Questlove Supreme: Amerie

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
E four warrened Ladies and Gentlemen, It's gonna be one
of those gargantuan long quest Love introus So you gotta
go to the bathroom.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Or you know some quest Love spream if you're if
you're driving.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Right now, or however you receive this podcast, just know
you probably want to skip to the eight minute mark,
which will officially start the program. So no for real,
Welcome to quest Love Supreme, Ladies and gentlemen. I am
your host quest Love. How's it going like?

Speaker 3 (00:42):
It's good?

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Good?

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Good? The sun is out?

Speaker 1 (00:45):
So sun is out? Okay? And Steve, how's life good?

Speaker 4 (00:50):
The sun is out here?

Speaker 1 (00:52):
And uh as we see Yeah, life is good.

Speaker 5 (00:56):
And Bill Yeah, man, I'm in a basement. I don't
know where the sun is, but I've never been been.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
It sounds like me right about now?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yes, okay, great, okay, So there's probably one artist I mean, yes,
you guys have all of your requests the rare times
that I delve into the general population of my dms.
You know, it's two types of dms, the dms that
people you follow, and then dms of the other two million,
nine hundred people you deal with, but I will say

(01:25):
that there's probably one artist to whom the QLs listeners
slash fam have probably been salivating over.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
For the last eight nine years.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Like we could just round it off that we've been
on for a decade, you know, cat years, podcast years,
and it's really not like our guest has been hiding
in the shadows. I will probably even dare say I
probably have now seen her more in the context of
her book club discussions than I've seen how I first

(02:01):
got to know her and how we all got to
know her as a musician singer, which you know is
kind of a special thing. But this is court Love Supreme.
And there is an itch I've Indynah scratch because that
could probably falsely lead you into believing that our guest
today her musical canon is easily bypassable, and that is

(02:25):
a negative. I know, I'm world famous for my hyperbolic
intros and whatnot, So yeah, just ride with me, all, okay, Look,
disclosure of course, we know that Mary is the queen
of hip hop, soul, hip hop, R and P.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
There's absolutely no disputing that fact. I feel like our.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Guest is the god of boom Bap soul and my
definition of boom bap soul boom Bap souls like when
you display your talents, your vocal talents on top the
rhythms that are so hard and I mean hard, like

(03:05):
the way that dress says on the first Black Sheep
album hard that it can easily be interchangeable with a
credible rapper's voice, like and based on the.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Events of Oh Shit.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Single Demayo twenty twenty four, now, I mean you could
be listening to this in the future and you need
a reference. You know that time in single Demayo twenty
twenty four, I believe the entire world found out the
difference between a credible let me not play sides, credible
MCing and non credible MCing, And I believe that that

(03:42):
is a compliment in the highest order.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
You love how a bullet dodge that?

Speaker 6 (03:46):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (03:46):
I look kim at, Yeah, you look right exactly.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Little kim Oh, that's what we're doing instead of matrix dodging,
we're little kim in it, yo, Like, I'm gonna.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Use that from now on.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
That said, I feel like our guest has checked many
requirement list in providing us with what I say is
our undeniable bangers, like more bangers than some of my.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Favorite rappers have made bangers.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
And if I keep it a buck, her music probably
changed my opinion of the Tom Tom. There's a time
when you knew Questlove had minimum drums, and then one
day you saw, like, damn, he's playing real drums.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
He has a full setup there.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
I will say that our guest was probably the quiet
paradigm shift in my relationship to my own craft that
I've been doing since I was five. So it takes
a mighty influencer to make that shit happen.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Anyway, you gotta yell louder.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, you know, for the people in the bet. Can
I make this intro any longer? Absolutely, Ladies and gentlemen.
I feel as though our guest has never been given
a proper due. I would say that our guest is
probably the metaphorical giving tree. And I'm being very careful
withe of my words right here. She's probably the giving
tree who's every creative move has been analyzed, copied, eaten, regurgitated, refurbished,

(05:17):
and resold back to us.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
And if there ever was.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
An artist to whom and I'm really passionate about this
only because you know, I'm not doing the whole self
deprecating thing of like.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
You know that was our story too. I'm not even
making us about me.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
But there's ever an artist to whom I wanted to
peek under the hood of creativity. I will say it's
our guests a Marie Rogers Nicholson. Once we were successfully
able to book her at the Roots Picnic, which passed already,
and I'm manifesting that it was great. Yes, full disclosure,

(05:54):
of course, ladies and gentlemen, we're doing this way before
the Roots Picnic, but just pretend.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
So yes, I will just say.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
I will just say that, you know, we've had very
few personal interactions, only because I really wanted this platform
to be the first time that we had our real conversations,
because I know that I tend to freak a lot
of my peers out, because I probably come off more
like a journalist than a human being to some people.
So I figured, at least our first true interaction mixing

(06:27):
can be on this platform, and then after this we
could be friends. Not to be out done, I'm also
obsessed with how she's pivoted into the world of literature,
a world that I just stepped into in the last
half year in the world of publishing, authoring, not to
mention songwriting, producing, acting, and most importantly, what's commendable is

(06:52):
what I believe is her decision to kind of get
out of the cesspool of the old record label system
that we're having, you know, God willing by the forties
and fifties. Of course, I met my day job, so
you have to hear what's happening anyway. Yeah, I did
I even make it the eight minute. God damn, ladies

(07:14):
and gentlemen. I always wanted to say this, Please welcome
our guest. Finally A Mari I apologize. I think that
was the longest intro I've ever done.

Speaker 7 (07:25):
Can I just tell our listeners if you want to,
you can listen to two A Marie songs in that time.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
That's what I said, how are you?

Speaker 8 (07:38):
I'm so humbled by I'm humbled by everything that you're saying.
I really appreciate that. You know, people always think that, Well,
I guess I don't know. Every artist is different, but
for me, you never know what people think. You know,
you never know people tell you like, well this affected
me this way or not. But you're living your own skin,
so you just kind of that all just kind of disappears,

(08:00):
and so it's easy to feel kind of like you
just created yourself and you're just creating and nobody cares.
And so that's just kind of like how everyone is
different that I can say that's how I am. And
so it's like, oh, I appreciate that, thank you, Like, wow.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
That's are you saying you feel seen right now?

Speaker 8 (08:18):
I feel seen right now. I feel heard. Like I'm like, oh, okay,
you know, all right, all right. We've had some interactions
before in the past, you know what I mean, Like
we've we've had some of that, but you're right, we
never like had a full blown like conversation like like
big ones. We've had little conversations here and there. But
I always before I would have released anything, I would

(08:39):
always feel kind of like some pressure because I would
be like, I wonder what mirror thinks about this? What
is he gonna think about?

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Dude?

Speaker 2 (08:47):
I'm such a fan of yours, like your demos, Your
demos for other.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
Artists are like part of my daily my current DJ set.
Like your work, you find.

Speaker 7 (09:01):
Demos from other artists a meter, How do you what
are the demos from other artists?

Speaker 1 (09:06):
My name is, you know who I am?

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Like, I'm not even doing this to flex, like literally
in this room are artifacts and I don't know. I
think I've built up a cachet of which people know
that I might be interested in certain things, especially on
Okay Player.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
There's a severe underground sect of us that are into.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
How the sausage is made, and you know, like uh
like for instance still to this day. I mean, I
would say loves Off the chain was probably created in
two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, maybe created.

Speaker 8 (09:52):
In two thousand and eight nine, No, when.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
When was that creative?

Speaker 8 (09:56):
First of all, I wondered, I was wondering, like, how
did you get that? How do you even have that somewhere?
I don't even know if I was crying some box somewhere.
But no, love, love, lucks change, that was I did
that when we did one thing during that time. I
think that was thousand or three. Yeah, we just didn't know.
We didn't we didn't know what we're going to do

(10:17):
with it yet, but there were there were there was
like a there was a I think I would say
one main option. I don't know if oh yeah, okay,
maybe did we talk about this before no, I just guess, yeah, yeah,
I think.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Janet, because Janet is the only person that I don't
know has like received the Rich Harrison treatment.

Speaker 8 (10:40):
But I think I think it was It was Janet though.
That's that's that's who has always been in mind. It
was for But we didn't really we didn't really know
that was going to maybe use it or not. I
wasn't sure if it felt like me.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
I give credit where credit is due. Shout out to
uh Philly's and Cosmic Keev, a guy to whom I
would say probably I credit with my creative direction in
DJ and the stuff I do to this day, and
when he really likes a record, he'll just stay on
that intro and not care.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
But for me, like to this day, I.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Still spend those records like they'll they'll never and may
still work. They still work, they still work. We'll get
to that. We'll get to that. How are you today?
Where are you speaking to us from?

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Like?

Speaker 8 (11:23):
Where are you good? I'm in Atlanta right.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Now, and so you reside in Atlanta?

Speaker 8 (11:29):
In Atlanta, yeah, and back and forth between LA and
Atlanta a little bit, and yeah, everything's good. I actually
on the deadline, actually just I have a lot of
self and posed deadlines for writing stuff. But then I
was just doing some past pages because I have a
novel coming out. We didn't announce it yet, you know,
we always meant to announce it, and we didn't announce it.

(11:50):
But have a novel coming out next year. Nice for
growing up because I did a children's book and everything,
but it's like, you know, grown up novel. And then
I'm just now getting into Like I just had a
conversation with the producer that I won't name just yet,
but we were just like, Okay, we gotta let's let's
get in and play because I'm working. I'm just now

(12:11):
beginning working on the next album. It's really this this
next album. I mean, I always have a lot of
ideas and projects. That's one thing I like about not
being like in the traditional record label system because it
didn't really work for me because so like I would
by the time I would finish recording for a project,

(12:31):
It's like for me, it was never like now I'm done.
It was more like I'm just recording and just making stuff, creating, playing,
and then we just have a cut off point. But
by the time we would get to that cutoff point
I would almost start getting into a different vibe. So
if I kept going, it would just be a different
project that doesn't go with the last one. So even
by the time we started doing like visuals and all

(12:51):
that stuff for the album, I was kind of like
over it already, because I was already like, now I'm
doing this sound and this vibe, and I don't want
to do that other sound, and that that would frustrate
me a lot, Like I would be frustrated with myself
as an artist, because I'd be like, why don't you

(13:11):
this is the visual vibe, the visual section, and why
don't you just dig into that? But I'd be like,
but I'm feeling a different mood now. Now I'm in
this sound and this feel and these colors, and they
want to drag me back into the thing. I already
did it, Like I already got it off my chest.
I've done, I'm moving on.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
But you lived with it. We haven't lived.

Speaker 8 (13:33):
With it yet, but right no one else lived with it.
And plus I was doing stuff that you know, I
know a lot of people like the visuals. Frankly, Bro
and I talked about this once, like about how we
see music, and like even like it's just like colors.
It's just synesthesia, right, but not to the not to
the degree where it's like a clinical thing, but like
it's the point where, like, if I'm recording myself the

(13:55):
pro tools, colors will mess me up because the hook
should not be orange. It's blue and it should be here.
So then I placed the tracks all these places. That
makes my engineer crazy. But doing visuals I didn't like.
I don't really like doing visuals to music. I do it,
but once the visual happens, the thing that's in my

(14:18):
head changes, and I think that's why I was kind
of resistant to it as well, just why I don't
always have a million visuals. If it was up to me,
I would have no visuals. I would just have to
here's some colors, here's some texture, and that's it.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Are you a fan of the UK collective known as Salt.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
Have you heard of them?

Speaker 8 (14:38):
Familiar with them? No? I'm not familiar.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
S A U L T.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
I guarantee they will change your life like Salt basically. Okay,
So they kind of started off with this daft punk
mission where they didn't want to be known.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
All their album covers are black.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
They've since then they've since then, uh like adapted to
you know, read and you know, but there's really no visuals.
But initially they were mystery. But of course we know
that Inflow Cleo soul Kid's sister. There might be a
few other people contributing, but yeah, that's that's a group

(15:24):
who has used kind of mystery to.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
The hilt where interesting and that's the thing like you,
for instance, I wanted.

Speaker 8 (15:36):
To do that. My first album had almost had no
pictures when we sent out the first Yes, when we
sent out when I first came Outler.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (15:46):
Look, I've been saying this for years, but even from
the first album, because I've been trying to be like
you know what. And that's then I liked, like one
of the albums I did. I like those visuals. I
like those visuals because we did those visuals on our own.
And I was like, Okay, I like this because I
look like myself. I look like me. I look like
me when I look in the mirror, like it just
still looks like me. But in the very beginning, you

(16:08):
probably have this sampler. I'd be surprised if you didn't,
because you have everything pretty much. It was the first
it was the first sampler and it was wan and
fall in love. I think I just died is on
it and like something else that I'm like holding on
to a branch or something like like that. And and
I love the way the shoot came out. But I

(16:30):
was like, can we just have my name with no pictures?
They're like what I was like, I always it a
rope okay, rope okay. I knew it was something, and
I was like, I just want my name on it.
I was like this, no one knows who I am
is the first impression. I really just wanted to be

(16:52):
the music. If that's it, like no preconceived notions, no
ideas of what it should sound like. Because we meet
people at that time and I would tell I'm like
I saying it came, it would come up. I never
would just tell people that. They always kind of had
this idea of what I would sound like, and they
would always say Aliyah. I love Aliyah. But they were
just they were just talking to me. They would just
kind of I think I need to just be introduced

(17:13):
to everyone with nothing but just the music and that's it,
no visuals and that's it. And then they didn't they
didn't want to do that they didn't want to do that.
I kept bringing that up in later projects, even though
people knew it was me. I was still like, I
don't know. I thought about changing my name. I consider
doing an album without letting anyone know who I was
at all, and I was like, I think they'll still
know that it's me. Though I actually created a sound

(17:37):
cloud with a not a real name, I still haven't
told anybody what it is because I was like, I
think I'm going to just do this and this is
why I'll release music like under this. So wait, they're
touring with that idea for so years and years.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
There's a sound caou page right now that has your
music that we don't know is you.

Speaker 8 (17:56):
No, No, there's no music on it. There's no music
on it right now. I think I think I almost
put something on there. And I was like, oh, I
don't think so. Because then I heard this Beatles story
and they were like they try to do that like
where they were performing that people would know it was them.
Then I was like, what if I only do songs
that are definitely probably not what people would think about
it being me? It might be easier. People who really
know me will be like those harmonies and those it's

(18:19):
very familiar.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
Your harmonies and your voice.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Slidings give you away instantly, so you would have to
sing super dry. No influx is no good like none
of your slides and none of that shit. Right, Hey, Mariy,
what is your first musical memory in life?

Speaker 8 (18:43):
My first musical memory? I have a few, Okay, so
they're kind of like mixed up, but they're all in
the same time period.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Okay.

Speaker 8 (18:51):
One of the ones that really sticks out is like
my birthday party and my dad was like playing Stevie Wonder,
Oh digging it. But I was also like, Daddy, want
this is something else? And I think I was like,
I don't know, eight nine, and he was like you
can name it. No, no, no, no, no, no no.
He was like dancing, and you know, all the kids

(19:12):
are like, okay, I don't know what we wanted at
that time, but it was something for the kids. And
so I was like, all right, thanks Daddy, And so
I remember that by Stevie Wonder was it was an influence, Okay.
A big big memory was also the Grease soundtrack. I
really liked that soundtrack one right, Grease, one Yes, And
I would I would, I would swing on the swing

(19:32):
set and she sing the whole thing before that. Because
I got to go back in time.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
Let me interrupt you, Bill, what wait she mentioned that?
And then lan you mentioned that, you know.

Speaker 5 (19:44):
Let's talk about Greece Too, because that's a terrible film.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
Was like I was.

Speaker 8 (19:49):
I was like Michelle Pfeifer though, like who's that? Who's that?
Boy Wady become from Like yeah, that was. I was like,
I want to be that cool.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
So wait last roots pick nick.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
There's a movie theater in Philadelphia and my hotel was
across the street. They were having like a midnight showing
of Greece Too. And I'm like, Greese Too. And I
thought in my mind, like this is a flop movie.
I know Michelle Pfeiffer's in it, but they are fans
of this.

Speaker 5 (20:17):
It's the way of life, man.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
But I went to this thing and do the entire audience.
It was.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
It was almost like their version of uh or Rocky
hardor Audience where the audience sings with them. I didn't
realize that Greece Too was that big of.

Speaker 7 (20:35):
A just because Michelle, because she was yes, she was
like cool, it's cool, writer, No, cool?

Speaker 3 (20:44):
Cool was the gym the first one.

Speaker 8 (20:48):
I wanted the jacket back then too, so like, you know,
you can have it, look alike.

Speaker 5 (20:54):
My girlfriend has told me that she prefers Grease to
up for like two weeks just.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
I'm meeting these people back to I'm meeting two people
like Rider died Grease Tours, and I don't understand how.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Now Yeah, yeah, sorry, friend.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Anyway, you were eight at your birthday party, dad played
Stevie one. There was eighty eight eighty nine, so you probably.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
Wanted to hear.

