Questlove Supreme: Bilal

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. I'm your
host Questlove with Me. Today is the Team Supreme family,
featuring our newly minted Gotta operatee Sugar Steve.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm the New York.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
How was the Steve?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
And you know it was really a joke, Like I mean,
it was supposed to get a joke.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Me just campaigned to try to get on the float,
and then you got me on the float, and then
it was a matter of like sort of figuring out
what the hell was going on that day it was
pouring rain, and it just ended up, long story short,
just ended up being so much more enjoyable and so
much more heartwarming than I thought my heart could get.

(00:55):
You know, like, I'm so jaded at this point. And
you know, being from New York, you never think you
can see uh, you're supposed to be Jaden new right,
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Just yeah, and I'm there.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
I was, and I was just just waving at kids
and just taking it all in. Seeing the city from
that perspective, it was just it was kind of magic.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah. I have to say that if you're a generation
person raised on like faris Muler's day off. I highly
recommend getting in a parade by hook or crook.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yeah, so now I'm just looking around for people with parades,
you know, So if you know.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
You're available for parades, good birthday boy, Bill Houses, sir,
how are you great?

Speaker 4 (01:37):
I'm so jada. I don't even go to the parade anymore.
How about that? That's like next level jadedness that anyway.

Speaker 5 (01:42):
You once got me on a parade float.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
Honestly, my favorite part about the parade every year is
seeing you guys, because you always are the float that's
right next to the same street float, and so there's
always like something, there's always something happening. But then one
year you were on ours, which is like a weird
kids Midtie meeting of all the worlds, which is super cool.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
My favorite part of being on your float was that
was Carol Spinny's last time being on a float. Carol Spinny,
who played Big Bird Spending at the time, was like
at least eighty eighty eight, right, so still playing Big Bird,
and they were concerned that him being inside that hot
ass costume would be too much for him to handle

(02:21):
at eighty eight years old.

Speaker 5 (02:22):
And so he was like, nah, I'll do it.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
I'll do it, and then maybe like two hours in
he was sort of like, Okay, I need some mayor.
And I know that one of the main things that
you guys are vigilant about is not letting kids see
a lifeless muppet, because the second that the characters out
of him, it just looks dead like. And so the

(02:44):
way that they had to cover this entire bird, this
eight foot bird, so that he could unzip himself and
get some breath was hilarious because they didn't do it
all the way. So there's like people on his on
the west side of the float that could clearly see
a slumped over, dead big bird light yep, and.

Speaker 5 (03:08):
There was like one or two kids like but that
was the most.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Hilarious thing ever dream crushed. How was your vacation, your
your Thanksgiving?

Speaker 6 (03:17):
Oh it was good, Yo. I just gotta say, I'm
so proud of y'all. Y'all talk about people being off
floats like this is a regular person thing, like on
your be on my float, on your float, like it's
a moment chill, but like, uh, and to really celebrate
all of y'all, that's really dope. But plans was great.
It was DC, it was great. Now I'm in Cardagena, Colombia.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
You're in Columbia right now, Jesus. I was like, man,
I'm not even going to talk about her house because
I was like, that's the room I've never seen before.

Speaker 6 (03:48):
Said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, y'all got to get into this.
I'm like, Colombia is a beautiful place.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
So, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say, our
guest needs no introduction. Yes, but I also write, I
also realize that whenever you have such a unique talent,
oftentimes that particular being might be the favorite of your

(04:15):
favorite singer. This might be one of the rare situations
in which our guest today might be the favorite singer
of your favorite singer's favorite singer, Like.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Your favorite singer's mama likes this guy too.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yes, you know, I'm working on less hyperbole, but having
been a witness to our guest today some twenty five
twenty six years ago in my living room, like I've
never had someone literally like you remember the moment and

(04:53):
back to the future when Martin McFly starts doing a
modern guitar solo and nineteen fifties and you know, the
entire band stops playing Johnny be Good and they're like, oh,
I've never had a musician literally stopped me in my tracks.
I remember we were playing in my living room and

(05:16):
I think Anthony Tidd was next to me, and I
was just like, yo, who. The only time I ever
said like yo, who the fuck is that? Is usually
like some girl that blows my mind. I've never had
an artist just make me like what the hell is this?
And more than that, how can I be down? And

(05:40):
I'd stay consistent in saying that I absolutely squander no
time to collaborate or work with this artist simply because
like it gives me the best seat in the house
sometimes just to really display a level of performance that
you rarely, rarely truly get to see. Where we are

(06:03):
and this sort of well rehearsed, well curated, instagram filtered
perfected kind of creative cycle that we're in in which
you know, you're not allowed to see any of the
flaws or the bendit notes or whatever, and we're here
to celebrate, of course, is his latest album of Just
Brightness really is the entire history, Ladies and Gentlemen, one

(06:26):
of my favorite. It's almost a disservice to call him
a performance artist, because I can't say a singer.

Speaker 5 (06:33):
I can't say an artist.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
I can't even say people are beings like exotic answer, Maybe.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
May we all truly channel in our creative energy. I
have not even channeled in half the creative energy that
our guest today has displayed.

Speaker 5 (06:54):
Please welcome belowd.

Speaker 7 (07:00):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 6 (07:02):
Can we say our favorite sick? Our favorite?

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yes? I felt bad making this personal introduction like it
was just about me. Yes, but this far beyond giving
you your flowers. My voice has been shot for the
last like nine days. I assume that, yes, when you
sing it's zero to one thousand on the autobond. As

(07:25):
far as dynamics and wherever you think your voice should
go at that particular moment, do you have a ritual
to take care of your voice? Like how do you
prevent what you're hearing right now?

Speaker 7 (07:35):
Me talking like I don't usually get vorse like that,
but I've got different concoctions that I made to stop it,
like different teas like when I'm on the road, I
got to tea it I make every time because it's
like I can be good all the way up until
like maybe if I'm on the road for like a month.

(07:59):
The last eat I start. It's not that I'm getting
a horse, but I get like that. Uh. I can't
sing soft no more, and I like to sing soft,
so it's like I can't do nothing soft. I'm just
straight power. But I boil Ginger, Limon and Kanye and

(08:19):
Pepper got it, got it yeah, and the honey, Yeah
for sure. When I'm mad horse, I put garlic in
there and it works. Sometimes it works every time, like
brand new voice.

Speaker 5 (08:37):
Damn.

Speaker 7 (08:38):
That's like if I'm horse and I don't have no voice.
But if I'm like good, I still got my voice.
Just the Kanye, Pepper, Ginger, Lemon things, got it ended
up just making perfect. But if I sound like you,
I put like a big ass piece of garlic in there,
but a little bit of garlic in Man.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Everyone tells me garlic a reguano, But I'm so anti
bad breath, i'd really suffer.

Speaker 6 (09:06):
No.

Speaker 7 (09:08):
No, But it's it's like a tea, so it's not
like you're eating it, so it's like you had something,
some superor something.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
It's always the next day, man, I wake up with
the dragon.

Speaker 7 (09:20):
So I'll never eat gard like in my life.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
I'm that serious. So like the next day, the dragon just.

Speaker 7 (09:33):
Completely I completely understand. I mean I grew up with
the name Beloud when they had the movie A House
Pardon and Right, and Martin was Stank breath Aloud, So
like umble fifth grade to eighth grade, I was Bank
breath Aloud and I was the singer. So like every

(09:56):
time I sang, the whole auditorium was like, oh, I'll
just smell it. It was just a movie. It like
ruined my life till high school.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
All right. So for the benefit of audience members that
don't know anything about your history, I'm gonna ask you
some basic questions. Could you please tell us the glorious
city what you first came to this earth?

Speaker 7 (10:23):
Philadelphia? Of course, yeah, German can't.

Speaker 5 (10:27):
I can't do the siren noise?

Speaker 1 (10:33):
Thank you. What was your first musical memory?

Speaker 7 (10:38):
First musical memory is probably in my pops house acting
out Thriller, but shortly after that, like that's just me
acting out music by myself. The Sterly used to always
kind of scare me a little bit, but the video

(11:00):
video scared and Ship, but also the album itself who
all of that kind of Ship used to scare me.
My pops used to play it. It kind of scooped
me out.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
I was wondering when the fact did that song have
on kids, Like at a young age when my dad
used to always play Curtis Mayfield's If There's Hell below,
We're all going to go Oh Yeah, which is essentially
just a bunch of psychedelic echoes and yelling like I

(11:32):
We're in hell. But to this day it scares me,
you know what I mean? Like I always wondered if
Thriller truly scared people to that level where they just
don't want to because also Michael Jackson makes it appear
like fun, like hey, zombies are fun, But you know.

Speaker 7 (11:48):
No, that's scared. That's all scared me. Before the video
came up. I was just that whole talking part in
the intro. Scared needed to scare me and my brother
ski the hell out of it. It's like my first musical,
like early music memory. But then I've been singing shortly

(12:12):
after that, like on a church choir, Like I've been
singing on church choir since a really long like little kid,
like maybe four years old.

Speaker 6 (12:21):
So when did they hear it in you? When did
everybody else go wait minute? What's that your family?

Speaker 7 (12:26):
Every I think I got like the lead vocal. Like
the day I joined the choir, I went to a
church where everybody in my family had to be on fire.
Like the whole church was my family. Anyway, Like what
church is this? There was a second Baptist church in
Franklin and it was just a little church. And I

(12:52):
would say on the other side of Brower Street toward
there because you go keep going down. But literally, everybody
in the church is my family. My grandmam had thirteen kids,
so I got a big ass family. And everybody in
the church around that time, like the eighties, you know,
everybody went to.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Church around there had to go to church.

Speaker 7 (13:15):
Yeah, like everybody had to go church or passed through there.
Like the only person that didn't go to the church
was my uncle, and he was always like he was
like the black Panther. He was Nation of Islam. I
mean really, nobody messed with him on that. But yeah,

(13:36):
I was on a Sunbeam choir since four years old.

Speaker 6 (13:40):
So if everybody could sing, then the family wasn't easily
impressed by your voice. Then everybody was like.

