Questlove Supreme: Danyel Smith

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. How are
you guys, Steve?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
I realized in the last five episodes you hardly said
a word.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
What are you? Okay? Yes, there you go? All right?
Uh you're in a purple room now, all right?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
My fault still the after effects of the studio.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Yeah, yeah, man, I just you know, I feel like
I get y'all a little a little green light.

Speaker 4 (00:35):
Uh, the core to day, little YouTube makeup artist vibe.

Speaker 5 (00:40):
I got you, I got what's except we're getting today, sir.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
Today we're getting how to do winged eyeliner, and.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
I like you.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
How's it going with you? Oh? It's going good.

Speaker 5 (00:54):
I'm on an eye list somewhere hoping my WiFi don't.

Speaker 6 (00:56):
Ship on y'all.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Nice on vacation. Good to hear case?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, okay, Now I can introduce to our our guest,
our Guesterday is of course, she's an award winning author, novelist, journalist,
magazine editor from the Ya area, The Yay I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
I don't even know if people in the.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Bay Area call it the Yay Area, but I'm going
on a limb and calling it the Ya Like Northia.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
No one calls it.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
Yeah, no one calls it that.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Except for the roots when they're on stage. 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 starting in

(01:51):
nineteen ninety four. I believe you replaced Alan like correct
I did?

Speaker 6 (01:57):
In fact, yeah I did.

Speaker 4 (01:59):
In fact.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
If ever, you guys wondered why is Amir 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 because I only realize the power of
the pen when it came from our guest. Today, she's

(02:24):
released an awesome book, and if you're a fan of
the show, and if you're a fan of just inside
speak of a music genre that you don't love, but
things that you might not have known, I highly recommend
you get Shine Bright, a very personal history of Black
women in pop where literally not only does she reveal

(02:50):
her awesomely kind of adventurous journey and life with her
family coming up from the Bay Area, Los Angeles and
of course uh living all over and navigating through music,
but she even manages to uh break down and share
stories of of just the intricate stories that of artists

(03:13):
that you love but you really don't know about, like
from the Dixie Cups of the Charells to shit, I
didn't even know Leon Teine Price was related to war
Work and with you know, Sissy and Whitney Houston, and
you know, just drawing the parallels of how they you know,
those those four generations between Leon team Price and Sissy

(03:34):
Houston and dr Work and Whitney Houston and what they've
done in breaking barriers for just basically progressing for it,
but not to mention, you know, Diana Ross, name it,
glads night, Diane, Donna Summer Merlin McCoo. Even, ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome to Couestlim Supreme.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Daniel Smith, thank you, a how are you? Oh?

Speaker 6 (03:58):
I mean I'm doing good because I'm over here with y'all,
so it feels it just feels really good and really special.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Thank you, Thank you, thank you. Where are you just
speaking to us right now? From? Where are you from?

Speaker 6 (04:10):
My home in southern California, specifically in Venice, California.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Hey, aw, nice, Okay, I didn't know, I see, I
didn't know if you were in East Coast or West Coaster.

Speaker 6 (04:21):
I mean, I'm I feel pretty equally both. Over the
course of my life at this point, I mean, I
think I did twenty three years on the on the
East Coast between most of it 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

(04:42):
it's good to be here.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Good to have you. Okay.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
So the thing is, you're shigned Bright book. It's almost
like Jeopardy where your shine Bright Book? In my opinion,
it's almost like an episode of Quest of Supreme without
us asking the ques questions, you know. So it's almost
like if I were to go, well, no, literally she

(05:06):
you know.

Speaker 5 (05:07):
It's it's a good cheat sheet.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Especially in the first chapter where you're breaking down your journey.
It's almost like, I feel like it's the service 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 and well, you know, one,

(05:30):
I want to just ask the obvious, why did you
feel 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?

Speaker 6 (05:49):
Well, let me answer the the second question first, Why
was this so long overdue? It's a combination of on
my part timing combination, add to that a lot of
second guessing myself, add to that a little bit of fear,

(06:11):
and add to that I hadn't quite figured out the
best way to tell it. It just hadn't. I had
to get to that place. I had to get really strong,
I think, 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.

(06:33):
It's not my editor's fault. It's not anybody I interviewed.
It's not their fault. It's it's it's my fault, just
being uncharacteristically slow and missing of deadlines. Which, oh now,
let me tell you something. If my husband was here,
he would say, it took me eight I feel like

(06:53):
I've been writing it since I was eight years old,
but I think technically it took me six years.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
All right, You speaking of your husband loved Elliott Wilson
why in yeah.

Speaker 6 (07:06):
Why these seventeen years? Seventeen years?

Speaker 1 (07:10):
That's awesome and hip hop?

Speaker 5 (07:12):
That is it?

Speaker 4 (07:13):
Right? Like straight up and down.

Speaker 6 (07:15):
I don't know, I don't know, but yeah, so it's
it took me too long. I'm not gonna lie, but
you know it just the timing was right. It was
the reason why I wanted to do it is you know,
long story short, when Whitney Houston died in twenty twelve,
which she shouldn't have, but when she did die in
twenty twelve, you know, people approached me and said, could
you just write a bio off her really quickly? And

(07:36):
you know, let's go heavy on the drugs, let's go
heavy on the bad marriage. You know.

Speaker 7 (07:41):
I was just like, i'll tell you that, yes, and
a sentence and one sentence.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yes, what oh my god?

Speaker 6 (07:48):
Like what like drugs? Bobby, Like, let's go how fast
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 that, and then I left that publisher and
I went back home so to speak to Chris Jackson.
In one World Chris Jackson published. I have two novels
from the early two thousands, more like Wrestling in Bliss,
that Chris Jackson published, and so I wanted to go
back home with him, one because he's a genius and
two because I trust him deeply. And he just said,
you know, eventually, he said, You're going to have to

(08:29):
put yourself in the book. I'm eternally grateful to him
for saying that. 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 tch,
you should have been told it so and so then
we were off to the races, you know.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
At the top of the the introduction, you know, I
was sort of tongue in cheek when I said that.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
That I loved and feared you only because I.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
I realized I mean for starters, you know, with the
source that with vibe and at least the first wave
of late eighties early nineties journalism being sort of in
a serious form and not just like and this is
not to take away from Cynthia Horner or black Beat
or Steve Iberry or those guys. But you know, there
really hasn't been black critical writing. And although I've seen

(09:29):
it with rock journalism, like I've never seen a takedown
article or anything of that level 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.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
When did you leave Vibe ninety eight?

Speaker 6 (09:50):
I started as I started as music editor in ninety four.
I was there in ninety six, went back to school
for a year to ninety seven, came back and got
promoted to Vib to be the first black and first
woman editor in chief of Vibe in ninety seven. I
left in ninety nine. Then I came came back in
six and was editor in chief of Vibe again six
O seven o eight, two years, two years.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Every time I would say that, you know, your era
was way different, I noticed immediately your era from say
Allen Light's period. I guess the trench issue was what
ninety one I believe ninety.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, ninety two to ninety four.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
And not to 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 issues. And that said, I don't know in
my mind, and I think this is often.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Of how the world will see black women.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
As you know, we always use these words like strong,
you will use fierce and all those sort of colloquially
describe them. And so I was a bit taken aback,
you know, at how vulnerable you got, especially in the
first chapter speaking of your imposter syndrome and you like,

(11:16):
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.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
So I was really just I was I was pleasantly surprised.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Of how you weave your your life in 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 artists as well.

Speaker 6 (11:45):
I learned a lot from Alan. Alan first gave me
my first album review when he was editing the review
section at Rolling Soon as my first Rolling song in Vogue.
The second Yes give It Stars, Yeah, I did.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
I did it.

Speaker 6 (12:06):
I didn't come on it. I was. I was a
big homer at that time. And if I'm not still
just to be home. Come on, man, you know they
were gonna call me to do in Vogue weird.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Okay, so two stars, I don't know.

Speaker 6 (12:20):
Don't listen. Don't listen to me.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Don't know. I'm gonna tell you some Danielle, you can't.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
You can't debate me on this when I tell you,
like in the order of me, I can't, like Fante well,
study MC, study production whatever. I don't know, Like I
study record reviews, I study journalists, like I study the
people that determine whether or not.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Now I'm it's gonna have shelf life or not. I
very much.

Speaker 7 (12:47):
No.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
Here's the thing, though I actually agreed with you. I
didn't realize that you were the one that wrote that.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
And to be fair, did I give it two stars?

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Well, I was gonna say, to be fair, you don't
determine how many stars it gets.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
I don't the publication publish it.