Speaker 8 (21:19):
Yeah. I thought, you know, maybe b C Boys or
something like that. But I'm now I'm going back, so
I'm going earlier. Okay, so if I say this, maybe
it'll trigger something earlier. But I think this may be
like my first strong because I remember like like a
virgin playing in the car and we were singing along,
and later I thought about I was like my mom.
You know, my mom's Korean, she speaks English, but at

(21:39):
that time too, it's just like she's not paying attention
to the radio and the English was happening on there.
I was like, didn't think that was kind of inappropriate
for us to be singing that in the back. But
this is back in the day, no car seats, no
booster seat, You're just back there. And so we were
singing that. But the Thriller video. I remember when the
Thriller video came out. I remember we watched it in

(22:02):
the living room. I was scared. He was so handsome
and he's like, you know, as a kid, there might
be effects, but your mind, you don't see the effects.
You see the real thing. So to me, it was
really really scary. The zombies were really really scary. But
also I was dancing and I liked it, but I
was also scared.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
Every week kid, that is, every kid that watch.

Speaker 8 (22:27):
It was nightmare and I wanted the jacket and I
wanted to be her. I call her the thing is
that the kid? You just everything is real and you
don't you know. So to me, even though it was
a different song, I see her in the video with him,
she's Billy Jean. I'm like, I want to be really Jean.
I want that outfit, like I want to be Billy Jean.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
No, no, no, no no, I thought, Jean.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
Okay, because everything's real, right real.

Speaker 8 (22:57):
So Michael Jackson, that's Michael Jackson and this is he's
Is he really a thing? Is he really a thing.
Maybe that's really him. He's like a really aware wolf.
Oh there's that's that's Billy Jean. That's his girlfriend, right,
And she's so like beautiful and they're real. They're not
like playing a character on screen. They are real people
that are really together. And she's really scared and she's

(23:18):
really in this zombie thing and she's really gorgeous and
it's like the epitome of like who you want to
be as a girl.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
Right.

Speaker 8 (23:25):
But I also wanted to be Michael Jackson too, and
the knife fighting, like I was, I was into that.

Speaker 9 (23:34):
That was beat it.

Speaker 8 (23:34):
You know, all blends together.

Speaker 3 (23:36):
Oh yeah, I was thinking bad, but yeah he bought
a couple of.

Speaker 8 (23:39):
Times, right, yes, so it all blends together. So that's
that's probably my my earliest earliest you know, I have
that and my dad playing the Marvin Gay. So I
listened to listen to Marvin Gay on my own, like religiously.
He had the whole Marvin Gay collection and I would
just listen to it. That's why I always say that

(23:59):
Michael Jackson, Gay and Mary J. Blige are my top
three influence Okay, okay, and Phil Spector probably yours choice.

Speaker 5 (24:07):
Okay, that was an interesting fourth choice. Did see that.

Speaker 8 (24:12):
The wall of sound? Oh okay, it was because the production.
But what I hear is the instruments. But the one
thing with Rich and I we would always like he understood.
I was like, I hear those instruments, but the voice
is an instrument. And so when we would create songs,
it'd be like, we need this part, Like, no, I'll
sing this vocal part, but it's like a trumpet. So

(24:34):
I'm singing it but not like it's it's a trumpet.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Okay, I have to interrupt and skip. You're forcing me
to to to skipad no, no, no, no, because I gotta know.
I gotta know your background trademarks are so unusual because
I never okay. So as an engineer, if I'm dealing
with background vocals, I would tend to think that the

(25:02):
soprano voice, the highest one, would be sort of the ringleader,
and then I'll figure out a way to tuck the
tenor alto and base like the other harmonies, like under them,
really not put them on top of the cause you know,
I would think that the cherry on top, like the
melody on top, is what drives the vehicle.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
But your tenor is always the loudest.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Your tenor's louder than your your top voice, Your tenor's
louder than your your out of voice. Like literally, I
was like, wow, that's really curious that when she does
like three four part harmony that she brings out the
one voicing that I, as an engineer, would have tucked under,

(25:48):
and it's loud and up front.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Almost.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
You mentioned Marvin gay and I was going to ask,
because especially on your first record, you do this kind of.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Marvin Gaye does it.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
Of course, Marvin Gaye pioneered, and Slick Rick also did
it where you know, sometimes the narrator, the lead person sings,
but often the background vocal has just as much agency
as the singer has. What is your method of song?
Because then I'm wondering, like, are you writing this on paper?

(26:23):
Like okay, while sing this and then the background singing that,
and in parenthal, we.

Speaker 8 (26:26):
Do it all, we do it all. It's just like, okay,
the backgrounds. It would be a lot of work because
the backgrounds, and I did one project, but I was like,
you know what, I'm just trying to not do any
of those backgrounds. I'm just keep I just noticed people
just only do top line. So I'm gonna just do
some top line. Wow, this is way faster getting through
a song because the backgrounds are always like really really

(26:46):
important and so really it's just a matter of not
writing anything down or anything, but just like listening and
then saying, okay something. A lot of times how you
would like bed the lower vocals, like the lower those
would be more of the feature. Those will have more movement,
so like I like to do like the high one,

(27:07):
those would be sustained more like and no. But then
underneath it like that, and then it's like, okay, let
me have that in between, and it's like okay, what
can go in the middle of that? Maybe a little
something dumb, right and something like So then things are

(27:30):
like kind of moving. And this is why I say
I for me, the music is like visual, but in
a different way. It's like it's movement like color and
kind of like you know, like it's hard for me
to articulate it exactly because it is something that's very visual,
but not in a picture, not in a real human
being colors, like if you look at the universe and

(27:52):
the galaxy and you're like seeing like swirling. I know
it sounds like silly, but we're not silly. But I'm
not trying to be about it. It's just that that
is literally how I'm creating. And Rich is similar in
when we would do our vocals, we like collaborate really
well because we think very similarly. When it comes to
especially those kinds of background notes.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
Well, then my one question is how tedious is it
if you're doing this live?

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Like how hard are you on.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
Either if you got background singers, like how hard are you?

Speaker 8 (28:31):
Like? Do not sing? I don't. I tried that and
I was like, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 5 (28:39):
Say it.

Speaker 8 (28:40):
No you can't. You can't sing it there as when.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
I didn't know you. There's a moment ah damn, okay,
it's it's actually one of my favorite albums of yours
is the one that you didn't release in the United States.

Speaker 8 (28:57):
Because I love it because I love it.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
And the intro.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
And the thing was, Okay, the first song I would say,
this is probably how she's gonna come out on stage,
So this is gonna be the intro song that you know,
because it's not a full song.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
It's like a two minute thing.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
So I was like, yeah, she's But then when I
heard the backgrounds I said, Yo, this is this is
really intricate. And then I said to myself, I wonder
how hard she is on her background vocals.

Speaker 5 (29:30):
Like so hard they don't exist.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
She no, But then I think I actually put in
my head she must be a hard, difficult person to
work for, because.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
Like, I don't know, I don't know one singer that
won't stop the world.

Speaker 8 (29:47):
I'm not kidding, I'm kind of kidding. I'll tell you
the story.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
No, but that's the thing I actually said.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
I said, I bet you she's she's a hard person
to work for because like, I can't see someone nailing
me to perfection to the place where she wants it
to be.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
So I bet you, like she just either just assists
like pro tool all my background vocals. We'll trust that.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
But I was like, there's no way that someone is
doing this live and nailing it because you were just
your tag teaming with yourself in ways.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
It's like a cat and mouse thing.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
And I was like, I don't think this can be
recreated on stage, so that's it.

Speaker 8 (30:26):
Really, no, it cannot be because everyone's voice is different.
And I was joking when I said, oh, I don't know,
and I don't mean that to say, no, no, I
can sing it like me. It's not want to sound
like yourself. It's just that one is not going to
sound the same because it is someone else singing it.
But because again, the backgrounds are not backgrounds. Backgrounds are

(30:48):
like a lead. They are like the co stars of
the songs. And I say that in an objective way,
and that I'm not saying, well, that's me and that's
my voice. No, I mean just how they're crafted is
that they're very important there as important as the lead.
They are in a sense their own lead. Which and
since I'm not in a group, you can't sing that
part because you won't sound like me because you're not.

(31:09):
You're not you don't have my voice. You have your
own gift, your own voice, and it's different. And I
did try to have background singers before, and it wasn't
that they weren't getting the parts, although they always had
to be laid in there anyway, tucked because it would
be hard to follow otherwise. But also it doesn't sound
like me to me, And so when I'm singing, because

(31:30):
the song is supposed to sound like this, it was
another voice. It was throwing me off. And the textures
just weren't coming out correctly to me, and I will
I will say I'm a person I don't enjoy, generally speaking,
not all the time. I don't enjoy watching performances when

(31:52):
I'm listening to somebody singing their record and there's other
people's voices that are there that wasn't there on the record. Personally,
I don't wait.

Speaker 3 (31:59):
Do a live show in that way, right so you.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
Can pro to it.

Speaker 8 (32:03):
The vocals are all mine to p to it. We
had we got to the point where we would have
background singers miming they were they were mouthing, but don't
you day and the throat.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Right now, I feel like K pop is going through
their nostalgia nineties R and B period right now, Like
have you been approached to composed songs for any of
those groups or I know.

Speaker 8 (32:36):
There was some talk about something like that maybe several
years ago, because I did collaborate with a couple of
artists a lot of years ago, like over a decade ago,
and then a couple of artists and that it has
been about that long in world, yeah, and then I
performed with them and we did things together over there,

(32:57):
and then there was talk about possibly doing some kind
of like writing that kind of thing, but I have it.
It could be cool, but there's so much that I
want to do creatively, and you know, you realize your
time is limited that I would just do my own
thing and put it out, which to me, it's always
made more sense than to go ahead and do what

(33:18):
I'm going to create and then songs that I don't
end up using that kind of thing seeing you know,
then shopping those like that, but not actually going in
and although I consider that too, like going in and
working with someone or some people like justpecifically craft something
for them, especially because as an artist, I feel like
I can go in and really respect them as an

(33:40):
artist and uh what they want to do and what
they don't want to do or sing about, you know,
just knowing from my own experiences. That's why I really
work with like different producers, but I have like the
ones that I really work well with. And the thing
is that, sometimes, even to my own like chagrin, I
have to write my own records. Really, the only person

(34:00):
who could really write records for me would be Rich
and we can collaborate, we can write them or like
one or two other people. That's it because no one
else is going to actually write a song. That's what
I want. What I would actually say, because you know something,
I've been in sessions where they'd be like, okay, da da.
I don't want the sessions because someone at the label

(34:20):
wanted me to go not no offense to the people
who were there, but that wasn't you know, if I'm
going to work with someone. That's why I never really
want made people pay me. I think I think maybe
probably people paid me a couple of times for a feature,
but I always like, I'll do a feature they don't
have to pay me because to me, then m I
might be in a minority. I feel like there's something
a little offensive about asking someone to pay me for

(34:43):
a feature because I feel like, if I'm an artist
and I appreciate you and you're like appreciating me, let's
just let's let's create together, let's play together. Let's you know,
And most of the time you pay somebody, it's going
to that label on this and someone wants fees. But
I don't know, I just felt a little weird about that.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
You don't want publish it, you just want.

Speaker 8 (35:01):
To publishing, publishing, you get publishing. But I'm talking about
will you do this song with me? I'll pay you
this money to do the song with you, and then
if you're going to be in the video, I'll pay
you more money to do the video. And I find
I feel like if you agree to do the song,
that inherent in that is the acceptance of doing the video.
If there is one right, you don't have to pay me.
But something about it feels a little like too transactional

(35:25):
versus two artists coming together to create some magic.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
This out there with the same person real quick.

Speaker 7 (35:32):
Because we mentioned I want to go back to the
K pop question that Amir asked you. Yeah, curious do
they understand and accept you also as one of them
in that way and do they see you as an
asset because you are a part of them as well?

Speaker 3 (35:44):
How does that work?

Speaker 8 (35:46):
When I did collabse you know, back at that time,
they were really like appreciative and my mom was with
me too. But it was also interesting to see how
the system works. It works really differently. Like you know,
aretist in the States, they go show up to a thing, perform.
The people that are in the doing the background stuff,

(36:07):
you know, the show that you show up for to perform.
All that the producers all that they producers of the show,
they can tend to be more differential to the artists.
Not saying that you want that, but that's just like
they're just like, Okay, you're here to do the song,
we appreciate you. We're going to some TV blocking, et cetera.
But they're very differential. It's kind of was the opposite
way what I was witnessing. Now. For me, it was different.

(36:28):
They treated me very well with respect the people on
the TV show. Because I'm also an American. I'm coming
in so I'm a guest in more ways than one,
you know, when I visited. But I noticed that for
the artists who are and maybe it's different now this
is this is back in you know, I forgot what year,
but at least ten years plus, right, I noticed that

(36:49):
the artists were deferential to the TV producers. They were
the ones doing the the extra bo and the extra
you know, and so that was interesting, you know, that
was curious to me. But it's because it's the way
that and the way I figured it was that their
entertainment system, because we created our system entertainment system decades

(37:13):
and decades and decades and decades we have so much longer.
There was a change out of the old studio system,
our old Hollywood studio system, where the actors and stuff
probably were very differential to the producers back in Marilynroe
pre Marilynda Lauren McCall days. Right, But it's grown and
artists have learned their power and it's become a different ecosystem.
And so I was like, where they are now is

(37:34):
where Golden Age Hollywood was before. And as it progresses
around the world, the entertainment system progresses, artists will be
become more knowledgeable of their power and recognize their power.
And then those around them who work for them when
the TV shows, which the bikini producers, will understand that
the art around the artists, the artist is the sun
and everything else is revolving around them. Once the artists

(37:54):
realize that, the system will change. So it's just that
they're just behind. They're just it's like the uh, you know,
the advance of humanity, right like and any kind of system.
That's where they are and they're going to be in
a different place and soon it's going to be totally different.

Speaker 7 (38:10):
It blows my mind because I don't think really people
understand the concept that like I asked somebody Korean one dance,
like what was before k pop?

Speaker 3 (38:18):
Like what is the original Korean music? And it doesn't
you know that.

Speaker 8 (38:24):
Is It's an interesting thing and it's cool, but it
also there's a certain sadness to it. I was sitting
in an award show and it was an Asian theme.
It was like one of the Gallas, and so it's
all celebrating everything Asian and you see the actors and
the argus, the movies and the films that are being introduced,
and a lot of it is very Korean, but also

(38:46):
Korean American and Asian American, an Asian American because it
grew out of just being a Korean American thing to
an Asian American thing. But once the music section came in,
I was like, and this is something I always knew.
I always I always recognize from again decades ago that
before it was even called K pop, I didn't. I
don't know what it was called. When I was growing up.

(39:07):
It wasn't called K pop though, but you would see
them emulating the braids and all that. It wasn't called
K pop, but it was just pop, right, Korean pop
music popular music. You know, we would watch my dad
would comment those are black dances. I was like, yeah,
and I'm you know, I'm eleven, I'm twelve at the time,
and he was like that that was just cream people
doing black music. And I was like, pretty much, what,

(39:29):
that's what I'm seeing. But see, the artists were very
very where they gave credit where credit is due with
the music. Okay. So so the music that I was seeing,
I was like, wow, this is so interesting because I'm
watching all this stuff and I'm you know, Korean as well,
but once because it comes to the music, this is
black music. The only thing that's Korean about it really

(39:49):
is there's a certain politeness, there's certain movements, the cute
parts and stuff. I was like, you know, but that's
that's also modern. But I was like, this is black music,
and I was like, interesting, there's almost like this gap
where there's no Korea because traditional Korean music is more
like if you my mom will play it sometimes and
so you just have the drums to do. And I
wanted to do that too. Actually, I think I'm still

(40:10):
going to do that. I want to do the whole
thing in my mind. I won't say what it is,
but it's a very it's like a very big do
v M A type thing. But I wanted to do
something really cool culturally, right, so the music will be
like dum, that's not I'm not saying any words, but
the no. So that kind of vocalization, that's one of

(40:36):
the traditional like aspects. But that's like you know what
people will call like you know, old old old old
old old old old people made traditional. But see Korean
people have a lot of soul too, so you have
those like those side drums, those drums that are in
the front and the so you just hear the the
you know that that that vocalization again that I was doing.

(40:58):
But I sat there at the gallapy thinking where is
the bridge from that? And what I remember hearing as
a kid when my mom will play that sometimes to
the traditional young like where is because we can say
this is pop music and R and B and we're
getting the roots into blues and going way way back.

(41:18):
But there those are bridges. I was like, where is
the bridge? There's no bridge.

Speaker 7 (41:22):
It's crazy Coca cola yep.

Speaker 8 (41:27):
From that to a complete cultural import and so I
was like, man, I don't know. I was like, I mean,
I'm Korean, but I'm also black, so I view it
like okay, But if I weren't black at all, I'd
probably be thinking like yeah, having our own Like what
is our I want to see?

Speaker 3 (41:49):
I got that I want.

Speaker 8 (41:51):
I am black in Korean, but I am black and Korean,
but I still feel like I want to see that.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Frankly, can we go back on the time machine so
we can act to get to your story?

Speaker 8 (42:02):
Right? Oh?

Speaker 1 (42:03):
Shoot, like.

Speaker 8 (42:05):
We're just talking.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
I know we're just talking, but I gotta I know
you're a military brat, But where do you consider home?

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Like where are you born and raised?

