Questlove Supreme: The Foreign Exchange

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Supremo, Rollbrivo Supremo, Roll Call, Suprema Supremo, Roll Call Suprivo
roll Yo.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Is the season?

Speaker 4 (00:24):
Yeah, like I sheared the light.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Yeah, I have a good reason yeah to talk about
that site.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Supreval Suprema.

Speaker 5 (00:38):
Roll Call.

Speaker 6 (00:39):
My name is Sugar.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (00:41):
Is this thing on? Yeah, this took so long to start. Yeah,
my buzz is gone.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Supprivo Rollbriva Sprevo roll.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
I'm unpaid bill.

Speaker 7 (00:56):
Yeah, and lordy lord, let's talk about Yeah and okay
player boys Suprema so Suprema, Spriva.

Speaker 8 (01:09):
Sopri It's like yeah, oh my god, Yeah, yeah, okay
made us.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Suppriva Suprema.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
My name is Nick Yeah, and I'm a cancer. Yeah,
I'm good at music, not much of a dancer.

Speaker 8 (01:35):
Supppreval roll Suprema Supremo Role called.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
My name is Fante. Yeah, and I won't be boring.
Yeah and him had exchange.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Now I'm whipping a form ship.

Speaker 9 (01:57):
Suppriva Role suprem Subprima, Oh call.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Subprim Wow, we did it. Like no, it is a
Japanese exactly. I mean it's technically a forum, but yeah,
yeah it ain't Germany.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
I don't wait what what what kind of car you
got Alexis?

Speaker 8 (02:25):
Oh god, yeah yeah it isten't.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Me great gas mileage? Toyotas are the best? Yeah, man,
you right it think? Hey, I just got my sign.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
I'll fixed. I'm still hanging on what it is the
twentieth anniversary of me getting my drivers like this?

Speaker 9 (02:46):
What's funnier the Quest Love and the Scion?

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Not much? I don't know.

Speaker 9 (02:50):
I don't know the answer, Like, am.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
I driving a classic car now that I've been driving
the sign for twenty years?

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Don't even make that car?

Speaker 2 (02:58):
You don't?

Speaker 4 (02:58):
Yeah, I don't think.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
So how do you get it serviced? So the guy
that drives me around now he has a hook up
in the heights where they got thing. Yeah, there's a
lot of garages up there in the heights. Yeah, and
uh yeah, shop shops understood.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Let's just say that I'm good for at least maybe
nine rounds of kneeding batteries.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
And this is a hell of a way to start
this episode. We are live in New York. Well, we're
not live. We're in New York City. We're in person.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, good to shout out to take a little for
getting up early this morning. And I hear that you
say that you did not get sleep.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Not really, we didn't.

Speaker 8 (03:44):
We didn't really we had uh yeah, I got in
this morning. Yeah, we had a movie that he scored.
We had that yesterday. That was it Full Frame Documentary,
Full Frame Festival. So that was like all day yesterday,
and then we rolled out six this morning, got here
like eight.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
Okay, it's been up ever.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Since, well since Fonte already assisted us on that, we
might as well introduce our steam guest. And I guess
you can say that this is a special episode because
of course this being five years, yes, twenty twenty five five, right,
so being as though this is like twenty five years

(04:24):
of what okay Player is, I guess we're still trying
to define what okay Player was.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
But if there was ever a moment, I wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Mind flexing the very played out what a time to
be alive hashtag man, I would say that probably okay
Player is one of those moments in which I think
everything that I intended it for that site to be
actually came to fruition, which is that people connected with
each other way above than that just being a roots website,

(04:54):
but people were able to do that and probably one
of the most pioneering moments that will have defined how
it is that we make music and how we stretch.
You know, before Okay Player, like I lived at a
time when you went to Europe that was Europe, when
you did things in the States that was like now

(05:15):
it's colonized and stretched out. And the fact that you
know the storied journey of how Fontigolo and Nicola met
and hooked up one Okay Player, you know even that
this is a dream interview for us to finally get
you guys, because you're such a YouTube to me, are
are the actual physical result of what happens on the

(05:39):
internet when it's a good thing.

Speaker 9 (05:41):
Yes, many different ways. I just want to point I'm
not saying.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Nothing else, So that's a welcome.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
It's weird, I know, the legend of foreign exchange.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
Hopefully this will be what I initially intended the Jesus
a Mural episode to be.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
Before today, before it went totally left.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Maybe if you guys aren't familiar with that legendary episode.
There's a lot of inside baseball talk about what Okay
Player meant as a community. This hopefully will be a
more nuanced, better version of that episode. So Jesus a
m though that was definitely that to me is one
of like are the funniest moments, at least for me,

(06:35):
even though it was a lot of inside baseball Nikolay.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
What is your first musical memory?

Speaker 4 (06:40):
My first musical memory is hearing Secret Life of Plans
by Stevie Wonder. I credit a lot of my musical
interest and taste to my mother's music collection, and I
have a distinct memory of being I must have been
five or six years old and feeling the braille on
the cover of Secret Life and Plants while taking in

(07:03):
the sounds, and I think, looking back, the synthesizer pioneering
more so than anything else, ecclesiastic and some of those
create like that had a massive influence on me. And
that must be one of the first, if not the first,
true musical memories that happened sort of before I consciously

(07:26):
got into music and was interested in music, and like,
shout out.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
To my mom for that. How old were you in
nineteen seventy nine, I was five years old. That's so crazy.

Speaker 4 (07:35):
I'm a seventy four shout out to all the seventy
four babies. Yeah, I distinctly remembered that record. Like now,
I would argue with people a lot about songs of
the Kia Life versus Secret Life of Plants and how
they were kind of back to back right and so
different in so many ways. And for me, I never
had that connection with songs that I did with Secret

(07:58):
Life Plans for the very and that it hit me
so profoundly as a kid, and I have a specific
memory with each of the songs with Black or Kid
We'd comeback as a flower with Tree Race Babblin, Like
I think it really shaped.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
Me all right.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
So just to give our listeners just a little backstory,
because I had the opposite experience that you had, even
though you and I had the same shared experience, you know,
like when the classic hip hop records came out and
we discussed it on an OK player and then it
would be like nine hundred threads of just like that
happened before the Internet and especially in my household in

(08:37):
which there were so many musical experts, a Stevie Wonder
record actually had the power to make someone have like
almost a four hour summit meeting like the day as
songs in the Key of Life came out September of
seventy six. Both songs in the Key of Life and
Spirit by Earth, Wind and Fire came out the same day.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
And that was also the first day of school for me.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
So, like you know, that day was like a major event,
Like we got home early, we sat as a family,
sat in front of the record player to see, like
what the else because it's two years since Fulfilledness first finalite.
So it was such an event in my household that
come three years later in seventy nine, when we had
that same anticipation opening the record and listening and man

(09:22):
to watch it with my set, to watch my father's
face during the Earth's creation. Yo, I just I've never
seen my dad cry until maybe like nineteen eighty four
at a funeral. But the day I saw the day

(09:44):
that music died for my dad, and it was such
a heartbreaking, like he just looked at the floor like
I've lost.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
Hopeing to humanity.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
But for me, any albums that were rejected by like
my dad's band or then I would wind up inheriting.
And so I inherited that record and so just like you,
that was my dark side of the Moon, like, yeah,
mainly because it's like, oh, it's on my own and
I would listened to it in the headphones and yeah, imagine,
And I loved everything about it.

Speaker 4 (10:14):
I loved the photo of Stevie in the booklet. I
love the fact that there were Japanese lyrics. I didn't
know what that meant at the time, And then I
think I asked my mother, like what is this and
the lime green cover or if I have to describe it,
maybe almost pistel like it was. So it wasn't just
the music, It was the totality of that record, and

(10:36):
it wouldn't have happened on it was vinyl.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
It was just a big, beautiful The one time I
realized that there was such a major pushback on that record,
like besides, I would dismiss my dad's thing, like him
shit talking about Stevie lost it. I'm so disappointed. Was
like when I started going back to read reviews and
it got a lead review and Rolling Stone and they
just they just talent. It's almost in a way, like

(11:04):
I don't know if I should be this honest about it.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
When Glover's Camp got a one point nine and.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Pitchfork, oh okay, there was an energy shift between he
and I and almost felt like that devastated him so
much to know that I knew about because I instantly
hit him like, yeah, man, don't like.

Speaker 4 (11:22):
It, right, but I certainly have a view.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
But just until like maybe three years ago, I truly
let the opinions of a critic go okay, you know,
I didn't go back to look at the movie like
none of that stuff, like I'm just I now make
art because like I want to make beautiful art and
not like, oh this will keep our rating high or whatever.
But I didn't realize how much of a beating he
took for that record. Me neither, and in fact, like

(11:50):
I weighed everything that I heard by Stevie after that.
I compared it too secret life and it didn't always
live up to me. But because of like and I think,
like we could talk about this later, but like my
love for synthesizer pioneering, what what Stevie was doing with
the with the c S eighty on that record, Like

(12:12):
I think it's looking back, it's clear why the larger
public didn't really get it, but for the nerds, if
you will, like it checked all the boxes because he
was going further, and but I still think it had
like come back as a flower is up there for me,
Flowers for me, that black work.

Speaker 8 (12:32):
That's the only record I can think of that Stevie
singing falsetto win. I can't think of no other song.

Speaker 6 (12:37):
That's good.