Speaker 6 (13:04):
By the way, that's always the case. That was the
case at the source too, and that was the case
that Vibe and we used to give our little red
light green light, yellow light or whatever we.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Used to do, right, the music editor determines it.

Speaker 5 (13:15):
But somebody doesn't know that, y'all. Y'all know that weight.
I'm a fan.

Speaker 7 (13:20):
Hold On, I'm listening 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.

Speaker 5 (13:28):
Now, how so how do they come up with them stars?

Speaker 6 (13:31):
The music editor the music you determined.

Speaker 7 (13:34):
Yes, so it's not even based on what you wrote.
It's just based on what the music editor thinks.

Speaker 6 (13:38):
Now, it's kind of based on what you wrote, and
it's based on whatever their chase is also.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
But okay, so since you're kind of doing this in
the nineties and I will see that you know post
Karis one PM Dornish confrontation levels. I mean, you worked
at Vibe where it is, and you worked at Vibe
during one of the most dangerous issues, of which is
the death row issue.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Wouldn't your music other Dore's at least want.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
To give you warning if they're going to give it
a less than savory uh rating.

Speaker 6 (14:11):
Knowing I could never answer that question except for on
a case my case basis. Honestly, it was, as you said,
it was a very wild time. And when you say
you know I worked that 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.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Out of I remember everything.

Speaker 8 (14:34):
I'm sorry because because what I think people tend to forget,
at least with me, is that, especially with regard to
death Row when Tupac, Tupac wasn't just celebrity MC 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.

Speaker 6 (14:58):
It was such a complex time time, such a time
when I always say that 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

(15:18):
to Northwestern for a year because I just wanted 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 were murdered while
I was not even working ad Vine. I ended up
writing the obituary for Biggie for the for the Village Voice,

(15:40):
but I wasn't even working at that time. I was
trying to, Okay, I wasn't And then I came back
in ninety seven. Everybody had died, and I put Kurt
Franklin on the cover because he was number one was
Stump with the Stomp remix, And I felt like that
was the second line. I felt like we had been
mourning for a while. We had thought that hip hop
was going to We thought that everything that the mainstream

(16:02):
had said about it was going to be true, that
it was just a fat it wasn't real. We was
all going to kill each other. And then you know,
you began to feel it rising from its ashes. You know,
you got to remember, like that's when Miseducation came out. Really,
Laurence Hill doesn't get the credit she deserves or helping
bring hip hop back to life after the death of

(16:23):
Tupac Shakor and then Notorious Big, and then you add
Kirk Franklin and Salt. They don't also get the credit
either one of them for helping bringing 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 ninety seven. And believe me,
my publishers and the business people were like, this's a
soft cover. It's never going to sell. It's not gonna sell,

(16:46):
it's not gonna sell. And I wasn't really that person
that was always bragging about, like, I know what the
streets is 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

(17:07):
number one R and B. I believe top ten pop
for the Stamp 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 it's
impact on culture period, and it had never there had
never been a gospel artist on the cover of Vibe
that that the gospel fans, the church folks were gonna

(17:29):
go out and buy two and three issues and they did,
and they did.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
Aren't people more or less investing in the Vibe brand
like I'm going to buy a new Vibe.

Speaker 6 (17:45):
That's true. There are issues of Vibe that did not sell.
There are issues, 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 me. They keep they
keep up paying that thirteen ninety nine a year, twelve
ninety nine a year, lights on, that's keeping the lights on.

(18:09):
But the money money is that the news stand back
when the news stand mattered, Because that's two fifty three
dollars a pot. 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.

(18:32):
That's what any editor in chief really is judged on
at the end of the day period, end of story.

Speaker 7 (18:37):
Either 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 then the content.

Speaker 6 (18:44):
No, you don't even know what's science and The thing
about me was not everybody took Billboard into consideration. I
took Billboard into consideration because I had been an R
and B editor at Billboard.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
Did you replace Nelson when he left or.

Speaker 6 (18:58):
No, it's Jenny McAdams that I replaced McAdam, So wow, yes,
Jenine's between us, so yeah.

Speaker 7 (19:04):
No.

Speaker 6 (19:05):
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 was the one that was like,
if it's bubbling under, it deserves this. If it's doing
this on the charts, if it's number eight with a
bullet or blah blah chart, then it deserves this. Now,

(19:27):
people always wanted to argue with me, and we had
the best arguments in the world that vibe. But I
was the one who always took Billboard into consideration. Not
everybody's like that. Wow, I think, by 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 a no, no, no, no,

(19:48):
we didn't think that.

Speaker 7 (19:50):
I thought, oh, I thought you were just asking a question.
I thought you were asking a question mere like was
it the brand that sold?

Speaker 2 (19:58):
I mean it's just I mean Circle Out with its
vibe and the source was like a religion and straight.

Speaker 6 (20:04):
Up thank God for y'all.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
But we were the ones keeping the lights on though
we weren't Impulse buys.

Speaker 5 (20:09):
It's like podcasts.

Speaker 7 (20:10):
It's just like music, right, like we want new podcast.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
So can I ask you this because I didn't know
this first of all, what is expected for Vibe in
terms 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.

Speaker 6 (20:33):
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 a news stand that you can depend on.
But let's just say, at the height of things, it's
always a percentage, it's not a it's not an exact number.
So at the height of Vibe, you just never really

(20:59):
want to be belie fifty fifty percent and and you
figure your circulation like the 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 want to sell through
a fifty plus percent? Now, that's high, But I have

(21:22):
an ego that's b plus. The best selling issue a
vibe in history is the master p issue. Make them say, wait,
what I hate to blow y'all up?

Speaker 7 (21:33):
No, I hate now the South is buying Now the South.
That's exactly what is region.

Speaker 6 (21:41):
That's exactly what it is.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, I would have put my publishing and my cribs.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
I could have sworn that that that Depth Row issue
was the greatest selling against you of all time.

Speaker 6 (21:52):
The thing about that make them say it was it was?
It was a it was a perfect cover. Wow, it
was everybody, It was your X. It was a mystical
It was everybody and we and we had a tank
in it. We had a tank and everybody had on camel.
And so basically the whole cover was green and shades

(22:17):
of black and white. But we did 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 episode left left off. And I'm

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

(22:59):
that we all know and love, but it would surprise you,
I would. Y'all gonna have to get that someplace else.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
Man, it's twenty years ago.

Speaker 6 (23:08):
Twenty years it feels like yesterday to me, though. I
feel like I'm on my way to an editorial meeting
right now. Y'all like gonna get me out here like
this A damn it.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
Now now I'm gonna go. I literally have issues in
the room to see it. If I text you got
to verify.

Speaker 6 (23:23):
It, 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.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
It's me.

Speaker 6 (23:31):
It could be the photography, it could be anything. It
just doesn't necessarily it could be the truck was late, man.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
Please tell me what it was, Yode.

Speaker 6 (23:41):
You don't get it from me. No, 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, yes.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
It's not mean. Particular facts in business, This particular.

Speaker 6 (23:55):
MC has the lowest selling issue in the history of Vibe.
That's hardcore. It's definitely ja I will say that from
the south though. Just to show you how things change.

Speaker 7 (24:12):
Is somebody is it somebody who has a career or
they considered a legend still they do.

Speaker 6 (24:15):
They have a career rapping? Or do they just have
a career.

Speaker 5 (24:18):
Do they have a career, Do you have a career.

Speaker 6 (24:21):
They have a career, but they don't necessarily have a
career in rapping.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Okay, all right, I got it anyway, So I do
want to know what what was the first or at
least national Well, you said that is the very first
time that your work appeared.

Speaker 6 (24:38):
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 spind magazine. There was a
column there called Dreaming America.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (24:50):
That was my first national Uh, that was my first
national thing. And I always remember that I couldn't believe
I was getting paid a dollar a word?

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Was that standard or was that like that was.

Speaker 6 (25:03):
A standard for mainstream people don't even get that now,
And it's like I was made. I was now hope listen,
you used to be able to make a living as
a writer. It's very difficult to do so now. Even
in the Bay Area, I was getting ten, fifteen twenty
cent a word. If I wrote a fifteen hundred word piece,
I was getting one hundred and fifty dollars. But when

(25:26):
when and at Craig Marks, he's the he's actually the
music editor of the La Times right now. Craig was
music editor of Spend back then. And when 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 in Oway back then. And I felt like
and I felt like I felt like back then, and

(25:48):
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, Black
Pearl Forever. Yeah, I wrote about DJ Quick for Spin,
who's also a favorite still And then it was out
of those Spin clips and a couple of things I

(26:09):
did for The Village Voice that brought me to the
notice of Allen Light and Anthony de Curtis are Rolling Stone.
And then I was only really R and B editor
at Billboard for like six or eight months something to
outline and shine Bright. But then Vibe lunched and Allen
had gone over there as music editor, and when he

(26:30):
was promoted to editor in chief because Jonathan Van Meterer left,
then Alan asked me to come over as music editor
and it was it was a wild two years.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
In that job.