Speaker 8 (42:14):
Please say DC, because we claim you I wasn't born
and raised well, I wasn't born and raised in anyone place,
So to me, I consider myself like a citizen of
the world, like home is where I am. I will
say this about d C d C is where I
really came into my self as an artist, Like d
C d C kind of like that's where suddenly I

(42:37):
knew how to dance. I couldn't really dance really well before.
I'm not going to say I'm the most dopest dancer
in the world now, but.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
And where did you learn to dance? In the club
in d C or in the.

Speaker 8 (42:48):
Club, Yes, in the club. So d C was really
important because it is where I like really really grew
like exponentially as an artist, like where I came into
my own because of who I met, because of where
I was going, because of the vibe. I feel like
DC is really like when I chose to go to
college in DC, it was because it was close to

(43:10):
New York and I knew it was culturally rich. It
was a black city, and you know, I group as
a military brat, so I didn't really get to just
be around a whole lot of black people only it
was always very mixed, which I loved as well. But
I was like, I really want to like I really
want to be in the city where there's a lot
of black people, you know what I mean. And then
I got to be close to New York because I
want to try to get a record, deals like go
down on the weekend, figure something out, try to get

(43:31):
some meetings or whatever people do. I'm coming out of Alaska.
I don't know. It's just like, Hi, I want to see.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
You came from Alaska to DC.

Speaker 8 (43:38):
Because yeah, I went to high school in Alaska, but
only for three and a half years, because before that
was high school and middle school in Texas. I was
in Anchorage and Anchorage, Alaska, and then I went to
I know, I cried when I was fine with moving
around my whole life. When we were going there, I
was like, wait, there's no people there. It's like a moose.
There's a TV show with a.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Moose, and you know, exposed.

Speaker 8 (43:59):
It wasn't like that. It wasn't like man. But then
I went to d C. And I was like, like,
for that freshman year, I would go to the club
every Wednesday and then the weekend too, but also on
Wednesday because they had like the stance hall thing. I
think it was DC clud Okay, and then it was
Republic Gardens Republic Gardens, and then this was before Dream

(44:20):
even existed, and they became a club love, right, are you?

Speaker 3 (44:24):
I'm going to raise I went to high school right
across from Howard.

Speaker 8 (44:27):
Yeah, okay, okay, so yeah, you know.

Speaker 7 (44:31):
That's why I really let me tell him my truths
are just about to tell you that when I graduated
from college, I moved to Philly and it became my
home and I loved that place too.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
But I'm going to raise I guess.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
It's okay.

Speaker 8 (44:44):
It's okay, but I have a soft spot in my
heart my death from North Philing. I'm a soft spot.
I have a soft spot for Philly.

Speaker 7 (44:53):
Last DC question I got for you, tell me about
did you have ever had the go go experience?

Speaker 3 (44:57):
Because I mean, I hear it in the music, but
I was curious about it goes.

Speaker 8 (45:00):
Out because because I when I would go to the club,
so I would go every weekend. I never went out
really much, and after that freshman year, I was like, well,
got out my system and I never never really went
out again after that. But during freshman year I was
out of the weekend and then every Wednesday at least
we would go out and literally I would go to dance.

(45:20):
I know that sounds like such a I just wanted
to go out and dance, but I did. I wanted
to go to dance and have a good time. And
then it would be like reggae night and this night
and that and then they have like a go go night.
And again it's instrumentation. Sometimes for me, I would like
a song before there's any vocals on something, you know
what I mean, So I could just appreciate that, and

(45:41):
that's why I say, Like DC, I really kind of
like got my seasoning and kind of came into myself
as an artist. I met Rich there and we like
just created some It was a lot of like kind
of like what are you ringing? Like this is what
I've got? Okay, what do you have? But I have this?
Oh that's what I've been looking for. Oh why don't
we do this and combined? And it's very very magical.
And so I think that's why sometimes people will ask

(46:03):
like if I'm from DC, and I'm like, I'm not
from there because I was. I'm the military, but that
is where I really I have my influences. But the seasoning,
the finishing, the cooking, the bake, it was all happening
in DC.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
And Amir, that's how I feel about Philadelphia. That is
how I feel about Philly.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
Okay, Okay, have commonality.

Speaker 5 (46:29):
Okay, we do have perfect pitch because we're talking about
like synesthesia and the way your harmonies work.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
I guess this is that you.

Speaker 8 (46:35):
Do I have. Okay, Now I'm not always singing in
perfect pitch, but I know when i'm not, when I
can hear myself. Sometimes you get those performances and you're
like what they want, but it's because I can't Half
the time, I can't hear myself. Something always happens, especially
when you do like one off. If it's a tour
and it's my tour, it's all my people and we
have it locked in. But when I'm going somewhere, it's

(46:56):
a new person, a new sound person, and new someone
else is going on before you and your things were
touch you can hear yourself, then yes, if you hear
me sounding bad ever, And I don't say this to
like Bragg or anything, I might be under the weather.
I could be under the weather like right now. But
it's guarantee that I can't hear myself because I'm one
of those people who can hear anything. If it's not

(47:19):
absolutely perfect, I can hear it. I'm like, that's a
little off, that's a little flat, that's a little sharp.
If there I walk into a room and the table
is slightly crooked, I can see that it's crooked, and
I have to fix everything. So it's just perfect because
I can hear when anything is off, and I can
see when anything is off. And an engineer told me
one time, I'm like, why did how could you? How
could you hear that because I can hear like you

(47:41):
can lay the vocals back. I mean you engineered, so
you probably know what I mean. Like, lay it back,
not like point one zero, not one point one five,
lay it back point zero two, lay back point zero one,
go back point zero one, go back back. That's like
super super super super super super minimal. A lot of
people can't tell, but I can tell. That was a
long way of saying, yes, I can hear perfect pitch.

(48:04):
I do have a perfect pitch because I know when
I'm not on it. Ah, Okay, that means I probably
can't hear myself in a moment.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
Yeah, I got been a nerd all your life, a Marie.

Speaker 8 (48:15):
I have been a nerd all my life. I've been
a nerd before i've been anything else. I love it.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
I'm sorry listeners, this episode is like Momento on Shuffle,
like we're.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
Just going all over the timeline.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
But I mean pretty much, I would assume that you're
in a rare case where like your first thing out
the box is why don't we fall in love? But wait,
before we get to that, let me at least complete
the story. Please tell us how you met Rich Harrison.

Speaker 8 (48:50):
So I met Rich Harrison. You know again, I chose
DC because it's a great school. I wanted to go
to Georgetown. It's like, Okay, I worked, you know, academically,
I worked hard for this. But it's also close to
New York, so I can work on getting a demo
because I do know what I want to do when
I finished school. This gives me time to get to
that point. And DC's very rich culturally, so great. When

(49:13):
I'm there, I'm actively trying to make connections, figure things out. Well,
I was in a group for a second. I'm not
a group person. The group never worked out anyway. It's
just I'm just not a colicky person. We didn't really
ever have anything, and the names kept changing because we
never actually that. No one ever stayed in the group
long enough for us to actually be a group. So
what I should say is I was trying to put
together a group, that's what it is. And people that

(49:35):
I was working with we were trying to put together
a group, but it never worked and I was like, see,
this is a sign I'm not a group person. But
one of the girls who was not in the group
was kind of like feeling her out. She also would
put on fashion shows, and she was from DC, so
to you know, in the name of like getting to
know each other a little bit more, not just only
in the studio stuff, I just like tagged along with

(49:56):
her one night while she was looking for some space
for her fashion show, and so we went to I
guess it was DC Live at the time, but Ron
de Berry was the manager at the time. So I'm
just sitting there literally taking my legs. While I'm sitting there,
I'm waiting for her to have these conversations about the space.
And then so she's doing her thing looking around, and
then he's just he and I just get to talking

(50:16):
and I'm like, oh yeah. Then I go to Georgetown
blah blah blah and I sing. He's like, oh great, okay.
After that, That's kind of it. Every time I would
go to the club on these nights I was telling
you about, like every Wednesday or whatever it was pus
the weekends, I would see him and he always remembered
because he would always say, you're the girl that sings,
Like right, you're the girl that sings. One of these days,
you know. Much later, he was like, Hey, I have

(50:39):
a friend who's looking to work with an artist he's
a producer. I heard lots of things before. One of
my things of policies was like, I'm never going to
go out with a guy to see you know what's
going on. I was never. One thing I was always
very clear on with myself was I know what I
want to do, and I'm not going to sacrifice any
of my integrity to get there. I'm just not going
to do it. That's just not my personality. So if

(51:01):
people were like, oh this, you know, you meet a
lot of this guy wants to help people want to
help you, they don't. They want to help you so
badly that you never even heard me sing a note,
So like, what are you trying to do? So I
was like, okay, He's like he's a producer, da and
it's coming from him and that guy trying to pick
me up. So I'm like, okay, Well, he's like, can
I get your number and then you know, maybe put
you guys in touch. Okay, okay, sure, So give him

(51:24):
the number. Later on he calls and Rich and I
talk on the phone and we agreed to meet up
so I can hear his music and then he can
hear some of the lifestyle The people think sometimes do
we meet and the McDonald's parking, like happened to meet. No,
that wasn't that. It happened just like what I told you,
the McDonald's parking, Yes, McDonald George, that happened. So it

(51:49):
was late after school at the nighttime. I chose. I
chose McDonald's because again, I'm not going to someone's house
and they say they're a producer, quote unquote, I don't
know him from a cannon. So I'm like, let's meet
at McDonald's. Let's just really see what it is, you know.
So I was in my car then he showed up.
I'm like, okay, you know again you never really know.

(52:11):
But then we just chatted for a second. He just
went right into like, okay, so I'm looking to work
with an artist and I brought some music. Great, let's
let's hear it. And I'm like, okay, he's serious. You
know what I mean. He's serious. So he's playing me tracks,
one of which ended up being the song float, but
right now they're all instrumentals. But I heard, like I

(52:33):
heard what I was looking for, what I've been looking for,
and that was I was missing because what I wanted
was so specific and what I wanted was I need
Obviously it's gonna be tracks. I can sing to R
and B tracks, but I don't want them to just
be R and B tracks. They have to be hip
hop R and B tracks. They have to have a

(52:53):
great balance. They have to be hard, like they have
to be a rapper would want to, you know, like
they could do something over it. That's really really hard
to find. Not so much now, but now music sounds
a little different. But at the time that was really
that was really difficult.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
To finow trust me, Okay, so you know it was.

Speaker 8 (53:12):
It wasn't easy. So when he was playing this for me,
I was like, yes, and there was something special in
his his production and the percussion. It was just so
much of it. I was like, I felt like that
was like what I'd been looking for, what I was missing,
Like it was like the missing instrument. Because again I
didn't look at my voice as being like I did
love to sing to the thing, but I didn't. It

(53:36):
sounds funny, but I didn't love to sing that much.
I love to create music and to create sound. So
that's why I would get asked to do so many
like national anthems, birthday songs, and I was like, I
don't like to sing national anthems. I don't like to
think so, because then you're just singing because you want
to sing it. I don't. Actually, I'm not that interested
in just singing. Actually it sounds weird, but that's why

(53:56):
Rich understood what I met. He was like, so, what
are you into? And I was like, I didn't have
my songs that i'd like sang on because for some reason,
also so I note, whenever I would get in this
group with someone, I ended up tending to be like
a duet. Somehow, I never had any vocal so I'm like,
I guess I'm the mastermind. But also not on any records.

(54:21):
So I was like, I would, I would, I would
my vocals because I was working with other people too,
and for some reason, I could never get any parts.
Can I Can I get a vocal? Can I get
a no? No?

Speaker 7 (54:32):
No no no?

Speaker 8 (54:33):
In the back? Okay? I got some. I got some
of that. Oh that was kind of it. So there
was no use in playing him that, and so I
was like just singing him things that I'd written and
just songs that I love, like because he I think

(54:53):
he asked me, like, who what artists I really liked.
And then I'm sure I mentioned Mary, so I probably
sang Mary, probably saying some lev probably, but I think
when he was hearing me seeing Mary and I was
like that she is one of my biggest influences, he
was like, okay, because that's what he was looking for.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
But he was looking go to marry.

Speaker 8 (55:14):
So I think you might have been oh no, I
just wanted to make it wrong.

Speaker 3 (55:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (55:27):
Yeah, so that's probably one of them. Yeah yeah, yeah,
and it's on your mom and you see that. Could
I can be able to stop baby admitted my mar
your okay, well you're gonna beginning. We're beginning more of

(55:47):
that because I I if I were not me, if
I were not myself, I would probably and someone was like, well,
if you're not, well, I guess that is me. I
was like saying, I would be like a mix of Mary,
Marvin Gay, and Michael Jackson. But I think that actually
is me because they are state are so pivotal to

(56:12):
me as an artist, that and Prince. But yeah, so
I sang him back and he heard what he was
looking for because he love love, love, love, love love
love Mary J Blige. I think that was like one
of his favorite artists, like he loved love her and
he actually had just worked with her before too, but
he didn't know who he was, but he was still
like a huge fan. And so what he was looking

(56:33):
for was someone who could have that like grit that
he wanted, and that that R and B hip hop
that could lend itself to that voice could lend itself
to that. But then also, you know, why why did
I even tell you line like something false? You know
what I mean? Something soft too, And so he was
looking for something very specific. So when we met, it

(56:55):
was literally like we were the missing puzzle pieces like artistically,
and we could play in the false like even I
Just Died. I Just Died was a song that wasn't
even supposed to be a song of false. When were there,
Sarah Sarah, Yeah, I was like, Rich, that song is
too low. I remember saying that. He was like, well,

(57:15):
what do you mean? Because he would sing some of
the songs right, and I was like, listen to where
the track is. It's like staring at Amerror's e started
to carefully called it. I was like, I can't even
I can get there like this, but it begin get
anywhere else, and I was like, all right, well, standing
in ameera and I was like, I don't know, can
I get all of that? And then I was like,

(57:36):
oh yeah, I can in my false then staring, and
then then when the song even gets higher. So we
had so much room to play with, and I was like,
I've been looking for this. It was literally like the
perfect thing. We had this. I said, this track, this
track right there that was gonna be float. I don't

(57:58):
don't give it, don't give it away, it's ours. So
we already knew from the meeting and sitting in that
car that we had something. And we met right after
that like a next week, and we started laying out.
We started doing the demo right then and there those songs,
some of those songs ended up being on the demo,
and then actually some of those songs ended up being

(58:18):
on the album, which we recorded sitting on the back
of the sofa with the washing machine over there, and
those ended up being the vocals because when we tried
to go to the quote unquote real studio to do
it for real this time, we had already done it
and created the magic. So it wasn't the same, but
it wasn't the same, like those vocals weren't the same.

(58:39):
They really weren't the same. It wasn't it wasn't. It
just wasn't the same.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
Okay, do you ever have did you have?

Speaker 8 (58:44):
That's what I needed to see. I'm gonna be surprised
if you didn't have that.

Speaker 6 (58:48):
I don't just fun and needed the same Maha, Yeah, okay,
that's that's one that That was one of the first
ones we did and we loved, and I think that
might have been the first.

Speaker 8 (58:58):
One we did, and and some of it it reminded
me of a Leah actually a little bit, and I
was like, wow, we really have something. But we were
like at the same time, but this is not it,
this is not it. We're getting there. But we got
there like that next week, I mean song of the
song of the song of the song of the song,
because we understood like when I would say that that

(59:19):
vocal was like, that's a trump I'm gonna sing it
like a trumpet. I'm not gonna sing it, I'm gonna
do it. It's a trumpet like, and he was like, yeah,
that's that's this or this is like a string. So
I will do a vocal certain way. And so we
just understood. We had the same language because we're looking
for the same thing.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
Like what time is this period?

Speaker 2 (59:43):
And then how do you guys wind up at the
offices of Columbia.

Speaker 8 (59:48):
Ah, four months, maybe maybe four or five months.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
So this is happening like lightning.

Speaker 8 (59:55):
This is happening lightning. Speed, we meet, we start recording.
He already had connect seat Jeff Burrows and Darryl Williams.
There were Darrel Williams Jeff Brows were working together. Jeff
Burrows had worked at a bad Boy and he was
at Columbia, so he had a situation there Rise Entertainment
and they were already watching Rich for a few years,

(01:00:16):
at least a couple of years, and so they were
always just kind of like send some stuff along, you know, dad.
But Rich had found an artist he wanted to like
walk in with like that, so he did have someone
who was ready in the wings when it was time.
So once we created a demo, that's when he let
them know. And then it was like so things were
kind of there in place. When you have something, let
us know that kind of thing. So once we had it,

(01:00:39):
we did have an end.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
You told me, but like, this is what your dream
was like, even though you're going to college you want
to be a singer. How supportive is your family to
the idea of you not doing academia and getting into
the music industry as we.

Speaker 8 (01:00:58):
Didn't even Oh right, who were you supposed to be
doing English major?

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
Okay, so I was.

Speaker 8 (01:01:06):
I was an English major because I always loved books.
But that's why it's naturally for some people. They're like, oh,
you wanted to books? Are you pivoted? I was like, oh, no,
I've always been. I've been writing books since I started
journing when I was seven, and I've been writing books
since I was that age, stapling little books, trying to
making little newsletters. So that that's just me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Anyway, all your book reports looking perfect for school?

Speaker 8 (01:01:25):
Oh, I was the Oh, I know, we have this
history assignment where we have to write these essays. Can
I write like a short like story.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Your extra credits?