Speaker 8 (12:38):
He's not right, Yeah, he's not right. Yeah, I've never
heard him sing falsetto on nothing Nose.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
So when I when I heard songs after that, I
was like, yeah, it's cool you discovered songs proactively, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (12:49):
Anything like. I think the second thing I heard by
Stevie was the musical of the Concoration that had original
and it had like living for the City. I think
it was like, all right, this is I'm hearing more
of what I like. But like everything that I've heard after,
and it's largely probably because of the warmth of the

(13:11):
memories involved with it, everything thereafter didn't quite have the
same magic for me.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
So now that I hear this, it makes even more sense.
At you guys that man, the day you guys covered
he if she breaks your heart to me, like, I
still have a dream that somehow if the masters of

(13:36):
the Jungle Jingle soundtrack bro get free. I have such
a dream of just hearing that same I've never heard
an album which song structure. I like it a lot,
but if he changed the instrumentation on it like that,
he could have pulled the winehouse. But I don't know
if like Okay, if he did a fulfillment first menalitey

(13:59):
or whatever like sonically made it sound like that would
have had the same impact. But hearing you guys like
update his sound but still.

Speaker 8 (14:07):
Keep ah Man, this is a beautiful song. Man, I
just thought it needed to be updated, like, but it's
a great record.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
I love that song.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
So let me ask for you guys the point where
I realized that Okay player was just bigger than a
website for some acts to post announcements on. You also
just have to sift through the many personalities, because you
guys are on a constant blind date. Like there are

(14:35):
many people to whom I've had interactions with that you
know you can't see what they look like or you
don't you know, I don't know what trolling is or
none of that stuff. But you guys have to find
each other because even in my mind, even though you
are definitely a charter member, I do have at least
in my social circle. I have a like an inner

(14:55):
circle like around one, around two, and you always around
three person like even though we talked a lot, not
to the level of no for sure.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
So how did you two meet? Yeah, it was I
think this was back in like it was two thousand
and what two.

Speaker 4 (15:09):
Yeah, I think a one one sort of found each
other in the same in.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
The same type of jazz. So with him, like, and
I didn't know anything about this guy. I didn't know.

Speaker 8 (15:20):
We would even joke with the crew like it was
Nikola is the girl the girl like we you know,
it was just a name on the screen. We had
no idea and so but I think I feel like
I remember it was a radiohead topic and and he
jumped in the thread. But I just kept seeing him
in threads, and I would notice that he had a
lot of the same taste that I did, Like we
liked a lot of the same shit. And so I

(15:41):
was like, okay, I kind of fucked with him. And
so then one day he just came and was like, Yo,
this is a new track by me, and I'm like okay,
And so I listened and I was like, holy shit,
this is amazing. And I reached out and I was like, hey, man,
would you mind if I did something of this? You know,
we got mczo here like what you know? He was like, nah, man,
go for it and so famous d M.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
Yeah, yeah, hit.

Speaker 8 (16:07):
And so the first time we did the first record
was I think was it lighted up? Was that the
first Yeah, that was the very first one lighted up?
And Nick's groove was a two for that we did.

Speaker 4 (16:16):
And if I may rewind, like I think for me,
I think I might have a unique perspective on Okay
Player as a European. Yes, I want to know Cony
like it was sort of finding connection with this completely
different universe like I.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
Saw you. Okay.

Speaker 4 (16:36):
I bought Voodoo in two thousand and two. It must
have been in April, right, something like that.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
It came out in January.

Speaker 4 (16:42):
Okay, Well I may have been late, but either way,
like I was familiar with the Roots, but I hadn't
really ever heard full albums. I was familiar with Common,
but Voodoo was Voodoo brought me to Okay Player because
I looked at the booklet and it said okay Player
and I had no idea. So you brought me to
Okay Player. That summer I saw you guys twice on

(17:04):
the Voodoo tour, once in the Hague for the North
Sea Jezz Festival's and once in Belgium, which was an
open air daytime show. Didn't Third Base open up for us,
I don't remember that. I know Slum Village open for
y'all in Belgium. It wasn't with JD, but it was.
But it was a religious experience in many ways in Belgium,
specifically because it was during the daytime, so it was

(17:25):
a very It hit very directly, and I remember you
guys hitting send it on and I was crying, like
I'm not saying that just to blow smoke.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
It was that.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
And so like two thousand is when I learned about
Okay player. But then it took me a while to
get to the boards because that was sort of the
second layer, you know what I mean. And it took
me a while to get to the boards, and then
it took me a while to go from lurking to posting.
I signed up, I got to use your name at
that point, I was going under Nicolay, which is my
first name. I have three I was baptized, I have

(17:57):
three first names. And it seemed like the most international
sounding one, So I registered that knew that Nicola Music
user name.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
What if they call you back home? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (18:11):
Well yeah no, Matthias is like what I kind of
would the person behind the you know screen, I guess
the man behind the curtain. But so it took me,
I think a year maybe to go from discovering the
site to realizing that there was the lesson, particularly like
I've never been on any of the other like I
was specifically like I didn't really do General. I didn't

(18:33):
really do.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
So the lesson.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
So he's basically saying that to our listeners out there,
we would have boards, and the boards was like a
playground sub section or yeah, like a nightclub.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
And then the lesson for the snobs, the music snobs.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
I was on the lesson, Yeah, more than I was
supposed to be on like the General General the okay artist, like.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
Nobody went okayist. Newbies would go there like you know,
is this really you? And that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
But yeah, people either went to General when they were
trying to get something yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yeah, man right, And the lessons were for.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
Like the dweeps and so for me, like just in Europe,
I didn't have connection with a lot of people that
liked the music that I liked for a variety of reasons.
And I'm not really sure why. You earlier asked like,
what was my first interaction with hip hop? And it
was actually Three Feet High and Rising eighty nine. I
guess yeah, and that like I was, I was kind

(19:32):
of a metal head before that time, like ironically, but
something about sampling really appealed to me. And so I
heard three Feet Rising and then I started getting into
you know, the first Tribe album and stuff like that.
So by the time, like fast forward ten years, I'm
full on and so I didn't have a lot of
people around me.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Can I ask something, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you can
educate our viewers. Okay, So of course now because everything
is colonized, you know, if Drake is to release a song,
we're all going to stay at the same time. Can
you explain what the process is like before the internet
and how it trickled down and got to you.

Speaker 4 (20:10):
So in ninety the early nineties to maybe mid nineties,
we started getting Yo MTV reps on the European MTV
and that is when so it was I want to
say a nightly and then on Saturday they had the
Fab five Freddy Hours or whatever, right, and so I

(20:31):
just started watching that and so anything like it wasn't
like we had a lot of that on the radio.
There was a hip hop show that every week would
play like, you know, I remember hearing Come Clean for
the first time, Jay Ruin, you know, like ice Cube
and stuff like that, but it was jo MTV reps
and then seeing everything like the leaders of the news

(20:53):
school episodes, the all like I was taking all of
that in yeah right, yeah right, what you say. Yeah,
So it was like to TV, I guess and and
just I don't know, I ate all that up. But
at the same time, I was kind of like I
had a best friend in high school was also very

(21:13):
like his favorite stuff was duck Down, Like he was
super into like UGK and all that stuff. And so
together he and I went to hip hop shows in
Amsterdam at the Paradiso, saw like stuff like Onyx and what.
We went to all of the shit that we could
find stuff my bad really so yeah, so okay, Player

(21:38):
for me was literally a direct connection to the culture
that I really really was interested in.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
This is the thing I've had conversations with people the
nineteen eighties generation that got hip hop, Like to hear
Mooney Love describe that. She can hear her voice on
those Public Enemy interludes on it Nation of millions, you know,
like the the interstitials of which they're doing the top
of the Fresh what are the who's the pump masterflex

(22:08):
of the UK? West Wood West Yeah, Tim Westwood Show.
Like if you listen to that funky drummer loop, somebody
anybody scream here the girls screaming Himoney you love? That's
her voice, like so to hear an eighties generation describe that.
But we can all attest, especially Fonte and I, that

(22:29):
there's a different type of hip hop fan like post
ninety four but post ninety five that you fall under.
And the thing is that I noticed and a lot
of artists, especially now Jay, were the damage of had
to move to Europe just to make a living. So yeah,
lives there now? Oh really because that's like yeah, but

(22:51):
it's it's a lot of acts that are doing that.
At any point, did you realize, like really the essence
of the hip hop that you that attracted you, the
perceived on the ground thing. Did you have any clue
whatsoever that that that's really a culture that is tailored
for Europe, like there was no place in the United
States in which like the Roots could sell out the

(23:14):
Parisian version of Massive Square Garden La Zenith.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
Yeah you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (23:18):
Yeah, yeah, where prints played like a bunch of times. Yeah,
you know, not at home.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
We can't do that right.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
At any point, did you realize that that level of
hip hop like that was the true home of it
or did you still think of it as an American
thing like I looked at it.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
What did you think we were doing in America at
that time? I didn't pick up on that, Like I didn't.

Speaker 4 (23:36):
I wasn't raised on you know, the classic run DMC
stuff or something like that. I had no clue like I,
Like you said, I came on board in the early nineties,
but my true fandom was like ninety five, ninety six
all the way up to two thousand, when when I
bought like stuff like.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
Like water for chocolate, which was a.

Speaker 4 (23:57):
And I don't think I realized that if In fact,
I felt kind of isolated over there, specifically musically, because
what I liked was in my group of people perceived
as American.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Okay, not even my sound.

Speaker 4 (24:14):
When I first started making music. A lot of people
over there felt it was kind of slick and a
little American, and I didn't realize at all later like, now,
what you're saying makes perfect sense, But for me at
the time, it was an American thing, and it I
think subconsciously realized that if I wanted to make music
like that, I needed to connect with Americans.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
That's weird.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
So the slur word over there is it sounds America,
whereas that same type of music here, I think they
would just say, like, oh, that's soft, you know, yes, smooth, emotional.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (24:49):
Over there, like the type of hip hop that exists
there natively is more abstract, you know, it's not necessarily
purely musical per se, but it's very aggressive and lot
of it is local language based.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
At this point, who was the biggest local artist that
had the biggest poll over there, That's a great question.