Speaker 7 (26:41):
I always thought Spend was the weird cousin to Vibe magazine.
I thought they were weirdly related, like they had some
kind of similar.

Speaker 6 (26:48):
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.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
What was the company Adventures?

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Oh so okay, theyve.

Speaker 6 (27:04):
Ventures owned Vibe and Spin and BLA and Blaze at
that time too.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
A Blaze man, I forgot about remember that Blaze battle.
It was mainly just primarily hip hop, but I remember
it was like pre complex real.

Speaker 6 (27:21):
Journalism though it was. It was Jesse Washington was the
editor in chief. I was the editorial director. Jesse Washington
is actually at espn Z Undefeated.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
Now, okay, yeah, we we we had our umatic rating
moment with Blaze like things fall apart, like got a
perfect five rating there in that in the jay Z.

Speaker 6 (27:42):
The monitoring these reviews about about right now does my
heart good. Though. It does my heart good to know
that somebody of your stature and talent and genius is
paying attention like that, because we really tried, like we
weren't up there like pooling around like we were about passion,

(28:04):
but we were about rigor. We were about facts, and
we were about deep and strong opinions. 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 hard, honestly,
it doesn't matter good. And anybody that listens to this,
that used to work at Vibi source XXL, any of it,

(28:27):
rahap sheet, all of it, honey, honey.

Speaker 4 (28:31):
All of it, it matters.

Speaker 6 (28:33):
I mean I could take it to Ego Trip, I
could take it to one network. I could take it
to for yately, I could keep going, like I could
keep going 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.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Look all right, So the deal is, I think in
that Princess you if you guys remember the Prince Vibe issue,
the Prince Vibe Coup issue.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yes, there's a write up for zing Lamadoony.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
That single handedly like if you want to know the
beginning of Questlove's 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

(29:29):
me more.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
And the thing is is that you know, now I
live in.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
An era where you know, I mean you know I
read the New York Times now just read like this year,
everyone's celebrating the fact that New York Times gave like
eleven Madison a two star review, which is like soccers
or 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

(29:55):
now because in the Internet I sort of feel like
artists write for each other like hey, check this out,
you know that sort of thing, like when they're really
going to go.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
But to me, when I read your.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Arrested development Zingle Lamaduni feature, to me, that was like,
it was literally like watching the Apocalypse now documentary or
Amir is also known for good hyper bowl quotes. No,
but it's it was And it wasn't even you didn't

(30:31):
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 going to do a mutiny in this article.
And at that point I realized, like, oh man, a

(30:51):
career could be made or or dead it in one
fell swoop with just one article running.

Speaker 6 (30:58):
Point for me. Okay, so long story, I guess. Long
story short, It's like I didn't even work at Vibe
at that point. I 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

(31:20):
exist anymore and hasn't for years, called Request magazine that
you used to be able to get at Tower Records.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Okay, yes, I love the Requests.

Speaker 6 (31:28):
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 Requests. So I did a cover story on Arrested
Development when they launched.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
Oh, okay, okay, So.

Speaker 6 (31:49):
It was great. Man, you're talking about Tennessee, you know
what I mean? You talking about all of that. I
fell in love with them, man, I fell in love
with them, they fell in love with me. It was
a Carver story. And this was back before I had
been in the business long enough to realize it's not
always wise to fall in love with groups, and it's
not always wise to allow groups to fall in love

(32:11):
with you. I didn't know. I was 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, it was emi am
I right?

Speaker 4 (32:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (32:28):
So the woman who was a publicist there was like, hey,
you know, Vibe is doing this thing. Do you want
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 send
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 respect for him, but you

(32:51):
could tell from the moment that I got in a
car with him that things weren't okay with the group,
and it seemed like something he didn't want to get
into detail about. But you know, as a reporter, I
have my instincts, I have my feelings, and so when
I began to talk to the other members.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
Of the group and you were allowed to, Yes, this was.

Speaker 6 (33:15):
A different time, y'all. There was no internet.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Interview, no evidence.

Speaker 6 (33:29):
And what's so wild though, it was like at a
certain point I wasn't even going to people to talk
to them, and were coming to me. And listen, I
remember that group so well, man, and it's it's heartbreaking
to me because there's such a like the music isn't
necessarily necessarily always so like wildly optimistic. But it's just

(33:53):
like I've been around Public Enemy. Those are my guys.
They're not the most optimistic group of brothers. 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.
Everything was like, you know, the blood in the in

(34:13):
the dirt, like we was all in the red class,
like we was all in it, like everybody from the
Northeast used to go back south in the summertime. Like
all of that feeling was there. But then, you know,
I remember that DJ's name was Headliner, right, Dion Ferris.

Speaker 5 (34:32):
Was coming back. It's coming back, It's coming back, all right, and.

Speaker 6 (34:36):
You know, things just weren't going well. It's so hard.
And I know, Quest knows this 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, you could ask the Supremes,
you can anybody the comress like it's hard to keep
a band together. Yes, and everybody was mad, and everybody's

(35:02):
talking into the tape recorder and.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
They let her know. I went.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
If you remember Ursula 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 had their own thing, and I
came in the following Monday like shake it in my
boots because I was just like, oh, man, like they're

(35:29):
done with, They're over with, And if they're that easy.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
To get, like what does that mean for us?

Speaker 2 (35:37):
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 arrest development had reached
the mountaintop. They've reached the mountaintop that day. Yeah, that
Daylight Tribe, like a lot of those acts couldn't get
to But.

Speaker 7 (35:55):
They didn't come up together though, right, Like did they
come up together like that all of their Yeah, I
mean people.

Speaker 6 (36:01):
Of them had with a lot of other groups like
that didn't. Once Speech had mad ambition. Everybody doesn't come
with mad ambition. Some people just want to make a
record and get it out there. Some other 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 checking, went through the lawyers and went

(36:22):
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 in the
group were so happy and grateful to me. Some were
we're grateful to me. But I just want to say

(36:42):
as well, it just basically outlined that the group was
not happy and was probably not going to stay together.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
Gotcha, Okay, check it out. I don't know. Have you
have you read Murray's White's autobiography.

Speaker 4 (36:54):
I have not yet.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
I mean, it's kind of the structure where wait, we
just recently did and interview with someone.

Speaker 4 (37:02):
He was Larry Blair.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
Black said.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
Larry Blair said it was a democracy. Uh uh, what
do you call it? Dictatorship? It's like it's like a
democracy dictatorship where I guess it's the I I think
it's the the idea of, hey, we're a community where

(37:25):
all these things. But really, I mean, the decision falls
on one person, that person's.

Speaker 6 (37:29):
Speech and about a lot of groups like that.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
So that's why I'm saying with the with the Earth,
Wind and Fire book, No, not even that, I mean
Marius White, I mean Philip Bailey. He went into heavy
with Oh, okay, Maurice is sort of the state of Earth,
would and Fire.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
We're just people for higher.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
And as as I'm certain that you know Fonte, you
know absolutely as an artist about being blue collar. Like
often we get in this game because we you know,
we we see these slow motion william shots and it's
like we get our Bentley moment and it never happens

(38:12):
that way. And it's just that this time headliner was
just mad about his money, mad about like the situations.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
But it was very much like you know, the rest
of the band.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Was explaining how unsatisfied they were with the situation that
they were.

Speaker 6 (38:32):
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.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
That's the first thing Black people never seen something to
that level.

Speaker 6 (38:47):
No, because this is the thing because because the media
that is considered to be ours right have any essence,
you know, going back to the to the black newspapers
that came out of Reconstruction all the way up through
the fifties and through the civil rights movement and everything else.
Like the reason that these things came to be is

(39:10):
because we were treated so unfairly 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 talk about the black artists. Or you would talk
about all the male artists and not talk about the
women artists.

Speaker 7 (39:26):
So it's like.

Speaker 6 (39:28):
Vibe existed 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 supported by Quincy by Alan in doing that.