Speaker 7 (13:45):
No, everybody couldn't say okay. It was just on the choir.
You had to be on the choir even if you suck.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
Just so that adults would know where you were twenty
four to seven or Okay, So you mentioned Thriller, which, incidentally,
by the way, as of this recording, today is the
forty first anniversary of Thriller debuting on MTV, and also
today's the forty second anniversary of Thriller the album. Well

(14:13):
technically some say November thirtieth, some state December first, but yeah,
we're Thriller's almost fifty, a full grown adult with some kids.

Speaker 7 (14:25):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
But the thing that you mentioned now my church experience,
especially in nineteen eighty three, that was the period where
kind of two years after Ronald Reagan's kind of very
conservative America agenda was really settling in. You know, a

(14:48):
lot of the hedonistic seventies adults were air quote atoning
for their sins by becoming bored against Christians. So I
once went to a church in which, like he had
copies of Thriller in nineteen ninety nine and saying this
demonic music you're letting your kids listen to, and.

Speaker 5 (15:08):
Da da da da da.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
So you grew up in a church heavy household and
which secular music was allowed.

Speaker 7 (15:16):
Well, my pops was Muslim, so when I went to
visit my pops, I was just listening to his but
mom around my mom, she listened to everything. Even though
we was going to church. I wouldn't say my mom
was like even to this day, even though she's like Christian,
she was, she was never like super heavy in the

(15:39):
church like that. She got into the church heavy because
you know, I started to sing on everybody until at
a certain point I was just in the church sing
in Philly. So my mom was like she became Joe
Jackson after that.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
So you have one siblings I got, You're for Philadelphia,
so I know some are on the books and off
the books.

Speaker 7 (16:06):
So yeah, like from my mother, there's my older brother
and my my younger sister, my cops. Uh. I got
a few brothers and sisters all right.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
But in general, and I guess you could even count
your cousins as whatever. I had cousins that were just
as close to me and siblings.

Speaker 5 (16:28):
Was it pretty clear cut that.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
You had a gift that was beyond what the other
kids of your ilk or age had mm hmm.

Speaker 7 (16:42):
Yeah. From early on, like as soon as I started
to get in and on acchore by by the time
I was and I was directed acquire yes.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Me, Like, how did you discover you had this voice
where you just always crying with someone notating a note
to you, He's like.

Speaker 7 (17:09):
I don't know, I just it became apparent in church
that I could, like, I guess I could really sing
or like do leaves and stuff when I was good.
But before, man, I don't know, I was just always
the weird one. My little sister is a musician, and

(17:31):
my brother he's he does he's just I would say gifted,
But I don't know. I was always called like the
weird cousin. I guess he's out. I always had that.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
It's the thing often, especially in the seventies and eighties,
at least my observation and my personal experience. Usually you know,
if you display a gift, you're automatically ostracized, and depending
on your kind of your capacity to withstand attention, it's

(18:13):
sort of up in the air of how it develops.
Like for me, I would pretty much say, like, up
until the age of seven, I was a well rounded
artistic person. Like first of all, like before they taught
me to play drums, I had to learn to tap
dance and like all this other stuff. But when it
came to singing, yeah, I could tap my ass off,

(18:35):
like I.

Speaker 7 (18:36):
Was like.

Speaker 6 (18:39):
Us too, yeah killing oh tap dancing really okay?

Speaker 1 (18:46):
Right, But the thing was is that I could sing.
But then just because I got relentlessly ostracized for artistic ability,
I tried to squash it or as we say today,
like you dim your light. So the one thing that

(19:07):
I sacrificed on the altar was my singing voice, which
I believe that I could have been. Probably singing would
have been my north star, but I was like, okay,
I got drums well, but I think by eight I
psychologically killed my voice. I'm I can hold a tune.

(19:28):
But being the oddball cousin of the black Sheep, how
did you handle it? Or were you just like breakout
in song? And I don't give a fuck I can sing.

Speaker 7 (19:39):
It was my cousins who everybody kind of didd like
my brothers. The thing was to be able to dance
real good, and I couldn't dance. I sucked. I could
never like really dance well. So my brothers were the
super stars because they can fucking dance all the dance

(20:00):
is the running Man the wip like they would go
to the parties and kill it, and I would always
like clam up. So it's like the only time people
even knew I could do anything was when we was
in church, like that's where I was shying. But when
we would go out and we was just kids, like
it never it never really stood out. I could never

(20:21):
really get it out or if somebody would be like, hey,
you sing for me, I couldn't like do it like
if it's just us like as kids, you know, even
when like a song would come on, I had aunts
that would just be like, oh, hey, boy, dance you
know what I mean? Should I would even clam up
in front of them, you know, But my brothers would

(20:43):
push me aside and do all the moves they could sing,
do all the Michael Jackson shit. I was always shy.
I don't know I could. It could only come out
when it was like a real audience, and then I
was just like I felt like I was pretending or
like escaping even though I was doing it.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
What is your go to song that you would sing?
If adults made you, hey, sing something bloud?

Speaker 7 (21:07):
Like it would be like some Michael Jackson shit.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
You know from four to seven or eight? Who were
your north stars?

Speaker 7 (21:19):
Four to seven? I think I'm By then, I was
just listening to pop music shit, Like I was just
watching him TV and whatever was on TV. You know,
I didn't really have like a I would say, Michael
Jackson and French you know, okay, or like whatever. I
wasn't really I wouldn't say I was like so into

(21:43):
music until like it really didn't hit me until I
would say, like around seven. But by then I was
like deep into church, like singing on white Like by
the time I got to ten years old, I think
that's fifth grade, right, yeah. Yeah. By the time I

(22:03):
went to fifth grade, I had started to go to
a Catholic school, and so I was just that was it.
I went to Saint Maleky's right over there by break
Brighthole Baptist Church, and I had this lady come into
my like mother Brown and Mother Brown.

Speaker 8 (22:21):
She was the one that was like this motherfucker can say, like,
you know, do.

Speaker 6 (22:32):
You remember would you preach them?

Speaker 7 (22:33):
Oh my god, come on, please obey your parents. Now.
I don't know. I was just trying to work it
all up to the park where you get to the
bluesy part and the ogan gott to join in.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
If social media was out, then you would have been
like one of these kids. I would have been liking,
hell yeah, is there any documentation of you? Pretend like
on taple or yo?

Speaker 7 (23:09):
Yeah. I was just at a concert the other day.
I played at the Kimbel Center with Lauren Evans, a
big band, and a lady came backstage was like, yo,
I got a video tape, but you I think you're
like nine years old, look oh younger singing that some
church you was like so just like you do now.

(23:32):
I was like, I need to fucking get that tape.
It's like it's so hilarious. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
So the way that I think I first heard of you,
there was a girl that I was seeing and she
might have graduated Kappa before your time, and maybe her
younger sister went there. Whatever the case, was about the

(24:00):
point when I had your demo and I was playing
it in her car and never wanted to like people
love their opportunity to dunk on me, like if I
don't know something about music, and her dunk was like
I know that out And the next week she brought
in a cassette of you singing back when you were

(24:23):
like ten years old or whatever. And the thing was
that there wasn't a difference in I was like, there's
no way you're telling me this person's ten eleven years old,
Like he sounds like a fully formed range, like I
hear three to four octaves already. And she was like, yes,
he goes to my church. I wish I remembered her name,

(24:44):
but for you, like poor girl, I wish I remember
her name.

Speaker 5 (24:53):
Yeah, for you? Was there any other option?

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Did you have any other desire to do something in
life besides singing?

Speaker 7 (25:02):
Yeah, I wanted to be an architect. I liked to
draw cars as low as a little kids, So I
wanted to be some type of life building. But it
was always on the creative side. But yeah, I wanted
to make cars.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
So Blau, what was the first creative project that you.

Speaker 5 (25:26):
Worked on the outside of the church, Like.

Speaker 7 (25:29):
As far as like the recording or.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
Just well, yeah, I mean as far as recordings concerned,
or like just outside of church.

Speaker 7 (25:37):
I broke out at church, like I started breaking out
of church. And hind not to mention, my pops always
hated the fact that I.

Speaker 6 (25:47):
Was about to say, when did your daddy be like,
this is enough.

Speaker 7 (25:50):
Dad always hated the fact that I was going to
church and my dad's best friend is mister Ben buying
them from down the hole zanzer bar ship. I've been
grew up in there and yeah when when when Willhelmina's

(26:12):
used to be zanza bar blue. I grew up in
that one when it was like two different floors and ship.
But my dad used to take me there. She's just
kind of getting me out of the hole going to
church ship because he just always felt like that was
just not the thing, right, you know. So he wanted

(26:35):
me to see jazz. He was like, this is music
that ships just hollered and hollered, but then he would
wind up saying calling some of the cats at the
zazeb hollering. He hated holler. To this day, my papa
has never been in not one of my contints, Like,
I don't think he ever never, like.

Speaker 1 (26:59):
Your dad would you do?

Speaker 7 (27:01):
He knows what I do, but he ain't never heard
of shit. I ain't never seen him at a concert ever.

Speaker 5 (27:06):
Are you fine with that?

Speaker 7 (27:08):
My papa say, is an eccentric guy like me, So
whatever he does, I'm just like I remember one time
My papa was so pissed at me singing in church.
He literally came into church and like I was singing
and took the mic and picked me up like and
my mom was like, no, Melvine, no, and my papa

(27:33):
was like, my son ain't gonna be gay. My son
ain't gonna be gay. I'm like, ah, it was embarrassing, man,
Like I think the keyboard player from Philly Meetzsche was
the playing. It was like one of those workshop type
things where you gotta pay to be in it. And

(27:54):
my mom so high school, my papa was very happy
that I had met he's cats, and so I went
to Philadelphia Clup Club high school. Because all of my
friends went to Clup Club, Jill jiel Shaw, George Burton,

(28:17):
Lowie brothers. They all told me if I wanted to
hang with them, I needed to learn jazz theory and
I need to learn chords and play piano because they
didn't want to hear me sing. I went to the
clup Club to learn piano and chords.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
And ship and at the time was the instructor was yeah, yeah,
love it, Hans Okay, he was my instructor too. It's
where you said that because we as people have a
hard time expressing emotions that there's such a vulnerability in singing,

(28:56):
that there's a certain level of generally on people that
I feel like singing is such a soft.