Speaker 4 (25:08):
I didn't really listen to any of it because, like
you know, a lot of them were Dutch language artists,
and I never thought that sounded very good and that
was probably a little snobbish of me, but I really liked.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
Was everyone trying to be like DJ Premiere or.

Speaker 4 (25:23):
Like even even more abstract, just not really any people,
maybe like Company Flow or some stuff like real Deaf Jus.
Not definitely not what I did. Definitely not with like
chord progressions or like baselines that fit the.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Key or let me let me, let me just let
me clean it up. I'm a massive fan like cannibal Ox,
like the first generation.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
I didn't mean that as I meant that more style.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
There's always one troll that's going to be like no, no, no.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
I definitely didn't mean that.

Speaker 3 (25:57):
I don't want to Detroit singer effect.

Speaker 9 (26:04):
To myself.

Speaker 4 (26:06):
Now, I guess I mean it more as a style
that is more marked by a certain level of expression
versus like again, like when I heard like Water for
Chocolate like production Wise, or when I first heard Fantastic
Volume two, or even when I later heard Things Fall Apart,
which was a little bit later for me, or Voodoo.

(26:27):
Those were the albums that made me realize like, Okay,
so you can make hip hop and make it beautiful
versus you have to make hip hop that is aggressive.
Not that there wasn't you know what I'm saying, but
like it was for me a realization because when I
first came into contact with hip hop I had a
very naive understanding of like, there's a guy with turntables

(26:47):
who is making the beats, for instance, Tribe Cold Quest.
That's how I sort of saw it.

Speaker 3 (26:52):
You know, you have.

Speaker 4 (26:56):
It's making the beats with the vinyl. And it wasn't
until later that I not, like, Okay, there's actually people
doing this that that are more musical inclined. And so
that was for me sort of like really kind of
the eye opener of like, Okay, I understand now that
there's something that I could contribute to this music.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
This is real important for me to hear that, because
there's part of me that has this negative slash glass
half empty view of how the community sees the music.
And for the most part, I always felt like whatever
nariety that we got, we were.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
Only chosen because we weren't gangster rap.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Like the amount of times that someone will performably come
up to me backstage to differentiate themselves like yo, man,
like I like y'all because you know, y'all don't be
killing bitches, y'all don't be so with drugs like and
y'all don't care about success, you don't care about getting paid.

Speaker 9 (28:07):
Definitely wrong.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
So again the idea. And that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
I know in their mind they're thinking like, wow, they're
trying to give me a quotable that I remember, like yeah,
that one fan and Boise Idaho that just like me
and looks right, And really I only walk away thinking like, man,
they just they hate Snoop Doggie Dogs, so they only
like us because we're the opposite of that, which is

(28:32):
really not saying you like, So this is like one
of the rare times in which like I felt chosen. Yeah, yes,
I know that for everyone to be on OK player.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
But then because of just you know, an artist being
over analytical and.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
Self deprecating for me, like the fact that I allow
people just slander us and talk shit over there more
or less about me just feeling to justify like my
non deservedness. But I will say that this is a
really good time for me to hear that, oh, someone
actually just liked the music and gravitated.

Speaker 4 (29:11):
Towards Not only that, but it it made me feel
like I had something to contribute, Like I wasn't a DJ.
I've never really truly done vinyl. I'm an instrument guy.
I started out playing guitar, bass, drums, some keyboards, and
so I had always played in bands. I didn't have
a beat making background in that sense. But what I

(29:32):
heard in those records, y'all's records, the common was musical
layers on top of drums. If I had to just
put it very basic, that told me that there was
a place for a musical approach to production. To me,
like it wasn't just about two turntables, but like added keyboards,

(29:57):
added guitars, added like basically whatever y'all I would like,
you know, road like obviously the roads ear candy. That
made me think like okay, wow, like I can actually
probably contribute something to this.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
But did you realize that?

Speaker 1 (30:12):
Because the thing is is that at least back then
if I'm going to Europe the same way that you
got to fill up your gas tank like I know
in Prime Roots time in ninety five, ninety six, in
two thousand and one, two thousand and two, that I'm
going to go bend shopping with Dayles Peterson or do

(30:33):
a lot of I'm almost certain I.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
Still believe to this day I had.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
I did like two thousand dollars worth of record shopping
in Amsterdam, and I think the records are still in
their basement because I forgot.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
To nail at home. But like I would have to
go to Europe and to.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
These these whatever, the cosmopolitan European, westernized European cities to
get the music that's going to help me make the
music that's crazy that you think is coming from America,
but really like it's coming from you. It is those
obscure bands from Holland or the frog rock groupers. So
at any point is it registering to you that you're

(31:13):
actually kind of at an advantage where you live in
the place where a lot of taste makers, the Giles
Peterson's of the world, are exposing you all to music
that otherwise only.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
Very few people are doing it in the United States
right now.

Speaker 4 (31:27):
I think it's a great question. Actually I don't think
to that extent, But like there were a lot of
Europeans trends of music at that time happening that I
think I was influenced by that gave me a leg
up over here, like for Hero in UK, like jazz
and Nova in Germany, like some of the more down

(31:50):
tempo stuff in France. So when when I put my
music out to the world in the States, people said
it had a European feel, and you know, again ironically,
back home, people were saying that stuff sounds American. I
had no idea. I think I perceived all of this
music as as purely American, and I don't think I

(32:11):
had this sophistication of knowledge at the time to realize
that it was kind of a full circle.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
That's really places where. Yeah, no, not at all, not
at all. So did you think like we were like
on America, having like, you know, poetry slammed me like
everything that you talk about.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Journals on the capreia, Like did you think like we
were just like, you know, cutting up coconuts?

Speaker 4 (32:36):
And I don't think it was erratic sand but I
definitely heard I think I think maybe it was because
of the perception of the Roots as a band. I
heard something that was not a guy on a beat machine.
I heard a more richer kind of sound that made

(32:58):
me think like a lot of it was played by instruments.
And again the instruments is what appealed to me because
I didn't know how to make a beat, but I
knew how to play a bass.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
Guitar, you know what I mean? Like, how far were
you from Amsterdam? So I grew up in Utrecht, which.

Speaker 4 (33:13):
Is half an hour where the you would call it
a suburb of which is Atrat used to be. It's
a thousands years old city that used to be a
Roman outpost. But it and that's where the North Sea
Jazz festivals hill, right or No, that was in the
Hague and now I think nowadays it's in Rotterdam. They
moved it from the Hague to Rotterdam. But I went

(33:33):
to school in Amsterdam because that was the thing that
you did. Like when I finished high school, I went
to school in Amsterdam, largely because I didn't know what
to do. So I started musicology at the University of
Amsterdam and I started going to the Paradiso, which is
a venue you would be familiar with. Yeah, that was
you know, we got a lot of great Like I

(33:54):
remember seeing Wu Tang for the first time they were
in Holland, and can.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Ask a question, Yeah, okay, as a Holland resident, how
frustrating was it for you?

Speaker 3 (34:06):
Because here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
Now it's twenty twenty four, so kind of perception and
the relationship with cannabis and weed. Oh man, now it's
like it's it's it's getting nationalized and slowly, but surely.
I think right now Germany's voting to see they'll legalize
it totally.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
So you know, the world's open up the rains.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
But like of course in the late nineteen nineties early
two thousand and people's minds like the whole pulp fiction
thing that the glorious story of, like you gotta go
to only in Amsterdam and Holland, Yeah, can you get
fucked up and not get fucked rusted?

Speaker 3 (34:46):
Right? Great?

Speaker 1 (34:47):
And so as a result, like the amount of shows
that I saw, just the amount of artists, because a
lot of artists when they start there, you were being toured,
they would make Amsterdam the hub.

Speaker 3 (34:58):
First, go there a few days earlier and go to
all these coffee shops and the.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Right and so you know, I do know in my
mind a lot of the most adventurous roots shows were
in Amsterdam.

Speaker 9 (35:18):
And what's an adventurous root shows ount.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Like it's where they might hit four or five coffee
shops before we get on stage. So even though the
muscle memory is strong, like we've the most closest to
freestyle shows where it's just like it's a fish show
that I wasn't taking so at least like I could.

(35:44):
It was just harder to control the guys as a
traffic cop. Oh I was a designated driver, right because
you know, Tarik might forget the third verse to mel
my Man and then we gotta you know. But I
also feel as though those those shows excited me because
I didn't know what to expect. So basically, I think
I just revealed to the world that what you already
knew is like I'm tightly wound, and I rehearse no

(36:07):
no no, no no no, no no no, I'm tightly wound,
just in terms of like my spontanees rehearsed as a band,
as a band leader. And so I always wonder if
people in the audience get frustrated looking at us, like
dumb Americans they always get fucked up before they come
on stage and now they're falling all over and forget
their lyrics. Like I can confirm that, Like, have you

(36:31):
seen a good hip hop show in Holland where nobody
was so fucked up they couldn't perform?

Speaker 4 (36:38):
Yes, I've seen both. So I've seen like Lords of
the Underground CIRCA Funky Child, amazing, amazing show. They were focused,
they were focused, sounded incredible, like parodies, as you know,
is an old church. Yeah, sound can be very finicky there,
but it was amazing. But I'm not afraid to relate

(36:59):
this anecdote. The first time came to them, Joe apparently like,
you know how Paradiso has the dressing rooms in the basement.

Speaker 3 (37:09):
Yes, you go up the stairs to the stay the balcony.

Speaker 4 (37:12):
Yes, And and so Jizza apparently was so high that
he wouldn't come out of the dressing room, and they
brought the microphone down using the stairs. So there were
a lot of shows where you could tell like it
was impacted.

Speaker 3 (37:28):
So you just expected.

