July 24, 2024 • 52 mins
In a special one-on-one conversation with Questlove, Sananda Maitreya discusses his early days. This conversation includes praise for Stevie Wonder as well as crediting Rod Stewart for his trademark rasp. Sananda speaks about time in Harlem and his ambitions as a boxer. Sananda also talks about performing at the 1988 Grammy Awards, with Michael Jackson, Prince, and Smokey Robinson watching from the front row, revealing some extra detail about that set.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Okay, I'm gonna try.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
To not geek out as I normally do in these introductions,
but and I will.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
Also try to hide my abundant enthusiasm before talking to
such a killer of culture.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
As just know, it is so weird that our very
first exchange is going to be in front of millions
of people. I will try to keep my composure of
my professionalism. All right, ladies and gentlemen of Questlove World listenership.
This is one of those air quote dreams come true
(00:45):
moments for this podcast. Our guest today has a profound
effect all my life, ever since his nineteen eighty seven debut,
which yielded five singles that propelled him to the top
of the charts. And it can't be overstated how impressionable
(01:06):
he was to me in my life at that particular time,
because I was just about to graduate high school and
I was deciding for myself, like what is it that
I want to do with my life? And clearly I
didn't want to live my dad's dream of you know,
respectable politics and entering the world of classical music. But
reading our guests mind blowing interviews and mind you Like,
(01:27):
you know, a lot of my idols and hip hop
really weren't given the platform of a village voice, or
of a spin magazine or of a rolling Stone. So
reading his mind blowing interviews really had an effect on me.
Reading his lyrics had an effect, watching and perform Hearing
him sing had an effect his arrangements, his production and fun. Fact,
(01:49):
a lot of you are going to be mind blowing.
That are Roots fans. His liner notes, okay, his liner notes, credits, yes,
credits and liner notes. I literally didn't know that these
food delivery box could be an instrument, like so just
his sixth sense of humor in music and on his
line like literally longtime Roots fans who still to this day,
(02:11):
despite the fact that I've written eight and I'm plugging
My hip Hop's History came out last week, but my
eight New York Times bestsellers, despite the fact that I
have eight books, Roots fans complain to this day that
and despite the fact that there are no more tangible
well not no more, but you know, tangible objects like
(02:32):
cassettes or LPs or CDs or a trex is not
the primary way that we consume music. To this day,
they still ridicule me for not doing epic liner notes,
not knowing that our guess is single handedly responsible for
that side of my life. Yeah, I'll definitely say forty
percent responsible. I don't want to dismiss you.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
I have to cut you off now before you You're
embarrassed both of us.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
No, no, man, let me, let me.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Let me just gonna get to the end, because I
know when love is projected, we somehow try to avoid it,
like the Matrix. I get it, and if the other
Team Supreme people were here right now, they do the
same to me.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
But I think it's important.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
That we give flowers and really show respect to the gods.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
So I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
But literally, because I was aware of his life transformation
after his first five records, it wasn't until D'Angelo and
I were making Black Messiah around like twenty eleven, twenty
twelve that D'Angelo will hit me to the fact that
I missed like seven or eight albums and not believing
(03:41):
what I heard, I pulled my phone out and realized
the mountain of music I missed, and I have not
been the same ever since. I have always wanted to
say this, Welcome to quest love supreme. Wow, Sanata Matreya,
thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Thank you for having us. And also let me say
that we're basically two geeks speaking to each other because
a lot of what makes us, speaking of us both
collectively what we are is that particular attention to detail
that being a geek bestows upon you, because when you're
(04:22):
a geek, it means that you're paying attention to extra
things that others are not. And then when you have
a chance to contribute yourself. I mean, I often have
said to people if I write certain things, while I
do a certain things a certain way, I said, these
are for the people who.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Are like me.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
When I could thrill a second engineer on a Stevie
Wonder record when I met him like fifteen years later,
because I actually knew who he was by his name, okay,
and the fact that you knew what Stevie record it
was and everything, and they were like so thrilled. It's like, Wow,
what a gift to give back to someone simply because
I was a kid like you who devoured everything. Okay.
(05:05):
I feel a p Funk record if it was a
Beatles record, didn't matter. If I got for me, the
only thing I missed about the old vinyl days, really
is this artwork space. Yes, you know, the presentation. You
had to make a title, you know, and bring a
completely different stamp on the world before. Unfortunately, we began
(05:26):
to put thoughts in your head as to the context
of the song by the videos, Whereas once upon a time,
it was the song meant what whatever it triggered in
your imagination, that was the video that was created.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
But oh yes, I want to share something with you
that I don't think the world news and I can't
say her name properly, but there's an artist right now,
a very significant artist who is held back releasing videos, yes,
or a particular album, an emic album. And I found
(06:00):
out maybe four months ago, went to go see this
particular artist in concert, said how great the show was,
and noticed that I saw certain visual clips that weren't
out in the world. And this artist tells me, hey,
you know, you're actually partly responsible for this, and I
(06:23):
was like, what do you mean. So when this artist
released a record, I said, you know what I love
about this album is that because there were no videos initially,
because of course I thought there was going to be
an onslaught of videos that I said.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
It took me back to.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
The time where I explained to this artist when the
album came out that I had a when Stevie Wonder's
Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants came out that
for me was my dark side of the moon. Like
my dad hated that record, so he was like, here,
you take it, and I took it, put the headphones
on and just closed my eyes and imagined, you know,
(07:03):
and basically said that I don't want videos for songs
in the Key Life or any of Stevie Wonder's seventies
records because in my mind, I have a picture of
what I see, yes, because synaesthesia is real, and I,
you know, I was just making a passing comment that,
you know, it's great to experience this record without the
videos telling me.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
What to think. And I didn't know that I held
that much weight.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
And I guess on the ride home that must have
been a straw that broke the camel's back to say, hey,
we're gonna not release videos because I want people to
experience the music.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
And I remember getting Journey Through the Secret Life of
Plans as a Christmas present one year from my aunt
who worked in sears so yes, and so she got
it for me. And I remember I was just on
the cusp where I was allowed to listen to stuff
inside the house that wasn't gospel. But I remember going
(08:01):
out to our car and with my littc casette and
just playing it because I absolutely I mean, if it's
not clear, it should be that Stevie was one of
the absolute pillars of my entire consciousness as a musician,
as an artist, as anything that I perceived myself to be.
He and the Beatles are kind of just right there
(08:24):
at the foundation of how I started to envision music.
So I loved that album saying well, you Loe, that
doesn't mean And the thing about Stevee was he was
like the Beatles were for me. He was a master
class in all of it, songs, arrangements, instrumentation, He was
(08:46):
a master orchestrator, Like they told him this motherfucker.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
You know.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
And it was like just the way he brought further
dimension of consciousness into the music, just by his understanding
of sounds and how sounds trigger us alone, it's just
not enough it's spoken about that. Sometimes I wish our
brother Stevie was was white, just so that he would
get much more intellectual appreciation. Yes, you know, because he
(09:14):
really the only peers for me he had on the
level that he existed was the Beatles, was like Brian Wilson,
like these these extremely rare contemporaries who are like the Schubert, Beethoven,
Mozarts of their time. You know. So I'm with you all.
It's interesting that we have that journey through the secret
life of plans connection. And also before we travel further,
(09:37):
I want to thank you so much for just your
contribution that you've made since the roots and since first
coming out and just expanding your whole empire of consciousness
onto you know what for me culminated in this Oscar
that you I was so happy that you won and
you make such a memorable year as well.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah, that there's a life changing year for me, man,
because I really appreciated.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
You know. One of my claims to Pride is that
I was born the same day as Sly, So you know,
I remember Ifroen Prince saying, you fuck are you're born
the same You and Slive born the same day. You
know what I said?
Speaker 2 (10:17):
You do that?
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, wow. No, I'm not sure if
Sly knew it.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
No, no, no, but Prince knew that.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Oh okay, wait, I gotta ask one question.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
There's so much I want to learn about your story
and your journey, but I've been dying to ask you
this question for at least three decades.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Okay, yes, and you already mentioned his name, so I
had to ask.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Okay, February of nineteen eighty eight, mm h, you are
about to walk on stage. Yes, And Smokey Robinson's in
the audience, Stevie wonders in the audience, Bono's in the audience.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Michael's in the front row.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
With the red fucking jacket that you couldn't miss if
you were Stevie wonder Yes.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Princes in the front row.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I think that's the first time where I tried to
like channel vicariously. How does a person give a pitch
perfect performance when literally the pillars of gods are literally
like in the first three rows watching you. And the
thing is is that I know Michael has an attitude
(11:28):
because like that was also a weird night for him. Yeah,
that was sort of the very that was the seed
of the beginning of yeah, his you know, his future
and also.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
The beginning of mine.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
In soundcheck.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I always wanted to know this because when I do
award shows and I go soundcheck, you know, they put
those big giant cards on the chairs and you see name, name, name,
So when you're sound checking, you see, like, who's going
to be watching you?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Because you still gave a pitch perfect before?
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Thank you?
Speaker 3 (12:01):
What was that day like or was it just so
numbing that it wasn't a footnote for you at all?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Or well?
Speaker 4 (12:07):
First of all, the thing is is that at some
point you do feel that parallel realities are real.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
I used to explain at the very beginning what freaked
people out most around me was that I had told
them exactly what was going to happen, and it did
because I had this sense even then that what I
was going to do I had already done. But this
was just kind of a time shift. Or because this
(12:39):
dimension is at a slower rate of frequency than the
dimension in which I've already done this, it just takes
time to manifest. But I just had this but I've
done this already attitude that informed so much of where
I was coming from. And I say that because sometimes
I mean still to this day, I can be in
(13:01):
the vocable singing, and I have this almost outer body
experience where I hear that the voice isn't coming from me,
it's coming through me. And I'm basically literally capable of
standing in that space where I can see the difference
(13:21):
between something that originates from you and something you're just
bearing witness to as a witness to a process. And
a lot of times that happens when it seems like
the reality that you're about to walk into is already
so surreal that you might as well just have that
kind of other dimensional experience. I said, say this, you
(13:44):
grew up watching the Grammys. You grew up dreaming that
one day would be you okay, and then but what
you didn't dream is that damn there, like you said,
every one of your like heroes and this in the
front row. And at least it distracted you from the
millions and millions and millions of people who are watching it.
