:38):
the way, can I just say this too. I think
it's so crazy that I just learned right now that
y'all thought every issue of five sold when I got
to Vibe as No, No, we didn't think that. I thought, oh,
I thought you were just asking a question. I thought
you were asking a question of me, or like was
it the brand that sold the circle if out with

(20:00):
its vibe and the source was like a religion and
straight up thank God for y'all. But we were the
on's keeping the lights on though we weren't. Right. It's
just like podcasts. It's just like music, right, like, come on,
we want new new podcast this because I didn't know this. Um.
First of all, what is expected pro vibe in terms

(20:21):
of going platinum? Like how many issues have to sell
for your whoever the the higher ups are at the
publishers to say, hey, they're doing well. It depends on
It depends on the year. It depends on the year.
Because you know magazines, you know, magazines are pretty much
gone now for all intents and purposes. There's not really

(20:44):
a new stand that you can depend on. But let's
just say at the height of things, it's always a percentage,
it's not it's not an exact number. So at the
height of vibe, you just never really want to be
oh fifty, and you figure your circulation, like at the

(21:07):
height of the circulation for for me, man, I got
I got a vibe of it up to I don't know,
eight nine hundred thousand, So you wanna you wanna you
wanna self through a fifty plus percent. Now, that's high,
but I have an ego that's b plus. The best
selling issue of Vibe in history is the masterp issue.

(21:28):
Make them say, uh wait, what I hate to blow
y'all love I hate now the South is buying now
the South. That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what
it is. You know. I would have put my publishing
in my cribs. I could have sworn that that that

(21:48):
Death Row issue was the greatest selling instue of all time.
The thing about to make them say it was? It was?
It was. It was a perfect cover. Wow, it was everybody,
It was your acts, it was a mystical was everybody
and we and we had a tank in it. We
had a tank and everybody had on camel and so

(22:12):
basically the whole cover was green and shades of black
and white. But we did um what's known as a
fifth color in the magazine business, which means basically a
fluorescent or a or a glitter, and we made the
orange fluorescent that that that episode left. It left And

(22:38):
I'm not gonna say how many issues people it, but
because the world would never do the world will never know,
but it was huge. And you gotta remember too, master
P has a huge contingents of fans in the Bay
Area too, out from Richmonds World, so he was all
over Yeah, so it was that's really the biggest selling issue.
I would never say the lowest issue because it's people

(22:59):
that we all know love, but it would surprise you.
You gotta y'all gonna have to get that someplace else. Man,
it's years ago. It feels like yesterday to me, though.
I feel like I'm on my way to an editorial
meeting right now. Y'all gonna give me out here like this,
damn it. Now, now I'm gonna go. I literally have
issues in the room now to see it. If I

(23:21):
text you got very I will. I will, but I
can't because it's like, it's mean man, And it doesn't
necessarily sometimes even have to do with the person. It's me.
It could be the photography, um, it could be anything.
It just doesn't necessary. It could be the truck was late. Man.
Please tell me you don't get it from me, no,

(23:43):
because and you talk about you fear me. You see
how easy I'm scary. I'm scary, Like I can't say that.
That's so mean, what if I just said, yeah, it's
not facts. This particular MC has the lowest selling issue
in the history of Vibe. That's hardcore. It's definitely j

(24:06):
I will say that from the South though. Just to
show you how things change, is somebody, somebody still has
a career. Are they considered a legend still they Do
they have a career rapping? Or do they just have
a career. Do they have a career. You have a
career career, but they don't necessarily have a career rapping. Okay,
alright anyway, So, UM, I do want to know what

(24:30):
what was the first or at least national Um, well,
you said that is the very first time that your
work appeared in a national magazine. I would say, no,
that's not the case. I would say the first time
I had a national story was in Spin magazine. Um,
there was a column they're called Dreaming America. That was

(24:51):
my first national Uh, that's my first national thing. And
I always remember that. I couldn't believe I was getting
paid a dollar a word. Was that standard or was
that that was standard for mainstream people? Don't even get
that now, And it's like I was made. I was
no Listen, you used to be able to make a

(25:11):
living as a writer. It's very difficult to do so now.
Even in the Bay Area, I was getting ten fifteen
twenty sent a word. If I wrote a fifteen hundred
word piece, I was getting a hundred and fifty dollars.
But when when and Craig marks he see he's actually
the music editor of the l A Times right now.
Craig was music or to spend back then, And when

(25:34):
he said it was a dollar a word and eight
hundred eight hundred words, I just remember thinking, so, that's
that's pretty much rent and over back then. And I
felt like and I felt like I felt like back then,
and I felt like I could stay in this. I
could stay in this. But yeah, I wrote it. I
think my first one was about Yo Yo okay, yes,

(25:59):
Black Parole for Yeah. I wrote about DJ Quick for
spin Um, who's also a favorite still um. And then
it was out of those spin clips and a couple
of things I did for the Village Voice that U
brought me to the notice of Alan Light and Anthony
They Curtis a rolling Stone and then um, I was
the only really R and B editor at Billboard for

(26:20):
like six or eight months something to outline and shine
bright um. But then Vibe launched and Allen had gone
over there as music editor and when he was promoted
to editor in chief because Jonathan Van Meter left, then
Alan asked me to come over as music editor and
it was it was a wild two years in that job.

(26:41):
I always thought Spin was the weird cousin to buy magazine.
I thought they were weirdly related, like they had some
kind of similar I mean at the beginning, we didn't.
But then like in the I guess late nineties, two thousands, yeah,
we were owned by the same company and we were
in the same building. What was the company? Five Ventures?

(27:01):
Oh so, okay, five Ventures on five and Spin and
Blaze and Blaze at that time too, Blaze, man, I
forgot about remember that. What was that was that Blaze battle?
It was mainly just primarily hip hop, but I remember
it was like pre complex. Really was the journalism though

(27:22):
it was it was Jesse Washington was the editor in chief.
I was at a child director. Jesse Washington is actually
at ESPN Z Undefeated. Now okay, yeah, we we we
We had our illmatic rating moment with Blaze, like things
for apart, like got a perfect five rating there and
that in the jay Z monitoring the reviews. Now it

(27:49):
does my heart good, though, It does my heart good
to know that somebody of your stature and talent and
Jeni's was paying attention like that, because we really tried,
like we weren't up there like fooling around, like we
were about passion, but we were about rigor. We were
about facts, and we were about deep and strong opinions.

(28:09):
We were about design, photography, we're about fashion, style, all
of it. And so the fact that you being you
were paying attention that heart honestly, it doesn't my heart good.
And anybody that listens to this that you still work
at Bob the source XXL, any of it, rap sheet,
all of it, Umney, all of it. And then I

(28:33):
mean I could take it to Ego Trip, I could
take it to one Nott Network, I could take it
to I could keep going like I could keep going.
Um the fact that any of us that worked in
those spaces were being paid attention to, that our work
was being monitored or enjoyed or even it matters a
lot to us. Look all right, So the deal is,

(28:55):
I think in that princess to you you guys remember
the Prince Um Vibe issue, the Prince Vibe cover issue. Um,
there's a write up for Zingle Lamadooney that single handedly
like if you want to know the beginning of quest

(29:16):
loves Micromanage era of like I must write all the
liner notes. I must no, I must do all the interviews.
I must like no article ever scared me more. And
the thing is is that you know, now I live
in the era where you know, I mean, you know
I read the New York Times now just read like

(29:38):
this year everyone celebrating the fact that New York Times
gave like Elevin Madison a two star review, which is
like soccers ort, you know. I mean, there's been like
sort of like crazy reviews, like Miles Davis is on
the corner for Downbeat magazine, like throughout history. You know,
it's different now because in the Internet I sort of
feel like artists right for each other, like hey check

(30:02):
this out, you know, that sort of thing, like when
they're really going to go. But to me, when I
read your Arrested development, Zingle Lama Duney feature, to me,
that was like it was literally like watching the Apocalypse
now documentary or a mirror a mirror is also known

(30:23):
for good hyper bowl quotes. No, but it's it was,
and it wasn't even you didn't even have to do anything.
You didn't. It wasn't a takedown from your point of view,
Like literally, speech was kind of sleep at the Wheel
and the entire band decided they're gonna do a mutiny