Speaker 4 (37:31):
And the thing for people in Amsterdam is like it
is legal, so a lot of people don't really bother
to partake because you know how that kind of becomes
a thing of like, ah whatever. So we were not
we you know, I've seen both. I've seen incredible hip
hop shows where it seemed like and and maybe they
were still but like but but largely we loved the

(37:54):
record so.

Speaker 3 (37:55):
Much that you wanted to get some of that. You
wanted to get what you loved about the record.

Speaker 4 (38:00):
And I remember really really great show like Onyx was incredible.
Onyx opened up for run DMC because they were being
manage at the time and it was down with the
and that was an incredible show. Yeah, obviously cypress Hill
worked out really well In answer them, because.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
You're saying that we, like I enjoyed many of our
shows over there, but I will also acknowledge in the
same with LA, like all of our LA shows are
so high pressurized because you knows in the crowd while
I'm black, it's watching you over there, so you're like
going on out or showing off, and it's not like

(38:41):
the shows that I wish you guys could see, like
one of them nondescript shows that we did in Italy
or in France that we didn't care about and we
just retired and went on state, Like those shows are
the best route shows that we'll never get seen. But
I always wondered if you guys you're getting think about
it going another question I have because the thing is,

(39:08):
and this is for the both of you to me,
I'm thinking, like I had such a flag planning moment
with like, yeah, this this thing called the super Information
Highway and the Internet, like I'm bringing a real life
magazine or the way that Rozelle described it, He's like, yo, man,
you just open up your own mall and you're selling

(39:29):
stories to everybody to come and do their thing, and
that's what okay player is. So I thought that's as
far as I could take it. So the day that's
someone and they explained to me like I was a
sixty five year older. He's like, no, you don't understand,
Like they made their music on computer. I was like, wait,
you can make a studio like it sounds like I
came from battery studios.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
Like a real song like that.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
So the way that people were explaining to me that
you can now make an entire album on your computer
and check this out of here. You can email it
somebody and they could add vocals, And I was trying
to like the way that somebody was explaining to me
what it was like why it was such a big
deal that this pairing was happening. It was one of
them things where I didn't know what fruity loop even

(40:14):
though like I heard you guys mentioned we lose fruity loops.
I've never to this day seen fruity loops or like
I'm also the guy's just a shame to admit I
make records in.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
The old way, hey man, Steve is very cl Steven
is smiling right now.

Speaker 6 (40:27):
I've never saw fruity loops either. I really haven't.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
Well, I know that.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
I'm just like you're very glad that I'm very with
my pretty much like I don't know that. I think
my whole record was the age yet. So at what
point did you guys decide to like, Okay, this worked out?
Like why don't we make something of this? Because I
would have never even if you did that, Like can
I rhyme over this? You never met each other, So

(40:54):
how did you know this would work?

Speaker 3 (40:55):
Man?

Speaker 8 (40:56):
It could be music. It was just the music. It
was just a belief in the music. I didn't Again,
I didn't know him. I didn't know nothing about him.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
You know.

Speaker 8 (41:06):
And so finally, you know, we you know, we would
just use instant messenger. And at the time we made Connected,
I didn't even have a computer.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
Of my own.

Speaker 8 (41:15):
So all that whole making your vocals, So how I
was doing my vocals back back then? We had a studio,
I mean, we had our studio. We were recording chop shop,
we were making all the LB records. But I didn't
have a personal computer in my crib. So I would
go to the chop shop do my vocals, and then
I would either I would mix down the MP three

(41:36):
and I would go to my homeboys crib my man MC.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
I would use his computer, my man Meetian.

Speaker 8 (41:42):
He had a pass to the computer lab at NC State,
and so he would let us all kind of we
would be on some bootleg shit like using his credentials
to get into the computer lab at NC State, and
I would like log on and be like, yo, bro,
I just did this, and I would like, you know,
get on im.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
AIM. I oul send it to him. How long would
it take to email files back?

Speaker 8 (42:06):
It wasn't bad, So it wasn't email because this again,
this is prior to like Gmail or any of that shit.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
Sens face, none of that. This is AIM. This is
AIM instant messenger and you just mail file. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
And I think we never shared wave files because that
wasn't possible. You would. He would send me an MP
three and then when we were like okay, this is
really it, like he actually snail mailed me some cd
some CDRs so that I.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
Waved on it. Yeah, and you're doing this straight to
MP three. Yeah, I'm doing this. I mean not sending
like the drum track and keyboard tracking. Oh no, no,
this is just straight two track. So how do you
line up? Like? Are you lining stuff Jimmy Jam style?

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Like Jimmy Jam revealed that for at least eighty to
ninety percent, they never used sympty at all, right, and
he would just blend the vocals like when they would
do a remix or something.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
Are you essentially just so.

Speaker 4 (43:02):
Basically I had to beat. I had the track, and
then Fante would send me a ref like he would
do the vocals, and he would mail me a ref
and then I would essentially line them up using the ref.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
So I'd be like, okay, this is my session.

Speaker 4 (43:17):
This is what I would literally and then normally it
would be like no, I push it back for like
a little you know, give it like it was sort
of like a trial and error and when it sounded right,
you kind of knew like, okay, it sits right, but
it was there was no process.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
You would tell them sometimes like nudge the drums back
with vocals.

Speaker 8 (43:39):
I would the track out, you know, I would let
him do that, but my vocals. You dialitize your vocals
to absolutely every time this day, like to this day,
nudge to the right. Everything's for for him to the
right in the whole world all the time.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
Everything. Yeah, man, that's you know is four frames the right.
Everybody is four frames the rect Yeah, I gotta admit though, no.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
But but the thing is is that I thought you
were on some Steph Curry shooting from half court like
some of these vocals, you know, the with thieve behind this,
And I was like, yo, yeah.

Speaker 4 (44:21):
So magular that in many ways he is, but like
it was still we would exaggerate it.

Speaker 8 (44:27):
I mean, I, you know, naturally I would kind of
be you know, on it, but but I would always like,
kind of nudget it look to the right.

Speaker 3 (44:34):
But that was how we did the first album.

Speaker 8 (44:36):
So he was he was in the Netherlands and I
was in Durham and so little Brother had a show
at Parody.

Speaker 4 (44:44):
So this was what they didn't get high.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
Yeah, we didn't get high, save that we came at
Queens Day. I was very high. But we did.

Speaker 4 (44:54):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
It was like three that was four four April four.

Speaker 8 (45:00):
That was our first time ever meeting each other face
to face. We came over and by that time we
had connected damn near done you know good.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Yeah, we had it pretty much So what was the
first meeting like, because I also feel like the reflection
of the music there has to be some sort of
social camaraderie.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
Absolutely.

Speaker 8 (45:19):
Yeah, no, man, listen, bro, if you can you know,
if you have the level of trust to send your
raw vocals to somebody, I mean, that's you know, that's
a bond that you know, you know, just regardless of
them person not being in your physical space. That's just
a level of intimacy and trust that it supersedes, you know,

(45:42):
any kind of physical or any kind of whatever, you know,
because you're just you're essentially like putting yourself out there
and you send it to this guy that you don't know,
and it's like, hey, man, I trust you with this.

Speaker 3 (45:52):
Make it happen, you know what I mean.

Speaker 8 (45:54):
And so when we met each other face to face
that first time, it was just like, oh right, what
up this Nick?

Speaker 3 (45:58):
Okay? Cool?

Speaker 4 (46:00):
It was like almost like yeah, I saw you yesterday,
but I hadn't.

Speaker 8 (46:02):
Yeah, because because we had literally been working on this
album like for months and months, and at that time,
you know, that was when LB we were touring heavy,
So it was really, oh we just lost the contact.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
Oh yeah, I was what I got I got it.
I got it right, you know, like Kevin Nel, look
look at.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
Man.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
So we so I was at the mercy of LB's
touring schedule.

Speaker 8 (46:33):
So that first album Connected, it took a long time
to get done, well longer in a long time back then,
but because it was just kind of all right, I
get a couple of songs done, then we go on.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
Tour for six weeks whatever, come back. How long did
it take to make Connect? We started in two We
started at the beginning too, and we were done at
the end of yeah, yeah, because right then we had that.

Speaker 8 (46:56):
Whole connected leak okay, player off places of course, which wait,
the lesson the less.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
But the thing is, how like I'm assuming the entire
creations under your yeah, like possessions.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
Yeah, but I mean it was at that time. I
mean it was just so loose.

Speaker 8 (47:16):
I mean, so like we would record, but then at
the end of the session, whoever was engineering the session,
if it was Name or if it was Crisis or whoever, like,
all right, who want to copy? And we didn't think anything.
It's like, yeah, it's just getting around. Yeah, it was
just getting around. So I'm on to a high road,
and I see, like, oh, oh ship is out. This
even before Lime Wire, I don't even know. I don't

(47:38):
even know how will people get it? It was so
see so I'm like, damn, the album leaked, and you know,
in my mind, I'm thinking like that Dead in the
Water thought it was we always it was like damn.
But we saw the response and it was like, well, damn,
people really fuck with this. So it really was kind

(47:59):
of a it was validation a lot of ways after,
you know, it affirmed what we kind of believed that
we had. And so when I came back from tour,
we did a couple extra bonus tracks. It was like,
all right, it leaked, but let's do a couple extra
joints and bb came and we did the deal with
them that was like yeah we four.

Speaker 4 (48:18):
I mean, yeah, well I think if I remember we
had to deal when it leaked, I remember thinking like,
is this going to be the end of our journey? Like,
like do they will the label still mess with us?
And it was one of those leaks where the response
was greater than the loss of not being new, and
so it worked out. But at the time we were

(48:41):
kind of devastated by it because like, but leaks at
the time were very normal, like jay Z would leak
and like you know, like there it was that time
of like when people started carrying CDs out of the
plan under their belts and shit.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
So it also means that there is like excitement because
there's some people that just it's a million and I'll
never hear, I'll never download.