That was like the good thing they distract you from it.
(14:06):
But during the sound check and what have you, I
just don't pay that much attention to those things. I
really don't. I focus out, I get my game head together.
I understand what I have to do, and I know
what I have to do to achieve that level. And
one of the things that I did have to do
was I always shut people out before the gig. I
never saw anyone before a gig, and of course you
(14:27):
get a reputation that people don't understand as being aloof
for arrogant or whatever. You med meditation, Yeah, to put yourself,
put your game face on, getting that zone, call your
spirit together and all of that. But here's the secret
is the killer. Fortunately that gig was in between a
tour that we were doing anyway, we were already touring
(14:47):
the States, and before I left London, a fan of
mine from California had said, I'm going to be like
shipping you something that will be waiting for you when
you get to whatever. My first destination was Miami or
Orlando or some Daytona, Florida, Okay. And so I got there,
(15:11):
which is where I took the band to do production mirossalsuse.
I grew up in the Daytona Beach area and I
wanted to return there for production mirousals for the American tour.
And so when I got there to Daytona Beach, what
was waiting for me but a nice stick packet of shrooms. Okay.
So I took the schedule, which I remember was forty dates,
(15:32):
and I picked about eight to a dozen, eight to
a dozen that I'm gonna do shroom here, I'm gonna
do it shroom here, I'm gonna do air. And it
was like it was just a crazy great experience. And
I had no intention of doing that that night, But
when I was sitting in the audience and I could
see all the silhouettes and all people in front of
(15:53):
me and just the spectacle that it was, I just
thought I should be high. I mean, this is not right,
and I'm just being honest. I was never like a
cocaine guy or heroin guy. I was. I was in
the like even as a child. I understood if it
kind of gave you a different perspective on some shit.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
I think it brings you closer to God personally. Yeah,
I'm a new microducer. I started microducing, and like before
twenty twenty nothing, I didn't drink, none of that stuff.
And then you know, once I started meditating and all
that shit, you know what I mean, Like I started yeah, microdocing.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
So as I was getting closer to being called if
I'm not mistaken, I think even Madam Whitney performed that
night okay mistaken. It was just an onslaught of like
just genius bitches. And I was like, okay, look. I
turned to my baby mama, my English daughter, Sarahina, and
I say to her, yeah, hooked me up when of
them rooms buds right, because she she had brought a
(16:55):
few emergencies. Just break, just break emergency, I'm saying, and
I said, and she was like, looked at me, like,
are you sure. I was like, no, no, no, give me.
So I took one, went to bathroom booming. Next thing,
you know, I was able to get out of my
head and leave that performance because you know, it was
also important for me to address my the heroes that
(17:16):
were present, that this is the effect that you've had, This.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Is what you dude. I said that.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I said, Wow, I wonder if they're sitting there thinking
I felt this, No, but not that, but I felt like,
because the thing is, it's also your thing is so deep,
like it's not your version of the microphone tricks, isn't
James Brown's Joe text? Like literally, people don't know that
(17:42):
Joe Tech started that shit, Like the pioneer never gets
the credit there's always the second person that sees it
and perfects it.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah, and James Brown is world famous for his.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Derivative borrowing, but you know, yeah, he's still the god.
But even to the level where you started doing a
microphone like in your history of performance, I was like,
oh wow, he even knows Joe Texa's level of microphone mastery.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
And a lot of that stuff is channeling really, because
it is a collective, whatever name one is comfortable giving
to it. You know, if I'm in a certain comfortable space,
I don't mind calling it the Holy Spirit, because ultimately
that's who I believe, That's who I know. I'm belonging
to the service of Okay, I do believe that many of
(18:31):
us artists, this is precisely why we're here. I mean,
I'm asked often, why are you so prolific or how
you create so easily? I said, that's a simple I've
never seen myself as separate from the music. I'm an
extension of the music. The music is not just a concept.
It's a real spirit and it can create life, just
(18:51):
like a lot of other spirit has the power to
create life. So I just believe that I'm a form
of music. In a human life, and therefore there is
no separation between me and the mus and the music.
It's just at one with my expression. And this is
basically what I've always known that I was in the
(19:11):
service off because I don't really believe all of these
gifts of mine. I believe that I have been, that
this is my Karmen, and this is my service, and
we're selected for our fidelity because everything that I have,
everything that I've endured and been able to endure with
whatever grace has been I've been able to summon from
(19:32):
the reservoir of mercy, is simply by understanding that you know,
I was taught in Sunday School seeking first the kingdom
of having in its righteousness, and all these things will
we added onto you. The way I've lived that, the
way I've interpreted that my life is the muse telling
me listen, is the deal you served first and foremost
(19:55):
to the utmost of your fidelity. You serve the music,
you serve the inspiration. Hear it that you're giving, and
we will look after your life. We will find the
right woman for you. We will find what you need
because we know what you need, and we know we're
not gonna give you more than you need to be
a distraction from the work that you're taken upon yourself
(20:17):
to do. So you know all of that's a part
of it, and you know that's that's what we're in
the service of. So basically, yeah, it's their moments. When
it's the same, it's like I rarely will drink or whatever,
but if I feel like I need, as any performer,
to drink, to take a shot of whiskey, to just
kind of like center myself in the in the purpose
(20:37):
thereof that you do what you gotta do.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
For our listeners that are not aware. Where's your beginnings? Like,
where were you born?
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I have the great great fortune of being stamped by
arrival in the great Borough of Harlem, h and the
magnificent year of nineteen sixty two, the year of the
Fender Jaguar, the year of the New York Mets, the
year of the Rolling Stones. Okay, there you go, nineteen
sixty two, and then I was basically we were actually
(21:13):
from my people were from Newark. I also proudly claimed
that East Darns connection, because, as you would know, East
Starnes has produced an abundant amounts of bitches that were
like making sense, you know what I mean? Yes, I
think even Shaq Shaquille comes from Eastars And even my
mother's history is kind of wound around Madame dion Warwicks,
(21:37):
what could have been, what happened, what would happen if
type history. So we came from that area. But my
mother was the beloved eldest daughter of the big pastor
of Newark, the Pentecostal Church, and when basically my father
seduced her, you know, it was shame upon your family
(21:58):
and all that bullshit, and so basically she was kind
of banished to a cousin in Harlem who also knew
how to take care of her, to look after because
my mother's mother died when she was thirteen. So we
were banished into Harlem to live with a cousin, and
it was basically two years after that we moved back
to Jersey. So that's where I began. And I'm proud
(22:22):
to say I was born in Harlem because it's just
one of those vortexes on the earth that if you
have that fortune to be able to do something with
that stamp, you're a blessed person.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Indeed, what was your first musical memory in life the Beatles.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
I was two years old, and it's the first not
only musical memory, it's my first memory. I would imagine
the thought. I almost vaguely think I remember a picture
of my father being banished from my life, my biological father,
But obviously I would have suppressed that if it was
a negative emotion. But at the age of two, I
(22:58):
remember she loved yeah, yeah, and oh you no no no, no, no, hope,
you don't understand. I want to hold your hand, and
she loves you. That that is the earliest memory I have,
and I just think it's so awesome that it was
a musical memory as well, because nothing you know that
(23:19):
that was the music that woke up my consciousness to
the fact that I was existing in that life. So
that was my first memory. I also remember seeing Breakfast
at Tiffany's on television when it came on in nineteen
sixty four, I think was also too or somewhere around thereabouts.
And I remember my mother buying me some Batman cards
(23:42):
because that was my first hero is Batman. So those
memories around the same time, but they were all East Orange,
New Jersey memories.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
How long were you a resident in Harlem?
Speaker 4 (23:52):
I think no more than two years. I think my
first two years.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Just the general Tri state area. Like how long were
you there?
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Well, we were there until I was about six or
seven when we moved to Florida for the first time.
Then we moved back to Jersey, then we moved to Chicago,
and we moved around a lot. I was my stepfather
was a first evangelist and minister and then later became
a pastor and all that, so we were moving around
(24:21):
a lot. Plus it was just the way I guess
the organization he was a part of was growing the time.
But obviously things happened to us for a purpose, which
hopefully we can extract the better reasons of.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Were they a musical family as well? Like do you
have siblings that sing as well?
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Or yes, everybody kind of sings, but my mother is
mainly the one who sang. And it was apparently her
mother who I sounded most like or looked most like,
because her mother was I'm quite sure there was some
hitten Sephardic judaism that was hit in the situation, coming
(25:00):
back from the times of Spanish and the Reconquisto whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Hell it was the family tree, Yeah, I get it. Yeah, yeah,
but there.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
Are a lot of similarities apparently between me and her mother.
But it is my mother whom I get kind of
that impetus. She was she grew up singing in the.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Church, and most of my the artists that I interviewed
that or at least of a certain age, kind of have
the same story in which quote unquote secular music is
contraband or not look favorably upon. So how are you
consuming well, you know our listeners not like being a
(25:40):
Prince fan was almost like detrimental to my life. And
it's funny to hear him say, like, your parents were
right to punish you for owning these records, but like
were you allowed to purchase albums or how did you
Some artists would say like, oh, Marvin and Stevie were allowed,
but nothing else, Like how do you consume music? Are
(26:00):
your friends in school telling you like what's hip?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Or no?
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Basically, you know you're in a culture whereas everything is
around you. And what I wasn't allowed to do until
I was about fifteen or sixteen was to listen to
music in our house that I had from the outside.