Speaker 7 (29:07):
Experience.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
But yet we love Eddie Kendricks, we love Smoking Robinson,
we love printing. Maybe I kind of sense that too,
like because I definitely know that there was a period
between like seventy four and eighty four where like if

(29:28):
you sang, then you were just ridiculed, like you know,
like you couldn't have a beautiful voice and surviving the
hood like you soft because you you sing beautiful, which
wasn't how.

Speaker 6 (29:44):
It was in our parents' time. In our parents' time,
he were singing duo on the side. So something happened
at disconnect.

Speaker 7 (29:51):
That's sweet. The hardest singers was joonas that.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
In school, were you trying to start like groups with
people or were you just like.

Speaker 7 (30:02):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I went through phases, Like my
freshman year I was in a singing group. It was
a gospel group with the singers. I was like hardcour
in the vocal department everybody because this is the same ship.
She was saying, that's breaking out singing and up, you know,
in the hallway and ship. And I was in the

(30:23):
gospel group and I switched sophomore year and I started
trying to be in a jazz group. So I started
going to jam sessions. I got my first gig as
a vocalist Orn Evans band, the Blue Note or the

(30:45):
Blue Moon. There was this club called the Blue Moon
in Philly, and he used to do gigs. He had
just graduated, but we he would hire, you know, he
was still cats that was still in high school. So
I played in his and like I did like one

(31:07):
or two gigs then, and I shortly after that started
trying to like make my own dad. But it was
like a jazz trio. Like I from there, I got
the jazz bub Like I didn't even want to sing,
no other style of music until like maybe I got signed,
Like I was hard for wanted to be the next

(31:31):
Bobby McFerrin.

Speaker 6 (31:32):
Or some ship you got sign singing No R and
b Copter No.

Speaker 7 (31:37):
When I first met in teammate, I was in a
singing group because it was I was in the singing
group in high school. My cousin dated dodmu uh In
two Ma's son, and she would always talk about me
to him. And at the time, they was doing that

(31:59):
show New York Undercover, New York Undercover and yeah, and
they would do the music stuff. So it got out
that Tunes was looking for a group. So I put
a group together just to go up there, and uh,
Tunes didn't like the cats, but he liked my voice.

(32:22):
So that was like the second time I put a
group together. And I think I put another group together
to try and win a competition one but it was
like a jazz man.

Speaker 1 (32:34):
I gotta get to the moment where I discover you
and I forget Amir.

Speaker 6 (32:39):
You say human saxophone. That was a part of the story.
I remember you told me that that wasn't a part
of the story too, the human Saxophone game.

Speaker 5 (32:46):
No, Like I believe James, he had me a cassette.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
And for him, besides the fact that he knew Bloo's
voice was gonna blow my mind, there was one thing
that was slightly more mind blowing about this cassette I
was listening to, and Bloo's voice was the second thing

(33:17):
that was mind blowing. The first thing he said to
me was like, dude, the motherfucker from the Spin Doctors
co produced this and he put it on and I
was like, wait a minute, you trying to tell me
the band of the stupid Just go ahead, now that's

(33:39):
been Doctors. And he's like, yeah, that's been Doctors. It
was almost like it was a party trick. I was like, yo,
listen to this demo. Guess who produced this? And they
just run out of shit, and you know, they would
thinking like, oh, it's some d'angelo's working on this new
group and that it and I was like, yo, let's

(34:01):
spend Doctors produced this, and then it was like, well,
who's that singer? So next to some village is fantastic demo?
Blaud was in second place for like the demo. I
would just make people listen to twenty four to seven
and then like, guess who produced this? And then it

(34:22):
went to like hey, make me a copy, make a copy,
make me a copy. So can you tell the story
of how that demo came to be and how that
just started making the rounds.

Speaker 7 (34:34):
I met Aaron at the News School.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Okay, he played Aaron Cornests, right, Yeah, yeah, he.

Speaker 7 (34:46):
Was going to the News School because he he had
came back to like get he wanted to get his
jazz shops better, and he wanted to get this. He
always wanted to go back to school to get you know, hire,
learn or whatever. He got hired by the guy that
started our school. His name is slipping my mind. I

(35:08):
don't know why, but he started the New Street. He
passed away recently, but he would get students to play
a gig. Probably not hear no more about the other
side Start Walk Cafe or some shit like that. But
our gig started at two o'clock in the morning and

(35:29):
we would play from two to five. This was back
when Club Jazzbuk stayed open like ever you know. Yeah,
the only cats I would see at these ships was
like ironically enough was like Rod harbro Ward harborow Never
he would go to every game. I should always play, right,
But he hired me while Aaron Coolness and I forget

(35:54):
who was playing these but we we could never say
up to get to the gig. So we would either
go to a bunch of other clubs until it was
time for us to play, or we would.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
And this is coming from Philadelphia or like your student
at the New School.

Speaker 7 (36:15):
So I lived in Brooklyn and everybody else stayed at
the dorm. So I didn't like to go all the
way to Brooklyn, so I would just I wounded up
staying at the dorm at Rob's dorm because I think
the dude that he shared the room with was on
some type of MTV show MT Road Rules or some

(36:35):
shit like that. He had got accepted to do that,
so he was never a school he was a superstar.
We would just hang at rob spot, and we found
out that Aaron had a full blown studio at his
house in the basement, and we started hanging out there

(36:56):
till it was time to go do that gig. And
when I found out that he had that shit in there,
I used to go to the practice rooms at school
and just write blute ideas to try and record at
his studio. And that's where that demo came from.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
As far as I know, I believe that When Will
You Call and Queen of Sanity are those actual demos.
I know that James and I replayed the drums and
the keyboards for Queen of Sanity, but that vocal take
is from that actual demo.

Speaker 7 (37:32):
Correct, yep.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
So here's the thing, Like, instantly when I hear that
first verse, like you kind of displayed a nuanced range
of singing that, especially during that time period, a lot
of R and B singing was sort of post Stevie Wonder,

(37:56):
like Stevie Wonder begats Charlie Wilson who begats Aaron Hall
who begats R Kelly who begats Casey? And Jojo like
this level of h oh type of pos Stevie I
call it him like R and B sto of which

(38:19):
you really didn't approach that And not since Prince have
I heard a primitive screamer on a record like do
it in a way that wasn't like HR from Bad
Brains or like punk rock related.

Speaker 5 (38:37):
So is anyone M two may or whoever is an authority?

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Is anyone like telling you, like, hey, tone it down
a little bit, Like why don't you just sing nuanced
and discipline and leave all that crazy stuff because that's
not going to get you a hit? Like what are
people telling you during this phase before you figure out
who you really are, before your first album comes out?

Speaker 7 (39:01):
I was always told the dumb it down, even as
a little kid, so I just was just like I
never really knew how to dumb ship down. But I
think around this phase it was just they were trying
a lot of things. It was mostly getting me to

(39:22):
learn songwriting with other people, and then it was me
trying to always fit what I was learning at school
into a modern thing, you know, because I always wanted
to get signed a blue note or something for single jazz,
because it became a discussion it's mad old people in

(39:45):
the audience like we ain't gonna never get chicks or jets.
It sucks, you know. And literally we used to go
to y'all's jam session that y'all used to deal with
at the Wetlands come Back, and we would see cats
like Kareen Riggins there, like see, now that's the jazz

(40:05):
we see. We always considered what y'all was doing as jazz,
so we'd be like, that's the ship, Like we need
to do some ship more in that kind of fucking thing,
but add our core changes and ship because we're just
gonna be dating old chicks for the rest of our lives.

(40:26):
Like we gotta be modern, like we gotta go to
herbiejing Cock route like you know what I mean? So right, Okay,
that kind of like shifted everything to where I was like,
we got Aaron studio less experiment.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
What's the path that leads to your actual record deal,
Like how many labels did you see? How many showcases
did you have to do? How many close with no cigars?

Speaker 7 (40:59):
I want need to get signed to Peter R. Massenbird
because I always felt like I didn't think he was
doing me on soul, but I was like, that feels
like we want to do And I always felt like
that would be a way to kind of infuse other

(41:20):
our jazz.

Speaker 6 (41:21):
Ship, you know, modernized it a little bit, but still
keep it.

Speaker 7 (41:25):
Hard, right right right, like we could fit it in.
And then we would start to notice like samples and
be like, yo, that's the actual they sampled the actual
album that we love, Like that's the actually jazz I
know that song, you know. So I always saw what
y'all was doing there like the gateway into like still

(41:49):
being a jazz musician in the vein of that, but
being more modern and kind of really like growing. And
then once I met y'all, I was like, I can
and ease things more and kind of take it to
a different level to where I don't even think of
myself as a jazz musician anymore. It's just music, you

(42:09):
know what I mean? But it was a whole catalyst
from going in them jam sessions at will of meanings.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
All right, When I DJ, I don't look at the
audience and I think that, you know, it's like a
there's somewhat of a fear because I know that I'm
doing something different and my whole thing is like, you know,
force you to my will, to my side of the street.
I'm not gonna play with on radio, but I'm gonna

(42:37):
trick you into dancing to music that you might not know,
but I'm gonna make it sound good and artistic. Are
you channeled into the energy of the audience, because for me,
it's one thing to see a Blouse show when I'm
drumming with you, but it's a whole nother. I feel
like the very first time I saw a Blouse show

(43:01):
in terms of to see how he does in the world,
it was a teachable lesson.

Speaker 5 (43:06):
So do you remember the run that you did?

Speaker 1 (43:09):
You and music Soul Child did a series of shows together,
like in two thousand, slightly.

Speaker 5 (43:15):
Before your album came out.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
He was pretty much established by then, and for me,
I was there and I was really excited to see
how would a quasi mainstream audience take to you. I
can say this in shinsight twenty five years later, like,
much to my chagrine, they were frozen.

Speaker 5 (43:41):
And it was so jarring to.

Speaker 9 (43:43):
Them that, like, you know, I was trying to figure out, like, well, wait,
how come they didn't get the elation magic I felt
when I first heard his voice.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
And then I started like, ah, man, people are just dumb.
They don't know what real art is and d they
just want the hits. Like I was in a mind
state of really not understanding subculture mainstream and you can't
do what I did for at least the first ten
years and really have a knowledge of the science of
it all.