Speaker 8 (01:01:34):
Murph? I don't want to write an essay.

Speaker 7 (01:01:38):
I want to Yeah, she didn't need the extra credit.

Speaker 3 (01:01:43):
She's one to do.

Speaker 8 (01:01:44):
Yeah, I didn't need it. But you know, it's all
always right now. I was like, let me just write
this civil war civil war saga where the girl has
two fat two members of or family fighting on opposite
side instead of so it was it was actually kind
of good actually looking for it for years. But so
I was that was normal for me. But I wanted
to sing and I want my last year of high school,

(01:02:06):
I was like, you know, I think I want to
go for this professional I think I want to do this,
and that was another reason for choosing Georgetown. Right, So
I'm there and then while I'm you know, we have
a couple of slight bites maybe kind of sort of meetings.
Doors might be opening, and so sophomore year, I was like, mommy, daddy,
if it looks like maybe a deal could be coming.

(01:02:27):
If I can get a deal, what do you think
about me pausing university just to like pursue it. See
my mom was like no, no, no. My dad was like, well,
I don't know, those kind of opportunities don't always come.
And I could see that both their opinions. But you know,
I was like, okay, I had to think it over.
But it didn't matter because I didn't even get the
opportunity anyway until my senior year. Because Rich and I,

(01:02:52):
I think we ron and I talked in December sometime
or maybe it was January, Rich and I spoke, we did,
we met up and started doing the demo in February,
which is my last semester of senior year. And so
thank god, it just kind of happened. I didn't have
to try to make the choice, which which honestly, I

(01:03:12):
think in retrospect it's not a good idea to leave
school to do that. Like some people will be like, oh,
take this chance. I'm a believer. If you all you'll
do is one everything happens if it's supposed to happen.
So it's supposed to happen for you. You know, alah, wah
will it. It'll happen, don't you worry about it. But
also you will become a better artist anyway, even always hone.
You can always become better. But you already put in

(01:03:34):
all this work. I mean literally, when you graduate from college,
you're still like twenty one, like you know it felt
old at the time, but you're twenty one, like you
All you can do is just get better, grow as
an artist, improve on your craft, get that under your belt.
So you have that. And but at the time when
I I didn't even have I don't know, I was
like career fest resume. I don't even know what. I

(01:03:54):
didn't do any of that. I was like, because this
is gonna work, about to graduate in like four months.
I don't know what's going to happen. But somehow I
just knew. I mean I just had a feeling. I
was like, it's going to happen, so I have to
make that decision. But they were very supportive. All my
mom was disappointed. I think she cried. Actually no, because
she wanted me to be a professor or a lawyer.

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
Got to live your dreams, not your parents' dreams.

Speaker 8 (01:04:20):
Yeah, and Angela, who wanted to be an ice cream lady,
turned out to be a lawyer. So that's that's good.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
Wait, that's what wanted to be.

Speaker 8 (01:04:26):
Yeah, she wanted to be ice cream lady. I mean
that last time we asked her was when she was
like eight. But that was the last answer she gave us,
the ice cream lady.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
See in my mind, you like said, Okay, I'm gonna
be a big star and you're going to be my lawyer.

Speaker 8 (01:04:42):
No, Angela was gonna she wanted to be a lawyer.
You know, we had the conversations because there was a
hot second where she was going to be maybe be
my stylist, and my parents were like anybody stylist. Angela
has her own path, and she's going to do her
own path and it comes back around then she can
do that. But the any times she's gonna do her
own thing, which is good because then I would have

(01:05:03):
been like feeling too much pressure.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
I know your sister's tired of me because I will
always run up to her and reintroduce myself.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
She'd be like, it's Angela, a Marie's sister. Oh okay, sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
It happened even at the Grammy's last Like I'm always
meeting your sister and everyone else for the first time.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
See see Bill, You're not alone.

Speaker 8 (01:05:27):
It's a funny, little not so secret secret. But that
happens to me as well for a lot of people
that I know. It actually just happened to me the
other day when I was at a party someone that
I'm supposed to know pretty well, not pretty well, but
we are passed across enough times where she's like hey, hey,
and I'm like ah, and then I was like, no,
I do know him from somewhere. It's like, yeah, you

(01:05:49):
saw him two weeks ago. Remember that happened last time.
You're like, oh, yeah, yeah, I was like, oh, it
didn't click. Because we're in a different environment.

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
I'm going to ask you the most loaded broad questionquestion
of all time.

Speaker 8 (01:06:01):
Oh gosh, you're preface.

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
No, it's just I'm gonna let you because you answer
and paragraphs. I decide not to just go bit by bit.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
He's met his match a Moory.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:06:14):
Right, this feels like the battle of two worlds, like
the same same person. Honestly, like talking to two versions
of Save.

Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
We would have been vff is in a whole another lifetime.
We're literally the same person. It's like talking to a mirror. Right,
which your.

Speaker 8 (01:06:27):
Sign Cocorn sun sign a Quarius rising and Pisces moon.

Speaker 7 (01:06:33):
Wait damn wait wait where were you born?

Speaker 3 (01:06:37):
Girl?

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:06:37):
In January twelve. January twentieth twelve, you're January twentieth.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
Both of us are.

Speaker 8 (01:06:46):
So you're Capricorn too.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
Well, no, no, the other side for you, I'll say,
I'm capable.

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
Straight.

Speaker 8 (01:06:56):
Okay, your birthday is close as well. You're you're, you're
we're the same day.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
We're both January twenty Oh wow, okay, but she was
born twenty years after me.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Oh no, anywhere.

Speaker 7 (01:07:11):
All look very very young, eh this Saturday morning cartoon
step on.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Anyway, So as broad as I can ask this question
a Marie, and this is what we all want to know. Okay,
can you give us your assessment of your experience recording
for Columbia Records?

Speaker 8 (01:07:34):
Oh godding No, I didn't Brown, I don't say that. No,
I'm just thinking I never felt like I was recording
for them, because I came in, and I say, we
we came in because me and Rich with our own

(01:07:54):
music and our own sound, and they really did just
leave us alone. They really did just leave us alone. Now,
later they did try to play around with some things.
I remember getting some different versions of hooks of one thing,
and I was like what I was now, okay, they.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
Were trying to augment it or something.

Speaker 8 (01:08:16):
Oh no, it was like that hook is too linear
quote unquote. I was like, I don't really know how
to process that. I'm just feeling it out and it
feels right to me. It feels good. But okay. So
then there was this other worthy hook. I just wanted
to them.

Speaker 1 (01:08:35):
The hook.

Speaker 8 (01:08:36):
Oh no, they had someone to sing it and everything.
Then I was doubly offended. One thing I do get
I can get offended when people try to change the
thing unless it's solicited. But you know, sometimes the labels
so jump in with unsolicited thought, how about this? Yeah,

(01:08:56):
And I didn't like that, but generally they did just
leave me alone with it, you know what I mean?
Or maybe I just kind of just didn't really care
because I just felt like I came in to do
my own thing anyway. Like I was like, at my funeral,
they're going to play Frank Sinatter's my way, That's what's
going to be playing. I mean probably not really just
little a little bit somber and weird to play at

(01:09:18):
a funeral.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
Good question, I like that. What what song is going
to play at my funeral? Guess what?

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
And I've e'ched just in Stone with my lawyers. I'm
not having a funeral.

Speaker 5 (01:09:32):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
However, my plan is I will organize a bunch of dinners.
We'll just cut to the chase, We'll go to the repast.
I will organize a bunch of dinners.

Speaker 3 (01:09:44):
Like your birthdays.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
Oh yeah, I organized.

Speaker 2 (01:09:47):
A bunch of dinners for all my loved ones to
just sit and have a meal. And that's remembering a
mirror we're not. I'm sorry I've been to especially in
the last three years post COVID. I'm done with funerals.
Like I'm done Eye on the Sparrow. I'm done with
Eye on the Sparrow. I'm done with that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:04):
Nothing mere. I no song we could play, not really.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
I mean, I would force y'all to play the most
goofy song on earth.

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
You know, it would be still, it'd be a theme
song never mind.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
Yeah, exactly, like you know, the Elmo Elmo's World something.
Oh yeah, I'm so unseerious about that. So when I'm
asking you your experience at Colombian Sony, was it hard
just finding your space in your lane.

Speaker 8 (01:10:32):
Where you can just you know, Okay? Well, one, it's
funny that you say that about the R and B part,
because when I was creating, actually I listened to some
R and B and that I was really looking to music.
And before that, Yeah, but I had gone through a
long period I actually didn't really like R and B,

(01:10:52):
listen to it only but even when I was in college.
When I was in college and a little bit after that,
I only listened to hip hop, no R and B
or what I called boring R and B and that's
what I call it. It's boring. And so that's what
I liked to about Rich too, because and there were
great R and B rs, I'm sure, but it's just

(01:11:14):
there was just just in general, like for me, the genre,
it's boring and it's boring to me. So that's why
I need that hip hop element in there, because for myself,
you know what I mean. So I just didn't listen
to any of it and then and then I fell
back in love with it again, but I always needed,
like my favorite era of R and B was hip

(01:11:34):
hop and r Andy got married, So that's why we
align on that. As far as like what was tough
about Columbia, See, this is a thing like artistically, they
really did leave me alone. Like I said, what was tough, Well,
you had a lot of artists there who were like
really big before I got there, So it wasn't hard
to get traction or the building behind you in the

(01:11:55):
sense that like a creative vibe. It's just there's a
marketing department and their job is to do that, and
this is their publicity department, and their job is to
do this. And I can tell that as much as
their kind and you know their kind and all of that,
but their priority is not me. I am not their priority.

(01:12:16):
I can tell it that that. This is just there's
no priority.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
But then there saw a thing where it's like everybody
can be on.

Speaker 8 (01:12:23):
Top, like I mean, honestly, you should be able to.

Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
Do that, but when it should.

Speaker 8 (01:12:29):
Be able to do that, That's that's what smaller labels understood.
Smaller labels led by you know, black producers who had
have an artist. Everyone was hottowntown and even with get
Young money. For a while, it was like we have this, this, this, this,
and the more successful we are, the more successful we
all are, and we spread it and that's how it

(01:12:51):
should be. But that's not actually, you know, it's more corporate.
It's tony, so it's a much a more, much more
corporate culture, and a corporate way of thinking is not
like a crew with a figure or like. And they
would try to do that like they try to do
so many urban music dollans different things, but it was
still very top down, you know, so they just they
didn't get that. And then what I then there was
a little I think a little bit of tension as well,

(01:13:13):
because are some inner things that were happening with the
people who I don't want to say too specifically because
it's not my story to tell, but the people that
I was working with, various people that I was working with,
and the tensions between them and amongst themselves and the
label and all the stuff that didn't have to do
with me, but specifically with them, and so that kind
of made it pretty difficult, I think as far as

(01:13:35):
like because it was going all the way to the top,
so it's very difficult to kind of get things to
move because of that. Then on top of that, I
was never in those conversations, but I definitely got wind
of people trying to maybe like take a song, take
my song and stuff, but I was like, well, you

(01:13:56):
can't do that because I also co wrote the song,
so you literally legal you don't have to deal with that,
which I'm sure they found frustrating. So the thing with oh,
I don't think I actually told you this part, or
maybe I did. No, we didn't talk about this, So
we didn't talk. One thing actually only came out we
did talk.

Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
I hadn't know that, but I'm building the drama here.

Speaker 2 (01:14:20):
We never talked about this thought.

Speaker 1 (01:14:25):
Did she freeze?

Speaker 5 (01:14:27):
That's what you get for put in so much drama
of the world.

Speaker 1 (01:14:29):
Did you freeze? I'm freeze, amany please?

Speaker 5 (01:14:33):
I sort of kind of thought she was praying that
last one freeze.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
Come on.

Speaker 3 (01:14:37):
That's lining he liked this thing over.

Speaker 1 (01:14:42):
Ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
We don't necessarily want to gaslight you, uh visually. So
what had happened was about well five weeks ago, back
in June, oh, two months ago, eight weeks ago, we
had a Wi Fi discreption and see and then it
became the most hilarious game of kick the can down

(01:15:04):
the road and we'll do the episode tomorrow. All right,
Well next week's cool. Ah damn, I'm out of town.
The week after, well damn, I'm going on tour after that.
So now here we are some two months later, janky
as possible.

Speaker 1 (01:15:17):
We're not even going to try to This is.

Speaker 7 (01:15:19):
Good a mirror because you know what, you know why
I'm excited while we're two months later, because I can
talk to y'all about the picnic. I could talk to
y'all about a Marie performing with the Go Go Bank
like I. So I'm excited. So I'm no shade. But
things happened the way they should.

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
We did weird enough stop at the entry point we did.
It's crazy that we spent an hour forty minutes in
social foreplay. I'm talking about life and our philosophies, and
we started recording Career one hour.

Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
Forty minutes into the conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:15:54):
All right, so, and I'm glad we have this time
because then there's a lot of milks and crannies that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:59):
We did and pick up for starters.

Speaker 2 (01:16:02):
Fall in Love is one of the shortest sing I
almost consider it an interlude more than I consider it
a full flit song.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
Was that truly the goal?

Speaker 9 (01:16:12):
Like it was technically an intro.

Speaker 8 (01:16:14):
Technically it wasn't made to be the intro, but we
were like, this where the sequencing goes, this is the intro,
and it is the intro to the album. It's the
intro to me. I felt like that was a perfect
song to introduce me. I was like, if I could
encapsulate who I am as an artist right now, I
feel like this is probably the best introduction that I

(01:16:34):
have right now, and I felt.

Speaker 9 (01:16:37):
Like it works perfectly. So it was an intro and
it wasn't going to be the first single.

Speaker 8 (01:16:41):
Talking to Me was the first single technically that the
record label had chosen, and then I.

Speaker 9 (01:16:46):
Was fine with that. It was a little slow for me,
to be honestly, to be the first single.

Speaker 8 (01:16:50):
I was like, I don't know, it's a little slow
to be the first single, and maybe something a little
bit more aggressive is what I wanted. But I was like,
you know, I don't know, so that's fine. We shout
the video and everything.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
First thing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):
I was like, wow, this is something that we were
rhyme too. And you know there's been Marx and history
to where none EMCs were picking music that was almost
MC ready, Like I remember rhyme.

Speaker 7 (01:17:20):
Talking to me, That's what I was thinking to talking
to me.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
I remember, I mean the day, the day that Mary's
My Life came out.

Speaker 1 (01:17:32):
Matter of fact, didn't you give us that cassette?

Speaker 2 (01:17:35):
I remember you being in the we were like doing
DC heavy, like we were in the DMV doing Howard
and our usual promo thing. You were in the van
with us, and I remember, like we just got in
a promo of Mary's My Life.

Speaker 1 (01:17:52):
And suddenly.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
I had the same issues with the music as my
parents had with hip hop, because it was like, wait
a minute, why she's singing.

Speaker 1 (01:18:03):
Over a loop? What like this is just for rappers
and rappers only.

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
Like when My Life came on, I was crying foul, like, no,
can't take Roy Air song and just I don't remember
the lyrics on top of it, and she can't sing
over like she just singing.

Speaker 9 (01:18:20):
Over him hop beats. I remember that was a big complaint.

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
Right, And then one someone said, well, oh so it's
cool for brand newbie and a rhyme over it, but
it's not cool for Mary to do it. And I
was like, yeah, but R and B people are supposed
to create the music that we want to.

Speaker 1 (01:18:33):
Take, but they can't. Wow, what the line in front
of us?

Speaker 2 (01:18:38):
That's how I was thinking in ninety four, and even
though like since that point people have done it. When
fall in Love came out, that was like, Wow, finally
there's a producer that musicallyague kind of things like I do.

Speaker 1 (01:18:56):
Like I felt that that was the closest to.

Speaker 2 (01:19:01):
A non commercial, Like it just sounded too real to me,
and I was just like, whoa, who's this?

Speaker 3 (01:19:05):
And samples and fall in Love? Right, I'm trying to
think there is what's the sample on the phone?

Speaker 8 (01:19:10):
Oh wait, I'm thinking about the Love remix, which is crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:19:14):
Gene carn what gene corn? Yeah, man startist stripping?

Speaker 9 (01:19:19):
Well, what's the sample in the fall love? Remax?

Speaker 8 (01:19:22):
No, no, no, no.

Speaker 9 (01:19:24):
We always felt like that should have gotten.

Speaker 7 (01:19:29):
The beginning of a song is the beginning of something,
huh that international?

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
Oh me or shame?

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):
I know, I feel my city, I feel my city.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
I'm sorry I felt yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:45):
But for me, At no point did anyone at the
label say, yo, make this joint into a full fledged
song if we're going to shoot a video to it, or.

Speaker 8 (01:19:54):
Some people did ask like, oh, it's kind of short,
you want to make it longer.

Speaker 9 (01:19:57):
But I think we agreed.

Speaker 8 (01:19:58):
Everyone pretty much agreed from job that better to have
people want to repeat it than have it.

Speaker 9 (01:20:03):
Go on too long.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
See you're ahead of the time.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
See now we live in that age where most songs
are under two minutes.

Speaker 9 (01:20:13):
You know, really, are they not sure?

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
There's there's an artist now whose complete album, like the
average song is like under two minutes and fifteen seconds.