(30:45):
in this article. And at that point I realized, like,
oh man, a career could be made or or or
debt it and one fell swoop with just one article running. Okay,
so long story, I guess, long story short, It's like
I didn't even work at Buy at that point. I

(31:06):
was functioning as a freelance writer, but I had a
reputation in the business for being on point, on time
and thorough and more than that, I had written a
piece for a magazine that doesn't exist anymore and it
hasn't for years, called Requests magazine that you used to
be able to get a Tower Records. Okay, yes, I

(31:27):
love a Request and it's a great magazine. And if
you count that as national, which I don't always just
because it was given away for free at Tower and
you didn't pay for it. But that was probably really
my first national look was in request. So I did
a cover story on Arrest of Development when they launched. Okay, okay,
So it was great. Man, you're talking about Tennessee, you

(31:53):
know what I mean, You're talking about all of that.
I fell in love with him, man, I fell in
love with them, they fell in love with me. It
was a cover story. And this is back before I
had been in the business long enough to realize it's
not always wise to pahone in love with groups, and
it's not always wise to a lot of groups to
fall in love with you. I didn't know. I was

(32:13):
a child. I was in my early twenties, mid twenties
something like that. I didn't know you live and learn.
So then when there's second album is coming out, was it?
It was E M I am? I right, yeah you are? Um.
So the woman who was a publicist there was like, hey,
you know, Vibe is doing this thing. Do you want

(32:33):
to go, you know, go back and talk to Speech
and everybody in the group. Yes, definitely. I was freelancing too.
It was just like, it sounds exciting, you gonna sen
me to Atlanta. So I went down there and my
first conversation was with Speech as it should be, and
I have a lot of I have a lot of
respect for him, but you could tell from the moment
that I got in the car with him the things

(32:55):
weren't okay with the group mm hmm. And it seemed
like something he didn't want to get into detail about.
But you know, as a reporter, I have my instincts,
have my feelings, and so when I began to talk
to the other members of the group and you were
allowed to, Yeah, this was a different time y'all. There

(33:17):
was no internet, you know, evidence and what's so wild though,
it was like at a certain point I wasn't even
going to people to talk to them. People were coming

(33:39):
to me and listen, I remember that group so well, man,
and it's it's heartbreaking to me because that's such a
like the music isn't necessarily necessarily always so like wildly optimistic.
But it's just like I've been around Public Enemy. Those
are my guys. They're not the most optimistic group of brothers,

(34:00):
you know, not like but but but with the group
of rest of Development, they came back. They were taking
us back to the South, like they were reminding us
of our groups. Yeah, everything was like you know, the
blood in the in the dirt, like we was all
in the the red class, like we was all in it,
like everybody from the Northeast used to go back south

(34:20):
in the summertime, like all of that feeling was there.
But then, you know, I remember that DJ's name was Headliner,
right Deonfairs. It's coming back, It's coming back, It's coming back,
all right, And you know, things just weren't going well.
It's so hard. And I know quest Love knows this.

(34:41):
Hard to keep a band together. Anybody watched the Metallica
documentary knows that. And it's like, it's hard to keep
a band together. And you could ask you could ask this,
you could ask the supremes. You can have anybody to
come to its like it's hard to keep a band together. Um,
And everybody was mad, and everybody's talking into the tape

(35:02):
recorder and they let her know. Um I went. If
you remember er Smith, who was my publicist at the time,
set the Run, No no, no no, She left set
the Run and started her own I forget her and
Amy Mars at their own thing, and I came in
the following Monday like shake it in my boots because

(35:25):
I was just like, oh man, like they're done with,
they're over with And if they're that easy to get, like,
what does that mean for us? And like the amount
of talking me off the ledge for like two days straight,
because I don't know. In my mind, I just felt
like arrested development had reached the mountaintop. They reached the

(35:49):
mountaintop that Yeah, that Dayloight tried like a lot of
those acts couldn't get to but they didn't come up
together though, right, Like did they come up together like
that all of their Yeah? I mean I had what
a lot of other groups like that didn't. Was the
speech had mad ambition. Everybody doesn't come with mad ambition.
Some people just want to make a record and get

(36:12):
it out there. Some of the people have mad ambition,
and Speech had that. It was a very difficult piece
to write, a very difficult piece to publish. It was
fact check and went through the lawyers that went through
all of that, and it was very difficult to publish.
And guests the publicists wildly mad at me. Some in
the group were wildly mad at me. Some of the
group were so happy and grateful to me. Um, some

(36:35):
were grateful to me. But I just want to say
as as well, it just basically outlined that the group
was not happy and was probably not going to stay together.
Check it out in Fante. I don't know, have you
have you read Maurice White's autobiography. I have not yet.

(36:55):
I mean it's kind of the structure where wait, we
just recently did and interview with someone said Larry Blackman said,
was a democracy. Uh what do you call it? A dictatorship?
It's like it's like a democracy dictatorship where I guess

(37:18):
it's the I I think it's the the idea of hey,
we're community where all these things, but really, I mean
the decision falls on one person. That person speech and
about like that. So that's what I'm saying with the
with the Earth Wind and firebook. Um no, not even that,

(37:39):
I mean Mary's White. I mean Philip Bailey went into
heavy with Oh okay, Maurice is sort of the state
of Earth Wind and Fire. We're just people for higher
and as as I'm certain that you know you knows
as an artist about being blue collar, like often we

(38:01):
get in this game because we you know, we we
see the slow motion U Hype William shots and it's
like we get our Bentley moment and it never happens
that way, and um, it's just that this time headliner
was just mad about his money, mad about like the situations.

(38:21):
But it was very much like you know, the rest
of the band was explaining how unsatisfied they were with
the situation that they But I can see how it
could have an effect on you, as it had an
effect on a lot of people that piece because one
it said that Vibe was going to do stuff like that.

(38:43):
That's the first thing Black people have never seen something
to that level. No, because this is the thing because
because the media that is considered to be ours right
any essence, you know, going back to the to the
to the black newspapers that came out of Reconstruction all
the way after the fifties and through the civil rights

(39:06):
movement and everything else. Like the reason that these things
came to be is because we were treated someone fairly
by the mainstream media, or we were just erased or
not even considered. You know, you would talk about music
in a certain town and you would just talk about
all the white artists and never talked about the black artists.
You would talk about all the male artists and not
talk about the women artists. So it's like Vibe existed

(39:29):
in a space of like, well, of course this is
going to always be a place of celebration. But the
thing that I always did learn from Quincy Jones is
that Vibe was to be a place of celebration and interrogation.
That no one would trust us on the celebration if
we didn't also do the interrogation. And so I felt

(39:50):
supported by Quincy by Alan in doing that. And honestly,
it was a very difficult piece for me to write
for the for the magazine to publish, and also it's
set the industry back on his heels a bit that

(40:10):
is like, we love Vibe, but you just don't know,
don't know. Yeah, And so to some that was great
because it meant that we weren't like a pamphlet or
we weren't just like it meant that, yes, you gotta
remember one of the first pieces, and Bob, I think

(40:32):
it's in the Trench issue right that the test issue
in which Trench was on the cover, and there's a
big piece by the great Scott Polson Brian that piece
and the and the headline is one for all time
about Shaun Combs. The headline is this is not a
pop piece. Right, right, So it's something for so many

(40:53):
meanings and so and so we were always on that,
even with all the death Row stuff. It's like, are
you know? People were like, are you guys contributing to it?
It's like are we? But are we reporting as any
other culture would report on its culture? And is that
also new and different for black and multi the black

(41:15):
and multicultural audience survibe to here and see? So it
was it was very hard for most black women. At
some point you feel that protect the moment where you're like,
you know, do you have to fight that protect the
moment and go with more your journalistic mind or does

(41:36):
that not even ever come into your head? There's this
And it's funny because I was like, I wonder if
she writes it is I haven't gotten to that point
if you're writing about this and shine right, But I
was like, you know that protector moment where you go,
this could maybe hurt this feeling, you know, so maybe
I won't do that. Did did you ever have that moment?
I have that moment every day of my career? Okay, okay,