(39:56):
And honestly, it was a very difficult piece for me
to write for the for the magazine to publish, and
also it set the industry back on his heels a
bit that it's like, we love Vibe, but you just
don't know. You still kids don't know. Yeah, And so

(40:18):
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 got to remember one of the
first pieces, and Bob, I think it's in the Treasch
issue right that the test issue in which Trench was
on the cover, and there's a big piece by the

(40:38):
great Scott Posts and Brian in that piece and the
and the headline is one for all time about Sean Colmes.
The headline is this is not a puff piece right right,
So it's something for so many 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,

(41:02):
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 and multicultural audience vibe
to hear and see. So it was it was very.

Speaker 5 (41:22):
Hard for most black women.

Speaker 7 (41:28):
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 of your journalistic
mind or does that not.

Speaker 5 (41:37):
Even ever come into your head?

Speaker 7 (41:38):
There's this and it's funny because I was like, I
wonder if she writes it, I haven't gotten to that
point if you write about this and shine bright, 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.

Speaker 5 (41:54):
Did you ever have that moment?

Speaker 6 (41:55):
I have that moment every day of my career?

Speaker 5 (41:58):
Okay, okay, I thought that to tell I look at
your face. I was like, am I saying something born?

Speaker 6 (42:02):
I know every every every every day of my career,
and especially as editor in chief of Vibe. It's it's
even different as being editor of Billboard. Talk about that. Wow,
it's a trade magazine. It's it's all, it's all, it's
all genres. I gotta know about what's going on in country, classical,

(42:23):
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 in 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 a Vibe, you're
covering black culture for a multi for a black and
multicultural audience. It's not even used to being covered all

(42:46):
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 Abnuye, it's like James Ball when
and everybody's in there. It's a different situation. But then
to me, you took pressures from the community. It just
became more and more like you can always expect good
and proper news from Ebanue.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
Until that Cosby issue. Well, no, no, it hats off
to Kiaran for that. Yes, that's the first.

Speaker 6 (43:15):
Time that from what generation, the hip hop generation.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
Yes, exactly, yes, And.

Speaker 6 (43:21):
So that's what I'm saying. It just it's it's hard,
you know, it's hard when I can think of even
small things like I remember I interviewed Wesley Snipes for
the cover of That's my first Vibe cover.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Yeah, I remember that issue.

Speaker 6 (43:34):
That was a great issue. Man. My mom drove me
to his house in Venice. He was going through it.
And that also that movie wasn't good, which it was Demolition.

Speaker 4 (43:44):
Man, The Blind Hair.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Hot.

Speaker 6 (43:50):
It was a hot mess and the movie the film was,
but Wesley himself wasn't and it never has been. So
to me, it's one of the more under rated these
actors in the history of cinema. Like he's so good.
I'm not saying he's made all the proper moves and
all of that. But but my thing is, how do
you how do you say that? But then how.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Do you say in a way that's not how do
you say that?

Speaker 6 (44:18):
And that's the work for me, That's the work in
shine bright for me, Like how do I how do
I talk about Whitney Houston's mom?

Speaker 1 (44:27):
Sure you handled that awesomely, by the way.

Speaker 6 (44:30):
Oh thank you? Who to me is it's just like
she's so important to the history of American populic she
literally trained Whitney Houston. She literally sang behind Elvis Presley,
she literally sang behind Bam Morrison, Jimmy Hendris, everybody. And
it's like she literally contributed to the vocal arrangements for
all of this big pop and she trained Whitney. At

(44:51):
the same time, she just didn't accept her daughter for
who she was.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
Yo.

Speaker 7 (44:55):
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, even talking to

(45:16):
me and a miryor 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 you 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 shit with
them basically, right, there's no man.

Speaker 5 (45:45):
There's no man.

Speaker 6 (45:46):
So how do you like navigate that?

Speaker 5 (45:48):
That's it'sious.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Well, I don't be canceled culture was I think then
you know what I mean, right as wes as it
is now.

Speaker 7 (45:58):
Yeah, I guess that's why less get paid less and
less they can hardly write well.

Speaker 6 (46:03):
It's also because artists have so many other avenues in
which to tell their story. It used to be that
the only place that you had to know. Yeah, you
just go on I Live. You can go right to
your Twitter feed, your ig feed, and some of that.
I have to say, I am not.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
Mad at like I I miss it, even if it's
the judgment of your.

Speaker 6 (46:29):
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 cord, right, So do you
miss that feeling of like, oh my god, yeah, this
is we're vibe? But yeah, of course. But you know,
to everything, there is a season we were we were
we were needed for that at that time, we were

(46:52):
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.

Speaker 5 (47:04):
Okay, thank you, come on, yes and.

Speaker 6 (47:06):
So and so no, and not even to get into
the complexities of Michael situation, but just to say this,
just to talk about the Internet part of it. So
the person that's directing her answered 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 a 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? This, that, and 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, thirteen, fourteen,

(47:52):
fifteen years old, and all I wanted to know about
was Michael Jackson. If I didn't have Cynthia Horner's right
on magazine, what really would I have?

Speaker 1 (48:02):
Right?

Speaker 6 (48:03):
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, I said, so,
I actually feel flush man with joy that I can
put Michael Jackson's name into a Google search and just
see every million, even if the news is bad, even

(48:24):
if the news is ugly. I I would rather that
than to have, like to be searching and thirsty to
know something about being one. Yes, So that's why go ahead?

Speaker 1 (48:35):
Can I ask a question? All right?

Speaker 2 (48:38):
I was going to 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 issued
to put together.

Speaker 6 (48:51):
Of course, you know what I mean? What year was that?

Speaker 4 (48:53):
Was?

Speaker 6 (48:53):
I there?

Speaker 2 (48:54):
Ninety five Michael Jackson was on the cover of Vibe
magazine dressed very uncharacteristically. He was I think Cadata had
dressed him in Tommy. Wait, you don't remember this.

Speaker 4 (49:07):
I don't remember he had a kango on.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
He got a kango remember Michael Jackson.

Speaker 6 (49:12):
I remember it. 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 there?

Speaker 5 (49:19):
Reading Michael makes history?

Speaker 7 (49:21):
Uh the King of Pop strikes a pose, Easy E's
Final Days, Notorious Big Smokers smokes Cali into the Wu
Tang clan with uh oh, I can't read the name
something uhlone.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
That was ninety five.

Speaker 6 (49:38):
Barely have any memory of that except for Easy.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
Damn. That's a flex. That's a flex. Michael Jackson, don't
remember that ship.

Speaker 4 (49:45):
What do you remember about Easy? What do you remember
about the Easy interview?

Speaker 6 (49:48):
This is Easy?

Speaker 4 (49:49):
Well, this is this is post he had died.

Speaker 6 (49:53):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's what that was. That's what
That's what I remember about that about that particular issue
because ninety so I'm music editor. I just remember that.

Speaker 5 (50:03):
Well.

Speaker 6 (50:03):
One, I just remember that it was you remember from
the Bay Area, So I had been known about dealing
with AIDS, probably in a closer proximity 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

(50:26):
E fan, but just as a human being, man, it
was just too much. And also the way hip hop
was dealing with it was crazy. 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 Vibe cover, which we

(50:49):
were very meticulous about on most issues. But you also
gotta believe too. Again, I don't know even know 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. Because
you understand too, and in that era, Quincy Jones had

(51:10):
a lot more to do with the day to day
than he did. By the time I became properly editor
in chief.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
I just was always just the impressions, like, okay, he
started this magazine and I'll see y'all later.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Oh but he was day to day No, okay, he was.

Speaker 6 (51:29):
He was not day to day, but he was like,
if it had something to do with something that Quincy
had something to do with, then mister Jones was involved. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (51:41):
I don't know if I talk about it in Shine Bright,
but my first experience, so I did her Franklin and
then let me not get my dates mixed up. But
I feel like I was called to the phone and
I was told that Quincy was on the phone with
Joe Jackson because oh wow, because it was it was

(52:02):
Janet had an album coming out and so we needed
to get that together. And I was on the phone
with Quincy and he is they've known each other since
the dawn of time, and I was the sitting editor
in chief, and I was just like, why am I
even on the call? Hello? Yeah, And they were just yeah,

(52:25):
just hash and stuff out. And then I was like,
they asked me, like, who who should the writer be?
They asked I think Joe asked Quincy that and then
Quincy finally said, Damne, like this is your moment, like
speak up, like this is your area or whatever. Yes,

(52:45):
And I was like, well, you know, I think it
should be me. And they were like, Joe was like, really,
why I said, And I said, simple reasons. I said,
because I saw her before at the Circle Star Theater
than Carlos, California when I was eight years old for
my birthday, so bo I probably had the longest relationship

(53:07):
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 Dreams Street if you want to.
We could do what you want to do. And so
that's when Joe said, it seemed like you should be

(53:27):
the person.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (53:30):
I mean I probably my voice was a little bit
more shaky back at those times. Yes, let me not
act like I was coming with all the like the
all the full confidence. But it's just when Quincy Jones
shoots you to Rondo Pass, it's like you better just
act like Kevin Garna.