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
Like that's wow.

Speaker 2 (01:20:25):
Socially and politically, not only are we emulating the fifties,
but even creatively, you know, which tells me that, Okay,
the rebirth of the album era might come back. Maybe
in the twenty thirty.

Speaker 9 (01:20:43):
Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Speaker 8 (01:20:45):
You know what, that's a good point because you know,
we always want whatever's going on now than the pendulum swings,
and it's you know, I think you mentioned the fifties,
and then I think about even like just throughout human history,
like thousands of years, we have a way of thinking
that whatever is happening now is the first time that
this has happened, or that we're on a progression, like.

Speaker 1 (01:21:06):
The end of it, right, the end of it right.

Speaker 8 (01:21:09):
But where's everything's just cyclical, like there's nothing that's they
say there's nothing new under the sun, or I think
that's actually in the Bible. But everything that's happened has
already happened. Whether people are thinking like this is a
super progressive idea. It's like throughout human history there have
been times where things have been way over here and
way over there.

Speaker 9 (01:21:27):
We just repeat because we're still the same beans.

Speaker 3 (01:21:31):
They knew its technology.

Speaker 9 (01:21:32):
It feels like the one that's new is technology.

Speaker 8 (01:21:34):
I wonder what kind of sounds like if someone's playing
like an ood or whatever, like back in the day
and they're like, oh, this is kind of I like
that beats and then things are all slow.

Speaker 9 (01:21:43):
Again, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
No, you're right, I mean, because look, when the Summer
of Life happened with Woodstock, you would have thought, oh,
this is a rival something new. No, Woodstock was the
end of that period, civil rights period, the summer of Love.
When satur nighte Fever came came out, you would have
thought that was the arrival of the disco era in
nineteen seventy seven.

Speaker 1 (01:22:04):
Here it is Nope, the.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
Backlash happened immediately, and sad to say, when Thriller happened,
you would have thought, hey, this is this is the
arrival of Michael Jackson.

Speaker 1 (01:22:18):
Where now we could sort of kind of say Thriller was.

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
The ending of Michael, the undoing of Michael Jackson.

Speaker 9 (01:22:31):
Michael Jackson, you know, custin dude.

Speaker 1 (01:22:34):
And he's my idol. This is no, it's not shade
or whatever.

Speaker 7 (01:22:36):
But if he make me scared about where bad comes
into conversation, but that's just yea well, because.

Speaker 2 (01:22:40):
The thing, see, the thing that at least he was
genius about was that in his mind, like I've always
been historically afraid of kids are so damn honest, like
they don't know how to be cynical or they don't
know how to be They don't know how to bullshit you.

Speaker 1 (01:22:59):
So if a.

Speaker 2 (01:23:01):
Kid immediately likes the song, then that song's forever, no
matter what.

Speaker 1 (01:23:05):
And George Clinton said the same thing.

Speaker 2 (01:23:06):
But I think where Michael sort of discounted was Thriller
had nothing to do with the music or the talent
or any of those things.

Speaker 1 (01:23:16):
Thriller had with timing.

Speaker 2 (01:23:18):
MTV was a year old, and I mean, just like
Drake took advantage of viralness and Instagram, and you know,
like Michael took advantage of MTV. Thus that is why
he sold one hundred million units, because he was he
was the one that mastered the ideal viralness. But also,
unfortunately Thriller, what's most talked about is never the quality,

(01:23:43):
it's always the quantity. How many awards did it win,
how much money did he make, how many units did
he sell? And thus that caused a flooding that never stopped,
which is why money became more important to us. How
much we sold, you ain't ship because units sell. This
units like Thriller was one of the greatest moments. But

(01:24:04):
I also see Thriller as a burden that no one has,
including Michael, has been able to cross. So I considered
thriller at best, I can say thriller is a penultimate
to the ending of Michael Jackson as opposed to the arrival.
But that's with everything with Obama. We were all happy

(01:24:26):
days are here again. Nope, I feel like Obama's Eero
was the last time that we had the wool over
our eyes, like, yep, nothing to see here, Everything's okay
until and once the unarmed shootings happened and everything, So
I feel like now and.

Speaker 8 (01:24:42):
Siclicoles, it sounds like you always feel like the pinnacle
is the beginning of the end.

Speaker 9 (01:24:46):
But you know what, that is the climax.

Speaker 8 (01:24:48):
In any story or in a movie story, right, the
climax actually is the end. After that, you just have
the dinner mart, you just have you have the everything's
cooling down after that. But the climax is at the
end of the story or near the end of the story,
and after that you do just have a denim wall
into the and then the beginning of the next.

Speaker 2 (01:25:07):
Story, which which is why I feel with no hesitation
of doubt whatsoever, no matter how much they trying to
move the gold.

Speaker 1 (01:25:17):
Post or whatever politically.

Speaker 2 (01:25:18):
This is why I feel the Harris Wats administration will
truly be the beginning.

Speaker 9 (01:25:25):
That we're on a different page. But we're not going
to talk about politic.

Speaker 7 (01:25:32):
Mead, we ain't gonna talk about politics.

Speaker 9 (01:25:37):
We ain't gonna talk about that to you either.

Speaker 7 (01:25:40):
Oh I'm intrigued, though, Amory on some other platform, I
would love.

Speaker 3 (01:25:48):
Long, But I know it's good. I know a.

Speaker 8 (01:25:51):
Whole bunch of could have should have would as a
whole bunch I could have should have would put it
this way, Yes, unless you are standing for a against genocide,
I just can't.

Speaker 9 (01:26:02):
I'm just I'm just not.

Speaker 8 (01:26:04):
And I've heard people throw out the H for the
H name towards all these other candidates, one in particular.

Speaker 9 (01:26:10):
But I'm like, all right, but did he help kill
two hundred thousand people? I'm just I'm just that's what
I'm saying.

Speaker 8 (01:26:16):
You say, you could say all these other things, and
maybe someone the next response is, well, he would have,
he would have it, maybe he would have done worse.
And I'm like, well maybe maybe maybe, maybe maybe not,
maybe yes, maybe no, but I can't go on.

Speaker 9 (01:26:27):
Maybe. I just know what I see, and I know
we have.

Speaker 2 (01:26:29):
To go in as You're right, I know we have
to go as right.

Speaker 8 (01:26:34):
And also it's kind of like, I don't know if
we were If we were, this is a it's not
a direct parallel to that. But if we were like
living in the Confederacy right now, I don't really know
if I would have been really arguing that hard on
which Confederate president we're going to get and how much
it would have made a difference, like necessarily to me
if I was enslaved. I'm sure there have been something,
some minor things maybe, but generally, you.

Speaker 7 (01:26:54):
Know, if we were living in the Confederate moment, that's
a huge if it.

Speaker 8 (01:27:00):
But what I mean is that sometimes you know, people
will try to do the lesser evil thing. Oh yeah, yeah,
Well that's why I said this is a long this
is a whole other thing.

Speaker 2 (01:27:09):
I mean I've heard yes, I've heard that too. I mean,
right now I'm doing whatever possible to stop forty five
from what's happening.

Speaker 3 (01:27:18):
And giving their women rights back for their bodies. I
don't know that's important too. So it's a whole list
of importance and things.

Speaker 1 (01:27:25):
And yeah, that's a.

Speaker 8 (01:27:26):
Whole the topic as well, unpopular opinions on that as well.

Speaker 7 (01:27:30):
But oh I'm dreaming Marie, when is the podcast for
my friends?

Speaker 9 (01:27:34):
My friends have I have friends who are just like
some of some of a couple of them maybe who.

Speaker 8 (01:27:41):
Are like vote blue no matter who, some who are
like no, I think that this is actually good to go.

Speaker 7 (01:27:46):
You know.

Speaker 8 (01:27:47):
I have some people who are like, I'm definitely gonna
do third party support that build the framework while everybody
else is doing all the other stuff, because it's just
build a third party frame.

Speaker 9 (01:27:55):
Which is it has to be done.

Speaker 8 (01:27:56):
If we want to have like four or five parties,
we're gonna have someone have to do it.

Speaker 9 (01:28:00):
So while everyone's in the frame.

Speaker 1 (01:28:03):
Till Jill come back.

Speaker 9 (01:28:03):
Wait, No, it's no, it's.

Speaker 8 (01:28:05):
Always going to be a boogeyman. It's always going to
be a boogeyman. It's never the it's never the best time.
So someone just has to do in the meantime. Because
it's a five to ten year, twenty year. You gotta
think like China thirty years down the road, you know
what I'm saying. You can't just think about right now.
So it's like someone has to do that while everyone
else is doing the other thing.

Speaker 3 (01:28:20):
That's true.

Speaker 8 (01:28:21):
I also know people who are super pro black, like
Pan African they send it priate after schools.

Speaker 9 (01:28:27):
They voted Trump last time, and they'd be voting for
him again.

Speaker 3 (01:28:29):
That's crazy. Things are better pregnant.

Speaker 9 (01:28:33):
But well, I don't know if they're black. I would
hope that we have more babies.

Speaker 8 (01:28:38):
I'll just say that, Oh I'm tired of I'm just
saying we've been sitting at thirteen percent.

Speaker 7 (01:28:44):
Who as long as somebodyiest marine, as long as somebody
could be the babies.

Speaker 8 (01:28:49):
There's that.

Speaker 9 (01:28:50):
There is that.

Speaker 8 (01:28:51):
But the majority of the world is more impoverished than
we are, and they don't tie their family to money.

Speaker 9 (01:28:58):
They have kids.

Speaker 8 (01:28:59):
And but some people will be like, you know, because
I was reading this one book, I had a book
club book, and they were like one of the moments
in the book, I was like, interesting, I never thought
about it like that.

Speaker 9 (01:29:08):
The woman was a housekeeper from South America.

Speaker 8 (01:29:11):
And she was cleaning the house for the lady and
the lady lived in a big house, a white lady,
and they had one son. And she said, you're pregnant again.
And of course she was like, why do you people
keep having children that you can't pay for? And she's like,
you don't think about like how you can provide and
she said no, Senora, And I was like, interesting, because
when the lady got pregnant, I was like, oh, man,

(01:29:32):
y'all are living in this shared space.

Speaker 9 (01:29:34):
You got two kids, it's hard. Now you're pregnant again.
I don't know, girl, what's going on. And she's a
grown woman. But when she.

Speaker 8 (01:29:40):
Said that to the lady, I thought, interesting, we have
so much on this side and there are people who
are struggling. But I'm just saying there's different it's relative,
there's different level. I was like, she's sitting in this
wealthy woman's house.

Speaker 9 (01:29:54):
She's not even that welly. She's probably up middle class.

Speaker 8 (01:29:56):
White lady, big huge, three hundred square thousand square foot
house me before thousand square foot house, just her and
her husband and one child. And they were like, this
is all we can do to provide what we want
to provide for our son, which is fair. But then
you have another woman who's like, the amount of children
I have is not determined by our finances. It's about
family and growing the family. And many people in the
world think like that, and I never really thought about

(01:30:18):
it that way until I read the book.

Speaker 3 (01:30:20):
We're capitalists as fuck, I mean, as America, so.

Speaker 8 (01:30:23):
It's like, well, when you when you're like, yeah, when
you're throwing all the women in the workplace and everyone's
feeling like they don't have enough to survive and everything inflation,
you can be like, man, you got to pay for this,
And I agree, But also I can see the other
side and say, well, people make do with a lot
less and still have five six kids, And so there's
no real answering there. It's just more of a question

(01:30:44):
and a perspect something to think about. But I just
know me myself, I'm not on the page of like
when it comes to like those women's.

Speaker 9 (01:30:54):
Rights, da da da da da da. I have mixed.

Speaker 8 (01:30:56):
Feelings because I know that when it came to the
BLO population anyway, it wasn't because they were like, you
need some rights. It was like, it's too many of
y'all and we don't want that. So we're gonna put
this here and here and here. Now what y'all do
with it is what you do with it. But I'm
just saying I'm not gonna be waving the batter and
say this's a black and white thing.

Speaker 9 (01:31:16):
It's individual.

Speaker 3 (01:31:17):
But it's just nice to have the choice. It's just
nice to have.

Speaker 9 (01:31:19):
Sho, I'm not happy.

Speaker 8 (01:31:21):
I'm not happy that the majority of children the potentialized
whatever you want to say, I'm not It doesn't make
me happy that the majority of them, or like it's
not thirteen percent, it's like a twenty five, thirty percent
or half, or that doesn't make me feel.

Speaker 9 (01:31:36):
Good, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 8 (01:31:37):
So I don't know what the answer is, but I
know that doesn't make me happy.

Speaker 2 (01:31:43):
And on the other side of that argument, there's also
like health issues we have to figure out. Yeah, there's yeah,
I know a lot of people just for health issues
reasons have to terminate a pregnancy.

Speaker 9 (01:31:55):
Yes, that sounds real. I mean that's what I say.
It's complicated. But I'm just like, yeah, who do you
need this?

Speaker 7 (01:32:01):
I'm like, h No, I think people are just fighting
for their choice, to make their choice for themselves. So
just like, just don't tell me what to do. Just
let me. My man said last night, too many people
in the hospital room with me. Let me make my choice.

Speaker 8 (01:32:14):
I'm a firm believer in body sovereignty and you need that.
But across the board, so when now the COVID now
they're talking about empos, I'm a believer.

Speaker 3 (01:32:24):
And I am accination too. I see you A Marie.

Speaker 8 (01:32:28):
I am A my body, it's my body, it's my choice,
it's my family's choice.

Speaker 9 (01:32:33):
It's like this is bully.

Speaker 8 (01:32:34):
I'm a and I'm a free speech absolutist. I'm not
for that censorship either.

Speaker 3 (01:32:40):
My friend was like, are you at Africanist as well?
A Marie? Are you a little bit of a pan
Africanist as one?

Speaker 8 (01:32:45):
I think so, but I'd have to look at and see,
like what what technically that is?

Speaker 9 (01:32:48):
But I fall into that as well.

Speaker 1 (01:32:50):
I was.

Speaker 8 (01:32:51):
My friend was like, I don't know what they ever
trying to figure it out, because you know, I got
a Republican friends. People who don't were independent just across
the board, They're like, well what are you? And I
was like, I've always said I'm just independ But I
was like they were like, I know what you are.
Someone just texting me out the blue. They're like, you're
a libertarian. And I was like, you know, there was
a point where I thought maybe I was because I'm
just like everybody just.

Speaker 9 (01:33:10):
Do what they wanted. But I was like not quite.
Then I was like maybe not.

Speaker 8 (01:33:14):
I think what it is is I just don't really
have any kind of I can't fall into any niche
because I agree with this and I don't agree with that.

Speaker 9 (01:33:23):
I agree with this, but I don't agree with that.
I agree with this, but I don't.

Speaker 8 (01:33:25):
Agree with that, meaning this, this group, this group, this group,
this group.

Speaker 9 (01:33:30):
So I think I'm more of.

Speaker 1 (01:33:32):
An American.

Speaker 7 (01:33:35):
Because you have the right to be that way, right,
Like awful you you know what I mean.

Speaker 9 (01:33:40):
When those people were tearing down those COVID masks and
they were being belligerent in the targets and knocking on
them racks, and everyone's.

Speaker 8 (01:33:47):
Like they're being stupid, and I was like, I mean,
it's really out of control. But they're also the first
line of our civil defense actually, so let them just
be doing their thing. They don't really necessarily care about
my civil rights necessarily, But it's okay.

Speaker 3 (01:34:00):
You don't need you don't.

Speaker 8 (01:34:01):
You just need people to act sometimes and you it's
just like whether it's political parties, whether it's certain groups
of why certain groups can come together and they may
be completely our opposite side of the political spectrum, but
on one issue they agree. People have to be able
to find common ground and you have to understand, like
when the chess pieces are moving like, for instance, all right,

(01:34:26):
they're going to use this democratic president to do these
things while they're trying to do that, and now when
it's another time and it's like a Republican president, that's
going to be the time to usher in these other things.
But see what ended up happening. You're like, well what happened?
It's like, actually it's from the president that was sent
when the Democrat democratic president was in or what's happening now, Well,

(01:34:49):
that kind of got kind of slid in when the
Republican was a president. It's like two hands to the
same body. Yeah, which is why we need more political parties.

Speaker 1 (01:34:59):
So what was it?

Speaker 5 (01:35:00):
What was your second single?

Speaker 1 (01:35:12):
Now?

Speaker 2 (01:35:13):
In terms of the first album? First of all, who
were the higher ups at Sony Columbia. Was it Donnie
and Tommy still or was at that time.

Speaker 9 (01:35:24):
Donnie was still there?

Speaker 8 (01:35:26):
Well, you know, I'm always I'm like the worst at
remembering things, honestly, but yes, I remember Donnie was still there.
I don't know if Tommy was there. I never met him,
so I don't I don't think he was there. How
I got into Sony at Columbia was because I think
we talked about that I was. I met Rich, but
Rich already was being someone was already kind of just

(01:35:47):
like watching out for him to see how what was
developing for the last couple of years previously when we met,
before we met, and that was Jeff Burrows and Darryl Williams.
They had a Rise Entertainment and Jeff had really come
from Bad Boy and then he had a situation he
was trying to get going with Columbia. He just didn't
have an artist that he wanted yet, and so he

(01:36:09):
was just kind of watching with Rich. So we kind
of created that and they brought us into the system.