(41:59):
that was to tell I look at your face. I
was like my saying, it's a born every every every
every they have my career, and especially as editor in
chief of Vibe, it's um it's even different as being
editor of Billboard. Talk about that it's a trade magazine.
It's it's all, it's all, it's all genres. I gotta

(42:20):
know about what's going on in country, classical, adult contemporary,
bubbling under, like I gotta know about what's going on everywhere,
what's going on with pop singles, pop albums, like I
know R and B this, R and B that. I
gotta know what's going on at Latin music. I gotta
know what's going on globally, like I gotta know what's
going on everywhere and make decisions based on all of that.
But you know, when you're at Vibe, you're covering black

(42:41):
culture for a multile for a black and multicultural audience.
It's not even used to being covered all the time
with rigor and passion. It's like it's like even like
in history, if you look at Ebony, at the very
beginnings of Ebony, it's like James Ball and Everybody's in
there's it's a different situation. But then to me, you
took pressures from the community, it just became more and

(43:03):
more like you can always expect good and proper news
from abone until that Cosby issue. Well, no, no, hads
off that. Yes, that's the first time and caringess from
what generation? The hip hop generation? Exactly, yes, And so
that's what I'm saying. It just it's it's hard, you know,

(43:25):
it's hard when I could think of even small things
like I remember I interviewed Wesley Snipes for the cover
of Vibe. That's my first Vibe cover. Remember that issue.
That's a great issue. Man. My mom drove me to
his house in venice Um. He was going through it.
And that also that movie wasn't good? Which one? It
was Demolition Man. It was a lot, It was a

(43:50):
hot mess and the movie the film was but Wesley
himself wasn't it. It never has been so to me,
it's one of the more under rated He's actors in
the history of cinema. Like he's so good. I'm not
saying he's made all the proper moves and and all
of that. But but my thing is, how do you

(44:10):
how do you say that? But then how do you
say that's not how do you say that? And that's
the work for me, that's the work. And shine bright
for me, like, how do I how do I talk
about Whitney Houston's mom. Sure you handled that awesomely, by
the way, thank you. Who who to me is it's

(44:33):
just like she's so important to the history of American public.
She literally trained Whitney Houston. She literally sang behind of Us, Presley,
she literally sang behind Bam Morrison, Jimmy Hendrews, everybody. And
it's like she literally contributed to the vocal arrangements for
all of this big pop and she trained Whitney at
the same time, she just didn't accept a daughter for

(44:53):
who she was. Yo. And can I just say on
that note, it's so funny you say that, because as
we're going through all the these different lenses and filters
for people these days when it comes to the music business,
I find it harder and harder to apply those filters
if you really want the true story about things, or
you really want to talk to people, like if we
really we I mean, we've had these moments where you know,

(45:15):
even talking to me in the mirror, well and Jake
will talk about people and we'll be like, yes, they
were significant, they are historical. These conversations should be had. However,
but this little thing had happened, and so I'm so curious, Danielle,
how to navigate that, like, because even in a situation
like I can't even say names because you feel guilty.
But no man who was doing business in the sixties,

(45:38):
seventies and eighties is fucking straightforward has no ship with them.
Basically there's no man. There's no man. So how do
you like navigate that? That's just well, was I think then?
You know what I mean? Right? As much as it
is now? Yeah, I guess that's why get paid less

(46:01):
and less. They can hardly write well. It's also because
artists have so many other avenues in we should tell
their story. It used to be that the only place
that you had to know. Yeah, you're just go on
a live you can go right to your Twitter feed,
your ig feed, and some of that. I have to say,
I am not mad at like I I miss, even

(46:27):
if it's to the judgment of your Do I miss it? Yes?
Do I miss being like you have to go through
vibe essentially you got to go through me and my court, right,
So do do you miss that feeling up like, oh
my god, yeah, this is we're Vibe? Yeah, of course
but you know, to to everything, there is a season

(46:47):
we were we were we were needed for that at
that time, we were desperately needed. But I can just
give you an example. So I'm doing this. I'm doing this,
uh this picture me doing a talking head moment for
a Michael Jackson documentary. Okay, thank you and so and
so no, and not even to get into the complexities

(47:09):
of Michael situation, but just to say this, just to
talk about the Internet part of it. So so the
the person that's directing her answer asking me the question, says,
don't you just find the Internet to be totally overwhelming
and ridiculous? Like you can just put Michael Jackson's name
into into Google Google search bar and then like eight

(47:29):
million pictures come back about Michael Jackson, twelve million stories headlines.
Everything in the world is just so overwhelming and terrible.
Isn't that just cheapening Michael's legacy? That's the third And
I was like, not, actually I don't, because see I
grew up a Michael Jackson fan, and I couldn't find
anything about Michael Jackson when I'm nineteen eleven, twelve, fifteen

(47:52):
years old, and all I wanted to know about was
Michael Jackson If I didn't have Cynthio Horner's right on magazine?
What what? Really? What I had? Right? I said, I
was insatiable when you're thirteen year old as a fan.
Oh my god, was insatiable and I couldn't find anything,
And I told him myself. So I actually feel flush

(48:15):
man with joy that I can put Michael Jackson's name
into a Google such and just see every million even
if the news is bad, even if the news is ugly.
That I would rather that than to have, like to
be searching and thirsty to know something about me insible one. Yes,
So that's why go ahead? Can I ask the question?

(48:36):
All right? I was gonna ask you what was the
hardest issue for you to execute? However, I wanted to
take a while guess how hard was that Michael Jackson
issue to put together? What do you? Of course you
know a better mean? What year was that? Was? I? There?
Michael Jackson was on the cover of Vibe magazine dressed

(48:57):
very uncharacteristically. He was I think Cadada had dressed him
in Tommy, Wait, you don't remember this, I don't remember.
He had a cano on he got a cano, remember fibe.
Michael Jackson, remember I remember it? Wait a minute, let
me let me take me into my memory. Whoever just
looked it up? What are the cover lines on their

(49:20):
Michael makes history, the King of pop strikes supposed Easy
Ease Final Days, notorious B I G. Smokers smokes Callie
into the Woutang clan with uh oh, I can't read
the name something uh that was? We only have any
memory of that except for Easy. Damn. That's a flex.

(49:42):
That's a flex. Michael Jackson remember that ship. What do
you remember about Easy? What do you remember about the
Easy interview? This is easy? Well, this is all this
is post he had died. Yeah, I mean that's what
that was. That's what That's what I remember about that,
about that particular issue, because none problem, because i'm music editor.
I just remember that. Well one, I just remember that

(50:04):
it was he remember from the Bay Area, So I've
been knowing about dealing with AIDS, probably in a closer
proximity than than a lot of people. It was very
entwined in our lives, and so I don't know the
tragedy of that man. And I will say this, I'm
not even the biggest Easy Eve fan, but just as

(50:28):
a human being. Man. It was it was just too much.
And also the way hip hop was dealing with it
was crazy. Um That's what I really remember most about that.
And I also remember just not liking the cover image
or the design, which is rare for me, which is
rare because it doesn't really even look to me like
a classic H Vibe cover, which we were very meticulous

(50:50):
about on most issues. But you also gotta believe to it. Again,
I don't know even if I was in those conversations,
but I do know this, if Michael Jackson was involved
in Michael Jackson had probably had final say on what
the cover looked like. Uh, because you understand too, and
in that era, UM Quincy Jones had a lot more
to do with the day to day than UM than

(51:15):
he did by the time I became properly editor in chief.
I don't know. I just was always just suddenly impressions like, Okay,
he started this magazine and I'll see y'all later. Oh
what he was? He was? He was. He was not
day to day, but he was like if it had
something to do with something that Quincy had something to

(51:36):
do with, then Mr Jones was involved. Absolutely. I don't know.
I don't know if I talk about it and shine right,
but my first experience. So I did her Franklin and
then let me not get my days mixed up. But
I feel like I was called to the phone and
I was told that Quincy was on the phone with

(51:56):
Joe Jackson because because it was it was Janet had
an album coming out and so we needed to get
that together. And I was on the phone with Quincy
and and he is They've known each other since the
dawn of time and I was a sitting editor in

(52:16):
chief and I was just like, why am I even
on the call? Hello? And they were just yeah, just
hash and stuff out. And then I was like, um,
they asked me, like, who who should the writer be?
They asked, I think Joe asked Quincy that, and then
Quincy finally said, Daniel, like this is your moment, like

(52:40):
speak up, like this is your area or whatever. Yes,
And I was like, well, you know, I think it
should be me. And they were like Joe was like
really why and I said, and I said, simple reasons,
I said, because I saw her before form at the
Circle Star Theater San Carlos, California, when I was eight

(53:03):
years old for my birthday. So I probably had the
longest relationship with her out of anybody here but y'all.
And then also we're both really pretty much the same age.
We're both really black California girls at the end of
the day. And I mean, we could go through the
catalog thus far. We could go back to Dream Street
if you want to. We could do what you want

(53:23):
to do. And so that's when Joe said, Will seems
like you should be the person. Then. I mean, I
probably my voice was a little bit more shaky back
at that time. Yeah, let me not act like I
was coming with all the like the all the full confidence.
But it's just when Quincy Jones shoot you to Rondo Pass,
it's like you better just act like Kevin Garnwy. Yeah.