Speaker 4 (49:03):
I think at the end of the day we took
it this track, I.

Speaker 7 (49:06):
Was gonna ask just with with the track making, like
you were, you know, talking about roads and guitars and
stuff like what comes first for you. I'm always interested
in when people are making beats, is it is it
rhythm heavy or is it I.

Speaker 4 (49:18):
Think I think the musical idea comes first, and that
might be a chord progression, that might be a sample,
that might be a bassline. But that's what I built
around and drums under, if that makes sense. At the time,
it was a combination. I really was interned as Samply,
but I didn't have I didn't have an NPC, I

(49:41):
didn't have I had a computer and had a keyboard
and a bass guitar and I used a tracker, which
is there was a tracking scene at the time yo
my plug.

Speaker 8 (49:52):
Yeah, he showed me that ship, dude, it looked like
he was about to launch a fucking missile.

Speaker 3 (49:57):
I'm like, dog, what is this?

Speaker 8 (49:58):
Like that was when I really saw like the way
his brain works is just different because it's.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
Not my plug is a program and I'm not like
the super techy guy.

Speaker 8 (50:08):
But like, we recorded that first album in cool Letted Pro,
which is now Adobe Audition, but it was cool Letted.

Speaker 3 (50:14):
That was what we did all the vocals in.

Speaker 8 (50:15):
And it's just a basic just a basic daw So
it's you know, it's side to side.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
My plug is vertical. So he matris.

Speaker 8 (50:26):
On the beat and he just starts see all this
ship flying. I was like, bro, what the fuck is that?
And but that's what he made beats on and I
was like, yeah he did, So is this okay?

Speaker 1 (50:36):
True to the legend of other beat bankers that I know,
what was the standard at the time and what Like
when I found out that Joe Ron Bombay was making
these beats on Sony Acid, like these really cheap, like
my first Sony kind of yeah, what were you using?

Speaker 4 (50:54):
I didn't know what the standard was. And my brother,
my younger brother, had introduced me to trackers, which is
essentially a machine code kind of thing where you can
load little wave files in and trigger them by using
certain codes. And so it started with you have four tracks,

(51:15):
and then they like all of a sudden, it was
a tracks. I think by the time I started working
with them, it was like a tracks and at some
point you had sixteen tracks of having sounds together.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
See doing a song like Daykeeper with this sort of
a keeper.

Speaker 4 (51:30):
At that point I had at least sixty. But yeah,
I did Daykeeper like that. I did take off like
all of the first album, all the new kind of
the leave it all behind the album. I started getting
into pro tools because somebody told me, like.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
Look, dog, like if you need just another way.

Speaker 4 (51:48):
You need to really professionalize or need to was a
big word, but like they were like, yo, most of
the pros use pro tools, and so I started.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
But like, I don't feel bad now because one of
the things that I feel horrible about. You see the
smug look on Steve's face, the way that I've been,
like I've been. I'm in such a zone with his
in game record right now with the roots. But when
I tell you the embarrassingly kind of primitive way that

(52:20):
I'm building this record, like yes, I read how half
of Nason and Millions was built by them as an
actual jam session, each guy at a twelve hundred manually
pressing the samples by themselves, not programming.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
Even the mixes too. They would mix and the.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
Beastie Boys admitted that every sample on Paul's boutique was
basically just lined up one by one and then they
would just do that. But there's no like programming and stuff,
and so like I'm also inspired by like again like
the whole Sony Acid story and that sort of thing.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
So like I've been.

Speaker 6 (52:57):
Like you're thinking of the lost Bomb Squad member, I
just you know, I do.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
But it's just the fact that like James teases me
about it, and like sometimes I let it get to
me that, see, you're not a real beat maker, like
you're actually looping the stuff from your soerrado DJ thing like.

Speaker 4 (53:19):
Exactly. And I think I think I had a little
bit of that. I guess what you called imposters where
you're like, okay, I'm not using the Like I remember
the first time I after we met for the first
time and connected had been pressed up. We met in
New York in July of four and we did something
called Beat Society, which is where producers come out and

(53:40):
essentially play their beats. And so I came out with
my little leptop.

Speaker 3 (53:44):
You did Beat Society, I did.

Speaker 4 (53:46):
I did Beat Society and Knitting Factory, and that's when
of the first time we literally performed together. But I
came out with my laptop and I realized like, okay,
like like everybody else is using MPCs and I'm just
here like as though I'm checking my email, you know, look,
you know, right, like craft for it. But it was

(54:07):
one of the first times where I realized like, yeah,
I had no idea, I had no real knowledge of
how the music was made, and I saw I just
used what I know. Again, my brother had introduced me
to I knew Q base existed and stuff like that,
but I didn't know I didn't have that. So it became.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
A weapon of choice.

Speaker 4 (54:29):
It became my secret weapon because I learned to use
it in such a way that I could really make
it do whatever I wanted.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
And that was our story.

Speaker 8 (54:37):
I think, like a big part it was really just
about using the tools you have, just making do with
what you have.

Speaker 6 (54:43):
You know.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
It was when people would.

Speaker 8 (54:45):
Ask like, oh man, so making the internet, like, oh
man making an am that's so crazy, Like it was
just this crazy idea.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
And I'm one of those people. Yeah, yeah, Like dude,
he was in the Netherlands, I was in Durham.

Speaker 4 (54:56):
For us, it was kind of we never even thought
about it, like we were just like, yo, like you,
I like what you're doing.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
He likes what I'm doing, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
When you're part of the analogic generation though, and I
was very much stuck in my ways person I just
couldn't fathomm like wait, I don't see how they're doing that,
like emailing stuff at the same time, and like it
was just such a storied, uncharted thing, and like when
did garage band come out?

Speaker 8 (55:24):
Garage band was yeah, that was later garage band for
me personally. I started in garage band two thousand and nine. Yeah,
two thousand and nine. That was when I built my
studio at home and so I had we had worked everything,
all the old LB stuff, like the first two Foreigners

(55:45):
Change albums. That was at the chop shop in Durham
and we tracked all those vocals and cool let it
and then oh nine, I built my studio up the
crib and I used garage band.

Speaker 3 (55:57):
So like Authenticity.

Speaker 8 (56:01):
My first solo album, Charity Starts at Home, Yeah all that,
all those records like those are all garage man, garage man.

Speaker 3 (56:09):
It was, Yeah, it was free. What is it the
game changer that people claim that it was or it? Well,
I don't know.

Speaker 8 (56:17):
Well, I don't know if I say for me, it
wasn't so much a game changer. I think it was
just by that time I had learned that, like listen,
it doesn't matter what you're recording into. It's all about
the signal that you're sending. You gotta in the in
the recording process. Really, the recording engineer is god, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
Because it's not gonna your your.

Speaker 8 (56:41):
The record the recording engineer, because your song is not
gonna rise above whatever the signal is. So, you know,
if you got a choice between buying you know, a
crazy Mike, a three thousand dollar mic or whatever, but
you haven't treated your room first, that Mike is just

(57:01):
gonna pick up your room, you know what I mean.
So you probably would be better off spending some money
treating your room. And you get a little, you know,
a little two hundred dollars something and you know, you
can make that work, and so that was kind of
my approach. And so I started doing those records in
Garage Man. And what I liked about it it was
very it was simple. And then also when I upgrade

(57:23):
it to logic in like twenty twelve, logic is basic
garage band on steroids. So how I learned logic was
I would take my old Garage Man sessions and open
them up in logic and just kind of work backwards
and you're like, oh, okay, so this is what reverb is,
this is where the delays is, and I would learn
it like that. So garage band for me, I mean,
you know, people clowned on it, but I made crazy

(57:45):
records in Garage Man.

Speaker 7 (57:46):
But logic was around for a long time before it
turned into the logic we know today.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
There was a yeah logic.

Speaker 7 (57:52):
Logic that looked that looked what I think is like
you're like matrix. It was it was really hard to understand,
and that's think there was like a pro tool sequencer,
and then finally logic became the visual thing that it
is today. And I think that's that's what people liked
about Garage Man was we looked at it and it
was pleasing to look at and easy easy to you.

Speaker 8 (58:12):
Nah, because you I mean, because you got to think
about it, like if you mixing something, I mean, you're
looking at that screen for fucking hours. So it was
really from my experience, it was really intuitive. It was
just very easy to use, and I was not the
super techy like engineer guy. I just kind of knew
what I liked and just kind of how to get
that and that.

Speaker 3 (58:31):
Was it, you know what I mean.

Speaker 6 (58:32):
So when do you think you'll ever have enough money
to buy pro tools?

Speaker 3 (58:35):
Nah, I'm logic. I'm logic to the.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
What was the session? Like when you guys are in
the same time zone together and in the studio together?

Speaker 3 (58:51):
Wait? What no chemistry to this day? Now?

Speaker 4 (58:55):
We this is kind like I like, this is the
rule of the group.

Speaker 3 (58:59):
You must emails.

Speaker 4 (59:00):
Yeah, I liken it to prints, not wanting to meet,
like we had such a chemistry going in this way,
like I've always explained it to people, like we each
take care of our part of the music in such
an inhibited personal way that we can fully realize what

(59:23):
we have in mind and then we send it to
the other person versus like being in the same room here, right, right,
or are you sure about that word or you know
what I mean? Like, we always sort of kept it
our fifty to fifty percent of the total separate and
would send each other, I guess fully realized versions of

(59:47):
stuff that we thought could work, and by the time
that I came to the States and started my career here,
it almost felt like it would really break the magic.

Speaker 3 (59:58):
So we never have like to this day.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
So can you just briefly tell our listeners viewers how
you guys built the FI community of Like the Cat
because it takes a village and obviously, yeah, we're invested
in you guys, but also like Zara and Carlita and
just how and Zoe, like how how did the community

(01:00:21):
of musicians come together for these projects?