Speaker 1 (01:36:15):
So at that time, like who was your A and
R at the label?

Speaker 9 (01:36:21):
I remember Space, I remember his name, but it's because
we didn't.

Speaker 8 (01:36:24):
Have an R ring at that time. We did did
our project. It was like a thing that we did
and we delivered it and that was done. It was
really just like finishing touches.

Speaker 1 (01:36:34):
It was.

Speaker 2 (01:36:34):
It wasn't like feedback and hay, I like no, no, no, no, no,
try and go back and do this again.

Speaker 9 (01:36:39):
No, the feedback It was pretty much like this is great.
And that was it.

Speaker 8 (01:36:43):
Because also there was Rich and I and then we
had Jeff and Daryl, their partners.

Speaker 9 (01:36:48):
And then we had Columbia. So by that time we
had kind.

Speaker 8 (01:36:50):
Of already vetted it, and Jeff had already vetted it,
felt good about it, and they trusted him with it.
So someone hearing something, Yes, they tried. They did try
to get certain things finished, like just the label was
really instrumental in closing out the project, mixing and all
that stuff like that. But the an R for the
first album, that really was.

Speaker 9 (01:37:09):
Just us for that development.

Speaker 7 (01:37:12):
That's because I was like, what about the vision where
they had their hands They didn't even have their hand
in the vision.

Speaker 8 (01:37:18):
I remember Donnie got really mad at my first shoot.

Speaker 9 (01:37:23):
I heard in the meeting.

Speaker 8 (01:37:23):
He was so upset about not the is the shoot.

Speaker 9 (01:37:29):
So on the back of the album, the back.

Speaker 8 (01:37:32):
Of the album has the song titles on it, and
it's just me on a chaise lounge or whatever, and
it's just like wearing like black shorts are pretty listen.

Speaker 9 (01:37:40):
It's quite It was to me.

Speaker 8 (01:37:41):
It was kind of tame then, but it's super tame
compared to what's happening now.

Speaker 9 (01:37:46):
But it was just he said, why what is this?
Why is it all liked? And he was really upset.
Most people will have their labels like trying to make
them naked. But he was just he just that was
just too much. He was upset.

Speaker 8 (01:38:03):
I mean, hen' telling me that, But that's the feedback.
They're like, he really didn't like that.

Speaker 9 (01:38:07):
I was like, this just sitting down, you can't even
it's not even frontwards, just from the side. It's just legs. Really,
that's it. And he's just like he thought.

Speaker 1 (01:38:15):
It was easy. Well whatever you call that thing.

Speaker 8 (01:38:18):
Yeah, lying down, lying on the shades, and then it's
just a.

Speaker 9 (01:38:22):
Complete side view. So it's just like leg But again,
super tan people would look at and be.

Speaker 1 (01:38:27):
Like, what bad album. I don't call that, but okay,
he is.

Speaker 9 (01:38:32):
The back is the back of the album. It's the
back of the album where the song titles are.

Speaker 8 (01:38:35):
That's what I'm saying, Like, you probably not even thinking
about it that way because it's it's super tank. But
I remember when I went to the Soul Train Awards too.
I remember they were the label's nervous. They're like dresses,
the dresses really well, it was it was kind of
it was kind of risque. It was kind of risque.
It was like basically basically like a David Downer but

(01:38:58):
Patricia Fields, they made that dress and it was like
a dress that was like a body suit, like a
bathing suit body suit, but we added more because I
didn't want cheeks to come out. And then it was
just like the train of it all was black, like
chiffon or something, so it was black just see through,
so it was it was it was quite revealing, but
you couldn't see any cheeks.

Speaker 7 (01:39:18):
It's just shocking because you would think all labels want
all their female singers to be.

Speaker 3 (01:39:22):
Like shoo shoo, you know, pow powow.

Speaker 8 (01:39:25):
So yeah, but I think it depends on what they
want to do, right, because if they're just like, we
don't want we wanted a little bit more wholesome maybe
or something.

Speaker 1 (01:39:34):
And my ve cass, I thought you were the girl
next door.

Speaker 9 (01:39:40):
I felt like it was. I didn't think it was
too much.

Speaker 8 (01:39:42):
But you know, it's funny because my thing was like
I was like, listen, I like short shorts because they
were also kind of like shorts of the video kind
of short. They were like okay, okay, you know, but
I was like, listen, I love short shorts.

Speaker 9 (01:39:54):
And here's the thing about me.

Speaker 8 (01:39:55):
I was like, you know, whether I show a lot
of skin or whether I show no skin. My whole
thing about who I am is I'm going to do
what I want to do because I will be in
control of my own image and I will be in
control of my sexuality. No one is going to be
in control of that. So if I want to be
like I have the legs out on the chadels, or
I want to wear short shorts in the video, but

(01:40:15):
you know, it's still it's still tame. But then if
I do im Mense magazine thing, I don't want a bikini,
I don't want I want pants and I want this.
You know.

Speaker 9 (01:40:25):
My whole thing was like, you know, I have to
it's my it's.

Speaker 8 (01:40:28):
My, it's it's me, it's my body, it's myself, and
I want to be in charge of myself, you know
what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:40:35):
So for the three years that transpire between all I
have in touch, was there active conversations on how to
build up on the momentum. Because the thing was, when
one thing came, nobody saw that shit coming. It just
literally landed out of nowhere like a boulder out the sky,

(01:40:56):
like oh shit, what And then that's a good way
just landed on us. In such a hard weight, like
I distinctively remember like when I first heard I just
got my license.

Speaker 1 (01:41:08):
That was like one of the first songs that like
my whole.

Speaker 5 (01:41:16):
Listen, let's get to it.

Speaker 1 (01:41:18):
No, let's not get into it.

Speaker 2 (01:41:21):
No, I graduated, Listen, I graduated high school and immediately,
like setting the motion, like a big part of the
root stories that we had to move to Europe, you know,
like two years after regraduating high school and us making it,
we moved to Europe and lived in London for like

(01:41:44):
the longest. But even at that, like we were touring
two hundred days out the year, so like I mean,
I just brought my first real, real real house, like
my first hey, let me take my money and do
something nice for me thing, like I did that and
maybe three years ago because the day that things fall

(01:42:04):
apart came out to Wrek got his license.

Speaker 1 (01:42:07):
Okay, uh huh so what were you saying? Okay, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:42:12):
We were in the gallery doing an in store and
it was like where's to riqua?

Speaker 1 (01:42:16):
Oh he went to go get his license and buy
his car. I'm like, we make money enough to buy
our lights in the car.

Speaker 2 (01:42:22):
No, but one thing was one of the first things
I remember blasting and I was just like, I can't
believe that the hardest hip.

Speaker 1 (01:42:32):
Hop song of all time is not Buying MC and so.

Speaker 7 (01:42:37):
Hip hop mixed with Go Go hip hop mixed with
Go Go don't all right.

Speaker 2 (01:42:41):
Look there's one ConA and that's the thing I wanted
to spend. I know there's Go Go leanings into it.

Speaker 1 (01:42:48):
It's not a Go Go song. I'm sorry. There's a
lot of Yes, there's a lot of musicians in.

Speaker 8 (01:42:55):
The video expectful if I was like, yeah, that's a
go Go record, like go Go, let not get out
of control. He got little flavors, got the tinge of it,
but that's a whole different vibe.

Speaker 2 (01:43:10):
Yeah, No, it's it's I mean because of the drum
rolling and all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:43:14):
Yes, it feels it feels like, it feels updated. I
love it. So did the labels see that coming at all?

Speaker 3 (01:43:21):
Like?

Speaker 8 (01:43:21):
One thing?

Speaker 9 (01:43:22):
Are you talking about the second album? You're talking about
the creations?

Speaker 2 (01:43:24):
One thing which I hope let you hey, you have
more of this, and then we could put.

Speaker 9 (01:43:29):
No, it was the opposite.

Speaker 2 (01:43:31):
It was the almost feel like you you made it
against there.

Speaker 9 (01:43:36):
I mean, we did it right, we did it we
were creating the album.

Speaker 8 (01:43:39):
It was kind of really difficult to create that second album,
honestly because.

Speaker 9 (01:43:43):
Rich was like doing I don't know what was going on.

Speaker 8 (01:43:45):
He was kind of like in a different space and
it was like almost like chasing him down. And he
works in a very specific way, which is basically in
isolation where he has to he has to get a
lot of his ideas, but he has to be like
a complete isolation.

Speaker 9 (01:43:58):
So the label was also.

Speaker 8 (01:43:59):
Meanwhile trying to create that for him, like you know,
putting him up here or there. Also, he had different
people who wanted to work with him, so there was that,
but he still needed to have his isolation.

Speaker 9 (01:44:08):
And he doesn't work fast. He doesn't work fast.

Speaker 8 (01:44:12):
He's more he takes his time and it takes it
can take a long time while he's putting things together,
he's getting his thoughts together right, So that was also happening,
and meanwhile, it's like, okay, time to do the second album.
Once we got into the flow of it, though it
was pretty good, then I almost did like this part
of the album separately, like we did it together, but

(01:44:32):
then separately because of that timing because it was taking
so long. So like the record I did with Carl
Thomas and stuff like that. That was just something that you know,
we were putting together because at the time, you know,
Lenny was also putting that project together. It was really difficult,
but we eventually got it and then we ended up
doing one thing.

Speaker 2 (01:44:51):
How do you normally work with rich Like does he
go off on his own and comes back and says,
this is one I prepared in the Mountain cabins.

Speaker 8 (01:44:58):
Yes, he normally just goes off his own and then
I can finish the thought, depending on like, you know,
what's what it is. But he needs to have his
space to finish his own thought first. But he's got
to complete his thought musically, and then I can see,
you know, because a lot of times I did the
bridges a lot because he just doesn't really do a
lot of bridges, you know what I mean, Like he'll

(01:45:19):
get all the other things there. But that's normally how
it would work. We have to see for the future,
you know, should I will see what happens. But how
we worked in the past was he has to finish
his thought. He has to finish the thought. I just
remember it being painstaking that second album. It was just
it was just difficult to finish. But once we got

(01:45:41):
it though, then we had it, you know what I mean.
So we had one thing we had talking about. We
felt like it was special, we felt like talking about
was also really amazing. Actually, I feel like I actually
like talking about it even better than one thing. Lav
told me that before that was that that was his favorite,
and I like, yeah, you know, that's the one. I
never I don't get tired of performing either one, but

(01:46:03):
that one just something about it is like I think
it like it's in my essence, like that's very me.
But we did one thing and we felt like, Okay,
this is something really dope, but we couldn't say like
because it's kind of like this and that one was big,
so this one it was It wasn't. It was just
it didn't sound like anything. So we just knew how

(01:46:26):
we felt about it. So it's kind of like deflating
when the label just completely didn't get it at all.

Speaker 9 (01:46:33):
That's actually how they were, like.

Speaker 1 (01:46:39):
They said this, I didn't play it.

Speaker 8 (01:46:41):
And I wasn't there, but I know, you know, it
was played for them, and the reaction was pretty much.

Speaker 9 (01:46:46):
Like not is this it? This is?

Speaker 8 (01:46:49):
This?

Speaker 9 (01:46:49):
Is this is that.

Speaker 3 (01:46:50):
You came up with this is one thing.

Speaker 9 (01:46:53):
Yeah, it was just like this isn't it?

Speaker 8 (01:46:54):
And at the time if everything was almost like culminating.
And it's interesting because you talk about like things of
like things that can be like the biggest thing, but
it's also like the ending, the shiftings to something else
because with the way that it was so painstaking to
put the album together, it's taking a long time, and
you know, that time, the label starts wondering what's going
on because meanwhile, looking at the rich, I've got him somewhere,

(01:47:15):
but it's kind of like taking a long time still,
and I'm creating what I'm creating, and it's like it's
all kind of been a painstaking process and it's very
drawn out right, really really drawn out, and normally and
I get into vibe, I want to just like boom boom,
bom boom, I'm quick. So that it was kind of
hard for me too because I'm also working, you know,
like partner it up, you know what I mean, And
and he is his process is different, so it's a

(01:47:35):
little antsy for me. But that taking a long time,
the label not really knowing what's going on, I think
spends a lot of money just trying to like figure
out how to just create that artistic oasis.

Speaker 9 (01:47:49):
For Rich I feel.

Speaker 8 (01:47:50):
I don't I don't like to speak for him because
he knows his experience, you know, but just from from
what I what I was seeing and what I knew
of what I was privy to, that it's taking a
long time.

Speaker 9 (01:48:02):
And then and.

Speaker 8 (01:48:02):
Then after all that, like ooh, this has been like
I don't know, a year or a year and a
half just trying to get the scenario.

Speaker 9 (01:48:10):
Going, and then they come with this what is what
is even?

Speaker 7 (01:48:17):
This?

Speaker 9 (01:48:17):
What is this even?

Speaker 8 (01:48:19):
And so I think at that point, and there were
some other political things I don't even know about, honestly
to this day, I don't really know. But somehow there
were some issues with the head of the label and
with maybe Jeff, you know, with a Rise I think,
and then there were.

Speaker 9 (01:48:35):
Also issues maybe with the label and Rich.

Speaker 8 (01:48:38):
So there was all these little splinterings that were happening
in the meantime, and then of course then we come
with this.

Speaker 9 (01:48:45):
So at that time I think it was really.

Speaker 8 (01:48:47):
Like, Okay, I'm probably going to just like lose my
deal or you know, just it's just that's just it.
That's kind of like the vibes I've been getting and
pretty much what we're feeling like is that that I'm
just about to just not be with them anymore.

Speaker 9 (01:49:01):
They're about to drop me on from the label.

Speaker 8 (01:49:03):
And I was like, I mean, the thing about it is,
I was like, I don't even care about any of
that stuff. I just really care about the music. And
I was like, this, this is great and somebody's gonna
hear it. So if they're not going to put it out,
I guess I just will. I'll just give it to
everybody for free then. And that's really that's how it

(01:49:24):
got out. It was really, uh, thanks getting a DJ
getting we'll work with Charles Dixon and Charles Dixon.

Speaker 9 (01:49:31):
I remember DJ Charles Dixon.

Speaker 8 (01:49:33):
Charles Dixon had like this, this is that back in
the day when you know, people would have these massive
DJ lists all over the world and DJ's had a
lot more.

Speaker 9 (01:49:40):
I feel like maybe it's like that again. Yeahtonomy and
they could just do what they want. They could actually.

Speaker 3 (01:49:46):
Break records, so that helped too.

Speaker 8 (01:49:49):
And record pools. Yes, so we basically did that. We
did it to Sundays of the record pool, send it
to the list, and so all the DJs like around
the world got it, and I think the UK might
have gotten it first, like a day before everyone else,
maybe half a day, you know, because just the way
that the list was sent out or the record was
sent out to the list, and they just started playing

(01:50:10):
it like immediately, like a lot of d started playing.

Speaker 9 (01:50:13):
It right away. And that was that was kind of
my parting thing.

Speaker 8 (01:50:15):
That was to me, that was my you know, and
it was just my decision because lendy Als is our thing.

Speaker 9 (01:50:21):
That was the parting thing that.

Speaker 2 (01:50:22):
Was like, well, you know, I'm gone, let's prepare for
part two. Okay, wow, that's crazy.

Speaker 8 (01:50:29):
Yeah. Then we put it out and it took off
over Christmas break, so this is Christmas, no one can
do anything. So it was actually a good time too
because everyone was like on their vacations so there was
on like these crazy calls and all these things happening,
and I was like, great, we'll just do this at
the end of the year, and this is my parting gift,
I guess, and I just want people to hear the record,
that's all. So I guess I'm done and we'll figure
out what you do after that. And that was it

(01:50:51):
and come New year's. It was just building so fast,
and the label then had to pay play ketch up like, Okay,
we need to do the video, we need to do this.

Speaker 1 (01:51:01):
Because answer this thing.

Speaker 2 (01:51:03):
Though, was there any sort of moment of redemption, like hey, we.

Speaker 1 (01:51:09):
Were wrong about this.

Speaker 2 (01:51:13):
Non or were they mad at you for ruining their plans?

Speaker 8 (01:51:19):
You know? The thing that's so weird is no, it
wasn't that. And I can't say specifically because I wasn't
in the meetings, but there was the feeling that they
were that would be weird though, so I never knew
if that was the case.

Speaker 9 (01:51:32):
What I was gonna say was they were like.

Speaker 8 (01:51:33):
Actively trying to tamp down the record because there were
other records at the label that they wanted to pop,
and they were shift They wanted to shift the attention
of other records, so they're trying to shift people away
from that. And so really one thing did what it

(01:51:54):
did in spite of the label, not because of it.
And I don't mean that to disparage any particular person,
because I actually had a really great relationship with people
who were there. So some people are just doing their jobs,
you know what I mean. It's more like I think
when you go on the higher up, the higher, higher,
higher up.

Speaker 9 (01:52:11):
Part of it, because the people who are really insitionally working
but are great.

Speaker 2 (01:52:16):
You literally just said, I mean, I think when you
work for or when you work with the system, that's
kind of more or less prioritizing their job safety as
opposed to creativity. You often find a lot of cutting
off the nose despite the face. Because my whole thing

(01:52:38):
is that, well, if you win, then they all win,
and then other people can win. But there's this whole
thing where it's just like one entity can only share
the spotlight.