(53:46):
So for Shane Bright, what was probably the most surprising
revelation and constructing this And also was there anyone that
you had to leave on the side of the rouge
that you wanted to include? The most crazy thing to
me about Shine Bright, it's just how much music comes
out of segregated times. Oh my god, It's just it's

(54:10):
just never would just cease to amaze me. And you
keep thinking that it's the decades ago by that it's
going to be different, and then it just isn't. I mean,
even if it's like somebody from younger than me who
got bussed, you know what I mean, and from a
segregated situation, and I think people don't just talk about

(54:32):
that enough, Like everyone just secs like we're just all
out here going to school together and you know, being
friends together, and and out of that comes multi Out
of that multicultural stew comes this amazing thing called pop.
Well now, well absolutely not. So that was it. The
fact that it just kept coming up, and I was
just got to be very nosy about it too. I

(54:53):
wanted to know the details off and I'm like, so
you're on the back of the bus, what's going on? Yeah,
when you were talking to the Dixie Cups at one time,
it seemed like one is the sisters was like okay, Dan, yea.
They were like three, you know, but they got they
really at first they were like mad at me, and
then they really had to say you really don't know though,

(55:16):
because the fact that you dropped after that was something
that I didn't know. You said the thing about the screen,
like when screen like an actual real hard screen with
peg holes, like it had pegs on it, and then
there were holes in the back of each seat and
you could just move it and just put the screen
up in the pegs. And they made them and they

(55:38):
made and they made the black person do it alright.
So basically there's there's a part in telling the Dixie
Cup story, which their single was going to the Chapel
number one single, right, So there, I guess you could
say the real first sign of of Black Girl Men was,

(56:00):
I mean, they love Me Do like they bump Love
Me Do out of number one. So the Dixie Cups
is going to the Chapel. You know, they're the first
black group to to to hit number one, and so
she starts with them and they're telling a story about
just segregation and bussing and whatnot, and the fact that
customers and bus uh writers would often tell and I'm

(56:25):
saying tell very lightly uh black people to move to
the back of the bus and they were put a
I guess there was a disposable screen that you could
put up, a movable screen, a movable screen to it
should have been at the same regulated place I always stopped.
That's no, okay, So this is the thing. That is

(56:46):
what I thought. I always thought, and this is how
you know that segregation never really gets discussed in detail.
And I am committed always to not talking about black
people or black women in summary, but in detail, because
this is my thing. I always imagined that the bus
was kind of split into like two like into thirds,
and that's the white people had the first two thirds

(57:09):
and then the black people had the area like from
the back door of the bus on. But seeing no,
this is what it's crazy, they moved the goal post. Essentially,
the more white people that got on, the smaller the
black area would get because this screen was movaball. And

(57:30):
I asked Rosalie Hawkins and Barbara Hawkins. I was like,
so when would it be the driver or the people?
And she said whichever And then I said would they
ask you nicely? Or were they or were they mean? Like?
And this is in New Orleans, Louisiana, And I told her.

(57:52):
I said to her, I know I'm asking stupid questions,
but I literally don't know. And she said, well, then
I will tell you the way they asked and pinned
it on the way they woke up that morning, and
I said, we don't know how segregation really was functioning.
Mm hmmm. It was a separate, but it was really

(58:15):
going to the museum only on Tuesday mornings when black
people were allowed and stuff like. It was really And
there's a there's a thing I wrote about my grandmother
telling me one time, my god, and we all know
about these black nights. I mean, you know we do
the way my grandmother was just like, oh, my god.
You know how conceited you are as a girl when

(58:37):
you're like nineteen or twenty and you think you're cute
and you're really in the mirror and you really get
that mescary all right, this is before lashes and you're
really the pre lash era and you're really what your
mable in getting right, and your grandmother is irritating you
because you're you're tights, your top is too tight and
your skirt is too short. So my grandmother's really giving

(58:58):
me that look like, so where are we going? And
I was like, I'm going to the spot, Grandma, it's
like Thursday nights or Tuesday nights or whatever it was,
and and she was like, oh, okay, where is it?
I said, Grandma, it's just that at this cool spot,
like all the black people in Oakland get together, like
it's really weird. It's organic. It's just like we all

(59:19):
just hang out there and it's just so cool. It's
like a lounge and drinks. It's amazing. It's okay, where
is it? And I told her the place? She said, oh,
I know that place because my my grandmother is born
and raised in in in Oakland. I said, Grandma, you
could not know the place, like you're a hundred, I'm twenty.
Like stop, Grandma, I love you. But now she said, man,

(59:43):
I'm listening. We used to go to that place, and
if it wasn't that place, it was owned by the
same people. And the thing is we went there because
that was the only night that we were allowed to
go to that club. It wasn't it was like Tuesday nights,
so we all had to get up to go to
work and morning on Wednesday, so we just had to
go on Tuesday and on Saturday and Sunday and Friday.

(01:00:05):
On Friday and Saturday when when it's a normal time
for people, the party was only white people that were
allowed in there. So that's why she's like, yes, that's
why it's organic. Mechanically on a Tuesday, that is that
is black Night. And so my grandma I was like,
I couldn't even have a good time at the set

(01:00:25):
any more. I'm like, I'm living what you blew my
mind with that, because I was like, that's nation why
there's always a black night night. It's always on the
week night. Black night is always on a weeknight. You're
you're right about that. And yeah, when I love writing

(01:00:45):
about I love writing about like I said, specifics, and
I like writing about culture, and I like writing about
something and powers who's the head of music at NPR,
and um was music utor SF Weekly And I became
music edit up SF Week San Francisco right after and
and and really handheld me into that job. And something
that Anne taught me was this is back in THEO.

(01:01:11):
She said, no one's writing about people are writing about
hip hop as a music. No one's writing about the
scene and what the scene is like. And I was.
I was enraptured by that, and I still am. I
still am. I take notes in my head on a
pad or on my notes app when I'm out just
because the scene matters. It matters, it's culture and that

(01:01:33):
Tuesday night thing is the scene. So in your in
your history, what will you say is your three definitive
pieces of work. One of the most important pieces to me,
and one that continually gets good notice from people, is
the piece that I wrote as the forward to the

(01:01:54):
collection of essays about Tupac Sharkore that if I put
together in a book called two Buckshot Core, and you
can find it at just google New York Times Daniel
Smith Tupac Share And it's about a fort undred word
piece that basically just takes his career in life into consideration.
And so that is one for me. The second one

(01:02:17):
is from much later in my career, six years ago,
I think now, I wrote a piece for ESPN, the
magazine about Whitney Houston singing the national anthem a Super Bowl.
I just really felt like, and my editor really felt
like in and in fairness, ESPN really felt like it
hadn't really been written about at at the intersection of culture,

(01:02:38):
sport and and just like American history. I put so
much work into that Whitney Houston piece and it paid off,
and one of wards like, it's really a one of
my favorite pieces probably that I ever wrote. And you know,
I think I'm very smart in that piece. Can you