Speaker 7 (53:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
Yeah, So for Sean Bright, what was probably the most
surprising revelation in constructing this and also was there anyone
that you had to leave on the side of the
road that you wanted to include.

Speaker 6 (54:01):
The most crazy thing to me about Seine Bright is
just how much music comes out of segregated times. Oh
my god, it's it just never would just cease to
amaze me. And you keep thinking that as the decades
go by, that it's going to be different, and then
it just isn't. I mean, even if it's like somebody

(54:23):
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 that enough. Like everyone decides
like we're just all out here going to school together
and you know, being friends together, and out of that
comes multi Out of that multicultural stew comes this amazing
thing called pop. Well now, well, absolutely no. So that

(54:47):
was the fact that it just kept coming up, and
I just got to be very nosy about it too.
I wanted to know the details off and I'm like,
so you're on the back of the bus, what's going on?

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (55:01):
When you were talking to the Dixie Clubs at one time,
it seemed like one is the sisters was like, okay, Dan, they.

Speaker 6 (55:07):
Were 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.

Speaker 7 (55:16):
Because the fact that you dropped after that was something
that I didn't know.

Speaker 6 (55:20):
You said.

Speaker 5 (55:20):
The thing about the screen.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Yeah, it was a metaphor. I didn't know.

Speaker 6 (55:24):
It's a 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
made and they made the black person do it.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
So basically there's there's a part in telling the Dixie
Cup story which their single was going to the.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
Chapel single, number one, number one single, right.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
So there, I guess you could say the real first
ring of of.

Speaker 7 (55:57):
Girl.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
I mean they.

Speaker 6 (56:01):
Let me do like they love me do out of
number one.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
So the Dixie Cups is going to the Chapel Yes,
you know, they're the first black group to to hit
number one. Yes, 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 Bush writers would often
tell and I'm saying, tell very lightly, uh, black people

(56:28):
to move to the back of the bus, and they
would put a I guess there is a disposable screen
that you can put up, a movable screen, a movable screen.

Speaker 5 (56:39):
To it should have been in the same regulated place.

Speaker 6 (56:42):
I always thought, that's no, okay. So this is the
thing that is 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

(57:04):
like into thirds, and that the white people had the
first two thirds and then the black people have the
area like from the back door of the bus on.
But see, no, this is what's crazy. They moved the goalpost. Essentially,
the more white people that got on, the smaller the

(57:25):
black area would get because this screen was movable. And
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?

(57:49):
And this isn't New Orleans, Louisiana. And I told her,
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 depended on
the way they woke.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Up that morning.

Speaker 6 (58:04):
She did, and I said, we don't know how segregation
really was functioning. It wasn't separate but equal.

Speaker 5 (58:13):
It wasn't separate, but it.

Speaker 6 (58:14):
Was really going to the museum only on Tuesday mornings
when black people were allowed and stuff like. It was
really there's a thing I write 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

(58:35):
know how conceited you are as a girl when you're
like nineteen or twenty and you think you're cute and
you're really in the mirror and you really get that Messcara, right,
this is before lashes and you're really the pre lash
era and you're really what you're mabling getting right, and
your grandmother's irritating you because your tights, your top is
too tight and your skirt is too short. So my

(58:57):
grandmother is really giving 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 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

(59:19):
all just hang out there and it's just so cool.
It's like a lounge and drinks is amazing. It'said, okay,
where is it? And I told her the place. She said, oh,
I know that place because my granda, my grandmother, is
born and raised in Oakland. I said, Grandma, you could
not know the place, like you're one hundred, I'm twenty.
Like stop, Grandma, I love you, but no, she said, ma'am, listen,

(59:45):
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
morning on Wednesday, so we just had to go on
Tuesday and on Saturday and Sunday and Friday, or on

(01:00:05):
Friday and Saturday, when when it's a normal time for
people to party. It 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 Nights. 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.

Speaker 5 (01:00:30):
You blew my mind with that, because I was like,
that's nationwide.

Speaker 6 (01:00:33):
There's always a week night. It's always on a weeknight.
Black night is always on a weeknight.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
You're you're right about that.

Speaker 6 (01:00:42):
And yeah, when I love writing 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 ahead
of music at MPR and was music editor s F
Weekly and I became music edit of SF Week San
Francisco right after and and really handheld me into that job.

(01:01:04):
And something that Anne taught me was this is back
in the nineteen ninety one nineteen ninety two, 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 enraptured by that,
and I still am. I still am. I take notes

(01:01:25):
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 Tuesday night thing is the scene.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
So in your history, what will you say is your
three definitive pieces of work.

Speaker 6 (01:01:47):
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 collection of
essays about Chupac Shakr that if I put together in
a book called tubakshak Kor, and you can find it
at just google New York Times Daniel Smith tupakshak Or,
And it's about a forty five hundred word piece that

(01:02:10):
basically just takes his career and life into consideration. And
so that is one for me. The second one is
for 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 at Super Bowl.
I just really felt like, and my editor really felt like,
and in fairness ESPN really felt like it hadn't really

(01:02:33):
been written about at the intersection of culture sport and
just like American history. I put so much work into
that Whitney Houston piece and it paid off in won awards.
Like it's really one of my favorite pieces probably that

(01:02:54):
I ever wrote. And you know, I think I'm very
smart in that piece.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Can you give a summary of that, because I'm curious.

Speaker 6 (01:03:02):
It's just very about Whitney Houston putting the entire country
on her bag because 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 I covered her performance in a second by seconds way.

(01:03:28):
I covered every single second of her performance, and that's
what I wanted for my conclusion, and that's what we had.
And I just talk about her at the end, just
you know, 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, and really, to me,
I was trying to say how inappropriate, it is, but

(01:03:51):
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. Are
they shorten that lyric? And Whitney put a whole curly
qu at the end of it. She went up higher
than she even normally goes. She went up into Mariah's

(01:04:12):
territory at that moment. She stood there in an at
ease like kind of stance. 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 corteses. I
was like, who is that lady?

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
To me, you're ninety five Kel's piece, which.

Speaker 6 (01:04:38):
We'll see that's blocked.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
But you're like the one that literally broke the story.

Speaker 6 (01:04:44):
Yes, we did. It was it was a team effort,
but we did.

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
Yes, Okay, I didn't know what's the team effort.

Speaker 6 (01:04:49):
The team effort comes in I'm on the road with
Dana Luxemburg. We're chasing him down. But the reporting of
Dana Luxemburg's a photographer that shot him for the cover.
The cover it is, And I'm happy you brought that up. Honestly,
because because really the headline is for all time, the sex,
the soul, the sales, and the scandalous marriage to teenage

(01:05:10):
superstar Alia. 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
and we didn't even know what we didn't know at
that time. And so me and Dana are on the road.
This is Allanson and Me and Dana Lixemburg on the road.

(01:05:34):
Dana shot so many great shots of low Kim Chupac Shakor.
But so our goal is we got to get the story,
and we need him to speak. And also I got
to report. I gotta find his teacher. I gotta find
you know, I got to interview all types of people.
His bodyguard let me in. We were at the what

(01:05:55):
was it, what was it called the arena and Philly
Beck then the Spectrum or therum, the spectrum, so I'm
in the bowels of the spectrum. It wasn't Fuzzy, but
it was another radio DJ that 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 soundcheck that we had snuck into, and I told

(01:06:16):
him my situation and he was like, you can have
my backstage fast.

Speaker 7 (01:06:20):
I never like if that was cosmic kass right, And
I was like, man, you making my whole life.

Speaker 2 (01:06:28):
You were doing the story and you weren't officially traveling
with the camp.

Speaker 6 (01:06:35):
Not at all. We got on Amtrak from New York
to the filling and they weren't super No. They were
literally signs up backstage at the Spectrum that said, if
you see anybody from Vibe here, escort them off the premises.

Speaker 4 (01:06:52):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (01:06:52):
Wow, And so we were like wow what. He just
felt like public enemy number one because we had a
story on the This was my thing when I was
at by music editor or 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 on

(01:07:13):
to that like I would. My thing was very much
like you promised no.

Speaker 7 (01:07:17):
No.