But at some point, you know, on a Saturday when
in my area Soul Trained in the American bandstand were
back to back. Yeah, So if I remember correctly, Soul
(26:28):
Trained came on at twelve and twelve thirty American bandstands,
and I was allowed that at some point, provided you know,
I kept the noise down and what have you. But
you know, you just heard everywhere else what was happening,
what was around you. And there were people that were
just ubiquitous that you couldn't you know, you couldn't avoid
certain people. But the profile in my home was my
(26:51):
mother was a choir director first and foremost by inclination,
so we tended to listen to like a lot of
choir music. There was like a lot lot of James Cleveland.
There was a lot of like, uh, like Albertina Walker
AND's Andrews, that whole that whole caravans am Betride, which
should a documentary in and of itself, the minutia of
(27:12):
the genius of black culture if you just did the
caravans and you know, and Anaz and Shirley Sees and
all those people, because Shirley was also one of the
two women who had the most influence on me as
a singer.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
O God, if I, if I hear no charge one
more time. It won't be a moment too soon, like
every every day that sons on an ausehold.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
But she was in the James Cleveland and all of
this stuff. And you know, obviously Aretha's genius album Amazing Grace.
I kind of got bored with choir music. It was
that was beautiful. I got. I learned my lessons. I
was absorbing everything, of course, but my jam was like
the quartet singers. Them like like them dudes in the
(27:55):
deep from the Deep South, and they just come into
church and just kill it, kill it. And it would
always be some dude with some like voice. I could
cut glass. And there was another dude that you suspected
probably we was on the on the gay spectrum, you
know what I'm saying. But my brother was holding it down,
you know what I'm saying. He had a beautiful voice.
And then woman was just like fall out and stuff.
(28:17):
And it was But see the church conglomeration of situational congregation.
We were with the Pentecostals. That was more of the
Baptists and the Methodists who would have like the quartet scene.
The Pentecostals was more about choirs and and all of
this kind of stuff and nobody's stealing the light from
the pastor he did, so.
Speaker 5 (28:36):
Then oh wow, I did not know that. Okay, there's
some of that, you know what I mean, which is why,
ironically it was Rod Stewart, one of my great heroes.
Shout out of respect to Rod.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
It was Rod who turned me back on the Sam
Cook because I knew Sam Cook vaguely as a legend
in our community from the Soul Stirs, but I didn't
paid that much attention to it because that music wasn't
mainly played in our home. But one of the things
I've always loved about Rod and the Stones is neither
one of them ever wasted any breath, you know, not
(29:13):
reminding you of who these heroes were that changed their
lives and were not shy about letting you know who
they were. So Rod's guy was Sam. Oh this muddy
and I've always heard some Bobby Blue Bland, But the
point is he was real about that shit. So it
was when I fell in love with Rod and realized
(29:33):
Rod was in the direction that I was going to
be taking my own situation. It was you know him,
and I just started listening to Sam and going, oh shit, yes, yes, yes, yes,
I missed this. This is what But it was good
that I got it when I got it, because then
I was not only able to listen to the pop
stuff and appreciate what an underrated, one of the all
(29:57):
time underrated, great foundational pop songwriter as he was, because
you know, if we forget how foundational he was to
the writing what we call pop songs, not just soul
or R and B whatever, Sam Cook and Buddy Holly
were right there formulating what became pop music. And interestingly
enough is you know they were friends, they were very
(30:17):
close friends. But yeah, so it was Rod who took
me back to Sam. And that's when like the door
opened up again. I thought, yeah, And I always felt
in my heart if Sam had lived, he would have
been doing what Rod wound up doing. And I have
I always felt. I even said this to Rod, I
really feel like you have a walk in you know,
(30:38):
because when we when we love people and we know
people love us, the different layers of our physical existence,
of the different layers of our existence, the frequencies that
stayed closest to the earth, you know, the densest as
obviously we burn it or we bury it. Then there's
this magnetic field that goes to the people who love
(30:58):
us and who we know we can leave some of
this too. They will continue some of our work or
our spirit, or will take some of our cross upon themselves,
and they will continue forward with that vibe.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
All right.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
So for me, like I'll say, like a never dull
moment in Lantic Crossing, I like my two favorite ride albums,
But for you, like, what's your go to albums of his?
Speaker 4 (31:20):
First of all, let me give him ecses his flowers.
The man has an unerring ear for songs. He's a
great producer whatever whoever's producing him, or he's just got
an unimpeachable ear for songs and great musicianship. For me,
he's never made an album where I just thought, well, okay,
that's a waste of time. And he's made tons of them.
(31:41):
But I would have to say around that period but
loose and fantasy free. Tonight, I'm yours.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Ah tonight, I'm yours. Do anything that you won't be.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
But check this out. The story was I was in
the military. I was stationed in hand Out, Germany. The
base no longer exists. Third Arm at the in the
barracks across from our barracks was a big rec center
and at the very top was some broom closets, and
I went out and bought the cassette of Tonight I'm
yours because up to that point I had like this nice,
(32:15):
sweet choirboard tenor okay, and my determination was I wasn't
gonna come out of this closet, No pun intended.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Until you sing like Rod or something. Until I sang
like Rod, Wait what?
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Until I had that voice ye had Because I had this,
I had the sweet, nice Michael Jackson, E Stevie type
of vibe. Cultivating a long way. Frank Sinatra was another
huge influence. I had all that, but I wanted that
other thing.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
So the rasp comes from because you do have like
three distinctive voices, your rasp voice and then a very
sweet falsetto, and then you're your natural tenor. So you're
saying that Rod Stewart is the impetus of that that
grap what Yes, yes.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
All that Maggie may wake up Maggie Young. The first
cut is the deepest, for real, all that, all of
that stuff, Baby Jane, Okay, one of my favorite songs.
Yes you're right, you think I'm sexy. It's just come on, man,
do you think I'm sex? He's one of the records
of life. It's just.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Has he ever told you the Young Turk story?
Speaker 4 (33:27):
No, I don't think I got it directly from him.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Oh yeah, No, just recently he did a benefit And
I'm always obsessed and you do this a lot too.
I'm always obsessed with song titles that have nothing to
do with what's said in the song. Yeah, And in
my mind, I'm like, you're saying young Hearts, right, You're
not saying young Turks. And I think Michael Jackson at
(33:50):
the same situation when Heartbreak Hotel basically like the publisher
and the managers like, look, there's already a song called
Young Hearts out there, and people are going to confuse
the two and it's gonna make the paperwork difficult.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
And there's also the famous story of Radio Gaga from
Queen that he was never singing Gaga, but the record
company didn't feel comfortable with him actually putting Radio Coca
because he was saying all he is on the radio
is ship in these days. Oh and if you listen now, okay, yoh,
(34:24):
then when you don't think you're supposed to be hearing
Gaga and you will hear Coca. All we hear is
radio Coca.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Makes sense now boom, all right, look at you are
your schooling.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
We have to converse more often.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Yes, oh no, no, this is the greatest first conversation ever.
Our journey through life is so parallel, from living in
America to moving the Kennish town, to all these things.
Even as you tell you the story of your family
and all that, like, yes, I'm not shared that on
(35:00):
the air, but same story. By I think ten twelve thirteen,
you kind of know what your calling is. What is
it that you desired to be before you.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Were eighteen years old? Like, what do you think your
calling was?
Speaker 4 (35:18):
Well, at various times, I wanted to be a marine
biologist for a short period of time, but I was
serious about it. I wanted to be a journalist for
a very long time and went to university for one
year with the intent that explains it getting accredited. Yeah, okay,
well there you go.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Because your lyrics are just absolutely of course you went
to school for journalism.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I wanted to be Okay, now I get it, I
get it.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
Yeah, that was gonna be my jam. I was quite
certain in my heart that if I didn't make it
as the heavyweight champion of the world, Okay, then when
I realized that my body type did not lend itself
towards me becoming a heavyweight before the fort then I
downsized to the middleweight champion of the world. And then
(36:07):
I had my epiphany when I won the Golden Gloves
for the State of Florida in nineteen eighty during my
eighteenth year, when I was beating this kid and his
mother was very emotionally supporting him and cheering him on,
and I had an epiphetic moment that whatever I went
(36:31):
into boxing to accomplish or to ascertain from the experience
I had gotten it, I had proven something vital to myself.
I was tough. I was just littler than everybody else
for a long time, and you know, I needed to
do something to assert myself in that particular way. But
there was one point when I was hitting this kid
in the face pretty easily and to hear his mother's impassion,
(36:54):
you know, please to him to do better. I realized
in that moment that the spirit it didn't put me
on the earth to be hitting mother's children in the face.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
So you were going to be a boxer. You you're
a Golden Gloves winner.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Yes, in nineteen eighty state for the State of Florida.
I'll never forget that. It was in Coconut Grove in
an Arena and Coconut Grove in Miami. But I just
remember that that I actually didn't even fight after that
fight because the next fight was the fight for the title.
(37:28):
But the guy that I was doing to fight had
to pull out at the last minute because of some
bullshit I I still don't understand. But anyway, that's how
I got the title. But that was also one of
those epathetic experiences where I realized it was time to
leave that part of warrior training alone and come back
to the main arena.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
So in some alternate life, like you could have been
fighting like Ray Boom Boom Mantini or like question.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
That was really good. I was shockingly good for someone
who basically pretty much wasn't support in any other type
of athletic endeavor. I mean I was always you know,
I was a great I love love baseball. It was
my favorite sport. I was a great little baseball player.
But I didn't have any ass, you know, I couldn't
get the ball much further than saying. And so you know,
(38:18):
these coaches don't have any patients. You know, we just
need to fact them up. You know, I'm just this kid.
We got all the potential in the world, but you
couldn't strike me out. I knew it instantly where the
ball was going the meat the minute it left the bat.
I wasn't the fastest kid by a long shot on
the team, but I knew I was still based. I
was all instinct and everything was just pure instinct. Like basketball.
(38:40):
I didn't have any height. I couldn't shoot worth the shit,
but I was a great defender, great rebounder, great passer.
And the more difficult the shot, the more likely I
was to make it. The easier the percentage of shot,
the higher percentage shot it was, the lower percentage it
was going to get for me, you know what I mean.