Speaker 6 (44:14):
I remember those shows on the flip side was too
from an artist's respective, it seemed like I don't know
how to say this politically correctly, so I'm just saying
what it felt like. It felt like music was a
little intimidated.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
I knew he respected it, but it was for me.
I was more mad that the audience didn't instantaneously have
the same reaction I did, and it made me doubt myself.

Speaker 6 (44:37):
Like it was a shock, but still not like it
was bad. It was just like whoa, whoa.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
With you though, And I seen like four of those
shows in a row, like during that month. Either we
were like on the same circuit or you just did
a lot of shows in LA and each show you
would get even more intense or like you didn't shie
away from it, whereas like I would have instantly chicken

(45:05):
shit it and brought it down like Okay, they don't
feel this, let me let me sneak this on you.
And your reaction was the exact opposite, like, oh really,
now I'm really show y'all motherfuckers was up? And so
how aware are you or can I ask sort of
in hindsight, did you have a conscious fear of rejection

(45:31):
and your main reaction is, well, let me triple down
on this ship and show y'all mother because you know
I was. I was Michael Jackson popcorn Jiff all day,
Like the crazy you are, the more I love it, Like,
oh my god, he's he's this, this.

Speaker 5 (45:48):
Is the greatest shit ever. What was in your head
at that time period.

Speaker 7 (45:53):
I came from just street just being an artist, and
I thought, if I don't get in the applau, as
long as I get a shot, it's it don't matter,
you know, Sony.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Any reaction is better than no reaction.

Speaker 7 (46:09):
I looked at it like, oh man, they fucked up.

Speaker 6 (46:13):
That's what it was. That's exactly what it was.

Speaker 7 (46:16):
I was always like looked at as, oh man, this
ship is out. Even when I was in the choir,
like I would lose solos because casts would be like,
you know, singing the straight way. I've never sang ship
the straight way, so I'm used to just doing ship
even at church up to them where people get like
what the fuck and even singing jazz, I was scatting

(46:38):
more so than even singing. So I always saw that this.

Speaker 6 (46:45):
You've always been a proud weird though, like, and I
love that because I.

Speaker 7 (46:48):
Always I always looked out the audience and saw this
like I was like, ah, they got they get it.

Speaker 10 (46:55):
I guess I'm misconstrued you effect when I.

Speaker 7 (46:59):
Started thinking that was the that was the smile that
was on the other side.

Speaker 6 (47:05):
Is that insulting to say you've always been a proud
weirdo to me? Like, because I'm a weirdo too in
a way, So it's crazy. Yeah, yeah, fuck it, like
you want it anyway. They just don't know what they want.

Speaker 7 (47:16):
Yeah, I'm just like I always liked the black sheeps
or the cast that was being out Like I remember
reading Miles Davis books and him being like, man, I
just got to a point I was like, fuck it,
not just we're doing the whole show with my ass
to the crowd. Fuck this ship, like you know what
I mean? So I guess I could get into us.

(47:37):
Sometimes I can't get into a place like fuck this
ship and going inside and perform.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
You know, is there a memory of a show in
which you might have felt you took it too far
that you recall.

Speaker 6 (47:51):
And what Jack?

Speaker 7 (47:53):
Oh yeah, singing with fucking Jack.

Speaker 11 (47:57):
Oh my god, that's a jack Jack will go. She's
a shop job too. So it was like almost trying
to see in my head. I was like, let me
see how far she'll go. I guess in her.

Speaker 7 (48:13):
Mind she's like, let me see how it was like,
oh ship, all right?

Speaker 1 (48:18):
So let me ask this question then, So, when you
know you are headed to a jam session, are you
thinking this is about to be like gladiator wartime? Like
it's going to be an arm wrestling match? And who

(48:43):
can I outdo? Who can I?

Speaker 5 (48:45):
Son?

Speaker 1 (48:47):
Can I? There was moments where like again Michael Jackson, Popcorn, Jeff,
where it's just like what's going to happen tonight? Like no,
I mean and shout out to all of them, especially
I remember coming home from tour, honest to God, and

(49:07):
you know, frightened of Fategene in Asia, like somehow they
they whooped that Toy Story band into shape in the
summer of two thousand and one, like you know, and
then it was like, oh shit, we gotta come. I
remember having a conversation with the Roots like the last

(49:28):
two minutes of their show, we gotta get to that
level and shit. So I was feeling the pressure. But
would you often go especially during the period between ninety
seven and two thousand and five, when black little like
these jam sessions are happening, are you thinking in terms
of like hmm, battle or just like it's how you

(49:52):
feel at that moment.

Speaker 7 (49:54):
I just know wanted to get up there and make
it state. You know what I'm saying. I knew that,
Oh man, I hope I get up here tonight, like
I had that feeling like this.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
Okay, so John Legend back, I means John Stevens, not
knowing he was in the audience at for a majority
of these jam sessions. We're basically just say that you know,
whenever Black would come on, then it'd be like, uh huh,
I'll do it next week.

Speaker 5 (50:23):
I'll come back next week.

Speaker 7 (50:24):
I'll come back next week.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
I'll come back. One of my one of my favorite
moments of yours is in Dallas where we're doing Erica's
birthday and yo, look, this is a very this is
a very old reference. But if our listeners could pause
the podcast and go to YouTube and watch Ralph Carter

(50:49):
aka Michael Evans of Good Times Fame sing when You're
Young and in Love at a rent party for Helen
and Helen on Town, and every line James Evans is
the audience like, that's my boy, that's you know, like
that person. Because the way that Prince would often enter

(51:13):
our lives, you know, by this point in his thirtieth year,
Prince knows the myth of Prince is a thing, and
you know, he would just appeer out of nowhere, and
I knew he was there simply because I know the
size of his bodyguard. So even though you're watching silhouettes,

(51:35):
there's a point where you know, Prince enters the nightclub
and in my head.

Speaker 5 (51:41):
I'm looking at Shames.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
Like, yeah, we about to show him what's up? And
I'm looking based on where Prince is sitting, I can
see the bodyguards way in.

Speaker 5 (51:52):
The back and Omar just finishing it.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
And I think Omar did a Little Boys Saturdays and
he did a cover of Golden Brown, and then Bloud
comes up. I knew I wanted to start with Soul
Sister first and then warm him up, and then I

(52:16):
knew when Sometimes comes, it's gonna be on. And sure
enough we did a very nuanced Soul Sister. You know,
this isn't a bag watching. And then when we get
to Sometimes Dog, it's like Prince levitated. It was in
the front row. Now I know that game because he

(52:38):
did it once to another singer where this other singer
was giving a concert in his hometown and there was
very strict instructions, like you know, like no distractions, no whatever. Prince,
knowing who the fuck he is, decides I'm gonna stand

(52:59):
right in the wings and watch you.

Speaker 5 (53:02):
And sure enough, you know, the singer like.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
Looks to the laugh and gets paralyzed and literally freaks out,
even though you know, he goes through the song and
walks off stage screams at the staff like get rid
of him, Get rid of him, you know that sort
of thing, and I could tell, uh, this is a
flex thing.

Speaker 5 (53:23):
But again, Bloud never.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
Cowers to any He's one of the most fearless performers.

Speaker 7 (53:32):
I know.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
He just he was in the front row without the
bodyguards and belowd him back down. He just went even crazier.
Do you remember that moment at all?

Speaker 7 (53:43):
I do. I don't remember the performance, but I remember
coming off the stage and you coming over and sing
we got him and you didn't need to let him
come up on stage. Man, And I was like, what
are you talking about? And he was like, France was
at the front and you didn't even let him come

(54:04):
up on stage. I think he wanted to come up
and jam with us, and you just ignored them. Bro.
That was awesome, y'all. I felt like shit. I was
like I was. That was the one time I was
too doled out.

Speaker 6 (54:18):
I know you made up for I know, y'all, y'all
sell each other again.

Speaker 7 (54:23):
It was weird.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
I want you to tell this version of the story,
all right, And I apologize listeners.

Speaker 7 (54:33):
I know.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
I feel like there's a group disgusting more than it is.

Speaker 6 (54:37):
Like it was not because Loud did so much stuff
after Prince died and stuff and did a lot of
performances and older him. So no, this makes this is good? Please,
I want to know.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
So all right. One of my favorite moments, I believe
allows in town when the finishing touches on. Jimmy was
a rock star and star sixty nine at Electric Lady
for it, Common some Electric Circus album and this back
when it was just Mammoth twenty four hours, like you know,

(55:04):
and Steve can also attest to this. Like usually vocals,
Common would do vocals like in the day eleven am
till yeah to three or something, and then like Al
Mousey and James comes in, we'll work on some music
and then Colin thumbs up thumbs down it, and we'll
create the music at night, and then he'll work on
the song on the day right to it and all

(55:25):
that stuff. So I knew that Blaal was doing his vocals,
and we decided to take a dinner break. And it's
two thousand and two, so kind of the this is
the beginning of the nariety of everything catching on, like
we're no longer these unknown, obscure underground artists, like everyone's
going golden platinum, and with that you get invited to

(55:49):
industry events. So the first like major thing that we
go to is somewhere like I think the Apollo Theater
had a nightclub attached to it, and Kelly Clarkson and
what's the old boy's name with a bro justin.

Speaker 7 (56:09):
Right.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
So it was like the first year of American Idol
and those two were kind of doing like a tour.

Speaker 5 (56:15):
I don't know what project they had.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
Was justin Loves they had a movie ye, yeah, like
they were there.

Speaker 5 (56:23):
To promote something.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
And so they invited us to like come up to
the Apollo and and we went there for a bit
and then it was me Common and blau Steve.

Speaker 5 (56:36):
What did you roll with us?

Speaker 7 (56:37):
Then?

Speaker 5 (56:38):
I think you were part of this.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
Yeah, hang out at the Apollo all the time.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
It was Apollo was like it was like a club
next to it, like Club Apollo.

Speaker 5 (56:47):
But whatever the case was.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
This was also the period in which Prince was indeed
deep and it's Jehovah's witness phase and and that's the
Prince that I'd like to avoid because he would do
nothing but preach at you for hours. And so someone

(57:13):
comes up and says, oh, Prince is on his way
there and that was literally like our check please moment.
I never thought I'd run away from my idol the
way we did. Like we are like, hey, let's get
out here because he's just going to keep us here
all night and talk about God. So let's go.