(01:03:00):
give a summary of that because I'm curious. It's just
very about Whitney Houston putting the entire country on her
back because the war had just been declared. This was
in the pre security era and super Bowl was a
soft target. So I wrote about everything. I wrote about
what was going on with the war. I wrote about
what was going on with the NFL commissioner. I wrote
about her pre recording the song. I wrote about the

(01:03:23):
I covered her her performance in a second by second way.
I covered every single seconds of her performance, and that's
what I wanted for my conclusion, and that's what we had.
And I just talked about her at the end, just
you know, with the with the with the what do
they call it, the fighter pilots or whatever, the jet
planes or whatever, the military planes going off her head,

(01:03:46):
and really, to me, I was trying to say how
inappropriate it is. And but the way she sings free
is so important to me. How she owned that word
in that in the Star Spangled banner. So many singers
run from that word or they shortened that lyric and
and Whitney put a whole curly Q at the end
of it. She went up higher than she even normally

(01:04:09):
goes she went up into Mariah's territory. At that moment,
she stood there in an at ease like kind of stance. Um,
she was in a sweatsuit. When do you see what
do you sit in a sweatsuit? Yes? And she had
a headband and some Nike cortes is. I was like,
who is that lady? To me, you're Kell's Peace, which

(01:04:38):
we'll see that's blocked though, But you're like the one
that literally broke the story. Yes, we did. It was
it was a team effort, but we did. Yes, Okay,
I didn't know it's the team effort. The team effort
comes in, I'm on the road with Dania Luxenburgh. We're
chasing him down. But the reporting of Dania Luxenburg's a
photographer that shot him for the cover the cover it is.

(01:05:01):
And I'm happy you brought that up, honestly, because because
really the headline is for all time, the sex, the
soul of the sales, and the scandalous marriage to teenage
superstar Leah. And the thing that made it what it
was was the fact that Dana got the shot, I
got the story, and Robert was so awful that day

(01:05:22):
and we didn't even know what we didn't know at
that time. And so so me and Data are on
the road. This is Allanson and Me and Dana Luxemburg
on the road. Dana shot told many great shots of
Lo kim U Tupax Shaker. But so our goal is
we gotta get the story and we need him to speak,

(01:05:44):
and also I gotta report. I gotta find his teacher.
I gotta find you know, I gotta interview all types
of people. Um. He his bodyguard let me and we
were at that what was it what was it called
the arena in Philly back then? The Spectrum or the
the Spectrum. So I'm in the bowels of the spectrum. Um,
it wasn't Fuzzy, but it was another radio DJ that

(01:06:06):
when I saw him, he was It wasn't Fuzzy, but
it was somebody that reminds me of Fuzzy. And they
were standing on stage in sound check that we had
snuck into, and I told him my situation and he
was like, you can have my backstage first. I'll never
like that, yes, right, And I was like, man, making
my whole life. You were doing the story and you

(01:06:31):
weren't officially traveling with the camp not at all. We
got on Amtrak from New York to the filling, and
they weren't super They were literally signs up backstage at
the spectrum. They said, if you see anybody from Vibe here,
escort them off the premises. And so we were like wow,

(01:06:54):
what he just felt like public enemy number one because
we had a story on the This was my thing
when I was said by Music Editor editor in chief,
if you said you were gonna do it, I'm holding
you to your word, like I really believed that, And
it was very childish almost the way I would really
hold onto that like I would. My thing was very

(01:07:15):
much like you promised. No, no person could be like yeah,
but I know somebody could easily be like my fingers
across when I said it, like that's how, that's how,
that's all, but that's how. That's how serious I was
about it, though. I was just very like, no, they
promised that they're gonna be help to that, and so
Jive and and and and Mr Kelly had promised we're

(01:07:38):
doing this cover story and then because the alias stuff broke,
then they said no, So my thing is no. Then
we're gonna find you and we are going to get
the story. I'm gonna come to Philly, and I'm gonna
figure something out. If I have to interview everybody in Philly,
how do you feel about this concept in this situation,
I'm going to do it. If Dana has to shoot

(01:07:58):
you with the telephoto list from the act of the stadium,
then that's what we're gonna do. But the thing is
he he let us in because of Dana. Dana was
beautiful woman, white woman from South Africa and very just
low key with it, very very not like giving you set,
not very not giving you sexy, but just giving you

(01:08:19):
like Frank, you know what, disarming, disarming. So so rob
so Robert said she could come in right listen, listen.
I appreciate that, sorry, but listen. So then Dana said,
because we were really gang gang. Dana said, okay, but

(01:08:41):
I'm not coming in without Danielle. So then Robert said,
if you because he knew who I was. I had
covered him before, I had been in London with him,
all types of stuff on junkets as people used to
do back in those days. So he said, you can
come in, but you can't write anything down with a

(01:09:04):
he said, with a pen. Okay, okay, but see I
had a Piso. So it was like a man, listen,
it was so crazy. I can't even tell you how
crazy that was. But what I'm saying why it was
such a team effort, aside from the fact that I
had Allen advising me, that Dana had George Pitts, the

(01:09:25):
photo director, advising her because we didn't know what to do. Also,
you guys gotta remember we were kids. I was twenty eight.
I was a child like I mean I was. I
was young in the game, but was just on it.
And so while Allen was advising me and George Pitts,

(01:09:48):
who's gone now, God blessed, Dad was in advising Dana.
Then Parter Harris and Rob Kinner and the whole Vibe
team was back there trying to find a Mary. That
was the goal that was said, and we refused not
to meet that challenge. Wow, how do you do that?

(01:10:09):
How do you do that? In right, let me tell
yourself that it was work and we had we had contacts.
We were reporters. Um, we knew people, who knew people
who knew people. I mean, we were the ones that
reported the fact that how a Leah climbed out of
the window and got with the bodyguards and they got

(01:10:29):
on a private plane down to Florida, like, this is
because we know people who know people. Yes, you guys
have to be Google. We had to be and so
and so Carter and then found that Mary certificate and
we ran it. And that's also another one of those
to go back question of what you were talking about
with the rest of development. That was another time when

(01:10:50):
people said, oh, Vibe is serious, because you gotta understand.
I remember, um, let's see one of the higher ups
that Vibe calling me either on that issue or the
next time we put him on the cover when we
had even more evidence about his doings. I remember just
putting in a speaker and just allowing people to walk
into my office hearing that man called me every type

(01:11:13):
of be at tc H, low life, w H O
r E, vibe being fish wrapped, vibe being I was leading,
who is this is? This is? This is like someone
very high up at a Jive record Does he still
have a job? Still have he does? So I'm just
sayling and and then I remember too that Robert was

(01:11:33):
saying he was going to sue five. He was going
on I guess it was hot nineties seven, saying that
and I went on the radio because they were like, well,
do you want to respond? This is how the internet
used to work in the pre Internet era, and I
was like, I'll take that, babe. And I went up
there and they were like, well, are you concerned that

(01:11:55):
you guys are gonna get sued? And Robert Kelly said
he's gonna put Vibe out of business? And I said,
what wasn't true. I used to feel so confident in
in our what people don't have anymore in journalism. I
used to feel confident in our reporting. I used to
feel confident, confident in our fact checking, and I used
to feel confident in the fact that every single solitary
page of Boy Magazine went by lawyers before it went

(01:12:16):
to press every single month that I was ever working
there as music editor or editor in chief. So my
thing was I was able to say on the radio,
I think that he's just like profiling, as we used
to say in Oakland. He's just side busting because if
he wanted to sue, then he would, but he would

(01:12:37):
have to prove one that we were wrong in two
that we had malicious intent, and we have neither. So
when you run that piece about you know him doing
all the abuse and just all the funk shit. How
do you then reconcile when it's time to review his
next album? So I was there for two stories to
cover stories of our hell, and I don't I mean,

(01:13:02):
the short answer is I don't know what we actually did.
I would have to look at the timeline, but if
I had to guess, I would say that the discussion
went like this. And this is purely me guessing. The
record is coming out. He hasn't been convicted of anything,

(01:13:23):
and so we have to cover it. I'm not saying
that that is what happened, but just knowing how things
tended to happen when I was there, That sounds like
the way a conversation might have gone. Do you think
that's how it should in two with all the lenses?
Is that how the conversations just still go. I think

(01:13:43):
once a person is convicted of something, then the conversation
changes because the thing too particular to the black community
is this. There's so many times when black people are
accused of things that they did not do. There's so
many times in history where people are Black people was

(01:14:05):
getting canceled before canceling was a word, because of things
that they did, I mean things that they didn't do.
And so we also had to walk a very fine
line of like, well, what do we know what has
what is legally I remember there was a whole thing
at ad Vibe that that happens at all places of

(01:14:27):
reputable places of journalism, is that you can't just go
around saying that someone was murdered before there is a conviction.
To that point, you have to say that they were
killed murder. Murder was a legal term. It's a it's
a legal term, and so these are so you would
have killed. You couldn't say that it was a murder.