But the point is that I kept trying to find
(39:00):
my athletic new you, and I could never find it
until by accident, I discovered that I had a natural
instinct for boxing. During the nineteen seventy six Olympics, that
great great Olympics, when you had Ray Davis, Sugar, Ray Leonard,
I forget there was like three or four guys on
that squad who all went to become to become great champions.
But yeah, I was a cousin of mine had come
(39:21):
down from Jersey to visit ust In, Florida, and we
went into the laundry room after one of the boxing
matches and we started piling a bunch of athletic socks
on our fists. We started punching each other and I
noticed I was really good at it. Next thing, you know,
I had gotten the respect that I needed and I
(39:42):
had proven to myself what I needed until I got
like I said, I got the sign that this part
of your training is over all.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Right.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
So now that I know that you are a real sportshead,
now I really have to analyze the Kobe and Lebron
song because just to see your song titles alone it
is one thing, but to experience it, I was like, Wow,
this is really risky way to go. But in my
mind I always said that serious musicians aren't sports heads.
(40:14):
But you know, time and time again, I'm proving wrong. Yeah,
you know, so now I have to get serious about
my my sports passion.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
So no, it's just.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
That it's you know, the triangular, the triangulation of singers
want to be athletes, Athletes want to be rock stars,
rock stars when moose stars, it's that thing. It's like
we all want. But you know, I had a conversation
with someone actually quite recently about the fact that it's
(40:44):
still the average guy if you gave him a choice,
a Musk okay, and Bruce Springsteen Okay, well, Elon Musk
and Michael Jordan's fuck Elon Musk. You know what I'm saying,
that's just it's just billions and billions never have to
work there in your life. But if dude can be
like Tiger Woods or Wayne Gretzky or like you know,
(41:06):
for just like.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
That summer a hero, yes.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
Those people, you can be rinaldo when all of those
people in your nation are cheering for you. There's nothing
like that. There's nothing like being you know, like Bruce
and you can play for fucking almost four hours and
people are still rapturously drenched and ready to receive more
from the what, you know, the utter inces that fall,
you know, from the grace of your table. I mean,
(41:31):
that's incredible to be able to to to have that
kind of position and understand why society or polite society
have always been so wary of those of us who
practice this magic that they cannot contain because it is
a very, very very powerful for us, and it can
(41:52):
just take your mind somewhere else away. It can challenge
the programming. And we know that all societies that are
going to ben fit as how it sees itself as
a society, there's going to be some programming involved that
we collectively agree to undergo in order to be this
kind of relatively cohesive thing called the society where we're
pretty much all on the same page.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
I didn't ask earlier where are you currently residing?
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Where do you live?
Speaker 4 (42:19):
Well? The last twenty one years, twenty two perhaps I've
been living in Milano.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Oh, Italy. Yes, okay, man, I've been there a few times.
I never knew that. Okay.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Or so do you do you still follow Are you
still passionate about sports?
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Now? Do you follow it? Well?
Speaker 4 (42:38):
It's a great distraction for us, because you know, we'll
consumed this thing of ours like Kosstra, but where this
thing is our life. It's like, you know, I say
to people all the time, it's not like you know,
what would you do if you weren't doing this, that's
not even a question that you know. That's this is
(42:58):
what life is is about. For me, it's consuming, it's
it's sometimes just so much as it can torment you
as a beast. So the other thing, the other things, films,
sports books, those are the great distractions that are right
there at your fingertips, excuse me, you can immerse yourself
(43:21):
in because also with storytellers, So you need to fall
back into these other disciplines to not only get yourself rested,
to give your mind a place to tune off somewhere else,
you know, less challenging, but also just to keep up
with with the stories and the things that you know
are part of our whole me and you of presentation
(43:42):
as artists, you know, you got to just keep your
hand involved in the arts and be immersed in it
if you want to remain an active participant and relevant
to where it is emotionally. So, you know, for me,
it's interesting because a person that I identify a lot
with is Bosquio. He's one of my three favorite. Boscot,
(44:04):
Dhali and Picasso are like gods to me. And in fact,
I had a project that I was going to call Boscot.
In fact, it was interesting because I want to This
is something I was going to plan to talk to
you about as well, but it got postponed because of
the Boscou estate wrongly assumed that I was trying to
(44:26):
you know, edge edge something onto my plate from them.
It was, of course, and his people at that particular
time were not very hip and young. They were more
like guardians and gatekeepers, so they didn't get it. But
the conceit of the project is that Bosco his secret desire,
(44:46):
his unfulfilled desire, was to be in a punk rock band,
and that he was in a band, and that years
later cassettes was discovered. Yeah, and so with this this
in mind, what did those tapes sound like? And that
was the conceit of this bout Scout project is to
me to undertake to provide the music for the secret
(45:11):
music he was making that he didn't live long enough
to find the courage to release or whatever to press
himself for in that direction. But maybe even so more
so than being an artist, what he really wanted to
be was a fucking rock star.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Have you ever met Michael Holloman at all?
Speaker 4 (45:27):
Not that I'm aware of Michael Holloman.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
You know, I do a lot of side projects, and
one of my also wishes was to hear what that
music sounded like. So I did this at the Brooklyn
Academy Museum, I think in twenty twelve. But I had
his partner in that group, Michael Hollman, whom I guess
our listeners would probably know if you ever google any
(45:53):
New York City Breakers footage them on Soul Train or
whoever their spokesperson is. Michael Hollman was kind of the
official spokesperson for the New York city Breakers, but not
many people know that they were the black punk art
It's reductive to say wham, but I'm just trying to
figure out a duo or whatever. But Michael was his
(46:14):
partner in that band called Gray And so I think
one of the biggest misconceptions about you was through the
gaze and the lens of rock journalists born in the forties.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Really, and the thing is, let me give you a preface.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
So tomorrow, after two years of working on this, my
follow up film to Summer Soul is the Sign of
the Family Stone.
Speaker 4 (46:41):
Documentary, Oh awesome, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Oh You're not ready for this shit, You're not ready.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
And also I'm kicking myself because you would have been
the perfect oh beyond. However, this is what I'm learning,
especially of a certain generation of like critics, critics that
you have to face. Yeah, the Dave Mars generation, the
Rolling Stone born in nineteen forties.
Speaker 4 (47:07):
Yeah, yeah, I get you. I get you. To this day,
I can't read well. To this day, I can't go.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Then, brother, I get it. I get it now.
Speaker 4 (47:14):
I mean, just in case there's something besides some more
lists that these motherfuckers put together. But anyway, I get it.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
I get it.
Speaker 4 (47:22):
Yeah, but see if I can, for example, even the
cultural divide between the stick I was running in England
and not having time to recalibrate the fact that the
same potion won't work on the Americans because they don't
have They're just not as academically grounded for as long
a period of time as the English, and it's their
(47:43):
language we speak anyway. Plus they have something we don't,
which is appreciation of irony. In any event, some of
them were aware that I was just dusting off of
Muhammad Ali routine, just trying to hype and sell directly,
because at the end of the day, I didn't believe
any of this shit I was just but I.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
So you're saying that the interviews that you would give
like enemy could go down easier there, but here with
rolling Stone, Yes, suddenly you're the most arrogant.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
Absolutely, And then there and then I've always tried to
be a gentleman, to be real about my shit. And
then there was just one of the first journalists I
spoke to my America. She was upset that I didn't
try to fuck her, so, you know, she wound up
doing a smear piece just based on again an interpretation
of an act. You know, I'm sure you met him,
but Muhammad was nothing like his image. He was trying
(48:32):
to sell tickets. He knew whether you came to see him,
winna lose. You can't.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
I knew you were doing the Muhammad Ali thing. I knew,
and I was sixteen at the time reading that cover story.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
But me thing was interesting QUESTI because I remember it
was a young journalist and it was for the cover.
I'm I was really excited. And then of course I
was too naive to catch this trick. He turns off
the tape recorder says, Okay, we're finished. Then he looks
at me and he says, but seriously, how good do
you think you are? You really are? And you know,
(49:02):
I'm like twenty three some twenty four. I'm not even
sure what a kind of question is this. You know,
I come from the hood, you know, it's like it's
like and and one thing we learn is that, you know,
you used to go to like the throing Cookman talent shows,
you know, doing Cookman College, and you learn quickly if
you don't entertain these motherfuckers, you become the entertainment. Either way,
(49:26):
they're gonna get the entertainment either threw you or from you,
or you know, but so you you kind of Plus,
I was born in New York, and there is a
certain swagger. There is a certain swagger that IM views
upon those of us who are born there and grew
up there, and and I think all those things together,
but you know, basically I didn't believe all that that shit.
(49:49):
But any of the interview, the guy asked, so, how
good do you think you are? And I'm not sure
if he's serious, but I just look at him, says
think I'm a fucking gene, you know what I mean.
But I also didn't believe that at the time. But
I also did believe that I could get there much
easier if I did believe it. It was one of
(50:10):
those things where from the earliest moment I heard the word,
it resonated something of recognition aside me like, well, I
don't know what this means, but I think I might
have some of this or what have you. But it's
snowballs from there. And as you know, then at some
point you don't have to say anything. They start to
give quotes to what is a profile and what they
feel like people will accept this from him because we're
(50:31):
already presenting him as this kind of guy who would
say this kind of shit. So yeah, that definitely was
a situation. But there's also another element I found, which
is when you're erodyite and you can speak for yourself,
they get into this savior complex thing. What they want
to be the ones to interpret how brilliant they it's
(50:52):
on them because they loved it. Well. They often prefer
that image of the idiot savancee who is brilliant. But
it just doesn't oh, because you know, we didn't have
much of an education, and I think I was I
experienced being too intimidating for some of them because I
was reading the same shit they were reading. I was
reading the same journalist, Nick Kent, and all these guts
(51:13):
that they were growing up on and reviewing.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
All right, folks, I got good news and bad news,
bad news of courses. It's the end of part one.
Good news is that you can check back next week,
you know, to where you get your podcasts, depending on
when you listen for the great part too. And there
we're going to discuss h Sonanda's catalog, including his new album,
(51:38):
The Pegasus Project, Pegasus and the Swan. We also talk
about life turning points and uh Sonanda nearly joining an excess.