Speaker 5 (57:31):
So we snuck out.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
We snuck out, the bat got back to Electric Lady
Studios to start mixing Jimmy was a rock Star and
then the phone rings.

Speaker 5 (57:42):
Brand new receptionist.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
Says, Amir, there's someone named Prince asking for Prince and
I was like, what someone from named Prince asking for Prince?
And I pick up the phone and he says hello,
and I'm like, hello, this is Prince. I said, huh,

(58:05):
I'm speaking to Prince. I said, a mere meets Prince.
So he would always do that game with me, and
he's like, how long will you guys be down there?
And I'm like trying to think of a lie, but
you know, he makes me. We're yeah. But we were
mixing the song, so I was like, yeah, we're here

(58:25):
all night, meet me sure.

Speaker 5 (58:28):
So Prince shows.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
Up, did he knock?

Speaker 5 (58:33):
Yeah, a puffa smoke.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
He shows up at two thirty of the morning, and
we're mixing Jimmy was a rock Star was a very
very intricate song, and we play it for him and
his mind is blown, Like he gives us all the
praise and like, wow, he really likes it. And by
the way, Prince is on Star sixty nine. He's playing
keyboards all over it. So him in Common like had
a really good relationship. Anyway, it's a point where he's like,

(58:59):
I want to talk to you guys, and it's like
it's a fourth person and it's not Erica and it's
not Steve Rush.

Speaker 5 (59:08):
Maybe it was glassper It was a fourth person with us.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
But the only way I could describe it is if
you google the album cover to the who's the kids?
All right? You know they're all sleeping like on each
other's shoulders. It became a religious battle, and all I
remember was like Blow was basically going toe to toe
with Prince.

Speaker 12 (59:34):
Oh Christianity, dude, me Common and whoever the third person
is just sitting on the floor sleep on each other's shoulders.

Speaker 6 (59:47):
Good for you, Good for you?

Speaker 7 (59:49):
Remember that?

Speaker 1 (59:50):
And I just wake up occasionally and bloud prints are
just do you remember battling him at all? Like just
with theology, Like it was a two hour comed was just.

Speaker 7 (01:00:01):
He was saying, uh, he had different takes on versus
from the Bible, and I think I was just trying
to relate to him and I was like, oh you know,
oh that's in the Qur'an too, And I was trying
to have a conversation with him, but I don't think
it was working out.

Speaker 10 (01:00:21):
I just remember you going behind. You kept going behind
and been going stop and I was like, I'm trying
to stop. If he had a question, oh yeah, well
what about this? And I would just be like, ah.

Speaker 6 (01:00:41):
That was a long time before he passed. So like
y'all kept seeing each other throughout the years. I mean
the meror I know y'all did y'all have a whole relationship,
But what about you and Frience? Like how did that
that one conversation kind of evolved or did it?

Speaker 7 (01:00:54):
No? It was just like a he evolved into. I
think the way I broke out of it was I
started asking him about his shoes because he had on
dope ass white shoes that the zipper was diamonds Like,
the zipper was full on dim It looked like a
diamond ring, but it was the zipper was made out
of diamonds. So I just started talking to him about that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
Sounds like a very religious man him.

Speaker 7 (01:01:22):
His boots. And then then we kind of like skip
skipped everything. Yeah, I think what stopped? Did D'Angelo come
in or something? No, something happened.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Well, well no, I said, basically like Russell, because we
were mixing Jimmy on forty eight tracks and it was
very old school. Of course, now twenty five years later,
you can do everything on your computer. Things are remembered.
But if you're working on like an old school SSL board,

(01:01:54):
a guy like Steve has to it'll take him like
three hours to notate everything that we did on the mix.
Like you just can't go to the studio and be
like they put my song up, like Steve, we'll have
to take you know, an hour to two hours of
readjusting all mix. It's called it's called recalling a mix.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Correct, correct, you're absolutely correct.

Speaker 6 (01:02:21):
Fantasy. And my whole like thought of Prince being like, oh,
but you you the next I can see and said.

Speaker 7 (01:02:29):
Well he said, yo, you're the black Bet. You remind
me of Bet. And I was like that, don't meet
your hair and I was like, don't be I was like,
Beck like you gotta. He's like, you got a little bit.
You could go wop if you want to. You could
bring that sensibility into your stay away from guess. But

(01:02:53):
I was like totally like that. He was like, you
know your you mean? But I was like, I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
Look man begs my boy. I respect that he calmed down.
He calmed down, like as with most people, and maybe
this will happened to me too, like after you do
like seven years of your spirituality phase or your religious phase,
urs back into your regular self.

Speaker 5 (01:03:23):
Sown two thousand and seventy calmed down a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
But I do remember saying, like, yo, we gotta wrap
this mix up. When he left, it was like five
thirty in the morning, and you're not really supposed to
mix when you're tired. So kind of the the radical
drawing way that song sounds to me is sort of

(01:03:48):
indicative of the night we had to endure of that
two and a half hour preaching that that that's ceremony
or whatever. So what were your expectations with firstborn second one?
Why did you name it firstborn second and did you
have expectations for it?

Speaker 7 (01:04:10):
I named it firstborn second that was my second name.
I was just trying to do like a weird name.
So I think it was called uh hot class of
or a cold glass of hell fire and change Haiti.
So I was like, I want something this kind of
double line condre or whatever. I don't even think that's

(01:04:32):
what it was. I was just like, I want to
be out and he's like, that don't even make sense.
So I was I'm my mom's second child, so I
was like, this is my first album, second job, got it.
He was like, that's weird. But alright, you know, was.

Speaker 5 (01:04:53):
The title track biographical the closing.

Speaker 7 (01:04:56):
Song, No, yeah, it was just some wild shit. It
wasn't order biography. It was writing something wild, something strange.
I guess he always had like a rock wildness to
our ship.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Right, this is where become professional. I'm totally skipping the
sometimes story because I don't think I could tell that
story better than I told it at the Glasshouse Live
the Glasshouse album.

Speaker 7 (01:05:21):
But you did a good job.

Speaker 6 (01:05:22):
You left something out though, because I did hear you
tell the story, because I don't want you to skip
this sometimes just in the sense of like since we
talked about it. No, no, you didn't skip nothing in
the sense of how it came together. However, y'all did
skip on the sense of like how this is the
most beloved Blouse song and like it never became a
single off that album, and why that was a thing.

Speaker 7 (01:05:42):
It was almost a single. It was almost as it
was like the last shot. They wanted to make it
a single for starting on a new album. I think
it was yes, met she Stout wanted to do a
video and he was like, this is the we needed

(01:06:02):
to do on this, But I think he picked.

Speaker 6 (01:06:05):
Fast Lading but loud. I remember being a radio and
I was like, this is really because of doctor Dress.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Stout went on record to say on this podcast that
he really regrets kind of how the ball got dropped
with you, because you know, he felt that you were
that supernova figure that really you know, and I hate
that whole could have been a contenter talk because you know,

(01:06:32):
for a lot of artists that do get to the mountaintop,
we see what happens to them. From my perspective, when
when I did this record, I wanted to be a
part of the filler cuts because I feel that the
mark of a great artist like Stevie Wonder, like Prince.
I don't like the singles like Prince Singles, Delirious, Let's

(01:06:54):
go Crazy.

Speaker 5 (01:06:55):
Now I'm gonna listen to Dorothy Parker, Like.

Speaker 6 (01:06:57):
For me, great tradition, Why does singles? I gotta be
that way Like I've been I've been screaming this to
you for years about these singles, like.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
I just don't pick the It was hardcore, but I
feel like the margaret artist is who has the best
feller like and to me, a lot of our favorite
songs on this record are the outcuts.

Speaker 6 (01:07:18):
The radio songs were fast Lane, Soul Sister, and Love
Love It. But we was on Queen of Sanity sometimes
when would you talk.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
Like because you're a different mind state, Like I was working.

Speaker 6 (01:07:30):
Urban radio at the time, and I was like, y'all
are not listening to the women. All the men are
making songs. I'm making these decisions about the doctor.

Speaker 5 (01:07:38):
Dre had something to do with it.

Speaker 7 (01:07:40):
Yeah, I'm saying that was Interscope Records. Like I that's
why I wanted to be signed to UH. Initially I
wanted to be signed to Kadar because I wanted the
core of the album was songs like this and then
the singles we did after everything was done, you know,

(01:08:03):
I was happy to work with Drado, you know, so
I didn't really have no complaints us doctor.

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
What was all right?

Speaker 5 (01:08:10):
So can you describe that process? Like how do you
meet doctor Dre, how do you work with him?

Speaker 7 (01:08:17):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:08:17):
What was it?

Speaker 5 (01:08:18):
Like?

Speaker 7 (01:08:19):
It was polarizing, Like, uh, one minute we just in
Jimmy's offices and the next day we're riding up to
like this place don't even look like a studio though,
and just like some geek but it was back and
it's like all these dope bass cars. We go in there,
and that was the first time I saw that maybe
speakers in the studio and it was like six speakers,

(01:08:44):
like six up, like it was like three at the top,
three wolfers at the bottom. And then he had to
I've never seen anybody turn the console all the way
up to eleven, and he turned it all the way
up playing I think fascinating was the first joint he did.

(01:09:05):
And it was the loudest shit I've ever heard in
my life. But it's nothing that broke, nothing in the
speaker's crackle. It was amazing, but it was painful at
the same time. That was when I noticed he was
the only one in the studio that didn't have earbudd

(01:09:25):
and here everybody that was working there had it like
they knew what was up. But I didn't want to
tell him to turn it down? Was that doctor Drake?
So might he has to? Because that was the loudest
shit I've heard about, Like it was stadium loud but
in a small room.

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
Soon we're going to have a hearing age by Drake.

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
So I will get murdered if I do not ask
this question. Can you tell us where in the hell
is the Love for Sale album? This is probably of
all Soul Quarium related projects, not related to is this
the year that makes a record your fan base? I

(01:10:15):
almost feel like you should never release Love for Sale
or whatever, because it's like the legend of.