Speaker 5 (01:00:24):
Man?

Speaker 3 (01:00:24):
So, Zoe was someone I actually met. Zoe.

Speaker 8 (01:00:28):
This was in two thousand and five, maybe six h
This is right after Mintell Show it came out, and
Zoe had been remixing here, did remixes for a couple
LB records. And the thing I always listened for for
producers when they would remix our stuff. Our stuff had
hooks and singing hooks in it, so every producer could
always lock.

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
In on the rhymes. It's like you're hear it. It's like, okay,
y'all got it, y'all match the beat? Okay, cool? What
this goddamn hook? Boy to signd like is this ship
in the same key? Right?

Speaker 8 (01:00:58):
And the hook would come in and it would just
be a fun and you know what I mean. And
so Zoel was one of the guys like he had
put up a remix that he had did the way
you do it, and I was like, that's the way
you do it, man, come on, I hope he fucked
this up. I did not know who he was at all,
and I just heard it. I was like, oh, he
smoked this shit. So we did a show LB show
and I think Ann Arbor or something, but he pulled

(01:01:19):
up gave me a copy of his record.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
He was like, I'm Zoe.

Speaker 8 (01:01:22):
I was like, oh man, yo, yeah, yeah, check it.
So he gives me a copy of his record. It
was the I think it was the Passion and Definition
album and so it's just an instrumental record he did.
And again I'm still kind of cynical because we had
just been getting trashed that whole fucking tour and so
I finally got it home I'm like, all right, let
me I'm gonna give him a shot.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
Let me put it on.

Speaker 8 (01:01:41):
Track one was dope. I'm like, all right, I bet
track two won't be dope. Track two is dope. I'm like, okay,
is he gonna go three in a row? He went
like twelve in a row or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
How many songs on that. He was just smoking that shit.
So I reached out to him.

Speaker 8 (01:01:55):
I was like, hey, man, like your shit is hard, bro,
like you know, you want to do something whatever, And
we just started collap Braiden And so that was how
he came into the fold. And then when we did
If She Breaks Your Heart, Nick and I had the
idea of like, okay, zoel like he does like the
first half, and then Nick did like the second second,
you know, four hero Yeah, Boston. Yeah, we got shot

(01:02:18):
to Mark Mack, who did the string range.

Speaker 4 (01:02:20):
Yeah, Mark Man.

Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
But yeah, So that was kind of how he came.

Speaker 8 (01:02:23):
And everybody else, man, they were just all they were
just all people that, like, you know, Carlita was a
student at Central at the time, and we needed a
hook for a song, and yazirob. She and I went
to school together. We went to Central together, Darien Brockington.
He and I we went to Central together. Carlita, she
was a Central student.

Speaker 3 (01:02:43):
Yaz A. I was supposed to sing on the song
one night and I called her to do the hook.
She was out of town. Called my man. He was like, yo, dog,
I know this singing chick from Central.

Speaker 8 (01:02:52):
I'm like okay, And he shows up and it was
Carlita and she did the hook for Life of the
Party for the LB song and from that he just
started working together. Man, I mean shit, Mosina was somebody.
My man shots my man. Cousin B, who's uh he
run you know, he's the NPR Tiny desk guy. Now
Mosina had a MySpace page and we had just started.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
I think we had kind of started leaving all. We
might have had maybe one two tracks, but he had.

Speaker 8 (01:03:21):
She had a MySpace page and she had a song
on it called Millions and me and Darien brox and
we want to it what They'll be and we were roommates.
Cousin B sends me the link. He's like, yo, man,
check this chick. She sounded like Georgia and I was like,
oh shit, you talk about Georgia. M Modreaux and I
listened to millions, and if that song had a thousand

(01:03:41):
plays on her MySpace, nine hundred and ninety of them.

Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
Was me and we played that shit.

Speaker 8 (01:03:46):
I was like, holy shit. And I just reached out
to her and I was like, yo, man, I'm working
on a new FE album.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
I don't know if you know who I am whatever,
but I think you dope. A couple months later, she
came down to the crib, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 8 (01:03:57):
We locked in and we did Daykeeper, her House of
Cards and Something to behold for Leave it all behind
everybody else.

Speaker 3 (01:04:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:04:04):
I just I always looked at because you know, our
division of labor, Nick is very much the music, and
I'm more like personnel, you know what I'm saying production
in that side. So I always looked at Fie albums.
Whenever people would ask me like, yo, what do you
listen to? I put the people that I was listening
to on the albums. I'm like, Yo, Mussina, this is
who I'm wucking with, you know. Gwen Bunn shouts to her.

(01:04:29):
She was just another artist out of Atlanta and she
did a record for my man Daryl Reeve. She did
a cover of every Time I See You by Roy
Ayers and smoked that ship.

Speaker 3 (01:04:40):
I was like, dude, who the fuck is this?

Speaker 8 (01:04:42):
He was like, it's my girl, Gwen. She came to
the show that night, you know what I mean. We
hooked up and did Kate turn around and we did
like a couple of after the show, or this was
maybe a couple of months afterward. Be my fiasco. Who's
like the latest signing on our label. She was somebody
who was based out of Dallas and she would just always.

Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
Twitter.

Speaker 8 (01:05:06):
There's another kind of like the Okay player next the
kind of way. She was someone who big fie fan
would come to our shows. And one day, much like Nikolay.

Speaker 3 (01:05:18):
She came on Twitter and was like, Yo, this is
a new record by me. Check this out.

Speaker 8 (01:05:22):
It's very foreign exchange influence, and I thought it was dope.
So she and I hit her one time and I
was like, hey, man, do you have the ability to
record at your home?

Speaker 3 (01:05:29):
You got your own setup? She was like yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:05:31):
So I put her on the record deal with Glass Violets,
the Miles Davis. That's her singing on that. And I
would just put her on records, you know what I mean,
I'm like, yo, sing this? She she sings something and
like you know, we.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
Was just rock like that. So guys are meeting or like, nah,
this is all online. So smith called blind date. Yeah man,
try I mean, listen, it's just you known to me,
it's just jailuso.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
The final result jels are good that I imagine that
you guys were in the room together.

Speaker 8 (01:06:04):
We were in all those records. All that stuff was
done pretty much remotely, I think, uh.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
No, listen.

Speaker 8 (01:06:14):
So when COVID hit, that's crazy. So when COVID hit,
because a lot of times for the vocals, like that
was my side. So my house used to be the
spot where everyone recorded because I had to set up
and everything. So that's why we would track the vocals.
But COVID hit and it was just like, well, we
can't do that. So we just pretty much invested and

(01:06:34):
set all our team up. It's like, all right, look
y'all need this. We're gonna get y'all this the mic,
you need this, compressor, you need this, you need that,
And we just set our team up remotely.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
So all through COVID, we were still cooking. We ain't
miss a beat, you know, I mean, so that always
the right equipment for each other.

Speaker 8 (01:06:50):
Yeah, yeah, man, just like, Okay, you need this compressor.
I'm a big fan of the I'm a big fan
of La two A. I do't'ta go too nerdy with it,
but I'm a big fan of La two A compressor.

Speaker 3 (01:06:59):
That's just my favorite. It's just two knobs.

Speaker 8 (01:07:02):
It's like, you know what I mean, It's it's it's simple,
like you know, it's like it's like the big Green
Egg of compressors.

Speaker 9 (01:07:08):
Know you have that Steve Green that's a barbecue and microphone.

Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
I'm trying to think.

Speaker 8 (01:07:15):
Yeah, Sismith her, we did her album she came and God,
when did I come on?

Speaker 4 (01:07:22):
I met Cy and O four, I did a record
with SiGe.

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
Yeah, and then we had a show.

Speaker 4 (01:07:31):
In twenty ten where we needed a new female vocalist
and I was like, well, I could call Sy, but
she's gonna have to have a chemistry with Fante.

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
We're gonna have to see and that worked out.

Speaker 4 (01:07:41):
Nah, they well, So so I went to Europe with us,
you know, and I think with all of the people
that we've ever had on our roster, it was partly
musical talent, partly like the hangability factor.

Speaker 3 (01:07:54):
That's the big part.

Speaker 1 (01:07:56):
Like I just never thought that, like, because I've seen
situations where new members will get inducted into shows and
the chemistry might not be right and that affects the
show that you see. You guys are like torn together
doing shows and always wondered how and actually doing like
nice little presentational things like I'm wondering, like how you

(01:08:18):
guys even rehearsing, well, rehearsing, that's.

Speaker 8 (01:08:20):
What we got to do that in person, you can't.
You can't rehearse online. But right we were rehearsing, not
a whole lot.

Speaker 3 (01:08:27):
Not a whole lot.

Speaker 4 (01:08:28):
Yeah, because it's still the first show of the tour was.

Speaker 3 (01:08:33):
But yeah, I mean we would just like start with
that and Zoe.

Speaker 8 (01:08:36):
Actually, when we did Leave It All Behind, that was
really a thing where Nick and I we kind of
saw ourselves more as like a steely Dan kind of
studio band. We had no intentions of touring whatsoever, like none,
and so Leave It All Behind came out and our
management director of opsite the time, Amy she was, She

(01:08:56):
called me one day and was like, Yo, this is
right after the album came out, and she was like, Yo,
no kid, theater they want to book y'all for a show.

Speaker 6 (01:09:03):
And we was like a show.

Speaker 8 (01:09:04):
What are you talking about? She was like, they want
a Foreign and Shane show. Nick and I had no
idea how we were going to present this material playing
m P three listen. I mean, you could have did that,
but it was when I called, I was like, yeah,
we gotta build this up. So that was when I
hit zol and I was like, yo, bro, like you
know you want to help with this, and he became
our m D.