Yeah that all right, see y'all next week.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
West Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Okay, I'm gonna try.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
To not geek out as I normally do in these introductions,
but and I will.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
Also try to hide my abundant enthusiasm before talking to
such a killer of culture.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
As just know, it is so weird that our very
first exchange is going to be in front of millions
of people. I will try to keep my composure of
my professionalism. All right, ladies and gentlemen of Questlove World listenership.
This is one of those air quote dreams come true
(00:45):
moments for this podcast. Our guest today has a profound
effect all my life, ever since his nineteen eighty seven debut,
which yielded five singles that propelled him to the top
of the charts. And it can't be overstated how impressionable
(01:06):
he was to me in my life at that particular time,
because I was just about to graduate high school and
I was deciding for myself, like what is it that
I want to do with my life? And clearly I
didn't want to live my dad's dream of you know,
respectable politics and entering the world of classical music. But
reading our guests mind blowing interviews and mind you Like,
(01:27):
you know, a lot of my idols and hip hop
really weren't given the platform of a village voice, or
of a spin magazine or of a rolling Stone. So
reading his mind blowing interviews really had an effect on me.
Reading his lyrics had an effect, watching and perform Hearing
him sing had an effect his arrangements, his production and fun. Fact,
(01:49):
a lot of you are going to be mind blowing.
That are Roots fans. His liner notes, okay, his liner notes, credits, yes,
credits and liner notes. I literally didn't know that these
food delivery box could be an instrument, like so just
his sixth sense of humor in music and on his
line like literally longtime Roots fans who still to this day,
(02:11):
despite the fact that I've written eight and I'm plugging
My hip Hop's History came out last week, but my
eight New York Times bestsellers, despite the fact that I
have eight books, Roots fans complain to this day that
and despite the fact that there are no more tangible
well not no more, but you know, tangible objects like
(02:32):
cassettes or LPs or CDs or a trex is not
the primary way that we consume music. To this day,
they still ridicule me for not doing epic liner notes,
not knowing that our guess is single handedly responsible for
that side of my life. Yeah, I'll definitely say forty
percent responsible. I don't want to dismiss you.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
I have to cut you off now before you You're
embarrassed both of us.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
No, no, man, let me, let me.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Let me just gonna get to the end, because I
know when love is projected, we somehow try to avoid it,
like the Matrix. I get it, and if the other
Team Supreme people were here right now, they do the
same to me.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
But I think it's important.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
That we give flowers and really show respect to the gods.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
So I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
But literally, because I was aware of his life transformation
after his first five records, it wasn't until D'Angelo and
I were making Black Messiah around like twenty eleven, twenty
twelve that D'Angelo will hit me to the fact that
I missed like seven or eight albums and not believing
(03:41):
what I heard, I pulled my phone out and realized
the mountain of music I missed, and I have not
been the same ever since. I have always wanted to
say this, Welcome to quest love supreme. Wow, Sanata Matreya,
thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Thank you for having us. And also let me say
that we're basically two geeks speaking to each other because
a lot of what makes us, speaking of us both
collectively what we are is that particular attention to detail
that being a geek bestows upon you, because when you're
(04:22):
a geek, it means that you're paying attention to extra
things that others are not. And then when you have
a chance to contribute yourself. I mean, I often have
said to people if I write certain things, while I
do a certain things a certain way, I said, these
are for the people who.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Are like me.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
When I could thrill a second engineer on a Stevie
Wonder record when I met him like fifteen years later,
because I actually knew who he was by his name, okay,
and the fact that you knew what Stevie record it
was and everything, and they were like so thrilled. It's like, Wow,
what a gift to give back to someone simply because
I was a kid like you who devoured everything. Okay.
(05:05):
I feel a p Funk record if it was a
Beatles record, didn't matter. If I got for me, the
only thing I missed about the old vinyl days, really
is this artwork space. Yes, you know, the presentation. You
had to make a title, you know, and bring a
completely different stamp on the world before. Unfortunately, we began
(05:26):
to put thoughts in your head as to the context
of the song by the videos, Whereas once upon a time,
it was the song meant what whatever it triggered in
your imagination, that was the video that was created.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
But oh yes, I want to share something with you
that I don't think the world news and I can't
say her name properly, but there's an artist right now,
a very significant artist who is held back releasing videos, yes,
or a particular album, an emic album. And I found
(06:00):
out maybe four months ago, went to go see this
particular artist in concert, said how great the show was,
and noticed that I saw certain visual clips that weren't
out in the world. And this artist tells me, hey,
you know, you're actually partly responsible for this, and I
(06:23):
was like, what do you mean. So when this artist
released a record, I said, you know what I love
about this album is that because there were no videos initially,
because of course I thought there was going to be
an onslaught of videos that I said.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
It took me back to.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
The time where I explained to this artist when the
album came out that I had a when Stevie Wonder's
Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants came out that
for me was my dark side of the moon. Like
my dad hated that record, so he was like, here,
you take it, and I took it, put the headphones
on and just closed my eyes and imagined, you know,
(07:03):
and basically said that I don't want videos for songs
in the Key Life or any of Stevie Wonder's seventies
records because in my mind, I have a picture of
what I see, yes, because synaesthesia is real, and I,
you know, I was just making a passing comment that,
you know, it's great to experience this record without the
videos telling me.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
What to think. And I didn't know that I held
that much weight.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
And I guess on the ride home that must have
been a straw that broke the camel's back to say, hey,
we're gonna not release videos because I want people to
experience the music.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
And I remember getting Journey Through the Secret Life of
Plans as a Christmas present one year from my aunt
who worked in sears so yes, and so she got
it for me. And I remember I was just on
the cusp where I was allowed to listen to stuff
inside the house that wasn't gospel. But I remember going
(08:01):
out to our car and with my littc casette and
just playing it because I absolutely I mean, if it's
not clear, it should be that Stevie was one of
the absolute pillars of my entire consciousness as a musician,
as an artist, as anything that I perceived myself to be.
He and the Beatles are kind of just right there
(08:24):
at the foundation of how I started to envision music.
So I loved that album saying well, you Loe, that
doesn't mean And the thing about Stevee was he was
like the Beatles were for me. He was a master
class in all of it, songs, arrangements, instrumentation, He was
(08:46):
a master orchestrator, Like they told him this motherfucker.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
You know.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
And it was like just the way he brought further
dimension of consciousness into the music, just by his understanding
of sounds and how sounds trigger us alone, it's just
not enough it's spoken about that. Sometimes I wish our
brother Stevie was was white, just so that he would
get much more intellectual appreciation. Yes, you know, because he
(09:14):
really the only peers for me he had on the
level that he existed was the Beatles, was like Brian Wilson,
like these these extremely rare contemporaries who are like the Schubert, Beethoven,
Mozarts of their time. You know. So I'm with you all.
It's interesting that we have that journey through the secret
life of plans connection. And also before we travel further,
(09:37):
I want to thank you so much for just your
contribution that you've made since the roots and since first
coming out and just expanding your whole empire of consciousness
onto you know what for me culminated in this Oscar
that you I was so happy that you won and
you make such a memorable year as well.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah, that there's a life changing year for me, man,
because I really appreciated.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
You know. One of my claims to Pride is that
I was born the same day as Sly, So you know,
I remember Ifroen Prince saying, you fuck are you're born
the same You and Slive born the same day. You
know what I said?
Speaker 2 (10:17):
You do that?
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, wow. No, I'm not sure if
Sly knew it.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
No, no, no, but Prince knew that.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Oh okay, wait, I gotta ask one question.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
There's so much I want to learn about your story
and your journey, but I've been dying to ask you
this question for at least three decades.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Okay, yes, and you already mentioned his name, so I
had to ask.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Okay, February of nineteen eighty eight, mm h, you are
about to walk on stage. Yes, And Smokey Robinson's in
the audience, Stevie wonders in the audience, Bono's in the audience.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Michael's in the front row.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
With the red fucking jacket that you couldn't miss if
you were Stevie wonder Yes.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Princes in the front row.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I think that's the first time where I tried to
like channel vicariously. How does a person give a pitch
perfect performance when literally the pillars of gods are literally
like in the first three rows watching you. And the
thing is is that I know Michael has an attitude
(11:28):
because like that was also a weird night for him. Yeah,
that was sort of the very that was the seed
of the beginning of yeah, his you know, his future
and also.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
The beginning of mine.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
In soundcheck.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I always wanted to know this because when I do
award shows and I go soundcheck, you know, they put
those big giant cards on the chairs and you see name, name, name,
So when you're sound checking, you see, like, who's going
to be watching you?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Because you still gave a pitch perfect before?
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Thank you?
Speaker 3 (12:01):
What was that day like or was it just so
numbing that it wasn't a footnote for you at all?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Or well?
Speaker 4 (12:07):
First of all, the thing is is that at some
point you do feel that parallel realities are real.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
I used to explain at the very beginning what freaked
people out most around me was that I had told
them exactly what was going to happen, and it did
because I had this sense even then that what I
was going to do I had already done. But this
was just kind of a time shift. Or because this
(12:39):
dimension is at a slower rate of frequency than the
dimension in which I've already done this, it just takes
time to manifest. But I just had this but I've
done this already attitude that informed so much of where
I was coming from. And I say that because sometimes
I mean still to this day, I can be in
(13:01):
the vocable singing, and I have this almost outer body
experience where I hear that the voice isn't coming from me,
it's coming through me. And I'm basically literally capable of
standing in that space where I can see the difference
(13:21):
between something that originates from you and something you're just
bearing witness to as a witness to a process. And
a lot of times that happens when it seems like
the reality that you're about to walk into is already
so surreal that you might as well just have that
kind of other dimensional experience. I said, say this, you
(13:44):
grew up watching the Grammys. You grew up dreaming that
one day would be you okay, and then but what
you didn't dream is that damn there, like you said,
every one of your like heroes and this in the
front row. And at least it distracted you from the
millions and millions and millions of people who are watching it.