Speaker 6 (01:07:17):
A person could be like yes, but I know somebody
can easily be like my fingers are crossed when I
said it, like that's how, that's how, but that's how.
That's how serious. I was about it though, I was
just very like, no, they promised, so they're going to
be held to that, and so Jive and and and
and mister Kelly had promised we were doing this cover

(01:07:38):
story and then because the Aliyah 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 Danta has to shoot you with

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

(01:08:21):
you know what, this disarming disarming so so so Robert
said she could come in.

Speaker 5 (01:08:28):
That's because you.

Speaker 6 (01:08:30):
Right, listen, listen. I appreciate that. I'm sorry, but listen.
So then Dana said, because we were really ganggang Dana said, okay,
but I'm not coming in without Danielle. So then Robert said,
if you because he knew I was. I had covered

(01:08:52):
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 he said,
with a pin. Okay, okay, but see I had a pencil.
So it was like a man. Listen. It was so crazy.

(01:09:16):
I can't even tell you how crazy that was. But
what I'm saying, why was such a team effort aside
from the fact that I had Allan advising me, that
Dana had George Pitts, the photo director, advising her because
we didn't know what to do. Also, you guys got
to remember we were kids. I was twenty eight. I

(01:09:36):
was a child, like I mean I was. I was
young in the game, but was just on it. And
so while Alan was advising me and George Pitts, who's
gone now God blessed dead, was advising Dana, then Carter
Harris and Rob Kenner and the whole Vibe team was

(01:09:58):
back there trying to find him. Mayor that was the goal.
That was set and we refused not to meet that challenge.

Speaker 5 (01:10:07):
Wow, how do you do that?

Speaker 4 (01:10:08):
That's what I might say, how do you do that?
In ninety five?

Speaker 6 (01:10:11):
Let me tell yourself that it was work and we
had we had contacts, We were reporters, We knew people,
who knew people who knew people. I mean, we were
the ones that reported the fact that how Aleiah climbed
out of the window and got with the bodyguards and
they got on a private plane down to Florida, Like

(01:10:32):
this is because we know people who know people.

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
Yes, you guys have to be Google.

Speaker 6 (01:10:37):
We had to be and so and so Carter and
then found that mairor certificate and we ran it. And
that's also another one of those to go back quest.
So what you were talking about with the rest of development,
that was another time when people said, oh, Vibe is serious,
because you got to understand. I remember to see one
of the higher upset Vibe calling me either on that

(01:11:01):
issue or the next time we put him on the
cover when we had even more evidence about his doings.
I remember just putting it on a speaker and just
allowing people to walk into my office hearing that man
call me. Every type of bi tch lowlife, who re
Vibe being fish Wrap Vibe being? I was leading, who

(01:11:22):
is this?

Speaker 1 (01:11:22):
This is?

Speaker 6 (01:11:23):
This is like someone very high up at Jive Records.
Does he still have a job? Does he to have
a job to have a job, Yes, he does. So
I'm just sailing. And then I remember too that Robert
was saying he was going to sue Vive. He was
going on I guess it was hot ninety seven saying that,
and I went on the radio because they'd be like, well,

(01:11:44):
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
you guys are going to get sued? And Robert Kelly
said he's going to put Vibe out of business? And
I said, what was in true? I used to feel
so confident in our which people don't have anymore in journalism.

(01:12:05):
I used to feel confident in our reporting. I used
to feel confident in our fact checking, and I used
to feel confident in the fact that every single solitary
page of Bob magazine went by lawyers before it went
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

(01:12:28):
to say in Oakland. He's just side busting because if
he wanted to sue, then he would, but he would
have to prove one that we were wrong in too,
that we had malicious intent, and we have neither.

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
So when you run that piece about you know, him
doing all the abuse and just all the fuck shit,
how do you then reconcile when it's time to review
his next album?

Speaker 6 (01:12:53):
So I was there for two stories, two cover stories
of our healing, and I don't I mean, 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

(01:13:13):
like this, And this is purely me guessing. The record
is coming out. He hasn't been convicted of anything, 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.

Speaker 7 (01:13:36):
Do you think that's how it should in twenty twenty two,
with all the lenses. Is that how the conversation should
still go.

Speaker 6 (01:13:43):
I think once a person is convicted of something, then
the conversation changes because a thing too particular too 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

(01:14:05):
people was 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 Vibe that that happens at all places

(01:14:26):
of 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 killed.

Speaker 4 (01:14:39):
Yeah, murder is murder is.

Speaker 6 (01:14:42):
A legal term. It's a legal term, and so these
are that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
So you would have to say Stupak is killed. You
couldn't say that it was a murder. You could not
until well I'm being hypothetical when I asked, yes.

Speaker 6 (01:14:53):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:15:16):
In your I guess, in your your tenure there, who
were some of the writers that you helped usher into
the game? People that kind of started off as interned
to it now, like, man, listen.

Speaker 5 (01:15:32):
Look at your phone, look at your phone.

Speaker 6 (01:15:33):
I know at first, well, let me just say this,
I don't know who all I ushered in, but I
do know that I've worked with some amazing people. I mean,
when I got there, you know, Allan and Jonathan van
Meder had already hired people like Joan Morgan, who's doctor
Joan Morgan now, Scot Scott Polson, Brian who's doctor Scott Pulsing,

(01:15:55):
Bryan now, people like that, like okay, and then when
I when I got there, I mean, Karen Rene Good Marrable,
I was gonna.

Speaker 2 (01:16:06):
Say, Karen Good was just starting out like she was
as I did.

Speaker 6 (01:16:15):
I mean, Karen and I are girlfriends. Karen was at
my wedding, Like that's how you know we're girlfriends? Like
that so obviously Karen Good Marrable, who writes a lot
now so much beautiful stuff for the Oxford American, but
also Sasha Jenkins, Jeff mal also I think, yeah, I
always gotta be careful talking about who I get a

(01:16:36):
start to, right, yes, but but no, Rockelcipated definitely is
the genius. And she wrote for a Vibe when I
was there. And also that's I met Elliott Wilson, my husband,
and then I signed him his first Vibe record review also.

Speaker 4 (01:16:53):
First five record review.

Speaker 6 (01:16:54):
You remember, no, but he was he does, but but
there was way before we started dating. I was actually married.
Elliot's my second husband. In case people don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:17:04):
No, really didn't.

Speaker 6 (01:17:05):
How long was your first your first short and sweet? Nice?

Speaker 5 (01:17:09):
How old were you?

Speaker 6 (01:17:11):
I got married at like twenty two?

Speaker 4 (01:17:13):
Oh yeah that was yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:17:15):
Is it hard when well, I mean at one point
both of you were editor in chiefs of Competing. We
were so because you guys were married and you're editor
in chief of Competing not had Phil McCoy level.

Speaker 1 (01:17:32):
It was competition, it was yeah. So how does that work?

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):
Like how do you find what separation of church and
state when both of you are fishing for like the
same story.

Speaker 6 (01:17:44):
Well, we had a history of it already. Elliott want
to become when we were back when we were just colleagues,
Elliott 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.

Speaker 5 (01:18:07):
Set and sounds like that's one of y'all love languages.

Speaker 6 (01:18:12):
Yeah, and then when I was when I was in
grad school by this time, he was at it in
chief of XXCEL and this was around the time when
we started dating. I had to respect it. Like that's
when he put a feenie 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 during it. I didn't even know if we had

(01:18:32):
phones back then. But I just remember saying to people, like,
I know he had to fight to get that done.
I know what that fight must have been like. And
I respected it. So then when we got married, 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 really very

(01:18:55):
willy nilly. We thought it was going to be very
easy to man, it's just facient and after 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 it's such as such a sweetheart. But he's
just not really known for, you know, taking things lightly.
He's a very passionate individual.

Speaker 1 (01:19:24):
So he found him down.

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
I will say the Elliott now is way more calm,
and I actually credit that to you because just his
his nerdy ego trip like days of yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:19:38):
Yeah, those are my guys, though all of them tore
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. 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 call them
back then, the rules and regulations and some times and conditions.

Speaker 5 (01:20:14):
Come on, now, you got to give us a couple
I got to know, well, I.

Speaker 6 (01:20:18):
Mean if I'm honest. The main one was just that
you could not discuss in any way at home anything
that was going on with the issue at work. But
you could say somebody was getting on your nerves or
I don't know why they don't have Coca colas and
the refrigerator at work, but you couldn't. You couldn't come

(01:20:39):
home and say, like, I'm really trying to get this
cover with a B or C.

Speaker 4 (01:20:42):
No, gotcha, got you, gotcha?

Speaker 1 (01:20:45):
Let me ask.