Speaker 9 (01:52:49):
And I never understood that. I didn't understand that.

Speaker 8 (01:52:52):
And we said that at the time because I was like, listen,
and I think when people started looking at like rap
smaller rap labels, they understood that the strengthen numbers because
I was like, listen, they're thinking too corporate. They're thinking
in a very old, staid corporate way, which is this
is the van guard, this is the this, and this
is that. And I'm like, you want everyone to win

(01:53:13):
because then everyone can help each other, and everyone even
just by the nature of being successful, it helps give
you leverage for this and that I'm like, why am
I the only one who's seeing this over here? I
mean my team was seeing it. I was like, you
want more artists to be super super successful? Do you
only want one or two to keep your lights on?
Because that's not a good that's a precarious position for
you to be in as a label.

Speaker 1 (01:53:34):
Why would you want that?

Speaker 3 (01:53:35):
It's not the lady model. Like when you go back
and you talk.

Speaker 7 (01:53:37):
To even some of these female singers and legends of
the days, it's like one Diana Wannareita. They can't even
talk to each other. They don't not imposed to like
like it's a thing. Even when we look at female MC's,
there is one who does this and one who does that,
and they cannot.

Speaker 1 (01:53:51):
It's yeah, there's an artist.

Speaker 9 (01:53:53):
Tokenism, don't I don't like that either.

Speaker 2 (01:53:55):
There's a really awesome book that I read like five
years Well, he's a comedy writer.

Speaker 1 (01:54:01):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:54:02):
His name is Jason Carp. Back then, I believe his
MC name was Hot Karl, and Hot Karl was he
made his mark in the early aughts whatever the Hot
ninety seven is of la. They used to have this
Freestyle Friday's thing where you know, they would have different
people call him Freestyle Battle and whatnot and this guy

(01:54:25):
was at one point just had the world in the
palm of his hands, and so he signs to a
particular label and his memoirs called Kanye West Owes Me
three hundred Dollars and other true stories, and basically Jensen
goes through his whole from being a battle MC to
being signed to Innerscope Records, and he reveals something. So

(01:54:48):
right now, the story that you're telling me is I
believe the same story that Bubba Sparks went through at Innerscope.
So the way that Jason painted the story was that
they were so invested in a particular money making MC

(01:55:09):
on that label that their plan was to sign everyone
that was kind of like under his umbrella and freeze
them so that they don't stand in the way of
their star producing.

Speaker 1 (01:55:25):
And I was like, wow, I've never heard of that.

Speaker 2 (01:55:28):
Like, if you were to tell this story without me
reading that book, then I would have just been like,
Okay's But once I read Jensen's book and then started
asking around to other ex label execs, and they were like, dude,
that is part of the course that happens all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:55:46):
It's kind of.

Speaker 8 (01:55:47):
Weird, they said, they just signed I mean I feel
like that's actually extra like where they went out of
their way to sign people that were similar to him.

Speaker 2 (01:55:55):
We just had Senata Matrea that was kind of his
at the label because his debut was so magnetic and
sold so much that it was problematic for Sony's biggest artist,
who was the biggest.

Speaker 1 (01:56:13):
Selling artist of all time. That was a problem for.

Speaker 2 (01:56:17):
Him, and he kind of rang the alarm a little bit, like, Yo,
this can't happen, and in their way, they kind of
let the air out, which you know, is kind of weird.

Speaker 1 (01:56:32):
His take on it.

Speaker 2 (01:56:33):
When he did Quest Love Supreme, he was very bitter
about it for about twenty years, and then he realized
that his life was saved because he's still alive, and
he realized, like, wow, that person unknowingly saved my life
because but you know, I personally believe that you can

(01:56:56):
manifest a successful future without this whole idea that if
you become the biggest thing in the world, then suddenly
you're gonna die or meet the fate of what Whitney
met or Prince met or Michael met or you know,
this whole idea that only the biggest artists fall off

(01:57:16):
the hardest.

Speaker 1 (01:57:18):
I believe that we can control that as well. Y'all
doing it.

Speaker 7 (01:57:21):
Now, right, if you think about it, it's like, also,
you don't have to go to the same five white
men to get a record deal to make you change
your life anymore. And so that's the thing too, Like
these kids understand now that you don't have to do that.

Speaker 8 (01:57:32):
You don't need to the label, and the label doesn't
do as much as they used to do for you know,
for people, which was you know, a long time ago.
This is before I came into the music business. They
actually would develop the talent, you know, help make.

Speaker 9 (01:57:46):
You who you became.

Speaker 8 (01:57:47):
They really helped develop those artists that that was kind
of gone when I came in. And then now it's
really they just want I don't know, they might as
well just be distribution because they really just want the
the artists already to be there, have the music, and
have the audience already via social media. So you know,
but people can so many more artists can make a

(01:58:09):
living and they can do really well and be successful
without that now, so that's a really wonderful thing.

Speaker 9 (01:58:15):
But you know, regarding the story that you're telling about him,
you know, only he knows himself.

Speaker 8 (01:58:20):
Though, so he if he says that, it's probably because
he recognized what kind of like issues or what kind
of demons could be awakened if the things that we're
just like lurking beneath the surface. You know how someone
could say, like, Okay, maybe if I went down this path,
I would have done really well with the success, and
other people can say, actually, if I went down that path,
I think I would have turned into a really arrogant

(01:58:41):
jerk because I already could sense that it would have
been happening like for instance like that.

Speaker 9 (01:58:46):
So can probably sense.

Speaker 8 (01:58:48):
No, not me.

Speaker 9 (01:58:49):
I'm just saying anyone, No, not Medy.

Speaker 8 (01:58:53):
Just anybody that could say, these are the things that
I think could be my potential pitfalls and issues, because
I do believe everything happens for me. Yes, yes, yeah,
So even if you think, if you are a believer
in that, then you really believe that there are no
missed opportunities, that no one ever took anything from you,
because what God has for you is for you, and
no one can take what is for you if God

(01:59:13):
has that for you.

Speaker 9 (01:59:14):
So it's really just you finding your path.

Speaker 8 (01:59:16):
And feeling out what that is.

Speaker 9 (01:59:19):
Because if you believe that God's got you. Then.

Speaker 8 (01:59:22):
Really, even when like your worst enemy tries to make
you fall, they're only still they're doing their part in
God's plan, you know.

Speaker 9 (01:59:30):
What I mean.

Speaker 7 (01:59:30):
And that is the fight, and that is the fight
to continue to try to keep your mind like that.

Speaker 9 (01:59:35):
Yeah, remember that.

Speaker 2 (01:59:42):
So even though for me one thing is your Monsters single,
my favorite album of yours is actually because I love it,
which that.

Speaker 9 (01:59:52):
Is so interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:59:54):
Well because it also happened to Calice, Like Kalie's second
album never came out in the United States.

Speaker 1 (02:00:00):
I had to go overseas to.

Speaker 2 (02:00:02):
Find Chalicea's Kaleidoscope album and that's the same because I
love it was all over Europe, but not in America,
Like what what happened with it?

Speaker 1 (02:00:12):
Because I love a project in general that it didn't
get any light whatsoever in the States.

Speaker 9 (02:00:19):
What label was that?

Speaker 8 (02:00:20):
What was it?

Speaker 9 (02:00:20):
Because of Love? It was that Columbia as well.

Speaker 1 (02:00:22):
Columbia.

Speaker 3 (02:00:22):
Yeah, okay, that's.

Speaker 9 (02:00:23):
Probably the last one.

Speaker 8 (02:00:25):
That's what I was really thinking of leaving the label
because it's just like even when I wanted this single,
it's like it was like so hard to move and
like to do anything, and then.

Speaker 9 (02:00:36):
We were going to release it.

Speaker 8 (02:00:37):
And it was like, Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna come
out in the States, and I was like, but why
are they coming out at different times? We live in
the Internet era, just it should be one date. I
don't believe in this different dates for this and that
I have fans that are going to be like, hey,
I didn't get the album, so what what is the
good reason for having them come out at different times?

Speaker 9 (02:00:54):
Oh, We'll just do that. And I was like, I
don't know.

Speaker 8 (02:00:56):
I'm feeling like that is just leaving it possible that
it doesn't even have a US release. I wasn't really
confident in them at this point regarding them following through.

Speaker 9 (02:01:08):
So I really that was just completely.

Speaker 8 (02:01:10):
Out of my hands regarding why and that that album.

Speaker 9 (02:01:15):
I'm really proud of that album. It's not perfect, you
know what I mean. I can definitely be critical of it.

Speaker 2 (02:01:19):
I loved it, Like the ship you did with the Bchanons,
like then't make me be believed thing that kids.

Speaker 9 (02:01:28):
Are so great. I just was just asking after them.
Actually I got.

Speaker 2 (02:01:32):
Matter of fact, we still when I heard that, we
to this day do that flip whenever the roots do
the seed like I played the Ship out out of
that song when it first came out, like DJing and whatnot?
Shit you also worked with them from Formerly of the Youngsters.

Speaker 1 (02:01:51):
Karan, Yeah, Karan did. Uh he did some like it.
I believe he a little bit. You know, it's weird
I thought initially I thought.

Speaker 9 (02:02:04):
It was Actually that was mostly me and Lenny did
that one.

Speaker 8 (02:02:07):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:02:07):
Yeah, I was going to say you and Lenny came
like also would hate to Love you, which I thought
was outstanding.

Speaker 9 (02:02:14):
Thank you did? I love you hate to love you too?
Who did that?

Speaker 1 (02:02:17):
That was you did?

Speaker 9 (02:02:19):
But we're also no, not that one up?

Speaker 1 (02:02:24):
Yeah, one up?

Speaker 8 (02:02:26):
And went also I love to create tracks while we're
creating the song like that way we can you know
what I mean?

Speaker 9 (02:02:32):
Like it's really like musicianship that way.

Speaker 8 (02:02:34):
It's it's not just like writing to a track, it's
just something that's living.

Speaker 2 (02:02:38):
And breathing by this point where you rich creatively, Like,
are you guys not working?

Speaker 1 (02:02:43):
Was there a tension there?

Speaker 9 (02:02:44):
What? No, there's no tension. But I have to see
what he's doing. And we haven't spoken in a long
time as of today. As of today, we haven't spoken
because I.

Speaker 7 (02:02:56):
Could have just heard you say something like it is
a potential for some thing in the future with the
two of you.

Speaker 8 (02:03:01):
Always there, always is. I just have to literally be like, hey,
what's going on? Because for a second he wasn't doing.

Speaker 1 (02:03:06):
Any music for I was not to say, is he
actively still working?

Speaker 8 (02:03:10):
I don't know if he is now, but before he
wasn't and then he was again, So I'm thinking that
he still is, but just some just cooking.

Speaker 3 (02:03:19):
What state does he live in? I just he's such
a mystery. What state does richer.

Speaker 9 (02:03:24):
I'm not gonna say, because I don't know if he
wants to anyone to know.

Speaker 3 (02:03:26):
Say city. I just is he okay, see in this country?

Speaker 8 (02:03:30):
Okay, I'm assuming he's still in the country unless he's
unless he's just visiting somewhere.

Speaker 9 (02:03:34):
But yeah, he listens.

Speaker 2 (02:03:35):
I hope he's still a DMV, but I hope. But yeah,
So what is the division of labor between the two?
Like working in the studio? Do you work from soup
to nuts together? In terms of that would have been.

Speaker 8 (02:03:46):
The idea for this next time, if we do something
together again, we'll be doing it like that, like because
my face, I don't know if that's like his his
zone though, but he's a musician, so I know he can.

Speaker 9 (02:03:59):
I just don't know if he's comfortable doing that.

Speaker 8 (02:04:01):
The favorite way I like to work is I'm at
the mic and they got the musicians here.

Speaker 9 (02:04:08):
I did this.

Speaker 8 (02:04:08):
Session of where I went in with a producer and
it was like, let's just play, let's just let's just
see what happens.

Speaker 9 (02:04:13):
Just let's just feel it out. Got these vibes and
he was like, okay, well, you know what.

Speaker 8 (02:04:17):
I'm gonna bring some I a guitarist in, I'm gonna
bring in some piano, a couple of pianists.

Speaker 9 (02:04:22):
Let's just do it. I'm like, okay, it was gonna just.

Speaker 8 (02:04:24):
Be really a meeting and it's just like, let's just
but I always like to the reserve room to play,
just because you never know what happens. And we were
just like in there and I just stand at the
mic and then it's like, give me a you know,
something like this, something deeper, okay, add something in, like
some piano now or something. Then I'll just give those
general directions. Right. Sometimes I'm specifical. I'm literally like do that,

(02:04:46):
you know, I'll be very specific.

Speaker 9 (02:04:48):
But sometimes not.

Speaker 8 (02:04:48):
And then so the producer was also like getting them
together while I was like, yeah, this feels like this,
give me a little something like that, and I turn
off all the lights so it's very dark, so kind
of it's hard for people to work for a second.
They only have the lights of the board and the
stuff are around them because it has to be like
boom dark for me. So then I'm just like I'll
just start singing stuff and I like do the lyrics
as I'm just filling out the melody, and I'll just

(02:05:10):
start saying stuff. But I'll just be like laying it
out and then it's like, oh, now we're adding in
building and we built some songs like that. We had
like fifteen dope records just from that one evening. That's
my favorite way to work. And then we can figure
out what to take further, you know what I mean,
and what musically what's going on. But we've got the

(02:05:31):
feel of it, the sound of it. That's my favorite
way to work. I don't like to get a track
and be like write something to the.

Speaker 1 (02:05:37):
Track, write something I don't know.

Speaker 8 (02:05:40):
It's not my I don't really like that because I
feel already boxed in already, you know, and that's not
the melody that's in my head.

Speaker 9 (02:05:47):
It's in a whole different key and it's not that vibe.

Speaker 2 (02:05:49):
So again, I'm only laughing because I prefer to work
the way that rich does, Like I need silence and
I need isolate, because if I'm in front of somebody,
I'll be less. Steve's my has been my engineer since
since you got your driver's license. Yeah, yeah, before I

(02:06:11):
got much driver's license. Like, Steve has engineered all the
common stuff. He was there for all of the D'Angelo stuff,
like all that stuff. So you know, I don't feel
stupid or silly when I'm trying to experiment that may
or may not work, you know. But oftentimes I'll feel

(02:06:32):
like if people are in the room, it's too much pressure.

Speaker 9 (02:06:36):
Yeah you are afraid to mess up?

Speaker 2 (02:06:39):
Well yeah, But then also like I'll be in a
situation where one particular artist wants to be there from
the suit to nuts thing instead of like, here's what
I prepared for you, and oftentimes I'll have to I
did this once to a client where I already had
the song down, but I literally spent five hours acting like,

(02:07:03):
oh my gosh, I did.

Speaker 9 (02:07:05):
Just so many situations here do you do this to
your you know what you're still not for confrontational. We
need to talk about that.

Speaker 1 (02:07:12):
I just learned the word no like five years ago.
So no, i'm me now.

Speaker 2 (02:07:19):
But yeah, I put on this, I put on a
whole horse and pony show and accidentally wound up into
the idea that.

Speaker 9 (02:07:30):
I can't I can't believe you did that. But from
what you told me last year spoke, I can.

Speaker 8 (02:07:36):
I can't believe that you spent five hours with tending
that you were coming up with something because you're so
sweet and non and you were non confidation.

Speaker 1 (02:07:45):
That was old me. This This was back in like
twenty fourteen.

Speaker 2 (02:07:48):
No, now, I'm I am new in my communications.

Speaker 1 (02:07:54):
You set up like, all right.

Speaker 3 (02:07:55):
You're working on it. You are in progress, he's in progress.

Speaker 8 (02:07:59):
I can understand you needing that time because see, even
if I'm there we're doing this thing, I have closed sessions.
I don't like you know, people are in there. They
don't have to be in there because then it gets
like uncomfortable and all. So you want to be able
to feel free to make mistakes.

Speaker 9 (02:08:12):
But also like if I was writing a record, if
I was writing a record at.

Speaker 3 (02:08:17):
Hard about your ship, I got you.

Speaker 8 (02:08:24):
No, I understand that you would want to finish your
thought and be like, let me finish my thought, like
in peace.

Speaker 9 (02:08:29):
Because if I'm writing.

Speaker 8 (02:08:30):
A song or something like that for someone else, or
just even if I was just writing something for me,
but the music was done. If if there are other
writers in the room, and usually there aren't, because I
find it hard to work with other writers, no, because
they never say what I would say, no, because they
never say it. Then that's when you I'm sorry, but

(02:08:51):
that's when you come out with something like none of
the chicks like this. The chicks like me sing. You
walk into the room and I'm like, that's not even me.
I would never say that, and I would never feel
like all these other girls are trash but I'm so great.

Speaker 9 (02:09:06):
It get jump inded it out like that. You get
stuff like.

Speaker 7 (02:09:08):
That, and meanwhile, e Marie, it's funny as you say that,
I'm curious what's moving you these days. I would never
ask you the elementary question of like what are you
listening to?

Speaker 8 (02:09:15):
But what?

Speaker 9 (02:09:16):
Well, let me say first, let me finish.

Speaker 3 (02:09:18):
Okay, I'm sorry.