That was like the good thing they distract you from it.
(14:06):
But during the sound check and what have you, I
just don't pay that much attention to those things. I
really don't. I focus out, I get my game head together.
I understand what I have to do, and I know
what I have to do to achieve that level. And
one of the things that I did have to do
was I always shut people out before the gig. I
never saw anyone before a gig, and of course you
(14:27):
get a reputation that people don't understand as being aloof
for arrogant or whatever. You med meditation, Yeah, to put yourself,
put your game face on, getting that zone, call your
spirit together and all of that. But here's the secret
is the killer. Fortunately that gig was in between a
tour that we were doing anyway, we were already touring
(14:47):
the States, and before I left London, a fan of
mine from California had said, I'm going to be like
shipping you something that will be waiting for you when
you get to whatever. My first destination was Miami or
Orlando or some Daytona, Florida, Okay. And so I got there,
(15:11):
which is where I took the band to do production mirossalsuse.
I grew up in the Daytona Beach area and I
wanted to return there for production mirousals for the American tour.
And so when I got there to Daytona Beach, what
was waiting for me but a nice stick packet of shrooms. Okay.
So I took the schedule, which I remember was forty dates,
(15:32):
and I picked about eight to a dozen, eight to
a dozen that I'm gonna do shroom here, I'm gonna
do it shroom here, I'm gonna do air. And it
was like it was just a crazy great experience. And
I had no intention of doing that that night, But
when I was sitting in the audience and I could
see all the silhouettes and all people in front of
(15:53):
me and just the spectacle that it was, I just
thought I should be high. I mean, this is not right,
and I'm just being honest. I was never like a
cocaine guy or heroin guy. I was. I was in
the like even as a child. I understood if it
kind of gave you a different perspective on some shit.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
I think it brings you closer to God personally. Yeah,
I'm a new microducer. I started microducing, and like before
twenty twenty nothing, I didn't drink, none of that stuff.
And then you know, once I started meditating and all
that shit, you know what I mean, Like I started yeah, microdocing.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
So as I was getting closer to being called if
I'm not mistaken, I think even Madam Whitney performed that
night okay mistaken. It was just an onslaught of like
just genius bitches. And I was like, okay, look. I
turned to my baby mama, my English daughter, Sarahina, and
I say to her, yeah, hooked me up when of
them rooms buds right, because she she had brought a
(16:55):
few emergencies. Just break, just break emergency, I'm saying, and
I said, and she was like, looked at me, like,
are you sure. I was like, no, no, no, give me.
So I took one, went to bathroom booming. Next thing,
you know, I was able to get out of my
head and leave that performance because you know, it was
also important for me to address my the heroes that
(17:16):
were present, that this is the effect that you've had, This.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Is what you dude. I said that.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I said, Wow, I wonder if they're sitting there thinking
I felt this, No, but not that, but I felt like,
because the thing is, it's also your thing is so deep,
like it's not your version of the microphone tricks, isn't
James Brown's Joe text? Like literally, people don't know that
(17:42):
Joe Tech started that shit, Like the pioneer never gets
the credit there's always the second person that sees it
and perfects it.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah, and James Brown is world famous for his.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Derivative borrowing, but you know, yeah, he's still the god.
But even to the level where you started doing a
microphone like in your history of performance, I was like,
oh wow, he even knows Joe Texa's level of microphone mastery.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
And a lot of that stuff is channeling really, because
it is a collective, whatever name one is comfortable giving
to it. You know, if I'm in a certain comfortable space,
I don't mind calling it the Holy Spirit, because ultimately
that's who I believe, That's who I know. I'm belonging
to the service of Okay, I do believe that many of
(18:31):
us artists, this is precisely why we're here. I mean,
I'm asked often, why are you so prolific or how
you create so easily? I said, that's a simple I've
never seen myself as separate from the music. I'm an
extension of the music. The music is not just a concept.
It's a real spirit and it can create life, just
(18:51):
like a lot of other spirit has the power to
create life. So I just believe that I'm a form
of music. In a human life, and therefore there is
no separation between me and the mus and the music.
It's just at one with my expression. And this is
basically what I've always known that I was in the
(19:11):
service off because I don't really believe all of these
gifts of mine. I believe that I have been, that
this is my Karmen, and this is my service, and
we're selected for our fidelity because everything that I have,
everything that I've endured and been able to endure with
whatever grace has been I've been able to summon from
(19:32):
the reservoir of mercy, is simply by understanding that you know,
I was taught in Sunday School seeking first the kingdom
of having in its righteousness, and all these things will
we added onto you. The way I've lived that, the
way I've interpreted that my life is the muse telling
me listen, is the deal you served first and foremost
(19:55):
to the utmost of your fidelity. You serve the music,
you serve the inspiration. Hear it that you're giving, and
we will look after your life. We will find the
right woman for you. We will find what you need
because we know what you need, and we know we're
not gonna give you more than you need to be
a distraction from the work that you're taken upon yourself
(20:17):
to do. So you know all of that's a part
of it, and you know that's that's what we're in
the service of. So basically, yeah, it's their moments. When
it's the same, it's like I rarely will drink or whatever,
but if I feel like I need, as any performer,
to drink, to take a shot of whiskey, to just
kind of like center myself in the in the purpose
(20:37):
thereof that you do what you gotta do.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
For our listeners that are not aware. Where's your beginnings? Like,
where were you born?
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I have the great great fortune of being stamped by
arrival in the great Borough of Harlem, h and the
magnificent year of nineteen sixty two, the year of the
Fender Jaguar, the year of the New York Mets, the
year of the Rolling Stones. Okay, there you go, nineteen
sixty two, and then I was basically we were actually
(21:13):
from my people were from Newark. I also proudly claimed
that East Darns connection, because, as you would know, East
Starnes has produced an abundant amounts of bitches that were
like making sense, you know what I mean? Yes, I
think even Shaq Shaquille comes from Eastars And even my
mother's history is kind of wound around Madame dion Warwicks,
(21:37):
what could have been, what happened, what would happen if
type history. So we came from that area. But my
mother was the beloved eldest daughter of the big pastor
of Newark, the Pentecostal Church, and when basically my father
seduced her, you know, it was shame upon your family
(21:58):
and all that bullshit, and so basically she was kind
of banished to a cousin in Harlem who also knew
how to take care of her, to look after because
my mother's mother died when she was thirteen. So we
were banished into Harlem to live with a cousin, and
it was basically two years after that we moved back
to Jersey. So that's where I began. And I'm proud
(22:22):
to say I was born in Harlem because it's just
one of those vortexes on the earth that if you
have that fortune to be able to do something with
that stamp, you're a blessed person.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Indeed, what was your first musical memory in life the Beatles.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
I was two years old, and it's the first not
only musical memory, it's my first memory. I would imagine
the thought. I almost vaguely think I remember a picture
of my father being banished from my life, my biological father,
But obviously I would have suppressed that if it was
a negative emotion. But at the age of two, I
(22:58):
remember she loved yeah, yeah, and oh you no no no, no, no, hope,
you don't understand. I want to hold your hand, and
she loves you. That that is the earliest memory I have,
and I just think it's so awesome that it was
a musical memory as well, because nothing you know that
(23:19):
that was the music that woke up my consciousness to
the fact that I was existing in that life. So
that was my first memory. I also remember seeing Breakfast
at Tiffany's on television when it came on in nineteen
sixty four, I think was also too or somewhere around thereabouts.
And I remember my mother buying me some Batman cards
(23:42):
because that was my first hero is Batman. So those
memories around the same time, but they were all East Orange,
New Jersey memories.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
How long were you a resident in Harlem?
Speaker 4 (23:52):
I think no more than two years. I think my
first two years.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Just the general Tri state area. Like how long were
you there?
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Well, we were there until I was about six or
seven when we moved to Florida for the first time.
Then we moved back to Jersey, then we moved to Chicago,
and we moved around a lot. I was my stepfather
was a first evangelist and minister and then later became
a pastor and all that, so we were moving around
(24:21):
a lot. Plus it was just the way I guess
the organization he was a part of was growing the time.
But obviously things happened to us for a purpose, which
hopefully we can extract the better reasons of.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Were they a musical family as well? Like do you
have siblings that sing as well?
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Or yes, everybody kind of sings, but my mother is
mainly the one who sang. And it was apparently her
mother who I sounded most like or looked most like,
because her mother was I'm quite sure there was some
hitten Sephardic judaism that was hit in the situation, coming
(25:00):
back from the times of Spanish and the Reconquisto whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Hell it was the family tree, Yeah, I get it. Yeah, yeah,
but there.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
Are a lot of similarities apparently between me and her mother.
But it is my mother whom I get kind of
that impetus. She was she grew up singing in the.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Church, and most of my the artists that I interviewed
that or at least of a certain age, kind of have
the same story in which quote unquote secular music is
contraband or not look favorably upon. So how are you
consuming well, you know our listeners not like being a
(25:40):
Prince fan was almost like detrimental to my life. And
it's funny to hear him say, like, your parents were
right to punish you for owning these records, but like
were you allowed to purchase albums or how did you
Some artists would say like, oh, Marvin and Stevie were allowed,
but nothing else, Like how do you consume music? Are
(26:00):
your friends in school telling you like what's hip?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Or no?
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Basically, you know you're in a culture whereas everything is
around you. And what I wasn't allowed to do until
I was about fifteen or sixteen was to listen to
music in our house that I had from the outside.
But at some point, you know, on a Saturday when
in my area Soul Trained in the American bandstand were
back to back. Yeah, So if I remember correctly, Soul
(26:28):
Trained came on at twelve and twelve thirty American bandstands,
and I was allowed that at some point, provided you know,
I kept the noise down and what have you. But
you know, you just heard everywhere else what was happening,
what was around you. And there were people that were
just ubiquitous that you couldn't you know, you couldn't avoid
certain people. But the profile in my home was my
(26:51):
mother was a choir director first and foremost by inclination,
so we tended to listen to like a lot of
choir music. There was like a lot lot of James Cleveland.