Speaker 3 (01:09:25):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 8 (01:09:26):
Yeah, So that was kind of how it came. But yeah, man,
we were just making records purely just to make the records.
We had no idea, no clue of wanting to present
it live like.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
That just was not on our RADI so what response
was it when you guys got nominated for a Grammy?
Like what at that point was it, Like, were you
guys actively campaigning for it? I had, and they were
like congratulations, No.

Speaker 3 (01:09:52):
That's leg legit. I was knocked out. And what had
happened was.

Speaker 4 (01:09:59):
We we never really submitted it, you know how normal
like nowadays, somebody has to submit. At the time, there
were these committees. I think they at this point have
done away with them because there were some concerns about
democracy and they.

Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
Don't even have I think the category we nominate for
is not.

Speaker 4 (01:10:19):
The category doesn't even exist. But essentially, yeah, what happened
was somebody on the committee at the time and I
know who it is, but that's not really super relevant,
entered that record as a record with merit that hadn't
been selected by the members, just as another suggestion, and

(01:10:45):
it made it through the nominations list, which is kind
of miraculous because we never campaigned. And so Yazra called
me and she was like, are you sitting down? And
I was like, I don't know, like should I be?
And she was like, she's like, tomorrow the nominations are
gonna come out and we're in it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:04):
And I just didn't really.

Speaker 4 (01:11:08):
It took a while to register because like, as much
as I was very sure of our merit, like that
was beyond my wildest dreams, as I'm sure you would
have been the first time, Like as much as you
strive for that sort of professional acknowledgement, we were so
niche in a lot of ways. And at the same time,
I guess we had touched enough people that it that

(01:11:31):
it went all the way up there. So I called
Fantee was asleep. I don't know if I left you
a voiceman.

Speaker 3 (01:11:37):
We talked. I remember that I was not there. You were.
You woke up. You were like, oh, bro, we want grant.
Well we up for a Grammy. I was like, oh, Ship,
word up, all right, and I went back to until
I woke up.

Speaker 8 (01:11:50):
And then I saw because this is back on the
BlackBerry days, you know, bro my yeah, man, my ship
was going crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:11:57):
This is like birthday Twitter. Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:11:59):
It was just I was like, oh shit, we got
nominated for a Grammy, and so yeah, it was it
was just yeah crazy. I think for us, it really
was just a validation of our art. And it just
was like, you know, we did that record ourselves, Like
we had no machine behind us. It was no major label, like,
it was none of that. It was just me, Nick

(01:12:20):
and Amy just thugging that shit out and so, you know,
it was it was a real It was a moment
for me because that was I mean, we I talked
about it in the Doctor.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
Just on the business side.

Speaker 8 (01:12:32):
Foreign Exchange was the first time that I in my
time in the music business, that was the first time
I was ever really paid for my work, like ever,
you know, that was the first time I really.

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
To enjoy some oh yeah, yeah, like we we did
when we did.

Speaker 8 (01:12:48):
Leave It All Behind, and you know, we just put
it out and we had talked about because at that
time I think.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
BBE they was knocking. They wanted to real, they wanted
to do they were interested.

Speaker 8 (01:13:00):
And we looked at the deal and the deal was
cool and BBE shouts to b B shouts to pe
p Eddie b eddib No, they did it right by
it so on on connected.

Speaker 3 (01:13:09):
So we were open. Was like all, yeah, let's see.
But by that time, you know, Nick and I was like, yo, man, like, bro,
let's what if we try to do this ourselves. Man,
I think we can be pretty much. I think we
can do this.

Speaker 8 (01:13:18):
And so uh, you know Neo over here he ran
the numbers through his matrix. He was like, yeah, man,
so I think, yeah, I'm like, all right, fucking let's go.

Speaker 6 (01:13:28):
And so we did it.

Speaker 8 (01:13:29):
And so yeah, my first check, like our first statement
off the first month of sales to Leave It All Behind,
was like twenty five grand. That was more than I
had seen off the last four or five Little Brother
albums four three albums at that time.

Speaker 3 (01:13:43):
Wow, and so and It wasn't so much. It was
again just.

Speaker 8 (01:13:46):
Having what I saw was just the transparency of like, listen, dude,
if I owe you, if if I owe you a dollar,
just show me a piece of paper showing that saying
that how I owe you this dollar?

Speaker 3 (01:13:59):
You know what I mean. But I had never had
that at no point in my career. I know that
moment was right fam. It was like four since hanging
up in the studio.

Speaker 8 (01:14:08):
So so finally when we put out that record, man,
that was really the start of our label. And we
started it in eight so this is like right around
the time. This is like when the economy is like
going crazy, right around the crash and everything. And I
think my mentality was, I if we can launch a
label during a fucking recession and survive, then we can
make this ship.

Speaker 3 (01:14:29):
And it's been sixteen years, I got admit, Man, I
say this with a little bit of shame.

Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
The two thousand and eight for that year, that was
the first year that I actively voted in the Grammys,
even the three that I won before, I didn't vote
in that. Like, we just happened to win, but you know,
it was on the road and I missed the ballot yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:14:53):
I tried to be a part like because after we
got the nomination, they hit us it was like, hey,
you know, do you want to be in whatever?

Speaker 3 (01:15:00):
And I'm like, all right, cool, But then I saw
like you had to go to meetings and ship.

Speaker 9 (01:15:04):
I was like, I want to do this process itself
is so like there's so much yeah stuff.

Speaker 8 (01:15:08):
Yeah, it's politics, it's it was just a lot of
things that I saw. It didn't really I just wanted
to make music this period and that was just side
of the game. I understood it, and I understood the
importance of it. But yeah, I remember my my Grammy lesson.
We were at like the Grammy post Grammy brunch or

(01:15:29):
whatever for Grammy dinner or whatever, and I was in
line like greating to get some food and stuff. And
it was this older lady that was in front of
me and we just started talking and she was like, so,
you know what what brings what you doing here? And
I was like, yeah, my group for in Exchange. We
were nominated for a Grammy and I said, you know
we lost this year. I said we lost to Indie.
I re because that year we lost to uh Indi Ira.

(01:15:52):
She did a cover of Pearls by Shade, and so
she was just like, I'll never get it. I said, yeah,
you know, we lost lost to India, you know what
I mean. And she said, yeah, it's hard to vote
against her. And I was just like, vote for Tracy Flick.
I understand, you know what I mean, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:16:13):
You know what I mean, you know what I mean.

Speaker 8 (01:16:16):
It's an election, you know what I mean. It's I'm like,
I got it. It's this is a campaign. You know,
It's not a meritocracy. And once I understood that, I
was just like, Okay, cool. It wasn't no bitterness or nothing.
I'm like, Okay, that's what the game is, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:16:32):
But but now, man, the.

Speaker 8 (01:16:33):
Grammy nod was no, it was. It was incredible. Just
have that experience. And I think me and I we went,
we had our suits and all that ship.

Speaker 3 (01:16:41):
I remember, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:16:48):
There were two related memories, like you invited us to
the Roots Jam Grammy Jam, which was a big We
did day Keeper that night, but you also said it
with us like I remember, like, so it was me
and Tay and Yazra on stage and I was just
doing the keyboards and I remember hearing some drums at

(01:17:10):
some point. This was not pre planned and you just
sat in with us and it was like one of
those things that I'll never forget because it was really
kind of a It was a moment for us that
felt like we were accepted by a larger Like obviously
you had been a champion of us in general through

(01:17:30):
Okay Player, but like it was kind of that moment
where you realize, like, Okay, we might have a future
in this, Like this might be you know, there were
a lot of people that we.

Speaker 8 (01:17:38):
Met, nah seeing the getting props from the Ogs. I'm like,
we did like we did Kissing Grind. We performed at
Victor's thing, and we performed with a pickup band for
the first and last time ever. We never doing that
shit no more. But like, but during sound check, you know,
weird singing is me yahs. Yeah, it was me and

(01:18:00):
Yards at that time. We I don't think Darien wasn't
it was. It was just it was just me and
y'alls are singing. And so afterwards, you know, I walk
off stage and it's this lady there and I'm looking
at trying to figure out who she is, and she's
like that was some.

Speaker 3 (01:18:13):
Real singing right there, and I love that was some
good singing.

Speaker 8 (01:18:16):
I like that it's fucking Anne Nesby from Sounds of Black,
and I'm just like, holy shit, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:18:23):
So that's that was the year we met every like.

Speaker 4 (01:18:28):
Quincy Jones, Charlie Charlie will Wilson. Like it was really
kind of we were rubbing shoulders with everybody that we admired,
and we went to all of the events that you know,
like the irony is like as a Grammy nominee, you
don't get to go for free.

Speaker 3 (01:18:44):
It's still a pricey endeavor.

Speaker 4 (01:18:47):
And we didn't really have the money to campaign, so
we just like, look, we're gonna go. We're gonna go
to all of these events, like there's a producer thing
at the Village Studio, like you know what I mean,
like the things that you were very familiar with. We
did hire a publicist to help us through the red
carpet thing, like because that was like I recommended that

(01:19:09):
we would to make the most of it.

Speaker 3 (01:19:11):
But it was kind of like one of.

Speaker 4 (01:19:13):
Those things where we realized, like as much fun as
it is, like I don't know if we truly belong
here and at the same time, the acceptance of it
felt really good. I remember personally feeling very proud because
this was something I could tell my parents and my family,
and it made what I did very real versus like,

(01:19:34):
oh I just make me you know what I mean.
It was kind of thing in the United States. Yeah, right,
It was a moment of like, Okay, this is like
kind of a real thing, and so you know, but
I haven't really ever pursued another number and that like
like in the same way, because like, ultimately, I think
we both realized that for us, it was much more
important to make the music versus being the campaigners.

Speaker 8 (01:19:58):
Like literally, as soon as it was over with, as
soon as like, you know, Jam announced, you know, the
India Wan for the joint, I think me and Nick
just kind of look at Jones like, all right, bro,
you're ready to get back in the studio.