Speaker 5 (01:10:21):
It is.

Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
More than what it will equal. But what is What
is the story of Love for Sale? Just never coming.

Speaker 13 (01:10:31):
Out tied up in a bunch of shit with Inner
School and Loyol and change Past and go moved past,
And that was their label. So it got shifted over
to Faulu, who's the brother.

Speaker 7 (01:10:52):
And for a long time I had I didn't even
know where the files were, but I think Fad as
the files now, so right now he might have got
we might have gotten we might have gotten the files
from after movecast. He got his hands on it or something.
But I know file has the files.

Speaker 6 (01:11:14):
I got his fingers on a lot of things because
I'm like, man, those two past all that.

Speaker 7 (01:11:19):
History, but the inner schoope, I think in school booms.
But we had the files, we have the mix because
everything was mixed.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
Do you have a desire to see you through or
release it?

Speaker 7 (01:11:36):
Or I did at one time, but they're not. Just
every time I put my mind into wanting to release it,
it just kind of like doesn't work out. I was
trying to get it. He had came up to try
and release it again. I remember I was talking to
Naim from Universal and there he said that there was

(01:11:59):
me an interest, but I'm just on this thing where
it happened, and it happened, you know, it was already
a lot of people claiming it and having claims to
it anyway, so right, not just fucking while It was
so funny because while I was doing this ship, the

(01:12:21):
people that want to hold on to it didn't like it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
I don't think I've heard it. So I was going
to say, what direction was it that made it so jarring?
Like people know what they're getting when they get with you, correct,
I would think, But.

Speaker 7 (01:12:37):
I mean around the time that I started doing it,
I was kind of full on, like that was pile
and spas I was in. I was heavy and drinking,
you know, just I wasn't the easiest to kind of
work with. So I think that kind of lent itself

(01:12:58):
to what where it happened and WHYTT never went out.
And then towards the end, I just went on strikers
showing up to make wait, year is this yan.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
Jude two thousand and three, two thousand and three, I
was gonna say, I just doing this last run of Detroit.
I did in the summer, to my pleasant surprise, heard
like five to six other j Dilla collapsed that I

(01:13:32):
didn't realize that you did, like.

Speaker 7 (01:13:35):
Because Dyla was going to They had agreed to let
me produce half and then let Dyla produce the other half.
But then Dyla started getting sick. I was going out
there to the Detroit. He was working happy. That's what Duke.
That was my vision for the record to have Bylla
like executive produced, but just let me get get my

(01:13:56):
get my ship off and then him come in and
kind of like dollar, because I was like, I've led
Dylar dollar back because it'll still be a little bit out.
And then he had brought James and so I was like,
it's in good hands. But then he had started to
get sick, so that kind of threw me into a loop,

(01:14:16):
and I started drinking more, just upset and shit and
then just arguing with everybody about it and just trying
to keep the vision of what I wanted alive, but
like not knowing how to finish his tubes, you know,
and Dyla has started making some out shit for me

(01:14:39):
to do, Like he did this one track. I just
didn't even know how to put it together because it was.

Speaker 1 (01:14:44):
So out I know exactly what about.

Speaker 7 (01:14:48):
I was like, he's the only one that can fucking
help me. What am I going to do?

Speaker 1 (01:14:53):
Like yeah, I didn't know whether he programmed it in
his NBC and I didn't know where the one was.

Speaker 14 (01:15:00):
And he would be like, Yo, you can't understand this
is quite here and you would have to be in
the book, like and what And I'm like God, So
like when he passed, I was like, that's it.

Speaker 7 (01:15:17):
I'm lost. Fun. I hear that date to this day
because randomly I don't know who played me.

Speaker 1 (01:15:26):
I found that beat, and to this day, I don't
know where the one is and I'm the king of
be rating someone for not knowing where the one is.

Speaker 5 (01:15:34):
And yeah, so for you now.

Speaker 1 (01:15:40):
And I guess that this could also tie into I
love surreal and also air tight and in another life
like this period especially you kind of leaving them two
maate organization and whatnot, and like how do you how
do did you manage to kind of on your own

(01:16:04):
figure out how to navigate with you kind of at
the driver's seat, whereas you would have a team in
management and people to make decisions for you. But as
an indie artist, like what were your basic plans like
in terms of getting your art out there?

Speaker 7 (01:16:20):
I didn't really have a plan. I had went just
for a long time after that album got bootleg, and
I didn't have a plan. It was just hanging out
at my girl's house, making shit up on the roget
not really knowing what was going on, like syn to
if I was still signed, if I wasn't. If I

(01:16:44):
wasn't signed, you know, if I was able to kind
of get a record deal people that I would. I
had fell out of contact with the Jumys, So I
didn't know what the hell was going on. And my
boy Steve McKee, he was fielding the studio in Philly,

(01:17:07):
so I just I started going there because he knew
like whenever we would do shows, I would just be
in my hotel room making beats on my garage band. Right,
So he was like, I got the studio, played me
the shit that you've been doing on your garage gand
and I played him with shit and that turned into
every Tice revenge. But I was just making sh up
on my computer, just waiting around to know when we

(01:17:30):
could get back in and then you know, to deal
all that shit fill the parcel. I was kind of
like self conscious, but I can go into my head
and just entertain myself at any point. So like that's
what I just did, you know. And then from doing that,
I started hanging out and I became friends with Cyro

(01:17:54):
Creative partners working on their stuff, and Feet was introduced
me to Andrew Maharo, who works with Adrian Young now,
but he's had this small label that he was putting
Shot Feat's records out and Shot Feet. I was like, man,

(01:18:17):
your ship is funky, but it's Electronic and they're letting
you do whatever you want. And we just hanging out
with Flying Lotus and just that whole crew. I was like,
y'all remind me of the New York Crew, but I'll
here in LA and Plug Research cast was like, we's
sign what you doing? And you know, I had this

(01:18:39):
ship that I was you know, shit, I was just
working out on at Steve's studio and they dug it,
you know. So I was like, I don't know if
I'm still signed. I don't know if I put ship
out of whatever. Fuck it, Let's get sued so we
could find out where I'm at.

Speaker 5 (01:18:58):
So what happened, like business plans.

Speaker 7 (01:19:02):
Well, nothing happened, you know, nothing happened. So it was like, oh,
let's got going.

Speaker 1 (01:19:12):
So for a lot of people, especially gen Z and
Jen Alpha, they got the new ones. Hud Alpha's Jen Alpha.
You gotta start back after gen Z, you gotta start
to the letter. Ay, yeah, the new ones. Your work
with Kensick Lamar is kind of their introduction or your
your reintroduction. How deep involved were you with the Pimple Butterfly, Like,

(01:19:38):
were you guys as always? Was it like a second
coming up? So aquariums where you're just always on standby,
or were you there to just specifically work for one song.

Speaker 7 (01:19:47):
Yeah, I just came to the first I did like
a few sessions, but I came in at the last
half of the record, like they are already butt Ler
Roy had already wrote the chorus for that song these Walls.
I just came in to do that and I kind
of recorded it so fast that Keintrick was like, oh, well,

(01:20:11):
throw this up, put this up, put this up. Let
me see what you can do. And it kind of
just turned into that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
And uh, was he familiar with you or was it
just like ar boys things like how much did he
know about you?

Speaker 7 (01:20:24):
No, he had wanted me to be on the first album,
but I don't know what happened. It didn't work out
in time, And so we had always said that we
wanted because he's cool with the whole SOB creative partners, right,
So I knew from then and then Fly Low and

(01:20:45):
of course Thundercat so and Kerris Martin like those are
all my cats. I've known him for years.

Speaker 6 (01:20:53):
So did they recognize you in a way of like, yo,
so I can blow And that's because you're older A
couple of years older than these folks, right, not wrong,
talk about uh Ken drum about to Leroy.

Speaker 7 (01:21:13):
Ironically they thought I was their age. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:21:20):
When you're youngest, like even now, like you look the
same way you did. Mine's the dreadlocks like this, this
is like talking to you back in the day.

Speaker 6 (01:21:29):
So and being a weirdo will keep you fresh and
open a new thing. So that keeps you young.

Speaker 7 (01:21:33):
Too, Yeah, I guess so.

Speaker 1 (01:21:37):
So now now that you're in a space where like
your your level of artistry and I'm talking about like
even the stuff that's happened in Australia right now, like
with like uh you know, like Hiatus Coyote and you know,
like do you now feel as though the world has

(01:21:57):
caught up to you and you're able to like for
you you where is your market at? Like who what
marketplace embraces you the most?

Speaker 7 (01:22:06):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
You're a pure artist, like and I think it's important.

Speaker 7 (01:22:15):
To every tour, every tour, different audience shows up.

Speaker 6 (01:22:19):
It's we like we just know that's a blessing.

Speaker 7 (01:22:24):
We still get the cats that show up that I
want to hear the the first album and more and
more like cats than what a year the newer stuff,
and they don't necessarily look like the first album audience

(01:22:45):
per se, you know, so it's kind of a mix.
I never know. If I knew, I would be probably
further along.

Speaker 1 (01:22:54):
Kimber told me that, well, the way that radio is
in Australia, like the way that your radio show was Laya,
that is actually mainstream radio in Australia, which really explains well, yeah,
but the thing is is like over in Australia you
can still hear Balal and then they'll put on Sabrina

(01:23:19):
Carpenter and then they'll put on Charlie xx and then
they'll put on Hiatu's kind of right, which is I mean, shit,
we're doing our New Year's Christmas shit over there in
very big venues because Australia hasn't fallen under the way
of like where Clear Channel takes over radio and segregates

(01:23:41):
it and makes you a niche artist. For you now though,
especially with the Just Brightness project, do you feel like
people are slowly now coming around after having you know,
been on this journey for twenty five years.

Speaker 7 (01:23:56):
Yeah, people are has happened where you know. It's the
thing that I'm doing is starting to settle. I feel
that a little yeah, And I've been a little bit
of getting a little bit more grounding on the on
the business side too. So you know, for a long time,

(01:24:19):
I didn't really give a shit about the business ship.
I just wanted to make enough money to smoke leed
and you know they rent. Then you had kids, so
a lot of ship changed. I got kids, like you know.