There was a lot of like, uh, like Albertina Walker
AND's Andrews, that whole that whole caravans am Betride, which
should a documentary in and of itself, the minutia of
(27:12):
the genius of black culture if you just did the
caravans and you know, and Anaz and Shirley Sees and
all those people, because Shirley was also one of the
two women who had the most influence on me as
a singer.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
O God, if I, if I hear no charge one
more time. It won't be a moment too soon, like
every every day that sons on an ausehold.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
But she was in the James Cleveland and all of
this stuff. And you know, obviously Aretha's genius album Amazing Grace.
I kind of got bored with choir music. It was
that was beautiful. I got. I learned my lessons. I
was absorbing everything, of course, but my jam was like
the quartet singers. Them like like them dudes in the
(27:55):
deep from the Deep South, and they just come into
church and just kill it, kill it. And it would
always be some dude with some like voice. I could
cut glass. And there was another dude that you suspected
probably we was on the on the gay spectrum, you
know what I'm saying. But my brother was holding it down,
you know what I'm saying. He had a beautiful voice.
And then woman was just like fall out and stuff.
(28:17):
And it was But see the church conglomeration of situational congregation.
We were with the Pentecostals. That was more of the
Baptists and the Methodists who would have like the quartet scene.
The Pentecostals was more about choirs and and all of
this kind of stuff and nobody's stealing the light from
the pastor he did, so.
Speaker 5 (28:36):
Then oh wow, I did not know that. Okay, there's
some of that, you know what I mean, which is why,
ironically it was Rod Stewart, one of my great heroes.
Shout out of respect to Rod.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
It was Rod who turned me back on the Sam
Cook because I knew Sam Cook vaguely as a legend
in our community from the Soul Stirs, but I didn't
paid that much attention to it because that music wasn't
mainly played in our home. But one of the things
I've always loved about Rod and the Stones is neither
one of them ever wasted any breath, you know, not
(29:13):
reminding you of who these heroes were that changed their
lives and were not shy about letting you know who
they were. So Rod's guy was Sam. Oh this muddy
and I've always heard some Bobby Blue Bland, But the
point is he was real about that shit. So it
was when I fell in love with Rod and realized
(29:33):
Rod was in the direction that I was going to
be taking my own situation. It was you know him,
and I just started listening to Sam and going, oh shit, yes, yes, yes, yes,
I missed this. This is what But it was good
that I got it when I got it, because then
I was not only able to listen to the pop
stuff and appreciate what an underrated, one of the all
(29:57):
time underrated, great foundational pop songwriter as he was, because
you know, if we forget how foundational he was to
the writing what we call pop songs, not just soul
or R and B whatever, Sam Cook and Buddy Holly
were right there formulating what became pop music. And interestingly
enough is you know they were friends, they were very
(30:17):
close friends. But yeah, so it was Rod who took
me back to Sam. And that's when like the door
opened up again. I thought, yeah, And I always felt
in my heart if Sam had lived, he would have
been doing what Rod wound up doing. And I have
I always felt. I even said this to Rod, I
really feel like you have a walk in you know,
(30:38):
because when we when we love people and we know
people love us, the different layers of our physical existence,
of the different layers of our existence, the frequencies that
stayed closest to the earth, you know, the densest as
obviously we burn it or we bury it. Then there's
this magnetic field that goes to the people who love
(30:58):
us and who we know we can leave some of
this too. They will continue some of our work or
our spirit, or will take some of our cross upon themselves,
and they will continue forward with that vibe.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
All right.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
So for me, like I'll say, like a never dull
moment in Lantic Crossing, I like my two favorite ride albums,
But for you, like, what's your go to albums of his?
Speaker 4 (31:20):
First of all, let me give him ecses his flowers.
The man has an unerring ear for songs. He's a
great producer whatever whoever's producing him, or he's just got
an unimpeachable ear for songs and great musicianship. For me,
he's never made an album where I just thought, well, okay,
that's a waste of time. And he's made tons of them.
(31:41):
But I would have to say around that period but
loose and fantasy free. Tonight, I'm yours.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Ah tonight, I'm yours. Do anything that you won't be.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
But check this out. The story was I was in
the military. I was stationed in hand Out, Germany. The
base no longer exists. Third Arm at the in the
barracks across from our barracks was a big rec center
and at the very top was some broom closets, and
I went out and bought the cassette of Tonight I'm
yours because up to that point I had like this nice,
(32:15):
sweet choirboard tenor okay, and my determination was I wasn't
gonna come out of this closet, No pun intended.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Until you sing like Rod or something. Until I sang
like Rod, Wait what?
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Until I had that voice ye had Because I had this,
I had the sweet, nice Michael Jackson, E Stevie type
of vibe. Cultivating a long way. Frank Sinatra was another
huge influence. I had all that, but I wanted that
other thing.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
So the rasp comes from because you do have like
three distinctive voices, your rasp voice and then a very
sweet falsetto, and then you're your natural tenor. So you're
saying that Rod Stewart is the impetus of that that
grap what Yes, yes.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
All that Maggie may wake up Maggie Young. The first
cut is the deepest, for real, all that, all of
that stuff, Baby Jane, Okay, one of my favorite songs.
Yes you're right, you think I'm sexy. It's just come on, man,
do you think I'm sex? He's one of the records
of life. It's just.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Has he ever told you the Young Turk story?
Speaker 4 (33:27):
No, I don't think I got it directly from him.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Oh yeah, No, just recently he did a benefit And
I'm always obsessed and you do this a lot too.
I'm always obsessed with song titles that have nothing to
do with what's said in the song. Yeah, And in
my mind, I'm like, you're saying young Hearts, right, You're
not saying young Turks. And I think Michael Jackson at
(33:50):
the same situation when Heartbreak Hotel basically like the publisher
and the managers like, look, there's already a song called
Young Hearts out there, and people are going to confuse
the two and it's gonna make the paperwork difficult.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
And there's also the famous story of Radio Gaga from
Queen that he was never singing Gaga, but the record
company didn't feel comfortable with him actually putting Radio Coca
because he was saying all he is on the radio
is ship in these days. Oh and if you listen now, okay, yoh,
(34:24):
then when you don't think you're supposed to be hearing
Gaga and you will hear Coca. All we hear is
radio Coca.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Makes sense now boom, all right, look at you are
your schooling.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
We have to converse more often.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Yes, oh no, no, this is the greatest first conversation ever.
Our journey through life is so parallel, from living in
America to moving the Kennish town, to all these things.
Even as you tell you the story of your family
and all that, like, yes, I'm not shared that on
(35:00):
the air, but same story. By I think ten twelve thirteen,
you kind of know what your calling is. What is
it that you desired to be before you.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Were eighteen years old? Like, what do you think your
calling was?
Speaker 4 (35:18):
Well, at various times, I wanted to be a marine
biologist for a short period of time, but I was
serious about it. I wanted to be a journalist for
a very long time and went to university for one
year with the intent that explains it getting accredited. Yeah, okay,
well there you go.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Because your lyrics are just absolutely of course you went
to school for journalism.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I wanted to be Okay, now I get it, I
get it.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
Yeah, that was gonna be my jam. I was quite
certain in my heart that if I didn't make it
as the heavyweight champion of the world, Okay, then when
I realized that my body type did not lend itself
towards me becoming a heavyweight before the fort then I
downsized to the middleweight champion of the world. And then
(36:07):
I had my epiphany when I won the Golden Gloves
for the State of Florida in nineteen eighty during my
eighteenth year, when I was beating this kid and his
mother was very emotionally supporting him and cheering him on,
and I had an epiphetic moment that whatever I went
(36:31):
into boxing to accomplish or to ascertain from the experience
I had gotten it, I had proven something vital to myself.
I was tough. I was just littler than everybody else
for a long time, and you know, I needed to
do something to assert myself in that particular way. But
there was one point when I was hitting this kid
in the face pretty easily and to hear his mother's impassion,
(36:54):
you know, please to him to do better. I realized
in that moment that the spirit it didn't put me
on the earth to be hitting mother's children in the face.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
So you were going to be a boxer. You you're
a Golden Gloves winner.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Yes, in nineteen eighty state for the State of Florida.
I'll never forget that. It was in Coconut Grove in
an Arena and Coconut Grove in Miami. But I just
remember that that I actually didn't even fight after that
fight because the next fight was the fight for the title.
(37:28):
But the guy that I was doing to fight had
to pull out at the last minute because of some
bullshit I I still don't understand. But anyway, that's how
I got the title. But that was also one of
those epathetic experiences where I realized it was time to
leave that part of warrior training alone and come back
to the main arena.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
So in some alternate life, like you could have been
fighting like Ray Boom Boom Mantini or like question.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
That was really good. I was shockingly good for someone
who basically pretty much wasn't support in any other type
of athletic endeavor. I mean I was always you know,
I was a great I love love baseball. It was
my favorite sport. I was a great little baseball player.
But I didn't have any ass, you know, I couldn't
get the ball much further than saying. And so you know,
(38:18):
these coaches don't have any patients. You know, we just
need to fact them up. You know, I'm just this kid.
We got all the potential in the world, but you
couldn't strike me out. I knew it instantly where the
ball was going the meat the minute it left the bat.
I wasn't the fastest kid by a long shot on
the team, but I knew I was still based. I
was all instinct and everything was just pure instinct. Like basketball.
(38:40):
I didn't have any height. I couldn't shoot worth the shit,
but I was a great defender, great rebounder, great passer.
And the more difficult the shot, the more likely I
was to make it. The easier the percentage of shot,
the higher percentage shot it was, the lower percentage it
was going to get for me, you know what I mean.
But the point is that I kept trying to find
(39:00):
my athletic new you, and I could never find it
until by accident, I discovered that I had a natural
instinct for boxing. During the nineteen seventy six Olympics, that
great great Olympics, when you had Ray Davis, Sugar, Ray Leonard,
I forget there was like three or four guys on
that squad who all went to become to become great champions.