Speaker 2 (01:20:46):
Only because again, like you and 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 time in which and I'm using more hyperbole
when I say dangerous, I'll say more like exciting times,

(01:21:09):
but I'll also say serious times. Like you you were,
you were definitely around during like the what they would
call the danger era of the East and West thing.
But you know, for also him as as a wife,
were you concerned about his situation at the source, because

(01:21:30):
he too was sort of in a word pickled situation.

Speaker 6 (01:21:36):
I mean, he was at XXL at that time, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:39):
Right, and like, was there just any just general worry
for safety coming for 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 and bringing it into the home.

Speaker 6 (01:22:00):
When Elliott was going through the most terrible stuff, we
were not dating. We weren't. Okay, yeah, we weren't. We
started dating at the I think the end of three.
But let me not let me not put too fun
a point on it, because Elliot. Elliott was away in
the streets at the time when we were dating.

Speaker 2 (01:22:17):
So just for our listeners, Elliott was at Exxcel right
during the height of I guess the Eminem versus ben
Zeno wars, and.

Speaker 1 (01:22:30):
It would get very serious, very serious.

Speaker 6 (01:22:33):
As I said, at the 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 certain scene of writers and
stuch in New York at that time, Black writers and
stuff 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

(01:22:53):
write for me when I was a music editor at Vibe,
and he was always supportive of me. I remember when
my book came out and Know Three, my first novel,
he came into because he was bawling. He came into
Barnes and Noble, brought like fifteen 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,

(01:23:15):
they would say that Elliott was going through it. You know,
people that saw him. I mean, these are his stories
to tell, but people that saw him more than I did.
And I 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 you know,
stuff that he still manages to this day. So I mean,

(01:23:37):
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 were just you know, threats were made
and it's like 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

(01:23:59):
the office and I 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 you're it was
a different error. She's like, just 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? She's like, yes, you're cursing a lot

(01:24:22):
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 to stab or 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.

(01:24:44):
I mean, I was only there for about five more
months because we were scared. And also, you guys understand
how invested we were in Vibe success, how much responsibility
we felt to the community and to our elves and
and just the music into hip hop culture. Like we

(01:25:04):
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.

Speaker 7 (01:25:12):
They had to be a lot of pressure because you're
top of that food chain.

Speaker 6 (01:25:16):
Yeah, and people were people were attacking us physically. People
were getting guns pulled on them in the studio overmember
record reviews and stuff, and so it's.

Speaker 1 (01:25:29):
Like, yeah, would you change anything?

Speaker 6 (01:25:33):
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, I think about think
about your think about I call them my baby cousins
and stuff like, think I think about my baby cousins
that are like twenty five years old right now. They

(01:25:53):
come over and ask 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 whole Like I thought that
was right. I was a whole R and B editor
of Billboard at that at your age, man.

Speaker 7 (01:26:06):
Like.

Speaker 6 (01:26:07):
What like I was? I was? I was editing Haveloc
Nelson when I was like twenty five.

Speaker 5 (01:26:14):
That's not fair to put that.

Speaker 3 (01:26:15):
Now, their age, their age like a twenty four, you know,
in ninety five, and a twenty four in twenty twenty
two or two.

Speaker 6 (01:26:22):
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 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 and such didn't
like the review, and I told him I was I could.

(01:26:42):
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 mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:26:54):
But that was statement.

Speaker 6 (01:26:55):
Well, it's it's loaded from a native yeh, I feel,
but that's still shouldn't be. No, it's not normalized. But
in the nineteen late nineteen eighties in Oakland and East
Oakland in particular, but in West Oakland.

Speaker 5 (01:27:09):
Too, in your office and I'm talking about this storied
no no, but.

Speaker 6 (01:27:13):
I'm saying that, you know, and you just kind of
kind of had to be about it in East Okland.
And so did I bring some of that being about
it to the offices of Vibe. I probably did. I
probably did.

Speaker 2 (01:27:29):
When you are running a ship like that, is there
pressure that you felt that your male contemporaries wouldn't have
had that have gone through yes, like timeout with Salan
and jonathanis screamer? Were they screamers or not at all?

Speaker 1 (01:27:50):
Not at all.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
I almost think Alan's like not passive aggressive, but.

Speaker 6 (01:27:55):
Like, no, Allan's is a very soft spoken dude.

Speaker 1 (01:27:58):
Right, That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 6 (01:27:59):
So people deal with white men differently than they deal
with black women, all positions of power. 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 front row in Milan at you know,
the Jill Sanders Show and things like that, and trying

(01:28:21):
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 magazines and that ran
a vibe after me, and I know what their experiences

(01:28:44):
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? Yeah? Were there times when
it was easier for me maybe, but not enough.

Speaker 4 (01:29:06):
It didn't balance out the hard shit.

Speaker 2 (01:29:08):
No, as an artist, I wanted to study who the
gatekeepers of reviews and words were when at the well
I'm still making records, but the time when I was
making products. But for you, do you have hope for
what counts for journalism today? Because I will say that

(01:29:32):
there's like a level of thoroughness that is kind of lost,
and there's also just technique and and I'm not saying that.

Speaker 1 (01:29:39):
It's it's it's a lost art.

Speaker 2 (01:29:40):
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 where
just you know, 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 and add to it,

(01:30:01):
do you feel like your era of the NBA or
the new era of the NBA is can hold a
candle to your era of it?

Speaker 6 (01:30:13):
It's harder, but yes, I do think they can. For
the most part. If there's differences in quality, it's not
the fault of the writer.

Speaker 1 (01:30:24):
It's also what they have to write about.

Speaker 6 (01:30:26):
No, it's the fact that there's no budgets for anything.
There's no If you're writing right now for twenty cents
a word, how much 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 stuff
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

(01:30:49):
pay me. And so then you have kids who aren't
getting fact checked. You have kids 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.

(01:31:09):
You have people that are only doing email interviews because
no one wants to pay somebody's cab across town, let
alone a plane trip. I remember when I sent Michael Gonzalez,
another great writer from the Vibe era, shout Michael Gonzalez,
Gonzo Mike it. It's like I remember Barry White had
an album coming out that was the Practice What You

(01:31:29):
Preach album, and they were like, well, I wanted a story,
Like I just wanted the story. I wanted the story.
I think I was music editor 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 them the situation and they said, welly,

(01:31:51):
I'm gonna taket to Brussels and they went. And it's
a great, great story from Michael on the headline is
BlackBerry Jam and it's an a 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

(01:32:12):
was because ESPN has budgets. As I said, they sent
me to Katar to do someone boles. When is that happening?
They can afford to to to take care of people
like Justin Tensay, like David Dennis like so Ria like yeah,
like you know, like so that people can make a
living and have a life. There's not even that many

(01:32:33):
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 to swing back, but it's
going to take some footstopping 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
is called for, I don't know, but.

Speaker 2 (01:32:51):
Something that I give, Okay, are you going to write
any more fictional novels?

Speaker 6 (01:32:58):
Whether yes, I love fiction and my MFA 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. Yeah, it's what I'm into right now,
and thinking about how to maybe even look at my

(01:33:19):
first two novels and how those things might turn into
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 that I'm thinking about a lot, trying
to learn about taking a page out of your books,
are just trying to look at what could happened it? Yeah,
what can happen in documentary spaces and things like that.

Speaker 2 (01:33:40):
I'm actually, you know, I guess by the time this airs,
will already made an announcement like I'm a Freddy Cat
in terms of I never make an announcement until the
project is finished, okay, when it comes. But the probably
the biggest secret I've been keeping under my hat for
the last two years is I too, have.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
Written a fictional book.

Speaker 2 (01:34:03):
And well, well, I will assume that this will come
out by next week. So I'm I've been a junkie
of time travel and I'm one of my favorite writers,
a gentleman named s A. Cosby who he's written many
a New York Times bestseller. So he and I sort

(01:34:23):
of came friends over the pandemic, and I guess, you know,
taking a 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

(01:34:44):
the books that I.

Speaker 1 (01:34:45):
Didn't get to read as a kid.

Speaker 6 (01:34:47):
So it's and are those books like black people traveling
in Time? Is that? What is?

Speaker 1 (01:34:52):
Yeah, it's it's two kids. It's it's it's middle school books.
So it's it's two kids.

Speaker 4 (01:34:56):
That are as a yo novel.

Speaker 1 (01:34:59):
Yeah, it's it's it's two kids that are.

Speaker 6 (01:35:01):
Are are I love to hear it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:04):
Yeah, a grown up boy. They're both fourteen and fifteen.