Speaker 4 (01:20:10):
Looking like a lount of time.

Speaker 2 (01:20:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:20:12):
Well yeah, we were like all right with you the time.
I'm like, yeah, we can you go back to the studio.
He was just cool year with us.

Speaker 2 (01:20:18):
That was.

Speaker 4 (01:20:20):
The actual twenty ten Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:20:23):
I'm dropping wah nine So yeah, twenty nine is one
of the nominations twenty ten how hard was it for
you to sort of uproot yourself from living over there
in the Netherlands and coming to the.

Speaker 4 (01:20:39):
United States to be yeah, to be dead ass in
the middle of it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:45):
Weird? Did you move?

Speaker 4 (01:20:46):
I moved in six Basically what happened was connected did
really good.

Speaker 3 (01:20:53):
And bb our Man Eddie b was our.

Speaker 4 (01:20:58):
A n R guy at like he was he and
the American part of BBE, which we were. We never
dealt with the UK guys so much. And Eddie had
a vision of like a roster of releases that were
all foreign exchange related, like a Nicola album, maybe a
Darian album, maybe a Yazra album. And so he first

(01:21:20):
brought up to me, he was like, look like, if
you want, we could sponsor you.

Speaker 3 (01:21:25):
For a visa because that's what would be required. And
so they ended up they ended up doing it.

Speaker 4 (01:21:31):
I realized that at the time, kind of going back
to our conversation of how my sound was perceived, that
I knew that back in Europe I didn't have a
chance to really pursue a music career, certainly not in
a touring capacity or otherwise. And my dream was again
like as this music that I saw as inherently American.

(01:21:52):
It felt like it made sense to come to the
States and pursue a music career, and so I was
awarded with a one visa, which was a big deal.
But yeah, it involved leaving, like and that's what leave
it All Behind partly alludes to. It did involve leaving
my family, like my parents are still there, my brother

(01:22:14):
and sister. So it's been it's been bittersweet in the
sense that it was the right decision to make, but
it wasn't an easy decision to make, and it will
always be something where I realized that I did have
to leave something behind that that is not necessarily easy
to replace.

Speaker 3 (01:22:34):
Which city did you?

Speaker 6 (01:22:36):
So?

Speaker 4 (01:22:36):
I moved to Wilmington, North Carolina.

Speaker 3 (01:22:39):
Because so this is kind of a yeah, yeah, it's
a it's a beach beach sign right on.

Speaker 4 (01:22:44):
This just got like a cool, sort of quick anecdote
that made me realize that North Carolina was kind of
always in my crosshairs. As a kid, I had a puzzle,
a jigsaw puzzle, and it was a mansion, just like
a Southern man who would all to Magnolia's. And I
really like jigsaw puzzles as a kid, and I would

(01:23:05):
make this jigsaw puzzle.

Speaker 3 (01:23:06):
And basically what I.

Speaker 4 (01:23:09):
Found out once I moved to the Wilmington area was
that that mansion on that puzzle is actually a mansion
that is there in that local area, which I would
have never known. So that made it almost like a
serendipity kind of thing. I remember, like North Carolina had
this sort of magic to it by way of Fante

(01:23:32):
and everybody that was there, like it seemed like foreign
exchange already before I moved, was a North Carolinian group,
and so he would talk about Raleigh, he would talk
about Durham, and it always like I always thought, like
what if one day I actually get to be there
and sort of like know what that is like. And
even yesterday we took a little trip to sort of

(01:23:56):
see a lot of those early locations where Fonte is
like first apartment after college.

Speaker 3 (01:24:01):
And I wrote all those songs.

Speaker 4 (01:24:04):
Yeah, yeah, this near.

Speaker 3 (01:24:06):
So when I think of North Carolina and beach life,
I think of Cape Fear.

Speaker 4 (01:24:10):
Yeah yeah, literally Cape here River.

Speaker 3 (01:24:13):
I'm on the k yeah for Taraka and I.

Speaker 1 (01:24:17):
The soundtrack to Organics is we get home from recording
at like two three in the morning, we watched do
the Right thing and Cape fear.

Speaker 3 (01:24:26):
Yeah, like just night after night. It's weird selection. Yeah, yeah,
that's the most opposite. Okay, sorry yo, No, it's just
like but it was a tradition.

Speaker 1 (01:24:36):
We would get famous same as cookies, a half gallon
of Barns juice and then you just get in the
crib and put because the news will be on it.
It's like ninety two, like you know, I mean, cable
culture was sort of the thing, but you know, we
didn't have like the Internet, so it's just like, all right,
get your VHS tape that has to do the right
thing and.

Speaker 3 (01:24:55):
Kp here like six in the morning, watch it every night.

Speaker 4 (01:24:59):
So was that the remake or the original with gregor.

Speaker 3 (01:25:05):
Not like both versions, but Scorsese versions my favorite. Yeah yeah,
yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:25:11):
So back to your question, Like, it's been, like I think,
in a lot of ways, like I've I've learned a
lot about America in those years, a lot through the
people that I've surrounded myself with. I came here sort
of when it was Obama era, felt very yeah, I've

(01:25:35):
been now through that going now right, So it's been
really interesting. Obviously it's politically a completely different world from
what I'm used to, but that's a whole other story.

Speaker 3 (01:25:45):
But it's been. It's been interesting. It's been.

Speaker 2 (01:25:49):
Really.

Speaker 4 (01:25:49):
I often tell people that in order to appreciate where
you're from, it is sometimes helpful to not be there
for a while. And so, like, the interesting thing is,
once I moved, I gained a much greater appreciation for
where I'm from, going back, going back home, and it
just all of a sudden started looking a little bit

(01:26:10):
like different. And that's been. That's been very interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:26:15):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:26:16):
So to wrap it up, this is a for me
in an important moment in development history, and hopefully you know,
history is kind to you guys in terms of really
acknowledging how early guys were in the game of how
we now make music, Like you know, you guys were
so early, and this this level of the first digital generation,

(01:26:41):
pre SoundCloud.

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):
Pre you know, like pre Gmail, yes, right, social media Google?
Like what was Google back then? So no, man, it
was really not it was okay, player really was.

Speaker 8 (01:26:54):
I mean, it was just you know, I don't think
y'all understood what y'all built, but you know it really was, uh,
you know, just you were able to really find your
tribe there, and you know, I don't think Nick and
I would have found each other on any other site.

Speaker 3 (01:27:08):
We wasn't wouldn't found each other on you know, anywhere else.

Speaker 8 (01:27:10):
It was just that fucking online asylum that is, okay, player,
we found each other and uh you know our movement
with Fie, it really was a lot of it was
inspired you know by so Quariums of course, by you know,
Dungeon family, just understanding the power of having a crew
and that y'all each work to make each other better

(01:27:33):
and like collaborate with each other, and you know, you're
able to keep records out without burning yourself out.

Speaker 3 (01:27:40):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 8 (01:27:41):
If like, if you got to do a fantee solo
album every year for five years, you done, like it's over,
you know what I mean. But if it's okay, I
got feel Yeah, we can produce for other people, we
can write, we can do things, you know, we can
do sesame street songs like you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:27:57):
All kind of so so now I'm man.

Speaker 8 (01:28:00):
It was that that level of community was certainly influenced
by uh so aquarians again, you know, organized noise, just
all of just those big collectors just you know, just
seeing seeing y'all in that that vibe, the infamous vibe picture.

Speaker 3 (01:28:18):
Yes, I mean it got us real though, but yeah,
but seeing that and being like, okay, like we can
do that, and y'all's a right.

Speaker 8 (01:28:25):
At the time, she was singing for Erica Team background
for Erica, So she was one of the first people
that I saw as a professional musician and like saw
what that grind was, like you know what I mean,
and so yeah, man, yeah, I'm just thankful.

Speaker 3 (01:28:39):
But you know, it was all came full circle.

Speaker 1 (01:28:40):
Well, we're gonna have to also do like a part
two stories because we didn't even get to my favorite
like getting you talked about flying colors or or like
authenticity or like any of my my favorite moments off
the records.

Speaker 6 (01:28:53):
But could you a part you on online or whatever?

Speaker 3 (01:28:56):
Yes? Absolutely, yeah, yeah, they do it online. Do it
for the shame?

Speaker 6 (01:29:00):
That would makes sense actually right right right.

Speaker 3 (01:29:02):
At one time we said, definitely did it that way?
All right, go back home, both, y'all.

Speaker 1 (01:29:08):
No, I want be having a okay player, Yes, thank you, Yes,
I want to be having a k play and then
won't be haalf of q ls uh Bill, Steve, Wait.

Speaker 3 (01:29:21):
Where did like to go?

Speaker 1 (01:29:23):
She was just here, Uh myself and of course like
the Famo of the q l S. Thanks Foreign Exchange
for joining us for this episode. That person episode of
Quest Love Supreme. We'll see on the next go around.

Speaker 3 (01:29:36):
Y'all peace, Thank you for listening to Quest Love Supreme.

Speaker 8 (01:29:40):
This podcast is hosted by a Mere Quest Love Thompson,
Big Boss Man, Light Here, Saint Clair, So Black and
the Black, Myself, Fan, tigelow Fante Goldman Sugar.

Speaker 3 (01:29:51):
Steve Mandell, and Unpaid Bill Sherman.

Speaker 8 (01:29:55):
The executive producers are a Mere Quest Love Thompson, Sean
g and Be Unbothered Brian Calhoun. Produced by Britta and
Benjamin my dog cousin, Jake Payne, my motherfucking man, and
like is Saint Clair my work wife.

Speaker 3 (01:30:10):
Edited by Alex Conroy. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown.
What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,

(01:30:32):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Laiya St. Clair

Questlove

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