(01:14:50):
You could not until well I'm being hypothetical when I
asked yes, but but yes, yes, And I do believe
if you go back, you will see that I remember
that being struck out of many a piece that he was,
that he was not murdered until someone had been convicted
of having murdered him. Can't get it And you're I

(01:15:18):
guess and you're your tenure there. Who were some of
the writers that you helped user into the game, People
that kind of started off as internto it now like
look at your phone, look at your phone. I know.
Let me just say this. I don't know who all
I ushered in, but I do know that I've worked

(01:15:40):
with some amazing people. I mean, when I got there,
you know, Allan and Jonathan Van Meter had already hired
people like Joan Morgan, who's doctor Joan Morrigan. Now stop
Scott Pulsing Bryan, who's doctor Scott pull pulsing Bryant Now,
people like that, like and then when I when I

(01:16:01):
got there, I mean, karenen A Good Marrible, I was
gonna say Karen Good was just starting out, like refused,
and she was I did. I mean Karen and I
are girlfriend's. Karen was in my wedding, Like that's how
you know weird girlfriends like that. So obviously Karen Good

(01:16:22):
Marrible who writes a lot now so much beautiful stuff
for the Oxford American, but also Sasha Jenkins, Jeff mal Um. Yeah,
I always gotta be careful talking about who I get
a start to write. Okay, yes, but um, but no,
Rock Calcipated definitely is the genius. And she wrote for

(01:16:43):
a Vibe when I was there, And also that's I
met Elliott Wilson, my husband, um, and then I signed
him his first Vibe record Review also was his first
five record review. You remember, no, but he he does.
But but there was way before we started it. I
was actually married. Elliott's my second husband. In case people

(01:17:03):
don't know, no, I really didn't. How long was your
first your first? Short and sweet? How old were you?
I got married at like twenty two? Yeah? Is it
hard when? Well, I mean at one point both of
you were editor in chiefs of Competing. We were so

(01:17:24):
because you guys were married and you're editor in chief
of Competing not hat Phil McCoy level. It was competition.
It was so how does that work? Like? How do
you find what separation of church and state when both
of you are fishing for like the same story. Well,

(01:17:44):
we had a history of it already. Elliott wanted to
become When we're back when we were just colleagues, um,
Elliot stopped writing for Vibe and he went on to
become music editor of the Source. All right, So I
was feeling competitive at that time before we ever were dating.
So but I had to respect the skill set. And

(01:18:10):
it sounds like that's one of your love languages. Yeah,
And then when I was when I was in grad school,
by this time, he was editor in chief of Exxel
and this was around the time when we started dating.
I had to respect it, Like that's when he put
a fenie on the cover, and that was just such
a courageous moment, like I could only I wasn't even
like we weren't even in each other's phones and I

(01:18:31):
didn't even know if we had phones back then. But
I just remember saying to people like, I know he
had to fight to get that done. I know what,
I know what that fight must have been like. And
I respected it. So then when we got married, I
was I was in grad school. So and it's like
a nine ten months after we were married where I
went back to Vibe and we went into it real

(01:18:55):
really very willy nilly. We thought it was going to
be very easy to manageatient and after that and after
our first issues. I don't know if people know my husband,
but he's not known for like his calm and it's

(01:19:16):
such a he's such a he's such a sweetheart, but
he's just not really known for, you know, taking things lightly.
He's a very passionate individual. So calmed him down. I
will say the Elliott now is way more calm, and
I actually credit that to you. That's because just his
is nerdy ego trip like days of Yeah, those are

(01:19:39):
my guys though all of them to have one. But
it's like but but no. So we really after the
first issue, it just was bad, like the way things
went down, Um yeah and so. And also you have
to understand that we had staffs of people that Elliott
the whole staff of people that already believed in him,

(01:20:00):
and I was a brand new second time editor in
chief of Vibe that wanted a staff to believe in me.
So we had to establish some as we called them
back then, the rules and regulations and some times and conditions.
Come on, now you got to give us a couple well,
I mean the if I'm honest, the main one was
just that you could not discuss in any way at

(01:20:24):
home anything that was going on with the issue at work.
You could say, somebody was getting all your nerves or
I don't know why they don't have Coca colas in
the refrigerator at work, but you couldn't. You couldn't come
home and say like, I'm really trying to get this
covered with a B or C. No got you got
you let me ask? Only because again, like you and

(01:20:49):
him are to me the most courageous power couple of journalism,
only because both of you had your feet in the
fire again at a time in which and I'm using
more hyperbole when I say dangerous, I'll say more like
exciting times, but I'll also say serious times. Like you

(01:21:13):
you were, you were definitely around during like the what
they would call the danger era of the Eastern West thing.
But you know, for also him as as a wife,
were you concerned about his situation at the source, because
he too was sort of in a weird pickled situation era. Yeah,

(01:21:36):
I mean he was an XXL that time, but yeah, right,
And like, was there just any just general worry for
safety coming from your end, Like, Okay, don't don't write
that op ed because you know good and well that
this is gonna or for you. It's just like Church
and State were never talking about what our work is

(01:21:58):
and bringing it into the home when Elliot was going
through the most terrible stuff. We were not dating. We weren't,
ok yeah, we weren't. We started dating at I think
the end of oh three. But let me not let
me not put too fine a point on it, because
Elliott was Elliott was away in the streets at the
time when we were dating. So just for our listeners,

(01:22:19):
Elliott was at EXXL right during the height of I
guess the Eminem versus Benzino wars, and it would get
very serious, very serious. As I said, at that time,
when he was going through the very worst of it.
We weren't dating. I knew him at I knew him
as a as a colleague. And you know, there's a

(01:22:42):
certain scene of writers and stuff in New York at
that time, Black writers and said where we all kind
of knew each other, would see each other out and
that kind of thing. And I always knew Elliott, Like
I said, he used to write for me when I
was music editor at Vibe, and he was always supportive
of me. I remember when my book came out No. Three,
my first novel, and he came into because he was bawling.
He came into Barnes and Noble and brought like fifteen

(01:23:04):
books and he was just you know, he was that
type of dude. But even from Afar and through my
friends on the scene and people who were publicists and
other writers, I mean, they would say that Elliott was
going through it. You know, people people that saw him. Um.
I mean, these are his stories to tell, but people
that saw him more than I did. Um. And I

(01:23:27):
also know just now being his wife for these many years,
you know, the health issues and stuff that came out
of that era, like it's, um, you know, stuff that
he still manages to this day. So I mean, he's
a brave dude though, but none of us are like superhuman,
you know, And there was some real scary stuff that
we all went through. Some of it is in shine Bright.
We're just you know, threats were made and it's like,

(01:23:50):
I remember my mom coming to see me in New
York from California, and she really did, but she did
a couple of times, and she's at the office and
was just going about the business of my day and
then she said like, who is this how it always is?
And I was like what, And she was like, just
the way it was a different error. She's like, just

(01:24:12):
the way you're talking to people. I said, how am
I talking to people? She's like just cursing and stuff.
And I was like, am I cursing? He's like, yes,
you're cursing a lot on the phone to people. And
I was like, that's because people are trying to back
out of the things that they said they were going
to do. That's because of this, That's because of that.
And my mother said, okay, but like are you running

(01:24:33):
the staff? Are you running the game? Like what's going on?
But see the thing? Yeah, but see because the thing
is we it was you come against I mean I
was only there for about five more months, um, because
we were scared. And also, you guys understand how invested
we were in Vibe success, how much responsibility we felt

(01:24:57):
to the community and into our else and and just
the music, into hip hop culture. Like we were obsessed.
There's not a better word for it. I would say
this about just most everybody on the staff, down to
the receptionists. They had to be a lot of pressure
because you're the top of that food chain. Yeah, and
people were People were attacking us physically. People were getting

(01:25:23):
guns pulled on them in the studio. Remember record reviews
and stuff, and so it's like, yeah, would you change anything?
I would change everything up here. No, not everything, But
you know what if I just as I said, we
were all we were young man, think about think about

(01:25:47):
your think about I call them my baby cousins and
stuff like that. I think about my baby cousins that
are like twenty five years all right now. They come
over and asked me the most ridiculous stuff, and I'm like,
aren't you grown? And they're like no, and I'm like,
I was a old like I was. Right, I was
the whole R and B editor billboard at that at
your age man like one like I was. I was.