Speaker 9 (02:09:20):
The other people I've worked with that did not because
they might well we worked together.

Speaker 8 (02:09:23):
I was like giving you stuff like that, so that's
not I was being facetious.

Speaker 9 (02:09:27):
That's not all that comes out of it.

Speaker 8 (02:09:29):
But I have to be particular with the writers I
work with because they do have to know me and
what I would say and how I was saying. Now,
I'm also a writer, like a fictional write, you know
what I mean, Like words are important.

Speaker 9 (02:09:40):
What I say and how I say it is really important.

Speaker 8 (02:09:42):
So yeah, so, but but I've worked with really talented
writers and when we gel, we gel, and then I
know like they'll you know, that's what's great about rich too.

Speaker 1 (02:09:54):
Person or just a music person.

Speaker 8 (02:09:57):
He can be with the lyrics too, but his stuff
would I think it's melody and feel and like the
rhythm of the word. What I mean? Okay, And then
you were asking me something about what am I into now?

Speaker 3 (02:10:09):
No, I said, musically, what is moved for you these days?

Speaker 9 (02:10:13):
Here's a thing about me.

Speaker 8 (02:10:14):
I'm kind of weird and I sometimes feel uncomfortable honestly
having music related interviews.

Speaker 9 (02:10:19):
I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie.

Speaker 1 (02:10:21):
I'm trying to get the books.

Speaker 9 (02:10:23):
No, No, I usually don't.

Speaker 8 (02:10:26):
I'm just saying because I feel like people will be like, dang, well,
she's not listening to anything no more. Her habits are weird,
and so I feel like I don't I don't really
want to talk about.

Speaker 7 (02:10:36):
It because you're not supposed to care, supposed to be free,
say what you feel, okay.

Speaker 8 (02:10:43):
I usually will go through pockets of time where I
listen to no music. It might be half a year
where I don't listen to anything, or it might just
be instrumental or if I'm listening to music because I
do that because I don't listen to music so much.
I listen to music that came out years ago as
if it just came out.

Speaker 9 (02:11:03):
So it's new to me.

Speaker 8 (02:11:06):
But the interesting thing is I do get a feel
for what can last and not feel old right although
I'm like, well I don't really know what's the new
things like whatever. But so I'll be listening to something
right now and playing it out like but it's.

Speaker 1 (02:11:20):
Like they don't look.

Speaker 9 (02:11:22):
Then I'll look and I'm like, oh, DAGs fourteen years old?
This no, but like I'll be like, this album's really dope.

Speaker 8 (02:11:30):
I like this.

Speaker 9 (02:11:30):
Oh wait, oh he came out with this on twent fifteen, Well,
well great job, you know what I mean. It's like late.
So I'm listening right now. Actually, I've been listening to
a lot of Chris Brown, right, Chris Brown.

Speaker 3 (02:11:41):
But he put out something every month.

Speaker 1 (02:11:43):
Oh yeah, I'm.

Speaker 8 (02:11:45):
Not as late on Chris Brown stuff because but still
some of the songs I am a little late on,
and they're new to me.

Speaker 2 (02:11:53):
This is precisely the reason why I have you on
the subscription list.

Speaker 9 (02:11:59):
I know you said, Okay, so you do know that
you're sending it to me. Honestly, I'm just like us.

Speaker 8 (02:12:04):
I always feel like you're sending it to me, but
like you're not even realized.

Speaker 9 (02:12:07):
I'm just a number. I'm I'm just a notch in
your head.

Speaker 2 (02:12:10):
There are one of four hundred and thirty eight people. Wow, Okay,
but no, no, no, I don't do it. I literally
I say, a lot of friends.

Speaker 9 (02:12:20):
Do you have a lot of friends? So is that
special for you?

Speaker 1 (02:12:22):
Is that?

Speaker 9 (02:12:23):
Is that a small There's all right?

Speaker 1 (02:12:25):
This is what I do. I do it for two reasons.

Speaker 2 (02:12:28):
Okay, Primarily I know that people my age and adjacent
to my age.

Speaker 9 (02:12:35):
I'm twenty four. What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 (02:12:37):
But okay, keep exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:12:38):
That's so I know that oftentimes we'll get comfortable in
our comfort zone and Our comfort zone is the seventy
five songs we know you know this Stevie Wonder song,
that that song, And we'll tend to our gym list.

(02:13:00):
Our walking lists are Sunday Afternoon cleaning a house mixed.

Speaker 3 (02:13:04):
Oh my god, that's all my playlist.

Speaker 1 (02:13:06):
I love it. Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (02:13:07):
So we tend to get trapped in that. So number one,
I do it because you know, it started with one person.

Speaker 9 (02:13:16):
Is that what it is?

Speaker 2 (02:13:16):
It started with one person and then it wound up
being ten people, and then one of those ten people
told the world and then they were like, where's my list?
And then it wound up being four hundred and thirty
something people.

Speaker 7 (02:13:28):
You're one of those the million, because they're not the
four hundred you put These are the playless conversations. You're
talking about your Spotify situations.

Speaker 9 (02:13:36):
Yeah, will actually text. I keep the text from his phone,
and you know, but because it's like.

Speaker 2 (02:13:41):
You know text, I individually go through all four hundred
and thirty eight names twice a month and send them.

Speaker 9 (02:13:51):
It should take to everybody.

Speaker 1 (02:13:53):
This should takes nineteen hours to do.

Speaker 3 (02:13:55):
We want I feel less special.

Speaker 7 (02:13:58):
I want you to know I'm in that four So
I'm just gonna sit here and ask you to send
me those for later.

Speaker 2 (02:14:05):
Fine, Lai, yeah, you will be four hundred and thirty
nine people. No, But but when I got the three hundred,
I was like, I can't do it no more. My
hands are hurting. And then if people tell me, yo,
I'll come in on the list, then I do it.
See you just said I'll come on the list.

Speaker 1 (02:14:20):
So I did it.

Speaker 2 (02:14:21):
But the second reason why I do it, okay, it
is because it forces me to constantly search for music,
because at this age, I too can get stubborn and
just stuck in.

Speaker 1 (02:14:36):
All right, I'm just gonna listen to prints for the next.

Speaker 2 (02:14:39):
Eight months and stay in that cycle and miss all
that behind me. So in this process I go through about, realistically,
three hundred songs a week, and of those three hundred songs,
maybe eleven are cool and so I'll just stuck up.

Speaker 1 (02:14:58):
Yeah, So that's why do it.

Speaker 8 (02:15:00):
So it's hard, I feel special, and I think that
it totally makes it. Everything that you said totally makes sense.
The thing about it is that if like, I'm always
thinking all the time, right, so I usually am like
the kind of the way that I like take in
information is like this is what I'm in and I'm

(02:15:20):
in this for like I'm in.

Speaker 9 (02:15:22):
Trench for this amount of time.

Speaker 8 (02:15:24):
It could be months and months, it could be a year,
and that's all I'm doing. If I'm not eating and
taking care of my family, I am just doing that.
And then I'm super in this and that. So I
can I feel like I can have a lot of
in depth knowledge on different things because I spent like
time and trenching it.

Speaker 9 (02:15:38):
The issue with.

Speaker 8 (02:15:39):
Music and listening to music, because someone was recently asking me,
like this summer, when you told me you didn't listen
to music like that, I was like what. I was
kind of sad and I was like what really, And
they were like, I use it for everything I do
And I was like, yeah, but I can't do that
because here's the thing. If I listen to music, I
won't ever stop. If I listen to music, I start
thinking about what project I want to do.

Speaker 9 (02:15:58):
I want to do this. Then I'm thinking about this.

Speaker 8 (02:16:00):
And that and the colors of that and what I
want to create and what do they do?

Speaker 9 (02:16:04):
And that's really interesting and now going down a rabbit hole.

Speaker 8 (02:16:07):
I will do nothing else but only that, And so
I get in my moments where I'm like, I'm into
some history thing grabs me.

Speaker 9 (02:16:15):
I'm pouring the internet, I'm.

Speaker 8 (02:16:16):
Pouring books to learn about this particular thing. Or like
right now, I've been very like into geopolitics. So I'm
all about, like the economy, geopolitics. That's all my videos.
If I'm exercising, it's geopolitics. If i'm you know, I
had to you know, go to the doctor and get
a shower or whatever.

Speaker 9 (02:16:32):
It is.

Speaker 8 (02:16:32):
My distraction thing is the geopolitical thing on the economy
and what happened to the middle class. Like I am
in that, and that's all I can do because the
I process my information at night, I talk to myself.
So at nighttime usually whether i'm you know, in the
shower or whatever, people will hear me. Well, I don't

(02:16:53):
think that this is it because first of all, the
reason why you do that, And people might come in
and be like, well, I'm talking to me, I'm talking,
I'm talking to me, and so I'm like, just you know, cure,
it's a lot. Someone was like, dang Amory, sometimes you
can be a lot like being around I'm like doing
about how I feel I have to live with me

(02:17:14):
and I can't escape myself.

Speaker 2 (02:17:19):
You're taking in a lot of podcasts, a lot of books,
a lot of so using. When a person takes in
a lot of information, it usually to gather and sort
the information so that they can.

Speaker 1 (02:17:31):
Do something with it, do something with it. What is
your end game?

Speaker 8 (02:17:36):
That's what I'm trying to figure out. And that's that's
because I'm revisiting that question. Before I had a lot
of information and I remember thinking, I all this information,
I need to put a put this in like a book,
and I was thinking of doing that, and I've done
some of that. But then I was thinking, okay, you're
doing all these things. And then yes, there are a
couple of people who are like, you need to do
like a podcast, you need to do that, and I'm like, okay,

(02:17:58):
do I though, like, okay, one in one universe, I
do do that. Uh And people love me and they
also hate my guts. So there's the information information, but
they love the information, you know. But so I'm saying
that there's there's that, and I think it would do
really well actually, But then the question is because they

(02:18:19):
were like, but you know all this stuff, and I
was like, but then the question is is everything always
to be commodified know a lot of things.

Speaker 9 (02:18:27):
Does it mean like I need to try to get
famous in this lane with it?

Speaker 8 (02:18:31):
I mean, can you just have information to have information
to inform how you live and what you do? Or
is it like worthless unless you get big off of it?

Speaker 9 (02:18:41):
And then that's a question. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:18:43):
That's right there. Yeah, that's a you know what I'm saying,
very valid, very valid.

Speaker 1 (02:18:49):
Well, I just sent you your.

Speaker 2 (02:18:51):
Own mix of what I'm listening to now, which isn't music.
It's literally tones, because yes, I know what it is.

Speaker 1 (02:19:01):
For your brain to constantly in thinking mode. I sent it,
you send me. I just yes, what is this?

Speaker 9 (02:19:12):
Listen to it?

Speaker 2 (02:19:13):
I listened so basically, Layah. It is where Fante always
clowned me. You know, like when Spotify snitches on you
and says you've been listening to you know, it gives you,
like your top five what you've been listening to, and
people look at my things like, wait, there's no music
on here, so all I do, Layah, it's tones of

(02:19:35):
hurts where I'll send it to you.

Speaker 1 (02:19:38):
Layah.

Speaker 2 (02:19:38):
It's just it's a chord that you know, what you
listen to when you go to the spa. You hear
the like eight wait a minute, time out, It's like
the sound.

Speaker 9 (02:19:50):
Remember I told you about my project Simatica. Remember I
told you that's the whole cimatic of the trilogy. That's
my long I'm going to put it together. I have
three songs I want to keep from it, but I
wanted to record it actually in I was going to
record it in either four.

Speaker 8 (02:20:04):
Now am I doing four thirty two? But like the
frequencies we talked as a.

Speaker 3 (02:20:07):
Frequency Rogers, I hardly knew ye, she's a Helen nerds,
blurred blurred power.

Speaker 9 (02:20:14):
He's like reset.

Speaker 3 (02:20:16):
You're like, is it Vargus nurse?

Speaker 9 (02:20:17):
Is it parison? But that paris?

Speaker 8 (02:20:19):
Yeah, you're nervousness. I tell you, I get into something.
I get a.

Speaker 1 (02:20:28):
Dude, I feel like I'm on the Nard War episode
right now?

Speaker 3 (02:20:31):
What does a Marie mean? Is that what we're missing?
Is that what we're missing? Did your parents do all along?
What does Amrie?

Speaker 9 (02:20:36):
My mom made it? My maid made it?

Speaker 1 (02:20:39):
Okay?

Speaker 8 (02:20:39):
Oh yeah, I'm glad you said it to me because
I was listening to it because I was like, you
need to like heal, you need some like healing vibes.

Speaker 2 (02:20:47):
But this is the rabbit holest of all Quest Loups,
supreme rabbit hole.

Speaker 3 (02:20:52):
Similar to the Bulge, y'all making it sound like the bulge.
Y'all know that right, like it's sounding.

Speaker 2 (02:20:55):
We're gonna do another episode where we just talk about
your world of books. I literally thought when we did
this episode, we were going to talk about us an author,
you as a book club person, because you really got
me in the game.

Speaker 1 (02:21:08):
Oh yes, my ninth.

Speaker 2 (02:21:10):
Book coming out soon, the Kid book I wrote, my
first kid Yes, yes, exactly beautiful. I will be like
she she got me into the rabbit hole. But we
obviously this can go on for twelve hours, but we
do have to wrap up. Listen, can we do a
retreat with Marie?

Speaker 7 (02:21:27):
I feel like it's a it's a it's an event,
like we need a retreat. We need to do some
sound baths.

Speaker 9 (02:21:31):
We need to you know, we would sound bask sing.

Speaker 8 (02:21:35):
We would have some political conversation, exchange the books, have
some debates, a political exchange.

Speaker 1 (02:21:41):
A Marie is about to be the next member of
Quest Left.

Speaker 3 (02:21:49):
Would you guess you could?

Speaker 9 (02:21:50):
That'll be dope special special, whatever whatever you would like
or whatever you would invite me to.

Speaker 8 (02:21:55):
I'm there.

Speaker 1 (02:21:56):
Okay, Wow, it's not a party.

Speaker 9 (02:21:59):
No, I'm kidding.

Speaker 1 (02:22:00):
Awesome, you're not.

Speaker 6 (02:22:01):
No, you're not.

Speaker 1 (02:22:04):
And also, if ever you know you're in your creative mood, yeah,
I would like to collaborate as well. I just text
I don't know. After this, I'm like, nah, music's not
your calling. This is Julie. This is Julie where your
passion lives. Well, what is this?

Speaker 5 (02:22:22):
What do you call this?

Speaker 9 (02:22:23):
Because I'm trying to figure out.

Speaker 7 (02:22:24):
What is this?

Speaker 1 (02:22:26):
What is this?

Speaker 2 (02:22:27):
I think this is called life pivoting. I think both
of you and I are discovering what information you can't.
We can't put a title on it until maybe twenty
twenty eight.

Speaker 8 (02:22:37):
The truth.

Speaker 3 (02:22:38):
Now you're gathering information.

Speaker 8 (02:22:40):
I know I'm always seeking the truth. I'm seeking the
truth about everything always, But I don't know what to
call it. And that's someone when you were asking me
what I would want to do with it, my friend
was like, you do the podcast.

Speaker 9 (02:22:49):
I'm like, I don't know. I'm trying to right now.

Speaker 8 (02:22:52):
I'm just trying to be still and let God because
i know I'm doing the things that i'm doing, like
I'm got to start working on the new project, finishing
up doing the novel that I'm working on.

Speaker 9 (02:23:01):
But then I'm also like, there's another thing that's happening,
and I'm just trying to be still for it. So
God can like be like, okay here, because I also
don't know what it is.

Speaker 2 (02:23:12):
You're finding out what it is you're you're finding out
right now. But this is why being still and silent
also helps. And take it from the guy that had
nineteen jobs and always the second I did this, the.

Speaker 1 (02:23:30):
Answer comes to you. I promise you. I promise you.
The answer comes to you. Thank you.

Speaker 8 (02:23:35):
I'm gonna I need to text you sorry. I'll just
just you know, we gotta just talk.

Speaker 9 (02:23:40):
We've got to just talk off off time as well.

Speaker 8 (02:23:44):
Yes, absolutely, now that we're allowed, because you were like,
we do the interview interview.

Speaker 1 (02:23:48):
Now, yes, we're allowed.

Speaker 7 (02:23:51):
He didn't have no real conversation until we did the
podcast because he wanted to spoil.

Speaker 2 (02:23:54):
It exactly exactly. Now we're friends, all right, Well a
mariy I thank you. We having Siger Steve and Layah
and and the family.

Speaker 1 (02:24:05):
Thank you, Bok Supreme. I appreciate you, and I will
see you on the next round.

Speaker 9 (02:24:10):
Y'all.

Speaker 4 (02:24:10):
All right, this is sugar, Steve, thank you for listening
to Quest Love Supreme. This podcast is hosted by a
mere Quest Love Thompson, Liah Saint Clair, Sugar, Steve Bandel,
and unpaid Bill Sherman. The executive producers are a mere
Quest Love Thompson, sewn G and Brian Calhoun. Produced by
Britney Benjamin, Jake Payne and Liah Saint Clair, edited by

(02:24:33):
Alex Conroy. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown West Love
Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from

(02:24:56):
iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast Asked
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Laiya St. Clair

Questlove

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