Speaker 5 (01:24:32):
Right, yeah, you got children.

Speaker 7 (01:24:35):
My approaches.

Speaker 1 (01:24:38):
You've done so much work with so many other people.
I gotta ask you about like some of our favorites.
One of the last complete albums of a hip hop
group that I totally love was Hell Half the Fury,
and I didn't look on the credits to know that
you were singing on Nightmares a Sergey voice, Like, wait
a minute, that's how did you hook up with the

(01:25:02):
clips for Hell Have No Fury?

Speaker 7 (01:25:05):
I was down there working on my record they Want
with the Neptunes. Yeah, I went through this. I went
through had me working with everybody. So it was why
after he did the record for Justin Timberley, you know,

(01:25:25):
he was doing it just banger after banger, and so
every time I would get into a room with with
with cats on that well.

Speaker 1 (01:25:35):
Talk about your working relationship with Beyonce.

Speaker 6 (01:25:39):
And the Fight in Temptations collaborations at all.

Speaker 7 (01:25:43):
Oh, that was dope. I think she she she asked
for me to be a part of that, so that
was dope. I didn't even I think they had in
mind it to be something else, but she she like
specifically has for me to join that joint, which is dope.
You know. Yeah, I think I always thought she was

(01:26:05):
ill and just such a student of the music, you know.

Speaker 6 (01:26:11):
I mean, y'all that in the studio together. We all
recorded it together.

Speaker 7 (01:26:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, she was there with with Jimmy jam
and Cherry Lewis. They wrote the song, so we we
all was in the studio working on it. That was
a learning experience too, because they are very like particular
about what they want, very particular. And I'm like, I

(01:26:39):
half the time don't know what I'm doing. I like
to make what I call beautiful mistakes, and they're like, no,
you gotta do it, like yeah, you gotta do it
like this or you know. And every time they would
tell me to do something, I would do it different,
like I wouldn't even know what I'm doing, you know.

(01:26:59):
They're like, dude, that again. I'm like, I don't know
you did you record it? I hear it?

Speaker 1 (01:27:05):
What was one of the hardest sessions you have to do?

Speaker 7 (01:27:08):
That was probably one of the hardest sessions because Beyonce
is like a professional in the studio. She just she's
got her Her studio technique is ill, you know what
I mean. She can knock shout out nose all right,
put this on through this double it, you know. And
I was just in there, like I said, making beautiful mistakes.
So everybody was just.

Speaker 1 (01:27:28):
Like, didn't Jermaine to pre produce you on Jay's Falling?

Speaker 15 (01:27:37):
Yep?

Speaker 7 (01:27:38):
Yeah, how did that come to be?

Speaker 1 (01:27:41):
That was an American gangster?

Speaker 14 (01:27:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:27:43):
That was a random phone call and it was like, hello,
is this allowed Jay Z would like for you to
come to the studio and this is the address, and
then randomly I showed her. I got there. It's like
some random building. You go up and kay Z and
Beyonce was in the studio waiting for me, like hello.

(01:28:05):
I was like, what it's like being summoned by the
president or something.

Speaker 6 (01:28:10):
Put the bug in his eir.

Speaker 7 (01:28:12):
Like I don't know, maybe, but when I got there,
he knew everything. He wanted me to do. He was
kind of he knew what he was looking for me
to do. I was like, man, I didn't even know
you knew about my ship like that, But wait a.

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
Minute, didn't Did I not use you once for any
of those Jay Giggs? Yeah, I was about to say,
I think he came aboard for Carnegie Hall, but I
think this was before that. Okay, okay, it was Carnekie.

Speaker 7 (01:28:43):
The Carnegie Hall thing happened after that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:46):
But I definitely remember he asked for you. You know,
I know for the fact that those two were big
expearens of yours. Did you have any clue whatsoever? But
at the time, when you're recording Master Teacher with its
infamous hook, I stay woke. Did you have any idea

(01:29:08):
about how you singing that hook would wind up almost
being like kind of the zeitgeist of where we are
right now politically?

Speaker 7 (01:29:21):
Nah, that was.

Speaker 1 (01:29:25):
Like talking about Master Teacher because it's one of my
favorite songs on New America, but it also it's just
such a beautiful mess of a song, like I don't
know where the hook starts. I don't know. Georgia Georgia
had Matt, Yeah, what does she like to work with

(01:29:46):
because I was such a fan of herse but I've
never really got to chop it up in a way
that I wanted to.

Speaker 5 (01:29:53):
I've never got to watch her make beats or anything.

Speaker 7 (01:29:56):
She is a genius. Georgia is a genius, incredible, incredible musician.

Speaker 15 (01:30:04):
And nasty beat maker. Like wow, yes she's dirty, like
so working with hers dope.

Speaker 7 (01:30:14):
You know, she went to the New School.

Speaker 5 (01:30:16):
What year did you first go there?

Speaker 7 (01:30:19):
Ninety I went there from ninety seven to like ninety
like the end of ninety eight.

Speaker 1 (01:30:31):
So the weird thing is that had I did what
my dad wanted me to do, I would have been
a senior because you know, I took years off to
I called myself paying for the Roots Demo. My dad
thought I was saving up for college. Really I was
saving up for the Roots Demo. So you know, by
ninety four, I was like, all right, I gotta get

(01:30:51):
into a college. Like I let four years go by.
So I'm either it was cheaper to go to the
New School than it was the Juilliard. So if there
wasn't a record deal in my future, I would have
probably started going to the New School from ninety three
to ninety seven. So somehow our our paths would a
quasi crossed for sure had I done that? But who

(01:31:15):
else was there besides you and glaspar Was Chris there
as well?

Speaker 7 (01:31:19):
Or no, Chris wasn't there? Cedric Mitchell was there, Kean
Harrold Marcus and E. J. Strickland brothers saxophone cat they
was there?

Speaker 5 (01:31:33):
Is this under Ellie Howe's tutelage.

Speaker 7 (01:31:36):
Yep, okay, y know, shout out Ksey Benjamin, it's there, rust.

Speaker 5 (01:31:46):
Pe Case Benjamin.

Speaker 6 (01:31:49):
I wonder y'all are So?

Speaker 1 (01:31:51):
Were they all as advanced as now?

Speaker 5 (01:31:53):
Or is it just like mm hmm? Was it intimidating?

Speaker 7 (01:31:57):
I wasn't intimidating. I was. It was just right back
to high school though, Like I always felt like as
the singer, just trying to prove myself to be around
the bad cats, you know what I mean? Like, oh
you know, hey, what about that suspended forth? Huhuh?

Speaker 5 (01:32:23):
You got their respect?

Speaker 7 (01:32:25):
Oh yeah? Well yeah, because Rob was the first one
to be like this shit is dope. He's dope, y'all,
you know. But he his mother was a vocalist, so
he kind of like warmed them up to me. But
I was kind of the weird though, because I really
didn't fit in with the singers either, because I was
I'm still had PTSD from high school. So I came

(01:32:49):
to jazz school just scatting, nothing but scatting.

Speaker 1 (01:32:55):
Like, So, how confident were you in your scatting skills?

Speaker 5 (01:32:59):
Like did you first adapt to.

Speaker 7 (01:33:01):
I was mad by then. I was mad confident because
I started to learn all the store like I had
learned all Lee Morgan solos. I learned all fucking Miles Davis's.
So what I remember I had? I had them on memory, like.

Speaker 5 (01:33:18):
Yeah, but I didn't know he was the outcasts.

Speaker 7 (01:33:21):
That was my way, that was my way in. I
had to like I had to like go to the
jam sessions and just battle trade trade bars with these cats.
And I had learned changes by then, So I was
I was cutting some of them cats back then.

Speaker 5 (01:33:35):
So did you?

Speaker 1 (01:33:36):
Of course I couldn't now, but so, but did you
have to like did you subscribe to the John Hendricks
Vocalist House?

Speaker 5 (01:33:49):
Wait, you knew Hendricks?

Speaker 7 (01:33:54):
Yeah, because I was.

Speaker 1 (01:33:55):
I had tried to talk about that.

Speaker 5 (01:33:57):
Y'allknew each other.

Speaker 7 (01:33:59):
Yeah, I try right out for the Manhattan transfer in
college and me and me and Rob used to go
over to John Hendrick's house and jam with him. Oh
my god, he used to cut both me and Rob
whistling and I would be in there scatting all my
scatting shit and he would just whistle some of the

(01:34:20):
baddest shit. But yeah, that would go over his house
and do duo all the time. That was a cool
thing about the News School because they could get in
contact with whoever they knew if they had it in
the rollo decks, and then they would just ask them
right out. You know, we got a young cat that
just wants to chill with I was like, John Hendricks,

(01:34:43):
what all right?

Speaker 1 (01:34:45):
So for our listeners, let me explain for our listeners.
In the jazz world, there's a thing called technical vocalist,
which is basically it's kind of version of we invented
the remix where they were taking established If a song
becomes an established standards and it was just traditionally jazz,
then a figure like Eddie Jefferson or John Hendricks or

(01:35:08):
his other group Lambert Hendricks and Ross. Yeah, they would
add lyrics to these songs. But the thing was you
had to be faithful to the definitive solo. So for
a great example, listen to John Hendricks Freddy Freeloader with
Bobby McFerrin, Aljiou, George Benson and John Hendricks, in which the.

Speaker 5 (01:35:33):
Four of them note for note nail.

Speaker 1 (01:35:38):
Miles Adderley's like all the solos on the original, and
I just to me, it just seems so intimidating one
to study a solo, but then to memorize it. So
like as a singer, am I able to put like
a fake book in front of you? Fake book is

(01:35:58):
a jazz bible. To put a fake book in front
of you and you instantly read the note to notate
and know exactly where to go, or do you have
a listen and study the song?

Speaker 7 (01:36:08):
And back then I could now no. Ever since I
got signed, I fucking forgot everything but.

Speaker 5 (01:36:15):
Back then, and I'm glad you did.