(01:26:10):
I was editing Havlock Nelson when I was like twenty.
That's not fair to their age. Their age like you
know in ninety five and or two. Completely very different.
It's very different. I'm not saying I wasn't mature, but
I'm just saying I was. Still. I didn't have a
lot of it. I was learning how to manage on

(01:26:31):
the job. And then all of a sudden, you tell
me you're coming to my office and say I was
at the studio and such as such didn't like the
review And I told him I was, I could. I
didn't know what to say to that, and then they
just pulled out a gun. Now, I'm not going to
act like I'm not from East Oakland, because I am.

(01:26:52):
M but that was at well, it's it's loaded from
a native, but that still shouldn't be notice it's not normalized,
but in the nineteen in late nineteen eighties in Oakland,
in East Oakland in particular, but in West Oakland too,
in your office and I'm talking about this story, Yeah,

(01:27:13):
I know, but I'm saying that, you know, and you
just kind of kind of had to be about it
in East and so did I bring some of that
being about it to the offices of I probably did.
I probably did. When you are running a ship like that,
is there a pressure that you felt that your male

(01:27:36):
contemporaries wouldn't have had that have gone through? Yes, like
was Sealing and Jonathan and Screamer? Were they Screamers or
not at all? Not at all. I almost think Alan's
like not passive aggressive, but like Allan's is a very

(01:27:56):
soft spoking dude. Right, That's what I'm People deal with
white men differently than they deal with black women, all
positions of power and and and and as much as
I'm saying that, you know, I brought some of my
East Oakland nests to the editor in Chief's chair, I'm
also sitting in front row in Milan at you know,

(01:28:18):
the Jil Sander Show and things like that, and and
trying to to give all of that energy before I
even knew how to get that kind of energy. But
if you're asking me, was it hard because I was
a black woman? Absolutely? And this is the thing I'm
not guessing because I know the men that ran other

(01:28:39):
magazines and that ran Vibe after me, and I know
what their experiences were like as compared to my experiences.
I know how much money they made as compared to
how much money I made. I know all of these things.
Also just because I'm nosy and I'm a reporter. So
it's like, was it harder for me? Is? Were there

(01:29:01):
were there times when it was easier for me? Maybe?
But not enough. It didn't balance out the harsh As
an artist, I wanted to study who the gatekeepers of
of reviews and words were, Um when at it I'm
still making records, but at the time when I was
making product. But for you, do you have hope for

(01:29:28):
what counts for journalism today? Because I will say that
there's like a level of thoroughness that it's kind of lost,
and there's also just technique and and I'm not saying
that it's it's it's a lost art. Like there's definitely
some writers that I feel like, are super smart and
super insightful. But for the most part, I think now
it's like the wild Wild West. We're just you know,

(01:29:51):
there's there's just people that aren't that knowledgeable about their subjects.
They run on Wikipedia real quick or run to your
old articles. An add to it, do you do you
feel like you're you're you're your era of the n
b A or the new era of the n b A.
Is can hold a candle to your era of it?

(01:30:13):
It's harder, but yes, I do think they can. Um
for the most part. If there's differences in quality, it's
not the fault of the of the writer. It's also
what they have to write about. No, it's the fact
that there's no budgets or anything. There's no If you're
writing right now for twenty cents a word, how much

(01:30:33):
are you putting into it? I was writing for twenty
cents a word when I was in my early twenties.
If you were, I turned up down now because I'm
just like, it's just not worth it for me to
do that, because I'm not even contributing to my household
well on what you're trying to pay me. And so
then you have kids who aren't getting fact checked. You

(01:30:55):
have kids that that aren't not even kids, but adults
who aren't edited by people that no one understand the
culture and who they themselves are being paid well enough
to put their heart and soul into the work. You
have people that are only doing email interviews because no
one wants to pay somebody's cap there across town, let

(01:31:15):
alone a plane trip. I remember when I sent Michael Gonzalez,
another great writer from the shout out to Michael Gonzalez Gonzo, Mike,
it's what it's like. I remember Berry White had an
album coming out that was the Practice What You Preach album,
and they were like, well, I wanted the story. Like
I just wanted the story. I wanted the story. I

(01:31:36):
think I was mused together at the time, and they
were like, well, we can't do it, we can't do it,
we can't do it, but if you want to send
somebody to Brussels right now, then we can do it.
I went to my boss, whoever it was at the time,
and told him the situation, and they said, well, buy
him a ticket to Brussels. And they witness a great,
great story from Michael on the headline is black Berry

(01:31:58):
jam and it's in the amazing it's an amazing story
and amazing photographs, and it's like, where is that going
to happen? Now, that's not the that's not the fault
of the writer. That's the thing that's heartbreaking to me.
One of the great things about me going to ESPN
was because ESPN has budgets. As I said, they sent
me to Coatar to do some own biles. When is

(01:32:19):
that happening they can afford to to to to to
take care of people like justin TENSEI like David Dennis,
like Soria like like yeah, like you know, like so
that people can make a living and have a life.
There's not even that many places right now where you
can go where that's okay. So when I say I
have hope, I do believe that the pendulum is going

(01:32:39):
to swing back, but it's gonna take some foot stomping
and maybe even some swinging on the part of the
journalists themselves. That's when I say yes, Like I don't
know what a general strike has called for. I don't know,
but something gotta give. Okay, are you going to write
any more fictional novels? Whether yes? I love fiction and

(01:33:00):
uh my m F a is in fiction, I may,
God willing, in life is long, I may. But I
will admit that the things that I'm thinking about with
regard to fiction now would probably be more scripts maybe
the novels. Um. Yeah, it's what I'm into right now,
and thinking about how to maybe even look at my
first two novels and how those things might turn into

(01:33:22):
things that exist in other spaces, whether that's audio, whether
that's you know, filmic or whatever. So those are the
kind of things, um, that I'm thinking about a lot,
trying to learn about. I'm taking a page out of
your book, sir, just trying to look at what had happened, Yeah,
what can happen in documentary spaces and things like that.
I'm actually, uh, you know, um, I guess by the

(01:33:44):
time this this airs will already made an announcement like
I'm I'm afraid he cat in terms of I never
make an announcement until the project is finished and it
comes um. But the probably the biggest secret I've been
keeping under my hat for the last two years is
I two have written a fictional book, and well, well,

(01:34:05):
I will assume that this will come out by next week.
So I'm I've been a junkie of of time travel
and um one of my favorite writers, UM a gentleman
named Essay Cosby who he's written many a New York
Times bestseller. So he and I sort of came friends
over the pandemic. And I guess, you know, taking a

(01:34:29):
break from doing the movie, I would DJ. But then
taking a break from DJ and I would journal and
wrote my other music book. But then my fourth pivot
was I always wanted to write kind of the books
that I didn't get to read as a kid. So
it's and those books like Black People Traveling in Time. Yeah,

(01:34:52):
it's it's the two kids. It's it's it's middle school books.
So it's it's two kids that are Yeah, it's it's
it's two kids that are are are? I love to
hear it. Yeah, a grown up boy, they're they're both
fourteen and fifteen. And the girls she's like a science
wizard and she invince the time travel device, and he