Speaker 2 (01:35:07):
And the girl she's like a science wizard and she
invents a time travel device and he gets the bright
idea to try to save one of his groups that
he admired, uh from breaking up and the butterfly effect
of Yeah, of that anyway.

Speaker 6 (01:35:22):
Sounds really good. That's like I remember I used to
read all those Madelin 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.

Speaker 4 (01:35:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:35:35):
I kept that one and then under Wraps only because
like again, I have like nine projects on the back
burner and maybe only four of them will actually make
it to fruition and the other five sort of fall
out the wayside, and then I got to figure out
what to do with it.

Speaker 6 (01:35:52):
But this sounds really exciting. It sounds so excited.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
Thank you, I'm excited.

Speaker 3 (01:35:56):
I want to ask you, damn before we break up.
So were you editor and vibe was this like eight
ninety nine? Were you still there at that time.

Speaker 6 (01:36:04):
I was there from ninety seven to ninety nine.

Speaker 4 (01:36:06):
Nice nine. Okay, there was a review.

Speaker 3 (01:36:10):
It was the Lee review for the for the Revolution's
Record review section. That was a four Heroes, two pages album.
I don't know if you even remember this, but it
was the Lee review and that was just if you
you were there.

Speaker 4 (01:36:28):
I just want to thank you for that. Man ever
wrote it. Ever, God, don't get me the line don't
get me to line. I can't. I have to look
it up.

Speaker 6 (01:36:39):
I don't recall it off the rip, but I wish
I did, because you guys are making me feel like
I should go back and find it.

Speaker 4 (01:36:45):
Yeah, that review just opened me up.

Speaker 3 (01:36:47):
I mean I never would have found that album had
I not saw that, and it just just completely Yeah. Yeah,
that was my first time ever hearing reading review.

Speaker 1 (01:36:55):
That's crazy.

Speaker 4 (01:36:56):
I mean, you've been living in London for years, so
it was whatever to you.

Speaker 2 (01:37:00):
Well, no, they're the reason why I did the German
based thing at the end of You Got Me. Yeah,
when forign hero got that leave review even, I was like,
oh God, damn, Like, finally.

Speaker 6 (01:37:10):
Did Greg Tate red.

Speaker 1 (01:37:14):
I bet you any money and money it was probably great.
I bet you it sounds like it.

Speaker 6 (01:37:18):
That's one of the owners of my life too, is
editing Greg. But at that time I was editor in chief,
so I wouldn't have been editing him one on one.
But the way it used to work it 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

(01:37:39):
go on page and usually then the editor in chief
would read it at that point, and 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 and comment everything was in the
right place, and then at that time it would go
to photo, and then after it would go to auto

(01:38:00):
win design, and then at that point it would go
to production and be made into a real page. 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 exist anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:38:14):
Just me, I forgot. I believe if you were there
in ninety Were you there in ninety.

Speaker 6 (01:38:19):
Nine a part of it?

Speaker 1 (01:38:21):
You guys actually let me write my own Vibe feature.

Speaker 6 (01:38:24):
That's all right, that sounds right, wrote it naked.

Speaker 1 (01:38:29):
No, that was such a moment.

Speaker 6 (01:38:31):
It would like Chris rock is guest editing. I think
that was almost my last too. 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 whites
in a white suit. But that was kind of the
end of my first editor in chief era.

Speaker 1 (01:38:51):
The j LO, the very first j LO cover in
ninety nine, that.

Speaker 6 (01:38:56):
Was I don't think I was there for that though.

Speaker 2 (01:38:58):
You guys didn't send a writer so literally, I just
had to diary touring Europe and.

Speaker 6 (01:39:04):
That sounds like an amazing thing though.

Speaker 2 (01:39:06):
Yeah, yeah, no, 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, I am,
but to be of age in Oakland at the time
when that first generation of hip hop was coming out,
are there any notable like for you moments of growing

(01:39:29):
up in Oakland that you can share as far as
like the culture of it in terms of shows that
you saw when you were younger.

Speaker 1 (01:39:38):
That sort of thing, because it's such a musical town.

Speaker 6 (01:39:40):
Man. I mean, I don't know if I have how
many Oakland tales I have. I can just tell you.

Speaker 1 (01:39:46):
That your best one.

Speaker 6 (01:39:48):
What do I have? I mean, I told you I
saw the Jackson five nearby in San Carlos at the
Circle Star Theater, and it's like, I don't know, Like,
let's just pass by the childhood stuff and get back
to me moving to the Bay Area as a college
student at UC Berkeley. So now you have to understand
too that the Barry is a huge touring stock. I mean,

(01:40:08):
you know this, and so I'm seeing anybody from a
flock of Seagulls to Frankie Beverly and Mats and Ziggy Marley.
I'm seeing all of that. And then when I decide
I want to be, like I'm really going to become
a writer, then it's like EMC. Hammer's blowing up in vogues,
blowing up two shorts, blown up, Tony Tony, Tony's blown up.
And these are just the folks that invoked the TIMEX
Social Club. These are just the folks that got famous

(01:40:30):
we're not even talking about Paris is blown up. We're
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.

Speaker 4 (01:40:40):
Obviously, you don't.

Speaker 6 (01:40:41):
Forget about the the was right there, like we were
all coming up together. And then and then when when
the tour happened, the tour that I was out a
lot on the Public Enemy tour with Heavy D and
the Boys, Queen La Chief and the so.

Speaker 1 (01:40:59):
Far Digital on the ground had those masks on. Yes, yes,
one of the best.

Speaker 6 (01:41:06):
One of the best hip hop tours in history, and
a kid and play. Depending on the day, it would
be MC Breed. Depending on the day, it would be
Luke Skywalker two Live Grew, depending on the place, it
would be certa mix, a lot trouble. T Roy died
on that tour, just like those Tupaca was on their tour,
dancing background for Digital those moments and the way that

(01:41:29):
Oakland hip hop will Coles obviously Chuck D I don't
even know how I can explain. It's just and then
it would 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 shout out to nilslis Johnson, who's an amazing guy.
Still we're friends to this day. You know, we'd be

(01:41:50):
in the studio and in in Marine County or in
Richmond and be like, you know, gold records from like
platinum records from like Huey Lewis in the News and
Journey and Frankie Beverly and the Whispers and all Pointer
Sisters and all this grace of 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

(01:42:11):
felt good, and honestly it still feels good.

Speaker 1 (01:42:14):
I had to get it out, Daniel. I thank you
very much.

Speaker 2 (01:42:18):
I know we had a few false starts and trying
to do this, but thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:42:21):
I was just say. Mark Weingarten wrote that four Hero review.

Speaker 6 (01:42:26):
He wrote that review that you're talking Yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (01:42:28):
Remember, yes, okay, but I just wanted to thank you
for that.

Speaker 6 (01:42:33):
Oh well, of course we were happy to be of service.
We really are, and we really were, and like I said,
all of us that worked there over the time. I'm
not saying we have our bad times, but if you
are a part of Vibe, ex Excel, to Source and
those big magazines Essence, Latina, all those King Latino, Yeah,

(01:42:54):
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 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, No, would there
be black girls on book right? Not at all.

Speaker 2 (01:43:14):
So yeah, again, I really want to thank you, and yeah,
I highly recommend to our audience who religiously listens to
our podcast you definitely want to get the book, get
the hard copy and actually, you know the audiobook where
I've just never heard someone so emotionally Yeah, because no, No,

(01:43:37):
the days I couldn't read it, I would drive to it.
And you know, there's a few times we had to
break down and catch some tears for a second, and that,
to me, I was just an awesome level of vulnerability.

Speaker 1 (01:43:49):
And I really loved the book.

Speaker 2 (01:43:50):
And it sets a lot of light on a lot
of unsung heroes that we didn't So thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (01:43:58):
Daniel. I appreciate it.

Speaker 6 (01:44:00):
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 meet everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:44:06):
All right, when you have a Layah and Fon, Tickeolo
and Sugar Steve.

Speaker 1 (01:44:11):
Yeah, thank you. There you go.

Speaker 4 (01:44:13):
The journalism and episode are my favorite.

Speaker 1 (01:44:15):
Unpaid bills back whatever you said, you're mute right now.

Speaker 4 (01:44:20):
I'll speak for you said, give me a baby.

Speaker 2 (01:44:22):
All right, great, great, all right, this is Quest Love
and we'll see you over the next go around.

Speaker 1 (01:44:26):
Thank you very much. Quest Love Supreme is a production
of iHeart Radio.

Speaker 2 (01:44:46):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Laiya St. Clair

Questlove

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