Speaker 7 (01:36:19):
Back then, I played enough piano. I was on All
City Jazz band as piano in Philly. What they had
they had beaten, beat me over the head to the
point where I was reading charts in the big band.
I forgot all that shit though. But yeah, in college,

(01:36:39):
I didn't want to study with none of the vocalists,
so I studied with Reggie Workman, the bass player for
for training. I studied Reggie Reggie Workman, and I studied
with his guitar player, uh arm and arming the Danilian.
But he's like a jazz virtuo so guitar player, but

(01:37:01):
his whole shit was, man, you gotta ear like him.
And Reggie would always say, you gotta ear like a musician,
so you should lean into that, like just hearing things
as a musician. And from then on, like I, they
had me buying saxophone concerto books and learning the concerto

(01:37:24):
the saxophone concertos, and then Arman introduced me to Robbie
Shankar's music, and then we just started learning all of
the Middle Eastern scales and all of that. And by
then I was just on a whole nother level as
far as just hearing shit and scatting to where the

(01:37:44):
cast I was hanging with. They saw me as a
musician right when that around, I would say like yeah,
by the time I got to college, like I wasn't
intimidated by that anybody, no more, especially a musician like
I was just I heard just like a musician, like
I heard everything.

Speaker 1 (01:38:05):
Now I believe that you are the last anointed vocalist,
just in terms of the Masters of the sixties who
wrote the blueprint, like you're you're naming people whom like
you know I find in Dyla's record collection.

Speaker 6 (01:38:25):
In terms of sampling, he said he tried off with
a Manhattan Transfer, is what he said. You said he
tried off with a Manhattan Transfer. That's what he said.

Speaker 1 (01:38:36):
Is there a project that you long to do that
you haven't done yet? Like Manhattan Transfer type groups like uh,
the boy the their their counterpart group voices.

Speaker 5 (01:38:50):
I forget no, no, no, not.

Speaker 7 (01:38:52):
Them, not like Take six or.

Speaker 1 (01:38:56):
Well, I mean that, but there's there's another group that
I'm I'm I'm forgetting.

Speaker 6 (01:39:00):
Right now and transfer don't talk about.

Speaker 5 (01:39:05):
That's what I'm do.

Speaker 1 (01:39:06):
You have a desire to ever put a vocal group
together to try some ship out or hm hmmm. See
he lives in the present. You didn't think about that
once in your thirty year a journey.

Speaker 7 (01:39:18):
Did you? No? No, I did it one time with Erica,
just on like a skit. We was playing around and
in electric lead, and we did it sometimes I'm happy
by king pleasure, okay, And we did sometimes in that
bame and we wrote out the harmonies and did it.

(01:39:41):
But I never thought that would be cool. Though. I
was seriously a jazz hit before I got signed, Like
I got talked into like doing R and B and
ship from like the two and to make brothers Like
I was really wanted to be like Kirk Elling or

(01:40:02):
some ship. Steve, guess what time it is going to
be kir Elling a record project?

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
Jam my time?

Speaker 1 (01:40:09):
Yeah, all right, we always say this twenty twenty five,
A real project, twenty twenty.

Speaker 6 (01:40:14):
Five black, real black projects.

Speaker 5 (01:40:18):
Yes, I want to do that.

Speaker 6 (01:40:22):
What is so great about working with Robert glassper Did
y'all work together?

Speaker 7 (01:40:26):
Say?

Speaker 5 (01:40:26):
We never mentioned Glass properly?

Speaker 6 (01:40:29):
Yes? Please tell me about this this working relationship that
you guys have and why it just works well.

Speaker 7 (01:40:35):
Robert, it is like it feels like it feels like
I'm working with my like with myself, because he we
have the same kind of thoughts on music, on how
to blend the genres and kind of like I have
the same sensibility of jazz but go anywhere with it,
you know. So that's like my musical brother. A lot

(01:40:58):
of times when we were we're not even we don't
even if it's not even planned, you know, it's just
once again, like these just cool mistakes and in the
middle of the mistake, we make it mean something, you know,
but uh.

Speaker 6 (01:41:14):
It's a beautiful mistakes.

Speaker 7 (01:41:16):
Yeah, when I work a rob I don't even it's
so home, you know what I mean, where I don't
really I don't really think too much while I'm doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:41:28):
I think that's how it has to be, like again
when I say in the present, it's how you feel
at that moment with your children, as has the epigenetic
effect happened? Like are they singers as well? Do they
have musical talent? What do they think when they watch you? Before?

Speaker 7 (01:41:47):
My kids think I'm an odd bird. None of them
are are musicians, even though I've tried my best. You know,
they've been in piano and drums and everything. But my
kids like art, they like all things, are all things anime.
They're in that kind of a world. So I think

(01:42:11):
they could possibly maybe raped Like when they were little kids.
They used to represent ta live Quali's son Amani. We
lived across the hall from I lived across the hall
from from Tai lived for for a while and his
son Amani used to watch my kids. And I think
that's another way that I got into learning these the

(01:42:34):
young kids like Pink Seafood or Live and all these
young musicians out today because they would always hang out
at Amani's house and they had my kids rapping like
as little kids. So I know they have the skill
to rap, but they want to be like anime cats.

Speaker 1 (01:42:52):
Okay.

Speaker 7 (01:42:53):
My wife says that my son Paris can sing, but
he's very secretive with his town. It's like he did
you know, he's shy about it. I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (01:43:04):
There's one of the fruit falling far from the tree
moments where I'm like, I know that one of them
has a voice in them.

Speaker 7 (01:43:11):
But you know, I was the only musician in my
family though, you know that kind of like made this
step to be a musician. Like my only musician in
my family. Everybody else is like my sister is an electrician,
my brother does construction, like my my father does construction.

(01:43:34):
Come from a family construction workers, really want to be
an architect. Wow. Yeah, I'm like the only one that
kind of like leaned into music. I don't come from
like a musical family or anything like that. So like
everything that I do, I kind of like or maybe
all the talent.

Speaker 3 (01:43:53):
You do and inherited a lot of people ask me
what are my favorite sessions have been over the years,
and a lot of times I'll talk about Hard Groove,
the Roy Hargrove album with Russ at Electrical Lydy and
that whole amazing record. And then I also mentioned my
time with Bellile up in studio see at Electrical Lyady
working on I Guess Are We?

Speaker 2 (01:44:15):
Is it called Love for Sale? The album that we
were working on. Yeah, those sessions just.

Speaker 7 (01:44:22):
Mandar a lot of that shit.

Speaker 3 (01:44:25):
You were the first artist who really gave me just
complete freedom in the studio to experiment and to you know,
we'd lay stuff down during the day and then I'd
stay late and come in early and sort of do
rough mixes for you and just you just let me
do whatever. We were doing some some real experimental stuff,
and I wanted to thank you for that because that

(01:44:47):
was really when I first started to feel my own voice,
I guess as an engineer and producer and stuff like that. Also,
if anybody is am I the second, yeah you're somewhere
down the list, but yeah, yeah, But if anyone's out
there looking for a Bloo song that they've probably never
heard before, check out Black Coffee and bed A Squeeze

(01:45:10):
song that blows gracious enough to sign with Nikki Jean.

Speaker 5 (01:45:16):
Yeah, it's just it's forty.

Speaker 2 (01:45:18):
Five right, yeah, yeah, it's how you can stream it.

Speaker 7 (01:45:21):
Black Coffee and Bed.

Speaker 2 (01:45:24):
Thank you for that. That was a big, big song. Yep.

Speaker 7 (01:45:29):
Yeah, we just some real experimental ship. Those were the days.

Speaker 2 (01:45:33):
Yeah, those were the days. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:45:34):
Well look, man, this being our first professional interview with you. Look, man,
what more can I say? You're still one of my
favorite creative humans. Uh And oftentimes I have many what
will Blow do moment when it comes to figuring out

(01:45:56):
what daredevil artistry I want to leash on my audience,
like from my DJ gigs to like a lot of my.

Speaker 5 (01:46:05):
Boulder the hell is he doing what I think he's doing?

Speaker 1 (01:46:10):
Any any of those times where people have asked that,
usually the green light starts with kind of what would
Blau do? So you're you're literally like, I know people
think of North Stars as a person in the past
who's like died and you're holding something, but you know,
you're you're really an exemplary fearless performance artist. Even Howard

(01:46:34):
Stern says you're one of his favorite singers and he
had no clue why so we did a tribute to
John Lennon and Steve had introduced a song to me
called Mother that you know, Yoko Ono kind of got

(01:46:54):
John Lennon too. He didn't want to go to therapy,
so he went to screaming therapy. And if you listen
to the song Mother, that's kind of where the anger
of being an orphan really comes out. Starts very gentle,
but by the end John Lennon start raging mad about

(01:47:16):
his childhood. And I knew that if we got if
we were given permission to do that song at Madison
Square Garden for the John Lennon tribute, we would steal
the show. And if you listen to the Stern show
the day after that concert, he didn't know you by name,

(01:47:37):
but he's like, there's a singer with Jimmy Fallon's band
who just absolutely stole you know, people correct him, that
was the Roots, That was the Roots, and he's just like,
you know, at first he was like, what are these
guys doing on the stage and they're gonna rap, like
give visa chance, and you know, you absolutely floored him.

Speaker 7 (01:47:58):
So yeah, that's what's up.

Speaker 5 (01:48:00):
Keep going, man.

Speaker 1 (01:48:01):
I appreciate your artistry and thank you very much for
doing our podcast.

Speaker 7 (01:48:06):
Thank you for having me. Jay, You're one of my
biggest inspirations and reasons I'm here. You know I appreciate
early champions.

Speaker 5 (01:48:16):
Thank you for the honor of that man. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:48:18):
Yes, Sir, I want to be having Layah and Bill
and Steve this Quest though signing out this Quest Love Supreme,
but the one only below. We'll see you next time.

Speaker 4 (01:48:29):
Thank you, Thank you for listening to Quest Love Supreme.
This podcast is hosted by a Mere Quest Love Thompson,
Liyah Saint, Clair Sugar, Steve Vandel, and myself unpaid Bill Sherman.
The executive producers are Mere just walked into the goddamn
room Thompson, Sean g and Brian Calhoun. Produced by Brittany Benjamin,

(01:48:49):
Jake Paine and Liah Sinclair. Edited by Alex Conroy I
know Alex Conray. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown.

Speaker 1 (01:48:58):
West Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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