(01:35:13):
gets the bright idea to try to save one of
his groups that he admired UH from breaking up and
the butterfly effect of anyway, that's really good. That's like
I remember I used to read all those Madeline Lingo
books like Wrinkling Time and all that. All the time
those folks were white in the book. I love the books,
but I didn't see myself in them. Yeah. I kept

(01:35:35):
that one and the under Wraps only because like again,
I I have like nine projects on the on on
the back burner, and maybe only four of them will
actually make it too fruition, and the other five sort
of fall at the wayside, and then I gotta figure
out what to do with it. But this sounds really exciting.
It sounds so excited. Thank you. I'm I'm excited. I

(01:35:57):
want to ask you, dang before we break up. So
were you editor and Bible? Was this like ninety eight?
Were you still there at that time? I was there
from ninety seven and ninety nine seven nine? Okay, there
was a review. Um it was the lead review, uh
for the for the Revolutions record review section. That was
a four hero's two pages album. UM. I don't know

(01:36:19):
if you even remember this, but it was the lead review.
And that was just um. If you you were there,
I just easy to that. Man. Ever, don't get me
the line, Uh, don't get me the line. I can't.
I have to look it up. I don't recall it

(01:36:40):
off the rip, but I wish I did because you
guys are making me feel like I should go back
and find it. Yeah, that that review just opened me up.
I mean I never would have found that album had
I not saw that, and that just just yeah, yeah,
that was my first time ever hearing reading the review.
I mean, you have been living in London for years,
so it was whatever to you? Now that the there

(01:37:02):
the reason why did the German based thing? At the
end of it, you got me. Yeah. When when four
Hero got that leave review even I was like, oh god, damn, Like,
finally did Greg Tate red m hmmm. I bet you
any money, money, It's probably great, I bet you. It
sounds like that's one of the owners of my life too,
is editing Greg. But at that time I was editor

(01:37:22):
in chief Saw I wouldn't have been editing him one
on one. But the way it used to work a
Vibe was the writer filed to their editor and then
that piece then would go from they go back and
forth with it, and then that would go to what
was called the top editor, which was the senior editor,
and then the senior editor would get it right and
then it would go on page and usually then the
editor in chief would read it at that point, and

(01:37:44):
then it would go from approval by the editor in
chief to fact checking to make sure every fact was correct,
and then after fact checking, it would go to copy
editing to make sure every period in comment everything was
in the right place, and then at that time it
would go to photo, and then after it will go
to Orto in design, and then at that point it
would go to production to be made into a real page.

(01:38:04):
And that's when I say, when you talk about budgets,
you're talking about paying every single person at at every
single stage, and that just doesn't exists anymore. Just give me,
I forgot. I believe if you were there in ninety
were you there in a part of it? You guys,
actually let me write my own vibe feature. That's all right,

(01:38:25):
that sounds right. That was such a moment, like it
would be like Chris rock is guest editing. I think
that was almost my last. Yeah, that was I feel
like that was my second to last issue. And then
maybe there was the j cover where he has his
hands in front of him like this, the white in

(01:38:46):
a white suit. But that was kind of the end
of my first editor in Chief era the j LO
the very first j LO cover, and that was I
don't think I was there for that though. You guys
didn't send a writer, so literally, I just had to
diary touring Europe and that sounds like an amazing thing. Though. Yeah, no,

(01:39:06):
it's definitely one of the probably the second major features
I wrote, like, I enjoyed it all right. My last question,
because you are from Oakland, but to be of age
in Oakland at the time when the first generation of
hip hop was coming out, are are there any notable
like for you moments of growing up in Oakland that

(01:39:31):
you can share as far as like the culture of
it in terms of shows that you saw when you
were younger that sort of thing, because it's such a
musical town. And I mean, I don't know if I
have how many Oakland tales I have. I can just
tell you that your best one. What do I have?
I mean, I told you I saw the Jackson five

(01:39:51):
nearby in San Carlos at the Circle Star Theater, and
it's like, I don't know, like, let's just passed by
the childhood stuff and get back to me moving to
the Bay Area as a college student that you see
Berkeley so now you have to understand too that the
Barry is a huge touring stock. I mean, you know this,
And so I'm seeing anybody from a flock of Seagulls

(01:40:12):
to Frankie Beverly and Maze to Ziggy Marley. I'm seeing
all of that. And then when I decided I want
to be like I'm really going to become a writer,
then it's like MC Hammer's blowing up in vogues, blowing
up two shorts, blowing up Tony Tony, Tony is blown up.
And these are just the folks that invoked the TIMEX
Social Club. These are just the folks that got famous.
We're not even talking about Paris is blowing up. We're

(01:40:32):
not even talking about Kate Cloud and the crew, you
know what I'm saying. We're not talking about mc and
we're not talking about what about Conscious Daughters. Obviously you
don't forget about the cots and the cool was right there,
like we were all coming up together. And then and
then when when the tour happened, the tour that I

(01:40:53):
was out a lot on um the Public Enemy tour
with heavy ding, the Boys, Queen Latcheeth and this Afar
Digital on the ground had those masks on. Yes, one
of the best, one of the best hip hop tours
in history, and kid didn't play. Depending on the day,
it would be mc bree, depending on the day, it

(01:41:13):
would be Luke Skywalker to Live Group, depending on the
place it would be. Certain makes a lot trouble. T
Roy died on that tour, just like those tupacas on
the tour, dancing background for Digital. Um, those moments and
the way that Oakland hip hop coalesced amount obviously, Chuck
d I don't even know how I can explain it.

(01:41:34):
It's just and then it would I'd be in the
studio sometimes the Digital because those are my guys, and
I was dating a road manager back then, all the
wild stuff we was doing, and UM, shout out to
Nielslis Johnson, who was an amazing guy. Still were friends
to this day. Um, you know, we'd be in the
studio in in in in im Marine County or Richmond
and be like, you know, gold records from like platinum

(01:41:56):
records from like Kueie Lewis and the News and Journey
and Frankie Beverley Maize and the Whispers and all the
Pointer sisters and all this grace stuff. Tower Power from
Oakland history, and it's like we felt like we were Yes,
we felt like we were in the righteous space. Man,
it felt good, and honestly it still feels good. I
had to get it out, Daniel. I thank you very much.

(01:42:18):
I know we had a few false starts in trying
to do this, but thank you, I would just say.
Mike Mark Weingarten wrote that four year old review. He
wrote that review. Yes, okay, but I just wanted to
thank you for that. Oh well, of course we we
We were happy to be a service. We really are
and we really were. And like I said, all of

(01:42:40):
us that worked there over the time, I'm not saying
we didn't have our bad times. But if you are
a part of ibex Excelis Source and those big magazine Essence, Latina,
all those King yeah, you know, King Magazine, Slam all
that stuff, it's like it's a certain fraternity slash sorority
that we're all in. And everything wasn't perfect. We didn't

(01:43:04):
do everything right, but we are most most of us
are pretty proud of the stuff that we did there.
And if it wasn't for that, would there be shine
right now? Would there be black girls on books? Not
at all, not at all. So yeah, again, I really
want to thank you, and yeah, I highly recommend to
our audience who religiously listens to our podcast. Um, you
definitely want to get the book, get the hard copy

(01:43:25):
and actually, you know the audiobook where I've just never
heard someone so emotionally into yeah, because no, no, I
couldn't read it. I would drive to it. And you know,
there's a few times we have to break down and
catch some tears for a second, and that's me. I
was just an awesome level of vulnerability. And I really

(01:43:49):
loved the book and it sets a lot of light
on a lot of unsung heroes that we didn't know.
So thank you very much, Daniel, I appreciate it. Thank
you all. Thank you Quest so much. It's the honor,
and thank you everybody on this team. It's amazing to
see and me and everybody all right, when you have
a ya and Fin Tikolo and Sugar Steve, thank you

(01:44:12):
there the journalism and episodes. You're my favorite. I paid
you bills back whatever you said you mute right now,
I'll speak for him. He said, give me a baby. Alright, great, great,
all right, this is QUEST love and we'll see you
over next go around. Thank you very much. Question Love

(01:44:39):
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