But yeah, I was a cousin of mine had come
(39:21):
down from Jersey to visit ust In, Florida, and we
went into the laundry room after one of the boxing
matches and we started piling a bunch of athletic socks
on our fists. We started punching each other and I
noticed I was really good at it. Next thing, you know,
I had gotten the respect that I needed and I
(39:42):
had proven to myself what I needed until I got
like I said, I got the sign that this part
of your training is over all.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Right.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
So now that I know that you are a real sportshead,
now I really have to analyze the Kobe and Lebron
song because just to see your song titles alone it
is one thing, but to experience it, I was like, Wow,
this is really risky way to go. But in my
mind I always said that serious musicians aren't sports heads.
(40:14):
But you know, time and time again, I'm proving wrong. Yeah,
you know, so now I have to get serious about
my my sports passion.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
So no, it's just.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
That it's you know, the triangular, the triangulation of singers
want to be athletes, Athletes want to be rock stars,
rock stars when moose stars, it's that thing. It's like
we all want. But you know, I had a conversation
with someone actually quite recently about the fact that it's
(40:44):
still the average guy if you gave him a choice,
a Musk okay, and Bruce Springsteen Okay, well, Elon Musk
and Michael Jordan's fuck Elon Musk. You know what I'm saying,
that's just it's just billions and billions never have to
work there in your life. But if dude can be
like Tiger Woods or Wayne Gretzky or like you know,
(41:06):
for just like.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
That summer a hero, yes.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
Those people, you can be rinaldo when all of those
people in your nation are cheering for you. There's nothing
like that. There's nothing like being you know, like Bruce
and you can play for fucking almost four hours and
people are still rapturously drenched and ready to receive more
from the what, you know, the utter inces that fall,
you know, from the grace of your table. I mean,
(41:31):
that's incredible to be able to to to have that
kind of position and understand why society or polite society
have always been so wary of those of us who
practice this magic that they cannot contain because it is
a very, very very powerful for us, and it can
(41:52):
just take your mind somewhere else away. It can challenge
the programming. And we know that all societies that are
going to ben fit as how it sees itself as
a society, there's going to be some programming involved that
we collectively agree to undergo in order to be this
kind of relatively cohesive thing called the society where we're
pretty much all on the same page.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
I didn't ask earlier where are you currently residing?
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Where do you live?
Speaker 4 (42:19):
Well? The last twenty one years, twenty two perhaps I've
been living in Milano.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Oh, Italy. Yes, okay, man, I've been there a few times.
I never knew that. Okay.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Or so do you do you still follow Are you
still passionate about sports?
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Now? Do you follow it? Well?
Speaker 4 (42:38):
It's a great distraction for us, because you know, we'll
consumed this thing of ours like Kosstra, but where this
thing is our life. It's like, you know, I say
to people all the time, it's not like you know,
what would you do if you weren't doing this, that's
not even a question that you know. That's this is
(42:58):
what life is is about. For me, it's consuming, it's
it's sometimes just so much as it can torment you
as a beast. So the other thing, the other things, films,
sports books, those are the great distractions that are right
there at your fingertips, excuse me, you can immerse yourself
(43:21):
in because also with storytellers, So you need to fall
back into these other disciplines to not only get yourself rested,
to give your mind a place to tune off somewhere else,
you know, less challenging, but also just to keep up
with with the stories and the things that you know
are part of our whole me and you of presentation
(43:42):
as artists, you know, you got to just keep your
hand involved in the arts and be immersed in it
if you want to remain an active participant and relevant
to where it is emotionally. So, you know, for me,
it's interesting because a person that I identify a lot
with is Bosquio. He's one of my three favorite. Boscot,
(44:04):
Dhali and Picasso are like gods to me. And in fact,
I had a project that I was going to call Boscot.
In fact, it was interesting because I want to This
is something I was going to plan to talk to
you about as well, but it got postponed because of
the Boscou estate wrongly assumed that I was trying to
(44:26):
you know, edge edge something onto my plate from them.
It was, of course, and his people at that particular
time were not very hip and young. They were more
like guardians and gatekeepers, so they didn't get it. But
the conceit of the project is that Bosco his secret desire,
(44:46):
his unfulfilled desire, was to be in a punk rock band,
and that he was in a band, and that years
later cassettes was discovered. Yeah, and so with this this
in mind, what did those tapes sound like? And that
was the conceit of this bout Scout project is to
me to undertake to provide the music for the secret
(45:11):
music he was making that he didn't live long enough
to find the courage to release or whatever to press
himself for in that direction. But maybe even so more
so than being an artist, what he really wanted to
be was a fucking rock star.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Have you ever met Michael Holloman at all?
Speaker 4 (45:27):
Not that I'm aware of Michael Holloman.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
You know, I do a lot of side projects, and
one of my also wishes was to hear what that
music sounded like. So I did this at the Brooklyn
Academy Museum, I think in twenty twelve. But I had
his partner in that group, Michael Hollman, whom I guess
our listeners would probably know if you ever google any
(45:53):
New York City Breakers footage them on Soul Train or
whoever their spokesperson is. Michael Hollman was kind of the
official spokesperson for the New York city Breakers, but not
many people know that they were the black punk art
It's reductive to say wham, but I'm just trying to
figure out a duo or whatever. But Michael was his
(46:14):
partner in that band called Gray And so I think
one of the biggest misconceptions about you was through the
gaze and the lens of rock journalists born in the forties.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Really, and the thing is, let me give you a preface.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
So tomorrow, after two years of working on this, my
follow up film to Summer Soul is the Sign of
the Family Stone.
Speaker 4 (46:41):
Documentary, Oh awesome, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Oh You're not ready for this shit, You're not ready.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
And also I'm kicking myself because you would have been
the perfect oh beyond. However, this is what I'm learning,
especially of a certain generation of like critics, critics that
you have to face. Yeah, the Dave Mars generation, the
Rolling Stone born in nineteen forties.
Speaker 4 (47:07):
Yeah, yeah, I get you. I get you. To this day,
I can't read well. To this day, I can't go.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Then, brother, I get it. I get it now.
Speaker 4 (47:14):
I mean, just in case there's something besides some more
lists that these motherfuckers put together. But anyway, I get it.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
I get it.
Speaker 4 (47:22):
Yeah, but see if I can, for example, even the
cultural divide between the stick I was running in England
and not having time to recalibrate the fact that the
same potion won't work on the Americans because they don't
have They're just not as academically grounded for as long
a period of time as the English, and it's their
(47:43):
language we speak anyway. Plus they have something we don't,
which is appreciation of irony. In any event, some of
them were aware that I was just dusting off of
Muhammad Ali routine, just trying to hype and sell directly,
because at the end of the day, I didn't believe
any of this shit I was just but I.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
So you're saying that the interviews that you would give
like enemy could go down easier there, but here with
rolling Stone, Yes, suddenly you're the most arrogant.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
Absolutely, And then there and then I've always tried to
be a gentleman, to be real about my shit. And
then there was just one of the first journalists I
spoke to my America. She was upset that I didn't
try to fuck her, so, you know, she wound up
doing a smear piece just based on again an interpretation
of an act. You know, I'm sure you met him,
but Muhammad was nothing like his image. He was trying
(48:32):
to sell tickets. He knew whether you came to see him,
winna lose. You can't.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
I knew you were doing the Muhammad Ali thing. I knew,
and I was sixteen at the time reading that cover story.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
But me thing was interesting QUESTI because I remember it
was a young journalist and it was for the cover.
I'm I was really excited. And then of course I
was too naive to catch this trick. He turns off
the tape recorder says, Okay, we're finished. Then he looks
at me and he says, but seriously, how good do
you think you are? You really are? And you know,
(49:02):
I'm like twenty three some twenty four. I'm not even
sure what a kind of question is this. You know,
I come from the hood, you know, it's like it's
like and and one thing we learn is that, you know,
you used to go to like the throing Cookman talent shows,
you know, doing Cookman College, and you learn quickly if
you don't entertain these motherfuckers, you become the entertainment. Either way,
(49:26):
they're gonna get the entertainment either threw you or from you,
or you know, but so you you kind of Plus,
I was born in New York, and there is a
certain swagger. There is a certain swagger that IM views
upon those of us who are born there and grew
up there, and and I think all those things together,
but you know, basically I didn't believe all that that shit.
(49:49):
But any of the interview, the guy asked, so, how
good do you think you are? And I'm not sure
if he's serious, but I just look at him, says
think I'm a fucking gene, you know what I mean.
But I also didn't believe that at the time. But
I also did believe that I could get there much
easier if I did believe it. It was one of
(50:10):
those things where from the earliest moment I heard the word,
it resonated something of recognition aside me like, well, I
don't know what this means, but I think I might
have some of this or what have you. But it's
snowballs from there. And as you know, then at some
point you don't have to say anything. They start to
give quotes to what is a profile and what they
feel like people will accept this from him because we're
(50:31):
already presenting him as this kind of guy who would
say this kind of shit. So yeah, that definitely was
a situation. But there's also another element I found, which
is when you're erodyite and you can speak for yourself,
they get into this savior complex thing. What they want
to be the ones to interpret how brilliant they it's
(50:52):
on them because they loved it. Well. They often prefer
that image of the idiot savancee who is brilliant. But
it just doesn't oh, because you know, we didn't have
much of an education, and I think I was I
experienced being too intimidating for some of them because I
was reading the same shit they were reading. I was
reading the same journalist, Nick Kent, and all these guts
(51:13):
that they were growing up on and reviewing.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
All right, folks, I got good news and bad news,
bad news of courses. It's the end of part one.
Good news is that you can check back next week,
you know, to where you get your podcasts, depending on
when you listen for the great part too. And there
we're going to discuss h Sonanda's catalog, including his new album,
(51:38):
The Pegasus Project, Pegasus and the Swan. We also talk
about life turning points and uh Sonanda nearly joining an excess.
Yeah that all right, see y'all next week.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
West Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For
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Hosts And Creators
Laiya St. Clair
Questlove
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